Dear all,
This is Angela's update report about Geneva.
(Angela M. Kuga Thas of the Association for Progressive
Communication-Women's Networking Support Program)
I forward it to our mailing list.
Thanks,
PatchA
-----Original Message-----
From: runningtoddler@yahoo.com
Sent: Wednesday, February 26, 2003 7:27 PM
To: communication@wsisasia.org
Subject: update on PrepCom2 of the WSIS
(communication ML)
hi everyone,
just some updates on what's happening over here in
geneva... i have not been subscribed to the list since
tokyo so i apologise if i repeat anything that has
been previously reported (hopefully, this doesn't
bounce because i was assured by patcha that he has
informed hamada to subscribe me)
1) Establishment of the Civil Society Bureau &
Technical Working Group on Finance
As some of you may already be aware, Civil Society has
established an official bureau of its own to deal with
procedural matters i.e. mainly to ensure maximum
participation and representation of civil society
within the WSIS processes. This bureau first met the
inter-governmental bureau yesterday evening just to
introduce the different families (we were given half
hour to introduce the 23 of us). Governments generally
gave very kind comments/responses to the set up of
this bureau as a mechanism to facilitate communication
between govts and civil society.
Asia Pacific is considered one of the 23 "families" of
civil society and Al Alegre of FMA as well as myself,
Angela M. Kuga Thas of the Association for Progressive
Communication-Women's Networking Support Program were
elected as focal points within this bureau. As I'm the
alternate focal point, I've taken over this role since
Al returned home on Monday to the Philippines. These
roles are considered organisational i.e. not
individually based (we were selected on the basis that
the organisation has to ensure that there's continuity
in fulfiling the roles and expectations of a focal
point for Asia Pacific within the Civil Society
Bureau)
Asia Pacific sits on the technical working group on
finance within this civil society bureau. Along with
Alice Munya from FEMNET, Africa and Nick Moraitis from
Taking IT Global from the Youth family, we are
developing criteria which should be considered by the
Civil Society Bureau when approving applications for
funding support from the Civil Society Facility Fund.
This preliminary document which the ITU secretariat
(Louise Lassonde and her staff) had drafted is
available on the website: www.geneva2003.org under
"GENERAL INFORMATION" and then under "FUNDING". It is
this document that Alice, Nick and myself are trying
to work on. We understand that this suggested criteria
and after discussion within the Civil Society Bureau
will then be sent out for further comments and input
from the various families. How this consultative will
take place within each of these families is not yet
known but for Asia Pacific, we do have this list and I
have every intention of posting the actual document
once it gets discussed after the bureau meeting today
at 6 pm (geneva time). I would therefore encourage all
of you to at least have a look at this document as it
stands right now so that you're a little more familiar
with it when I post our proposed criteria and
concerns.
The TOR for this Civil Society Bureau is still being
finalised with the understanding that it will be
reviewed in phases to incorporate feedback and inputs
from the families after PrepCom2. I hope to post this
document as well as soon as I can get a softcopy.
Otherwise, I'm assuming that all documents from the
official inter-governmental plenary itself and from
the bureau will be posted at this
website:www.geneva2003.org
From Asia Pacific, we also have other focal points on
the bureau, because Western Asia and the Middle East
managed to constitute themselves as a separate family
within the bureau but they join us in caucusing, and
we have YJ Pak from Jimbonet, South Korea, as
alternate focal point after Sean O'Schiochru of NEXUS
Research for the "social movements" family which has
now renamed itself to properly reflect that they
consist of information networks, campaigns, etc. From
the Gender family, since three organisations have been
appointed as focal points jointly, from time to time
we would have a focal point from Isis International
Manila as well during the official discussions of the
Civil Society Bureau.
Renata Bloom is chairperson of this Civil Society
Bureau.
2) Content Development and Lobbying by Civil Society
Civil Society is doing its best to organise itself and
facilitate inputs from all the caucuses and thematic
groups to provide timely input to the whole official
process. The governments have now come up with their
declaration which they have invited civil society to
react to, making available the document only in
english this morning (9.30am), and expecting us to
give a response to it by 10.30 am (while our Civil
Society plenary finishes at 10 am!). We felt it best
that since we are arranging for caucuses and thematic
groups to speak and elaborate on issues that they feel
have been inadequately addressed or completely omitted
from the govts discussions, that the caucuses and
groups who have speaking slots could try and quickly
react to the declaration on those key points. This
morning, we have a one-page document on key themes and
issues that was posted out by Bill McIver yesterday to
the list (although this bounced and so we sent it to
Patcha, and I hope you've seen this already) which
Bill presented this morning, and we had 1)the Gender
Caucus, 2) Environment and 3) Academia and Education
lined up as speakers for this morning's intergovt
plenary. We only have ten minutes to speak to the
plenary in the mornings (but better than nothing).
Asia Pacific as a caucus felt that our issues could
best be advocated and lobbying done through the
various thematic groups that we are individually
involved in i.e. gender, communication rights,
internet governance, etc. We therefore felt that it
would be best to give the speaking space to these
various groups and for the selected speakers to
properly reflect the concerns from a global
perspective.
3) There's another document now on EVENT PROPOSAL for
the summit in geneva in 2003 in december. I believe
this document is also available on the website:
www.geneva2003.org. Suggest that those who'd like to
organise events during the summit to have a close look
at this document. The document will be further
discussed in tomorrow's Civil Society plenary.
That's all for now.
angela
=====
Take time to know your soul within, your essence, your strength, your oneness with infinity. . . The Running Toddler
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