The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)

1
The World Summit on the Information Society
(WSIS)
2
What I shall cover

• Background to Summit
• The Objectives Envisaged Outcomes
• The Processes What happened?
• The Actors Who were they? What did they want?
• Some of the Contested Issues at WSIS
• Africa and WSIS
• An Insiders Account

3
Background

• International Telecomm Union
• UN General Assembly

4
The Objectives Envisaged Outcomes

• Vision To develop a common understanding of the
  information society
• Access To promote the urgently needed access to
  all the worlds inhabitants to information,
  knowledge and communication technologies for
  development

5
Objectives contd

• Applications To harness the potential of
  knowledge and technology for promoting the goals
  of the United Nationals Millennium Declaration
• The goals
• Development Poverty Eradication
• Democracy Governance
• Common Heritage
• Protecting the vulnerable meeting the special
  needs of Africa

6
The Processes

• The UNGA Resolution recommends that the
  preparations for the Summit take place through an
  open-ended intergovernmental preparatory
  committee. It also encourages effective
  contributions from, and active participation of,
  a wide range of bodies including UN
  agenciesnon-governmental organizations, civil
  society and the private sector.

7
Processes

• High Level Summit Organizing Committee
• Executive Secretariat
• Informal Consultations
• Regional Conferences Thematic Meetings
• Preparatory Committee Meetings
• Phase One Summit Geneva, Dec, 2003
• Phase Two Tunis, Nov,2005

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The Actors

• National Governments
• UN Agencies
• Intergovernmental Organisations
• Civil Society (NGOs, labour unions, universities)
• Private Sector
• Media???

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Some of the Contested Issues

• Internet Governance
• Security
• Free and Open Software
• Communication Rights
• Intellectual Property
• Human Rights
• Finance

10
The Outcomes

• Declarations of Principles
• Plan of Action

11
Africa and WSIS

• Bamako Declaration
• Civil Society Processes Bamako Bureau, Southern
  African bodies (MISA, APC, SACOD, A19, HA), East
  Africa (Femnet), West Africa

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African Positions

• Governments Digital Solidarity
• Civil Society Gender ICTs, Open Source Free
  Software, Education ICTs
• Media A19, pluralism diversity, 3 tiers of
  broadcasting, content

13
The End Result?

• Disappointing process false expectations
• Watered down outcome more development focused
  principles without attendant focus on fundamental
  rights
• Still the documents are there and task is on how
  to use them (refer APC)

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Some lessons

• Understand process
• Understand the issues
• Be organized (deployment)
• Be skilled (advocacy lobbying, presentation
  skills)
• Have money equipment
• Make feedback and re-organize

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The Road to Geneva and Tunis

• Charter on African Broadcasting (ACB) A19, MISA,
  SACOD, AMARC, APC
• Bamako Declaration
• PrepCom 1,2,3, Intersessional Meetings
• Geneva Summit Plenary, WEMF, Parallel Events,
  HANA coverage
• Next Nairobi, HA, Tunis 2005

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Checklist Why is it necessary to have a national
WSIS consultation? Ref APC

• It creates awareness
• It broadens social participation
• It builds consensus between social actors
• It creates demand and expectation for delivery
• It is an opportunity for CSOs to lead the process
  and thereby optimise its interests