[WSIS CS-Plenary] Speakers -- Criteria

[Bill McIver]

All,

Thank you to Meryem and Susanna and others for their contributions to this.

The CT-speakers group will work over the weekend on developing a list 
according to the following
criteria.


WJM
----

Dear all, I have gone through the various emails around the issues and 
tried to pull out the
points that various people have made, and comments made regarding the 
Opening Speaker
have, I feel the essence of a profile of speakers that we can consider 
while trying to pull a list
for submission to the Secretariat.

Susanna, 14 November 2003

SELECTION CRITERIA DRAFT


OPENING SPEAKER.

Criteria/ Profile of person.

- someone that can represent Civil Society (and not from one of the 
other stakeholder
groups), and represent the alternative voice
- person who represents our CS main values, theories, conceptual 
proposals and
practice/action lines in relation to the Information Society
- has a strong grounding in human rights issues
- speaks excellently and with eloquence about matters related to human 
rights, people
–centred approach development, North South paradigms, information and
communication issues, and link issues such as education, disabilities etc.
- has a cross-sectoral, holistic perspective on the above issues.
- someone whose positions most of civil society can identify with
- strong support for a woman from the South, and/or representing a 
marginalised group,
and also some strong support for a speaker from Africa
- if from outside the WSIS/information sector, then someone who can 
provide an
independent perspective on issues of ICT and development
- someone who is well respected, charismatic and has a media 
profile/public visibility
(whether this profile is to be a high public profile is not agreed upon)
- a visionary, with known capacity


ROUNDTABLE PROCEDURE…

Suggested Procedure

1. signal to the WSIS Secretariat, that CS Plenary / CS C&T will via the 
CS Bureau as soon as
possible that we will make officially concrete proposals (to avoid that 
the WSIS Secretariat or
somebody else invites speakers from elsewhere) and
2. start to manage a list with proposed speakers for the Round Tables so 
that we can find a
way to have high level and balanced geographical, constituency, gender 
etc. representation.






GENERAL DEBATE

- General debate could be seen by CS just like the PrepComs
and Intersessions plenaries, and it could be the occasion to present our
conclusions on the Summit official texts, process and follow-up.
- To this end, these CS speakers for declarations during the general 
debate should
be nominated following exactly the same process as for the PrepComs and
Intersessions: each caucus should have a chance to tell its conclusions.
- The Content and Themes groups should be in charge of coordinating these
nominations, and propose relevant merging if there are more proposals
than speaking slots.
- The compilation of such declarations by caucuses could be a very good
alternative declaration from CS."

Matters related to selection of speakers
- Speakers must be fully briefed by concerned working groups about they 
should say in the
name of CS/Caucuses
- After the nomination of "CS Speakers/Panelists" we should encourage 
the panelists to
communicate with the relevant Caucus / C&T group to make sure, that 
basic points, developed
over the preparatory process, should be adequately made public in the 
panel discussion. The
text of their speeches can be written or checked by concerned working groups



-- 

Bill McIver
Assistant Professor
School of Information Science and Policy
University at Albany, State University of New York
Albany, New York 12222
USA

e-mail: mciver at albany.edu
URL: http://www.albany.edu/~mciver