Date: Thu, 28 Apr 2005 11:51:26 -0700 From: Jaba Menon <jaba.menon@oneworld.net> Subject: [communication 1326] Call for Grassroots Caucus Formation To: Communication <communication@wsisasia.org> Message-Id: <0IFN00GVP8AZL7@vmail.vsnl.com> X-Mail-Count: 01326Call for Grassroots Caucus on WSIS OneWorld South Asia (OWSA) invites grassroots civil society organisations to join in the formation of a Grassroots Caucus to mainstream the voices and concerns of grassroots communities in the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) decisions. The WSIS outcomes are meant to ensure that the Information Society of tomorrow takes the benefits of ICTs to the people and communities that have remained on the fringes of development. But the processes so far, leading up to WSIS I and now to WSIS II, due in Tunis, later this year, have largely failed to include such grassroots perspectives and sensitivities. In the run up to WSIS II in Tunis this November, therefore, there is little time and opportunity left for civil society organisations to ensure that Information Society of tomorrow takes cognizance of the grassroots voices and concerns and consider them as equal stakeholders. The grassroots need to have a say in all crucial issues, be these linked to Internet governance, financial mechanisms and equitable share of financial. resources for ICT4D through platforms such as the Digital Solidarity Fund. The setting up of a Grassroots Caucus holds out this window of opportunity to make this possible. The decision to form the Grassroots Caucus was taken at the initiative of OneWorld South Asia and its partner orgnisations, who presented a Grassroots Charter to this effect during WSIS PrepComII, held in Geneva in February 2005. More information on this initiative and the Grassroots Charter is available here. It is now for the civil society organisations, representing these grassroots, to ensure that this window of opportunity is not lost to posterity. Organisations keen to join the GRASSROOTS CAUCUS to maintream grassroots voices in WSIS may ACT NOW and fill in a simple SIGN UP form. SIGN UP FORM IS AVAILABLE ONLINE AT http://southasia.oneworld.net/article/view/1094911326_2.html (attatchment)(tag is disabled)