[WSIS CS-Plenary] Financing: One list -UN ICT TF Berlin and workhop on financing

[Rainer Kuhlen]

Hello everyone (sorry this long email; it is the last from Finance 
<finance at wsis-cs.org> anyway)

We had a German CS meeting this weekend; among other topics came up, of 
course, the financing issue and we were really concerned that the CS 
participation and discussion are still very low, in general among 
ourselves and in particular with respect to the UNDP TF which has gotten 
the UN mandate for theWSIS financing topic. There is no multistakeholder 
working groupfor financing as it is (obviously successful) the case with 
Internet Governance. As far as UNDO TF is concerned Robert Guerra has 
taken first steps towards UNDP to become SC more involved into this 
somewhat intransparent process. Tomorrow, Oct 4th, is the next meeting 
of TF in NY and till the end of novembre (29th the next meeting), the TF 
is supposed to produce the 0-version of its suggestions.

There is obviously some urgent need for coordinated action. *Therefore I 
suggest to close the Finance <finance at wsis-cs.org> (and ask Karen to do 
so).* Cause we cannot afford to split are activities and waste energy in 
meta-discussions as was the case the last 2 weeks. When this list was 
established we were not aware not that another list 
wsis-finance at yahoogroupes.fr had already been created (when, I do not 
know and how active it was, I do not know either). So let 
wsis-finance at yahoogroupes.fr do the job. I encourage all members of 
Finance <finance at wsis-cs.org> to join the other list (most of you are 
already members of the two lists), although some people (Jean-Louis F.) 
were somewhat concerned about potential restrictions on a yahoo-list. We 
will see. So, please do not send any more emails to Finance 
<finance at wsis-cs.org>.

Secondly, as most of you know, there will be a UN ICT TF meeting in 
Berlin, Nov. 19-10.The meeting will be preceded by a global forum, this 
time on “Enabling Environment for Digital Development”. The work of the 
UNDP Task Force on financing set up by the WSIS 2003 will also be 
discussed. The day before (18th) several workshops will take place and 
CS, as proposed on the GErman workshop mentioned above, should take the 
chance for a workshop of its own to have the coming challenges in the 
second WSIS phase intensively discussed. An extra invention to this 
strategic workshop, coordinated with the Bureau, will follow soon. 
Financing is also a central topic on the UN ICT TF meeting. Therefore it 
seems to be extremely helpful, if part of the CS workshop on Nov 18th 
could be devoted to the financing topic. As a side-effect the *caucus 
*financing, in addition to the list activity, could be "officially" 
founded. All of this, only makes sense, if some people, in particular 
from outside Germany/Berlin, have the chance to join the meeting. So, 
please, let me know, and send it to the wsis-finance at yahoogroupes.fr as 
well, who is very likely to come to Berlin. Again, there is an urgent 
need that we clarify our financing positions both strategically and 
organisationally.
Hope to see many of you soon in Berlin.
Rainer

-- 
Prof. Dr. Rainer Kuhlen
Chair of NETHICS e.V. (Ethics in the Net) - www.nethics.net
Department of Computer and Information Science - University of Konstanz
Box D 87
email: rainer.kuhlen at uni-konstanz.de or rk_iw at gmx.de
URL: http://www.inf-wiss.uni-konstanz.de/People/rk.html
Phone Univ.: ++49 (0)7531 - 882879; Fax: ++49 (0)7531 882048
Mobile 0049 0171 452 7010

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