WSIS FORUM 2010


FINAL EXECUTIVE BRIEFING

DRAFT
(VERSION 1.1)

This document serves as a draft version 1.1 of the Final Executive Briefing on WSIS Forum 2010. Additions to this report will be made as and when submissions are received from session organizers and focal points.

Table of Contents

WSIS Forum 2010 was held from 10th to 14th of May 2010 at the ITU Headquarters, Geneva, Switzerland. This event built upon the tradition of annual WSIS May meetings, and its new format was the result of open consultations with all WSIS Stakeholders. The host ITU and the co organizers ITU, UNESCO, UNCTAD and UNDP would like to thank all participants of the WSIS Forum 2010 for their enthusiastic, meaningful and engaged participation.

The Forum offered participants a series of diverse interactions, including opening ceremony, high level plenary session, five high-level debates addressing critical issues to the WSIS implementation and follow-up in multi-stakeholder set-ups, fifteen WSIS Action Line facilitation meetings, six interactive sessions, twenty thematic workshops, six kick-off meetings for new initiatives and projects, six knowledge exchanges facilitating networking among the participants, and others. The WSIS Forum 2010 provided structured opportunities to network, learn and to participate in multi-stakeholder discussions and consultations on WSIS implementation. This year, an Exhibition space was made available for stakeholders to exhibit and display their efforts towards WSIS implementation. Twenty One exhibition stalls were set up in total.

Facilities were made available to ensure inclusiveness and participation during the WSIS Forum 2010. Several sessions were conducted in debate style to encourage participation from the participants.

Translation was offered in 6 languages for various sessions. Sessions were webcast and diverse ways of social networking were used to reach the last mile.

Following the outcomes of the 2009 WSIS Action Line Facilitators meeting as well as following the exchange of views among several WSIS stakeholders, the organizers of the WSIS Forum, ITU, UNESCO, UNCTAD and UNDP called for an Open Consultation Process regarding the thematic focus of the Forum in the year 2010.

In order to ensure the participatory and inclusive spirit of the WSIS Forum 2010, scheduled to be held from 10 to 14 May in Geneva, the organizers i.e. ITU, UNESCO, UNDP, UNCTAD announced an open consultation process on the thematic focus of the forum. The open consultation aimed at engaging Governments, international organizations, civil society and the private sector in the preparations of the WSIS Forum 2010.

The consultation was announced on 5 January 2010 and was structured in three steps as follows

• Online discussions (5 January - 5 February 2010 )

• Submission of official contributions (5 February 2010 )

• Final review meeting (10 February 2010)

The open consultation process, consisting of three phases was well received and appreciated by all. Multiple stakeholders from 48 countries world wide participated in the open consultation process, first proactively discussing the Forum on the WSIS community platform and in the second phase, submitting over 110 contributions. Consequently in the last stage the final review meeting of the WSIS Forum 2010 Open Consultations was held on 10th February 2010. To view the web-cast of the final review meeting, please click on the following link.

https://www.itu.int/ibs/WSIS/201002consultation/index.html

All stakeholders participated with deep enthusiasm and strong commitment to the WSIS Forum 2010 open consultative process. Final review meeting agreed that the comments and suggestions received during the meeting would serve as inputs for the Draft WSIS Forum 2010 Agenda. The preliminary Draft WSIS Forum 2010 Agenda was made available for further comments and suggestions for 10 days i.e. till the 10th of March 2010.

The WSIS Secretariat received several workshop requests and additional comments/ suggestions. The final version of the WSIS Forum 2010 agenda reflected the inputs and suggestions submitted by WSIS Stakeholders during the Open consultation.

1. On-site Participation

   
   

2. Remote Participation

Over 600 participants from different parts of the world attended the WSIS Forum 2010. The WSIS secretariat issued 601 badges (225 - Governments, 125 - UN and/or International Organizations, 123 - NGO/Civil Society, 66 - Private Sector, 62 - others). It is estimated that in addition around 70 participants used their official UN badge in order to join the event. 167 participants were females. One of the successes of the forum was a marked increase in representation of Civil Society organizations and implementers of the WSIS outcomes.

Among the participants there were several high level representatives, including 4 Ministers (Albania, The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Pakistan, Tunisia), 2 Deputy Ministers (Afghanistan and Namibia), and more than 10 Ambassadors. In addition the agenda of event profited from the contributions of several c-level representatives of administrations, private sector and civil society.

1. Promoting remote participation

   A key principle of the WSIS process is to promote the engagement of all stakeholders, in particular of those who come from the civil society, least developed countries, rural areas and remote locations. To achieve this, the coordination team of the WSIS Forum 2010 has put special emphasis in implementing social media tools that promote a more dynamic remote participation The added value of these tools is double, as they also allow every participant in the Forum (remote and physical) to replay each session and have access to every discussion.

   This new "layer" of participation tools (Figure 1) included: a) broadcasting all the panels and workshop globally via audio and video webcast; b) covering the high-level debates with a live blog that added information to the webcast; and c) using Twitter as an additional communication channel that promotes a more active engagement of the remote participants during the event.
   

   Figure 1. Adding a new layer of remote participation to WSIS Forum
   

2. Preliminary results

   The following paragraphs include some more analytics regarding the use of each tool during WSIS Forum 2010. At the moment of this executive report the data from the webcast was not available. This information will be included in the final report.

   Use of Twitter

   Twitter, a microblogging platform, was used throughout the event by the organizers as well as by the participants of the Forum. ITU shared key information of all the sessions through the official ITU official account (@ITU_News), and promoted that participants with a Twitter account shared their thoughts, ideas and suggestions regarding the discussions taking place during the Forum. To facility accessing this information, participants were requested to use the term #WSIS in their messages.

   In total more than 875 short messages were shared by 142 users of Twitter during the 5 days of the Forum. It is important to note these messages were shared by attendants to the Forum as well as by many individuals of the wider WSIS stakeholder community. Some of the links shared by the official ITU account, such the link to the webcast page or to the agenda of the Forum, were clicked by more than 100 people coming from 52 different countries, what gives an idea of the potential of Twitter as a tool to share information. Figure 2 presents the daily coverage of WSIS Forum using the keyword #WSIS. The biggest interest was obtained in days 1, 2 and 4 of the Forum.

   A final consideration worth noting is that for the first time, some of the contents shared in Twitter were use in one of the sessions. During the High-Level Debate on social Networking one of the panellists projected a live "Twitter wall" to the audience with the feedback that his intervention was generating in Twitter. This interactive tool provided the speaker with an argument on the value of social media to encourage knowledge sharing and promote the participation of a wider audience in this type of event. This experience may be replicated in future events.

   Figure 2. Daily coverage of WSIS Forum through Twitter
   

   Use of live blogging

   Live blogging was used for seven of the sessions of the Forum (see Figure 3). A total of 185 people followed these sessions remotely, being the opening ceremony the session most followed. 101 comments were received through the platform, some of which were shared with the panellist as part of the interventions from the audience, enabling remote participants to take active part in the discussions.

   Figure 2. Daily coverage of WSIS Forum through Twitter
   

3. Conclusions

   The preliminary results obtained from this experience are promising. According to the first analytics available, and despite not having advertised that these tools were going to be implemented during the Forum, 185 people followed the Forum through the live blog and 142 contributed to the conversation through Twitter, providing comments and questions that were included in some of the panels. These remote participants came from 52 different countries, what proves the value that ICTs can have to promote a truly global discussion. These encouraging results clearly indicate that this is the right direction to follow for next events and that more participation can be obtained through raising awareness among WSIS stakeholders of the tools that they have available to participate.

The year 2010 marks the halfway point between the successful conclusion of the WSIS in 2005 and 2015, the year by which world leaders committed to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and WSIS targets.

The Opening Ceremony of WSIS Forum 2010 was held on 10th May 2010. The Opening was moderated by Mr Adrian Finighan, CNN Correspondent. The ceremony consisted of the release of a written message to the 2010 WSIS Forum by H.E. Ban Ki Moon, Secretary-General, United Nations. The UN Secretary General welcomed the inclusiveness with which UN agencies are working with each other and with the private sector, civil society, academia, Governments and others to leverage their capacities and know-how. He encouraged all WSIS Forum 2010 participants to focus more attention on the new and emerging issues of the information age, including risks to privacy, identity theft and the abuse of ICTs for acts motivated by racism and xenophobia, or for child abuse and child pornography.

The panel of the Opening Ceremony consisted of representatives from Government, Civil Society, Private Sector and UN Agencies. The main message of all the speakers was that ICTs have considerably advanced since the World Summit on Information Society held in Geneva and Tunis however, now we are half way and there is a need to analyse, take stock and plan to work in close collaboration by way of win-win partnerships to accelerate the achievement of WSIS goals by 2015.

Find below quotes from the panellists in sequential order of participation:

Dr Hamadoun Toure, Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Geneva

"Together we have been able to build an annual global inclusive, open and dynamic event which has its own identity. WSIS 2010 is an opportunity for a mid-term review, looking at the challenges ahead. To roll out the necessary infrastructure and partnerships for broadband essential for building an information society."

Ms Irina Bokova, Director-General, United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Paris - Video Message

"From the very beginning of the WSIS process, UNESCO has focused on technology as a means to human development, based on the four key principles of freedom of expression, universal access to information and knowledge, respect for cultural and linguistic diversity and quality education for all"

Mr Abdul Waheed Khan, Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information and Director a.i., Information Society Division, UNESCO, Paris

"UNESCO remains committed to the WSIS goals to bridging the knowledge divides through a holistic vision and strong political will by enhancing individual and institutional capacities"

Mr Petko Draganov, Deputy Secretary-General, United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), Geneva

"Five years after the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, a range of new opportunities for growth, trade and development are emerging on the back of more widespread diffusion of ICTs"

Ambassador Sha Zukang, Under-Secretary-General, United Nations - Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UN-DESA) - Video Message

"Since the first WSIS the world has witnessed a phenomenal growth in ICTs yet the digital divide continues to provide serious challenges"

Mr Johannes Christian Wichard, Deputy Director-General, Global IP Issues, World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), Geneva

"Information Society is build on innovation, it is important to ensure that Information Society and Intellectual Property do not block each other but they are mutually supportive"

H.E. Mohamed Naceur Ammar, Minister of Communication Technologies, Tunisia

"To Bridge the Digital Divide we must try for more solidarity between nations and people at global level"

Ms Cécile Molinier, Director, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Geneva

"UNDP has explicitly recognized the key role that ICT can play in the fight against global poverty and as an effective tool in helping to achieve the MDGs."

Mr Art Reilly, International Chamber of Commerce, Business Action to Support the Information Society (ICC-BASIS), Chair of the ICT Policy Committee of the USCIB, Paris (Read out by Mr. John Davis from Intel)

"There is a need to increase infrastructure to reach the next billions of people"

Mr Richard Amalvy, Vice-Chairman of the Conference of Non Governmental Organisations in consultative relationships with the United Nations (CoNGO)

"Is humanity as a whole invited to this opportunity? The digital divide increases as the internet speed increases"

Links for further information:

• General information, opening remarks and description of the Opening Ceremony

• Detailed summary from the live blog coverage for the Opening Ceremony

• Audio webcast archive of the Opening Ceremony
  
  

At the end of the Opening Ceremony two Honorary Guests of WSIS Forum 2010, H.E. Adama Samassékou, Former President of PrepCom of the Geneva Phase of the WSIS, and H.E. Janis Karklins, Former President of PrepCom of the Tunis Phase of the WSIS were awarded ITU Silver Medals for special efforts and continuing commitment towards implementation of the WSIS outcomes.

Honorary Guests

• H.E. Adama Samassékou, Former President of PrepCom of the Geneva Phase of the WSIS
• H.E. Janis Karklins, Former President of PrepCom of the Tunis Phase of the WSIS

"There has been much progress. However the ICT divide is still significant, particularly between rural and urban areas"

H.E. Adama Samassékou,
Former President of
PrepCom of the Geneva Phase of the WSIS

The year 2010 marks the halfway point between the successful conclusion of the WSIS in 2005 and 2015, the year by which world leaders committed to achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and WSIS targets.

The opening High-Level Plenary Session of the WSIS Forum 2010 profited from views and feedback from eminent panellists, including honourable Ministers from several countries, on how far the WSIS Stakeholders have come in turning targets into action. The debate highlighted that access to ICTs, and broadband in particular, could help facilitate the achievement of many of the education and public health goals contained in the MDGs.

The high level debate in the plenary session sparked an interesting discussion on whether the WSIS targets are on track to be achieved by 2015, and whether the WSIS targets can facilitate progress towards the MDGs, especially in view of the severe repercussions and detrimental impact of the recent financial crisis on developed and developing countries alike.

Interactive Moderator: Mr Adrian Finnegan, CNN Correspondent

Introductory Remarks: Mr Sami Al Basheer Al Morshid, Director, Telecommunication Development Bureau, International Telecommunication Union, Geneva

Guests of honour:

• H.E. Adama Samassékou, Former President of PrepCom of the Geneva Phase of the WSIS
• H.E. Janis Karklins, Former President of PrepCom of the Tunis Phase of the WSIS

Panellists:

• H.E. Genc Pollo, Minister of State for Reforms and Relation with Parliament, Albania
• H.E. Ivo Ivanovski, Minister of Information Society, FYR of Macedonia
• H.E. Hassam Baryalai, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, Afghanistan
• H.E. Hoda Baraka, Deputy to the Minister, Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications, Egypt
• H.E. Stanley Simataa, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Information and Communications Technology, Namibia

Closing Remarks:

• Ms Khédija Hamouda Ghariani, Secretary-General of the Arab Information and Communication Technology Organization, Tunisia

Links for further information:

• General information, opening remarks and description of the debate

• Detailed summary from the live blog coverage for this session

• Audio webcast archive
  
  

"Broadband will have many drivers. These include man to machine, man to man, home appliances and availability of IPV6."

Dr Hamadoun Toure,
Secretary-General,
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Geneva

The plenary debate was followed by the first high level debate entitled "Build on Broadband". This debate examined the importance of broadband networks in facilitating progress towards achieving the MDGs. Speakers highlighted that high-speed broadband networks carrying advanced applications can enrich education and boost basic hygiene and health awareness while delivering real results in achieving public health goals, a top priority for many developing countries. It can also provide new opportunities for economic growth and international trade and investment.

This High-Level Debate examined the evidence and issues as to how the roll-out of broadband networks could help achieve the MDGs. Panellists highlighted 5 years of achievements and the challenges for the 5 years ahead.

The panellists for the High Level Debate No 1, Build on Broadband, are listed below:

Interactive Moderator: Mr Adrian Finnegan, CNN Correspondent

• Dr Hamadoun Toure, Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Geneva
• Mr Edouard Dayan, Director-General, Universal Postal Union, Bern
• Mr Abdul Waheel Khan, Assistant Director General of Communication & Information, UNESCO
• Mr John E. Davies, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group, General Manager, Intel World Ahead Program, Intel Corporation
• Ms Gabrielle Gauthey, Senior Vice President, in charge of Public Affairs and member of the Managing committee of Alcatel-Lucent

Links for further information:

• General information, opening remarks and description of the debate

• Detailed summary from the live blog coverage for this session

• Audio webcast archive
  
  

"As the basis for ICT, broadband is a uniquely powerful means of delivering the development goals that we aim to achieve by 2015"

Mr Houlin Zhao,
Deputy Secretary-General,
International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Geneva

The promise of broadband infrastructure lies not just in rolling out national high-speed networks accessible for all citizens for boosting economic growth, but also in delivering tailored applications fulfilling the targeted needs of specific communities in education, healthcare, government, energy and the environment. This High-Level Debate considered the potential of broadband ICT networks for delivering real and tangible benefits in people's everyday lives. As the panel highlighted, high-speed, always-on, real-time communications not only offer efficiency and productivity savings, they also save lives.

Moderator: Dr Reinhard Scholl, Deputy Director, Telecommunication Standardization Bureau, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Geneva

Opening Remarks: Mr Houlin Zhao, Deputy Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Geneva

• H.E. Dr Hoda Baraka, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Communications, Egypt
• Mr Fréderic Hemmer, Head of the Information Technology Department, CERN, Switzerland
• Mr Pierpaolo Saporito, Presidente, OCCAM, Italy
• Mr Gabriel Solomon, Senior Vice President, GSMA
• Mr Peter H. Hellmonds, Chief of Public & International Affairs, Nokia Siemens Networks
• Mr John E. Davies, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Group, General Manager, Intel World Ahead Program, Intel Corporation
• Mr Bohyun Seo, Executive Director, Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI), Korea

ITU Deputy Secretary-General, Mr Houlin Zhao, highlighted that the Internet has become one of the foundations of our modern economy, a feature of our daily life. This makes of broadband a fundamental infrastructure, such as electricity and roads, which can promote social and economic development and enable the achievement of the MDGs by 2015. This fact has been recognized by ITU through the "Build on Broadband" initiative and the recently launched "Broadband Commission for Digital Development", an effort that will be conducted in collaboration with UNESCO.

