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Europe presents cooperation program with Latin America for Information Society

On Friday, April 26th, the Alliance for the Information Society (@LIS) Program was presented to the ministers of Science and Technology in Europe and Latin America. The announcement happened during the Ministerial Meeting which joined the European Union, Latin America and the Caribbean to talk about the Information Society, in Seville, Spain.

The major goal of the program is promoting the interaction between Europe and Latin America in fields related to the Information Society, stimulating the interconnection of the academic networks, the development of applications and the reduction of the digital gap, making the access to Information Technologies more democratic.

The @LIS program will last four years (2002-2005). Eighty-five million euros (approximately R$180 million) should be invested in it. 63.5 million euros will come from the European Community. The remaining 21.5 millions should come from other participants. This amount of money will finance projects in five lines of action:

• Promotion of debates on policies and regulations for the use of the Information Technologies and e-governess.
• Greater integration of Latin American countries in a global Information Society, through the promotion of open and global standards and the encouragement of technological partnerships.
• Interaction between the research communities of the two regions by means of the installation of a high performance Internet network.
  
• Creation of partnerships for the transference of knowledge and of a support and exchange platform among legislators in the field of telecommunications in Latin America.
• Finally, 40 million euros of the total budget will be destined to carrying out about twenty demonstration projects, classified in four thematic domains: local administration, education and cultural diversity, public health and digital inclusion.

[RNP, 05.03.2002]