[WSIS CS-Plenary] suite du message coupe ....

Tue Mar 8 11:47:06 GMT 2005

Dear Djilali

I am responding to clarify APC's role in the Task Force on Financial
Mechanisms which I think you might be referring to in your message.

This is only English... apologies.

> 3... In the future we must condemn any Big
> International NGO who accepet to represent the CS
> without any dialogue and concertation as it has been
> the case in the past for the designation by UNDP of
> the CS representative in the TFFM without any
> concertation inside the CS where a working group was
> active.

> 3... Dans l'avenir on devrait condamner avec force
> toute grande ONG internationale qui accepte de jouer
> le jeu des désignations des représentants de la SC
> sans dialogue ni participation, comme cela a été le
> cas lors de la désignation par le PNUD des
> représentants de la SC au groupe de travail de l'ONU
> sur les mécanismes de financement, alors qu'un groupe
> de travail de la société civile était opérationnel et
> aurait pu être consulté au sein de la SC. 

APC received an invitation to be a member of the Task Force on Financing
Mechanisms from UNDP that was dated 16 September 2004 (before the launch
of the civil society working group on financing on 20 September). 

We were not invited on behalf of the WSIS civil society caucus, or on
behalf of any subgroup among civil society organisations working in the
WSIS process.

Nor were we invited to represent civil society in general.  We would never
have accepted such a role.

As a membership organisation our primary challenge, and not an easy one,
is to ensure that we respect the mandate of the APC network.

Why was APC included in the TFFM?
We were invited as an individual network of civil society organisations,
most of whom are in developing countries, who have been active in ICT
issues since the late 1980s.  And, in particular, because we had tackled
the financing issue early on in the post WSIS1 phase.

 In June 2004 APC published a paper on financing which was written by our
 member in 
Uruguay, ITeM (Instituto del Tercer Mundo) with the lead author being
Pablo Accuosto. 

This paper developed the concept of networks as a global public good, and
an approach to financing based on this principle.  The paper was
distributed at WSIS2 prepcom 1 and received serious attention from not
only civil society, but also from governments.  
http://rights.apc.org/documents/financing.pdf

We commissioned this paper not only because of our involvement in WSIS...
but to contribute actively to our ongoing work in ICT policy advocacy
(which predates WSIS and will continue beyond WSIS). 

It is in this context that I was invited to be a member, in my capcity as
APC executive director, of the TFFM. I immediately asked UNDP if they
could include ITeM, who had developed the paper on financing for APC, but
unfortunately they did not respond positively to this suggestion.

As I live in Johannesburg in South Africa and the TFFM meetings were to be
held in New York I nominated my colleague, Willie Currie, who is currently
based there, to attend the meetings in my place.

Please note therefore that with regard to the TFFM:

- I never accepted the invitation to join the TFFM on behalf of any entity
other than the APC network

- Very early on in the process we proposed to UNDP that APC assist them in
facilitating a consultation with civil society through a structured online
discussion.  We even proposed using the civil society working group on
financing workspace (which was established in 20 September).

UNDP responded to say that they felt this was not necessary as they had
already organised to have a web-based online disucssion.  We shared with
them our concern that we felt this would not be enough and that a mailing
list-based discussion would be more inclusive.  We also noted that we felt
such a consultation would HAVE to be multi- lingual.

- The TFFM had only two meetings, and it was hard enough for APC to ensure
that the perspectives we brought to the TFFM accurately reflected the
positions of our members. For APC to 'represent' broader civil society
would not only have been completely inappropriate, it would be impossible.

- At our request UNDP agreed that we could invite additonal CS participants to the 
second meeting which we did, having had only one day's notice (a Sunday) to do so. 
Rik Panganiban was able to come and did report on this meeting to plenary. Subject: 
[WSIS CS-Plenary] report on TFFM meeting 29 November - Date: Tue, 30 Nov 2004 
14:01:34 -0500 

- Through our policy work in Africa we were able to collaborate with the
African Civil Society Caucus to facilitate a public discussion on financing in
January 2005 as part of the preparatory process for the Accra WSIS 2
regional Africa prepcom.  In fact, thiis online meeting focused on three
important areas: internet governance, Africa's priorities, and financing.
The three discussion papers were available in English and French and the
discussion took place in both languages.

http://africa.rights.apc.org/index.shtml?apc=29740ieDiscussion+papers1

The list where the discussion took place is: Africa at wsis-cs.org
http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/africa

- APC expressed its concerns on the TFFM process, including our concerns
about insufficient inclusiveness and consultation, with the UNDP in
December 2004. You can find more information about this at
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=30736

- The timing of the process (2 months), made it impossible for APC to engage you, and 
others in the financing WG you created, to the extent we would have like to. We simply 
had to prioritise networking internally with our members, and even that was difficult to 
do effectively.

In conclusion, APC members have always been sensitive to issues of exclusion
through language, and insufficient participation.  At present we
prioritise addressing this at regional and national levels. In February
this year APC, through our member organisation in the DRC, Alternatives,
and the support of other regional partners such as Panos West Africa, held
a regional ICT policy advocacy workshop in Kinshasha with participants
from Francophone West Africa - in French. 

In December 2004, through our member Nodo Tau, we convened a regional ICT
policy meeting, Spanish, in Rosario, Argentina and later this year we will
have a policy workshop in Bulgaria for people in our networks from
Central, East and Southern Europe, and, last August our member in the
Philippines, Foundation for Media Alternatives convened a communication
rights meeting for organisations from Asia in Manila.

We were also able to participate with partners in South Asia in an ICT
policy workshop convened by BFES (Bangladesh Friendship  Education Society
- www.bfes.net) in Dkhaka in early January 2005. And.. just least week,
APC member in South Africa, SANGONeT, had a conference which dedicated an
entire morning to WSIS issues from a national perspective. Several of our members 
maintain national WSIS sites in local languages and have convened or participated in 
national processes that I have not mentioned here.

Being inclusive is an imperfect process... but as far as resources allow I
feel that there are many, many organisations in this space, and spaces
beyond it, including, but not only, those in the  APC network, that are doing
their best to work inclusively 'on the ground'.

Regards

Anriette

------------------------------------------------------
Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director
Association for Progressive Communications
anriette at apc.org
http://www.apc.org
PO Box 29755, Melville, South Africa. 2109
Tel. 27 11 726 1692
Fax 27 11 726 1692

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