President Mubarak's address to the World Summit on Information Society underlined the importance of IT in development, writes Ibrahim Nafie from Geneva President Hosni Mubarak's insistence on personally heading Egypt's delegation to the first World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, which began yesterday, underpins the importance currently attached to Information Technology (IT) in Egypt's development. Delivering an address to the opening session at the UN-sponsored conference Mubarak stressed Egypt's determination to make IT an integral part of the lives of ordinary Egyptians. Some 60 heads of state and government are attending the Geneva meeting, alongside business leaders and representatives of non-governmental organisations. The meeting is officially billed as the first phase of the summit with the second phase scheduled to take place in Tunisia in November 2005. Organised by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the UN-affiliated body responsible for telecommunications networks and systems, the WSIS conference's main goal is to bridge the digital divide between rich and poor countries. Mubarak arrived in Switzerland on Monday to attend the three-day summit and held several meetings on the sidelines with, among others, UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Iranian President Mohamed Khatami and Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. In Wednesday's address to the opening session Mubarak highlighted the link between Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and development. "To deepen the concept of universality in the information society all peoples should have a chance to effectively take part in developing, manufacturing, and utilising ICT which could then become an effective tool in excercising the right to development in its broadest sense, and in a manner that entrenches the principles of equality, justice, and active community participation," he said. Mubarak added that closing the digital gap required support "for developing countries through the promotion of scientific and research capabilities, and the transfer of technology and know-how". "Egypt took its first steps in creating an information society as part of the larger task of building a modern society suited to its unique geographic location and allowing the extension of channels of communication between Africa, Asia and Europe." Mubarak underlined the progress already made in applying communication and information technology in advancing Egypt's economic and social development goals. Egypt's information society initiative aims to be "a bridge across the digital divide... which we hope will allow us to cross into the international information society," he said. The building of a communications infrastructure and national databases have, the president stressed, aided in the country's economic reform programme as well as playing a critical role in furthering development to the extent that the Egyptian experience can serve as a "model". "Egypt has studied the problems and challenges, and drawn up strategies on how to close the digital divide. Our initiative for an information society enables us to utilise ICT as a tool for economic and social development," the president said. Calling on the international community, and all parties interested in furthering development to formulate new funding strategies to support projects in developing countries, Mubarak invited all those gathered to visit Egypt to witness first hand the impact of information and communication technology programmes on social development. "These programmes have strengthened our will to make Egypt a leader in the field, in Africa and the Arab world, as well as strengthening our partnership with all our collaborators in development." Mubarak stressed that ICT is a potentially powerful tool in assisting developing countries in improving the standards of education and health of their populations. ICT can also be viewed as an effective instrument of poverty eradication, he added. Mubarak noted that Egypt, in conjunction with other Arab countries, is working hard to help expand Internet access to the poor. "Egypt has played a major role in building regional support for international efforts to establish a modern information society. We took the lead in proposing a common Arab strategy, reflecting our vision of the Arab Information Society that was endorsed at the Arab Summit in Amman in 2001," he said. On Tuesday Mubarak addressed a preparatory forum of the ITU, giving an overview of Egypt's achievements. In his speech, delivered by Minister of Communications and Information Ahmed Nazif, Mubarak described the ITU as "the umbrella" under which all parties in the world communication and information technology, whether from the government, private or non-governmental sectors, can engineer cooperation across all sectors and strata of society. Praising the efforts of ITU to promote development and modernisation, the speech continued: "WSIS opens a new page in regional and international cooperation, one where we will agree on future plans which must reflect the needs of the developing world, to allow it to become an effective partner in the world information society," he said. "Plans and initiatives made [at the summit] should be accompanied by clear national and international commitments that are implemented on the ground." One of the major issues debated at the Geneva conference was the contentious topic of human rights. A row broke out between developing countries and industrially-advanced nations over free speech and press freedom. The European Union and the United States accuse certain developing countries of curtailing freedom of expression over the Internet which they claim contravenes the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
