<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;">On 19 Jan 2014, at 5:37 pm, Jeremy Malcolm <<a href="mailto:jeremy@ciroap.org">jeremy@ciroap.org</a>> wrote:<br><div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii">
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I am offering this as the basis for a proposed joint submission to the IGF on proposals for the 2014 meeting. I will put it up on a pad for amendments, but I'm mailing it around for initial comments first.</div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Thanks to Fouad, Tracy, Norbert, Matthew and Avri for valuable comments, both here and in the pad at <a href="http://igcaucus.org:9001/p/igf-2014">http://igcaucus.org:9001/p/igf-2014</a>. Endeavouring to incorporate these, here is a proposed revised version of the joint submission to the IGF on proposals for the 2014 meeting:</div><div><br></div></div><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div>The IGF has always struck a balance between continuity and incremental
improvement in its themes and format. But overall, over nine years
since the first meeting in 2006, whilst the names of themes and
sessions formats have changed, there has been relatively little change
in their substance. The IGF is still a discontinuous, face-to-face,
four day meeting, composed of overlapping main sessions and workshops.
For those who do not admit of gaps in current Internet governance
arrangements or do not desire for those gaps to be filled by a
natively multi-stakeholder institution, the IGF's resistance to change
is neither a problem, nor a coincidence.</div></div><div><div><br></div></div><div><div>But over the years as flaws in present arrangements have become apparent, the recognition of governance gaps has become more widespread and inspired more urgency for significant reform that would also better address developing country concerns. This has fuelled discussions
outside of the IGF, such as the CSTD Working Group on Enhanced
Cooperation and the Brazil Multi-stakeholder Meeting on the Future of
Internet Governance, in which the possibility of a
reformed IGF taking a more significant role in future Internet
governance arrangements continues to come up.</div></div><div><div><br></div></div><div><div>The IGF is challenged to respond to this call for more substantial reform
to its processes, and there is no better time to do this than in
preparation for its ninth meeting in Istanbul in September 2014,
following on from the Brazil meeting, and heading towards its second
review by the UN General Assembly. With an entirely new IGF MAG also
in place for 2014, the opportunity exists for a fresh start, in which
a number of unchallenged assumptions about how the IGF should operate
can be critically examined again, and new ideas tried out. Yet none of
the suggestions for reform given here are actually new. Several of
them have been made every year since the IGF's formation in 2006, or
earlier, but have never been adopted before now. The following are
actionable immediately, without any need for change to the IGF's
mandate:</div></div><div><div><br></div></div><div><div><strong>Themes</strong></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div><ul class="bullet"><li>While maintaining its own independence, the IGF should find space within its agenda to discuss, and if appropriate affirm and commit to implementing the recommendations from the Brazil Multi-stakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance.</li><li>In general, the IGF should
address policy questions that are controversial and/or time-critical,
and that currently lack any other multi-stakeholder mechanism for
global coordination. It should avoid themes that are too broadly
framed like "openness" and "security" that are not grounded in any
specific real-life context.</li><li>The national IGFs should feed issues into the regional IGFs which should in turn feed issues into the Global IGF so that the the issues at the global
level in part reflect the concerns and challenges raised by the national
and regional IGFs - a reporting in session by IGFs (as is currently the
case) is inadequate.</li></ul><br></div></div><div><div><strong>Session formats</strong></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div><ul class="bullet"><li>To
make the IGF more practically useful, designated workshops should be dedicated to developing non-binding opinions, recommending policy principles that stakeholders can follow to address pressing current
issues. Workshop report formats should be standardised so that these recommendations, how they were arrived at, and any areas of divergence,
can be easily communicated.</li><li>Whilst there will always remain room for parallel workshop tracks, workshops should be purposeful and focussed, with emphasis on the main themes selected for
the meeting. Efforts should be made to eliminate low-quality, repetitive and redundant workshops.</li><li>Main sessions can and should
also be used to develop outputs on the most important issues of
cross-cutting importance. A number of Best Bits participants described
one simple way in which such a session could work, in a statement
issued on 20 May 2013 that is available at <a href="http://bestbits.net/igf-opinions/">http://bestbits.net/igf-opinions/</a>. <a href="http://www.intgovforum.org/includes/Submission%20to%20September%202007%20consultation.pdf">Speed dialogues</a> were another method considered by the MAG in the past,
but never tried. Techniques used at the national and
regional meetings should also be looked at.</li><li>To that end, main sessions and
workshops should be separated. When these overlap each other, it
becomes impossible for all interested IGF participants to join together
to address important shared issues in an outcome-oriented,
deliberative plenary session. This will also require a limit on the number
of plenary meetings, to balance the time spent on plenaries and workshops.</li></ul><br></div></div><div><div><strong>Online deliberation</strong></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div><ul class="bullet"><li>The
IGF should improve its capacity to sustain a work programme between
meetings. A step towards this can be made very easily by offering IGF
participants, when registering for the meeting or following it
remotely, the opportunity to join an online collaborative platform for interacting with other participants throughout the year on issues of
shared concern.</li><li>Such a reform would add much value for online
participants, essentially providing an online and intersessional equivalent of the annual IGF meeting. Currently, online participants have little incentive to invest in the IGF, because they are not
granted the same status as those who attend the face-to-face meetings.</li><li>Data
from the IGF (including calendar data, publicly-available participant
