SV: [Ct-drafting] Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] new version of WSIS CS statement

[Rikke Frank Joergensen]

Dear Linda and all,

 

Pls find below the full text.   Best Rikke

 

 

 

WSIS Civil Society Statement DRAFT V3.1

last change: 30/11/2005 18:52 CET

 

I. Introduction - Our perspective after the WSIS process

 

The WSIS was an opportunity for a wide range of actors to work together
to develop principles and prioritise actions that would lead to
democratic, inclusive, participatory and development-oriented
information societies; societies in which the ability to access, share
and communicate information and knowledge is treated as a public good
and takes place in a ways that strengthens the rich cultural diversity
of our world.

 

Civil society entered the Tunis Phase of WSIS with these major goals: 

 

*        Agreement on financing mechanisms and models that will close
the growing gaps in access to information and communication tools,
capacities and infrastructure that exist between countries, and in many
cases within countries.

*        Ensuring that our vision of the 'information society' is
human-centred, framed by a global commitment to human rights, social
justice and inclusive development.

*        Achieving a sea change in perceptions of participatory
decision-making. We wanted the WSIS to be a milestone from which the
inclusion of civil society participation would become more comprehensive
and integrated at all levels of governance and decision making at local,
national, regional and global levels.

*        Agreement on strong commitment to the centrality of human
rights, especially the right to access and depart information and to
retaining individual privacy.

 

Civil society wants to affirm that it has contributed positively to the
WSIS process, a contribution that could have been greater if our
participation was allowed to be more comprehensive. Our contribution
will continue beyond the Summit. It is a contribution that is made both
through constructive engagement and through challenge and critique.

 

[Note: This paragraph still could be more comprehensive and better
summarize the issues below]

While we value the process, and the outcomes, we believe more could have
been achieved.  Each of the issue of greatest concern to civil society
is discussed in sections II and III of this statement. For most of the
items, the results were mixed with some small success but with much
remaining to be done. Some of the greatest concerns involve people
centred issues such as the attention paid to human rights and freedom of
expression, financial mechanisms to promote the development that was the
impetus for the WSIS process, and support for capacity building.

 

 

II. Issues addressed during the Tunis phase of WSIS

 

Social Justice, Financing and People-Centered Development

 

WSIS had the official mandate of addressing long-standing development
problems in new ways that have opened up with the ICT revolution. The
summit was expected to identify and articulate new development
possibilities and paradigms made possible in the information society,
and to evolve public policy options for enabling and realising these
opportunities. WSIS in general has failed to live up to these
expectations. Especially the Tunis phase which was presented as the
"summit of solutions" did not provide concrete achievements to
meaningfully address development priorities. 

 

The summit did discuss the importance of new financing mechanisms for
ICT for Development (ICTD), however it failed to recognize that ICTD
financing presents a challenge beyond that of traditional development
financing. It requires new means and sources and the exploration of new
models and mechanisms. 

 

Investments in ICTD - in infrastructure, capacity building, appropriate
software and hardware and in developing applications and services -
underpin all other processes of development innovation, learning and
sharing, and should be seen in this light. Though development resources
are admittedly scarce and have to be allocated to with care and
discretion, ICTD financing should not be viewed as directly in
competition with financing of other developmental sectors. 

 

Financing ICTD requires social and institutional innovation, with
adequate mechanisms for transparency, evaluation, and follow-up.
Financial resources need to be mobilised at all levels - local, national
and international, including through realization of ODA commitments
agreed in the Monterrey Consensus.

 

Internet access, for everybody and everywhere, especially among
disadvantaged populations and in rural areas, must be considered as a
global public good. Markets may not address the connectivity needs of
these sections, and these areas. In many such areas, initial priority
may need to be given to provide traditional ICTs - radio, TV, video and
telephony - while developing conditions to bring complete internet
connectivity to them. 

 

While the summit in general has failed to agree on adequate funding for
ICTD, civil society was able to introduce significant sections in the
Tunis commitment (paragraph 35) and in Tunis agenda (paragraph 21) on
the importance of public policy in mobilizing resources for financing.
This can serve to balance the pro-market orientation of much of the text
on financing. 

