Cuban
program of Computarization
-
Introduction
- The physical characteristics of Cuba and the
organization of the Cuban State.
- The serious obstacles placed by the current
international order in the way of the of the construction of a Just,
Equitable, Solidary World Information Society.
- A necessary accusation.
- Creation of conditions for building in Cuba
a Just, Equitable, Solidary Information Society.
- Computerization in Cuba.
- Conclusions.
Introduction
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in article 28, proclaimed
the right of everyone to live in a social and international order
in which the rights and freedoms recognized in that instrument are
fully effective. This pursuit, however, has so far been nothing but
a chimera.
International cooperation for a Just, Equitable, Solidary World Information
Society must be based on a deep understanding of the great variety
of problems existing in the different countries and regions in the
world and on full respect for the political, economic, cultural and
social diversity of each of them, in strict conformity with the principles
and purposes of the United Nations Charter.
Diversity, far from weakening the universal values of civilization,
is a major factor of force and wealth. Every culture has a dignity
and a set of values that should be respected and protected. All the
peoples have the right and the duty to develop its culture.
The globalization process in course, however, subordinates the objectives
mentioned above to the rigid patterns of the neoliberal doctrine,
whose recipes just enhance the conditions of inequality and injustice
prevailing in the international economic relations and in the world
distribution of wealth.
In this context, how can we speak of “world information society”
if we cannot first create the “world literacy society”
and the “world food society”?
We should foster inclusion of the people in the information society
insofar as possible, but without forgetting the 815 million hungry
people, the 1,200 million people living in extreme poverty, the 115
million children lacking access to education, and the 2,400 million
people lacking basic sanitary conditions.
A massive introduction of the new technologies would be useless without
previously teaching the 854 million grown-up people to read and write,
to whom a computer would be both inaccessible and non practical.
Humankind must think of increasing connectivity, but it must not ignore
that, out of a world population of over 6,350 million people, hardly
680 millions can access Internet.
English prevalence in Internet -about 75 % of Web page contents- is
in overwhelming contrast with the almost absolute absence of languages
such as those of the Arabic group, used by a significant part of world
population, and of some others whose extinction process is being accelerated
by the expansion of Internet.
The cultural impact of the generalization of patterns of the West
on the young people and children is particularly serious because of
the transculturation imposed by the entertainment industry, with a
very strong role being played by video games, most of them noxious
from the educational standpoint.
Ideological and cultural patterns and values of a way of life that
exacerbates individualism and violence are being increasingly imposed
to everybody.
Also noxious is the application of policies that stimulate “brain
drain”, particularly affecting underdeveloped countries.
It would not suffice to check this phenomenon, but it is also necessary
to foster an international educational revolution, which could be
funded just by reducing the current military expenses in a moderate
proportion. The US expenses in Iraq during three weeks would be sufficient
to teach to read and write 1,500 million of people.
It is inadmissible that such development instruments, as are the ICT,
are used without control to produce weapons that are more and more
lethal, including nuclear weapons.
We should not lose sight of the fact that, more and more, under the
pretext of the fight against terrorism, concepts are being expanded
such as technological intelligence and surveillance, which disguise
massive espionage, violate the civil rights, restrict democratic advances,
and repress those who disagree with or oppose imperialist plans.
The unjust bases of the current international economic order hamper
the construction of a just, equitable, solidary information society.
International cooperation for development is an undisputable right
of southern peoples.
The international community should comply with the ethical imperative
of stopping and reversing the tendency to marginalization of hundreds
of millions of people from enjoying the benefits of globalization
and interdependence.
Establishing a New World Order of Information and Communications is
not an impracticable pursuit, but rather an urgent necessity of the
developing countries, also of broad social sectors in the very same
industrialized countries, to successfully face the plans of political
and cultural domination designed in the power centers of international
capital.
The physical characteristics of Cuba and the organization
of the Cuban State.
Cuba is an archipelago with a total surface of 110 860,6 km2 constituted
by the Island of Cuba (the largest of the Greater Antilles), with
104 946 km2, the Isle of Youth, with 2 199,6 km2, and other 4 195
keys and islets, with 3 715 km2.as a whole. It is bounded to the north
by the Strait of Florida and the Bahamas Channel, which separate it
from the United States of America (150 km) and the Bahamas, and to
the south by the Caribbean Sea; Jamaica is to the southeast, 148 km
apart across the Strait of Columbus; the eastern limit of Cuba is
the Windward Passage, 78 km wide, which separates Cuba from Haiti;
the western limit is the Yucatan Channel, which sets Cuba apart from
the Mexican territory over a distance of 210 km.
