[hr-wsis] Some background on Civil Society organization

[Meryem Marzouki <marzouki@ras.eu.org>]

Some background on civil society organization.

Many NGOs and other civil society organizations have decided to attend 
PrepCom1, without knowing each other. Some were however already 
organized as coalitions, like the CRIS campaign (CRIS stands for 
Communication Rights in the Information Society, see  
http://www.crisinfo.org/), the gender caucus which is participating to 
many summit, etc. Some NGOs are used to UN Summit, others (like mine, 
IRIS) are not.

Mainly thanks to the CRIS campaign members efforts, NGOs have started to 
organize themselves during PrepCom1, forming what we've called the 
"Civil Society Plenary" (CSP), because of the plenary sessions that we 
have held for organizing ourselves on a dayly basis in Geneva.
This CSP was regurlary provided with the work and documents drafted by 
two sub-committees formed by the CS, namely a sub-committee on rules of 
procedure and participation and on content and themes. The CSP then 
discussed the documents, approved them or not, etc.

During PrepCom1, the CSP has worked a lot and has provided documents 
commenting government work and decisions, and providing alternative 
demands. See mainly:
- On Rules of procedures and participation:
July 5th. Civil Society Plenary Statement on Rules of Procedure, 
Accreditation and Modalities for NGO participation. Final Statement 
(endorsed my more than 50 NGOs)
(http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/CS-final-July5.pdf)

- On content and themes:
There has been a document on that, but not endorsed by many 
organizations, and I cannot find it :-)
My organization has not endorsed it.
Other documents are available at: http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/

At the end of PrepCom1, and after that on the mailing list of the CSP 
(https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/wsis-prep1), the following 
decisions have been made:
- Forming thematic and regional caucuses
- Forming a Civil Society Coordination Group (CSCG) with representatives 
from caucuses and subcommittees
See a description at: 
http://cris.comunica.org/documents/cscg/member_summary.pdf

Thanks to this organization, it has been possible to provide a more 
comprehensive CSP contribution to the "informal meeting on content and 
themes" held in Geneva, mid-September.
This is an important document, which will serve as a basis on our future 
work. The document is here:
http://www.iris.sgdg.org/actions/smsi/cscg-wsis-content-120902.pdf

Now, as PrepCom2 is approaching, we are in the process of preparing a 
document from civil society input, on which I'll ask you for comments.

--
Meryem Marzouki - http://www.iris.sgdg.org
IRIS - Imaginons un réseau Internet solidaire
294 rue de Charenton - 75012 Paris
Tel/Fax. +33(0)144749239