more on 'Digital tax' gets African backing

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

'Digital tax' gets African backing



By Reuters





African leaders voiced support on Monday for a plan asking wealthy nations
to
tax their cities' investment in technology to buy mobile phones and
computers
for poor nations.



The tax would feed a Digital Solidarity Fund, a United Nations-sponsored
plan
to use high-tech tools such as satellite telephones or the internet to
promote economic development in areas that lack even the most basic
infrastructure.



Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika said the digital divide aggravated
polarisation between wealthy and developing countries.



"It is imperative that international measures be taken," Bouteflika told a
conference in Geneva.



The rich Swiss city was the first to adopt the plan, putting a one per cent
levy on the profit made by the city's technology suppliers.



The United Nations hopes that widening access within the developing world to
information technology will help eradicate poverty and build stable
democracies. Poor nations back that view.



 Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade said: "The only way to fill in the
digital divide is to empower the South with information technology
equipment,
telephones, fax machines, the Internet and to ensure training on how to use
them."



The "digital" tax would be adopted voluntarily, with conference officials
saying several cities were considering following Geneva's example.



The fund was launched in 2003 in Geneva on the sidelines of a UN conference
on spreading access to the internet and wireless communication. It has
already accumulated $6.72m.



Once more detailed guidelines are in place on how to use the fund, 60 per
cent of its expected revenue would go to the world's 49 least-developed
countries, 30 per cent to developing countries and 10 per cent to projects
in
rich nations.


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