DRAFT MINUTES OF THE ISC – TUESDAY, 4 September 2001, from 11:00 pm

 

1. ATTENDANCE AND APOLOGIES

Present ISC members: Berhane, Myrna, Albert, Stella T., Palmira, Alberto, Mirek, Mercia, Paul, Khader, Vera, Jalida, Thendiwe, Jerald (for Nimalka), Margaret

Ex-officio: Moshe, Abe

2. WELCOME AND OPENING

Berhane Ras-Work took the chairing the meeting.

3. AGENDA OF THE MEETING

The agenda was adopted as follows:

4. The NGO Forum final document

5. WCAR

6. ISC press conference

7. Evaluation meeting

4. THE NGO FORUM FINAL DOCUMENTS

4.1 Vera explained the situation with the introductory note the wording of which had been proposed by her, accepted by the Drafting Committee and then replaced by a few ISC members and non-members late at night in her absence. Palmira explained that they found two serious omissions which had to be corrected.

Sunila, for the Drafting Committee, apologized for the unwanted omissions but complained that DrC was seriously hampered in its work by some ISC members insisting to make further changes proposed by the Palestinian caucus in the already adopted text (chapter Anti-Semitism) which the DrC refused to do and walked out of the office.

She confirmed that the printed version contains the full text adopted by the final plenary session. All the omissions have been put back into the document. Therefore, ISC agrees to validate the document which has been printed as it is. Just sub-editing will be done (renumbering pages and paragraphs ad layout).

A proposal to attach an introductory note written by ISC for a future use was defeated 2:7.

    1. Myrna and volunteers will draft a letter asking Ms. Robinson for a meeting with ISC.

    2. The document will be distributed in as many copies as possible, tomorrow also in other languages. It will be presented by Myrna to the WCAR Plenary (written memorandum) and handed the President of WCAR, H.E. Nkosazana Dlamini-Zula with a request to be distributed for the governmental delegations.

    3. Moshe will put it on the Web and give it in electronic form to Mirek who will send it to the UNESCO Conference in Geneva.

5. WCAR

As the governments at WCAR are going to accept language by consensus only, many NGOs’ issues will probably be lost. They will remain only in the NGO Declaration and Programme of Action for the next 5 years.

6. ISC PRESS CONFERENCE

Myrna, Albert, Abe and a representative of the Drafting Committee will be on the panel. Hundreds of copies of the NGO document have to be distributed to the journalists, by now only available in English. The translators will be equipped with 3 PCs and a printer in the ISC office in DEC.

  1. EVALUATION MEETING

    1. An outline for the evaluation meeting was presented by Palmira. She will distribute it to the ISC members for future discussion. It should be also distributed to all the caucuses to give us feedback and reflection. Palmira was thanked for a good work.

    2. The meeting planned for three days in October with ISC, UN Liaison Office, SANGOCO and Secretariat (ca 20 people) needs funding.

    3. The question of the future of ISC (whether, if yes then its composition, selection criteria, roles, etc.) should be discussed. Mirek pointed out that such a decision cannot be made by the ISC itself but by the constituencies who elected and mandated it, ie. by the regional CCs.

  2. NEXT MEETINGS

The joint dinner of ISC and DrC will take place on Tuesday 8 pm, Secretariat will tell where.

The next ISC meeting will take place on Wednesday, 5th September, at 3 pm in the ISC office at DEC.