On 17-18 June 2002, the United Nations General Assembly held a meeting devoted to information and communication technologies for development. According to the relevant resolution of the General Assembly (56/258), the meeting addressed the digital divide in the context of globalization and the development process and promoted coherence and synergies between various regional and international information and communication technologies initiatives. The meeting also contributed to the preparation of the World Summit on the Information Society.Many countries were be represented by high-level officials responsible for communications and for development.

Besides the formal plenary meetings, there were two informal panels providing an input of ideas, experiences and policy advice from prominent experts and civil society representatives, including from the private sector.

The themes of the two informal panels were:

17 June: How can ICT address the digital divide to leverage development to meet the Millennium Summit goals building on public-private multi-stakeholder partnerships for promoting digital opportunity.
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18 June: The United Nations role in supporting efforts to promote digital opportunity, in particular in Africa and LDC's: challenge of inclusion in the world economy through ICT.
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UN GA Special Meeting on ICT (French | Spanish)