Over CHF 1.3 million in new WSIS contributions confirmed.
More than half the fundraising goal of CHF 5 million reached

Geneva, 17 February 2005

ITU Secretary-General, Yoshio Utsumi confirmed that the WSIS-2005 Fundraising Campaign has brought in more than CHF 1.3 million in new financial contributions to fund core preparatory activities of the Tunis phase.

“With these new contributions to the WSIS Fund, we have raised more than CHF 2.7 million representing over half of our CHF 5 million goal,” the ITU Secretary-General announced. “I am very pleased with this progress, and thankful to all our donors for their commitment to the success of the Summit”, he added.

Numerous stakeholders came forward in recent weeks to announce new financial contributions for core preparatory activities, including the governments of Canada (CHF 100’000), Finland (CHF 180’000), France (CHF 150’000), Germany (CHF 75’445), Libya (CHF 60’000), Malta (CHF 3’500), Saudi Arabia (CHF 335’357) and Sweden (CHF 335’000). Non-governmental stakeholders also announced new contributions, including the private sector company, NTT DoCoMo of Japan (CHF 90’896) and the International Telecommunications Satellite Organization (CHF 5’688).

Several other donors announced support for specific Summit-related activities. New contributions for developing country fellowships were announced by Austria (CHF 45’438 for various stakeholders), Switzerland (CHF 70’000 for civil society) and the Islamic Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (CHF 11’372 for ISESCO member states). An additional contribution was made by Canada (CHF 100’000) to support civil society activities, with an emphasis on youth. And Finland announced that it would support the hiring of a new staff member for the WSIS Executive Secretariat.

These new contributions build on an already solid base of donations from a range of stakeholders, including the governments of Azerbaijan (CHF 15’190), Burkina Faso (CHF 25’000), Holy See (CHF 4’000), Japan (CHF 776,927), Namibia (CHF 12’500), Netherlands (CHF 75’000), Norway (CHF 180’268), Senegal (CHF 66’550), Spain (CHF 153’000), Syrian Arab Republic (CHF 12’500) and the Sultanate of Oman (CHF 100’000). Contributions have also been made by several international organizations including the United Nations Federal Credit Union (CHF 1’280), Universal Postal Union (CHF 10’000) and the World Meteorological Organization (CHF 15’000). A contribution was also received from an NGO, the International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies (CHF 200). For a list of all financial and in-kind contributions to the Tunis and Geneva phases, see: https://www.itu.int/net/wsis/funding/contributors2.html 

The UN General Assembly did not establish a budget for WSIS and instead called upon the international community to support the Summit through voluntary contributions. To meet this challenge, the Secretary-General of ITU and of Secretary-General of the Summit launched the WSIS-2005 Fundraising Campaign in April 2004. The total cost of organizing the core preparatory process and the Summit for the Tunis Phase is estimated to be approximately CHF 15 million (CHF 5 million cash and CHF 10 million in-kind), not including costs incurred by the host country.

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