 H.E. Dr Margarita Cedeño de Fernández,
First Lady of the Dominican
Republic
For her outstanding personal contribution towards building an inclusive
and equitable global information society;
Dr Cedeño de Fernández is the wife of Dr Leonel Fernández, President of the
Dominican Republic. She has a Doctorate in Law from the University of Santo
Domingo and a Master in Economic Legislation at the Madre y Maestra Catholic
University.
Ms Cedeño participated at the launch of the Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF),
held in Geneva on 14 March 2005. She conveyed President Leonel Fernández’s
support and total commitment to the cause of the DSF.
The Dominican Republic has created an ambitious plan focused on closing the
digital divide by improving connectivity, digital literacy, ICT capacity
building, etc. To implement these projects, President Fernández has appointed
the Office of the First Lady to carry out the work of making technology a
service of the people, particularly those inhabitants of the most impoverished
areas. Among the projects, there is a plan to install 135 Community
Technology Centres, one in each municipality throughout the country. This
will enable, the extremely poor communities to become a part of the development
process for the social, cultural and economic advancement of the country. Each
Centre aims at building the capacity of its citizens, their knowledge and
ability to effectively utilize ICTs. The Centres allow access to telephone
services, fax, Internet, universal knowledge, database creation, information
processing, etc.
Through the Centres, the Government promotes the programmes that achieve the
effective inclusion of women and young girls in new technologies, which would
increase gender equality.
In November 2005, Ms Cedeño was the head of the Dominican Delegation to the
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), Second Phase, in Tunis.
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