Mobile Technology, Convergence and Social Networking Tools for Development and Poverty Alleviation and on Delivering Innovation in Global Public Health

Setting

The Global Alliance for ICT and Development is working, together with the CSTD Secretariat, the ITU and WHO to respond to the request by the Chairman of CSTD to organize an event on Mobile Technology, Convergence and Social Networking Tools for Development and Poverty Alleviation and on Delivering Innovation in Global Public Health. The event is designed to bring the added value of multi-stakeholder inputs to intergovernmental discussions in the CSTD on the follow up to WSIS.

Purpose

The objective is to introduce cutting-edge, innovative knowledge, experiences, expertise and best practices to the intergovernmental process of the CSTD. This will be accomplished by drawing on contributions from all stakeholders, including governments, international organizations, businesses, NGOs, academia.

Format

The sessions will take place in a roundtable format, in a "hearing" style. The sessions will be conversations in plenary, led by strong moderators, with no formal presentations or powerpoints. Each session will comprise a panel of 6-7 discussion leaders drawn from the various constituencies mentioned above, and a moderator. The moderator of each session will be in touch with the panelists in advance to discuss their focus and messages so as to pose relevant questions to each, particularly to initiate each session. The moderator will keep interventions short and interactive, ensuring a lively discussion among panelists in the first phase, and then in an open dialogue with CSTD members and with the audience.

Themes

Session 1:
Mobile Technology, Convergence and Social Networking Tools for Development and Poverty Alleviation

Today, the innovations and technological advances in the ICT field are far outpacing the evolution in development thinking and practice. While governments and international organizations have tried to integrate ICTs into their development policies and programmes by formulating e-strategies and incorporating ICT into poverty reduction strategies, the results so far have been at best mixed.

With mobile penetration out-pacing fixed lines by more than 80% and significant investments in broadband infrastructure, mobile phones will soon be the main medium for accessing the Internet in developing countries. Increased availability of mobile devices and connectivity, together with the emergence of new mobile platforms and trends in convergence, exciting new opportunities are on the horizon to enable delivery of a variety of rich content and services directly to users that were previously unreachable.

The rapid growth in satellite and wireless connectivity is also making new last-mile solutions possible. New investments in projects to connect national backbones can help create sub-regional and regional hubs and markets to help lower costs, enhance high-speed access and develop new applications.

Civil society and grassroots organizations are coming up with innovative use of accessible and affordable technologies, particularly mobile telephony, that address their local development challenges in unforeseen ways.

The new media and web-based communities that are now emerging as the new mobilizing platform for young people and for innovative businesses create the most exciting opportunities for developing new solutions and business models for addressing poverty, diseases and illiteracy. The creative energies, of social entrepreneurs and the internet community, must be encouraged to also flow into this direction, to help contribute to achieving the MDGs. New media and Web 2.0, for example, can aid in education through distance learning, content creation and delivery, and teacher training. These technologies can empower women and minorities, by helping them to acquire new skills and increasing their access to information. Social networks also strengthen communities, and help create new ones, by facilitating the flow of information and promoting interaction among groups and individuals.

This Panel will discuss the policies and strategies that developing countries and their development partners need to devise to respond to the new opportunities created by the technological innovations and rapid advances in mobile access for accelerating their development. A dialogue on the respective roles of the key stakeholders in mobilizing necessary resources and capacity to form new partnerships involving not only governments and civil society, but also the private sector, to ensure that the benefits of technology are placed at the service of development. Public-private partnerships are vital to development work. Multilateral, multi-stakeholder, multi-sectoral approaches must come together to form viable and operational partnership projects and initiatives at the national and local levels to yield tangible progress in achieving the Millennium Development Goals.

Session 2:
Delivering Innovation in Global Public Health

The importance of health for development is widely recognized within the global community; three out of the eight goals contained in the Millennium Declaration relate directly to health. Though some countries have made progress in meeting these goals, the most recent MDG Report shows that a majority of the countries are not likely to meet the targets.

New scientific and technological developments such as the use of molecular diagnostics, recombinant technologies to develop vaccines and the use of genome related technologies such as proteomics, pharmacogenomics and bioinformatics promise to revolutionize and improve the way diseases are identified, prevented, diagnosed, treated and modulated. Advances and new uses of ICTs are also affecting and improving the way patients access healthcare and how providers monitor and communicate with patients through e- and m-health and telemedicine. Unfortunately most of these developments are taking place in developed countries, where R&D efforts target healthcare challenges in those countries, giving rise to an often cited "90/10 gap". Studies show that of the more than US$100 billion spent worldwide on health research every year, only an estimated 10% is allocated for health problems existing predominantly in developing countries; yet, these illnesses account for over 90% of the world’s disease burden. There is a growing recognition that the extent to which developing countries will be able to achieve health related MDGs will depend on whether and how well they build their capacities to harness and apply new scientific and technological innovations including those relating to ICT.

This Panel will discuss the different capacities and capabilities (scientific and technological, policy and institutional) for addressing healthcare challenges. The discussion will also take into account WHO's Global Strategy and Plan of Action on Public Health and Intellectual Property, which recognizes the role of scientific and technological innovations in addressing public health challenges. There will be discussions on the role of policy, global health partnerships, intellectual property and other incentives for biomedical innovations and how these can be leveraged. The Panel will also look at the current and future landscape of e- and m-health in the developing world, the impact of projects, to identify building blocks required and innovations to make them more widely available through sustainable and scalable implementation, and how to promote a multi-sector partnership dedicated to designing, funding, and advancing e- and mHealth projects in developing world.

Possible discussion points

• IP, knowledge and technology transfer, and access
• Incentives for innovation (prize funds, alternative funding mechanisms etc)
• The role of policy
• Global health partnerships (PPP, networks, collaborations, centers of excellence)
• ICT, e-health, m-health and telemedicine