UN Fund for civil society participation in WSIS in the offing
By Emrakeb Assefa, Highway Africa News Agency (HANA)

YASMINE HAMMAMET, TUNISIA. June 24, 2004 Tunisia called today for the
establishment of a permanent United Nations Fund to ensure a wider
participation of international civil society in the second phase of the
World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), and to help build their efforts
in bridging the digital divide between the developing and developed
countries.

Formally opening the WSIS preparatory meeting, Mr. Sadok Rabah, minister of
communication technologies and transport of Tunisia said that since Civil
Society constitutes an essential element in building an ‘inclusive’
information society, the international community should ensure their
participation at all the stages of preparations for the Tunis summit in
2005.

“Keen on ensuring a wider participation for the civil society, Tunisia calls
for the establishment of a permanent United Nations Fund,” he told the
gathering attending the First Preparatory Committee meeting (PrepCom1) in
Hammamet, Tunisia from 24-26 June 2004.
The Fund would finance the activities of international Civil Society in
relation to the organization of WSIS. It would also provide support and
assistance to projects and programs that link ICT applications rapid
economic development.

Rabah announced today that his country has made a contribution of 400 000
Dinar (U$ 380 000) to provide assistance to non-governmental organizations
(NGOs) in the Least Developed Countries. Efforts will be made to give
especial attention to NGOs concerned with the disabled, with women and
children, he added.

Yoshio Utsumi, secretary general of International Telecommunications Union
(ITU), noting that this meeting was the first preparatory committee session
outside Geneva, said, it “symbolizes the beginning of a new chapter in the
history of the WSIS process.”

“We are building the bridges to connect different peoples across
geographical, knowledge and information divides. We are beginning to connect
the dots embedded in the WSIS Action Plan that will form a truly inclusive
and equitable Information Society,” he said.

However, it is worth noting that “the migration of WSIS from North to South”
did not result from a UN decision to be fair to developing countries. Both
Rabah and Utsumi stated that Tunisia was given the chance to host the Summit
as it initially proposed an information society summit in 1998.

The first phase of the WSIS, which took place in December 2003 in Geneva
Switzerland closed with the adoption of the Declaration of Principles and
the Plan of Action by 175 countries. The Geneva phase of the Summit is said
to have been a success for bringing to the attention of the global political
leadership to the growing digital divide in the world and the importance of
ICTs for development.

The Tunis phase, which began today and will close with the summit in
November 2005, is expected to extract commitments from governments and to
provide solutions for the implementation of the two documents endorsed at
the Geneva summit. As Utsumi noted, this phase is to be ‘the summit of
solutions” and will signify a “transit from mere declaration to real
actions.”

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