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Dear Pranesh<br>
<br>
Thanks for your engagement. <br>
<br>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On Monday 08 June 2015 08:27 PM,
Pranesh Prakash wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote cite="mid:5575AD5B.5020800@cis-india.org" type="cite">Dear
Parminder,
<br>
I am at this point unclear what the precised difference between
your position and Ian's is, for I don't find myself disagreeing
much with either of you (or Anriette or Roberto).
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
I will be very happy to find no difference . And if you are not able
to see the difference try taking forward different approaches to
actual action, and then perhaps then you will. I am looking for some
actual action, and not just theoretical discussion . And so if you
think the two approaches lead to same practical impact - of
something that can actually be done - say in the next 3 months, I am
so very glad - lets get going with it (But I suspect not even Ian
thinks so - whereby there indeed are differences here.)<br>
<br>
So let me again say what I am saying - I am seeking a transparency
register with declaration of interests/ objectives/ funding sources
something on the lines of EU transparency register with some
possible contextualisation to civil society situation. Now this is a
concrete thing. EU transparency register is <a
href="http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/homePage.do">here</a>
and <a
href="http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/consultation/displaylobbyist.do;TRPUBLICID=GgDgV1GXv1n6H3LlKvQLkhnvCNRjTTH15rXTjmnZNvdmJNXZ6CZJ%212055959869?id=281621317714-62&isListLobbyistView=true">here</a>
is a page showing information submitted by one civil society
organisation - similar info is submitted by business associations .
<br>
<br>
I fully understand that the EU transparency register fulfils a
specific purpose, and here the purpose and motivations may be a
little different and accordingly adjustments can be made. The basic
question is - are we ready to agree to put in a place a transparency
initiative or not... If yes, I understand that the least would be to
make a voluntary statement of interests, objectives and funding
sources .. I have seen no civil society transparency initiative
which is less than this, although there are many much more complex
which kind are not being advocated here. So, we either agree to one
such kind, and agree to begin working for it so that it can be in
place in 3-4 months, or we do not. Sorry, maybe I am just being an
activist, and escaping nuance. But that is how I see it.<br>
<br>
But of course, I am happy to hear about alternatives and how we can
proceed with them. I am not wedded to any one idea or format - but
it is my present understanding that any such initiative has to have
minimum of the 3 elements that I mentioned. That is the minimum that
any CS transparency initiative I know has. <br>
<blockquote cite="mid:5575AD5B.5020800@cis-india.org" type="cite"><br>
On "conflict of interest":
<br>
This is not an idea from the corporate world. It existed far
before that, too. A judge, for instance, has a conflict of
interest if she is deciding a case that related to someone close
to her. A political figure may have a conflict of interest while
making a decision that involves a relative. "Conflict of
interest" is an idea that belongs to the public sphere and the
political sphere as well. At any rate, this is splitting hairs.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Agree, lets avoid going into this hair-splitting. Although what I
meant was that 'conflict of interest statement' as a transparency
measure belongs to the corporate world; in public life much greater,
pro active and default 360 degree transparency is ideally insisted
upon. We know that in India in our right to information work - and
how increasingly various kinds of actual disclosures are asked for,
not just a self judged conflict of interest statement. I havent
heard of anyone asking for and making 'conflict of interest'
statements in the government for instance - simply becuase the need
and demands of transparency are much much greater and deeper. That
is what I meant by saying that this idea as an adequate transparency
measure comes from and belongs to the corporate world. I dont know
of any civil society transparency initiative based on conflict of
interest declaration - which is owing to good reasons which I would
not go into right now. <br>
<blockquote cite="mid:5575AD5B.5020800@cis-india.org" type="cite">
<br>
On the transparency register:
<br>
I support the idea, but I have the following operational
questions:
<br>
1. Will there be a body that vets the information provided?</blockquote>
<br>
That is not proposed in the idea I forwarded. I just proposed a
register where groups voluntary fill in information - and if they do
not, or fill inadequately, it for the public to see and make their
impressions about it. It is possible to periodically publish the
list of those who have made the declarations - and I understand that
it puts pressure on any civil society org / actor which is big
enough, exercising influence and power around but not making the
basic declarations. It just works by public opinion. So, no, no one
would be vetting the information as far as what I proposed goes. <br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:5575AD5B.5020800@cis-india.org" type="cite">
If so, how will this be funded?
<br>
</blockquote>
Since no vetting is involved, there is limited resource requirement,
for which we can try and raise funds. <br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:5575AD5B.5020800@cis-india.org" type="cite">2.
