§ Lord Aveburyasked Her Majesty's Government:
Whether they will consider supporting the Free and Open Source Software Foundation for Africa, and whether they will draw this initiative to the attention of other member states of the European Union.[H L3263]
§ The Secretary of State for International Development (Baroness Amos)DfID works in consultation with the Free and Open Source Software Foundation in Africa (FOSSFA) through our partnership for IT in Education (Imfundo) and our Catalysing Access to Internet in Africa (CATIA) programmes. We are currently considering an action plan recently put forward by FOSSFA in the context of our wider involvement in information and communications in developing countries.
We are in discussions with our European partners and others, through the e-envoy about open source development, particularly in the context of the preparations for the World Summit on the Information Society to be held in Geneva between 10 and 12 December 2003.