[WSIS CS-Plenary] WSIS Dhaka Declaration

[Andy Carvin]

Here is the text of the so-called Dhaka Declaration issued after the 
Road to Tunis forum in Bangladesh earlier this week. -andy

http://www.mosict.gov.bd/html/Road2Tunis/dec.html

  DHAKA DECLARATION

We, the ICT stakeholders representing Governments, Private Sector, 
Academicia and the Civil Society, having come from six continents of the 
world,  assembled in Dhaka, Bangladesh from 23 to 25 October 2005 in an 
International Workshop entitled “Building an Information Society :  Road 
2 Tunis”, organized under the auspices of the  Ministry of Science and 
Information & Communication Technology, Government of Bangladesh in 
collaboration with UNDP Bangladesh and in association with World Summit 
Award (WSA), Austria;

  after extensive deliberations on the issues of e-governance, 
transparency & accountability, public and private sector partnership, 
internet governance, security vis-à-vis privacy, e-content & creativity, 
holistic ICT education & training for all, rural & universal ICT access, 
ICT4D leading to poverty alleviation and inclusion of women, children, 
the underprivileged & people with disabilities as well as the financing 
aspects of the solidarity fund;

  hereby declare our common desire and commitment to build a free 
multi-stakeholder, people-centric, inclusive and development-oriented 
knowledge based Information Society in the world at large :

emphasizing that a primary aim of the Information Society must be to 
provide basic information and communication technology (ICT) 
infrastructure to people to facilitate full utilization of ICT at all 
levels in society including the grass roots and hence enable the sharing 
of social and economic benefits by all by means of ubiquitous access to 
information networks, while preserving cultural diversity and heritage 
of humankind all over the world;

endorsing the important role that ICT can play in achieving the United 
Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which describe a 
fundamental set of principles and guidelines for combating poverty, 
hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and gender 
inequality;

recognizing that the concept of a knowledge-based Information Society is 
one in which affordable access to information & communication technology 
through content in accessible language and formats can help people 
achieve their full potential, promote sustainable economic and social 
development, facilitate participatory decision-making processes in 
sustaining democracy and good governance and improving quality of life 
for all;

appreciating the efforts of the UN in convening the WSIS and of the ITU 
in implementing the summit in two phases, Geneva 2003 - Tunis 2005 and

committing ourselves to the Declared Principles and Plan of Action at 
the Geneva Phase of the Summit and leading to the Tunis Phase of WSIS.

  This Dhaka Declaration adopted at the conclusion of the  International 
Workshop entitled “Building an Information Society :  Road 2 Tunis” 
23-25 October 2005, Dhaka, Bangladesh and is submitted as input to the 
Second Phase of the WSIS in Tunis during 16-18 November 2005 through the 
Secretary General of the ITU and will also be disseminated through 
governments, civil society, private sector, NGOs and the media.

Dhaka 25 October 2005


The Workshop deliberations and views expressed shall be made available 
to all ICT stakeholders on the website http://www.mosict.gov.bd/road2tunis.

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Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media & Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldivide.net
http://katrina05.blogspot.com
Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com
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