Source: http://www.wougnet.org

For immediate release (Version française ci-dessous)

UNESCO, 5/12/2002

Online Forum for Civil Society's Preparation of World Summit on the
Information Society

An online discussion forum for non-governmental organizations and civil
society to discuss their input in the Final Declarations of the World Summit
of the Information Society (WSIS; Geneva 2003, Tunis 2005) will be held on
UNESCO's website at http://wsisforum.unesco.org from 9 December 2002 to 15
January 2003.
The Forum that will be chaired by Monique Fouilhoux, President of the
NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee, will discuss eight themes: General Discussion,
Access, Development and Empowerment, Content Issues, Education, Training and
Research, Rights, Future Developments of Information Technologies, Civil
Society in WSIS and Beyond.
The forum is open for all members of non-governmental organizations and
civil society.
Proposals to be included in the drafts of the WSIS Declaration of Principles
and Plan of Action that result from the Forum will be transmitted to the
WSIS Executive Secretariat for submission at Prepcom II (17-28 February
2003).
The decision to organize the Forum was taken by representatives of
non-governmental organizations and civil society at a preparatory meeting at
UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France, on 27 and 28 November 2002.

At the meeting, Adama Samassékou, President of the WSIS Preparatory
Committee, highlighted the essential contributions that non-governmental
organizations and civil society can make to the Summit and its follow-up.

Speaking at the Opening of the meeting, UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro
Matsuura said that UNESCO is well-positioned to bring quite diverse
constituencies into the Summit process and, indeed, to act as a bridge
linking civil society, governments, professional groups and users.

UNESCO, he stated, wishes to ensure that the Summit addresses questions that
go beyond 'access' in technical or infrastructural terms: "After all, the
access in question is really about full access to society; more than this,
it is about the capacity to influence the kind of society being generated by
large-scale technological and economic forces". The desire to enlarge the
Summit's agenda to take account of important issues of intellectual and
ethical debate is something that UNESCO shares with civil society. "The
narrowing of cultural as well as technological divides is something we must
all strive for", said the Director-General.

A banner of the Discussion forum for placing on your website can be
downloaded at
http://wsisforum.unesco.org/6/ubb.x?a=tpc&s=5536002961&f=1526093371&m=22160
73371

Related Links

* World Summit on the Information Society
http://www.itu.int/wsis/index.htm
* UNESCO and the World Summit on the Information Society
http://www.unesco.org/wsis

Contact

Jean Gabriel Mastrangelo, UNESCO, Information Society Division,
Tel: 01.45.68.44.13
E-mail: [email protected]