Message from the CS Plenary list [ Karen Banks]:
Attached is the final version of the draft CS WSIS statement.
I realise that many of you have been following the process remotely, and don't have the benefit of explanations that were given during the plenary meetings in Tunis - hopefully the following will clarify the process for all.
Firstly, there were misunderstandings about the existence of a drafting group that was working online. There was no such group. The drafting group consisted of those who went to CS room 7 during wed/thurs or friday and contributed face to face to writing. We did not have time to do any drafting online.
We advertised an address to which people could send comments, and unfortunately, the first address was incorrect, we corrected that as soon as possible, but it also contributed to the confusion.
Second, I explained to several people in tunis, that due to the very hectic nature of the drafting process, there were many misunderstandings and miscommunications which led to some people feeling their texts were intentionally deleted, or entirely ignored by those who worked on the draft.
I would like to reiteraite, on behalf of those who were involved, that there were no intentional deletions of text but there was certainly some confusion around document versioning which led to some contributions being inadvertanly left out of the document.
We also received comprehensive and lengthy statements form some caucuses, which in themselves, stand alone as WSIS declarations. Similarily, due to time and other constraints, we didn't have time to incorporate 2-4 page stand alone caucus declarations, into the CS (as a whole) declaration.
However, as those of you who attended the final plenary meeting - the text is adopted as a 'work in progress' and will not be released as a final document until all have had time to make considered contributions.
The text was used as a reference document from which a press statement was developed - for the final CS press conference on Friday Nov 18th
==========================================================
Next steps and timeline
=================
I believe plenary agreed to allocate 2 weeks for the completion of the final statement. I don't think that is enough time and so propose a slightly longer time frame as below:
proposed next steps:
------------------------------

- please read the attached [ see below please - W2W2] to check as to whether or not your text was included - noting - that we cannot incorporporate stand along declarations from caucuses into the document. Could we ask that if you did send stand alone statements that you consider releasing them in their entirety, independently, and attempt to incorporate your KEY POINTS into the existing text.

- please send, or *resend* _tracked changes_ on the attached document to: cs-dec@wsis-cs.org by Sunday Nov 27th. This address forwards to ralf and myself and will be posted to ct-drafting@wsis-cs.org.

- i will make the archives of the list open so that all can read contributions.. i don't think there is a need for a drafting group perse as our work now is to incorporate minor changes, not draft new text

- a new draft to be completed by wednesday morning nov 30th

- comments could be received until end of work, friday dec 2nd

- a final version posted to plenary monday dec 5th

- we would then need volunteers to translate the final version into other languages and aim to post a final declaration by monday dec 12th

does this work for everyone?

karen
======================================================================================================

WSIS Civil Society Declaration DRAFT V1
18 November 2005

I. Introduction

The WSIS was an opportunity for a wide range of actors to work together to develop principles and prioritise actions that would lead to democratic, inclusive and participate information societies; societies in which the ability to access, share and communication information and knowledge is treated as a public good and take place in a ways that strengthens the rich cultural diversity of our world.

Civil society entered the WSIS process with these major goals:

· Agreement on financing mechanisms and models that will close the growing gaps in access to information and communation tools, capacities and infrastructure that exist between countries, and in many cases within countries
· A vision of the ‘information society’ that is human-centred, frame by a global commitment to social justice and inclusive development
· Achieving a sea change in perceptions of participate decision-making. We want the WSIS to be a milestone from which the inclusion of civil society participation will become more comprehensive and integrated at all levels of governance and decision making at local, national, regional and global levels

Civil society wants to affirm that it has contributed positively to the WSIS process. This contribution could have been greater if our participation was allowed to be be more comprehensive. Our contribution will continue beyond the Summit. It is a contribution that is made both through constructive engagement and through challenge and critique.

While we value the process, and the outcomes, we believe more could have been achieved, particularly in terms of financial mechanisms and capacity building (of governments and of civil society and other actors).

II: Issues addressed during WSIS phase II

A. Financing

The summit did discuss the importance of new financing mechanisms for ICTD, however it failed to recognize that ICTD financing presents a challenge beyond that of traditional development financing. It requires new means and sources and the exploration of new models and mechanisms.

