GET INVOLVED!
SEND YOUR QUESTIONS TO HIGH POWERED PANEL

Can information and communications technologies (ICTs) help reduce poverty, create jobs, generate income and add value to livelihoods?

Or do they just widen existing disparities in society?

Is the Digital Divide distracting donors and political leaders from the far deeper and wider Analog Divides that have affected society for decades?

Are development donors wasting aid money on ICT projects that are never scaled up?

These and other hard questions will be addressed at a high level TV debate to be broadcast initially on BBC World Television on 22 October 2005, in advance of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to be held in Tunis, Tunisia, 16 -18 November 2005. The debate will then be offered to the 300 members of the EBU as well as other broadcasters around the world.

The Summit is convened by the United Nations, and the first phase was held in Geneva in December 2003. Thousands of policy makers, decision makers and leaders from government, industry and civil society are expected to attend.

The TV Debate is being organised by Dev.tv, a non-profit association founded by media professionals, with support from the UNDP Asia Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP), Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) and Global Knowledge Partnership (GKP). TVE Asia Pacific’s Director Nalaka Gunawardene is an advisor to the Debate.

The Debate will be recorded on 30 September 2005 at the headquarters of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Geneva, Switzerland. An invited audience of 50 ICT movers and shakers will fire questions at a distinguished panel.
Here is your chance to participate in the TV Debate by sending in your questions to Anita McNaught, moderator. Email your question right up to 12:00 GMT on 29 September 2005 to: <anita@dev.tv>

Anyone anywhere on the planet can send in questions to the debate – the best ones will be selected by the producers and posed to the panel that will have representatives from governments, civil society, United Nations and the private sector.

Read Nalaka Gunawardene’s 2004 commentary on ICTs and poverty

Read UNDP-APDIP story on TV Debate held in December 2003