Workshops

Thursday 28th of June 2001, 13:30 - 17:30

Substantive discussions on specific themes took place during five simultaneous workshops.

Workshop 1: How Governments and Parliaments are Using Information and Communication Technology Workshop 2: Political Expression in the ICT Age - The Role of Political Parties. Workshop 3: Introducing Technology to Elections: A Sustainable Approach Workshop 4: Local Democracy Online Workshop 5: Opening up Authoritarian States. Plenary 1: The ICT Revolution and Democracy: Peril or Promise? Plenary 2: The ICT Revolution and Democracy: Divide, Deficit or Dividend Plenary 3: The 'Way Forward' plenary. Plenary 4: Closing Plenary.

The aim of the workshops is to provide a sampling of public opinion and institutional response to the information revolution as seen from the perspective of parliaments, political parties, election management bodies, civil society, governments, and international organizations, respectively.

The workshops functioned as sub-conferences individually exploring their own specific themes. The topics were many and varied and provided an appropriate environment toward the production of significant outcomes.

The workshops tapped into discussions already underway among democracy advocates and each workshop included a number of key-experts, partner-organizations representatives and academics. These participants supplied the workshops with background documents, preliminary guidelines, and demonstrations of new information and communications technologies (ICTs).

The final day's plenary session 'Ways Forward' highlighted the main discussions, innovative ideas and recommendations that had emerged during the workshops.

The Forum 2001 workshops on Democracy and ICTs were a 'must attend' element to people involved in ongoing global democratization processes.