[WSIS CS-Plenary] The March meeting: suggestions

[Renata BLOEM]

Dear all,

I had made the point to include someone from the Content and Themes Group
from the beginning to the Minister, to the CSB and during our CONGO
Briefing.
In fact, the CT Group had always a seat on the Bureau for liaison reason,
and I would therefore take it for granted, that he/she should be invited.
Renata

-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org]On
Behalf Of karen banks
Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 3:36 PM
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] The March meeting: suggestions


Dear plenary,

I was going to ask for further information about the March meeting, who was
attending, on what basis etc, but the recent posting from Mr. Geiger is
useful in that respect.

[extract..

>Let me now turn to the invitation of Tunisia:
>
>The host country of the second phase has invited the members of the three
>Bureaus (Intergovernmental Bureau of the PrepCom, Civil Society Bureau,
>Consultative Committee of Business interlocutors) as well as the focal
point
>members of the HLSOC (High Level Summit Organizing Committee, basically the
>interested UN Agencies) to a informal brainstorming meeting at Tunis. This
>meeting is not part of the formal preparatory process.

It is good to see that Civil Society has been invited,  along with other
stake-holders, in the representation of the CS Bureau.

However, and although this meeting is not part of the formal preparatory
process, i think we all know that this will be a very important meeting,
that will layout a possible shape and direction for the implemenation of
Phase II.

I'm sure that the host country - and all participants - will want to ensure
that the outcomes of this meeting, inform the first preparatory meeting,
and the entire preparatory process. No doubt it will deal with process
issues, but i would imagine it will also deal with content issues. As Mr.
Grieger goes on to say:

>The meeting intends to kickstart the reflection process among all
>stakeholders on what should be the value added of phase 2 of WSIS. As you
>know, agreed languange was that phase 1 would end with a Declaration and a
>Plan of Action (and it did!), and phase 2 would focus more on developmental
>issues and also monitor and evaluate progress made since the first phase of
>the Summit. This is a vague statement. For real monitoring and evaluation,
>the time span of 23 month between the two phases is too short, as every
>development expert knows.

In that respect, I feel it is very important that we uphold our ways of
working during WSIS phase I, and extend an invitation to the Content and
Themes working group, to identify a representaive for the meeting.

The ICCB is attending and i imagine will certainly wish to focus on some
content issues, i believe it's imperative that the WSIS Content and themes
group is simiarily represented.

I understand the funding contraints, but the issue here is also one of
principle, if we can agree on that first, then we can second deal with the
financial difficulties.

I would like to know how others feel about this?

karen



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