Mrs. Karima Bounemra Ben Soltane is the Director of the Development Information Services Division at the Economic Commission for Africa (ECA), United Nations, (based in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia), responsible for "Harnessing Information for Development". DISD programme aims at promoting
the use of knowledge and Information and Communication Technologies for Africa's economic and social development.

Before this, she was the Director General of IRSIT (Institut Régional des Sciences Informatiques et des Télécommunications), the Tunisian research
and development centre on information technology, where she had executive responsibilities for telecommunications and Computer Science policy,
planning, technical implementation, research and employee management. She was involved in national activities related to scientific research and
Information and Communication Technology. During that period, she participated in several committees responsible for the design of national
policies in the area of telecommunication and informatics and chaired the national committee in charge of the 'institutional and regulatory
frameworks' that prepared the ninth national plan for informatics. She also served as advisor to the European Commission for the selection of ICT
research proposals.

From 1992 to 1995 she was Director of IRSIT's Department of Telecommunications and Networks responsible for multimedia, network management, and standardisation. She was also selected as a member of the high-level Working Group that was established at the request of the ECA Conference of Ministers to prepare the Africa Information Society Initiative. This initiative set out the blueprint for Africa's entry to the information age and the use of
information technology for development. AISI forms the basis for ECA's work programme in information and communication technology.

Ms Bounemra Ben Soltane has participated in initiatives to develop bilingual ICT tools, to set up a national research and technology network. She taught 'Computer Netwoking' and supervised various multimedia and telecommunications research and development projects. She was chairperson of the Tunisian technical committee for standardisation on information technology issues.

Before that, she chaired an expert group on Information technology and network management in AFNOR (the French standardisation organisation) and represented the organisation to international bodies.

Ms. Bounemra Ben Soltane speaks French, Arabic, and English. She is a published author and member of numerous professional organisations on telematics and information technology. She earned a Ph.D. in Information Systems from the Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris VI - France) and a Computer System Design Engineering degree from the University of Tunis.