During his introductory speech, Mr. Zhao reminded that the power of broadband is that it makes all kinds of cooperation much easier and more effective. In this sense, a wider availability of broadband will allow us to share more information locally and around the globe, and to build applications that share computing power, making a more efficient and flexible use of computing resources. It will also allow "smart grid" applications, and provide new tools for small and medium enterprises, even in remote parts of developing countries. These are the broadband applications for tomorrow, a future that will be all the brighter because of the opportunities they bring.

The panellists highlighted that we are at the beginning of a broadband revolution. What we understood about the Internet and broadband 10 years ago is not what we understand today. Data traffic is growing exponentially, together with the demand for higher bandwidths. Some countries are already looking for 50, 100 and even 200 Mbps to offer enough capacity for the future applications, such as 3D video, which may be used in several sectors, such as health or education.

There was an agreement that the "broadband revolution" also means "always on" devices. These devices demand narrower bandwidths, but require permanent connections. This introduces new challenges for areas in which coverage cannot be guaranteed, such as rural areas or developing countries. To achieve universal broadband service the panellists emphasized that each country will have to follow its own plan, learning from best international practices. While some countries may be able to deploy massively fiber to the home (FTTH), other countries may need to focus in more affordable technologies, such as WiMax or LTE and define better ways of using spectrum.

Regarding specific applications already being used, H.E. Hoda Baraka presented Egypt's national plan to train teachers through remote on-line training programs. This successful program, which managed to train over 60,000 teachers in 2008, has been a key contribution to drive the national education reform, teaching the international community that ICTs in schools are no longer a luxury, but a basic tool to promote a better education and reduce the digital divide. Similar experiences were presented by Intel in Tanzania, where the biggest challenge was not the lack of technology but the lack of human capacity. Broadband is an enabler that requires all society to get organized to put build the right skills.

Content was also an important topic during the debate. There was consensus regarding the importance of promoting local content that is relevant for each country and society, in particular for under-represented regions, such as Arab countries, where there are several programs going on to promote the production of local content. In this line Mr. Davies, from INTEL, explained that the private sector can develop tools to help local authorities in this task.

As a conclusion to this panel, the speakers from the private sector (Nokia Siemens, Intel and GSMA) highlighted the role of the public sector to create an enabling regulatory environment and to remove bottlenecks. They also highlighted the need to create multi-stakeholder partnerships to promote broadband deployment, in particular to promote universal access to the Information Society. In these partnerships governments should be in the driver seat setting expectations and being an early adopter.

Links for further information:

• General information, opening remarks and description of the debate

• Detailed summary from the live blog coverage for this session

• Audio webcast archive
  
  

"Social Networking responsibilities include knowing your own rights and respecting others rights, this requires media education and media literacy"

Panellists
High Level Debate No 3:
Social Networking

Given increasing popularity of the Internet social networking including blog, wiki, as new tools, media and platforms based on Web2.0 application, UNESCO took an initiative to organize a High Level Debate on Social Networking at WSIS forum 2010 on 11 May 2010 in Geneva, which has triggered lively and fruitful discussions on political and social implications of social networking for knowledge societies.

The High Level debate brought around 70 participants and panellists representing governments, legislator, policy makers, industry, civil society and users to exchange their visions on the opportunities and threats of these tools for the future. The debate focused on social networking's potential to promote freedom of expression and political and civic participation and also its challenge to privacy and existing media and journalism ecology. Given youth's active usage of social networking, special attention was given to the issue how to empower young people through social networking and ensure their security online.

Five panellists shared the view that social networking tools have tremendous potentials to promote freedom of expression and political and social cohesion. Social media are indeed unique tools to foster all forms of human rights. Meanwhile, participants are concerned about online slander and criminal information generated by social media, and their challenge to privacy and data protection..

Newly developed legal and regulatory instruments for social networking were presented by panellists including the Guiding Principles for social networking drafted by the Council of Europe's applied to governments and industries, "Resolution on Privacy protection in Social Network Services" adopted by the International Conference of Data protection and Privacy Commissioners, the Article 29 on online social networking recommended by European Data Protection Supervisor, etc.

The challenge of applying these instruments exists in the discrepancy of the legal framework between online territory and the real one given social networking's transnational diffusion. As participants called upon, to address these concern and challenges, there is a need to foster collaboration of private sector, government and civil society, and the intergovernmental organization like UNESCO should play an important role in social media governance.

Regarding the youth issue, participants highlighted that social networking greatly benefits young people to publish their views, and there is a need to be cautious of possible self censorship and filtering while taking measures to ensure their privacy and safety. Other emerging issues addressed include mobile phone social networking in developing countries, ethical standards for social media, how social media changes mass media and main stream media, how social networking can be used for development and reducing poverty, etc.

In conclusion, the real task is to fully exploit the potential of social networking while not compromising civil rights and liberties, including the right to privacy and right to freedom of expression and freedom of association.

Panellists

• Mr Jānis Kārkliņš, Ambassador of Latvia to France and Permanent Representative to UNESCO and newly appointed Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information at UNESCO
• Mr Thomas Schneider, Coordinator international Information Society International Affairs, Federal Office of Communications OFCOM, Switzerland
• Ms Msiska Kenneth, Executive Director, Young Advocates for the Advancement of ICT-related Development (Y.A.A.ICT-D), Malawi
• Mr Michaël Vanfleteren, Legal Adviser, European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Belgium
• Mr Anand Giridharadass, Columnist, The New York Times / International Herald Tribune, U.S.
• Mr Bertrand De La Chapelle, Special Envoy for the Information Society, France

Links for further information:

• General information, opening remarks and description of the debate

• Detailed summary from the live blog coverage for this session

• Audio webcast archive
  
  

"Disasters reinforce that we are a global village"

 H.E. Mr Sardar Muhammad Latif Khan Khosa,
Ministry of Information Technology,
Pakistan

Panellists shared their experiences of the role of ICTs, particularly in recent disasters e.g. Haiti. During disasters ICTs also used to warn populations and to coordinate relief. The discussion highlighted the critical role of satellite services in disaster relief operations.

A continued need for capacity development in use of ICT for disaster management was emphasized. Speakers shared that during emergency disaster situations community radio stations are critical in providing information to local communities.

Moderator: Dr Cosmas Zavazava, Emergency Telecommunications- Telecommunication Development Bureau, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Geneva

Opening Remarks: Mr Sami Al Basheer Al Morshid, Director of Telecommunication Development Bureau, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Geneva

Panellists

• H.E. Mr Sardar Muhammad Latif Khan Khosa, Ministry of Information Technology, Pakistan
• Mr Sony Esteus, Director, Société d'Animation et de Communication Sociale (SAKS), Haiti
• Mr Steve Buckley, President of the World Association of Community Radio AMARC, Quebec
• Dr Daniel Stauffacher, Chairman, ICT4Peace Foundation, Geneva
• Mr Thomas Wasilewski, Senior Director for Government Affairs, QUALCOMM
• Mr Mark Moore, President, Collabria LLC
• Mr Emanuele Gennai, Global Affairs Account Executive, EMEA, ESRI Europe, Nyon, Switzerland
• Dr Seppo Sisatto, Chairman, Organizing Committee GAREC, Finland
• Ms. Kelly O'Keefe, Rapporteur, Q.22/2, ITU-D Study Groups Access Partnerships

Links for further information:

• General information, opening remarks and description of the debate

• Detailed summary from the live blog coverage for this session

• Audio webcast archive
  
  

"Cooperation is a key component to address cybersecurity, not only at the national level, but in particular, at the international level"

Panellists
High Level Debate No 5:
Cybersecurity and Cyberspace

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) have been widely adopted throughout our society, but these very same ICT systems are at severe risk from growing cyberthreats. The moderator of the session, Mr Arkadiy Kremer, Chairman of Russian Association for Networks and Services (RANS) and Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 17, Russian Federation, set out a framework of the session requesting the panellists and participants to keep in mind the following questions:

1. How to use ITU's organizational and cultural advantages to achieve international collaboration for ICT security and confidence implementation?

2. How to follow global trends in ICT technology and the security choices being made?

3. The question on the connection between the technologist and decisions made on security..

4. How to formulate security and collaboration strategies for the future, where we are and what are the next steps ?

Mr Houlin Zhao, Deputy Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Geneva stated that protecting cyberspace is a joint responsibility, it is not just about protection but also about enabling a more sophisticated use of the digital environment. He informed that under the Action line C5, in 2007, ITU Secretary-General launched the Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA) to provide a framework within which an international response to the growing threats and challenges can be coordinated and addressed. He informed that the GCA strives to engage all relevant stakeholders in a concerted effort to build confidence and security in the information society.

2008, ITU launched the child online protection initiative, to protect children online, this initiative was supported with full commitment globally. Another successful project of ITU was in collaboration with Malaysia, called IMPACT; he announced that 60 countries are already part of IMPACT. Mr Zhao shared the activities of all three ITU sectors and General Secretariat in the area of Cybersecurity. He emphasized that this high-level debate could provide a forum to discuss how best to promote international cooperation in the area of Cybersecurity.

Mr Endri Hasa, Director of Albanian National Agency for Information Society, Albania, emphasized on the fact that cyberspace touches everyone now a days starting from government, to business and citizens. Government has the responsibility to address strategic vulnerability towards protection of cybercrime but ICT networks are operated by the private sector both nationally and internationally hence he stated that the responsibility for Cybersecurity is distributed amongst wide range of stakeholders and actors. He emphasized that Public Private Partnerships and Cooperation is crucial in an international and national space. Mr Hasa informed about an Albanian programme called "Digital Albania" that aims to bring Broadband connection to every citizen, aims at bringing the benefits of ICTs to all citizens.

Today, new and sophisticated cyber threats, cyber attacks and, more recently, cyber warfare pose strong challenges to the safety, integrity, reliability and confidentiality of modern communications and the networks over which these are transmitted. He also emphasized that growing cyber attacks can also be a challenge to national security and international peace.

Mr Andrea Rigoni, Director General of the Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, Italy, began his intervention by highlighting the need for International Cooperation, stating that the nature of Internet is global it interconnects all the countries. He stressed that there is a need for developing additional tools to take decisions on Cybersecurity, it is also important that the decision makers are provided with enough awareness and skills on cybersecurity to take proper decisions. Mr Rigoni emphasized that evolution of cybercrime, cyberwar demonstrate that the power of internet is being leveraged in a negative way, thus he highlighted that that international cyber rules are required to protect the internet.

Ms Theresa Hitchens, Director, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), Geneva, stressed on the fact that the issue of cybersecurity is very complex. She highlighted that both, outer space and computer network tools are primarily used by Civil Society for communication and economic development. She added that space assets and computer networks are vulnerable and in most cases it is difficult to distinguish between the accidental and deliberate attacks. She spoke about the challenge that cybersecurity provides to national governments adding that fighting cybersecurity might lead to secrecy to protect National data rather than leading towards international cooperation. Ms Hitchens shared the idea of liaison with militaries all over the world for cybersecurity solutions within voluntary agreed or legally agreed codes of conduct.

Mr John Carr, Chairman of Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety (CHIS), United Kingdom, focused his remarks on building international security and confidence in the Internet. He stressed that the challenge is to develop good policies and procedures for Child online protection however he emphasized that the bigger challenge is to build Confidence and trust on the medium of the Internet itself. He also highlighted the positive aspects of the internet stating that it has expanded the opportunities for children all over the world. He commended the role of ITU in the area of Child Online Protection policy. He shared examples of activities and projects initiated in area of child online protection.

Ms Solange Ghernouti-Hélie, Professor, University of Lausanne, Switzerland, highlighted our dependence on ICT infrastructure, at the same time she reminded that digital world is fragile. She spoke about the misuse of personal data and the need for protection of personal data. Ms Ghernouti-Hélie emphasized on the need for International collaboration and public private partnerships while working towards a solution for cyber security. As the fifth space the first four being, land, sea, air and outer space, cyperspace needs collaboration amongst all countries. She stressed on the need for a Global United Nations Network to work towards a Global Cyberspace treaty that would serve as an International Agreement for a global strategy to work against cybercrime. She emphasized on bridging of the gap in the common understanding of Cybersecurity between the developing and developed world and to work towards developing an appropriate cybersecurity culture. Developing a Global Protocol reference on cyber security and cyber crime.

Mr Ilias Chantzos, Director EMEA & APJ Government Relations, Symantec, provided a private sector perspective to the debate on Cybersecurity. Mr Chantzos warned that we are confronted with a very well organized cybercriminal environment. He shared that crime on internet is more than crimes on streets today, mainly aiming at stealing data, credit cards numbers, personal data and so on. Different kinds of attacks, in particular targeted attacks enabled at the information that is online are moslty personalized attacks. Sharing statistics, he said that many of these attacks come from people we trust and not outsiders, at times they are also accidental due to lack of awareness.

He highlighted that while talking about Broadband, every country must also build security solutions along side.

ITU has been promoting awareness and education in the area of Cybersecurity and should continue doing that. Historically communications and security have been interlinked. He emphasized that governments have to work with the private sector to build secure environments for cyberspace together. He added that industry is keen to collaborate with governments as long as there are mutually benefit goals.

The moderator opened the floor for discussions:

The panel sparked a discussion on making the internet infrastructure more secure and on sharing of security information on the internet.

Participants strongly emphasized on the need for international cooperation in the area of Cybersecurity, stating that creating Cybersecurity partnerships is essential at a national and international level and also between different stakeholders like the governments, private sector and civil society.

There were mixed views from the audience on the issue of creating a protocol or treaty for fighting Cybersecurity issues together, some participants felt that this was absolutely essential while others felt that the creation and ratification of a treaty might delay the fight against cybercrime.

Participants voiced that analysis of each threat and issue in the area of cybersecurity would be important to fight cyber crime. There was a discussion on jurisdiction and difference of culture in the Private Sector and Governments.

The discussion led to the costs and resource assessment of Cybersecurity especially in developing countries.

All the participants recognized that cybercrime is increasingly evolving and concluded the session saying that there is a need to raise awareness about cybersecurity and emphasized the need for international cooperation.

Moderator: Mr Arkadiy Kremer, Chairman of Russian Association for Networks and Services (RANS) and Chairman of ITU-T Study Group 17, Russian Federation

Panellists

• Mr Houlin Zhao, Deputy Secretary-General, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Geneva
• Mr Endri Hasa, Director of Albanian National Agency for Information Society, Albania
• Ms Theresa Hitchens, Director, United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research (UNIDIR), Geneva
• Mr John Carr, Chairman of Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety (CHIS), United Kingdom
• Ms Solange Ghernouti-Hélie, Professor, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
• Mr Ilias Chantzos, Director EMEA & APJ Government Relations, Symantec
• Mr Andrea Rigoni, Director General of the Cybersecurity Center of Excellence, Italy

Links for further information:

• General information, opening remarks and description of the debate

• Detailed summary from the live blog coverage for this session

• Audio webcast archive

• ITU's Activities on Cybersecurity

The Tunis Agenda for the Information Society states that the WSIS implementation mechanism at the international level should be organized taking into account the themes and action lines in the Geneva Plan of Action, and moderated or facilitated by UN agencies when appropriate. It also states that ITU, UNESCO and UNDP should play a leading facilitating role in the implementation of the Geneva Plan of Action.

WSIS Action Lines

• С1. The role of public governance authorities and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development

• С2. Information and communication infrastructure

• C3. Access to information and knowledge

• C4. Capacity building

• C5. Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs

• C6. Enabling environment

• C7. ICT Applications:

  • E-government

  • E-business

  • E-learning

  • E-health

  • E-employment

  • E-environment

  • E-agriculture

  • E-science

• C8. Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content

• C9. Media

• C10. Ethical dimensions of the Information Society

• C11. International and regional cooperation

Each year, during the WSIS Forums held in May, the WSIS Action Line Facilitators :

• Provide reports on the year's activities on their respective Action Lines

• Organize Interactive Action Line Facilitation Meetingss on their respective Action Lines.

This chapter provides a report of all the Action Line Facilitation meetings held during the WSIS Forum 2010.

Participants exchanged information and extensively discussed progress in implementing three of the eleven WSIS Action Lines, namely the role of international organizations, public governance authorities and other stakeholders in the implementation and promotion of ICT for development (Action Line C1); ICT applications - e-government (action Line C7); and international and regional cooperation (Action Line C11).

The Meeting provided a solid platform to inform the participants on activities related to the respective actions lines during 2009 and underlined the importance to invigorate the current platform on the exchange of information and experiences for implementation of the Action Lines; and the building up of synergies and involvement of different stakeholders, especially from the developing countries for more effective knowledge sharing and enhanced of collaboration in order to ensure the implementation of WSIS at the international, regional and national levels. It was proposed to explore an opportunity to set up an interactive portal/blog for each sub group to be able to initiate the world wide interaction on activities, projects, research and development programs of the respective theme of the sub-group under the umbrella of WSIS Forum.

Among information on activities, programmes, projects and initiatives during 2009, it was mentioned that the ability of e-government to handle speed and complexity can also underpin regulatory reform. While technology is no substitute for good policy, it may give citizens the power to question the actions of regulators and bring systemic issues to the fore. E-government can add agility to public service delivery to help governments respond to an expanded set of demands even as revenues fall short. Effective strategies and legal frameworks can compensate significantly, even in least developed countries. Those who are able to harness the potential of expanded broadband access in developed regions and mobile cellular networks in developing countries to advance the UN development agenda have much to gain going forward. A notable progression of the last few years is seen in the adoption of national e-government strategies and multi-year action plans. From the most to the least developed, countries can be seen responding to expectations that governments both participate in and enable the information society by communicating and interacting more effectively with increasingly technology-savvy citizens.

