Second Preparatory Committee
Geneva, 17-28 February 2003
Introduction
of the Report on the
Pan-European Ministerial Conference of Bucharest
by Mr. Petru Dumitriu,
delegation of Romania,
General Rapporteur of the
Conference
Mr. President,
1. It is indeed a great pleasure and a special
privilege for me to introduce the General Report from the Pan-European
Ministerial Conference, held in Bucharest from 7 to 9 November 2002.
2. The general report is an attempt to summarize the
extremely rich debates that took place in Bucharest. There were fifteen
distinct sessions, aiming at reflecting the complexity and the abundant variety
of the issues related to the Information Society. The General Report is the
fruit of the combined efforts of eighteen rapporteurs to whom I express,
on behalf of the Romanian authorities, full gratitude for their voluntary,
enthusiastic and competent work.
3.
Besides the political document, two essential messages emerged from the Pan-European
Conference, which are relevant for the
remaining preparatory work and for the Summit itself. These messages capture
basically the following key ideas:
q a new paradigm of
partnership should be pursued, one in which all stakeholders (governments,
private companies, civil society) act jointly, based on newly defined roles and
responsibilities. This new partnership should be built in the preparatory
process and further developed.
q there is a need of extra
vision, one that does not stick to entrenched prejudices, but fights
against inertia in all its forms.
4. I will start by making our own assessment
of the Conference:
q The Bucharest Declaration is
a consistent step ahead in stating the most significant principles to be
followed in building the Information Society, as well as in identifying the
main areas where priority action is required.
q The Declaration gives to the
Information Society a proper human rights perspective and also a developmental
dimension.
q The language of the
Declaration contains expressions of compromise on some themes that have proved
to be difficult to harmonize during the first session of the Preparatory
Committee, like for instance that of information and network security.
q The thematic debates offered
the occasion for a deeper discussion on the new terminology related to
the Information Society, thus bringing a useful contribution to a common
understanding of the main themes.
q The Conference facilitated
and encouraged subregional contributions (like the Moscow-Bishkek
Declaration) or sectoral ones (like the agreement concluded among
mass-media organizations).
q For the first time in a
non-academic environment, an exclusive debate on the definition of the
Information Society took place, which resulted in a first attempt of a
definition per se.
q The events devoted to youth
and women were a good opportunity for a focused debate and a proper
reflection, in the General Report of the Conference, of the views of these two
categories of protagonists.
q A productive thematic
innovation was the event on the role of new technologies that offered a
very useful complement to the discussion on principles and policies.
q An additional illustration
of that integrated approach was the exhibition of ICT applications,
which offered convincing perspectives not only on issues like e-government
and e-learning, but also on broader notions like e-inclusion.
q The organization of work
allowed for an active involvement of non-governmental participants, in
particular non-governmental organizations, business entities, academia and
media representatives. They had the possibility to interact in all 15
sections, but the ministerial debate; they had their own events to
organize and chair. They also benefited from a special triangular debate
with the participation of governments, civil society and business as
coordinated groups.
q For all official proceedings
similar treatment was given to all participants: governments, civil society,
business: representation in the Bureau of the Conference, possibility to
presents their own conclusions in the plenary session and the inclusion
of their reports in the General Report of the Conference. Moreover,
language coming from the women and media reports was included in the text of
the Declaration that came out from a prior intergovernmental negotiation
process.
q A few figures might also be
relevant: the Bucharest Conference was
attended by approximately fifteen hundred participants from fifty-seven
countries. The notion of inclusion and participation is illustrated by the fact
that about 34% represented the governments and intergovernmental organizations,
31% the business community, 35% the civil society, media included.
Mr. President,
5.
Since the governments will continue to have full credentials and negotiating
power in the preparatory process, the best we can do as a host country is to
try to be the mouthpiece of non-governmental participants. I would select a few
excerpts from their own reports to indicate their expectations from the Summit,
and their notions of partnership and participation.
6. One of the guiding conclusions from the interactive
triangular dialogue among governments, business sector and civil society,
alludes to the dimensions of a balanced partnership: ”In the triangle of
regulation, markets and values, the value aspect has been underrepresented
until now and should be strengthened with the help of NGOs.”
