[WSIS CS-Plenary] Update on subcommittee A drafting groups

[Vittorio Bertola]

All,

just a quick update on what's happening with subcommittee A drafting
groups: this morning the Chair announced two "gatherings" with the
countries that had spoken up regarding specific parts of his draft, namely
one group for para 43, and another group for paras 45-48, to sort out the
text.

The first group met at 1:30pm, chaired by Raul Echeberria, formally from
the governmental delegation of Uruguay, but also from the technical
community (RIRs). There were about 20 people in the room; apart from me
and Robert Guerra (who managed to governmental badges through our national
delegations) also some non-gov people with non-gov badges peacefully
managed to sit in the room, namely one from ICC, one from Cisco, and Paul
Wilson from APNIC, who also took the floor in the discussion and proposed
text. The discussion was quite open, no problem for whoever wanted to
participate. Actually, in a number of cases governmental people were
wondering where the usual civil society people were, or suggesting (when
discussing text on CS role) to submit it to CS and then wait for feedback
before proceeding.

I am now attending the second group, chaired by Saudi Arabia. Again, there
are non-gov people with non-gov badges in the room, however the climate is
much more formal - it looks like a reduced-scale governmental plenary. I
am not sure about what would happen if one of the non-gov people asked for
the floor - if anyone will dare, I'll let you know the outcome.

This, of course, does not eliminate the need to get formal acceptance for
civil society representatives, and adequate speaking opportunities.
-- 
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