picked up from the incommunicado list > a short report on the recent Group
of Friends of the Chair
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 10:53:46 +0100
> From: sz <soenke@kein.org>
> Subject: <incom> Fullsack, Short report of the 4th GFC meeting
> To: incom <incom-l@incommunicado.info>
> Message-ID: <41ECDCAA.8030303@kein.org>
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>
> [via wsis-finance]
>
> Dear all
>
> Just a few words about the Fourth meeting of the Group of friends of the
> chair (GFC) held on Monday, January 10th at Genevaâ?Ts Palais des Nations.
> Despite its important agenda â?"notably the discussion about the TFFM
> Report- this "open" meeting attracted barely ten members of CS, and no
> prominent member of the CSâ?T financing working group.
>
> Besides this important topic, the agenda consisted in approving or/and
> modifying the draft Final document to be submitted to PrepCom-2 for
> further wording and improvement. My full report is in French and can be
> visited at CSDPTTâ?Ts website (http://www.csdptt.org).
>
> Since Renate Bloem also attended this meeting, I guess CONGO will also
> put its report to its website.
>
> The main topic was obviously the TFFM Report, both for its questionable
> content and the short period of time (a few days) for the delegates to
> examine carefully a 125 pages document. Moreover, only the English
> version was (and still is) available which gave the no English speaking
> participants a serious headache !
>
> It was therefore very sympathetic for the latter (i.e.the majority,
> never forget it) to listen to the delegate from Luxemburg, on behalf of
> the European, telling the chair that the EU comments and (necessary)
> proposals will only be available by the end of January. This was in turn
> a detrimental setback for the President, because the majority of the
> government delegates expressed the same concerns, adding some severe
> criticisms.
>
> Before EU intervened, CONGO made a statement about the TFFM Report which
> took up Sean Oâ?TSochruâ?Ts arguments (sent just before the opening of the
> meeting) against the most questionable issues of this report.
>
> From there on, chairman Karklins tried all tricks to pass over the
> determination of the delegates and to impose a deadline so as to save
> its mandate.
> This was particularly frustrating for all participants since they were
> urged
> by the chair to hold an obviously too short deadline for producing their
> contributions,
> mainly because the "rules of procedure" request a 4 weeks time before
> each Prepcom for
> the availability of the relevant official documents. My feeling was that
> the Chair
> rivileged its functions instead of the objectives of the WSIS.
>
> Other interesting discussions concerned international cooperation (input
> from Canada, widely supported, but the USA asked to delete the reference
> to multilateralism and international law â?¦), as well as social impacts
> from ICT in DCs. Commons and Free Software were asked to be added to the
> content of the Final Document. CSDPTT took the floor four times, i.a.
> for reminding some basic objectives of the Geneva Action Plan and asking
> to giving first priority to connecting isolated or remote villages, to
> associate renewable energy to ICTâ?Ts deployment in DCs, â?¦
>
> There was also stressed that the WSIS follow-up be benchmarked and
> relevant indicators be in place for this purpose. But one of the
> highlights of this meeting was the speech of the representative of the
> African diaspora (on behalf of the AU), telling the audience i.a. that
> the financial "North-South" flow generated by the Africans living
> outside the continent was estimated to be as high as one hundred billion
> dollars a year. However unfortunately this significant amount isnâ?Tt even
> mentioned in the TFFM Report ! In a later speech, CSDPTT added that the
> amount of money sent by these Africans is burdened with taxes from 10 to
> 20% for Western Union. Thus, if there is one mechanism to examine and to
> reduce, it is obviously this one, because it amounts to fifteen billion
> dollars a year. Such an amount would be more than sufficient for
> building the whole ICT infrastructure and access for Africa.
>
> As far as the Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) is concerned, it was a
> generally agreed upon that it has to be taken in account by the TFFM
> (this point was strongly supported by the Chairman), contrary to the
> position of the TFFM which excluded it from its Report.
>
> Invited by the chair to explain and advocate the DSF, the delegate from
> Senegal tried its best but, in my point of view, wasnâ?Tt convincing
> enough for the audience. This is due to very different "versions" of DSF
> definitions which are circulating and also to the inventorâ?Ts himself
> different features given at different audiences (and probably "matched"
> to them).
>
> Once again, if you understand sufficiently French, have a look at
> CSDPTTâ?Ts website for a more complete report, and thanks for your
attention.
>
> Jean-Louis Fullsack
> jlfullsack@wanadoo.fr
> www.csdptt.org