AW: [WSIS CS-Plenary] tunis meeting

[Chris Nicol]

On Fri, 2004-02-13 at 11:37, wolfgang at imv.au.dk wrote:
> Dar all,
> 
> It should be clear (also for the Tunis organizers) that the "main organ" of CS is the CS Plenary. CS-P has two arms, "C&T" for Content (based on a broad range of WG and Caucuses) and the "Bureau" for Procedures. The so-called "C&T Liaison" is a full member of the Bureau. It is important to explain this "simple structure" to the newcomers from the very early day to avoid any misunderstanding. CS is organized bottom up. The Bureau does not take content related decisions. It facilitates the communications between other bodies and stakeholders and the different families, caucuses wg etc. of the Civil Society and deals with formal aspects (which room is needed when, which speaking slots should be reserved, when we should have a meeting with the intergovernmental office etc.)

Yes. I think it's also useful to see how the two kinds of groups,
families (Bureau) and Caucuses (Content and Themes) differ. The families
are organised more according to the origin of their members: trade
unions; regions; NGOs; women; youth; cities and local authorities; think
tanks, etc. ie constituencies, similar to the governments, who
supposedly represent their own national constituencies. The caucuses are
organised around areas of interest: human rights; gender; internet
governance; patents, copyright and trademarks; regions, indigenous
peoples, etc. People from many different areas/constituencies of CS can
be members of the same working group.

The constituencies could be fine as a basis for organising CS if there
were some mechanism for formalising this representation. But we don't go
to Prepcomms with a mandate from our constituencies. We try to represent
them as best we can, but there are no elected representatives from the
broader trade union movement, nor representatives of all women, nor all
youths, nor have think tanks had a congress and sent delegates, etc.
This would be impossible. CS representivity in WSIS has relied more on
good will and motivation than on formal structures.

But the problem is more than this. When we were working at the
Prepcomms, we worked on issues, with other people who shared our
interest, in structures that didn't correspond to our "constituencies",
with the exceptions of gender, youth, regions, etc. So the "families"
were sometimes (often?) more of a burden than a help in getting the work
done. Some hardly ever met, just placing their faith in their elected
reps. The family structure, which on paper looks democratic, was often
less so in practice. It was more often the caucuses and working groups
where we got to know each other, shared ideas and meals, created trust
and confidence, etc, and thrashed out the issues and wrote critiques
together.

I doubt that the families were set up as a counterweight to the
caucuses, but in my opinion the latter were often more important. But
the Bureau is the "official"  structure, modeled on the governments' own
structure, so it's the one the UN and the Tunisians can (relatively)
easily recognise. But only recognising the families clearly leads to
problems when in practice a lot of CS identifies more with their
caucuses. Maybe just an explanation would help the Tunisian government.

> It would be helpful to write a self-explaining one-pager (with an Organizational Chart) for distribution in Tunis. 

Attached is a first draft of an organisational chart I began a while
ago. It's in Open Office drawing format. If anyone can convince me that
they can't download Open Office (or get a CD) and install it to read the
file (in Windows or in Linux), (and in the process start using free
software), I'll see what I can do about making an image file of it or
sending them a CD with the Open Office installation on it. 
http://www.openoffice.org

Regards,

Chris





> Best
> 
> wolfgang
> 
> 
> -- Original Nachricht--
> Von: Rikke Frank Joergensen <rfj at humanrights.dk>
> An: plenary at wsis-cs.org
> Senden: 11:12 AM
> Betreff: [WSIS CS-Plenary] tunis meeting
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> Hi, 
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> I am glad to see that C&T is a "born" participant in the
> Tunis meeting, according to the information from Renata. 
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> However, its still worrying that the family structure is the point
> of access for CS at a meeting that will undoubtedly deal with both process and
> content. And that effective means for participation in this 2. phase will be so
> limited due to financial constrains on CS. 
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> Rikke
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