Cultural diversity, as a key issue to incorporate in public policy relating to information and communication, has been present in the proposals civil society has presented to the WSIS. It has had a scant echo, nonetheless, in the official documents.

The cultural diversity caucus, in Geneva this week, has identified as its main priorities: the importance of governments committing to protecting (in addition to fostering and respecting) cultural diversity; this has met with resistance, however, from official delegations such as the US and Japan, that are reluctant to admit any reference to protection, which could imply an obligation.

Secondly, the caucus underlines that access and active contribution to knowledge is a fundamental human right. "Active contribution" to information and knowledge implies a creative and participatory process. The caucus therefore proposes that references to people's "access to infrastructure" should be complemented -or better, preceded- by references to information and knowledge.

Cultural diversity has been seen as all the more important to defend in the Summit context, since the international Convention on Cultural Diversity, being promoted by UNESCO, no longer seems to be on schedule for approval before the November Summit in Tunis, following the stand-off in negotiations at the Convention preparatory meeting held in Paris in early February.

Education and research

The education and research caucus, for its part, has criticized the draft Summit documents for being permeated with a general vision of knowledge as being technology-driven and hardware-oriented, with a major focus on infrastructure. The caucus considers this creates a major bias in the understanding of the needs, uses and practices, relating to ICTs. They propose that the definition of knowledge should be extended to distributed intelligence, to integrated networks, and also to opportunities for sharing and distributing information, (whether face to face or long-distance; formal or informal).

Priorities identified by the caucus include, among others: teacher training, media and ICT education, open courseware, free software and community informatics.

"ICTs can be a key tool in achieving universal primary education, while wired schools and non-formal learning institutions such as telecentres can play a major role in addressing the development agenda of the MDGs" (Millennium Development Goals), the caucus underlined in a statement to the intergovernmental plenary. "When considering appropriate financing mechanisms for bridging the digital divide, do not neglect the role that schools, universities and non-formal educational institutions such as telecentres play as a community hub for building local knowledge, and integrating marginalized communities into the information society", they told governments.

"Learners must have access to curricula that is linguistically and culturally appropriate, including open courseware", they added. Open courseware refers to on-line curricula that provide open access.