[WSIS CS-Plenary] List of requests for parallel events in Tunis

[Robert Guerra]

A couple of important points that people should be aware of:

* The "deadline for " parallel event proposals was the end of April
* The "process and procedure" as to how to handle and the proposals  
has been the subject of a great amount of debate and negotiations  
both the the Groups of Friends of the Chair (GFC), the WSIS  
governmental bureau and the civil society bureau.
-  I and other members of  the Civil society bureau, the WSIS ES as  
well as certain key govts such as the EU and WEOG group  have lobbied  
quite hard to make sure the process is as open and transparent as  
possible. This lead to a recommendation to the parallel event  
organizers that the list of proposals be made public and that clear  
instructions be given as to where they are in the process and how to  
proceed.
- The result of the lobbying efforts has lead a list "finally" being  
made public. The exact process, specifically who are the persons who  
will vet the proposals - is still unknown.

* To my knowledge, and that of the CSB bureau - no public and open  
invitation has been made to involve CS structures such as working  
groups, caucuses, plenary and/or the CSB in the decision making  
process. Thus, despite calls from the CSB and others - no advancement  
seems to have been made in actually involving CS in the actual  
planning and logistics of the summit preparations itself. Multi- 
stakeholder process, hmm, doesn't look like it..


* Having been involved in some of the lobbying efforts to make the  
process open - it is my my "personal" opinion that the July 15th  
deadline is in fact a "hard" one. As such, my recommendation would be  
that Individuals and/or organizations that have submitted proposals  
either confirm their info, or send in revised details on or before  
July 15th - Tunis Time (that means 1800 on July 14th!).

* It has been my experience that the organizers are very strict when  
it comes to deadlines & time zones - as such submissions on or after  
18:00 on July 14th are likely to be considered late. So the ACTUAL   
deadline is 1800hrs EDT (new york time) on July 14th!


regards,

Robert





--
Robert Guerra <rguerra at privaterra.org>
Managing Director, Privaterra <http://www.privaterra.org>




On 10-Jul-05, at 12:10 PM, Elizabeth Carll, PhD wrote:

> Dear All,
>
> I agree with Milton, that this is not a realistic time frame to  
> expect to attempt to merge programs by July 15th.