[Bureau] Re: Speaking Slots - CSB Role

Thu Jul 24 16:43:33 BST 2003

John asked for views and so for what its worth, a few points/comments from someone who has observed with increasing despair the behaviour of civil society since prepcom 1 as it has tried to spontaneously organize itself. [Observed is perhaps not the right word as I have also tried to engage, eg via the CSB, but am still despairing] 

As Sean correctly points out the crucial issue is to find a fair and transparent way to prioritise and decide who is to speak.  CSB has been working very hard to set up a structure to optimise the speaking opportunities/interactions but, even if agreed, this will be wasted or worst still 'back-fire' unless the appropriate and most legitimate 'experts' from civil society can use these opportunities.  I don't have a solution to this but I do have a few comments, which from my discussions would appear to be shared by several other organizations that represent 'professional' groups within civil society...

1. The current system is almost entirely dependent on being present at the Prepcom and arguing your case in the caucuses.  Whilst this is apparently democratic, in practice it is anarchaic - whoever shouts loudest or has the most friends there tends to get to speak. It takes no account of the representativeness/legitimacy of the CS organizations that might wish to speak in plenary -there is no 'block voting'.

2. In practice, the majority of the CS who attend the Prepcoms come from NGOs with a very strong (and important) advocacy role - the raison d'etre of such NGOs is to try and change government policy. This means that topics such as communication rights in society are very well represented numerically at the Prepcoms. For 'professional' NGOs the situation is different, whilst the media, publishers, science, engineering, education etc have an absolutely crucial contribution to make to the developing information society, we are not well represented numerically at Prepcom. However, we can and in some cases are well represented in terms of 'international umbrella organisations'.  A lot of work is being done by many such organizations, including my own - ICSU, outside of the Prepcom in trying to build consensus, re WSIS, within the communities we represent. Whilst this input can be fed-in via other routes, it's 'legitimacy' and reresentativeness is largely ignored when it comes to CS allocating speakers at Prepcom itself.

3. Of course in a democracy everyone has and should have the right to express their views. However in a UN Summit, the view of one individual on a single specific issue cannot be given equal weighting to the consensus views of a representative organization on a topic.  The current CS system of selecting speakers is very biaised towards the individual over the organization.  Whilst the caucus system can help to provide some balance, it is still effectively very much dependent on who is at the actual meeting and weight of numbers rather than representativeness.

4. As a representative of an organization that has put a lot of effort into trying to develop a truly international consensus on how my professional (put publicly funded) constituency - in this case science - can best contribute to the information society - I am not prepared to engage in a shouting match until late in the evening at every day of Prepcom 3 just to see if I can get a speaking slot. On behalf of my organization, I am also not prepared to put a lot of effort into working with the CSB to develop a perfect platform for CS speakers/input unless the mechanism for choosing these speakers is considered by the CSB at the same time and takes due account of the expertise of professional groups and their representative organisations. 

5. The difference between 'Professional' and advocacy NGOS has been clearly recognized by the UN and was written into the original thinking on the CSB. In the 'democratic' setting of the last Prepcom this thinking has been lost and the balance needs be restored if CS is to really engage in a constructive and representative way with governments and the private sector. The major group system of Johannesburg was considered to be too exclusive by many members of CS and this is fully understandable but at least it brought some order and representativeness to CS, which is currently seriously lacking for WSIS.

Whether or not John continues to chair the CSB is a red-herring and a distraction from more important issues. It is a pragmatic and operational issue and should not be turned into a fundamental democratic principle. He did a great job for the intersessional meeting and was re-elected together with Renata, by the Bureau because of this and to ensure continuity. It's a thankless task and we should all be very grateful that he is willing to continue with it.

Carthage

Carthage Smith
Deputy Executive Director
ICSU
51 bd. de Montmorency
75016, Paris

tel.:  (33 1) 45250329
Fax:(33 1) 42889431
email: carthage at icsu.org

-----Original Message-----
From: Sean O Siochru [mailto:sean at nexus.ie] 
Sent: 23 July 2003 10:11
To: bureau at geneva2003.org; bureau at wsis-cs.org
Subject: [Bureau] Re: Speaking Slots - CSB Role

Bureau members:

A few points:

1)  If anything is to be done about this - and my feedback too, is that 
something must - then the Content and Themes Groups should be having the 
key input.  So I agree with John  - they must be contacted to determine the 
right procedure. But it should also go forward for approval at the first 
Civil Society Plenary meeting, to be clear everyone is clear and has a say.

