WSIS Asia-Pacific Regional Conference. Tokyo (Japan), 13-15 January 2003  

At the meeting, representatives of 48 Governments, 21 International Organizations, 53 Private Sector Entities and 116 NGOs discussed a number of issues related to the Information Society and debated over the content of the final output of the meeting, a document called the Tokyo Declaration. The Declaration will go forward as an substantial input of the Asia-Pacific Region to the second preparatory meeting of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) which will be held from 17 to 28 February 2003 in Geneva bringing together participants from around the world as part of the large planning process that must precede the December Summit.

The Tokyo Declaration touches on a wide range of issues related to the Information

Society and includes a call for greater information security, a balance between content owners and users in the area of intellectual property rights, and more work on the digital divide.

The conference heard more pledges to bridge the digital divide and several points in the Declaration focuses on extending the benefits of the information society to the poor and otherwise disadvantaged.

"The digital divide unfortunately is widening," said Kim Hak Su, the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for the Asia-Pacific and the U.N.'s highest ranking official in Asia.

"This digital divide will be with us for some years to come and we have to work very hard. There is no magic formula but we should work hard," he said. Kim admitted that promises to help have been made before and the problem often comes down to paying for things. "We need the private sector to do many things. Governments cannot do everything anymore."

Speaking after the event, a number of NGOs that had taken part in the summit said they were broadly satisfied with the outcome but had hoped for greater commitment in a number of areas such as a social justice. They were satisfied with the inclusion of a reference to human rights in the declaration, despite some attempts to change it, they said.

The groups also repeated protests over the deregistration of NGOs from Taiwan on Tuesday as the result of repeated protests by the Chinese government delegation.

"There is discrimination against the principles of WSIS for a comprehensive inclusion of all stakeholders in the information society including civil society, which includes Taiwanese NGOs as well," said Chuang Chiting, the International Affairs Director of the Taiwan Association for Human Rights.

"As Taiwan is a very powerful ICT country and it provides major input to the information society, we do hope our voices can be heard and be constructive towards a better future in the international community," she said. The representatives were allowed to stay at the meeting under the affiliation of a Japanese NGO.

For more information, see: www. www.wsis-japan.jp