[WSIS CS-Plenary] CSB Minutes - 26 September

[wsis at iprolink.ch]

Dear all,

Just for your information, please find below a summary of the CSB meeting held
on last Monday (26 Sept., 14:00-15:00).

Best,

Philippe Dam


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Notes on Civil Society Bureau Meeting
26 Sept.-05


Participants:
	-	Itzumi Aizu (Asia-Pacific)
	-	Amir Barmaki (Western Asia and the Middle East)
	- 	Tijani Ben Jemaa (Science and Technology Community)
	-	Renate Bloem (NGOs)
	-	Bertrand de la Chapelle (Internet Governance)
	-	Divina Frau-Meigs (Education, Academia and Research)
	- 	Ann-Kristin Hakansson (Indigenous People)
	-	Hiroshi Kawamura (People with Disabilities)
	-	Ramin Kaweh (UN NGLS)
	-	Francis Muguet (Education, Academia and Research)
	- 	Delphine Nana (Africa)
	-	Tracey Naughton (Media)
	-	Magaly Pazello (Gender)


2. Chairing of CSB and facilitate Chairing at Plenary
CSB members agreed upon the following procedure for the adoption of the CS
Plenary Guidelines on Tuesday¡¯s CSP meeting: First, the chairs would ask the
Plenary to adopt the draft as a basis for negotiations. Then the Plenary would
be asked to comment on the draft. Where discussions could not be closed at the
Plenary, the issues would be referred to the Working Group on Working Methods
meeting for further discussion and a revised text would be presented at the
Plenary Wednesday morning for final adoption.

8. Speakers for Tunis Summit
A couple of issues were clarified around the procedures for the selection of
speakers:
- All entities (caucuses, working groups and families) can propose candidates.
- The CSB would compile the proposals and present the list of candidates at the
Plenary Thursday morning and the recommendations to the ITU would then be
settled at the Content and Themes Group Thursday evening. It was discussed
which procedure should be used if too many names are proposed. In that senario,
the CSB agreed that the best methodology would be to gather the applicants for
each speaking slot and then try to reach consensus at the CTG. Any vote between
the applicants should be avoided.

10. Preparations for and logistics at Tunis Summit
Mr. Charles Geiger, Executive Secretariat of the WSIS, attended the CSB meeting
and provided some information on the issues raised by CSB Members.
	¡ñ Host Country agreement ¨C Mr. Geiger confirmed that the Host Country
Agreement was signed on Friday 23 September. Some provisions would be made
public and would be shared with civil society, including Articles 2 to 4
related to functional immunities and the attribution of visas for all the
participants to the Summit. Mr. Geiger stressed that the WSIS agreement was in
line with general arrangements for other Summits. It was proposed that Mr.
Geiger would address the CSP or CTG meeting to present the specific provisions
of relevance for civil society
	¡ñ Reporting on multi-stakeholder events in Tunis ¨C Charles Geiger brought
some clarification of the reporting activities on side events. This part of the
WSIS official programme would refer to the reporting on thematic meetings held
before the Tunis Summit, as was already done in Geneva in 2003. Mr. Utsumi, ITU
SG, would take the final decision, based on the list proposed by the WSIS ES.
	¡ñ Visa facilitation ¨C Mr. Geiger reaffirmed that the host country would do
its utmost to guarantee the attribution of visas for WSIS participants. The
only possible difficulty stressed by Mr. Geiger would be the potential problem
in transit airports. As regards invitation letters for WSIS participants, he
mentioned that the ITU would not be equipped for that. He stressed that
Tunisian authorities would be in charge of participants registration, under the
supervision of the ITU. A confirmation message would be automatically sent to
registered participants within five days.
	¡ñ Fellowships for Civil Society ¨C It was again mentioned that ITU had
received few funds and practically all was used for PrepCom-3. For PrepCom-3,
several applications had not been taken into account as they had been
considered incomplete because stamps and signatures were missing. Regarding the
contribution from the Belgium Government that the Tunisian ambassador mentioned
at the Bureau to Bureau meeting, Mr. Geiger thought that it was for LDC
governments only, but he would check this.


The next CSB meeting would be held on Tuesday 27 September (14:00-15:00, Room
XXIII).