[WSIS CS-Plenary] format for Tunis Summit

[Rik Panganiban]

Vittorio,

Sorry to respond to you so late on this.  I do not make up these rules, 
they are handed over to us from the secretariat,  the government 
bureau, and past UN conference practice.  We can chose to reject those 
practices and nominate folks who the secretariat might view as less 
than "top level".  But I just want people to know what the preparations 
and assumptions are.

The coordinator of a caucus does not hold much water beyond our own 
structures if they are not at the top level of their own organization.  
The title of "individual internet user" does not mean anything in the 
UN system.

Rik Panganiban
CONGO

On Mar 1, 2005, at 5:12 AM, Vittorio Bertola wrote:

> Il giorno lun, 28-02-2005 alle 09:19 -0500, Rik Panganiban ha scritto:
>> My comments:  If my math is correct, assuming an equal division of
>> speaking times among civil society, the private sector and
>> inter-governmental organizations, that adds up to 85 minutes of
>> interventions from civil society during the entire General Debate. If
>> we assume 3 minutes interventions each speaker, that would be about 28
>> individual speaking slots for civil society.
>>
>> "Top-level speakers from organizations" I interpret to mean the
>> Presidents and Secretary-Generals of accredited NGOs.  This is
>> important to note, since for many of our organizations, our Presidents
>> and Secretary-Generals might not be attending the Tunis Summit.  Or
>> conversely, they might only chose to attend if they are speaking at
>> the official plenary.
>
> Given the way that we work, shouldn't we be going by caucuses/WGs,
> rather than by NGOs? In that logic, "top-level speakers" might mean
> caucus coordinators, or people suggested by the different caucuses.
>
> Also, that might help in reaching consensus on speakers, as it's
> possibly easier for organizations and individuals who participate in a
> caucus to agree on an individual to represent all caucus participants,
> rather than on an NGO to speak on behalf of all NGOs active in the
> caucus.
>
> And please... do not forget those of us who participate in the WSIS as
> individuals. We already had to ask a favour to friends from accredited
> NGOs just to be physically allowed in... I'm not sure about how many
> others act as individuals, but, in the Internet world, people tend to
> aggregate informally and to form flexible online groups, rather than to
> incorporate NGOs.
> -- 
> vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
> http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...