At the second part of the World Summit on the Information Society, the private sector played a leading role in steering discussion away from a fruitless dispute over Internet governance, and toward making information and communication technologies more widely available.

At the UN climate talks in Montreal, which concluded December 10, business challenged governments to develop more coherent, long-term frameworks to enable the private sector to develop ways to address climate change. 

Businesses from the 30 nations of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development applauded the appointment earlier this month of Ángel Gurría as the next secretary general of the OECD beginning June 1, 2006.

There were feverish preparations in the lead up to this month’s World Trade Organization’s Hong Kong ministerial.To take one example, members of the ICC and the Trade Facilitation Alliance (TFA) met with WTO negotiators in Geneva to convey strong business support for ongoing Doha Round negotiations on trade facilitation.

USCIB has launched a new Chamber of Commerce Committee to provide an official framework for engagement and participation in ICC’s World Chambers Federation, and to engage leading state and metropolitan chambers on a range of business and policy concerns.