14 – 16 April  2004

SIDS Preparatory meeting
These first three days are dedicated to the preparations for the Mauritius International Meeting on SIDS and will adopt decisions on the draft Provisional Agenda and Organisation for Work for the Mauritius International Meeting.

Major groups’ participation is in accordance with the established rules of procedure of the CSD. No special arrangements have been made for an integrated participation of major groups in this segment of CSD-12. 

Seating arrangements: the seating arrangements during the official sessions of the preparatory meeting follow WSSD and CSD-11 practice and include seats for all the nine major group sectors.

19 – 30 April 2004

Seating arrangements: unless otherwise stated, the seating arrangements for the sessions listed below follow WSSD and CSD-11 practice and include seats for all the nine major group sectors (one in the front with microphone and one behind).

Statements during the Opening Session and the other sessions including statements related to the Overall Review (mornings of Monday 19 April and Wednesday 21 April as well as the afternoon of Friday 23 April): Major groups statements will be sprinkled throughout the three sessions. The likely scenario, based on the number of requests for statements being made in each of these sessions, includes a minimum of two major groups per session that will be given the opportunity to make a two to three minutes statement of a general nature. 

The organising partners, in consultation with the various caucuses, are invited to submit their list of speakers and dates to the Secretariat preferably before 18 April 2004. 

Major Groups Participation in Regional and Thematic Discussions: each of the thematic and regional discussions will attempt to include at least two major groups’ interventions and ensure the successful delivery of the new integrated approach for major groups inclusion in the CSD implementation cycle.

Mechanisms for the selection and identification of representatives who will be sitting in the major groups seats and asking for the floor: 

• The CSD-12 major groups organizing partners have been asked to identify experts and match them to the topics for these segments (a provisional list should have been provided to the Secretariat by April 14, to be updated on a continuously basis). 
  

• Caucuses: major groups can also channel their interest in participating in a given session through the various issue or major groups sector Caucuses (a full list of the caucuses and their scheduled meeting time is available by clicking here) .

The Secretariat, based on the information received from the major groups organising partners in consultation with the caucuses, will compile a list of representatives interested to participate in the interactive discussion in each of the CSD-12 sessions. Such lists will be available to the Chair of a given session so that he/she will know who is representing the major groups in that room and:

• call upon them

• give them the floor upon the raising of their flag, 

• give them the floor based on their comment/question submitted to the Chair through filling in the “Request Slips ” * in the event this system is being used during that session.

Interventions made during this sessions must be very brief (2-3 minutes max)

More specific details on how each of the meetings will run will be provided by the Chair at the beginning of every session. 

Interactive Discussions on Tuesday 20 April (10.00 – 1.00, Conf. Room 2): This segment will kick off a week of discussions focusing on more operational aspects of the thematic issue areas, and presents major groups with the opportunity to introduce their discussion papers. The structure of this segment (chaired by Vice-Chair Ms. Eva Tomič) will encompass three “blocks” of time comprised of three major group presentations of five minutes each followed by approximately 20 minutes of response and questions; an interactive discussion among all participants during the remaining 40 minutes; and a five-minute closing commentary provided by the Vice Chair. Major groups will be seated in the front rows during this session.

The identification of speakers among the major groups will be coordinated through the organising partners and the caucuses, and should be communicated to the Secretariat a day before the session.

High Level Segment (29 April 3.00 – 4.30 pm): The likely format for this session is that major group speakers would be allotted three minutes per intervention, preferably interspersed through the approach being suggested for the 20 April am session comprising three “blocks” of time of three minutes each. Interactive discussion should follow each of the three blocks presentations (total of 9 minutes per block – followed by approximately 15 or 20 minutes interactive discussion). 
During this session, the major groups’ seats will be moved forward in the front rows (one seat at the microphone plus one additional seat as during the CSD-11 High-level Segment). 

Closing session (30 April afternoon): Major groups will be given the opportunity to react to the Chair’s Summary and make statements of 2-3 minutes each during the Closing Plenary.

Note: Be reminded that the nature of major groups' inputs and interventions should be in line with CSD-11 decisions for the Review Session: report and share major group’ result oriented activities (lessons learned, case studies, best practices, constraints, challenges and opportunities). 

Participation in parallel activities:

Partnership Fair: 
Major Groups’ are expected to actively participate in the CSD-12 Partnership Fair and its related programme. 

Learning Centre
The CSD Secretariat develop a programme of activities for the Learning Centre in close collaboration with stakeholders including Major Groups, designed to impart knowledge and build capacity in areas relevant to the Review Session. Major Groups and other CSD-12 participants are expected to actively take part in the planned activities.

Side Events
Side Events will continue to be an important and complementary element of the CSD. Requests from Major Groups and other stakeholders have been processed by the CSD Secretariat in accordance with previous practice. Major Groups and other CSD-12 participants are expected to actively take part in the planned activities.

Roundtable Room
Major groups, as any other CSD-12 participant, can request a slot in the Roundtable Room foons between and among participants. 

*Request Slips: Whenever possible, paper request slips briefly defining the issue or question to be addressed would be collected by the Secretariat from anyone requesting the floor and given to the Chair to help facilitate a more coherent discussion. The information contained in the request slip include: name, title, delegation of belonging, question/theme to comment. This method was used last during CSD-11 HLS and proved to be successful.  

Back to Main Page