Abu-Ghazaleh: World is Entering Era of NGOs and Headed towards Creation of Civil Global Society
19 Apr 2003The International Development Center at Harvard University organized a seminar on technical innovation and development on April 17, 2003.
Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, Vice-Chair of the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force (UN ICT TF) and Chairman of the Commission on E-Business, Information Technologies and Telecoms - International Chamber of Commerce, spoke at the event. He addressed the issue of information technologies and communications for development and encouragement of international cooperation.
At the seminar, Abu-Ghazaleh emphasized that the global business society is a primary source of knowledge and technical and scientific know-how, in addition to being a source of human and financial capital to prepare the necessary resources of investments that can have a profound effect on the poor people of the world.
He stated: “One of the main methods to improve the situation of the poor is through increased cooperation amongst governmental, business and NGOs sectors throughout society. This has a big impact on developing communications and building bridges of cooperation across countries, sectors and institutions. This has also resulted in a reduction in telecommunications costs.”
Abu-Ghazaleh elaborated that one of the benefits of this indirect technology is the method of operation of the UN ICT TF, which represents a partnership between all sectors of society (government, businesses and civil society) that collaborate to fulfill common goals.
He said: “In the past few years, we did not enter the internet age only, but we’ve also entered the era of NGOs. Therefore, one of the permanent effects of the model of information technology, communications and development may very well be the creation of a civil global society.
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