Will this be somewhat like the ICANN's CoI form, but with
additional questions since this is not just about CoI?
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
As mentioned, I do not find conflict of interest declaration at all
adequate - and that is not the tradition in civil society
transparency initiatives . Civil society engagement is broad
spectrum in public interest, and nominally everyone only receives
funds to do public interest, ..... I have discussed this in earlier
posts too, CoI is not an appropriate concept here - a basic
statement of interests, objectives and funding sources is.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:5575AD5B.5020800@cis-india.org" type="cite">3.
Do you envisage there being any consequences of someone having
been funded by a government or a corporation or a religious
charity or a corporate-funded foundation, etc., on whether someone
can be a CS representative? If yes, what kinds of consequences do
you envisage?
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
I see no consequences other than of public opinion, which all of
politically active civil society must incessantly subject ourselves
to, in a fully transparent manner, even if it sometimes hurts -
which times I would say would be the greatest character-building
ones. However, if say some feminists decide to make a hue and cry to
see some candidate for a civil society position being majorly funded
by groups that are against reproductive rights, and in fact
corresponding language exists in the objective statements of the org
to which the candidate belong, who am I to stop them from doing so.
After all, transparency of information means that such information
would be politically employed by some people in some circumstances -
otherwise the whole thing is meaningless. <br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:5575AD5B.5020800@cis-india.org" type="cite">
<br>
In essence, I understand the transparency motivations, but I'm
very unclear what accountability mechanisms are envisaged to
accompany it, if any.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
It is only about transparency - no accountability measures are
envisaged. Becky earlier posted information (on the BB list) on some
initiatives that go much beyond, into accountability seeking, but
that is not my current proposal at all.<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:5575AD5B.5020800@cis-india.org" type="cite">
<br>
(Also, while reading Jeremy's point about witch-hunts, keep what's
happening with Ford Foundation in India in the back of your head.)
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
What is happening with Ford Foundation in India has nothing to do
what is being discussed here. As for as I know the Foundation
promotes NGO transparency ....<br>
<br>
best, parminder <br>
<blockquote cite="mid:5575AD5B.5020800@cis-india.org" type="cite">
<br>
Regards,
<br>
Pranesh
<br>
<br>
parminder <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net"><parminder@itforchange.net></a> [2015-06-007 11:19:58
+0530]:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Ian, thanks for taking this discussion
forward.
<br>
<br>
Firstly, on the matter of to whom the required transparency
measures
<br>
should be applicable. I have said this before, this is supposed
to be
<br>
voluntary, and individuals merely getting into discussions on
civil
<br>
society lists are not important in this regard. It is the civil
society
<br>
organisations as well as individuals who get selected as civil
society
<br>
reps in various forms, or otherwise play significant roles in
civil
<br>
society and multistakeholder spaces, that we mainly focus on.
The major
<br>
organisations involved in this area must be subject to basic
<br>
transparency requirements whether or not they take a civil
society rep
<br>
position because they in any case very often play very important
role in
<br>
policy processes. As you would have seen, unfortunately, a lot
of strong
<br>
civil society action is currently taking place away from the key
<br>
coalitions that you mention.
<br>
<br>
(On the other hand, I dont see why any individual just coming
into some
<br>
IG discussion on civil society lists would be taking any IG
related
<br>
funding at all - I mean what would s/he take it for - for
spending time
<br>
on these lists!? (That btw would be most interesting - but then
we know
<br>
that some big governments have paid people intervening in the
cyber -
<br>
public sphere as a new form of public propaganda.) So, I fail to
<br>
understand why is this discussion focussing on individuals
merely
<br>
participating in the list discussions - they can simply ignore
the
<br>
proposed voluntary register, or enter that they take no IG
activities
<br>
related funding from anyone, as one would expect to be true for
most of
<br>
them. But then well, if individuals do take clear IG related
funding,
<br>
say, as travel grants, occasional writings. and so on, I would
think it
<br>
is necessary to declare that - perhaps even morethan in case of
<br>
organisations, who, unlike individuals, mostly - though not
always -
<br>
have other forms of additional NGO governance checks. But to
repeat, my
<br>
proposal has a greater primary focus on involved organisations
as
<br>
against individuals. )
<br>
<br>
Next, about what kind of transparency measures are appropriate.