AGENDA OF THE SESSION:

Interactive Facilitation Meeting on WSIS AL C2 (Infrastructure) (11 May 2010, 11:00 - 13:00)

Pursuant to the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, ITU is playing a facilitating role for the implementation of the WSIS Action Line C2: Information and Communication Infrastructure. The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the work carried out in the area of ICT Infrastructure under Action Line C2 and the way forwards.

It is important to consider if National ICT Policies and Worldwide Broadband Implementation levels are aligned with WSIS Connectivity Goals. The questionnaire feedback that was sent out to Administrations in early 2010 will help to answer these questions, among others concerning the status of implementation of Action line C2 outcomes.

ICT Infrastructure Update midway towards 2015

The meeting will focus the discussion on the following aspects:

• Where do the 12 outcomes of Action Line C2 stand

• ITU roadmap update & feedback from the questionnaire sent to Administrations.

• Presentation of new ITU/BDT Web Gateway for C2

• Presentation : Broadband Internet Access in Rural Areas of Slovakia

• Presentation : Connect a School/Connect a Community

• ICT Infrastructure Development: Challenges and way forwards till 2015

Moderator: Mr. Behdad Emamgholi, Chief of PRI, BDT, ITU

Opening Remarks: Mr Sami Al-Basheer, Director of BDT, ITU

Panellists

• H.E. Mr. Hassam Baryalai, Deputy Minister, Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT), Afghanistan

• Mr. Adel Gaaloul, CEO of SOTETEL, Tunisia

• Mr. Ivan Istvanffy, Director General of the Section of the Foreign Financial Assistance Management and Implementation of the Office of the Government of the Slovak Republic

• Ms. Susan Schorr, Head, a.i. Special Initiatives Division, BDT, ITU

OUTCOMES OF THE SESSION:

It was highlighted during the initial presentation on the status of the Action Line C2 outcomes that more feedback is needed from the administrations. About 15% of administrations sent back the completed questionnaire on implementation levels that was sent out to them, with a good balance on the returns between regions and levels of development. This is a good start as for relevant status updates, but we should continue to receive feedback through this questionnaire continuously, to enable further updates for WSIS-related reporting on the way to 2015.

IF YOU ARE AN ADMINISTRATION THAT HAS NOT YET FILLED OUT AND RETURNED THE QUESTIONNAIRE, PLEASE DO SO WHENEVER POSSIBLE, AS IT WILL GREATLY ENHANCE OUR CONTINUOUS UPDATING & REPORTING OF THE IMPLEMENTATION LEVELS AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, WE WILL SEE WHERE THE GAPS NEED TO BE FILLED! THE QUESTIONNAIRE CAN BE FOUND FOR DOWNLOAD UNDER STATISTICS, ON THE WEB GATEWAY.

The new web gateway for WSIS Action Line C2 activity reporting was presented to the audience, which serves as the active repository for the roadmap of ITU's ongoing and planned activities, as well as feedback (through the answers to the questionnaire) from the administrations on best practices, calls for assistance, or general comments. Statistics, upcoming events, reports, etc. can also be found on the new web gateway, which can be found here: www.itu.int/ITU-D/wsis/C2/

ICT infrastructure projects that have been implemented by partnerships is the way forward according to several interventions by the chairman and panellists. One example out of many is the project that was implemented recently on establishing the main laboratory for ICT education and development in Afghanistan, for which the Deputy Minister of Afghanistan expressed his gratitude, as the ITU and the Government of the Islamic Republic of Iran partnered in achieving this.

Tunisia presented comments on mobile broadband infrastructure development in Tunisia, showing how the implementation of digital TV, now covering 90% of the country, will enable the re-allocation of the unused frequency spectrum 862-790 Mhz (Digital dividend) in order to develop Mobile Broadband next generation networks.

The presentation by Slovakia on Rural broadband connectivity presented an interesting relation statistically between regions that were the most un-connected and levels of un-employment. Some remarks from the audience and panellists stated that these kind of studies should be undertaken in other countries as well, to see how far the relevance goes between un-employment and access or not to broadband.

There was an intervention from Algeria, about the implementation of broadband in rural areas of Slovakia. "What has been done in some countries is not directly replicable in countries that are vastly different geographically and economically, so that the approach to broadband network implementation needs to be done on a case by case scenario".

Concerning the presentation of 'Connect a School - Connect a Community' several comments were made from the audience and from the panel that wherever possible and necessary, schools make a great starting point in connecting a larger community, as this is were there is a captive audience and where lies the future of each and every given area. Efforts should be sustained and developed to connect all schools in underserved or un-served areas as this will benefit the local communities at large.

An intervention from the African Union stated that more harmonization needs to take place on implementing infrastructure projects across Africa, between all partners involved, as there seems to be notable duplication of efforts in some areas and countries.

Finally, it was reminded that all stakeholders are expected to play their roles and make concerted efforts at national, regional and international levels in order to meet Action Line C2 requirements.

As you are aware, the WSIS outputs on capacity building emphasized that "each person should have the opportunity to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge in order to understand, participate actively in, and benefit fully from, the Information Society and the knowledge economy."

In particular, ICTs can contribute to achieving universal education worldwide, through delivery of education and training of teachers, and offering improved conditions for lifelong learning, encompassing people that are outside the formal education process, and improving professional skills.

The WSIS outputs identified a number of key initiatives that should be undertaken to promote capacity building vis-à-vis ICTs. During this session, some of the key trends that have emerged since WSIS and how ICTs are being used for education, learning and development were discussed by three panellists followed by a plenary debate.

These panellists were:

• Prof. Wojciech CELLARY, Head of Department of Information Technology, Poznan University of Economics, Chairman of the Informatization Council, Ministry of Internal Affairs and Administration, Poland

• Mrs. Blanca GONZALEZ, Head of Area, Spanish State Secretariat for Telecommunications and Information Society (SETSI), Spain

• Prof. Jean-Henry MORIN, Senior Scientist, Dept. of Information Systems, University of Geneva, Switzerland

The three presentations made by the panellists are available on the WSIS Forum website.

During the discussion, it was noted that we are witnessing an extraordinary change in the way education is delivered around the world, and this is perhaps the biggest shift in the way knowledge is transmitted across generations since the founding of the first European Universities in Bologna, Paris and Oxford at the end of the 11th century. In particular, it was also noted that the growing access over the Internet to open educational resources (OER) and other training curricula is leading to an unbundling of the four elements of education: the design of a course, delivery of a course, delivery of credit and delivery of degree.

During the presentation by Prof. Cellary, he discussed issues relating to how the knowledge economy should be financed, particularly with regard to the education sector and this phenomenon. He argued that there is no knowledge economy without the right financial model and that the growing and wide availability of free educational curricula potentially represented a threat to the development of an innovative and local knowledge economy workforce. He asked what was the role of the public sector in continuing to support education as a public good.

During the presentation by Mrs. Blanca GONZALEZ, she spoke of the successes of Spain's Plan Avanza and its initiatives to provide broadband connectivity to educational institutes as well as low cost PCs to students. Today, 99% of primary schools are connected to the Internet and the same percentage of the population have available access to broadband services. She also spoke of Spain's cooperative projects with the ITU Academy initiatives on ICT capacity building for developing countries - in particular, the Centres of Excellence initiative in Africa.

In his presentation, Professor Morin spoke of the enabling factors and opportunities that ICTs are bringing to education and lifelong learning. He discussed three key issues. First, the impact of the growing economic significance that "fair use" (in other words, what copyright leaves unregulated) is having in the digital age. Second, the growing polarization over digital rights management into two extremist camps with the need to reinstate the user in his rights and to reverse the "distrust assumption". Third, the impact that new devices like the iPad or other slate-like devices may have on teaching, learning and interaction among students. These three issues, argued Professor Morin, required that we start thinking "out of the box" and try new approaches.

The presentations were followed by an active multi-stakeholder plenary discussion on these topics and other issues related to the relationship of ICTs and capacity building.

In his opening remarks to the session, the Director of the BDT, Mr. Sami Al-Basheer noted that former South African President Nelson Mandela has said "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world."

It was clear from the debate and interest in the topic of capacity building that the key interest of all participants reflected the spirit of the related WSIS outputs which emphasized that all stakeholders should undertake efforts to make sure that capacity building efforts try to bring the best of the world's knowledge, education and lifelong learning to the greatest number of people.

Content will be available soon.

Content will be available soon.

In line with the WSIS principle of multistakeholder participation on an equal footing, and within the framework of WSIS Action Line C5 - Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs, sessions were held during WSIS Forum 2010.

A high-level debate on Cybersecurity, Thematic Workshops and the traditional WSIS Action Line Facilitators Meeting (ALFM) brought together leaders and experts from Government, Industry, International Organizations and Civil Society.

During these sessions (ALFM, Thematic Workshop and High-Level Debate), participants emphasized the following:

International cooperation must be strengthened as the challenges faced by the citizens of the information society can only be adequately addressed through building synergies between national and regional initiatives within a framework of international cooperation.

The importance of partnerships between various stakeholders, especially governments, industry and civil society, was highlighted.

The issue of new threats, the exponential increase in the number and level of sophistication of these threats, and the potential dangers of malicious conduct in disrupting critical services through Control Systems were emphasized.

Some participants stressed the importance of an international treaty on cybercrime under the auspices of the United Nations where all nations are invited to participate in the elaboration of this framework. Others considered that a treaty will be a lengthy negotiation and other measures need to be taken. The need for a treaty and using other measures in parallel were not considered mutually exclusive.

As sole facilitator for WSIS Action Line C.5, the framework launched by ITU for international cooperation, the Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA) and its Child Online Protection (COP) were strongly endorsed by the participants. The Guidelines for COP and report on activities undertaken by COP partners were considered vital for building a common understanding on the issue, for exchanging best practices among all stakeholder groups and for forging partnerships and alliances aimed at addressing challenges related to the protection of children online.

Further progress was made in the Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA) with new agreements for partnership and an increase in the number of countries interested in participating in the ITU-IMPACT deployment of solutions for Cybersecurity. At the end of both events, some 60 countries are now part of what is today the largest framework for international cooperation bringing together academia, governments, civil society, international organizations and industry.

Participants of this fifth meeting of the WSIS Action Line C5, stressed the importance for concrete actions, an increase in efforts to strengthen international cooperation and the need for enhanced cooperation between all stakeholders in working together and building synergies with the objective of building confidence and security in the use of ICTs.

Summary Report

Facilitation Meeting On WSIS Action Line C6, 10 May 2010, ITU Headquarters
"Broadband Policy At The Crossroads:
How To Achieve Enhanced Collaboration Among Stakeholders"

1. SUMMARY OF THE MEETING

The Facilitation Meeting on WSIS Action Line C6 (the Enabling Environment) took place on 10 May and attracted about 80 participants. As in previous years, the meeting was organized as an interactive panel discussion, involving multiple stakeholders. A number of questions were taken directly from the floor, resulting in an open debate fully driven by stakeholders. The overall theme of shaping modern broadband policies stayed in the heart of the debate and stimulated an insightful exchange of ideas and experiences among stakeholders.

In his opening remarks, the Director of BDT, Mr. Sami Al-Basheer set the scene for the discussion stressing that recent market developments have shaken up regulatory regimes enormously. Today, regulators and policy makers face many pressing questions, such as how to address convergence of the telecom and the broadcasting sectors, how to democratize access to broadband services, and ultimately, how to boost investment. Innovative thinking and new-generation policies are needed to ensure sustained growth in ICT markets, diverse service offerings and accessible applications.

In his key note, Dr Mongi Hamdi, Head of the Science, Technology and ICT Branch/DTL, UNCTAD echoed that providing access to advanced and affordable access to ICTs and to broadband in particular remains a major challenge. With the impressive take up of fixed and mobile broadband over the last 5 years, the digital divide has taken a new dimension. Gaps in access to basic services persist, especially outside main urban areas. But even more importantly, the growing broadband divide results in true handicaps for many developing countries, both for individuals and businesses.

In order to set a sound framework for making decisive progress in creating an enabling environment for investment, competition and innovation, ITU has created a Roadmap for the implementation of WSIS Action Line C6 (available at: www.itu.int/wsis/implementation/2010/forum/geneva/ifm/ifm_1.html). This roadmap catalogues a wide range of ongoing ITU activities in the area of policy and regulation. It is intended to evolve as a living document and will be updated on a regular basis with new activities and initiatives.

During the panel discussion, there was a common understanding that regulatory reform is getting an ever more complex task. The balance between the various ingredients of an efficient policy and regulatory framework is essential for achieving a level-playing field for businesses while ensuring accessible and affordable services for consumers. Competition, together with privatization and the establishment of a separate regulatory body remain the pillars of market-focused strategies of Governments to meet social and economic goals, such as increased access to broadband and revenue from ICT services.

With the advent of light-touch regulation and the move from imposing obligations to creating incentives for all stakeholders in the ICT environment, enhanced cooperation among governments, regulators, industry and consumers appears to be a viable solution for bringing broadband policies to the next level. Many participants stressed the central role of multi-stakeholder alliances (such as Public-Private Partnerships, etc.), which can work as enablers of meaningful reforms and sustained growth.

Panellists and participants were unanimous that decisive progress still needs to be made towards achieving the WSIS goals, and those related to the creation of an enabling environment. Nevertheless, the general feeling was clearly positive. In the early 2000, very few were those who anticipated the "mobile miracle", which allowed connecting an expected 5 billion mobile subscribers by the end of 2010. Likewise, broadband technologies and wireless broadband in particular, offer opportunities to design new network and business models, and leapfrog towards a connected, inclusive and sustainable Information Society.

Which strategies are likely to be the most successful in stimulating broadband growth? There are likely to be as many answers as there are countries and stakeholders, because broadband growth is specific to different national contexts, policy goals and market structures. Nevertheless, this year's facilitation meeting on the Enabling Environment reached consensus that multi-stakeholder partnerships (including public-private and private-private partnerships) are the shortest way to a broadband world.

2. SPEAKERS AND PANELLISTS

• High-level speakers
  • Sami Al-Basheer Al-Morshid, Director, BDT-ITU (opening remarks)
  • Dr Mongi Hamdi, Head, Science, Technology and ICT Branch/DTL, UNCTAD; Head of the Secretariat of the United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (key note)
• Moderator
  • Mario Maniewicz, Chief, BDT's Policies and Strategies Department, ITU
• Panellists
  • Fabio del Alisal Sánchez, Director International Department of CMT, Spain

  • Dr Krisnadi Iwan, Commissioner, Indonesian Telecommunication Regulatory Authority

  • Pierre Lucante, Head of Sector Project, ICT for Development, GTZ, Germany
  • Gabriel Solomon, Senior Vice-President, GSMA
  • Rajesh Aggarwal, Chief, Business & Trade Policy, International Trade Center, Geneva

3. FOLLOW-UP

• A website dedicated to the facilitation of WSIS AL C6 will be created and will be developed as a one-stop-shop for best practices in the area of creating the enabling environment, drawing on ITU's work www.itu.int/ITU-D/treg/bestpractices.html as well as on the work of other stakeholders, in particular of private sector.
• Contact for questions and/or requests related to facilitation on WSIS AL C6 or to direct assistance in the area of regulation: bdt-rme@itu.int.

Chairs: Michael Riggs, FAO and Torbjörn Fredriksson, UNCTAD

This interactive debate focused on how ICTs can enable rural enterprises to become means of poverty reduction and sustainable rural development. It also addressed the roles of governments, international organizations, the private sector, civil society and NGOs in contributing to these ends.

• Moderator
  • Ms. Allison Hornery, Cofounder, CivicTEC
• Panellists
  • H.E. Ms. Iruthisham Adam, Permanent Representative, Permanent Mission of the Republic of Maldives to the United Nations Office at Geneva
  • Ms. Caroline Figuères, Managing Director, IICD
  • Ms. Roxanna Samii, Manager Web, Knowledge and Internal Communications, International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD)
  • Md Shahid Uddin Akbar, CEO, Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development
  • Mr. Peter A. Bruck, Chairman, World Summit Award (WSA)
  • Mr. Carlos Afonso, Director, Brazil's Information Network for the Third Sector (RITS) and founder of the Association for Progressive Communications

E-agriculture and e-business combine to talk about ICTs and rural enterprise, and related policy challenges.

As stated by Moderator Allison Hornery, the topic "has a uniquely cross-cutting scope within the context of WSIS because it's a real microcosm of the agenda where issues like access and infrastructure, content and financing and so on collide in a very real world way. So it was a great opportunity to facilitate a group of thought leaders to collaboratively explore these issues."

Key points and issues from the session:

Farmers are business people, and ICTs can improve their livelihood choices. ICTs do not always have to be cutting edge to have an immediately measurable impact on the ground. Mobile devices in particular are critical to providing timely appropriate information. Participants further noticed that new applications, such as mobile money and mobile insurance may become important features.

