FAIT Committee Meeting

37th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

EVIDENCE

CONTENTS

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

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0910

The Chair (Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke--Lakeshore, Lib.))

Mr. Peter Harder (Deputy Minister, Department of Industry, G8 Digital Opportunity Task Force (G8 DOT force) Canadian Advisory Committee)

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0915

¿

0920

The Chair

Mr. Richard Fuchs (Director, Information and Communications Technologies for Development, International Development Research Centre, G8 Digital Opportunity Task Force, Canadian Advisory Committee, )

¿

0925

¿

0930

¿

0935

The Chair

Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca, Canadian Alliance)

Mr. Peter Harder

Mr. Keith Martin

Mr. Peter Harder

The Chair

Mr. Keith Martin

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0940

Mr. Peter Harder

The Chair

Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ)

Mr. Richard Fuchs

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0945

Mr. Peter Harder

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0950

The Chair

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.)

Mr. Peter Harder

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Peter Harder

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Peter Harder

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Harder

Mr. Sarkis Assadourian

Mr. Richard Fuchs

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0955

The Chair

Mr. Richard Fuchs

The Chair

Mr. Keith Martin

À

1000

Mr. Richard Fuchs

Mr. Peter Harder

The Chair

À

1005

Mr. John Harvard (Charleswood St. James--Assiniboia, Lib.)

Mr. Peter Harder

Mr. John Harvard

Mr. Peter Harder

Mr. Richard Fuchs

À

1010

Mr. John Harvard

The Chair

Mr. Richard Fuchs

The Chair

Mr. Yves Rocheleau (Trois-Rivières, BQ)

Mr. Richard Fuchs

The Chair

Ms. Aileen Carroll (Barrie--Simcoe--Bradford, Lib.)

À

1015

Mr. Richard Fuchs

Ms. Aileen Carroll

Mr. Richard Fuchs

Mr. Peter Harder

The Chair

Mrs. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce--Lachine, Lib.)

Mr. Richard Fuchs

À

1020

Mrs. Marlene Jennings

Mr. Richard Fuchs

Mr. Peter Harder

Ms. Marlene Jennings

The Chair

Mr. Keith Martin

À

1025

Mr. Peter Harder

Mr. Keith Martin

Mr. Peter Harder

Mr. Keith Martin

À

1030

Mr. Peter Harder

Mr. Keith Martin

The Chair

Ms. Francine Lalonde

Mr. Peter Harder

À

1035

Ms. Francine Lalonde

Mr. Peter Harder

Ms. Francine Lalonde

Mr. Peter Harder

Ms. Francine Lalonde

Ms. Francine Lalonde

Mr. Peter Harder

Ms. Francine Lalonde

The Chair

Mr. Peter Harder

The Chair

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CANADA

Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade

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NUMBER 068

l

1st SESSION

l

37th PARLIAMENT

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EVIDENCE

Tuesday, April 16, 2002

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

¿  (0910)  

[English]

    The Chair (Ms. Jean Augustine (Etobicoke--Lakeshore, Lib.)): Bonjour. I'm so very pleased to be back with the committee after my few days in Africa on the G-8 study and the focus on Africa. I hope that there'll be some opportunity to just discuss some of my impressions with the committee, either formally or informally.

    But today, pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), on the study of the agenda of the 2002 G-8 summit, we have before us witnesses who will speak to us about the Canadian Advisory Committee of the G-8 Digital Opportunity Task Force. As you know from the information we sent out to you, the mandate of the G-8 DOT force, taken from the Okinawa charter adopted by the G-8 leaders at their last summit in Okinawa, Japan, set out to establish the Digital Opportunity Task Force with a view to integrating a broader international approach. It's a high-level task force working in close consultation with other partners, and I think the players before us are going to be speaking to that effect.

    With us is the deputy minister from the Department of Industry, Mr. Peter Harder, and the director of information and communications technologies for development, IDRC--International Development Research Centre--Mr. Richard Fuchs. As well, Mr. Charles Sirois, the chairman and chief executive officer of Telesystem Ltd., is en route, we understand, and hopefully, whenever he gets here, he will join us.

    Before asking the witnesses to present, since this is my first opportunity, I'd like to officially welcome to Stockwell Day to this committee. We look forward to working collaboratively with you and with your colleague, Dr. Martin, who has been a long-standing member of the committee, so we can get some really important work done for Canadians.

    So thank you and welcome. We look forward to your input.

    Mr. Harder, do you want to begin?

    Mr. Peter Harder (Deputy Minister, Department of Industry, G8 Digital Opportunity Task Force (G8 DOT force) Canadian Advisory Committee): Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. It's a pleasure for me to be here with one colleague who's already here and the other who is, as you said, en route. He's caught in the fog coming in from Montreal.

    I won't make any comments, but Charles Sirois, as you know, is a pioneer in the telecommunications industry and has been a lead spokesperson for the private sector participation in the Digital Opportunity Task Force.

    I'm going to speak to the deck that has been distributed to you, and when I'm finished I'll hand it over to Richard Fuchs,who will speak from the perspective of the civil society representatives and some of the work the IDRC is doing in this task force.

    As page 2 seeks to describe, ICTs, information communication technologies, are increasingly being recognized as much more than just a key economic sector, but rather a vital enabling tool to help achieve social development objectives through the sharing of information and knowledge. It is believed that ICTs hold great potential for transforming all areas of life, including how we conduct business in trade and deliver health care and education, as well as how we govern.

    I'm happy to report to you that in our work, the debate between an either/or dilemma, do we ICTs or do we do traditional development, has really fallen by the wayside. There's a consensus that we need to include ICTs in all aspects of the development agenda, and there are great opportunities.

    I want to quote very briefly from the Prime Minister of Mozambique, who spoke at a conference in Palermo just last week on the digital divide and e-government. He said:

Now Mozambique is going to be known in the near and distant future for its commitment to the mastery and utilization of information and communication technology for sustainable national development. Towards that end my country has recently adopted its national ICT policy because we clearly see that health is an indispensable indicator for a country’s development. In today’s world it is the ability to efficiently and effectively use ICT that plays an increasingly important role for a country’s relevance and competitiveness in the global economy.

    As you know, the Canadian government has for some time recognized the importance of giving access to information and communication technologies for Canadians. We've established a goal of making Canada the most connected country in the world, and as a result of the work of the so-called Connecting Canadians agenda, we now enjoy in Canada one of the highest percentages of population online of any country in the world.

    Canada connected all of its schools and libraries to the Internet over two years ago, and our SchoolNet program is now recognized around the world for its innovative and exciting approach to learning through technology.

    Our community access program, CAP, was an initiative developed to help provide Canadians with an affordable public access system for Internet access. We are now in the process of establishing about 9,200 sites across Canada, which is a model of community-based access to the Internet.

[Translation]

    Unfortunately, access to the incredible opportunities afforded by ICTs is extremely limited at this time. The digital gap between rich and poor countries has widened dramatically in the past several years. Unequal access to ICTs is producing uneven levels of participation in the networked economy and society and resulting in the inability of many to share in its benefits.

