Yoshio Utsumi, ITU Secretary-General

Expectations beyond Tunis

We started on the long journey to Tunis in 1998, when the government of Tunisia proposed to the ITU’s Plenipotentiary Conference in Minneapolis to hold a World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). We have accomplished much during this journey. At the first phase of WSIS in Geneva in December 2003, we developed a common vision of the information society. In particular, we declared our common desire and commitment to build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented society where the potential of information and communication technologies (ICT) is used to promote sustainable development and improve the quality of life. It is a society where everyone, anywhere should have an opportunity to participate and no one should be excluded from the benefits the information society offers.

At the second phase of the Summit in Tunis on 16-18 November 2005, we will be closing one chapter, but we will be opening a new and much bigger chapter on the implementation of that vision. In this endeavour, we should really recognize the true value of ICT as a central theme in national development policies. ICT is changing our society in ways which are as fundamental as the changes wrought by steam engines in the 19th century or motor cars in the 20th century. As those machines did, ICTs help us to be more productive and efficient than ever before to fulfil our natural desire for a better life.

In the early stages of human development, we passed from an agricultural economy to an industrial one driven by those machines. But if we have to wait for all countries to pass through the same process of development, I fear the developing world will never close the gap. However, ICT can help countries to leapfrog this development process, by moving directly to an information-based society, if they take the proper steps.

Flat-rate pricing models of communication services are eliminating the tyranny of distance and remoteness. In fact, for those who use the Internet or Internet telephony, distance no longer exists. So we have, in our grasp, the opportunity to build a more just and equitable information society, in which the developing world, for the first time, has a real chance to catch up with the developed world.

But with these new opportunities come new threats. The emergence of the information society risks widening the existing digital divide if “have-nots” cannot follow the revolution. Fortunately, the Geneva Plan of Action provides us with a roadmap of where we should go and how to get there. Two critical elements are the development of basic infrastructure and the provision of training and education. So how should we go about achieving these two elements? That is the challenge we have to address in Tunis. A new pact is needed between developing and developed countries, as the developing world will not be able to achieve the goals spelled out in the WSIS Plan of Action alone.

When discussing the WSIS texts, we have too often assumed that promoting ICT for development means just another type of traditional assistance. But that is not true. In the information society, we become richer by sharing what we have, not by hoarding it. The new pact will not obey the normal rules of negotiation. It will be based on mutual self-interest.

In the old world of finite natural resources — such as coal or iron ore — one country’s exploitation of those resources meant there were less available for others. But in the new world of infinite information resources, one country’s creation of wealth based on information can be shared by all.

If we are able to create a new generation of digitally-literate consumers in the developing world, it will be to the benefit of information-producing countries. And if developing countries themselves are able to become creators of information, then consumers in the developed world will benefit. It is a win-win game. To equip the developing world with ICT is to create a consumer market. It is to create suppliers of information and skilled workers. But this means that we must get out of the trap of traditional concepts.

The goal of creating a people-centred, development-oriented, inclusive, global information society is a task for all stakeholders, not just governments. WSIS itself has been a learning process in which we have been trying to understand the role of private sector and civil society in the traditional international order. Although we cannot claim to have been totally successful in embracing a multi-stakeholder approach, we have gone further in this direction than any previous United Nations Summit.

Nowhere are the challenges to the conventional sovereign State greater than in the realm of cyberspace. And Internet governance has dominated our discussions since the conclusion of the Geneva phase.

The traditional principles of “national sovereignty” that have been applied to telecommunications —namely that each State regulates its telecommunication sector as it sees fit — are not working for the Internet. The Internet, which started in one country, has rapidly penetrated everywhere. Now that the Internet has become a basic element of infrastructure for every nation, it is natural that nations wish to claim sovereignty over the Internet as they do over traditional telecommunication infrastructure.

However, the value of the Internet lies in the value of information created and consumed by users rather than in the infrastructure itself. So, Internet governance requires a multi-stakeholder approach in which users and consumers of information alike agree, at a global level, to cooperate on a basic set of guidelines on such issues as security, privacy protection and efficient operation.

That is why our discussion of Internet governance has been so difficult: because the existing models do not work well. We need to embrace a new model, which I will call “new communication sovereignty.” In this model, we must fight to defend the “right to communicate” rather than the “right to govern.”

Communication is a basic human need and the foundation of all social organization. What matters is whether you have guaranteed access to information or the means to communicate with others, rather than the ability to control the means of communication. The “right to communicate” is a fundamental human right in the information society.

As the Secretary-General for the World Summit on the Information Society, I feel truly honoured to have been given the opportunity to serve the international community at this key moment of change in its history. As the wheel of change continues to turn, we must work together to create a more just and equitable information society.