[WSIS CS-Plenary] suggestions for Civil Society Coordination at PrepCom3 (and the summit)

[Ralf Bendrath]

Hi all,

it was good to see many of you in Paris, and I think in the end we can
be quite satisfied with what we did. Of course, as usual we could do
better, especially with more coordination of our activities, a bit more
transparency and better
pooling of ressources.

This is an attempt to kick off a discussion on CS coordination at
PrepCom 3, which will also help for the same task at the summit itself. 

By this I mean the "inside" activities like monitoring, lobbying,
content and themes drafting, press work etc. The "outside" and "half in,
half out" activities like the Polymedia Lab or the World Forum on
Communication Rights are already being organized in other spaces.

It is not about content, but about how to structure all our work in
order to be more effective and keep everybody better informed on what is
going on. This should help us enable better and more equal participation
of the whole civil society (on location and elsewhere), make better use
of our ressources, and in the end have a bigger impact on the summit
outcomes.

We should prepare well in advance, that is why I suggest to start this
discussion now. There are already some deadlines, e.g. Louise from the
CS secretariat at ITU wants to have a list of what we need from them at
PrepCom3 by this week. And the impressions from Paris are still fresh,
so we can better think of what went well and what could be improved.

*** Where to discuss this?
In order to not generate another "Spam" problem on this plenary list, I
suggest that we set up another list, coordination at wsis-cs.org, and
discuss the details there. Karen: Can you do this? (BTW: Karen and 
others did a great job coordinating in Paris!)

I am looking forward to see your ideas and enthusiasm in helping to get
this going.

All the best, 

Ralf

-------------

Civil Society Coordination at PrepCom3 (and at the summit)
Ideas and suggestions, version 0.3

compiled by Ralf Bendrath, www.worldsummit2003.org, 
<ralf.bendrath at sfb597.uni-bremen.de>

19 July 2003

- first draft: circulated in a small group after discussions at
PrepCom2, February 2003
- second draft: including written feedback from Karen Banks, Eva
Hartmann, Rik Panganiban, Chantal Peyer (sorry for forgetting anybody),
May 2003
- third draft: updated and refined after further discussions at Paris
Intersessional, added part III, 21 July 2003

Civil Society participation and influence at PrepCom 2 and in Paris
turned out quite good, though there are some differences on what we
really achieved. However, a lot of things on our side were done on an ad
hoc basis, and we should think about how to make sure we get this done
again or even better next time. Some things were not done at all, more
coordination between the different working groups and a central info
point for example were clearly missing. And then there are a lot of
ideas on what could have been done with some more ressources and
volunteers. This paper attempts to kick of the discussion and
preparation in time. 

Content: 
I. Guiding Priciples
II. Proposed Structure for Civil Society Coordination
III. What we need from the CS Secretariat

-------------------


I. Guiding Priciples

We should adhere to some basic principles in organizing our work at
PrepCom3.

1. Transparency
If we claim transparency from the governments, we should show how
transparency could work in our own actions. This should include: 
- publishing all our working documents (on the web or wherever). 
- having all sessions open and announced in a manner anyone interested
is able to attend them
- maybe even having a live-stream from our sessions, like there was from
the intergovernmental plenary at PrepCom2. 
- writing minutes for all our sessions and publishing them

2. Participation
We should always have in mind the people who are not able to come to
Geneva. They depend on us for the latest infos on what is going on, and
we depend on (some of) them for their input and ideas in our lobbying
work. The "info security" caucus for example consisted at least of two
persons not present in Geneva and Paris, but who were actively involved.
This principle also should help us think of all the interested people in
Geneva who do not belong to the "inner circle" (whatever this is).
This would not mean using one huge global list, but trying to identify
focal points who will agree to act as links, who can synthesize,
summarise and contextualise information coming from the prepcom for
people at the national level or for specific issue areas, and
faciliating responses back to whatever mechanisms we agree to setup.
Whithout these 'animators', who would need to be in place quite soon,
and who could possibly also need to be resourced, we can't hope to
really generate any remote input.
This should include:
- transparency (see above) 
- possibilities for electronic input (worked a bit via the prep1/plenary
and CT lists, but could be improved) 
- voting mechanisms, in case they are needed? 
- conference calls / videoconferences (like the one CPSR organized at
PrepCom3)
- maybe more important: email and low tech approaches?

