[WSIS CS-Plenary] PrepComIIIA: CS Strategy

[karen banks]

Dear all,

Below are minutes from the adhoc meeting on Sunday 9th, attended by 
(apologies if i haven't full names to mind):

Karen Banks (APC); Ralf Benrdath, German CS; Patcha (Korean WSIS CS 
Group/jinbonet); Derrick Cogburn;
Thomas Ruddy; Jane (Danish UNA); Dorte (Danish UNA); Rik Panganiban (WFM, 
prepcom.net); heike jensen (german CS coord); christine wenzel (german CS 
Coord); rikke frank joergensen (Danish instituteof Human Rights); nilo 
(Indigenous peoples caucus/LAC); Hiroshi (People with disabilities); renate 
bloem, CONGO; Steve buckley, AMARC; georg greve (Free Software Foundation 
Europe)

In general, we proposed that we spend our time this week dealing with 
issues of Civil Society strategising in the run up to the summit, and not 
spend so much time drafting statements for plenary etc.

We realise we are a small number of people, and primarily from Europe, 
however, we are all agreed that the work we do here has to reflect the 
positions and concencus of the civil society content and themes group, as 
best we can. Therefore, an important part of our strategy this week is to 
be in daily contact with the virtual plenary and content and themes group, 
and that your remote participation will be a critical part of our strategy.

Below i've outlined the main areas of work we've prioritised - where we 
have questions for the virtual plenary/CT group, i've enclosed the text in 
asterisks ***


** we welcome comments on this broad strategy, particularly if you think 
there are areas of work we have not covered **

(1) DECLARATION
===============
Will be discussed Today and tomorrow.  We will take advantage of speaking 
slots, but will in the main be reiterating the points we have been making 
consistently. We opened this morning in plenary, with an adaptation of the 
letter Sally Burch composed to accompany our comments in reaction to the 
'Non-paper'.

Work on the declaration will be done primarily in plenary, with *possible* 
working groups in the following areas (only financing is confirmed at this 
stage). We will enssure that we have a monitor participating in each of the 
informal working groups.

financing; media; governance: IPR:

(2)ACTION PLAN
==============
Work will begin on the Action plan on Wednesday. We will start from our 
Action Plan compilation from PrepCom III.

(3) Refining our "NON-NEGOTIABLES"
==================================
An important part of our strategy for the Summit is to refine and 
articulate very clearly, what our non-negotiables are, and what are 
strategy will be if our non-negotiables are not met.

We will work from the following documents as a base:
- PrepCom III Opening Plenary statement (wherein we state that we would not 
endorse the statement as it stands and outline 7 'non-negotiables'
- The CS response to the 'non-paper'

Our proposal is then to develop a contextualised statement on our 
non-negotiables, which could be used in a variety of ways, for the Summit 
(eg.. the press, etc)

(4) ALTERNATIVE/VISIONARY DECLARATION
=====================================
Many people feel that it is a good oppotunity, as we are here face to face, 
to take forward work around development of a CS Declaration for the Summit. 
In order for us to do that, we need to have a mandate from the Content and 
themes group, and in particular, the drafting team who volunteered during 
PrepCom III, to take this work forward.

For us to continue the work, we would need an update from the drafting team 
as to where the process is currently at, any work that has been on formats, 
content etc.

** this is at least one of the priority areas we need some feedback and 
guidance on and we would like to begin the work quite quickly **

(5) MONITORING and INFO DISSEMINATION
=====================================
As with all meetings, we will monitor the plenary sessions and participate 
in the informal working groups, and shall share those notes with the 
virtual spaces. Rik will again lead the monitoring team and i'll leave him 
to post information on how that process is going.

(6) CS LEGITIMISATION OF WSIS/MULTI-STAKEHOLDER PROCESS
=======================================================
Arne and meryem have both posted messages recently that highlight the need 
for us to think critically and strategically about our role, and our 
potential impact as a major stake-holder in the WSIS process. We feel that 
CS needs to develop a stronger discourse around this issue, and that it may 
well be one of our most important priorities for the Summit.

We do not have specific proposalsat this stage, but will begin discussing 
this in our daily meetings in full plenary.

That's about it for now. I will ask that this message be translated as soon 
as possible.

We look forward to your comments, and when you are replying, please 
remember to remove any unnecessary 'reply-quotes' etc.  A lot of 
information will be generated this week and we must try to keep the volume 
of text to the lists to the absolute minimum.

Steve buckley will be making a proposal as to how we can use the plenary 
and CT lists more effectively this week.

best to all
karen