Building Inclusive Information Societies

The significant opportunities that ICTs can catalyse have not gone unnoticed in developing countries. Precisely those people, who could benefit most from these opportunities, are often excluded from the “Information Society”. The value of an inclusive information society is not limited to a country’s borders, but lies precisely in the exchange of experiences, in accruing knowledge about what is yet foreign to us. Therefore it is critical to maintain an international perspective and include the South in the discussion even when formulating policy from a European perspective, in order to encourage a fruitful Information Society.

In this context, HIVOS, IICD and OneWorld Netherlands facilitated a discussion for a one-year period, named Building inclusive information societies: Dutch perspectives for the WSIS. The discussion aimed to address some of the most prominent issues related to the Information Society, whilst at the same time encouraging the Dutch public to understand the complexities and relevance for them as a world member of the Information Society.

Independent theme experts led both online and face-to-face discussions with participants from a broad spectrum of professional backgrounds, including the public and private sector, NGOs, researchers, educators, youth representatives, etc. Topics included the priority themes of Cyber Rights: property, privacy & freedom of expression, ICT & Education, Civil Society & Empowerment and Trade & Entrepreneurship.

This report (attached below) summarises the results of these discussions and links them to the current status on an international level. For this we used the EU input for the intersessional meeting in Paris (July 2003) and the WSIS concept Declaration that resulted from this meeting. The concept Action Plan has not been included, as this is a mere list of possible action and is not yet the result of wide discussions.