Digital solidarity is “one of the only efficient ways – or at least promising ways – of making development progress, particularly in Africa", declared the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Bernard Kouchner, when the conference was presented in Paris. The participants – Heads of state and government and private actors – invited by the Senegalese president Abdoulaye Wade, will mainly discuss ways of financing this digital solidarity, more especially by generalising the “1% digital principle”. This principle recommends public authorities and voluntary companies to introduce a digital solidarity clause into their requests to tender for computer and telecom equipment. "By way of the 1% project, 30 billion dollars could be made globally available in this perspective, if everything was perfect", declared Jean-Jack Queyranne, the Socialist Party president of the Rhone-Alpes region, and one of the founder members of the Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF). He adds that "Until now, there have been declarations, summits in Geneva and Tunis (2003 and 2005) which have called for concrete measures to be applied, but these measures are taking a long time to be set up". Two projects will also be presented at this conference, states Alain Madelin, president of the Global Digital Solidarity Fund. The first concerns 1,000 telemedicine units for Africa "to provide training for health-care staff, giving very concrete help on how to interpret a scan or make a blood analysis", he points out. The second plans to provide African teachers with interactive whiteboards, wall-projected screens, "connected to a programme base for all levels of teaching", he continues. Today, less than 4% of all Africans have access to the Internet, compared with an average of 9% in developing countries. Source: TV5/AFP