[governance] Invitation to IISD E-conference on Internet Governance and Sustainable Development

Tue Sep 11 12:44:47 EDT 2007

Dear Jean-Louis,

Thank you very much for your thoughts on our conference topic.  I too am also interested in some of the more pragmatic issues that should be the attention of further investigation related to this topic. This will be the focus of some of my own research this fall so I appreciate you sharing your insights.

Just for your information the conference is being conducted via e-mail using a listserve so there will be no verbal debate. If you are interested in monitoring the e-mail debates or potentially adding your own thoughts to the threads I invite you to join the listserve at the following link <http://lists.iisd.ca:81/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=igsd>.

Best Regards,

Tony Vetter
Project Officer, Knowledge Communications
International Institute for Sustainable Development, Ottawa, Canada
1-613-288-2024
http://www.iisd.org

-----Original Message-----
From: jlfullsack [mailto:jlfullsack at wanadoo.fr] 
Sent: September 11, 2007 12:24 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Tony Vetter
Subject: Re: [governance] Invitation to IISD E-conference on Internet Governance and Sustainable Development

Dear Tony

Many thanks for your kind invitation. However, I'm very busy (even
"overbooked") during this period, with the Regional Unesco Meeting (Europe and North America) where i'm involved since it takes place in Strasbourg (my living place) on next 13th and 14th, and the EurAfrica-ICT Initiative meeting in Brussels on September 27, which needs some preparation for me. 
Therefore it may be difficult for me to be an active participant at your conference. Moreover, my English may prove not fluent enough for contributing effectively to the debates (generally people use to speek very/too quickly there ...).

Actually, the topic of the IISD conference is on top of my reflections, but these are more pragmatic than "academic".
For me, and as far as development is concerned (e.g. Sub Saharian Africa, SSA), one of the most important concepts is synergy between diverse infrastractures such as transport (road and rail), energy (transport lines and grids), ICT (both telecom and TV infrastructures), water and sanitation networks (urban areas), pipelines, etc. Obvious synergy effects with ICT (i.a. carrying Internet) are also obtained through postal networks, where e-mail complements traditional mail if any. What's more, synergy is not only cost effective, it is also a cross-fertilizing means if it is taken in account accordingly and following a formalized methodology. Thus, synergy is in my opinion key for optimizing the relationship between ICT (domain where Internet Gouvernance is unavoidable) and development, which is obviously based on sustainable development in SSA.

I think this close relationship and its induced synergy effets may be contributive to the second and maybe to the fifth of the conference topics.

All the best

Jean-Louis Fullsack
President of CSDPTT (www.csdptt.org)
Associated Researcher of CERIME (Universite Robert Schuman, Strasbourg)
(www.cerime.u-strasbg.fr)

----- Original Message -----
From: "Tony Vetter" <tvetter at iisd.ca>
To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>
Sent: Tuesday, September 11, 2007 4:15 PM
Subject: [governance] Invitation to IISD E-conference on Internet Governance and Sustainable Development

>From September 17 to 28, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) is hosting an e-conference to engage researchers, practitioners and policy analysts in an open discussion on the intersections between Internet governance and sustainable development.
Your participation will help advance the debate.

Please visit the following url for full details, http://www.iisd.org/infosoc/gov/igsd/, or read on for a brief summary.

Sustainable development efforts cannot be conceived without global communications and knowledge exchange: therefore, the outcomes of the Internet governance debate will affect our ability to manage the social, environmental and economic factors of sustainable development. Beyond this fundamental link, numerous and diverse issue areas exist where the Internet governance and sustainable development policy communities could discover mutual challenges and learn from each others approaches to confronting them, setting the stage for future cooperation. Over the past year, in collaboration with partners and stakeholders, the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) proposed to focus on five areas in which further exploration of potential links between these two communities could be anchored:

- governance processes;

- economic barriers to development;

- the capacity of developing countries to participate in international governance;

- access to local knowledge as a critical input to decision-making; and

- indicators for development.

By commissioning a pair of exploratory papers on each of these topics, IISD aimed to expand the links between these two communities of researchers and practitioners who have spent over three decades working in relative isolation from one another, creating gaps in vocabulary and culture. Each of these papers defines the issue area; describes its relevant governance structures and processes; identifies the main issues currently being debated; articulates actual and potential links between ICTs/Internet governance and sustainable development; and proposes areas for further study.

The purpose of this e-conference is to give participants an opportunity to share their thoughts, comments, or questions regarding the content presented in these paper pairs. You are encouraged join this e-conference to engage other participant in a discussion of common positions, mutual challenges and differences, and how lessons from one side might inform progress on the other, in the context of each issue area.

Copies of the papers can be downloaded at http://www.iisd.org/infosoc/gov/igsd/, and an email containing links to the papers will be sent when you confirm your subscription.

** HOW TO PARTICIPATE **

You can subscribe via the WWW. Please see:

<http://lists.iisd.ca:81/read/all_forums/subscribe?name=igsd>

To participate via e-mail, here are the basic commands:

SUBSCRIBING:

Send a message to <lyris at lists.iisd.ca> with the following

command in the body of your email message:

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