AW: [governance] WSIS 10+

Mon Aug 11 12:26:10 EDT 2014

Jean Louis is right, the Geneva CS Declaration is not an "official document". However the Geneva summit "took note" of the document and the CS declaration is still listed under the WSIS documents on the ITU Website. http://www.itu.int/wsis/geneva/index.html . It is qualified there as " Civil Society Declaration: handed out to the President of the Summit at the last Plenary meeting on 12 December 2003". This was the compromise. Civil Society did not walk out in Geneva but got for its own declaration an "official recognition" in form of the agreed procedure of an "accepted handover of the document to the president". Such an "handover" of a non-governmental document was new within the procedures of an intergovernmental summit meeting (as WSIS I) and seen - from the CS perspective - as a "door opener" for next steps. 

Now it seems that WSIS 10+ is sailing backwards and we are where we have been before PrepCom1 (2002). Obviously governments reject "to share decision making", as agreed (and promised) in the Tunis Agenda with regard to Internet Governance. Insofar we should make noise for a deeper CS involvement into the negotiations for the final NY document.

One option for Civil Society in preparing for the WSIS 10+ Summit in December 2015 could be to have its own (independent) WSIS Review. This could lead to an own final document. Such a document could become part of the "package" of the planned NY WSIS 10+ documents in December 2015.  As a minimum we should call for the same procedure we had in Geneva. Otherwise Civil Socity should make clear that it will not accept to be "used" to give WSIS 10+ an image of "multistakeholder involvment" and reject "invitations" to be consulted in the preparatory phase for the NY Meeting as long as this "invitations" are not more than "window dressing" and do not have substantial and measurable input into the final documents.  

Best wishes

wolfgang

Dear all

I refer to my mail I sent earlier on the list (August 4th) for replying to Wolfgang who asserts that the CS Declaration at the Geneva WSIS Summit (2003)  as an "official WSIS outcome document". Unfortunately this doesn't reflect the reality as I justified it in my earlier mail. See its content hereafter :

    Wolfgang wrote :

> One of the big achievements in the WSIS process was that civil society got a voice in the process. A Milestone was the CS WSIS Declaratzion from December 2003 which was handed over to the president of the first summit, WSIS 1.>

This enthousiastic view on the civil society's voice at WSIS doesn't reflect the reality.

First, the "milestone" CS WSIS Declaration was in fact a document resulting from a schism in the "WSIS multistakeholder community", precisely decided by the CS Plenary during PrepCom 3b because the very voice of CS wasn't sufficiently taken in account during the PrepCom process. Remember Adama Samassekou's desperate but vain efforts to convince the CS Plenary to join the official Geneva Declaration !

Second, the CS Declaration, despite the assertion of the WSIS Secretariate, isn't considered as an official WSIS outcome document. The latter are the WSIS Declaration of Principles and the Geneva Action Plan, as well as the Tunis Commitment and the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society (see http://www.itu.int/wsis/outcome/booklet/index-fr.html ). 

In a nutshell : If "CS got a voice", it's expression was at best considered to be pseudo-official ! This is pure WSIS/ITU multistakeholderism !

 (End of mail wording)

Therefore we should base any further discussion about WSIS+10 on this reality rather than on a "sweet dream" ...

Best regards

Jean-Louis Fullsack

> Message du 07/08/14 03:31
> De : "Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro" 
> A : "governance at lists.igcaucus.org" , "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" 
> Copie à : "Daniel Kalchev" 
> Objet : Re: [governance] WSIS 10+
> 
>

Hi Wolfgang,
> 
>
>From the Pacific, we can shoot the proposal down as we can secure at least 16 votes in the UNGA to support enhanced civil society input.
> 
> Sad that it has to come to this.
> 
>
Sala
>

> 
>
On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 8:46 PM, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"  wrote:
>
http://www.outlookindia.com/news/article/UN-Adopts-Resolution-on-Bridging-Digital-Divide/852511
> 
> Outlook India:
> The resolution decided that the overall review will be concluded in December 2015 by a two-day General Assembly high-level meeting to be preceded by an inter-governmental preparatory process that also takes into account inputs from all relevant stakeholders of WSIS.  The intergovernmental negotiation process would begin in June 2015 and lead to an inter-governmentally agreed outcome document for adoption at the UNGA meeting. The process retains the ownership of the preparatory meetings and the final outcome document with member states alone. Mukerji said the resolution ensures that leaders, "at the highest possible level" will meet at the high-level plenary meeting in December next year to adopt the outcome of the intergovernmental negotiations.
> 
> Wolfgang:
> One of the big achievements in the WSIS process was that civil society got a voice in the process. A Milestone was the CS WSIS Declaratzion from December 2003 which was handed over to the president of the first summit, WSIS 1. It became an official document. The Tunis Agenda confirmed and enhanced the role of civil society. As you can see from the text above, ten years later this process is back in the hands of "governments only". The final outcome document will be with member states only by taking into account inputs from all relevant stakeholders (which sounds like a joke with the experiences of a enhanced communicartion and cooperation over the last ten years, including the UNCSTD WGs. Should civil society write a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Kin Moon?
> 
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