[WSIS CS-Plenary] sub-committe B statement made by SC on 23rd september

[peyer at bfa-ppp.ch]

Hello, 
I send you the statement made on behalf of the civil society working group on
follow-up and implmentation this afternoon, in sub-committee B of the
governement plenary.
regards
Chantal Peyer


Draft Statement 
by 
Civil Society Sub Committee B on Follow-up and Implementation 

Since chapter 4 is the closing part of the Tunis document, the international
community needs to re affirm its commitments and reflect them in this chapter.
Therefore we are of the opinion that paragraph 26 of original document DT 6,
which was passed on from PrepCom 2, should be re-instated into the clean
document that will be put up for negotiation. This paragraph, with minor
amendments proposed by us, reads as follows:

To build (a people-centred and development-oriented) information Society will
require unremitting effort. We thus commit ourselves to keep fully engaged,
nationally, reginonally and internationally, to ensure sustainable follow up to
the implementation of agreements and commitments reached during WSIS process and
its Geneva and Tunis Summit. Taking into account the multifaceted nature of
building the information society, effective cooperation among all stakeholders
is needed, based on respect for their mandates and leveraging on their expertise.

While we agree that WSIS follow up process should be strengthened by existing UN
resolutions including resolution 57/270B, it is important that the Tunis Summit
decides upon specifics follow up mechanisms for WSIS which meet the needs and
the evolving contexts of the information society. 

For this reason we call for putting up specific follow structures that are
provided with, in the language of para 29 of the document DT 6, and we call for
an effective secretariat support. Para 29 should be brought back into the
document under consideration.

The mandate of the WSIS follow structures should include;

- Providing multi-stakeholder spaces for policy debate on information society issues
- Taking up new information society issues as they emerge, discuss and document
their scope and contexts, and interface with various organisations, stakeholders
and thematic clusters which may be concerned with these issues
- Co-ordinate between different organisations dealing with information society
issues
- Promote and assess on an ongoing basis the integration of WSIS principles and
objectives in the activities of all involved actors.
- Review on an ongoing basis the progress, or lack thereof, in the achievement
of the WSIS objectives. And report on an annual basis to the UN General Assembly.

We also request amendments to the paragraph 34, of the GFC document, where it is
stated that, `WSIS follow up should be an integral part of the review process of
the implementation of the UN Millennium Declaration`; While this assertion may
look innocuous, it essentially implies that there is no need for separate and
specific follow-up mechanisms for WSIS.  We wish to strongly assert here that
while WSIS follow-up has strong links to MDG follow up, the issues involved in
the WSIS are much vaster and hence they call for separate and specific follow up
processes. 

Proper mechanisms need also be established for reporting on the follow up. This
should be done on an annual basis. These reports should take into account
thematic and regional review meetings involving effective participation of all
stakeholders including civil society. This is why we propose to add a paragraph 34B,

Regular Review Meetings must be held to allow all actors to evaluate progress in
an open and multi-stakeholder format. Appropriate frequency and convenors of
such Thematic, Regional and Global review meetings should be defined with full
and effective participation of all stakeholders.

We call for further strengthening of paragraph 35, whereby the involved
stakeholders, including the Civil Society, should be explicitly mentioned, as
well as the modalities of participation of their effective involvement should
also be elaborated. This is why we propose to add paragraph 35B as follows:

All international organizations involved in WSIS follow up, especially ITU,
UNESCO and UNDP, should incorporate WSIS outcomes in all their activities and
establish open forums for debate allowing the full and effective participation
of all stakeholders. 

For an effective follow up, we also recommend to fully leverage the potential of
ICT tools to facilitate implementation, policy debate and evaluation, drawing on
the lessons of the WSIS process itself. This should include in particular:

- the extensive use of online mailing lists to allow communication between
remote actors, particularly from developing countries
- the establishment of community web sites for the Thematic Multi-stakeholder
Initiatives;
- an online calendar of events related to WSIS themes




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