AW: [WSIS CS-Plenary] process for drafting of documents

[Wolfgang Kleinwächter]

Dear all,
 
If only governments are invited as "members of the group of friends of the president", other stakeholders should call for a "liaison" to guarantee a minimum/maximum of interaction and information.
 
Best wishes and thanks for the good reporting work
 
Wolfgang
 

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Von: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org im Auftrag von Rik Panganiban
Gesendet: Sa 26.06.2004 17:01
An: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Betreff: [WSIS CS-Plenary] process for drafting of documents


COMMENTARY ON THE PRESIDENT'S PROPOSAL FOR A SUMMIT DOCUMENT DRAFTING PROCESS 

My understanding is that the President of the Prepcom Amb. Janis Karklins has made quite an interesting proposal, which should be accepted today. He calls for a "group of friends of the President" in consultation with regional groups to prepare a "document to serve as the basis of negotiations" taking into account the outcomes of relevent thematic, regional and other "WSIS-related" meetings. 

This proposal would represent a good amount of trust placed in the President to facilitate the drafting of the main texts of the Summit directly, as opposed to being done through a bureau or only through a formal Prepcom process. In Phase I, the Prepcom President's own drafting process was pre-empted by governments wishing to have more direct control over the drafting. 

This also would be a evolving document that would be able to incorporate the results of various "WSIS-related" meetings. This is in contrast to the Phase I process, which did not allow for the regional consultations to be directly inputted into the draft summit texts. In addition, it leaves vague the notion of which meetings actually might be included, since "WSIS-related" could be interpreted quite broadly, perhaps including meetings organized by the private sector, civil society, academia, etc. 

Presumably the final documents will take the form of a political declaration and an action-oriented document. 

For civil society, this represents perhaps a gain and perhaps a loss in terms of our ability to monitor and contribute to the drafting process. A "friends of the chair" committee would presumably be closed to observers. However a text incorporating directly thematic, regional and other WSIS-related meetings might be more open to civil society input, since it gives us more opportunities to make contributions that in the end might end up in the summit text. 

Rik Panganiban 
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RIK PANGANIBAN Communications Coordinator 

Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship 
with the United Nations (CONGO) 
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