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On 24 October 2006 Collegium of the Russian Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications held a meeting that discussed, among other issues, the national plan for implementing decisions of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
Oleg Byakhov, Director of the Department of Strategy of Building the Information Society, Ministry of IT and Communications, made a report on this topic.
Tatiana Ershova, IIS General Director and Head of Directorate of the Russian E-Development Partnership, participated in the discussion. As a High-level Advisor of the Global Alliance for ICT and Development, she stressed that Russia achieved a considerable progress in terms of implementing WSIS decisions.
In particular, a draft Strategy for the Information Society Development in Russia was developed. The draft Strategy covered 10 of 11 lines of activity set by WSIS as key ones for implementing the final WSIS documents (Geneva Declaration of Principles, Geneva Plan of Action, Tunis Commitment and Tunis Agenda for the Information Society), namely:
Ñ1. The role of public governance authorities and all stakeholders in the promotion of ICTs for development
Ñ2. Information and communication infrastructure
C3. Access to information and knowledge
C4. Capacity building
C5. Building confidence and security in the use of ICTs
C6. Enabling environment
C7. ICT Applications (E-government, E-business, E-learning, E-health, E-employment, E-environment, E-science)
C8. Cultural diversity and identity, linguistic diversity and local content
C9. Media
C11. International and regional cooperation
Russia has clearly defined its position on Internet governance and started implementing a set of financial mechanisms for ICT development, among which there is development of venture investment fund for supporting ICT campaigns. The latter was also discussed at the meeting of Collegium of the Ministry of Information Technologies and Communications of the Russian Federation of 24 October 2006.
The Strategy of the Information Society development in Russia was drafted under coordination of the Security Council of the Russian Federation by an interdepartmental work group that comprised representatives of all stakeholders: government, business, civil society and research and education community. Besides, the document is being publicly discussed in federal districts of the Russian Federation (see news on these events on e-Region" web-site: http://www.iis.ru/en/content/view/172/91/, http://www.iis.ru/en/content/view/174/91/ , http://www.iis.ru/en/content/view/185/91/, http://www.iis.ru/en/content/view/188/91/) and on online forum (in Russian only) of the Russian Security Council. Thus, the Strategy is obtaining status of a national document, not only a governmental one, which it will get after the official approval.
Tatiana Ershova supported the idea of adopting a national plan of implementing WSIS decisions which was drafted by the Russian Ministry of IT and Communications. She also suggested that key representatives of stakeholding parties should be attracted to its elaboration. This will make the plan not only a governmental but a national document similarly to the Strategy. She advanced an opinion that proposing the draft plan for discussion in the Russian Government should be cone after adopting the Strategy of the Information Society development in Russia.
Tatiana Ershova suggested attracting to the elaboration of the national plan for implementing WSIS decisions key players actively promoting development of the Information Society, in particular, Russian E-Development Partnership (PRIOR) - voluntary association of organizations and private persons that join their efforts and resources, and providing mutual information, technological, advisory, financial, organizational and other support for achieving a common goal - dynamic and full-fledged Russia's development against the background of global Information Society, and development of knowledge-based economy in Russia.
She also stressed that Russia, with its federal form of government and vast territory, will concentrate efforts on carrying out the national plan for implementing WSIS decisions in the regions. That is why it is crucial to coordinate the work on plan elaboration and further implementation with the Council on Regional Informatizations. The latter was recently established by the Russian Ministry of IT and Communications (see more info on the first meeting of this body: http://www.iis.ru/en/content/view/193/91/. |
