The World Summit on information society

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At the end of the first phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) that took place in Geneva from 10th to 12th December 2003, the participants failed to adopt a Declaration of Principles based on a common vision of the « information society » as well as to translate their goal to reduce the « digital divide » into concrete action lines in the Plan of Action. Their inability to analyse seriously the consequences of the partial globalization of communication – induced by the privatization of telecommunications begun in the eighties, and legitimized by the rhetoric of information society – explains this failure to define such a common vision. Without a systematic evaluation of virtues and vices of the market economy, the ability of States to define an information society truly democratic and inclusive before the end of the second phase, to take place in Tunis from 16th to 18th November 2005, seems to be already strongly compromised. – Summary AFRI-2004