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Geneva (pte034/15.03.2005/13:00) - Nigeria's President Olusegun Obasanjo, chairman of the African Union, has launched a "digital solidarity fund" http://www.dsf-fsn.org to help bridge the technology divide between rich and poor countries. As the Financial Times http://www.ft.com reports, the voluntary fund is being financially backed by more than 120 city councils around the world, and will focus on community-based projects aimed at the most disadvantaged.
The fund was first proposed by President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal at a UN information society summit in December 2003. Poor countries initially pushed for a multilateral fund to finance telecommunications infrastructure projects in the developing world, but this ran into opposition from rich nations. However, governments meeting in Geneva last month decided to make better use of existing financial mechanisms to fund large-scale telecoms development. As the FT reports, this leaves the digital solidarity fund to tap new sources of finance for local projects.
The fund's city council contributors are implementing a scheme under which successful bidders for public telecoms contracts are required to pay one per cent of the contract value to the fund. In return, they will be grated a "digital solidarity" label. The fund has earmarked 60 per cent of its future resources for least-developed countries, 30 per cent for other developing countries and 10 per cent for economies in transition.
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