[WSIS CS-Plenary] Statement made in sub-committee B yesterday

Fri Sep 23 04:41:07 BST 2005

Dear colleagues

Good to see your hard work in Geneva.  I will arrive on Saturday.

I just wanted to add a thought to the discussions on follow up (in my personal capacity). In 
general I really endorse Ralf's points about flexibility. We should not let go of that. 
Bureaucracies do not have a good track record in ensuring implementation.  But another point 
which perhaps has not been stressed enough, or not in a way that is visible to me, is not so 
much the mechanisms for follow and for coordination of follow up, but WHAT will drive the 
follow up.

It is very difficult to hold governments and international organisations accountable for follow up 
under 'themes'. There is need for targets that are measurable; specific goals and agreed on 
principles rather than just areas of activity. The Declaration and Action Plan is not terribly 
specific.. although some of it can be translated into specific targets. Is the idea that the 
thematic clusters will undertake this kind of focusing and prioritisation? How will this relate to 
national planning and implementation processes?  It might be useful to look at global and 
national levels separately.  There are certain issues which need follow up at global level, and 
others at national level. We should be careful that the creation of international mechanisms do 
not give governments an excuse to not take responsibility for implementation at national level.

Another point...civil society has a strong track record in monitoring follow up and 
implementation from 'below', informed by activitism and a critical perspective.  We should think 
of our role in follow up and implementation and monitoring not just in terms of the multi-
stakeholder follow up mechanisms that are agreed on in Tunis.

Best

Anriette

> Dear all,
>  As Ralf has reported, inputing in the drafting process of
>  Sub-Committee B
> yesterday was impossible for Civil society.
>  I exceptionnally send to the Plenary the statement made yesterday on
>  behalf
> of the CS Working Group on Follow-up to express our dissatisfaction.
>  From now on, in order not to clog the Plenary list, posts related to
>  the
> Follow-up Working Group will only be sent to the group's list. Please
> subscribe so that we can be able to fully associate everyone and get
> all relevant inputs in drafting processes that are very demanding.
>  To subscribe to the WG list, go to :
> http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/followup
>  Best
>  Bertrand
> 
> *Statement on behalf of Civil society Working group
> on WSIS Implementation and Follow-up*
> 
> *Sub-Committee B – WSIS PrepCom3 – **Sept 21, 2005***
> 
>    Thank you very much Madam chair. We congratulated you yesterday on
>    your
> efforts to establish an inclusive process and your efficiency in
> speeding up the process.
> 
>  But today, we must confess that your efficiency had involuntary
>  detrimental
> effects for the very inclusiveness you attempt to promote.
> 
>  Knowing what document was going to be the basis for discussion was
>  only
> decided this afternoon. As you know, preparation of any civil society
> statement is a very inclusive and iterative process and such
> uncertainty on what will be the topic of intervention is not allowing
> us use effectively the few minutes that are allocated to us. In
> addition, the present intervention had to be drafted on the fly and
> could not go through the careful consultative process we normally
> respect.
> 
>  But more, contrary to the procedure adopted yesterday, the Document 6
> (Friends of the Chair) did not contain any proposed written
> formulation emanating from civil society for governments to consider,
> a drastic difference of procedure between the way Paragraphs 1, 2, 3,
> 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 9 were handled.
> 
>  In addition, in the interactions among governments this afternoon,
>  you took
> note of contributions on the fly and made immediate decisions to
> integrate them with or without brackets. There is no way civil society
> could submit any comments in this procedure, let alone have
> governments comment upon them.
> 
>  Last but not least, there is no way Civil Society could make all the
> comments it needs to make in the few minutes available to me now. And
> in any case, governments could not comment on them on the fly.
> 
>  As a result, if we were to apply strictly your procedure, discussion
>  on
> paragraphs 10, 11 and 12 are now closed without civil society having
> had any opportunity to make any comment – this is true for private
> sector as well -.
> 
> 
>  I don't have to underline the irony of the situation if we were to
>  see our
> comments taken so nicely into account and studied in detail on more
> minor issues yesterday and have no way to participate meaningfully in
> the essential debate on how to precisely implement a multi-stakeholder
> mechanism that allows full participation of civil society !
> 
> This is certainly an unintended and not anticipated side-effect. We
> only intervene here to help find a solution. We therefore suggest to
> keep with the spirit and the practice of the procedure you have
> implemented yesterday so efficiently;
> 
>  For that purpose, the Civil Society Working Group on Followup is
>  ready to
> provide the Secretariat with a compilation of written contributions on
> paragraphs 10 to 13 in the same format as was used for paragraphs 1 to
> 9. We strongly demand that those contributions be distributed to all
> delegations and that this Sub-Committee, before the first clean
> version is finalized, revisits the corresponding paragraphs in a
> specific session, so that governments have an opportunity to comment
> on them the way they have for other paragraphs.
> 
>  Given the consultation processes within civil society and editing
> constraints, this document can hardly be drafted to be used during the
> afternoon session of tomorrow and we suggest to hold this special
> session on friday afternoon. Were that not possible, inclusion of our
> contributions as proposed text in the clean document could
> 
>  In addition, with your agreement, we intend to use at the beginning
>  of
> tomorrow's session, a portion of our speaking time to address the key
> issues related to paragraphs 10 to 13.
> 
>  We are at your disposition to explore further the appropriate
>  modalities
> and reiterate our strong desire to make this exercise as inclusive as
> the subject requires.
> 
>  _______________

------------------------------------------------------
Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director
Association for Progressive Communications
anriette at apc.org
http://www.apc.org
PO Box 29755, Melville, South Africa. 2109
Tel. 27 11 726 1692
Fax 27 11 726 1692