Swedish Minister for Development Assistance Gunilla Carlsson has opened the door for discussion on how Information and Communication Technologies, or ICT, can be used in the service of freedom of speech.
[Gunilla Carlsson, Minister for Development Assistance]: “In order to be innovative in my political area I have to listen to them, learn from them and also to see how we can have good and great ideas.”
Since 2009 the Swedish government has supported various ICT- related projects regarding democracy. But this year it has a wider focus that includes freedom of expression and human rights.
Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said last week that Sweden has discreetly helped with technology to break through internet blockades in countries such as Egypt.
The Association for Progressive Communication is one of the supporting organizations that helped get information out from Egypt for global sharing. 150 million Swedish Krona – equal to 24 million U.S. dollars - will assist ICT- related digital democracy projects this year.
The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, SIDA, has been assigned by the Swedish government to share funding among the projects. And SIDA says there is still money left for projects.
[Ulf Källstig, Branch Head, SIDA]: "We´re interested in modern applications of Internet to be able to strengthen human rights and freedom of expression.”
There are still several countries in the world that implement Internet censorship like Iran, Burma and China. Next week Gunilla Carlsson will hold talks about network activism and digital democracy.
[Gunilla Carlssoon, Minister for Development Assistance]: "I do hope that we find right ideas, committed people that would like to contribute and perhaps people that do not traditionally work with development assistance.”
The future will show which projects have the biggest impact on world democracy by opening up the Internet, and it may be Sweden is one of the leaders.
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Quelle/Source: NTDTV, 04.03.2011
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