Investments in ICTD - in infrastructure, capacity building, appropriate software and hardware and in developing applications and services - underpin all other processes of development innovation, learning and sharing, and should be seen in the light. Though development resources are admittedly scarce and have to be allocated to with care and discretion, ICTD financing should not be viewed as directly in competition with financing of other developmental sectors.

Financing ICTD requires innovation, with adequate mechanisms for transparency, evaluation, and follow-up. Financial resources need to be mobilised at all levels - local, national and international, including through realization of ODA commitments agreed at the Monterrey Summit.

Internet access, for everybody and everywhere, especially among disadvantaged populations and in rural areas, must be considered as a global public good. Markets may not address the connectivity needs of these sections, and these areas. In many such areas, initial priority may need to be given to provide traditional ICTs - radio, TV, video and telephony - while developing conditions to bring complete internet connectivity to them.

Civil society was able to introduce significant sections in the Tunis commitment (para 35) and in Tunis agenda (para 21) on the importance of public policy in mobilizing resources for financing, which served to balance the pro-market orientation of much of the text on financing.

B. Human rights

Centrality of Human Rights
The Information Society must be based on human rights as laid out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This includes civil and political rights, as well as social, economic and cultural rights. Human rights and development are closely linked. There can be no development without human rights, No human rights without development. This has been affirmed time and again, and was strongly stated in the Vienna World Conference of Human Rights in 1993. It was also affirmed in the WSIS 2003 Declaration of Principles. All legislation, politics, and actions involved in developing the global information society must respect, protect and promote human rights standards and the rule of law.

Despite the Geneva commitment to an Information Society respectful of human rights, there is still a long way ahead. A number of human rights were barely addressed in the Geneva Declaration of Principles. This includes the cross-cutting principle of non-discrimination, gender equality, and workers rights. The crucial right to privacy, which is the basis of autonomous personal development and thus at the root of the exertion of many other fundamental human rights, is only mentioned in the Geneva Declaration as part of "a global culture of cyber-security". In the Tunis Commitment, it has disappeared, to make room for extensive underlining of security needs, as if privacy were a threat to security, whereas the opposite is true: privacy is an essential requirement to security. Other rights were more explicitly addressed, but are de facto violated on a daily basis. This goes for freedom of expression, freedom of information, freedom of association and assembly, the right to a fair trial, the right to education, and the right to a standard of living adequate for the health
and well-being of the individual and his or her family.

Furthermore, as the second WSIS phase has amplified, one thing is formal commitment, another one is implementation. Post WSIS there is an urgent need to strengthen the means of human rights enforcement in the information society, to enhance human rights proofing of national legislation and practises, to strengthen education and awareness raising on rights-based development, to transform human rights standards into ICT policy recommendations; and to mainstream ICT issues into the global and regional human rights monitoring system - in summary: To move from declarations and commitments into action. Toward this end, an independent commission should be established to review national and international ICT regulations and practices and their compliance with international human rights standards. This commission should also address the potential applications of ICTs to the realization of human rights in the information society.

C. Internet Governance

Civil society is pleased with the decision to adopt its proposal for the creation an Internet governance Forum (IGF). We are also satisfied that it will have sufficient scope to deal with the issues that we believe need to be dealt with.

We are concerned, however, about the absence of details on how this forum will be created and on how it will be funded. We insist that the modalities of the forum be determined in full cooperation with civil. We would like to emphasize that the success of the IGF, as in most areas of Internet governance, will be impossible without the full participation of civil society. By full participation we mean not merely playing an advisory role, or being present, but in setting agendas and influencing outcomes.

The Tunis Agenda addressed the issue of political oversight of critical Internet resources. This, in itself, is an achievement. It is also important that governments realized the need for the development of a set of public policy principles that would frame political oversight of Internet resources.

It was important that governments realized that developing these principles should be a shared responsibility. It is, however, very unfortunate, that the Tunis Agenda suggests that governments are only willing to share this role and responsibility among themselves, in cooperation with international organisations. Civil society persists in its demand that public policy is not public if civil society is not involved in its formulation.

With regard to Paragraph 40 we are disappointed that there is no mention that efforts to combat cybercrime need to be excercised in the context of checks and balances provided by fundamental human rights, particularly freedom of expression and privacy.

