Message from the President of the Senate of Italy, Sen. Ignazio La Russa

Message from the President of the Senate of Italy, Sen. Ignazio La Russa

“A COMPUTER CLASS FOR EVERY SCHOOL IN AFRICA” ONLINE MARATHON

ROME, 20 NOVEMBER 2024

With heartfelt participation, I send my personal greetings and those of the Senate of the Italian Republic on the occasion of the “A computer class for every school in Africa” initiative.

This is an important event to raise global awareness about the needs, necessities and struggles that millions of children worldwide encounter every day in their quest for an education. This issue is all the more pressing as concerns the use of digital technologies, due both to a lack of infrastructure - such as the supply of electricity - and to difficulties in providing specific training.

For these reasons, I appreciate and support the initiative launched by the “Global Alliance for ICT and development”, which thanks to the role played by former Secretaries-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan and Ban Ki-moon, will be able to implement additional projects to facilitate the bridging of the digital divide in sub-Saharan Africa.

One hundred years after the Geneva Declaration of the Rights of the Child, on the 70th anniversary of World Children's Day, and 35 years after the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, this initiative has the great merit of fostering the development of much-needed attention and awareness of the conditions in which hundreds of millions of African children find themselves.

And yet, the widespread, responsible, and sustainable use of new technologies can and must be the launching pad for a new form of development for all new generations, under the banner of safety and well-being.

Through the implementation of multilateralism and international cooperation, these goals can be achieved with the active involvement, in every corner of the planet, of institutions, schools, training centres, families, and all civil society actors.

I therefore reiterate my support and that of the Senate of the Italian Republic for the “A computer class for every school in Africa” online marathon, in the belief that together we shall be able to expedite the creation of new and positive educational opportunities for all children worldwide.