World Summit on the Information Society: From heated debate to tepid commitments

Sally Burch
ALAI

Phase one of the UN World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS) concluded in Geneva on December 12, with the
adoption of a Declaration and Plan of Action, which outline
policy for global management of information and
communications technologies (ICTs) and propose actions to
"bridge the digital divide", with the declared intention of
contributing to development goals and social inclusion.
Civil society organizations, meanwhile, adopted their own
Declaration expressing an alternative vision and proposals.

The tepid commitments contained in the official documents
indicate feeble political will of the world's leaders,
which was ratified by the absence at the Summit of the
heads of State or government of most of the world's most
influential nations. The adoption of the final documents -
which only one week earlier seemed headed for failure- have
nonetheless forestalled what could have been a new set-back
for multilateralism, already badly shaken in recent months.
Moreover, although many of the actors participating in the
process find the results largely unsatisfactory, most seem
to consider that they express a compromise solution that is
more acceptable than earlier drafts.

But for many Southern governments it is a bitter
disappointment that their two main demands have been
postponed to a future date, under the pretext of remitting
them to working groups for further study: these are a
revision of the mechanisms of Internet governance and a
commitment to creating a Digital Solidarity Fund.

In the first case, it was agreed to set up a working group,
(with participation of governments, private sector and
civil society from both developed and developing countries)
that will examine technical and public policy issues of
Internet governance and present a report to the second
phase of the Summit, to be held in Tunis in November 2005.
Although this means delaying any decision, it is
nonetheless a small achievement that the US government
finally acceded to even discuss the matter, since it has
been fiercely defending the status quo, which in practice
means that it controls most aspects of Internet governance,
hand-in-hand with US corporations, through the organization
ICANN, responsible for assigning Internet names and numbers
and the root servers, most of which are situated in that
country.

On the issue of financing for ICT development in the South,
developing country governments failed to gain the support
of those of the developed world, who grudgingly agreed to
set up a Task Force under the auspices of the UN Secretary-
General, that will review the adequacy of existing funding
mechanisms, by December 2004. The Geneva and Lyon
municipal governments, however, together with the
government of Senegal, agreed to launch the solidarity fund
without waiting for the results of the review, and between
them have committed a first one million euros. Lyon
hosted, the previous week, a World Summit of Cities and
Local Authorities on the Information Society.

The announcement of several "partnership agreements" for
financing activities in developing countries helped to
disguise the lack of commitment to the solidarity fund,
that would be at least partly controlled by the South.
These include the US government announcement of a 400
million dollar support facility to encourage US investment
in the telecommunications and IT sectors of developing
countries (on a bilateral basis); or the billion dollar
programme announced by Microsoft in partnership with UNDP,
to provide ICT skills to "underserved communities" over a
5-year period. One might be justified in asking whether
subsidizing northern companies to improve their sales to
developing countries is in the interest of development. Or
whether it is an appropriate role for the UN to be
espousing the interests of transnational corporations in
extending their monopolies to such areas.

Contrary visions

The final documents are in many ways a collage of contrary
positions. The private sector agenda is most in evidence
in those sections of the Geneva Declaration and Plan of
Action relating to infrastructure development and the
regulatory environment, which refer to a supportive and
pro-competitive framework for investment and e-business and
reaffirm the existing intellectual property rights regime.
In fact participation of the private sector, as an actor in
its own right, and the accreditation to the WSIS of
individual private sector firms (contrary to UN Ecosoc
regulations) have set a worrying precedent at this Summit,
reinforcing the trend within the UN to bring multinational
corporations to sit at the table with governments to define
global governance issues.

Civil society, formally the third actor invited to the
table, has in practice had to fight at every stage to make
itself heard. It succeeded, nonetheless, in making an
impact on the vision and principles sections of the
Declaration, as well as in introducing a number of
proposals relating to social issues.

The resulting documents are often contradictory; and the
principles expressed in the Declaration are not always
carried through to the policy proposals of the Action Plan.
Thus, the first article of the Declaration affirms "our
common desire and commitment to build a people-centred,
inclusive and development-oriented Information Society,
where everyone can create, access, utilize and share
information and knowledge, enabling individuals,
communities and people to achieve their full potential in
promoting their sustainable development and improving their
quality of life...". But in its first article, the Plan of
Action limits this vision to "promoting the use of ICT-
based products, networks, services and applications" to
achieve development goals. Similarly, the targets
contained in the Action Plan, to be attained by 2015, are
almost all related only to ICT connectivity.

The Declaration and Plan of Action do include sections on a
number of other aspects, however, and incorporate several
of the proposals supported by civil society. The
infrastructure section, for example, supports universal
access to ICTs, mentions the importance of standardization
and calls for establishment of regional backbones and
exchange points, that would allow traffic to stay within
each region rather than being routed via the US. On
"Access to information and knowledge", lip service is paid
to developing the public domain and governments are
encouraged to make public information more accessible.
There is support for the creation of open access
publications and archives for scientific research, and at
least a summary reference to the need to have different
software options, including free and open source software.
In "Capacity building", there is a call for extending
literacy and education, training ICT professionals in
developing countries, and promoting ICT research and
development capacity in such countries.

The section on "Building confidence and security in the
use of ICTs" has been one of the most polemical. There are
fears that the references to "information security" might
be used to justify monitoring and surveillance of citizens.
And while the Plan of action proposes legislation to fight
against cybercrime and the "misuse" of ICTs, it only
proposes to "promote user education and awareness" in
relation to protecting privacy.

There are recommendations for mobilizing ICT solutions in
areas such as health, employment, the environment,
agriculture, science and e-government, among others. And a
specific section is dedicated to cultural and linguistic
diversity and local content, which mentions, among other
things, cooperation with indigenous peoples and measures to
preserve cultural heritage and to stimulate creation.
There is also a mention of supporting media based in local
communities, which is the only reference to community media
in the documents, despite intensive lobbying by the
community radio sector.

