Dear everyone,
I$BCN(B sending here the Asia- Pacific Civil Society Caucus statement that I read
yesterday in the ongoing Intersessional Meeting of the World Summit on
Information Society.
Please note that while we informed everyone from AP civil society about the
drafting of the statement, only 5 persons actually came to the drafting meeting—
Chat and Angela from APC-WNSP, Amir Barmaki from IranCSOs (Iranian civil
society organizations), YJ (who had to leave while we were still discussing),
and myself. And as usual, we didn$BCU(B have much time to prepare the statement$BMJ(Bn
this case, less than half an hour.
Mavic
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Asia-Pacific Civil Society Caucus Statement to the Intersessional Meeting of
the
World Summit on Information Society
15-18 July 2003, UNESCO, Paris
By Mavic Cabrera-Balleza, Isis International-Manila
Thank you very much and good afternoon Madame Chairperson, delegates and
officials of the WSIS.
The Asia-Pacific Caucus endorses the Civil Societies Priority Document that
underscores key issues around sustainable democratic development, human rights,
global knowledge commons, literacy, education and research, cultural and
linguistic diversity, information security issues, access and infrastructure
issues, disability and particularly gender equality and women$BCT(B empowerment.
Particular to our region we would like to emphasise the principles of
inclusivity, the right to information, gender equality and women$BCT(B empowerment.
Emerging concerns such as information security on the Internet should not in
any way infringe on people$BCT(B privacy and right to communicate freely using ICT.
We recognize individual agency in accessing information and knowledge for their
own development. We therefore oppose actions that regulate content and
communication and in anyway and undermine the free flow of information.
We also recognise that there are many different political environments within
the region that are not conducive to civil society$BCT(B participation in policy
making and programme development in the area of ICT. The principle of national
sovereignty should be extended to include not just governments but reflect the
true sovereignty of the people (comment from the Czech Republic, footnote 25,
p. 7).
We are concerned over the fact that national ICT policies, programmes, and
plans in the Asia-Pacific region do not address gender and ICT concerns. We
support the Canadian government$BCT(B submission that a gender dimension should be
integrated in ICT policies and programmes to ensure that women and men equally
benefit from ICT (para 11-a p. 8). We urge our governments to integrate a
gender dimension in all discussion spaces on gender and ICT issues.
Thank you very much for your attention.