By the middle of 2002, Cuba had a population of 11 250 979 inhabitants
(8 466 744 in urban areas). The City of Havana, the capital city,
has 2 175 913 inhabitants.
In Cuba there exists a single ethnic group, the Cuban, constituted
by the interaction and integration of races and cultures of European,
African and Asian origin. All the citizens are equal; everyone enjoys
the same rights and has the same duties without any discrimination
based on gender, skin color or religion.
The name of the Cuban State is Republic of Cuba. The official language
is Spanish.
The Republic of Cuba is politically divided into 14 provinces with
168 municipalities, and a special municipality (the Isle of Youth).
The sovereignty of the Republic resides in the people. All state powers
emanate from the people. The power is exercised directly or by means
of the Assemblies of the People’s Power and other state organs
derived from them, in the form of and according to the guiding principles
stipulated by the Constitution and the laws.
The National Assembly of the People’s Power (Parliament) is
the highest organ of the state. Up to 50 % of its members are delegates
coming from the social base, which are periodically proposed and elected
by the constituencies (electoral districts) from among the very same
voters.
The National Assembly is elected every five years by direct, secret
voting of the citizens. The time a new legislature is constituted,
it elects the State Council and the Council of Ministers from among
its members.
The Cuban State is a lay state that recognizes, respects and guarantees
religious freedom.
Obstacles placed by the current international order.
The Information Society should be for everyone, it should be directed
toward just, equitable, attainable, sustainable development. This
calls for a world conscience determined to eliminate the digital gap
and to achieve really universal, inclusive (rather than exclusive)
access to modern telecommunications technologies.
The basic human rights and the cultural diversity are endangered as
never before. Educational, economic, informational and cultural gaps
between northern and southern countries have grown deeper. The 15
% of the nations receiving the highest incomes have 55 % of the wire
telephone lines, 65 % of users of cellular telephony, and 74 % of
Internet users, according to statistics of 2001 of the International
Telecommunications Union (ITU).
Peace and security in the world, and the ideal of a world ruled by
the empire of the law in which all human rights are a reality for
everyone are today facing the greatest, most serious threats known
by the history of civilization.
On account of the close ties existing between culture, politics and
ideology, the strategies of assimilation in the cultural order imposed
by world powers have come accompanied by similar hegemonic projects
in the political and ideological orders.
They intend to establish a unique pattern of political organization
and of governance that ignores the particularities and realities of
each country.
The monopolization of the global communications networks reinforces
this process more and more. This manifests itself not only by the
almost absolute monopolization of the software and telecommunications
industries by a few transnational organizations. According to specialized
studies, as few as 14 enterprises account for 60 % of the time spent
by the users in Internet surfing, as an example of the quick fusion
process that is taking place in this sector in favor of a few interests.
Marketing is prevailing in the network of networks, almost without
barriers existing to check them. Governments, institutions and citizens
are subjected to their dissimilar effects, ranging from informatics
violations of all types through robbery of names of domains and trademarks
to pornography, racist and xenophobic propaganda and “spam”
or “garbage mail”, whose volume now surpasses that of
conventional E-mail.
Today’s world is witnessing how social exclusion, human exploitation,
poverty, discrimination, inequality, outrage and crimes of all types
are still forming part of everyday life of hundreds of millions of
people.
As for the large majorities excluded, the topics included in the agenda
of the World Summit on the Information Society will regrettably not
surpass the category of mere unattainable mirages.
It is imperative to establish a just, democratic, equitable economic
international order based on equal participation in decision-making,
common interests, cooperation and solidarity among states, peoples
and nations.
Establishing a world information society that is just, equitable and
solidary calls for overcoming the differences currently prevailing
in the matters of economy and social development between rich and
poor countries, beginning with the following challenges:
• To establish an international financial architecture that
responds to the necessities of the underdeveloped countries and allows
them acquiring modern technologies that are adequate to their economic
and social progress.
• To stimulate technology transfer to the underdeveloped countries
and to avoid the recruitment of highly qualified specialists, two
conditions decisive for development and training of the human capital
required.
• To cancel the foreign debt and to implement just customs policies
that allow the poor countries accessing the diverse markets.
• To increase the Official Aid to Development.
