[WSIS CS-Plenary] Informal CS Bureau Meeting, ITU, 26 Februa

[Sally Burch - ALAI]

I am forwarding the report of the CT representatives at the CS 
bureau meeting in Geneva today.  Sally
-------------------

This is a quick summary by Chris Zielinski, edited by Thomas Ruddy, from
notes of the informal CS Bureau Meeting held in ITU on 26 February. A report
will be provided by the Bureau in due course. In the interests of protecting
the guilty, I do not attribute the following remarks to anybody, nor are the
opinions expressed necessarily mine.

18 people attended the meeting, including representatives from a number of
CS Bureau Families. Francis Muguet, Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, Thomas Ruddy and
Chris Zielinski attended from the CT group. Alain Clerc of the Civil Society
Division of the Executive Secretariat presided.

The following Agenda was proposed for the meeting: 1) Information on Phase
II, 2) Practical and financial arrangements, 3) CS Bureau evaluation for
Phase 1, and 4) CS Bureau communication. In practice, most of the 90 minutes
was spent on item 1.

The bottom line is that there is no clear leadership in place in the run up
to the WSIS Phase 2 Summit in Tunis. 

According to General Assembly Resolution 56-183, the first Phase of the
Summit was to elaborate a declaration and action plan, while no clear
objective was set for Phase 2. It is not even clear if the coordinating
group set up for Phase 1 (the "Executive Secretariat") was to carry on to
Phase 2. 

For civil society, the picture is a bit simpler. The CS Bureau was set up at
PrepCom 2, and it has been developed in reaction to discussions. This is the
first such Civil Society Bureau ever, and is an experiment. Along with the
Bureau, some 20 "families" were established. Some of these are geographical,
representing particular regions, and the rest are sectoral. 

It had been agreed that the situation would be reconsidered after Phase 1 -
both in terms of the objectives of Phase 2 and the procedural and structural
aspects, such as the CS Bureau.

Technically speaking, Phase 2 started immediately on the conclusion of the
Geneva phase on 13 December. Since that time, not much has happened in terms
of establishing the framework for phase 2. A decision was taken to have a
PrepCom in the first six months of 2004 (this is in the Action Plan that was
adopted at the Geneva Summit), but nobody seems to be driving it forward.
The Tunisian government wants to hold this as soon as possible, while the
ITU Secretariat argues for a July date.

Governments are unclear about the process towards Tunis, and the ITU,
although it was accorded the leading managerial role in the UN Resolution,
seems to have lost heart, i.e. is in a funding crisis itself. 

There are a number of reasons for the ITU's changed perception of it role.
At the end of Phase 1, ITU DG Yoshio Utsumi decided that Pierre Gagné should
no longer continue as Executive Secretary of WSIS. Utsumi took the role for
himself, assisted by Charles Geiger (Swiss Government appointee) and T.
Nakaya (Japanese Government appointee). 

Although the ITU had fought hard to get the lead role, it gradually
recognized that relatively little of the dissuasion at WSIS-1 was related to
ITU's narrow mandate. Given its lack of funds and lack of political will or
skills (as a purely technical agency), the ITU has been increasingly
unwilling to go it alone. 

This is clearly reflected in a paper just posted on the ITU website ("ITU
Role in Preparing for the Tunis phase of the WSIS" at
http://www.itu.int/council/wsis/wsis_WG.html):

"It is proposed that the ITU should focus on those action lines that relate
specifically to its mandate; it should not assume a lead role, but
contribute to possible global mechanisms established to follow-up on and
monitor the results of the Geneva phase".

ITU has indeed been trying to get out of shouldering the full financial and
managerial burden of organizing the conference. Utsumi went to Kofi Annan to
ask him to ensure that other organizations contributed to WSIS activities
and budget, but Annan made no response. The ITU wanted it, got it, and
should now do it.

In consequence, Governments have had no guidance or proposals for future
work at this point.. While the Swiss Government could afford to spend
significant sums in support of WSIS 1, Tunisia is not able to be so
forthcoming for WSIS 2.

In the absence of guidance from the Secretariat, the Tunisian Government has
been acting independently, with mixed results. Two ideas were put on the
table:

1. The Tunis Summit should concentrate on a "new charter" - but nobody has
specified exactly what this is. Another declaration?
2. A regional approach should be adopted.

There has been no real discussion of these ideas, and it is not clear who if
anyone supports them.

There is also activity at the regional level: in Lyon with its "Cities
United" project (convening again in May in Paris), Italy on finance and
Barcelona working on cultural diversity.

The Bureau feels that the second phase should develop a thematic approach.
An alternative or supplementary approach would be to consider Tunis to be an
implementation conference (a Tunis +2, analogous to the Environmental
Summit's +5), although this is really a short time frame in which to see any
real implementation of the Plan of Action.

Two action groups have been proposed:

1. An action group on financial maters (under the auspices of Kofi Annan)
2. An action group on Internet Governance (under the auspices of ITU)

The UN's ICT Task Force, which is meeting shortly (early April) could take a
look at these proposals and make recommendations about how to move forward.
Failing this, the next PrepCom would tackle this, which would mean that for
all practical purposes the Working Groups could not be constituted much
before October 2004 and report in June 2005.

So it is now being proposed to take advantage of next week's brainstorming
in Tunis to push these proposals. In particular, civil society should have
the same role as in the first Phase in establishing the agenda for the next
Summit, as Tunisian Ambassador Mansour announced at a NGOCONGO briefing a
week ago. Concrete proposals should come from civil society now.

In summary, the Bureau supports the thematic approach, feels that the
working groups should be mobilized at once, and stresses the need for civil
society to participate fully in all upcoming phases of work towards, and at,
the Tunis Summit.

Among the financial proposals, Louise Lassonde said "We are working hard to
get resources. We have considered opening up a fund for CS participation. We
could apply for InfoDev funding."

Some explanations were given about the two e-mail lists founded for WSIS
(both in the same week), the lack of archives at bureau at geneve2003.org, and
the like. Technical reasons were blamed for the lack of archives. In any
case, Louise Lassonde announced that a new list going live in the next few
days at bureau at tunis2005.org would address these issues and provide an open
archive.

Wolfgang Kleinwaechter called for issuing a warning statement to the Tunis
brainstorming session. It would not come from the CS Bureau, but rather the
CT Group. It would complain about the lack of follow-up, which governments
and international organizations should be undertaking. Governments should
not shirk their responsibility. CS only wanted to share responsibility. It
is unrealistic to expect CS to take the lead.
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Content & Themes Documents: 
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Drafting Portal: [TBA]
------- End of forwarded message -------

__________________________________________________________
Sally Burch - Directora Ejecutiva
Agencia Latinomericana de Informacion - 
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