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Convergence, Bandwidth, WSIS, Global: The occasion of the Internet Governance Forum gave the Association for Progressive Communications the opportunity to launch three new papers on key ICT policy and internet rights issues. The papers are available in French and English.
The importance of convergence in the ICT policy environment is both the title and subject of Kate Wild’s paper. The authoress (who has had extensive experience in IT after working for the UN International Labour Office and the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and who is presently an independent consultant based in Toronto) takes a look at the meaning as well as the importance of convergence, before going on to consider some of the challenges to implementing convergence, along with the strategies for overcoming such challenges. Kate Wild also provides a global perspective on regulating convergence and broadband from ITU. She draws on experiences from North America and Europe as well as regional and country approaches in Africa. Open access: lowering the costs of international bandwidth in Africa is Mike Jensen’s paper. It is particularly helpful as it is written by a pioneer in email usage who is now a South African independent consultant with vast experience in setting up ICT across Africa. APC commissioned this paper as part of the Catalysing Access to ICTs in Africa initiative and also to contribute to APC's efforts to promote open access to ICT infrastructure in Africa. According to Mike Jensen, a variety of factors is causing the lack of access to bandwidth in Africa, but in his opinion the biggest cause is the high cost of international connections to the global telecommunication backbones. Who will control and monitor the information society and what impact will it have forms the backbone of WSIS: Whose information society? Developing country and civil society voices in the World Summit on the Information Society. Another author approached by APC, Nigerian-based Professor David Souter, has studied developing country and civil society participation and influence in WSIS. As well as analysing that participation, the study looks at the impact of WSIS on international ICT decision-making in general, and makes recommendations to all main actors about how future decision-making might become more inclusive of developing countries, non-governmental actors and their concerns. More info: |
