Karen Banks leads our APC Team in WSIS and she wrote this up a couple of months
ago for an EU based e-zine, but it is still relevant...especially with the Tunis
Summit coming up in two weeks or so...
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Summitry and strategies: Karen Banks (APC) on WSIS...
In November 2005, the United Nations World Summit on the Information
Society will meet for the last time in Tunis. In its five year history,
the WSIS has failed to succeed in redressing the North-South "digital
divide". Consensus in the WSIS has been elusive: the private and public
sectors hold diametrically opposing views on issues such as market
fundamentalism, free and open-source software, and intellectual property
rights reform; while on issues of financing and internet governance,
agreement between governments has been split along North-South lines. It
remains to be seen whether civil society groups participating in the
summit will be able to shift attention away from these competing
interests towards human rights issues.
http://www.eurozine.com/articles/2005-10-19-banks-en.html