i4donline: November - December 2003 issue: WSIS: The civil society perspective

The WSIS is by far the most important and landmark event to have been organised for civil societies, organisations, governments and groups pertaining to ICT for development issues. i4d in collaboration with Digital Opportunity Channel brings to our readers this special on WSIS - focal issues, commentaries and some of the events leading to the run up to the WSIS summit.

Civil society sets out essential benchmarks for WSIS

In a statement prepared at the end of PrepCom3a – the last preparatory meeting before the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in December – civil society representatives stated that they do “not want to endorse documents that represent the lowest common denominator among governments.” They also produced a document that sets out the civil society’s essential benchmarks for WSIS.

Civil Society Statement at the preparatory Process for the WSIS
Geneva, 14 November 2003

Where do we stand now?
We have come to the last day of PrepCom3a. This extra week of preparatory work was necessary after governments failed to reach agreement during the supposed final preparatory conference in September 2003. In spite of the extra expenditure of time and money, the deadlock continues – and sets in already on the very first article of the declaration, where governments are not able to agree on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted in 1948, as the common foundation of the summit declaration.

Through our observation of the process we have identified two main problem areas that impede progress in the WSIS:

How to correct imbalances in riches, imbalances of rights, imbalances of power, or imbalances of access. In particular, governments do not agree on even the principle of a financial effort to overcome the so-called Digital Divide; this is all the more difficult to accept given that the summit process was started two years ago with precisely that objective.