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Date: 2003-08-16 |
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Statement of the Club of Rome to the
World Summit on the Information Society, Geneva, 2003
Towards a New Age of Information and Knowledge for All
Foreword
The emergence of a networked knowledge society in the next twenty to
thirty years is a major paradigm shift from the industrial model of the nineteenth
and twentieth century. This transition is of crucial importance in opening
up new opportunities for education, social inclusion, and more efficient
use of resources. Information and communication technologies are the effective
tools of this transition.
They are a “tool for development”, not a “reward for development”.
They have the potential to empower billions of people; to enable sustainable
development, and enhance human dignity. They can offer new access to education
for and by the people even in the most remote regions; bring improved health
care; help eradicate poverty, empower women and build sustainable communities.
They can enable self-expression, new knowledge creation and cultural diversity,
and continued and sustainable economic growth. They must be harnessed to
the goal of globally sustainable development.
Since the debate on the first report commissioned by the Club of Rome,
Limits to Growth, in the 1970s and the Earth Summit in Rio in 1992, the deterioration
of the earth’s environment has been of growing concern. In the 1990s, the
challenges of poverty and governance have risen to the top of the political
agenda. The integration of these concerns in international debates on world
trade and finance now constitutes the agenda for Sustainable Development.
It has been developed through the adoption of the Millennium Development
Goals in 2000, through the launching of the Doha Development Agenda in 2001,
and at the World Summit on Sustainable development in 2002.
The World Summit on the Information Society must be the next step. The
transition to a networked knowledge society, based on wide use of information
and communication technologies, cannot be a separate process driven by our
fascination with technology for its own sake or for short-term competitive
advantage.
Prince El Hassan bin Talal
President of the Club of Rome
Executive Summary
The Millennium Declaration of the UN General Assembly has highlighted
the major challenges facing mankind. They have to be tackled in the next
decades for the benefit of all. At the World Summit on Sustainable Development
in Johannesburg, the world community has set the objectives and action plans
to reach a sustainable world. The present World Summit on the Information
Society (WSIS) must be the next step.
The networked knowledge society is nothing less than a paradigm-shift
form the industrial model of the two past centuries. It can introduce new
patterns of social structure and behavior, of public and private organization,
of production and trade. It can re-define the links and relationships between
people, nations and religions. Low-cost access to networks –fiber, cable,
wireless and satellite- can empower creativity, innovation and local entrepreneurship,
as well as strengthen local communities, and improve resource-productivity:
getting more value from less.
The reduction of the ‘digital divide’ is therefore rightly a world priority.
This requires appropriate technology development, and education in use of
technologies, as well as effective use of technologies for education and
capacity building. These technologies and programs must fit a wide range
of skills, native languages, local traditions and indigenous knowledge. When
they do, the transition to a networked knowledge society can be a real step
towards the alleviation of poverty and therefore a substantial contribution
towards a sustainable world society.
The full benefit from use of ICT for development cannot be realized
without addressing the need to preserve and enhance cultural diversity. The
potential richness of the emerging knowledge society depends on safeguarding
humanity’s cultural heritage and diversity in creativity.
ICT can also play a crucial role in protecting and managing our environment.
It can help monitor natural resources; natural disasters; climate change,
fresh water depletion, desert extension and forest depletion, and many others.
A systemic approach for monitoring and early warning must be supported by
the international community and urgently implemented.
Effective and collaborative world governance is the next major challenge
for mankind: in health, environment, safeguarding bio- and cultural diversity
and sustainable development. The emerging knowledge society adds new challenges:
ensuring rights of access to and creation of knowledge; re-defining and protecting
the ‘commons’, especially related to knowledge and Intellectual Property
Rights; assuring privacy; addressing the coherency and simultaneity of the
infrastructure developments and the educational processes, and finally caring
for stability and security in the transition towards a sustainable world
society.
Recommended Actions
* Redefine the common goods of mankind in regard of the emerging knowledge
society in which a large part of knowledge can be regarded as public goods.
* Enhance the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in which the right
to access and creation of information must be explicitly addressed and protect
the private sphere of all participants in Cyberspace.
* Reduce the ‘digital divide’ and empower women through education.
* Encourage the use of “open-source” software especially in developing
countries, to facilitate the reduction of the ‘digital divide’.