There may be inadequacies in the business models now in place around rural information services. Challenges to the models include low awareness of farmers and rural SMEs; little support available from governments or development organizations; a lack of the "right information at right moment"; and limited information resources, such that they do not cover all the information needs of the consumer - especially in relevant languages. Lessons from Bangladesh suggested, however, that when well designed and targeted to the needs of the users, various ICT-based support services can be both effective and sustainable.

The Maldives LEADS business matching system was used as an illustrative example of an ICT programme for rural enterprise. In a country of 1,200 islands, this project is building capacity to use trade information to promote SME development and increase the power of smallholder producers, while strengthening linkages between tourism and fisheries (the country's two most successful sectors). It is also collecting lessons learned for the benefit of the wider ICTs for development community.

Other opportunities for enhancing the impact of ICTs in rural enterprise come from initiatives such as the World Summit Awards, which seek to increase awareness on what content is most useful, sharing knowledge and good practices.

Key challenges that were explored included the difficulty of monitoring results in line with the WSIS action plan; ICTs being insufficiently prominent and under-prioritized by many developing countries; governments acting in isolation; and NGOs becoming over-focused on donor priorities rather than beneficiary needs.

It was considered essential that we start accepting and embracing the diversity that is out there, and acknowledge that ICTs are not a silver bullet. Moreover, a strong message was conveyed that there are no universal recipes that will work for everyone and in every context. One participant noted "the problem is not the technology, it is finding a solution".

Stakeholders highlighted real challenges around partnerships. Partnerships are important, for both the public and the private sectors, but trying to reach that "mutual self interest" goal is still some distance away. ICT-focused partnerships must be part of the solution to a community's needs, not a top down relationship, in order to be successful. In order to ensure tangible benefits for farmers in rural areas, they need to play an active part in the design and implementation of different ICT-related projects.

Participants emphasized the real need for awareness-raising related to ICTs and their roles at the grassroots level. Greater awareness leads to more demand and uptake of various ICTs services, which in turn can lead to more successful and sustainable programmes. This is a very important focus that needs to be enhanced and maintained.

There was also discussion about the increased decoupling of ICTs from a sense of place. For example, mobile devices are now creating identity and individuality. We are increasingly enabling people to use ICT tools to help with their enterprises and their activities and their community development. This is especially interesting as agriculture is inherently location-based. This emerging dichotomy could make for interesting developments in the near future, developments that should be revisited in future WSIS meetings.

ICT and Rural Enterprise: Social media connects global e-Agriculture and e-business communities to this unique WSIS 2010 session

A number of those involved in this session, including the chairs, moderator, some panellists and the audience are very enthusiastic social media practitioners and keen to show the value of new media channels using ICTs to extend this important conversation to remote participants. Social media was used before, during and after the session. Before the session and even before the WSIS Forum began there was quite a bit of promotion and awareness raising via Twitter. During the session itself, ITU broadcast it live over the Internet with audio and video, so that it could be followed by anyone with a computer and sufficient bandwidth. There was an active Twitter group inside the room, and across the world. The CivicTEC team in Sydney stayed up until the early hours of the morning (past 02.00hr local time) and broadcast an SMS number for questions which were then texted to the moderator on stage. A whole range of different tools were used that really extended that conversation outside the Geneva room. After the session, communications via Twitter were kept alive. In the following days the e-Agriculture team crated a podcast and blog post on the session. We believe this added great value to the session. It enabled a much wider participation in the discussion by global citizens, and showed that we can meet the demand that we know is out there for this kind of interaction, using readily available and relatively simple tools - and can be built upon in future sessions.

Following an introduction into the objectives and control mechanisms set up by the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, the e-waste related activities under the convention were described. A Mobile Phone Partnership Initiative was launched in 2002, followed by a broader Partnership for Action on Computing Equipment (PACE) since 2009. Under the PACE, guidelines on refurbishment and reuse and on recycling are under development as well as pilot activities in developing countries and countries with economies in transition.

Under the chairmanship of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Secretariat of the Basel Convention, the Interactive Facilitation Meeting discussed the political background, programmes and activities on e-waste. Different perspectives were presented by the International Labour Office (ILO), a representative of the Ministry of Environment, Nigeria, the public interest non-governmental organization Basel Action Network (BAN), and the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR). Uncontrolled dumping of obsolete e-products and material recovery processes without adequate protective measures have resulted in environmental pollution while exposing millions of people to toxic substances and emissions. The technology for environmentally sound dismantling and disposal of e-waste exists, but it has to be linked to the product life-cycle to become economically viable.

Efforts to bridge the digital divide need to follow the life-cycle approach to avoid problems for the health of workers and the general public as well as for the environment. This includes provisions for take-back systems, collection and dismantling, as well as environmentally sound facilities for extraction, recycling and disposal of the computing equipment components.

Partnerships were discussed to link environmentally sound management of end-of-life computing equipment in ICT development programmes, including procurement, infrastructure strengthening and education on national, regional and international level.

More information is available on the website of the Secretariat of the Basel Convention, the Partnership for Action on Computing Equipment, PACE, or directly from the Secretariat of the Basel Convention matthias.kern@unep.org

Event Description: The United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon described climate change as the "moral challenge of our generation". The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), as members of the UN system, and as a co-facilitators/moderators for WSIS Action Line C7: e-Environment, wish to respond to this challenge and demonstrate how information and communication technologies (ICTs) can assist in monitoring, mitigating and adapting to climate change. In this regard, a WSIS facilitation meeting will be held on 11 May 2010 at ITU premises in Room K from 16:00-17:30.

Purpose of the meeting: to provide an opportunity for stakeholders to review progress achieved to date in relation to WSIS Action Line C7: e-Environment and outline priorities for future action and collaboration in this regard.

The three areas covered by this Action Line are:

• using and promoting ICTs as an instrument for environmental protection and the sustainable use of natural resources;

• actions, projects and programmes for sustainable production, consumption and environmentally safe disposal and recycling of discarded hardware and components used in ICTs;

• establishing monitoring systems, using ICTs, to forecast and monitor the impact of natural and man-made disasters, particularly in developing countries, least developed countries and small economies.

Participants: Country representatives; Action Line co-facilitator/moderator organizations; other stakeholder organizations from public & private sectors, united nations agencies and civil society.

• Moderator
  • Mr Keith Dickerson, Director, Climate Change Associates Ltd
• Panellists
  • Mr Houlin Zhao, Deputy Secretary-General, ITU
  • Dr Hoda Baraka, First Deputy to Minister of Communications and Information Technology, Egypt
  • Mr Patrick Kalas, Programme Officer, Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Switzerland
  • Mr Gabriel Solomon, Vice-President, GSM Association
  • Ms Rie Tsutsumi, Regional Office, Europe, UNEP
  • Mr Weijang Zhang, Director of the Observing and Information Systems Department

Content will be available soon.

Content will be available soon.

The session was moderated by Mauro Rosi (UNESCO) and enclosed the presentations of panellists Daniel Prado, Director of the Division of Terminology and Language Industries, Latin Union, Adama Samassékou, President of the Maaya Network for Linguistic Diversity, Daniel Pimienta, founder of Fundredes and Alfredo Ronchi of The World Summit Award (WSA).

Some 20 persons attended the meeting, whose agenda included the presentation of significant contributions in the implementation of the WSIS C8 during the last 12 months, as well as to the most important initiatives and challenges for the future.

The contribution of UNESCO, both at normative (convention on cultural diversity) and operational level (projects with field and global outreach), was highlighted, as well as the inputs provide by multistakeholders networks.

One of the main issues discussed during the debate was the one of linguistic indicators. The need was underscored for renewed indicators underpinning statistics, studies and policies, not only in the field of endangered languages, but also as concerns cyberspace.

As concerns the initiatives and challenges for the future, the possible organization of a World Summit on Multilingualism and Linguistic Diversity was wished for, in line with a proposal formulated during the International Year of Language and on the occasion of the World Forum on Multilingualism of Bamako (January 2009).

It was acknowledged that a new cycle of the WSIS process is probably about to start and that a new strategy should be envisaged in this context, to revitalize the process and boost effective multistakeholders participation.

For the fifth consecutive year UNESCO convened on 12 May at the WSIS Forum 2010 in Geneva. a facilitation meeting on WSIS Action Line C9 "Media". The meeting reported on updates of the Action Line outcomes as well as organized a debate on "Community Media for Disaster Preparedness".

session, UNESCO, IAMCR, AMARC, respectively presented implementation updates in regard to freedom of expression, media development, media education and community media. The representative from ITU gave a special presentation on Transition from Analogue to Digital Terrestrial Broadcasting.

UNESCO, has conducted a series of activities in the four areas of C9. UNESCO just celebrated World Press Freedom Day in Brisbane, Australia on 3 May focussing on Freedom of Information as a tool to advance empowerment, good governance, transparency, accountability and the fight against corruption. The UNESCO International Programme for the Development of Communication (IPDC), which celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2010, has continued to play its role as a very important resource mobilization mechanism for fostering media development. UNESCO's comprehensive set of Media Development Indicators (MDIs) has been recognized as a major standard-setting tool by stakeholders and United Nations agencies dealing with media development and good governance.

In the area of media education, IAMCR reported significant progress of media education in terms international policy making, curriculum development and research AMARC, reported on significant developments in community media in Argentina, Armenia, Australia, Bangladesh, Belize, Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, East Timor, Gabon, Gambia, Ghana, India, Jamaica, Mozambique, Nepal, Somalia, Thailand, Uganda, United Kingdom, Uruguay, Zambia.

Given community media's big role in disaster preparedness and reduction, the thematic part of the meeting brought speakers to share their experience in Haiti, Chile, DRC. Community broadcasters responding to the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile have illustrated the vital importance of access to media, communications and connectivity in times of disaster. In DRC, community radio stations play an important role to provide information about volcanoes and environment preserver.

In accordance with the decision which designated UNESCO as the facilitator of Action Line C10 of the Geneva Plan of Action of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) on the "Ethical dimensions of the Information Society", a special session on this Action Line was held during the WSIS 2010 Forum on 11 May 2010 at ITU Headquarters, in Geneva.

An invitation to attend it was addressed to all WSIS stakeholders including Member States, IGO, private sector and civil society as well as NGOs. Around 40 participants attended the session.

The meeting was moderated by Mr Boyan Radoykov, Chief of Section, Information Society Division, Communication and Information Sector, UNESCO, who opened the session by greeting the participants and by expressing his appreciation for their interest in attending this meeting on Action Line C10. He also briefly introduced the context and the purpose of the session.

Two special guests were invited to present to the audience examples of some recent achievements in the field covered by this Action Line. Mr Rafael Capurro, Founder and Director of the International Center for Information Ethics spoke on the subject "Information Ethics in Africa, Past, Present and Future Activities (2007-2010)". Then, Mr Evgeny Kuzmin, Chairman UNESCO's IFAP Intergovernmental Council, addressed the issue of Information Ethics as a strategic priority of UNESCO's Information for All Programme (IFAP).

After their respective presentations, the floor was open for questions and suggestions by the participants. Some of them presented the activities of their organizations in the field of ethics, and others expressed their view regarding the ethical principles that should be enhanced and reemphasized. The time left did not allow for discussions on possible new joint initiatives.

1. The moderator concluded the session by thanking the participants for their active and constructive participation and contribution to the debate, and for enabling the meeting to cover wide range of questions relevant to the Action Line C10 implementation.

2. 2. As a concrete next step, participants were invited to participate more actively in the WSIS outcomes implementation and related debates through the online platform launched by UNESCO in order to enhance the existing cooperation among stakeholders.

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Measuring the Information Society was one of the key outcomes of the WSIS^*. The year 2010 marks the midpoint between the Tunis phase of the WSIS and 2015, the deadline for achieving the WSIS targets, in line with the target date of the MDGs. It is therefore critical to review progress made on the ten WSIS targets, based on measurable indicators. So far, no international monitoring mechanism has been established that allows countries to track progress on the targets. The Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development has developed a core list of ICT indicators that are increasingly collected at the national and international level, but the WSIS targets are broad and go beyond these indicators.

The WSIS Forum session on "Measuring the WSIS targets", which was organized by the Partnership, presented the findings of the ITU's World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report 2010 and was attended by more than 80 participants from national, regional and international organizations and from civil society. The report represents the first effort to monitor the WSIS Targets and has been prepared as a collaborative effort with other UN agencies and WSIS stakeholders. The report identifies a set of measurable indicators for each WSIS target and reviews the status of the targets based on available data.

The available evidence points to considerable differences between developed and developing countries in each of the targets, with developing countries still lagging behind for most of the indicators identified. Good progress has been made since WSIS on improving connectivity via mobile technologies, TV and radio coverage, Internet access in central governments, research institutions; schools, hospitals, libraries, museums in major cities of developing countries. Substantial challenges remain, however. For example, 80% of people in developing countries are still not using the Internet, let alone via a broadband connection, and most households, schools, health centers and other public institutions outside urban areas are still not connected. Language diversity on the Internet is also still very limited and the report highlights not only the persisting broadband divide, but also a content divide, which policy makers need to address.

The presentations made by representatives of the organizations that collaborated on the report (namely, ITU, UNESCO/UIS, WHO, UNDESA, and FUNREDES) explained the rationale and background for each target, listed the proposed indicators that could be used to monitor countries' progress towards achieving the targets, and highlighted some conclusions and policy recommendations. ECLAC's work on monitoring Information Society goals in Latin America, closely related to the WSIS targets, was also presented.

• ^* The WSIS Plan of Action and Tunis Agenda highlighted the importance of benchmarking and measuring progress towards the information society using indicators and statistics that are comparable at the international level.

The Session "Sustainability of the WSIS Implementation through Stocktaking Process" was successfully held on Tuesday 11 May 2010 during WSIS Forum 2010. The Session was started with the welcome remarks of Jaroslaw Ponder, Strategy and Policy Advisor, International Telecommunication Union (ITU) following with presentation "WSIS Implementation through Stocktaking Process". The Format of Session was structured by state-of-practices, case studies presented by different categories of stakeholders : governments, international organizations and civil society from diverse regions of the world in carrying out practical ICT impact assessments.

The first case study was devoted to Egypt, presented by Hoda Baraka, First Deputy to minister of MCIT, Ministry of Communication and Information Technology, Egypt .The presentation was focused on ICT4development. The second case study was presented by Bohyun Seo, Executive Director from Korea Information Society Development Institute (KISDI) with presentation "Korea's Efforts for WSIS Action Lines." The next case study was presented by Linda Orr-Easo, Global Network Manager from CERN focusing on Social Networking with the new launched project "CERN Global Network".

The diversity of stakeholders demonstrated the inclusiveness of Stocktaking Process. It is open for all categories of stakeholders. The outcomes of this Session was to leverage the activities implemented at the national level in different countries and in addition to leverage the efforts of international organizations towards 2015. Social Networking becomes very important element of daily life for every citizen globally. The WSIS Stocktaking Process including two main directions: WSIS Stocktaking Platform and Regular WSIS Stocktaking Reports recognize and appreciate the value of the efforts invested in WSIS Implementation by stakeholders. The case studies could serve as the guidelines for other stakeholders to join WSIS Stocktaking Process in order to showcase the achievements completed at the national level. The majority of participants during Session discussed and agreed that WSIS Stocktaking Process should be focused not just on the collecting information but also on the analytical aspects and case studies development in order to give more visibility to countries and other stakeholders in the project implementation. According to the outcomes of this Session, WSIS Stocktaking Process will continue to collect and provide the information, to select the best practices, to develop case studies and to improve the social networking tools.

Tunis Agenda on for the Information Society, more precisely its Para 101 proposed implementation mechanism at the regional level, as follows: Upon request from governments, regional intergovernmental organizations in collaboration with other stakeholders should carry out WSIS implementation activities, exchanging information and best practices at the regional level, as well as facilitating policy debate on the use of ICT for development, with a focus on attaining the internationally agreed development goals and objectives, including the Millennium Development Goals. UN Regional Commissions, based on request of Member States and within approved budgetary resources, may organize regional WSIS follow-up activities in collaboration with regional and sub-regional organizations, with appropriate frequency, as well as assisting Member States with technical and relevant information for the development of regional strategies and the implementation of the outcomes of regional conferences.
The purpose of this meeting is to discuss the follow-up on the implementation of the WSIS outcomes at the regional level. Session will include the contributions of the representatives of the UN Regional Commissions, followed by a general discussion.

This session presented initial results of a collaborative project carried out by ITU and UNU aimed at developing an impact assessment framework of ICT for development initiatives. A conceptual framework that is being developed to guide program managers and countries in improving the design of their ICT for Development (ICT4D) portfolios for higher impact potential on the development goals like the MDGs was presented. The session also addressed how to increase the impact of the WSIS process on the MDGs process by connecting initiatives across the WSIS Action Lines with ICT-enabled outcomes related to MDGs.

