Ohrid, 1 April 2012
President Kagame has arrived in Macedonia and will on Monday co-chair, with Carlos Slim, a meeting of the ITU Broadband Commission.
President Kagame will today meet with the President of Macedonia, Dr. Gjorge Ivanov in the resort town of Ohrid where the Broadband Commission meeting is being held. Tomorrow’s meeting will review the commission’s activities aimed at accelerating global broadband access and discuss a proposed strategy to be presented at the upcoming UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20).
The Macedonia meeting follows the Broadband Leadership Summit that was held in Geneva in October 2011, which set broadband targets for increased access and affordability of broadband services by 2015. The Broadband Commission also met in Kigali in September 2011.
ITU and UNESCO set up the Broadband Commission for Digital Development in response to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s call to step up UN efforts to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). The Commission was established in May 2010 to boost the importance of broadband on the international policy agenda and believes that expanding broadband access in every country is key to accelerating progress towards the MDGs. It defines practical ways in which countries — at all stages of development — can achieve this, in cooperation with the private sector.
The Commission comprises a high-powered community, including top CEO and industry leaders, senior policy-makers and government representatives, international agencies, academia and organizations concerned with development. Leaders in their field, they each believe strongly in a future based on broadband and offer rich insights and experience in how to deploy and use broadband networks and services to the benefit of communities and end-users.