Access to Information Essential to the Establishment of Knowledge Societies

Access to Information Essential to the Establishment of Knowledge Societies
14-10-2003 (UNESCO Press Release)

Meeting in Paris in preparation of the World Summit on the Information 
Society (WSIS, Geneva, December 10–12 and Tunis 2005), ministers from all 
over the world have agreed on a set of principles - including universal 
access to information and press freedom – that must guide the utilization of 
ICT to maximize its effectiveness for individual, community and national 
development. 

In a Communiqué issued at the end of a two-day Ministerial Round Table 
Meeting organized by UNESCO (“Towards Knowledge Societies”, October 9 and 
10), the ministers taking part called on governments to “reassess their 
development priorities in order to make the necessary investments in building 
knowledge societies” which, they emphasized, “entail many issues other than 
technology and connectivity.” 

“Knowledge societies are about capabilities to identify, produce, process, 
transform, disseminate and use information to build and apply knowledge for 
human development”, states the Communiqué. This implies respect for a set of 
principles and priorities: “Freedom of expression; Universal access to 
information and knowledge; Respect for human dignity and cultural and 
linguistic diversity; Quality education for all; Investment in science and 
technology; Understanding and inclusion of indigenous knowledge systems.” 

The meeting was held to promote UNESCO’s concept of “knowledge societies” and 
prepare international consensus ahead of WSIS, which is being convened under 
the patronage of the Secretary-General of the United Nations, with the 
International Telecommunication Union taking the lead role in its 
preparation, in cooperation with interested United Nations bodies, including 
UNESCO, and other international organizations as well as the host countries. 

“Our Governments,” the ministers declared, “are committed to the improvement 
of the quality of life of our citizens and economic strength of our societies 
and to the achievement of an equitable and peaceful global community. The 
building of knowledge societies is an essential means to achieving these 
objectives and opens the way to humanization of the process of 
globalization.” 

The ministers particularly stressed freedom of expression and press freedom: 
“The free flow of information is the fundamental premise of knowledge 
societies. In a knowledge society, each individual will have more freedom and 
greater possibilities for self-realization, while respecting beliefs and 
ethics. Knowledge societies encourage openness and dialogue and appreciate 
wisdom, communication and cooperation. They must be based on the principle of 
freedom of expression as guaranteed in Article 19 of the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights: ‘Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion 
and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without 
interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through 
any media regardless of frontiers’”. 

In the following Article, the Communiqué states: “Freedom of the press must 
be upheld and promoted to ensure that all media, traditional as well as new, 
can fulfil their role in the building of knowledge societies. Media 
professionals in particular, as key agents in materializing and ensuring 
freedom of expression, should be afforded a conducive environment to exercise 
their profession.” 

Highlighting the role of “knowledge societies” in “achieving sustainability 
and future prosperity”, the ministers called for action to help bridge the 
digital divide which deprives the populations of developing countries, and 
the marginalized in developed countries, of access to ICT and pointed to the 
need for “mechanisms for the funding of this effort, including the setting up 
of a digital solidarity fund to augment national resources”. 

The ministers emphasized the importance of “affordable access to a wide range 
of content” including “data, publications, artistic works, radio and TV 
programs, and computer programs including open source software, support for 
access gateways such as libraries, and formulation of national policies to 
promote publicly accessible information, particularly in the public domain.” 

The ministers also stressed the need to respect cultural diversity as “the 
common heritage of humankind. […] Understanding and respect for other 
cultures is a prerequisite for building inclusive and participatory knowledge 
societies. […] Knowledge societies must enable citizens to access and create 
information and knowledge in their own languages and within their own 
cultural frameworks. We are committed to facilitating the participation of 
all cultural and linguistic groups in the building of knowledge societies.” 
The ministers further called for cultural policies and public-private 
partnerships which “should promote the production of local creative content 
and its wide accessibility in electronic form. In particular, ICT should be 
used by creators and cultural institutions and industries to preserve and 
promote minor languages and cultures.” 

While emphasizing the need for universal access to information and content, 
the ministers called for “determined action to fight against forgery and 
piracy of cultural goods as an essential element of efforts to encourage 
healthy and diverse cultural creation.” 

The ministers further highlighted the importance of education, stating that 
“Access to education is a fundamental right, as well as a tool for combating 
illiteracy, marginalization, poverty and exclusion. ICT provides vast 
opportunities to effectively and affordably provide quality education for 
all. […] We need to rethink and redesign our educational systems and 
processes to meet the challenge of the knowledge societies - to find new ways 
of looking at information and knowledge according to which we have a right to 
acquire and a duty to share.” 

The ministers recognized the “well established relationship between a 
country's scientific capability and its prosperity. […] Therefore, the public 
sector, as well as the private sector, in all countries should invest in 
building science and technology capacities, including research and 
development (R&D), science education, and electronic networks for science and 
research. Affordable access to scientific and technological content, such as 
publications and databases, is a critical development priority. There is also 
a need to identify and preserve traditional knowledge, to apply ICT to make 
it available to all, and to establish appropriate links with modern science.” 


Link(s) 
- Ministerial Round Table Meeting
http://www.unesco.org/wsis/events/roundtable/

- 32nd session of UNESCO’s General Conference
http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php@URL_ID=8731&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html

 
Contact Boyan Radoykov (b.radoykov@unesco.org), UNESCO, Information Society 
Division 
Source UNESCO Press Release  
  
File Communiqué English.doc 
http://portal.unesco.org/ci/file_download.php/Communiqu%E9+English.doc?URL_ID=13205&filename=10661242497Communiqu%E9_English.doc&filetype=application%2Foctet-stream&filesize=51200&name=Communiqu%E9+English.doc&location=user-S/