A couple of points on the proposal itself.

2)  The 48 hour wait might restrict the ability to react to what is going 
on at a meeting.  For example, while caucuses should certainly draw up a 
common position even prior to each meeting, the actual content and emphasis 
of the presentation might be better decided by those on the spot (based on 
the consensus positions).

3. We might also want to make a distinction between some longer and more 
general statements (such as the civil societies priorities - though it was 
longer than needed) and short statements on very specific issues related to 
current debates.

There are also issues such as finding fair and transparent ways to 
prioritise and decide who is to speak.

But let us first ensure we have the right procedure for discussing this 
important topic.  As there does not exist an 'offical' transparent 
mechanism for communication between the Bureau and C&T group I assume we 
contact Bill McIver and Sally Burch.

Sean

I am copying this to the other, openly archived, list (bureau at wsis-cs.org) 
to enhance transparency.

At 15:06 20/07/2003 -0400, you wrote:

>Veni,
>
>Renata and I were selected as the CSB Chairpersons from now until the end of
>PrepCom 3 in order to keep the "dynamic" going (said Africa, motion by
>Volunteers).
>
>I like what you have below concerning speaking slots.  Could we hear some 
>feedback
>from others?  Considering certain situations at the Paris meeting, the CSB 
>should
>perhaps take a role to coordinate this more.
>
>We should also see what Content and Themes says.  They may feel that we are
>assuming their responsibility, however, they may agree concerning the 
>situations
>and disagreements among the caucusing in Paris.
>
>John
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
> >From: bureau-request at geneva2003.org
>[mailto:bureau-request at geneva2003.org]On Behalf Of Veni Markovski
>Sent: Friday, July 18, 2003 9:35 AM
>To: bureau at geneva2003.org
>Subject: Proposals, please, respond!
>
>
>Dear Bureau members,
>I'd like to propose for the Geneva meetings the following rule, based on
>the Paris experience:
>
>When we have slots for speaking at the plenary sessions, I think that we
>should follow the following rules:
>
>1. Topics should be discussed within the caucus (via mailing list) at least
>48 hours in advance.
>2. The CS Bureau should have the text to be presented at least 24 hours in
>advance.
>3. The text should be no more than 1800 characters (one standard A4 page)
>4. Text should be present to the translators 1 hour before the start of
>reading it.
>
>Failure to fulfil these requirements means that the person responsible will
>not have the chance to speak!
>
>If we don't act organized, we'll be facing the same problems every time
>between now and 2005, and at the end noone will pay attention to what we
>say, no matter how important it is.
>
>We should always require from our own secretariat to have all contributions
>from the Civil Society being distributed to the governmental delegations.
>I'd actually propose even more - let's have them printed on a differen
>paper (green, red, yellow), so that the governmental delegations will pay
>attention to them. However, it is not only important what we say, but also
>in what form we say it. The shorter - the better. Shortest - best. We will
>not have a chance to make our cause presented, because there are 200
>countries that want to do the same. In this aspect, I think from the slots
>so far Y J Park's presentation Friday morning was the best - less than 1
>page, which she read for about 2 minutes. That's how we can say many things
>within a short period of time. That's what we have to do!
>
>If you have proposals, please, send them to the list, otherwise I propose a
>motion to vote on this.
>
>There will be another message shortly about the way we can work better in
>Geneva. I am writing them at the airport, unfortunately no wireless access,
>so can't send them immediately...
>
>sincerely,
>veni
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>---
>Incoming mail is certified Virus Free.
>Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
>Version: 6.0.502 / Virus Database: 300 - Release Date: 18/07/2003

___________________________________________________
Seán Ó Siochrú  Central office: tel:  +353 1 473 0599 fax: +353 1 473 0597
NEXUS Research  Mobile: +353 87 20 48 150
14 Eaton Brae   Direct office tel: +353 1 272 0739  fax: +353 1 272 0034
Shankill
Co. Dublin              e-mail: sean at nexus.ie
Ireland                 Web site: http://www.iol.ie/nexus  