[Lac] Fwd: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Informal CS Bureau Meeting, ITU, 26 Februa

[Olinca Marino]

Estimados amigos y amigas,

hay notas en inglés sobre la reunión informal del Bureau realizada el dia 
de hoy en Ginebra (perdón por las duplicaciones):


>I am forwarding the report of the CT representatives at the CS
>bureau meeting in Geneva today.  Sally
>-------------------
>
>This is a quick summary by Chris Zielinski, edited by Thomas Ruddy, from
>notes of the informal CS Bureau Meeting held in ITU on 26 February. A report
>will be provided by the Bureau in due course. In the interests of protecting
>the guilty, I do not attribute the following remarks to anybody, nor are the
>opinions expressed necessarily mine.
>
>18 people attended the meeting, including representatives from a number of
>CS Bureau Families. Francis Muguet, Wolfgang Kleinwaechter, Thomas Ruddy and
>Chris Zielinski attended from the CT group. Alain Clerc of the Civil Society
>Division of the Executive Secretariat presided.
>
>The following Agenda was proposed for the meeting: 1) Information on Phase
>II, 2) Practical and financial arrangements, 3) CS Bureau evaluation for
>Phase 1, and 4) CS Bureau communication. In practice, most of the 90 minutes
>was spent on item 1.
>
>The bottom line is that there is no clear leadership in place in the run up
>to the WSIS Phase 2 Summit in Tunis.
>
>According to General Assembly Resolution 56-183, the first Phase of the
>Summit was to elaborate a declaration and action plan, while no clear
>objective was set for Phase 2. It is not even clear if the coordinating
>group set up for Phase 1 (the "Executive Secretariat") was to carry on to
>Phase 2.
>
>For civil society, the picture is a bit simpler. The CS Bureau was set up at
>PrepCom 2, and it has been developed in reaction to discussions. This is the
>first such Civil Society Bureau ever, and is an experiment. Along with the
>Bureau, some 20 "families" were established. Some of these are geographical,
>representing particular regions, and the rest are sectoral.
>
>It had been agreed that the situation would be reconsidered after Phase 1 -
>both in terms of the objectives of Phase 2 and the procedural and structural
>aspects, such as the CS Bureau.
>
>Technically speaking, Phase 2 started immediately on the conclusion of the
>Geneva phase on 13 December. Since that time, not much has happened in terms
>of establishing the framework for phase 2. A decision was taken to have a
>PrepCom in the first six months of 2004 (this is in the Action Plan that was
>adopted at the Geneva Summit), but nobody seems to be driving it forward.
>The Tunisian government wants to hold this as soon as possible, while the
>ITU Secretariat argues for a July date.
>
>Governments are unclear about the process towards Tunis, and the ITU,
>although it was accorded the leading managerial role in the UN Resolution,
>seems to have lost heart, i.e. is in a funding crisis itself.
>
>There are a number of reasons for the ITU's changed perception of it role.
>At the end of Phase 1, ITU DG Yoshio Utsumi decided that Pierre Gagné should
>no longer continue as Executive Secretary of WSIS. Utsumi took the role for
>himself, assisted by Charles Geiger (Swiss Government appointee) and T.
>Nakaya (Japanese Government appointee).
>
>Although the ITU had fought hard to get the lead role, it gradually
>recognized that relatively little of the dissuasion at WSIS-1 was related to
>ITU's narrow mandate. Given its lack of funds and lack of political will or
>skills (as a purely technical agency), the ITU has been increasingly
>unwilling to go it alone.
>
>This is clearly reflected in a paper just posted on the ITU website ("ITU
>Role in Preparing for the Tunis phase of the WSIS" at
>http://www.itu.int/council/wsis/wsis_WG.html):
>
>"It is proposed that the ITU should focus on those action lines that relate
>specifically to its mandate; it should not assume a lead role, but
>contribute to possible global mechanisms established to follow-up on and
>monitor the results of the Geneva phase".
>
>ITU has indeed been trying to get out of shouldering the full financial and
>managerial burden of organizing the conference. Utsumi went to Kofi Annan to
>ask him to ensure that other organizations contributed to WSIS activities
>and budget, but Annan made no response. The ITU wanted it, got it, and
>should now do it.
>
>In consequence, Governments have had no guidance or proposals for future
>work at this point.. While the Swiss Government could afford to spend
>significant sums in support of WSIS 1, Tunisia is not able to be so
>forthcoming for WSIS 2.
>
>In the absence of guidance from the Secretariat, the Tunisian Government has
>been acting independently, with mixed results. Two ideas were put on the
>table:
>
>1. The Tunis Summit should concentrate on a "new charter" - but nobody has
>specified exactly what this is. Another declaration?
>2. A regional approach should be adopted.
>
>There has been no real discussion of these ideas, and it is not clear who if
>anyone supports them.
>
>There is also activity at the regional level: in Lyon with its "Cities
>United" project (convening again in May in Paris), Italy on finance and
>Barcelona working on cultural diversity.
>
>The Bureau feels that the second phase should develop a thematic approach.
>An alternative or supplementary approach would be to consider Tunis to be an
>implementation conference (a Tunis +2, analogous to the Environmental
>Summit's +5), although this is really a short time frame in which to see any
>real implementation of the Plan of Action.
>
>Two action groups have been proposed:
>
>1. An action group on financial maters (under the auspices of Kofi Annan)
>2. An action group on Internet Governance (under the auspices of ITU)
>
>The UN's ICT Task Force, which is meeting shortly (early April) could take a
>look at these proposals and make recommendations about how to move forward.
>Failing this, the next PrepCom would tackle this, which would mean that for
>all practical purposes the Working Groups could not be constituted much
>before October 2004 and report in June 2005.
>
>So it is now being proposed to take advantage of next week's brainstorming
>in Tunis to push these proposals. In particular, civil society should have
>the same role as in the first Phase in establishing the agenda for the next
>Summit, as Tunisian Ambassador Mansour announced at a NGOCONGO briefing a
>week ago. Concrete proposals should come from civil society now.
>
>In summary, the Bureau supports the thematic approach, feels that the
>working groups should be mobilized at once, and stresses the need for civil
>society to participate fully in all upcoming phases of work towards, and at,
>the Tunis Summit.
>
>Among the financial proposals, Louise Lassonde said "We are working hard to
>get resources. We have considered opening up a fund for CS participation. We
>could apply for InfoDev funding."
>
>Some explanations were given about the two e-mail lists founded for WSIS
>(both in the same week), the lack of archives at bureau at geneve2003.org, and
>the like. Technical reasons were blamed for the lack of archives. In any
>case, Louise Lassonde announced that a new list going live in the next few
>days at bureau at tunis2005.org would address these issues and provide an open
>archive.
>
>Wolfgang Kleinwaechter called for issuing a warning statement to the Tunis
>brainstorming session. It would not come from the CS Bureau, but rather the
>CT Group. It would complain about the lack of follow-up, which governments
>and international organizations should be undertaking. Governments should
>not shirk their responsibility. CS only wanted to share responsibility. It
>is unrealistic to expect CS to take the lead.
>_______________________________________________
>Ct-drafting mailing list
>Ct-drafting at wsis-cs.org
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