ICC BASIS statement at UN Group on the Information Society (UNGIS) consultation on overall review of the implementation of the WSIS outcomes

  • 20 May 2011

Thank you Chairman, Ayesha Hassan, on behalf of the International Chamber of Commerce and its BASIS initiative, thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this consultation. As you know, ICC BASIS and its cross sectoral membership of businesses and associations from around the world have been active contributors throughout the Summits in Geneva and Tunis and in the post WSIS processes and forums.

Thank you Chairman, Ayesha Hassan, on behalf of the International Chamber of Commerce and its BASIS initiative, thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this consultation. As you know, ICC BASIS and its cross sectoral membership of businesses and associations from around the world have been active contributors throughout the Summits in Geneva and Tunis and in the post WSIS processes and forums.

The WSIS and the post WSIS processes have proven the benefits of the inclusion of all stakeholders in discussing, implementing and progressing the WSIS goals and a people centred Information Society.

All relevant stakeholders includes governments, business, civil society, the Internet technical community, international and intergovernmental organizations.

We believe the process associated with this review of the WSIS outcomes should continue to include all relevant stakeholders on an equal footing and in a substantive manner. All stakeholders have been actively engaged in a broad range of activities, processes and forums which have and continue to implement the WSIS goals. Thus we believe a review of the outcomes will benefit from their full participation in all aspects.

As all stakeholders devote their time, energy and resources to continue to implement the WSIS outcomes, we encourage all to remain sensitive to the limited financial and human resources of ALL stakeholders while considering how this review should happen, and what will be the best use of limited resources.

We are still considering this review process and event. We appreciate your call for concrete ideas. It is very helpful to hear that you are not considering prepcoms for this review process. We are concerned about the use of resources for such an event and thus, we believe this needs very careful consideration. We will consult with our global business community and contribute further. For now, a preliminary idea would be the use of online tools could be useful to take stock of the implementation progress and invest resources for such an event instead in actual initiatives that will progress the WSIS goals further.

We look forward to contributing further to this discussion as the discussions continue in the future. We would appreciate further information about the next steps in this process.

Thank you for your consideration.