Access to information
Carlos Afonso, Director of Planning at APC member in Brazil, RITS (Rede de Informações para o Terceiro Setor – Information Network for the Third Sector) left government delegates clear during his speech on behalf of civil society at the Plenary Session of the World Summit on the Information Society that "digital inclusion [..] will only be possible with the decisive support of a national public policy, in partnership with civil society." Carlos’s powerful speech was delivered s...
Several issues which civil society has been advocating in WSIS negotiations are not adequately addressed in the current ICT policy framework of the Philippine government. This was the general observation that surfaced in a workshop which the Foundation for Media Alternatives organized to open up discussions on WSIS and its impact on local policies here.
The first victim of war is the truth, so goes the old proverb. At a conference yesterday in the World Forum on Communication Rights, a parallel forum to the official World Summit on the Information Society, speakers from the United States, Colombia, and a Kenyan technologist working in Rwanda took up the theme of how war situations deny communities the right to communicate and how citizens can ...
Today, December 10th at 14:00, the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) officially began – after a preparatory process that was longer that foreseen, due to difficulty in reaching a consensus on the Declaration of Principles and the Action Plan, the final documents to be discussed and sanctioned by the heads of government present in Geneva.
Seán Ó Siochrú is a researcher, writer and activist in media and communication. As a director of Nexus Research Cooperative in Dublin, he works for international agencies in information and communication technologies. A founder of the Platform for Communication Rights, he has been actively involved in the WSIS process since the beginning.
The WSIS Civil Society Plenary unanimously adopted the Civil Society Declaration to the World Summit on the Information Society this week. The document “Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs” sets a landmark in the type of consensus-building that envisions the priorities to which civil society should commit to in order to develop a people-centred and an inclusive approach to the Inf...
The squabbling over whether industrialised countries should help pay for technology infrastructure in the South continues to deflect attention from the potential of ICTs in development. Senegalese President Abdoulaye Wade, who is pushing for the creation of a fund to help developing countries bridge the digital divide. Industrialised states are said to be firmly opposed to the idea, claiming th...
Stories in English and French from the IPS news agency and InfoSud agence de presse about media, communication and technology. During the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) this website will carry daily, electronic versions of the TerraViva Conference newspaper from Geneva.
Policy decisions being made today will impact on the peoples of the world’s ability and potential to use ICTs as tools in their work tomorrow. At the United Nations’ World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held December 10-12 in Geneva – governments will sign a declaration that will enhance or hinder access to ICTs for the vast majority of the world’s population. ...
After months of hard work and negotiations, the CRIS campaign can see some light at the end of a long, dark, eighteen months long WSIS tunnel. Paragraph 4 of the Draft Declaration reads: “Communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need and the foundation of all social organisation. It is central to the information society.” Sean O’Siochru, spokesperson for the CRIS campa...
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