[WSIS CS-Plenary] Report on CSB meeting from Media Caucus rep.

[Tracey Naughton]

Hello Everyone,

I am pasting below a short report on yesterdays CSB meeting, from the media
Caucus representative.

Best regards

Tracey

About 15 people attended, including Louise Lassonde and Alain Clerc,
who chaired the meeting.
    From Alain's lengthy introduction, the outlook for the Tunis Summit
looks bleak.
    The ITU has no money or desire to continue, and has basically
abandoned the driving seat. Kofi Annan has not responded to a request from
Mr Utsumi that other organizations should be brought in to take the wheel.
Mr Gagné is no longer in charge. The executive secretariat is now in the
hands of one Swiss and one Japanese under Mr Utsumi, but they have provided
no guidance or orientation for the intergovernmental side.  Tunis was
expecting the executive secretariat to take a leading role. It hasn't. No
date has been fixed for a first Prepcom.  No papers have been submitted by
Utsumi to a high-level meeting, to be chaired by Kofi Annan on 1 April,
whose agenda will include the WSIS. Etc etc.
    A relevant ITU document on the situation is WG/WSIS/5/6.
    Alain and Louise will work until end-March, but withdraw at that
point if things do not become clear, and/or if no adequate funding for civil
society participation has been identified.  According to Alain, the Civil
Society bureau is the only entity looking actively towards Part II.  He
hopes its work will be helpful for the Tunis meeting next week.
    Clere saw three possible approaches for the second part of the
Summit:
    1.    concentration on a "charter", a proposal welcomed by some
governments, with development of targets to be developed from the existing
declaration and action plan.
    2.    a more "thematic" approach, which would mean civil society
becoming active in a whole series of working groups.
    3.    view Tunis as an implementation summit "Geneva Plus Two" -
but two years is too short a time.
    It was agreed that civil society representatives attending the Tunis
meeting should sound loud alarm bells. Full civil society partnership in a
Summit should not be an excuse for intergovernmental organizations to shrug
off their responsibility for organizing it.
    As you see, we did not get round to questions of content ...
    I hope this is useful.
    Best regards,
    David


 
Nyaka - Communication & Development
Tracey Naughton
Consultant
201 Somerset Hall
239 Oxford Road
Illovo  2196
South Africa

Phone/fax:    +27 (0) 11 880 5030
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Email:              t.naughton at iafrica.com