ICTs play a key role in promoting economic growth and sustainability while spurring innovation in many Least Developed Countries (LDCs). New technologies, such as next-generation networks (NGN) and broadband, can act as catalysts in addressing extreme poverty, structural weaknesses of economies, climate change impacts, and the general vulnerabilities of LDCs that often expose them to immense infrastructure damage and loss of human life due to natural disasters.
Media are invited to attend the discussions and meet with participants.
What:
Digital Inclusion for Least Developed Countries (LDCs):
Innovation, Growth, Sustainability
When:
8-9 March 2011
Where:
ITU Headquarters (Room K-1), Place des Nations, Geneva, Switzerland
Why:
Consultations to provide inputs to 4th United Nations Conference on LDCs (Istanbul, Turkey, 9-13 May 2011) and address the developmental role of ICTs.
Who:
· Mr Cheick Sidi Diara, UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States
· Dr Hamadoun Touré, Secretary-General, ITU
· Ms Suvi Lindén, Minister of Communication, Finland
· Secretaries to the Governments of Bangladesh and Nepal
· Heads of Mission of Turkey, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Finland, Liberia, Mexico, Nepal and Zambia, and Permanent Representative of the African Union to the UN in Geneva
· Director General, Uganda Communications Commission
· Chairman, Zambia Information Communications Technology Authority
· Representatives of UNCTAD, UNDP, WIPO, UNESCO and FAO
· International experts