A/HRC/7/14 Page 21 information, particularly in rural areas. In this context, the Special Rapporteur calls upon States to allocate resources for programmes that are directed at adolescents and women for the prevention and treatment of this disease. 59. In most countries, people living with HIV/AIDS face discrimination. The Special Rapporteur places special importance on the promotion of campaigns that combat discriminatory attitudes and stigmatization of people living with HIV/AIDS. In this context, he encourages communities, teachers, journalists, doctors and, in particular, Governments to disseminate information addressing all HIV/AIDS-related issues, its modes of transmission and the means of protection. In particular, information on topics that may be considered as taboo or private – such as safe sex or drug abuse – should be explicit and made available in formats adapted and accessible to the society. 60. The United Nations, its agencies, funds and programmes have placed the fight against HIV/AIDS very high on the development agenda. The Special Rapporteur also notes with satisfaction that many donor countries have included HIV/AIDS among their priorities for development assistance. The Special Rapporteur encourages such trends and wishes to emphasize that it is only through a global response that the fight against HIV/AIDS can be addressed. The exchange of good practices between countries and the support to developing countries while implementing information and education programmes is crucial. The ‘digital divide’ 61. Throughout his mandate, the Special Rapporteur has seen an unprecedented expansion of communication and information technologies around the world. However, the promises of the information society still are not being shared among all. A wide gap between the information-rich and the information-poor still remains (the “digital divide”) and does not show any encouraging signs of being reduced. It is important to note that the impact of the digital divide is not felt exclusively in developing and least developed countries, but also in vulnerable communities living in the industrialized world. 62. Narrowing the digital divide requires more than only technical efforts to extent the new communication and information technologies to marginalized communities, thus connecting them to the information society. Unfortunately, hundreds of millions of people around the world are illiterate, and many more are not proficient in the new technologies. In