 

The potential of ICTs as tools for development, and not merely tools for
communication, should have been realised by all states. Therefore,
national ICT strategies in developing countries should be closely
related to national strategies for development and poverty eradication.
Aid strategies in developed countries must also include clear guidelines
for incorporation of ICTs. ICT should therefore be integrated in the
general development assistance and thereby contribute to mobilisation of
additional resources and increase the efficiency of development
assistance.

 

Human Rights

 

The Information Society must be based on human rights as laid out in the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This includes civil and political
rights, as well as social, economic and cultural rights. Human rights
and development are closely linked. There can be no development without
human rights, no human rights without development. 

 

This has been affirmed time and again, and was strongly stated in the
Vienna World Conference of Human Rights in 1993. It was also affirmed in
the WSIS 2003 Declaration of Principles. All legislation, politics, and
actions involved in developing the global information society must
respect, protect and promote human rights standards and the rule of law.

 

Despite the Geneva commitment to an Information Society respectful of
human rights, there is still a long way to go. A number of human rights
were barely addressed in the Geneva Declaration of Principles. This
includes the cross-cutting principles of non-discrimination, gender
equality, and workers' rights. The right to privacy, which is the basis
of autonomous personal development and thus at the root of the exertion
of many other fundamental human rights, is only mentioned in the Geneva
Declaration as part of "a global culture of cyber-security". In the
Tunis Commitment, it has disappeared, to make room for extensive
underlining of security needs, as if privacy were a threat to security,
whereas the opposite is true: Privacy is an essential requirement to
security. The summit has also ignored our demand to ensure the privacy
and integrity of the vote if and when electronic voting technologies are
used. 

 

Other rights were more explicitly addressed, but are de facto violated
on a daily basis. This goes for freedom of expression, freedom of
information, freedom of association and assembly, the right to a fair
trial, the right to education, and the right to a standard of living
adequate for the health and well-being of the individual and his or her
family. 

 

Furthermore, as the second WSIS phase has amplified, one thing is formal
commitment, another one is implementation. Side events open to the
general public were organised by civil society both at the Geneva and
Tunis Summit, in line with a long tradition of UN summits. The Citizens'
Summit in Tunis was prevented from happening. At the Geneva Summit, the
"We Seize" side event was closed down and then reopened. This is a clear
reminder that though governments have signed on to human rights
commitments, fundamental human rights such as freedom of expression and
freedom of assembly can not be taken for granted in any part of the
world. 

 

The summit has failed define mechanisms and actions that would actively
promote and protect human rights in the information society. Post WSIS
there is an urgent need to strengthen the means of human rights
enforcement in the information society, to enhance human rights proofing
of national legislation and practises, to strengthen education and
awareness raising on rights-based development, to transform human rights
standards into ICT policy recommendations; and to mainstream ICT issues
into the global and regional human rights monitoring system - in
summary: To move from declarations and commitments into action. Toward
this end, an independent commission should be established to review
national and international ICT regulations and practices and their
compliance with international human rights standards. This commission
should also address the potential applications of ICTs for the
realization of human rights in the information society.

 

Internet Governance

 

Civil society is pleased with the decision to create an Internet
Governance Forum (IGF), which it has advocated since 2003. We also are
pleased that the IGF will have sufficient scope to deal with the issues
that we believe must be addressed, most notably the conformity of
existing arrangements with the Geneva Principles, and other
cross-cutting or multidimensional issues that cannot be optimally dealt
with within those arrangements. However, we reiterate our concerns that
the Forum must not be anchored in any existing specialized international
organization, meaning that its legal form, finances, and professional
staff should be independent. In addition, we reiterate our view that the
forum should be more than a place for dialogue. As was recommended by
the WGIG Report, it should also provide expert analysis, trend
monitoring, and capacity building, including in close collaboration with
external partners in the research community.

 

We are concerned, however, about the absence of details on how this
forum will be created and on how it will be funded. We insist that the
modalities of the IGF be determined in full cooperation with civil
society. We emphasize that success in the forum, as in most areas of
Internet governance, will be impossible without the full participation
of civil society. By full participation we mean much more than playing a
mere advisory role. Civil society must be able to participate fully and
equally in both plenary and any working group or drafting group
discussions, and must have the same opportunities as other stakeholders
to influence agendas and outcomes.

