In this statement, Mr. Pierre-Alain Muet, Deputy for Lyon in the French National Assembly, calls community organisations to action and appeals for an ethic of solidarity. 

 

s has already been discussed in this newsletter, we are seeing upheavals that foretell a change of civilisation. While these major developments do not challenge the universal values that have determined our behaviour until now, they do call for a public debate to ensure that those values are truly shared by all the actors in the information and communication society.

Now more than ever, the future of this new society is conditioned by the inclusion of all stakeholders in the debate, which is perhaps the only way to approach globalisation.

The stakes have changed, and we must adapt our attitudes to the new demands. Solidarity must form the cornerstone of this process and guide the actions of public authorities and the behaviour of all public and private-sector stakeholders. Only an ethic of solidarity will enable us to transcend the contradictions of an evolution that has led our Western societies down the path of individualism. Globalisation has spelled the end of purely state focused solutions.

The inability of the richest countries to honour their commitments in terms of development cooperation is just one example of this.

In this new climate, the adoption of this ethic to guide political, economic and individual behaviour depends on community structures (businesses, civil society, the media and trade unions, and at the institutional level, local and regional authorities), which will most probably condition the building (or not) of a world governed by solidarity.

The Global Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) appeals to these community stakeholders, which have a fundamental role in the information society, to develop solidarity actions.

It is in this context that the DSF developed the “Geneva principle”, the 1% digital solidarity contribution on all transactions involving digital products or services. With this same vision, it urges community stakeholders to exercise solidarity in the fields of health, education, culture and good governance.

In this spirit, the DSF is campaigning hard for the adoption of a global Convention on financing digital solidarity (achievable with the help of national governments) to ensure that community organisations, particularly businesses and local and regional authorities, assume their share of the responsibility for development cooperation.

From this perspective, the DSF invites you to join the one thousand telemedicine units project, to equip district hospitals in the third world with the means of providing quality care to people who are currently excluded from the information society.