[governance] WSIS Forum 2011

["Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"]

Dear friends
 
I disagree with the argument that a move from Geneva to to New York of the WSIS Forum 2011 would improve outreach and bring WSIS implementation forward. In contrary I am afraid that a move to NewYork will weaken in particular the involvement of civil society and the academic community as important stakeholders in the WSIS process. A large number of civil society organisations, including represenations of organisations from developing countries, are based in Geneva or not far from Geneva. Moving the event to New York would create additional costs and logistic problems for them which would result in lower participation of civil society organisations. This would certainly undermine the multistakeholder nature of the WSIS implementaiton process. 
 
Another risk moving the WSIS Forum 2011 to New York would be that the important WSIS issues would be discussed in the shadow of more important political and security issues which dominate the day to day UN acitvities in New York. The WSIS Forum would be just "another conference" and would have difficulties to get the needed public attention. 
 
Finally I want to flag that in same week the European Union has its annual Future of the Internet Week meetings under the Hungarian Presidency in Budapest. 
 
 
Regards
 
Wolfgang Kleinwächter 
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