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<DIV>Just adding here a couple of perspectives from my earlier phone call
-</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The WEF representatives seem to be listening and adapting at IGF – so I
think this is still quite fluid. Yesterday it was still NetMundial – I am
personally glad they have moved away from that while they figure out what this
initiative is. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Also at my phone call they wanted to nominate two of the four civil society
reps themselves – a couple of US based NGOs they work with regularly – this was
identified as an issue and I am glad the CS reps were able to get that changed
today.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>They were also prepared to give us a more reasonable deadline for
nominations than originally intended – which would have been the middle of next
week! The timetable is still tight (by September 21), but is enough time
for us to discuss our levels of involvement and get a process under way at the
end of this week. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>So there are some positive signs. Also the level of CS representation – 4
of a committee of 15 – is quite reasonable.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>But I do get the feeling that things might continue to change and that
there is a great uncertainty about the degree to which the staff assigned to
this might be able to obtain strong WEF backing for initiatives – and what those
initiatives might be. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>I suspect others who are at IGF might get to talk further with WEF, and
those who were at the Geneva meeting might also have additional
perspectives. It would be good to share those perspectives here and on
other lists so that we can react appropriately.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Ian Peter</DIV>
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<DIV style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A title=jmalcolm@eff.org
href="mailto:jmalcolm@eff.org">Jeremy Malcolm</A> </DIV>
<DIV><B>Sent:</B> Tuesday, September 02, 2014 5:11 PM</DIV>
<DIV><B>To:</B> <A title=bestbits@lists.bestbits.net
href="mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net">mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net</A>
</DIV>
<DIV><B>Subject:</B> [bestbits] IMPORTANT: World Economic Forum and
The-Initiative-Formerly-Known-As-NETmundial</DIV></DIV></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV></DIV>
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<DIV>This morning, the members of the Internet Governance Civil Society
Coordination Group who are present in Istanbul (Deirdre Williams standing in for
Mawaki Chango from the IGC, myself from Best Bits, Norbert Bollow from JNC, Chat
Garcia from APC and YJ Park as an observer; the others could not make it) met
with Alan Marcus, Danil Kerimi and Alexandra Shaw from the World Economic Forum
about our potential role in nominating representatives to the transitional
steering committee of what we had all known as the NETmundial Initiative.
This followed on from a phone call that the chair of our group, Ian Peter had
had with them yesterday Istanbul time.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Very interestingly one of the first points that was made in the meeting the
WEF pointed out that they do not regard "NETmundial Initiative" as the name of
the initiative, although some of their early champions (notably ICANN of course)
have been calling it this. So it seems that they will be willing to call
it by another name from now on, and suggested "Global Net" which is an
anglicised version of NETmundial. I believe that many of us will warmly
welcome this news.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Their description of their vision of the initiative was otherwise mostly
consistent with earlier accounts, though they did stress that the formation of a
new institution to house the initiative now seems unlikely since they have been
listening to pushback about this. They see the initiative as a platform
for working groups to execute projects that the community has identified as
important, and the first four projects that were unveiled at the Geneva meeting
were merely intended as examples of four such projects that had been identified
by the Ilves Panel, on which some "quick wins" might be achieved.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The value add of the WEF, they explained, as to bring in high-level
participation from companies and governments that are otherwise not part of
Internet governance discussions. The steering committee would include all
stakeholders so ensure that all perspectives have a voice about shaping the
Initiative including its projects. They are looking for a committee
maximum size of about 15 people. – the other members would be 3-4 business
people (including at least two representatives at CEO level), government,
intergovernmental organisations, tech community (notably ISOC and ICANN) and
academics (yes they confirmed an intention to treat academic community
separately to Civil society or technical community or any other grouping – as
per NetMundial and 1net patterns.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>The original conception of WEF was that they would appoint half of the
civil society representatives on the transitional steering committee because
they are project partners that WEF has worked with before. Several members
of our Coordination Group suggested that there constituencies would probably
push back against this, and that if the purpose of the steering committee was in
part to draw on the legitimacy that civil society participation provides, it
would make sense that we be empowered to self-appoint all of our own
representatives. WEF seemed to accept this counsel, with the result that
we would be asked to make four appointments.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>They were unclear about exactly what the time commitment for transitional
steering committee representatives would be, or exactly what the
responsibilities would entail, though forming an accountable permanent steering
committee structure for launch around the next Davos meeting (if possible) was
one of the responsibilities envisaged. They did assure us that if travel
to meetings was required, expenses would be paid for those who required
this.</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Criteria for appointment are still to be discussed by the Coordination
Group, but from WEF's perspective, they agreed that they would not insist on a
previous working relationship with WEF as a criterion, but they would require
that the participants are able to be constructive and can work towards the
formation of consensus. They said that they would value people who can be
bridge makers between the culture of the WEF and that of our constituencies,
because they acknowledged that they would probably make (more) mistakes and
would need help in correcting these. </DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Examples of previous multi-stakeholder initiatives that they pointed to as
being analogous to The-Initiative-Formerly-Known-as-NETmundial included Grow
Africa (<A href="http://growafrica.com/">http://growafrica.com/</A>) and their
climate change work (<A
href="http://www.weforum.org/issues/climate-change-and-green-growth">http://www.weforum.org/issues/climate-change-and-green-growth</A>).</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>WEF, after our pleading, have extended our deadline to submit
names till September 21 – and there are still some details to finalise. The
timetable CSCG is discussing would see us begin a call for nominations no
earlier than Friday – the last day of IGF – to allow discussion and further
clarification before we commence any such process.<BR> <BR>I am posting
this to begin such a discussion – others present at the meeting may want to add
comments of their own and discussions will also occur on other lists. <BR>
<DIV> </DIV>
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<DIV>-- </DIV>
<DIV>Jeremy Malcolm</DIV>
<DIV>Senior Global Policy Analyst</DIV>
<DIV>Electronic Frontier Foundation</DIV><A
href="https://eff.org">https://eff.org</A><BR><A
href="mailto:jmalcolm@eff.org">jmalcolm@eff.org</A>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>Tel: 415.436.9333 ext 161</DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<DIV>:: Defending Your Rights in the Digital World ::</DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV>
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