[WSIS CS-Plenary] GFC meeting today

[Chantal Peyer]

Hello,

Just wanted to add a few short comment to your reaction Ralf.

1. About Karklins views:
I also think that SC should not buy his views on differents points:
- when he says that having ICTs in the MDG's will be enough to keep it on
the international agenda: when one sees what happens at the up-coming
New-York summit, we can have serious doubt about the will of governements,
especially the US, to really implement any of the MDG's issues and any
policies which will enforce the UN. But also within the MDG's Summit, ICT
have a place, but one that remains marginal. And to have a serious follow-up
even on ICTs' and development, to keep it really on the international
agenda, I think that this is not enough
- also when Ambassador Karlklin says that the new draft will allow more
flexibilty for the Un-Agencies to take initiatives (§14), this is a very
strange statement. It is like saying, in a way, "with less precise
guidelines for implementation and coordination more will be done"

But Ambassador Karklins is coordinating the work. Governements, expect for
Brazil, Egyt, Russia and a few others, did not take the floor to express
their views on tuedsay. So most of what we heard was from karklins. But
maybe what is important to understand is that Karklins does not believe -
given the different positions of the governements - that a higher consensus
can be achieved at prepcom3. Which is very worrying.

2. About ICT and developement and other issues
> Therefore, we must insist that implementation is assured for WSIS, but
> that it definitely is not constrained to development issues.

I agree that SC must insist that implementation is assured for WSIS. But I
really don't believe that there is more commitment to the ICT and
developement issue than on other topics. Even if the link between ICT's and
MDG's is made.
I think that the main point is really about follow-up in general and the
fact that in the new draft version there is no more commitment from the
governements in general, on the international level. And that there is a
trend in the US administration at the moment to refuse anything which can
strenghten the United Nations, which can strengthen multi-lateralism and
international coordination.... Except for world Bank, International monetary
fund and WTO coordination...
An element of this strategy is to put emphasis all the time on "national
implementation" insted of international implementation (see
http://www.choike.org/nuevo_eng/informes/3294.html )  In this regard what
will happen next week in New-York (at the MDG's Summit) will be very
important for WSIS.

How can civil society help certains governements, like Brazil, who oppose
thoses moves...?

regards
Chantal

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Ralf Bendrath" <bendrath at zedat.fu-berlin.de>
To: <plenary at wsis-cs.org>
Sent: Wednesday, September 07, 2005 6:14 PM
Subject: Re: [WSIS CS-Plenary] GFC meeting today


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> _______________________________________
>
> Thanks for your report, Chantal.
>
> > Here is a short summary of the GFC meeting of this morning. And also in
> >  the annex a statment made on behalf of the informal coalition on
> > financing.
> I would love to see the other CS speakers at that meeting sending their
> statements to this list. I have only seen the ones from you (finance
> coalition) and Jean-Louis (CSDPTT) yet.
>
> One remark, and this goes back to the heart of the political debate we
> already had in WSIS phase one:
>
> > /c. About evaluation and policy debate/
> >
> > According to ambassador Karklins, civil society and other organisations
> >  should not fear that the topic of the information society disappears
> > from the international agenda after Tunis, because of the link between
> > the MDG’s Summit and the WSIS Summit. The mention of WSIS in the MDG’s
> > documents means, for Karklin, that the topic of ICTs for development
> > will remain on the agenda at least until 2015.
>
> This is really not enough, and civil society should not buy into this. If
> WSIS only stays on the agenda through the ICT4D discourse, then all the
> other important things we have fought for will be lost. This especially
> relates to the human rights dimension of the information society.
>
> We can already clearly see it here in the EU: The governments have started
> again to see WSIS as purely a development summit. But they also have to
> look at themselves and how human rights can be supported and strengthened
> in the European information society. Currently, they forget about human
> rights in the WSIS context (or only think "Tunisia"), while at the same
> time the EU Council of Ministers will again discuss another proposal for
> mandatory retention of all communications traffic and location data in
> Europe for 6 to 12 month at its next meeting on Friday, which would imply
> a massive breach of human rights principles.
>
> Therefore, we must insist that implementation is assured for WSIS, but
> that it definitely is not constrained to development issues.
>
> Best, Ralf
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