* Connect all the World’s universities and high-schools in the same
sort of high-speed network for research, education and collaborative development
as is available in Europe and the US.
* Develop a global structure and management facility for Global
Monitoring for the environment to enable the acquisition of structured data
and the improvement of environmental management and development;
* Elaborate new analytical tools for risk analysis and mechanisms to
dampen financial and political instabilities. Stability and security are
conditions for sustainable development.
* Bridging of the ‘Digital Divide’ requires a simultaneous development
of infrastructure of ICT networks and –when necessary- of local electrical
power, and the training of future teachers.
* Involve and broaden the involvement of Civil Society with its many
NGOs and other organisations, in the implementation processes of Plans of
Action agreed upon in World Summits and International Conferences.
1. A New World Frame for Sustainable Development
The agenda for Sustainable Development has been developed through a
series of major UN conferences in the 90s, starting with the Conference on
Environment and Development in Rio in 1992. In the last three years, progress
has accelerated in five important meetings:
The United Nations Millennium Declaration was adopted in September 2000.
In it, Heads of State and Governments repeated their commitment to the fundamental
values of freedom, equality, solidarity, tolerance, respect for nature and
shared responsibility. It was accompanied by the Millennium Development Goals:
including halving extreme poverty and hunger; to achieve universal primary
education; empower women and promote equality between women and men; ensure
environmental sustainability; and create a global partnership for development
-with targets for aid, trade and debt relief.
The Brussels Declaration in May 2001 reaffirmed the critical
role played by the official development assistance for the Least Developed
Countries (LDCs), and the speedy implementation of the Heavily Indebted Poor
Countries initiative. It emphasized that improving the welfare of people
is indispensable to sustainable development.
The Doha Ministerial Declaration in November 2001 at the WTO Ministerial
Conference recognized the need for a new multi-lateral trade framework for
further economic development and alleviation of poverty. It recognized that
LDCs are vulnerable and must be helped to secure beneficial and meaningful
integration into the global economy. It recognized that enhanced market access,
balanced rules, and well targeted, sustainable financed technical assistance
and capacity-building programs are needed.
The fourth, the Monterrey Consensus, adopted in March 2002 recognized
that in an increasingly interdependent world economy, a holistic approach
to financing sustainable, gender-sensitive, people-centered development -in
all parts of the world- is essential. It defined Leading Actions, including
stimulation of foreign direct investment, increasing international trade,
financial and technical cooperation, relieving external debt, stimulating
good governance and fighting corruption.
The fifth, the Johannesburg Summit Declaration and Implementation Plan
of September 2002 recognized that poverty eradication, changing unsustainable
consumption and production patterns, and protecting and managing the natural
resource base are essential requirements for economic and social development.
It recognized that the increasing gap between the rich and the poor, as well
as between developed and developing countries, pose major threats to global
security and stability, and that continued degradation of the global environment
is a major hindrance to sustainable prosperity.
All these conferences have created a real new framework for action and
reflection on world developments. Their Declarations provide specific goals
and timeframes. The present World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)
must be the sixth step in this process. The emergence of new information
and communication technologies are creating a new paradigm: “the networked
knowledge society”.
2. ICT and Innovation for Sustainable Development
2.1 Creating the conditions for sustainable development through use of ICT
Sustainable development depends on the involvement of everyone and their
willingness to take responsibility for our collective future. Everyone will
need relevant information in forms that they can understand and use, as well
as skills and motivation which will facilitate change. Therefore raising
awareness through access to knowledge is most important. Reducing the “Digital
Divide” is therefore rightly a world-wide priority. Without determined action,
uneven growth of the networked knowledge economy will increase inequity,
its visibility and its social consequences. Frustrated young people see the
huge difference between the lifestyles in the US and Europe and their own,
with migration to these wealthy regions as their only alternative to continued
poverty.
While attention naturally focuses on the most disadvantaged
– the one billion poorest in rural and most remote areas, a high priority
must be to establish market frameworks in which access can be broadened to
the “next 2 billion”. These are predominantly young people (12-30) living
in rapidly growing urban environments. This is the population most likely
to gain immediate benefit; which has the curiosity and enthusiasm to drive
the social and entrepreneurial innovations; with the greatest need for knowledge
and with sufficient aggregate financial resources to provide an adequate
return on investment.
