The World Summit on the Information Society.Results of the Geneva Meeting and Prospects for Tunis

On 21 December 2001, the General Assembly of the United Nations passed a resolution to hold a two-stage World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). The first meeting was held in Geneva from 10 to 12 December 2003; the second is scheduled to take place in Tunis next 16 to 18 November. The holding of the Summit confirms the increasing importance in our societies of the information and communications technologies. The meeting also aims to make these technologies a factor for growth in all countries.
Jean-François Soupizet, who has been working on the information society at the European Commission for many years, describes here the aims and issues of the Summit. First he evaluates the outcome of the first phase (Geneva 2003): after recalling the problems in the negotiations and the divisions that became apparent, he presents the Declaration of Principles agreed at Geneva and the Plan of Action adopted at the same time; he also sets out the issues carried over until the second phase (financing the efforts to close the digital divide plus governance of the Internet).
He then goes on to present the issues to be discussed in Tunis, namely: how to consolidate the gains, translate the principles into actions, resolve the problem of financing efforts to overcome the digital divide and improve the governance of the Internet (i.e. control of the development and use of the network). Whatever the outcome of the second phase, further international discussions will take place and will build on the Summit’s deliberations on the information society.