[WSIS CS-Plenary] format for Tunis Summit

[Ramin.Kaweh at unctad.org]

Rik, Thanks for the useful analysis and ideas on the text below.

I would only like to highlight that the draft text states that the 
speakers be "identified" (and not necessarily selected !!) and 
that this is done also  in coordination with the S-G of the Summit. Just a 
warning sign, that the interpretation is still vague.

        "identified through their self-organizing mechanisms, in 
coordination with the 
        Secretary-General of the Summit, will be invited to make opening 
        remarks"

I think it is good that this point is always raised and clarified, like 
Ralf did during the meeting with the ITU representative,
so that the experience of the Geneva Summit will hopefully be avoided. 

Ramin


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ramin Kaweh
Programme Officer
UN-NGLS (Non-Governmental Liaison Service)
Palais des Nations
1211 Geneva 10
Switzerland
tel:  0041.22. 917 2078
fax: 0041.22. 917 0432
ramin.kaweh at unctad.org
www.un-ngls.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 







Rik Panganiban <rikp at earthlink.net>
Sent by: plenary-admin at wsis-cs.org
28.02.2005 15:19
Please respond to plenary
 
        To:     wsis-cs-plenary <plenary at wsis-cs.org>
        cc:     bureau at wsis-cs.org, ct at wsis-cs.org
        Subject:        [WSIS CS-Plenary] format for Tunis Summit


Dear Friends,

Prepcom II accepted the draft document from the Executive Secretariat 
on the modalities of the Tunis summit (doc # WSIS-II/PC-2/DOC/4), which 
can be found at:

                 http://www.itu.int/wsis/documents/listing-all.asp? 
lang=en&c_event=pc2|2&c_type=all|

General comments:  Below you will find the text which requires some 
action from civil society's "self-organizing mechanisms" to select 
speakers for the opening ceremony, the plenary sessions of the General 
Debate, and the official roundtables.  I am going to recommend that the 
Working Methods Working Group suggest some modalities for how we select 
among the accredited WSIS civil society organizations who will be 
nominated to speak at these venues.  The CS Bureau and Content and 
Themes should add this to their agendas as well.

And before we go into a feeding frenzy for scarce speaking slots, I 
would like to note that we should not divert so much energy and 
resources toward organizing our few minutes of interventions that we 
lose sight of our larger political objectives in the process.  That is, 
I would prefer that we get zero speaking slots, if in exchange we got 
rock solid commitments from governments to achieve the important 
objectives of bridging the digital divide, democratizing internet 
governance and protecting universal human rights in the information 
society.

Among the notable bits from the document (my emphasis added):

A. Speakers at Opening Ceremony:

> The Heads of State of the host countries, the Secretary-General of the 
> United Nations, the Secretary-General of ITU, the President of the 
> Preparatory Committee, and one top-level representative from civil 
> society (including NGOs) as well as one top-level representative from 
> a business sector entity (including ITU Sector Members), identified 
> through their self-organizing mechanisms, in coordination with the 
> Secretary-General of the Summit, will be invited to make opening 
> remarks.

My comments: The phrase "through their self-organizing mechanisms" is a 
nice gain for civil society, since many of us were incredibly unhappy 
with how the secretariat chose a speaker for the opening ceremony that 
did not reflect any of our significant efforts among ourselves to agree 
on a slate of proposed speakers from our own processes.  I personally 
am unhappy with one person speaking on behalf of all civil society, but 
perhaps we could think of some innovative way of sharing the one 
speaking slot, i.e. having three speakers from three regions speak 
simultaneously the same statement.

B. Interventions during General Debate:

> 4.             Immediately after the opening ceremony, the first plenary 
meeting 
> shall start with general debate. General debate will continue until 
> the eighth plenary meeting on Friday afternoon. The last fifteen 
> minutes of general debate of the first plenary meeting, the last half 
> hour of general debate of the second, third, fifth and sixth plenary 
> meeting and the last hour of general debate of the fourth and seventh 
> plenary meeting will be set aside for statements from representatives 
> of organizations and entities attending the Summit as observers.

> 6.             During the time reserved for observers, speaking time 
will be 
> limited to 3 minutes. All speakers should represent the top-level of 
> their organizations or entities. With regard to accredited civil 
> society entities (including NGOs) and business sector entities 
> (including ITU Sector Members), the spokespersons shall be identified 
> through their self-organizing mechanisms, in coordination with the 
> Secretary-General of the Summit. With regard to intergovernmental 
> organizations, in principle, High Level Summit Organizing Committee 
> members, represented at the top-level, may make statements.

My comments:  If my math is correct, assuming an equal division of 
speaking times among civil society, the private sector and 
inter-governmental organizations, that adds up to 85 minutes of 
interventions from civil society during the entire General Debate. If 
we assume 3 minutes interventions each speaker, that would be about 28 
individual speaking slots for civil society.

"Top-level speakers from organizations" I interpret to mean the 
Presidents and Secretary-Generals of accredited NGOs.  This is 
important to note, since for many of our organizations, our Presidents 
and Secretary-Generals might not be attending the Tunis Summit.  Or 
conversely, they might only chose to attend if they are speaking at the 
official plenary.


C. Parallel Roundtables

> 2.             Each round table will have a maximum of 20 participants. 
Half of 
> the participants will come from States and half from organizations and 
> entities attending the Summit as observers.
>
> 7.             Participants from organizations and entities attending 
the Summit 
> as observers will be nominated by the Secretary-General of the Summit, 
> in consultation with the High Level Summit Organizing Committee, and 
> self-organizing mechanisms of civil society (including NGOs) and 
> business sector entities (including ITU Sector Members).

My comments: Assuming an equal division of roundtable slots from CS, 
private sector and inter-governmental organizations, we would get 3-4 
roundtable seats per roundtable.

Rik Panganiban
===============================================
RIK PANGANIBAN       Communications Coordinator
Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United Nations 
(CONGO)
web: http://www.ngocongo.org
email: rik.panganiban at ngocongo.org
mobile: (+1) 917-710-5524 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman-new.greennet.org.uk/pipermail/plenary/attachments/20050228/22da6f67/attachment.htm