[governance] Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: WGIG - Caucuses meeting?

[William Drake]

Hi Jeanette,

A first CS stocktaking meeting on the evening of the 15th sounds like good
timing.  For a second meeting, bearing in mind that the prepcom plenary will
debate IG on the 24th, it might make sense to do the evening of the 23rd (if
people want to coordinate on possible interventions) or the evening of the
24th (if a post hoc next steps type session is preferred).  On scheduling a
lunchtime caucus meeting, the 16th would probably be better, since the 17th
is a closed working session for WGIG that will undoubtedly spill into
lunchtime discussion.

On content, I hope we don't spend too much time walking through the details
of all the WGIG Issue Papers, and that the governments don't do this either
in the open consultation sessions.  Per the disclaimer at
http://www.wgig.org/working-papers.html, they're just input docs by
particular groupings of WGIG members that can be drawn on in identifying
issues and writing the eventual report, and there is some risk of losing
time over-analyzing them.  The real need is build some degree of CS
consensus on the issues they address, rather than to dissect the varying
formulations advanced in the papers.

There are a couple of items that we might want to consider adding to the
agenda of either the larger CS meeting or the caucus meeting:

*The previously discussed question of seeking to open the ITU to CSO
participation.  When I raised this a couple months ago, a dozen people on
the caucus list replied that they were interested in participating in a
meeting.  If we want to try and schedule one during the prepcom, when ITU
leadership presumably will be extremely busy, we should decide that now so I
can try to set it up (presumably we're talking about Zhao and key staff),
and we would need to have a prior discussion on how to make this productive,
inter alia by reviewing ITU rules, developing a proposal, and identifying
potential allies.

*A discussion of possible post-WGIG/WSIS institutional reforms/additions
that could address, on an open global multistakeholder basis, holistic
approaches and the horizontal institutional issues.  There will be a
meeting, probably on the 21st, on the proposed Global Alliance successor to
the UNICT TF, and there are various other ideas floating around about
reforms/new arrangements, the potential interrelationships of which are
unclear.  It might be useful to have at least a brief discussion on
strategic orientations toward such initiatives.

Best,

Bill

> -----Original Message-----
> From: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org [mailto:plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org]On
> Behalf Of Jeanette Hofmann
> Sent: Tuesday, February 01, 2005 10:37 PM
> To: karen banks
> Cc: Milton Mueller; plenary at wsis-cs.org; governance at lists.cpsr.org;
> v.bertola at bertola.eu.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] Re: WGIG - Caucuses
> meeting?
>
>
> Hi everyone,
>
> it is desirable to discuss WGIG related matters in meetings that are
> open to everybody and that can be attended by all CS members of WGIG.
> The earliest time that seems to work for those involved in WGIG is
> Tuesday evening, Feb 15. Karen Bank has asked CONGO to make a
> reservation for 19:00 - 22:00. Translation is unclear yet but not very
> likely. We might depend on our own resources.
>
> A second meeting in the second week after the WGIG meeting is completed
> could take place on Feb 20 or Feb 21. Concrete time has to be determined
> yet.
>
> The suggestion is that the Internet Governance caucus hosts the two
> meetings. Topics on the agenda of the first meeting should be
>
> * the progress of WGIG (some sort of general report),
> * the issue papers produced by its members (introduced by (co-) authors
> of these papers
> * the strategic priorities of issues under considertation
>
> The agenda is open to extension, of course. Please be aware though that
> the discussion of the issue papers and the strategic priorities will
> most likely consume a lot of time.
>
> While a 3 hours meeting seems long, we should nonetheless ensure that we

> make efficient use of our time. Some preparation of the meeting might be
> useful. For example, one idea would be to limit the time of discussion
> of the individual issues to ensure that all issues will be adequately
> considered, and to avoid that the two or three most controversial issues
> take up all the time.
>
> Obviously, such a meeting structure will only work if those attending
> the meeting agree with the suggested procedures. Some feedback would be
> encouraging :-)
>
> In addition to this two big meetings, the caucus needs to meet to take
> care of its own business. I will post in a few days a preliminary agenda
>   based on the comments to the caucus list. The question is when to
> schedule the first caucus meeting. Vittorio suggested a lunch meeting
> since this would allow some of the CS WGIG members to attend. What about
> a meeting on the 16th or 17th between 13:00 and 15:00?
>
> Jeanette
>
> karen banks wrote:
>
> > hi
> >
> > we are proceeding with a meeting on the eve of the 15th which is free
> > for WGIG members.. the 14th is not, the 13th is too early.
> >
> > Jeanette will write soon with more details..
> >
>
>