Communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri has challenged her peers to take advantage of technological developments such as mobile handsets for receiving news.
The minister was speaking at the sixth Conference of the Ministers of Information and Communications (Cominac VI) of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) countries in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, this week.
She challenged member countries to take advantage of technological developments like mobile handsets that "have made it possible for broadcasters and end-users not to be fixed to the traditional ways of receiving news".
The conference was held under the theme "advancing information and communications collaborations towards a more dynamic NAM". It was held after a lapse of nine years following the last such meeting, which was held in Abuja, Nigeria, in 1996. The event concluded with the adoption of the Kuala Lumpur Declaration that advocates advancements in ICT to forge links and bridge the widening digital and information divide.
The Kuala Lumpur Declaration on NAM Information and Communication Collaboration noted the continued lopsided nature of information dissemination, which it said "tends to disadvantage the vast majority of NAM states and other developing countries as well".
The conference emphasised the need for advanced training in ICT to raise the overall standard and quality of the sector in order to facilitate information dissemination and communication.
To counter the imbalance, member states welcomed a Malaysian proposal for the establishment of NAM News Network (NNN) that will provide a more sustained and efficient flow of news and information among NAM members and other developing countries that share the same vision.
"I believe the proposed NNN will be Internet-based and therefore it would be proper for us to consider issues discussed at the WSIS [World Summit on the Information Society] that was held in Tunis," said Matsepe-Casaburri.
She also urged NAM member countries to follow the debates on Internet governance as tabled at the WSIS to ensure Internet governance is legitimate, transparent and democratic.
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