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Vicelehendakari Idoia Zenarrutzabeitia took part in the launching of the UN Digital Solidarity Fund, which will finance reduction he reduction of the digital divide between North and South
Idoia Zenarrutzabeitia, Vicelehendakari (Vice-president) of the Basque Government, took part in Geneva (Switzerland) on 14 March in the ceremony to launch the Digital Solidarity Fund, an international project to try to guarantee that the entire world population has access to new Information Technologies. The Basque Government is one of the promoter members of this initiative in favour of electronic democracy, endorsed by the United Nations Organisation (UN) in order to reduce the “digital divide” in the most disadvantaged areas of the planet.
Together with the Vicelehendakari of the Basque Government, several political promoters of this project took part in the Digital Solidarity Fund launching ceremony, such as the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, and the French Minister for Research, François d’Aubert. The UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, sent his message by videoconference. For her part, Idoia Zenarrutzabeitia stated that the vocation of the Basque Country, Euskadi, is to bring about an Information Society “where everybody in the world has their place, where the possibilities opened up by new Information Technologies are available to all, regardless of place of birth or residence, sex, age nor social or economic status”.
With the aim of ensuring that all individuals in the world have the possibility of obtaining access to the resources of the information society and to training in the use of ICT, the Digital Solidarity Fund will enable the financing of business ideas related with Information Technologies that need economic support in order to become realities. The Fund will be supplied through voluntary contributions made by the public and private sectors. The 17 founder members of the DSF, among which the Basque Country is included, have already contributed €325,000 each, which means that on its launching the Fund already has financing of €6 million, which will be assigned mostly to projects for the world’s least developed countries (60%), to developing countries (30%) and 10% to finance projects in developed countries.
Following the Cardoso Report
The Digital Solidarity Fund has been created as a Foundation within the framework of the Swiss Civil Code, with its headquarters in the city of Geneva and is the first institution that implements the guidelines laid down by the Cardoso Report, which promotes a worldwide scenario in which decision taking is agreed by consensus equally between local authorities, states and private enterprise. In this way, the main body of the Fund, the Foundation Board, will be composed of 24 members: 8 representatives of States, 8 of private enterprise and 8 civil society representatives, mostly made up of local authorities.
The founder members of this solidarity fund, whose purpose is to do away with the “digital divide” between countries in the North and those in the South are: the Republic of Senegal, the Dominican Republic, the Republic of Equatorial Guinea, the Intergovernmental Francophone Agency, the cities of Geneva, Paris, Lyon, Santo Domingo, Curitiba, Delémont and Dakar, the provinces of Turin and Roma, the department of Lille, the Regions of Aquitaine and of Rhônes-Alpes and the Basque Country.
The Digital Solidarity Fund will finance all actions aimed at reducing the North-South digital divide between countries and is one of the tools that the IT4ALL Network has available to promote structural projects that have a strong impact on the socioeconomic activities of the least developed countries, through the implementation of applications and of services for public administrations and for citizens (health, education, training, cultural development, etc.).