The first round of the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force (UN ICT TF) founding meetings concluded yesterday, those meetings were held in the hall of the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) at the UN Headquarters in New York. The UN Secretary-General, Mr. Kofi Annan, hosted the Task Force members in the previous day at a lunch reception, and he officially announced yesterday the founding of the Task Force in the presence of accredited ambassadors by the UN.

The UN Secretary-General focused on the idea that this Task Force is the first of its kind in the history of the United Nations because it consists of, as well as government representatives who are 18 members, 8 representatives from the private sector ,6 members from the development and finance organizations and 4 members from NGOs.
 
Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh was one of the Task Force private sector members, he was elected as a member of the Executive Board of the Task Force, Co-Chair of the Task Force and the Chairman of the United Nations Human Resource Development and Capacity building Working Group.
 
 
Mr. Abu-Ghazaleh at the United Nations Headquarters chaired the first meeting of the Working Group during which they discussed the Group’s objectives and action plan in cooperation with the international organizations members of the group, including the G8 Digital Opportunities Task Force (Dot Force), which follows-up the UN ICT TF Task force work. He also chaired the last meeting of the Working Group yesterday, which aims mainly to bridge the digital divide in the world and to use information and communication technologies for development in the countries of the world and in particular developing countries.
 
The Task Force works as a consultative body of the Secretary-General and it reports to him. Senior officials in government and international bodies are also members of the Task Force.

The Task Force will hold its next meeting at the United Nations Headquarters in New York on 4/2/2002 coincided with the Economic Forum to be held in New York instead of Davos.