<html><head></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div><div><div><div>On Apr 4, 2012, at 7:46 AM, parminder wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#333333" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">John,<br><br>Thanks for your engagement. However, as you suspected, your assertions are indeed controversial/ problematic.<br><br>Your advice is not to go into formal aspects of a governance/ policy mechanism but only focus on the output side. I would come to the output side but lets first deal with the importance of formal aspects. To those who protested against Mubarak's regime, would you have advised that instead of fighting for democracy against authoritarianism, they should look at and argue by the work and outputs of regime, and not its formal qualities.</font></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>I have no knowledge of the conditions in that area, but I expect it would</div><div>not be difficult to find numerous examples of folks who tried to participate</div><div>and either had no option to do so, or suffered significant consequences as </div><div>a result of participating by providing inputs that were _not_ well received...</div><div>i.e. it should be relatively straightfoward to show that there was not a</div><div>meaningful system that allowed <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; ">multi-stakeholder participation.</span></div><div><br></div><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#333333" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Closer home, since apparently you believe in multistakeholderism, would you agree to a governance system that is not open, participative, transparent etc although it seem not to have any particularly disagreeable output?</font></div></blockquote><div><br></div>If someone is asserting to provide system of policy development which allows </div><div>for multi-stakeholder participation, but in fact doesn't actually consider the inputs, </div><div>that is a major problem. The only way to truly determine this is to actually </div><div>participate and judge the results.</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#333333" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Do you really think that it is a good/ acceptable idea to have telecoms dominate a policy body on telecom? </font></div></blockquote><div><br></div>Domination of telecom representatives may not be ideal, but I do not believe</div><div>it is safe to assume that the results are completely predictable, particularly </div><div>when there has been specific efforts to accept inputs from any and all parties.</div><div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#333333" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif">Would you accept it in your own country? Would your compatriots accept it in your country? On the same logic, would you accept a health policy body dominated by pharma companies - at your country level, and at the WHO?</font></div></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Alas, I live in the USA, and hence am quite aware that US policy formation </div><div>in many areas is already dominated by the related commercial concerns... </div><div>The best we can do is hope that the processes that allow for open input are </div><div>actually functioning, and raise strong objection when we can prove otherwise.</div><br><blockquote type="cite"><div text="#333333" bgcolor="#ffffff"><font face="Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif"> Simple direct questions going very much to the heart of the issue which I hope you will answer. </font></div></blockquote><div><br></div>Of course. I do hope that discussion of this topic doesn't distract from IGC's</div><div>important work, but felt that it is worth noting how objections to these steps</div><div>by the ITU toward multi-stakeholder processes might be perceived. I'll be the </div><div>first to admit skepticism, but recognize that these are actually major changes</div><div>for a 100+ year old organization. Dealing with everyone in good faith would </div><div>lead me to believe that one must exercise these mechanisms first before </div><div>condemning them as closed and non-participative.</div><div><br></div><div>/John</div><div><br></div><div>Disclaimer: My views alone. Reading this email may be hazardous to your health.</div><div> Intentional misuse by deliberately concentrating the contents can be </div><div> harmful or fatal.</div><div> </div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br><br></div></div><div><br></div></div></body></html>