[WSIS CS-Plenary] Report: CS @ Intersessional

[karen banks]

hello to everyone

to those of you who attended the intersessional in paris, and to the 
plenary list members who now number over 240..

This is a brief report on our meeting on friday, which outlined some of the 
work we need to attend to between now and PrepCom III. It is not a report 
on substantive issues (content).

A comprehensive report on substantive issues, participation and other 
matters is needed and i would propose that we approach this by way of a 
focussed discussion with inputs from all who attended, but wanted to post 
this quickly as there are a couple of things we need to move on this week.

1. Civil Society Meetings and notes
===================================
Civil Society participants met in the following formations during the week. 
Where we have online notes, URLs are given.

CS Plenary - daily at 0900
July 16th: http://prepcom.net/wsis/1058444090595

CS Bureau - daily at 1400
Agenda July 15-18 and minutes from July 15-16: 
http://www.wsis.ethz.ch/minutes03.htm

CS Content and themes drafting group - irregularly at 1400

* CS Content and themes group - daily at 1800
July 15th: http://prepcom.net/wsis/1058443807978

* The evening meetings were a combination of 
end-of-day-check-ins/report-backs; discussion of substantive issues and 
identification of speakers for the following day. If i'm not mistaken, we 
didn't have an equivalent meeting of this type during PrepCom II.

It was a useful space but we need to do preparatory work between now and 
PrepCom III to clarify processes, focus and objectives of such a daily 
meeting, for PrepCom III.

2. Status of CS Priorities Document
===================================
http://www.worldsummit2003.de/download_en/WSIS-CS-CT-Paris-071203.rtf

The CS Priority document was endorsed by many organisations prior to the 
Intersessional.

We did not release a further version of the document during the 
intersessional as there were still issues on which we did not reach 
concensus and some issues which participants felt needed to be included, 
prior to another round of endorsements.

The proposal from our last meeting was to adopt a phased approach in 
releasing further versions of the document.

a) to give until Friday August 1st to receive additions agreed, and 
incorporate any other revisions around text on which there is siginifant 
divergance of views. The main revisions proposed would be:
- to incorporate text on Disabilities
- to incorporate a revised text on Internet governance

We would then release an interim version of the document, with additional 
endorsements received until that time, and propose we release Version 2 by 
August 5th.

b) Phase two would comprise developing a more comprehensive version of the 
the document, which would become in effect the Civil Society 'Shadow' 
Declaration. This document would be developed via a process of broader 
consulation, with a clear timeline aiming to release for PrepCom III.

We also talked of the need for a 'shadow' action plan  but didn't discuss 
it in detail. This should be considered in development of the content and 
themes work plan.

3. Clarifying objectives and location of workspaces
===================================================
There are several elements we would need to address the above process 
including:

* Ensuring all participants (existing and prospective) are clear on where 
they can participate - which is primarily through the caucuses and working 
group spaces

===> could **all** caucus and working groups send me a message outlining 
the following using the Subject line: WSIS Caucus/WG Information

- name of caucus or working group
- objective/purpose of Caucus/wg
- name of representative for Content and themes group
- list address
- subscription details

I will then update the wsis-cs.org website to reflect this information and 
post a summary to this list.

* Clarifying objectives of Plenary at wsis-cs.org and CT at wsis-cs.org

The objectives and use of these two lists have become confused, overlap 
significantly and need to be rationalised.

==> PLENARY at wsis-cs.org
The objective of the 'plenary' list is in effect, to provide an online or 
'virtual' space where we can continue to discuss matters, much in the way 
we do onsite, during the morning CS Plenary meetings which includes report 
backs from:

- the Civil Society Bureau
- the Content and themes working group
- the WSIS secretariat

It is not intended to be the space where we discuss content issues, but it 
would be the space where, for example, we post the revised priorities 
document and call for endorsements.

==> CT at wsis-cs.org
Issues of content should really be discussed in caucuses and working 
groups, and then through the CT list which should comprise representatives 
of all such groups. Could i ask sally and bill to post again the objectives 
and purpose of the Content and themes list so that we are all clear on the 
objectives.

==> Websites

a) www.wsis-cs.org. This website is intended to be a space to list 
information about caucuses, working groups and links to other useful WSIS 
sites for Civil Society. It is not intended to contain reports, articles etc.

b) www.prepcom.net. Rik, along with other volunteers, did a wonderful job 
monitoring deliberations in the main plenary and all of these notes can be 
found on this site. It is an incredibly valuable resource to faciliate 
lobbying material and as a record of proceedings. Many of the CS 
Interventions are posted here but will be updated to include a full listing 
asap.

c) www.geneva2003.org. Ralf continued the work of other Heinrich Boll 
Stiftung colleagues from PrepCom II, in a daily posting of general 
commentaries and articles (as opposed to specific interventions) on this 
site. It also includes a calendar of WSIS related events.

d) http://bscw.fit.fraunhofer.de/pub/bscw.cgi/0/42603238. This site is 
maintained by Bill McIver and is used as a repositary for all content 
developed by the Content and themes working group and all caucuses and 
working groups.