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[English]

    In fact, more than three-quarters of Internet users live in OECD countries, which contain only 14% of the world's population. Canada's commitment to promote digital opportunity is not limited within our borders, but it has become, in the last while in particular, a truly global commitment. Through many channels we are sharing our domestic experience and expertise with other countries and are actively participating in building a comprehensive international strategy and action plan to help developing nations bridge the digital divide. Multilateral cooperation by governments, the private sector, civil society, and international and regional organizations is vital in building this strategy.

    As set out in the Okinawa Charter on Global Information Society, which was adopted at the G-8 meeting in Okinawa in July of 2000, the DOT force, the Digital Opportunity Task Force, was mandated to identify concrete ways to bridge the digital divide between industrialized and developing countries and to ensure that developing countries can participate more fully in the global information society. DOT force members included stakeholders from all the G-8 countries, governments of developing countries, not-for-profit organizations, the private sector, and international organizations. It was truly the first time the G-8 had an exercise that was inclusive right from the start in terms of having not just governmental representatives but private sector and civil society representatives all equally participating in the work of the Digital Opportunity Task Force.

    At the last G-8 summit in Genoa, leaders endorsed the DOT force report and a plan for action with nine priority areas as a basis for developing economies to achieve sustainable enabled development through ICTs. The DOT force has served as a catalyst to coordinate ICTs for development initiatives among various stakeholders. Its work has significantly contributed to moving the ICT agenda higher in awareness of international development issues and on the international agenda to deal with north-south issues in general. This is the first time a multi-stakeholder group has been used in the G-8 and in particular in the ICT task force. It was, by the way, the model that was adopted subsequently by the UN ICT task force when it was created last fall.

    Now, slide 8 depicts the implementation of the action plan, which is being carried out by nine implementation teams corresponding to each of these priority areas that were identified in the Genoa plan of action. Detailed actions are being taken by national governments, the international community, the private sector, and not-for-profit organizations in such areas as access and conductivity, local content and applications, entrepreneurship, and national e-strategies.

    As you are aware, the 2002 Kananaskis summit will focus on three main themes: strengthening global economic growth; building a new partnership for Africa's development, the G-8 Africa Action Plan; and fighting terrorism. In addition, leaders will review progress since their last meeting in three areas related to global poverty reduction and the UN millennium development goals: the Education for All Task Force; the DOT force implementation process, which I will speak to; and fighting the spread of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases.

    At the Genoa summit, the leaders of African countries were also present. They presented to the leaders of the G-8 the New Partnership for Africa's Development initiative, the so-called NEPAD, and it has been in this context that some of our work in the last while in particular has focused on the digital divide in the context of the new Africa Action Plan. The DOT force will have its final stock-taking meeting in Calgary the first week of May, May 6 and 7. The main objectives of the meeting are to finalize the DOT force report, which will be presented to the G-8 leaders at Kananaskis, and to discuss the DOT force's future. We will also finalize the implementation of several DOT force initiatives at that meeting.

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    As you can see from the chart on slide 12, Canada is very active in the working groups, but also has been chairing the overall work of the G-8 for the past year or so. We are participating in giving leadership, in addition to the overall leadership, to implementation team one on national e-strategies. This team, among others, is looking at developing and implementing an international e-development resource network, which will establish and support developing country and emerging economy national ICT strategies. The LEDRN will provide regulatory policy and strategy expertise to developing country policy-makers in such areas as e-commerce, telecommunications, Internet, e-health, e-learning, and e-government.

    Industry Canada is also developing, in concert with our partners at CIDA, the IDRC, Foreign Affairs, and the Canadian Centre for Management Development, along with Telesystem and other partners, Canadian deliverables for the Kananaskis summit, particularly the Canadian e-development policy centre, the institute for communications activity in Africa, and ICT entrepreneurship seed funding, a particular passion of Monsieur Sirois'.

    Let me end by simply referring you to page 13 of the deck, which gives you the Internet address for our work. Most of the work of the task force has been through Internet-based communications. You can have a look at that for additional information.

    I would now, if you agree, ask Mr. Fuchs to speak about the IDRC role, and hopefully at some point Charles Sirois can join us as well.

    The Chair: Apparently his plane has not left the ground, so we may not see him before the end of the meeting.

    Mr. Peter Harder: We should hook him up electronically.

    The Chair: Mr. Fuchs, please.

    Mr. Richard Fuchs (Director, Information and Communications Technologies for Development, International Development Research Centre, G8 Digital Opportunity Task Force, Canadian Advisory Committee, ): Thank you very much. It's a very great pleasure for me to be here this morning.

    I'm here on behalf of Maureen O'Neil, the president of the International Development Research Centre. She also serves as co-chair of the Canadian delegation to the DOT force, along with Peter Harder and Charles Sirois. This is my first time before a parliamentary standing committee, so excuse me if I am a bit nervous. But I'm very happy to be here.

    I was told I wasn't supposed to use power point, so I don't have the slides for you but I do have the deck. It's a different set of slides. Make sure you have those before you. I'll walk through them gradually with you, slide by slide.

    For those of you who may not know, IDRC was established in 1970. Our mission is to support the development of research capacity in the developing world. The IDRC Act refers to our focus on information sciences and networks that goes back as far as 1970. The organization has been involved in the information side of development since its inception, which makes it very much an innovator and leader in the use of ICTs for development.

    It's a federal corporation with a board of governors appointed by the government. Our program and operating budget is about $100 million a year. We have about 380 staff worldwide. We report through our board to the Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Trade. We are funded a proportionate amount through overseas development assistance.

    Our next slide is a map of the world. Excuse me for having Newfoundland and Labrador highlighted on this map; I'm from Newfoundland and it's the map I always use—and I'm quite accustomed to fog, I might add.

    These icons and logos represent the programs of IDRC that have to do with information and communication technologies for development. We have a program called Acacia on the African continent that began in 1996. Those were very early days in which to be doing this.

    Peter Harder made reference to the Prime Minister of Mozambique's quote. I was at a conference in Maputo, Mozambique, last October. The Prime Minister of Mozambique uses a computer and e-mail. He is able to this as a result of Canada's Acacia initiative. When he was speaking at this conference of about 400 people, Canada was the only country he singled out for helping Mozambique come to appropriate and understand ICTs for development. He didn't say because of IDRC or Acacia, but that wasn't important; he did say Canada and he didn't mention any other countries.

    After six or seven years of working on the process in Mozambique—perhaps we can talk about how that worked during questions—this country, that is among the poorest countries in the world, has come to see ICTs as central to its future.

    The other programs include: in Asia, Pan Asia Networking; in the Americas, Pan@Americas; something the Prime Minister announced at the summit of the Americas, the Institute for Connectivity in the Americas; and at the top something called BELA.NET, which is a worldwide service to NGOs and agencies involved in development.

