WSIS+10:
Renewing the Knowledge Societies Vision

One of several background documents for the WSIS+10 review meeting is by Robin Mansell and Gaëtan Tremblay, “Renewing the Knowledge Societies Vision: Towards Knowledge Societies for Peace and Sustainable Development”. A first draft version of this 100-page document is available for download here. From the summary:

We highlight lessons across several selected issue areas – formal and informal education and learning, media and mediated content, freedom of expression, freedom of information and political transparency, issues of gender sensitivity, environmental sustainability, and ethics. Knowledge societies are not emerging in isolation from other large-scale changes including shifts in economic power, and major political, social and cultural transitions. The policy environment needs to be flexible enough to ensure that stakeholders do not become locked into unsustainable pathways. Not all initiatives are concerned with the potential for the empowerment of local communities or disadvantaged and excluded groups, and not all ICT innovations are benign. Policy initiatives need to give greater attention to approaches that embrace bottom up participation and promote education and learning.

More information on the WSIS+10 event, programme, remote participation, background documents and more is available on the WSIS+10 website.