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Why WSIS? The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) was organised by the International Telecom Union (ITU) on behest of the United Nations and the global community in two phases, with the first phase to be held from 10 -12 December, 2003, in Geneva, Switzerland and the second from 16 - 18 November 2005 in Tunis, Tunisia.

Recognising that the rapid spread of information and communications technologies (ICTs) is further aggravating the widening gap between the rich and poor, between the developed and developing nations and between men and women political leaders called for global dialogues to bridge the digital divide and further human development by harnessing the potential of ICTs. The WSIS process reflects this commitment.

The WSIS process aims to encourage debate, steer discussion and make critical decisions, by involving national governments, the private sector, the civil society and the UN family, for developing a better understanding of the information revolution, a vision of the future path of the information society (the Declaration of Principles or DoP) and a plan of action to create an inclusive information society for all human beings (the Plan of Action or PoA).

To foster the dialogue and to finalise the Declaration of Plans and Plan of Action, the final Summits are preceded by a round of multi-stakeholder preparatory consultations. In addition to numerous national, regional and global consultations, three open-ended intergovernmental Preparatory Committee meetings (called PrepComs) are organised before the final Summits.

According to the ITU, the expected outcome of the Summit is, 'To develop and foster a clear statement of political will and a concrete plan of action for achieving the goals of the Information Society, while fully reflecting all the different interests at stake.'

DATELINE WSIS - PHASE I : GENEVA The Geneva Summit : December 2003 An approximate 11,047 delegates representing 1486 institutions gathered to take part in the Summit in Geneva. The Summit, which was preceded by three Preparatory meetings, finally adopted the historic documents that will pave the path leading towards an information society; the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action.

• July 2002: The first PrepCom, held during 1 to 5 July 2002, besides proposing themes for the Summit itself, drew a preliminary draft Declaration of Principles (Dop) and Plan of Action (PoA) to serve as an orientation paper for the next PrepCom.
• February 2003: PrepCom II was held in Geneva from 17 to 28 February, where stakeholders negotiated draft documents and agreed to outline the overall structure of draft DoP and PoA.
• September 2003: PrepCom III saw work on the drafts progress in close consultations with the states. To discuss further unresolved issues related to funding, security, intellectual property, human rights, media and Internet governance, another round of negotiation was called for as an extension to the PrepCom 3, between10 to 14 November.
• The Declaration of Principles, which represents the vision of WSIS, articulates access to knowledge, capacity building, security and international and regional cooperation as the key principles.
• The roadmap to realise the vision, as articulated in the Plan of Action, regards infrastructural advancement as the topmost priority for achieving the goal of digital inclusion.

Yoshio Utsumi, the Secretary-General of the ITU, remarked, ‘Telephones will not feed the poor, and computers will not replace textbooks. But ICTs can be used effectively as a part of the toolbox for addressing global problems. The Summit's successes now give us the necessary momentum to achieve this.’

The Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action are available at http://www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_multi.asp?lang=en&id=1161|1160

DATELINE WSIS - PHASE II : TUNIS At the Geneva Summit of the WSIS in December 2003, the governments of member countries decided 'to hold a preparatory meeting in the first half of 2004 to review issues that would form the focus of the Tunis phase of the WSIS and to agree on the structure of the process for the second phase on the basis of contributions from delegations.'

PrepCom I held during 24 -26 June 2004 at Yasmine Hammamet, Tunisia threw up the following issues :

• The follow-up and implementation of the Geneva Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action by stakeholders at the national, regional and international levels, with particular attention to the challenges facing the Least Developed Countries;
• Consideration of the report of the Task Force on Financial Mechanisms (TFFM) the report of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) and appropriate action as these were the two critically unresolved issues in the debates so far;
• The output of the Tunis Phase should be a final document or documents, comprising a
• concise political part and an operational part, both of which reflect the areas of focus of the Tunis phase and reaffirm and enhance the commitments undertaken in the Geneva phase PrepCom II was held from 17 to 25 February at Geneva.
• Financing mechanisms and Internet governance were key issues which continued to remain largely unresolved. But the key outcome of this PrepCom was the developments surrounding the issue of internet governance and the focus remained the report of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) to be presented in July.
• PrepCom III will be held in 19-30 September, 2005 in Geneva and is largely expected to be focused around the debate of Internet governance and the WGIG report. The output document on financing is expected to be agreed upon, while negotiations on the political part of the Tunis document as well implementation and follow-up mechanisms on the road ahead will continue.
• The final Summit is to be held during 16 -18 November in Tunisia. The second phase of the WSIS should report on the progress toward the objectives that governments set for themselves in Geneva, especially those objectives dealing with specific projects designed to reduce the digital divide, which undermines the potential of the ICTs in contributing towardsthe Millennium Development Goals that the UN adopted in 2000.
• In the follow-up process to WSIS Tunis 2005, it will be important to assess the progress in implementation at the country level and to come up with a regional perspective for building sustainable national capacity in developing and transition economies. This includes, in addition to the overall objectives such as support to democracy and e-government, ways of harnessing ICT policies to create economic growth as a basis for comprehensive and balanced development.

KEY ACTORS A number of formal/informal working groups and caucuses are involved in the WSIS process internationally in an attempt to make the deliberations as inclusive as possible. Some of the important official entities are listed below:

Group of Friends of the Chair The Group of Friends of the Chair (GFC) was formed to prepare a base document for the Summit and to pave the path for informed actions post WSIS. For the sake of convenience, the document was divided into two parts, Part One The Political Chapeau, and Part Two- The Operational Part of the document. The group then developed and worked on the document, based on a series of meetings and inputs received from all stakeholders and groups.

