ICT for development draft resolution at the United Nations

In the 66th session of the United Nations General Assembly (Sep 2011–Sep 2012), Internet-related issues have been raised in the contexts of international security, development, and human rights.

The most recent Internet-related draft resolution to be endorsed within the UNGA is A/C.2/66/L.80 [pdf], Information and communications technologies for development, which was endorsed by the Second Committee (Economic and Financial) on 9 December 2011.

An earlier draft resolution by the same name, but different number (A/C.2/66/L.21), was submitted by Argentina on behalf of the Group of 77 on 24 October 2011. While other draft resolutions in the Second Committee had been endorsed without much discussion, the ICTs for development draft resulted in two oral statements by the Secretariat, discussion at informal closed meetings amongst the G77 States, before a revised and reissued version under the authorship of the Second Committee Vice-Chair, Mr Bitrus Vandy Yohanna (Nigeria) was finally approved by the Second Committee.

ICT for development draft resolution preamble

As is typical in a UN resolution, the preambular clauses recall, recognize, reaffirm, emphasize, acknowledge, etc., all previous efforts made by the UN family—whether they be previous resolutions, conferences, goals, or reports— that are related in some way feed into the topic of the current draft resolution.

The advantage of the preamble is that member organizations of the UN family can subsequently refer to the UNGA resolution’s mention of their work to help argue for continuing their activities in that area. Picking out some of the most relevant Internet-related efforts in the four-page preamble to the ICT for development resolution, the ITU and UNESCO get a mention for their joint Broadband Commission, all six IGF hosts are thanked for their efforts, the importance of the multi-stakeholder IGF is recognized, various strands of the WSIS process are noted and recalled, and regional efforts to spread the benefits of ICTs are welcomed.

The ICT for development preamble also addresses the concerns of the original draft’s authors, the G77, in a number of references to disparities between ICT diffusion in developed and developing States. For example:

Emphasizing, however, that in spite of recent progress, there remains an important digital divide, recognizing in this regard that currently only 26 per cent of the population in developing countries uses the Internet, compared with 74 per cent in developed countries, and stressing the need to reduce the digital divide, including with regard to such issues as international interconnection charges for Internet use, and to ensure that the benefits of new technologies, especially information and communications technologies, are available to all

However, one of the key differences between the October and December versions of the draft resolution is the insertion into the December draft of references to progress made to date to extend the benefits of ICTs to all:

Acknowledging the positive trends in global connectivity and affordability in the field of information and communications technologies, in particular the steady increase in Internet access to one third of the world’s population, the rapid diffusion of mobile telephony, the increased availability of multilingual content and Internet addresses and the advent of new services and applications, including m-health, mobile transactions, e-government, e-education, e-business and developmental services, which offer great potential for the development of the information society

In the two excerpts above, Committee 2 attempts to resolve the two competing views held most strongly by UN Member States. In one corner is the G77, which consistently promotes the causes of the majority developing world and argues that there is a need for greater funding from the developed world to bring the developing world up to developed world levels.

In the other corner are many of the developed nations, which, while acknowledging there is a vital need to reduce the disparity between developed and developing worlds, are already the source of the majority of funds to the UN, and question whether giving more money to the developing world is the right solution. By including paragraphs that express both the desire of developing countries to achieve parity with developed country and that express the optimistic view of developed countries that progress is already being made, the parties in both corners have text that they can refer to in future to reinforce their positions.

The heart of the ICT for development proposal

The operative part of the ICTs for development draft resolution consists of 21 paragraphs. It begins by recognizing the potential of ICTs to help solve development challenges and the need to overcome the digital divide between developed and developing countries and between genders. It also supports the role of governments in developing national public policies related to ICT, and refers to multi-stakeholder approaches to ICT development. Of most interest to the Internet governance world, however, are the references to the IGF, enhanced cooperation on public policy issues pertaining to the Internet, and WSIS implementation.

IGF

The approved draft resolution acknowledges the report of the Chair of the Working Group on Improvements to the Internet Governance Forum (CSTDWG) made to the 14th CSTD session and urges the Working Group to submit its recommendations in time for discussion at the 15th CSTD session (May 2012).

It also “[s]tresses the need for the enhanced participation of all developing countries” in the IGF and invites Member States and other stakeholders “to support the participation of Governments and all other stakeholders from developing countries” in the Forum. Given this text comes from the original G77 draft, it is reasonable to read that the support requested is primarily financial.

Also note that the resolution, by calling for support to increase developing country participation in IGF, touches on the as yet unfinished work of the CSTDWG. The CSTDWG is discussing both increased participation (with a heavy emphasis on developing countries) and how to find funding to enable increased participation. By resolving that such support is necessary, the resolution is, in a way, partially preempting the recommendations of the CSTDWG.

This is an example of how, within the UN family of organizations, one sector can be making decisions on a topic while another sector is still debating the best way to proceed on the exact same topic. If the two member organizations of the UN family end up with different decisions, then Member States can use the decision that backs their view when defending their position in future deliberations.

Enhanced cooperation

This is the bogeyman of the Internet governance world these days. Everyone has their own view of what enhanced cooperation should be, with fundamental differences about whether enhanced cooperation is a process that only involves governments or a process that encompasses all Internet governance stakeholders.

The December resolution doesn’t resolve this, but moves further discussion on enhanced cooperation to a meeting to be held in conjunction with the 15th CSTD session in May 2012.

The meeting is to be inclusive and interactive, “involving all Member States and other stakeholders, particularly those from developing countries, including the private sector, civil society and international organizations, with a view to identifying a shared understanding about enhanced cooperation on public policy issues pertaining to the Internet”.

Note that the technical and academic community, which has appeared as a specifically named stakeholder group in the CSTDWG, does not appear in this list of stakeholders for the enhanced cooperation consultation. The use of “including” does permit the list of stakeholders to be read as a non-exhaustive list, however, and when combined with references to multi-stakeholderism elsewhere in the resolution itself and in documents the resolution refers to, it is highly likely that the technical and academic communities will not be excluded from the May meeting.

WSIS

The December draft resolution includes a decision that during its 67th session (September 2012 - September 2013) UNGA is to consider the modalities of an overall WSIS review to be held before the end of 2015.

While the resolution’s paragraphs on WSIS follow-up and implementation meetings may not at first seem terribly relevant to the Internet governance field, it is important to remember that WSIS is the parent to both the IGF and enhanced cooperation processes.

The IGF Secretariat makes annual reports to WSIS follow-up meetings, and with the relationship between Internet governance, the IGF and enhanced cooperation still unclear, what happens within the WSIS sphere could have an affect on the Internet governance processes it created. Therefore, it is important to keep an eye on discussions about the overall WSIS review process that will continue to be held at UNGA, ITU, CSTD and ECOSOC sessions in the next couple of years.

Next steps for the ICT for development resolution

The draft resolution will be included in the report of the Second Committee to the UNGA on its work on its Item 16, “Information and communications technologies for development”. As of 13 December, the report has yet to be written, but based on previous reports, and the fact that the draft resolution has been approved by the Second Committee, the report will recommend that UNGA adopt the draft resolution.

The date for the UNGA to discuss the report is yet to be determined.