FW: [WSIS CS-Plenary] WSIS implementation: Consultation meeting of action lines moderators/facilitators (24 February)

[Parminder]

Hi Willie, 

 

The 3 groups clustering of action lines under three lead agencies would be
really useful. I think that the best way forward from where the
implementation mechanism stands. I cant understand the stand of France /
Austria against your proposal for interim moderators. To say that the list
is indicative and not exhaustive does not preclude activity on agreed items
– couldn’t get their logic, except in the spirit of the known tactics to
avoid any real implementation structures. A provisional list of provisional
focal points will still be a start – but efforts shd be kept up to cluster
under 3 lead agencies.

 

 A once a year week-long touch down event or group of events to keep global
engagement on IS going is a good proposition
.  

 

Thanks, and best regards

 

 

Parminder 

 

 

 

________________________________________________

Parminder Jeet Singh

IT for Change

Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities 

91-80-26654134

 <http://www.itforchange.net/> www.ITforChange.net 

  _____  

From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org] On Behalf
Of CONGO - Philippe Dam
Sent: Wednesday, March 01, 2006 7:11 PM
To: bureau at wsis-cs.org; plenary at wsis-cs.org
Cc: 'Renata Bloem'; wsis at ngocongo.org
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] WSIS implementation: Consultation meeting of
action lines moderators/facilitators (24 February)

 

Dear all, 

 

You can find below and attached our notes / report on the Consultation
meeting on action lines moderators/facilitators, convened by ITU / UNESCO /
UNDP on Friday 24 February.

The Chair announced that there would be an official report of this meeting.
The provisional list of provisional focal point should also be made
available on-line.

 

Best regards, 

 

Ph

 

============================================================================
=====================

 

Consultation Meeting of WSIS Action Lines Moderators/Facilitators

ITU/UNESCO/UNDP, 24 February 2006

 

Introductory remarks

Yoshio Utsumi, ITU Secretary General, dedicated his first words to the
multi-stakeholder nature of the implementation process, leading to concrete
actions in line with WSIS goals and principles. At the international level,
international organisations would facilitate activities among stakeholders
(§ 108 of Tunis Agenda), and the purpose of this meeting was to coordinate
among action line teams. The action line implementation activities must be
multi-stakeholder in nature (inclusive and bottom up), a collective process
and result oriented. Each action team should be a light mechanism. He
stressed that this needed coordination of action lines implementation was a
process separated from the interagency coordination between UN agencies
secretariats within the UN Group on the Information Society (to be part of
the UN CEB, § 103). 

 

Koïchiro Matsuura, UNESCO Director General, added that WSIS contributed to
give ICT a social dimension (knowledge and education) in addition to its
technological one. He insisted on the multi-stakeholder nature, the
consideration of Geneva action lines, and the moderating role of UN agencies
when appropriate. He presented the two draft papers presented by the
organisers of the meeting.

-                            The Draft terms of reference for
moderators/facilitators referred to the role of each action line
facilitator.

-                            The Draft terms of reference for lead agencies
was an answer to the needed coordination among moderators.

He said the work of the interagency coordination mechanism of the UN Group
on the Information Society would be better clarified further to the UN CEB
High Level Committee on Programmes to take place the following week.

 

Ms. Odile Sorgho-Moulinier, UNDP Geneva, also insisted on how to strengthen
the role of each action multi-stakeholder team in the identification of
priorities and of their work, both in virtual discussion and physical
meetings. On the coordination between the Action lines facilitators, she
stressed the need for coherence among them and with other existing
mechanisms, such as the UNGIS. WSIS implementation should also reach out to
other development processes including the MDGs. 

 

Several participants, including UNDP, made some comments regarding the date
of this meeting and the difficulty for many stakeholders to participate in
consultations when dates are not well coordinated. In the future, meeting
scheduling should avoid conflicts with other international ICT gatherings.

 

It must be noted that even though Member States were represented in the room
by around 20 delegations, most of them remained quite passive during the
meeting. This was even more obvious during the afternoon session.

 

1.  Moderators/Facilitators of Action Lines

 

Identification of Action Lines Facilitators

Willie Currie (APC) proposed to cluster the existing action teams in 3
groups, each to be coordinated by one of the leading facilitating agencies.
Grouping action lines together that way would help facilitate CS
participation in action line implementation. In addition, for each of these
clusters, civil society entities could offer co-facilitate the
implementation to guarantee a more multi-stakeholder participation. WHO said
not to be opposed to such an action lines clustering. Francis Muguet (ENSTA)
preferred a clustering of events while keeping the diversity of each
thematic action lines. He later added that the draft terms of reference
should also refer to event clustering for the implementation mechanism.

 

Ayesha Hassan (CCBI) supported the need at this stage to leave open the list
of action line facilitators and then to keep the process flexible. The EU
and Canada stressed the indicative and non exhaustive nature of the annexed
list of action line facilitators. Charles Geiger (WSIS ED) proposed not to
cast in stone who would moderate, but to remain flexible and open for the
long-term perspective of WSIS implementation. 