The session was structured into four parts:

A joint presentation was made by Mr Tomasz Janowski from UNU and Mr Jaroslaw Ponder from ITU on the aim, objectives, methodology, initial results achieved and the remaining work on the project. They explained that the project had four main objectives: (i) to investigate the impact of WSIS Action Lines on the MDGs process, (ii) to establish the actual needs of practitioners, member states and international organizations in effectively assessing the impact of their ICT4D initiatives (WSIS Action Line projects) on MDGs, (iii) to provide an annotated repository of resources (frameworks, toolkits, etc.) to guide practitioners on the use of existing ICT Impact Assessment models, frameworks and measurement systems, and (iv) to develop a system for monitoring the impact WSIS process on the MDGs process, integrated with the WSIS Stocktaking platform.

Mr Adegboyega Ojo, Research Fellow at UNU-IIST and Senior Lecturer, Department of Computer Sciences, University of Lagos, Nigeria presented an overview of the foundational aspects of ICT impact assessment grounded in development theories and social impact assessment models.

Mr Patrick Kalas from the Swiss Development Cooperation touched upon the difficulties faced while assessing the impact of ICTs for Development. He shared his experiences in the area of data collection and assessment of ICT for development projects.

Ms Gitanjali Sah provided examples of state-of-practice case studies from around the world in carrying out practical ICT impact assessments, including examples of projects on ground that draw a clear link and relation between the WSIS Action Lines and the MDGs.

Following the last speaker, the floor was opened for discussion, the participants commended the objectives of the project and echoed that since it is half way towards achieving the MDGs and WSIS Goals by 2015, such a project is the need of the hour. All participants present endorsed the project activities. They also highlighted the difficulties in assessing ICT4D projects, particularly in the area of qualitative measurements. Members present offered full support and collaboration for the project..

The financing of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) for development is an important area to address in the context of promoting a more inclusive global information society. Wider diffusion and better use of ICTs can help achieve the goals outlined in the Millennium Declaration in a more effective manner. In April 2006, UNGIS (United Nations Group on the Information Society) was endorsed by the UN-Chief Executives Board (CEB) as the new inter-agency mechanism with the main objective to coordinate substantive and policy issues facing the United Nations' implementation of the outcomes of the WSIS. This session provided an update of the activities of the UNGIS and provided a platform for discussion and debate on issues concerning Financial Mechanisms for ICTD.

The WSIS Tunis Agenda for the Information Society (November 2005) recognizes the scale of the challenge in bridging the digital divide, which will require adequate and sustainable investments in ICT infrastructure and services, and capacity building, and transfer of technology over many years to come. There is a continuous need to evaluate how existing as well as new financial mechanisms can support greater access and use of ICTs in developing countries. Following a recommendation by the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), UNGIS organized Open Consultations on Financial Mechanisms for Meeting the Challenges of ICT for Development that took place from 8-9 October 2009 in Geneva, Switzerland. Conclusions of the Chaimen's report on the Open Consultations on Finanacial Mechanisms were shared during this session. The objective of this session was to further build upon the results of the Consultations.

The session profited from five contributions by representatives of ITU, UNESCO, UNCTAD UNECA, and a key note by H.E. Mr Sardar Muhammad L. Khan Khosa, Minister of Information Technology, Pakistan.


UNGIS secretariat provided an overview of main conclusions from the Open Consultations on Financing Mechanisms for ICT4D:

• The financing of ICT for development remains a significant challenge.

• Presentations throughout the consultations emphasized the importance of continuously exploring new financing mechanisms, and to leverage the various types of competence of different stakeholders.

• The role of multi-stakeholder partnerships was underlined by many. Similarly, there was a need to draw on large-scale international financing sources (such as foreign direct investment or multilateral lending) as well as small-scale microfinance solutions. Each form of financial mechanism has its benefits and disadvantages, and may serve more or less well in different situations according to the context of the region.

• Very positive developments with regard to financing infrastructure and access, especially with regard to mobile telecommunications.

• Areas in need of particular attention include the development of local content and applications, as well as raising sufficient resources to build the required capacity in developing countries.

• Liberalization and opening up to competition has been important to generate private sector involvement, and to foster innovative business models, as well as financing solutions.

• Rural and remote areas still lag in terms of connectivity – especially with regard to Internet and broadband. It is not always possible to find sustainable business models for the investments needed, what remains as one of the challenges.

• More open markets underlines the importance of developing the capacity of regulatory and other public authorities to monitor and regulate the markets.

• The importance of infrastructure sharing was underlined by many speakers as a way to reduce the costs involved in rolling out infrastructure.

• Controversies over the Universal Access Funds remain: Some highlight the important experiences enabling communication services in rural and/or isolated regions, others question their effectiveness. Again, financial resources need to be supplemented by human resources (capacity development).

• An important question on UAFs is whether such funds should also address mobile, Internet and even broadband access as a priority.

• Even though microfinancing remains an important financial mechanism, taking into account high innovation dynamics in ICTs it is confronted with new challenges and opportunities in areas such as agriculture, education, jobs, transportation and health.

• Long term investments and high risk projects were considered as major challenges regarding financing mechanisms for development. Investors normally seek low risks projects and investments, especially in rural and remote areas.

• The projects' sustainability remains still a challenge for financing the ICT for development. In this context it is important to involve local users, local content experts and building applications that work on existing infrastructure to ensure access and relevance for those most in need.

• Although the financial crisis can be perceived as having negative impacts in the context of the financial mechanisms for development, it can also be seen as an opportunity to provide structural changes in the economy as well as the emergence of disruptive technologies.

• Debate on the financial mechanisms needs also to take into account new emerging issues relevant for the developing countries. As an example may be used recycling.

In follow up to the open consultations the UNGIS Secretariat has carried out several activities including:

• Global repository of electronic documents related to the ongoing debate on the financial mechanisms for meeting challenges of ICT for development has been created and launched on the UNGIS website.

• Building upon the outcomes of the meeting, UNGIS secretariat has contributed to several meetings, including Inter-sessional Panel meeting of the CSTD (November 2009), ICT4All Forum (November 2009), WSIS Forum 2010 (May 2010), etc.

• The UNGIS has prepared Chairs' Report forwarded as contribution to the ECOSOC process, responding to its Resolution 2008/3. UNGIS is also considers the possibility of holding a parallel event during future ECOSOC meetings, drawing attention to the meaning and importance of debate on the mechanisms in the context of global development agenda of UN.

• High Level Segment of the Sixth meeting of UNGIS agreed to Ensure effective interagency follow-up to UNGIS' Open Consultation on Financial Mechanisms. It will include analysis of different types of financing mechanisms and sharing innovative ideas and country experiences, including through an UNGIS publication to be released in 2010/2011.

In his key note speech Mr Sardar Muhammad L. Khan Khosa, Minister of Information Technology, Pakistan, drew attention to the recent developments related to the ICT sector development in Pakistan. He highlighted the challenges related to the roll out of the broadband infrastructure and services that may be provided over high capacity networks. Pakistan is working extensively on infrastructure project development facilities also establishing several developing technology parks driving innovation in ICT sector. Regarding the public funds there are two funds in Pakistan, a) Universal Access Fund focuses on expansion of broadband connectivity, mainly in rural areas, b) ICT Research and Development Fund is used for human capacity development, including setting up the universities, training teachers, establishing laboratories, granting scholarships etc.

All participants present appreciated the efforts made by the UNGIS and agreed upon the need and the urgency for the continuation of the UNGIS efforts towards addressing the Part B of the Tunis Agenda. It was underlined that UNGIS is the only stakeholder that has made concerted efforts towards the conceptualization of a framework for Financial Mechanisms for ICT4D focused events and activities. The presentations were followed by an engaging discussion on the different models of financing for sustainable projects. It was highlighted that in the area of ICTs, infrastructure is not the only thing where financing is needed. Content, regulatory frameworks and social set ups have an equally important role to play. Different ways of financing and the difficulties in fund raising were also discussed. National mechanisms, usually Universal Access Funds still require much more focus. There is a lot of positive developments in this area that need to be captured. Unbundling and infrastructure sharing becomes more and more popular. Countries need to learn from the best practices in order to advance in achievement of the connectivity goals. National e-strategies for development play an important role, however it is necessary to make sure that they emphasize on poverty reduction through effective and efficient use of the ICTs.

Participants offered full support and commitment to the UNGIS to work towards an equitable and just information society.

The panel was held as an interactive session, representing all stakeholder groups. It informed about the preparations for fifth annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which will take place in Vilnius, Lithuania, on 14-17 September 2010. The session took place against the backdrop of the discussions on the possible renewal of the original five year mandate by the General Assembly of the United Nations at the end of 2010. The panel presented different perspectives on the value of the IGF and on how it could be improved.

The meeting was told that preparatory process for this year's annual IGF meeting in Vilnius was well underway. The programme builds on those of the previous years, with some improvements. There will be more open dialogue sessions and better linkages between workshops and main sessions. Also, there will be a space for regional and national IGF meetings to report back to the meeting. This year, a new theme will be introduced: Internet governance for development. This session will, among other things, explore how Internet governance relates to development, in particular the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Furthermore, the traditional taking stock session will look at the broad Internet governance landscape and examine what has changed since the first IGF meeting in Athens in 2006.

In a first round, panellists discussed the value they or their respective stakeholder group saw in the IGF, whether it had proved useful or whether it had an impact.

Ms. Baraka praised the IGF meeting in Sharm El Sheikh for its success in attracting a great number of participants from all stakeholder groups. She noted that the IGF had a positive impact that helped promote policy dialogue at many levels. Ms. Baraka stressed the importance of regional IGFs for those who cannot attend the global meeting. She also mentioned as one important achievement the approval of the Internationalized Domain Name country-code Top-Level Domain (ccTLD) for Egypt in Arabic script (.masr). When asked whether the IGF process had influenced this development, Ms. Baraka said that in her personal opinion the IGF had helped accelerate the process.

Ms. Yang presented the ITU and its leading role in ICTs as a truly global organization with governments and the private sector among its membership, working to promote cooperation at the global level. She recalled that WSIS was the starting point of the IGF and also at the origins of the multistakeholder approach and she highlighted the importance of the Tunis Agenda and the commitments contained therein.

Ms. Nimpuno gave a technical community perspective. She recalled that there had been some scepticism towards the IGF at the beginning. As the IGF evolved, more people started to see value in the process and in the networking opportunities during the event.

From the civil society point of view, Ms. Rodriguez welcomed the openness of the IGF, which allowed a collaborative approach to its agenda setting. This was a unique opportunity for groups representing the interests of the civil society. Ms. Rodriguez also agreed on the value of the IGF for networking and reaching out in one single place to those who would like to put their messages forward, making efficient use of the limited resources of civil society groups.

Mr. Siganga, as a private sector representative, recalled that, before the IGF, business was a "consumer of policy", that is of policy made by the governments. The IGF, in this sense, was a milestone for opening the doors to participation in policy making. Mr. Siganga also presented the East Africa IGF which was now in its third year and was connecting the five countries of the region through the exchange of information and the sharing of best practices.

In a second round, panellists discussed how the IGF could be improved. Several suggestions were made, with an emphasis on increasing efforts in capacity building, developing country participation and improving the links with national and regional meetings. Ms. Barak emphasized the importance of national and regional IGF type meetings and said more efforts should be made to link them to the annual global event. This was also echoed by other panellists as well as in the interaction with the floor.

In Ms. Yang's analysis, there was room to increase inclusiveness, effectiveness, democracy and transparency of the IGF and its interface with IGOs and institutions on matters under their purview.

Both Ms. Nimpuno and Mr. Siganga spoke out in favour of a further evolution of the IGF while keeping its basic principles of inclusiveness and multistakeholder participation on an equal footing.

One speaker from the floor described the IGF as a unique experiment. The multistakeholder format in his view had proved necessary for some discussions to reframe common issues from a confrontational to a collaborative perspective.

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Summary

In the first part of the thematic workshop, Kenneth Deer, from the International Indigenous ICT Taskforce, gave a short overview of the development of Indigenous Peoples' issues in light of the WSIS outcomes and the impact of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples on the WSIS agenda. Kenneth participated in the panel via skype and conference call, which allowed an important Indigenous voice to be heard. Following Kenneth Deer's overview, several panelists shared their experiences in the development of ICT projects for and with Indigenous Peoples. Dev Kumar, Sub-Editor of The Kathmandu Post, provided an indigenous view of struggles and pathways in developing indigenous media in Nepal. Kamal Naim, IT Officer and Head of Electronic Publishing and the IT Unit in the Information Services Section of UN-HABITAT/Nairobi, provided an overview of the use of ICTs for social and economic development. This allowed for further reflection on how such ICTs could possibly target indigenous communities particularly. Teanau Tuiono from the Local and Indigenous Knowledge Section within the Science Sector of UNESCO presented a selection of UNESCO initiated ICT projects that support Indigenous Knowledge (Climate Frontlines, The Canoe is the People). Sasha Rubel from UNESCO's Culture Sector provided an overview of a project carried out by the Culture and Communication and Information Sector of UNESCO in partnership with indigenous filmmakers and media companies entitled ICT4ID (ICTs for Intercultural Dialogue), with a particular focus on the video/film industry as it relates to Indigenous Peoples' self-determined development and self-representation. Roxanne Widmer-Iliescu, ITU's youth programme officer and focal point for assistance to indigenous peoples, provided an overview of the main achievements of the ITU Development Bureau's initiatives dedicated to the specific ICT needs of indigenous peoples based on tradition and preservation of their cultural values.

In the second half of the thematic workshop dedicated to discussion and exchange between the panelists and participants, ideas were shared regarding possible ways of advancing the WSIS commitments as they relate to Indigenous Peoples. Several central points were raised. An emphasis was placed on the need to focus on capacity building between and within indigenous communities based on already existing capacities in the communities. The need to promote a kind of development based on consultation and dialogue with particular reference to ICTs within indigenous communities was also stressed. Questions participants raised included how ICT's could be used specifically for wealth generation and economic development in indigenous communities, what the real outcome of the use of ICT's for development is, and the need to differentiate between the notion of "indigenous peoples" and the need for "local content" in debates regarding the information society. Another question included UNESCO's concrete involvement in C8 and C9 of the WSIS agenda, and possible ways forward regarding the use and innovative development of ICT's within Indigenous communities despite financial constraints.

At the thematic workshop on Gender and ICT, panelists and participants discussed movements towards gender equality, social innovation, multistakeholder networks, statistical evidence on gender specific ICT usages, gender e-learning programmes and entrepreneurship training through serious games.

On behalf of UNESCO's Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information, Mr Cédric Wachholz opened and moderated this session, highlightening UNESCO's particular commitment to promoting women's empowerment and gender equality. Direct links to Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing and to the WSIS outcome documents were established as a guiding framework for the session.

During the session, Ms Eva Fabry Director of the European Centre for Women and Technology, Chair of the Global Women and Technology Network (Drammen, Norway) spoke about "Women and Technology in the Digital Age - global multi-stakeholder collaboration for the future. She was followed by Ms Christine Verschuur, Senior Lecturer, Responsible of the Gender and Development Programme of the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva, Switzerland), who presented an E-learning programme on gender and development. Ms Doris Olaya, Statistician, Market Information and Statistics Division, International Telecommunication Union, (Geneva, Switzerland) shared findings from gender disaggregated ICT statistics. Ms Jelena Godjevac, President and CEO of the Micro-Enterprise Acceleration Institute (Meyrin, Switzerland), opened with the provocative statement: "If you want to change the world, become an entrepreneur" and closed by inviting participants to explore the freely accessible, serious games her company developed.

Participants engaged in lively discussions and continued to raise questions on the findings presented. Some participants also presented their own, ongoing gender and ICT projects.

In the concluding remarks, UNESCO stressed that achieving gender equality in our everyday life should no longer be an objective but a commitment. Women and men need to pull forces together to break the ancient barriers of belief that they, through their different roles, have an unequal stand in society. If women and men can work closer as allies, we should be optimistic that gender equality will one day be achieved in all areas of life, including in the ICTs. With the help of sessions like this one, more attention will be drawn to the important work undertaken by those who are engaged in women's rights, women's empowerment and gender equality in ICTs.

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Moderator: Ms Gitanjali Sah
Speakers: Prof. R Weber; Ms. N Primo; Mr. S Buckley; Mr. R Kharji.

The session focused on two aspects

1. The use of ICTs to achieve Human Rights for All

2. Protection of Human Rights while using ICTs

We are currently experiencing a revolution in ICT infrastructure, with a movement towards fixed infrastructure in the form of Broadband, and a proliferation of mobile e-services. The advancement of ICT technology is creating a knowledge based society, and with it comes certain rights and responsibilities which have to be upheld. Traditional theories on the protection of human rights demand that states adopt a very neutral role in this process, although more modern approaches now emphasize the multi-faceted nature of global human rights protection, and the potential (even need) for state participation.

Current internet rights charters are predominantly based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), although the changing nature of ICT development means that any such charters are simply works in progress, which must be adjusted to accommodate technology advancements. In general, rights pertaining to internet use tend to concentrate on the following principals:

1. Access for all.
2. Freedom of expression and association.
3. Access to knowledge.
4. Shared learning and creation.
5. Privacy and protection.
6. Internet governance.
7. Awareness, protection and realization of rights.

