New body to help develop common vision on information society

A bureau to oversee the development of a common African vision for an information society was established last week in the Malian capital, Bamako, at the African regional conference on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

A communiqué presented at the close of the 26-30 May meeting emphasised the need to ensure that every citizen has access to information as a basic human right, the United Nation's Economic Commission for Africa (ECA) reported on Tuesday.

The communiqué, known as the Bamako Declaration 2002, called for the removal of regulatory, political and financial obstacles to the development of communication facilities, ECA said.
It said this also included addressing the continent's linguistic specificities with the introduction of new technologies that ensure access for all.

Acknowledging the fact that narrowing the digital divide should go hand in hand with the development of telecommunication infrastructure, the communiqué called on governments to fully contribute to the preparations for the World Summit, which will be held in two phases - in Geneva in 2003 and Tunis in 2005.

The bureau will be chaired by Mali. Its other members will include Cameroon, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tunisia and representatives of civil society groups such as Anais Network (Cameroon), the African Women's Development and Communications Network (FEMNET) in Kenya, and the Tunisia-based Arab Union of NGOs.

The African Enterprise Network and a private Senegalese information technology company, Next, will represent the private sector, while ECA will be the interim secretariat for the bureau, the release added.

The regional conference attracted representatives from 51 African countries, drawn from governments, civil society, the media, public and private sectors, as well as a cross-section of international development agencies.

The Bamako 2002 Declaration is available at

http://www.geneva2003.org/bamako2002 or http://www.uncea.org/aisi