4/9/03

These articles originally appeared on we!, our weekly newsletter.

The Civil Society Bureau (CSB) was created during Prepcom-2, the role of which is to facilitate civil society participation in the WSIS process.

The CSB's process of creation was not a smooth one. According to the Civil Society website of the WSIS (http://www.geneva2003.de), much criticism about the general concept of a Civil Society Bureau was raised during PrepCom-2, with many people expressing doubts over the necessity of a Bureau, as well as scepticism about creating hierarchical structures. In general, however, the Civil Society Plenary (CS Plenary) was prepared to allow the CSB a real-life test. It was decided to create the CSB on an interim-basis and to re-think and re-define its role after the PrepCom.

After long and heated debates during the first week of PrepCom-2, the Civil Society Bureau was finally endorsed by the CS Plenary on 28 February 2003. The role of the CSB is to facilitate civil society participation in the WSIS process. But the CSB recognises the CS Plenary as still the highest decision and policy-making body of Civil Society at the WSIS. Thus, the CSB will report regularly to the CS Plenary. Furthermore, according to the CSB draft document (dated 27 February 2003), the CSB is not responsible for the substance and will not take position regarding content issues on behalf of the families. The CSB, thus, aims to facilitate CS participation and to serve as the "connector"/facilitator of all the civil society structures and mechanisms.

The "families" discussed above constitute the CSB which are seen to represent different constituencies within global civil society, namely: academia and education (includes students, teachers, professional schools, researchers, education movements, etc.); science and technology; media (includes broadcasters, regulators, press, journalist associations, NGO media, freedom of expression associations, etc.); creators and active promoters of culture (e.g. music, literature, etc.); cities and local authorities; trade unions; parliamentarians; NGOs (entities with legal status); youth; gender; volunteers; indigenous; disabled; social movements (ad hoc movements without legal status); multi-stakeholder partnerships; philanthropic institutions; think-tanks; African region; Latin American region; and West Asia region, including the Middle East. Each of these families has been encouraged to nominate an organisational focal point (with one person and one alternate) to constitute this Bureau.

Even with the gathering of "families" of the CSB during PrepCom-2, civil society participants assess the CSB to still be very vague around the edges.

There are concerns that these "families" are arbitrarily chosen (rising from the original 10 families to 22 families without the process of expansion clearly defined), not to mention they are hugely overlapping, varying enormously in (potential) size and structure.

What does this mean to women who try to engender the WSIS process? For one, it might create confusion as to where women should sit (or perhaps stand) in terms of working to having the feminist agenda incorporated in the WSIS. This is especially true for those who have not fully participated in most of the WSIS process/events. As this vagueness could create confusion, the confusion could very much motivate exclusion, and discourage further participation.

Nonetheless, for the women's networks, institutions and organisations that are still encouraged to participate in the WSIS process, it is not yet too late. Efforts can still be done in engendering the process, and perhaps to start with, those who have been there from the beginning can be contacted for further information. A list of past activities, including the organisations/networks (and their contact numbers) who have been active since PrepCom-1, can be accessed at the link provided below. For a detailed charting of what has been done/achieved, the NGO Gender Strategies Working Group website can be of big help. Please access http://www.genderit.org. Also, the WSIS Asia website can be of help for civil society would-be participants who would like to assess what CS activities have been done in the region. Please access http://www.wsisasia.org.