3. Technology
We should use the summit process for showing how technology _can_ help
make the world a better place. This would show that it is possible and
at the same time give our arguments more weight - we are the experts and
the practicioners!  This could include: 
- no use of MS word or other proprietary standards. I prefer rtf of
plain ASCII for the moment.
- using tech tools for improving transparency and participation 
- using peer2peer technology for distributed work (on the drafts, if
possible, or on other tasks)
- live-feed of the monitors in the plenary sessions to IRC or elsewhere,
with the possibility for real-time comments and analysis via the
internet (I imagine something like this : "ONLINE CS PARTICIPANT FROM
KOREA: last comment from delegation XYZ is dangerous. It would imply
ABC, and they have already tried this at the asian regional conf.")
- have a screen, in a room for CS, which broadcasts comments which could
include extracts from email messages, realtime chats, etc.
- have a videofeed from the sessions broadcast over the internet

4. Scalability
Whatever we do should be scalable depending on how many folks we can get
to help out.  It isn't fair just to put all the work onto the backs of a
couple of dedicated volunteers. We definitely need more "soldiers" and
less "generals", as someone put it.

5. Diversity / Representation
We must do everything we can to encourage/support greater participation,
and create greater space, for organisations and participants from the
south. We also have to ensure regional and gender balance. The Paris
intersessional meeting was clearly dominated by people from the North,
and even at PrepCom2, where the numbers where more equal, the important
pulling of strings and the work for the common cause (like reporting or
chairing) was mainly done by people from the North.

-------------------


II. Proposed Structure for Civil Society Coordination

This is an attempt to describe what could be done to make full use of
our possibilities. The general idea is for civil society to be better
coordinated than the governments and therefore to be able to
"outmaneuver" them. A structure somewhat along the following lines seems
useful. 
It is so far just differentiated along functional lines. What we still
need to develop would be some sort of "workflow": How do we organize our
common and coordination work in relation to all the families, caucuses
and working groups? And what structure for the day would be the best
(the evening sessions in Paris turned out extremely helpful, for
example)?

1. Coordinating group 
- establish a designated room as information and coordination office,
staffed during all the summit activities
- eqipped with computers (yes, and printers), internet, phone/fax, copy
machine 
- stay updated on all CS activities 
- coordinate / synchronise activities of 
  - CS bureau 
  - Lobbying group  
  - Drafting group  
  - Monitoring group 
  - Communications group 
  - Technical support group 
  - Translation group
- work with CS plenary to develop strategies and tactics as necessary 
- react immediately to important developments 
- ensure that meetings are coordinated and not clashing as often as they
were during PrepCom2
- answer requests from CS activists and others 
- document CS activities
- inform the civil society plenary about their activities and
strategies, get feed backs from CS in general on their decisions.

2. WSIS Civil Society Bureau 
- fuse input from different CS "families" 
- act as link to governmental bureau, PrepCom3 chairpersons and WSIS CS
secretariat 
- work on procedures for CS participation 
- act as lobbying group on procedural issues 
- inform the civil society plenary about their activities and
strategies, get feed backs from CS in general on their decisions.

3. Lobbying group 
- coordinate with monitoring group to identify "friends and foes" and
"maybes" (maybe one group with monitors?)
- coordinate lobbying activities of CS activists 
- make sure coherent messages are pushed forward 
- coordinate with CS delegates who are members of national government
delegations (so far, we know of Switzerland, Denmark, Germany, maybe
Canada again. Who else?)
- coordinate closely with content and themes group. Proposal: a meeting
every evening between those two groups to identify the main points on
which to lobby the next days according to the situation among states
(lobby/monitor informations) and in the content and themes group.
- maybe: provide negotiating and diplomacy training for lobbying group
volunteers 
- inform the civil society plenary about their activities and
strategies, get feed backs from CS in general on their decisions.

