US embassy cable - 05PARIS7472

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 007472 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SENSITIVE 
 
FROM USMISSION UNESCO PARIS 
 
E.O. 12958:     N/A 
TAGS: KPAO, ECPS, ETRD, ECON, EINT, ETTC, UNESCO 
SUBJECT:  UNESCO and WSIS 
 
 
1.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  During the UNESCO General 
Conference from October 3 to 21, the majority of UNESCO 
Member States agreed in a resolution to stress UNESCO's 
and the International Telecommunications Union's (ITU) 
"prominent roles" in coordinating the implementation of 
decisions taken at the World Summit for the Information 
Society (WSIS).  USDEL's negotiations on the resolution 
resulted in the deletion of any mention of Internet 
governance in UNESCO's post-WSIS plan, and in adding a 
reference for UNESCO's role to be consistent with WSIS 
outcomes.  A minority, also led by USDEL, expressed 
concern that WSIS outcomes should be implemented by a 
number of actors, rather than having UNESCO and the ITU 
lead, but this view was not widely supported.  Another 
resolution was passed noting that UNESCO's Information 
for All Program, which is currently chaired by France, 
is uniquely positioned at UNESCO to contribute to WSIS 
implementation.  NGOs active at UNESCO questioned 
whether prominent roles for UNESCO and the ITU to 
implement WSIS directives would be effective in 
practice.  END SUMMARY. 
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UNESCO's POST WSIS ROLE 
----------------------- 
2.  (SBU) In the resolution, Member States stressed the 
prominent roles of UNESCO and the ITU in coordination 
of WSIS Plan of Action implementation, both at the 
Action Line level, and as needed in any overarching 
coordination mechanism or process and/or at the United 
Nations inter-agency level.  Language was added to 
acknowledge the importance of not pre-judging WSIS 
outcomes, and after contentious debate, the UNESCO 
Secretariat deleted a reference to Internet governance. 
 
SIPDIS 
UNESCO Assistant Director General for Communication and 
Information, Abdul Waheed Khan stated that Internet 
governance was not a core interest of UNESCO and was 
marginal to its mandate. 
3.  (SBU) As noted above, most countries expressed 
support for UNESCO to have a leading role in WSIS 
implementation, in particular stressing UNESCO's and 
ITU's prominent roles in the coordination and 
implementation of the WSIS plan of action.  Before 
debate began on this issue, USDEL sought to build 
support for our language to limit the scope of UNESCO's 
role.  While Australia, Japan, the Nordics, Canada, 
Mexico, Russia and the Philippines expressed varying 
degrees of support for our language - both behind the 
scenes and in their interventions - there was not 
enough support to change the text on this point in 
order to narrow the scope.   In the end, the language 
was passed as proposed by the UNESCO Director General. 
UNESCO Member States therefore endorsed UNESCO's 
mandate and competence to act as a facilitator for the 
implementation of 6 of the 15 WSIS Action Lines 
included in the Plan of Action adopted at the first 
phase of WSIS in December 2003.   These are: 
A.   Access to information and knowledge; 
B.   Capacity-building; 
C.   E-learning and e-science (under ICT Applications); 
D.   Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic 
diversity and local content; 
E.   Media; 
F.   Ethical dimensions of the information society. 
 
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WSIS:  REVIVING A WEAK UNESCO PROGRAM? 
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4.  (SBU) New Zealand, China, Tunisia and France 
drafted a resolution considering the unique 
contribution UNESCO's Information for All Program 
(IFAP) could make in implementing the WSIS Plan of 
Action adopted by WSIS in Geneva (2003).  The 
resolution passed.  Many Member States noted the 
importance of bolstering support for this weak and 
under funded UNESCO program.  At the same time, it is 
worth noting that the IFAP Council is now chaired by 
France's Daniel Malbert, who is the Chief of Mission 
for the Information Society and UNESCO in the 
Department of the European and International Affairs, 
French Ministry of Culture and Communication.  His 
issues of expertise are cultural diversity and 
multilingualism vis-a-vis the Internet.  His term is 
from 2004-2007. 
5.  (SBU) In September 2005, a UNESCO Secretariat 
source stated that the organization was trying to 
breathe life into the program and commended Malbert's 
leadership in the Council.  COMMENT: There may be 
pressure from member-states for IFAP to play a bigger 
role here.  For example, during debate, India called 
for IFAP to take the leading role at UNESCO in 
implementing post-WSIS decisions.  At the same time, it 
remains to be seen whether WSIS will give IFAP a new 
raison d'etre, given its current dependence on a small 
special fund of member state contributions.  END 
COMMENT. 
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CAN UNESCO AND THE ITU WORK TOGETHER? 
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6.  (SBU) International Media-watchdog NGO sources note 
the leading role UNESCO played at WSIS to protect media 
freedom.  They state that greater UNESCO involvement in 
post-WSIS implementation may be positive, since other 
UN agencies, particularly the ITU, are less helpful on 
media freedom.  These sources also predict that any 
cooperation between UNESCO and the International 
Telecommunication Union (ITU) could be complicated by 
reportedly long difficult relations between UNESCO DG 
Matsuura and ITU DG Yoshio Utsumi, who will remain in 
office through 2006. 
5.  (SBU) COMMENT:  UNESCO has acknowledged the 
importance of not pre-judging WSIS outcomes and it 
realized the significance of staying out of the 
Internet governance debate during General Conference 
negotiations.  That said, there is wide Member state 
support for UNESCO and the ITU to have leading roles in 
post-WSIS implementation, and for UNESCO to claim 
competency in 6 of the 15 WSIS Action Lines.  It 
remains to be seen whether UNESCO will use WSIS to 
breathe life into withered programs, or whether 
countries unhappy with WSIS outcomes will use said 
programs as vehicles for their agendas.  Finally, it is 
not clear that UNESCO and the ITU will play nice once 
the WSIS dust has settled and coordination of 
implementation begins.  END COMMENT. 
Oliver