The WSIS, run by the International Telecommunications Union in Geneva today through Friday, will feature addresses from scores of heads of states and technology and communications ministers from about 200 countries.
The plan is to agree on a Plan of Action and Declaration of Principles aimed primarily at closing the so-called digital divide and bringing information services to those currently without them.
A major sticking point has been whether countries should contribute cash to a Digital Solidarity Fund that would be used to build out information infrastructure in developing nations, as evidently proposed by Senegal.
Pre-summit meetings of WSIS delegates came to an agreement yesterday on a postponement of agreement on the fund, after scepticism from the EU and Japan, according to a statement from Swiss secretary of state Marc Furrer.
The final draft of the Plan of Action calls for a UN task force, reporting to secretary general Kofi Annan, to conduct a thorough review of existing and possible funding mechanisms which should be completed before the end of 2004.
Based on the conclusion of the review, improvements and innovations of financing mechanisms will be considered including the effectiveness, the feasibility and the creation of a voluntary Digital Solidarity Fund, the draft reads.
ITU secretary general Yoshio Utsumi said that about 1.5 million villages in developing nations are currently without telephony connectivity, and that it would cost just $1.1bn to connect them, or $6.3bn if Internet access was included.
The ITU said, in a statement that represents less than 1% of global fixed line revenue, or 3% of total ICT investment, and a fraction of total sums paid for 3G licenses in the world’s richest countries.
Postponing agreement on a thorny issue is the same approach WSIS is to take on Internet governance. The Plan also calls for a task force is to be created to investigate what internet governance actually means, and whether the ITU should do it.
This article is based on material originally produced by ComputerWire.
