There have been numerous meetings worldwide to discuss participation in the upcoming WSIS phase one in December 2003.

As the meetings take place, new ties, links, networks and co-operative work are born. There have also been some new information, contacts and links that came out of these developments. In this issue, we are presenting highlights of such developments from the Pacific Island region, the Latin American and Caribbean region as well as developments from the United Kingdom (UK) and the group of French-speaking countries. Following the highlights are the links (if any) where more detailed reports can be found.

A consultation among Pacific Island countries happened at the Pacific Islands Regional ICT Consultation (PIRIC) which was held in Suva, Fiji from 09-11 April 2003. The purpose of this is to prepare Pacific Island countries and organisations to participate effectively in the upcoming Summit. Almost 100 representatives of Pacific Island governments, communication and information service providers, media organisations, NGOs and civil society entities actively involved in a wide range of Information Society issues from 14 countries and territories attended the PIRIC.

There were many important tasks achieved during this consultation. There were featured analyses by national and sectoral working groups of the WSIS draft Declaration of Principles and Action Plan. They were able to identify priority issues that included the special circumstances faced by small island developing states in becoming knowledge societies such as the focus on information rather than technology, improvements in human resources and infrastructure, the importance of traditional media, recognising diversity and special needs, and the role of non-governmental organisations in these endeavours. After the consultation, the participants concluded that they are now better placed to understand opportunities and priorities for deriving optimum benefits from ICTs as developmental tools. Their attention was focused on a wide variety of critical issues, including the often high costs of ICT development, human resource constraints, and the need to ensure that ICT access is made as universal as possible. An important issue that was also discussed was about women being able to participate fully in ICT activities in the region.

The link of the Pacific Islands Regional ICT Consultation is at http://www.undp.org.fj/documents/ICT4DEV/PIRC%20report.doc. A report from the Consultation is now available at the following site: http://www.undp.org.fj/ICT.htm.

In the UK, the British Council (BC) hosted a "UK PrepCom" event on the WSIS last 22 May 2003 to prepare a UK strategy for the preparatory process and the Summit itself. Representatives from UK stakeholders, including civil society organisations, were invited to attend the event but the formal presentations came from representatives belonging to UK government departments.

Although attendees found the time allotted for the meeting as quite short, there were enough substantial discussions nonetheless. The highlight of the event was on identifying key areas of substantive interest to each of the stakeholders. There was also an attempt to balance local and global issues, and civil society representatives saw this as a positive sign. Also, there was enough space to discuss civil society concerns and common issues within the UK ICT and NGO community. According to reports, the British Council staff led the discussions so there was a pre-determined agenda, but the topics discussed were fairly representative of the issues that concern civil society advocates such as intellectual property rights and the democratisation of knowledge, human rights framework for the discussion of ICT issues, and gender and process issues such as the need for transparency at WSIS, among others. However, participants noted that it still remains to be seen if these issues will figure in the final report.

Latin American preparations for the WSIS also went underway in Varadero, Cuba last May 2003. It was mainly the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) that oversaw the meeting. Experts from Latin America and the Caribbean gathered for a joint meeting of UNESCO's Regional Programme to Enhance Co-operation Among National Development Information Systems and Networks (INFOLAC) and the Regional Network of the United Nations ICT Task Force called LACNET. The meeting was able to initiate co-operation between INFOLAC and the UN ICT Task Force to join forces for the WSIS preparation in Latin American and the Caribbean Region.

More information from this meeting can be found on the UNESCO's website at http://webworld.unesco.org.

As for new links, the French-speaking nations' intergovernmental agency has opened its own WSIS website. However, it is only available in French. The site is at http://smsi.francophonie.org/.

More global updates and links will be provided as soon as they are made available. If you or your organisation would like to publicise any events, reports and activities related to the WSIS, please send them via e-mail at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..