Address from
His Majesty Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev
King of Nepal
At
The World Summit on the Information Society
Tunis
Republic of Tunisia
16 November 2005
Mr Chairman,
Distinguished Heads of State and Government,
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
1. It gives us pleasure to be amongst this august
gathering here today to participate in this important Second Phase
of the World Summit on the Information Society hosted in this
beautiful and historic city of Tunis. My delegation joins us in
expressing our sincere thanks to the President and people of Tunisia
for the warm welcome and generous hospitality accorded us since
our arrival here. We also extend our thanks to His Excellency
Mr Kofi Annan, the Secretary-General of the United Nations for
his vision and guidance in ensuring the success of this Summit
and in garnering international cooperation in this new and vital
sector for global economic prosperity.
2. Our thanks are also due to the Secretary-General
of the International Telecommunication Union, the Chairman of
the Summit Preparatory Committee and the members of the Executive
Secretariat for their untiring efforts in preparing for this Summit.
We also wish to commend the remarkable contributions of the civil
society and the private sector in this Summit.
3. While the digital revolution offers real development
opportunities for the economies of the World, the digital divide
between developed nations and the rest of the world sadly continues
to grow. We believe that there should be a mechanism to facilitate
meaningful participation on Internet Governance to accomplish
the vision of the Declaration of Principles of the World Summit
on the Information Society. An International Internet Governance
System should be developed to harmonize technical and policy issues
to the advantage of the global community. We also wish to add
that sustained efforts should be made to ensure participation
of developing countries to make the system truly meaningful and
effective.
4. Nepal is committed to the Geneva Declarations
of Principles. We believe that the Internet, which has become
omnipresent in our lives, can be truly beneficial to humankind
if a multi-stakeholder participation, which is inclusive and transparent,
can be developed.
5. We need to focus on how the global information
revolution could be made a development enabler in the real sense
by contributing significantly to reducing poverty and promoting
all-round development in the world. This would provide us with
a great opportunity to accelerate the process of bridging the
gap between the haves and the have-nots in terms of access to
information technology. The international community needs to give
special attention to the needs of the developing, land-locked
and mountainous countries which face problems of promoting the
use of ICTs due to high infrastructure costs.
6. Nepal is committed to the common vision of
the information society and its key principles based on shared
knowledge. Since the initiation of the WSIS, my country has played
a significant role in the development and promotion of her ICT
sector, recording impressive achievements in all the eleven WSIS
action lines despite her own constraints and limited resources.
The State's efforts have been further augmented with the establishment
of an autonomous High Level Commission for Information Technology
to enhance internal and external private investment and to stimulate
new economic sectors like e-commerce. It is a matter of satisfaction
that this has resulted in an ever-growing mutually beneficial
partnership between the government and the private sector in the
field of information technology.
7. We believe the time has now come for all
of us gathered here today to make a common commitment to implement
the Declaration adopted by the World Summit on the Information
Society with all honesty and sincerity to the benefit of all mankind.
We wish the Summit every success.
Thank You!
Source: Royal Palace Secretariat
