Business shows support for forum

  • 18 March 2005

ICC's Commission on E-business, IT and Telecommunications (EBITT) has expressed its support for a forum of discussion that would enable governments, business and civil society organizations to bolster the information society.

Business representatives from over 20 countries and from a range of sectors gathered for the bi-annual meeting here this week to review important issues in the field.

ICC’s Secretary General, Maria Livanos Cattaui who participated in the meeting, advocated the continuation of the commission’s policy and practice work on the broad spectrum of Internet-related issues. These include open source software, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), traffic data retention, privacy, multilingual domain names and the promotion of the information security.

Chairman of the EBITT commission, Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, encouraged the establishment of a long-term platform that would bring together all interested parties. He urged business to take a lead in such an initiative.

“Business must act to avoid the pitfalls of short-term solutions,” he said. “Current initiatives and events leave many issues unaddressed. It is unrealistic to assume that solutions can be developed in such a short time frame.”

Mr Ghazaleh made clear that currently existing venues and mechanisms often lacked expertise, didn’t permit the broad participation of all relevant parties, and/or sorely missed business leadership.

He proposed that such a platform would be given credibility and authority by having a UN connection, and must create much needed synergy and cooperation among all stakeholders on Information Communication Technology (ICT) and development related issues.