(AP) -- An African-led initiative that will use high-speed Internet connections to treat AIDS patients in Burundi and Burkina Faso offers inspiration for those working to bridge the world's digital divide.Its great promise lies in its linking of technology spending with existing campaigns to extinguish poverty, diseases and illiteracy, averting the need to choose one over the other.Yet such projects remain few, despite great need. The age-old challenge remains: Who's going to pay for such works?As world leaders convene in Tunisia on Wednesday for a U.N. summit on extending technology to the poor, the very fund that was to be its legacy still wants for support. Much of The Digital Solidarity Fund's contributions comes from African nations least able to afford it.The challenge is huge.Worldwide, just 14 percent of the population is online, compared with 62 percent for the United States and an even higher ratio in some Western European countries, according to the International Telecommunication Union. Less than half the world's people have telephones, even as some in developed countries are so wired they can't seem to get away from ringing phones.The Digital Solidarity Fund has just $6.4 million in cash and pledges, pocket change compared with the $2.25 billion the United States spends a year on E-rate grants to schools and libraries in the nation's rural and low-income areas. Of the countries contributing to the world fund, all but one -- France -- are African."We still need to raise funds," said Elena Ursache, the fund's project manager. "It's obviously not sufficient to start to do a lot of activities."More important than one-time contributions from cities and nations, she said, is a continuous revenue stream like that pledged by the Swiss city of Geneva, the fund's headquarters. Geneva's cash infusion comes from a simple formula: Contractors winning bids on computer-related city projects must give the fund 1 percent of the award amount.When some 12,000 business, civic and government officials convened in December 2003 for the first round of the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society in Geneva, President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal aggressively pushed for the fund's creation.Other African heads of state joined him in touting the initiative as a way to help governments, companies and nonprofits narrow gaps in Internet and communications technologies.But many leaders from the developed world did not believe a separate fund was needed. They preferred to augment existing funding sources such as the World Bank."There is general agreement we need to do more, ... but there is very little agreement on the best way to do that," said Andy Carvin, a U.S.-based expert on improving access to technology and the Internet. "Many countries feel they have already set up successful programs."In draft language expected to win approval at the summit's second and final phase, in Tunis from Wednesday to Friday, the fund is welcomed as "an innovative financial mechanism" -- but there's no explicit recommendation for nations to contribute, even voluntarily.There is hope, however: In September, leaders of more than 150 nations meeting at U.N. headquarters approved a document that in part encourages voluntary contributions.Meanwhile, fund officials aren't waiting to start spending.The first $1 million is committed to bringing high-speed Internet access to about two dozen AIDS clinics in Burundi and Burkina Faso. Satellite and other communications equipment will go to nine cities in the African nations, and an emerging wireless technology called WiMax will extend access to more remote sites.The clinics are getting videoconferencing units, with serial ports to attach stethoscopes and other medical equipment, so specialists can examine patients from afar.Lab technicians can remotely analyze blood samples and quickly determine the need for antiretroviral drugs; before, samples had to be sent by mail or messenger.Each site will also get 20 to 30 computers so medical workers can store records for follow-up care and keep up on the latest treatment and prevention techniques.Only after all that is in place can the rest of the community use the computers, too, for other projects.Focusing first on basic needs like health, food and education only makes sense, Ursache said."The life of vulnerable populations cannot improve dramatically if all of (a) sudden they have a computer," Ursache said. "But if their doctor is able to provide better health care thanks to a computer, then it is the use of the machine that matters, and not the acquisition itself."That the fund is focused on local, targeted projects shows promise, though success will ultimately depend on how well it sticks with those objectives, said Willie Currie of the Association for Progressive Communications, a coalition of nonprofit groups devoted to improving communication technologies.Past efforts to put computers into schools didn't necessarily come with training, native language Web sites or any plans to integrate the equipment into curriculums, Currie said. "That period is over," he said, and projects now have to be more focused.The fund's approach is also consistent with a U.N. task force's findings that governments and development agencies now favor encouraging private investments in access and equipment while giving grants to "more direct poverty alleviating impacts."At this week's summit, closing the digital divide will likely take a back seat to heated discussions on whether the United States should share control of Internet traffic and directory computers.In fact, negotiators already reached agreement on much of the language concerning the digital divide.The draft document calls for using technology not in isolation but as a means for meeting other development goals. But it doesn't say where the money will come from, other than to suggest a mix of old and new funding sources.For some, the summit will be more important for making contact.Although the policy discussions may appear like "we're all just rearranging the chairs on the deck of the Titanic," Carvin said, civic leaders, philanthropists and others will be there to exchange ideas and forge new partnerships.Alan Rossi of the Development Gateway Foundation plans to showcase his ideas for saving governments money when soliciting contract bids, and Daniel Wagner of the University of Pennsylvania will release a report he's done for the World Bank on ways to measure effectiveness so projects do more than benefit a developing country's elite.Bruno Lanvin, World Bank senior adviser for e-strategies, said that although "thousands of beautiful anecdotes" exist, presidents and finance ministers need concrete evidence that technology will augment rather than divert money from food and medicine.Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. 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