This record is a partial extract of the original cable. The full text of the original cable is not available.

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 PARIS 000396 
 
SIPDIS 
 
FROM USMISSION UNESCO PARIS 
E.O. 12958:    N/A 
 
TAGS: KPAO ECPS ETRD ECON EINT ETTC EAID UNESCO
SUBJECT:  UNESCO: AMBASSADOR GROSS MEETS ADG KHAN 
 
 
¶1.   (SBU) SUMMARY:  The Coordinator for International 
Communications and Information Policy in the Bureau of 
Economic and Business Affairs, Ambassador David A. 
Gross met with the UNESCO Assistant Director General 
for Communication and Information, Abdul Waheed Khan 
and Director of the Information Society Division of the 
Communication and Information Sector, Elizabeth 
Longworth on January 18, 2006 to discuss candidates for 
the post World Summit on the Information Society's 
(WSIS) Internet Governance Forum's secretariat, 
UNESCO's plans for implementation of WSIS Action lines 
(Khan discussed only 4 although UNESCO claims 
competence in 8.) and other issues including Khan's 
upcoming travel to the U.S., the success of UNESCO's 
MOUs on ICTs with U.S. companies and USAID and UNESCO 
programs designed to encourage capacity building in 
developing areas.  END SUMMARY. 
----------------------------- 
The Internet Governance Forum 
----------------------------- 
¶2.  (SBU) At Tunis, the UN Secretary General was asked 
to convene, by the second quarter of 2006, a meeting of 
a new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue 
called the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).  Ambassador 
Gross inquired about UNESCO's views on post-WSIS 
activities.  Khan stated that there were many actors 
jockeying for position, among them the UN's Commission 
on Science and Technology for Development (CSTP), which 
he reported was pushing hard to expand its mandate in 
this area.  Khan believed that the proposed Global 
Alliance for ICT and Development might be created as a 
working group within the CSTP.   (In conjunction with 
the Second Phase of WSIS, the UN ICT Task Force held a 
meeting in November 2005 on the concept of becoming a 
Global Alliance for ICT and Development.)  Gross stated 
that he had heard that a proposal on the Global 
Alliance might have been sent to the UN's Deputy 
Secretary General, but was bounced back after WSIS. 
 
