ISLAMABAD Sept 18: Pakistan has called upon the international community to accelerate the pace of Internet intervention in bridging the digital divide and ensuring sustainable levels of prosperity for the bulk of the humanity. A dispatch received from the Permanent Mission of Pakistan to the United Nations in Geneva said Ambassador Masood Khan urged governments, businesses, private citizens and international organizations to work together for an equitable and judicious use of Internet resources to pull the world out of massive poverty and deprivation.

Mr Khan, who will become the chairman of the Committee on Internet Governance on Sept 19, was speaking at a civil society orientation session.

The session was held on the eve of a two-week preparatory committee meeting in which government officials, business leaders and civil society representatives from all over the world will participate.

The committee is to finalise documents for the World Summit on Information Society being held in Tunis in mid-November.

Mr Khan called upon the international community to devise ways to help poor countries with capacity-building by assisting them in efficient and inexpensive telephony, low cost computers and lower interconnection costs.

“Many countries in Africa, Latin America and Asia need special attention,” he pointed out, adding that those developing countries that had attained miraculous progress in the Internet needed further assistance to reach higher levels of performance.