1. 3 rd Washington City Group Meeting Comments on the Governance Proposal for the Washington City Group Meeting (Brussels,19 th -20 th February 2004) by Helen Nviiri

2. Membership – page 1  Membership needs to be expanded to cover agencies responsible for disability issues  Why? They act as advocates for data collection and must therefore appreciate the outcome of the meetings  Include a list of current members by country and institution

3. Responsibilities – page 2  Need to target developing countries to actively participate since they lag behind in terms of methodology and concept definition  Evidence from UNSD to support the above

4. Operating principles – page 2  What happens when techn. support is sought from the group? The person should be nominated by the steering committee  There is need to build capacity by conducting regional workshops, basically to practically implement the decisions of the meeting thru training.

5. Organisational Structure – page 3  Chairperson of the meeting should be included. It is not clear whether this is the host for the meeting  Responsibilities of executive secretariat: we need to add a statement that a report of the meeting will be provided to the membership list.

6. Page 4  c 1. composition of meeting host and planning committee, the planning committee should play a rotational role taking into consideration the major regions

7. Page 5  F)presentation of WCG report to the UN Statistical Commission  It is proposed that the chair to the steering committee should be assigned this role if at all the host in this case is not regarded as the chairperson