[WSIS CS-Plenary] Report from Tunisia meeting?

[Renata BLOEM]

Hi Wolfgang, Ralph et al,

While Robert and Viola are working on a more comprehensive report, Viola
also on the minutes of the informal CS Bureau meeting, let me just give a
very short and totally informal, personal summary of the Tunis
meeting.(French will follow later during the day)

About 100 participants (of whom some 25 from Tunesia) assembled on 2nd March
at the Palace Hotel in Gammarth, north of Tunis, for this informal brain
storming session. They consisted of members of the various Bureaus:
Governmental ( not yet finalized its reconstitution of six members from each
region), CS, Private Sector, IGOs and members of the Secretariat. In
addition a number of Officials from Tunesia in various welcoming or
organizational functions. They all had the same badges which designated them
just as 'Participants'. As such they were welcomed by the Minister for
Technologies and Transport, Sadok Rabah, who in his address announced the
creation (to come) of a Trust Fund for the meaningful participation of Civil
Society in the second phase up to the Summit in Tunis.

The ITU SG, Mr Utsumi, followed to explain that this meeting served as kick
off for the second phase and asked participants to brainstorm around three
sections: "Implementation of the Geneva action plan", "Expected results of
the second phase of the WSIS" and "The process of the second phase of WSIS".
(For this he distributed  a draft Road Map to Tunis in form of a
flow/process chart as an helpful tool, which, however, proved to be puzzling
to some participants).

Participants then broke into three (language) groups (French, English and
Bilingual) and had during the two days freely flowing discussions on the
three sections on which they reported back after each Group Session to the
Plenary. Rapporteurs from the three Groups consisted of members of CS,
Governments and IGOs.

At the end a report (no official status) was received, consisting of a
merging of the various rapporteurs' notes. This report will soon be up on
the ITU and various other websites.

(Some areas of reflections:
What form will have any (out)document for the Tunis Summit (Compilation of
reports on implementation/ deepening of the Geneva Plan of Action/
compilation of best practices etc/ a political document of commitments for
Heads of States to sign / announcement of Partnerships programs etc)

What process? Suggestions were made for more thematic preparatory processes,
others insisted on regional preparatory meetings and yet others to combine.
Let regions determine their thematic priorities and let the Secretariat
establish some guidelines)

CS participants, particular from Africa, insisted to demystify WSIS and the
Plan of Action and make it chewable to and owned by grassroots
organizations).

The meeting was well organized, had an atmosphere of warmth and hospitality
and was remarkable in the total acceptance of CS as partner on equal
footing. How long this will last remains to be seen when we come to an
Official PrepCom which will have  the same rules and procedures as in WSIS
phase One.

As yet no decision whether the meeting in the first half of 2004 will be a
formal meeting but not yet a full PrepCom, or whether this will be the first
PrepCom (this would mean, including new accreditations). The dates for that
meeting are either end of April, or beginning of July. Also not clear
whether this will be in Tunis or Geneva.  More to follow by others.

Kind regards,

Renate Bloem
President of the Conference of NGOs (CONGO)
Family of NGOs








-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org]On
Behalf Of Ralf Bendrath
Sent: Wednesday, March 03, 2004 10:28 PM
To: wsis-cs-plenary
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Report from Tunisia meeting?


Hello,

can anyone of the people currently in Tunisia at the Bureau-Bureau
meeting please give a quick overview of what was discussed (and
decided?) there?

Thanks a lot!

Ralf
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