Technologies are not a solution to development problems on their own.
They can be valuable contributions to development in combination with a full
range of other measures.
2.2 Network and Power Infrastructure
The liberalization of information and communication network infrastructure
and service provision -particularly at the local level (for W-LAN and inter-connection
to mobile telephone networks)- has to be implemented. PC-based access to
the Internet is not necessarily the best “technology package”, for many development
purposes: much more may be possible with voice communications (mobile telephone
or VoIP/W-LAN systems); or with digital radio and TV at the local community
level.
The generalization of wireless and satellite communication provides
access of local and remote communities to information and empowers the preservation
and sharing of indigenous knowledge.
Numerous experiments and initiatives in rural and remote places as well
as in urban areas are underway today in Africa, Asia, the Middle East and
elsewhere. They have in common the determination of people to share of new
facilities, and to achieve a better life for the present and coming generations.
Several examples show the possibility to improve local health care and medical
services, to increase local agriculture production and trade, to empower
women, to organize education at all levels, to build local indigenous knowledge
centres and to start to provide e-government services.
Taking advantage of the wireless communication facilities necessitates
the provision of decentralized electricity facilities. Today, a variety of
technologies are applicable to these conditions. However, in the long run,
sustainable renewable energy sources such as biomass, solar cells, etc. must
make an increased contribution.
2.3 Education for Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building
The 'digital divide' is but one element of a broad gap that
separates the rich from the poor. Development of appropriate ICT has the
potential to narrow that the gap. However, the broadening of participation
in and responsible engagements with the information society must also focus
much more on education and entrepreneurship. The efforts must also go far
beyond simple provision of access to infrastructure and affordable terminals
and services. Education and innovation are linked to the creation and dissemination
of knowledge, and as a global public good, through its sharing and integration
into the chain of value creation.
Basic education for most people is not sufficient to achieve
a sustainable knowledge society, worldwide. It will be necessary to move
beyond the Millennium Development Goals in a huge effort to develop educational
systems on all levels.
̃ Education for ICT
People need skills and knowledge in order to handle the information
flows they will be confronted with. Education for ICT is necessary to promote
the use of local knowledge with new technologies. To allow the emergence
of “multiple modernities”, indigenous knowledge has to be fully integrated
into the new social reality. Cultural and linguistic diversity is to be fostered
as an element of global cohesion. In the process of deepening democracy and
participation, people also need to be able to contribute to the knowledge
circulating in society. Ownership of content by society is of enormous importance
when technologies and infrastructure are produced by distant global companies.
̃ ICT for education
As education is necessary in order to develop knowledge societies, ICT
has to be used to develop education systems. It empowers society to develop
new learning methods, to promote distance learning, to create virtual libraries
and universities and to assist with innovation and training. ICT can be particularly
helpful in research and development where fast communication and knowledge
access facilitate the creation of research communities. In the domain of
social innovations in education and health-care, ICT allows greater peer-support
between pupils and teachers, at the local and community-level. Much more
emphasis is needed on this peer-to-peer support: teachers helping teachers;
pupils helping pupils. This may help to avoid a new cultural colonialism
through imposition of multi-media educational curricula and content from
US and European companies and commercially-oriented institutions. We must
connect all the World’s universities and high-schools in the same sort of
high-speed network for research, education and collaborative development
as is available in Europe and the US.
̃ ICT for Capacity-building
Equity and social cohesion are prerequisites for attaining a sustainable
communities and societies. Capacity-building is people-centred development
deeply embedded in this social, economic and political environment. Capacity-building
has to be designed to promote change, to reduce vulnerabilities and to motivate
local populations and implies a long-term investment in people. Training
for professional skills, by and for local people, at all levels of assimilation,
provides the necessary long-term perspective for local entrepreneur-ship
and craftsmanship as well as for social integration. Its implementation has
to be a joint effort by technical schools and universities as well as through
business-support networks.
Public authorities have the responsibility to take the lead to encourage
and invest and in all forms of education, having to their side that basic
education is a fundamental right. Basic education, respecting local languages,
integrating indigenous knowledge and embedded in local traditions fulfill
the prerequisites for the alleviation of poverty and the reduction of the
‘digital divide’ of their citizens and is the ultimate condition for the
empowerment of gender equality, democracy and human dignity. ICT offers new
possibilities to accelerate the learning processes for basic education as
well as for enhanced skills training in many domains.
