|
|
|
| home
| about IDEAs | contact
| archives |
|
|
|
|
 |
|
| Information
and Communication Technologies for a Better World? |
|
|
|
The first
phase of the World Summit on the Information Society
[WSIS] took place in Geneva, Switzerland from 10-12
December, 2003. The second phase will take place in
Tunis, Tunisia, from 16 to18 November 2005. In Geneva,
over 54 Heads of State, Prime Ministers, Presidents,
Vice-Presidents and 83 ministers and vice-ministers
from 176 countries, Executive Heads of United Nations
agencies, industry leaders [private sector], NGOs, media
representatives and civil society came together for
the first multi-stakeholder global effort to share and
shape the use of ICTs for a better world.
The Summit adopted a Declaration of Principles which
puts forward the shared elements among members of the
international community about a common vision of an
information society's[1]values. It also adopted a Plan
of Action which sets forth a road map to build on that
vision and to bring the benefits of Information and
communication technologies [ ICTs][2] to underserved
economies. One among the few things for which there
was consensus among the participants[3] in the Summit
was with respect to the framework and strategy the international
community should develop to ensure that the possible
benefits of ICTs for development are maximized while
the possible obstacles and barriers are minimized. With
respect to the other two major themes discussed at the
summit, namely, access and applications, very little
of concrete and immediate relevance was achieved at
the end of the first phase of the WSIS. All the intensity
of debate and hard talk on internet management and governance
during the pre-summit phase was diluted with the decision
at the Summit to set up an UN working group on internet
governance which will report to the second stage of
the summit in Tunis, the decision only facilitating
the stalling of the issue temporarily. Regarding the
question of bridging the so called 'digital divide'
by increasing access and applying ICTs for redressing
the problems of the poor countries, it was agreed upon
that for achieving the above, building up the infrastructure
base in these countries from the primary level is essential
. However, the consensus ended here. How this process
is going to be funded and what role the developed countries
should play in this respect remained a topic of controversy
and discordance.
Few people have ever died because they did not have
access to the Internet or could not make a telephone
call. Among the necessities of life, ICTs come well
down the scale. But it is much easier to deliver the
real necessities of life-such as clean water, nourishing
food, shelter, education, healthcare, and employment-with
good access to information and communications. The UN
Millennium Declaration[4] contains commitments to halve,
by the year 2015, the proportion of the world's population
living on less than one US dollar per day, suffering
from hunger or having no access to drinking water. It
also contains commitments on achieving universal primary
education for both boys and girls, reducing maternal
and child mortality, improving healthcare and achieving
significant improvements in the life of slum dwellers. ICTs can help in achieving these goals.
At the closing ceremony of the Summit, Yoshio Utsumi,
Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication
Union [ITU][5] and Summit cautioned that the Summit
was only the start of a long and complex process. "Telephones
will not feed the poor, and computers will not replace
textbooks. But ICTs can be used effectively as part
of the toolbox for addressing global problems...."
he said[6] . The true test of an engaged, empowered
and egalitarian information society, he added, would
be seeing the fruits of today's powerful knowledge based
tools in the most impoverished economies. . The participants
in the closing ceremony also stressed why it is pertinent
to have a new commitment in areas like internet governance,
access, investment, security, the development of applications,
intellectual property rights and privacy to work together
if we are to realize the benefits of the information
society. A genuine and objective assessment of the Summit
can be done by examining to what extent the above issues
were addressed to in the summit and a consensus evolved
with respect to tackling them.
The issue of internet governance was one of the most
important and extensively discussed topics in the pre-summit
phase, largely because of its multi-dimensional impacts
in the global context. However, with agreement to set
up an UN working group on internet governance –
technical management of the internet and public policy
concerns such as unsolicited advertising [spam], privacy,
cyber crime and network security- the dispute has been
defused, at least, temporarily[7] . Developing countries
have proposed that the International Telecommunications
Union should be given control of Internet governance
issues, including anti-spam measures and distribution
of Website domains. Many developing world countries
believe that a new approach is needed as the Internet
reaches maturity and as many poorer countries log on
to the Internet. The move could represent a major setback
in future for the International Corp for Assigned Names
and Numbers (ICANN), a non-profit company which is currently
seen as the most-recognisable Internet governance organisation.
