[WSIS CS-Plenary] My draft

[Nnenna]

Contribution on the possible revised draft circulated by the chair of Group of the Friends of the Chair on the Operational Part

Date: August 29, 2005

 

 

By: Nnenna Nwakanma, Development Researcher and Advisor, Institute of International Relations, Université de l’Atlantique, Cote d’Ivoire

Member: Internet Governance Caucus, Finance working group, Working group on working methods, Gender caucus, Africa Regional family working group on implementation and follow-up.

 

General observations 

 

 

The retained text is one of many and it happens to be the most contradictory to existing aspirations so far.  It is the one text that expresses an entirely opposite sense of direction from all the contributions received after PC 2. (Document WSIS-II/PC-3/DT-6(Rev.2)-E)

 

This text sweeps multi-stakeholderism (which has been at the very foundation of the WSIS) to the side by suggesting the implantation of all action lines in UN bodies

 

This very suggestion makes it difficult to implement at regional levels.  In the Africa Region, will ITU remain ITU or will it be substituted by ATU? (The Africa Telecommunications Union).  Such questions are difficult to answer.  This difficulty accentuates as we go lower and will ultimately make it impossible to implement Actions Lines at national levels (at least for African countries)

 

The “process of follow up” is a very bad idea.  It demolishes the whole of the WSIS process.  Processes are followed by an Action Plan and implementation, not another process!

 

There is a great danger that completely assigning the implementation of Geneva and Tunis Action Plans to any UN body “according to its mandate and competencies” will result in leaving the issue of Internet Governance “still” under the control of one country, a situation which has been so far practically accepted as requiring urgent change

 

In its suggestion that  
 coordination of implementation activities among the UN agencies should be defined by the UN Secretary General on the basis of existing practices within the UN system
 this text seems to say that the whole of the WSIS process itself (with such heavy expenditure on resources) was a waste.  There should not have been any summit at all.

 

To conclude, we are proposing below, a text which retains the belief, the aspirations and the desires so far expressed for paragraph 10.

 

10

 

In order to assure the sustainability of the WSIS process after the completion of its Tunis phase, we agree to a multi-stakeholder  mechanism for effective and transparent implementation for the Geneva and Tunis Plans of Action, based upon co-operation among governments and all stakeholders, with the overarching goal of helping countries and societies to achieve the development goals of the Millennium Declaration. To that end, for each Action Line in the Geneva and Tunis Plans of Action (as identified in the Annex), a multi-stakeholder team  will work together to promote implementation. We request the UN Secretary-General to nominate, from among existing UN bodies or specialised agencies, those that will coordinate the work of each team, based on respect for their mandates and leveraging on their expertise, and within their existing and mobilized resources. 

 

For each Action Line a multi-stakeholder implementation team should be established through an open and inclusive process, building upon the innovative mechanisms experimented during the WSIS, with a particular attention to achieving gender balance and equitable regional representation. 

 

We also recommend the establishment of multi-stakeholder partnerships at the regional and national levels with support from the UN Regional Commissions to ensure implementation of the Geneva and Tunis decisions and organize Regional and national follow up evaluations at regular intervals, most preferably,  every two years.


__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam?  Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around 
http://mail.yahoo.com 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/plenary/attachments/20050829/73a2925d/attachment.html