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<font face="sans-serif">Hi All<br>
<br>
Sorry for the long delay, but to finish my report on WG on IGF
improvements:<br>
<br>
I had mentioned that, in my view, there were three key issues on
which a possible WG report with recommendations on IGF
improvements got stuck; IGF outcomes, selection of MAG members
(especially non gov members) and IGF funding. India's contribution
had important proposals on all these key issues, which in my view
were quite reasonable, as I argue below.<br>
<br>
My earlier email dealt with the most important of these issues -
IGF outcomes. The present one will list some of the key
constestations around the other two key issues. <br>
<br>
<u>Selection of MAG members:</u><br>
<br>
This issue for me is very important vis a vis establishing the
meaning as well as legitimacy of multistakeholderism. And I hope
we can generate an internal debate on the positions different
actors took on this issue in the WG, and take otherwise. I quote
the relevant parts from India's submission in full in this regard:<br>
</font><font face="sans-serif"><br>
</font>
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<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY">
<font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font style="font-size: 13pt;"
size="3">"The
selection of non-government representatives to the MAG has
to be made
more transparent and democratic/representative to better
represent
different sections of the society, more so the marginalised.
Efforts
have to be made to obtain as globally representative a group
as
possible. At present, there are no specific processes to
ensure these
imperatives, and the selection process is largely </font><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3"><i>ad
hoc </i></font><font style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3">and
mediated by
some key global stakeholder bodies, without due transparency
about
the process followed to ensure that the diversity of
interests and
views in that particular stakeholder group are duly
represented."</font></font>
</p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY">
<font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font style="font-size: 13pt;"
size="3"> "We
recommend an accountable, transparent and diversified
stakeholder
selection process for stakeholder representatives. Such a
process
should demonstrate its connectedness to the full range of
diversity
within each stakeholder group, especially those from
developing
countries, and otherwise less represented groups. Each
stakeholder
group while selecting its representatives should describe
the process
used in making the selection, and also specifically mention
what
steps were taken to include a full diversity of views and
interests,
and less represented groups, including those from developing
counties. To get the selection process right is very
important for
the success of the unique multi-stakeholder experiment in
global
governance that the IGF represents."</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY"> "<font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3">One way of ensuring that
specific interests are kept out of MAG is by
stipulating that the business sector members should not be
representatives of specific private companies, but represent
different trade associations like in the areas of telecom,
software
companies, etc. The technical community members could
similarly
include representatives from key technical and academic
institutions.
The selection process for civil society members could be
made
similarly democratic, with representatives selected by a
network of
NGOs working in areas associated with Internet policies,
thus
representing a really broad spectrum of civil society."<br>
</font></font></p>
</blockquote>
<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="sans-serif">(quote ends)</font><font
face="sans-serif"><br>
</font><font face="sans-serif"><br>
</font>In addition was also proposed a table indicating a quota
based selection from each geographical region so that geographic
diversity was ensured. (At the meeting India did say that this was
only to serve as a broad guideline, and was meant to stress that
concern that there should be enough internal diversity within non
gov reps in the MAG, and it should not get dominated by reps from
the North.) In the table proposed by India, the total number of
MAG members remained more or less the same as present while there
was a small increase in the number of gov reps (from 22 to 25),
quite large increase in CS reps (7 to 11) and some reduction for
business (13 to 9) and tech community reps (13 to 9). As
mentioned, India made it clear that all this was open to a
reasoned discussion. <br>
</p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3">I find the above proposals
quite reasonable. Multistakeholderism is for me a means to
ensure that <br>
</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3">1) a sufficient and full
diversity of legitimate interests are represented in policy
making processes<br>
</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3">2) the accent has to be on
getting in those interests that are otherwise (through other
processes of representation) are most likely to be kept out,
or under-represented<br>
</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3">(3) there has to be
conscious, deliberate and very strong measures, on an ongoing
manner, to ensure that a multistakeholder process is not
captured by certain dominant groups, which would defeat the
very purpose of multistakeholderism ( in the same as our
struggles for more democracy represent our efforts to ensure
that the 'governmental' method of representation is not
captured)<br>
</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3"><br>
I see the India's proposal completely in keeping with what I
take to be as the key tenets and logic of multistakeholderism.
And therefore I supported it. However, once again, there was
no constructive engagement with this detailed proposal.
