It is a great honour for me, on
behalf of the Government of the Czech Republic, to
have the opportunity to address this Plenary Session
of the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the
Information Society.
To recall the Geneva Summit, as
the Swiss President said in Geneva in 2003 following
the adoption of the WSIS Declaration of Principles,
the WSIS Process is a Constitution for the
Information Age. The Geneva Summit gave a green
light to the journey into the future, but we all
know that this will be a long journey. The reality
is that today's information society is permanently
characterised by unrealistic expectations,
imbalances, inequalities, as well as the digital
divide, so a lot of digital solidarity is needed. We
need to admit that the WSIS process is much more
complex and challenging than we originally had
expected.
The two-phase format of the
Summit now held in Tunis allows for opening the
gateway into Africa and other parts of the
developing world with an increased focus on the use
of ICTs to achieve specific goals to reduce
poverty,- combat diseases, achieve adequate ICT
literacy and generally empower people and
communities in their access to information.
In Geneva 2003, the Czech
Republic declared its full commitment with the WSIS
objectives including a joint vision on the
information and knowledge society and informed
participants about the Czech Government National
Computer Literacy Programme which focuses on the
ICT literacy deployment, especially to the out- of
school population. The HoD of the Czech Republic
promised in Geneva in 2003 that the above mentioned
ideas could be extended to developing countries to
help them in their efforts to bridge the digital
divide.
It is my pleasure today to inform
the Plenary Session of the Tunis phase of the Summit
that in the course of this year, the Czech Republic
already organized a series of Basic PC and
Internet Course Projects in Kenya, Africa in
collaboration with ITU. If you are interested, I
would like to offer you more detailed information at
our National Exhibition Stand. My country is
prepared to continue with assisting developing
countries to bridge the digital divide through those
small steps, as a contribution to the goals of the
Geneva Plan of Action. Similarly, we are ready to
support other international programmes and
initiatives helping Africa, like for example the EU
Strategy for Africa, including cooperation with the
specialised UN agencies. Some projects are now ready
for final approval and are expected to start next
year.