 

The Tunis Agenda addressed the issue of political oversight of critical
Internet resources. This, in itself, is an achievement. It is also
important that governments recognized the need for the development of a
set of Internet-related public policy principles that would frame
political oversight of Internet resources. These principles must
respect, protect and promote the civil and political rights protected by
international human rights treaties, ensure equitable access to
information and online opportunities for all, and promote development.

 

It is important that governments have established that developing these
principles should be a shared responsibility. However, it is very
unfortunate that the Tunis Agenda suggests that governments are only
willing to share this role and responsibility among themselves, in
cooperation with international organisations. Civil society remains
strongly of the view that the formulation of appropriate and legitimate
public policies pertaining to Internet governance requires the full and
meaningful involvement of nongovernmental stakeholders.

 

With regard to paragraph 40 of the Tunis Agenda, we are disappointed
that there is no mention that efforts to combat cybercrime need to be
exercised in the context of checks and balances provided by fundamental
human rights, particularly freedom of expression and privacy.

 

To ensure that Internet governance and development take place in the
public interest, it is necessary for people who use the Internet
understand how the DNS is functioning, how IP addresses are allocated,
what basic legal instruments exist in fields like cyber-crime,
Intellectual Property Rights, eCommerce, e-government, and human rights
and promoting development. The responsibility of creating such awareness
should be shared by everyone, including those at present involved in the
governance and development of the Internet and emerging information and
communication platforms.

 

Global governance

 

A world that is increasingly connected faces a greater number of common
issues which need to be addressed by global governance institutions and
processes. While civil society recognises that there are flaws and
inefficiencies in the United Nations system, we believe strongly that it
remains the most democratic intergovernmental forum, where rich and poor
countries have rights to speak and participate and make decisions
together.

 

We are concerned that during the WSIS it emerged that many governments,
especially from the North, lack faith in, and appear to be unwilling to
invest authority and resources in the existing multilateral system. 

 

In our understanding summits take place precisely to develop the
principles that will underpin global public policy and governance
structures; to address critical issues, and decide on appropriate
responses to these issues. Shrinking global public policy spaces raises
serious questions of the kind of global governance that we are headed
towards, and what this signifies for people who are socially,
economically and politically marginalised: people who most rely on
public policy to protect their interests.

 

Participation 

 

In the course of four years, as a result of constant pressure from civil
society, improvements in civil society participation have been achieved,
including speaking rights in official plenaries and sub-committees and
ultimately rights to observe in drafting groups. The UN Working Group on
Internet Governance created an innovative format where governmental and
civil society actors worked on an equal footing and civil society
actually carried a large part of the drafting load. 

 

Due to the pressure of time and the need of governments to interact with
civil society actors in the Internet Governance field, the resumed
session of PrepCom3 was in fact the most open. We would like to suggest
[better formulation?] that this openness, against all odds, contributed
to reaching consensus. 

 

WSIS has demonstrated beyond any doubt the benefits of interaction
between all stakeholders. The innovative rules and practices of
participation established in this process will be fully documented to
provide a reference point and a benchmark for participants in UN
organizations and processes in the future.

 

Civil society thanks those governments that greatly supported our
participation in the WSIS process. We hope and expect that these
achievements are taken further and strengthened, especially in more
politically contested spaces of global policy making such as
intellectual property rights, trade, environment and peace and
disarmament. 

 

We note that some governments of the South were not actively supportive
of greater observer participation as they believe it can lead to undue
dominance of debate and opinions by international and northern civil
society organisations and the private sector. We believe that to change
this perception, they should engage in efforts to strengthen the
presence, independence and participation of civil society constituencies
in and from their own countries.

 

As for the period beyond the summit, the Tunis documents clearly
establish that the soon-to-be created Internet Governance Forum, and the
future mechanisms for implementation and follow-up (including the
revision of the mandate of the ECOSOC Commission on Science and
Technology for Development) must take into account the multi-stakeholder
approach. 

