(from the preface of the reader Visions in Process)

Such technologies, if properly deployed, have the potential to contribute to the solution of the planet’s most pressing problems. These problems and aims were agreed upon by the international community in the Millennium Declaration of 2000, which declared as its highest priorities: the fight against hunger and poverty, the improvement of health services and of the education system, and the promotion of environmental sustainability.

However, the world has changed since 2000. Conflicts between North and South – as well as between countries of the respective regions – have increased considerably. This has resulted in frictions during WSIS negotiations that are similar to those that emerged during, and led to the failure of, the WTO talks in Cancun in September of this year. Different paths of development always pose the question of whether or not the hightech societies of the West, along with their social systems and values – free markets, technology as intellectual property, individualism, and consumerism – may become globalised.

Civil Society members from all over the world welcomed the WSIS as an opportunity to meet the challenge and worked together on contributing their share to a common vision for the Information Society. Civil society’s approach encompasses a broader reflection of the potential inherent in the combination of technology and knowledge. It aims at shaping the common vision of a Knowledge Society which

• recognises that knowledge is the heritage and the property of humanity and thus a "common good" that must be accessible for all under fair conditions and that must be preserved in all media formats for future generations;
• denies the privatisation and commercial exploitation of the knowledge commons and knowledge and which encourages instead the sharing of knowledge as a means to achieve sustainable development and societal innovation fostering people’s creativity and the public domain worldwide;
• empowers all people, especially women and marginalised, to participate in public affairs, communicating self-determined and freely and having the right to inform themselves through all public resources and independent media without interference, manipulation or control;
• offers equal opportunities to all to access to education as well as access to all media and ICTs enabling a self-determined life based on and assuming responsibility for human rights, a lived democracy, and sustainable development.

[...]

This publication compiles contributions presenting the civil society approach on key issues of the WSIS Declaration drafts. The authors from Germany, Denmark and Switzerland have participated since the beginning in the preparatory process and in the national and international debates of civil society. Contributions were solicited from German industry and the German government, too.

WSIS will not end in 2003. This publication wants to summarise arguments and points of disagreement in order to further the debate on the path to Tunis 2005.

Berlin, November 2003 - Ralf Fücks is member of the HBF-Executive Board

Contents of the Reader "Visions in Process"

• The Charter of Civil Rights for a Sustainable Knowledge Society - A Vision with Practical Consequences
• A Human Rights Perspective on the World Summit on the Information Society
• WSIS: The Industry View
• Gender and the WSIS Process: War of the Words
• On the Question of Financing at the World Summit on the Information Society
• How Public is the Public Domain?
• Fighting Intellectual Poverty: Who Owns and Controls the Information Societies?
• Internet Governance: ICANN vs ITU?
• National Security or Civil Liberties? WSIS Debate on Security Issues in Deadlock
• Grassroots Communication for a People-Centered Information Society: Community Media is at the Centre of Civil Society Efforts at the WSIS
• Why are Communication Rights so Controversial?

The whole reader can be downloaded from here (pdf, 63 p., 324 KB)