4. Content and Themes Drafting group 
Contact: Sally Burch <sburch at alainet.org>, Bill McIver
<mciver at albany.edu>
- should have a designated room for their work
- equipped qith a video beamer 
- translation service on demand
- fuse input of thematic working groups and caucuses on content, themes
and action plan 
- react to government drafts 
- draft own CS summit declaration 
- coordinate with monitoring and lobbying groups for pushing the CS
ideas at right time and place 
- coordinate with communications group for press releases and
conferences 
- inform the civil society plenary about their activities and
strategies, get feed backs from CS in general on their decisions.

5. Monitoring group 
Contact: Rik Panganiban <rikomatic at yahoo.com>
- monitor intergovernmental sessions 
- assign volunteers for the time slots 
- alert lobbying and drafting groups on urgent issues 
- produce instant protocols for further analysis and publication 
- Stream protocols via live-feed (IRC?) to the internet; analysis and
comments could then be produced with participation of remote monitors in
other parts of the world. The question is how much it adds, apart from a
sense of immediacy.  After all, if it is not possible to respond
immediately to government even if you are on the spot, then there is
little advantage to going to a lot of trouble to enable others to have
the message without the ability to respond.  Perhaps it could be used
selectively, on key decisions. On the other hand, if people take
electronic notes anyway, why not try a live feed if possible?
- inform the civil society plenary about their activities and
strategies, get feed backs from CS in general on their decision. (This
is less so important for this group, as it mainly provides a service and
does not make real decisions.)

6. Communications group 
- Maintain contacts with press and general public 
- Coordinate with content and themes and lobbying groups on "spin of the
day" 
- Feed the latest info to CS listservers 
- produce and publish press releases / newsletters 
- prepare press conferences 
- coordinate webmasters of different websites. Worldsummit2003.org,
prepcom.net and crisinfo.org were quite good at this at PrepCom2 and in
Paris. 
- Observe and analyse news stories on WSIS 
- inform the civil society plenary about their activities and
strategies, get feed backs from CS in general on their decision.

7. Technical support group 
- Develop concepts for innovative use of tech tools for CS activities 
- Present the innovative use of tech tools to the public, in
coordination with communications group 
- Provide technical coordination and setup for CS coordination office 
- Act as liaison with WSIS / ITU tech departments 
- Act as help desk for CS coordinating group 
- inform the civil society plenary about their activities and
strategies, get feed backs from CS in general on their decisions. (This
is less so important for this group, as it mainly provides a service and
does not make real decisions. But as you know, code is law and
technology has its own politics...)

8. Translation group
- coordinate the volunteers onsite and online for translation of CS
documents and interpretation services. This mainly seems to be needed
for French, Spanish, Portugese and several Asian languages.  
- coordinate with UN volunteers on this.


--------------------


III. What we need from the CS Secretariat

(!! We have to inform the WSIS CS Secretariat - i.e. Louise - by next
week. Karen Banks is working on this and urgently needs input. !!)

1. designated office space for CS coordination group
ideally equipped with:
- at least 10 PCs and a printer
- Internet Connectivity: wireless and at least 10 LAN cords for laptops
(wi-fi did not work with all laptops in Geneva and in Paris)
- copy machine
- telephone and fax
- flipchart / board
- located very close to the meeting rooms

2. designated room for the CS Content and Themes Drafting group
- next door to the CS coordination office
- reserved all the time only for the CT Drafting Group
- video beamer for drafting in the group

3. more rooms 
- at least three or four more rooms for meetings of caucuses, families
etc.

4. translation / interpretation services 
- live interpretation on demand for CT drafting group and caucus /
family meetings
- translation service for CS documents
- languages: at least english, french, spanish. What else?

5. What else???