Business and technical members said that the manner in which
'they' ( they</font></font><font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3"> who? is of course never
clear</font></font><font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3">) choose members to
represent their stakeholder group should be left to them and
no guidelines etc are necessary. I do not agree to this
argument. It is setting up multistakeholderism for capture,
which is a big problem many democratic governments have with
it. Progressive civil society certainly has a big problem with
such possibilities of capture of MSism. We ourselves would
like to see strong and specific processes towards ensuring
that such capture does not take place. As long as we agree on
this imperative, what those processes would in fact look like
can always be discussed. This was also India's position, and
they wanted a discussion on this issue. Here is a clear
instance of some developing countries coming forward for doing
a constructive engagement with multi-stakeholderism and key
non-gov stakeholders shying away. They need to answer why did
they do so.<br>
</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3">Business and technical
community while refusing to engage with India's proposal were
intent on pushing the 'triage' proposal that had come from the
last MAG meeting. As per this proposal a committee of old MAG
members will do a kind of triage over recs coming from
different stakeholder groups, who would be left to themselves
to choose their process of selection of their reps and
forwarding the names to this committee, without any further
guidelines of openess, transparency diversity,
representativeness etc. There are at least two things wrong
with this proposal - one, that the old MAG members committee
would perpetuate a nincestuous system of inclusion and
exclusion which I am not at all comfortable with. Even worse
is the proposition that, for instance, business group members
will decide on selections from civil society. One can well
understand what kind of exclusions and inclusions this will
entail. It is important to mention that many of the civil
society members of MAG opposed such a system of selection, and
for unclear reasons the proposal was taken as adopted by the
MAG meeting despite this opposition (Katitiza, Graciela,
Fouad, Valeria and others present can vouch for this).<br>
</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3">The issues that this above
debate raises are crucial to engage with for anyone who
champions multistakeholderism, and i hope we in IGC can also
discuss them throughly here. <br>
</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3">Let me discuss the IGF
funding issue in my next email.<br>
</font></font></p>
<p style="margin-left: 0.04cm; margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height:
100%;" align="JUSTIFY"><font face="FreeSans, sans-serif"><font
style="font-size: 13pt;" size="3">Parminder <br>
</font></font></p>
<br>
On Tuesday 29 March 2011 11:57 PM, parminder wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid:4D9224A4.3060001@itforchange.net" type="cite">
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Dear All<br>
<br>
I will take the following para from Wolfgang's email to present
what I think happened at the meeting of the WG on IGF
improvements.<br>
<br>
<blockquote>
<pre wrap="">"I am not sure whether this was by intention. If I create an unworkable environment which does not allow the production of anything which is meaningful than nobody should be surprised that exactly this is happening. Such a "planned failure" can be used as a good argument to change the whole direction and to discredite the innovative forms of multistakeholder collaboration. It is easy now for governments, which were not members in the group, to argue: "Look, multistakeholderism does not work. We - as governments - are different and have other working methods. So let us alone when we try to translate our (national) agendas into an international dialogue." "</pre>
</blockquote>
Excuse me to respectfully disagree with what is sought to be
constructed here. It is a predictable script with predictable
villains - of course, those developing countries, who else. A UN
meeting on any IG issue perhaps need not even happen for this
'result' and 'analysis' of it to be produced :) . I keep hoping
however that we would open our minds to look beyond this
predictable response that we seem to remain stuck in.<br>
<br>
Why did the WG meeting break down? Were there countries already
predisposed to the failure of the WG? It may be interesting to
note that developing countries had been seeking early and greater
number of meetings of the WG since late last December, a request
that was not heeded. Why would they want more meetings if they
always wanted this WG to fail as it finally did?<br>
<br>
Then when Montreux happened, and there was not much that came out
if it, some very interesting things happened in the last hour or
so of that meeting. Brazil, India, Egypt and some other developing
countries wanted a multistakeholder drafting group to work between
the two meetings to come up with a draft with which the second
meeting could start. Everyone knew that was the only way to
produce a report within the 2 days of the WG meeting that were
left when the group reassembled. A multi-stakeholder drafting
group was proposed with about the same ratio as the overall WG - 5
gov members and 5 non gov members. However, on civil society's
prompting some developing countries (lead here by Brazil) proposed
that civil society can have 3 members instead of the originally
proposed one becuase they represent greater diversity of views,
with one member of business, one of tech comminuty etc. Business
and tech community, and then some major devloping countries, said
a clear no to this proposal to expanded civil society membership
of the proposed drafting group. <br>
<br>
Very soon thereafter, business said 'no' to the very proposal of a
drafting group, they wanted the secretariat to prepare a draft.
