G8 SETS PLAN TO BRIDGE DIGITAL DIVIDE

The world’s big eight powers endorsed an action plan on Saturday to bridge the "digital divide” with the poorest countries.

Host nation Italy said leaders at a Group of Eight summit backed a task force report on how to harness technology in

The world’s big eight powers endorsed an action plan on Saturday to bridge the "digital divide” with the poorest countries.

Host nation Italy said leaders at a Group of Eight summit backed a task force report on how to harness technology in the cause of development.

The Digital Opportunity Task Force was set up at last year’s G8 summit in Okinawa, Japan.

"Even a year ago, demonstrators were burning computers on the streets of Okinawa saying that poor people need water and you can’t drink a computer,” Vernon Ellis, a business executive who served on the task force, told a news conference.

"In fact…there isn’t a trade-off between information and communication technologies and other development needs. These technologies can make a real difference to health, to education, to empowerment and to enterprise.”

Ellis is international chairman of the consulting firm Accenture and was one of 43 members on the task force.

The cover of the action plan document shows a photograph of two black children, their bodies covered with ceremonial paint, squatting next to a laptop computer on a dusty plain.

The idea is to help those in poor countries gain better access to information and communications technology, if not on the desert floor then perhaps at communal sites in villages, and to promote the use of these technologies in reducing poverty.

The World Bank’s director of investment in digital technology in poor countries, Mohsen Khalil, said the Bank invests about $1.5 billion annually in information infrastructure and in projects using such technology, and the new action plan could leverage more funding.

Zoe Baird, president of the New York-based advocacy group Markle Foundation and another task force member, said the U.S. government had pledged $100 million to help implement the report.

But participants said that while money was important, the key to the report was setting up a strategy to start bridging the North-South divide.

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