African Information Ethics Conference

Pretoria, South Africa
February 5-7, 2007

The School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee played a major role in the initiation and organization of the first ever Africa Information Ethics Conference held in Pretoria, South Africa from 5-7 February 2007.

The conference was initiated and organized by the Department of Communications, South African Government, the School of Information Studies, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, the Department of Information Science, University of Pretoria, the Presidents National Council on Information and Development, South Africa, the International Center for Information Ethics and UNESCO. More that 90 people attended from around the world. Most of them were academics and policy makers.

It was the first ever conference of its kind and was motivated by the realization that there is an urgent need to integrate leading African scholars and practitioners into the international ethical debate on the impact of new information and communication technologies in their countries and cultures. According to Johannes Britz, the Dean of the School of Information Studies at UWM, and Rafael Capurro of the International Center for Information Ethics, the focus of this conference was not soley on the political or technical debate of the impact of new information and communication technologies. The conference focused rather, on the potential (desirable and less desirable) impact of new information and communication technologies on the lives, cultures and histories of African scholars and practitioners and how this impact is changing their opportunites for develoopment in different areas. Johannes Britz, a native South African, pointed out that Africa has important cultural and ethical messages that should be integrated into the global ethical debate that can be reflected among others in practical information policy formulations.

Focus of symposium
The focus of the conference was two-fold:

• To stimulate an open academic debate on Africa Information Ethics with specific focus on the contribution that African philosophical thinking can make to this growing debate.
• To thoroughly understand the practical implications of this debate on information policy development and implementation in Africa.

The conference program was built around the following principle themes:

• Cultural diversity and globalization. Issues covered included cultural expansionism, language diversity, and local content on the WWW.
• Development, poverty and ICT including information poverty.
• Global security, human security and individual security which includes global terrorism and information access security.
• Spamming and other forms of information wrongdoings, information corruption and information injustice.
• Protection and promotion of indigenous knowledge that includes the legal and moral protection and promotion of indigenous knowledge as well as the current international trends regarding the protection of indigenous knowledge (WIPO and WTO for example)
• Respect for human dignity as it is expressed in a variety of information rights. Information based rights under discussion including the right of access to information, the right of freedom of expression, the right to privacy, the right to know, the right to security and the right to own intellectual property.
• North-South flow of information and information imperialism. The focus of these discussions were among others on scholarly publications, the impact of Research and Development which is mostly situated in the rich countries and the prejudices towards scholarly work published in the so-called developing nations.
• Internet and exclusion focusing on socio-political and economic exclusion due to the dematerialized internet-based global economy. The emphasis was specifically on the impact that this kind of exclusion has on the economic development of African countries.

Expected outcome
The expected outcome of the symposium can (according to Britz) be summarized as follows:

• To establish an Africa Center for Information Ethics at the University of Pretoria. This research center will be established in close collaboration with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee as well as the International Center for Information Ethics situated in Germany. The main focus will be to stimulate the research agenda for Africa Information Ethics and will provide the opportunity for scholars around the world who have a shared interest in Africa Information Ethics to meet each other and to exchange ideas. It is furthermore envisioned that the  center will provide news on ongoing activities by different kinds of organizations that are involved in African Information Ethics and related areas.
• To establish a platform that can advise African governments on policy implications regarding the ethical dimensions of the creation, distribution and use of information by means of ICT. The establishment of an African Information Ethics Advisory Board is planned that will comprise of experts representing a variety of related and interdisciplinary fields related to information ethics.
• To publish a reader on Africa Information Ethics that can be used as a textbook for students and scholars. This will contribute to the development of a distinct field of African Information Ethics. The papers prepared for this conference will also be published in the International Information Ethics Review which is the official journal of the International Center for Information Ethics.
• To ensure that African scholars in this field are part of the international scholarly community. This outcome will be achieved by the creation of an Africa Information Ethics network between the different scholars and stake holders.

In looking back at this successful conference Britz highlighted three issues that were of particular significance.

• The first is the willingness of the South African Government to sponsor a primarily academic conference dealing with an important issue such as information ethics on the African continent. 
• Secondly, the opportunity for scholars from the North (representing the rich countries) and the South (representing the poorer countries) to meet and exchange ideas on shared ethical challenges
• Thirdly, the involvement of UNESCO. The ethical implications of the use of ICT is one of the priorities of UNESCO’s Information for All Programmes and UNESCO was also designated as the facilitator of the implementation of the Action Line C10 (ethical dimensions of the information society) of the Geneva Action Plan which was adopted by the World Summit on the Information Society. According to Britz, this conference can be seen as a concrete manifestation of this action item.