Tech community and major developed countries also seemed to be
supporting this position (without their support it wont have
carried). Here I will stop and pose this question to ourselves, as
civil society, because this question is also important in terms of
the most central substantive issue concerning IGF improvements
that become the key point on which disagreement could not be
closed out, whereby the WG failed to prepare any recs.<br>
<br>
Do we as civil society prefer representative/ multi-stakeholder
working group based processes to produce key substantive documents
in the IG space, or do we prefer secretariat based processes for
such an activity?<br>
<br>
(If we can form a clear response to this poser, we will know where
we are vis a vis 'the key' contestation at the WG meeting
regarding substantive improvement to. the IGF. So lets be try and
be clear and specific on this. I think the question is clear and
direct enough.)<br>
<br>
In fact, when the drafting group proposal was shot down at the end
of the first meeting of the WG in Montreux, the Brazilian rep made
an incisive comment, pointing to the paradox how when he and some
other (developing) government reps are proposing a
multi-stakeholder drafting group, some major non-government
stakeholders were opposing it. No one responded, of course. Do
'WE', as IGC, have an answer to this paradox. <br>
<br>
Since we are on a connected point, let me hurry to what were the
real differences on which the WG process broke down (though I
still think with some deft managing we could still have come out
with something substantial, but on that later.)<br>
<br>
There were three key issues of disagreement - IGF outcomes, MAG
selection (especially of non-gov stakeholders), and IGF funding.
Among these, the make-or-break issue was 'IGF outcomes'. If this
issue could have been agreed upon we would have got a very good
report, and that would really have been a substantial step forward
for the IGF, and for global IG. Without looking throughly at what
happened around this central issue we cannot get the right picture
of the WG proceedings. <br>
<br>
Here, the only real proposal on the table was India's proposal (
enclosed ) made during the Montreux meeting itself. This proposal
was not acceptable to developed countries. This, in my view, was
the real issue because of which the WG process broke down. So
before we start assessing what really happened and who is at
fault, let us, each of us, and if possible, collectively, form an
opinion if this proposal is fine by us, and the right way to go
ahead. If it is the right way to go ahead, then whoever did not
accept it needs to be blamed for WG failure, not those who
proposed it, and those who supported it. <br>
<br>
There was no clear counter proposal (to India's) for IGF outcomes
on the table. though the term 'messages' was thrown around a few
times. I specifically asked the proposers of 'messages' from the
IGF as the way to get outcomes to clearly put out the envisaged
process of producing what is being called as 'messages', and also
to explain how this process would be different from the Chairman's
summary, and a shorter bulletted Chairman's summary, already being
prepared at present. I never got a clear reply, which if it was
put on table would have constituted a specific outcomes related
proposal. <br>
<br>
Let me try to focus further on what was the real point of
difference across the table. IGF already produces long and short
summary of plenary proceedings. So the essential difference
between India's proposal and the present practice (or the
'messages' proposal) is about who does the 'summing up' and how.
