Global Information and Communications Technology Community Meets at United Nations

 

to Ready Millennium Development Goals Enabler for 21 September Unveiling

 

More than 140 leaders in development applications of information and communications technologies (ICT) met today at the United Nations to fine tune an online tool that will be launched during the upcoming High-Level Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York on 21 September 2010.

A new Millennium Development Goals electronic enabler responds to demand from developing countries for better-fitting means to implement ICT-for-development strategies.  The infrastructure for the portal is being set up under the direction of the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development (UN GAID).

The Millennium Development Goals enabler will assist technology communities around the world, including Governments in developing countries, with resources and tools for harnessing technologies for development, and to make a run at achieving the Millennium Development Goals at the national level before the 2015 completion target.

“I am convinced that if there is one enabler which can accelerate achievement of the [Millennium Development Goals] it is ICT in partnership with the private sector,” UN GAID Chairman Talal Abu-Ghazaleh told participants at a United Nations Headquarters conference centre earlier this morning.  Confirmations for the 21 September event have been received from Heads of States, ministers, United Nations agency chiefs and chief executive officers.

Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh noted that United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has endorsed the initiative to be launched at a breakfast meeting that will take place on the margin of this year’s High-Level Plenary Meeting of the General Assembly on the Millennium Development Goals.

Also at today’s meeting of ICT industry representatives and leaders from developing country Governments, think tanks, academic institutions and the private sector, UN GAID will consider establishing task forces in six areas:  poverty and hunger; education; gender; health; environmental sustainability; and the public sector.

The Global Alliance for ICT and Development was established in 2006 as a multi-stakeholder platform to put in practice the spirit and vision of the World Summit on the Information Society, and promote the use of information and communications technologies to achieve the internationally agreed development goals, including the Millennium Development Goals.  It provides all stakeholders a broad forum and a global platform for dialogue and partnership on cross-cutting issues.

For more information, please visit http://www.un-gaid.org or contact Franck Kuwonu, tel.:  +1 212 963 8264, e-mail:  kuwonu@un.org; or Tim Wall, tel.:  +1 212 963 5851, e-mail:  wallt@un.org, of the United Nations Department of Public Information.

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For information media • not an official record