Remmy Nweke
5 November 2004
Lagos — A Swiss national, Mr. Charles Geiger, has been named the leader of the new team to organise the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
Secretary-General of the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), Mr. Yoshio Utusumi, the agency charged with organizing the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), has announced the appointment of a team to organize the second phase of WSIS, slated to hold in Tunis next year.
Champion Infotel recalls that the second phase would be held in Tunis between November 16 and 18 November 2005, while the first phase was held in Geneva last December.
Making the announcement, Mr. Utsumi, who also is the Secretary General of WSIS, said that Mr. Charles Geiger has been appointed Executive Director (ED) of the WSIS Executive Secretariat, which is based at ITU Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
In cooperation with the intergovernmental WSIS Bureau, the new ED is charged with the overall planning and implementation of the organization of the summit including its preparatory process.
Mr. Geiger, who was seconded by his government to the Executive Secretariat in 2001 has been serving as Assistant Executive Director since January 2004. He has assumed duty since November 1, 2004 in his new office.
Before now, Mr. Geiger held senior positions in the Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs and at the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC).
Other members of the team include three senior officials of ITU, namely Mr. Art Levin, chief of the ITU coordination, External Relations and Communication Units, Dr. Tim Kelly, Chief of ITU Strategy and Policy Unit, and Mr. Fernando Lagrana, Executive of ITU Telecom.
Charged with the development of ITU's overall strategy for the summit and coordinating its participation, Mr. Levin will be in charge of strategic relations with the High-Level Summit Organizing Committee (HLSOC) and will lead the negotiations for the host country agreement.
For Dr. Kelly, who has been saddled with the preparation of all input documents and provision of support to the Group of Friends of the Chair, he is also responsible for stocktaking of activities undertaken at national, regional and international levels to implement the Plan of Action adopted at the Geneva phase.
Responsibility for preparation and coordination of the necessary logistics to be deployed for such a large-scale, high profile summit will be under the care of Mr. Lagrana.
A press statement from WSIS secretariat, said that Working with Member States and Information Society partners, the organizing team will help build on the momentum gained in Geneva to create the framework for an equitable Information Society.
Based on the principles crafted and agreed in Geneva and the Plan of Action that define the top-level objectives to create an all-inclusive and equitables Information Society, the task of the second phase of the summit will be to refine some of the broader goals and come out with specifics needed to translate them into measurable results.
WSIS phase two is expected to provide solutions on how to implement and follow up the Geneva decisions by stakeholders at the national, regional and international levels and complete the unfinished business in Geneva on Internet Governance and Information and Communications Technology (ICT) Financing.
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