When the meeting was opened on 17 February 2003 it was done so with an appeal for all stakeholders to work ‘quickly and constructively’ to develop the first draft of the declaration and plan. ‘However, to achieve the vision of the information society we’ve outlined,’ said Yoshio Utsumi Secretary-General of International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in conclusion, ‘we need to do more work as well as gain the support and political will of the leaders of the world.’ The inputs from PrepCom-2 will be incorporated into a new working document by 21 March 2003, according to a press release issued by the WSIS Secretariat within the ITU. The new draft of the declaration and plan will then be discussed at the next meeting of the preparatory committee in Geneva scheduled for 15-26 September 2003.

Broad-based consensus vs executive decision-making.

The meeting was attended by 1,535 participants according to the ITU, of which 887 were from member states, 390 from civil society and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 59 from the business sector and 24 from the United Nations (UN) and specialized agencies. ‘The enthusiastic participation of more than 1500 participants is reflected in the comprehensive nature of the work produced, and in their collective belief in developing new and innovative partnerships between Member States, civil society and the business sector in order to bridge the divide,’ summarised Yoshio Utsumi in a press release. But despite the myriad inputs from stakeholders, intense negotiations and lobbying, a number of issues surrounding the content of the agreement remain unresolved.

One point to be raised was a question mark over the status of civil society, business sector and NGO observers within the WSIS process. ‘The work must be done in such a way as to be inclusive and that participations of all stakeholders — government, private sector, civil society and intergovernmental organizations — be taken into account’ said the President of the Preparatory Committee, Mr. Adama Samassékou.

However, ‘…while there was strong consensus among government representatives that the value of the inputs from the observer groups was incalculable in meeting the goals of the Summit’, highlights of the 27th February published by the ITU noted that, ‘the practicalities proved harder to surmount... The crux of the question appeared to be whether inputs from observers, who do not have negotiating rights, could be included in such a text on an equal footing with governmental inputs’.

An Information Society for whom?

One key theme to emerge was divergence over the aims of the Information Society. One the one hand, representatives from civil society contended that social justice, gender equality and human rights should be given higher priority. In an open letter presented from the NGO gender strategies working group (see http://www.genderit.org/letter.shtml), representatives expressed an ‘increasing concern with the directions taken by the preparatory process for WSIS’ and in particular urged ‘strong leadership to restore a focus on human development objectives within the WSIS process.’ In particular the letter expresses deep concern over a ‘heavy reliance on market-based solutions for almost all developmental issues related to ICTs. There appears to be a strong centre-staging of market-based approaches and an assumption that growth, efficiency and profit-maximising should the guiding principles of development.’ The letter goes on to add ‘…there is no mention of gender equality in any part of the document’ and ‘urge that gender equality should be specifically identified both as a Key Principle in the document.’

On the other hand, representatives from the private sector sought to emphasise that business is of paramount importance to the Information Society and sought more emphasis for the role played by the private sector. Robert G. Rogers, Executive Director of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC) noted in his presentation to WSIS that ‘…in the absence of risk-taking and investment by business, after all, there will be no basis—no cornerstone, no foundation—for a global “information society.” The private sector is the only part of society that has the wherewithal to amass and leverage the resources—the skilled people, technologies, and capital—required to build and maintain that foundation. If speeding the world toward an “information society” is the goal of the Summit, accordingly, the role of private sector investment must be recognized as paramount’. (See http://www.giic.org/events/02-20-03.asp)

This divergence of interest was encapsulated neatly by Gustavo Capdevila of Inter Press Service who writes that ‘a rift has emerged between the visions aiming to put new technology at the service of business, or of citizens.’ The drafters of the revised declaration and plan will seek to strike a balance between these two visions.

The key points of this draft action plan are summarized in the table below:

Resources:

‘Information and Communication for All’ can be downloaded from the official WSIS website, see below.

• ITU http://www.itu.int


• WSIS http://www.itu.int/wsis