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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 style="font-color: black"><B>From:</B> <A 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 title=ian.peter@ianpeter.com
href="mailto:ian.peter@ianpeter.com">Ian Peter</A> ; <A
title=governance@lists.igcaucus.org
href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</A> ;
<A title=bestbits@lists.bestbits.net
href="mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net">BestBitsList</A> ; <A
title=forum@justnetcoalition.org
href="mailto:forum@justnetcoalition.org">mailto:forum@justnetcoalition.org</A> ;
<A 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>
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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 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>
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