Current opinion

Tunis, Turkey and the information society

by Fikret N. Üçcan

In 1995, a study carried out in the Unıted States comparing the multiplier effects of the information technology and manufacturing sectors revealed that each new job at Microsoft, as a software producer, created 6.7 new jobs in Washington state, whereas a job at Boeing created 3.8 jobs. Ten years later, nobody is in any doubt about the close link between information technology (IT) and the generation of wealth. As the World Development Report put it in 1999, “For countries in the vanguard of the world economy, the balance between knowledge and resources has shifted so far towards the former that knowledge has become perhaps the most important factor determining the standard of living – more than land, than tools, than labour. Today’s most technologically advanced economies are truly knowledge-based.”

IT enables change. It does not by itself create transformations in society, but acts as a tool for releasing the creative potential of people and facilitating knowledge creation in an innovative society. At the same time, IT is instrumental in opening up new markets and in fostering the vision of perfect competition, maximising growth potential. Knowledge spreads very quickly. Products with a high knowledge component generate higher returns. Competition goes hand in hand with innovation. To compete, any firm of any size must develop its capacity to innovate more quickly than its competitors.

Global marketplace

By allowing creative potential to surface, spreading knowledge and supporting competition, IT offers an opportunity to break down inequalities within and between societies. Another aspect of this opportunity is related to the globalisation of capital. With the help of IT, capital now circulates with the speed of light, regardless of geography, in search of the new investment opportunities which offer the best returns. Distance no longer determines the delivery time or the cost of communications.

Meanwhile, businesses can deliver their products down a telephone line anywhere in the world, twenty-four hours a day. In particular, software, one of the pructs with the highest value added, can be delivered anywhere at any time. In the resulting global market place, consumers are overwhelmed by choice: choice not only of products and services or of financial and intellectual capital, but also of ways and means to govern their futures and their childrens’ futures. These new trends normally lead people to demand more democracy and greater respect for human rights along with the ability to access the wealth generated by the knowledge economy.

Against this backdrop, the “digital divide” between those societies where the use of IT products and services is widespread and those where it is not can be regarded as a waste of the limited material, administrative and intellectual resources of the “information have-nots”. Wasted opportunities and effort prevent them from building a strategic and inspired future, which in turn leads to further shortages of human capital and and lack of knowledge-driven production. However, this is not a destiny which cannot be undone.

The WSIS process

Issues such as the above have inspired all countries to participate enthusiastically in the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process, embarked upon by the United Nations and the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) in Geneva in December 2003. The second phase of the WSIS convened in Tunis on November 16-18, 2005. The summit was extremely well organised, and according to our hosts over 20,000 people representing governments, international organisations, the private sector and civil society were present. There was an atmosphere of general conviviality, despite extremely strict safety measures.

As expected, the issue of the Governance of the Internet prompted lively discussion right from day one of the conference. Eventually a compromise was found to the apparent satisfaction of all parties. The US will retain, for an undetermined period, control of the Los Angeles-based Internet Corporation for Assigned Numbers and Names (INCANN). However, the Americans agreed that more representatives from other countries should participate in the management of the INCANN. It was also decided to create an Internet Governance Forum, for multi-stakeholder dialogue, to seek the best means of reducing the technological gap between rich and poor countries and to consider how to oppose the damaging invasion of spam, fight cybercrime and respect privacy and freedom of expression.

The issue of transforming the digital divide into digital opportunities for the developing world stemped its mark on the Tunis summit. The Digital Solidarity Fund, which was created to complement existing mechanisms for funding the Information Society, has been functioning for several months now. According to ITU officials, substantial progress was expected on this issue. When one bears in mind that two billion people have never had a ‘phone call in their lives – and that many more have never boarded an aeroplane or even heard about the Internet - the dream of an Information Society requires more than the embrace of a vision by world leaders. It requires money. And this can not come about unless rich countries decide to be more generous and to provide the Fund with the means to carry out its mission.

Turkey’s IT policy

Turkey was represented at the WSIS Summit in Tunis in November by a strong delegation headed by Mr. Binali Yıldırım, Minister of Transport and Communications. In his statement, the Minister made clear that Turkey considered the implementation and follow-up of the Tunis Agenda, as well as the commitments made by the international community during the two phases of the WSIS process, to constitute “the most crucial aspects of our common future.” He also invited the WSIS participants to attend the ITU Plenipotentiary Conference, to be held in Antalya in November 2006.