<br>
'Conflict of interest' is used more in corporate governance and
we,
<br>
civil society people, would best stick to higher norms of public
life
<br>
rather than go by corporate governance norms. The later are
necessarily
<br>
limited and have a different nature. For instance, conflict of
interest
<br>
will apply to someone who holds the shares of a company but then
gets
<br>
involved in a governance decision that impacts the bottomline of
that
<br>
company. Things really do not work like that in public life,
where
<br>
transparency and accountability have a very different - much
higher but
<br>
accordingly also diffuse - meaning and implication. The
'public' part
<br>
of 'public life' is very important - and as civil society
players we are
<br>
in public life, in fact in its rather powerful 'political life'
part. In
<br>
stating a conflict of interest a person takes a private decision
about
<br>
oneself and one's state of affair (of course, the decision can
become
<br>
public in case of accusations, some future crisis, and so on).
<br>
Transparency of people in public life requires such judgements
to made
<br>
/by the public/, and /at all times/. That is of essence. Sorry,
that one
<br>
has to go into such basic canons of public life, which have a
long
<br>
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
<br>
may serve the limited scope of requirements of corporate
governance,
<br>
does not satisfy the public requirements of public life,
especially as
<br>
involving those actors who are involved in public governance, as
IG
<br>
civil society certainly is.
<br>
<br>
To make this discussion more concrete; youd agree that we should
get
<br>
into instituting a process only if it has any real meaning in
terms of
<br>
practical implications. So I ask you, lets say that an
organisation or
<br>
an individual were receiving funding from government of India or
from
<br>
Google - and is involved in the typical IG related activities;
please
<br>
provide me an instance of likely case in which that
organisation/
<br>
individual will self declare a conflict of interest. I cant
think of
<br>
many such possible instances - policy work is by its very nature
diffuse
<br>
and almost everyone is, by the very nature of it being public
policy,
<br>
impacted - some certainly more than the other, but private
judgements of
<br>
such impact would hardly be useful. It is not that IGF or an IG
<br>
governance body is ever going to make a declaration specifically
on govt
<br>
of India or google, in which kind of case perhaps one may jump
to state
<br>
a funding conflict. In fact, one still may not, becuase
typically any
<br>
org will accept funding only in the name of promoting public
interest
<br>
and would not want to accept that pushing a public policy
discussion or
<br>
process in one way or the other actually constitutes a 'conflict
of
<br>
interest' - in that it would not want to admit that in accepting
a
<br>
funding it had accepted taking on 'an interest'. That is a
fundamental
<br>
difference in how a civil society org is constitutes, as against
a
<br>
lobbying body. For all these reasons, conflict of interest is
not a
<br>
concept suited for civil society transparency and
accountability. Your
<br>
proposal for "require(ing) candidates to register any conflicts
of
<br>
interest" would simply result in all candidates saying 'they
have no
<br>
conflict of interest that they can recognise' and thus would
serve no
<br>
purpose at all.
<br>
<br>
Lastly, while you keep on saying this is the most we can do (
'conflict
<br>
of interest' declaration) you have not given any reason why
transparency
<br>
standards often applied in other areas of civil society work
should not
<br>
be applied in the IG space as well, and what exactly is wrong
with a
<br>
basic voluntary register of transparency simply declaring
'interests,
<br>
objectives, and funding sources'. This even when I have been
arguing
<br>
that it is even more important for IG civil society than in
other civil
<br>
society areas, because the unique multistakeholder claim and
approach in
<br>
this area puts civil society in more significant, even powerful,
policy
<br>
positions than in other areas. Also, how basic documents on
healthy
<br>
development of a multistakeholder approach like the UN report on
IGF
<br>
improvements, NetMundial Statement, etc, all point to need for
greater
<br>
transparency. I once again exhort you to read Luca Belli's this
<br>
excellent paper on multistakeholderism
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="http://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/heterostakeholder-cooperation-sustainable-internet-policymaking"><http://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/heterostakeholder-cooperation-sustainable-internet-policymaking></a>
<br>
which argues why such basic transparency is essential to
forwarding a
<br>
multistakeholder approach.
<br>
<br>
I cant see how IG civil society can keep pushing a
multistakeholder
<br>
approach to policy making, and seek a greater role for itself in
the
<br>
process, but then keep dragging its feet on accepting even basic
<br>
transparency norms. The world is watching of course, and will
ask
<br>
questions. there is a cost to being in public life.
<br>
<br>
parminder
<br>
<br>
<br>
On Sunday 07 June 2015 03:32 AM, Ian Peter wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Hi Parminder,
<br>
<br>
Following from the discussion, here is what I think is
possible and
<br>
realistic in this space.
