[WSIS CS-Plenary] monitoring MSP post_wsis initiative

[Gurstein, Michael]

Hello Claudia,

I've just now had a chance to take a look at this most interesting and
useful initiative and I would applaud you and your colleagues for this
undertaking.

I will also pass this along to my colleagues in the Community
Informatics Research Network (I believe that my colleague Wal Taylor of
Cape Peninsula University has already expressed interest on behalf of
CIRN in these areas) as well as the emerging Global Telecentre Alliance
(currently the Telecenters of the Americas Partnership and the European
Association of Telecotttages and on whose Steering Committee I currently
serve) who represent I believe the largest organized group of grass
roots ICT initiatives (some 15,000 in all) and suggest that they review
this initiative with the possible objective of active participation.

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 number of
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.

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. 

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.

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 should add that if there is a willingness on the part of those active
in promoting this monitoring initiative to move in these directions for
renewal I have every expectation that there would be a very active
interest in participation in these efforts by the broader constituencies
I have mentioned above.

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: 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