Back to the question that arose regarding drafting the report of
the WG on IGF improvements - are we more comfortable with
secretariats doing such stuff, or do we, we the evangelists of
multistakeholderism in policy shaping/ making, support multi
stakeholder working groups doing it. That is the core point we
must decide. And depending on which way we decide it we can then
know which side of the main contestation at the WG we are on. And
then perhaps, if we really must, we can choose our villains. And
if we indeed are inclined to suspect a 'planned failure' to use
Wolfgang's term, then see whose planning it could be. Though I
suspect that with some more real hard work we could have got some
good results from the WG. <br>
<br>
It is for me a cardinal moment for IG, for civil society advocate
on IG and for multistakeholderism. We must decide and make up our
mind. Can a multistakeholder group cull out enough focused and
well directed stuff on policy inputs - areas of convergence, and
divergences, but with relatively clear alternative policy options
as done by WGIG - from an IGF process that is to be specifically
designed to help it do so. This process starts from choosing clear
and specific policy questions for IGF's consideration, forming WGs
around each chosen issue, developing background material around
each, WG then helps plan the process at the IGF through right
format, speakers etc, help prepare appropriate feeder workshops,
then arrange round tables on the chosen issue at the IGF before it
goes to the plenary, and then the denouement, the multi
stakeholder group brings out a document which could be 2 pages or
10 on key areas of convergence, divergence etc, with 'relatively'
clear policy paths and options. Things may be difficult initially,
but it is my understanding, and I would like to hear other views,
that this is the only real way to go for multi-stakeholder
influence on policy making. And the steps I have described here
were essentially the gist of India's proposal.<br>
<br>
Is this proposal more multistakeholder friendly, or can those who
opposed it could be considered multistakeholder friendly. So,
Wolfgang when your email, again somewhat predictably, comes to
that part on 'friendly governments', I would like to really know
what you mean by this term in the context of the happenings at the
WG on IGF. <br>
<br>
I simply cannot understand how many of us even in IGC seem to be
more comfortable with secretariats rather accountable and
representative multistakeholder working groups writing key
documents which have clear political import. Can we not see that
even if we seem to be at the moment happy with some specific
personnel who constitute the secretariat at a particular time,
this situation could easily reverse. Would we then change our view
on whether secretariat should do such stuff or alternatively, a
multistakeholder WG. To make what I am saying more clear, just
consider what if the key secretariat personnel were not put there
by a particular country whose political positions we generally
agreed with but by another country (which could happen any time)
whose political opinions we were much against. This is purely
hypothetical, put putting real countries and real people in this
imagined situation will greatly help make clear what I am driving
at. <br>
<br>
I will discuss in a separate email tomorrow the two other main
issues that were contested that I have mentioned above (MAG
composition and IGF funding). Also will refer to some other issues
mentioned in Annriette's and Marilia's reports. However, it is the
IGF outcomes issue which was the real thing around which
everything revolved, and which was to determine if anything
substantial could come out of the WG's meeting. Our judgments
about what happened at the WG, in my view, must most of all be
informed by this issue. <br>
<br>
Parminder <br>
<br>
<br>
On Saturday 26 March 2011 01:51 PM, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"
wrote:
<blockquote
cite="mid:2DA93620FC07494C926D60C8E3C2F1A8D2BCB8@server1.medienkomm.uni-halle.de"
type="cite">
<pre wrap="">Dear all
I am not surprised about the outcome. It was crystal clear after the Montreux meeting, that it will be impossible to reach a reasonable result within the given time frame. The whole planning and executing of the launch and the work of this UNCSTD WG raises a lot of question.
I am not sure whether this was by intention. If I create an unworkable environment which does not allow the production of anything which is meaningful than nobody should be surprised that exactly this is happening. Such a "planned failure" can be used as a good argument to change the whole direction and to discredite the innovative forms of multistakeholder collaboration. It is easy now for governments, which were not members in the group, to argue: "Look, multistakeholderism does not work. We - as governments - are different and have other working methods. So let us alone when we try to translate our (national) agendas into an international dialogue."
A second scenario could be, that this is another step in what Bill Clinton said in San Francisco when he defined "Internet Governance" as a process of "stumbling forward". In this case a lot will depend upon the Nairobi IGF. If Nairobi takes on board a number of reasonable proposals which has been made by various members of the UNCSTD IGF Working Group and if Nairobi becomes an "outstanding success", this will make life much more difficult for the governmental negotiators in the 2nd Committee of the UNGA to change the direction.
What are the options now for civil society?
Option 1: General frustration. We leave it as it is, lamenting about the failure of the process and watch what the governments will do.
Option 2: Working together with friendly governments who have a voice in the CSTD, to work towards an extension of the mandate of the existing group until May 2012 with the aim, to produce a more serious analytical interim paper with recommendations until September 2011 (the draft could be discussed in Nairobi) for presentation to the 2nd Committee of the UNGA, which starts in early October 2011.
Option 3: IGC takes the lead and starts a open drafting procedure for an alternative report, inviting other non-govenrmental stakeholders and friendly governments to join the process. The report could be presented via a friendly government to the UNCSTD meeting in May 2011 in Geneva. On the eve of the UNCSTD meeting in Geneva we could have a half day open multistakeholder workshop under the title "The Future of the IGF: How to improve multistakeholder collaboration".
Best wishes
wolfgang
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