Bridging the digital divide in Lyon

Almost 300 personalities are expected, including several heads of state and government and leading members of territorial authorities, international organisations, NGOs, companies and foundations.

This conference is a follow-up to the World Summits on the Information Society held in 2003 and 2005 in Geneva and Tunis, which gave rise to the creation of the Global Digital Solidarity Fund and the World Digital Solidarity Agency. The Lyon conference will bring all the main individuals trying to bridge the digital divide together for a whole day's work, so enabling concerted world action to be taken for providing better answers to the issues at stake in this key sector of development.

Redefining major issues, creating networks and a commitment are the conference's main objectives. Large numbers of people have apparently been implementing different initiatives in the world of new information and communication technologies for development, and those organising the conference believe it is important that all these different actions are federated at international levels.

In an endeavour to facilitate networking, interactive roundtables will be set up for finding common solutions to issues in several major priority domains such as education, health, reuse and recycling of digital waste and connectivity in isolated areas.

Plenary sessions will deal with strategic questions on the partnerships and financing operations that need to be implemented for bridging the world digital divide sustainably, as well as creating decisive commitment amongst local authorities via decentralised co-operation.

The conference is jointly organised by The Ministry for European and Foreign Affairs, The Rhône-Alpes Region, The Greater Lyon District Council, The World Digital Solidarity Agency and The Global Digital Solidarity Fund.

The African Press Organisation is partner of The Lyon Conference on Digital Solidarity.

For more information, visit http://www.digitalsolidarity2008.org/en.