Bulgaria at the World Summit on the Information Society
Bulgaria shares the vision of the WSIS Draft Declaration of Principles to build people-centred, inclusive and development oriented Information Society premised on the principles enshrined in the United Nations and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. That was announced by the official representative Mr. Igor Damianov, Minister of Education and Science, at the 1st phase of World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in Geneva, 10-12 December 2003.
Igor Damianov at WSIS:
"Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are among the major priorities of the Bulgarian Government. We consider providing access to information society services to all strata of the population, construction of high-speed information infrastructure and support of innovative products and services as the foundation of knowledge-based economy that fosters economic development and improves people's lives. Our program is based on the understanding that the information infrastructure links the country to the global economy and ensures its competitiveness."
The minister also emphasised that Bulgaria plays an important international role in coordinating the Working Group on the use of electronic means for the implementation of the UN Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice on Environment (Aarhus Convention).
The Aarhus Convention Task Force on Electronic Information Tools is enlisted in the WSIS action plan in the measures regarding section "Good governance". The task force to promote and support the use of electronic information tools was established in July 2000 under the ECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention). The task force, previously led by Austria, is now under the leadership of Bulgaria. Its mandate is to identify needs, challenges and priorities in this area with a view to promoting good practices and to provide input into the Convention’s capacity building efforts. The task force has developed a list of possible actions to further the use of electronic tools in the implementation of the Aarhus. The task force identified several priority areas for advancement of the use of ICTs to promote implementation of the Convention and welcomed the development of an electronic clearinghouse mechanism for the convention.
Bulgarian officials participated in a round table called Diversity in Cyberspace, dedicated to culture and language diversity, which took place in Geneva and presented the development of information and communication technologies in Bulgaria. "All central government institutions have their own Internet page, which is a starting point for the development of the e-government services in our country", stated Nedelcho Nedelchev, deputy Minister of Transport and Communications.
E-government appears to be the primary ICT policy issue that Bulgarian official institutions are committed together with the promises of fostering environment for the IT business. Yet both areas had their bottlenecks in slow liberalisation of telecommunications legislation and binding the Bulgarian electronic government gateway with Microsoft software.
That controversial step appeared to be in argue with the statement that Bulgaria accept the vision for overcoming the digital divide. The heated debate commercial versus open source software, which started as the Bulgarian e-government gateway was launched burst out at the WSIS too.
Veni Markovski, head of the Bulgarian branch of the Internet Society, was quoted by International Herald Tribune when he said during WSIS that he had approached the UN Development Program to get help for his country and was motivated to do so because he was shocked by the outcome of several government contracts involving Microsoft products. The information and communications technology arm of the UNDP is currently advising governments that ask on how to use open source as a tool to build local skills.
Nevertheless Bulgarian participation in WSIS was marked with relatively low participation of civil society entities. Representatives took part in the global videoconference in September 17, 2003, during the WSIS preparation process.
At the videoconference was mentioned that Bulgaria has made an effort to include disadvantaged groups in the Information society. An example of this is a detention facility for the youth that contains a technology education center for inmates to continue their education as well as maintain a newspaper and local radio station. Bulgaria also raised the issue of protecting minors from the dark side of the Internet especially the network of hotlines for illegal and harmful content.
Bulgaria participated in the preparatory process to the second phase of WSIS in Tunis including the discussions over the Internet governance. Bulgaria shared the national perspective and explained the way such problem is solved locally. The country created a community of experts in the ICT field in Bulgaria. Members of the Parliament, ministers, representatives of the NGOs, scientists and university staff have put together a team which created the new Telecommunications Law. It defined precisely the role of the government in the management of the DNS and the IP numbers and addresses. It was done in an open, democratic, transparent, multi stakeholders and inclusive way. Bulgaria pleaded to the international community to bring more common sense, and to progress in the way to a better governed Internet.
At the WSIS phase in Tunis Bulgaria was already presented by the chairman of the newly established State Agency for Information Technology and Communications Mr. Plamen Vachkov. In his statement he said:
“We fully share the Tunis commitment and the Agenda that will be adopted at this Summit. They sustain the vision of a Global Information Society based on solidarity, cooperation and inclusion and strengthen our confidence in a better world for our children. We appreciate the political will of all member countries to discuss openly and constructively topical issues related to the Information Society and to draw a collective strategy for the future. We believe that the Tunis agenda can serve as basis of a “win-win” strategy for all stakeholders in the process.”
During the forum Vachkov also explained that the establishment of a high-speed information infrastructure was a priority of the Bulgarian Government and one of the foundations of the knowledge-based economy.
