South-Eastern European regional Ministerial Conference on the information society in preparation for WSIS-2
On the suggestion of the late President of the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Boris Trajkovski, at the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), in Geneva in 2003, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) invited the Stability Pact for South-Eastern Europe (through its Information Society initiative) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to co-organize a regional Ministerial Summit on this topic as part of the preparations for the second phase of the Summit in 2005.
The Government of Greece offered its hospitality for this event, together with representatives of the private sector from the South-Eastern Europe Telecommunication and Informatics Institute (INA).
The Ministerial, which took place in Thessaloniki on 30 June - 1 July 2005, focused on three objectives.
-
Reviewing the subregional action plan for the Information Society of the e-South-Eastern Europe (eSEE) initiative, examining the fulfilment of commitments, priorities and deadlines, in order to revise the action plan (the eSEE initiative includes Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, the FYR of Macedonia, the Republic of Moldova, and Serbia and Montenegro)
- Signing a Memorandum of Understanding on the "Broadband for Southeast Europe" (bSEE) initiative
- Providing input to the second WSIS, scheduled for 16-18 November 2005 in Tunis.
Countries in the region agreed to collaborate with the eSEE initiative and UNDP on further developing e-Government in the region, and with UNECE on developing projects and implementing global standards in e-business. INA will initially provide the secretariat for the regional broadband initiative.
Mario Apostolov
Regional Adviser
Trade Development and Timber Division
Palais des Nations, Room 437
CH-1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
tel.: +41 22 9171134 fax: +41 22 9170037
e-mail: [email protected]
|