(Lima, 22 November 2010) The Third Ministerial Conference on the Information Society of Latin America and the Caribbean opened today in Lima, Peru, and was attended by almost 300 participants, including delegates from 18 countries, government authorities and representatives of international agencies and civil society.
The opening session highlighted the fact that information and communications technologies (ICTs) are vital for the adoption of new strategies for moving towards economic development with equality and social inclusion.
"Technological innovation must permeate the social and productive spheres. We are spurred on by the idea that ICTs can help make progress towards a development that generates new relationships among the State, market and society", declared Alicia Bárcena, Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), as she opened the Conference.
The Executive Secretary thanked the Government of Peru for the support provided for the Conference and acknowledged the considerable efforts that Peru has made to reduce inequality in recent years.
At the Conference, which will end on Tuesday 23 November, countries will adopt a new regional plan of action called eLAC2015, which views ICTs as a means of achieving development with more innovation and equality.
According to Ms. Bárcena "The potential of ICTs to achieve greater productive convergence and thus generate competitive advantages and increase the coverage of services such as education, health and government services represents a valuable set of assets that we must learn how to use (...) We need public policies that have an equalizing effect for the purposes of growth, using ICTs and a change in the technical and economic paradigm as the main instruments".
"Today we face the challenge of identifying new priorities and proposing a new action plan to step up regional cooperation in this field (...) In this sense, eLAC is the main joint effort in terms of the region's ICT policies and will facilitate policy implementation through the coordination of efforts and the exchange of best practices".
The Secretary-General of the Andean Community, Adalid Contreras Baspineiro, stated that the Andean region has a clear integrationist vocation, and that universal access to broadband and the use of ICTs will help to build bridges of integration among countries.
The Head of the European Union Delegation in Peru, Hans Alldén, declared that the use of ICTs has been proven to help reduce poverty in Latin American and Caribbean countries, but that this requires tackling the major differences in access to technology that still persist in the region.
On behalf of the host country, the Minister of Transport and Telecommunications of Peru, Enrique Cornejo Ramírez, welcomed participants and stressed the importance of combining economic growth with policies that promote social inclusion and decent jobs, so as to reduce the gaps between the richest and poorest.
He added that "Territory is fundamental here, as pointed out by ECLAC. Special efforts must be made to adapt territories in order to bring technology to those places where there is still considerable poverty (...) In this sense, ICTs are a powerful tool and represent a major opportunity for countries to make progress".
On the first day of the Conference, the Executive Secretary presented the document entitled ICT for growth and equality: renewing strategies for the information society, which examines the digital divide between Latin America and developed nations, and proposes strategies to renew public policies in this area.
The media are invited to take part in this conference, which will be held at the Hotel Sheraton in Lima.
For more information, visit the website of the Conference.
For the webcast of sessions, click on the following link.
For queries and to arrange interviews, your contact in Lima is felix.ibanez@cepal.org, from the ECLAC Public Information and Web Services Section: mobile (56 9) 88390576, or laura.palacios@cepal.org. In Santiago, Chile, please contact dpisantiago@cepal.org; telephone: (56 2) 210 2040.
