| [email protected] on Fri, 5 Dec 2003 08:38:58 +0100 (CET) |
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| <nettime> The most interesting WSIS document |
The "A" list excludes Princesses One of the most interesting documents to come out of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) is not one of the many drafts of principles or action plan for Tunis 2005 nor any of the manifestos, white papers, petitions, background studies, or visionware (the latter refers to forecasts setting forth the world as it might be: "all children will be using camera phones to construct their own learning environment; every school will be connected to the Internet; every farmer will have access to market prices; all government information will be...<and so on>"). The document in question is the draft list of participants who will be admitted to some, not all, events in this carnival. The 229 page document cautions "This list does not include VVIPs (Heads of State, Heads of Government, Vice-Presidents, Crown Princes and Princesses)" but it contains a fascinating look at who has been chosen to represent your nation at the summit. More than half then entries are for non-profits or NGO's which are said to constitute the Civil Society. The uncivil society will be in Geneva; they will also be taking part but outside the highly guarded walls of Geneva's Palexpo and other conference venues, and they are not on the list. There are also large numbers of UN attendees from all the related divisions and specialized agencies: ILO, UNIFEM, UNDP, etc, a few other international organizations like the development banks, and then commercial firms. Here's the breakdown: There are about 40-60 names per page. State representatives: 61 pages UN and specialized agencies: 24 pages Other Intl. organizations: 5 pages NGOs: 122 pages Business: 17 pages Total: 229 pages I know a few people who are attending, so I began looking at the country lists. The US has 53 delegates, all but one from government agencies. I found the librarians and USAID employees I know. Most of the small nations have small contingents--but not all. No official reps. from North Korea, Somalia, Guinea, Sierra Leone. LAO P.D.R. has one rep. Maldives has two. Timor has one Tonga has two Malta has nine Kyrgyzstan has 33 reps including two presidential photographers Malaysia tops the list with 129. Canada is close behind with 94 plus dozens more flying under the government- funded IDRC banner. There are some special organizations that have quasi-government status like Palestine (7) Knights of Malta whose geographic domain is about 3 acres (1+ hectares) has 5 reps. l'Agence intergouvernementale de la Francophonie: 35 (they promote French culture and language in France and former colonies) However, the long list of NGOs makes me wonder, "What do these groups do from day to day?" Some might ask that of the government reps too. I can recognize some but many others are obscure. I found many organizations providing a "flag of convenience" for attendees from other foundations, universities, the street who needed to have some official affiliation in order to take part. A sampling of the NGOs: Cameroon Assn. of Women Engineers African Youth for Transparency <[email protected]> Amiti� Pologne Congo Amnesty International ATTAC APRIL - Association for Promotion and Research in Libre Computing Article 19 Art-Law Foundation Axe Formation Benfam Institute of Natural Living (with 50+ 'reps' with Iranian surnames sharing [email protected]) Anyone know what they do? Forum of the Friends of the Net Institute for Planetary Synthesis International Possibilities Unlimited Internet Society Wallonie Les indigents et les avocats face aux procedures judiciaires devant la cour supreme de justice Molecular Diversity Preservation International Oppressed Society Deliverance Organization Temple of Understanding Terre sans frontieres Transnational Radical Party Utmost Caring World The largest delegation of all was from the World Electronic Media Forum with more than 550 attendees! What was surprising was the small size of the business sector --Hitachi, Alcatel, Cisco, Intl. Chamber of Commerce. Microsoft was not represented but I'm sure the World Bank was please to sponsor an African listed as "Mr Jacques BONJAWO, Chairman Board of Directors, Microsoft" So perhaps the influence of the business sector will not be that great if they are this disinterested in the event. In any case, you can follow the action via dailysummit.net, a web log sponsored by the British Council. Steve Cisler [email protected] Go here to search for someone by name, organization, or country: http://www.itu.int/cgi-bin/htsh/wsis/evrs.finder.wsis03 You can also download the 564 Kb pdf file. Adobe web site has a tool if you want to convert it to html. The cached html version on Google did not display well on my browser. Nigerian 419 authors and unsolicited electronic mail experts will no doubt extract the names and emails from the document. Look for some new and exciting offers in your mailbox if you are on this list. -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web - Check your email from the web at http://mail2web.com/ . # distributed via <nettime>: no commercial use without permission # <nettime> is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: [email protected] and "info nettime-l" in the msg body # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [email protected]