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Swiss Delegation and President of
PrepCom meet UN Secretary-General in New York
New York, 30 July � Adama Samass�kou of Mali, President of the Preparatory Committee of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), and a Swiss delegation led by Marc
Furrer, Director General of OFCOM, and Daniel Stauffacher, Ambassador Delegate of the Swiss Federal Council to the Summit, held meetings this week in NewYork and Washington, DC with public and private sector representatives in the United States.
Strategic objectives of the WSIS, to be held 10-12 December 2003 in Geneva and followed by a second phase to be held in 2005 in Tunisia, were discussed and refined in a series of meetings at United Nations Headquarters in New York, notably with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan and his Special Advisor for the Summit, Nitin Desai, UN Undersecretary General for Economic and Social Affairs. The meetings served to reinforce the commitment of the United Nations to the World Summit on the Information Society.
The delegation also met with Shashi Tharoor, Undersecretary General for Communications and Information of the UN and Maurice Strong, a senior advisor to the UN Secretary General.
The WSIS Summit, a worldwide process held under the auspices of the United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, and led by the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), will address development and the effective use of the new information and communication technologies (ICTs) to reach the Millennium Development Goals as outlined by the United Nations.
The Summit, a multistakeholder process involving the participation of governments, the private sector, civil society and the media, will address questions including access to information, infrastructure, governance, security, content, cultural diversity, among others.
A Declaration of Principles and Action Plan will be produced at the WSIS in December in Geneva. According to OFCOM Director Marc Furrer, �A successful outcome of the Geneva Summit will be a substantive action plan with benchmarks and clear action lines, a political declaration which will be general but not too general, and the start of a series of debates on issues raised during the Summit.�
Contact: info@wsisgeneva2003.org
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