[WSIS CS-Plenary] "the friends of the president" drafting group

[Bertrand de LA CHAPELLE]

Hi Rik,

You rightly identified this notion of a "friends of the 
president group" as an important novation in the process. A. 
Samassekou tried something similar in the first phase but 
encountered serious difficulties in the PrepCom2, as 
governments (in particular GRULAC if I remember well) 
considered he had no mandate for doing so and that, as a 
result, they had not been able to contribute. So his whole 
document was trashed. 

Drawing lessons from that painful experience, Janis Karklins 
has made sure he is given an explicit mandate this time. But 
the question of how Civil society could participate in this 
process is not closed. Quite on the contrary.

Indeed, during the joint Bureaus meeting, (to which I 
participated on behalf of the Internet Governance Caucus), I 
explicitely mentionned to President Karklins this formulation 
about a group of "friends of the President". 

I also recalled the statement Ralf had read that very morning 
in the official plenary, about providing appropriate 
mechanisms for civil society to effectively contribute "in a 
timely manner" to the drafting of whatever Political 
Declaration could be planned for Tunis and our willingness to 
be involved. I also recalled that SG Utsumi a few minutes 
earlier in his response to a previous question, had wished 
the setting up of "appropriate communication channels" with 
civil society.

To my surprise, Amb. Karklins went further than I expected, 
replying straightforwardly that he could envisage having 
civil society and private sector representatives in the group 
of friends of the President. 

He may have been too bold : although no government made an 
explicit remarks at that time, I do not believe they would 
accept a joint, multi-stakeholder group to facilitate 
drafting. 

Nor am I sure this would be in the full interest of civil 
society to be merged in one single group. Maybe a separate, 
paralel, channel would be better. It has to be evaluated 
carefully - and quickly.

But two things are certain in that context :
- the earlier good input channels are established with the 
President, the more impact there can be on the architecture 
of the final Tunis Declaration itself;
- Amb Karklins is visibly willing to find ways to involve 
civil society in more than mere symbolic ways, and this 
notion of "friends of the President" is to consider with 
great attention.  

The second phase is different from the first one : the way 
the final document is going to be drafted clearly more 
structured. 

A priority is therefore to define how we want to be part of 
that process and lobby to get support from friendly 
governments (as was the case with the EU to solve the 
Hammamet CS Crisis) 

For the rest, you are right to mention that the Summit 
process must take into account not only regional and thematic 
events but also "WSIS-related Events". This leaves the 
possibility for events organized by civil society to push a 
given theme and force it somehow on the Agenda. 

This is just preliminary thoughts. 

Best


Bertrand
 

---- Original message ----
>Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2004 11:01:45 -0400
>From: Rik Panganiban <rikp at earthlink.net>  
>Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] process for drafting of 
documents  
>To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
>
>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
>===============================================
>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