GLOBAL FORUM ON ACCESS AND CONNECTIVITY IN ASIA-PACIFIC

 

TO MEET IN KUALA LUMPUR, 19 - 20 MAY

Malaysia’s Prime Minister to Open Annual

Meeting of Global Alliance’s Strategy Council on 18 May

NEW YORK, 14 May (Department of Economic and Social Affairs) -- The “Global Forum on Access and Connectivity:  Innovative Funding for ICT for Development”, to be held in Kuala Lumpur on 19 and 20 May, will bring together participants from different sectors to seek ways to expand affordable connectivity, applications and services throughout the Asia-Pacific region.

Participants include Craig Barrett, Chairman of the United Nations Global Alliance for Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) and Development and Chairman of Intel Corporation; Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU); Sha Zukang, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs; Amirzai Sangin, Minister for Communications and Information Technology of Afghanistan; Ali Abbasov, Minister of Communications and Information Technology of Azerbaijan; Benjamin Aggrey Ntim, Minister of Communications of Ghana; Basem Fawaz Rousan, Minister of ICT of Jordan; Maximus Ongkili, Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation of Malaysia; Haj Klai, Minister of Communication Technologies of Tunisia; Hessa Al Jaber, Secretary-General of the ICT Supreme Council of Qatar; Ulf Pehrsson, Vice-President for Government and Industry Relations, Ericsson; and Ahmed Mahjoub, President and Chief Executive Officer, Tunisia Telecom.

Forum sessions will focus on closing gaps in high-speed broadband infrastructure in Asia and the Pacific; innovative funding mechanisms for information and communications technology infrastructure; applications and services for multilingual communities; extending information and communications technology connectivity to island States; and enhancing information and communications technology workforce training, especially for young people.

“As a region,” said Global Alliance Executive Coordinator Sarbuland Khan, “ Asia and the Pacific was amongst the early adopters of high-speed broadband networks, and has invested in ICT as the core infrastructure for modernizing its economy and spurring innovation.  While the region has some of the most advanced broadband and ICT-related technologies and policies, major gaps in broadband infrastructure in the least developed and small island countries continue to limit investment, economic growth, employment and development”.

Panellists will give their views on business opportunities and on ways to boost investment in the region’s information and communications technology infrastructure, including through policy and regulatory measures, innovative financing and public-private partnerships.

Key success factors, Mr. Khan said, include expanding broadband infrastructure and access networks by using infrastructure-sharing and demand aggregation among local and regional institutions; establishing an attractive ICT policy and regulatory environment to stimulate private-sector investments; enhancing workforce ICT training; and harmonizing policies and regulations for investment across regions and subregions.

A special meeting will discuss the initiative “New and Refurbished PCs for Schools”, which aims at providing 500,000 new and refurbished personal computers for 10,000 schools, catering for 35 million students, by 2012.  The initiative has the support of the Virginia-based Consumer Electronics Association, which has offered to work with the Global Alliance to expand the supply of new and refurbished computers and ensure that the end-users are reached.  Intel, Cisco and other private companies are ready to take part in the initiative.

On 18 May, the Global Alliance’s Strategy Council and Steering Committee, chaired by Mr. Barrett, will hold their third annual meeting to chart the Alliance’s next steps.  Malaysia’s Prime Minister Abdullah Badawi will open the morning Strategy Council meeting, and Malaysia’s Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation, Maximus Ongkili, will open the afternoon Steering Committee meeting.  Participants will discuss the progress of the Alliance’s flagship initiatives and regional networks, and will be briefed on new initiatives.

The Global Alliance meetings coincide with the 2008 World Congress on Information Technology, which will bring to Kuala Lumpur from 18 to 22 May more than 70 ICT industry associations representing more than 90 per cent of the world’s ICT market, together with experts from civil society, academia and other sectors.

Created by the Secretary-General in 2006, the Global Alliance brings together all key parties around a single platform for dialogue, research, coordination, advocacy and the in-depth understanding needed to apply the power of information and communications technology to development.  It seeks to mobilize the human, financial and technical resources required to bridge major gaps in information and communications technology infrastructure, services and applications across the world.

For further information, please visit www.un-gaid.org or contact Enrica Murmura at the Global Alliance, tel.:  1 212 963 5913, e-mail: murmura@un.org.

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For information media • not an official record