The digital opportunity taskforce emanating from the G8 convened a meeting in Calgary, Canada last week, in order to finalize a report that will be presented to the G8 leaders at their next summit to be held in June 2002 in Kannaskis. The taskforce also met to review current and future plans.
Discussions focused on the work of the executive committees, the arrangements to present special reports by the digital opportunity taskforce, actions related to the preparation for the summit, future priorities and initiatives for the post-Kannaskis era.
Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh spoke at the meeting in his capacity as Vice-Chair of the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force (UN ICT TF) and the Chairman of the ICC Commission on E-Business, Information Technologies and Telecoms.
He stressed the significance of the digital opportunity taskforce joining the UN ICT TF, since it has the responsibility of global leadership in the area of IT and communications, as the abundance of resources and expertise possessed by the digital opportunity taskforce is considered a strong support to the UN ICT TF.
Abu-Ghazaleh expressed his desire that the developing nations make surpassing the global (digital) gap one of their top priorities, such that it becomes a foundation of the national interest.
Abu-Ghazaleh said that he saw three promising global trends relating to IT and communications. These are:
- First: The great interest we see on behalf of governments, multilateral development organizations, NGOs, the private sectors, civil society, and stakeholders who realize the significance of IT and communications and surpassing the digital divide being their top priority.
- Second: The consensus in realizing that IT and communications form an integral and essential part of development and aren’t isolated.
- Third: We are witnessing the growth of wide global collaboration between all stakeholders for working together in surpassing the digital gap.
At the end of his speech, Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh stressed that the interests of developing countries in national protection during the long-run depends on how well everyone works together to overcome cases of extreme poverty and on the availability of equal opportunities worldwide.
He stated: “When developing nations fully appreciate this, it will only be a matter of time before we begin to achieve our goals. By overcoming the digital gap, we’ll see that we will get over a large part of the gap between the rich and poor, north and south, and developed and developing nations.”