At world level a new ethics of human solidarity should accompany these processes towards to a sustainable society.
2.4 Monitoring Environmental Targets
Information systems have an essential role to play in reaching environmental
targets for sustainable development. In the WSSD in Johannesburg, the Plan
of Implementation lists numerous actions on environmental preservation and
climate change which cannot be realized without the support of ICT. These
technologies can enable systematic and comprehensive monitoring for the protection
and conservation of Earth’s ecosystem: the protection of forests from uncontrolled
exploitation, the protection of oceans and coastal areas from large scale
pollution, and of the marine environment from land-based activities. We also
need such a monitoring system to mitigate the effects of desertification,
drought and floods, to measure climate change; to monitor land and natural
resource use, and to manage rescue efforts after large-scale disasters. The
accumulation of very large amounts of data; their effective use and archiving
for the far future, requires a global structure and management facilities.
The recent Conference on the Digital Earth in Brno has taken the first steps;
the implementation of the joint initiative of the European Commission and
the European Space Agency, the Global Monitoring for Environment and Security
system (GMES) as well as the joint initiative of UN Environmental Program
and International Telecommunication Union, the Global e-Sustainability Initiative
(GESI) are other key steps enhancing the acquisition of structured data and
the improvement of environmental management, development and sharing of best
practices. The availability and use of data about the Earth’s co-evolution
with humanity will allow the modeling of future scenarios, and provide national
and world leaders with the necessary tools for decisions.
2.5 Cultural Diversity and Creativity. The Impact of the Media
̃ Richness of Cultural Diversity
The implementation of sustainable communities implies a shift of values,
attitudes and approaches. To prevent a catastrophic “clash of civilisations”
in a multi-cultural world, both cultural identity and diversity must be accepted
as legitimate goals in themselves, alongside respect for fundamental human
rights and identification with a common set of universal human values. Loss
of cultural diversity increases political and economic instability.
We must develop culturally diverse, tolerant and vibrant societies in
which individuals have the opportunity actively to pursue and fulfil their
primary need for a sense of identity and a sense of belonging. We need a
world of “multiple modernities”, with communities rather than ideologies,
in which different cultures peacefully co-exist: a world of “learning communities”
in which no culture imposes its values on others, and where “indigenising
modernity” and "learning from each other" are values in themselves. The networked
knowledge society has to integrate the richness of indigenous knowledge as
well as to assimilate eco-centric and anthropo-centric visions of a sustainable
world society.
To reflect this need, more attention needs to be given to voice-communications
-with a new spectrum of possibilities from cheaper mobile telephony and to
voice over the Internet; and to development of interactive digital TV, as
a platform for peer-to-peer and “community” communication, as well as broadcasting:
both could do much to respect and protect cultural diversity.
̃The Role of the Mass-Media
The local and regional authorities have to be aware of the role the
mass-media can play in the construction of more sustainable societies. These
media must be re-oriented from systematic promotion of unsustainable consumerism
towards the creation of awareness about sustainability and environmental
issues, about social cohesion and local values and traditions. They must
be harnessed to enhance literacy, basic education and technical skills. In
fact, the mass-media should become major players in empowering people and
communities by making them more conscious about their own cultural identity,
instead of being simply a marketing instrument for stereotyped consumer patterns.
This requires a radical change in licensing regimes.
2.6 Empowering Productivity and Entrepreneurship
̃ Local Level
The availability of appropriate technical infrastructures for education
and skill training provide the sound basis for better social integration
as well as to facilitate local entrepreneurship, particularly by women and
youngsters. The re-valuing of local indigenous knowledge and traditions,
enhanced through partnerships for the transfer of technology innovation,
opens new ways for genuine and sustainable market development. The recognition
of property rights, land-ownwership, IPR, business ownership, etc.- is a
necessary step in reaching sustainable societies, as is recognition of the
value of people’s knowledge and “social capital” in the attribution of micro-credits
and micro-loans.
Major efforts are also necessary to get frameworks right for the accountability
of local authorities, employees, investors and shareholders, and for more
effective empowering of socially-responsible local development.
