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Contribution for PrepCom-2Republic of Korea	
	7 December 2002









REPUBLIC OF KOREA


KOREAN PROPOSAL TO THE EXECUTIVE SECRETARIAT
ON A DRAFT DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES AND ACTION PLAN FOR THE WSIS

7 December 2002


Considering Outcome of the Informal Meeting of Sub-committee 2 of PrepCom-1
of the WSIS, the Korean government is of the opinion that the areas of
following four themes should be highlighted. 

¡¤	The mutual responsibility to bridge the digital divide
¡¤	The Right to Access Information as a basic human right
¡¤	The importance of human resource development
¡¤	Preservation of cultural identities and linguistic diversity


The mutual responsibility to bridge the digital divide

The action to bridge the digital divide should be taken under mutual
responsibility since the digital divide can be bridged efficiently with the
common efforts of all stakeholders such as developing and advanced countries,
international organizations, and private sectors. 

¨ª	For the declaration of the WSIS,
-	Bridging the digital divide should be taken under mutual responsibility and
co-operation between developed and developing countries. 

¨ª	For the action plan of the WSIS,
-	The guideline to implement the common efforts in bridging the digital
divide with the recognition of mutual responsibility of all stakeholders
should be established at the global level.
-	When countries begin to establish the national plan for information
society, they have to take the way to bridge the digital divide into
account.
-	The developed countries are required to support the developing countries on
the building the national plan for information society.


The Right to Access Information as ¡®a basic human right¡¯

The right to access information should be regarded as a basic human right in
the information society, since there are many social groups who can not
access information needed for their lives due to their social, economic,
physical and geographic barriers.

¨ª	For the declaration of the WSIS,
-	The right to access information should be regarded as a basic human right
in the information society. 

¨ª	For the action plan,
-	 Defining the concept of the right to access information
-	 Research should be continuously carried out to identify and overcome the
obstacles for bridging the digital divide in the information society.
-	All individual nations have to initiate national plan and make every
necessary effort to realize the right to access information.


The Importance of Human Resource Development

Human Resource Development should be regarded as fundamental prerequisite to
realize information society since benefit of information society will not be
possible without the ability to use ICT.

¨ª	For the declaration of the WSIS,
-	The international cooperation and participation of private sectors are
required to carry out human resource development, education and training. 

¨ª	For the action plan,
-	Mechanism needs to be established to ensure the education and training
required for the use of ICTs, including training centers and programs, in
particular for those in the developing countries.  
-	The importance of public education should be highlighted along with the
efforts to develop greater expertise and specialization.


Preservation of cultural identities and linguistic diversity

¨ª	For the declaration,
-	The information society of the future should be based on the respect for
various cultural identities and linguistic diversity. 

¨ª	For the action plan,
-	The continuous efforts are required to maintain various cultural identities
in the enormous flow of information, at the national as well as international
level.  For instances, cultural and linguistic diversity should be taken into
account on technology development, standardization and etc.
-	Developments of automatic language translation technique and local language
based contents are required to facilitate linguistic diversity