Overview of the World Summit on the Information Society: Focus on Access to Environmental Data
Paul F. Uhlir
The National Academies, USA
The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is a high-level
international forum administered by the International Telecommunications
Union involving heads of states, ministries, civil society, and industry
to address the challenges posed by the emerging "Information Society."
According to United Nations (UN) Resolution 56/183, the purpose of the
WSIS is to "marshal the global consensus and commitment required to
promote the urgently needed access of all countries to information,
knowledge and communication technologies for development so as to reap
the full benefits of the information and communication technologies
revolution." The WSIS is being held in two phases. The first was in
Geneva, 10-12 December 2003, and hosted by the government of
Switzerland. The second is planned to take place in Tunis, Tunisia,
16-18 November 2005. The Geneva summit brought together almost 15,000
experts and officially adopted a Declaration of Principles and a Plan of
Action that will be used to prepare for the second phase. The Tunis
summit will provide a greater focus on the issues of greatest concern to
developing countries, and will assess progress on the Plan of Action and
implementation of the agreed Principles. This presentation will provide
a brief overview of the WSIS process and the main documents, describe
the role of the scientific community, highlight the issues most relevant
to the environmental research and data community, and describe some of
the activities that are already being planned in preparation for the
Tunis summit.
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