[governance] APC - Forum draft?

[Anriette Esterhuysen]

Hallo all

> Hello Vittorio,
> 
> On 11/10/05, Vittorio Bertola <vb at bertola.eu.org> wrote:
> 
> >
> > However, the fact that you mention "relative representativity" makes
> > me think that you imagine a sort of "quotas",
> 
> me too.

Not at all. Diversity can inform the constitution of a body without there being 
quotas. We were not thinking of quotas, but of a sincere attempt to constitute the 
membership in a way that reflects diversity. This is precisely how the WGIG was 
constituted.

> > so that you can't accept yet
> > another civil society group if you already have 100 NGOs and only 5
> > private businesses (random example). Am I right?
> >
> > In general, I think you should be very careful about the fact that
> > the forum is open to anyone who meets some basic, formal,
> > non-exclusionary criteria. This is what is commonly expected from
> > Internet governance processes - mostly, people expect to find a
> > mailing list and join, period. The idea of "bottom-up" is exactly
> > that - all those who are interested gather and create a group at the
> > above layer.
> >
> 
> exactly. It's got to be equal to that in terms of open,
> bottum-uppity-ness.

I think that this notion of 'bottom-up' can in fact hide concentration of power and 
exclusion. It assumes that everyone who is interested and who is affected have 
the access, capacity, resources etc. to speak out and participate.  This method 
on its own has not been particularly effective in decentralising internet 
development and decision-making to date. 

One could characterise the WGIG as being constituted through a combining a 
'bottom-up' process with a process that was sensitive to issue of regional, gender 
and other divesity.  That is what we had in mind for the Forum.
> 
> > > > What should such "nomination process" be for - to nominate whom?
> > >
> > > Member of the forum.
> 
> you have to be nominated to play in this sandbox? Or is this
> nominations ONLY for the eight seat group?

The idea was that there would be a public call for nominations for members of the 
Forum, in the way there was for members of WGIG.
> 
> >
> > So it's like, there's APC and CPSR applying for forum membership and
> > a nominating committee deciding which of the two orgs becomes a
> > member? Just to understand.

No, not at all.  We were not thinking of institutional members, but of individual 
membes.  In practice one will of course have a combination, as there was with 
the WGIG.  But the basic membership will still be individual, even of individuals 
are linked to institutions or countries.
 
> That's the way I read it as well.  I agree, it's disturbing, and I
> can't support this.  I may have misread it (but this is my 3rd
> reading).

We should try to clarify this.
> 
> > > Personally I find the tripartite model of stakeholders very
> > > limiting, and I suspect it will be quite shortlived.
> 
> I agree with AE here.
> 
> 
> > Again, on such a groundbreaking development, I think inclusiveness
> > is much more important than effectiveness. After all, if this Forum
> > is not "bought in" from the bottom, it will never fly.

The intention was that a public nomination process could achieve this.  It could 
have more time and cast its net even wider than the WGIG did. So, it is intended 
to be inclusive.  How many members were there in the WGIG?  I would think the 
Forum could be of a similar size. The idea was that a smaller group would 
coordinate the process.

Anriette


------------------------------------------------------
Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director
Association for Progressive Communications
anriette at apc.org
http://www.apc.org
PO Box 29755, Melville, South Africa. 2109
Tel. 27 11 726 1692
Fax 27 11 726 1692

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