[WSIS CS-Plenary] monitoring MSP post_wsis initiative

[Gurstein, Michael]

Thanks for this Claudia and for the openness to discussion which is manifested in your response.  I won't go on at length here as there are more immediate issues for this list to deal with, but two items to contribute at this point and for further discussion at your session on Monitoring the Follow-Up to WSIS in Tunis:
    1. funding--without sustained funding broad-based (community/grassroots/indigenous/practitioner organization) participation in such efforts is very unlikely (and quite unreasonable to expect). These organizations operate on the barest of budgets for the most part and most often on budgets that are tied into specific projects out of which they must extract funding for institutional overhead/salaries etc. Whatever their interest in something like a monitoring process they will be unable/unwilling and even actively discouraged (by Boards, other funders etc.) from participation. This has been the case with the WSIS process and there is no reason to expect that it will not continue in any post-WSIS follow-up.  
 
The notion of "voluntary financial and in-kind contributions" as for example is the wording for the Global Alliance, is either deliberately or unconsciously discriminatory against the grassroots who have no resources for such "voluntary or in-kind contributions" which appear to be a condition of participation.  (Such resources are of course (and usually invisibly) available for example, for academics through universities, for government officials or as tax write offs for large corporations who have overhead resources in abundance). Unfortunately, there is little visible evidence that those speaking on behalf of CS at this point have any deep recognition or willingness to intervene around this central issue.
 
(It might also be mentioned here, that the process of "inclusion" which is most frequently practiced i.e. where individuals are selected by donor agencies as "representative" of the grassroots, rather than working through emergent organizations/networks representative of the grassroots is deeply undermining of the kind of collaborative efforts which are the basis of ICT4D initiatives at the grassroots... Thus one of the elements of such funding needs to be funding for emergent organizations (networks of networks) rather than "cherry-picking" of individuals as "representative" leaders for participation in efforts such as WSIS or post-WSIS follow-up. This must be combined with a recognition that decisions as to who could or should represent these groupings/networks must be the responsibility of the networks rather than of the funders.) 
 
    .2. agenda setting--the issues which have pre-occupied CS at least in this round have been not those that have much immediate interest among grassroots organizations.  To engage grassroots organizations and energies (at least as I'm in touch with these) in a follow-up monitoring process, the identification of issues for monitoring must be done in a broad and collaborative way and including a recognition that many of the processes currently in place (as for example that around "Indicators/evaluation") are from the grassroots/community and community informatics researchers' perspective deeply flawed. Equally, it will need to be understood that among the issues being monitored (and the processes of monitoring) will need to be those which can assist in sustaining and advancing local efforts concerning ICT4D (including ensuring greater influence from the grassroots on broader ICT4D policies and initiatives) as well as feeding into these broader policies and initiatives.
 
(Let me add that the above is a personal synthesis of recent and on-going consultations I have undertaken with the Telecentres of the Americas Partnership, the Global Telecentre Alliance, Community Informatics Research Network and several aboriginal organizations in Canada and internationally (and to whom I am copying this note) as background to interventions concerning the development of the Global Alliance ...
 
Best,
 
Mike Gurstein
   

-----Original Message-----
From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org] On Behalf Of Claudia Padovani
Sent: November 7, 2005 11:16 AM
To: plenary at wsis-cs.org
Subject: R: [WSIS CS-Plenary] monitoring MSP post_wsis initiative



Ciao Mike, finally I am focusing on the initiative we would like to discuss in Tunis. So first of all let me reply t some of your concerns (as you may have seen from my writings I am among those who have tried to conduct some evaluation of MSP at wsis):

 

 

I do have a few questions however and one suggestion.  The single

suggestion is that prior to more actively pursuing this initiative that

you with colleagues conduct an open self-assessment of the Civil Society

role and activities within the WSIS process.  While in a numbe  

respects the CS process for WSIS has been a successful one, in other

areas I think there are issues that need to be addressed particularly if

one is concerned with being inclusive, equitable, development oriented

and transparent.

 

Maybe a much broader investigation would be useful; but there are already reflections on this. Wolfgang Kleinwachter (Aarhus University and WSIS) and Bart Cammaerts (LSE) have done research and written about these aspects. Furthermore I organized a meeting in Venice, a year ago, with one session devoted to an assessment of participation in WSIS (with voices from all sectors involved). I believe we should build on those reflections but go beyond. This is why we have planned to have the first part of our meeting in Tunis addressing some of these concerns, from different voices. Then the initiative will be introduced and then we shall have suggestions, reactions, comments ecc (I am preparing a leaflet to be circulated in a couple of days)

 

The most significant issue has been, I believe, the severely limited

participation in the various WSIS Civil Society processes which largely

were physical processes of interaction and participation supplemented

between these events by on-line participation primarily among those

already active in the physical processes.  The absence of clear

procedures for agenda setting, decision making,

"representation"/inclusive participation, and language issues were all

to my mind somewhat problematic and need to be subjected to some self

and public examination in the context of extending a CS role into the

new and most important areas of monitoring that you are suggesting. 

