A panel of experts convened by the United General Assembly and chaired by Jose Maria Figures, former President of Costa Rica, met in New York in April, to produce a report and action plan to overcome the information and communication technology lag found in most developing countries.

The 17-person panel included independent experts from government, business and civil society, who have led successful ICT campaigns in developing and transition economies, as well as public and private sector leaders from Europe and the United States. The African panelists included Pascal Baba Couloubaly, Minister of Culture, Mali, Nii Quaynor, Executive Chairperson, national Computer Systems, Ghana, Sushil Baguant, Chairperson National Computer Board Maurititus, Najat Rochdi, president of the Internet Society, Morocco. A citizen of Trinidad and Tobago, Ms Gillian Marcelle, who is also a Visiting Research Fellow at the LINK Centre, served on the panel.

The report of the Panel was considered at the High-Level meeting of the UN Economic and Social Council, was presented at the Summit of the Group of 8 countries and will be transmitted to the UN Millennium Assembly.

The proposals included in that report call for bold measures to increase the priority given to ICT by countries and international agencies and suggests means to attract and leverage funding. The mood of the Panel's report is optimistic, but pragmatic "the international community, working in concert with national governments, private business and civil society, is fully capable of reversing the current alarming trend of the growing digital divide", enabling Internet access in either, home, workplace or community by 2004 for the 80 percent of the world's population who are currently unconnected.

The 17-member team argues that ICT should be expanded not only for direct benefits in wealth creation and trade facilitation, but also for the indirect and linked effect these technologies can have on social services such as health and education.

Key elements of the panel's International ICT Action Plan:

• The United Nations should create under the leadership of the UN secretary General, but outside the regular UN organisational structures, an ICT Task Force charged with bringing together international agencies, private industry and foundations and trusts to facilitate the expansion of the ICT market in developing countries.
• A development fund administered by the Task Force shoud be amassed from hundreds of millions of dollars solicited from sources such as the so-called "Turner Fund", private sector and matching funds from beneficiaries.
• Debt for connectivity swaps, in which one percent of the debt of each developing country is written off, if the equivalent amount is applied to ICT development and countries should receive credits for international financing for ICT on the basis of national progress in carbon-fixation activities.
• Invigorating of the campaign to link the right of universal access to ICT services with existing UN principles and conventions on human rights and development.
• Take steps to ensure the fair and equal participation in the information society, particularly for women through equal opportunity in the workplace, equal access to education and technology and other measures.

Report by Gillian Marcelle, Visiting Research Fellow at the LINK Centre, and member of the UN Expert ICT Panel
For more details of the Panel and its report see www.un.org/esa/coordination/ecosoc/itforum/expert