Building the World Movement for Democracy
Inaugural World Assembly
February 14-17, 1999
New Delhi, India
New Communications Technologies: Tools for Democracy-Building
Workshop Leaders: Mark Palmer, Paul McCarthy and Allen Overland
Condensed from report by Mark Palmer
The last decades of the 20th century were marked by two major global revolutions, the democratic revolution and the information revolution. At the dawn of a new millennium, these two processes are becoming increasingly intertwined. Our goal in the 21st century should be to complete the democratic and information revolutions by ensuring that every single country in the world becomes democratic and that every individual in the world is directly connected to cyberspace--to the world of knowledge and civic participation. Given these tasks, democratic activists are faced with the challenges of integrating new technologies into their work of promoting pluralism and the development of civil society. They also confront attempts by anti-democratic regimes to restrict citizens' access to the Internet.
The workshop focused on how democratic organizations around the world are utilizing communications technologies--including the Internet, electronic media and satellite TV--to promote their work, and how they are coping with threats by repressive regimes to curtail their access to these technologies. The session opened with a presentation by Sasa Mirkovic, Director of the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM) in Serbia, who described how his radio & TV network used stateoftheart satellite and Internet technologies to circumvent government censorship. Levan Berdzenishvili, Director of the Civic Development International Center and the Director of the National Library of Georgia, shared his experiences in establishing a grassroots Internet system in Georgia which services the country's 2,000 non-governmental organizations. Allen Overland of NED's Democracy Resource Center described NED's information resources, including a website, library, database of foundations, and an electronic mailing list. He also presented various educational materials designed to help NGOs utilize the Internet more effectively.
An audience participation session followed the presentations and several points were agreed upon:
- Increasing citizen's use of the Internet, with a goal of universal access, is a top priority.
- It is the citizen's responsibility to press his/her government to increase access to the Internet. It is the international community's responsibility to make this a top priority.
- Repressive governments around the world are trying to restrict citizen's access to the Internet because it directly threatens the regimes' political and economic control.
- Governmental and private monopolies of cyberspace must be broken up and more open access encouraged.
- International corporations and foundations should be encouraged to invest in promoting greater access to the Internet in schools and public libraries.
- Internet access in many developing countries is a pre-condition for future economic development.
- A major WMD goal in the future is the development of technologies that would lead to an inexpensive, two-way hand-held device that would connect even disadvantaged populations--through video, audio and text--to cyberspace and media.
- There is a great need to train NGO activists to use the Internet.
- Compared to the telephone and fax machine, the Internet is a relatively cheap method of communication.
- The new communications technologies can enhance the capacity of traditional media, such as radio and TV, particularly when these media are trying to circumvent government censorship.
- The Internet offers democracy promotion organizations a cost-effective medium to share information, cooperate on joint projects, and promote economic and political reform.
Workshop participants designated Allen Overland of NED's Democracy Resource Center as a point of contact for follow-up projects. Participants also agreed to reconvene in cyberspace in February 2000 to evaluate implementation of the workshop recommendations.
Proposed initiatives:
Establish an electronic mailing list, on the NED Democracy News listserv, to keep participants informed of developments in the area of access to the Internet/information and provide a means for participants to share their experience in utilizing communications technologies. The mailing list should take the form of a newsletter and could contain alerts of infringements on democracy.
Use the NED website to act as a point of contact for World Movement for Democracy participants who are interested in finding out more about the use of Internet technologies in facilitating their work.
Use the electronic network of democratic activists to post newsletters, circulate petitions, hold cyber-referenda, and exchange democracy promotion materials.
Through this informal network, participants can work together to press their governments and international corporations to break information monopolies and ensure greater access to the Internet.
Given the increasing cooperation between NED and its counterparts in India, collaborative projects, such as mirror web sites in the United States and India, should be discussed and developed.
Telecommunications companies, foundations and others should be encouraged to invest in connecting publicly accessible libraries around the world to the Internet. This will increase access to the Internet exponentially.
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