 

Egypt stressed that each international organisation should continue to work
within its mandate and the decision of its governing body. The experience of
international agencies working in the field of development should be used
for the benefit of economic development.

 

Bertrand de la Chapelle (wsis-online.net) recalled the wording of the Tunis
Agenda, which referred to the themes and action lines of the Geneva Plan of
Action. In this perspective, WSIS implementation could be articulated around
up to 70 sub-themes. He emphasised the need for a more thematic and non
exclusive approach taking into account relevant themes in which specialised
actors were involved. 

 

Participation of all stakeholders in WSIS implementation

ECPAT expressed its interest to participate in the implementation of
children protection in the use of ICT, but would like to see a more specific
distinction of this theme among the existing action lines. WHO emphasised
its interest to participate in the e-health action line. On a sub-theme on
IS for Peace, proposed by Ana Leurinda (CS Peace Caucus), UNESCO answered
that a concept note had been compiled by UNESCO so that action in this field
was actually envisaged. Divina Frau-Meigs (IAMCR) later on supported that in
many themes, civil society and private sector should be recognised as
co-moderators together with international organisations. Ayesha Hassan
(CCBI) called for a constructive dialogue on how to better involve all
stakeholders in the implementation process.

 

The three leading facilitators should also do their utmost to reach out all
civil society and private sector entities (EU). The multi-stakeholder nature
of the implementation process implied that States and International
Organisations should not impose anything to other stakeholders, who should
remain free to carry out implementation activities (Canada). 

 

Honduras stressed the need to ensure participation of stakeholders from each
region, including from developing countries. Egypt insisted on the economic
development priorities of developing countries, and also highlighted the
practical difficulties to involve stakeholders from developing countries, so
that more funding would be needed. 

 

Stressing the actual difficulties for all stakeholders to follow all events,
Francis Muguet (ENSTA) proposed the holding of a World Forum on Digital
Solidarity, to be held in 2006 between the IGF meeting and the ITU
Plenipotentiary meeting. 

 

Bertrand de la Chapelle underlined the need to make use of on-line tools for
better self-organisation of participants. In addition, for each themes and
action line implementation team, a rolling list of involved actors should
remain open.

 

2.  Nature of coordination process

This item was intended to explore the coordination process to be established
between the Moderators/Facilitators of each action line.

 

Jean-Louis Fullsack (CSDPTT) stressed that the cross-sectorial aspect of
issues has to be considered, so that the coordination process should also
address other related issues to ITC, such as energy and transportation.
Synergies between aspects should be explored and clustered as they closely
intertwine. Adalbert Nouga (Village Suisse ONG) said the implementation
should focus on reducing the digital divide and tackle poverty on a daily
basis through multi-stakeholder answers. 

 

On the process, WHO proposed that moderator agencies should provide some
ideas for the future, such as an initial plan and initial results, to help
potential stakeholders know where they could fit and what would be the
objectives of the process. Mr. Utsumi gave some details about the ITU
meeting in Doha scheduled to kick-start implementation of Action Line C-2,
with the scope to reach an agreement to categorize activities for
infrastructure building. The modus operandi would be to first ask
stakeholders what their plans and activities are, for more detailed and
organized stocktaking in line with the objectives of the infrastructure
building. One further step forward would be to ask what is required by/to
stakeholders. He referred to the three existing levels of participation for
international organizations, i.e. leading facilitating role, action line
moderator and participation in the implementation of an action line.
Moderation activities should not represent a heavy burden for the relevant
organization and is on a voluntary basis, even though some resources would
need to be involved. ITU recalled for voluntary contributions. He later
added that the approach on ICT security would require a more targeted
approach. UNIDO gave its vision of the nature of the coordination process
under a multi-stakeholder inclusive approach. It should include on-line
discussion between moderators all stakeholders on individual action lines;
stock taking activities should include action lines related initiatives,
with an on-line warning system and reliable update system for the database.
FAO stressed the need for reporting template for each moderator to crosscut
the various areas of WSIS implementation. 

 

Siemens noted that the implementation mechanisms should be open to the modus
operandi of each category of stakeholders: complete reporting activities
would therefore be difficult due to the importance of competition and of the
decentralized organization of Private Sector entities. In order to
facilitate moderators’ work, all stakeholders would need to engage, given
their differences in their respective lines of work. Private-public
partnerships should also be reviewed as “who’s paying” has remained unclear
in this kind of association.

 

Based on the Draft terms of reference for the work of Leading Facilitating
Agencies circulated by ITU, UNESCO and UNDP, Bertrand de la Chapelle
commended the 3 agencies for a flexible framework and proposed new wording
for § 4 of this document, towards a stronger reference to a
multi-stakeholder process taking into account both action lines and themes
and the mention of open interoperable protocol for multi-stakeholder
platforms. In addition, Francis Muguet stressed that technical platforms
needed to be interoperable (CMS) and free software to be introduced,
ensuring compatibility with various systems. 

