IT for Change at World Summit on the Information Society - Phase II

Mar 2005

IT for Change was closely associated with the drafting of the Civil Society Statement for the second phase of WSIS held in Tunis (Tunisia) in 2005. The broad mandate for WSIS was to address the long-standing issues in economic and social development from the newly emerging perspectives of the opportunities and risks posed by the revolution in Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). WSIS was expected to identify and articulate new development possibilities and paradigms being made possible in the information society, and to evolve public policy options for enabling and realising these opportunities. Overall, WSIS has failed to live up to these expectations. The Tunis phase in particular, which was presented as the “summit of solutions”, did not provide concrete achievements to meaningfully address development priorities.

The inputs of IT for Change at the various stages of the second phase of the WSIS process can be found below.T o read the final WSIS Civil Society summit statement, click here.

At the Second WSIS Regional Conference - 22-23 November 2004, Damascus (Syria), Anita Gurumurthy presented a paper on A gender perspective to ICTs and development: Reflections towards Tunis.

At the Regional Consultation for WSIS - 5-7 January 2005, Dhaka (Bangladesh), Parminder Jeet Singh spoke on 'ICTD Funding' and discussed the lessons from recent case studies conducted for the WSIS Task Force on Financial Mechanism and Anita Gurumurthy presented a paper on 'ICT Policy and Gender Issues: Lessons from the past and homework for now'.

At the WSIS Preparatory Committee II - 17-25 February 2005, Geneva (Switzerland)

Anita Gurumurthy, on behalf of the Association for Progressive Communications, Bread for All, CRIS, Instituto del Tercer Mundo (ITeM), IT for Change, and the Gender Caucus, read out a Statement at the main government plenary on Financing the Information Society .
Parminder Jeet Singh, in a Civil Society session on financing mechanisms for ICTD, presented a paper titled 'Institutional approach to ICTD - A case for public ownership of ICTD interventions'.
IT for Change, in collaboration with DAWN and AMARC Africa, drafted the Gender Caucus Position on Financing Mechanisms on behalf of WSIS Gender Caucus
IT for Change gave substantial inputs to the first chapter of the operational part of the Tunis documents. The document was jointly submitted by the informal coalition on financing and WSIS-Gender Caucus.
Anita Gurumurthy and Parminder Jeet Singh wrote a report for APC News.

Parminder Jeet Singh attended the Asia Pacific WSIS Regional conference - 31 May-2 June 2005, Tehran (Iran) which was the culmination of the pre-Tunis regional WSIS processes.

To read the complete report on the Tehran Conference click here.
To read the response from Civil Society click here.

IT for Change also contributed to the Joint submission of Civil society organisations and individuals to the 7th meeting of the WSIS GFC - 5-6 September 2005, Geneva (Switzerland). The submission reflected the strong opposition of a group of organisations and individuals from the civil society to the proposed changes in paragraphs 10, 11 and 29 of the operational part of the Tunis document, as per the new input document circulated by the President of the PrepCom. These changes did not represent the contributions of the various stakeholders to the existing text, and their acceptance would defeat the stated purpose of the Tunis summit to make some real headway in implementing the promises of the Geneva summit. They suggested that implementation and follow-up mechanisms for WSIS were based on multi-stakeholder teams around action lines with a well-defined overall co-ordination body, as contained in the existing paragraphs 10, 11 and 29. The text of these paragraphs should be further improved and elaborated through a multi stakeholder consultative process in order to ensure that an adequate post-WSIS structure is in place. The purpose of such a structure will not only be to implement the outcomes of WSIS but also to take up information society issues as they emerge.

At the WSIS Preparatory Committee III - 19-30 September 2005, Geneva (Switzerland), the Informal Coalition on Financing ICTD made a submission to the sub-committee A on Internet Governance, as a contribution to the Section 4 on Measures to promote development of the Chair’s paper on Chapter 3 on Internet Governance. To read more click here. IT for Change also contributed to the statement made by the Civil Society Working Group on WSIS follow-up.

Substantive Inputs made by IT for Change to the emerging outcome documents from WSIS

the chapter on Financing ICTD includes the points about 'public finance' and 'initiatives driven by local governments and local communities' as suggested by IT for Change and some other NGOs
inputs to the second chapter on financial mechanisms of the Operational Part of the WSIS - Tunis document, along with CRIS, APC, ITeM, Bread for All and Digital Divide Data
inputs to the second chapter on financial mechanisms of the Operational Part of the WSIS - Tunis document, along with CRIS, APC, ITeM, Bread for All and Digital Divide Data
suggested amendments by the Gender Caucus and IT for Change to the political chapeau of the WSIS Tunis documents
suggested amendments by CRIS, APC, ITeM, Bread for All, Digital Divide Data and IT for Change to the politcal chapeau of the WSIS Tunis documents
IT for Change was also greatly involved in the Gender Caucus. Read here the submission made by IT for Change on behalf of the Gender Caucus to the WGIG and here the summary of the Gender Caucus online discussions moderated by IT for Change (25 July-13 August 2005).

Also see:

Further information on Working Documents for WSIS - Tunis including comments by civil society organisations including IT for Change.
Compilation of complete documents submitted by various identities accredited to the WSIS process, including IT for Change

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