[bestbits] [JNC - Forum] [governance] Civil society transparency
Anriette Esterhuysen
anriette at apc.org
Sun Jun 7 03:33:57 EDT 2015
Dear all
I have not seen Roberto's message previously but I agree with Roberto
completely.
Anriette
On 07/06/2015 08:18, parminder wrote:
>
>
> On Sunday 07 June 2015 10:30 AM, Roberto Bissio wrote:
>> Dear Parminder,
>>
>> There are many mechanisms for CSO accountability.
>>
>> NGOS accredited to the UN have to regularly report on funding, bilaws,
>> authorities and activities.
>>
>> Further, an INGO accountability charter
>> exists: http://www.ingoaccountabilitycharter.org/
>>
>> Social Watch was a member, until we could not afford the membership
>> fee, which is unfairly burdensome on poorer organizations from the South.
>>
>> Some fee is required if you are to assess the reporting of the
>> organizations. Otherwise everybody declares what it wants and the
>> transparency is meaningless.
>
> Roberto
>
> This is the reason that what is sought is a simple no cost statement of
> voluntary declaration of (1) interests, and (2) objectives and (3)
> funding sources, very much on the lines of the basic requirement that
> you mention below, and I would add as per your note "affiliations to
> networks or institutions " (somewhat like theEU transparency register
> <http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/homePage.do> .) And
> this with no fee or costs to those who enter the register -- the project
> should be run on independent funding by whoever runs it, and I have
> offered to help raise resources. And it being an online activity, the
> project requires very little resources.
>
> While in any case required for civil society, such a practise becomes
> even more important in the IG space where (1) there is a special - even
> 'equal footing' - claim to be on policy tables , and (2) where the
> geo-political investments as well as corporate investments into CS
> spaces by far exceed any other area. Funding sources of both JNC and
> BestBits have been publicly questioned in the recent past, on these very
> lists. What better way to go forward than having basic transparency
> declarations instituted to that there is a better basis for minimum
> cooperation and working together as we go forward. In this regard, it is
> important to recognise that for good or bad, or maybe that is just some
> unique characteristics of a civil society space which is both in the
> making in some way, and otherwise unique in some other ways, political
> divisions have been especially deep within the IG civil society space.
> (The reasons for this are structural, although repeated efforts are made
> to lay the blame on individual behavioural causes, and thus escape the
> real political basis of the differences .) I know that these things are
> not unknown in other areas, but still - stated very roughly - a better
> mainstream conception of civil society is generally obtainable in other
> areas. All these characteristics of the IG civil society space make
> instituting some basic transparency guidelines - on a voluntary basis -
> important for healthy development of civil society in the IG area, whose
> political role in the emerging digitally-mediated society is going to be
> extremly important. This should be a common commitment to ourselves, in
> all humility with regard to the increasingly important political role
> that civil society in the IG space plays.
>
> parminder
>
>>
>> While it makes sense to demand accountability from organizations
>> involved in the top levl of international advocacy, there are too many
>> situations in the world where this could mean another additional and
>> unfair request, on top of the many requests of regular reports that
>> most countries have to grant incorporation. Demanding more from CSOs
>> when neither governments nor corporations have to meet similar
>> requirements seems unfair to me. But maybe it makes sense to have a
>> list explaining wether the members are incporprated, where and under
>> what title (for profit, non-profit, etc) and affilitiaons to networks
>> or institutions they want to declare or wether it is an individual or
>> an informal grouping. Do remember that it is an human right (right to
>> association) to form groups of any kind, and they are (or should be)
>> deemed as "innocent" until proven guilty. Too many states turn the
>> table around and presume that associations are illegal until they
>> register and demonstrate they are "clean". We should not unwillingly
>> support that trend.
>>
>> best,
>> Roberto
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 7, 2015 at 4:20 AM, Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com
>> <mailto:gurstein at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>> Ian and all,
>>
>>
>>
>> The reason why there is a request for disclosure is so as to know
>> the background or context from which opinions/positions/actions
>> emerge. It is the same argument I think, as that concerning real
>> identity vs. anonymity as per the current Facebook controversy. It
>> is an extremely useful and in some cases essential item of
>> information to know who (the identity) it is that one is
>> interacting with.
>>
>>
>>
>> My own feeling on the issue is that unless there are strong and
>> persuasive arguments in favour of anonymity then knowing the
>> “identity” of who (or what) ever one is interacting with is a
>> basic requirement. I don’t know that it has ever been an issue in
>> our various IG discussions but if it did arise my guess is that
>> most would opt for people using their “real” names/identities for
>> their contributions.
>>
>>
>>
>> If the above is the case then I think that by extension we can
>> give some content to what we mean by “real identity”.
>>
>>
>>
>> To some degree the components of the “real identity” required for
>> effective communication/interaction will vary from context to
>> context—for romantic purposes age, appearance, gender would likely
>> be necessary; for financial contexts formal elements as might be
>> required or contracts such as citizenship, financial and credit
>> information are part of that “real identify”.
>>
>>
>>
>> I would argue that in our IG context “real identity” should
>> include a knowledge of the financial/contractual contexts (i.e.
>> who is paying the piper) from which individual participation is
>> being presented.
>>
>>
>>
>> M
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:*bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net
>> <mailto:bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net>
>> [mailto:bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net
>> <mailto:bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net>] *On Behalf Of *Ian Peter
>> *Sent:* June 7, 2015 6:03 AM
>> *To:* parminder; governance at lists.igcaucus.org
>> <mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org>; BestBitsList;
>> Forum at Justnetcoalition. Org; A general information sharing space
>> for the APC Community.
>> *Subject:* Re: [bestbits] [governance] Civil society transparency
>>
>>
>>
>> Hi Parminder,
>>
>>
>>
>> Following from the discussion, here is what I think is possible
>> and realistic in this space.
>>
>>
>>
>> Firstly, I think the question of transparency and disclosure of
>> conflicts of interest is important.
>>
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>> 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).
>>
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>> 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.
>>
>>
>>
>> Ian Peter
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:*parminder <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net>
>>
>> *Sent:*Sunday, May 24, 2015 5:31 PM
>>
>> *To:*Ian Peter <mailto:ian.peter at ianpeter.com> ;
>> governance at lists.igcaucus.org
>> <mailto:governance at lists.igcaucus.org> ; BestBitsList
>> <mailto:bestbits at lists.bestbits.net> ;
>> mailto:forum at justnetcoalition.org ; A general information sharing
>> space for the APC Community. <mailto:apc.forum at lists.apc.org>
>>
>> *Subject:*[governance] Civil society transparency
>>
>>
>>
>> Ian, and reps of civil society networks on the Civil Society
>> Coordination Group (CSCG) ,
>>
>> I propose that CSCG sets up a civil society transparency project,
>> somewhat on the lines of the EU Transparency Register, pl see
>> http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/homePage.do .
>>
>> 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....
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> 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.
>>
>> I look forward to hear responses to this proposal..
>>
>> parminder
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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>
>
>
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