Effat El-Shooky

The World Summit Information Society (WSIS) has successfully managed to place a new issue on the global agenda, which is Information Society. The first phase of the Summit that was held in Geneva, 2003, was indeed an effective starting point for a shared platform of knowledge and vision of ICT for Development.

The Summit provided us with the genuine opportunity of becoming familiar with WHO is doing WHAT on the ICT sphere. The three-day Summit has created a rich and stimulated dialogue between all stakeholders from both the public and private sectors allowing all players to openly express their interests, visions and activities. In addition, the diverse Summit events - roundtable meetings, talks, debates, and presentations - have opened up many critical issues for discussion and debate; namely, internet governance, Intellectual Property Rights, universal access policies, multilingual and localized content and ICT funding. In actuality, all issues revolved around one core theme: ICT 4 D. Being involved in such discussions, I managed to gain excellent understanding of how to use ICT to achieve the Millennium Development Goals; particularly to promote capacity building, sustainable economic development, social service delivery and poverty reduction. In other words, how to use ICT to make the world a better place.

Admittedly, one of the prime achievements of the summit was gaining the WILL and COMMITMENT of policy makers to make ICT a top priority. On the strategic level, Geneva WSIS great gain was getting heads of states, ministers and government delegates in the process of National Strategy Building. The three-day Summit witnessed government-level dialogues with the outcome of national and regional ICT strategies and a shared vision of how to actively involve the developing countries in the global Information society revolution and how to empower them to build their own inclusive Information Societies.

Another notable triumph of the Summit was the orchestrated gathering of such a huge number of Non Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that are involved in the ICT chain, all with the same goal in mind: ICT 4 D. For the first time, a harmonized "exhibition" for development prevailed where all NGOs displayed their ICT initiatives, projects, programs and concepts; and above all, potential partnership readiness. Such partnerships and collaboration, in my opinion, lay the foundation for an inclusive knowledge-based society upon which the flourishing of a healthy Information Society relies.

The three-day Summit concluded with a clear Declaration of Principles and Plan of Action. However, such documents are merely strategies and plans on paper unless they are translated into real projects to be implemented. In this retrospect, the WSIS Geneva was rather an agenda-setting event that set forth a shared vision for ICT 4 D; gained the will and commitment of stakeholders; and ultimately, laid out the road map to build on that vision. Thus, the real challenge lies ahead of us - on the road to Tunis 2005 - where all implementation policies adopted in the Geneva Plan of Action will be assessed to ensure that the Information Society is on the right track. Tunis 2005 WSIS will measure Geneva ambitious goals and, most importantly, those pertaining to future alliances and partnerships.

Since the Regional Information Technology and Software Engineering Center (RITSEC) is an NGO with the mission of utilizing ICT for the national and regional development of the Arab and African world, our focus next stage is on building long-term partnership and cooperative relationships. Celebrating our first decade marked addressing our new vision of entering the second decade which is developing regional projects in the fields of knowledge, innovation, and content development as an attempt to lay the foundation for the knowledge-based economy in the Arab and African regions and open the road for an inclusive Information Society to prevail. Therefore, we are looking forward for concrete partnerships in projects related to the WSIS; hence, by the time we go to Tunis 2005, we would have indeed move steps ahead. So, let's keep the spirit of collaboration alive until and beyond Tunis WSIS, 2005.

Effat El-Shooky
Vice President and Director of the
Regional Distance Learning Program
Regional Information Technology and Software Engineering Center (RITSEC)