The Information Society in the Euro-Mediterranean context:
Research and Information Technologies

Regional Cooperation
Intervention of Stefano Trumpy
Director of CNUCE Institute of CNR

The Internet technology allows to realise virtual networks that join, in a single community, any subset of the present user community connected to the physical networks which form the Internet. The possibility of running the virtual regional network of the Mediterranean area is already concrete, although there is not a phisical network connecting the Mediterranean countries.
The Mediterranean region is a very strategic one; from the point of view of the technological situation and of the culture, we may observe that there are different "de-facto" subregions, sometimes composed of a single nation, like:
	- the European Union countries
	- the Arab countries
	- the former Yugoslavia republics
	- the islands
	- Israel
	- Albania
	- Turkey
In the Euro - Mediterranean regional context, it is essential that groups formed by persons coming from different subregions are set up to work together.
Some activities which may encourage the amalgam are:

	- Internet management (national naming authorities and co-ordination with continental authorities like RIPE / NCC, routing problems, etc.);
	- assessment of networks technology (IP protocols, standards, security, 	  ATM technology, new generation services, etc.);
	- relations with the carriers;
	- relations with the international financing bodies;
	- information services;
	- cooperative work in the following sectors:
		- Research & Development
		- administration
		- Small & Medium Enterprises
		- telemedicine
		- teleteaching
		- environment and resources management
		- etc.

The following activities, in which the author is involved, produced cooperation among the Mediterranean subregions:

	- G7 pilot projects for the activation of the "Information Society"; 
in particular, as Italian coordinator of the GIBN (Global Interoperability of Broadband Networks) pilot project, I submit to your attention the fact that the G7 countries, in cooperation with the international carriers, will make operative, within this year, an experimental infrastructure running ATM technology initially at 34Mbps, and soon at 155Mbps, which will interconnect Europe with North America and Japan. A discussion is presently under way on how to open the infrastructure to non G7 countries, including the less developed ones. The next G7 ministerial will be held in South Africa next May and will be dedicated to the extension of the "Information Society” to the South of the world, or more generally, to developing countries. Since this subject is now drawing the attention of mass media and politicians, the G7 projects represent a good occasion for the Mediterranean countries to conduct experimentation, on a regional base, of multimedia services, provided that the carriers will be able to provide suitable means, at affordable costs.

	- TERENA (Trans European Research & Education Networking Association)
 TERENA is the association to which belong the European research networks including those of several other countries in the surrounding regions, like Slovenia, Macedonia, Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt, Israel, Iran and India. TERENA is the forum of the research networks users and planners of the European region; it organizes conferences and workshops, runs technical working groups which carry on the “TERENA technical programme” with the aim of preparing the evolution of the services presently available to the research community. TERENA is also the Internet naming authority for the European region, through the RIPE/NCC service.
TERENA is organised as a group of national delegates representing their national research networks.
As President of the association, I encourage the Mediterranean countries, which are not represented in the association yet, to join; doing so, they will become active partners both in the technical managing of the international networks and in the planning of future developments.

	- UNESCO RINAF (Regional Informatics Network for AFrica)
This project, conducted by the IIP (Intergovernmental Informatics Project) since 1992, has the goal of bringing to 15 African countries the basic Internet services (or to improve the existing situation) taking into account the compatibility with the telecommunications situation in the selected countries and the services sustainability once the project will end. The continent has been divided into five regions; most of the countries included in the North region are facing the Mediterranean. The regional coordination is located in Algeria, at the CERIST Institute in particular. Two national nodes will be soon installed in Mauritania and in Marocco. In the African continent, the most developed regions, from a technological point of view, are the North and the South. The North region has the possibility to play a very important role since, being part of the Mediterranean, it may be considered as an extension of Europe, but, at the same time, being part of Africa, it has the possibility of bridging the different cultures of the two continents. The RINAF project encourages this double role of the Northern region  of Africa. The CNUCE Institute of CNR in Pisa is presently providing support to the project Technical Coordinator, in order to cooperate with our African partners to reach the mentionned goals.

	- Bilateral cooperations carried on by CNUCE:

		- Mubarak City 
the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is conducting a project, in cooperation with CNUCE and with our Egyptian partners, to establish international network services at the Institute of Research in Informatics in Mubarak city, and to activate the informatics facilities of the networking and multimedia departments of the same institute.

		- Albania
CNUCE is providing support to our Albanian partners in order to let them start very basic Internet services in Tirana academic institutions.

Concluding statements

There is the need of investments, in order to start the activities of the mixed working groups formed by technicians and planners coming from the different subregions.
These investments should be used to form a class of young people which think "regional", in a Euro-Mediterranean context.