A grant from Canada's International Development Agency enabled the Association for Progressive Communications to commission two studies on the hottest issues emerging from WSIS-1: Internet governance and funding ICT development in the "South." Both documents have just been posted on APC's website.
Adam Peake tackles the first subject, describing "opportunities for developing nation stakeholders to contribute to the processes that are defining the Internet governance landscape. The key message is that there are opportunities for civil society to engage and we must take them."
Meanwhile, Pablo Accuosto and Niki Johnson look at "how the question of ICT financing has been debated during the WSIS preparatory process and the first phase Summit (Geneva, December 2003). Particular attention is paid to Senegal's proposal for the creation of a 'Digital Solidarity Fund,' and the reactions to it of the different stakeholders governments, from both North and South, the private sector and civil society participating in WSIS. The following section explores the potential for addressing the issue of financing ICT expansion from a global public goods (GPG) perspective... Finally...the authors offer a concrete proposal with respect to what we consider to be the most appropriate financing mechanism for funding expanded ICT access in the South."