Statement
by
Mr. Marc Furrer, Director General
Federal Office of Communications (OFCOM)
Switzerland

Wednesday, 20 March 2002

Let me start with a little personal story which underlines very well the vital importance of ICT for the life of people in less developed areas:

A friend of mine has a chain of shops in Switzerland which sells clothes from India, Bangladesh and South America. He buys jumpers made of alpaca-wool from producers in the Altiplano of Bolivia. He always used to get wrong designs, wrong shapes and wrong colours of these jumpers. Then these producers in the Altiplano in Bolivia organised themselves a telephone and internet access. Now my friend can explain directly his wishes concerning the clothes – and the people in Bolivia can produce their jumpers to satisfy the exact demands of the market. Without internet in the Altiplano my friend would have stopped his trade with these alpaca producers.

ICT created a win-win situation. ICT is essential for the development of any economy and any society in this world.

We all agree with this statement. But what is to be done to enable further quick and sustainable ICT-successes like the one of the "Indios" in the Altiplano ? Let me make five substantial suggestions, as we should become substantial. Nice speeches here in Istanbul without concrete measures to back them up will not provide any new telephones or internet-access.

1. ICT infrastructure needs sound and sustainable financing. The World Bank, the Development-Aid-Program and also the governments of the developing countries are challenged. On one side the financing bodies provide the necessary resources accompanied by economical and political conditions. On the other side, the countries or organisations which receive these benefits and which have to fulfil the conditions may also have their own specific situations and programs which do not necessary fit-in with the above mentioned conditions. Dialog and win-win relationships are to be established between donors and recipients, and common ICT development programs are to be found. There can be no success without co-operation, co-ordination and partnership !!

2. The ICT Infrastructure and affordable connectivity is a backbone for development and poverty alleviation. However, ICT infrastructure has to be integrated into a broader sustainable development approach in order to have a positive impact on poverty and inequalities at the local and national level. The facts show that ICT infrastructure development alone is too narrow an approach and bears a great risk of widening the poverty and information gap at the national community level still further. Just to build a mobile-communications network and to sponsor a few handsets for the people is not enough.

3. Promoting local human and institutional capacities and networks is essential for bridging the digital divide. This means that special efforts have to be made for human resource development (i.e. education and training) to master the use of the technology. Therefore, we need not only an ICT-strategy but also an education strategy in this field.

4. Much more locally produced and relevant content is necessary to make ICT an effective tool for development. This means that there is a need for production and exchange of information on the local and regional levels. This content, by being locally oriented, becomes accessible to the local audience and fulfils their social, economical and cultural requirements. Freedom of expression is an essential requirement for this.

5. It needs an open market framework, but with a sound universal service obligation and with independent competent regulation. Without this you keep monopolies, owned either by the state or by private industry, which will keep the prices high. So, selling the old state-owned operator into private ownership without accepting competition in the telecom-market is very negative for ICT-development. In other words: privatisation without liberalisation brings negative effects, so we also need a change of market rules in many countries.

Let me finish by saying how Switzerland appreciates the efforts of ITU in the field of development. We believe that this will become more and more a core task of ITU and ITU will have to intensify dialogue and co-operation with other development organisations and stakeholders. But action must follow all these nice speeches here in Istanbul and elsewhere. It shouldn’t come true what a friend from India once said, " I cannot hear all these good words about telecom-development anymore, because I know that nothing happens afterwards"

And indeed we still have the situation that more than half of the population of planet earth have never telephoned. So let’s do something, let’s bring substance into the debate. That must also be the aim of the World Summit on Information Society 2003 in Geneva. What we plan here in Istanbul must be implemented at the Summit in Geneva in an action plan. The success of the Istanbul WTDC is essential for the success of Geneva, and the success of Geneva will guarantee the success of Tunis.

Finally I thank everyone who made this conference here in Istanbul possible: I thank the government of Turkey and I thank the BDT for the preparation.