data, meeting transcripts, and working documents) should all be made available in <a href="http://igf.wgig.org/Contributions-Sept_2008/OCDC_Jeremy-Malcolm.pdf">open data formats</a>.</li><li>It is vital
that the development of the IGF's online platform be adequately
resourced. Even so, it would only incur a small fraction of the
expense of the annual meeting, and need not be elaborate: for example,
in other Internet governance institutions, participants are encouraged
to join mailing lists, whereas most IGF participants are never offered
that opportunity. Whilst individual stakeholders have attempted to
provide community-based platforms for the IGF in the past, these have
not been supported or publicised by the Secretariat. They should be, and where appropriate could be adopted officially.</li></ul><br></div></div><div><div><strong>Management structure</strong></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div><ul class="bullet"><li>The
Secretariat and the MAG conceived as a programme committee, are not sufficient high level structures for the IGF. In particular the
reappointment of a Special Advisor as Chair is important to provide a charismatic public face for the IGF as well as a formal interface with
the United Nations system and other high-level stakeholder
representatives. A Special Advisor will also make it easier to attract
funding for the event, and to provide leadership as the IGF undergoes necessary changes.</li><li>There is no warrant for the MAG to be limited to the role of a programme committee, as it is now. It is also important for a multi-stakeholder committee of the IGF to perform substantive tasks
such as:</li><ul><li>liaising with external bodies including national and regional IGFs (pursuant to IGF mandate 72(c));</li><li>defining orphan issues and other areas in need of research, deliberation or recommendation;</li><li>preparing or approving balanced briefing materials on issues to be addressed by the IGF;</li><li>assessing the extent of consensus reached on proposed IGF outputs presented at a main session;</li><li>reviewing and ensure the accountability of all fora involved in Internet governance (pursuant to IGF mandate 72(i));</li><li>establishing ad hoc working groups; and</li><li>preparing an annual report.</li></ul><li>For some of these tasks, it may be that smaller working groups of the
larger MAG could perform them more efficiently than the full MAG. For others, the more organisational tasks should be offloaded to the
Secretariat, allowing the MAG to perform more of a steering and
oversight role.</li><li>The MAG representatives should be appointed directly by the stakeholder groups without the intermediation of the UN
Secretary General. Whilst the involvement of the UN was important to
bootstrap the fledgling IGF, it can now stand on its own two feet and
appoint its own representatives, through processes devolved to the
stakeholder groups themselves. This should incorporate a formal rotational process, with some commonly agreed upon methods and criteria
for stakeholder group appointments. Consultations should be held on the issue of whether the existing stakeholder groups recognised in the Tunis Agenda remain adequate today.</li></ul><br></div></div><div><div><strong>Funding</strong></div></div></blockquote><blockquote style="margin: 0 0 0 40px; border: none; padding: 0px;"><div><div><ul class="bullet"><li>A
more flexible mechanism for funding the IGF is needed. The terms and
conditions on which UN DESA accepts contributions to the IGF are unfavourable to donors, they lack transparency, and also limit the
ability of participants to contribute small sums. There is no reason why a pool of funding separate to that administered by UN DESA could
not be set up and administered transparently by a multi-stakeholder
working group under the MAG's oversight.</li><li>Host country
agreements should be made public, and host countries should be
permitted to open tenders for non-security-essential services publicly,
rather than being required to take these from UN DESA.</li></ul></div></div></blockquote><div><div><br></div><div>If there are any further remarks please let me know, otherwise I'll put it up for endorsements on 1 February and we can submit it with those endorsements by 10 February. Thanks!</div></div><br><div apple-content-edited="true">
<div style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><div style="font-variant: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: -webkit-auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px;"><span style=" font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">-- </span><br style="background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><p style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"><b>Dr Jeremy Malcolm<br>Senior Policy Officer<br>Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers</b><br>Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East<br>Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia<br>Tel: +60 3 7726 1599</p><p style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"></p><p style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;"><b style="orphans: auto; widows: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">WCRD 2014 - Fix Our Phone Rights!</b><span style="orphans: auto; widows: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);"> | </span><a href="http://consint.info/fix-our-phone-rights" style="color: purple; orphans: auto; widows: auto; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">http://consint.info/fix-our-phone-rights</a></p><p style=" font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;"></p><p style="font-size: 9pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">@Consumers_Int | <a href="http://www.consumersinternational.org/">www.consumersinternational.org</a> | <a href="http://www.facebook.com/consumersinternational">www.facebook.com/consumersinternational</a></p><p style="font-size: 8pt; font-family: Helvetica; color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-weight: normal; font-style: normal; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255);">Read our <a href="http://www.consumersinternational.org/email-confidentiality" target="_blank">email confidentiality notice</a>. Don't print this email unless necessary.</p><font color="#ff2600"><b>WARNING</b></font>: This email has not been encrypted. You are strongly recommended to enable PGP or S/MIME encryption at your end. For instructions, see <a href="http://jere.my/l/8m" title="https://luxsci.com/blog/installing-smime-and-pgp-encryption-certificates-into-major-email-clients.html" rel="nofollow external" style="color: rgb(153, 153, 153); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: medium; font-weight: normal; font-style: normal;">http://jere.my/l/8m</a>.</span></div></div></div></div>
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