TUNIS : A REVIEW

"The World needs the Internet to unleash the true potential of it's people,but the lifeblood of the digital revolution is freedom."
-Kofi Annan,Secretary General, United Nations

WSIS-World Summit of the Information Soceity took place at Tunis during Nov.16-18 which saw over 10,000 participants from 173 countries including dozens of head of States and Governments, Business leaders as well as Technology experts.It was a UN-sponsored Summit aimed at bridging the digital divide between the rich and the poor countries.

Earlier in Dec.2003 first WSIS took place at Geneva.The Geneva summit adopted a Declaration of Principles and an Action Plan, outlining a common vision of building a people-oriented information society and setting a goal of bringing half of the world population online by 2015.

According to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 942 million people living in developed nations enjoy five times better access to fixed and mobile services, nine times better access to Internet services and own 13 times more personal computers than the 85 percent of the world population living in low and lower-middle income nations.

Today, the dividing lines between the rich and the poor, between the North and the South, are the fibre-optic and high speed digital lines.The information revolution is at present with much liberty,a little fraternity and no egality. It is yet to deliver the goods,or even the tools to obtain them, to many of those most in need.
If digital divide is an over-used term,it represents a bitter reality which can never be denied.

Building an open, empowering information society is a social, ecocomic as well as political challenge.


"This Summit is not an end but just a beginning...."
-Yoshio Utsumi,Secretary-General
International Telecommunication Union