“Particularly in recent years,” Minister Yıldırım told the Summit, “Turkey has increased her efforts to manage the process of transforming Turkish society in a more coordinated manner. In this connection, a myriad of programs have been developed; namely, e-Government services in education, health, taxation, social security, the justice system and similar fields, broadband access to schools and infrastructure services to SMEs. Universal service regulations are being utilised to overcome the digital divide and projects are being developed to achieve social inclusion of those with low incomes, putting special emphasis on rural areas.”

Historically, Turkey’s Information Society policy emerged in the early 2000s with the creation of a Working Team at the Prime Ministry. In December 2003, in a move intended to ensure effective political leadership and government-private sector-civil society coordination, Information Society policy development was entrusted to the e-Turkey Executive Board, headed by Deputy Prime Mınister Dr. Abdüllatif Şener. Minister of Trasport and Communications Mr. Binali Yıldırım, Minister of Industry and Trade Mr. Ali Coşkun, State Planning Organisation (SPO) Undersecretary Dr. Ahmet Tıktık and Mr. Fikret Üçcan, Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister, also sit on the Board. Participants in Board meetings include representatives of the Scientific and Technical Research Council of Turkey (TÜBITAK), the Unıon of Chambers (TOBB), the Telecommunications Authority (TK) and relevant private sector organisations and NGOs. The SPO provides secretariat facilities.

Achievements and constraints

An international consultancy firm was subsequently commissioned to design a new Information Society strategy while a second group undertook the task of establishing a single online Portal to improve and simplify interaction between citizens and the administration.

Human capital, as the cornerstone of the Information Society, has been given special emphasis in the overall strategy. The initiative known as the Basic Education Project demands significant changes in the technological and human resources of schools: primary and secondary school classrooms are being endowed with computers with broadband connections, and teachers are attending specific training courses.

The e-Economy is a two-speed reality in Turkey. Some business sectors are driving fast towards the Information Society while others, especially most SMEs, are more reluctant to adhere to new e-business practices. The main constraints facing these smaller businesses are lack of skills and the legal and bureaucratic burden. To overcome this problem, the Government  is trying to develop a legal framework in which e-Businesses will be stimulated and e-Business practices will be adopted by SMEs. The use of e-Signatures has been introduced to ensure the reliability and security of e-Business.

To sum up, Turkey’s path to the Information Society has been marked by a continuous effort to keep up with the agenda of the European Union at the same time as addressing the problems of its socio-economic structure. Many key actions have been taken in pursuit of greater competitiveness and growth in an innovative environment to better the quality of life in Turkey. However, Low IT skills and low ICT penetration in households and businesses still pose a major challenge to the dvelopment of a competitive knowledge-based economy in Turkey.

About the author

We are grateful to Mr Fikret N. Üçcan, Senior Advisor to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and former Prime Ministry Undersecretary, for contributing this month’s ‘Current Opinion’.  Mr Üçcan entered the Turkish Foreign Ministry in 1964 after graduating from the Faculty of Political Sciences of Ankara University, from which he was later to obtain a master’s degree. He served in the Turkish embassies in Vienna, Amman, London, Tripoli and Kuwait and as Consul General in Strasbourg. Besides his diplomatic career, he held posts as Advisor to the State Minister, General Director of Social Planning at the State Planning Organisation and Undersecretary of the Ministry of Culture before being appointed Prime Ministry Undersecretary. He obtained a masteris degree from the Graduate School of Social Sciences of Ankara’s Gazi University in 1992, specialising in the role of human capital in economic development. He is now Senior Advisor to the Prime Minister. His international career includes services as Deputy Chairman of the UN Population Commission, Deputy Chairman of the International Professional Training and Teaching Association (IVETA) and Chairman of the Eureka Audiovisual and European Audiovisual Observatory. His publications include ‘Önce İnsan’ (Human Being First) and ‘Kültür Mirasımız’ (Our Cultural Heritage), and translations into Turkish of “Management for the Future” by Peter Drucker, “Preparing for the 21st Century” by Paul Kennedy and “Chaos” by James Gleick.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Where WSIS goes next

by Bernard KENNEDY

February will see further steps towards enabling less developed countries and communities to grasp the opportunities offered by information technology, rather than being left behind once again as they were during the industrial revolution.

First, a date is expected to be set for the inaugural meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), due to take place in Athens late this year, with about 1,000 participants. Greece offered to host the event during the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis in November last year.

