Dear all
Greetings of solidarity from Manila...
It will be just a couple of days when the Tokyo meetings will start and I
would like to congratulate everyone (especially from our friends in Japan
like Izumi, Adam, Hamada and others who are facilitating a lot of things)
for all the efforts to transcend structural, distance, and time barriers to
enable Civil Society and NGOs to engage the processes more meaningfully.
Congrats as well to the organizers of the different side events, which all
promise to be very interesting and relevant.
As some of us are leaving in for Tokyo within the week, I would like to post
some final recommendations for the Tokyo meetings, which some of us have
been talking and thinking about already:
1. I would like to reiterate the importance of the process of converging all
NGOs in the Open Meetings (a la NGO Plenary in PRepCom1 which was very
effective in coordinating "modes of NGO participation"), scheduled for 5-7
pm both on Saturday (11th) and Sunday (12th), at the UN University. We
appreciate all efforts to align the other side events to this schedule so as
to prevent overlap/competing times. It is extremely important to have these
meetings as our own space to coordinate all NGO-related activities and
concerns.
2. Aside from the usual briefings these meeting will have, we also are
looking at the possibility of ensuring that all NGO panelists and presentors
during the formal meeting, come together to share with everyone interested
the outline/content of their presentations, so we are confident that all
important messages are delivered, and overlaps are minimized. Though we are
all autonomous and independent from each other, coordination is of utmost
importance (based on the previous experience at the Geneva PrepCom1).
IN this light may I suggest that all proposed panelists and presenters do a
"sharing session" with interested CSO stakeholders, either during the open
meetings/plenaries, or sometime after (maybe in an informal after-dinner
session) to preview and share their intended presentations for
feedback--revisions, endorsement--from the other members. The panel
discussions should be an opportunity to represent all the major concerns of
the diverse ngo stakeholders that we call Asia ngo/civil society. (Thanks to
Sacha for this sound suggestion.)
3. I also would reiterate to all going to Tokyo to think of the possiblity
of possible areas of work where you can volunteer to facilitate our work
there. I had suggested about 4 "working clusters" to be active in Tokyo:
- Logistics
- Content
- Information and Outreach
- "lobbying"/Engagement
Hopefully you will all have an idea of where you can best contribute so we
may structure things loosely but effectively.
4. We encourage everyone to gather information that may be useful to our
processes, and may I stress that situationers from your respective official
country delegations may also be important to share.
Please feel free to send this out to all NGO people not on this list but who
you know will be in Tokyo, with some sort of background info about our
common efforts to have this CSO convergence process--from Geneva PrepCom1,
to Bangkok (both the WACC/Forum Asia workshop, as well as the CONGO ACSF
meeting), to Hyderabad Asian Social Forum, and finally to Tokyo.
==========================================
I know of 3-4 "centers of gravity" in Tokyo if you need to coordinate with
someone:
Hotel: Toyoko Inn Kamata No.2
7-24-7 Nishi-Kamatam Ota-ku, Tokyo 144-0051, Japan
Tel: 81-3-3733-2580, Fax: 81-3-3733-2581
Possible Contact points there: Sacha Jotisalikorn, Bobby Garcia
Hotel: Shinagawa Prince Hotel, Main Tower
10-30, Takanawa 4-chome, Minato-ku, Tokyo, 108-8611, Japan
Tel: 81-3-3440-1111, Fax: 81-3-3441-7092
Possible Contact points there: Al Alegre, Jaba Menon
Hotel: Children's Palace- Kodomonoshiro-Hotel (Jan 10-11 only)
5-53-1, Jinguumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo, 150-0001, Japan
Tel: 81-3-3797-5677, Fax: 81-3-3406-7805
Possible Contact points there: Chat Ramilo and others from the Gender caucus
Glocom Office
6-15-21 Roppongi, Minato-ku Tokyo 106-0032
TEL: +81-3-5411-6677 FAX: +81-3-5412-7111
Possible Contact points there: Izumi Aizu, Adam Peake, Yumiko Masuda
==========================================
For those not going to Tokyo, we hope that the communcation@wsisasia.org
list will be the place for continuous on site briefings and reports. The
stakeholders to the Asian process are certainly beyond only those able to
attend the face-to-face meetings!
Thanks a lot and hope to meet all Tokyo sojourners soon!
In solidarity
Al Alegre
P.S. I am also reposting again a draft by the global civil society
Sub-committee on Participation (formed at PrepCom 1, under the aegis of the
Civil Society Plenary Group) of a paper outlining important participation
and inclusion issues, FYI. (Sent by Sean O'Sochru). Apologies if you have
recieved this already.
----- Original Message -----
From: Izumi Aizu <izumi@anr.org>
To: <hiroko-h@jumonji-u.ac.jp>; <kiochkim@sookmyung.ac.kr>; Kwan Liow
<kwan@gkpsecretariat.org.my>; 'Rinalia Abdul Rahim'
<rinalia@gkpsecretariat.org.my>; Beris Gwynne <berisgwynne@fdc.org.au>;
Robert Guild <RobertG@forumsec.org.fj>; <nick@takingitglobal.org>; toshimaru
ogura <ogr@nsknet.or.jp>
Cc: <communication@wsisasia.org>
Sent: Friday, January 03, 2003 2:37 PM
Subject: [communication 209] Open Meeting on Jan 11 and 12
>
>
> Dear organizers of the Side Events,
>
> Asian NGOs involved with WSIS is now forming a coordination committee
> tentatively titled as
> "Asia Pacific NGO Coordination Committee for WSIS"
>
> and there is a proposal to hold an "Open Meeting" during the Side Event,
> Saturday and Sunday, in the late afternoon, say from 5 to 7 pm at UNU.
>
> It seems that after 5 pm should be OK for most events except the
> Communication Rights, but since the last part if video one, some
> people should be able to join (according to Hamada-san).
>
> One request is Room. All rooms are used in the late afternoon,
> so UNU person told me it is better to ask if any of you, the organizers
> who is going to conclude the meeting each day before 5 pm so that
> that same room can be used for this Open Meeting.
>
> Could you indicate if you are ready to "give up" the room before or
> around 5 PM?
>
> We want to discuss:
> -> to formaly kick off NGO Coordination Commitee;
> introduce ourselves, share what each other are facing and doing
> prepare NGO panel in the plenary
> discuss about the Declaration, with two NGO reps to the editorial
committee
> prepare for PrepCom2 and Summit
>
> Below is the summary of the concluding time of the side events as I
gathered
> (correct me if I am wrong or you changed the agenda recently).
>
> Gender - Saturday, 11th: 5 pm, Sunday, 12th: noon
> Communication Rights - Sunday: late afternoon will be Movie session
> Information Society - Sunday: 5 pm
> Youth - Saturday: not certain, 7:30 pm, dinner?
> Sunday: 6 pm?
> Pacific Islands - Sunday: 4:45 pm
>
> Though Pacific Island organizer is not quite the "NGO", I still think
> asking key persons will benefit NGO/civil society and Pacific Island
> stakeholders together.
>
> Thank you for your understandings and cooperation.
>
> izumi
>
>
>
231_2.doc