The scientific upheavals of the 20th century have brought about a third industrial revolution, that of the new technologies, which are essentially intellectual technologies.
This revolution, which has been accompanied by a further advance of globalisation, has laid down the bases of a knowledge economy, placing knowledge at the heart of human activity, development and social change.
Yet information is not knowledge; and the incipient world information society, which is the subject of the Tunis Summit will only fulfil its potential if it facilitates the emergence of pluralistic and participative knowledge societies that include rather than exclude.
Does this mean that the 21st century will see the development of societies of shared knowledge? As underlined by the UNESCO World Report Towards Knowledge Societies, coordinated by Jérôme Bindé and published with the Tunis Summit in view, there should be no excluded individuals in learning societies: for knowledge is a public asset that should be accessible to all.
Knowledge has two remarkable qualities: its non-rivality and, once the period of protection under intellectual property rights has lapsed, its non-exclusivity.
There is a clear awareness today that the development of societies predicated on the sharing of knowledge is the best way of waging effective war on poverty and forestalling major health risks such as pandemics, of reducing the terrible loss of life caused by tsunamis and tropical storms, and of promoting sustainable human development.
However, certain obstacles stand in the way of the advent of societies of shared knowledge. These are the digital divide, the concentration of knowledge - particularly high-tech knowledge, as well as large-scale scientific and educational investment - on restricted geographical areas, reinforcing the brain drain from South to North as well as North-North and South-South directions.
To overcome these obstacles, the nations of the world will have to invest massively in education, research, info-development and the promotion of learning societies. What is at stake is the destiny of every country, since nations that fail to invest sufficiently in knowledge and quality education and science jeopardize their own future, running the risk of finding themselves drained of vital brain power.
The practical solutions proposed in the report Towards Knowledge Societies are investing more in quality education for all to ensure equal opportunity.
Governments, the private sector and social partners should explore the possibility of introducing progressively, over the 21st century, a "study-time entitlement" giving individuals the right to a number of years of education after the completion of compulsory schooling.
There's also a need to promote linguistic diversity in the new knowledge societies and turn to account local and traditional knowledge.
Substantial funding for education and knowledge should also be released by bold reform policies aimed at reducing non-productive expenditure, improving the efficiency of public services, streamlining bureaucracies, eliminating ineffective grants and combating corruption.
To meet the challenge of a world deeply divided by disparities of all kinds, and to address the contradiction between the global nature of our problems and the partitioning of knowledge, there is no alternative to knowledge sharing.
To paraphrase an African proverb, knowledge is like love - it is the only thing that grows by being shared.
Koïchiro Matsuura is Director-General of UNESCO
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