-----Original Message----- From: owner-ifip_ga@ifip.or.at [mailto:owner-ifip_ga@ifip.or.at]On Behalf Of Plamen Nedkov Sent: sexta-feira, 6 de Dezembro de 2002 10:04 To: All Subject: [IFIP] On-line Forum for WSIS
To: IFIP Member societies, GA, TC and WG Chairs
Further to our mail of 29 November http://www.ifip.or.at/mail/msg00203.html please find below a press release from UNESCO re. the on-line discussion forum as input to WSIS.
Have a nice weekend,
The Delivery Co. --------------------------------------
For immediate release UNESCO, 5/12/2002
Online Forum for Civil Society's Preparation of World Summit on the Information Society
An online discussion forum for non-governmental organizations and civil society to discuss their input in the Final Declarations of the World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS; Geneva 2003, Tunis 2005) will be held on UNESCO's website at http://wsisforum.unesco.org from 9 December 2002 to 15 January 2003.
The Forum that will be chaired by Monique Fouilhoux, President of the NGO-UNESCO Liaison Committee, will discuss eight themes: General Discussion, Access, Development and Empowerment, Content Issues, Education, Training and Research, Rights, Future Developments of Information Technologies, Civil Society in WSIS and Beyond.
The forum is open for all members of non-governmental organizations and civil society.
Proposals to be included in the drafts of the WSIS Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action that result from the Forum will be transmitted to the WSIS Executive Secretariat for submission at Prepcom II (17-28 February 2003).
The decision to organize the Forum was taken by representatives of non-governmental organizations and civil society at a preparatory meeting at UNESCO Headquarters, Paris, France, on 27 and 28 November 2002. At the meeting, Adama Samassékou, President of the WSIS Preparatory Committee, highlighted the essential contributions that non-governmental organizations and civil society can make to the Summit and its follow-up. Speaking at the Opening of the meeting, UNESCO Director-General Koïchiro Matsuura said that UNESCO is well-positioned to bring quite diverse constituencies into the Summit process and, indeed, to act as a bridge linking civil society, governments, professional groups and users. UNESCO, he stated, wishes to ensure that the Summit addresses questions that go beyond 'access' in technical or infrastructural terms: "After all, the access in question is really about full access to society; more than this, it is about the capacity to influence the kind of society being generated by large-scale technological and economic forces". The desire to enlarge the Summit's agenda to take account of important issues of intellectual and ethical debate is something that UNESCO shares with civil society. "The narrowing of cultural as well as technological divides is something we must all strive for", said the Director-General.
Related Links * World Summit on the Information Society http://www.itu.int/wsis/index.htm * UNESCO and the World Summit on the Information Society http://www.unesco.org/wsis
Contact: Jean Gabriel Mastrangelo, UNESCO, Information Society Division, Tel: +33 1.45.68.44.13 E-mail: jg.mastrangelo@unesco.org
-------------------------------- Plamen Nedkov Executive Director, IFIP Hofstrasse 3, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria Tel: +43 2236 73616 Fax: +43 2236 736169 http://www.ifip.org/