[Bureau] small clarfication/additional information needed > speaking slots thread

[Alan G. Alegre]

Dear Carthage

Greetings of solidarity from Manila...

I have only now been catching up on some of the important CSB mails...

(A context: in the spirit of information sharing in our global info society
:-) > as you may be aware, our country --the Philippines--had been plunged
into a political crisis the past several days with an attempted coup
attempt, and subsequent military mutiny--by a small band of military
officers who commandeered a small hotel in the country's prime
financial/commercial district. After restless days and sleepless nights of
information gathering and political strategizing/mobilization with CS
organizations and political movements here, w ewere able to rest a bit last
night. the immediate crisis is over... for now.)

Now that I have come back to the WSIS mailing lists: Can I just ask for some
further elaboration of something you wrote earlier:

----- Original Message -----
From: Carthage SMITH <carthage at icsu.org>
To: <bureau at wsis-cs.org>; <bureau at geneva2003.org>
Cc: Hervé BARIOULET <herve at icsu.org>; <codata at dial.oleane.com>; Mustapha
MOKRANE <mustapha at icsu.org>
Sent: Thursday, July 24, 2003 11:43 PM
Subject: RE: [Bureau] Re: Speaking Slots - CSB Role


<snip>
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.
<snip>
===============

- Can you elaborate on the language of how UN has recognized the difference
between "Professional" and "advocacy" NGOs. (Though I have been attending
WSIS processes since PrepCom1, I have not attended any of the previous
summits. So I am a "UN virgin", as it were :-)

- can you explain how the last prepcom "lost the balance" that now needs to
be restored? (again, though I was there for more than a week, I was not able
to finish PrepCom1 up to the last day; was there some important matter that
I missed during the last 3 days then?)

- can you explain (or give some references to) the "major group system of
Johannesburg" (I am assuming this was for the WSSD), for information
purposes? And also why this was considered "too exclusive by many members of
CS", but how "it brought some order and representativeness to CS, which is
currently lacking for WSIS". Am a bit confused also the apparent
contradiction of this mode being "too exclusive" yet bringing some
"representativeness".

I was not in Paris, so I don't know if there was a recent context to your
observations which someone who was not present cannot decipher immediately.
As one of those original members of the newly formed CSB, and together with
Viola the original drafter of the Terms of Reference of the CSB in PrepCom2,
I am interested in discerning how it has evolved in praxis since then.

I think email discussions like this are very helpful--at least to me, as I
assume that transparency and participation are still the overriding values
as we continue to seek unity in diversity within global CS.

Thanks for your attention and best regards

Peace
Al Alegre
Asia Family focal point (w/ Angela)