As already mentioned, these principals are derived mainly from the UNHR, and are accounted for in the APC charter for internet rights. There is however no universal declaration imposing the protection of these (or other) internet rights, and new charters are constantly being formulated. Furthermore, contradictions between different rights can sometimes become an issue, when for example, the need to block certain sites (such as those eliciting child pornography) breaches other rights (such as the right to freedom of expression). Such contradictions make the enforcement of internet rights all the more difficult. Despite these difficulties, there are several initiatives underway to ensure the enforcement of internet rights. 'Kubatan.net' is currently active in Zimbabwe and is tasked with securing web users privacy from the repressive government institutions which control the country. Other initiatives include 'EroTICs', which filters online content in order to protect young users, and 'Take Back the Tech', which is reviews the roles that ICT's can play in combating violence against women.

The right to access the internet is also closely related to the right to communicate, which is a fundamental human need. The intrinsic value to this right is clearly apparent (humans crave contact with others), but communication also plays a major role in society building. Protection (in the form of early warning systems for example), providing access to information, knowledge sharing, development and value formation are all enhanced by increased and uncensored communication. Protecting this right is therefore of instrumental importance in ensuring the evolution of a humane, considerate society free from war and other undesirables.

On 12-13 May, the concept and prototypes of the Matrix of ICT Solutions for Advancing the MDGs and of the Computer-aided Strategic Planner were presented to the participants of the WSIS Forum which is the principal annual gathering of key stakeholders involved in the follow-up to the World Summit on Information Society. The archived webcast of the sessions can be accessed at the following web address: https://www.itu.int/ibs/WSIS/201005forum/index.html.

Both sessions were well attended by representatives of governments, UN agencies, private sector and civil society and the outcome was both positive and constructive. The overall reaction of the attendees was unequivocally positive. No one questioned the utility and value of the proposed set of ICT4MDGs tools. Representatives of several developing country governments were very encouraged by a presentation and endorsement from the Minister of ICT of Macedonia who shared his positive experience with the current prototype of the Strategic Planner. Government representatives expressed their urgent interest in testing the Planner and contributing to its further development.

The comments and suggestions of the participants could be grouped as follows:

• Institutional concerns: it was stressed by two participants, in particular by ITU, that the proposed tool should complement rather than duplicate existing knowledge repositories and tools, and should contain data and statistics consistent with agreed standards.

• Quality assurance: several participants highlighted the need to develop effective vetting mechanisms for ensuring the credibility, consistency and comprehensiveness of knowledge presented in the Matrix and used as primary data for the Planner. The need to ensure multilingualism of the Portal and vendor neutrality as regards presentation of commercially available tools was also mentioned.

• Substantive areas to be covered: several participants proposed that in addition to functionalities present in the current prototypes of the Matrix and the Planner, the Portal should also address such needs as: providing a tutorial on strategic ICT planning; presenting methodologies and tools for development of strategies for ICT in sectors (education, health, etc.) to assist ICT ministries in their interaction with sectoral partners; monitoring progress in introducing ICT in development activities; and assessing the development impact of ICT. The latter was thought to be especially necessary for ensuring cooperation of government entities (such as finance ministries, for example) which currently quite often remain skeptical about ICT4D.

These and other very constructive and useful comments and suggestions are currently being analyzed by the teams developing the Portal with a view to fully incorporate them in the forthcoming updated versions of the Portal.

While this iterative process of consultations, feedback and updating will continue enabling the further development of the Portal, the enthusiastic response to this initiative, particularly from developing countries and the private sector representatives participating in the open consultations at the WSIS Forum, have clearly demonstrated both the value-added of and the urgent need for such a powerful web-based tool with a potential global and game-changing impact on the advancement of MDGs in the next five years.

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Haiti is seen as a turning point in the use of ICTs in Crisis Management but many lessons remain unheeded from previous disasters such as the 2005 Tsunami. Indeed, there is an expectation that ICTs themselves can revolutionize crisis management and provide a "quick-fix" in solving intractable, complex situations often in politically unstable locations around the globe. However, the framework in which the ICTs operate is often just as critical, if not more so, than the technology itself. How can we improve interoperability between UN agencies and other aid agencies to ensure the quick, reliable sharing of information both in crisis situations and disaster mitigation? How can we properly assess the impact of ICTs in Crisis Management to date? What works? What doesn't? Are we investing in the right technologies that primarily need to function in very difficult environments? Is the humanitarian community setting the right priorities in the development of Crisis Information Management tools? What about capacity building in local communities?

Speakers:

• Lin Wells, Distinguished Research Professor & Force Transformation Chair National Defence University, USA (joining remotely)

• Nigel Snoad, Microsoft, USA

• Juliana Rotich, Co-Founder and Program Director, Ushahidi, Kenya

• Patrick Gordon, Deputy Chief a.i., Information Technology Section; Head, ITS Field Support Unit (FSU), OCHA, Geneva

• Bartel Van de Walle, Assistant Professor, Information Systems and ISCRAM Chair, University of Tilburg, The Netherlands

• Sanjana Hattotuwa, Special Advisor, ICT4Peace Foundation

Chaired by:

• Ed Girardet, Media21 Programme Coordinator & Author, Editor, The CROSSLINES Essential Field Guide to Afghanistan (1998, 2004 and 2006); Somalia, Rwanda and Beyond (1996) and Populations in Danger (1996), Switzerland

Managing the accelerating complexity of humanitarian response

Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? (TS Eliot, 1937)
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information? (Sanjana Hattotuwa, 2010)

The new players: crowdsourcing platforms and social networks

The Haiti earthquake and ensuing relief efforts made the broader global community more aware of the "crowdsourcing" movement, which has been developing for some time, and social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Crowdsourcing platforms, such as Ushahidi (www.ushahidi.org), InSTEDD's RIFF (http://instedd.org/evolve) and Sahana (www.sahana.lk) provide unique tools which the local and international community can take advantage of in crisis response and recovery. Of particular importance is that these new platforms are not owned by one agency or government but rather constitute an open process, allowing for and encouraging broad participation. These new platforms also provide an opportunity to change outmoded views on established information sharing policies and practices by bringing new information and crisis management tools to the table. Platforms such as Ushahidi, RIFF and Sahana can empower communities by strengthening community resilience, preparedness and response potential without external intervention.

Ushahidi- background

Ushahidi provides a visual representation of "what's going on or needed where?". It is an open source platform, available for any organization or individual who wishes to use it. Ushahidi can be installed within 30 minutes and can be used with varying levels of connectivity. The key goal is to present information in a way that is useful for many actors. In a multi-polar, multi-player world it is better to work with open data and open platforms that are interoperable with other systems. Data in "silos" or data hugging is no longer an effective way to operate. As a result of the Haiti experience, Ushahidi has realized the importance of working with others in the humanitarian tech community (e.g. Sahana). In Haiti, Ushahidi received 80 000 text messages. A key challenge is how to deal with torrent of information? The public at large is also part of the Ushahidi solution via online communities (e.g. the Haitian diaspora living in Saskatoon, Canada who translated text messages from Creole to English). This also underlines that we are dealing with new systems, processes and actors in crisis response.

What are the key determinants in building bridges between the established formal disaster response communities and new informal communities?

• Interoperability

• Validation

• Pragmatism

• Evaluation

• the development of a "Code of Conduct" for the informal sector (there are often unpredicted implications of providing tools to people in conflict and crisis zones including ethical issues which need to be explored in more detail)

Crisis response, management and information overload: we need to move away from a concept of tools and products and toward a concept of services

There are a growing number of tools that can help the humanitarian community respond to crises. How can this entire process best be managed? Is there a danger of focusing on the individual elements and neglecting the big picture? How can we move toward a comprehensive and harmonised services concept? How can we develop a meaningful "rapid needs assessment process"? How to manage information overload? How to coordinate all the different actors?

Although Haiti was not a typical disaster, and should not be uncritically used as a model or basis for future disaster planning and crisis management, there are many lessons that can be learned from the earthquake:

• Recognize importance of imaging, crowd-sourcing and new media in crisis response (new media played a critical role in implementing the emergency number for the Haiti response)

• Risk management reviews have to be realistic

• Get to 1st day capability as quickly as possible through maintaining social networks on ongoing basis

• Emphasis on civil-military collaboration and coordination: How willing is the military to actually share information? There is currently a paradigm shift in US Military and a recognition that the information flow has to be a two-way street (in preparation for Aghanistan the military held unclassified phone call every 2 weeks with people outside the military)

• Work with local populations is key to success

• An extraordinary interest in helping out was evident after the Haiti earthquake. It is uncertain whether this will be duplicated everywhere but the importance of tapping into a well-spring of goodwill and volunteerism should not be underestimated.

What are the key challenges facing the humanitarian crisis response community?

In the mid-1990s, the humanitarian community relied on coded cables to communicate. Key questions were: Where is the information? How do we capture it? How do we disseminate it? How do we make contact lists??

In 2010, the same problems still exist despite the rapid rise of ICT and new tools to gather and exchange information. In parallel to the rise of ICT platforms, there has also been an explosion of actors who respond to disasters and crises around the globe, including humanitarian response organizations, businesses, civil society actors, governments, NGOs and private individuals. As a result, the challenges in implementing a coordinated response have also grown.

Despite the changing dynamics of disaster response, the humanitarian community is essentially using the same paradigms as 10-20 years ago. How can this community be better prepared and trained to deal with innovation?

Challenges still remaining:

• Still can't deliver in real time a contact list of who is doing what where; there are a lot of inaccuracies and exceptions in contact lists and data

• Accurate datasets prior to the disaster often unavailable or don't exist

• Varying levels of comprehension of complex situations and tools used to respond

• In complex situations, like Haiti, 90% of information is noise. How to sort out important data? (during the Tsunami the OCHA team received 100 emails per day; during Nargis- 3000-4000 and in Haiti, one email per minute)

• Coordination of massive number of actors on-site

• How to manage the risk of too much information? Linda Stone, Microsoft coined the phrase "continuous partial attention"; the more we are connected the less we are aware of what is happening.

• How to sustain interest beyond initial crisis phase?

• How to develop systems that are sustainable, repeatable and predictable?

• How to deal with new tech in areas where humanitarian workers don't have access to internet and have to deal with high latency connectivity to the web?

In many crises, the most effective response is still "walking the beat with a white board" due to complete breakdown in communication.

What role for the academic community?

How useful can research be for what is happening in reality? How to bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners? There are some basic things that don't work very well in crisis response including contact lists, coordination and making sense of data. How can researchers help?

• Analysis of the response to a given crisis (all old messages and data should be archived (US Congress and Google are currently archiving Twitter))

• Assess how to align ICT with business processes

• Work on technology acceptance issues, drawing from research to date on how people use computers, information technology, new media tools

• Examine and analyze complex systems

• Examine how data can be used later during reconstruction

ICT of the future: how to improve crisis response?

• The new systems often work outside traditional mechanisms and don't necessarily support member states and humanitarian actors. There needs to be work done to integrate ICT solutions into existing processes and systems.
  

• Much more also needs to be done to improve data preparedness.
  

• The technology community needs to examine the possible misuse of their platforms (e.g. Radio Milles Collines in pre-genocide Rwanda) and develop a "do no harm" policy (like the humanitarian community). More robust accountability and monitoring mechanisms should also be considered.
  

• ICT systems and responses have to be kept simple; the more complicated the system the more that can go wrong.
  

• ICT systems have to be developed by, or in cooperation with, local communities and the end users, which include victims of trauma and disasters.
  

• The importance of political processes should not be underestimated; in Haiti the borders were open to foreign aid and the humanitarian community whereas in many other crises this may not be the case.
  

• Datasets must be shared on the ground by senior management on all sides (except situations where security issues take priority, with more efficient and effective measures on how best to judge this)
  

• Improve interoperability. Often with very good intentions, ICT platforms are developed that cannot be sustained, contributing to "information islands".
  

• The private sector needs to be engaged constructively.
  

• Reserve short codes that would allow victims to send SMS messages out of disaster zones.
  

• Improve training of crisis responders in the use of ICT, complex systems and innovation.

Names of Panelists:

• Jody R. Westby, Co-Chair, WFS Permanent Monitoring Panel on Information Security & CEO, Global Cyber Risk LLC

• Marco Gercke, Director, Cybercrime Research Institute

• Amb. Henning Wegener, Co-Chair, WFS Permanent Monitoring Panel on Information Security

Workshop Summary & Outcomes

This workshop discussed the need for a harmonized legal framework to counter global cybercrime and to facilitate international cooperation. Henning Wegener provided some legal background on the harmonization of legal frameworks and the need for public-private information sharing and collaboration to counter cyber threats. An overview of the current state of cybercrime laws around the world was provided in conjunction with an explanation of the types of cybercriminal activity being encountered. Marco Gercke provided a description of the ITU publication, Understanding Cybercrime: A Guide for Developing Countries ("Guide"). The purpose of the ITU Toolkit on Cybercrime Legislation ("Toolkit") was explained by Jody Westby, who also described the various types provisions (definitions, substantive, procedural, jurisdictional, and international cooperation).

The workshop participants were quite engaged about the use of the Toolkit and Guide and had questions concerning various provisions. They also questioned whether the Toolkit should contain provisions for child pornography. Jody Westby explained that the Toolkit Committee felt that child pornography was a heinous crime and feared that developing countries would enact a child pornography provision in their cybercrime laws but not enact a broader law that would criminalize the actual exploitation of children and development of child pornography. The need for additional countries to be involved in the investigation of cyber criminal activities was also discussed.

Outcomes:

Jody Westby agreed to revisit the issue of providing sample language provisions regarding child pornography. Minister Samassekou attended the session and stated that he felt it was time to work on multilateral agreement on a code of ethics pertaining to cyberspace. He said he had raised this issue at the first WSIS and believed that the time may now be right to begin work on this.

The two- day Meeting on "e-Government and New Technologies: Towards better citizen engagement for development.", organized jointly by the United Nations Department for Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA) and the International Telecommunication Union, as co-facilitators for WSIS Action Line C7 on e-Government, took place 13 and 14 of May 2010, in room K, Montbrillant Building, in ITU. The agenda included the plenary and five thematic sessions over the two days on selected topics on citizen engagement for good governance. Each session covered presentations followed by general discussions.

The goal of the Meeting was to further the thinking of the United Nations and multiple stakeholders on how citizen engagement and ministry capacity building for e-government in developing and developed countries can help accelerate economic growth and citizen satisfaction leading to good governance. The Meeting explored and identified issues and challenges facing governments and citizens, civil society and the private sector in their quest for greater citizen engagement and MDGs implementation through the utilization of the latest technologies.

Moreover, the Meeting identified the major issues and trends in citizen engagement within e-government that can help in improving effective and efficient planning, decision making, implementing, monitoring and evaluation process of all levels of government. During the meeting the different ways of citizen engagement to invigorate accountability, transparency and the delivery of services as well as the role of social media networks by reviewing existing approaches worldwide have been analyzed. The experts presented papers on the themes outlined above, as well as participated in the discussions at the Meeting.

Participants at the Meeting included senior policy makers, experts on citizen engagement and e-government initiatives and representatives from academia, civil society, social media networks, private sector and international organizations.

All documents, including the agenda, list of speakers and presentations from the Meeting are available at: http://www.unpan.org, as well as at: www.itu.int/wsis/implementation/2010/forum/geneva/tw/tw_12.html.

The objective of the workshop was to bring together NGO representatives to share views and experiences on the ICT's evolution so far, current use, technical knowledge, practices, new ideas and further development.
 

The workshop panellists raised issues related to the development of networking, in the context of WSIS processes, in the African and African Diaspora societies; its benefits and gaps in particular with regard to bridging the digital divide; the importance of promoting and preserving languages and cultures by using ICT; human rights tools addressing new mechanisms, such as the Universal Periodic Review, and a new civil society initiative to close the information gap between providers and users of UN information.

The workshop panellists and participants highlighted the need to build a more structured working arrangement between NGO networks to achieve concerted collaboration, and thus to contribute better to national, regional and international decision-making structures, in particular the UN system.
CoNGO is committed to strengthening the partnership with ITU to promote good practices of ICT use in all regions and to contribute to the WSIS processes by facilitating increasing NGO participation.

Speakers

Moderator: Beatriz Schulthess, Senior Associate - Advocacy, Finance and Administration, CoNGO

Derek Marshall
Derek Marshall is co-founder of "Making Commitments Matter", an international research and development initiative founded in 2007. It is tasked with working to close the information gap between providers and users of UN information. His organization is currently organizing the first UN 'user' conference, which will take place on 20 and 21 May 2010 at the CICG here in Geneva. In the research conducted by his organization over the past few years, it has come up with two new information tools, which will be presented at that conference.

Biro Diawaraa
Biro Diawara is the UN representative of Interfaith International and in the context of WSIS the « Centre des commerce international pour les Development ». He has coordinated, since the WSIS Africa Regional PrepCom Conference, Bamako, in 2002, various African and African Diaspora networks to enable the effective participation of the African society in the WSIS process. He is also member of the Commission of Science and Technologies for Development of UNCTAD.

Vita de Waal
Vita de Waal is the founder and director of the Foundation for GAIA (UK), co-founder of the Network for Social Change (UK) and Earthfund (Canada). She is Chair of the CoNGO NGO Committee on the Environment and represents a worldwide scientific network, the Planetary Association for Clean Energy (Canada) at the UN in New York, Geneva and Vienna.