SIPDIS 
All agreed that the Global Alliance might be looking 
for a new mandate.  Ambassador Gross emphasized that 
the U.S. was not playing a major role in deciding who 
should be the IGF's secretariat, although he noted that 
Canada proposed Markus Kumar.  Would UNESCO, he asked, 
support this? Longworth stated that this would be a 
positive step because Geneva was more accessible to the 
developing world than other locations, such as New 
York.  The U.N. in New York, Khan added, always wanted 
to do everything and its location might be a negative 
optic for the U.S. 
¶3.  (SBU) Ambassador Gross was asked who he thought 
would be on the IGF's bureau.  He urged UNESCO to help 
make the forum a "big tent" by getting its own 
constituency involved, particularly actors from 
developing countries, NGOs and the private sector.  He 
cautioned that UNESCO's own free flow of information 
agenda could otherwise get lost in the larger UN 
bureaucracy. 
---------------- 
UNESCO POST WSIS 
---------------- 
¶4.  (SBU) Ambassador Gross emphasized that the US did 
not view WSIS as a mandate expander - rather the goal 
was for enhanced cooperation among WSIS actors within 
existing institutions and mandates.  It was not an 
expansion of the ITU's - or anyone else's - mandate, he 
said.   Khan began to describe which WSIS action lines 
fall under UNESCO's competency.  UNESCO is the sole UN 
agency responsible for freedom of expression and the 
media under the WSIS plan of action, he said.  He 
stated that UNESCO was trying to operationalize what 
this really means in practice and planned to organize a 
multi-stakeholder meeting on the topic for November 
¶2006.  The main issue, he stated, was building 
capacities.  He noted UNESCO's numerous activities in 
post-conflict areas in terms of training media 
professionals, building community radio and television, 
and provided examples of progress in Afghanistan.  He 
added that he had just received a 4 million dollar 
grant from the government of Italy to fund freedom of 
expression in the media. 
¶5.  (SBU) Ambassador Gross asked Khan whether UNESCO's 
primary focus post-WSIS would be on the media side. 
Longworth indicated this was a case of triage.  Khan 
cited 3 of the 8 Action lines mentioning UNESCO: 
Ethical dimensions of the information society; 
education and ICTs; and cultural and linguistic 
diversity.  The ethical dimensions action line was to 
be split with ECOSOC, but Khan noted that it did not 
show signs of active involvement.  Ambassador Gross 
emphasized that this particular action line gave the 
USG substantial pause.  Longworth and Khan said the 
issue was so large it was hard to know which aspect to 
pick.  Khan observed that in the past UNESCO has been 
"clobbered" on the issue of ethics for media 
professionals in particular, and acknowledged that the 
term could be a code word for censorship.  Khan 
preferred the term "high professional standards" to 
which Gross quickly added the word "voluntary". 
Longworth noted that Khan had had to be very firm on 
this issue leading up to the 171st UNESCO Executive 
Board in September 2005, but that it continually re- 
emerges.  For example, she noted that Venezuela would 
be asking the Director General about it during his 
annual question and answer session for UNESCO Permanent 
Representatives on January 19. 
¶6.  (SBU)  Khan also specifically cited ICTs and 
Education as an Action line for UNESCO, but did not 
give specifics.  When the conversation turned to 
cultural and linguistic diversity, Gross noted the 
effectiveness of the Internet as a tool for scattered 
communities, such as Native Americans, to reconnect 
with one another in their native tongue.  Longworth 
stated that UNESCO had a major work stream on access to 
diverse languages in cyberspace.  She emphasized that 
Communication and Information saw its value added in 
the technical aspect (putting languages into digital 
form) of promoting cultural and linguistic diversity, 
while UNESCO's cultural sector might have a role to 
play vis-a-vis cultural diversity.  Ambassador Gross 
noted recent discussions between the USG and Google on 
translation software, among other issues.  Putting such 
tools, if effective, together with the promotion of non- 
ASCII languages could yield a "quantum leap" for 
everyone, he stated.  He offered USG assistance in 
contacting Google to explore these ideas further.  Khan 
noted that Google was already involved with the World 
Digital Library, a project on which the U.S. Librarian 
of Congress has reached out to UNESCO.   Longworth and 
Khan expressed an interest to work with Google at a 
high level on these issues along with developing better 
search engines, and devising new ways to share 
information, especially with regard to making the 
bumper crop of new digital libraries interoperable. 
UNESCO could be a platform to bring parties together on 
these questions, they offered. 
------------ 
OTHER ISSUES 
------------ 
¶7. (SBU)  Khan told Ambassador Gross that he plans to 
visit the U.S. in April, 2006 and will focus on 
increasing awareness of UNESCO's role in WSIS 
implementation and its communication development 
programs.  He also described the progress UNESCO has 
made on establishing MOUs with private US firms. 
¶8. (SBU)  Longworth noted that UNESCO was hosting a 
conference that explores how building Western style 
knowledge parks in developing countries can help boost 
capacity building on ICTs.  Gross and Khan agreed that 
the quality of knowledge parks varied greatly.  Khan 
described one outstanding example in Oman and added 
that others in his native India had taken off thanks to 
the work of the Secretary of Information Technology, 
Shri M. Madhavan Nambiar.  Gross described a small but 
successful USAID program to promote capacity building 
in the Palestinian Authority city of Ramallah.  Khan 
stated that UNESCO's branch office in Ramallah was 
doing a great deal of media and ICT training and 
offered to put USAID in touch with this office. 
¶9. (SBU)  COMMENT:  Khan appears supportive of locating 
the Internet Governance Forum in Geneva but seemed 
surprised by the idea that UNESCO should encourage its 
own constituency to partake in the IGF bureau.  Khan 
and Longworth indicated that UNESCO is in triage mode 
with WSIS implementation - although it claims it has 
competency in 8 of the Action lines, it appears to only 
be focused on 4:  media, ethical dimensions of the 
information society, cultural and linguistic diversity 
and open content, and education and ICTs.  Khan and 
Longworth emphasized their work on media freedom with 
us since they know we are among its strongest 
supporters among UNESCO member states, but were more 
cautious on the questions of information ethics and 
linguistic diversity, where they emphasized a vaguer 
but more technical role.  It remains to be seen whether 
the worker bees in the Communication and Information 
sector receive these messages loudly and clearly -- and 
heed them.  END COMMENT. 
Oliver