Working Group on Internet Governance The Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), set up under the Chairmanship of Nitin Desai, Special Advisor to the United Nations Secretary-General for WSIS, to review and recommend appropriate proposals on Internet governance, finally tabled its recommendations on 14 July, 2005. Proposing four Internet governance models, the WGIG recommends the creation of a global multi-stakeholder forum to address Internet related public policy issues.

Task Force on Financial Mechanisms On 4 October, 2004, the UN established the Task Force on Financial Mechanism (TFFM) to assess existing financial mechanisms in meeting the challenges related to promoting investment and realising the visions of an information society in the developing countries. The report of a working group on funding mechanisms for this overall objective has only met with criticism and dissatisfaction, especially from the representatives of countries in the South and of the civil society. Proposals such as the one to create a Digital Solidarity Fund, which Senegal presented in Geneva, have been slow to take off because affluent countriesincluding Canadahave been reluctant to back them.

Civil Society Bureau The Civil society bureau has been set up to respond to the need of providing a space from where the civil society can participate optimally in all aspects of the WSIS process. This was essential to account for the large number of civil society organisations, their diverse nature, areas of interest and expertise. The Bureau is composed of large 'families' of the global civil society including unions, media, other creators and actors of culture, towns and local authorities, NGOs, youth and indigenous people.

Caucuses A number of caucuses or groups with specific interests have organised themselves and contribute by adding their perspectives to the documents and processes that are a part of WSIS. They are, the Community Media Caucus, Finance Caucus, Human Rights Caucus, Indigenous Peoples Caucus, Internet Governance Caucus, Media Caucus, Trade Union Caucus, Gender Caucus, Youth Caucus and the Grassroots Caucus which is the newest member of this group. The formation of the Grassroots Caucus was initiated by OneWorld, when OneWorld South Asia took four grassroots women to PrepCom II of the Tunis Phase.

ONEWORLD AT WSIS OneWorld's clear mandate at WSIS is to proactively promote grassroots voices in the entire process. The WSIS outcomes are meant to ensure that the Information Society of tomorrow takes the benefits of ICTs to those people and communities that have remained on the fringes of development. But the processes so far, leading up to WSIS I and now to WSIS II due in Tunis later this year, have largely failed to include such grassroots perspectives and sensitivities.

In the run up to WSIS II in Tunis this November, there is little time and opportunity left for civil society organisations to enforce a remedy. However, it is critical for the grassroots to have a say in all crucial issues, be these linked to Internet governance, financial mechanisms or an equitable share in financial resources for ICT for development through platforms such as the Digital Solidarity Fund.

The Grassroots Caucus initiated by OneWorld is a collaborative effort of a number of grassroots organisations that understand the ground realities of reaching ICTs to the grassroots. Prior to the formal establishment of the Grassroots Caucus, OneWorld South Asia (OWSA) had taken four grassroots women from India to the WSIS PrepCom2.

These women, use varied forms of ICTs video, phone, wireless, Internet and radio in their daily work and through it have successfully changed the lives of people in the communities they work for. The women shared their perspectives and concerns with policy makers, decision makers in governments, civil society groups and the media. The outcome was a Grassroots Charter that was presented at the official UN Plenary on WSIS and to the civil society plenary as well.

Presently, the Grassroots Caucus has a membership of over a hundred members and the recommendations emerging out of the deliberations so far have been fed into the Group of Friends of Chair as a preparation towards PrepCom 3.

INFORMATION SOCIETY FOR THE GRASSROOTS We the members of grassroots caucus firmly believe that the success of an information society can be directly measured through its impact on the quality of lives at the grassroots. Grassroots communities should be recognised as one of the key stakeholders in the formation of information societies and not merely as beneficiaries. Grassroots communities should be given an active role in the planning, implementation and monitoring stages of forming Information Societies.

GRASSROOTS CAUCUS RECOMMENDATIONS TO THE WSIS PLAN OF ACTION

1. Grassroots communities should be consulted in the process of managing finances for ICT4D to prioritise areas of funding such as capacity building and content development.
2. Ownership for management and running of Rural Information Centres should lie with the grassroots communities.
3. Government/private sector to ensure that the required ICT infrastructure facilities are made available at the grassroots such that the costs for ICT services could be recovered from the grassroots.
4. Capacity Building of grassroots communities to own, operate and manage telecentres should be recognised as the prime need.
5. Capacity building through training, SouthSouth and North-South Learning exchange programmes has to be ensured as a priority.
6. Grassroots communities should be recognised and acknowledged as repositories of Local Knowledge.
7. Grassroots communities should be actively engaged at all stages of locale-specific content management such as needs assessment, content aggregation and dissemination based on the their own needs.
8. Value added relevant content has to be made available at the telecentres based on grassroots needs.
9. For the grassroots communities, content should be a judicious blend of local and global knowledge.
10. Content flow should involve a top down and bottom up approach.
11. Content has to be provided in the local language of the communities.
12. Information Societies should be sensitive to the needs of women, children, youth, disabled and marginalized groups.
13. Information Societies should respect the cultural practices and safeguard the traditional diversity that exists in grassroots communities.
14. Traditional Media like folk, print, audio and video have to be recognised as key sources of information dissemination at the grassroots.
15. Information Societies must ensure Equitable Access to Knowledge, breaking the barriers of social status, religion, gender, economic status, language, literacy and age at the grassroots.

Secretariat of Grassroots Caucus OneWorld South Asia

Grassroots are:

• Communities, many of whom are living below poverty line with minimum literacy level and a limited knowledge base.
• Community Based Organisations (CBOs) who are directly working with grassroots communities, enabling them to acquire more information and knowledge to improve their quality of life.
• CBOs stationed in the target community and comprising of members from the community.
• NGOs who work with the CBOs and are indirectly in touch with grassroots communities.

www.grassroots-caucus.org

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