 

Pape Diouf (ACSIS) flagged the risk for African civil society to be excluded
from the WSIS implementation process. Therefore a more decentralized
approach at the national and sub-regional level should allow African actors
to better participate in a bottom up process. External financing should also
be developed. 

 

 

3.  Output of Coordination process

 

Bertrand de la Chapelle, noting that participants in this meeting spoke
about coordination and reporting rather than moderation/facilitation,
stressed that the role of moderator is to help actors implement WSIS
commitments and be at their service. Charles Geiger supported this vision of
facilitation activities from the international organisations to the various
actors. The reporting process should rather take place at the interagency
level within the UN-GIS and the question is how to make those two processes
better interact. Francis Muguet clarified the distinction between the
interagency implementation process – which should be itemized in its
approach by the governing bodies of each relevant international organisation
– and the facilitation role of international organisations – to be directed
towards other actors for the promotion of WSIS recommendations.

 

4.  Work Modalities and Logistics

 

Divina Frau-Meigs (IAMCR) strongly questioned the capacity of the
implementation process to be really multi-stakeholder. The dates and places
of the meetings would be a basic decisive factor, and the organisation of
such a meeting in Doha would certainly not allow a strong participation of
various stakeholders for practical reasons. She proposed to organise a
yearly gathering of all post WSIS interested stakeholders, such as an
Information Society Week, in order to keep the momentum, with the
possibility to organise side events, and present reports and discussions
convened by Action Lines facilitators. She also stressed that stocktaking
activities should include both quantitative and qualitative criteria for a
more credible feedback. Further to her question about accreditation process
and the role of new comers, Mr. Utsumi answered that in his understanding,
the WSIS implementation would be open to all interested actors, without any
accreditation process and with no other condition than being active in the
implementation schemes. On the proposed IS Week, Charles Geiger later on
added it would be necessary to hold such a yearly event to keep the WSIS
process alive. It should be asked to UNCTAD to provide a space for parallel
events during the next meetings of the CSTD (15-19 May 2006). Francis Muguet
(ENSTA) emphasized that a yearly event should be able to take place
elsewhere than in Geneva, to better take into account the global vision of
the Summit outcomes and include all potential stakeholders. He supported the
format of a World Forum on Digital Solidarities to be organised back-to-back
with the IGF meetings. 

 

Bertrand de la Chapelle reiterated the need to have a virtual framework for
the articulation of the implementation efforts of the various groups
interested. To that end, international organisations should make a strong
effort to better integrate how agencies could work in a virtual manner.
Development of on-line tools and platform should be as multi-stakeholder as
possible.

 

William Currie (APC), noting the expression of interest of civil society
entities and international organisations during this meeting to participate
in the moderation activities on action lines implementation, stressed that
we should now have a better understanding of how the facilitators would be
determined and how civil society and private sector could be part of it. He
suggested that for each action line an interim moderator should be
identified with a contact person, in order to kick-start the process and to
know who should be approached by interested entities. After some delegations
expressed they were uncomfortable with the idea of designating action line
facilitators whereas the annex should be read as indicative and
non-exhaustive (France, Austria) and interventions in favour of action line
focal points (Dominican Republic), Yoshio Utsumi proposed to pave the ground
for a concrete kick-start of action line implementation, while keeping the
indicative nature of the list annexed to the Tunis Agenda. He suggested
circulating a provisional list of provisional focal points for each action
line, so that all interested actors interested in participating could
contact the identified provisional focal point with the view to launch the
implementation processes (provisional list to be posted on-line soon). 

 

Conclusions

In a first summary of the meeting, Abdul Waheed Khan (UNESCO) highlighted
the following points:

1.                   Flexibility in the reading of the annex (indicative and
non exhaustive). NGOs proposed to act as co-facilitators. 

2.                   While the value of the stocktaking activities was
recognised, qualitative considerations were also required.

3.                   The implementation process should be bottom up and
inclusive. Facilitators should assist actors. 

4.                   A revised version of the draft terms of reference would
be circulated.

5.                   Relevant working methods should be developed. Reporting
templates should be harmonized with stocktaking.

6.                   On-line tools should be better used. Existing websites
would be made interoperable and multi-stakeholder.

7.                   An Information Society Week would be envisaged.

 

During this meeting, Tim Kelly also introduced the WSIS Golden Book (more
info at www.itu.int/wsis/goldenbook). Reports on CSTD and IGF consultations
were also presented.

 

 

 

Notes taken by Adina Fulga Radi and Philippe Dam (Conference of NGOs)

 

 

Philippe Dam
CONGO - WSIS CS Secretariat 
11, Avenue de la Paix
CH-1202 Geneva
Tel: +41 22 301 1000
Fax: +41 22 301 2000
E-mail:  <mailto:wsis at ngocongo.org> wsis at ngocongo.org
Website:  <BLOCKED::http://www.ngocongo.org> www.ngocongo.org 

 

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