Roland Chauville
Roland Chauville is the co-founder and Director of UPR Info, an NGO promoting the Universal Periodic Review, a new human rights mechanism of the United Nations. To this aim, the organization set up a website containing documents, analysis, news and a database in five UN languages directed at NGOs, States, academics and media. Prior to this, Roland was working for Geneva for Human Rights, an NGO organizing training on human rights.

Community media means media that is of, for and by communities. It values community members as the most important actors in the spread of knowledge and information within their own communities. It encompasses efforts in radio, video, internet and social networking such as twitter and facebook. It values the creative expression, the articulation skills, and the voice of the poor as key to making a better world.

This session explored how the poor can not just be INFORMED by ICTs but also INFORM. It asked, how can we enable communities to be creators of content and knowledge? How can we empower the poor to voice their issues, and create new platforms for dialog and discussion at both a local and national level?

Video Volunteers (www.videovolunteers.org), the organizers of this thematic session, have built a network of over 140 full-time, salaried community media producers working in India and Brazil who use video, radio and the internet. These community members, many of whom used to be diamond polishers, rickshaw drivers and day labourers, produce regular content that has been seen by over 250,000 people in community screenings on wide screen projectors, in 300 different slums and villages.

The session was led by Video Volunteers' partnership director, Dina Madhani. She showed examples of community media from India, and shared experiences on how community media can provide a livelihood and voice to community members and how it can be used to encourage community action-taking. She discussed the possibilities and challenges for community media around scalability, financial sustainability and working with the mainstream media. She gave an overview of VV's two flagship programs - Community Video Units and the India Unheard Community News Network -and how they use community media deeply and intensely in a rural area, while facing severe challenges of lack of internet penetration.

There was a lively discussion afterwards about concrete project ideas, and what's possible in the different countries and communities where WSIS attendees work. Participants agreed this is the way forward - empowering the poor to be in control of ICT's, so they can devise solutions to their own challenges!

If you have ideas for creative community ICT projects, VV would love to hear from you: please contact Dina Madhani at dina@videovolunteers.org or info@videovolunteers.org

Various entities from Bangladesh have been closely involved in the WSIS summit process since its very inception. The process which started in PrepCom is being actively pursued by various practitioners, policy makers and other stakeholders. Having traveled halfway through to the 2015 goals, there is no better time than this to do a stock-taking exercise in order to assess how different actions lines are being implemented in Bangladesh. In addition to that this session takes an additional step to focus on showcasing benefit of the intended target groups through different ICT initiatives. The initiatives showcased in this session fall under Action line C3 and C7. Reza Salim (Director, Amader Gram ICT for development Program of BFES) firstly opened the session by stressing how Bangladesh has been involved in the WSIS process and welcomed the moderator, H. E. Md. Abdul Hannan, Ambassador, Bangladesh. The first speaker Dr Kashfia Ahmed, CEO, WIN Inc. elaborated on development of agriculture content that is delivered through different ICT platforms i.e. telecentres and mobile telephone. This presentation took a close look at the existing content development process, the partners involved in it and their roles. It also shed light on how government is involved in the process and how partnership with the public sector can be strengthened further. The second speaker for the session was Shahiduddin Akbar, CEO, Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID). Akbar shared his experience of trying to ensure last mile coverage of the telecentre based initiative so that farmers avail solutions pertaining to their agriculture problems and thereby benefit from it. Having been involved in the process of establishing telecentre in Bangladesh, with a proper business model, Akbar was faced with the challenge to bring the farmers into these telecentre and use it as a means to solve their livelihood related problems. So, to address this issue an awareness building campaign was designed to demonstrate to the farmers the benefit of using this alternative source of information. This experience was crucial in establishing the fact that through such hand holding exercise the benefits of ICT can be demonstrated to the rural community. The next presenter Mirza Farzana Halim, Business Consultant, Katalyst, focused on a mobile telephony based initiative providing agriculture information to farmers. This is a multi-stakeholder partnership that adds new dimension by introducing a revenue model for all parties involved. In order to ensure sustainability of any such project, it is imperative to make sure that there is a business interest of the private sector in offering such value added service. This presentation also focused on some of the facts and figures of impact on the end users. This service has also received recognition at home and abroad for the outstanding results it has brought. The last speaker of the session was Sabbir Ahmed of Swisscontact. His presentation focused on an emerging working model of public-private partnership and some of the early signs of impact. This model shows how public and private sector can work together by capitalizing on the complementary resources or strengths of these organizations. It talks about a PPP model in Bangladesh, where fertilizer dosage is provided to farmers through different ICT platforms (private sector) by using database developed by the public sector. These platforms complement the existing government extension work by creating alternatives sources for the farmers and being endorsed by the government adds to the credibility of these private sector owned channels. Another thing that comes out quite clearly is the facilitation roles a development agency can play in the partnership building process. While this service holds immense potential, as evident from the early impact, it still faces some challenges which need to be overcome in order to ensure its sustainability. Such initiatives while shows a lot of promise in achieving the 2015 goals, there need to be constant evolvement and evaluation of the process so that they can cater to the needs of the intended target group in the ever changing environment. The session ended with these discussions from various group of audiences, remarks from Gitanjali Sah from ITU and a vote of thanks from H.E. Md. Abdul Hannan, Ambassador, Bangladesh.

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This year the WSIS Forum was held from the 10th to 14th of May 2010 in Geneva, Switzerland and brought together WSIS stakeholders from government, private sector, international organizations and civil society organizations for results-oriented interaction. More than 600 participants from all over the world attended the WSIS Forum this year. It was the first time when an Exhibition was a part of WSIS Forum. The Exhibition organized at WSIS Forum 2010 facilitated networking among participants and provided an opportunity for structured dialogue, sharing of experiences and encouraged multi-stakeholder discussions and consultations on WSIS implementation.

The Exhibition Area was set up at the ITU, Montbrillant building on the entrance Level. Twenty one stands were set up by different exhibitors at ITU headquarters during 5 days to provide an opportunity for participants to establish partnerships and to extend their network. The Exhibition gave a chance for WSIS stakeholders from all over the world to showcase their activities at the international level.

Please find below the list of Exhibitors during WSIS Forum 2010:

1. Asala Orbia, Civil Society, Morocco

2. Bangladesh Friendship Education Society (BEFS), Civil Society, Bangladesh

3. Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID), Civil Society Bangladesh

4. Basma, Civil Society, Tunisia

5. EKOICT AND ASSOCIATES, Civil Society, Ghana

6. Environmental Systems Research Institute - (ESRI) Private Sector, USA

7. Gedaref Digital City Organization, Civil Society, Sudan

8. GSM Association (GSMA), Private Sector, United Kingdom

9. ICT Generics, Private Sector, Switzerland

10. ICVolunteers, Civil Society, Switzerland

11. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) – Cybersecurity

12. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - GCA

13. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) - ITU Telecom

14. International Telecommunication Union (ITU) – WSIS

15. PRATIC, Civil Society, Congo

16. Thuraya, Private Sector, UAE

17. Tunisian Association for scientific research assistance over the net (Atars'net), Civil Society, Tunisia

18. Tunisian Association for the Digital Geographic Information (TADGI), Civil Society, Tunisia

19. Tunisian Mother's Organization (OTM), Civil Society, Tunisia

20. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) International Organization, France

21. WSIS - World Summit Award Office c/o International Center for New Media (icnm), Civil Society Austria

Knowledge Exchanges represented a new alternative during WSIS Forum 2010 to promote interactivity and stakeholder collaboration. The key goal of these meetings was to exchange information on the critical issues for the WSIS implementation addressed during the high level sessions, WSIS action line facilitation meetings and others. Knowledge Exchanges brought stakeholders from Austria, Albania, Ghana and Tunisia. Government and Civil Society were the main contributors to organize the knowledge exchanges.

Please find below the list of organizations that participated in knowledge exchanges during WSIS Forum 2010:

1. Albanian National Agency for Information Society, Government, Albania

2. Association tunisienne des services Universels des télécommunications, Civil Society, Tunisia

3. Association Tunisienne pour le développement de la Technologie numérique et des Ressources humaines (ATTR),Civil Society, Tunisia

4. EKOICT AND ASSOCIATES , Ghana

5. World Summit Youth Award, Austria
   

During WSIS Forum 2010 Kick-off Meetings took place at the ITU headquarters, Montbrillant building during 5 days. The various stakeholders took the initiatives to organize the kick-off meetings in order to share the best practices from the national and regional level. Kick off meetings provided an interactive platform to stakeholders bringing more visibility and value addition to their projects at the International level. It is important to notice that almost all the meetings were organized by stakeholders representing Civil Society.

Please find below the list of organizations that participated in kick-off meetings during WSIS Forum 2010:

1. Association Tunisienne des services Universels des télécommunications

2. Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID)

3. United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Secretariat of the Basel Convention.

4. University of Deusto

5. TaC-Together against Cybercrime

6. EKOICT AND ASSOCIATES

The initiation of these meetings during WSIS Forum was highly appreciated by different actors, particularly Civil Society.

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Fifth WSIS Action Line Facilitator's meeting

The Fifth WSIS Action meeting was held on the 14th of May from 9:00- 12:30. Pursuant to Article 109 of the Tunis Agenda, the fifth meeting of WSIS Action Line Facilitators took within the framework of the WSIS Forum 2010. The purpose of the meeting was in particular to assess the general progress made, as well as to identify measures to strengthen the overall Action Line process.

Introduction to the Fifth WSIS Action Line Facilitator's meeting since the Tunis meeting was made by Mr Jaroslaw Ponder, Strategy and Policy Advisor, ITU. He explained that the WSIS Action Line Facilitators meeting provides an opportunity for all Action Line facilitators to work together on the implementation process, to review progress at the executive level and to draw conclusions for ways forward to work together on the WSIS process. The opening remarks to the Fifth WSIS Action Line Facilitators Meeting were provided by Mr. Sami Al-Basheer, Director of BDT, ITU. He commended all the Action Line facilitators on the concentrated efforts towards the WSIS implementation and Follow up, he said that the "positive commitment of the diverse stakeholders is very visible". He highlighted the importance of the "WSIS Process". In addition, he stated that WSIS Forum 2010 has displayed the perfect example of the true multistakeholder spirit. He highlighted that the conclusions from the various reports released during the WSIS Forum 2010 reaffirm that we are on the right track. Mr Indrajeet Banerjee, Chief of Section, Section for ICT in education, Science and culture, Information Society Division UNESCO, added that the Action Line Facilitator meeting provides a good opportunity to recognize progress made and to consider new strategies till 2015 to achieve the WSIS Targets. He informed about the WSIS Online Community Platform initiated by UNESCO, as a tool for exchange of views and ideas by WSIS Stakeholders.

On an annual basis the WSIS Action Line Facilitator's meeting provides a platform for all focal points facilitating Action lines to report their success stories and challenges. Action line facilitators provided an update and reports on the activities carried out by each action line during 2009 -2010 and provided a report on their respective Action Line Facilitation meetings during the WSIS Forum 2010.

Action Line C1-C7-C11 Focal Point UNDESA

Mr. Gherardo Cassini from UNDESA reported on Action Line C1 (The role of public governance authorities and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development), C7 (e-Government), C11 (International and regional cooperation). Process in taking forward the tasks has been facilitated by cooperation of others; Mr. Gherardo Cassini highlighted that working through sub groups a good decision. He reported progress in cooperation from Governments and even Parliaments. Role of local Authorities still remains a challenge. Another challenge is to translate the ICT4 Development in the Development Agenda. Mr Cassini stated that there is a clear link that has been established between ICTs and the Development process hence authorities should take note. In general he reported that considerable progress has been made in the area of WSIS AL C1, C7, C11.

Action Line C2 Infrastructure- Focal Point ITU

Mr Gregory Linn informed about a Questionnaire that has been developed to enhance reporting on AL C2, and invited all present to submit the Questionnaire for a gap analysis of the Implementation of C2.. He informed about the new website that was developed for all information and reporting on Action Line C2, this website also serves as an active repository for all information on the Action line C2.

Mr Gregory Linn, reported on the of Action Line meetings during the WSIS Forum 2010. For further details on the report please click here.

Action Line C3: Access - Focal Point UNESCO

Ms Mika Yamanaka, from UNESCO reported on the activities carried out by UNESCO on Action Line C3. She reported that a wide array of activities to access information and knowledge almost instantly have been carried out by UNESCO. She informed about the Memory of the World Programme that highlights the importance of heritage and memory and the newly launch of the World Digital Library. Ms Yamanaka reported on the session on ICT and Disability organized this year during Interactive facilitation meeting on Action Line C3. The session highlighted Disability, telecentres and employment. Telecentres were suggested as a good way to include and integrate those with disabilities.

Action Line C4: Capacity Building – Co Facilitator ITU

The WSIS outputs on capacity building emphasized that "each person should have the opportunity to acquire the necessary skills and knowledge in order to understand, participate actively in, and benefit fully from, the Information Society and the knowledge economy. ICTs can contribute to achieving universal education worldwide, through delivery of education and training of teachers, and offering improved conditions for lifelong learning, encompassing people that are outside the formal education process, and improving professional skills.

Mr Robert Shaw, ITU reported on Action Line meeting during the WSIS Forum 2010. The WSIS outputs identified a number of key initiatives that should be undertaken to promote capacity building vis-à-vis ICTs. During this session, some of the key trends that have emerged and how ICTs are being used for eduction, learning and development will be discussed by the panellists followed by a plenary debate. He informed about the presentations during the meeting and provided a summary of the session. Further details of the session are available at here

Mr Shaw emphasized that it was clear from the debate and interest in the topic of capacity building that the key interest of all participants reflected the spirit of the related WSIS outputs which emphasized that all stakeholders should undertake efforts to make sure that capacity building efforts try to bring the best of the world's knowledge, education and lifelong learning to the greatest number of people.

Action Line C5: Cybersecurity- Building Confidence and Security in the Use of ICT Organized by ITU

Mr. Alexander Nkoto, ITU presented the report on AL C5, he emphasized on the multistakeholder aspect of the Interactive Facilitation meeting on Action Line C5. In line with the WSIS principle of multistakeholder participation on an equal footing, and within the framework of WSIS Action Line C5 - Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs, sessions were held during WSIS Forum 2010.

A high-level debate on Cybersecurity, Thematic Workshops and the traditional WSIS Action Line Facilitators Meeting (ALFM) brought together leaders and experts from Government, Industry, International Organizations and Civil Society.

During these sessions (ALFM, Thematic Workshop and High-Level Debate), participants emphasized the following:

International cooperation must be strengthened as the challenges faced by the citizens of the information society can only be adequately addressed through building synergies between national and regional initiatives within a framework of international cooperation. The importance of partnerships between various stakeholders, especially governments, industry and civil society, was highlighted.

The issue of new threats, the exponential increase in the number and level of sophistication of these threats, and the potential dangers of malicious conduct in disrupting critical services through Control Systems were emphasized.

Some participants stressed the importance of an international treaty on cybercrime under the auspices of the United Nations where all nations are invited to participate in the elaboration of this framework. Others considered that a treaty will be a lengthy negotiation and other measures need to be taken. The need for a treaty and using other measures in parallel were not considered mutually exclusive.

As sole facilitator for WSIS Action Line C.5, the framework launched by ITU for international cooperation, the Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA) and its Child Online Protection (COP) were strongly endorsed by the participants. The Guidelines for COP and report on activities undertaken by COP partners were considered vital for building a common understanding on the issue, for exchanging best practices among all stakeholder groups and for forging partnerships and alliances aimed at addressing challenges related to the protection of children online.

Further progress was made in the Global Cybersecurity Agenda (GCA) with new agreements for partnership and an increase in the number of countries interested in participating in the ITU-IMPACT deployment of solutions for Cybersecurity. At the end of both events, some 60 countries are now part of what is today the largest framework for international cooperation bringing together academia, governments, civil society, international organizations and industry.

Mr Nkoto highlighted that the participants of this fifth meeting of the WSIS Action Line C5, stressed the importance for concrete actions, an increase in efforts to strengthen international cooperation and the need for enhanced cooperation between all stakeholders in working together and building synergies with the objective of building confidence and security in the use of ICTs.

Action Line C6: Enabling Environment: Focal Point - ITU

Mr Fall from ITU presented the briefing for IFM Action Line C6: Enabling Environment. The Facilitation Meeting on WSIS Action Line C6 (the Enabling Environment) took place on 10 May and attracted about 80 participants. As in previous years, the meeting was organized as an interactive panel discussion, involving multiple stakeholders. A number of questions were taken directly from the floor, resulting in an open debate fully driven by stakeholders. The overall theme of shaping modern broadband policies stayed in the heart of the debate and stimulated an insightful exchange of ideas and experiences among stakeholders.

In his opening remarks, the Director of BDT, Mr. Sami Al-Basheer set the scene for the discussion stressing that recent market developments have shaken up regulatory regimes enormously. Today, regulators and policy makers face many pressing questions, such as how to address convergence of the telecom and the broadcasting sectors, how to democratize access to broadband services, and ultimately, how to boost investment. Innovative thinking and new-generation policies are needed to ensure sustained growth in ICT markets, diverse service offerings and accessible applications.

