[Pwd] RE: [WSIS CS-Plenary] health section - explanation

Mon Dec 19 17:42:27 GMT 2005

Dear all,

I will end my participation in this thread by saying that I am very offended by this message by Ms. Carll quite clearly blaming the Disability Caucus for final decisions on the CS statement and the resulting "unhappiness".  I am also offended by her suggestion that we should have focused on our own section instead of contributing to this issue.  Not withstanding the fact that the Disability Caucus prepared a statement that was publicly available to all, I believe that Mr. Kawamura very adequately pointed out certain obstacles we had to deal with and I would add that as members of CS, I believe we have a right to input on any matters that concern us and quite clearly, issues on health do.  I would also add, as someone who has been involved in the WSIS process since 2002, that it has often been from the start a real battle to get CS groups involved to take notice of our issues and have them integrated into their overall activities or positions.  Three years later, it is disappointing to note that this does not seem to have changed.

Best regards,

Catherine

--
Catherine Roy, consultante

www.catherine-roy.net
514.525.9490

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pwd-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:pwd-admin at wsis-cs.org] On Behalf Of
> Elizabeth Carll, PhD
> Sent: December 19, 2005 10:37 AM
> To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
> Cc: Pwd at wsis-cs.org; wsishealth-and-ict at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [Pwd] RE: [WSIS CS-Plenary] health section - explanation
> 
> Dear Ralf and all,
> 
> Thank you for the work of those who participated in the drafting, as it
> was
> surely a difficulty task.  I would agree with Hiroshi, that much
> information
> was included however, the perspective of special interest groups was
> unfortunately omitted.  Having links to additional statements would
> certainly be helpful, however, obviously it would have been preferable to
> have information as part of the text.
> 
> What is curious to me is why the drafting group did not decide to include
> both a section on disability as was submitted by the Disability Caucus and
> the health section as was submitted by the Health and ICT Working Group,
> thereby being inclusive of both groups.  It was unfortunate that the
> Disability Caucus decided to lobby to remove any reference to mental
> health
> from the health section as opposed to writing and focusing on their own
> section, but I cannot speak for their decision making, as at no time did
> the
> Health and ICT WG attempt to eliminate or modify language from the
> Disability paragraph contributions, although such could have been
> recommended.  In the end, it is unfortunate that the Disability Caucus
> lobbying resulted in your having to decide to make everyone "equally
> unhappy" and I can understand your thinking as including neither was an
> outcome which was mentioned, although including both would have been
> preferable.
> 
> As far as disagreement with in the Health and ICT WG, having one person
> disagree, does not constitute internal conflict, unless you had heard
> similar recommendations for the removal of mental health from the Health
> section from other members of the Health and ICT Group, of which I am
> unaware.  It appears that coordinating a group and speaking for the group
> makes no difference if one person is in disagreement and makes it known.
> While everyone is entitled to make their thoughts known, this is an
> important message as to where to place energies, as it appears, that CS
> has
> great difficulty organizing and even recognizing its own informal
> structures.  Perhaps until there is a more formal structure for broad CS
> representation, investing time in various initiatives may prove rather
> unproductive and focus should specifically be on lobbying government.
> 
> Thank you again, for all your work on this, and the process has given much
> food for thought.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Elizabeth
> 
> Dr. Elizabeth Carll
> Health and ICT WG
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org]On
> Behalf Of Hiroshi Kawamura
> Sent: Monday, December 19, 2005 5:29 AM
> To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
> Cc: Pwd at wsis-cs.org
> Subject: Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] health section - explanation
> 
> 
> [Please note that by using 'REPLY', your response goes to the entire list.
> Kindly use individual addresses for responses intended for specific
> people]
> 
> Click http://wsis.funredes.org/plenary/ to access automatic translation of
> this message!
> _______________________________________
> 
> Dear Ralf and all:
> 
> I highly value yours and your collaborators effort to pick up different
> input to formulate the CS Statement. The Statement contains lots of
> valuable
> substances.
> 
> However I would like to draw your attention to the fact that Majority of
> Disability Caucus participants including myself had to stay more than 60
> km
> away from the venue due to accessible accommodations available only there.
