special coverage: information society & WSIS

28.11.2003 Chetan Sharma, founder of Datamation Consultants, speaks to OneWorld South Asia about the information society and its impact on the developing world. He says the World Summit on the Information Society will be a failure unless it includes the marginalised sections.

28.11.2003 Stakeholders in the field of ICTs in Vietnam came together at a roundtable recently held in capital Hanoi to share views on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and on the shape of the country’s future information society. The roundtable, organised by UNESCO, was part of Vietnam's preparation for the WSIS.

23.11.2003 Dale Spender, one of Australia's best-known feminists, urges all women to get on the information superhighway, use it and claim it as their own space. She believes that the Internet has revolutionised access to information and thus skewed traditional power equations. With this technology, women can not only use information but also generate information to write narratives that subvert dominant white male texts.

23.11.2003 In a statement prepared at the end of PrepCom 3A - the last preparatory meeting before the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in December - civil society representatives stated that they do "not want to endorse documents that represent the lowest common denominator among governments." Furthermore, they produced a document that sets out the civil society's essential benchmarks for WSIS.

18.11.2003 The programme for the Civil Society Side Events, produced by the Swiss Platform of Civil Society in cooperation with various groups in civil society is now available online. This guide to the three days of the World Summit on the Information Society includes preview of the events on all the relevant Websites.

17.11.2003 With less than four weeks to go before the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), agreement on how to bridge the information and telecommunications divide eludes governments, the private sector and civil society. The final effort, a special session of the preparatory committee for the United Nations-sponsored summit, ended in failure last week in Geneva.

17.11.2003 A national consultation on the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is being held in Pakistan this week to prepare a national initiative to be implemented during the period between the two summits in 2003 and 2005. The synthesis of the consultation, along with the proposed project, would be presented at the summit itself in December 2003.

14.11.2003 The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) provides a critical opportunity to reaffirm human rights in the context of information and communication policies, a group of independent experts from all over the world have said. But greater commitment to human rights and enhanced participation and transparency will be necessary for the summit to achieve its full potential, they said in a statement at the end of an international meet held recently in Geneva.

10.11.2003 The World Media Electronic Forum, a spectacular media event gathering the world’s media leaders in Geneva during the World Summit on the Information Society, will highlight the contribution of broadcasting and broadcasters to the information society. A historical first, all of the world’s broadcasting unions have agreed on a common platform to be submitted to the summit. You can provide you input on vital media issues of the 21st century through an online questionnaire available in 9 languages.

10.11.2003 A directory of WSIS-related sites in multiple languages is available at the Platform for Community Networks Website. This new Website contains links to official organisations, discussions and Websites covering the preparations for the summit.