To ensure that Internet governance and development take place in the public interest, it is necessary for people who use the Internet understand how the DNS is functioning, how IP addresses are allocated, what basic legal instruments exist in fields like cyber-crime, Intellectual Property Rights, eCommerce, e-government, and human rights. Therefore the ongoing creation of public awareness is the responsibility of everyone involved in the governance and development of the Internet and emerging information and communication platforms.

D. Global governance

A world that is increasingly connected faces a greater number of common issues which need to be addressed by global governance institutions and processes. We are concerned that during the WSIS it emerged that many governments of the world lack faith in, and appear to be unwilling to invest authority and resources in the existing multi-lateral system.

While civil society recognises that there are flaws and inefficiencies in the United Nations system, we believe strongly that it remains the most democratic intergovernmental forum, where rich and poor countries have equal rights to speak and participate.

In our understanding summits take place precisely to develop the principles that will underpin global public policy and governance structures; to address critical issues, and decide on appropriate responses to these issues. Shrinking global public policy spaces raises serious questions of the kind of global governance that we are headed towards, and what this signifies for people who are socially, economically and politically marginlised: people who most rely on public policy to protect their interests.

E. Participation

In the course of four years, as a result of constant pressure from civil society, improvements in civil society participation has been achieved, including speaking rights in official plenaries and sub-committees and ultimately right to observe in drafting groups. The Working Group on Internet Governance created an innovative format where governments and civil society actors sat on an equal footing and civil society actually carried a large part of the drafting load.

Due to the pressure of time and the need of governments to interact with CS actors in the Internet Governance field, the resumed session of PrepCom3 was in act the most open. We would like to suggest that this openess contributed to PrepCom3a, against all odds, reaching consensus.

WSIS has therefore demonstrated beyond any doubt the benefits of interaction between all stakeholders. The innovative rules of participation established in this process will be fully documented to provide in the future a new reference point and a benchmark for participants in UN organizations and processes.

Civil society thanks those governments of that greatly supported CS participation in the WSIS processes. We hope and expect that these processes of participation are taken further and strengthened, especially in more politically contested spaces of global policy making such as IPR, trade, environment and peace and disarmament.

We note that some governments of the South were not actively supportive of greater civil society participation as they believe it can lead to undue dominance of debate and opinions by international and northern civil society organisations. We believe that to change this perception, they should engage in efforts to strengthen the presence, independence and participation of CS constituencies in their own countries.

As for the period beyond the Summit, the Tunis documents establish clearly that the soon-to-be created Internet Governance Forum, and the future mechanisms for implementation and follow-up (including the revision of the mandate of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development) must take into account the multi-stakeholder approach.

We want to express concern at the vagueness of text referring to the role of civil society. Currently in almost every paragraph talking about multi-stakeholder participation, the words “in their respective roles and responsibilities” are used to limit the degree of multi-stakeholder participation. This limitation is due to the refusal of governments to recognize the full range of the roles and responsibilities of civil society. Instead of the reduced capabilities assigned in paragraph 35C of the Tunis Agenda that attempt to restrict civil society to a community role, governments should have referred to the list of roles and responsibilities assigned to civil society by the WGIG report. Specifically these are:

- Awareness raising and capacity building (knowledge, training, skills sharing);
- Promote various public interest objectives
- Facilitate network building;
- Mobilize citizens in democratic processes;
- Bring perspectives of marginalized groups including for example excluded communities and grassroots activists;
- Engage in policy processes;
- Bring expertise, skills, experience and knowledge in a range of ICT policy areas contributing to policy processes and policies that are more bottom-up, people-centered and ­inclusive;
- Research and development of technologies and standards;
- Development and dissemination of best practices;
- Helping to ensure that political and market forces are accountable to the needs of all members of society;
- Encourage social responsibility and good governance practice;
- Advocate for development of social projects and activities that are critical but may not be ‘fashionable’ or profitable;
- Contribute to ­shaping visions of human-centred information societies based on human rights, sustainable development, social justice and empowerment.

Civil society has reason for concern that the few concessions obtained in the last few days under the pressure of time from countries refusing the emergence of a truly multi-stakeholder format will be at risk in the coming months.

Civil society actors therefore intend to remain actively mobilized. They need to proactively ensure that not only the needed future structures be established in a truly multi-stakeholder format but also that the discussions preparing their mandates are conducted in an open, transparent and inclusive manner, allowing participation of all stakeholders on an equal footing.


