Bilbao, Spain, 4 December 2006. Mr. Marcel Boisard, Executive Director of UNITAR has met today with Mr. Juan José Ibarretxe, President of the Basque Regional Government to sign a three-year agreement of cooperation between the Basque Public Institutions and UNITAR for the development of the capacity building programme for the implementation of the Declaration of Bilbao.
The Basque Public Institutions and UNITAR share the thought that it is necessary to develop a capacity building programme which will "ensure that a significant number of local authorities develop and implement their own Digital Local Agenda before 2010" as stated in the Bilbao Action Plan.
Seven workshops are planned to be organized each year in different CIFAL centres (Bilbao, Durban, Płock, Shanghai and Tallinn). The workshops will gather local authorities representatives with the aim of raising awareness on the need of a local Information Society strategy, that can take the form of an e-Local Agenda, through the sharing of knowledge and experiences.
Background
In 2004, a collaboration was initiated between the Basque Public Institutions and UNITAR. The objective of this collaboration was to organize the second World Summit of Cities and Local Authorities on the Information Society (Bilbao Summit). In order to concretize this collaboration, a UNITAR associated training centre, CIFAL Bilbao, was established. UNITAR assisted CIFAL Bilbao by organizing the preparatory phase of the Bilbao Summit as well as promoting the Summit at international level.
During the Bilbao Summit, local authorities have defined their own vision of the Information Society and have expressed the need for sharing knowledge and building capacity. A Declaration was adopted at the Bilbao Summit in which local authorities and their representatives commit themselves to implement a Digital Local agenda2.
An Digital Local Agenda is defined as “a common strategy for the development of the Information Society, a project shared with citizens that responds to their needs and hopes, which bears in mind the socio-economic, cultural and institutional specifics of each city or region and contributes to the reinforcement of policies and actions aimed at achieving sustainable development and which will benefit greater development for the cities or regions’ citizens, especially for the most disadvantaged groups".
The Bilbao Declaration was presented to the World Summit of the Information Society in Tunis and included as an official contribution. In the same way, the Declaration was handed over to the Secretary-General of the United Nations during a meeting organized by UNITAR’s Executive Director during the Tunis Summit.
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