The declaration adopted by the heads of state and government in the
Millennium Summit stressed the fundamental value of solidarity for
international relations in the 21st century by asserting the world
problems should be approached in a way such that the expenses and
loads are distributed according to the basic principles of equity
and social justice.
We aspire to a just, equitable, solidary World Information Society
that recognizes the right to political, economic, cultural and social
diversity in every country and region, in strict conformity with the
principles and purposes of the United Nations Charter.
Cuba and the massive use of the ICT: creation of conditions.
The victory of the Cuban Revolution, January 1 1959, came at the moment
the Cuban people was plunged into a socioeconomic structural crisis.
A malformed economy existed, based on a backward agriculture, with
a poor industrial development concentrated mainly in the sugar industry,
immoderately dependent on foreign trade, from which almost all basic
products were coming, with only a few unstable export items, fundamentally
of agricultural origin.
This situation had become even severer because of the United States
ruling on the whole economic activity of the country.
As regards the social domain, a significant, increasing part of the
people was damned to poverty. A high degree of polarization existed
in the distribution of income; the richest 20 % of the population
received 58 % of incomes, whereas the poorest 20 % received only 2
%.
Discrimination based on gender or race was ubiquitous. The most disadvantaged
sectors were totally deprived of political and social participation.
A 24 % of the population of working age was unoccupied, and some 200
thousand people were visibly underemployed, with aggravation of their
conditions after each period of sugar cane harvest. About 60 % of
wage-earning workers and self-employed people had an income below
the minimum wage stipulated by law. Social security, besides being
insufficient, was protecting only 50 % of the workers. Over 2 million
people were illiterate, almost 3 millions were semi-illiterate; more
than 600 thousand children had no schools while a 58 % of the teachers
were unemployed. The rate of infant mortality reached higher than
60 per thousand live births.
After the revolutionary victory, Cuba undertook a way to development
intended to satisfy the basic material and spiritual necessities of
all the people on the basis of a more just, more equal distribution
of wealth. Thus, it was possible to satisfy everyone’s primary
needs of health, education, employment, freedom and political participation,
social security and assistance, cultural development, sports and physical
education, and, at the same time, to undertake lines of scientific
and technical research and development in a number of fields in which
Cuba has reached an outstanding place in the world.
Cuba, with a development project based on social justice, popular
participation, equity and solidarity, has designed and started strategies
that turn information and communications knowledge and technologies
into instruments devoted to progress through deep revolutionary transformations.
The promotion, implementation and development of these public policies
have been too often affected in their quality and scope by the unilateral,
aggressive policy of the United States of America against Cuba.
The Cuban model of social policy is based on the universal, gratuitous
access to basic social services and on the satisfaction of the elementary
needs of human beings.
More than one hundred years ago the Cuban National Hero, José
Martí, affirmed categorically: "Being learned is the only
way of being free". This maxim, which still keeps full validity,
is like a beacon to the work of the Cuban Revolution.
Cuba
acknowledges the greatest importance of fully exercising the right
to education, not only of its own citizens, but also of other peoples
in the world. Cuban teachers have given and are still giving their
internationalist collaboration to programs for teaching to read and
write and educational development in numerous countries of Asia, Africa,
Latin America and the Caribbean.
One of the first revolutionary measures was the eradication of illiteracy
and the creation of conditions to guarantee universal, gratuitous
education at all educational levels, and this is a reality today.
Education is being revolutionized to multiply the knowledge of future
generations.
In December 1999 audiovisuals began to be massively used in Cuban
schools, and this created the necessity of producing TV programs for
teaching.
The
reception of these programs is guaranteed, as every classroom in all
schools of general education was endowed with a TV set. They also
have VCRs used for reproduction of didactical materials supplied by
a network of municipal education libraries created for this purpose.
Secondary schools have a VCR per classroom.
With a view to this program, 2 368 teaching centers were electrified
with solar panels.
A new TV channel was created and devoted specifically to education,
with a coverage of more than 85 % of the population and 15 daily transmission
hours in average. The transmission schedule of this channel has two
main sections: one of them from Monday to Friday in school hours for
the pupils and teachers of different education levels, and another
in the nights and weekends for elevating the knowledge and culture
of the people in general.
Three years ago the program “Universidad
para Todos” (University for all) was created, in which prestigious
specialists of the country teach courses intended to develop a general
integral culture of the masses. These courses are grouped in four
thematic lines: Science, Basic Matters, Languages, and Art Appreciation.