In his key note, Dr Mongi Hamdi, Head of the Science, Technology and ICT Branch/DTL, UNCTAD echoed that providing access to advanced and affordable access to ICTs and to broadband in particular remains a major challenge. With the impressive take up of fixed and mobile broadband over the last 5 years, the digital divide has taken a new dimension. Gaps in access to basic services persist, especially outside main urban areas. But even more importantly, the growing broadband divide results in true handicaps for many developing countries, both for individuals and businesses.

In order to set a sound framework for making decisive progress in creating an enabling environment for investment, competition and innovation, ITU has created a Roadmap for the implementation of WSIS Action Line C6 (available here). This roadmap catalogues a wide range of ongoing ITU activities in the area of policy and regulation. It is intended to evolve as a living document and will be updated on a regular basis with new activities and initiatives.

Mr Fall informed that for the follow up it was decided that a website dedicated to the facilitation of WSIS AL C6 will be created and will be developed as a one-stop-shop for best practices in the area of creating the enabling environment, drawing on ITU's work (www.itu.int/ITU-D/treg/bestpractices.html) as well as on the work of other stakeholders, in particular of private sector.

Action Line C7 : E- Environment: e Waste: Focal Point - UNEP

Mr Matthias Kern, UNEP provided a report on the E Environment meeting held during WSIS Forum 2010, the topic of the meeting was e Waste. Following an introduction into the objectives and control mechanisms set up by the Basel Convention on the Control of Trans-boundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal, the e-waste related activities under the convention were described. A Mobile Phone Partnership Initiative was launched in 2002, followed by a broader Partnership for Action on Computing Equipment (PACE) since 2009. Under the PACE, guidelines on refurbishment and reuse and on recycling are under development as well as pilot activities in developing countries and countries with economies in transition.

Under the chairmanship of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Secretariat of the Basel Convention, the Interactive Facilitation Meeting discussed the political background, programmes and activities on e-waste. Different perspectives were presented by the International Labour Office (ILO), a representative of the Ministry of Environment, Nigeria, the public interest non-governmental organization Basel Action Network (BAN), and the Bureau of International Recycling (BIR). Uncontrolled dumping of obsolete e-products and material recovery processes without adequate protective measures have resulted in environmental pollution while exposing millions of people to toxic substances and emissions. The technology for environmentally sound dismantling and disposal of e-waste exists, but it has to be linked to the product life-cycle to become economically viable. Please click here to access complete report.

Action Line C7: E -Environment: Energy Resources, Co facilitator- ITU

As the co facilitator of Action Line C7 ITU organized a session on e Environment. Mr Jaroslaw Ponder provided a report on the session. The complete report is available here.

Action Line C7: e-Learning ICTs and Education, Focal Point- UNESCO

Dr Indrejeet Banerji, UNESCO, informed that under the e learning action line significant progresss has been made. He quoted the examples of projects like Open and distance learning for teachers that incorporated training of 3700 teachers in Africa and in Asia in 10 countries. He informed about the higher eduction ICT task force set up by UNESCO. In 2009 a new ICT in Education plan was launched by UNESCO. Led by UNESCO institute statistics, ICT in Education Indicators were developed. These are valuable tool that permits any country to measure the level of use and impact of ICT in Education.

Mr Banerji provided a report on the e learning Action Line C7 meeting during WSIS Forum 2010.

Action Line C7: E-Business and E-Agriculture, Focal Point - UNCTAD

Mr Torbjorn Fredriksson from UNCTAD provided an update on the activities in e business and quoted examples of several projects and conferences organized eg: Conference on e Commerce organized by UPU in 2009. He informed that UNCTAD has been focusing on the legal and regulatory frameworks for e commerce and has been working in particular with developing country statistic organizations. He highlighted bringing to the fore promotion of business activities and Agriculture. He concluded by emphasizing leveraging mobile penetration in e business.

Mr Michael Riggs, FAO informed that FAO supported the development of a community of practice called e agriculture, he informed that this includes more than 150 countries all over the world. He added that this tool uses new technologies and social media to reach as many people. He informed about the 2 forums held online in Spanish and English, including subject experts from all over the world. FAO partnered with other organizations to develop e learning modules on e Agriculture. Mr Riggs informed about a new initiative with 10 other organizations on developing new frameworks to enhance the impact of ICTs on rural development.

Mr Riggs reported on the combined session on ICTs and Rural Enterprise. He commended ITU on the use of remote participation. The session report is available at the following link here

Action Line C3: Access / C7: e-Science Focal Point -UNESCO

Mr Able Caine informed about the interactive action line facilitation meeting on e science. He informed that Science and technology are essential for attaining peace, poverty eradication, sustainable development and promoting a dialogue among different cultures and knowledge systems. Equal access to scientific and technical knowledge and basic services through appropriate technologies, lead to better living standards, especially for the excluded segments of societies.

The interactive meeting provided updates on contributions to achieving the Action Lines as well as significant upcoming initiatives and key global events

Further information is available here.

Action Line C8: Culture : Focal Point- UNESCO

Mr Cedric Wachholz, UNESCO provided an update on the Interactive action line facilitation meeting on Culture. The session was moderated by Mauro Rosi (UNESCO) and enclosed the presentations of panellists Daniel Prado, Director of the Division of Terminology and Language Industries, Latin Union, Adama Samassékou, President of the Maaya Network for Linguistic Diversity, Daniel Pimienta, founder of Fundredes and Alfredo Ronchi of The World Summit Award (WSA).

Some 20 persons attended the meeting, whose agenda included the presentation of significant contributions in the implementation of the WSIS C8 during the last 12 months, as well as to the most important initiatives and challenges for the future.

The contribution of UNESCO, both at normative (convention on cultural diversity) and operational level (projects with field and global outreach), was highlighted, as well as the inputs provide by multistakeholders networks.

One of the main issues discussed during the debate was the one of linguistic indicators. The need was underscored for renewed indicators underpinning statistics, studies and policies, not only in the field of endangered languages, but also as concerns cyberspace.

As concerns the initiatives and challenges for the future, the possible organization of a World Summit on Multilingualism and Linguistic Diversity was wished for, in line with a proposal formulated during the International Year of Language and on the occasion of the World Forum on Multilingualism of Bamako (January 2009).

It was acknowledged that a new cycle of the WSIS process is probably about to start and that a new strategy should be envisaged in this context, to revitalize the process and boost effective multistakeholders participation.

Action Line C9: Media – Focal Point-UNESCO

Mr Cedric Wachholz, UNESCO provided an update on the Interactive action line facilitation meeting on Mdia. He highlighted the several media development partnership projects in 2009 aiming to encourage media as a platform for democratic discourse. For further information please click here

He highlighted that the specific focus this year on Community media for disaster preparedness.

Action Line C10: Ethical dimensions of the Information Society, Information Ethics, Focal Point -UNESCO

Mr Cedric Wachholz, UNESCO provided an update on the Interactive action line facilitation meeting on C 10. He gave examples of several efforts by UNESCO in the area, eg: High level Executive Seminar in Africa, to enhance transparency and so on.

Report of Action Line meetings during the WSIS Forum 2010 is available here

Moving to the next agenda item Mr Jaroslaw Ponder informed about the WSIS Stocktaking Process that launched its new platform in 2010 to provide an opportunity to be more visible and to interact amongst each other. This is a platform for creating partnerships, to avoid re inventing the wheel, and learn about the best practices. Draft report for WSIS Stocktaking was published this year. The report highlighted activities carried out in the regions and encourages Stakeholders to enter their project on the database. Mr Ponder highlighted that Stocktaking had started analytical work, analytical reporting from information submitted via different stakeholders. He reported on the National e strategies for development report for implementation of National e strategies more than 84% of countries have successfully implemented e strategies.

A report was provided by Ms Esperanza, ITU on the session on Partnership On Measuring ICT For Development: Monitoring The WSIS Targets held during the WSIS Forum 2010. The WSIS Forum session on "Measuring the WSIS targets", which was organized by the Partnership, presented the findings of the ITU's World Telecommunication/ICT Development Report 2010 and was attended by more than 80 participants from national, regional and international organizations and from civil society. The report represents the first effort to monitor the WSIS Targets and has been prepared as a collaborative effort with other UN agencies and WSIS stakeholders. The report identifies a set of measurable indicators for each WSIS target and reviews the status of the targets based on available data.

The available evidence points to considerable differences between developed and developing countries in each of the targets, with developing countries still lagging behind for most of the indicators identified. Good progress has been made since WSIS on improving connectivity via mobile technologies, TV and radio coverage, Internet access in central governments, research institutions; schools, hospitals, libraries, museums in major cities of developing countries. Substantial challenges remain, however. For example, 80% of people in developing countries are still not using the Internet, let alone via a broadband connection, and most households, schools, health centers and other public institutions outside urban areas are still not connected. Language diversity on the Internet is also still very limited and the report highlights not only the persisting broadband divide, but also a content divide, which policy makers need to address.

The presentations made by representatives of the organizations that collaborated on the report (namely, ITU, UNESCO/UIS, WHO, UNDESA, and FUNREDES) explained the rationale and background for each target, listed the proposed indicators that could be used to monitor countries' progress towards achieving the targets, and highlighted some conclusions and policy recommendations. ECLAC's work on monitoring Information Society goals in Latin America, closely related to the WSIS targets, was also presented.

The report is available in detail here.

Representative from CoNGO, Mrs Beatriz Schulthess highlighted that CoNGO is keen to promote ICT activities and the WSIS process through NGOs. Mrs Schulthess informed all present about the workshop on ICT for Civil Society organized by CoNGO during the WSIS Forum 2010. CoNGO highlighted the role of NGOs in the WSIS Process and the importance of promoting and preserving identity, human rights and culture using ICTs. Role of NGOs in contributing better to National, regional and International decision making. She offered full support in promotion of good practice of ICTs and NGO participation.

The floor was opened for discussion for ways to strengthen the WSIS Implementation process, participants contributed the following:

• An effort should be made to popularize WSIS activities amongst Civil Society representatives and organizations all over the world. For certain sections of the society in many countries the WSIS is still considered very technical, dealing only in technical areas. Information about WSIS also needs to be part of the national development agendas, since this is not only a technological process but also social and political process.

• There is a need to integrate the role of ICTs in poverty reduction programmes. Issues of the poverty reduction have to be picked up as a follow up to the 2010 report on the National e-Strategies for Development, developed jointly by ITU and all Regional Economic Commissions.

• Private sector representatives stated that they were pleased to see good cooperation in 2010 and would like to build on this in the future WSIS Forums. They commented on the preparatory process commending the efforts by ITU, UNESCO and UNCTAD and stressed the importance of focusing on real and concrete projects and for the inclusion of a broader range of stakeholder activities.

• Civil society stated that the International Organizations contribute actively to the treaty making processes, and could ensure appropriate mechanisms for voicing the position of Civil Society. Digital Solidarity Fund requires more attention in the future as it was set up by the civil society during the Tunis Phase of WSIS.

• The WSIS Forum Brochure was well appreciated as an easy resource to consult and was suggested to be used in the future.

• Private sector representatives highlighted that change of venue might add to the success of the WSIS Forum 2010. The idea of having WSIS Forum and IGF's MAG at the same time was a good idea, it creates synergies and saves time and resources

• A participant representing youth organizations highlighted the need to work towards including the youth in future WSIS Forums and other processes. Participation of young people in the WSIS process to be programmed in the WSIS Forum 2011 process.

• Participants noted that the level of impact and performance of 11 Action Lines differs. Necessity for sharing of experiences amongst the WSIS Action Line Facilitators, on what works and what doesn't would help to improve implementation process. It was suggested to consider better interaction amongst all Action Line Facilitators on certain topics like for instance e-content, capacity building, etc.

• Participants recognized the improvements in the forum this year, emphasizing on synergies between WSIS Implementation and Follow-up. Moreover regarding the format of the WSIS Forum the challenge of addressing policy issues and project implementation at the same time was noted.

• Taking into account that the WSIS Action Lines have been defined 7 years back and the world has been developing especially in the area of ICTs there is a need to reflect if any of emerging issues require additional attention in the future.

• Though the forum is positively evolving and shaping up well each year, there is still a need to think of different ways to bring all the different stakeholders to interact, e.g. private sector and civil society.

• WSIS Forum this year focused on interactivity and remote participation in the form of Virtual collaboration. Highlighting remote participation participants appauled ITU's efforts and suggested the use of Video as well with timely representation from the remote participant.

• Regarding the future preparatory process for the WSIS Forum a suggestion was made to create a multi-stakeholder mechanism to help decide the agenda and panelists.

• Regarding the AL facilitation meetings it was suggested to consider new ways to include more stakeholders, bringing other organizations to the community and other view points to the table, e.g. media representatives, telecommunication companies.

• Role of Facilitators should not just be to report on their own activities but also on behalf of the Stakeholder groups through initiatives.

• Action Line Facilitators have two roles to play: 1) Implementation and 2) Facilitation. Participants highlighted that there are no fine lines between the two. WSIS Stocktaking platform was quoted as an important platform for connection between facilitation and implementation.

• Better synergies and cooperation between organizations at all levels, especially regional and the global architecture was stated as important for strengthening the facilitation process In order to avoid any duplications of the efforts within the WSIS process.

• UN agencies that are much more quiet in the implementation process, but still may play an important role in ensuring effective implementation of the WSIS outcomes need to be motivated to reinforce their involvement.

• Important role of Regional Commissions for coordination of WSIS implementation at the regional level was underlined.

WSIS Forum as an unique global platform for coordination of the WSIS Implementation at the international level is not about the event but the real projects and action. Focal points of the respective action lines commended the efforts made by each organization in achieving considerable progress and success in the implementation of action lines and concluded the session by showing their dedication and commitment to the WSIS Implementation process.

Several valuable contributions and different aspects raised will become the foundation for setting up of the multi-stakeholder preparatory process for WSIS Forum 2011.

Closing Ceremony of WSIS Forum 2010 began with an address by the special guest H.E. Mr Sardar Muhammad Latif Khan Khosa, Ministry of Information Technology, Pakistan, Mr Khosa appreciated the discussions and debates during the Forum and stated that they were constructive, positive and very enriching. He commended the efforts of the organizers and hosts of the WSIS Forum 2010. He said the the WSIS Forum 2010 reiterated and reaffirmed all the efforts made towards achieving the WSIS Action lines and also brought to notice that we are mid way but are lagging in some of the goals. His Excellency Khosa concluded by saying that ICTs have a very important role to play in urban and rural sustainability and better life for all.

Mr Sami Al Basheer Al Morshid, Director of Telecommunication Development Bureau, International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Geneva started his speech by appreciating the joint effort of all WSIS Stakeholders in making WSIS Forum 2010 a successful event. He thanked all participants on behalf of the hosts and coorganizers for their involved and enthusiastic participation. He provided a summary of the outcomes of the WSIS Forum 2010, reporting on the participation and the sessions organized. Mr Al Basheer emphasized on the results of remote participation as the way forward to reach out to stakeholders who cannot be present physically.

Mr Khan from UNESCO, thanked all organizers and co organizers for the WSIS Forum 2010. He highlighted the outstanding leadership of Dr Toure, Secretary General, ITU, that was visible in the organization of the WSIS Forum 2010. Mr Khan shared that UNESCO adopted a different approach since WSIS, aligning its objectives with the WSIS Action lines towards building Knowledge Societies. He emphasized on building active partnerships with the private sector and for delivering as one UN.

Mr Torbjorn Fredriksson from UNCTAD, appreciated the close collaboration between the host and the co organizers in organizing the WSIS Forum 2010 and thanked all the participants for their inputs and participation.

The WSIS Forum 2010 marked the way forward in creating a reflection of the "WSIS spirit" and euphoria felt during the Tunis and Geneva Summits. WSIS stakeholders participated with full enthusiasm and the eagerness to achieve the WSIS targets by 2015. The new forward looking WSIS campaign initiated to focus on Turning Targets into Action mirrored the ambition of the WSIS Stakeholders. Action Line Facilitators from various UN agencies, Regional Commissions, Private Sector, Governments and Civil Society participated enthusiastically in all the interactive sessions and debates, not only reporting and assessing their efforts towards WSIS implementation and follow up but also drawing up and sharing their future plans to achieve the targets set in the WSIS Outcome documents.

A range of topics were discussed and deliberated upon from Broadband Infrastructure, Cybersecurity, Media, ICT and Gender to ICT for Human Rights and ICT for Peace amongst others. Several partnerships and collaborations emerged during the sessions, to work together towards achieving the WSIS targets.

The idea of hosting the next WSIS Forum in New York was discussed and explored. The general atmosphere was in favour of rotation of venue of the WSIS Forum. However the final decision should be taken shortly after the Forum, following consultation amongst lead facilitating organizations and other UN organizations.

The open consultation process for WSIS Forum 2010 was appreciated by the WSIS Stakeholders and requests were submitted to retain the consultation process that had been initiated for all WSIS Forums. Details of the process for WSIS Forum 2011 will be announced in due course.

Content will be available soon.