[bestbits] [governance] Civil society transparency

parminder parminder at itforchange.net
Sun May 24 12:49:58 EDT 2015



On Sunday 24 May 2015 06:29 PM, Carlos A. Afonso wrote:
> Parm, all this fuzz just to expel Nick??

Carlos, I am not sure where you read an expelling clause. The primary
purpose of neither the EU transparency register nor my proposal is of
*judging* organisational mission, funding etc, but to bring these
informations upfront and make them public, which by any canon of
democratic public life they should be .

I am sorry if all this looks fuzz to you, but transparency of public
actors including of civil society actors  is regular civil society stuff
for the civil society that I know and interact with.

Maybe you can relax and try to see this proposal on its merit without
thinking about who is proposing it and what you may be jumping to
consider as its 'real purpose'. Perhaps it may put your mind to rest to
know that I have made such a proposal a few times in my IGC postings,
and also have been in talk with a major south based civil society IG
group for over an year now about it.

So, may I ask you, putting Nick out of your mind, what do you think of
this proposal as an important civil society person/ org in this space.
Thanks.

parminder
> --c.a.
>
> sent from a dumbphone
>
> On 24/05/2015, at 09:31, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net
> <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net>> wrote:
>
>> 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
>> ____________________________________________________________
>> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>>     bestbits at lists.bestbits.net <mailto:bestbits at lists.bestbits.net>.
>> To unsubscribe or change your settings, visit:
>>     http://lists.bestbits.net/wws/info/bestbits
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>      governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> To be removed from the list, visit:
>      http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing
>
> For all other list information and functions, see:
>      http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
> To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
>      http://www.igcaucus.org/
>
> Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/bestbits/attachments/20150524/97a836dc/attachment.htm>


More information about the Bestbits mailing list