Senegal, Mayors Bypass Nations, Set Up Digital Fund
By Traci Hukill

GENEVA Days after representatives from nearly 200 countries put the idea on hold, two European cities and the government of Senegal today launched a global digital solidarity fund to help poor countries bridge the digital divide.

Dissatisfaction with what they described as the typical U.N. summit process of talk followed by inaction led the mayors of Geneva and the French city of Lyon to join in an unusual alliance with the African nation.

"We wanted to make sure at this summit there would not only be declarations of intent but also acts, and this is our way to ensure that enhancement of human rights in this world can be helped in this way," said Geneva Mayor Christian Ferrazino.

The two cities donated $395,000 and $368,000 respectively to the fund on the final day of the World Summit on the Information Society. The fund, initially proposed by Senegal's President Abdoulaye Wade in the run-up to the summit, also received $500,000 from Senegal, bringing the total to the significant figure of 1 million euros. The three founders hope to solicit donations from other cities, nations and perhaps even the United Nations itself.

Senegalese Minister of Communication Mamadou Diop, standing in at a press conference for an unavoidably delayed Wade, seconded Ferrazino's sentiments. "We thought we should not finish with the usual resolutions, the usual commitments which are theoretical but do not give rise to concrete action," he said.

For months, controversy has swirled around the notion of a voluntary U.N.-administered fund to help technologically disadvantaged countries build telephone lines and other infrastructure in an attempt to keep the digital gap and its inseparable twin, the wealth gap, from widening further. The need to bridge the divide was obvious - half the people in the world do not have access to a telephone but how to meet it was less so. In a series of preparatory meetings before the summit, country negotiators locked horns: developing countries wanted the fund, while developed countries said it would be plagued by waste and proposed instead using existing institutions to manage the effort.

On Tuesday, in what appeared to be a defeat for Senegal and its allies, negotiators working on a draft declaration to be approved at the summit decided not to decide yet. They would instead commission a study on the subject to be completed by the second phase of the WSIS, scheduled for November 2005 in Tunisia. The agreed-upon text neither encouraged nor prohibited independently established funds or bilateral agreements.

Wade was reportedly upbeat after Tuesday's decision, and today's launch explains why. The three officials on the dais at the conference were short on details about how they would manage their digital solidarity fund details such as what criteria they would use to dole out funding and how they would assure other potential contributors that the fund was managed in a transparent manner but they clearly believe they and their unorthodox alliance are onto something big.

The two mayors especially seem to think their time has come.

Asked how countries would react to the establishment of a fund they had just refused to create, Ferrazino shrugged.

"They cannot do anything about it," he said. "This is the way things are going these days. Many people live in cities and municipalities, and within 20 years 80 percent of the world's population will be living in cities and municipalities."

"[U.N. Secretary General] Kofi Annan instructed the former Brazilian president to reflect on the future of relations between cities and municipalities with international and intergovernmental organizations," added Lyon's Mayor Gerard Collomb. "Mr. Annan knows full well that a number of large cities and municipalities throughout the world would have economic, cultural and social power that would ensure they can play a significant role as players at the world level."

"At Rio, the cities were not involved," Ferrazino said, referring to the 1992 U.N. Conference on Environment and Development, also called the Earth Summit. "But who was responsible for implementing all this? The cities and local authorities."

"The role of the state is changing," Ferrazino continued. "We have the European Union, the African Union, organizations that are regrouping states. The fund we're talking about is of course a new initiative taking advantage of this new reality."

Copyright 2003 by National Journal Group Inc. Distributed under terms of use of the United Nation Foundation's U.N. Wire.