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MISTICA: Draft Information Ecology Recommendations for WSSD

From: Daniel Pimienta ([email protected])
Date: Sun Feb 10 2002 - 16:43:53 AST

>From: "Michael Gurstein" <[email protected]>
>To: <[email protected]>
>Cc: "robert pollard" <[email protected]>
>Subject: [GCNDotForce] FW: Draft Information Ecology Recommendations for WSSD
>Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2002 09:59:01 -0500
>
>This is a presentation to the World Summit on Sustainable Development from
>one of the contributing NGO's and may be of interest in our context as well.
>
>MG
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Robert Pollard [mailto:[email protected]]
>Sent: February 4, 2002 1:12 PM
>To: [email protected]
>Subject: Draft Information Ecology Recommendations for WSSD
>
>
> Information Ecology Recommendations
> for the
> World Summit on Sustainable Development
> (Preliminary Draft - 2002.02.04 - Monday 4 February 2002)
>
>Preamble: In the ten years since the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de
>Janeiro, no indicator of development has come close to increasing
>so rapidly as the level of adoption of information and
>communication technologies and the use of the Internet. This
>phenomenon had led to the development of Information Ecology
>recommendations by NGOs in "Towards Earth Summit II:
>Recommendations for Actions and Commitments".
>
>The significance of this trend was underscored by the UN Economic
>and Social Council in its priority theme for ECOSOC's High Level
>Segment in 2000 and the associated Ministerial Declaration on
>"Development and international cooperation: the role of information
>and communications technologies in the transition to global
>knowledge-based economies".
>
>The rapid rate of adoption of information and communication
>technologies has profound significance for sustainability, and
>embodies no less than the transition to a entirely new form of
>economics - economics governed by the laws and properties of
>information, information systems and networks, rather than by the
>laws of the material world.
>
>This transition has profoundly altered the nature and dynamics of
>many of the critical areas of activity and processes related to
>sustainability, and that were recognized in Agenda 21, including:
>
> * Transformation of the nature and dynamics of the marketplace -
> the primary governing institution of economic transactions - in
> ways that make feasible, for the first time in history, the
> realization of the conditions of a "perfect market" and that
> also can readily allow for the routine integration of
> environment and development in decision-making through the
> introduction of full-cost accounting for economic transactions,
> including the "external" social and environmental costs of
> economic goods and services - thus permitting a correction of a
> fundamental defect in existing markets that has persisted in
> undermining sustainable economic activities; (Agenda 21,
> Chapter 8)
>
> * Transformation of the nature and dynamics of financial markets,
> and financial transactions - including greatly enabling the
> establishment of low-cost mechanisms for micro-finance; (Agenda
> 21, Chapter 33)
>
> * Transformation of the very nature of property, including the
> emergence of the Internet domain as the seat of property in the
> information age;
>
> * Transformation of the nature and dynamics of technology
> transfer - including in particular the transfer of information
> and communications technology, including open source software;
> (Agenda 21, Chapter 34)
>
> * Transformation of the nature and dynamics of the participation
> of non-governmental organizations, major groups and the public
> in consultations and decision-making relating to sustainability
> - and in related access to and exchange of information;
> (Agenda 21, Chapters 23-32 and 40)
>
> * Transformation of the ability to compile, organize, integrate
> and make accessible geographic information - through the use of
> geographic information system that can profoundly enhance the
> monitoring and observation of natural resources and of
> associated economic, social, health and demographic trends.
> (Agenda 21, Chapters 5-6 and 9-22)
>
>However, to date, the continued presence of a "digital divide" has
>served to deny the benefits of information and communication
>technology to a very large proportion of the world's population.
>
>We therefore call upon the Preparatory Committee for the World
>Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) to establish an Ad-Hoc
>Open Ended Working Group - to include participation from Member
>States, the UN Secretariat, and relevant UN Agencies, Programmes,
>and Task Forces, non-governmental organizations, the private sector
>and other Major Groups - to explore the development of a set of
>recommendations for the WSSD on ways in which information and
>communication technologies can be utilized to enable a transition
>to sustainable development, including:
>
> * The development of "ecological markets" -markets that
> incorporate full-cost accounting - including the adoption of
> full-cost accounting into e-commerce protocols through the
> integration of economic transactions with a comprehensive
> database of ecological properties of goods and services;
>
> * A process for the establishment of common protocols for access
> to information, public participation in decision-making, and
> access to justice in matters relating to sustainable
> development, in particular giving consideration to the
> development of such protocols to strengthen the implementation
> of the Aarhus Convention on Access to Information, Public
> Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice;
>
> * Promoting access to and awareness of open source software
> standards, with particular attention to support for the
> development of integrated open source software systems that can
> be used by small businesses, local, provincial and national
> governments, and community-based and non-governmental
> organizations;
>
> * Support for enabling broad-based access to the registration of
> Internet domains, and for the establishment of simple,
> accessible country-level procedures for the registration and
> management of Internet domains within their Top Level Country
> Code domains - and for affirming a country's inalienable
> sovereign right to ownership and control of its Top Level
> Country Code domain, including the restoration of country code
> domains that have been transferred to private corporations -
> e.g. the .tv domain that was assigned to the Small Island State
> of Tuvalu, or to State or Local governments, e.g. the .la
> domain that had been assigned to Laos, and has been acquired by
> the City of Los Angeles;
>
> * Support for initiatives to provide universal access to
> electronic information, with particular attention to the use of
> hand-held wireless devices, and ensure that the issues of
> sustainability are integrated into the agenda of the World
> Summit on the Information Society.
>
>To comment on the Information Ecology Draft Recommendations for the
>WSSD, send an email to <[email protected]> or participate
>in the Information Ecology Caucus mailing list by sending a blank
>email message to <[email protected]>

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