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The Bilbao World Summit of Cities and Regions tackling the digital divide will mark out the strategies to be studied at the Tunis Summit of world leaders

At the Summit’s opening ceremony, the President of the Basque Government, Juan José Ibarretxe, highlighted the need for the world’s local authorities to work together to build a truly inclusive Information Society: “To work better we have to work together. Only in this way can we serve our citizens efficiently.”

The 2nd World Summit of Cities and Local Authorities on the Information Society opened today following an opening ceremony in which the local authorities of the world were charged with the task of defining the future strategies for the Information Society. More than 2,000 mayors and local leaders from around the world have congregated in Bilbao this week to define a plan of action to be analysed days later by world leaders meeting in Tunis to discuss the new information technologies.

At the opening ceremony, the president of the Basque government, Juan José Ibarretxe underlined the important role the cities and regions have to play in harnessing the potential of the Information Society. He added that solidarity and cooperation between local authorities is the key to ensuring that tod@s, (everyone), without exception, can benefit from the social and economic advantages generated by the Internet: “To work better we have to work together. Only in this way can we serve our citizens efficiently.” President Ibarretxe stated that the regions will provide the strategic links between new nodes of innovation and competitiveness before adding: “States are often too large to resolve small problems, those affecting the citizen on a day-to-day basis, and too small to tackle global problems.” He continued by stating that “The Basque nation will invest all its energies in preventing the information technologies from opening a new divide between some countries and others, between the connected and the unconnected.” He added that the Internet must not be allowed to erase the identities of cities and regions: “We must not let new technologies and the Internet develop into a tsunami that sweeps away thousands of ancient languages and cultures.”

The Spanish Minister of Industry, Tourism and Trade, José Montilla, spoke at the opening ceremony of the “Plan Avanza” that President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero’s government will implement next year as a means of consolidating the Information Society in Spain. The plan provides for €1.21bn to be invested in 2006 in programmes linked to innovation and digital public services among others. Mr Montilla underlined his firm support for the mobilising of resources to bridge the digital divide, which prevents billions of people across the planet from accessing information technologies. The minister for Industry pointed out that the Internet and mobile phones have revolutionised citizens’ everyday lives and that the challenge now facing us was to manage these technologies correctly to the benefit of all the world’s inhabitants. Mr Montilla also added that Spain will be rolling out a broadband highway to bolster the e-government initiatives of local authorities.

The secretary general of the UN, Kofi Annan, also made an appearance at the opening ceremony via videoconference link. Mr Annan described the information technologies as vital driving forces in the development of mankind that must be used to span the digital divide that is making the gap between developed countries and the Third World ever wider. In his opinion, local authorities are the key to this challenge and are fully aware of the need for electronic solidarity. Mr Annan added he was convinced that the representatives of the cities and regions visiting Bilbao would be putting forward some highly significant proposals to the forthcoming summit of world leaders in Tunis.

The mayor of Bilbao, Iñaki Azkuna, highlighted the city’s wholehearted commitment to information technologies and added that Bilbao has the human resources necessary to maximise the opportunities it generates. Azkuna spoke of his conviction that this, the 2nd World Summit of Cities and Local Authorities, would help make the world of tomorrow a better place.

Carmelo Sainz de la Maza, president of the Association of Basque Municipalities (EUDEL), said that cities and regions must build genuine communities based on social wealth and greater commitment on the part of government and citizens alike. For his part, Angel Ros, speaking on behalf of the Spanish Federation of Municipalities and provinces (FEMP) said he hoped the Bilbao Summit would help citizens and local authorities engage with each other via the Internet.

Another speaker at the opening ceremony was Elisabeth Gateau, the secretary general of UCLG, the world’s largest association of local authorities, who spoke of the need for private capital to be channelled into the Third World’s information technologies development plans.

Kofi Annan was not the only UN representative to speak in Bilbao. The director of the United Nations' Division for Economic and Social Council, Sarbuland Khan, listed the three Cs of the Internet – connectivity, construction of infrastructures and content – before adding a fourth of his own: collaboration. Khan pointed out that the Internet had become a success story thanks to global collaboration. Marcel Boisard, the head of the development agency UNITAR, also spoke on behalf of the UN, and Yoshio Utsumi, representing the new information technologies sector in Japan, also made his contribution.