 

We want to express concern at the vagueness of text referring to the
role of civil society. In almost every paragraph talking about
multi-stakeholder participation, the phrase "in their respective roles
and responsibilities" is used to limit the degree of multi-stakeholder
participation. This limitation is due to the refusal of governments to
recognize the full range of the roles and responsibilities of civil
society.  Instead of the reduced capabilities assigned in paragraph 35C
of the Tunis Agenda that attempt to restrict civil society to a
community role, governments should have referred to the list of roles
and responsibilities assigned to civil society by the WGIG report. These
are:

 

-         Awareness raising and capacity building (knowledge, training,
skills sharing);

-         Promote various public interest objectives;

-         Facilitate network building;

-         Mobilize citizens in democratic processes;

-         Bring perspectives of marginalized groups including for
example excluded communities and grassroots activists;

-         Engage in policy processes;

-         Bring expertise, skills, experience and knowledge in a range
of ICT policy areas contributing to policy processes and policies that
are more bottom-up, people-centred and -inclusive;

-         Research and development of technologies and standards;

-         Development and dissemination of best practices;

-         Helping to ensure that political and market forces are
accountable to the needs of all members of society;

-         Encourage social responsibility and good governance practice;

-         Advocate for development of social projects and activities
that are critical but may not be 'fashionable' or profitable;

-         Contribute to -shaping visions of human-centred information
societies based on human rights, sustainable development, social justice
and empowerment.

  

Civil society has reason for concern that the limited concessions
obtained in the last few days from countries that refuse the emergence
of a truly multi-stakeholder format will be at risk in the coming
months. 

 

Civil society actors therefore intend to remain actively mobilized. They
need to proactively ensure that not only the needed future structures be
established in a truly multi-stakeholder format, but also that the
discussions preparing their mandates are conducted in an open,
transparent and inclusive manner, allowing participation of all
stakeholders on an equal footing.

 

 

III. Issues addressed in the Geneva and Tunis phases

 

Gender Equality

 

Equal and active participation of women is essential, especially in
decision-making. This includes all forums that will be established in
relation to WSIS and the issues it has taken up. With that, there is a
need for capacity building that is focussed at women's engagement with
the shaping of an information society at all levels, including policy
making on infrastructure development, financing, and technology choice.

 

There is a need for real effort and commitment to transforming the
masculinist culture embedded within existing structures and discourses
of the information society which serves to reinforce gender disparity
and inequality. Without full, material and engaged commitment to the
principle of gender equality, women's empowerment and
non-discrimination, the vision of a just and equitable information
society cannot be achieved.

 

Considering the affirmation of unequivocal support for gender equality
and women's empowerment expressed in the Geneva Declaration of
Principles and paying careful attention to Paragraph 23 of the Tunis
Commitment, all government signatories must ensure that national
policies, programmes and strategies developed and implemented to build a
people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society
demonstrate significant commitment to the principles of gender equality
and women's empowerment.

 

We emphasise that financial structures and mechanisms need to be geared
towards addressing the gender divide, including the provision of
adequate budgetary allocations. Comprehensive gender-disaggregated data
and indicators have to be developed at national levels to enable and
monitor this process. We urge all governments to take positive action to
ensure institutions and practices, including those of the private
sector, do not result in discrimination against women. Governments that
are parties to the UN Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of
Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) are in fact bound to this course of
action.

 

Culture, Knowledge, and the Public Domain

 

Each generation of humankind is depending upon its predecessors to leave
them with a liveable, sustainable and stable environment. The
environment we were discussing throughout the WSIS is the public domain
of global knowledge. Like our planet with its natural resources, that
domain is the heritage of all humankind and the reservoir from which new
knowledge is created. Limited monopolies, such as copyrights and patents
were originally conceived as tools to serve that public domain of global
knowledge to the benefit of humankind. Whenever society grants
monopolies, a delicate balance must be struck: Careless monopolization
will make our heritage unavailable to most people, to the detriment of
all.

 

It has become quite clear that this balance has been upset by the
interests of the rights-holding industry as well as the digitalization
of knowledge. Humankind now has the power to instantaneously share
knowledge in real-time, without loss, and at almost no costs. Civil
Society has worked hard to defend that ability for all of humankind. 

