[APCPress] NEW BOOK: Watchdog report tackles the issue of unequal access to the internet and the information society in 2008

[Analía Lavin]

PRESS RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

 JOHANNESBURG, South Africa, Thursday 27 November 2008 -- How do we 
ensure access to the internet is a human right enjoyed by everyone?

 This is one of the critical questions asked by an annual publication 
that highlights the importance of people’s access to information and 
communications technology (ICT) infrastructure – and where and how 
countries are getting it right or wrong, and what can be done about it.
 
Global Information Society Watch 2008 (or GISWatch), published in print 
and online by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the 
Third World Institute (ITeM), and Dutch development organisation Hivos, 
collects the perspectives of ICT academics, analysts, activists and 
civil society organisations from across the globe in over 50 reports.
 
“[Access to infrastructure] is beginning to be considered of less 
importance by some development funders and practitioners, including 
civil society and communication and information activists,” argue the 
publishers in the book preface.
 
“One of the consequences of this is the development of a conventional 
wisdom that leaves the domain of infrastructure development to the 
market; to operators and investors that do not always see the broader 
social value of communications in society, to governments that lack 
capacity and often clear strategy, and to international institutions 
that tend to approach it in a limited and ‘technocratic’ way.”
 
Internet – the petrol of the new global economy

Several thematic reports in GISWatch 2008 tackle burning issues facing 
access to infrastructure, and related concerns. For instance, analyst 
Peter Lange lays out the pros and cons in a lucid discussion on net 
neutrality called “The end of the internet as we know it?” while Sunil 
Abraham, from the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, makes 
the bold observation that most computer users today remain “digitally 
colonised” due to our unquestioning use of proprietary -usually 
Microsoft-produced- software. Russell Southwood asserts that bandwidth, 
like oil, is a crucial resource in the 21st Century, in his discussion 
on accessing content, and Daniel Pimienta, from the Networks and 
Development Foundation (FUNREDES), points out that as the world wide web 
grows exponentially, search engines are losing their capacity to index it.
 
Ben Akoh, from the Open Society Initiative of Western Africa (OSIWA), 
uncomplicates the sometimes tangled issues that lie behind the equitable 
management of spectrum, in the process observing that:
 
“[In] the African context the mobile phone capitalises on the innate 
orality of African culture and society, perhaps explaining its rapid 
uptake. But, in the modern setting, it is an orality that has turned in 
on itself, because the cost of communication may have also eaten into 
the disposable income of the individual.” 
 
How global institutions, such as the United Nations and International 
Telecommunication Union are treating access issues are laid out by ICT 
for development analyst David Souter. The publication also offers 
another take on indicators, where authors Mike Jensen and Amy Mahan 
confront the fact that global consensus has not been reached on how to 
measure the information society in a way that results in reasonable 
comparisons between countries.
 
Reports from almost forty countries
 
Thirty-eight country reports have been written by authors from countries 
as diverse as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mexico, Switzerland and 
Kazakhstan. At the same time, six regional overviews contextualise the 
country reports, and cover North America, Latin America and the 
Caribbean, Africa, the countries that constituted the former Soviet 
Union, South-East Asia and the Pacific.
 
According to APC, Hivos and ITeM, GISWatch is both a publication and a 
process: it aims to build networking and advocacy capacity among civil 
society organisations who work for a just and inclusive information 
society. This is reflected in the growing number of participating 
organisations writing country reports – sixteen more than last year, the 
first year that GISWatch appeared. By doing this they hope GISWatch will 
impact on policy development processes in countries, regions, and at a 
global level.
 
GISWatch 2008 will be launched at the Third Internet Governance Forum in 
Hyderabad, India on December 4.
 
*****
 
Responding to GISWatch 2008, several prominent ICT commentators had this 
to say:
 
"There are few independent sources for taking the temperature of the 
ICT4D policy debate and looking at the current state of the digital 
divide. GISWatch provides both in a thought-provoking and challenging 
way." -- Russell Southwood, CEO, Balancing Act
 
"More and more investment in broadband infrastructure is being made in 
developing countries. GISWatch 2008 comes at no better time.” --  Lishan 
Adam PhD,  ICT in Development Researcher & Consultant, Associate & 
Adjunct Professor, Ethiopia

*****
 
Country reports in GISWatch 2008
 
Africa: Cameroon Democratic Republic of Congo, Republic of Congo, Egypt, 
Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Tanzania, 
Uganda, Zambia
 
Americas: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, 
Jamaica, Mexico, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay
 
Asia-Pacific: Bangladesh, India, Kazakhstan, Republic of Korea, 
Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Philippines, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan
 
Europe: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Romania, Spain, 
Switzerland
 
*****
 
For more information contact
 
Alan Finlay
GISWatch editor
AFinlay at GISWatch.org
Skype id: Alan_Finlay
Johannesburg, South Africa
 
Interviews can be arranged with authors.
 
www.GISWatch.org
 
******

This press release is also available in Spanish and French on the APC 
webiste:
English: www.apc.org/en/node/7558
French: www.apc.org/fr/node/7559
Spanish: www.apc.org/es/node/7562

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