[WSIS CS-Plenary] FYI - "WSIS - Paving the Way to Democratic Communication?"

[Meryem Marzouki]

As everyone can see, I'm not making any comment :-))
Meryem

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WSIS - Paving the Way to Democratic Communication?
http://allafrica.com/stories/200502250069.html

Highway Africa News Agency  (Grahamstown)

ANALYSIS
February 24, 2005
Posted to the web February 25, 2005

Roland Stanbridge, Highway Africa News Agency (hana)
   Geneva

Will history recognise the WSIS process as the first step in creating 
an entirely new model of international negotiation? One of many who 
believe so is Professor Wolfgang Kleinwächter of Aarhus University in 
Denmark.

Kleinwächter, professor for International Communication Policy and 
Regulation at Aarhus University in Denmark, says WSIS has become a 
laboratory for future forms of multi-stakeholder governance.

The world summit is held in two phases. The first phase took place in 
Geneva in December 2003. It produced a Declaration of Principles and a 
Plan of Action. The second phase will take place in Tunis this November.

WSIS is the first major world conference where decisions are not being 
made by governments only. Civil society organisations from around the 
world and the business sector are also key participants in the 
multi-stakeholder WSIS process.

The idea of multi-stakeholder negotiation and decision making was 
articulated in the Millennium Development Goals which the United 
Nations system is supposed to be implementing. WSIS however, is the 
first forum where it is actually being put into practice - and at the 
WSIS Prepcom taking place in Geneva this week, it can be seen to be 
working.

"This is a new beginning. WSIS is a forerunner -- an early bird in the 
new diplomacy of the 21st century" Kleinwächter told HANA.

However, when all parties gathered at the first WSIS Prepcom in mid 
2002 no one was prepared for the new ways of doing things. Apart from a 
few sophisticated NGOs with international experience such as the 
Association for Progressive Communication APC, the CRIS Campaign 
(Communications Rights in the Information Society) and One World, the 
wide range of civil society organisations came largely unprepared.

They had no experience of speaking with one voice, little understanding 
of inter-governmental negotiation procedures, and many made sweeping 
rhetorical statements at WSIS meetings that were often not pertinent to 
the subject under discussion.

Governments were shocked by the noisy intrusion and 'colourful' 
interjections of the civil society brigade, and after the first 2002 
plenary session in the Geneva Convention centre the civil society 
representatives were ordered out of the room, and the doors were closed 
on them.

Civil society responded angrily, banging on the doors and demanding to 
be re-admitted.

"What we were seeing was a clash of two different cultures -- the top 
down heirarchical culture of the last two hundred years, and the new 
bottom up multi-stakeholder approach" says Kleinwächter.

Tracey Naughton, currently co-convenor of the WSIS civil society bureau 
says it was a new process for all involved, but as the first 2002 
Prepcom unfolded it became clear to government representatives that a 
lot of expertise was located within civil society.

"As we went along there developed more and more regard for our 
interventions - with exceptions like the governments of China and Egypt 
who staunchly wanted to block civil society - but several governments 
began to defer decisions until they had some input from civil society."

"Learning to speak with one voice was not easy. It is not a natural 
thing for civil society because it consists of hundreds of diverse 
organisations and individuals

However through our very clear headed drafting group we were able to 
agree on a civil society declaration at the 2003 Geneva summit"

Despite the increasing rapprochement, governments at Geneva were not 
prepared to integrate the civil society text into the final conference 
declaration, and the final solution negotiated was that the Civil 
Society declaration was attached to the Geneva summit declaration.

Prof Kleinwächter, who is also a member of the WSIS Working Group on 
Internet Governance, says much has changed in the two years of 
preparation for the Tunis summit.

"We have moved step by step from turmoil to trust. There has grown an 
understanding that building a people-centred Information Society is a 
joint effort which requires cooperation and partnership. The 
multi-stakeholder principle has been accepted by everybody.

"Now civil society representatives have access to the large majority of 
all WSIS meetings. There are very few closed meetings. Otherwise civil 
society can observe and make input to all meetings in which the 
governments are talking together. They have secure speaking rights.

"In the early Prepcom meetings it was totally unclear whether civil 
society could speak in working group sessions... They could make 
statements in writing to the plenary sessions, but then they had to 
leave the room. If they sat in a working group session they had to 
remain silent.

