UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL,
SCIENTIFIC AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION
Address by
Mr Abdul Waheed Khan
Assistant Director-General for
Communication and Information
on the occasion of the
African Regional Preparatory Conference
for the second phase of the
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
Accra, Ghana, 2-4 February 2005
Excellencies,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my pleasure to bring the best wishes of the United Nations Educational,
Scientific, Cultural Organization to this African Regional Preparatory Conference
for the World Summit on the Information Society.
UNESCO very much appreciates the theme “Access – Africa’s key to an
inclusive Information Society”, that you have given to this event.
Access to information is indeed one of the keys to development. As the
recent Report of the WSIS Working Group in Financial Mechanism points out,
technology that facilitates access to relevant and valuable information applications,
services and content is most relevant to developing countries. ICT is a catalyst for
the achievement of the development goals because of its potential to facilitate
access to knowledge and other global public goods.
The
“Recommendation
concerning
the
Promotion
and
Use
of
Multilingualism and Universal Access to Cyberspace” that UNESCO’s Member
States adopted in 2003, provides a variety of recommendations that are largely
echoed in the Report of the Working Group on Financial Mechanisms and that are
building blocks of appropriate national, regional and international policies.
Let me briefly refer to some of them.
 A particularly important enabler of access is affordable telecommunications
and Internet costs, with special consideration given to the needs of public
service and educational institutions, and of disadvantaged and disabled
population groups;
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 New incentives in this area should be designed including public-private
partnerships to encourage investment and the lowering of financial barriers
to the use of ICT, such as taxes and customs duties on informatics
equipment, software and services;
 Internet service providers should be encouraged to consider the provision of
concessionary rates for Internet access in public service institutions, such as
schools, academic institutions, museums, archives and public libraries;
 We also need to encourage the development of information strategies and
models that facilitate community access and reach out to all levels of
society, including the setting up of community projects and fostering the
emergence of local information and communication technology leaders and
mentors;
 Strategies should also support cooperation in ICT among public service
institutions, as a means of reducing the cost of access to Internet services;
 Interconnection on a negotiated cost-sharing basis in the spirit of
international cooperation should be encouraged between national Internet
peering points combining the traffic of private and non-profit ISPs in
developing countries and peering points in other countries, whether
developing or industrialized;
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 Concerted efforts within the United Nations system should promote the
sharing of information about and experience on the use of ICT-based
networks and services in socio-economic development, including open
source technologies, as well as policy formulation and capacity-building in
developing countries;
These are just some of UNESCO’s proposals to enhance access.
However, when we speak about “access”, we need to define more clearly to
what content this access is to be given. A society based only on easy access to a
plethora of information would undeniably be efficient, but certainly neither creative
nor forward looking.
UNESCO promotes universal access to knowledge as one of the key principles
of future societies.
Including dimensions of social, cultural, economic, political and institutional
transformation, UNESCO's concept of “knowledge societies” is centered around a
holistic, multidimensional and development oriented vision.
This concept reveals how complex and dynamic the current changes are. Our
understanding of these changes is not well served by a narrow technological
determinism that projects an inescapable uniformity upon the world.
In order to achieve knowledge societies, we need to build on four principles:
 Freedom of expression
 Universal access to information
 Equal access to education; and
 Cultural and linguistic diversity
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For UNESCO, it is especially important that knowledge societies be
pluralistic, variable and open to choice. Their foundations and purposes must be
defined, and the operative principles, that should guide their construction, need to
be determined.
Inclusiveness must be central to knowledge societies. All persons, without
distinction, must be empowered to create, receive, share and utilize information and
knowledge freely – whether this be for reasons of economic betterment, social
recreation, cultural expression and enjoyment, or civic participation. Within this
concept, ICT is a tool dedicated to human development, not an end in itself.
The growth of knowledge societies depends on the production of new
knowledge, its transmission through education and training, and its dissemination
through ICT.
Scientific research and discovery, and associated technological
applications, are the driving forces behind the creation of knowledge societies.
These knowledge societies should be based on a strong commitment to
human rights and fundamental freedom, including the freedom of expression
enshrined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and
pluralistic and independent media.
In knowledge societies, universal access to information must be ensured and
their wealth grows in line with the limit to which its public domain of information
and knowledge for educational and cultural purposes increases.
Learning as a process of progressive change from ignorance to knowledge,
from inability to competence, and from indifference to understanding has never
before been so crucial with the emergence of knowledge societies.
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And this learning process becomes increasingly complex and non-linear
going far beyond the acquisition of basic literacy skills. Or as Alvin Toffler puts it:
“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but
those who cannot learn, unlearn and relearn”.
In other words: The rapidity of knowledge creation in the modern world is
the very source of its obsolescence. Therefore, the need for provision of lifelong
learning and for education that is accessible, affordable and of high quality, is
rapidly increasing.
For knowledge societies to become a reality, learning must be accessible to
all, girls and boys, women and men alike, but also to people with disabilities, and to
minority groups. And it needs to be affordable for the poor living in urban and
rural areas who cannot afford formal curricula, as they need to sustain their daily
lives. Knowledge societies must give access to learning for all.
Access to knowledge and learning is best served with a mix of approaches
bringing together adequate and freely accessible premises, the power of traditional
communication technology and the potentials of new information technology.
All these ingredients are concentrated in the Community Multimedia Centres
that UNESCO is supporting.
I am most glad to be able to report on the successful commencement of the
Community Multimedia Centre scale-up initiative in Mali, Mozambique and
Senegal that was launched at the first WSIS in Geneva.
There is growing
international recognition of the value of this innovatory fusion between radio and
IT to build an inclusive information society that ensures the participation of rural
and other marginalised communities in developing countries. WSIS Tunis offers a
real opportunity to rally the support of the international community, national
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governments and all stakeholders for the continuation and expansion of CMC
scale-up activities across the African continent.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
The theme of access is present in all of the four thematic meetings that
UNESCO is organizing during the preparatory phase of the second meeting of the
World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
It will be one of the underlying principles in the discussions of the thematic
meeting on “Freedom of Expression in Cyberspace” that opens tomorrow at
UNESCO Headquarters in Paris.
It will be central to the thematic meeting entitled “ICTs for CapacityBuilding: Critical Success Factors” that UNESCO organizes from 11 to 13 May
2005, together with the Club of Rome, also at its Paris Headquarters.
It will be key to the discussions on cultural diversity and knowledge societies
that will be the focus of a thematic meeting in St Petersburg, Russian Federation, in
May.
And the concept of access is one of the cornerstones of the thematic meeting
on multilingualism in cyberspace, that we are organizing, together with the
Académie Africaine des Langues (ACALAN), the Agence internationale de la
Francophonie (AIF) and the Government of Mali, in Bamako, Mali, from 6 to 7
May 2005.
The Bamako meeting will identify and present concrete actions in the area
of linguistic diversity that governmental and non-governmental actors implement,
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both on the policy and the application levels, in order to work towards a
multilingual cyberspace.
With these meetings, UNESCO contributes to the implementation of the
WSIS Action plan concentrating especially on access as an excellent focus for the
preparatory process of the World Summit.
UNESCO remains committed to help implementing this important principle
in Africa.
Thank you.
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