Despite various attitudes towards resolving some of the issues such are changing the internet governance system and freedom of expression, the participants agreed that ICT is integral part and pre-condition for development.
Republic of Macedonia does not have its stand at the Summit unlike almost all our neighbours, especially Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia that promoted not only their achievements in ICT but also promoted their countries as tourists’ destinations. EU member countries were presented both with their own stands and with a joint EU stand, and they all were organising events to attract the participants’ attention. A lot of NGOs presented themselves, some with their own stands, some at the stands of their countries. All the speakers, both from the governmental and private sector, stressed that they are the important partner in building information society.
In the official part Macedonia was represented by Mr. Xhemali Mehazi, Minister of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Macedonia. He addressed the audience at the plenary session and had many bilateral meetings with his colleagues. Other representatives in the official delegation of Macedonia were Mr. Jani Makraduli, president of the Committee for Information Technology, Mr. Kosta Trpkovski, director of the Agency for electronic telecommunications, Mr. Dimitar Bukovalov, head of sector at the Ministry of Transport and Communications, and Mr. Jani Bogoevski, Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Other representatives of Macedonia gave their statements about the WSIS.
“The Summit was the first opportunity after adoption of the National Strategy for Information Society our country to show to the world the commitment for building the information society. Unfortunately, this was not done in appropriate manner. Yet, some international organizations and donors in Macedonia contributed in the promotion of Macedonia by promoting their projects in our country,” said Mr. Bardhyl Jashari, director of the Foundation Metamorphosis.
“Great technical and logistic organization of the Summit demonstrates the seriousness of Tunis as a country has organized the event, as well as the commitment and opportunity for leaving good impression to the world despite the remarks for repression at home. According to the Brazilian minister of culture, Mr. Gilberto Gill, Greece announced its candidature to organize the next Summit that demonstrates the attractiveness of information society as means for promotion and lobbying,” said Mr. Filip Stojanovski, project coordinator at the Foundation Metamorphosis.
“Globally, the event has enormous significance and UNDP stressed that Macedonia was positive example for creating then National Strategy that is ranked high compared to the 27 countries of Central and Eastern Europe and former Soviet Union. At this session promoting any kind of partnerships (public, private, governmental, nongovernmental sector) and their results were stressed," said Zoran Janevski, UNDP (member of the Working Group that has prepared the National Strategy for Information Society).
“When preparing the National Strategy we considered the experience of the more developed countries. At the WSIS we saw that there is a lot of to be learned and the positive examples of the countries considered as underdeveloped by us, but they have realized the significance of the information society and they implement its achievements,” said Meri Kuchera – Ilievska, MASIT (member of the Working Group that has prepared the National Strategy for Information Society).
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