Dear Susanna and all,
Thanks for your suggestion.
I think we already made our own ducuments.
You can check these materials and see below lists.
1. 'The World Summit on the Information Society: an Asian Response (Nov. 2002, Bangkok)'
- http://www.wsisasia.org/materials/materials.html
2. 'The Joint Statement from Asia Civil Society Forum Participants on WSIS (Dec. 2002, Bangkok)
- http://www.wsisasia.org/wsis-acsf2002/
3. 'Civil Society Observations and Response to the Tokyo Declaration' of the Asia Pacific Regional Conference
- http://www.wsisasia.org/wsis-tokyo/tokyo-statement.html
Also APC published WSIS Booklet including Asian perspectives
at the PrepCom 3 which is based on the former asian documents.
I will attach only Asian perspective part from APC doc here.
I think in these documents we already made Asian own priorities.
Sorry but I have some concerns and question.
Do you mean that Asian Caucus needs to make our own priorities document
to lobby at PrepCom IIIA, something like "seven musts" document at prepcom II?
We already saw that thousands of Civil Society inputs were hardly
reflected to the official government documents at PrepCom III.
The governments' documents nearly ingnored
even the "Civil society Seven Musts" priorities which made at prepcom II.
We remember that the draft declaration of principles (Version Sep 19, 2003)
was really terrible and made many people frustrated.
(Many people said "disaster" to the document)
So I'm not so sure how Asian new inputs to the official documents
will actually impact.
Here is nearly last stage of this process, and there will be not
many options in the official documents. I roughly say what I think....
At prepcom IIIA, maybe the governments will discuss only the things
of the most controversal issues now in *square bracket([])*.
And they will just discuss whether the contents in bracket will continue here,
be revised or delete. Im not sure that it is possible to add more contents
or inputs which are not in the official documents now.
I think that in this context the CS contents group at prepcom III decided to make
CS own documents, "Civil Society Declaration."
Sorry but I don't have much meaning to make new inputs to official doc.
W'd better focus on the process of "Civil Society Declaration" with
Asian perspective and discuss it.
Just my opinion.
Sorry for long email.
Thanks,
PatchA
-----Original Message-----
From: Susanna George [mailto:susanna@isiswomen.org]
Sent: Monday, October 20, 2003 2:27 PM
To: communication@wsisasia.org
Subject: [communication 962] Giving Asia Caucus support to key issues at the WSIS
Dear all,
Salaams and warm greetings to all! This message is not related to the previous messages and for this I apologise. I am posting it today, because of the lack of time in order to accomplish what I am going to suggest to this list.
As some of you are aware, a few of us from the Asia Caucus were present at the recently concluded symposium held by JCAFE in Tokyo, Japan. Taratta-san thought it a good idea for us to meet and discuss some of the issues that have been afloat on this list and the CS-Plenary list for a while, and so on the 14th, Taratta-san, Al Alegre, Jhin Hia (Jimbonet), Mavic and I (Isis International-Manila) met briefly.
Al will soon be reporting on the whole of our discussions that we had in Tokyo, but I was tasked with the responsibility of raising an issue with this list that I have been concerned about for a while. This issue is basically the notion of the Asia Caucus giving support to certain key issues within the overall advocacy areas that are being lobbied for by Civil Society in the WSIS process. Let me explain:
1. Our observation is that that the regional caucuses are given some extra importance, as compared to issue-based caucuses, particularly in matters related to representation (speakers for example), and also in relation to the issues that the regional caucuses support.
2. By and large, the Asia Caucus has been the least visible in terms of promoting a particularly political position or issue, although, we know that the Asia Caucus members have taken leadership in several issue based caucuses. In contrast, the Latin American Caucus and the Africa Caucus have taken very strong and visible positions on issues and in particular have been very focal around development issues taken as representatives of the South.
3. I feel that it is time for the Asia Caucus to use its clout as a regional caucus, and give strong backing to four or five key issues that the Civil Society is doing lobbying around. Some of the issues that Asia Caucus members have been particularly active in are the following: internet governance, privacy and surveillance issues, intellectual property rights, gender issues, communication rights, right to development.
4. My suggestion is that in the next ten days (until 30th October), we have a discussion on this list of the issues that the Asia Caucus could/should give its concrete and stated backing to.
5. I have offered to compile a short two to three page document that will encapsulate our concerns on the issues that we agree by consensus to give support to. Once that is prepared, I will circulate it on this list for comments (hopefully by 4th October) and then once finalised we can forward it to the different lists (by 7th October), as well as use it in our lobbying for Prep Com 3A hopefully.
6. For this process to work smoothly, I would suggest the following:
i. when you reply this message, list down the top five issues that you think the Asia Caucus should give support to, and why.
ii. keep the messages brief, and have them all follow the subject heading listed above.
iii. I would also kindly request those who are not a part of the Asian Caucus that are signed onto this list, to refrain from posting their opinions immediately, since I think the initial recommendations should come from those located/working/originating in Asia and/or in the Asia Caucus. Once the document has been compiled, of course, all are free to comment on it.
Alright, that's all for now. I look forward to hearing from you all in the next ten days.
Susanna
967_2.doc