Members of the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (WGEC) of the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) met for the second time in Geneva on 6-8 November 2013. The Working Group was created to examine the mandate of the World Summit on the Information Society regarding Enhanced Cooperation as contained in the Tunis Agenda.
Over the three-day meeting, WGEC members went through input from 69 different respondents and discussed each in an attempt to reach consensus on the kind of recommendations that could be included in the group’s final report.
The input was generated from a questionnaire developed during the group’s first meeting. The CSTD Secretariat under the leadership of the WGEC Chair, Peter Major, provided an analysis of the responses that summarized the 1000+ pages of responses into a 27-page document to help the WGEC kick off its second meeting smoothly.
The summary document categorizes the replies to the 18 questions of the questionnaire into five groups:
- Replies related to the implementation of the Tunis Agenda;
- Replies related to public policy issue and possible mechanisms;
- Replies to the role of stakeholders;
- Replies to the role of developing countries;
- Replies to barriers for participation in enhanced cooperation.
It was clear from the discussions that while there was convergence among WGEC members on the last two groups of replies in relation to role of developing countries and barriers for participation, there was quite variant views on the first three groups particularly with regard to whether new mechanisms were needed to implement Enhanced Cooperation as set forth in the Tunis Agenda.
The discussions demonstrated the dire need for further analysis before embarking on putting recommendations forward. There was an agreement among WGEC members that a “mapping exercise” was necessary in order to move forward. The mapping exercise is not a new idea, it was proposed by many stakeholders in different fora over the past 18 months. The mapping exercise should examine the existing mechanisms and processes in relation to Internet public policy issues, point to the main actors in such mechanisms and processes, and identify where there are gaps. WGEC members agreed to establish an ad-hoc group (Correspondence Group) to carry out the task of the mapping exercise. The Correspondence Group will be working online, and will submit its final document for consideration by the WGEC by the 12th of February 2014. The WGEC will have its third and last meeting between 24 and 28 February 2014, where WGEC members will be drafting the final report.
The WGEC has been established by the Chair of the CSTD, pursuant to Resolution 67/195 adopted by the General Assembly in December 2012. WGEC [PDF, 103 KB] consists of 22 member states and respectively five representatives from the private sector, civil society, technical and academic communities, and intergovernmental and international organizations. The final report of WGEC will be submitted to the CSTD 17th session in May 2014, and the final decision on the process will be taken by Member States at the 69th UN General Assembly towards the end of 2014.