 

Free Software is an integral part of this ability: Software is the
cultural technique and most important regulator of the digital age.
Access to it determines who may participate in a digital world. While in
the Geneva phase, WSIS has recognised the importance of Free Software,
it has not acted upon that declaration and fallen behind it in the Tunis
phase. In the Tunis Commitment, Free Software is presented as a software
model next to proprietary software, but paragraph 29 reiterates "the
importance of proprietary software in the markets of the countries."
This ignores that a proprietary software market is always striving
towards dependency and monopolization, both of which are detrimental to
economy and development as a whole. Proprietary software is under
exclusive control of and to the benefit of its proprietor. Furthermore:
Proprietary software is written in modern sweat-shops for the benefit of
developed economies, which are subsidized at the expense of developing
and least-developed countries in this way. 

 

While WSIS has somewhat recognised the importance of free and open
source software, it has not asserted the significance of this choice for
development. It is silent on other issues like open content (which goes
beyond open access to academic publications), new open telecom paradigms
and community-owned infrastructure as important development enablers. 

 

The WSIS process has failed to introduce cultural and linguistic
diversity as a cross-cutting issue in the information society. The
information society and its core elements - knowledge, information,
communication and the information and communication technologies (ICTs)
together with related rules and standards - are cultural concepts and
expressions. Accordingly, culturally defined approaches, protocols,
proceedings and obligations have to be respected and culturally
appropriate applications developed and promoted. In order to foster and
promote cultural diversity it must be ensured that no one has to be mere
recipient of Western knowledge and treatment. Therefore development of
such cultural elements of the Information Society must involve strong
participation of all cultural communities. 

 

[needs agreement / editing from Cultural Diversity and PCT caucuses]

Indigenous cultures provide for rules and regulations on communicating,
sharing, using and applying traditional knowledge. WSIS has failed to
offer solutions on how to protect the traditional knowledge, lore and
culture of indigenous peoples from exploitation by third parties. It has
not even considered the problems that arise for Indigenous peoples who
cannot rightfully access their traditional heritage lest they infringe
some private company's copyright or patent.

 

Education and research 

 

If we want future generations to understand the real basis of our
digital age, freedom has to be preserved for the knowledge of humankind:
Free Software, open courseware and free educational as well as
scientific resources empower people to take their life into their own
hands. If not, they will become only users and consumers of information
technologies, instead of active participants and well informed citizens
in the information society. Each generation has a choice to make:
Schooling of the mind and creativity, or product schooling? Most
unfortunately, the WSIS has shown a significant tendency towards the
latter.

 

We are happy that universities, museums, archives, libraries have been
recognized by WSIS as playing an important role as public institutions
and with the community of researchers and academics. Unfortunately,
telecenters are missing in the WSIS documents. Community informatics,
telecenters and human resources like computer professionals, and the
training of these, have to be promoted, so that ICTs serve training and
not training serves ICTs. Thus special attention must be paid to
supporting sustainable capacity building with specific focus on research
and skills development.

 

Problems of access, regulation, diversity and efficiency require
attention to power relations both in the field of ICT policy-making and
in the everyday uses of ICTs. Academic research should play a pivotal
role in evaluating whether ICTs meet and serve the individuals' and the
public's multiple needs and interests - as workers, women, migrants,
racial, ethnic and sexual minorities, among others - across very uneven
information societies in the world. Furthermore, because power relations
and social orientations are often embedded in the very designs of ICTs,
researchers should be sensitive to the diverse and multiple needs of the
public in the technological design of ICTs. Similarly, educators at all
levels should be empowered to develop curricula that provide training
not only in the uses of ICTs as workers and consumers, but also in the
critical assessment of ICTs, the institutional and social contexts of
their development and implementation, as well as their creative uses for
active citizenship. These issues have largely been ignored by WSIS.

 

We furthermore have repeatedly underlined the unique role of ICTs in
socio-economic development and in promoting the fulfilment of
internationally agreed development goals, including those contained in
the Millennium Declaration. This is not least true in the reference to
access to information and universal primary education. To secure the
fulfilment of these goals, it is of key importance that the issue of
ICTs as tools for improvement of education is also incorporated in the
broader development strategies at both national and international
levels.



