special coverage: information society & WSIS

29.09.2003 The third and final preparatory conference (PrepCom3) for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) demonstrated all the way through to its last sessions on Friday that the government representatives were communicating on different frequencies amongst themselves and with civil society. NGOs expressed their frustration that the draft texts for the summit -- the final declaration and plan of action -- ignore their demands.

29.09.2003 In a letter to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, community media and other civil society organisations have called on him to ensure the World Summit on the Information Society gives priority to empowerment of the poorest people and communities in the world including support for traditional and community-based communications media.

26.09.2003 Slowly, but effectively, the Internet is empowering women in Africa to follow events as they have never witnessed before. The latest case in point is the women in Somalia who have been following their country's peace talks in neighbouring Kenya via the Internet.

26.09.2003 The Indian government's move last week to block in the name of national security an online news group run on Yahoo! by a separatist group has led to the complete inaccessiblity of all Yahoo! groups to India-based users. Here is an account of what is happening and how you can join the protest campaign by human rights activists in India.

26.09.2003 Akshaya, a new public e-literacy project in the Indian state of Kerala, is helping rural women to use the Internet to keep in touch with their expatriate men folk and avail government’s online services. It is also widening their horizon and enhancing their self-esteem. Sreedevi Jacob reports.

25.09.2003 Access to information and communications technologies (ICTs) is expanding but the majority of people in developing countries are still excluded, says APC in a new book launched last week in the run-up to the first ever United Nations world conference on the information society. The book is available for free download, in English, Spanish and French (PDF format).

25.09.2003 The inaugural GKP/PANOS Media & ICT4D Award, given jointly by the Global Knowledge Partnership and Panos, aims to encourage and bring to international recognition thoughtful and incisive reporting on developing countries' progress to becoming information societies. Four awards of $2,000 each will be made for published journalism by developing country journalists (print, radio, TV or Web). Deadline for submissions: 15 October 2003.

25.09.2003 The NGO Gender Strategies Working Group launched a WSIS T-shirt campaign during the PrepCom3 meeting, which had government delegates craning their necks to read a message that until now had fallen upon deaf ears. The campaign was meant to highlight the exclusion of a paragraph on the gender dimensions of ICT from the draft WSIS declaration.

24.09.2003 More than 150 delegates from 23 African countries met recently in Maputo, Mozambique and agreed to bring "e-strategies" for mobilizing information and communications technology (ICT) for development into the mainstream of government planning. The meeting was held in preparation for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva in December 2003.

23.09.2003 Human Rights in China (HRIC), the only organisation devoted exclusively to human rights issues in China, has been denied accreditation to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) scheduled for Geneva in December. HRIC feels rejection of its application to attend WSIS raises serious concerns about transparency and legitimacy of this multilateral process.