III. Other issues

Social Justice and People-Centred Development
[unedited text] WSIS had the single official mandate of addressing long-standing development problems in new ways that opened up with the ICT revolution. The summit was expected to identify and articulate new development possibilities and paradigms made possible in the information society, and to evolve public policy options for enabling and realising these opportunities. WSIS in general has failed to live up to these expectations. Especially the Tunis phase which was presented as the “summit of solutions” did not provide concrete achievements to meaningfully address development priorities.

Gender Equality
[unedited text] Considering the affirmation of unequivocal support for gender equality and women’s empowerment expressed in the Geneva Declaration of Principles and paying careful attention to Paragraph 23 of the Tunis Commitment, all government signatories must ensure that national policies, programmes and strategies developed and implemented to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society demonstrate significant commitment to the principles of gender equality and women’s empowerment.

We emphasise that financial structures and mechanisms need to be geared towards addressing the gender divide, including the provision of adequate budgetary allocations. Comprehensive gender-disaggregated data and indicators have to be developed at national levels to enable and monitor this process. We urge all governments to take positive action to ensure institutions and practices, including those of the private sector, do not result in discrimination against women. Governments that are parties to CEDAW are in fact bound to this course of action.

Equal and active participation of women is essential, especially in decision-making. This includes all fora that will be established in relation to WSIS and the issues it has taken up. With that, there is a need for capacity building that is focussed at women’s engagement with the shaping of an Information Society at all levels, including policy making on infrastructure development, financing, and technology choice.

There is a need for real effort and commitment to transforming the masculinist culture embedded within existing structures and discourses of the Information Society which serves to reinforce gender disparity and inequality. Without full, material and engaged commitment to the principle of gender equality, women’s empowerment and non-discrimination, the vision of a just and equitable information society cannot be achieved.

Access to Knowledge and the Public Domain
[unedited text and does not include health text] Each generation of humankind is depending upon its predecessors to leave them with a livable, sustainable and stable environment. The environment we were discussing throughout the WSIS is the public domain of global knowledge. Like our planet with its natural resources, that domain is the heritage of all humankind and the reservoir from which new knowledge is created. Limited monopolies, such as copyrights and patents were originally conceived as tools to serve that public domain of global knowledge to the benefit of
humankind. Whenever society grants monopolies, a delicate balance must be struck: careless monopolization will make the our heritage unavailable to most people, to the detriment of all.

In the discussions we had throughout the past years, it became quite clear that this balance has been upset by the interests of the rights-holding industry as well as the digitalization. Humankind now has the power to instantaneously share knowledge in real-time and without loss. Civil Society has worked hard to defend that ability for all of humankind. Free Software is an integral part of this ability:Software is the cultural technique and most regulator of the digital age. Access to it determines who may participate in a digital world.

Access to health information
[unedited text] Access to health information and knowledge is essential to collective and individual human development and has been identified as a critical factor in the public physical and mental healthcare crises around the world. Therefore, it is essential that healthcare systems include a holistic approach that addresses the prevention, treatment, and promotion of mental and physical health care for all people and in order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

Traditional and newer ICTs such as the Internet, telemedicine and telecenters will facilitate the expansion of physical and mental health expertise and scientific knowledge to benefit disease stricken, as well as traumatized populations affected by war, terrorism, disaster and other events. The implementation of ICT systems for physical and mental health information and services must be a two-way path recognizing cultural and community norms and values.

Privacy of health information is paramount for the well-being of all nations. Therefore sound public policy must be developed to protect the privacy of people's physical and mental health information, as well as effective technological security measures. It is essential that healthcare
specialists participate in the development of public policy addressing privacy and other healthcare issues affecting healthcare information and delivery systems.]

Education and research
[unedited] If we want future generations to understand the real basis of the Technical Culture of the Digital Age, the whole « open » paradigm has to be taken in as a full package, especially using free software and open content and courseware as one of the best ways we can recommend. If not, they will become only users and consumers of information technologies, instead of active participants and well informed citizens in the information society. Free Software and open courseware are the most emancipatory choices for all education-based activities as it encourages schooling of the mind over product schooling, while upholding the scientific principles of independence and creativity.

