Broadband infrastructure, applications and services have become critical to driving growth, delivering social services, improving environmental management, and transforming people’s lives, according to a new Manifesto released this week by the Broadband Commission for Digital Development and signed by 48 members of the Commission, along with other prominent figures from industry, civil society and the UN family.
“Overcoming the digital divide makes sense not only on the basis of principles of fairness and justice; connecting the world makes sound commercial sense,” the Manifesto reads. “The vital role of broadband needs to be acknowledged at the core of any post-2015 sustainable development framework, to ensure that all countries – developed and developing alike – are empowered to participate in the global digital economy.”
Signatories to the Manifesto include Commission Co-Chairs President Paul Kagame of Rwanda and business magnate Carlos Slim, co-Vice Chairs Dr Hamadoun I. Touré, ITU Secretary-General, and Irina Bokova, UNESCO Director-General, along with prominent members of the Commission including European Commission Vice-President Neelie Kroes, business leaders including Anne Bouverot (Director-General, GSMA), Michel Combes (CEO, Alcatel-Lucent), Sunil Bharti Mittal (CEO, Bharti Airtel), Denis O’Brien (CEO, Digicel), Hans Vestberg (CEO, Ericsson), and Sun Yafang (Chairwoman, Huawei), UN heads of agency including Kathy Calvin (CEO, UN Foundation), Helen Clark (Administrator, UNDP) and Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka (Executive Director, UN Women), and prominent technology advocates including Academy-Award winning actor Geena Davis, Mo Ibrahim (Chairman, Mo Ibrahim Foundation), Youssou N’Dour (musician and Minister for Tourism & Leisure, Senegal), Jeffrey Sachs (Special Adviser to the UN Secretary-General for the Millennium Development Goals & Director, Earth Institute, Columbia University), Muhammad Yunus (Founder, Grameen Bank and Nobel Laureate), and many others.
The Manifesto will be presented at a side event of the 5th session of the United Nations Open Working Group on Sustainable Development Goals, to be held at UN headquarters in New York later today. It follows on the heels of a new report, Transformational Solutions for 2015 and Beyond, which was prepared by a Broadband Commission Task Force and launched at the 8th meeting of the Commission on 21 September 2013.
source: www.biztechafrica.com
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