IWTC WOMEN'S GLOBALNET #217
Initiatives and Activities of Women Worldwide
By Anne S. Walker

January 17, 2003

WSIS UPDATE: WHERE ARE THE WOMEN AT THE ASIA/PACIFIC REGIONAL MEETING?
also
CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION IN WSIS PROCESS THREATENED:

Some Observations by Cheekay Cinco, Gender Evaluation Methodology
Regional Coordinator, APC/WNSP, <www.apcwomen.org/gem>

Day 1 / 13 January 2003.
It would be great to be able to be positive about the Asia/Pacific WSIS
Regional Meeting, currently underway in Tokyo. But a day at this
meeting, after attending three panel sessions and listening to about
twenty-one panelists, keeping positive gets tough. For example, less
than 20% of the panelists in the six panel sessions were women:

Here are the facts:
Panel I: 6 men, 0 women
Panel II: 5 men. 1 women
Panel III (1): 5 men, 2 women
Panel III (2): 5 men, 2 women
Panel IV: 8 men
Panel V (NGO Panel): 3 women, 4 men
Percentage of women participating on panels - 19.51%

Out of 11 Moderators, Chairs and Rapporteurs of the six panels, only 3
were women (27%). Two out of these three were from the NGO panel. There
were no women moderators or chairs, except the moderator and chair of
the NGO panel (Ubonrat Siriyuvasak).

But more daunting and alarming than these numbers was the fact that
there was hardly any mention of gender or women in any of the panel
sessions. Gender issues were not substantively discussed in the two
panel sessions I attended, and based on feedback from other women
participants, the same could be said about the parallel sessions. The
exception was the NGO-organized panel "Towards a More Inclusive
Information Society: Asian Perspectives", which provided equal space for
gender issues.

CIVIL SOCIETY PARTICIPATION IN WSIS PROCESS THREATENED.
Equally alarming are recent developments in the overall process of the
Asia/Pacific Regional Meeting that threaten civil society participation
and intervention and greatly minimize the transparency of the process.

(Editor’s note. Some government representatives at the meeting in Tokyo
have objected to the participation of non-governmental organizations in
the drafting committee, which was formed to facilitate the
accomplishment of official output of the WSIS Asia Pacific Regional
Meeting).

The role NGOs and civil society have played in WSIS planning meetings
has been to offer alternative, critical and more progressive
perspectives on the topic at hand by representing the interests of those
who are frequently marginalized in the community. NGO and civil society
perspectives and participation have been particularly important in the
WSIS planning process because other major stakeholders, such as private
corporations, are mostly in agreement with governments, creating a
market-driven, homogenous and gender-neutral view of the Information
Society. If NGOs lose their place at the negotiating table here at the
WSIS Asia/Pacific Regional Meeting, gender issues and women will be made
even more invisible at the World Summit.
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