[CS Bureau] Cluster WSIS events & Bureau meetings in May

Wed Apr 18 05:26:40 BST 2007

At 4:10 AM +0200 4/16/07, Dr. Francis MUGUET wrote:
>Dear members of the Bureau
>
>We have to get back to work. !!!

Francis,

There is no civil society bureau. It's dead and gone and has no work 
to do. The "families" dissolved at the end of the Tunis Summit. There 
was some attempt last year to see if new mechanisms were necessary 
but no response.  Calls for civil society meetings (plenary) have 
been met with minimal interest.

I can think of no better example of this than the IGF in Athens when 
I gave you 5 overpasses for the opening ceremony for you to 
distribute to your group only to find that you had failed to do so 
and I had to find extra for at least one of "your" people. You didn't 
know who your "family" was!

I strongly believe that the regional grouping should be maintained, 
they clearly continue to work and are important in bringing essential 
views and people to the process, whether WSIS action lines or IGF. 
But the rest either exist on their own merits (the human rights 
caucus continues to function, just as it did before WSIS, the 
Internet governance caucus continues to try to contribute in its area 
of interest. I know you and others are doing work in education etc. 
Good luck to us all.)

CONGO continues to do a magnificent job acting as a link between 
other stakeholders and helping the rest of us keep informed and able 
to participate. By their example and standing in the community, CONGO 
deservedly plays a leadership role in civil society.

My suggestion would be for CONGO to maintain good contact with 
regional groups, and to use them to receive and share information. 
The rest of us should get on best we can. Sharing information when we 
can. The plenary list still works, it is mainly spam (I administer 
the list) but it is there if we need it, it still has many 
subscribers from WSIS.

Francis, can't you simply represent your own organization when 
talking to UNESCO? What you ask for from them makes perfect sense, it 
won't sound any more sensible if you claim to have the backing of 
some extinct organization. You already provide us with more 
information from the WSIS follow-up than any other individual. Just 
carry on. And think you. But in your search for the bureau you are 
looking for something that has ceased to exist. It has no role 
anymore. We don't need it.

Thanks,

Adam

>1/ So far, concerning invitation letters that many of
>us  need to have to be able attend the cluster Week.
>either for Visa, travel application and funding.
>The invitations letters are available only for
>  Action Line C5 Facilitation Meeting  ( 14-15 May 2007
>  action lines C2, C4, and C6 ( 16 May 2007
>  Informal consultation between ITU and CS 18 May 2007
>  Second consultation meeting of WSIS Action Line Facilitators
>  25 may 2007
>   UNESCO has not prepared yet any invitation letter.
>
>Could CONGO as the Bureau executive secretariat inquire
>with  ECOSOC, or ITU, or UNCTAD ( as the de facto
>WSIS executive secretariat ) about the possibility
>to make available a global
>invitation letter covering the two weeks in Geneva.
>This would simplify greatly visa application for
>some, and bureaucracy for all of us.
>
>2/ The e-science action line should occur on Monday 14 May.
>This is to be confirmed.
>There are long  multi-stakeholder negotiations
>to find a convenient date when all major stakeholders
>could attend.
>
>3/ As I did last year, for the action lines meetings in Paris,
>may I act as the Bureau liaison officer with UNESCO ?
>to speed up things concerning procedural issues,
>eg Letters of invitations, and terms of references.
>
>I have been working closely with the Science4D division
>to get updated terms of references,
>and  Working Methods of the Multi-stakeholders Team
>concerning the e-science action line
>( not yet on http://www.wsis-si.org/unesco.html,
>since I waiting to UNESCO science divsion to have them posted )
>These are very important procedural documents,
>and it would be good to discuss the procedures concerning
>the other action lines. This should a topic of discussion
>of a bureau meeting.
>
>Procedural issues are going to quite important in this
>cluster week, specifically with ECOSOC, UNCTAD, UNESCO, ITU
>with the new secretary general, to determine the
>participation of Civil Society.
>
>4/ It seems that we need to hold a Bureau Meeting in
>Geneva in May to discuss about the reform of the Bureau,
>or at the very least, fill the vacant seats for
>various families in order to stay inclusive.
>CONGO need to be confirmed as the executive secretariat
>of the WSIS CS Bureau to be able to continue to negotiate
>( they are doing a terrific job ) ) procedural issues
>  for the sake of the whole CS ( not just with ECOSOC ).
>
>5/ We might hold 2 Bureau meetings, one at the beginning
>of the cluster week, Monday 14 or Tuesday 15,
>to assess the current situation,
>and let people start to discuss in Geneva and elsewhere, and one
>at the end on Friday 25.
>
>Do we ask families to send short reports as we
>did for the CapeTown meeting in order to list the
>active familie ?
>
>We should start discussions on all those topics without delays.
>
>Best regards
>
>Francis
>
>
>--
>
>------------------------------------------------------
>Francis F. MUGUET  Ph.D
>World Tour of the Information Society (WTIS)
>muguet at wtis.org
>
>UNMSP project : http://www.unmsp.org
>
>World Summit On the Information Society (WSIS)
>Civil Society Working Groups
>Scientific Information :  http://www.wsis-si.org  chair
>Patents & Copyrights   :  http://www.wsis-pct.org co-chair
>Financing Mechanismns  :  http://www.wsis-finance.org web
>
>Director
>Scientific Information Developement Laboratory :
>Knowledge Networks and Information Society
>ENSTA
>32 Blvd Victor 75739 PARIS cedex FRANCE
>Phone: (33)1 45 52 60 19  Fax: (33)1 45 52 52 82
>muguet at ensta.fr   http://www.ensta.fr/~muguet
>
>MDPI Foundation Open Access Journals
>Associate Publisher
>http://www.mdpi.org   http://www.mdpi.net
>muguet at mdpi.org       muguet at mdpi.net
>
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