Because of its far-reaching implications in the international
political, economic and cultural milieu, the issue has
to be analysed systematically and independently, in
detail.
Access to information, and thereby to the creation of
knowledge, is considered a critical factor in the development
process. On the one hand, this requires an adequate
range of ICT networks and services. On the other hand,
it implies the ability to use those tools to develop
applications that benefit society (learning by doing).
But both the tools and the ability to use them are unevenly
distributed. Despite considerable progress in recent
years, access to ICTs, notably the telephone, mobile
phone, Internet and broadcast networks, remains unequally
distributed[8]. There are, for example, more televisions
in Brazil; more fixed line telephones in Italy; more
mobile phones in Korea; and greater Internet connectivity
in Luxembourg; than in the whole continent of Africa.
Yet the population of Africa, and the needs of its people,
greatly exceeds those of these other countries. In recent
years, these disparities have come to be known as the
"digital divide". The Digital Solidarity Agenda
put forward by the Draft Plan of Action attempts to
bridge this divide by putting in place the conditions
for mobilizing human, financial and technological resources
for inclusion of all men and women in the emerging Information
Society. The plan of action suggests that Developed
countries should make concrete efforts to fulfil their
international commitments to financing development including
the Monterrey Consensus, in which developed countries
that have not done so are urged to make concrete efforts
towards the target of 0.7 per cent of GNP as ODA to
developing countries and 0.15 to 0.20 per cent of GNP
of developed countries to least developed countries.
However many participants, especially from Africa were
quite sceptical about the financing aspect of this process.
African countries led by Senegal wanted a Digital Solidarity
Fund to help governments, companies and nonprofit organizations
narrow the so called digital divide. The U.S. and other
western countries rejected this funding proposal insisting
that the existing mechanisms are adequate, requiring
at most unspecified adjustments. This seems quite ironical
in the light of the fact that the WSIS was able to pledge
only a trickle of financial support compared with the
$6.3 billion (U.S.) one organizer estimated it would
take to truly bring phones and internet to all corners
of the world. However, it was finally resolved to undertake
a review of existing ICT funding mechanisms and also
study the feasibility of an international voluntary
Digital Solidarity Fund, which would be reviewed in
the Tunis Summit.
Another concern which was voiced by civil society groups[9]
and some participants from African countries [before
and after the Summit] was that the Summit was steamrollered
by western and MNC interests', as clearly evidenced
by the dominance of MNCs like Micro Soft, Hewlett- Packard,
Cisco, World Space etc. in technological collaborations
formed at the Summit. especially with respect to developing
the internet. Ralf Bendrath of Germany's Heinrich-Böll
Foundation warned that "To an extent, industry
is naturally important, to build infrastructure and
operate it. But we are against an information society
that's organized as a purely profit-oriented information
society"[10] .
Civil society groups also came out with an alternative
declaration claiming that their voices and the general
interests collectively expressed by them are not adequately
reflected in the Summit documents. Their Declaration
titled "Shaping Information Societies for Human
Needs" is centered around four core principles
: Social Justice and People-Centred Sustainable Development;
Centrality of Human Rights; Culture, Knowledge and Public
Domain; and Enabling Environment.
Inspite of all the focus and big talk on the role national
governments[11] have to play in the ICT diffusion process,
the Summit was attended by a relatively much smaller
number of government representatives than was initially
expected. Of the 176 governments represented at the
Summit 80 heads of government were initially expected
to attend, some 60 confirmed their participation and
finally was attended by 40 As Claire Flus, who works
on providing access and local content to Brazil's urban
slums summed it up, " The people we have seen are
mainly from NGOs. The governments, I can't really see
them. I don't find it obvious at all they are supporting
this"[12].
Press freedom has been another controversial issue at
the summit, with developing nations and European states
clashing over the wording of a general declaration on
the role of the media. The growing reach of the Internet
as a news medium has once again thrown the spotlight
on press freedom. But there was anger that many governments
such as those of Zimbabwe, who are accused of clamping
down on the media and restricting access to the Internet,
are participating in the summit. As Timothy Balding,
director general of the Paris-based World Association
of Newspapers, said, "Many of the principal barriers
and obstacles to development of the Internet as a platform
for free expression have been erected by the very governments
who are in attendance". It is quite ironical to
note that closely on heels with the Summit , a new U.S.
federal law is coming into vogue from January, 1, 2004,
making it legal to send bulk e-mail (60% of which is
today spam). Anti-spam activists suggest that this would
open the floodgates of spam[13] !!