Second, the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UNESCO and the UNDP are jointly organising a consultation meeting of WSIS Action Line Moderators/Facilitators in Geneva. The meeting will help to allocate responsibilities for implementing the “action lines” set out during phase one of the WSIS in Geneva in December 2003. These include: the role of public governance in promoting the use of information and communication technologies (ICTs) for development; information and communication infrastructure; access to information; applications such as e-government and e-health; cultural diversity; media, and ethical aspects of the information society. A range of UN organisations are expected to become involved along with the ITU and other stakeholders.

Meanwhile, UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is due to report back to the UN General Assembly in June on progress made by the UN Group on the Information Society towards inter-institutional coordination and implementation of WSIS results. The Assembly is later expected to confirm May 17 as Information Society World Day and to initiate a “Tunis+10” event in 2015 to examine how far the WSIS conclusions have been implemented.

All of these developments follow the adoption at Tunis of the ‘Tunis Commitment’ and ‘Tunis Agenda for the Information Society’.

Inclusive information

The Commitment reaffirms the determination of the participants to “build a people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society... so that people everywhere can create, access, utilise and share information and knowledge, to achieve their full potential and to attain the internationally-agreed development goals and objectives...” It stresses the need for better access to technology and infrastructure, training and security, and touches on issues as cultural diversity, the role of the media, the abuse of the Internet, the use of technology in small businesses and the possibility of using debt relief to enable developing countries to increase their ICT efforts. It calls for “universal, ubiquitous, equitable and affordable access to ICTs” for all people including women, children, youth, the disabled and other marginalised or disadvantaged groups, peoples and countries.

The ‘Tunis Agenda’ seeks to put some flesh on this declaration of intent by setting out the next steps in the WSIS process, including the thorny issues of financing and internet governance which were carried over from Geneva to Tunis. Bridging the digital divide, it says, will require “adequate and sustainable investments in ICT infrastructure and services, and capacity building, and transfer of technology over many years to come” – and this cannot be left simply to market forces. It encourages development assistance, technology transfer, favourable investment climates, the free participation of developing countries in world markets for ICT-enabled services, and a stronger focus on ICT from donors and multilateral institutions.

The Agenda welcomes the establishment, at Geneva, of the ‘Digital Solidarity Fund’ (DSF), a Swiss Law foundation financed initially by contributions totalling some USD6m from 20 founding states, local governments, and international agencies. The City of Geneva has initiated a scheme whereby public ICT procurement contract-winners make a 1% contribution to the Fund. The DSF is currently financing projects in Africa involving Internet access for HIV/AIDS-threatened communities and distance education for healthcare centre personnel.

Running the Internet

International management of the Internet, the Agenda states, should be “multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society and international organisations. It should ensure an equitable distribution of resources, facilitate access for all and ensure a stable and secure functioning of the Internet, taking into account multilingualism.” The Agenda speaks of the need to develop a culture of security and to combat cyber-crime, spam and terrorism while respecting rights to privacy and freedom of expression. It calls for measures to uphold consumer rights and extend e-government applications. It argues for low international interconnection costs, multilingualism and software “that renders itself easily to localisation, and enables users to choose appropriate solutions from different software models including open-source, free and proprietary software”.

The Agenda goes on to ask the UN Secretary-General to set up the IGF, detailing its tasks and responsibilities. At the same time, however, it recognises that “the existing arrangements for Internet governance have worked effectively to make the Internet the highly robust, dynamic and geographically diverse medium that it is today, with the private sector taking the lead in day-to-day operations, and with innovation and value creation at the edges.” The IGF is to have “no oversight function and would not replace existing arrangements, mechanisms, institutions or organisations, but would involve them and take advantage of their expertise. It would be constituted as a neutral, non-duplicative and non-binding process. It would have no involvement in day-to-day or technical operations of the Internet.”

Tunisian connections

Tunis was an appropriate venue for phase two of the WSIS, since it was the Government of Tunisia that first proposed the holding of such a summit at the ITU Conference in Minneapolis in 1998. The ITU won UN executive support and its plan for a two-phase event was endorsed by the UN General Assembly in 2001. Both the Geneva and Tunis phases were attended by heads of state and government or vice-presidents from close to 50 countries. In all, ministers and other top officials from175 countries took part, alongside representatives of international organisations, the private sector and civil society.

Active Internet policies have made Tunisia one of the best-connected among African and Arab countries. The Summit built on its experience in this field as well as its key location between North and South. The DSF is reminiscent of Tunisia’s own National Solidarity Fund for social solidarity and of the World Solidarity Fund which it successfully proposed to the UN General Assembly in 2002. President Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali has devoted much of his time to extending the use of ICTs and narrowing the digital divide.

(DIPLOMAT  -  February 2006  -  Ankara)