    Among the roles we played in support of the Canadian participation in the DOT force was civilian consultation by means of the Internet. This is the home page where all the documents from the DOT force were mounted. People could download them very easily, which led to a very extensive consultation across the country using electronic tools. There were also several live meetings in Ottawa with stakeholders in the consultation.

    Moving on to the next slide, we see the issues Canadians raised through this process. I won't speak to each of them, but the digital divide refers not just to Internet access but to many other things like skills, affordability, and bandwidth as well.

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    Canadians thought, through the consultation, that the policies needed to advocate both pro-poor and pro-market approaches; that the policies should be grounded in real community-level experiences; that the Canadian bilateral programs needed to reflect the priority of the issue; that women's role in ICT4D programming would seem to be very important; that the connections between developing world regions in Canada and in the developing world are seen as necessary, as is the relationship of Canadian small businesses to developing world opportunities; and that, as Peter Harder was indicating, Canada's experience as a big country with a dispersed population has considerable relevance to many of the developing world, especially Africa.

    Essentially what I would want to indicate to you with this next slide is that information and communications technologies are increasingly becoming—dare I say the word—orthodox. I have been at this business for a long time and have been a heretic more than once about the importance of these technologies. But increasingly this approach to development is being seen as core to socio-economic development generally. We have the DOT force. We have the World Economic Forum Digital Divide Supervisory Committee. We have the UN ICT task force, and more recently we have the World Summit on the Information Society, which will be meeting in Geneva in 2003, in Tunisia in 2005.

    I mention this to you just to indicate that increasingly this Canadian approach—this approach Canada pioneered in Connecting Canada—is becoming much more conventional and normative throughout the world, as it deals with its role in the information economy.

    Just quickly, on this slide, this is how we would explain—at a fairly stratospheric level, I might apologize—why things might be different in terms of our approaches in Africa, Asia, and the Americas. We would generally see the e-markets in Africa as being pre-e-market. The most recent statistics I've seen for Internet connections in Africa indicate—this is December 2000 International Telecommunication Union data--that there are 1.3 million Internet users in Africa. Of those, 750,000 are in South Africa and 300,000 are in north Africa. For the rest of the continent that leaves about 250,000 Internet users. What we observe in much of Africa is that the use of Internet, while it's changing, is principally for expatriate institutions and very thin slices of elite export-oriented use.

    Our approach in Africa is to try to work with what we refer to as both the front and the back of the market, which is to say, as was the case in Mozambique, to work with those political, policy, and industry processes, to assist them in understanding how ICTs are important, but at the same time be working in real communities, with schools, and with libraries in rural areas, so that as the policy apparatus awakens to the importance of this, they are also listening to an informed citizenry, who have their advice and guidance to offer about how that policy should be formed. We believe Mozambique is a special case, in which this actually worked, we think, to considerable success.

    In Asia we would see things being different. In Asia we would see that there are technology engines. There is Taiwan, Korea, and Japan, and there are also much slower-growing countries in this area—Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, Sri Lanka. We see an approach that links the industry leaders and technology tigers with the slower-growing countries as being something worth doing.

    Lastly, and again I say this is stratospheric—there are as many exceptions to this as there are rules—we would see that principally in the Americas, again with some exceptions, there are cities with lots of technology capability. But principally in the rural areas access is difficult.

    If I had that power point, this would be a much nicer slide for you. I apologize for not having these in colour. This is a real place where I've been. I was first there in 1997. It's a place called Nakasek, Uganda. You go down the road from Kampala going north about 45 kilometres and you go across this cow path for about 15 kilometres to this market town of about 30,000 people. It's a very, very poor place. Going there changed my life in terms of what was important and how I wanted to spend the rest of my career. It was a place that suffered very considerably from the genocide in Uganda during the days of Idi Amin and after that. You can see that in people's gait and in people's approach to their everyday activities. It's a very poor place.

    This building is a telecentre. It's a place where there are computers now. There is one telephone line. When we first were there, there was no telephone line. A business person whom I have come to befriend, Christopher Senono would have to walk 16 kilometres in each direction to make a phone call to order supplies for his lumber and concrete block store that he operates.

    In front of that telecentre is a water pump, and if you could see the slide, you'd see the bright sun shining down on the blue metal of the pump. It's solar-powered and the backup power is pedal power. You can get on a bicycle seat and make the water come up to the pump. When the water pump was introduced in that community, everyone understood how it would help them. Some would benefit more than others but everyone knew this was going to be advantageous. It did not take a lot of merchandising in the community to convince people this was important. The telecentre is different.

¿  (0930)  

    In this particular community, when we were first there in 1997, not a telephone call had been made in 10 years. People took the telephone lines down to wrap their plantain on bicycles to take them to market, because the teledensity in Uganda at the time was seven people per thousand. So the circumstances of information and communications technologies for development are somewhat different from we might find in parts of our own country, although there are many similarities as well.

    I make this point because that telecentre is now open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day. It's blocked. Nurses from the local hospital use it, students from the local schools use it, teachers use it to develop curriculum, and business people use it to do all sorts of things, including making telephone calls and using e-mail.

    The difference in time it takes for a water pump to be accepted than for the ICTs to be accepted is very different, just as it was, if we remember, when it was first happening in rural Canada. I make this point because if there are to be investments in information and communications technologies for development, they cannot be fickle. They need to be patient. They need to give people time to appropriate and understand how these technologies can be made to work for them, not necessarily in ways we think will benefit them, but in ways that will work for them.

    Let me close by saying that one of the proposals coming out of action item two, the DOT force action group on access and connectivity, is to develop an Africa institute for connectivity in Africa that would focus on ICT innovation and demonstrations, African ICT economic futures, research and development for ICTs, and convergence in partnerships. Our organization has indicated a willingness to take our investments in Acacia and twin them with that approach.

    Thank you very much.

¿  (0935)  

    The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Fuchs.

    We'll now go to questions.

    Dr. Martin.

    Mr. Keith Martin (Esquimalt--Juan de Fuca, Canadian Alliance): Thank you very much, Madame la présidente.

    Thank you, Mr. Harder and Mr. Fuchs, for your fascinating presentations. I have a couple of questions.

    Would you suggest making a selective investment in certain groups within sub-Saharan Africa, such as elected officials, the free press, and primary education?

    Second--and you alluded to it--how do you secure your investment? When people have so little, how do you make sure things are not going to be taken?

    The last question is, what do you see as the primary obstacle in expanding ICTs throughout sub-Saharan Africa?

    Mr. Peter Harder: Let me just start, Mr. Martin.

    The DOT force, because of the very nature of its representation—private sector, civil society and government, developing world and developed world, and international organizations—has tried to take as broadly inclusive an approach as possible. So we haven't sort of segmented out that we should go for x stratus of society; rather, it is a transformative technology that can be of benefit for social and economic development, health, education, that kind of thing.

    What some countries are doing in response... Last week, for example, Italy hosted a major conference in Palermo on e-government, where Italy announced it was focusing on five countries to work with them to develop e-strategies for governance, basically government connectivity. And it wasn't targeting a stratus of society, it was targeting a certain aspect of society. They've chosen a number of countries that for Italy are important, and they hope they will be able to garner knowledge that can be passed to other countries as a result.

