INFOPOVERTY 2004 INFOPOVERTY SEMINAR AT THE WORLD SUMMIT ON THE INFORMATION SOCIETY IN GENEVA “How to connect all villages of the World by 2015” Geneva – December 12 2003 FINAL DECLARATION Bearing in mind that: 1. The Plan of Action approved in the Geneva Phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) states at art. 6.a that “to connect villages with ICTs and establish community access points” is a target to be achieved by 2015 2. The Infopoverty World Conference was included in the list of Preliminary meetings to the WSIS 3. That OCCAM acts as organising agency of the Infopoverty World Conference – part of the wider Infopoverty Programme – on the mandate of all partner institutions of the event (European Parliament, UNIC Rome, Mediterranean Programme by UNESCO, Politecnico di Milano, Università Cattolica, University of Oklahoma) The Participants to the Infopoverty Seminar “ How to connect all villages of the world by 2015”, held in Geneva on December 12th 2003 in the framework of the WSIS, Express their appreciation for the results of the Summit, with reference to the approved Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action Congratulate all stakeholders, in particular the UN Secretary General, the President of the Preparatory Committee, the Host Country, the UNESCO Director General and the Italian Presidency of the European Union for their efforts in making the Summit a concrete founding pillar of the Information Society. Recommend that, in order to achieve such target: A. The satellite and infrastructure companies, agencies, should take charge of the problem of the lack of connectivity – mainly for rural and remote villages – through procedures able to let UN family organisations and other international and regional institutions have access to wireless communication for development projects at fair prices, with a perspectives of growing market opportunity for satellite hubs. B. The Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) companies should promote products in order to meet the real needs of developing countries at reasonable costs, favouring also the creation and diffusion of open source software. C. All stakeholders of the Information Society should regard culture and health of all human beings the most important aspects to be tackled, therefore considering telemedicine, e-learning and all actions promoting cultural diversity as primary services to be delivered to developing countries with the introduction of broad band. D. The international financial institutions should co-ordinate their existing ICTs development policies in order to support specific pilot projects in every country and invest on the dissemination of best and successful practices in order to give concreteness to this vision in a short time. E. The ICTs companies should converge on the Global Compact as means of Public-Private partnership and consider the fight against the digital divide as a crucial opportunity also to widen the markets and develop new and innovative technologies. Decide: 1. To work on the development of the Infopoverty Programme, with the auspices that it will be able to indicate the most effective tools and procedures in order to create community access centers as start up process for the digital development of villages in a network progressively covering all the territories, facilitating the active participation of local communites in close relation to all stakeholders of the Information Society. 2. To approve the preliminary agenda of the IV Infopoverty World Conference, to be held in April 29 and 30 2004 in Milan and in multiple locations connected by videoconference, with the auspices to have sessions in Africa and Asia too. 3. To disseminate information and promote awareness at all levels on the results of the WSIS, through all possible instruments (such as, among the others, radio, internet and a workshop to be held on a yearly basis) in order to facilitate and accellerate the implementation of the Plan of Action 4. To support the organizers of the Tunis Phase of the WSIS, working for the adoption of a “digital solidarity charter”, evaluation of the Geneva phase, and implementation of the Geneva Action Plan. 5. To transmit this declaration, together with the formal invitation to the IV Infopoverty World Conference, to all main bodies participating in the WSIS, and to give mandate to OCCAM to operate on the basis of this declaration and act in order to implement it. * ***** *

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