The Lyon World Conference is due to take place towards the end of 2008. It will put forward the signature of a Convention on the 1% digital solidarity contribution. This “will be the starting point for a society finally governed by a sense of solidarity”, according to the Mayor of Lyon, French Senator and President of the World Digital Solidarity Agency.

 

 

n 2002, in Monterrey, two years after setting themselves a series of long-term goals (2015), all the nations of the world agreed to increase the resources available for development. Sharing this vision, the world’s big businesses signed the Global Compact, underlining their social responsibility in the achievement of the Millennium Goals.

In 2003 and 2005, the Geneva and Tunis Summits on the Information Society (WSIS) assessed the consequences of the North-South digital divide, which would exacerbate the already unacceptable disparities between North and South. The matter has been thoroughly discussed and the commitments of each party, particularly industrialised countries, have been solemnly confirmed.

In the meantime, the process of change is picking up speed and the infrastructures required to keep up with technical advances are being constantly modernised, leading to ever-increasing costs. Bill Gates himself asserted: “the coming decades will be even more astounding than the previous decades in the development of the information society!”

If this prediction is confirmed, the globalisation that is emerging will remain essentially limited to the happy few that have increasingly sophisticated access to the information and communication network.

This outlook is inadmissible as it will generate tensions, or even conflicts. Within this context, the initiative of the President of France to organise a high-level “World Conference on Digital Solidarity and its Financing” deserves our interest for at least three reasons:

• In essence, this idea has been born of the concept of solidarity between North and South. It is at the urgent request of heads of state in the South, including President Abdoulaye Wade, that this Conference will be held at the end of 2008, in Lyon.
• The event comes just before the Doha Conference, where the commitment of the international community to development will be examined. We already know that this commitment falls well short of what was hoped. The results of the Lyon Conference could have a positive influence at the Doha Conference.
• The Lyon Conference will be the first global negotiation for development, bringing together government delegates as well as representatives of the private sector, civil society and local authorities. This new constellation – which is, in itself, a revolution – is also an incontrovertible necessity if we want to lay the foundations of a society governed by principles of solidarity.

Given that the amount of official development assistance (ODA) is steadily decreasing, we must wholeheartedly accept the idea of innovative financing mechanisms for development. Indeed, this is essential if even a small part of the Millennium Goals are to be achieved. The transition to the information society provides us with a unique opportunity to “think outside the box”.

These are all reasons to strive to ensure that the Lyon World Conference, coming shortly after all those declarations of intent, finally produces some concrete results. If the political will is there and the industrialised nations genuinely want to reduce the digital divide, the Lyon International Convention will be the starting point for “a new kind of development” and a society finally governed by a sense of solidarity.