Asian Preparatory
Summit Pledges Cooperation to Bridge Digital Divide
(13 - 15 January 2003)
Representatives from 47 Asian and
Pacific Governments, businesses and non-governmental organizations
assembled mid-January in Tokyo pledged to end global inequalities
in Internet growth, saying countries must work together
to spread and develop affordable technology to bridge the
"digital divide" while maintaining cultural diversity.
Wrapping up a three-day regional preparatory meeting (from
13 to 15 January) ahead of the World
Summit on the Information Society which begins this
December, 600 participants adopted a declaration saying
that high-quality access to technology "has great potential
to help better deliver essential services required to meet
basic human needs". The Tokyo declaration adds that
measures against cyber crime "must respect the sovereignty
of nations and maintain respect for the constitutional and
other rights of all persons, including freedom of expression".
The declaration will be submitted as the Asian and the
Pacific region’s input to the World Summit on the
Information Society process.
Kim Hak-Su, Executive Secretary of the United
Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the
Pacific (UNESCAP) that co-organized the regional conference
together with the Japanese Government and other collaborators,
acknowledged that more work is needed. "The Tokyo Declaration
is directional", he said. "We need more meetings".
In his keynote address, Mr. Kim underscored that the benefits
of the information society had been largely confined to
the industrialized world. “The developing countries
of the Asia-Pacific region, and especially the least developed,
land locked and island developing countries, as well as
the economies in transition, account for a small fraction
of the global digital economy. Concerns about such disparities
need to be addressed urgently in order to overcome the digital
divide”, he said. He continued: “A diversity
of efforts is essential as there are no universal solutions
to difficult regional, national and local conditions and
needs”.
Mr. Kim concluded: “This conference has to be a new
point of departure for the future of the region. I sincerely
believe that this Forum will bring together our collective
wisdom to open new perspective based on Information and
Communication Technologies and harness the full potential
of the technology to create a better future for the millions
who live in Asia and the Pacific”.
Robert Francis Garcia of the Asian South Pacific Bureau
of Adult Education called the Tokyo Declaration "a
compromise document" that aimed more to foster economic
growth than ensure human rights. "It is silent on certain
security issues", he said. "It doesn't have a
mention of the issue of censorship". In addition, non-governmental
groups commended the Conference for including grass-roots
views in discussions.
Yoshio Utsumi, secretary general of the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU), told delegates that while
information and communication technologies can remove the
boundaries that keep humanity apart, many people in the
world are deprived of access to information and to the tools
for using it.
According to the ITU, 80 per cent of the 500 million Internet
users worldwide are in the developed world, and two out
of every five people in developed countries have access
to this technology while only one in 50 has access in developing
countries.
Addressing delegates to the preparatory meeting -- the
third of six regional meetings scheduled ahead of December's
United Nations summit -- Utsumi said, "until we address
the injustices of this 'digital divide,' we cannot embrace
the promise of cyberspace with a clear conscience".
The first phase of the World Summit will take place in
Geneva hosted by the Government of Switzerland from 10 to
12 December 2003. It will address the broad range of themes
concerning the Information Society and adopt a Declaration
of Principles and plan of action, addressing the whole range
of issues related to the Information Society. The second
phase of the Summit will take place in Tunis hosted by the
Government of Tunisia in 2005. Development themes will be
a key focus in this phase and it will assess progress that
has been made and adopt any further plan of action to be
taken.
(Sources: Development Gateway, 17 January 2003; Digital
Divide, 20 January 2003)
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