UNV/UNITeS a Part of First World Summit Preparatory Meeting - July 2002

The first preparatory meeting for the U.N. World Summit on the Information Society was held in Geneva in July 2002, with participants agreeing to cooperate on extending the benefits of technology to people around the world. The WSIS summit is to take place in two phases, the first in December 2003 in Geneva and the second in 2005 in Tunis, the Tunisian capital. Under the patronage of U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, it is expected to address the "digital divide" between rich and poor and to yield a statement of political will and a plan of action.

At this preparatory meeting, organized by more than a dozen U.N. agencies, were governmental and nongovernmental delegates from 141 countries and various international groups (ITU release, July 5). A representative from the United Nations Volunteers programme in attendance proposed during the event that a detailed analysis on the topic of "Volunteering in the Information Society" would be beneficial to the WSIS from two complementary perspectives:

(1) how will volunteering affect the emergence, evolution and functioning of an information-based society?;
(2) how will the Information Society have an impact on volunteering and the participation of volunteers?

UNV views the WSIS as a keystone event, and as a social summit rather than a technology summit: it aims to forge a common vision and understanding of the Information Society, as a new social paradigm. Volunteering is a social phenomenon, and has always been an instrument of social cohesion and inclusion, and a key contributor to building social capital. This should also be the case in the Information Society.

UNV has made ICT for Development a corporate priority since 1999, as signified by the UNITeS initiative and the Netaid Online Volunteering service, both managed by UNV. The implications of the digital divide are many and pervasive, spanning the entire spectrum of human development. In terms of ICT capacity, the needs are enormous, ranging from basic techno-literacy to sophisticated knowledge for information management. There are also many people wanting to share their ICT skills and experience on a voluntary basis. UNV believes that volunteers can play a fundamental role in helping people draw digital dividends from the new technologies.