A South African government delegation, headed by communications minister Ivy Matsepe-Casaburri, is taking part in a nine-day World Telecommunication Development Conference in Doha, Qatar, this week, where she is expected to deliver a statement on behalf of the country.
The delegation includes Lyndall Shope-Mafole, Department of Communications director-general; Dr Keith Shongwe, deputy director-general for strategic policy coordination and integration; and Mokwining Nhlapo, COO for the Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development. There will also be representatives from the Independent Communications Authority of SA and Sentech.
The conference, scheduled to run until 15 March, is to be attended by around 1 000 delegates from governments and the private sector. It is convened in the period between two International Telecommunication Union (ITU) plenipotentiary conferences, every four years.
At a media conference on the eve of the opening, Roberto Blois, deputy secretary-general of the ITU, said: "In order to reach the WSIS [World Summit on the Information Society] goal of connecting all communities, we have to tailor the potential of technology to the needs of humanity, especially remote communities and vulnerable sections of the population."
The Department of Communications said in a statement this week that the conference aimed to reach agreement on development priorities in view of the high-level recognition of the digital divide between developing and developed nations, as well as to promote international cooperation and partnership.
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