"Now it is totally different. Civil society has the direct possibility 
to influence the negotiation by providing real input and language. The 
stakeholders are learning how to work together -- and this has great 
importance for the future. We are moving to a new model of 
co-regulation, co-policy development, and WSIS is a fascinating test 
case for how this can be further developed.

"Civil society has developed a gigantic mechanism over the last two to 
three years and there is a sophisticated rhythm of work going on now. 
During these current two weeks we have 164 different meetings of 
different groups of civil society. If you compare the atmosphere in the 
main plenary where the governments are sitting, delivering bureaucratic 
or technocratic official speeches, to the civil society meetings, then 
you see where the real life of the conference is taking place.

Civil society at WSIS is now organised into 15 caucuses - thematic ones 
on e.g. youth, media, academia & education, local authorities, gender 
and others, regional caucuses for Asia, Africa, Latin America and so 
on, and there is also a working group on internet governance, a task 
force on financing mechanisms, and Tunisia, host country for the final 
summit, has its own caucus. Each caucus has a member on the civil 
society bureau, which is responsible for liaison with the government 
bureau.

The experience of working together in the WSIS process has led to much 
increased networking between civil society organisations around the 
world. Africa has seen the birth of African Civil Society for 
Information Society (ACSIS), a continent wide civil society 
organisation with representatives in nearly every African country. It 
is having a clear impact on national governmental delegations at WSIS, 
in terms of successful lobbying and having success in getting civil 
society representatives appointed to national delegations. ACSIS has a 
strong online network.

Kleinwächter says the multi-stakeholderism is fast becoming the modus 
operandi of WSIS:

"More and more governmental representatives leave the plenaries and 
attend the meetings of civil society. We saw this yesterday in the 
Global Alliance debate where the Russian and Finnish government 
representatives suddenly showed up and the representative of the US 
government came and explained the position of the US.

"So not only have the governments have opened the doors to civil 
society speakers, but they have come to understand the value of working 
together with civil society. The challenge is not to decide who is in 
charge or who should take over but the challenge is to bring the 
different stakeholders into a mechanism for meeting the demands of the 
information age - to find a just arrangement for working in a 
constructive dialogue and avoiding a destructive battle." he said

Prof Kleinwächter said if one compared WSIS with other 
intergovernmental organisations such as WIPO or WTO it came clear that 
radically new practices were emerging.

"In WTO for instance there is no civil society participation 
whatsoever. WIPO has recently invited civil society organisations as 
observers, but they exclude them from programme meetings. In the ITU a 
private entity can become a member by paying an extravagant membership 
fee which is not affordable for civil society organisations. And this 
only permits observer status.

"The principle of multi-stakeholderism just does not exist among the 
traditional intergovernmental organisations. WSIS is unique in this 
regard.

"Of course WSIS does not operate on the basis of a treaty. So it can 
only make recommendations and rely on political good will.

"Now it remains to be seen how much the WSIS example will influence the 
other organisations. Already one can see changes emerging. The UNCTAD 
meeting in Sao Paulo last September opened its doors to civil society. 
They organised hearings where they asked civil society to make 
representations. Civil society was also asked to make substantial 
contributions to a number of UNCTAD projects.

"WIPO has moved a little bit. Yesterday in the Canadian embassy a 
spokesman from WTO said the WTO and the World Bank were the only 
organisations which had no channels whatsoever for engaging with civil 
society. My reading of that statement was that it was done in a sense 
of self criticism.

"So what I see is the start of a process, but it will take a lot of 
time because some governments fear that they will lose some power. It 
is a real fear, because what we are seeing are the beginnings of a 
power shift.

"Mostly it is not the strong governments in the north that block civil 
society involvement, but rather those of the south who fear that civil 
society organisations are used by the north as Trojan horses. There is 
a lot of mistrust. So the challenge for civil society, particularly in 
the south, is to demonstrate that they can be constructive partners.

"This will open the way for development of new democratic 
communication, diplomacy and negotiation processes for the 21st 
century. And WSIS is leading the way"

Tracey Naughton comments that the idea of a multi-stakeholder process, 
discussed for many years, has finally become a reality here in Geneva.

"This is now the way forward. The multi-stakeholder process will almost 
certainly become upheld in the UN set of rules for holding 
international conferences

"If this is challenged, civil society will in future be able to refer 
to the WSIS process as an established modality. International diplomacy 
and negotiation is entering a new era."