WSIS Prepcom III
Sub-committee B
Summary: Governments began with para 5 of the draft Chapter 1. They agreed to use the Group of Friends of the Chair text (WSIS-II/PC-3/DOC/06) for Paras 10, 11 and 29. The completed negotiations up to para 14. They hope to finish consideration of Chapter 1 tomorrow, moving on to Chapter 4 and the Political Chapeau. They plan to have a new consolidated text of Chapter 1 prepared on Friday.
WSIS Prepcom III Afternoon Subcommittee B 21.9.05
Monitoring from 15.00 – 17.00
Notes by Jane Johnson, WFUNA
As usual we were starting with interventions from observers.
Divina Frau Meigs and Karen Mangnall, spoke on behalf of CS on text drafted by C+T Subgroup B . Parminder Singh was to speak later on our wish to keep the debate open in reference to especially paras 10, 11 and 29 in all docs. As events unfolded this became obsolete and Bertrand De La Chapelle, spoke to the new situation.
Paragraph 5
DT 2:
Egyptian submission in brackets
Malawi submission was added
DT 6:
Informal Coalition on financing and Gender Caucus was added
Youth Caucus submission was sent to chapter 2
Dominican Republic submission was accepted but with last sentence in square brackets
Paragraph 6, 7, 8 and 9
Went to redrafting and resubmission by the chair for later consideration and will include inputs from today's sessions and written input handed in to the chair.
There was an agreement to use standard phrase as reference to the MDG's (phrase agreed on previously and reintroduced by the US ).
Then – from para 10 onwards - the committee decided to use the GFC report as reference paper. This was in many ways unfortunate for CS, first of all because the objections made to the alterations of paras 10, 11, and 29, on CS involvement, implementation and follow-up, were not taken into consideration and the language in the GFC alterations is a lot weaker in it's commitment to multi-stakeholder participation and specific implementation strategies.
Paragraph 10
Following this the new paragraph 10 was accepted as written.
Ghana suggested to add their para 10 submission to DT 6 to the new para 10. This suggestion had not yet been decided when the monitors left.
Paragraph 11
At 17, the Holy See was adding to para 11, after Tunis phases of WSIS…according to the principle of subsidiarity.
WSIS Prepcom III Afternoon Subcommittee B 21.9.05
Monitoring from 1700-1800
Notes by Rik Panganiban, CONGO
They added after WSIS “according to the principle of subsidiarity, at the national, regional and international levels.”
UK suggested to make para consistent with GA resolution 57/270B. UK will submit their text in writing to the chair.
UK proposed the addition of “bearing in mind the importance of the enabling environment” after “implementation framework.”
Brazil suggested “stakeholders” instead of “civil society and business entities”
Australia added “when deemed suitable” to Para 12d.
In para 13C, added “and others” to “civil society and business entities”
In Para 13C, Switzerland replaced “essential” with “necessary.”
Switzerland suggested changing “could” to “should.” UK supports.
Added after “information exchange” “the creation of knowledge.”
Switzerland notes that some delegation don't want an implementation and follow-up process beyond Tunis. Switzerland, Japan, Iran, Saudi Arabia and Arab group wanted 14C to stay as it is. US and Canada requested deletion of reference to particular institutions.
Ghana wished to add 14f reference to “Global Alliance”
Chair
We will undertake work on para 6-9 as well as what we have talked about today. Then on Friday we can look at the new chapter 1.
Tomorrow we shall discuss any additional aspects of Chapter 1 which we have not discussed yet. Then we shall move on to Chapter 4. And then move on to the Political Chapeau.