    The question of securing the investment has been very high in the discussions, particularly involving the private sector, who are saying they are quite prepared to make investments but there has to be the right regulatory framework, the right legal framework, to be able to attract investment. It's not simply an exhortation for the private sector to make those investments. There has to be the right pull in terms of public policy frameworks. That's why the work we're doing in terms of the e-development resource network we believe can be quite helpful in providing best practice in some of the framework policy areas that would be the preconditions necessary for private sector investment.

    If Mr. Sirois were here, he would say that he, together with the private sector leadership internationally, are trying to pull together a seed fund, because entrepreneurship and seed funding are so absolutely important but so absent—certainly in Africa in particular—that they're seeking to, where the right policy framework exists, make the investments for entrepreneurship. That's a private sector initiative.

    Mr. Keith Martin: If I may add one little thing, are you also suggesting to the countries you're working in that they implement legislation that protects both domestic and foreign investors for their investments?

    Mr. Peter Harder: With the right legal framework, absolutely. There is a matter of the right public policy framework. There's also some of the right technical requirements for ICTs that the ITU--the International Telecommunications Union--is expert in. We're seeking to have their resource centres of excellence on the technical side become part of this network for e-development.

    The Chair: You still have four seconds, Dr. Martin.

    Mr. Keith Martin: In the four seconds I have, I'll put one quick question. In trying to weigh out the relative cost benefit of actually making an investment in primary health and education versus the investment in ICTs, it's a difficult balancing act, and I wonder how we get around that.

    I thank you both.

¿  (0940)  

    Mr. Peter Harder: Let me have a stab at it, then ask Richard Fuchs to speak to it.

    What has changed in the debate from when it began in Okinawa two years ago until today is that the table that is meeting now in the G-8 context, and also now increasingly in the UN ICT task force context, does not believe we should be making those trade-offs, that ICT investments are transformative and better ways of implementing some of the traditional programs. You cannot talk about economic development in Bangladesh, for example, and not recognize implementation of a technology strategy, even if it's basic.

    I'll give you an example. The Village Payphone program is putting in place for women in villages wireless telephones that will allow them to access weather information, to access health and education information, and in fact will be the largest wireless payphone network in the world. So it's not huge mainframe, it's actually the technology that can make a difference in the circumstance of a village, in this case.

    So the conversation isn't how do we make the trade-offs; it's how do we integrate into our thinking—about economic development or social development, education and health—technology in the right transformative fashion. That's the example we're taking to political leaders in developing countries and the civil society community.

    The Chair: Merci.

    Madame Lalonde.

    Mr. Fuchs, we'll go back to you.

[Translation]

    Ms. Francine Lalonde (Mercier, BQ): Thank you very much. That was most interesting.

    I want to follow up on your response to the question. Clearly, there is some advantage for rich countries, aside from showing their generosity, in participating in the development process. There is also a very clear benefit for developing countries. I know you are interested in these questions also. However, Mr. Fuchs noted that in the quest to link these interests, policies need to incorporate both “pro-poor” and “pro-market” approaches.

    What kind of policies do you envision? Having served on the Industry Committee, my concern is that the focus will be primarily on getting funding to develop such things as satellite technology. I'd like to have some idea of the kinds of technological developments you have in mind because, to my knowledge, satellite technology would be most effective in areas that do not have telephone networks. However, for the moment, satellite technology still has its shortcomings.

    Therefore, are we going to seize the opportunity to invest vast sums of money in technological developments, in which case firms in developed countries will be the only ones that benefit? I'm looking at the situation from an aid standpoint. How will this impact economic development in various countries in Africa? That's my first question.

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: I apologize, but I don't speak French well enough to answer your question entirely in French.

[English]

    It's a very interesting and excellent question. We think the two things need to go together. We think they actually produce a win-win situation together and to not do them is a mistake from any point of view.

    Let me give you the example of Uganda. The Uganda Communications Commission wanted to create a rural offset fund. When it allowed a South African cellular provider to come into the country, for every urban line they invested in, they would be required to pay an offset for rural access. Our centre assisted the Uganda Communications Commission to do the research to set it up.

    A year and a half later, this having been done, it turns out the principal impact, observed by a professor of engineering from Makerere University, speaking at the Wireless Vision Congress in St. John's, Newfoundland, last September, is that rural users can now afford to get cellphones.

    What's the principal use of the cellphones, along with doing business? It is to dial into open-line shows to talk about the political events of the day. All of a sudden, there's this incredible awakening that their points of view can be expressed, using the cellphone, on the radio. It's the integration of the very modern low-cost disruptive technology of a cellular phone with the very traditional technology of the radio.

    It's also the case that there's an interesting convergence between those who have access to the newest technologies and those who are among the poorest. The newest technologies are scalable, affordable, and much cheaper than the old technologies.

    I'm reminded of the first telephone service in the world. Alexander Graham Bell went to Western Union and said he had a telephone service he wanted to create in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. It was three miles of radius market. He thought they should invest in it with him. They said the market was too small. He set it up himself.

    It's a hundred-year-old story that really has pertinence in Africa and other parts of the developing world. Smaller technologies, the wireless, the satellite, the wireless local loop, and the voice-over Internet protocols—all have relevance and pertinence in those countries. In fact, one of the great opportunities is that their investment in terrestrial systems does not require the kind of pro-incumbency you might find in other parts of the world. It is an interesting convergence of the interests of those who have the newest technologies and those who can afford the least.

    This comes to expression, I hate to repeat it, in Mozambique. In Mozambique, when I met with the vice-rector of the university and one of his colleagues last January in Ottawa, they described themselves, with a certain kind of pernicious pride, as being the poorest country in the world. I'm not sure that's exactly true, but it's how they described themselves.

    I have to tell you how this came to be. Mozambique's Prime Minister made the comments because there was this approach to the more elite segments of the community, including industry. At the same time, there was the activation of awareness and interest within the community sectors, educational sectors, and health sectors. As the policies developed, the communities were having their interests attended to.

¿  (0945)  

    Mr. Peter Harder: I'd like to add, if I may, two points.

    One is, the best practice in a public policy framework is to ensure technology neutrality. In the work we're putting on the resource network of policy frameworks, we're very conscious of the point Mr. Fuchs has made.

    But your question is really good. One of the concerns we had when we started this was how we proceed in a fashion that doesn't suggest this is five large telecom global companies using the front of government and civil society to bring to those who do not enjoy communication technologies their solutions.

    It was interesting how the group worked, having both government, civil society, and private sector representatives. The private sector group worked on its own, and you had healthy, differing views among the various corporate entities. But you also had the check and balance of the civil society representatives wanting to ensure that the right public policy framework was existing. And from the developing world, it wasn't just a government representative; there was a private sector representative as well. They were saying there has to be local content.

    How do we develop local software? One of the action groups--I believe it's group three--is specifically looking at something called Open Knowledge, which is specifically putting in place software that's indigenous, because at the end of the day, we do not want a homogeneous North American software solution to local needs in other areas.

