Media
  Policy
  Areas of emphasis
  Partners
  Young experts
  Staff
                            
 
  WSIS
  Manyarara Prize
 
  MediaNews
  Publications
 
 
 
Medianews reportage

Civil society: ‘More could have been achieved at WSIS’

In November 2005, The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) took place in Tunis. Representatives from African civil society attended the meeting to ensure that the African perspective was present in both the discussions as well as in the outcomes of this Summit.

The Summit in Tunis was the last stage in global discussions on how to build a “people centred, inclusive and development-oriented information society.” A visible sign of the presence of African civil society during the Summit was the African Market, part of the information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D) Exhibition, an area where delegates could meet NGOs who have been active in the WSIS process from the start of it.

Among them were two NiZA partner organisations, the Media Institute for Southern Africa (MISA), and the Highway Africa News Agency (HANA). The HANA team, led by Highway Africa Director Chris Kabwato, consisted of 24 journalists from all over the African continent. Every day this team produced news articles for the HANA website, for their own home newspapers and for the conference newsbulletin that briefed delegates on the previous days events.

African Market at the WSIS ICT4d (ICT for Development) Exhibition

The Summit, as well as the process leading up to it from 2001 onwards, has resulted in increasing coverage of ICT issues by African journalists for an African audience. In this sense, HANA has succeeded in addressing issues of lack of African content, both on policy makers level as well as for the African audiences. HANA will continue to cover such events and create African content at other African and international forums. For Kabwato, the WSIS has been a perfect training ground to firmly establish HANA.

Consensus
In the meantime, the delegates fell back into a usual phenomenon at UN Summits: Lengthly discussions on textual technicalities. The resulting Tunis Commitment and Tunis Agenda contained comemorable phrases on freedom of expression, accessibility and the need for proper infrastructure. However, it avoided some hot potatoes, such as American control over domain name attribution (a Forum will be established to further address the issue of e-governance) and the need for legislative reform in countries with repressive legislation such as Zimbabwe and host Tunisia (international standards will be developed, but appropriate laws at the national level remain the domain of national governments, taking into account their national context).

Another key aspect was funding of all that needs to be done (existing mechanisms should be better utilised and funding for an established Global ICT Fund remains voluntary). This watered-down text was the reason for civil society representatives to issue its own statement entitled ‘Much more could have been achieved’.

MISA
Nevertheless, the WSIS Summit saw increased civil society participation, including African representatives, and some (albeit small) successes in the sphere of lobby and advocacy. MISA, in partnership with South Africa based Rhodes University and other African NGOs, were able to increase awareness on the importance of ICT issues with governments from the region.

South Africa, for example, had a preparatory process including civil society, and the Botswana government underlined the importance of civil society by not only inviting representatives in its delegation, but also enabling their participation by paying their way to Tunis.

According to Tracey Naughton, former MISA Broadcasting Officer leading the Media Caucus since 2003, civil society efforts have had some impacts on the outcomes. Civil society has been awarded a role as one of the three important stakeholders in the document, and has also been granted this role in the follow-up mechanisms agreed upon.

This is certainly also due to their work during the whole WSIS phase. According to both Kabwato and MISA Regional Director Luckson Chipare, the WSIS resulted at least in a document showing commitments. Moreover, the collaboration between MISA and Rhodes University, as well as with other civil society organisations, has created a firm basis from which to proceed. For MISA the official WSIS-documents include areas that can be incorporated in their programs. The basis for further lobby and advocacy to hold governments to their commitment to contribute to a free and accessible information society has been established.

Official WSIS website: http://www.itu.int/wsis/

Civil Society statement ‘Much more could have been achieved: http://www.worldsummit2005.org

By Christian Kuijstermans

printversion
Introduction | Bridging the Digital Divide | Audio interviews |Medianews |Links