Am reposting the resolutions arrived at during the abovementioned meeting in
Dhaka. (Apologies if you receive this more than once.)
(Bytes for All and APC co-organized the meeting, and handled the sessions on
Internet Goveranance and Financing Mechanisms; some of us also helping out
in other sessions as well. Aside from Partha, APC staff and members there
included Wille Currie, Chat Ramilo, Cheekay Cinco, and myself/FMA.) It was a
mixed multistakeholder group that attended, but with many CSOs--especially
from Bangladesh--present.
Thanks
Al
========
> Date: Sun, 09 Jan 2005 15:11:13 -0000
> From: "parthadhaka" <parthadhaka@yahoo.com>
> Subject: Resolution of Dhaka WSIS Regional Consultation Meeting (5th-7th
January, 2005)
>
> Dear Readers,
>
> Hope you can recall, few days back I sent a call asking you to feed
> inputs to WSIS regional consultation meeting in Dhaka that discussed
> about the topics of 'Internet Governance', 'Financial mechanism' (to
> ICT4D) and 'ICT Policy' in the region. We also received some
> responses with regard to this call and all these have been presented
> properly at the meeting (reader's email was presented directly on
> the big-screen ). Bytes for All, as a member of APC in the region
> played an important role in bringing about case studies,
> suggestions, coordination of issues that are important to these
> three areas.
> Anyway, following is the resolution that has been
> adopted by the participants and is likely to be presented at SAARC
> (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation). Anyway, this is
> the beginning of the process and more suggestions can be adopted at
> the follow-up processes. Best wishes,
>
> Partha / B4All
>
>
> BRAC Center, Dhaka, Bangladesh 7 January 2005
>
> Resolutions of Dhaka WSIS Consultations
>
> After extensive discussion on ICT policy by participants from the
> government, civil society, private sector, academia and the media
> from the South Asian region, the WSIS Consultation meeting held in
> Dhaka, Bangladesh from 5-7 January 2005 under the auspices of the
> Bangladesh Friendship Education Society (BFES) and the Bangladesh
> Working Group on WSIS (in collaboration with APC and One World South
> Asia) resolves as follows:
>
> The following issues should be drawn to the attention of the South
> Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) at their next
> meeting:
>
> (1) That SAARC undertake a study on the establishment of a regional
> Internet exchange to connect the national Internet exchanges to
> contain regional traffic within South Asia in order to promote
> equitable regional trade in services and save on the cost of
> international connectivity and thereby enhance regional cooperation;
>
> (2) That SAARC consider the establishment of a regional registry for
> IP address allocations (SANIC) to ensure that IP addresses are
> fairly distributed in South Asia;
>
> (3) That SAARC recommend that South Asian member states develop a
> common approach to the issue of Internet Governance and Financial
> Mechanisms for ICTD during the second phase of the World Summit on
> the Information Society which culminates in Tunis in November 2005;
>
> (4) That as part of this common approach to WSIS, consideration be
> given to the transformation of ICANN into a multi-stakeholder body
> accountable to the global community;
>
> (5) That expanding access to ICTs in South Asia in terms of the WSIS
> Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action is a global public good
> that enhances the value of global information networks and hence
> benefits everyone including developed countries. A Global Fund for
> ICTD should, therefore, be established to support the goal of
> increasing access to ICTs by 2015 and this should be recommended by
> South Asian member states at the WSIS Prepcom 2 in February 2005;
>
> (6) That SAARC should take inputs from South Asian member states,
> the private sector and civil society to formulate a regional e-
> strategy to implement the WSIS Plan of Action in South Asia as a
> whole;
>
> (7) That the regional e-strategy should adopt a regional public
> goods approach to financing ICTD which would explore the
> relationship between creating a development-oriented policy
> environment and the exploitation of existing and prospective
> financial mechanisms to enable ICTs for the achievement of the MDGs
> and poverty reduction targets in the region;
>
> (8) That SAARC should encourage multi-stakeholder participation by
> member states, the private sector and civil society in the
> UNDP/APDIP WSIS consultation process on Internet Governance as a way
> of raising awareness of the importance of Internet policy and
> governance in South Asia;
>
> (9) That SAARC should undertake specific programmes for
> mainstreaming ICTs in poverty alleviation strategies and achieving
> the MDGs through the integration of efforts undertaken by
> governments, the private sector and civil society in the region;
>
> (10) That SAARC should support initiatives to promote local content
> and languages on ICTs in South Asia;
>
> (11) That SAARC should seriously consider ways of integrating gender
> equality into ICT policy issues at the regional level;
>
> (12) That serious consideration should be given to the licensing of
> community radio stations by member states as a key component of an
> early warning system in response to the Tsunami tragedy in the
> region as well as community radio's role in enabling development.
> Consideration should be given to best practices in community radio
> in the region such as those in Nepal;
>
> (13) That the regional e-strategy should consider the problems of
> implementation of ICT policy in the region and develop an approach
> to ensuring successful implementation of ICT policy at country
> level;
>
> (14) That SAARC should establish and fund a Regional ICT Forum to
> undertake these above-mentioned tasks and involve stakeholders from
> the private sector and civil society in the process.
>
> Dhaka, Bangladesh 7 January 2005
>