Digital divide a focus at close of Net summit

Andy Sullivan

TUNIS: A U.N. summit this week made progress in narrowing the technology gap between rich and poor countries, participants said, despite rich nations' reluctance to contribute to a development fund pushed by African states.

The United Nations-organised World Summit on the Information Society, which ended on Friday, also saw clashes over human rights and control of the Internet's technical functions.

At least 200 deals were struck to bring technology to the developing world during the three-day meeting, organisers said, from multi-million dollar commitments by firms like Microsoft Corp. to alliances not easily measured in monetary terms.

Informal contacts proved valuable as well.

Rwanda resident Diane Malikane said she had met a Tunisian man who offered to help her build a database to track a World Bank development project in her home country.

"When I go back I will continue to be in touch through e-mail," she said.

Inventors showed off gadgets like a solar-powered e-mail terminal to investors that could help manufacture and distribute them in underdeveloped areas.

But rich countries remained reluctant donors to the U.N.-sponsored Digital Solidarity Fund, which officials with the U.N.'s International Telecommunications Union (ITU) said had attracted only 7 million to 8 million euros of contributions.

The ITU hopes to connect half of the world's 6 billion people to the Internet by 2015, from 14 percent now, narrowing the "digital divide" between poor and rich countries and promoting economic development.

Rich countries have preferred to contribute via established development programmes like the World Bank.

INTERNET SPAT

Summit headlines were grabbed by a spat over control of the Internet's addressing system, currently managed by a California-based non-profit group called the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) that answers to the United States.

A last-minute agreement reached hours before the conference kept the current "domain name" system intact, but also set up a forum where dissenting countries like Iran and Brazil will be able to keep "Internet governance" on the front burner.

Rival organisations immediately began jockeying for influence in the new forum.

ITU president Yoshio Utsumi said the agreement gives his organisation a prominent role, while a group of Internet experts said they would be in a better position to ensure it does not become too bureaucratic.

"We think we understand the Internet certainly better than the ITU," said Lynn St. Amour, president of the Internet Society. "But I also understand that this is a forum that has to work within the diplomatic process."

The head of ICANN said governments can also participate in its decision-making process directly, but that they would have to work with other stakeholders.

"We're not going to become an intergovernmental treaty organization by the back door," ICANN president Paul Twomey said.

Human-rights issues were also prominent, with rights groups saying the United Nations should not hold another summit in a country that harasses reporters and activists.

The government of Switzerland was considering its response on Friday after learning that a speech by President Samuel Schmid was pulled off the air when he criticised Tunisia for restricting free speech.

"We prefer to end the summit tonight and then we will think more quietly what to do when the summit is over," said Eric Mayoraz, an official in the Swiss foreign-affairs ministry.

One expert said government censorship is becoming more common online.

China, Iran, Tunisia and Uzbekistan restrict Internet access most severely, but countries like South Korea, Saudi Arabia and India also block dissident sites, said Nart Villeneuve, a University of Toronto researcher who hosted a seminar on evading Web filters.