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<font face="Verdana">Ian, thanks for taking this discussion forward.<br>
<br>
Firstly, on the matter of to whom the required transparency
measures should be applicable. I have said this before, this is
supposed to be voluntary, and individuals merely getting into
discussions on civil society lists are not important in this
regard. It is the civil society organisations as well as
individuals who get selected as civil society reps in various
forms, or otherwise play significant roles in civil society and
multistakeholder spaces, that we mainly focus on. The major
organisations involved in this area must be subject to basic
transparency requirements whether or not they take a civil society
rep position because they in any case very often play very
important role in policy processes. As you would have seen,
unfortunately, a lot of strong civil society action is currently
taking place away from the key coalitions that you mention. <br>
<br>
(On the other hand, I dont see why any individual just coming into
some IG discussion on civil society lists would be taking any IG
related funding at all - I mean what would s/he take it for - for
spending time on these lists!? (That btw would be most interesting
- but then we know that some big governments have paid people
intervening in the cyber - public sphere as a new form of public
propaganda.) So, I fail to understand why is this discussion
focussing on individuals merely participating in the list
discussions - they can simply ignore the proposed voluntary
register, or enter that they take no IG activities related funding
from anyone, as one would expect to be true for most of them. But
then well, if individuals do take clear IG related funding, say,
as travel grants, occasional writings. and so on, I would think it
is necessary to declare that </font>- <font face="Verdana">perhaps
even more</font><font face="Verdana"> than in case of
organisations, who, unlike individuals, mostly - though not always
- have other forms of additional NGO governance checks. But to
repeat, my proposal has a greater primary focus on involved
organisations as against individuals. )<br>
<br>
Next, about what kind of transparency measures are appropriate.
'Conflict of interest' is used more in corporate governance and
we, civil society people, would best stick to higher norms of
public life rather than go by corporate governance norms. The
later are necessarily limited and have a different nature. For
instance, conflict of interest will apply to someone who holds the
shares of a company but then gets involved in a governance
decision that impacts the bottomline of that company. Things
really do not work like that in public life, where transparency
and accountability have a very different - much higher but
accordingly also diffuse - meaning and implication. The 'public'
part of 'public life' is very important - and as civil society
players we are in public life, in fact in its rather powerful
'political life' part. In stating a conflict of interest a person
takes a private decision about oneself and one's state of affair
(of course, the decision can become public in case of accusations,
some future crisis, and so on). Transparency of people in public
life requires such judgements to made <i>by the public</i>, and <i>at
all times</i>. That is of essence. Sorry, that one has to go
into such basic canons of public life, which have a long history
and much better enunciations than I can attempt here. <br>
<br>
It is or this reason that simple conflict of interest statement
while it may serve the limited scope of requirements of corporate
governance, does not satisfy the public requirements of public
life, especially as involving those actors who are involved in
public governance, as IG civil society certainly is. <br>
<br>
To make this discussion more concrete; youd agree that we should
get into instituting a process only if it has any real meaning in
terms of practical implications. So I ask you, lets say that an
organisation or an individual were receiving funding from
government of India or from Google - and is involved in the
typical IG related activities; please provide me an instance of
likely case in which that organisation/ individual will self
declare a conflict of interest. I cant think of many such possible
instances - policy work is by its very nature diffuse and almost
everyone is, by the very nature of it being public policy,
impacted - some certainly more than the other, but private
judgements of such impact would hardly be useful. It is not that
IGF or an IG governance body is ever going to make a declaration
specifically on govt of India or google, in which kind of case
perhaps one may jump to state a funding conflict. In fact, one
still may not, becuase typically any org will accept funding only
in the name of promoting public interest and would not want to
accept that pushing a public policy discussion or process in one
way or the other actually constitutes a 'conflict of interest' -
in that it would not want to admit that in accepting a funding it
had accepted taking on 'an interest'. That is a fundamental
difference in how a civil society org is constitutes, as against a
lobbying body. For all these reasons, conflict of interest is not
a concept suited for civil society transparency and
accountability. Your proposal for "</font><font face="Verdana">require(ing)
candidates to register any conflicts of interest" would simply
result in all candidates saying 'they have no conflict of interest
that they can recognise' and thus would serve no purpose at all.<br>
<br>
Lastly, while you keep on saying this is the most we can do (
'conflict of interest' declaration) you have not given any reason
why transparency standards often applied in other areas of civil
society work should not be applied in the IG space as well, and
what exactly is wrong with a basic voluntary register of
transparency simply declaring 'interests, objectives, and funding
sources'. This even when I have been arguing that it is even more
important for IG civil society than in other civil society areas,
because the unique multistakeholder claim and approach in this
area puts civil society in more significant, even powerful, policy
positions than in other areas. Also, how basic documents on
healthy development of a multistakeholder approach like the UN
report on IGF improvements, NetMundial Statement, etc, all point
to need for greater transparency. I once again exhort you to read
Luca Belli's </font><font face="Verdana"><a