These courses are supplemented with leaflets that are distributed
gratuitously in the schools and are sold at low prices in the press
spots over the whole country.
Furthermore, the two national TV stations
include in their weekly schedule about 30 to 40 percent educational
programs, so that it is guaranteed that the TV signal will reach the
schools that are not yet covered by the educational channel.
Work is being done presently for establishing
a fourth national TV station, also dedicated to education.
The
use of audiovisual appliances and computers is extended to teaching
adults, teen-agers and children since preschool education.
The entirety of the schools, including those in rural areas, 93 of
which have only one pupil, started the current academic year with
46 290 computers at the service of all the students, covering 100
% of school roll in preschools, primary schools and secondary schools.
With a view to this program, 2 368 teaching centers were electrified
with solar panels, including the 93 that have only one student enrolled.
New courseware bundles have been developed and implemented: 32 for
primary education, 10 for basic secondary education.
New teachers are ready to hold 13 805 posts recently created for teaching
computing subjects.
In 16 years of work the “Joven Club de Computación y
Electrónica” (Youth Clubs of Computing and Electronics)
have trained gratuitously over half a million Cubans and provided
important services to health centers, schools, state institutions
and other community organizations in different areas of the ICT. There
are 301 Joven Club facilities covering the 169 municipalities in the
country, and 4 mobile labs devoted to bring the knowledge of the ICT
to hardly reachable areas.
They also give computational help to other social and cultural programs.
The preparation of the new generations in the use of the ICT and the
employment of these to increase the quality of education are important
elements to guarantee the future of the country.
The Cuban universities are connected to Internet, as also are the
scientific centers, the newspapers, and other institutions given high-priority
in the framework of the technical conditions that have been attained
in spite of the obstacles faced by an underdeveloped, blockaded nation
having scarce financial resources.
University sites are being established progressively in all the municipalities.
Cuba has today more than 30 university graduates per each of the ones
existing before the victory of the Revolution.
Of special interest is the training of specialists on ICT. Thus, 12
universities and 16 pedagogic higher institutes are training increasing
numbers of professionals, and 52 technological institutes are preparing
nearly 30 000 three-year course technicians
A special mention should be made of the “Universidad de las
Ciencias Informáticas” (University of Computer Science),
which began to operate in the course 2002-2003 and now is attended
by 4 000 students from 99 % of the municipalities of the country.
This university will play an important role in the development of
the Cuban Software Industry and in the materialization of the projects
associated to the Cuban program of computerization.
Cuba has developed techniques to teach to read and write by radio
with texts in five languages: Creole, Portuguese, French, English
and Spanish, which are being put into practice in several countries.
A program designed in Cuba for teaching to read and write by television
is now followed in Venezuela by one million 400 thousand illiterate
students, where half a million people have so far been taught to read
and write by this program.
The public health sector has also been benefited with the application
of the ICT. The Public Health Teleinformatics Network is being developed
in order to interconnect polyclinics, hospitals, teaching centers,
libraries and other institutions in all the provinces of the country
through a system with more than 6 thousand computers.
This program is intended to elevate the knowledge of the health services
in order to boost quality and efficiency of health care, medical education,
medical research and health management.
It has facilitated the international presence of Cuban doctors, nurses
and other health professionals, and is a bond with those carrying
out missions in Third-World countries.
These and other actions undertaken for developing the health-care
facilities network allowed a quick transformation of the situation
existing before. Cuba has today 381 health areas completely covered
by the family doctor program, with more than
28 000 doctors distributed over the whole country. More than 97 %
of the Cuban population is covered by a family doctor and a family
nurse, and it is hoped to reach 100 % coverage in the near future.
Keeping health care of the people as a high priority has been a permanent
challenge and a strategic objective of the whole society and of the
Cuban state.
The work of the Revolution in public health has given priority to
the vulnerable groups of the population, in particular the women and
the children. For this reason, the main achievements reached in the
indicators reflecting the mother-and-child state of health in Cuba
are implicit in most social, cultural and economic actions. Thus,
the infant mortality rate was 6.5 per 1000 live births at the closing
of the year 2002.
Cuba has developed a group of primary health care programs to guarantee
the health of the people.
The growing challenges imposed us by technological development require,
more and more, the formation of a computing culture.
