[Bureau] Re: Clarification, getting more funds, moving forward

[RunningToddler]

Dear Nick and everyone else,

Thanks very much for your e-mail and a well-written draft letter.

First, I am not sure if it's fair to even slightly imply that the donors are
responsible for the shortfall in fellowships from 100 to less than 40. This
communication came directly from the CSD. Not from the donors. And looking
again at the financial summary statement of total funds sourced and spent,
the allocation spent on DCs was at a much faster rate. This to me boils down
to management of the funds concerned and therefore not a fault of the donor
agencies, but a fault of the CSD.

Second, the decisions around who gets funded even when they are from LDCs
was not honoured by the CSD. There are serious expressions of frustrations
coming in even from Africa. And we all know that most LDCs are situated
there and they had a very good listing of nominees.

Third, if this letter goes out to funders, all CSB representatives should
place their names down and if necessary sign it, or the three
representatives could sign on our behalf. Not everyone knows who and which
"families" are represented on the CSB. It also shows the commitment of CSB
representatives and unity on this matter.

Fourth, the letter must be finalised first before signatures can be
provided.

Now for the letter concerned:

******************************************
Dear Sir/Madam,

We are writing on behalf of civil society actors in the World Summit on
the Information Society to seek your urgent assistance in ensuring basic
representation of NGOs at the Geneva Summit this December 10-12th. As
you are aware, the WSIS is the major United Nations Summit of 2003, with
more than 50 world leaders and almost ten thousand people from
government, business and civil society expected to participate to
explore the impact of information and communications technologies for
development.

It has just now come to the attention of the Civil Society Bureau (the
formal structure coordinating civil society involvement with
representatives from more than 20 groupings such as Gender, Trade
Unions, Youth, NGOs, Community Media and the six major regions of Asia and
the Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Europe and North America,
Middle East and Western Asia, and Africa) that the Civil Society
Fellowship Fund administered by the WSIS Executive Secretariat is
severely under-financed. It was expected (and communicated to us) that
almost 100 fellowships would be available to physically attend the WSIS in
Geneva this December, but we have less than half the expected budget, we are
left with only a little over 30 fellowships possible. In addition, the
stipulation of the major donor, SDC, requires that more than 60% of
available funds are spent on Least Developing Countries. We deeply
appreciate the committments already made and the priority to LDCs, but we
are concerned that unless more financial support is pledged towards civil
society participation, this major stakeholder will be forced to play only a
marginal role
in the Summit.

Many Civil Society actors are now in a difficult position - some of the
most active participants who have expected fellowships were there
a slightly larger amount are now likely to miss out on funds to attend
the Summit. The reality is that the majority of
those most active around WSIS have come from Developing Countries and
Countries in Transition, rather than
Least Developed Countries. Their presence will be sorely missed and will
very much limit the ability of our groups to coordinate activities such as
presentations at side
events, speaking slots, and the brokerage of partnerships that should be
the culmination of a long process, which WSIS has committed to strive for.
The wanting financial situation has also resulted in severe
under-representation of women to the Summit.

We are therefore urgently seeking:
- 150,000 CHF for 35 additional fellowships.
- 75% of those selected will be female.
- All will be from Developing Countries/Countries in Transition or Least
Developed Countries.
- All will have played key roles within civil society in the leadup to
the Summit at a national, regional or international level.

All the processes are already in place to identify the participants and
to arrange their travel and logistics. We believe this is a modest
number of fellowships overall considering the importance of the World
Summit and the key role of civil society groups in this field.

Yours truly,
Civil Society Bureau

Name, family
Name, family
Name, family
etc. etc.

****************************************

Renate may want to edit this for diplomacy. And I suggest that all CSB
members who would like to append their name to this letter to say so clearly
in this space.

Warm regards,

Angela