href="http://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/heterostakeholder-cooperation-sustainable-internet-policymaking">this
excellent paper on multistakeholderism</a> which argues why
such basic transparency is essential to forwarding a
multistakeholder approach.<br>
<br>
I cant see how IG civil society can keep pushing a
multistakeholder approach to policy making, and seek a greater
role for itself in the process, but then keep dragging its feet on
accepting even basic transparency norms. The world is watching of
course, and will ask questions. there is a cost to being in public
life.<br>
<br>
parminder <br>
<br>
</font><br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On Sunday 07 June 2015 03:32 AM, Ian
Peter wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:41C19523561A4A5CA29EF6368B4F5AA5@Toshiba"
type="cite">
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<div>Hi Parminder,</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Following from the discussion, here is what I think is
possible and realistic in this space.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Firstly, I think the question of transparency and
disclosure of conflicts of interest is important.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>However, I don’t think people need to declare interests
to involve themselves in discussion here or in any of our
open mailing lists, and the real concerns start to arise
only when people are seeking office as civil society
representatives.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Here, most of the office bearing exists in the various
coalitions – APC, Best Bits, JNC, NCSG, IGC. I would urge
each of these groups, when holding elections, to require
candidates to register any conflicts of interest. I know
Best Bits is moving to elections for its Steering Committee
again soon, perhaps it could formulate some sort of basic
disclosure requirement for its purposes? And I guess JNC
must be moving towards holding its first elections for SC
replenishment soon? And IGC could easily add such a
requirement for its candidates for co cordinator elections
(presumably late this year).</div>
<div> </div>
<div>But these are requirements for individual groups, and the
form of such is for each group to determine. I think however
that such a requirement would be a good idea.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>As regards CSCG – our calls for candidates are for
appointments to outside bodies, and I agree that some form
of disclosure of any conflicts of interest would be a good
idea. Currently it would appear that our next task would be
MAG replenishment (and a small one at that), probably early
next year. I will suggest to the members that we should
require some sort of basic disclosure statement. But that of
course is up to the members (APC, BB, JNC, NCSG, IGC) to
determine.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>I’m not sure we can go much further. But if some work can
be done on a simple model of a form of disclosure, that
would be good.</div>
<div> </div>
<div>Ian Peter</div>
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<div> </div>
<div style="BACKGROUND: #f5f5f5">
<div style="font-color: black"><b>From:</b> <a
moz-do-not-send="true"
title="parminder@itforchange.net"
href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net">parminder</a>
</div>
<div><b>Sent:</b> Sunday, May 24, 2015 5:31 PM</div>
<div><b>To:</b> <a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="ian.peter@ianpeter.com"
href="mailto:ian.peter@ianpeter.com">Ian Peter</a> ;
<a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="governance@lists.igcaucus.org"
href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a>
; <a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="bestbits@lists.bestbits.net"
href="mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net">BestBitsList</a>
; <a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="forum@justnetcoalition.org"
href="mailto:forum@justnetcoalition.org">mailto:forum@justnetcoalition.org</a>
; <a moz-do-not-send="true"
title="apc.forum@lists.apc.org"
href="mailto:apc.forum@lists.apc.org">A general
information sharing space for the APC Community.</a>
</div>
<div><b>Subject:</b> [governance] Civil society
transparency</div>
</div>
</div>
<div> </div>
</div>
<div style="FONT-SIZE: small; TEXT-DECORATION: none;
FONT-FAMILY: "Calibri"; FONT-WEIGHT: normal;
COLOR: #000000; FONT-STYLE: normal; DISPLAY: inline"><font
face="Verdana">Ian, and reps of civil society networks on
the Civil Society Coordination Group (CSCG) ,<br>
<br>
I propose that CSCG sets up a civil society transparency
project, somewhat on the lines of the EU Transparency
Register, pl see <a moz-do-not-send="true"
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/homePage.do">http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/homePage.do</a>
.<br>
<br>
It should in fact go beyond the EU initiative which is a
general one for all lobbying groups, whereas we here are
concerned with civil society which should set the highest
example of transparency and accountability. The 'register'
can have self filled information on objectives of an
organisation, principles followed by it, if any, its
funding, partners, and so on.... <br>
<br>
This is at present just my proposal, but I hope one or
more civil society networks in the IG space can own it and
push it... CSCG would be well placed to run this project
as a neutral space so that there is no accusation of bias
that any such initiative is being employed for partisan
purposes. In any case, a simple initiative for openness,
transparency and accountability can hardly be partisan.<br>
<br>
The register can have optional higher level features
whereby a group/ org can declare its means of public
accountability, whether and how its internal governance is
done, how matters can be taken by with their oversight
bodies, like board etc, and whether they have any means
whereby they respond to public question on their work,
etc.<br>
<br>
For such genuine cases where such transparency can harm an
organisations work, or security, such organisations, and
only such organisations, can be exempted employing a clear
process and set of criteria.<br>
<br>
Remember, both the UN report on improvements to the IGF
and the NetMundial Statement highlight the issue of
transparency. I also recently read in these lists how we
should make bridges with the OpenGov movement which is
almost wholly about this one thing. Time we begin
practising what we preach. <br>
<br>
I look forward to hear responses to this proposal..<br>
<br>
parminder <br>
</font>
<p>
</p>
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