<br>
<br>
Firstly, I think the question of transparency and disclosure
of
<br>
conflicts of interest is important.
<br>
<br>
However, I don’t think people need to declare interests to
involve
<br>
themselves in discussion here or in any of our open mailing
lists, and
<br>
the real concerns start to arise only when people are seeking
office
<br>
as civil society representatives.
<br>
<br>
Here, most of the office bearing exists in the various
coalitions –
<br>
APC, Best Bits, JNC, NCSG, IGC. I would urge each of these
groups,
<br>
when holding elections, to require candidates to register any
<br>
conflicts of interest. I know Best Bits is moving to elections
for its
<br>
Steering Committee again soon, perhaps it could formulate some
sort of
<br>
basic disclosure requirement for its purposes? And I guess JNC
must be
<br>
moving towards holding its first elections for SC
replenishment soon?
<br>
And IGC could easily add such a requirement for its candidates
for co
<br>
cordinator elections (presumably late this year).
<br>
<br>
But these are requirements for individual groups, and the form
of such
<br>
is for each group to determine. I think however that such a
<br>
requirement would be a good idea.
<br>
<br>
As regards CSCG – our calls for candidates are for
appointments to
<br>
outside bodies, and I agree that some form of disclosure of
any
<br>
conflicts of interest would be a good idea. Currently it would
appear
<br>
that our next task would be MAG replenishment (and a small one
at
<br>
that), probably early next year. I will suggest to the members
that we
<br>
should require some sort of basic disclosure statement. But
that of
<br>
course is up to the members (APC, BB, JNC, NCSG, IGC) to
determine.
<br>
<br>
I’m not sure we can go much further. But if some work can be
done on a
<br>
simple model of a form of disclosure, that would be good.
<br>
<br>
Ian Peter
<br>
<br>
*From:* parminder <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:parminder@itforchange.net"><mailto:parminder@itforchange.net></a>
<br>
*Sent:* Sunday, May 24, 2015 5:31 PM
<br>
*To:* Ian Peter <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:ian.peter@ianpeter.com"><mailto:ian.peter@ianpeter.com></a> ;
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org">governance@lists.igcaucus.org</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org"><mailto:governance@lists.igcaucus.org></a> ;
<br>
BestBitsList <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net"><mailto:bestbits@lists.bestbits.net></a> ;
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="mailto:forum@justnetcoalition.org">mailto:forum@justnetcoalition.org</a> ; A general information
sharing
<br>
space for the APC Community.
<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:apc.forum@lists.apc.org"><mailto:apc.forum@lists.apc.org></a>
<br>
*Subject:* [governance] Civil society transparency
<br>
<br>
Ian, and reps of civil society networks on the Civil Society
<br>
Coordination Group (CSCG) ,
<br>
<br>
I propose that CSCG sets up a civil society transparency
project,
<br>
somewhat on the lines of the EU Transparency Register, pl see
<br>
<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
<br>
for all lobbying groups, whereas we here are concerned with
civil
<br>
society which should set the highest example of transparency
and
<br>
accountability. The 'register' can have self filled
information on
<br>
objectives of an organisation, principles followed by it, if
any, its
<br>
funding, partners, and so on....
<br>
<br>
This is at present just my proposal, but I hope one or more
civil
<br>
society networks in the IG space can own it and push it...
CSCG would
<br>
be well placed to run this project as a neutral space so that
there is
<br>
no accusation of bias that any such initiative is being
employed for
<br>
partisan purposes. In any case, a simple initiative for
openness,
<br>
transparency and accountability can hardly be partisan.
<br>
<br>
The register can have optional higher level features whereby a
group/
<br>
org can declare its means of public accountability, whether
and how
<br>
its internal governance is done, how matters can be taken by
with
<br>
their oversight bodies, like board etc, and whether they have
any
<br>
means whereby they respond to public question on their work,
etc.
<br>
<br>
For such genuine cases where such transparency can harm an
<br>
organisations work, or security, such organisations, and only
such
<br>
organisations, can be exempted employing a clear process and
set of
<br>
criteria.
<br>
<br>
Remember, both the UN report on improvements to the IGF and
the
<br>
NetMundial Statement highlight the issue of transparency. I
also
<br>
recently read in these lists how we should make bridges with
the
<br>
OpenGov movement which is almost wholly about this one thing.
Time we
<br>
begin practising what we preach.
<br>
<br>
I look forward to hear responses to this proposal..
<br>
<br>
parminder
<br>
<br>
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