Mr Kofi Annan Secretary General United Nations Headquarters New York NY10017 26 September 2003 Dear Mr Secretary General I am writing, on behalf of the Working Group on Community Media, a network of media and civil society organisations involved in the World Summit on the Information Society. We are asking you to call for the World Summit to prioritise the empowerment of the poorest people and communities in the world including better access to traditional communications media alongside new information and communication technologies. The outcome of the Third Preparatory Committee meeting for the World Summit on the Information Society has been deeply dissatisfying for many NGOs and civil society organisations involved in community-based media and communications initiatives. The present draft Declaration and Action Plan gives priority to the infrastructure for Internet connectivity whilst failing to address the fundamental barriers of electricity supply, literacy and equipment costs which will exclude the world's poorest people. The low profile of traditional communications media in the draft documents and the absence of any measurable indicators joining the proposed ICT infrastructure targets to the agreed United Nations Millennium Development Goals is leading us to question the real commitment to development at this United Nations World Summit. We are therefore seeking your support for a clear commitment in the World Summit on the Information Society to empowerment of the poorest people and communities including support for community-based media and communications initiatives. Yours sincerely Steve Buckley, President World Association of Community Radio Broadcasters (AMARC) cc. Yoshio Utsumi (ITU), Mark Malloch-Brown (UNDP), James Wolfensohn (WB), Koichiro Matsuura (UNESCO), Nitin Desai (UN), Adama Samassekou (WSIS)