huridocs-tech OneWorld Launches Digital Divide Campaign

OneWorld, the organisation behind the world's leading portal on the Web
for human rights and sustainable development, has launched an online
campaign on the global digital divide
<www.oneworld.net/campaigns/digitaldivide>.

Communications technologies are playing an increasingly important role in
economic development, education, health and governance. The exclusion of
billions who are poor, illiterate, rural or non-English speaking from the
evolving global information infrastructure has serious effects and the
digital divide is fast becoming a critical issue for developing countries.

The Internet must be harnessed for sustainable development and access to
the benefits of new technology should be for all. The rights to be
informed and to the means to communicate enshrined in the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights should be protected and extended with the
Internet.

Anuradha Vittachi, Director of OneWorld International Foundation says: "We
must ensure that the rhetoric of political leaders on digital divide is
matched by responding to real needs. The challenge is to ensure that both
the growing worldwide digital divide and initiatives to address it do not
compound the existing gap between rich and poor."

OneWorld's Digital Divide Campaign highlights the issues and challenges
surrounding emerging technologies. It brings together material from
OneWorld's online partnership of over 700 NGOs and international
organisations such as UN agencies.



For more information contact Glen Tarman, OneWorld International
T +44 (0)1494 481629 E media@oneworld.net

OneWorld is a non-profit network that aims to harness the democratic
potential of the Internet to promote sustainable development and human
rights. Its supersite, www.OneWorld.net, is the world's leading portal on
global justice and a gateway to over 700 NGOs worldwide.

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