Editorial Note

Development Dialogue 1998:2 · The Journal of The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation 1 Editorial Note One of the most important areas of activity for the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation during almost 40 years of existence has been information and communication issues and their role in the development process. The absolute necessity of securing open access to information in all strata of society as well as freedom of expression as a condition for true development and democracy has been the main theme of several of the Foundation’s seminars and an important component of many others. As readers of Development Dialogue will recall, the theme underlying the contributions to the preceding issue of the journal (1998:1) was a perspective on society that empha- sised and promoted transparency, accountability and openness in the processes of plan- ning, decision-making and implementation at all levels. In the Editorial Note it was also argued that the assertion of these values ‘becomes increasingly important—perhaps even imperative—in a world where secrecy surrounding essential information seems to be growing every day’. With the background of seminars on information and communication, organised by the Foundation over the years, and the conviction that the media together with Civil Society Organisations (CSOs)—or the ‘Third System’, as we usually call it—need to play a more significant role in all societies in the future, the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ) and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation decided to organise a seminar on ‘Improving the Flow of Information in a Time of Crisis: the Challenge to the Southeast Asian Media’. This issue of Development Dialogue is entirely devoted to the publication of a selection of the revised papers from the seminar, held in October 1998 at the Subic Freeport in the Philippines. The contributions, which are divided into two sections—one more general, discussing democracy, globalisation and information, and one consisting of country experiences from Burma, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines—give cause for some optimism. Thailand and the Philippines seem to have achieved basic freedom of expression and freedom of the press, and Indonesia seems to be in a transition period, often taking two steps forward but one back. Promising early indications of more openness are also to be found in several other countries in the region. Recently, however, disturbing signs of the undermining of the free press in the Philippines have been observed. This shows how fragile the situation may be even in a relatively stable democracy. These, hopefully tem- porary, threats seem regrettably to originate in the highest circles. Twenty-five years ago, at the time when the debate about a new international information order started, the problems under discussion had more to do with imbalances in the South–North distribution of information than with freedom of information in individual Third World countries. The 1975 Dag Hammarskjöld Report What Now: Another Devel- opment had as one of its ten ‘commandments’ the call for improved public information, the key point being that, ‘citizens have a right to inform and be informed about the facts of development, its inherent conflicts and the changes it will bring about, locally and in- ternationally’. This section of the report stressed further that, ‘under present conditions, information and education are only too often monopolised by the power structure, which Development Dialogue 1998:2 · The Journal of The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation 2 Editorial Note manipulates public opinion to its own ends and tends to perpetuate preconceived ideas, ignorance and alienation’; it ended by stating that ‘conscientisation of citizens to ensure their full participation in the decision-making process’ was a prerequisite for development in its real sense. The 1975 Dag Hammarskjöld Report was conceived as an independent contribution to the discussions at the Seventh Special Session of the UN General Assembly on Devel- opment and International Cooperation in early September 1975 at the height of the South–North development negotiations. The Foundation convened on this occasion a seminar for Third World journalists with participation from three continents. The journalists were invited to cover, from a Third World perspective and for Third World media, a session of the General Assembly that would otherwise have been reported on essen- tially by Western media, despite the crucial importance of the subject matter to the Third World. But also, and more importantly, the seminar addressed the need for the establish- ment of a new communication order which would aim at decreasing, and finally getting rid of, the gross imbalances that dominated the global communications scene. Thus, the battle 25 years ago was not so much about the right to freedom of expression or the importance of an independent and free press in individual countries, but a struggle to get Third World reporting and commentaries on Third World problems through to readers around the globe, in a world that was overwhelmingly dominated by the big, northern-based and northern-biased international news agencies. The recommendations from the journalists’ seminar in New York were taken up and developed by the newly created Latin American Institute for Transnational Studies (ILET), under the director- ship of Juan Somavía, and, in 1976, ILET and the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation organised together a pioneering seminar on ‘The Role of Information in the New Interna- tional Order’. The papers presented and the discussions held at the seminar were published in an issue of Development Dialogue (1976:2) that attracted great interest around the world and was soon out of print. A selection of this material was reprinted and published in Development Dialogue 1981:2 along with new contributions reflecting the most important research carried out at ILET in the late 1970s. The ILET material, in turn, provided important inputs to the lively and sometimes burning debates that took place in various international fora on the New World Information and Communication Order. Another sister organisation to the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, the International Foundation for Development Alternatives (IFDA), also made an important contribution to the democratisation of the transnational communication structures in an effort to meet the information needs of the Third World. In 1978, IFDA started The IFDA Dossier for exchange of experiences of different development alternatives and two years later, together with IPS (Inter Press Service Third World News Agency), it established the Spe- cial United Nations Service (‘SUNS’, or ‘The Yellow Bulletin’), covering UN development activities from a Third World perspective. During the 1980s, the main emphasis of the international media debate changed from North–South imbalances to an examination of the situation in individual countries, a Development Dialogue 1998:2 · The Journal of The Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation Editorial Note 3 tendency that has grown stronger with the intensified interest during the last decade in democracy and human rights issues. Simultaneously, the rapid technological development that has occurred in information and communications has brought about another set of changes. First with the fax machine and later by means of the Internet, it has be- come possible to communicate much more cheaply and quickly than ever before and, in most countries, to evade government censorship. Examples of this positive development are given by our contributors. However, there are also considerable problems inherent in this fast-developing information technology; these, too, are reflected in the current issue. An example of the focus on more country-specific problems is the seminar on ‘Demo- cracy and the Media in Southern Africa’ that the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation organised in cooperation with the Foundation for Education with Production (FEP) in Bot- swana in 1989. Addressing the crucial role of information, communication and international networking in the struggle against apartheid in South Africa, this unique event brought together, for the first time, journalists from the alternative and democratic press in South Africa with colleagues from the Frontline States. The aim of the seminar was to survey the media situation in Southern Africa and to concretise how the right to inform and be informed and the democratisation of the media could be safeguarded and supported for the future development of the region. One practical result of the seminar was the setting-up of the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA), which has played an important role in the struggle for a free press in the sub-region. Information and communications are not new topics for the Dag Hammarskjöld Foun- dation in the Southeast Asian context either. The decision to hold the media seminar in the Philippines came out of the relations established with the PCIJ in connection with the seminar on ‘The Role of National Drug Policies in Social Transformation: A Chal- lenge for the Media’, which was held in Manila/Tagaytay in 1992. The main features of the 1998 seminar were planned jointly by the two organisations, but the detailed plan- ning and implementation were mainly handled by PCIJ. Furthermore, the basic editing of the contributions published was undertaken by Cecile C. A. Balgos and Sheila S. Coronel; the illustrations are by the Philippine artist Nonoy Marcelo. PCIJ has published the material independently under the title News in

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