    There are some excellent examples, which I hope after the Calgary meeting in early May we can make public, of new initiatives on software, because we're very conscious of the question you posed.

¿  (0950)  

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Assadourian.

    Mr. Sarkis Assadourian (Brampton Centre, Lib.): Thank you very much. I have a few short questions.

    First, can you tell me if Russia is a full and complete member of the G-8? I remember a few years ago Russia used to participate in some and abstain from others.

    Mr. Peter Harder: Mr. Assadourian, whenever G-8 is used, it includes Russia. When it's G-7 it's without Russia. A summit will be both G-7 and G-8.

    Russian ministers of finance do not participate in the G-8 on financial matters. The political part is G-8. The work of the DOT force is under the sponsorship of G-8. We had Russian private sector, Russian civil society, and Russian governmental representatives in our work.

    Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: So Putin participates fully in--

    Mr. Peter Harder: In this discussion, he would.

    Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: —the June meeting in Calgary.

    Mr. Peter Harder: On these items.

    Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: Only?

    Mr. Peter Harder: Well, on the items of the G-8.

    Mr. Sarkis Assadourian: All right.

    My question is, you mentioned in the African countries you have 800,000 South African users of Internet and 300,000 to 400,000 in the north, and very small in between.

    We have CBC Radio International, for example, and the BBC...every major G-7 country has other ways of getting to the people in Africa or other continents. They need information now, not four or five years down the road. I didn't see any words here about utilizing—quote, unquote—technology to pass the message of the outcome of this conference to people through conventional means other than the computer. That's my other question.

    In this presentation, you made $40 million investment here, but it doesn't say when you started this. Is this a new program, or are we halfway or at the end, or where are we in the funding of this institute?

    My final question is, not only in this situation in Africa, but where we try to aid third world countries...and it's a very noble idea on our part, and I fully support that. But I think if we do it in general—taking the African continent, for example, in this case—where we're not making categories or grouping up the countries, I think we're wasting lots of time, lots of money, lots of energy.

    I would suggest that maybe we should consider the concept of adopting a country or group of countries—say, we, as a member of G-7 or G-8, adopt four or five countries and we focus on issues related to those countries. Some issues may be universal, like HIV, for example. Everyone will have that issue, but some specific concerns of a certain country can be grouped together so we can focus and get the maximum bang for our dollar. If each and every G-7 or G-8 country would do that.... I think Africa has 40 or 45 countries, and most of them need help. Each one could pick out five countries and focus and have better results in the next four or five years than to shoot, at random, aid to Africa.

    Perhaps you can comment on that one.

    Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: Thank you very much for your questions.

    Absolutely, the traditional technologies still have relevance and pertinence in people's access to information, and we don't advocate they be replaced. In fact, they continue to be fundamental to how people communicate and get information.

    New technologies don't replace old technologies. They just add value to them. So we're not in any way suggesting these investments or these approaches be done to disparage the other types of technologies.

    The one slide that's there is a proposal from action group two to the DOT force. That program has yet to be adopted or supported.

    On your third question, you're absolutely right. We learned through the Acacia program that a country focus works. You develop relationships, you develop roots, you develop a foundation, and we are suggesting that we continue to do it that way.

    So I agree that, at least in our programming with ICTs for development in Africa, we've adopted exactly the approach you're suggesting, and we find, especially being the small agency that we are, that it's the best way to proceed. Not exclusively, though; there are some things that need to be done regionally. But the principal focus is a country focus where you can see results and you can have long-standing relationships with participants that grow with the time you spend there.

¿  (0955)  

    The Chair: Maybe I can ask a question that has been circling around in my own head. What is the connection between infrastructure and connectivity? It seemed to me last week when I was in a couple of countries, the electricity was constantly in and out. I wondered what would happen with computer systems and other technological equipment and how they were coping with these constant power outages.

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: There's no question that electricity helps, that's for sure. But there are many, many places where electricity is only infrequently available and these types of investments still produce dividends. Let me give you an example.

    In that same community in Uganda, it's six o'clock on a Friday evening. The students are still in their uniforms waiting for us to visit their classroom. The teacher is in front of the classroom writing with chalk on a slate blackboard, standing on a pedestal. Today's topic is longitude and latitude. He is writing the definition of “longitude” and “latitude” on the board. There's no map in the classroom.

    In that case, you don't really need telecommunications. A computer that works, even periodically, that has access to Encarta or some other type of service or database that can produce a map would be very helpful at very little expense. So again, even infrequent access to electricity and power can be a circumstance within which these technologies can be useful and beneficial.

    One thing has happened, and it's interesting how it works. It's a very iterative process. In many of the places in the developing world where Internet services have come to be provided, more and more people are now rushing to use this, which is creating great pressure on the telecommunications providers in some of the governments to upgrade the investments in their infrastructure.

    There's a chicken-and-egg type of relationship between these two things. As more and more people demand this, either the existing telecommunications providers and regulators change how they behave and respond to this new demand or innovation occurs and new types of technologies get adopted.

    So the development of connectivity, electricity, has something to do with the types of demands that get generated by the types of social investments our organization is involved with, which I believe the DOT force is advocating as well.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Dr. Martin.

    Mr. Keith Martin: Thank you.

    To use your example, Mr. Fuchs, in Mozambique they were ripping out the copper telephone wires, because that's all they have to sell in order to make some money. I'm encouraged by what you're trying to do, and we all can see the benefits of that. But having seen the massive gap between what we'd like to do and the reality of the infrastructure on the ground, do you believe that an ICT investment is more important than, to use your example, making sure that the children have clothes so that they can actually get through the door to the school, that the parents have money so that they can afford the school fees, or that they have clean water so that they won't get gastrointestinal diseases via their dirty water supply?

    The second question is for Mr. Harder. What is the most effective targeted investment Canada can make in ICTs? How much do you think that should be?

    In the flurry of activity around ICTs, is there a coordinating body that's organizing the activities of the UN and the good work that you're doing here in Canada and that other bodies around the world are doing?

À  (1000)  

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: Those are very interesting questions and very difficult choices. I don't believe it's a choice between information and communication technology and more primal needs. I believe information and communication technology helps some of these other needs become more efficient and productive, as they have in our own society and economy. So it's not one or the other, but there has to be a balance, of course. One of the reasons I include that last slide with the picture of the telecentre and the water pump is to underscore that. People do need to have water as well, and that water is a fundamental precondition for human health. Information, knowledge, wisdom, and communications are also part of it.

    So I'm not saying it's a replacement for; I'm saying it's part of the development programming.

    Mr. Peter Harder: I'll take the latter two aspects of your question. First, what is the best investment Canada could make? I'm not sure there is a single best investment. We have given high priority to developing the international development resource network because we feel that getting the right human and policy resources available will put in place the capacity to have some pull of private sector and civil society participation, both indigenous and international. I think that's a high priority.

