Digital Dialogue

The international community must work together to secure the participation of all cultural, social and linguistic groups in the creation of a knowledge-based society

The World Summit on the Information Society held its opening session on 10 December 2003, hearing from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, as well as its host, Pascal Couchepin, President of the Swiss confederation.

Dr. Kazem Motamednejad, Professor of Communications at the Allameh Tabatabaiee University and a member of the Communications Committee in Iran’s National UNESCO Commission, who attended the conference as part of Iran’s delegation spoke with Iran International upon his return and said the issues surrounding the information society, and the opportunities for human progress provided by information and communication technologies (ICTs), were at the center of international debate.

Two key, distinct but interrelated international policy concerns in this context are:

i) How to ensure that all citizens have access to essential information, and
ii) How to harness ICTs effectively to combat poverty and foster development.

Progress in both of these areas requires effective partnerships among government, civil society and the private sector. While industry and private initiatives are principally responsible for providing the infrastructure for access to information resources, governments and the civil society have a major responsibility to make information and knowledge universally available for educational, cultural and social needs. The challenge is to define the concepts of universal access in a global context so as to promote the public welfare while encouraging private initiative and protecting rightful economic interests.

But such efforts may be insufficient unless they are coupled with initiatives to promote the participation of local users and to satisfy their information needs. The most disadvantaged people on earth may well be unplugged, yet they often have substantial stores of knowledge essential for their own lives and potentially useful for others. They also typically require additional relevant information and knowledge for their particular needs, information which is unlikely already to be on the internet. While replicating and disseminating information can be both fast and cheap, generating, acquiring and evaluating knowledge is a far more intricate and costly process, particularly when this involves training and empowering local people. This situation results in special needs, opportunities and challenges in serving the citizens of the developing countries, and in turn requires an appropriate mix of policy and action at the international, regional and national levels on the one hang, and at the national, sub-national and local levels on the other.

It is largely for these reasons that UNESCO has recommended the pluralist concept of knowledge societies rather than that of a single global information society. Knowledge societies, capable of generating new knowledge in an interactive and cooperative process, are built up through long-term institutional, social and political intermediation, including regional and sub-regional cooperation which were at the center of the agenda of the global summit.

As in any healthy debate, different views and competencies were involved. To achieve consensus and cooperation, it is important to agree on some major principles which are enshrined in the universal instruments on human rights, namely: equal access to education; freedom of opinion and expression; and the preservation and promotion of cultural diversity, including multilingualism.

UNESCO has, since its founding, had a mandate to promote international cooperation and development in Communication and Information, and for the past decade this theme has formed one of the Organization’s five program sectors.

The intergovernmental Information for All Program (IFAP) provides a framework for international cooperation and international and regional partnerships in the information field. It supports the development of common strategies, methods and tools for building a just and free information society and for narrowing the gap between the information rich and the information poor.

Iran’s Standing: Speaking during the general debate of the WSIS was Mohammad Khatami, President of the Islamic Republic of Iran. He said the information society was a new opportunity for the entire world population. It was important to seek a solution and work out a formula so that the exchange of information in the information society led to dialogue and shortened distances. At the outset of the millennium, he had raised the need for “dialogue among civilizations”, and in the age of cyberspace, too, one must continue to encourage and promote such dialogue. The information society must take cultural diversity as the foundation for the common existence of human society and must be able to rely on it. The international community must work together to secure the participation of all cultural, social and linguistic groups in the creation of a knowledge-based society.

Khatami expressed concern about inequalities in the development of the infrastructure and global access to and use of ICTs. It was important to focus on the objective of turning the digital gaps into digital opportunities through the promotion and consolidation of digital ties. In this perspective, it was important to strive and endeavor towards the fulfillment of rights, such as the right to development, the right to communication and the right to information. He appealed to the international community to help create new capacities in the developing countries and to assist them with their empowerment. It was important to ensure that an information society would be established not as an extension of the present status quo, but on a new foundation. It was also necessary to reach consensus on the principles of new life for human beings, and new and more ethical, humane and fair conventions must be formulated. In addition, no government must have the right to impose unilateral decisions, depriving other nations from their rights, including correct access to information.