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

[Carlos Afonso]

Grande Michael,

I am going to be a bit provocative with this answer.

I agree civil society presence is *very* small in relation to the 
absolute numbers and broad diversity of civil society organizations 
worldwide. I do not agree it is self-selected. I do not agree it 
represents nothing and that it would be useless regarding the overall 
goals of a "better and more just society".

A scenario: drop all current civil society participants from the 
discussion rooms and tables, let us see what happens. What alternatives 
would we have? Anyone who has tried to mobilize cohorts to get more 
involve know how difficult this is. There is no spontaneous generation 
of massive participation -- sparks are needed.

I agree the representation is not perfect (which one would be?), that we 
may have government and private companies disguised as NGOs and so on, 
along with dedicated and serious NGO cadres clearly connected to and 
working in consensus with their constituencies, that results are uneven 
and many times frustrating etc.

I understand we use "civil society" and "private sector" just for the 
sake of summarizing arguments -- no need to elaborate on them, reproduce 
a whole Alan Wolfe book, every time we quote them -- but the terms are 
very limiting.

I miss in this representation the academic sector. OK, one can argue 
whether it is part of civil society, but why don't the academics force 
the stakes to be far more present than they are? In the case of the 
e-Universities in the South (the "e-" here understood, in the very 
proper expression of Samassekou, as "elite"), the moves to be more 
present in these discussions, as has been since colonial times, are 
zero, nada. But they do sometimes excellent (for their own academic 
standards) post-mortem analyses...

Sorry to say it, but academics frequently tend to criticize organized 
civil society without being really involved from the inside, which leads 
to unfortunate generalizations -- maybe because one cannot penetrate the 
research sample without risking to alter it?

What about the "e-Universities" in the North (well-known exceptions 
obviously excluded)?

fraternal rgds

--c.a.


Gurstein, Michael wrote:

> Surely the real problem with all of this is the issue of who is Civil 
> Society and how on earth can a small self-selected group such as those 
> who have the time and resources to attend a two week conference in 
> Geneva "represent" Civil Society in any meaningful way?
> I'm not in anyway disparaging the capability or commitment of those 
> who did attend but only to make the self-evident observation that 
> Civil Society (however it is defined or constituted) is rather broader 
> and more diverse than what is represented here and that the real issue 
> remains how to provide a meaningful and effective voice for this 
> "larger civil society" and some useful process of 
> legitimation/accountability for those who are able/willing to become 
> "representatives" for CS in forums such as the WSIS Prepcoms (and 
> beyond?)!
> It seems to me further, that there is a very real danger in the drive 
> towards a "Multistakeholder" follow-up to WSIS. It seems likely on the 
> basis of current practice, that this lack of legitimation and 
> representativeness will in fact be perpetuated in this forum as well, 
> with the result that the role of Governments as the democratically 
> constituted (and thus formally "accountable" at least in theory) 
> "representatives" of citizens are demoted to simply another 
> stakeholder group (although what their "stakes" might be apart from 
> representing their and their citizen's interests I'm rather loathe to 
> contemplate); the private sector is of course "non-accountably" 
> pursuing their interests; and these new CS stakeholders again without 
> any formal structure of accountability or representativeness are meant 
> to represent the interests of everyone else.
> Hmmm... Quite honestly, I don't see this as any sort of advance, in 
> fact given now-fading memories of mid-century European history I see 
> significant dangers in this type of "multi-faceted" approach to 
> "governance" issues.
> Mike Gurstein
>
>     -----Original Message-----
>     *From:* plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org
>     [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org] *On Behalf Of *Rik Panganiban
>     *Sent:* March 4, 2005 3:58 PM
>     *To:* plenary at wsis-cs.org
>     *Subject:* [WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: Communiqué
>     de Presse de la Société Civile
>
>     Ralf, et al,
>
>     I will take some responsibility for the Press Release as it was
>     drafted. Adina took on the difficult job of pulling together what
>     input she received verbally and via email on Thursday and Friday,
>     and worked hard to integrate it into a single, short press
>     statement over the weekend. I received an early draft of it and
>     should have alerted her to the problematic nature of drafting and
>     getting approval for a "civil society press release." Instead I
>     just word-smithed the draft and sent it back to her.
>
>     In retrospect, the most transparent and inclusive way this could
>     have gone out was for it to either be simply a compilation of
>     quotes from various sources, i.e.
>     - According to Ralf Bendrath of Boell Foundation, "This Prepcom
>     was crap!."
>     - Anne-Marie on behalf of the Women's Caucus noted that "This was
>     a complete waste of time!"
>     - Rikke of the Human Rights Caucus expressed her disatisfaction
>     that "our views were ignored" etc.
>
>     And then have links to complete statements somewhere else on the
>     web. Other coalitions and networks that I have been involved with
>     have compiled press releases in this fashion. This neatly avoids
>     the need to summarize the "view of civil society," which is kind
>     of impossible.
>
>     Otherwise this should have gone out simply as a press release on
>     behalf of the CS "secretariat" of CONGO / ICV / NGLS -- full stop.
>
>     My apologies for adding to any breakdown of our processes and trust.
>
>     Rik Panganiban
>     CONGO
>
>     On Mar 3, 2005, at 12:09 PM, Ralf Bendrath wrote:
>
>         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
>
>
>     ===============================================
>     RIK PANGANIBAN Communications Coordinator
>     Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United
>     Nations (CONGO)
>     web: http://www.ngocongo.org
>     email: rik.panganiban at ngocongo.org
>     mobile: (+1) 917-710-5524
>

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Carlos Afonso
diretor de planejamento
Rede de Informações para o Terceiro Setor - Rits
Rua Guilhermina Guinle, 272, 6º andar - Botafogo
Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brasil         CEP 22270-060
tel +55-21-2527-5494        fax +55-21-2527-5460
ca at rits.org.br            http://www.rits.org.br
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