There are many other WSIS related sites and it would be useful if we could 
agree amongst ourselves how to most effectively use the websites, avoid 
duplication of effort and ensure that they are all clearly linked back and 
forth to one another.

If you are hosting a WSIS related website and would like to have it listed 
on, or linked to by some of the above sites, please post brief details here.

4. Preparations for PrepCom III
-------------------------------
a) Coordination and Logistics

We discussed the need to work immediately on a coordination and logistics 
plan for PrepCom III. Louise Lassonde has asked that we submit at least a 
rough outline of our logistical needs this week. Ralf Bendrath has drafted 
a document outlining these needs, based on discussions at the end of 
PrepCom II and as a result of our experiences during the Intersessional.

===> Once ralf has posted the draft, could i ask everyone to comment by the 
end of  **Wednesday july 23rd** so that we can submit a rough proposal to 
louise. I'm sure it nwill be refined and developed in the coming weeks but 
Louise informed me that they are working on finalising euipment and rooms 
this week, in geneva. I will let her know that this proposal is coming.

b) Resources for Civil Society meetings at national and regional level

Sally made a proposal prior to the Intersessional outlining the importance 
of Civil Society having the time, resources and space to develop it's own 
'shadow' positions (as has been common in many past UN conferences). 
Developing such positions online, or during the hectic mania of the onsite 
meetings is difficult. We did not unfortunately have time to discuss this 
in detail during the intersessional,  but i did raise the issue with Louise 
Lassonde.

I would ask if sally could update everyone on those ideas and apologise for 
not being able to take the proposal forward more comprehensivley during the 
week.

there is a proposal from the Secretariat to host a 2 day 
orientation/briefing period, prior to PrepCom III, which of course would be 
very useful, but if it is to be successful, we need to begin planning quite 
soon and ensure that all participants can factor this into their plans. 
(please see below)

5. Questions/clarifications for the CS Bureau
---------------------------------------------
Several questions were raised during the final day which we need to follow 
up on, primarily with colleagues in the CS Bureau including:

- status of 'side-events' during PrepCom III
- status of fellowship grants for PrepCom III
- proposal for official CS participation in Sub-Committee II negotiations 
during PrepCom III (the proposal read by Wolfgang Kleinwachter can be read 
here: http://prepcom.net/wsis/1058537670660)
- Orientation days prior to PrepCom III (september 13/14th)

Could i ask colleagues in the CSB to share with the plenary space, reports 
on the above as soon as possible?

6. Other matters
----------------
Many other issues were raised during the week and i'm noting a couple here 
that i can recall,  but would ask others to contribute:

a) mapping of resources, handbooks, 'FAQ's (frequently asked questions), 
evaluations.

Several organisations are planning to develop resources for PrepCom III, 
the Summit or beyond. It would seem useful if those of us who are involved 
in such work, to link up with one another to see where we can collaborate 
and avoid duplication of effort. If you are developing, or planning to 
develop such resources, please let us know here.

b) Evaluation of developing country participation in the WSIS process

The lack of representation for southern participants continues to be a 
major area of concern. There is a proposal to initiate a small project to 
evaluate participation in WSIS with a view to making recommendations for 
the 2003-2005 phase. I would be interested to connect with people who are 
interested in participation in such a project.

I'll leave it there for now. There are a lot of other issues we need to 
discuss, the foremost of which is the status of the WSIS Agenda in terms of 
substantive issues. I would ask sally and bill to take a lead on proposing 
how we might most effectively do that as our next main task.

It was a tough week but i thoroughly enjoyed meeting with so many of you 
and grappling our way through the CS plenary meetings ;) Thanks to steve 
buckley and valerie peugot for their support in facilitating the meetings, 
to renate, louise and other colleagues in the CS Bureau, to the wonderful 
team of volunteer translators coordinated by viola for their commitment to 
our work, their patience and understanding, and to everyone who i think 
made great efforts to collaborate during the week.

** when you are replying to this message, please try to only quote the text 
that is essential

*** i am not ccing this message to the 'CT' list (but will forward a copy) 
and propose that this be the last message sent to both 'PLENARY' and 'CT' 
lists

**** apologies in advance for any oversights or omissions, no doubt you 
will contribute to fill any gaps i have left

a good week to you all

karen