GISWatch 2008 will be launched at the Third Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad, India on December 3 Global Information Society Watch 2008 (or GISWatch), published in print and online by the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the Third World Institute (ITeM), and Dutch development organisation Hivos, collects the perspectives of ICT academics, analysts, activists and civil society organisations from across the globe in over 50 reports. GISWatch is both a publication and a process: it aims to build networking and advocacy capacity among civil society organisations who work for a just and inclusive information society. This is reflected in the growing number of participating organisations writing country reports – sixteen more than last year, the first year that GISWatch appeared. By doing this they hope GISWatch will impact on policy development processes in countries, regions, and at a global level. “[Access to infrastructure] is beginning to be considered of less importance by some development funders and practitioners, including civil society and communication and information activists,” argue the publishers in the book preface. “One of the consequences of this is the development of a conventional wisdom that leaves the domain of infrastructure development to the market; to operators and investors that do not always see the broader social value of communications in society, to governments that lack capacity and often clear strategy, and to international institutions that tend to approach it in a limited and ‘technocratic’ way.”
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