[WSIS CS-Plenary] final prepcomI outcomes

[Rik Panganiban]

Dear Colleagues,

The WSIS Phase II Prepcom I finished very late last night (26 June) 
around 11:30pm.  As I understand it, governments agreed to accept the 
President's draft decision, which outlines the structure of the Tunis 
Phase, including its relationship with the Working Group on Internet 
Governance and the Task Force on Financial Mechanisms.  The next 
prepcom will take place for 7 working days, that is one and a half 
weeks, I believe on 17-25 February 2005.

The government drafting group working on the President's text took an 
very long time to complete its work, beginning around 4pm and going 
until late into the evening.  By some reports, this was a signal of 
some governments discontent with how the President was conducting the 
process.  It was the Asia Group that had initially expressed 
reservations about accepting the text as is without amendment or 
discussion, but other African states expressed the desire to go through 
the text line-by-line as well.  If other people have different 
information, please post it to this list.

Reportedly, civil society and other observers were ejected from the 
drafting meeting after a request by the Chinese delegation, which was 
supported by the Brazilian delegation.

Meanwhile, the final plenary session of civil society on the evening of 
26 June witnessed no major disagreements or discord.  Whether this was 
due to general fatigue, the near completion of the prepcom, or no 
controversial issues on the table is unknown.  One person observed that 
the number of Tunisian participants had dwindled to a handful.  It was 
agreed to try and convene a civil society plenary at least the day 
prior to the actual prepcom, and that the chair of that meeting would 
be from the African caucus.

Regards to all,

Rik Panganiban
CONGO

===============================================
RIK PANGANIBAN       Communications Coordinator

Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship
with the United Nations (CONGO)
web: http://www.ngocongo.org
email: rik.panganiban at ngocongo.org
mobile: (+1) 917-710-5524 
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