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

[Wolfgang Kleinwächter]

Sorry for being late with my comments.
 
The draft has my full support.
 
In the financial section I would refer to the "Digital Solidarity Fond" and the "Geneva Principle" wihich is in my eyes an innovative new form to generate financial ressources not only from national governments and private sector but also from local and regional authorities, which play an importyant role on thr ground.
Best regards
 
wolfgang
 

________________________________

From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org on behalf of Rikke Frank Joergensen
Sent: Thu 12/1/2005 2:38 PM
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: SV: [Ct-drafting] Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] new version of WSIS CS statement



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.