Gérard Collomb, Senator and Mayor of Lyon, announces the hosting of a world conference on digital solidarity financing

How is Lyon getting involved in digital solidarity?

Since 2002, the cities of Lyon, Geneva and the province of Turin have coordinated their efforts to stimulate local authorities to engage in digital solidarity. This commitment began with the first Summit of Cities and Local Authorities on the Information Society, in Lyon, December 2003, where President Abdoulaye Wade announced the creation of the Global Digital Solidarity Fund. We announced this initiative in Geneva, in December 2003 during the WSIS, with Geneva Mayor Christian Ferrazino and President Wade.

Since then, we have continued collaborating until the Fund was inaugurated the 14th of March 2005. A founding member of the DSF, Greater Lyon also helped create the World Agency for Digital Solidarity, which will bring in essential methodological support to the DSF. The Agency is a pool of international expertise on issues related to the digital divide. The idea is to identify potential pilot projects and to develop them on a larger scale.

Can French local authorities apply the «one percent» digital solidarity principle?

This new financing tool, also called the Geneva Principle, is compatible with WTO regulations: it does not cause distortion of market competition and allows investment in markets that are presently still insolvent. So far, the French «code for public markets» doesn’t include this digital solidarity clause in public calls for bids related to information technologies. It is then up to the regulatory power, that is to say the French Government, also a founding member of the DSF, to make evolve the code for public markets.

The idea is to amend the code so that local authorities who wish to implement digital solidarity principle can do so. This is why I have decided, based on the Declaration of Cities and Local Authorities gathered in Bilbao last November, to approach the French Government about allowing the application of the «one percent» digital solidarity principle in France, underlining the interest of this innovative approach to reducing the technology gap..

What is slowing down the application of the «one percent» digital solidarity principle at the local level?

Implementing this innovative principle necessitates consultation with all local stakeholders, including municipalities, businesses and civil society. For this reason, and in order to carry through the proposal made by the President of the DSF, I have offered to host in the autumn of 2006, a world conference on digital solidarity financing. The objective of this conference will be to ensure the long-term financing of the DSF through three channels: by allowing everyone present to announce their contribution to the Fund, by creating a legislative environment that is favourable to applying the «one percent» digital solidarity principle and by promoting the idea of tax write-offs for all donations to the Global Digital Solidarity Fund.