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Contributions from
the Column
Monitor
Information technology – little leapfrogging potential
World Summit on the Information Society
Electronic waste – digital divide becomes digital dump
US food aid remains unreformed
NGO report on German development aid
German President launches “Partnership with Africa”
New German government agrees on development policy
Kortmann becomes Parliamentary Secretary
ACP countries criticise EU Partnership Agreements
Africa looses out in apparel competition
Reforming EU’s sugar regulations
12/2005
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[ World Summit on the Information Society]
Many suggestions, no solutions
Information and knowledge production will become more and more important for economic and social development. That prognosis was something governmental delegations and civil society participants from 170 countries largely agreed on at the second World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held in Tunis in mid-November. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan called upon the international community to bridge the “digital divide” between industrialised and developing countries and to enable everyone to access the internet. Currently, only one billion of the world’s six billion people are in a position to use the internet.
However, the WSIS did not turn out to be a “summit of solutions”, as Yoshio Utsumi, Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), had announced ahead of the event. It remains unclear how the target of connecting every town in the world to the World Wide Web by 2015 is to be achieved. The first WSIS in December 2003 in Geneva had stressed that innovative information and communication technologies (ICT) should be used especially to meet the Millennium Development Goals. Poverty reduction, education and health care are the core areas of activity for doing so. But no tangible measures were adopted in any of these fields with regard to ICTs, nor was interaction with development experts intensified. The newly created “Digital Solidarity Fund” has to rely on voluntary contributions. The $ 70 million promised so far, will not suffice to do much more than set some directions.
At a presentation organised by Sida, the Swedish Agency for International Development Cooperation, Alan Greenberg, a Canadian scholar, emphasised that many ICT projects still do not consider the basic principles of successful development efforts: participation of the target groups, appropriate price/performance ratios and sustainability. He stressed that development agencies should always focus on poverty reduction, rather than on technology.
Another irritating matter was the restriction of civil rights, including freedom of the press, in WSIS host country Tunisia. The authorities even prevented an informal meeting on the sidelines of the summit at the Goethe Institute in Tunis.
However, the outcome of the summit was not completely negative. As in Geneva two years ago, representatives of business and civil society were involved in formal consultations. The debate on control of the internet, which saw the EU and developing countries in opposition to the USA, was settled with a compromise. The not-for-profit organisation ICANN, which is based in California, will continue to handle technical issues and general administration. It will be complemented by an “Internet Governance Forum” under UN jurisdiction, which will deal with medium- and long-term issues. However, the forum will only serve a consultative function and not have any decision-making powers.
Some 300 side events at the Kram Exhibition Park in Tunis were also important. Many panel discussions stood out for their practical relevance, an aspect which was lacking two years ago. Topics included telecom liberalisation in developing countries, national ICT strategies in Africa, the development of e-commerce in Asia, defining internationally comparable ICT indicators, approaches for successful public-private partnerships, the proposal of introducing a $100-laptop with a hand-crank, and even the use of traditional media in conflict situations. Even though it is not possible at this stage to predict which initiatives will prove successful in the end, the WSIS has speeded up the international exchange of ideas and experiences.
Christoph Dietz
On the internet:
http://www.itu.int/wsis
http://www.worldsummit2005.org
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