    We also believe that local content is a high priority and that there is a need to ensure that traditional health and education programming have the capacity to use ICT as a transformational process in terms of its effect in regular delivery. I guess the best thing we can do is not just to have government aid programs have this message, but to have the private sector and civil society work together with governments, both Canadian and indigenous, in adapting ICTs to the local circumstance for economic and social development.

    In terms of the coordinating body, I showed you the plethora of international organizations that are getting into the digital divide discussion. That's actually good news, because it shows that the point we've been making is that ICT is a transformative approach. What has happened, though, to give it a little bit more coherence internationally, is that Kofi Annan in November set up what is called the UN ICT task force. Its methodology mimics the DOT force in that it has private sector, government, and civil society representatives, along with other international organizations--the WEF, the UN organizations, that whole alphabet soup.

    Just for your information, I'm a member of that, wearing my hat as chair of the G-8 DOT force. Canada participates in the secretariat that is supporting that work. It is not representative by country. There are only 40 people involved in the whole thing. But that is designed to give Kofi Annan the best advice, on a worldwide level, on where we should be going on ICTs. That will undoubtedly be input to the two conferences Mr. Fuchs referenced: the World Summit on the Information Society, the first phase of which is in 2003 in Switzerland, followed by 2005 in Tunisia.

    I think you will find that increasingly, the issues we're raising today will be part of the discussion taking place in economic development, social development, international development, and issues of governance, transparency--technology is a huge aid to transparency--and community development.

    So that's where the work is at. The Digital Opportunity Task Force and the WEF continue to have substantial interest in this. We're looking to the UN task force to be the new chapeau at the global level to thinking on this issue.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Mr. Harvard.

À  (1005)  

    Mr. John Harvard (Charleswood St. James--Assiniboia, Lib.): Thank you very much.

    Mr. Harder, I've heard you use the words “transformative process” quite often, perhaps suggesting that ICT someday will bring on a sort of social and economic revolution to all parts of Africa. I suppose that's mostly or all to the good.

    What I wonder about, though, is that when you talk about the need for investment, be it infrastructural in nature or other kinds of investment, what guarantees are there, if any, that these investments, particularly by outsiders, be they government or private sector, are not too much self-serving investments? You mentioned in your remarks, and I think you were referring to software, that it should it be not necessarily North American in its origins, but adapted or developed for, say, African purposes. This is where I'm trying to go with my question; can we be sure as we push forward in this area of ICTs that we're really doing it for Africans and not just for ourselves?

    I'm not suggesting that there can't be a mutual benefit here, but we've known in other areas of economic development, be it in agriculture or whatever, that there have been some developments not in the interest of the third world but really in the interest of the first world. Could you give me some comment on that?

    Mr. Peter Harder: I think the only way to be sure, in your words, is to continue to ask the question, and to listen to the indigenous leadership, including governmental, civil society, and private sector, and to ensure that part of our concept of the right public policy framework allows that to happen.

    At the conference last week, there was a wonderful seminar on technology and transparency; Transparency International was one of the participants. It was about how the technology itself is leading to a more transparent public administration regime and about the capacity of technology to “dis-intermediate” graft, I believe. That doesn't happen just by itself--there has to be the right policy regime in place--but I do think your concern is one that we continue to work with, because it's a very legitimate question that we need to continually ask.

    Mr. John Harvard: Is it your understanding that the political leadership in Africa is insisting on this kind of approach so that their people benefit?

    Mr. Peter Harder: Certainly all of the discussions I've had with either political leadership or the leadership of the DOT force membership has been very much a two-way street. In fact, some of the strongest advocates for us insisting on the right policy framework in terms of legal regimes, protection, and investment protection came from the developing world itself, because they know that's a prerequisite of not only having indigenous investment in development but also being able to attract. This will not be done with just government-to-government aid.

    Do you want to add to that?

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: Thank you.

    Again, it's a very excellent question. It's not just a question of what we do, it's a question of how we do it. Wayne Gretzky is quoted as having said that you should skate to where the puck is going to be. It does not help developing world opportunities, especially African opportunities, to be the recipients of technologies and services that are at the end of their product life cycle in North America and Europe. That does nothing for where they're going to go in the future.

    So if we can assist them in thinking about what the technology of the future will be and what technologies are relevant to them, then we're I think helping to not ensure but to assist the fact that the choices that get made will have relevance to their economic futures, not to our economic past.

À  (1010)  

    Mr. John Harvard: I just have one more thing on this, Madam Chair.

    We in North America and western Europe have enjoyed, say, the telephone and electricity for decades, and now in a sort of sequence of events we're beginning to enjoy the fruits of the Internet. In parts of the third world there's been an enormous amount of almost compression of these events. How do they cope with that?

    The Chair: Mr. Fuchs.

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: Sometimes our short-term memory isn't that good. The Internet was first developed in North America in the late 1960s. It was kind of incubated in universities and supported by governments and universities for almost 25 years before it became a consumer appliance in business, institutional, and household life. There was about 25 years of incubation.

    Now, I don't think anyone's arguing that we need to wait 25 years, but we need to understand that there is this period of incubation, research and development, and appropriation of these technologies in an appropriate way.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Monsieur Rocheleau.

[Translation]

    Mr. Yves Rocheleau (Trois-Rivières, BQ): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    I have two questions for the witnesses. The first pertains to the program proposals put forward by the African Connectivity Institute, namely for five programs totalling $40 million. Are these $40 million included in the $500 million mentioned by Mr. Chrétien, or is this an additional sum of money? That's my first question.

    Secondly, on thumbing through the publications catalogue, I came across an item on page 17 about a publication entitled Les enjeux éthiques d'Internet en Afrique de l' Ouest, which focuses on the ethical considerations of the Internet in West Africa. The entry notes the following:

This publication discusses how the Internet, given its content, the messages it conveys and the way it is used, causes upheavals in traditional modes of communications of African communities.

    Is IDRC concerned about how the Internet will be accepted by African communities and—and this is of particular concern to me—how their cultural diversity will fare in the face of the US onslaught? Are you at all concerned about this?

[English]

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: Again, your questions are very important ones.

    In the case of the slide that has the $40 million, that's one idea from one of the action groups in the DOT force for how some of the $500 million, as I would understand it--Mr. Harder would be in a better position to explain this--might be spent. We're not in the position where that's additional to anything. This is among the suggestions from one of the working groups of the DOT force for how this might be done.

    In the case of cultural integrity it's a very important issue. For example, in Africa we have made very considerable investments in content development in local languages. One of the projects is being done in Cape Town with a university professor who believes, apparently with some support, that all the African languages can essentially be understood through 12 original dialects. We are working with him to create educational content in those 12 dialects.

    There's also the case that local language and local culture are a tremendous economic bulwark for the information economy. In a sense it protects people from too much homogenization. If you can assist with the development of products and services that are in local languages, then the principal beneficiaries, both in terms of services and in terms of the information economy opportunities that arise, will be local people.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    We are now on to Madam Carroll. Your question, please.

