At the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in December 2003, held in Geneva (Phase 1), the United Nations Secretary-General was requested to review the adequacy of existing financial mechanisms to meet the challenges of ICT for development.
For that purpose, a Task Force was set up by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), on behalf of the UN Secretary General, to complete this review by December 2004, in order to be submitted to the WSIS community for discussion at PrepCom-2 in February 2005. The main goal of the Task Force is to assess existing financial mechanisms in meeting the challenges related to promoting investment in and the use of information technologies to enhance development in developing countries.
However, at the end of the process of investigation of the Task Force, concerns about the process, draft findings and conclusions have arisen.
The hastyness of the process, together with lack of consultation of civil society and developing countries representatives, among other matters, have belittled the contribution of the Task Force on resolving the impasse of financing mechanisms between Governments for the second fase of the WSIS. An open letter of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC)points out these concerns.
APC's open letter to the Task Force on Financial Mechanisms
In this open letter, the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) expresses a number of concerns about the process, draft, findings and conclusions of the Task Force on Financial Mechanims for information technology development. Pdf document.
UNDP Task Force on Financial Mechanisms response to APC
"I share some of your concerns with respect to the timing and insufficient outreach to the different stakeholders. These really where largely due to time and resource constraints" responded Shoji Nishimoto, Assistant Administrator and Director Bureau for Development Programme to APC's letter. 10th December 2004. Pdf document.
