<div>Dear Parminder, and greetings All:</div>
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<div>Your post is so very comprehensive... thanking you much for the information and insights.</div>
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<div>An aspect I would like to participate in is "remote" access and related topics so we really expand the "attendee" list via e-attendance. On review of the many materials I gathered while attending online throughout Rio IGF-II, I hope these experiences may help for New Delhi.</div>
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<div>The facilities were really quite productive even in the face of need/desire to expand (Thx Jeremy) and the people, on the human side of "man"/machine interfaces, were really super too .. and in real time (Avri, Adam, others made themselves e-available) among others including those here.</div>
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<div>With best wishes and appreciation of the reports and great progress, </div>
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<div>LDMF.</div>
<div>Linda D. Misek-Falkoff</div>
<div>*Respectful Interfaces* Program of the Communications Coordination Committee For the U.N; online ARPAnet forward; original programmer, GML starter set, forerunner of HTML; colleague and friend to those here; other affiliations on request.<br>
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<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 2/15/08, <b class="gmail_sendername">Parminder</b> <<a href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net">parminder@itforchange.net</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid"><br>Hi All<br><br>Sorry for making this email high priority. It contains some text for a<br>possible caucus statement on improving the IGF format for Delhi, which needs<br>
some urgent attention from the members, and I wanted it to separate it from<br>the other interesting discussions taking place on the list.<br><br>At this time we propose to make three statement - one on MAG renewal, some<br>
text of which is already being discussed, another on our suggestions for<br>improvements in format for Delhi, some text for which is given below, and a<br>third one with a few possible themes for the main sessions.<br><br>
For offering suggestion on format for Delhi, I have tried to stick to fewer<br>things rather than give a long list. The main thing is to make the<br>plenaries more purposive and attractive, and have a clear workshops<br>
structure around it. And that its preparation should be more through and<br>facilitated by dedicated working groups.<br><br>I will add other things, like a real lunch break to the text in the next<br>stage.<br><br>(starts)<br>
<br>(Opening pleasantries are yet to be drafted.)<br><br>In providing suggestions for how New Delhi IGF should be organized, Civil<br>Society Internet Governance Caucus understands that the IGF's mandate and<br>functions can be divided into two broad categories. One is of providing an<br>
open space for discussing any and all public policy issues regarding the<br>Internet for all stakeholders, therefore, inter alia, encouraging a closer<br>interactions between stakeholder and groups who 'do not often 'talk' to each<br>
other'. The second set of mandates and functions can be clubbed in the<br>category of providing some relatively clear directions and possibilities in<br>the area of global public policy, and for this purpose plug the gaps in<br>
terms of ideas, possibilities, interactions etc in the global institutional<br>framework in this area.<br><br>The structure of the IGF meeting should be adequate to meet both these<br>purposes. The first purpose listed above is largely being achieved, and IGF<br>
is now recognized for its characteristic of a town hall meeting where anyone<br>can come and voice one's opinion and concerns. However, the requirements<br>for the purpose two listed above - that of some clear contribution to the<br>
global policy arena - may need us to explore some structural improvements<br>for the next IGF meeting, without taking away its open town hall meeting<br>character.<br><br>Many participants at Athens and Rio felt that there were too many workshops<br>
going on at the same time, even overlapping with the plenaries, and the<br>attendance at and the interest in plenaries was quite low. It was even more<br>so in Rio than in Athens. This severely compromises the 'convergent<br>
identity' of the IGF, as one global forum with some discernable internal<br>cohesion, apart from just being an open space encouraging diverse<br>deliberation.<br><br>One reason for this low interest in the plenaries was that there were too<br>
many workshops being held at the same time as the plenaries. But equally, or<br>perhaps more, important reason was that the themes of the plenaries were<br>just too broad and participants really did not take much away from any of<br>
these sessions. Apart from being too general, and allowing each speaker to<br>make her own interpretation of the issue, the non-specificity of the issue<br>under discussion allowed people to often/ mostly speak on areas which were<br>
remote from any implication on global Internet related public policy, which<br>is the chief purpose of the IGF to discuss. Such diversion or dilution is to<br>some degree acceptable in case of workshops, in interest of diversity and<br>
openness, but not for the plenaries which represent very precious prime time<br>for the IGF, and there is only that much of it in a whole year.<br><br>We should therefore seriously explore new possibilities that could put life<br>
back into the plenaries and allow the IGF to meet its outcome-oriented part<br>of the mandate as well.<br><br>First is the issue of the large number of workshops. We do understand that<br>limiting the number of workshops too drastically will affect the diversity<br>
of the kinds of discussions that are held, and of the groups that are able<br>to use the IGF space. Therefore we think that we should continue to allow as<br>many workshops as the limits of available logistics allow, to encourage<br>
diversity and broader ownership and participation in the IGF.<br><br>In order to address what, in this context of allowing the maximum number of<br>workshops, appears to be a conflicting imperative of strengthening the<br>
plenaries, for the sake of an 'convergent identity' of the IGF (as opposed<br>to the divergent identity built by multiple workshops) and improving its<br>outcome-orientation, we may need to bring a two-pronged approach to<br>
organizing the IG.<br><br>One approach is of allowing multiple diverse workshops, as is done at<br>present, while keeping some general themes in mind, so as to not allow<br>things to go too much out of IGF's domain and priority areas. These<br>
workshops can be called type A workshops, and the current main themes of<br>access, openness, diversity and security can serve as over-arching themes<br>for organizing these workshops in clusters, so that each stream can stay<br>
separate, enabling people interested in any one theme to attend all or most<br>of the workshops in that theme.<br><br>For making the plenaries more productive, they should be organized around<br>some specific global public policy issues, which are found to be of utmost<br>
importance, and not around hold-all themes like openness and access,<br>discussions around which do not produce any fruitful outcomes. We suggest<br>some such topics in a separate statement. A lot of preparatory work should<br>
go into preparing for these discussions, which should be done through<br>working groups set up for these purpose. These working groups could consist<br>of members of the MAG plus some other experts and stakeholders. These<br>
working groups must also synthesize the outcomes of these deliberations and<br>present them as a document.<br><br>Some workshops - called type B - should be arranged around the selected<br>topics for the plenaries. There should be a limited number of them, with a<br>
vigorous effort to merge proposals for such workshops in a manner that<br>preserves diversities of geo-politics, special interests and different<br>viewpoint, but retains the clear purpose to increase the effectiveness of<br>
the plenary sessions. Selection of and preparation for these workshops<br>should be done by the concerned working group along with the sponsors of the<br>workshops. Type B workshops should not be held in parallel with the<br>
plenaries.<br><br>This dual architecture of an open space for diverse workshops and a<br>relatively tightly organized structure of plenaries on specific global<br>public policy, well-organized through a working group, and also resulting in<br>
an outcome document (even if stating a variety of positions, and not a<br>consensual or negotiated one position) will enable the IGF to fulfill its<br>mandate in a much better way than it is able to do at present.<br><br>
We understand that such dual tiered workshop structure - one kind of<br>workshops tied with plenary topics, and others independent - was proposed<br>and tried in preparation for Rio, but apparently it did not quite work out<br>
in any purposeful manner. We can get it right this time around with better<br>selection of specific topics for the plenaries, and more through<br>preparations through dedicated working groups.<br><br>(I wan to put some text of dynamic coalitions here.. Will prepare some and<br>
add. Inputs are welcome.)<br><br>(ends)<br><br>Parminder<br><br><br>____________________________________________________________<br>You received this message as a subscriber on the list:<br> <a href="mailto:governance@lists.cpsr.org">governance@lists.cpsr.org</a><br>
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