[WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: Communiqué de Presse de la Société Civile

[Ralf Bendrath]

Dear all,

I am also not happy about the press release, neither on the content nor on 
the procedural side.

Renata Bloem schrieb:
> This was not a statement of CONGO.
But CONGO wrote it, refined it and sent it out, without any consultation 
with the plenary or whomever. Right? Given the fact that the final Content 
& Themes meeting where we collected points for Adina to include was on 
Friday evening, and the press release only was published on Wednesday, 
there would have been enough time to send out a first draft for further 
confirmation. That's how we did it before, like at PrepCom3a when I wrote 
the final CS press statement.

 > In fact we have not submitted a single sentence to it.
But who wrote it then? The press release does not at all reflect the 
general discussion we had on the state of the process etc.

  "Despite some concerns about WSIS “losing its vision” and “moving away
  from the Geneva Declaration track”, civil society entities were
  generally satisfied with the response by governments to their efforts in
  making the peoples’ voices heard in “bridging the digital divide”."

Here I fully agree with Jean-Louis: We (any especially the folks who 
worked hard on financing issues at the Prepcom) are certainly not 
"satisfied with the response by governments". Quite the opposite.

> Adina was asked to make an amalgam of the submissions she had received. 
> and in order 
> to avoid any misunderstanding / possible conflicts she decided not to 
> refer to any specific entity / group / caucus, but to use more a general 
> language 
That is fine, as long as the submissions are still somewhere incorporated.

BUT: I find no single sentence on Human Rights here, though the Human 
Rights Caucus had sumbitted language. Nothing on the lack of a Human 
Rights focus in the summit drafts, nothing on Tunisia as the host country, 
nothing on accreditation problems of NGOs like Human Rights in China. But 
then it mentions accreditation problems in WIPO. Why?

And most of the press release is applauding the improvements in the 
multi-stakeholder process. But were there really any? We had our usual 15 
minutes a day like we had two years ago. On the last day we did not even 
get these. The improvement is only on the substance side: They listen to 
us, because they either have no clue and need our input, or they have 
learned to take us serious. So, if we want to applaud anybody for the 
bigger impact we might have had during this PrepCom, it should be 
ourselves. BTW: Empirical research done on WSIS phase one suggests that CS 
impact is bigger in the early stages and gets smaller and smaller towards 
the end, when all that counts is the government's agreement.

So, to me, this press release looks like somebody (if not CONGO, then who 
else?) wants to play extremely nice and by doing this is silencing all 
more outspoken and critical voices in civil society. Fine with me if some 
groups want to do this, but then they can't claim to speak for all civil 
society.

I totally agree with Renata: We are lacking a clear press structure and 
really should work on it for PrepCom3.

But while we don't have an agreed structure, things like these have to be 
done the most careful and inclusive way. And that normally includes a 
feedback loop on the plenary list, even more if there are a few days of 
time. Otherwise, we get a PR disaster like this and enlarge the divides 
between different groups of civil society in the WSIS.

Ralf