A clear concern of alarm and caution also was voiced
at the Summit, especially by Latin American and African
nations regarding the need not just to preserve existing
cultures, but also protect new cultures and forms of
expression being created by the internet. One of the
positive outcomes of the Summit was the consensus to
preserve and support cultural diversity, though the
question of how this could be achieved in today's
world still characterized by a sharp digital divide
was largely skipped ,foster local content development
an knowledge-sharing , and enable the use of all world
languages on the internet.
Inspite of the differences of opinion in many areas
the Summit ended on a general note of optimism that
it was largely successful in placing the importance
of ICTs in fostering development and bridging the digital
divide on the world agenda. With long term commitment
on the part of governments, private sector and civil
society to mobilize resources and investment most of
the envisaged targets can be achieved.
December 23, 2003.
[1] Ever since the 1980s, 'information society'
has been one of the key terms used to describe the modern
world. It has been employed variously as a social, cultural,
economical and technical concept, and is typically seen
as the natural development of the European liberal tradition,
or of American technological modernity.
[2] Information and communication technologies are seen
by various different bodies of the international community
as being, inter alia:
- a bridge between developed and developing countries
[DOI and DOT Force]
- a tool for economic and social development [WTDC 1994,
Seoul Declaration, ADF 02]
- an engine for growth [The Missing Link Report, 1984];
- the central pillar for the construction of a global
knowledge-based economy and society
[Florianopolis Declaration];
- An opportunity for countries to free themselves from
the tyranny of geography [ESCAP 2000].
African Development Forum III, "Consensus Statement
and the Way Ahead", 3-8 March 2002,
Addis Abeba.
http://www.uneca.org/adfiii/consensus.htm
[3] Participation at the WSIS was broadly from four
categories of stakeholders, namely, governments, private
sector, civil society, and the UN family.
[4] The reference here is to the UN Millennium Declaration
Development goals. A framework of 8 goals, 18 targets
and 48 indicators to measure progress towards the Millennium
Development goals was adopted by a consensus of experts
from the United Nations Secretariat and IMF, OECD and
the World Bank. ( Road Map towards the Implementation
of the United Nations Millennium Declaration, A/56/326
[PDF, 450KB] The goals are eradicating extreme poverty
and hunger, achieving universal primary education, promoting
gender equality and empower women, reducing child mortality,
improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria
and other diseases, ensuring environmental sustainability
and developing a global partnership for development.
In addition, the global development agenda also includes
the achievement of sustainable development and agreed
development goals, as contained in the Johannesburg
Declaration and Plan of Implementation and the Monterrey
Consensus, and other outcomes of relevant United Nations
Summits.
[5] The original idea for the Summit came from ITU Resolution
73 (Minneapolis, 1998) and was subsequently confirmed
in ITU Council Resolutions 1158 and 1179. Subsequently
the UN General Assembly Resolution 56/183 [21 December,
2001] endorsed the framework for the Summit adopted
by the ITU. UN General Assembly Resolution, A/RES/56/183,
is available at: http://www.un.org/documents/ga/res/56/a56r183.pdf
[6]
http://www.itu.int/wsis/geneva/newsroom/press_releases/wsisclosing.html
[7] Geneva Summit aims to bridge digital divide, Financial
Times, Dec, 9, 2003.
[8] WSIS document –Providing access to ICTs for
all -available at www.wsis.org
[9] The UN uses the term for organizations that are
distinct from the government or international agencies.
[10] ://www.dw-world.de © Deutsche Welle
[11] While the private sector may be the driving force
behind the growth of the information society, since
private initiative is market driven, which does not
necessarily cater for the needs of the whole population,
particularly in developing and least developed countries
it is essential for governments to take the lead in
promoting equitable participation of the whole population
in the information society.
[12] http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story
[13] The Hindu, The Challenge of Spam, p.10, Dec.19,
2003. |
|
|
|