    Ms. Aileen Carroll (Barrie--Simcoe--Bradford, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

    Like my colleagues, I've found it exceptionally informative and very interesting, and you ought not to be nervous next time you come.

    I might think the only greater success in Mozambique would have been for the president not to have recognized that Canada was the centre of the universe but that Newfoundland and Labrador was, and then it really would have been.

    I just wanted to ask, about the last page of your deck--because my other questions have been covered by other questioners--can you just give me a little more detail where you mention, just at the end, that IDRC is matching investments through Acacia? I'm just looking at $8 million, $4 million, $6 million, and $2 million, and then it becomes a wonderful $20 million. Perhaps you would give a few more details there.

À  (1015)  

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: What we're saying there is that our Acacia program, which is now in its second generation, just recently approved by our board of governors, would take that investment and match it to this new investment that might come from NEPAD or DOT force. So we would start to tailor our Acacia program into this to create a scale and magnitude of impact.

    Ms. Aileen Carroll: Excuse me, IDRC has those kinds of funds, that they can?

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: In the Acacia program, we have a program budget of $4 million per year. That's a four-year total of $4.6 million, actually.

    Mr. Peter Harder: If I could I also add—

    The Chair: Yes.

    Mr. Peter Harder: —just to make the point, the work that the IDRC is doing in its implementation team is not just Canadian. It's other participants, such as the Markle Foundation in the United States. It is not the product just of the IDRC, although the IDRC is giving leadership to that. So when we're talking about potential funding instruments, it's not just looking to the Government of Canada or organizations like the IDRC, but other participants in this process have actually put down hard money on the proposal because they're so committed to its efficacy.

    The Chair: Thank you.

    Madame Jennings.

[Translation]

    Mrs. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce--Lachine, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you as well to the witnesses for their presentations.

    I'd like to follow up on my colleague Mr. Harvard's question concerning transparency and corruption and ways of ensuring that any funds invested are used for their rightful purpose. I have a comment. Even G-8 and G-7 countries, the industrialized nations, are not immune to corruption. I spent several weeks in Italy last summer. I met some relatives who are in business. They related to me many stories about Italy's infrastructure and about how, even after they had paid their taxes, tax authorities would arrive at their place of business and openly demand money. They were told that if they didn't pay up, they would have problems. These kinds of things still happen.

    I'm not as concerned about this as I am about the corruption problem. Even within the NEPAD, African leaders acknowledge that there is a problem. Is there a risk-assessment component to our investments? For example, we know that when money is invested here in Canada, a portion will be lost as a result of administrative errors, employees who become ill, delays in obtaining zoning permits or other such things. A risk assessment is always done and the investor, even though he knows there is an 80% chance that 5% of the investment will be lost for all kinds of random reasons, will continue to think that investing in the venture is a worthwhile endeavour.

    As part of the investment process, do we, for example, assess the risk of corruption? Do we look at how much money will be funnelled into other areas and not into the actual project. Do you in fact assess the risk?

[English]

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: Yes, and I dare say, we have a risk audit division that asks me and those of us involved in programming those questions once a year for each program. We are expected to ask that question for each major project, because that dictates the nature of the risk, dictates the nature of investment and monitoring.

    It doesn't mean that we don't take risks.

    Ms. Marlene Jennings: No.

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: We are in the research and innovation business; we have to take risks. But the risk assessment is part of our integrated programming.

À  (1020)  

[Translation]

    Mrs. Marlene Jennings: How is this assessment done if, for example, the risk is considered great but, given the research objectives, the consensus is that it is a worthwhile undertaking?

    Let me give you a very practical example of what I mean. I have an appointment with the doctor and I'm told that I have a potentially life-threatening illness. If I don't agree to undergo treatment, I will surely die. However, there is a 50% chance that I will die on the operating table.

[English]

    If I already know I'm going to die, it's 100%, and I have a 50% chance that I'm going to survive the operation, then probably I'm going to take that operation, unless the 100% chance that I'm going to die means I'm going to die in 25 years, but if I die on the operating table it's going to be right away. So you take all of these factors into account. What are the factors that are taken into account to determine, yes, the risk is high, but it's justifiable in this particular case?

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: Faced with life or death choices, we'll always choose life.

    The Chair: We'll call on Dr. Martin to answer this.

    Mr. Richard Fuchs: We never engage in risk that involves financial jurisprudence or accountability. That's a sine qua non for us. It has to be there, otherwise we don't play.

    But there are risks. I'll give you an example. In Benin there's a very successful system of telecentres, Centre Songhai. It's an incredible, sustainable, zero emissions research institute/agriculture service. It's quite fascinating. They have three services, three telecentres, where they use Canadian technology, R/CAL, that has 2,400 bits per second to send signals from one place to another. For those of you who are not BPS folks, that's the kind of e-mail we might have had in 1988. But they're an established service. They are a transparent, non-governmental organization. And the fellow who is the charismatic leader of it has a PhD in electronic engineering. He's Nigerian, but was educated at UCLA.

    So we say, here's this VSAT technology that has never been used in Benin, never been used by this organization. It's a risky technology. The telephone company may not support it. There might not be enough maintenance and technical assistance to keep it going, so we're not absolutely certain it's going to work. But what we're hoping to do is, one, demonstrate, reducing as many risks as we possibly can, that there is this is a solution, and this transparent, substantial, high-profile, and influential organization in Benin. If anyone's going to make it work, it's them. And once they make it work, the floodgates open. So that's a risk we decided we're prepared to take.

    Mr. Peter Harder: I wish Charles Sirois were here, because the seed fund for entrepreneurs is entirely risk management, by its very definition. And the strategies the private sector supporters of this initiative are putting in place are exactly the kinds of strategies you would expect a good risk fund angel investor to have, but they're not based on guaranteed success.

    Ms. Marlene Jennings: If you invest in Canadian mutual funds you're not guaranteed success.

    I have one last question, but not for Mr. Harder and Mr. Fuchs. Given that Mr. Sirois was unable to come, if he has a written presentation perhaps we could ask him to forward it to the clerk of the committee for distribution, because it would be interesting to receive his piece of the puzzle.

    Thank you very much.

    The Chair: Thank you for that suggestion, Ms. Jennings. I think the clerk has that in his agenda.

    Dr. Martin.

    Mr. Keith Martin: Thank you, Madam Chair.

    I couldn't agree with you more, Mr. Harder and Mr. Fuchs, on the use of ICTs as a tool for conflict prevention. Currently this problem has become very real for some of us right now in the situation in Zimbabwe, where members in the opposition are trying to communicate with us but cannot because of the obstruction that exists in communications. So I wondered, again, if there's going to be an investment in a certain stratum of society.

    The second question is that your nine-point plan, Mr. Harder, clearly implies a certain level of development in that country. I wonder if the countries you're dealing with are going to focus on dealing with a certain number of nations where your investment can have a long-term effect or whether you were going to deal with a certain stratum of society where you're going to have a long-term effect. I know this goes back to my first question, but I wondered if you were going to focus on a certain number of nations, because your investment, realistically, is small given the daunting task ahead of you. One has to prioritize.

