ICT TASK FORCE: a joint effort of civil society, the private sector and the United Nations to overcome the digital divide between the rich and the poor

The recently established ICT Task Force, launched by Kofi Annan in November 2001, held its second meeting on 3 and 4 February 2002 at the general headquarters of the United Nations in New York, to define the policies and strategies that will be followed and to study the incorporation of these technologies into national plans of development.

This new action group brought together diplomats, businessmen and representatives of NGOs and non-profit organizations with the common aim of placing the profits from the new information and communication technology (ICT) within the reach of developing countries.

Presided over by the ex-president of Costa Rica, José María Figueres Olsen, this group has as its mission the creation of digital bridges so that the potentials of information technologies can be fully exploited in all the development strategies. "It would be a cruel irony that the new technologies of communication broadened instead of narrowed the gap that now separates the rich countries from the poor countries", observed Han Seung-Soo, President of the General Assembly of the United Nations, last November.

The action group is now exploring the contributions that it will make during the World Summit on Information Society, scheduled for 2003 in Geneva and 2005 in Tunisia.