World Summit On Information Society (WSIS) Review Roadmap Taking Shape

The United Nations is leading a mandated review of the 2003-2005 World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) this year, culminating in a high-level meeting in December. This week, UN member states discussed the roadmap to December in a “stock-taking” exercise.

A draft roadmap [pdf] was circulated for discussion. But it was quickly changed based on feedback from member states. An updated version will be circulated by the end of June.

The main expected deadlines begin with a First Preparatory Meeting to take place in New York on 1 July, with stakeholder consultations on 2 July.

A deadline for written submissions of mid-July may be moved to end of July based on requests from some governments, including the G77+China, and Russia.

A non-paper proposed for first week of September may be moved back to last week of August to allow more time for review. Written submissions on the non-paper would be due by mid-September, and a “zero draft” – a UN term in use for a starting point draft – would emerge in the first week of October or earlier. It was suggested that the zero draft be made available in the last week of September, with comments on the draft by mid-October, rather than the first week of November as postulated in the initial roadmap document.

For the WSIS review, a Second Preparatory Meeting is envisioned for 20-22 October.

It was suggested by some members to schedule a Third Preparatory Meeting, perhaps in early December, to allow more discussion. This might be left as a possibility depending on progress at the second meeting.

The UN General Assembly, which meets in late September, is working intensively this year to agree Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The WSIS review process is falling into line with that larger SDG process, and the review process structure is an echo of the process that many other issues are being subjected to, with co-facilitators and a zero draft.

A detailed WSIS-SDG Matrix has been drawn up, linking the Action Lines that emerged from WSIS with the Sustainable Development Goals.

The WSIS+10 review is also being tied in with other major UN high points this year, including the post-2015 Development Goals, the development financing meeting in July, and the Paris climate summit in December.

The UN General Assembly passed a resolution, A/RES/68/302, in July 2014, that laid out the WSIS review process. It included the direction to name two co-facilitators this month, which was done. The co-facilitators are Jānis Mažeiks, ambassador of Latvia to the UN, and Lana Zaki Nusseibeh, ambassador of the United Arab Emirates to the UN.

The resolution also required consultation with stakeholders. Some observers have been concerned that the WSIS process not become strictly an intergovernmental exercise.

Representatives from a number of UN agencies and others spoke at the stock-taking this week, describing their past efforts and looking ahead.

Swiss official Nicolas Rollier described the first phase of the WSIS, which took place in Geneva in 2003. He mentioned many of the ideas and activities that germinated there, and said challenges remain for democratic internet governance.

Riadh Ben Sliman of Tunisia described the second phase of the WSIS, which took place in Tunis in 2005.

Speakers were from the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD), International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO), all of which have been active in the process and have produced detailed analyses.

CSTD recently produced a substantive report [pdf] that is a guide for the review discussions. The report will be reviewed by the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) in July, before heading to the General Assembly.

Speakers noted that despite efforts, nearly 60 percent of the world population remains unconnected to the internet. And as the ITU representative noted, new challenges have arisen, such as speed of access, security, and empowerment.

The UNESCO representative noted that there are some 6,000 languages in world, of which only about 200 are online. And they won’t go online unless there is relevant content, he said, as they are “not going to read the headline news of CNN or BBC.” UNESCO been working on this as part of its focus on “knowledge societies”.

Several member states took the floor this week to make comments on the process as well as react to the proposed roadmap.

Russia said the process should not only sum up what has happened over 10 years but should also determine priorities for the future, for what should become the knowledge society. The G77+China call for more discussion was supported by countries like Brazil, Egypt and Iran.

Other countries, such as Canada, United States, the European Union, and Australia, emphasised the importance of multi-stakeholder participation and generally accepted the draft roadmap.