[WSIS CS-Plenary] Trying to respond to the position papers - defininig Universal Ac cess

[zielinskic at who.int]

Friends,

Well, my earlier comment seems to have stirred a fair amount of
correspondence, but it still hasn't elicited a way of responding to the
position papers. Would someone please tell us where we are supposed to send
or post our comments? 

While recognizing that it's going to get disorganized if we do it through
this list, I am offering below a short corrective to the definition used in
the Universal Access paper. I'll withhold more detailed comments until
someone answers the above question, though.

----------

The Unesco Recommendation concerning the Promotion and Use of
Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace
(http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/ev.php-URL_ID=13475&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECT
ION=201.html ) has an excellent definition of "universal access", which
includes not just access to the technology but also access to content, both
of which are included in the rest of the WGIG paper, but not in the
definition offered on the first page. I suggest we use it:

"Universal access to cyberspace is equitable and affordable access by all
citizens to information infrastructure (notably to the Internet) and to
information and knowledge essential to collective and individual human
development".

Note also that WSIS-CT has already worked in this area for previous
statements, and much of this is absent from the present text. I append a
text we prepared a couple of years ago (!)below.

----------

Chris

Chris Zielinski 
STP, Alliance for Health Policy and Systems Research
RPC/EIP, World Health Organization 
Avenue Appia, CH1211, Geneva, Switzerland 

----------

Universal access

In an equitable information society, everyone must have universal and
equitable access to the infrastructure and knowledge available. 

Technological access requires enough of the right kind of infrastructure. It
is the responsibility of governments to ensure that the necessary backbone
infrastructure is built and maintained, and to ensure that there is an
enabling policy and regulatory environment that encourages communities, the
private sector, local government and civil society to provide value-added
services and to expand this infrastructure in locally relevant ways. 

Public investment in infrastructure, and market imperatives in the private
sector, should not result in wealthier urban populations being wired while
poorer rural communities are left untouched. The digital inclusion of the
few must not be allowed to perpetuate the social and economic exclusion of
the many. Equally, technological access does not merely mean the ability to
download information and advertising, it implies the ability to upload
information with sufficient bandwidth for two-way communication.

Access should be provided particularly to community organizations and other
constituencies that can have a high impact in terms of distributing benefits
of access. The needs of women and of specific communities such as the
disabled should be met. 

Expanding technological access to the Internet demands an expansion of the
available address space under IPv6, mindful of the societal and ethical
risks to privacy and personal security of increased penetration of the
Internet into society.

Transparent, accountable governance structures and equitable legal and
regulatory frameworks must be established, which are able to provide
socially responsible governance in a world that becomes increasingly
dependent on the Internet. 

Finally, universal access must be provided to information essential for
human development. Without access to such information and knowledge, there
can be no Information Society. This goes beyond the right of access to
information in the public domain, and includes all knowledge that is needed
for basic survival. Equitable access should be provided to information from
all sources, whether from developing or industrialized countries.



-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/plenary/attachments/20050207/5308a3b4/attachment.htm