As we approach the second phase of the WSIS in Tunis, we remember the controversy around the issue of financing and the debates that fed the first phase of the Summit in Geneva in 2003. It was only on the last day of the Summit, in the absence of a consensus on how to tackle the digital divide, that the President of Senegal Abdoulaye Wade, the City of Geneva, the City of Lyon and the Province of Turin announced the creation of the global Digital Solidarity Fund.

Their unexpected agreement was seen as innovative, in that it forged a link between two very different political approaches: the local and the intergovernmental. If the influence of local authorities at the international level was previously relatively limited, the creation of the DSF meant that the traditional and somewhat reductionism views on the role of local actors on the global scene, was starting to change.

Today, two years later and a few hours away from the Tunis Summit, the WSIS remains an arena of intergovernmental decision, often estranged from local concerns. Nevertheless, thanks to growing support across all sectors, the development of the DSF is the living proof that the WSIS is a valuable platform for making and implementing multi-stakeholder policies.

In Tunis, the renewed commitment of all partners to the DSF principles and to the Fund’s development will highlight the fact that concrete global solutions to reduce disparities in the field of the Information Society are indeed possible.

Amadou Top
Vice-President of the DSF