Building bridges, virtually.

Global communication began barely a hundred years ago when Rudyard Kipling was inspired by the laying of undersea telegraph lines to write in his poem, "The Deep-Sea Cables": "A new word runs between: whispering, 'let us be one!'"

Mired in the sloughs of the deep, the cables became a determining technological and economic engine of the time and revolutionized communications in as profound a way as the Internet is doing today. But oceans and continents were not the difficult bridge to cross; the world still laboured under economic, social and cultural barriers to communication. And to understanding, learning and tolerance.

The first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)--the first global effort to share and shape the use of information and communications technologies (ICTs)--ended after three days of negotiations on 12 December 2003 in Geneva. Over 50 heads of State, Prime Ministers, Presidents and Vice-Presidents and more than 80 ministers and vice-ministers from some 175 countries came together at the Summit. They adopted the Declaration of Principles on the Information Society and the Plan of Action, emphasizing cooperation among Governments, private business and civil society to help bridge the digital divide. WSIS also began the process of looking at how to break down the economic, social and cultural barriers that, in fact, continue to exist today.

Secretary-General Kofi Annan alluded to the enormous work ahead by noting that while technology had given birth to the information age, it was up to everyone to forge an inclusive information society. "From trade to telemedicine, from education to environmental protection, we have in our hands, on our desktops and in the skies above, the ability to improve standards of living for millions upon millions of people", he said.

Yoshio Utsumi, Secretary-General of the Summit, as well as of the International Telecommunication Union, at the closing session cautioned that in the past such sea changes as the advent of the information society "have led to winners and losers. Some countries have prospered, while others have fallen behind. It could happen once again and, if we do not take any action now, existing gaps may be widened."

Counselling against the world making the same mistakes, Utsumi said that this phase should be seen as "only the start of a long and complex process". Some of the original objectives of WSIS had included making ICTs a global priority, bringing together public and private-sector players to forge an inclusive dialogue and beginning to bridge the digital divide between wealthy and poor countries. With respect to the first two, this Geneva phase of WSIS was an unambiguous success. And although much remains to be done on the digital divide, some steps were charted. Questions on infrastructure financing, for which many developing countries had been pressing, were left for further discussion and action as work progresses to the second phase, scheduled for Tunis from 16 to 18 November 2005.

In all, some 11,000 Government, civil society, science and private sector representatives, working in front of television and web cam eras, assembled in Geneva to shape a global commitment on harnessing the power of telecommunications technologies, such as the Internet and cellular telephony, to achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) adopted in 2000 to combat poverty, hunger, inequality in education and diseases such as HIV/AIDS, all by 2015. Among the targets set is to connect all schools, villages, Governments and hospitals with ICTs by 2015 and bring half of the world's population within the reach of ICTs.

The WSIS Declaration entitled "Building the Information Society: a global challenge in the new Millennium", reflected the shared desire of Governments to build an information society where everyone could create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge. It would enable people and communities to promote sustainable development and improve their quality of life, premised on the Charter of the United Nations and on upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

In the WSIS Declaration, the participants reaffirmed as an essential foundation of the information society, and as outlined in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; that this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference, and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

They further reaffirmed their commitment to the provisions of Article 29 that everyone has duties to the community, in which alone the free and full development of their personality is possible.

Further, it was declared that the international management of the Internet should be multilateral, transparent and democratic. It was recognized that: policy authority for Internet-related public policy issues is the sovereign right of States; the private sector should continue to have an important role in the development of the Internet, as well as civil society; and intergovernmental organizations should continue to have a facilitating role in the coordination of Internet-related public policy issues Secretary-General Annan was asked to set up by 2005 a working group to investigate and make proposals on the governance of the Internet and to ensure a mechanism for active participation of Governments, the private sector and civil society from both developing and developed countries.

The Plan of Action asks States to promote the spread and use of ICTs, even among those parts of society that currently do not use them; for instance, everyone should also have access to television and radio services.

Participants identified national e-strategies as key vehicles to meet the targets. Connecting public places, revising school curricula, extending the reach of television and radio broadcasting services, and fostering rich multilingual content are all recognized as needing strong national-level governmental commitments. To encourage and assist Governments in this work, the Summit also foresees the development of international statistical indicators to provide yardsticks of progress and exchange "best practice" models in the interests of sustainable ICT development.

For people to obtain the necessary skills to benefit from the information society, capacity-building and ICT literacy are fundamental. According to the Plan of Action, ICTs can contribute to achieving universal education worldwide "through delivery of education and training of teachers, and offering improved conditions for lifelong learning, encompassing people that are outside the formal education process, and improving professional skills".

Governments are also asked to work on removing gender barriers to ICT and promote equal training opportunities for women and girls. Furthermore, the Plan recommends that distance learning, training and other forms of education be part of capacity-building programmes, with special attention to developing and least developed countries in different levels of human resources development.

According to the Plan, by 2005, all countries should encourage the development of national e-strategies. Each country is encouraged to establish at least one functioning public/private or multi-sector partnership. The viability of establishing so-called "multi-stakeholder" portals for indigenous peoples at the national level should also be explored. ICT equipment and services should be designed to meet the special needs of older people, persons with disabilities, marginalized children and other disadvantaged and vulnerable groups.

The Plan also calls for cultural and linguistic diversity in the information society and urges policies reflecting cultural heritage and linguistic diversity. Another concern is building confidence and security in the use of ICTs. It asks Governments, in cooperation with the private sector, to prevent, detect and respond to cyber-crime and ICT misuse.

In fact, the Action Plan seeks to build as many virtual bridges as possible across the digital divide--or divides, as Mr. Annan has called them, stressing that "the digital divide is not just digital". In his opening speech to WSIS, he suggested that the digital divide is actually several gaps in one: technological divide, with great gaps in infrastructure; content divide, where much of web-based information "is simply not relevant to the real needs of people, and nearly 70 per cent of the world's web sites are in English"; gender divide, with women and girls enjoying less access to information technology than men and boys; and lastly, commercial divide, where e-commerce is "linking some countries and companies ever more closely together, but others run the risk of further marginalization".

Nevertheless, the Summit may be able to bridge more than a digital divide; it may have shaped the opportunity to begin to build bridges that span the divide between economic, social and cultural gaps of peoples around the world.

On 10 December, Secretary-General Kofi Annan sent an e-mail from the original Web server at Palexpo in Geneva, to students participating in the World Summit Event for Schools--a side event to WSIS. Following is the text:

"I am excited to be sending you this e-mail from the computer that Tim Berners-Lee used at CERN to write the original World Wide Web software in 1990--just 13 years ago. At that time, no one--not even Tim--could have dreamt that within a few years the Internet would connect millions of people all over the world in the blink of an eye. Just think how fast it has developed. Today, more information can be sent over a single cable in one second than was sent over the entire Internet during a whole month six years ago.

Today, Tim and I are e-mailing you from Geneva, Switzerland, where world leaders are gathering to discuss how they can make sure that communication and information technologies benefit everyone. As participants from more than 80 countries in the World Summit Event for Schools, you are an inspiration to us all. And it's good that on this day, the 55th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, you are exercising your right 'to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers'.

I hope you will keep communicating with each other to build bridges of understanding between people and countries. By using technology in this way, you will bring us all closer to a more just and peaceful world, in which access to the Internet will be a right enjoyed by everyone. May this World Summit help us to see the world as a domain we all share."