7. The message coming from the business
round-table is clear: “the inclusion of business as a true vector and
partner in the development of the information society is important to the
success of this Summit and (...) for the implementation of its goals ”. The
business community “ would welcome a real and intensive integration of
business from across the globe (...) in the work of this Summit”.
8. The Civil Society Forum brought in a
substantial and coherent contribution to the description of a comprehensive and
action-oriented partnership: “New types of partnerships between community
groups, local governments and the private sector are playing a key role (...)
in implementing and shaping Information Society development at the local level
in terms of governance, sustainable development, local democracy, education,
employment and community enterprise. Community has become an important
integrative and inclusive mechanism for effecting successful multi-stakeholder
partnerships and approaches at the local level. This needs to be more
explicitly acknowledged and reflected in the WSIS processes and outcomes.”
9. The sense of concreteness goes hand in hand with
the sought of vision in an exposé on the Nordic experience: “When we
build the new production infrastructure, we need vision and concrete pictures
of how we want the health services, transport systems, the school situation and
everyday life to be, say, ten to fifteen years from now. We need to invite
broad groupings of citizens, business people and organizations to discuss the
future and what we want from it”.
10. The media representatives described their
own vision on the principles and objectives that should lead us in preparing
the Summit:
q
Providing quality
content for the information society should be a priority;
q
Fundamental freedoms
and values should be respected and promoted;
q
Radio and television
are important means of fostering development and social cohesion in the digital
world.
11. Other protagonists in the Conference also firmly
stressed the human
rights perspective.
The World Blind Union asserted that: “In
the information age, access to information is a human right with associated
responsibilities that must be enjoyed by all as a pre-condition for
participation in society”.
12. The event devoted to a gender sensitive
Information Society contributed with adequate representation of genuinely
inclusive course of action: “Governments
and other stakeholders should provide the necessary conditions to ensure
women’s equal access to information and knowledge as well as their equal role
as producers and decision makers in all aspects related to the shaping of IT
policies and frameworks”.
From the same source allow me to quote an evaluation
of the women’s participation: “the ministerial Conference in Bucharest was
the first regional preparatory conference, where gender aspects of IS were an
integral part of the meeting and were reflected in the final document”.
13. A most qualified opinion came from the
scientists and researchers that participated
in the workshop on the role of new technologies, those learned
people who may sometime ignore tight rules of procedure while daring to create
and innovate: “The Cornerstone of the Information Society is
education and research. Universities and colleges are the key to providing the
“human infrastructure” necessary for any country to participate in the global
information society. (...) they provide the basis for innovation and
entrepreneurship”. And also: “Creating a
sustainable process of innovation (...) will lay a solid foundation for an
Information Society with lasting benefits for the world’s population. This
“creative process”, where rapid new developments in IT infrastructure and
software systems enable new classes of applications, which in turn drive new
demands and further infrastructure advances - should be a central theme at the
World Summit”.
14. An excellent document
produced for the Bucharest Conference is a Declaration not negotiated by Member
States, but discussed and endorsed in the workshop entitled “Youth as users
and creators in the Information Society”. Nothing of what is of concern for
governments and meaningful for the international agenda is missing from that
declaration. Any international Conference could be proud to produce such a
document. Time constraints compel me, however, to limit myself to the basic
message the youth conveyed to the Summit: “The world’s largest untapped
resource in creating an information society is not technology, but young
people. Youth are a huge and growing demographic, making up more than
two-thirds of the population of some developing nations. Yet, young people have
too often been seen as a burden, rather than an asset, a group to be taught but
not to teach, and to receive but not to give. We commit to working with youth
to change this paradigm.”
15. Finally, Mr. President,
a workshop in Bucharest discussed the content and the meaning of the
Information Society. They agreed upon the following definition: “Information
society – a sustainable development process of humanity that is conducted by
evolving knowledge management, where society develops as a community of highly
educated individuals and where the knowledge economy promotes a growing welfare
level of the society and every individual.”
This is rather vision than definition, but it
certainly offers a broad horizon for us to aspire to, starting with this
Preparatory Committee.
Thank you.