The section specifically on the media, which entailed one
of the most heated debates, encourages domestic legislation
to guarantee the independence and plurality of the media;
but also a call for "the responsible use and treatment of
information by the media in accordance with the highest
ethical and professional standards", which media
organizations oppose as they consider it an invitation to
governments to exercise censorship.

The section on the Digital Solidarity Agenda, although
limited to encouraging governments to participate in the
fund, also exhorts developed nations to fulfill their
commitment to assign 0.7% of GNP to financing development
and calls for new debt alleviation initiatives for highly
indebted countries.

In summary, most actors in the process will be able to find
language that they can use as support for their agendas,
and to leverage support from governments and international
institutions, even though the documents are not binding.
But many other issues are absent or inadequately dealt with
and overall there is little coherence, to the point where
attempts to conciliate opposed viewpoints can result in
outright contradictions.

Beyond the specific results, the simple fact of having
opened a space within the multilateral framework of the UN
to initiate a debate on these issues is not a negligible
step, at a time when there is an increasing trend towards
the privatization of policy and the imposition on the rest
of the world of agreements made among Northern governments.

The Civil Society Declaration

For civil society, although it has been a process fraught
with frustrations, it has also allowed resulted in new,
although tenuous, inroads for influencing UN decision-
making. But above all, it has been an invaluable
opportunity to meet, network, debate, elaborate an
alternative vision and translate it into concrete
proposals. This was evident in the civil society plenary
session on December 8 where the Declaration, entitled:
"Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs"
(http://alainet.org/active/show_news.phtml?news_id=5118),
was unanimously adopted, and in the festive character of
the launch of this Declaration, on December 11. The
document was also presented formally to the closing session
of the Summit with the request that it be considered one of
the official outputs of the process. Without a doubt, it
will be a significant reference document for the next phase
of the Summit, as well as a means of leveraging broader
public awareness of the issues.

This Civil Society Declaration develops the people-centred
vision in greater depth, and then translates it into
principles and areas for action, consequent with that
vision. It situates the principles within a framework of
social justice and sustainable development. And it details
specific human rights that have particular relevance to the
information society, such as freedom of expression, the
right to privacy, the right to participate in public
affairs and the rights of workers, indigenous peoples,
women, children and persons with disabilities.

The CS Declaration underlines that "The regulatory and
legal framework in all information and communication
societies must be strengthened to support broad-based
sharing of technologies, information, and knowledge, and to
foster community control, respectful of human rights and
freedoms." It sustains that: "Knowledge creation and
acquisition should be nurtured as a participatory and
collective process and not considered a one-way flow". And
it urges attention to both "the potential positive and
negative impacts of ICTs on the issues of illiteracy in
regional, national and international languages of the great
majority of the world's peoples."

The CS Declaration emphasizes community involvement in
developing solutions using ICTs, for which: "they must be
empowered to develop their own productive forces and
control the means of production within information
societies. This must include the right to participate fully
in the development and sustenance of ICT-based projects
through democratic processes, including decision making..."

While the potential of media and communications to promote
peace is recognized and encouraged, a matter of special
concern is the deployment of information warfare
technologies and techniques, "including the purposeful
jamming, blocking, or destruction of civilian communication
systems during conflict situations; the use of 'embedded'
journalists coupled with the targeting of non-embedded
journalists; the use of media and communication systems to
promote hatred and genocide; by military, police, or other
security forces, be they governmental, privately owned, or
non-state actors, during conflict situations..."

A priority for civil society is the development and non-
privatization of knowledge: "Human knowledge is the
heritage of all humankind and the reservoir from which all
new knowledge is created. The preservation of cultural and
linguistic diversity, the freedom of the media and the
defense and extension of the public domain of global
knowledge are as essential, for information and
communication societies, as the diversity of our natural
environment."

Community media are particularly defended, as they can be
"vital enablers of information, voice and capacities for
dialogue. Legal and regulatory frameworks that protect and
enhance community media are especially critical for
ensuring vulnerable groups access to information and
communication."

There is also a critique of the concept of "intellectual
property rights", which civil society organizations prefer
to call "limited intellectual monopolies". These are
granted "only for the benefit of society, most notably to
encourage creativity and innovation. The benchmark against
which they must be reviewed and adjusted regularly is how
well they fulfill this purpose. Today, the vast majority of
humankind has no access to the public domain of global
knowledge, a situation that is contributing to the growth
of inequality and exploitation of the poorest peoples and
communities."

Free software is especially recommended, for its freedom of
use for any purpose, study, modification and redistribution
and its "unique social, educational, scientific, political
and economic benefits and opportunities" as well as its
special advantages for developing countries. Governments
are encouraged to promote the use of Free Software in
schools and higher education and in public administration.

Recommendations in relation to infrastructure and access
focus on greater control by communities and developing
countries; while proposals relating to policy emphasize
civil society participation in decision-making. The
Declaration recalls that "civil society actors have been
key innovators and shapers of the technology, culture and
content of information and communication societies, and
will continue to be in the future."

Many of these innovations were on show at the Summit, which
included more than 200 side events, including panels and
forums, and a parallel ICT for development exhibition, open
to the public. Participants concurred that this part of
the Summit was far more dynamic and where real discussions
of the issues were taking place. These included the World
Forum on Communication Rights, organized by the Campaign
for Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS)
and other organizations, and the Community Media Forum.
Some of these events were already looking to the next phase
of the Summit; but one theme ran through many of the
exchanges: the agreement that these issues are far too
important to be limited to the sphere of the Summit and
that the debate needs to be extended to a much broader
public arena.