International Relations News European Union - Latin America and Caribbean Ministerial Forum on the Information Society European Union - Latin America and Caribbean Ministerial Forum on the Information Society
- 25/04/2006
The IV European Union - Latin America and Caribbean Ministerial Forum on the Information Society (text in Portuguese) will take place at the Centro Cultural de Belém in Lisbon on 28th and 29th April 2006. It will be organised by the Portuguese Government and the European Commission, with the support of Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC) and AHCIET - Asociación Hispanoamericana de Centros de Investigación y Empresas de Telecomunicaciones (in its role as a member of the InternationalStakeholder Networkconsortium of the European Union’s @LIS - Alliance for the Information Society Programme).
The Forum will enable discussions from previous forums - April 2002 in Seville (Spain), July 2003 in Lima (Peru) and November 2004 in Rio de Janeiro (Brazil) – to be continued. A declaration focussing on the social impact of Information and Communication Technologies will be discussed and later submitted to the EU-LAC Summit of Heads of State and Government, which will be held in Vienna on 11th and 12th May 2006.
Participants at the Forum will include ministers, national Information Society and/or e-Inclusion programme coordinators and presidents of sector regulatory agencies from both regions, as well as high-level representatives from civil society, the private sector and international organisations.
More than 300 people from 64 countries will take part in the meeting, including some 20 members of government from the countries involved. The Austrian Presidency of the European Union will be represented by the Secretary of State from the Federal Ministry of Finance Alfred Finz, the European Commission by the Commissioner for Information Society and Media, Viviane Reding, and Portugal by the Minister for Science, Innovation and Higher Education, José Mariano Gago.
The Forum sessions will focus on Inclusive Information Society development policies in particular. Specific thematic sessions are planned for four aspects of the Information Society, namely those related to Public Administration, Education, Health and Inclusion.
There will also be an exhibition space for 25 projects from the European Union’s @LIS programme. This programme is managed by the Europe Aid Cooperation Office at the European Commission and its objective is to step up cooperation between the European Union and Latin America in the Information Society areas, including strengthening dialogue and cooperation between regulatory managers in key Information Society areas and improving links between networks and research communities in the two regions.