Failure and Success at the WSIS: Civil Society's next moves
There was deep disappointment with the formal outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society. An alliance of powerful and autocratic governments blocked action to tackle the erosion of civil and human rights in electronic space; the US watered down support for development-friendly free and open source software; and community-driven approaches got barely a mention. A decision on a Digital Solidarity Fund was pushed forward only to prevent a collapse of the Summit.
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Sean O'Siochru, spokesman for the CRIS campaign
Many of the thousands of NGOs converging on Geneva last December argue that to talk about ‘information society’ you have to consider who owns information, who controls its production and dissemination, and whose interests that information ultimately serves. At the WSIS, Civil Society groups demanded that these issues also be put on the table. When they were refused, they produced their own ‘Civil Society Declaration’ containing the bones of an alternative vision of an information society. The declaration puts people first and holds that information and communication are inseparable.
The Civil Society declaration “Shaping Information Societies for Human Needs” is available along with other important documents at: www.geneva2003.org/wsis/index_c01_1_02.htm
Of course, it is perhaps unfair to criticise the WSIS for not tackling social issues. Neither governments nor the ITU ever intended it to address such broad concerns, no matter how genuine.
The problem facing the CRIS campaign and others was that there is nowhere else to debate them at global level.
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The World Forum on Communication Rights banner
Civil society had no choice but to bring them to the WSIS. But, where this valuable debate can now reconvene is a key question for the CRIS Campaign. The second phase of the WSIS is unlikely to offer an opportunity to go into the broader questions. But the momentum gathered at the WSIS can be carried forward, apart from the next WSIS meeting at Tunis, towards other transnational governance fora and processes.
Organising and advocacy at the national and local levels is the key to long-term sustainability and progress in communication rights. It is still where most people identify and feel the impact of change, the level at which they organise together, the level of most policy decision-making, and the level at which governments can be influenced and persuaded on how to proceed in global and regional fora.
* Taken from UNRISD News No. 26, Spring/Summer 2004. The full text is also available on www.crisinfo.org
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