[bestbits] IGF - and the corporatisation scandal

[parminder]

Following up on the current IGF cancellation imbroglio, I happened to 
see what is called as the 'fund raising proposal' 
<https://docs.google.com/file/d/0BylRrf_lFlA9OXhieGt5WUJsMkU/edit> of 
the managing committee of Bali IGF..... Sorry to say, but it is a pure 
scandal....

Against donations, it promises funders to be able to recommend speakers 
in the closing ceremony, organising of events, invitation to high level 
meeting, banners all around inside the venue (hundreds of them), special 
promotional feature in the IGF book, logos on the website, on the daily 
IGF bulletin, on various equipment in the venue and many other 
things..... Government can make donations and in return "may lead a 
session in the IGF and be responsible for opening, summary, and the 
closing of events....."

Scandalous!! This is selling off the UN, selling off of global public 
policy spaces... The fact is, I dont want to go to such an IGF. I want 
to have nothing to do with it.

Who authorised all this? Can the MAG please respond. They certainly knew 
about the mentioned 'fund raising proposal' and about how the 2013 IGF 
was being organised. Why did they remain complicit, or is it that they 
actively promoted it?  (For a start the civil society members in the MAG 
who are on this list may please clarify.) Who authorised selling off the 
global IG policy dialogue space in this way... Does this correspond to 
the ground rules of a UN convened and run event which in my 
understanding the IGF continues to be.

  It was certainly never intended in the WSIS mandate of the IGF... At 
the WG on IGF improvements too we were quite clear that IGF is a 
government hosted UN event. How was such a big shift be accomplished. 
And done without people getting a whiff or it, what to say, a public 
discussion.. I have seen many problematic changes inside the MAG-IGF 
structure over the last year or so, which are aimed at a kind of 
capture, but this one simply takes the cake.

Does the civil society want to speak up on this issue.

(As I said earlier, when, at the Baku IGF, the Indonesian government 
showed its unwillingness to host 21013 IGF, MAG, IGF secretariat, UNDESA 
or whoever, had no business to allocate it to a private group, even if 
under government’s weak tutelage. They should have offered it to other 
governments, one of which would  certainly have taken the offer. What 
has happened is a natural flow from what is euphemistically called as a 
multistakeholder convened/ funded IGF, largely free from UN and 
governmental linkages. And this is what so many - including on this list 
- have been promoting. It is basically a corporate controlled and run IGF  )


parminder


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