[WSIS CS-Plenary] UN ICT Task Force meeting

Fri Nov 5 08:26:14 GMT 2004

Agenda of working group one meeting (draft) below. Remember 
that this is an open meeting.  All are welcome. You just need to 
register in advacne.

Anriette

UN ICT Task Force Working Group 1 (WG1) Meeting on Global ICT 
Policy and Governance 

Date and time of working group meeting: Nov 18th: 1500-1820
Venue: Foreign Office, Werderscher Markt 1, 10117 Berlin, 
Germany
Registration: 
http://www.unicttaskforce.org/seventhmeeting/registration.html

The working group meeting will take place the day before the UN 
ICT Task Force Global Forum on Promoting Enabling Environment 
For Digital Development, 19-20 November 2004, Berlin, Germany, 
http://www.unicttaskforce.org/seventhmeeting/

ANNOTATED AGENDA (DRAFT)

Prepared by the Association for Progressive Communications
Contacts: Anriette Esterhuysen and Willie Currie 
Contact UN ICT TF Secretariat for registration or further 
information: 
Serge Kapto (kapto at un.org)

Part 1: 15h00 - 17h00

1. Welcome by Working Group 1 convener, the Association for 
Progressive Communications (5 mins)

2. Mapping global governance architecture and creating open multi-
stakeholder spaces for participation in global ICT policy making (90 
mins)

Background
Work has been done (including by working group 1 members) on 
mapping institutions, issues, agreements, disagreements, gaps, 
weaknesses, etc. in the ICT and global governance landscape. 
Participation of different stakeholders in specific governance 
mechanisms and processes has been assessed.

Less work has been done in understanding how the boundaries of 
global governance spaces and processes have shifted and how this 
impacts on different stakeholders.

The WG1 meeting will provide an opportunity for members to share 
their activities in this area. 

A concrete WG1 output will be proposed for discussion and 
participation: The production of a publication that maps international 
ICT policy making spaces with respect to the participation of 
developing countries and civil society organizations in global ICT 
policy making and governance issues.

It will build on the work of the Louder Voices initiative, International 
Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development, Markle Foundation, 
UNCTAD, WTO and other initiatives. The outcomes will provide 
useful inputs to the WSIS Working Group on Internet Governance 
(WGIG) and the Task Force on Financing Mechanisms. The WGIG 
will need to address issues concerned with democratising access to 
IG processes, while the TF on Financing may have to think about 
similar issues with respect the proposed "global financing 
mechanism". The issue of multi-stakeholder participation in 
governance and policy issues is integral to both groups. 

Recent work by the Institute of Development Studies at Sussex 
University has examined the importance of analyzing the power 
relations involved in different policy and governance spaces. It 
differentiates between closed, invited and open spaces for 
participation. 

Closed spaces have traditionally been sites for the exercise of state 
and corporate power, while invited spaces have established the 
norm for civil society participation. Open spaces for all stakeholders 
to participate in policy development and implementation are rare, 
and need to be actively created. 

So the question is how to create an open multi-stakeholder space, 
that is commensurate with the challenges thrown up by the WSIS 
regarding internet governance and global ICT finance mechanisms, 
but can extend further into the issue of global ICT policy making and 
governance.

[Invited speakers (40 mins) + Discussion  (50 mins)]

3. Reports on WG1 member activities (25 minutes, maximum 3 
minutes per participant)

Break  (20 mins)

Part 2: 17h20-1820

4. Report back from CS Multi-stakeholder meeting of the morning of 
18 November (15 mins)

5. Discussion of proposal on the restructuring of UNICT TF working 
groups (15 mins)

6. Follow up WG1 actions/activities (30 mins)

FURTHER BACKGROUND NOTES AND REFERENCES

Towards Participatory Governance: Assessing the Transformative 
Possibilities, John Gaventa, Institute for Development Studies, 
November 2003

Report of the Panel of Eminent Persons on United Nations-Civil 
Society Relations: We the Peoples: Civil Society, the United Nations 
and Global Governance 

Cardoso Report http://www.unmsp.org/cardoso.html

Reframing Internet Governance Discourse: Fifteen Baseline 
Propositions, Bill Drake: 
http://www.itu.int/wsis/preparatory2/wgig/drake.pdf

WTO, E-Commerce and Information Technologies: From the 
Uruguay Round through Doha Development Agenda, A report for 
the UN ICT Task Force and Markle Foundation, Sacha Wunsch-
Vincent

Guide to International ICT Policy Making", Markle Foundation 
http://www.unicttaskforce.org/perl/documents.pl?id=1312

The Internet Governance Project: the current "state of play" in 
Internet governance - calling upon the United Nations to make 
fundamental decisions to safeguard the functioning of the Internet. 
Exec summary: http://dcc.syr.edu/ExecSummary-final.pdf
Full report: http://dcc.syr.edu/MainReport-final.pdf
Who is doing what?: http://dcc.syr.edu/Table1-final.pdf 
http://dcc.syr.edu/Table2-final.pdf
Agreementshttp://dcc.syr.edu/Table2-final.pdf 
Disagreements and Gaps in Issue Areas http://dcc.syr.edu/Table2-
final.pdf
General url: http://www.internetgovernance.org/

Classification of Internet Governance, Diplo Foundation, 
http://textus.diplomacy.edu/textusbin/env/scripts/Pool/GetBin.asp?I
DPool=363

Louder Voices: (Panos, CTO) 
http://www.panos.org.uk/global/Rprojectdetails.asp?ProjectID=1033
&ID=1002&RProjectID=1055

African Participation in WSIS: review and discussion paper, 
commissioned by APC from David Souter (Jul 2004), 
http://rights.apc.org/documents/africa_wsis_review.pdf

------------------------------------------------------
Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director
Association for Progressive Communications
anriette at apc.org
http://www.apc.org
PO Box 29755, Melville, South Africa. 2109
Tel. 27 11 726 1692
Fax 27 11 726 1692