One of the targets of the Cuban government is the massive use of the
ICT. Cuba has well coordinated human resources, a well organized national
education system, and projects responding to that purpose.
The creation of the “Joven Club de Computación y Electrónica”
(Youth Clubs) in 1987, of INFOMED in 1992, and the massive, gratuitous
teaching of computing in the schools are examples of what a country
can achieve, in spite of having scarce resources, by making good use
of them for a noble purpose.
Other
aspects of computerization in Cuba.
Besides the programs and projects mentioned above, the leading computerization
program, conceived in 1997, includes such other aspects as:
• Development of the Cuban Industry of Information Technologies
It pursues to strengthen the field of the electronics industry related
to Information Technologies and that of Software and Computing Services.
Of particular importance will continue to be the design and production
of Cuban medical equipment, which has proven to be effective by increasing
the quality of health care in the country and by having been accepted
abroad.
The Cuban Software Industry (SW) will become a significant income
source of the country, based on its own massive, highly qualified
human capital.
The promotion of the Cuban software industry in international markets
has followed the strategic guideline of taking advantage of the great
prestige of Cuba in sectors such as health, education and sports.
The continuous, sustained production of high-quality software (competitive
in performance, image and supporting media) to satisfy the domestic
demand will have positive impacts on exports.
• Integral service for the citizens
This covers the preparation of information and service systems for
the people. It is intended to offer general information, as well as
simplification, speeding up and integration of formalities, and other
services designed for the citizens’ use, basically under the
single office conception. This includes direct access to ICT and to
information in centers of collective access such as the Joven Club
facilities or the E-mail & Web-surfing rooms, libraries and other
institutions, and also from the people’s homes.
Work is being done to transform the
post offices into service points for these ends, where the citizens
can go and carry out steps of all types, whose scope will increase
gradually, accordingly to the extent that the different structures
of the government and the economy become computerized.
These
initiatives are complemented by specific programs for making possible
the access of the disabled people to the ICT, mainly those related
to telephone service, teaching of computing, and reading facilities
on the TV by using the subtitled option (close caption).
• Computerization of the government, the administration and
the economy.
This consists in applying the ICT to the spheres of the government,
its central and local organs and bodies, and the corresponding enterprises
systems. The projects in this area are basically defined in two big
groups: those : i) those concerned specifically with the inside of
the system, including ICT application to decision making, enterprise
management, production processes, and provision of services; ii) those
aiming outward, such as the projects for information and service for
the people and diverse institutions and entities.
• Territorial Computerization.
To a great extent, this action area summarizes the aforementioned
ones. It results from correct integration of and synergy between them,
but with an intersector scope, designed for integrating government,
services and economy sectors and branches in any given territory.
This is horizontal computerization in local function, with the municipality
as the first stage to be reached prior to attaining the provincial
and national levels of computerization.
A
necessary accusation
The economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States
of America against Cuba, repeatedly condemned by overwhelming majority
of the UN member countries and by organizations, institutions and
personalities of recognized international prestige is seriously blocking
our access to information and communications technologies.
Since 1962 the American companies and their subsidiaries abroad are
banned from selling telecommunications and computing equipment to
Cuba by the US government. American scientists and professionals wishing
to travel to Cuba are forced to negotiate a specific authorization
with the US Treasury.
Because of the blockade, the Cuban sector of telecommunications has
suffered millionaire losses in the activities of basic and wireless
telephony, alarm systems,
E-commerce and postal communications. Only in telephone operation,
Cuba’s losses amounted 21,7 million dollars in 2002.
The extraterritorial Helms-Burton Act, issued by the United States
in 1996 to reinforce the blockade against Cuba, frustrated the creation
of a mixed company for the production of fiber-optic, coaxial and
data-transmission cables to be marketed in Cuba, Central America and
the Caribbean, thereby causing annual losses of dozens of millions
dollars.
The cellular telephone company CUBACEL has been affected by the impossibility
of reaching agreements of automatic roaming with similar companies
of the American continent. All the companies in charge of providing
the signal between TDMA standard operators and the formats established
for the exchange of billing files are American, and the US Treasury
has denied to them the authorization for providing these services.
The affectations for this concept are estimated in two million dollars.
Because of the blockade, Cuba was unable to acquire the technology
for the digital signature, indispensable for E-commerce, and has been
limited in its participation in the program that the International
Union of Telecommunications (ITU) is developing for those purposes.
