Statement by Minister Kiviniemi at WSIS
Tunis,
16 November, 2005
Check against delivery
Madam/Mr Chair,
The WSIS has placed information society issues firmly on the international agenda, and they are there to stay. This is a historic achievement, but it is not the end of the story, just the beginning. The Geneva Plan of Action is there, waiting to be implemented, and we, at this meeting in Tunis, have to make sure that it will be.
In today's world, information and communication technologies are prerequisites for development. In addition to boosting linear progress, they can help nations to leapfrog over entire stages of development and turn the digital divide into a digital advantage. There are examples of this. But there are no shortcuts to a real knowledge-based society.
As President Tarja Halonen said in Geneva during the first phase of WSIS, new information technologies are powerful tools, but they are only tools. To be of benefit, tools have to be used by human beings. That is why, in building information societies, people are the cornerstones. In "e-strategies", the letter "e" should stand for education, equal opportunity and free expression, as much as for electronic.
Without freedom of expression and without freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas, even the most advanced information and communication technologies remain useless apparatus at best, and instruments for repression at worst. Free, editorially independent media are the lifeblood of a true information society. We trust that the final documents of this meeting will reflect this belief.
Finland may be famous today as a forerunner in ICT and as a successful information society, but just a hundred years ago it was a poor agricultural country on the periphery of Europe, known for timber and tar and not much else. But since then, our progress has been rapid and some features of our enabling environment might be of interest to developing countries today.
In Finland clusters or "ecosystems" of universities, research institutions and businesses have fostered innovation. School and library networks have been instrumental in disseminating basic computer literacy skills to the young and old alike. And deregulation of telecommunications in Finland is as old as the telephone. Local and regional telephone services have never been a government monopoly there.
Helping to bridge today's north-south digital divide is one of the priorities of Finland's development policies. ICTs are integrated and mainstreamed into all sectors of our development cooperation. But if we want to achieve sustainable results in information society development, we have to make sure, together with our partners, that the necessary societal preconditions are in place. This means, among other things, a solid knowledge base, supportive legislation, e-strategies and appropriate infrastructure, which all together create an enabling environment for a knowledge-based economy.
WSIS has been a unique UN summit in the sense that it has involved all stakeholders as equal partners. This precious feature of the WSIS process has to be preserved and developed further. We support the proposal to set up a "global alliance for ICT in development" representing governments, civil society and the private sector.
I am looking forward to the successful conclusion of the Tunis phase of the WSIS. But the work does not end when we leave here. The decisions taken in Geneva and Tunis have to be swiftly implemented and thoughtfully followed up. That is what we owe to the peoples of the world whom, and whose hopes, we represent.