[WSIS CS-Plenary] RE: [governance] further comments on Global Alliance

[Gurstein, Michael]

I also made some remarks at the UN ICT Task Force meeting in New York on the proposed Global Alliance.  

I introduced myself as the Chair of the Community Informatics Research Network which includes several hundred researchers world-wide who have a research concern with enabling communities with Information and Communications Technologies.  I also mentioned my position as a Board Member of the Telecentres of the Americas which is a network of networks of telecentres in the Americas and representing some 15-20,000 individual community telecentres or community based technology initiatives in the region.

The gist of my remarks was to point out that to date none of the various multi-lateral initiatives, up to and including the WSIS have had significant participation from those working directly at the grass roots in initiating and implementing ICTs in support of community activities and development.

While there has been a very considerable degree of "talking about" ICTs for Development there has been remarkably little "talking with" those who are actually doing the job on the ground.  The presentation by others such as governments or multi-lateral agencies or international NGO's of these activities on behalf is not sufficient to effectively engage those working in these areas in process and including an identification of the opportunities and limitations, of these developments.  

I commented favourably on the words of Mr. Sarbuland Khan, the Executive Director of the ICT Task Force, that efforts would continue to support local development through the use of ICTs and that this would be the longer term mission of the proposed Global Alliance.  He also acknowledged that the efforts to date at involving communities and the grass-roots in these activities had fallen short of what was desireable.  He further acknowledged that for development to occur of the scale and depth which is being proposed there would be the need to engage and include the grass-roots directly in these efforts and that this was a task to be pursued both by the Task Force and the Alliance.

In response to a request for suggestions as to how this might be undertaken, I remarked that a good beginning would be to directly engage/"give a voice to" the grassroots and their networks in the on-going discussions on policies, plans and priorities for ICT4D and including in the WSIS.  

I also indicated that resources to enable this would need to be found as these networks typically are very poorly funded and to date see little of interest within the WSIS process which would lead them to invest their extremely scarce resources in these activities. 

One way to proceed in this way would be for the Task Force to suggest that some of the funding currently available to support the participation for example of public servants in the stream of conferences about the ICT4D work that others are doing,  might be re-assigned to support the activities and participation of those actually doing the work, to engage directly by themselves in these discussions and the development of these policies, plans and priorities. 

Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.
Chair: Community Informatics Research Network
Board Member: Telecenters of the Americas (TAP)
Board Member: Telecommunities Canada (TC)
Advisory Board: Association for Community Networking (AFCN)

-----Original Message-----
From: governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org
[mailto:governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org]On Behalf Of Rik Panganiban
Sent: Monday, April 11, 2005 1:48 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: [governance] further comments on Global Alliance


Dear Friends,

The following are my remarks at the Global Alliance consultation that took place this morning at the UN.  They elaborate upon previous comments that I have made on the Alliance, but perhaps might be useful to some people.

- Rik

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Global Alliance Recommendations
11 April 2005
Rik Panganiban, Communications Coordinator, 
Conference of NGOs in consultative relationship with the United Nations (CONGO)


CONGO is pleased to have an opportunity to again express its views on the purpose, structure and modus operandi of the proposed Global Alliance for ICT Policy and Development.  We view positively the fresh approach taken to following up on the WSIS as well as integrating ICTs into the larger UN development agenda.  And we are happy that there will be other opportunities for us to intervene in the coming weeks after the UN ICT Task Force Meeting in Dublin this week.  


1. For us, the main purpose of having a Global Alliance is to create a mechanism with the overall objective of moving more effectively from goal and standard setting to implementation. Such a follow-up mechanism should be established under the auspices of the UN Secretary General to avoid its mandate being hijacked by any group of actors, with a real multistakeholder partnership character in which civil society has significant weight.

2. It is important to recall that the main intent of traditional Commissions following UN summits is to provide a  forum for governments to come together periodically to report on their progress in achieving the goals the committed to at the Summit. NGOs traditionally attend the commission meetings to express their own views on how governments are doing, to network with each other and to promote their own projects related to the issue area.

 3. While the Commission process has done much to promote continued NGO participation in the UN system and been an important vehicle for promoting our ideas and proposals, there are definite disadvantages as well. Notably, Commissions are often weak mechanisms for getting governments to comply with their own commitments. NGOs often are lost among the hundreds of groups that show up. And the meetings are expensive and difficult for groups in the developing world to attend.

 4. The purpose of the Global Alliance âEUR" to promote ICTs to achieve the UN development agenda âEUR" will require a much more concerted effort to get governments, in partnership with civil society and the private sector, to create sound policies to implement this integrated vision. An annual report to a Commission meeting is not enough.

 5. One possibility is for the Global Alliance to establish a central online observatory to monitor how governments around the world are doing on achieving the WSIS and Millennium goals. Government provided data would be presented alongside international monitoring and reporting bodies like UNDP and the World Bank. NGOs and the private sector could present their own reports on what is happening on the ground and their recommendations for governments. Thus year-round, there would be an ongoing monitoring and reporting website where anyone could examine where various regions were at and see where more concerted action was needed.

 6. Once a year, the Global Alliance could convene in one of the developing regions of the world (Asia, Africa, Latin America, Central / Eastern Europe) to bring concerted attention and support to the unique problems and issues of that region. Emphasis at the meeting would be capacity building for government policy makers, NGO activists, and business entrepreneurs in the region to jumpstart development using ICTs.

These are just a couple of ideas that may help focus our discussions on what the concrete contributions of the Global Alliance might be. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute to this discussion, and we reiterate our willingness to assist the Task Force as it further refines the concept of the Global Alliance.


===============================================
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 

* Information on the WSIS at http://www.ngocongo.org/wsis
* Information on Millennium+5 at http://www.ngocongo.org/mdg

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