    I also wondered which private partners you have in your DOT force nine-point plan of action in sub-Saharan Africa.

À  (1025)  

    Mr. Peter Harder: Let me try to answer you. Some of the projects are, by their very nature, accessible to all. The resource network that is online is not targeted. There was a good deal of concern that we focus on the least developed countries in particular, because they have special needs for building the receptor capacity. But it would be unrealistic to think that's going to be the only focus.

    What we are seeking with the notion of a connectivity agenda in Africa is, by its very nature, to focus on the least developed and build that capacity. But when the projects are under way in other parts of the developing world--take, for example, what the IDRC is doing with connectivity in the Institute of the Americas with the South American countries--there are differing segments. But we were very conscious of and were asked to ensure that we gave special focus to the needs of the least developed countries. Certainly, the NEPAD, by its very focus...of the LDCs, 38 of the 46 are in Africa.

    Mr. Keith Martin: If I may challenge that, do you really think that's wise, given the level of infrastructure and development that's required on the ground to really bring this into force? One of the struggles we have had traditionally in aid is throwing good money after bad, as you know, where the money we have put in really hasn't taken traction because there isn't good governance, there isn't protection, as you mentioned, for domestic and foreign investors and you can't get that critical mass--quite extensive mass in this case--that's required to bring your DOT force plan to life.

    Mr. Peter Harder: I don't think size guarantees good governance, the rule of law, and receptor capacity. Mozambique is kind of an interesting example. It has been cited several times. If it is not the poorest, it is among the poorest in Africa, yet it has been a very successful recipient because it has built its receptor capacity. Therefore, I would think that the issue is not based on size or economic capacity; it's the capacity to build the right framework and to have the capacity to seize the capacity of ICTs to transform existing approaches to economic development, social development, transparency, etc.

    Mr. Keith Martin: That's what I'm referring to. Size has nothing to do with it at all.

À  (1030)  

    Mr. Peter Harder: And that's very much the priority. The whole NEPAD is based on a two-way street, carrot and stick.

    Mr. Keith Martin: Okay. So long as that's a help...

    Do I have any time?

    The Chair: Yes.

    Mr. Keith Martin: Given the behaviour of a number of the members of the NEPAD, particularly President Mbeke from South Africa over the Zimbabwe situation and his behaviour in that, I really question the true commitment that some of these countries have toward the NEPAD. That said, I would again encourage you to keep that bar there for those countries so that our investment will take traction.

    Thank you.

    The Chair: Madame Lalonde.

[Translation]

    Ms. Francine Lalonde: Mr. Harder, you have presented Industry Canada's Plan of Action which has nine priority areas. For starters, could you tell me what the French acronym GEANT refers to? I've looked everywhere, but to no avail.

    I'd especially like you to outline the action plan to us, as I find it quite interesting. Is there a good chance that it will be adopted by the G-8?

    I'd also like you to describe the nine action items briefly to us.

[English]

    Mr. Peter Harder: Oui. Let me just describe a little bit more how the nine came about.

    Ms. Francine Lalonde: But first...

    Mr. Peter Harder: DOT force, yes.

    The nine action items came about after we had, after Okinawa, developed a view on ICTs and development. The group was so committed they said, “We don't just want a report that goes to leaders exhorting the importance of ICTs. We want to put in place an action plan with key priorities.” The priorities that are identified in the nine points were the priorities that were established by this international body.

    We then said, we want to take upon ourselves the actual implementation of those priorities. We sat around the table and people identified which ones they wanted to participate in. The Markle Foundation said, “We will give leadership to this one.” The IDRC, Hewlett Packard, the British One World Foundation, governments, private sector—they identified which ones they wanted to work on. Canada had overall coordination responsibilities, because we chair the G-8. That was my job.

    The implementation work took place in the committees. That group met several times, most recently in Italy at the Palermo Conference, but mostly electronically and virtually. They have now developed, for each of the action items, some specific proposals, some of which are being implemented because the money was put on the table through the participants, some of which will go as developed implementation plans to the DOT force meeting in Calgary.

    The Calgary meeting is designed to be our report card: we said we were going to do this in Genoa, and what have we actually done? It will be, I hope, both reporting specific progress and outlining what more we need to do. Some of the connectivity for Africa initiative is more a developed idea at this stage than implemented.

    We will then, after Calgary, report to the G-8 sherpas. They will determine, as they do, whether or not this report will go directly to the leadership, or how it will be discussed in the context of the management of the summit itself. I was at the conference last week where Prime Minister Berlusconi of Italy committed that he personally wanted to ensure that issues of e-governance were a part of the discussion. But we'll have to see.

    In terms of specific initiatives, I'd give you some sense of it by talking about a couple. The Open Knowledge Network is the one I referenced earlier. This will make local information widely available through local, regional, and international access points. It's literally the local software, and it's being developed in action item three. The Markle Foundation has given leadership to a concept called Global Digital Opportunities Initiative, which will provide countries with pro bono expertise and resources to develop their own e-strategies. They've identified specific countries they are already working with, and they will report that work to Calgary.

    So it's a combination of specific work already under way and new initiatives that will require some greater buy-in by stakeholders.

    If Mr. Sirois were here, he would talk about his entrepreneurship seed fund, which has participation in its development from Accenture, Thompson Multimedia, Hewlett Packard, Toshiba, Microsoft, Siemens, and, of course, Télésystème. They are prepared to put some private funding into the seed fund, but they're also looking to governments and others to leverage that as a seed fund.

À  (1035)  

    So we're talking about a combination of things.

[Translation]

    Ms. Francine Lalonde: Is civil society involved in this process?

    Mr. Peter Harder: Yes.

    Ms. Francine Lalonde: And what has the response been so far?

    Mr. Peter Harder: We're still waiting on this. Thus far, only the implementation team has been really involved. However, all groups will need to be on hand in Calgary. All projects will be discussed and when all is said and done, a report will be drawn up for governments.

    Ms. Francine Lalonde: And will the report be readily available?

    Mr. Peter Harder: Yes, of course it will.

    Ms. Francine Lalonde: Then we hope you'll send us a copy.

    Mr. Peter Harder: I'll be happy to do that.

    Ms. Francine Lalonde: Thank you.

[English]

    The Chair: I think we're at the point where we will take the opportunity to say thank you for coming before the committee today and for being so clear in terms of your presentation. We look forward to the finalization, which will take place sometime in May. Hopefully we'll be able to see your recommendations at that particular point in time.

    We want to thank you for presenting, Mr. Harder and Mr. Fuchs. I hope the experience was worthwhile for you.

    Our best regards to Maureen, who we all know and admire very much. She has come before the committee several times. Just let her know that you've been an excellent representative rather than an excellent replacement.

    Mr. Harder, best wishes with this work.

    Mr. Peter Harder: We will table our report with the committee after Calgary, if you would like.

    The Chair: Yes, we would appreciate that.

    Thank you very much.

    The meeting is adjourned.