Media

 

We are pleased that the principle of freedom of expression has been
reaffirmed in the WSIS II texts and that they echo much of the language
of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While we are
also pleased that the Tunis Commitment recognises the place of the media
in a new Information Society, this should never have been in question.

 

In the future, representatives of the media should be assured a place in
all public forums considering development of the Internet and all other
relevant aspects of the Information Society. As key actors in the
Information Society, the media must have a place at the table, and this
must be fully recognized both by governments and by Civil Society
itself.

 

While recognizing media and freedom of expression, the WSIS documents
are weak on offering support for developing diversity in the media
sector. They specifically neglect a range of projects and initiatives
which are of particular value for civil society: Community media,
telecenters, grassroots and civil society-based media. These media
empower people for independent and creative participation in
knowledge-building and information-sharing. They represent the prime
means for large parts of the world population to participate in the
information society and should be an integral part of implementation of
the goals of the Geneva Declaration.

 

The WSIS documents also mostly focus on market-based solutions and
commercial use. Yet the internet, satellite, cable and broadcast systems
all utilize public resources, such as airwaves and orbital paths. These
should be managed in the public interest as publicly owned assets
through transparent and accountable regulatory frameworks to enable the
equitable allocation of resources and infrastructure among a plurality
of media including community media. We reaffirm our commitment that
commercial use of these resources begins with a public interest
obligation.

 

Health Information

[Health and ICTs WG is working on making it more specifically relate to
the WSIS outcomes]

 

WSIS has failed to recognize the importance of access to health
information and knowledge as essential to collective and individual
human development and a critical factor in the public physical and
mental health care crises around the world.  It is essential that health
care systems include a holistic approach that addresses the prevention,
treatment, and promotion of mental and physical health care for all
people and to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).  

 

It is important to recognize that physical and mental health expertise
and scientific knowledge is essential to aid disease stricken, as well
as traumatized populations affected by war, terrorism, disaster and
other events, and the implementation of ICT systems for physical and
mental health information and services must be a two-way path
recognizing cultural and community norms and values.  

 

It is essential that healthcare specialists, practitioners, and
consumers participate in the development of public policy addressing
privacy and related issues regarding physical and mental health
information affecting information and delivery systems.

 

Children and young people in the information society

 

[Current text is edited Children's Rights Caucus contribution. Youth
Caucus will submit its part later.]

We support articles 11, 13 and 16 of the Geneva Declaration of
Principles and Plan of Action; articles 90q and 92 of the Tunis
Declaration and article 24 of the Tunis Commitment. In doing so, we
encourage the greater inclusion of children and young people - as key
current and future telecom users and creators. We support the great
opportunities that ICTs offer children and young people and recognize
the potential dangers that children and young people face in relation to
ICTs.  In this regard we had hoped that WSIS supports our proposals on
children's rights, participation and protection in the information
society. These include, inter alia, making ICTs and connectivity
available to all children; making ICTs an integral part of the formal
and informal educational sectors; protecting children and young people
from the potential risks posed by using new technologies, including
access to inappropriate content, inappropriate or unwanted contact and
commercial pressures; fighting the use of ICTs to exploit and abuse
children. Through this, we are committed to work in the WSIS follow-up
process towards a world where telecommunication allows children and
young people to be heard one-by-one and through their voices, fulfil
their rights and true potential to shape the world.

 

Ethical Dimensions

 

Values and ethics should be held as the ideal vision to underpin all
aspects of individuals and organizations. Both should be regarded as
central and thematic when evaluating ICTs as tools to enable just and
peaceable conditions for humanity. The ethical dimensions are
overarching and imperative and not value-added dimensions. These
dimensions are clearer and stronger in the Geneva Declaration than the
Tunis texts.

 

The Tunis Agenda and Commitment are commendable in that they affirmed
the Geneva Declaration's emphasis on a people-centred, sustainable
development-oriented and human rights-based information society. But
WSIS in Tunis failed to restate what Geneva considered acts inimical to
the information society such as racism, intolerance, hatred, violence
and others.

 

Geneva lifted the ethical values of respect for peace and the
fundamental values of freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, shared
responsibility, and respect for nature as enunciated in the Millennium
Declaration. Tunis should have improved on these by including the
principles of trust, stewardship and shared responsibility together with
digital solidarity.