Since 2000, because of lacking the technologies of digital certificates,
Cuba had to stop this program, which would allow the companies of
eastern Cuba to sell their goods and services via Internet, chiefly
to other Caribbean countries. The suppliers –US companies- are
banned from selling this technology to Cuba.
As regards trade by traditional ways, mixed companies operating in
key sectors of Cuban exports are reporting significant losses because
of their being precluded from making transactions in US dollars. Such
is the case of ETECSA (Telecommunications Company of Cuba), whose
losses for this concept amounted nearly one million dollars only in
2001.
Because of the impossibility of buying in the American market, CITMATEL
(Cuban Company of Information Technologies and Advanced Teleinformatics
Services), one of the main suppliers of computing equipment to Cuban
scientific centers, is forced to acquire them through third countries
and pay up to 30 percent above prices in the United States.
American laws forbid exports or reexports of software products of
American companies to certain countries, Cuba among them. For this
reason, Cuba is also forced to buy software licenses, updates and
technology transfer through third countries, which brings about price
increases and delayed receipts.
On April 10 2003 the US Department of Commerce informed to Cuba its
definitive decision of denying an export license to USA/Cuba-Infomed,
a humanitarian non government organization based in California that
was seeking, as in former occasions, to donate 423 computers to Cuban
hospitals and polyclinics to reinforce the diagnosis and medical information
network.
In this case the computers were destined to the Institute of Nephrology
and the national network for treatment of renal illnesses, where they
would facilitate an epidemic study for the prevention of chronic renal
illnesses; to the Cardiocenter of William Soler Pediatric Hospital,
the national cardio-pediatric network and the Latin American School
of Medical Sciences, attended by more than 7 thousand young people
coming from humble families of Latin America, the Caribbean, the United
States and Africa.
These computers were similar to others previously donated and had
processing capabilities similar to those available in any retail store
in the United States. According to the letter refusing the license,
“the Departments of Commerce, State and Defense of the United
States have reached the conclusion that this export would be harmful
to the interests of the foreign policy of the United States. The Government
of the United States has revised his objection letter… and keeps
its decision of refusing this application due to the high levels of
processing capabilities of the computers requested and the risk of
their deviation to non-authorized uses and users."
It was in July 1994 that the US Treasury decided to authorize data
and information transfer to Cuba from any American server, provided
that no money is transferred to Cuba. This change was intended to
put into practice the Torricelli Act of 1992, which reinforced the
blockade and identified the communications with Cuba as a way to interference
in our country’s internal affairs.
But Cuba cannot be connected to Internet at the desired speed or with
so many channels and independent suppliers as it can choose. Every
time Cuba attempts to add a new channel to Internet, the American
counterpart must obtain the appropriate license from the Treasury
of the United States.
Cuba has been precluded from accessing the global networks by using
a submarine optic-fiber cable due to the restrictions imposed by the
blockade.
The US government, besides denying the enjoyment of these technologies
by the Cubans, seeks to use them for ends of political and ideological
subversion against Cuba.
Since 1996 the US government has been financing with millionaire sums
the creation of Web sites and Internet publications aimed at orchestrating
libel campaigns against Cuba.
In an aggressive escalade, March 26 2003, the US secretary of State,
Colin Powell, announced the grant of important additional federal
funds for radio and TV transmissions against Cuba, in violation of
the regulations of the International Telecommunications Union (ITU).
Those transmissions add more than 2 200 weekly hours and have the
end of stimulating internal subversion, sabotage plans and illegal
emigration, and diffusing lies against Cuba.
Once again, Cuba denounces the genocidist policy of blockade and aggressions
of all types on the part of the government of the United States. In
spite of that, and of its modest material and financial resources,
Cuba will go on with its policy of large-scale development of the
new information and communications technologies, leaning on the knowledge
the Cuban people has learned to cultivate.
Conclusions
Cuba welcomes the World Summit of the Information Society in its phase
of Geneva, and expresses its decision to cooperate with the organizers
so that it can reach the results expected.
We reiterate our conviction that, to overcome the digital gap by computerizing
education, health care, social security, the government sphere and
other applications, it is indispensable that the most imperative requirements
of education, health care, employment, housing and social security
of everyone are previously met, and that the governments have the
political will of propitiating an active and effective participation
of the majority.
Cuba will continue developing computerization as a part of its fight
to elevate the quality of life of the Cuban people and to achieve
a more and more just, equitable and solidary society.
A better world is possible.