We are happy that universities, museums, archives, libraries have been recognized as playing an important role as public institutions and with the community of researchers and academics, but telecenters are missing. Community informatics, telecenters and human resources like computer professionals have to be promoted, so that ICTs serve training and not training serve ICTs.

While WSIS has recognised the importance of open source software, it has not asserted the significance of this choice for development. It is silent on other issues like open content
(which goes beyond open access to academic publications), new open telecom paradigms and community-owned infrastructure as important development enablers.

The WSIS fails to recognise that ICTD investments have multiplier effects on all sectors of development, and therefore require special provisions. Open source and free modalities are presented in the same paragraph as proprietary software “ in accordance with their interests and with the needs to have reliable services and implement effective programmes for their people » but the same paragraph reiterates « the importance of proprietary software in the markets of the countries ». so it defeats the purpose somewhat and shows free software as ancillary, wit the further risk of hybrid platforms and no mention that there should be no patents for interoperability with open source.

The two WSIS action lines on education and capacity building are not really linked to ensure they work together in the same direction. This increases the risk for duplicates, for scattering of finances and financing mechanisms. There is no clear indication on where they are going; no indication that they should build critical minds for the sake of creativity; no indication that it should be built on free software, the open paradigm and the public domain. On the contrary, the WSIS documents in general emphasize business and private sector role and the reference to “free flow of information, ideas, and knowledge » is not satisfactory and should be replaced with the whole open paradigm tools and ressources.

Media
We are pleased that the principle of freedom of expression has been reaffirmed in the WSIS II texts and that they echo much of the language of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. While we are also pleased that the Tunis Commitment recognises the place of the media in a new Information Society, this should never have been in question.

In future, representatives of the media should be assured a place in all public fora considering development of the Internet and all other relevant aspects of the Information Society. As key actors in the Information Society, the media must have a place at the table, and this must be fully recognized both by governments and by Civil Society itself.

While recognizing media and freedom of expression, the WSIS documents are weak on offering support for developing diversity in the media sector. They specifically neglect a range of projects and initiatives which are of particular value for civil society: Community media, grassroots and civil society-based media, and telecenters. Community-based and community-owned media projects empower people for the independent and creative participation in knowledge-building and information-sharing. They represent the prime means for large parts of the world population to participate in the information society and should be an integral part of implementation of the goals of the Geneva Declaration.

Cultural Diversity
[unedited text]
The WSIS process has failed to introduce cultural and linguistic diversity as a cross-cutting issue in the information society. The information society and its core elements - knowledge, information, communication and the information and communication technologies (ICTs) together with related rules and standards - are cultural concepts and expressions. Accordingly, culturally defined approaches, protocols, proceedings and obligations have to be respected and culturally appropriate applications developed and promoted. In order to foster and promote cultural diversity it must be ensured that no one has to be mere recipient of Western knowledge and treatment. Therefore development of such cultural elements of the Information Society must involve strong participation of all cultural communities.

IV. Where to go from here - our Tunis commitment
[section to be developed based on following proposed structure]

Element one:
How CS is going to structure itself and continue leveraging on the processes and structures that were developed during the WSIS process (caucuses, CSB etc)
we will organise at a date to be determined to launch the process of creating a CS charter
Element two:
How CS is going to structure itself to engage with the IG forum {wait for outcome of IG caucus meeting - whether a specific WG would be setup to make recommendations on the modalities of functioning of the future IG forum)
Element three:
In order to ensure that the future implementation and follow-up mechanisms respect the spirit and letter of the tunis documents and that governments uphold the commitments they have made during this second phase of the WSIS in terms of implementing a multi-stakeholder approach, mechanisms will be created to ensure
· proactive monitoring at the national level of the implementation by govs of their implementation of the Geneva plan of action
· structured interaction with all UN agencies and international organisations to ensure that they integrate the WSIS objectives in their own workplan, and put in place effective mechanisms for multistakeholder interaction
· CS believes that the information society is complex social political phenomenon and it should be reduced to a technology centred perspective. The Commission on science and technology will have to significantly change it's mandate and composition to adequately address the needs of being an effective followup mechanism for WSIS
· that not only the reformed commission on science and technology for development becomes a truly MS commission for the information society, but also, that the process to revise it's mandate, composition and agenda is done in a fully open and inclusive