AW: [WSIS CS-Plenary] tunis meeting

Wed Feb 18 20:11:08 GMT 2004

This time with the attachment.  8-)

On Wed, 2004-02-18 at 20:55, Chris Nicol wrote:
> 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
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > Hi, 
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > I am glad to see that C&T is a "born" participant in the
> > Tunis meeting, according to the information from Renata. 
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > 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. 
> > 
> >  
> > 
> > Rikke
> > 
> >  
> > 
> >  
> > 
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> > 
> > 
> > _______________________________________________
> > Plenary mailing list
> > Plenary at wsis-cs.org
> > http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary
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