[WSIS CS-Plenary] summary of yesterday's meetings, in English

[Andy Carvin]

 Summary of yesterday's civil society meetings, in English. We will try to
get French and Spanish translations if possible.

Sommaire des réunions civiles de société de yesterday's, en anglais. Nous
essayerons d'obtenir des traductions françaises et espagnoles si possible.

Resumen de las reuniones civiles de la sociedad de yesterday's, en inglés.
Intentaremos conseguir traducciones francesas y españolas si es posible.

Prepcom  civil society meeting, June 23

This morning at the Hammamet Medina, Civil Societybegan a day-long meeting
regarding the WSIS prepcom meeting, which will officially open tomorrow
morning. After opening comments from Renate Bloem,  she then welcomed
Charles Geiger of the WSIS Executive Secretariate.Geiger explained the
history of the UN?s interest in hosting world summits. ?Each summit creates
their own rules,? he said. ?This summit is special because it has two
phases. On the first summit the governments decided on the rules of
procedure?. A world summit is basically an intergovernmental summit, while
businesses, international organizations and civil society act as
observers.?

?The origins of this summit was that the Tunisian government proposed the
summit at a meeting of the ITU in Minnesota in 1998?. It was then brought
into the UN system, and there was a resolution that was the basis of this
becoming a UN summit. They said the first phase would take place in Geneva
in 2003, and the second phase would be in Tunisia in 2005.?

?There were two breakthroughs at WSIS. You were able to create civil
society bureaus so you could speak with one voice. Plus there were joint
bureau meetings in which civil society and business were invited to meet
with governments. Governments don?t like to do new things, but once they
do, they probably will continue.? Geiger said he couldn?t guarantee it
would happen in this phase as well, but hoped it would, perhaps starting
with a joint bureau meeting this Friday at 6pm.

?At the first summit we had two declarations, so the question now comes,
what is left for phase two?? he said. ?Here I can only make guesses, since
I cannot speak for the governments. There is unfinished business on?
Internet governance and financing mechanisms [for a digital divide fund].?

Geiger said there would probably be a second prepcom in Geneva next
February, followed by a third prepcom in the late summer, either in Geneva
or Tunis. There will also be regional meetings in Brazil, in Ghana in
February and one hosted by the Arab League.

Civil Society Content & Themes, and WSIS-Online

The next plenary session focused on civil society?s work in the WSIS
process in terms of generating content for official WSIS documents and
activities.  Renate Bloem opened the session noting that during the first
prepcom meeting of the first round of WSIS, civil society was ?totally
excluded.? Complaints about this eventually led to the establishment of an
official WSIS civil society bureau that would have a legitimate seat at the
table, and would be able to submit input on various relevant topics by
civil society organizations.  During the second prepcom, civil society
representatives divided themselves into various working groups on themes
such as human rights, gender, Internet governance, etc, but this was
limited to those people who were physically represented at the meeting,
meaning that some potential topics might have fallen through the cracks.

?The idea of establishing a civil society bureau was a very, very good one,
but we must make sure the process is as democratic and legitimate as
possible,? she said. Over the next day, civil society groups will have to
decide who amongst them will want to speak during two 15-minute time slots
in the plenaries this Friday and Saturday morning.

Next, Steve Buckley from the civil society content and themes group offered
more details on the process. These self-selected working groups were based
upon various common interests and geographic regions. The groups would then
develop positions on relevant Internet issues and submit them to the
content and themes group, whose task it would be to develop the ideas into
a unified position document representing all of civil society participating
in WSIS. During the first round of WSIS, he said, civil society groups felt
that their ideas weren?t being taken seriously, though almost half of the
ideas suggested by civil society ended up making it into the official
documents. Still, he said, this needs improvement, and we should push to
re-open the issue so more of the positions of civil society get accepted by
the participating governments.

Governments, he said, clearly have unfinished business to do regarding
Internet governance and the financing of digital divide initiatives,  but
that should not stop us from advocating our ideas and trying to get them
included in the final WSIS documents. The WSIS plan of action, he said,
needs more specifics. Civil society should also hold governments
accountable to what they?ve promised to do throught this process. Last,
civil society must make sure that governments take human rights seriously;
in particular, he cited the Tunisian government?s evolving policies as an
important barometer for seeing if governments address the issue in ways
that are satisfactory to civil society.

The final speaker was Bertrand de la Chapelle, who gave a demonstration of
the website www.wsis-online.net. A community platform for civil society
activists, the website is intended to be used by groups so they can
coordinate their WSIS-related activities.  The site allows users to create
event listings, working groups, organizational and personal profiles, etc,
all sorted by particular civil society interests. The website?s database
then allows users to sort people and organizations based on these interests
so they can identify each other and hopefully partner with each other to
meet civil society goals.

Youth Caucus breakout session

Discussion of new facilitator to replace Nick Moraitis, who will transition
out of the role. Find co-facilitators, one based in Tunisia and one in
Europe, might be worth exploring.

Ideas for the youth caucus to consider as it moves forward in the process:

- Reaffirm ongoing youth involvement in the prepcoms

- Organize youth consultations at a national level to collect youth input
on relevant issues being discussed through WSIS

- Identifying practical ways youth can be involved in implementing aspects
of the Declaration and Plan of Action to reach the MDGs

- Organize an officially recognized youth summit within the Tunis WSIS
phase



UNDP finance taskforce

Shoji Nishimoto, Assistant Administrator and Director of UNDP?s Bureau for
Development Policy, brief ed civil society members on a new UNDP taskforce
which will discuss financing mechanisms for bridging the digital divide
between developed and developing nations. The taskforce, yet to be formed,
will feature representatives from government, civil society and the private
sector, who will identify successful strategies for funding sustainable,
replicable models to bridge the divide. Nishimoto said the UNDP will seek
nominations for experts with experience in implementing funding programs
and digital divide initiatives, including  programs that have creatively
addressed the divide from various perspectives, including infrastructure,
education, content, etc.

Nishimoto expects the taskforce to be constituted by the end of July, with
work commencing immediately via the Internet and occasional in-person
meetings. Mark Malloch Brown, director of UNDP, has asked Nishimoto to
report the findings of the taskforce by this December, in order to allow
for time to review the report prior to the second Prepcom meeting, expected
to be in Geneva early in 2005. Nishimoto predicted around 17 or 18
taskforce members; there will also likely be a mechanism for non-members of
this taskforce to submit opinions on the subject via the Internet.

Janis Karklins and the Lella Baya House Band

Late last night, civil society representatives had the opportunity to chat
with Ambassador Janis Karklins of Latvia, who has been nominated to become
president of the Prepcom of the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the
Information Society. Karklins, who literally arrived at the Lella Baya
Hotel five minutes prior to the meeting at 10:30pm, quickly joined the
group of 15 civil society representatives, hosted by Renate Bloem of CONGO.
Sitting outside by the pool as a rather obnoxious Spanish dance band
performed 100 meters away, Karklins described the basic procedures that had
been adopted unanimously by the Prepcom bureau in Geneva. As the dance
music throbbed in the background, the group asked questions on a variety of
issues, including press freedoms during the Tunis phase,  ensuring adequate
speaking time for civil society representatives,  human rights in the hot
country and various procedural issues. Because of the extraordinarily loud
music vibrating everyone to the bone, sometimes it was rather difficult to
hear what was said; nonetheless, civil society representatives seemed to
appreciate the 45 minutes he gave to the group at such a late hour.


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Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media & Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org
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