[Telecentres] report from Group of Friends of the Chair meeting

Mon Oct 25 12:44:23 BST 2004

Below is a report from the first meeting of the "Group of Friends of the 
Chair" (GFC) held in Geneva on Friday 22 October 2004. The group was 
formed at the last Prepcom meeting to sort out the drafting process of 
the final documents to come out of the Tunis WSIS next year. The report 
was jointly prepared and drafted by Wolfgang Kleinwächter, Ramin Kaweh 
and Viola Krebs, and in agreement with Renate Bloem. Please note at the 
end that there is list of action items for civil society caucuses, 
including our group, if we'd like to submit ideas. -ac

Report

1st Meeting of the Group of the Friends of the Chair (GFC I)
Geneva, 20 October 2004

Discussion on Annex 1 – Group of Friends of Chair

1. The GFC was established by PrepCom1. Its aim is to facilitate the 
drafting process for the final documents of WSIS II. It is not an 
official “negotiating body” but it can be expected that the GFC drafts 
will constitute the basis for the forthcoming WSIS II negotiations.
2. Although the GFC is not an “official body”, its composition and rules 
follow more or less the traditional WSIS procedures. It is composed by 
36 members (3 Eastern Europe, 6 Asia, 6 Western Europe and other States 
, 6 Latin America, 6 Africa, 5 regional coordinators, 2 Host Countries 
plus as ex officio members the Secretary General of ITU and the UN). 
Other governments and non-governmental stakeholders are invited to 
participate as “observers”.
3. GFC I discussed the schedule and the methods of work of the GFC as 
well as the outline for the planned final WSIS II documents.
4. Concerning the methods of work the GFC I followed the proposal of the 
Chair. According to his proposal, members and observers will be invited 
to send proposals in electronic form to the Chair. On the basis of the 
proposals the chair will generate a draft, which will constitute the 
platform for the negotiations during PrepCom2 (Geneva, February 2005).

Discussion on Annex 2 – Chair’s note to the members of the GFC

5. Three  issues became the subject of a controversial debate: a. who 
can send in proposals, b. whether the proposals should be published or 
closed, and c. whether Internet Governance should be addressed by the GFC.
a. The question was whether proposals can be submitted by GFC members, 
or by GFC members and governmental observers, or by all stakeholders, 
including civil society and private sector. In his final remarks the 
Chair made clear, that “everybody” is invited to send “proposals” to the 
Chair.
b. Pakistan, supported by Iran and Egypt, raised the issue of “limited 
circulation” of documents (governments only), but the Chair proposed a 
flexible system, which allows the presentation both of open and closed 
proposals. Spain, France, Canada and the Netherlands supported the 
circulation of all documents. The Chair proposed that each proposal 
should indicate whether the proposal is “open” or “closed”. It will 
depend to a high degree upon the flexibility of the Chair how to handle 
this issue, which has a potential for conflict. If a government wants to 
publish its proposal on the GFC Website, it can indicate this wish to 
the Chair. If a government wants to send in a closed proposal, it also 
has to indicate this to the Chair. Civil Society and Private Sector can 
also send in  proposals.
c. Pakistan mentioned that Internet Governance, as one of the core 
issues, would be appropriate to be addressed in the GFC’s drafting 
process. The Chair and other delegations were less inclined to do so. It 
was decided that issues of Internet Governance and Finances has been 
excluded so far and will not be part of the GFC meetings, since there is 
a special working group and a task force dealing with those issues. But 
a few governments expressed their interest to discuss incoming reports 
by the two groups also in the forthcoming GFC meetings.

Discussion on Annex 3 – Chair’s non-paper

6. Concerning the structure of the planned Tunis Documents, the GFC 
agreed on the following principles:
a. WSIS II should be linked as close as possible to the development 
goals under the Millennium Declaration (six weeks before the Tunis 
Summit, the MDG+5 Heads of State Summit will take place in New York);
b. Geneva and Tunis should be seen as one process, that means the Tunis 
documents are complementary to the Geneva documents and the consensus, 
which was reached in Geneva, should not be reopened for new negotiations.
c. The following points were mentioned to be taken into consideration: 
freedom of expression, cultural diversity, from the information society 
to the knowledge society, practical implementation of programs, ICT and 
the environment, the digital divide.
7. The planned document should consist of two parts: i) a short but 
precise “Political Chapeau” and ii) an “Operational Part”.
The “Operational Part” should have four chapters:
a. From Word to Actions: A Summit of Sustainable Solutions (Stocktaking 
/ with a focus on implementation)
b. Financial Mechanisms
c. Internet Governance
d. The way ahead
8. The debate circled around the questions whether there should be one 
or two documents, what the title of the document could be (“Tunis 
Charter” or something like this) and whether this should be a 
governmental document or a document, endorsed by all stakeholders.

Next Steps

9. All proposals for GFC II have to be sent in an electronic form until 
2 November 2004 to the Latvian Mission and with a CC to the WSIS 
Executive Secretariat, and also indicating whether the proposal is open 
or closed. The Chair will send a first draft and synthesis of the 
proposals by 10 or 11 November 2004. On the morning of 15 November the 
GFC will examine and reflect the draft in the morning; in the afternoon 
all stakeholders will be invited to join the group. On morning of 16 
November there will be a joint meeting and an interactive dialogue 
between the GFC and the TFFM; in the afternoon the drafting among the 
GFC and observer delegations will continue.
10. GFC will have three more meetings until PrepCom2. There will be 
closed and open meetings. Next meetings are scheduled for November 
15-16, December 16-17 and January 10-11.

General Observations

11. GFC gave both governments and non-governmental observers the right 
to speak. There was no real differentiation among the representatives in 
the room. Everybody could speak. There were four interventions by Civil 
Society and two interventions by the Private Sector.  . Speakers from 
Civil Society raised indirectly the question of “negotiations rights”. 
They pointed out hat if civil society in a multi-stakeholder process is 
expected to  join the planned “Tunis Consensus”, they have to have a 
visible impact in the negotiation process. Otherwise the “Geneva Model” 
– i.e.  a complementary CS document - would reappear.
12. A few governmental delegations explicitly welcomed the participation 
of the civil society and the private sector and expressed their 
appreciated for their contributions, these were Netherlands / EU, Canada 
and Switzerland.
13.  The whole GFC I meeting was held on a cooperative and constructive 
atmosphere.  ITU Secretary General Utsumi opened the meeting with a 
short welcome speech.< The meeting was attended by about 150 
representatives, mainly from the  governmental missions in Geneva and 
and intergovernmental organisations like UNESCO, ITU, ILO and the 
Council of Europe. There were about five participants from Civil Society 
and two from the private sector. No official list of participants has 
been circulated.

CS Next Steps

14. For Civil Society, it is important to move forward in the following 
two steps:
a. Generate “proposals” within the caucuses and working groups and to 
channel these proposals via C&T and the CS Plenary to the GFC Chair by 2 
November 2004.
b. Develop a mid-term strategy, which has to include options for a 
separate CS Tunis Document. It would also be required to think about  an 
evaluation of the CS Geneva Declaration.
15. It is recommended to use the forthcoming UNICTTF Meeting in Berlin 
in November and the ICANN Meeting in Cape Town in December to discuss 
strategies and next steps.

Notes written by Ramin Kaweh, Wolfgang Kleinwächter, Viola Krebs (in 
agreement with Renata Bloem) – 25 October 2004.

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Andy Carvin
Program Director
EDC Center for Media & Community
acarvin @ edc . org
http://www.digitaldividenetwork.org
Blog: http://www.andycarvin.com
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