[WSIS CS-Plenary] Civil Society Plenary 12. November 2003

[Ralf Bendrath]

Civil Society Plenary 12. November 2003
These are rough notes. I am not sure if I missed anything because of the
lack of translation.
Regards, 

Ralf Bendrath

Civil Society Plenary 12. November 2003
---------------------------------------

Monitoring, SC-2 (Rik Panganiban)
---------------------------------
Governments still at the very beginnings of action plan this morning,
behind schedule. 
Declaration:
Financing still open, Swedish consensus proposal out there. Still major
conflicts over "digital solidarity agenda/fund"
Significant work is done in bilateral discussions, led by individual
delegations. Major facilitators here: Switzerland and Tunisia. These
meetings are closed to observers.

Reports from governments working groups:
----------------------------------------
IPRs (Chaires by Brazil): Georg Greve: Deadlock, Brazil etc. against
North
Security (Chaired by Russia): Ralf Bendrath: some progress but back to
September draft at the end

Action Plan:
------------
- Chairs plan: Only talk about bracketed text. So far: Media - is it a
stakeholder or not? 
- Restarting debate that they already had on declaration
- Volunteers found for CS statementment on action plan this evening
(goals and objectives)
- Speakers wanted on action plan, sections B and C (tomorrow)
- Coordination: Jane Jensen

CS "Non-Negotiables" document
-----------------------------
- first deadline was today 12:00
- Steve Buckley is putting together a draft for tonight which will be
sent to the plenary list. 
- final version to be released on Friday.

Alternative vision document
---------------------------
postponed till tomorrow

CS Strategy Working Group (Ralf Bendrath)
-----------------------------------------
- The "multistakeholder" label gives uns some power. We have to think
about how to use it, as this is a new situation for civil society.
- We should stay inside thew summit activities, but make sure that our
concerns are clearly and visibly communicated.
- The latter point is strongly related to the question of who will speak
on our behalf at the summit. 
See mail on plenary list from yesterday evening (english) or this
morning (french) for details.
Next meeting: Thursday, 18:00, Cybercafe
Every day a 45 minutes press conference for civil society at the summit!
Develop press strategy!

CS Bureau meeting today (Renate Bloem)
--------------------------------------
- open-ended working group on Tunisia phase
- how can we participate?
- What kind of structure would CS suggest for a negotiating platform?
- Do we accept the speakers criteria of the ITU (only "presidents" of
NGOs etc.)? No!
- Fellowships: less percentage of applications from developing countries
- Entrance badges ("overpass" badges): 600 for CS, mechanism for
distributung these: 8 for each caucus of working group, 4 for each
family, 5 for CT coordination, 2 for side events people, passes for
speakers. So far 310 used, left over 290 on first come, first serve
basis