Internet, Telecoms & Cybercrime

The United States is embracing a new approach to international development that involves expanded use of information technology and more private-public partnerships. The Global Development Commons (GDC), launched by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), will use technology to allow aid donors and recipients to communicate better and to find needed information online from such sources as libraries and databases. It will involve tools like computers connected to the Internet that are located in cities and rural areas and informal online interchanges and conferences, creating "a comprehensive network accessible to all," according to a USAID fact sheet. The GDC "democratizes" information and allows individuals and organizations to ask questions and look for new partners, according to the fact sheet. The GDC is intended to be a "community of continuous and real-time exchange, collaboration, partnership and action" among public and private donors, agencies, nongovernmental organizations, governments and civil society -- "all operating as equals," Henrietta Fore, USAID administrator and director of U.S. foreign aid, said in a November 2007 press release.

(left to right) European Commission Director Frans de Bruine, Robert Kolodner of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and Michael Maibach of the European-American Business Council address the press during the EU-U.S. eHealth Policy Workshop in Brussels, Belgium, on May 10, 2007.
Photo: Jeannine Johnson Maia, U.S. Mission to the EU Over 100 representatives of the U.S. government, the European Commission, EU member states and industry executives gathered in Brussels on May 10, 2007, for the first U.S.-EU eHealth policy workshop, sponsored by the European Commission and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services in conjunction with the European American Business Council. Head of the U.S. delegation Robert Kolodner, the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, European Commission Director General for the Information Society and Media Fabio Colasanti, and Charles Scatchard, Vice President Health Sciences at Oracle were among those who discussed the U.S. and EU eHealth agendas and industry’s response to the challenges presented by the development of healthcare practices supported by computers and the Internet.