1 July 2004
Lagos — THE fund raising campaign for the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS-2005) slated to hold in Hammemet, Tunisia, in November 2005, has continued to receive support.
Champion Infotel recalled that the WSIS-2005 fundraising campaign was launched in April 2004 to raise at least, five million Swiss Franc (CHF) approximated (US$3980574.795) in financial contributions for the WSIS Fund and the remainder through in-kind contributions to support core preparatory activities of the summit.
At the end of the first Preparatory Committee Meeting (PrepCom-1) which ended in Tunisia over the weekend, some responses were made following an open appeal by the Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Mr. Yoshio Utsumi, to the international community for voluntary contributions.
A press statement jointly endorsed by the Head, Corporate Communication at ITU, Mr. Francine Lambert, and Communication Officer at WSIS Executive Secretariat, Ms Sanjay Acharya, indicated that governments, international organizations and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) demonstrated their commitments to the success of the summit by announcing new financial contributions to the WSIS 2005 Fund.
This was to support the core preparatory process of the Tunis phase.
Some of the governments that announced their contribution at the first PrepCom, so far, according to the press statement are Japan (CHF 383'000), Norway (CHF 180'000), Spain (CHF 150'000), the Netherlands (CHF 75'000), Namibia (CHF 12'500) and the Holy See (CHF 4'000).
They were joined by intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations including the World Meteorological Organization (CHF 15'000), the United Nations Federal Credit Union (CHF 1'250) and the International Institute for Non-Aligned Studies (CHF 200).
ITU Scribe, Mr. Utsumi, expressed gratitude to the donors for their support, and added "with these new contributions for the WSIS Fund, we have reached 24 per cent of our goal for the WSIS-2005 Fundraising Campaign. This is up from just eight per cent of the campaign goal prior to the Hammamet meeting".
The Secretary-General noted that voluntary contributions by member states and other stakeholders were essential, because "The UN General Assembly did not establish a budget for WSIS and instead called upon the international community to support the summit through voluntary contributions to the special fund established by ITU".
The new financial contributions announced at the Hammamet preparatory meeting were on top of the CHF 386'283 already donated by Japan at the launch of the fundraising campaign last April.
The new contributions also bring the total of the WSIS Fund to over CHF 1.2 million.
In addition, the government of the Republic of Korea earlier announced a contribution of CHF 200'000 to support WSIS-related projects and the ITU Council allocated CHF 1'194'000 to support a range of activities related to the summit.
A number of governments and other stakeholders have also made in-kind contributions to the Tunis phase of the summit, including the secondment of staff to the WSIS Executive Secretariat.
All these, the Secretary-General said his office was grateful about and expressed his thanks to the governments of Canada, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and Tunisia as well as UNESCO, KDDI Corporation, the Organisation Tunisienne de l'Education et de la Famille and the Tunisian Association for Communications for their commitment to WSIS.
In particular, the Secretary-General highlighted the significant contribution made by the government of Tunisia in organizing the preparatory meeting in Hammamet and in supporting the meetings of the WSIS Bureau in the Tunis phase.
Mr. Utsumi stressed "we hope to see a wide base of support for the fundraising campaign, from all regions", pointing out, that all donations, "big and small, will contribute to the success of the summit."
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