UNESCO and WSIS

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 007472

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

FROM USMISSION UNESCO PARIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KPAO ECPS ETRD ECON EINT ETTC UNESCO
SUBJECT: UNESCO and WSIS



1. (SBU) SUMMARY: During the UNESCO General
Conference from October 3 to 21, the majority of UNESCO
Member States agreed in a resolution to stress UNESCO's
and the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU)
"prominent roles" in coordinating the implementation of
decisions taken at the World Summit for the Information
Society (WSIS). USDEL's negotiations on the resolution
resulted in the deletion of any mention of Internet
governance in UNESCO's post-WSIS plan, and in adding a
reference for UNESCO's role to be consistent with WSIS
outcomes. A minority, also led by USDEL, expressed
concern that WSIS outcomes should be implemented by a
number of actors, rather than having UNESCO and the ITU
lead, but this view was not widely supported. Another
resolution was passed noting that UNESCO's Information
for All Program, which is currently chaired by France,
is uniquely positioned at UNESCO to contribute to WSIS
implementation. NGOs active at UNESCO questioned
whether prominent roles for UNESCO and the ITU to
implement WSIS directives would be effective in
practice. END SUMMARY.
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UNESCO's POST WSIS ROLE
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2. (SBU) In the resolution, Member States stressed the
prominent roles of UNESCO and the ITU in coordination
of WSIS Plan of Action implementation, both at the
Action Line level, and as needed in any overarching
coordination mechanism or process and/or at the United
Nations inter-agency level. Language was added to
acknowledge the importance of not pre-judging WSIS
outcomes, and after contentious debate, the UNESCO
Secretariat deleted a reference to Internet governance.

SIPDIS
UNESCO Assistant Director General for Communication and
Information, Abdul Waheed Khan stated that Internet
governance was not a core interest of UNESCO and was
marginal to its mandate.

3. (SBU) As noted above, most countries expressed
support for UNESCO to have a leading role in WSIS
implementation, in particular stressing UNESCO's and
ITU's prominent roles in the coordination and
implementation of the WSIS plan of action. Before
debate began on this issue, USDEL sought to build
support for our language to limit the scope of UNESCO's
role. While Australia, Japan, the Nordics, Canada,
Mexico, Russia and the Philippines expressed varying
degrees of support for our language - both behind the
scenes and in their interventions - there was not
enough support to change the text on this point in
order to narrow the scope. In the end, the language
was passed as proposed by the UNESCO Director General.
UNESCO Member States therefore endorsed UNESCO's
mandate and competence to act as a facilitator for the
implementation of 6 of the 15 WSIS Action Lines
included in the Plan of Action adopted at the first
phase of WSIS in December 2003. These are:

A. Access to information and knowledge;

B. Capacity-building;

C. E-learning and e-science (under ICT Applications);

D. Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic
diversity and local content;

E. Media;

F. Ethical dimensions of the information society.

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WSIS: REVIVING A WEAK UNESCO PROGRAM?
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4. (SBU) New Zealand, China, Tunisia and France
drafted a resolution considering the unique
contribution UNESCO's Information for All Program
(IFAP) could make in implementing the WSIS Plan of
Action adopted by WSIS in Geneva (2003). The
resolution passed. Many Member States noted the
importance of bolstering support for this weak and
under funded UNESCO program. At the same time, it is
worth noting that the IFAP Council is now chaired by
France's Daniel Malbert, who is the Chief of Mission
for the Information Society and UNESCO in the
Department of the European and International Affairs,
French Ministry of Culture and Communication. His
issues of expertise are cultural diversity and
multilingualism vis-a-vis the Internet. His term is
from 2004-2007.

5. (SBU) In September 2005, a UNESCO Secretariat
source stated that the organization was trying to
breathe life into the program and commended Malbert's
leadership in the Council. COMMENT: There may be
pressure from member-states for IFAP to play a bigger
role here. For example, during debate, India called
for IFAP to take the leading role at UNESCO in
implementing post-WSIS decisions. At the same time, it
remains to be seen whether WSIS will give IFAP a new
raison d'etre, given its current dependence on a small
special fund of member state contributions. END
COMMENT.
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CAN UNESCO AND THE ITU WORK TOGETHER?
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6. (SBU) International Media-watchdog NGO sources note
the leading role UNESCO played at WSIS to protect media
freedom. They state that greater UNESCO involvement in
post-WSIS implementation may be positive, since other
UN agencies, particularly the ITU, are less helpful on
media freedom. These sources also predict that any
cooperation between UNESCO and the International
Telecommunication Union (ITU) could be complicated by
reportedly long difficult relations between UNESCO DG
Matsuura and ITU DG Yoshio Utsumi, who will remain in
office through 2006.

5. (SBU) COMMENT: UNESCO has acknowledged the
importance of not pre-judging WSIS outcomes and it
realized the significance of staying out of the
Internet governance debate during General Conference
negotiations. That said, there is wide Member state
support for UNESCO and the ITU to have leading roles in
post-WSIS implementation, and for UNESCO to claim
competency in 6 of the 15 WSIS Action Lines. It
remains to be seen whether UNESCO will use WSIS to
breathe life into withered programs, or whether
countries unhappy with WSIS outcomes will use said
programs as vehicles for their agendas. Finally, it is
not clear that UNESCO and the ITU will play nice once
the WSIS dust has settled and coordination of
implementation begins. END COMMENT.
Oliver