̃ Global Level
There must be major efforts, at the global level, to get the market
and accountability frameworks right. We must create frameworks, at the global
level, which support “green entrepreneur-ship”. Corporate Social Responsibility
(CSR) must become a ubiquitous requirement. The « triple-bottom line » reporting,
including on natural, social and human capital development, completed with
a reporting on partnerships for investment and development, should be normal
practice for all publicly-quoted companies.
3. Governance and Recommendations
In the next 30 to 50 years the emergence of mature information and knowledge
world society poses new challenges to its governance at all levels of society:
local, regional and world. The new space created by the wired and wireless
net of communication, the world wide web of information, the knowledge shell
around the earth will be an integral of part of human society. All this needs
appropriate governance institutions with specific legislative frameworks
as well as monitoring and control mechanisms.
The knowledge society is nothing less than the prolongation of the physical
society we have known since the appearance of mankind on earth. This society
is by definition the most human in the history of the earth. It is also a
totally new situation for mankind. The first challenge is to get all communities
connected: The “knowledge shell” is the knowledge of all humanity. The second
challenge is to enable everyone to be able to use, and add to, this common
resource.
In the frame of the present World Summit on the Information Society the following recommendations are suggested:
3.1 Protecting the “Commons”. Enhancing The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
World society has to redefine and agree upon the common goods of mankind.
These are not only nature and the ecological system of which our species
is part of. In the emerging networked knowledge society, a large part of
our knowledge can be regarded as public goods to which any citizen of this
world can freely use and add to. Since these rights are not enshrined in
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, an enhanced text has to address
explicitly these new common goods.
To facilitate the emergence of new entrepreneurial networks and peer-to-peer
educational support, new initiatives must also be taken at international
level to recognise, protect and encourage collective knowledge creation:
“free and open source” software; knowledge in the “public domain”; “traditional
knowledge” and “open content” such as artistic (including music) and scientific
knowledge that the creators wish to contribute to an open pool, but nevertheless
wish to see recognised as theirs.
3.2 Stability and Security
The stronger (and faster) interactions between people in a more intensely
networked society and economy will generate new risks of instability, as
well as new growth and creativity. These risks of instability from positive
feedback and “fashionable” over-enthusiasms or recessions, whether in financial
markets, in Internet “virus” propagation, or in social movements, must be
addressed. They must be addressed at the international level. New mechanisms
must be found to dampen “run-away” trends, to contain them, and to re-channel
them. The analytical tools for risk analysis in complex systems are becoming
available, but the institutional arrangements to mitigate risks are not yet
in place.
3.3 Simultaneity in the Implementation of Infrastructures
The successful bridging of the ‘Digital Divide’ requires a simultaneous
development of infrastructure of ICT networks, eventually accompanied by
the installation of local electrical power, and the training of future teachers.
Governments insist too frequently on their efforts to install infrastructure
and overlook the problem of the training of the teachers and conditions for
acceptance. It is important to stress that ICT is only a tool and not an
end in itself. New contents and teaching instruments using ICT, have to be
developed and it is to be expected that such initiatives would be developed
by appropriate international institutions. In the absence of a simultaneous
implementation of the human, technical as well as the financial investments
by governments, the risk is real that they miss the objectives and expectations
ICT can offers for further development, especially in the reduction of the
‘digital divide’.
3.4 Protecting Privacy
The new communication and information infrastructures bear the potential
threat to the private sphere of all participants. This threat is already
present in today’s networks. The normal functioning of any society and democracy
in particular requires tools and rules to prevent the abuse of information
about private matters of its members. In view of the importance of this matter,
it has to be addressed urgently by the political and civil society including
the business leadership at world level.
3.5 Participation of the Civil Society and NGOs in Plans of Implementation
The implementation of the Plan of Action of this and past World Summits
as well as other large conferences of the last thirty years will be difficult.
Political commitments are agreed on the spot. However, their implementation
risks to fall short, by far, of the expectations of the concerned populations.
The difficulty lies in the fact that political decisions are essentially
top-down measures. However, their successful implementation is a bottom-up
process, driven by local communities and authorities. The greater involvement
of Civil Society with its many NGOs and other organisations, which have considerable
expertise in specific fields, is increasingly essential in implementation
processes. NGOs and civil-society organisations should be empowered to play
an increased role. ¨
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