conference participants challenged to use information and communication technology

in boosting projects aimed at attainment of millennium goals

Participants in the third annual Web for Development (Web4Dev) Conference were challenged, this morning, to use information and communication technology to scale up the hundreds of thousands of development projects launched throughout the world in the past 60 years, so that the Millennium Development Goals could be achieved by 2015.

In remarks during the opening of the three-day conference, being held at Headquarters from 20 to 22 November, Sarbuland Khan, Executive Coordinator of the Global Alliance for ICT and Development Secretariat, said that, for development projects to have a truly global impact, the development community must learn to apply a market-based approach to its work, using information and communication technology as leverage.

He told information and communication technology managers, mostly affiliated with international development organizations, that while the objectivity and neutrality of the United Nations was important to the development process, so, too, was the entrepreneurial spirit of the private sector.  As such, the Global Alliance -- launched by the United Nations in April this year -- should be viewed as an open platform for stakeholders of all kinds to engage in a policy dialogue on the role of information and communication technology in development, and in which the private sector was strongly urged to participate.

Rakesh Asthana, Senior Manager of the World Bank Information Solutions Group, said millions of people in the developing world had already succeeded in using information and communication technology to generate additional income and improve their lives.  Young people in Kenya were using the Web to sell shoes; Lake Victoria fishermen communicated with middlemen by cellular phone in organizing their sales; and midwives were using personal digital assistants (PDAs), to retrieve information on immunization programmes.  The integration of information and communication technology into the development process was happening at a fast clip, which was not yet well understood by the Bank.  Though 60 per cent of its projects had an information and communication technology component, the Bank had only just ascertained its total investment:  $8.5 billion.

He explained that most of the demand for information and communication technology-related work came from Governments interested in building information technology architecture, such as payment gateways, and authenticating services in places ranging from Sri Lanka to Rwanda.  The Bank was also one of the largest financiers of information and communication technology for developing-world private sectors, offering $6 billion in financing.  However, the jury was still out on the linkbetween investment and the impact of information and communication technology on development, and the Bank was currently engaged in research aimed at improving its effectiveness in that area.

Ahmad Fawzi, Director of the News and Media Division in the United Nations Department of Public Information, billed the Web4Development Conference, organized by the Department and the Global Alliance, as “an unprecedented opportunity to delve into the realm of ideas on the Web and cyberspace”.  Speaking on behalf of the Under-Secretary-General for Communications and Public Information, he said those in the non-profit and intergovernmental sectors would do well to learn from the private sector about information and communication technology tools that could further the development process.

Also offering thoughts on the issue was Ali Hachani, Permanent Representative of Tunisia to the United Nations and President of the Economic and Social Council, who said that organ had long been interested in the nexus between information and communication technology and socio-economic development.  “Enhancing the impact of ICT on the Millennium Development Goals is an enormous challenge, requiring a global response,” he added, calling on those in the information and communication technology industry actively to support that effort.

This year’s Conference was being held in conjunction with the AIT Global 18^th Annual Conference and Exhibit at the United Nations.  AIT Global, a company selected, by the Global Alliance, to help plan and manage the information and technology component for the largest United Nations meetings and conferences, was represented at the joint welcoming ceremony by Mike Lackey, its president.  Topics to be covered over the next three days include building service-oriented information and communication technology architecture, website evaluation, multilingual websites, accessibility, Internet broadcasting and collaboration tools.

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For information media • not an official record