Background, etc.
At the first phase (Geneva Phase) of WSIS held in 2003, in Geneva, a shared vision on information society was established and the "Geneva Declaration of Principles" and the "Plan of Action" for harmonious development towards the realization of this vision were adopted.
At the second phase (Tunis Phase) of WSIS, deliberations were made upon i) concrete measures and mechanisms for implementation of the "Geneva Declaration of Principles" and the "Plan of Action," and ii) issues not yet decided at the Geneva Phase, including the Internet Governance. At the closing plenary, the "Tunis Commitment" and the "Tunis Agenda for the Information Society," were adopted.
Outline
From Japan, Dr. TAKENAKA Heizo, Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications, attended and delivered a statement at the Plenary of the Summit. MIC held a workshop under the theme of "Toward the realization of a ubiquitous network society -- aiming at bridging the digital divide --." At the "Japan Pavilion," Japanese ICT-related companies, etc. exhibited the latest ICT technologies and applications.
In the "Tunis Commitment" and the "Tunis Agenda for the Information Society," the importance of efforts to realize a ubiquitous network society was included based upon Japan's proposals.
Outline of the Tunis Phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
Schedule
Held from 16 to 18 November, 2005 at Kram PalExpo in Tunis (Tunisia)
Participants
About 20,000 people participated from 174 countries, representing governments, international organizations, private sector, and civil society. 46 of the countries had their heads of state present.
Outline of the summit’s final documents
The Tunis Commitment
A document which recorded the declaration of principles and philosophy toward the realization of an information society. The following sentence; “We reaffirm our desire to build ICT networks and develop applications, in partnership with the private sector, based on open or interoperable standards that are affordable and accessible to all, available anywhere and anytime, to anyone and on any device, leading to a ubiquitous network.”, which was originally proposed by Japan, was included in the text.
The Tunis Agenda
Eleven principles that are key to the information society, such as improving information infrastructure and developing human resources, were listed in the Declaration of Principles and the Plan of Action adopted in Geneva. The Tunis Agenda recorded measures for their concrete implementation, as well as the issues that were left over from the previous summit such as financial support mechanisms and Internet governance. The document is made up of the following 4 chapters.
Chapter 1: Introduction
Chapter 2: Financial mechanisms for meeting the challenges of ICT for development
The point of greatest interest was the handling of the Digital Solidarity Fund which had been proposed by Senegal and other countries at the previous summit, and agreement was reached as follows: “We welcome the Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) established in Geneva as an innovative financial mechanism of voluntary nature open to interested stakeholders with the objective of transforming the digital divide into digital opportunities for developing world…. The DSF will complement existing mechanisms for funding the Information Society….”
Chapter 3: Internet governance
With current Internet governance functioning efficiently, it was pointed out that there was a need to deal on an international level with various new issues such as spam and cybersecurity. With regard to Internet governance issues, a request was made to the UN Secretary-General to convene a meeting of the new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue—called the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and the decision was taken to host the first meeting in Athens (Greece) no later than the second quarter of 2006.
Chapter 4: Implementation and follow-up
(1) The phrase “building ICT networks and developing services that are available anywhere and anytime, to anyone and on any device” was included in the text.
(2) The necessity, proposed by Japan, of building an information dissemination system for the population, through an early warning system, was also included in the text.
(3) With regard to concrete methods for implementation of the Geneva Plan of Action, the decision was taken to have international organizations such as ITU, UNESCO and UNDP to act as moderators, on each Action Line as decided by the Annex of the document.
Concerning the MIC Minister’s statement
Statements were made by the various countries’ heads of state or ministers. From Japan, Dr. TAKENAKA Heizo, Minister for Internal Affairs and Communications, attended and made a statement addressing Japan’s approach to bridging the digital divide, and the importance of the realization of a ubiquitous network society as a framework for the coming information society.
Concerning related events
Along with the Plenary of the Summit, a number of parallel events were organized by various groups including governments and civil society. Japan implemented a workshop that considered the realization of a ubiquitous network society from the point of view of bridging the digital divide, as well as an exhibition (The Japan Pavilion) presented by 13 Japanese corporations and others under the theme of “Toward the realization of the ubiquitous network society.” More than 10,000 people were expected to have visited this exhibition.
Other
There were 160 participants from Japan, coming from government, corporations and civil society, at the Tunis Phase.
