[WSIS CS-Plenary] Updates on WGIG

[Vittorio Bertola]

All,

I thought useful to send a brief reminder to the Plenary about what the
WGIG is and what it is doing.

The WGIG is a group of experts that was chartered by the Plan of Action
of the Geneva Summit, with the following mission:

"i) Develop a working definition of Internet Governance;  

ii) Identify the public policy issues that are relevant to Internet
Governance;  

iii) Develop a common understanding of the respective roles and
responsibilities of governments, existing international organizations
and other forums as well as the private sector and civil society from
both developing and developed countries."

As such, the WGIG does not deal with policy, but only with the
mechanisms through which policy is discussed and approved - which,
however, are the key for a long term solution to many of the problems we
complain about.

WGIG members were appointed by the UN Secretary General, following
consultations with stakeholders (including our own process for
suggestions), but were chosen so to form an inclusive group that would
collectively have the necessary skills on the different issues; while
composition is balanced in term of geography and stakeholders, there is
no direct representation involved.

The WGIG is required to present an interim report to PrepCom-2, and then
a final report on June 30, so that it can be discussed in PrepCom-3.
Consequently, PrepCom-2 will not discuss or negotiate any issue
pertaining to Internet governance, while these issues will be discussed
and negotiated at PrepCom-3.

The interim report will be a collection of "issue papers" that describe
the issues that belong to the Internet Governance field (parts i) and
ii) of the mission). The third part of the mission will be discussed
from March on.

These issue papers are now being drafted by the group; a list of the
issues was prepared by the Secretariat, and each issue was then taken by
a WGIG member, volunteering to act as "lead drafter"; first drafts were
due by January 20, and are now under discussion by the whole group. 

Current plans are to finalize the drafts by January 31, so that they can
then be commented by the public, either online or at the open
consultations that will be held in Geneva on February 15-16. The group
will then meet the following two days to take comments into account and
then release the final papers, which will form the interim report. This
report will be presented to PrepCom-2 on February 24 (I have no idea
whether some discussion will follow, maybe someone in the CSB knows?).

Thus, caucuses and working groups should be prepared to submit comments
before February 14, and/or to send someone at the open consultations to
read them in front of the group. I am working, together with the
Secretariat, to ensure that the consultations are webcast in English and
French, and that there will be options for remote input.

I think that a number of strategic objectives of our collective action
could be significantly helped by positive results of the WGIG. So I
think that we should try to coordinate ourselves, including WGIG
members, connectors and all other civil society participants, so to make
our action in the group effective.

In any case, the WGIG will not take decisions, but rather make proposals
to be then discussed and negotiated at PrepCom-3. While having the WGIG
make proposals that we like will be very important, an equivalent work
will be necessary in view of Tunis, to get these proposals approved by
the governments and reflected in the outcome of WSIS-II.

For more information, you should visit the WGIG website
(http://www.wgig.org/) and especially have a look at the following
pages:
- WGIG mission: http://www.wgig.org/About.html
- WGIG members: http://www.wgig.org/members.html
- List of issues: http://www.wgig.org/docs/inventory-issues.html
- Template for papers: http://www.wgig.org/docs/Template.14.12.04.html
- February meetings: http://www.wgig.org/meeting-february.html

Please feel free to forward this message to caucuses or to any other
relevant list.

Thanks,
-- 
vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...