 

The strong emphasis on technology in the Tunis texts must not eclipse
the human being as the subject of communication and development. Our
humanity rests in our capacity to communicate with each other and create
community. The technologies we develop, and the solidarities we forge,
must build relationships, trust, and cohesion. It is in the respectful
dialogue among peoples and in the sharing of values among peoples, in
the plurality of cultures and civilizations that meaningful and
accountable communication thrives. The Tunis texts do not give clear
indications on how this can happen.

 

Beyond Tunis, we must encourage all stakeholders to weave ethics and
values language in working on semantic web knowledge structures. This
can help balance current dominant market values and the commodification
of knowledge and attendant business logic. Communication rights and
justice is about making human communities as the home of technology and
human relationships as technology's heart.

 

 

IV. Where to go from here - our Tunis commitment

 

Civil society is committed to continuing its involvement in the future
mechanisms for policy debate, implementation and follow-up on
information society issues. To do this, civil society will build on the
processes and structures that were developed during the WSIS process.

 

Element one: Evolution of our internal organization

 

Civil society will work on the continued evolution of the current
structures. This will include the use of existing thematic caucuses and
working groups, the possible creation of new caucuses, and the use of
the Civil Society Plenary, the Civil Society Bureau, and the Civil
Society Content and Themes Group. We will organise at a date to be
determined to launch the process of creating a Civil Society charter.

 

Element two: Involvement in the Internet Governance Forum

 

In specific reference to the Internet Governance Forum, in addition to
continuing to develop the consensus notion of the CS Internet Governance
caucus, discussions are under way to create a new working group that
will focus on making recommendations on the modalities of the new forum.

 

Element three: Involvement in follow-up and implementation

 

In order to ensure that the future implementation and follow-up
mechanisms respect the spirit and letter of the Tunis documents and that
governments uphold the commitments they have made during this second
phase of the WSIS, civil society mechanisms will be used and created to
ensure

*        the proactive monitoring at the national level of the
implementation of the Geneva Plan of Action and the Tunis Agenda by
governments;

*        a structured interaction with all UN agencies and international
organisations to ensure that they integrate the WSIS objectives in their
own work plan, and that they put in place effective mechanisms for
multistakeholder interaction;

*        that the information society as a complex social political
phenomenon is not reduced to a technology-centred perspective. The
ECOSOC Commission on Science and Technology for Development will have to
significantly change its mandate and composition to adequately address
the needs for being an effective follow-up mechanism for WSIS whilst
re-affirming its original mission of developing science and technology,
in addition to ICTs, for the development objectives of poor countries;

*        not only that the reformed Commission on Science and Technology
for Development becomes a truly multi-stakeholder commission for the
information society, but also, that the process to revise it's mandate,
composition and agenda is done in a fully open and inclusive manner.

 

Element four: Lessons learned for the UN system in general

 

We see the WSIS process as an experience to be learned from for the
overall UN system and processes. We will therefore work with the United
Nations and all stakeholders on 

*        developing clearer and less bureaucratic rules of recognition
for accrediting civil society organisations in the UN system, for
instance on obtaining ECOSOC status and summit accreditation, to ensure
that national governmental recognition of civil society entities is not
the premise for official recognition in the UN system;

*        ensuring that all future summit processes be multi-stakeholder
in their approach, allowing for due flexibility. This would be achieved
either by recognition of precedents set in summit processes, or by
formulating a rules of procedure manual to guide future summit processes
and day-to-day civil society interaction with the international
community.

 

Element five: Outreach to other constituencies

 

The civil society constituency that closely associated with the WSIS
process is conscious that the information society, as its name suggests,
is a society-wide phenomenon, and advocacy on Information society issues
need to include every interest and every group. We therefore commit
ourselves in the post-WSIS period to work to broaden our reach to
different civil society constituencies that for various reasons have not
been active in the WSIS process, may have shown scepticism over the role
of ICTs in their core areas of activity, or for other reasons have
remained disengaged from the information society discourse.

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/plenary/attachments/20051201/7e5163ad/attachment.html