> That limited the caucus contact with other CS group who could stay
> relatively close.
> Secondly, the Internet access at hotel was terrible. It meant that except
> for being on the venue the entire participants of Disability Caucus were
> cut
> off from the e-mail connection and even within the venue there were no
> space
> or no time to work on e-mailing with good concentration. Thirdly, the
> Disability Caucus held two major events on 15th and 18th. On 18th, we
> adopted our own declaration following Geneva. Entire effort of Disability
> Caucus participants was focused on formulation of the Tunis Declaration as
> attached. Lastly, traveling back home for persons with disabilities with
> very poor airlines services caused a lot of problems to many participants
> that resulted in piles of unread e-mails in the mail box.
> Those are the factors why we could not actively take part in the drafting
> process.
> 
> Having received final text that does not address digital divide of persons
> with disabilities at all, I would like to propose to the drafting group or
> the web master of the official CS Statement web page host to list the link
> to other statements of Civil Society Caucuses so that missing issues be
> addressed by supplementary documents.
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Hiroshi Kawamura
> WSIS CS Disability Focal Point
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Ralf Bendrath" <bendrath at zedat.fu-berlin.de>
> To: "wsis-cs-plenary" <plenary at wsis-cs.org>
> Sent: Monday, December 19, 2005 3:45 PM
> Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] health section - explanation
> 
> 
> > [Please note that by using 'REPLY', your response goes to the entire
> list.
> > Kindly use individual addresses for responses intended for specific
> > people]
> >
> > Click http://wsis.funredes.org/plenary/ to access automatic translation
> of
> > this message!
> > _______________________________________
> >
> > Dear all,
> >
> > I was facing a difficult decision here, as there was no agreement on the
> > exact wording of the health information section. I have tried to weigh
> > all arguments, but in the end I had to make a decision myself as the
> main
> > drafter and facilitator.
> >
> > 1. Elizabeth Carll wanted to include "physical and mental" health.
> >
> > 2. Sylvia Caras and others opposed it and proposed to add the sentence
> > "Health includes biological, emotional, social, spiritual and vocational
> > well-being".
> >
> > This seems to be an internal conflict in the Health&ICT WG, which is
> none
> > of my business. But if there is open and public debate among caucus
> > members about this, it is a bit hard to accept this as a consensus
> caucus
> > decision.
> > Elizabeth on the other hand pointed out, and rightly so, that "physical
> > and mental" health was included in the Geneva CS Declaration. But: We
> > don't really have the rule of "agreed language" like the governments
> have
> > in the UN system, as CS is much more fluid, and many people have joined
> > the process only in the second phase. (The governments who had to agree
> on
> > something in Tunis had all been there already in Geneva.)
> >
> > 3. Hiroshi Kawamura as the Disability Caucus cordinator supported
> > Sylvia's suggestion.
> >
> > This is something to seriously consider, and you could say it outweighs
> a
> > "less-than-consensual" proposal from the Health&ICT Caucus. What to me
> > added on this was the fact that the disability caucus does not have its
> > own chapter in the statement.
> >
> > So, my job again was to make everybody equally unhappy. I therefore
> > decided to delete "physical and mental", while at the same time not
> > including "Health includes biological, emotional, social, spiritual and
> > vocational well-being". The statement now only speaks of "health".
> Nobody
> > objected to the word "health", right? ;-) This seems to be the lowest
> > common denominator and is also understanable by normal readers who don't
> > know anything about the conceptual struggles in tghe health care world
> > around this.
> >
> > I had to make decisions like this in many parts of the document, when
> > different people and caucuses were fighting over the exact wording. I
> have
> > always tried to make a balanced and fair decision when they could not
> > agree on a consensus text. Much of this facilitating happened offlist,
> as
> > it is difficult to deal with these things on public email lists. You can
> > blame me for not doing it in public, but I have always sent out the next
> > version for everybody to give feedback, and I have alway tried to
> justify
> > the decisions I was forced to make. (We went through ten different
> > versions of the statement, by the way.)
> >
> > I hope you understand these explanations, and I hope in the end
> everybody
> > is still able to sign on to the overall statement, which has evolved
> very
> > well over the last month.
> >
> > Thanks a lot,
> >
> > Ralf
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > Plenary mailing list
> > Plenary at wsis-cs.org
> > http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary
> >
> 
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