 

You are touching upon the central issues we are faced with. On one side a clear understanding of stakeholders as interlocutors and their roles in MSP. On the other the need to support MSP processes with an inclusive use of tools (ICTs but not only) which should be developed precisely to address the constrains you indicate. In this sense we had submitted to the EU early this year a proposal for a support action (with friends from wsis, including Henrich Boell as a coordinator, plus others). The proposal has not been approved but we have done work and writing for that, and these are all resources we would like to bring into the initiative. The positive thing is that there is an interesting group of people already involved in this conversation, some from academia, others from NGos and grassroots, others from local authorities' associations.

 

Overall, the limitation on participation in the WSIS/CS processes to

those who were able to find the resources (whether personal or

institutional) to physically attend seems to me to be a very major

limitation on these efforts and is something which must be addressed in

advance of any further activities such as you are suggesting. There is I

believe, the need to move beyond the current group of those engaged in

WSIS CS activities and to extend rather more broadly into the ICT

user/practitioner and community technology/community informatics

research communities.  Perhaps by building in bottom up processes for

monitoring from the very beginning some of these limitations may be

avoided.

 

The very idea of the initiative is precisely to move beyond the elites who take part in global processes, and make these processes closer and relevant to the people, through a very concrete and accessible proposal (you can certainly help a lot in addressing this challenge)

 

However, this would necessarily require a significant broadening and

dare I say "growth" in what has emerged as the perspectives and issues

being addressed by CS in the context of WSIS Tunis (being driven of

course, in large part by the external WSIS negotiating agenda) as well

as some adaptation in the current CS processes, procedures and

practices.

 

I also agree on this. As you can see from the draft proposal, among the aims of the initiative I have mentioned the potential of connecting people and groups, supporting a trans-national mobilization which is of course grounded and based in local spaces (and not just participating in global events), but through this kind of joint effort can develop more common visions, and actions.

 

So the challenge is a big one, and I strongly appreciate your willingness to share these concernes with us in Tunis. The idea is to get a sense of what people think, and possibly identify a small group of committed people who may start from gathering informally in Tunis after the summit and develop a plan and calendar for further actions: work on the framework (substance), look for support (resources), articulate the proposal in a concrete manner (outreach, involvement, use of platforms for collaborative exchange ecc)

 

I hope this is a good starting point for our own conversation. Best wishes

Claudia 

 

-----Original Message-----

From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org] On

Behalf Of Claudia Padovani

Sent: October 26, 2005 7:19 AM

To: plenary at wsis-cs.org

Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] monitoring MSP post_wsis initiative

 

 

Dear all,

 

Following Francis note on UNESCO,this note is to draw your attention to

an initiative which we think could be of interest in preparing for

Tunis, acknowledging all the controversies and shortcomings of this

final phase.

 

The idea, just in infant stage at the moment, is to set up monitoring

initiative on multi-stakeholder dimension of whatever will come out of

Tunis at national (and international) level after wsis, as a way to keep

people connected while putting pressure on governments and bringing

input to whatever mechanism will be set up.

 

We believe there is some potential to keep the energy of the civil

society constitutency that developed around WSIS while one of the risks

we are facing now is not to have any sustainability after Tunis for the

broad mobilization worldwide. We believe a sound proposal from different

CS groups, with a loose trans-national structure but some connection (to

be

discussed) to the institutional setting, can show that we have some

knowledge, competence and will to seriously foster MSP at various

levels, as a way to promote more participatory practices in

communication governance.

 

We aim at developing principles, criteria, indicators and a monitoring

mechanisms to "look after" the post-Tunis phase, building on former

experiences and existing frameworks to be adapted to the specific policy

areas emerging from WSIS Implementation.

 

As Tunis is coming closer, we would very much appreciate your feedback

on: 

 

the idea itself; the proposed initiative; the why, what, who and how; 

and eventually your own interest in supporting this exercise (through

knowledge exchange as well as in promoting the initiative further and

cooperate directly). 

 

We are planning to use the coming weeks refine the proposal, start

reviewing existing frameworks, contact those peoples who have done work

on this and come to Tunis with something that can be discussed, refined

and promoted broadly.

 

Please go to the WSIS MSP site to see the draft of the initiative -

http://www.wsis-msp.org/msmi_wsis/ (also in attach). Comments and

suggestions are most welcome.

 

With best regards 

 

Claudia Padovani

And 

Tatiana Ershova

 

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