[governance] Thanks Jeanette- IG caucus - participation issues
Laina Raveendran Greene
laina at getit.org
Thu Nov 24 12:38:52 EST 2005
Thanks Jeanette for not writing off my email and responding politely. I do
appreciate your looking into what works and what does not. I was hoping from
my tone of the email that it would be taken as suggestions for improvement
for the future and I am truly grateful that you have taken it in that light.
I understand that you and Adam did your best under the circumstances and I
know CS made more impact that it ever could without such dedication from
both of you. As for Tunis, since many of us did not know there was an IG
caucus room, we checked the Civil Society Board and not this room. So I am
sure you can see, that we can have room for improvement in future to cater
for greater involvement using multiple means of communication and not just
emails.
Also, I do suggest we have some mechanism for archiving past discussions or
create some kind of blog of sorts so that past discussions, papers shared
etc can be be put up for new players to read before joining in. Also I
suggest that coordinators serve somehow to "summarise" or something so "new
players" can see how their comments may fit in or not -in a way that they
also do not feel ignored or written off. I know this is not possible always.
As for being in negotiations and having fixed meetings, perhaps rather than
cancelling them, perhaps coordinators could have a third volunteer who could
serve as a backup to help update people on what is going on, so others can
still feel involved and be updated (especially those without access to
emails).
As for the likeminded group, I understand your observation, but it seems
like the only way to avoid the frustration I seem to sense many expressing
including you and Adam. I know you have expressed to me before that it is
political suicide not to have one CS position. However, given the large
interest on this list and in CS, it may be the only way to ensure that
proposals do get drafted on time and move forward more smoothly. Perhaps we
could start of this way with likeminded sub-WGs and then reach compromises
as the governments did before reaching one position. There is some validity
to Avri's suggestion but I also see your point.
I do look forward to seeing how this caucus evolves and how myself and
others can contribute their ideas into this process.
Best Regards,
Laina
PS Jeanette- thanks for being so apologetic. I truly appreciated your spirit
in this note.
-----Original Message-----
From: governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org
[mailto:governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf Of Jeanette Hofmann
Sent: Thursday, November 24, 2005 7:23 AM
To: Laina Raveendran Greene
Cc: guru at itforchange.net; governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: Re: [governance] IG caucus - participation issues
> 3) process has to be clear for both offline and online. It was very
> ironical that those who did not attend Tunis were better informed than
> many of us who were in Tunis. I missed both IG meetings as it was
> originally scheduled for Thursday at 10am and then got cancelled to a
> later time and another time on Friday. Thursday afternoon I had
> another event I was involved in which I had already notified everyone
> about, and because Internet connectivity was hard for me at Kram and
> my hotel, and so I was not informed
Laina, I am sorry that you missed this information. Since you replied on
this list to my email in which I confirmed the reservation of rooms for the
changed meetings, I had reasons to believe you know about the new meeting
schedule.
For those who were not online, information about the two meetings was also
on caucus office door and the meeting room door in the civil society area.
The first meeting changed because I had forgotten that Adam had another
meeting at the time originally scheduled. Sorry again, my fault! Since
Adam's and my term ended it seemed rather important that both of us are able
to attend the meeting. I spent several hours running around and asking about
every caucus member I could get hold of whether or not they could attend a
meeting on Thursday afternoon. It was in my own interest to get as many
people as possible to attend these rather rare face to face caucus meetings.
While it is true that caucus meetings got postponed rather frequently over
the past two years, we had always good reasons to do so. Often enough we
changed or canceled meetings because the official prepcom schedule changed.
I don't see how we could have avoided this.
Finally, I am against creating what you call "like-minded groups". I see a
lot of merit in discussing our various point of views re government
intervention and accountability. I certainly have benefited a lot from
listening to other peoples' positions. However, I am in favor of developing
a caucus or working group structure that allows us to refer to and build
upon the compromises we have found over the past months.
jeanette
and could not
> participate (I checked that CS notice board daily but this was not
> used by IG caucus and we did not even know there was an IG caucus room
> as this was not announced)
Dear Laina, the first meeting
Only those in the small group seem to know. I saw this even
> in Geneva Prepcom, where meetings were constantly being cancelled
> changed etc by email and those of us without connectivity were excluded).
>
> 4) we need one or two coordinators who understand the role and
> function of a coordinator i.e. need for open and transparent processes
> and MORE IMPORTANTLY, do not have any personal agenda that overrides
> how you coordinate. Coordinators should be more committed to ensuring
> open and transparent positions for everyone to be heard rather than
> pushing their own agendas, therefore keeping meeting times as much as
> possible and keeping process etc. There should also be greater
> sensitivity to people who may not have easy access to connectivity for
> various reasons especially when physically at conferences, and also
> that people from different cultures or parts of the world may see
> issues differently. It is also important that whilst heavy
> negotiations are going on, that instead of both coordinators being in
> the negotiating room and meetings getting cancelled, one should keep
> meeting times to ensure consistency etc. In other words, coordinators
> should not also be the negotiators at the same time. This messes up
> the process of keeping consistency, openness, transparency etc for those
who may not be as connected as others.
>
> I am comfortable and hope that Adam stays on, but am concerned about
> the other statements which makes me feel that there is no comfort or
> skills to hear and include new players. The Information Society grows
> everyday and we have to live with new players and even "old" ones who
> may not have joined the clique sooner.
>
> I offer these quick food for thought since I feel that Guru's email
> has validity and may represent those of many others. I was funnily
> kept better informed through my government delegation than through
> civil society. Not everyone has this benefit and we need to make sure
> if we are to speak for CS, we need to find a way to include and allow
> as many CS to participate as possible.
>
> I do understand that during negotiations, time is of the essence but
> we should not compromise process at the expense of making something
> happen. If however people prefer compromising process to enable some
> CS viewpoints to be expressed, then it would be best to split up into
> several working groups within IG Caucus into working groups based on
> region e.g.. Asia, Africa, etc or according to issues e.g. privacy,
> security etc. This way we do not all have to agree on everything and
> we do not end up with a list that is more focused on getting results
> (having clear objectives and process spelt out ahead of time as Avri
suggested).
>
> I therefore hope we can give some thought on form, process and
> substance so we can be more effective at Athens in May/July 2006.
>
> Regards,
> Laina
>
> PS Finally back home and finally connected to the Internet again!!!
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org
> [mailto:governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf Of Milton Mueller
> Sent: Sunday, November 20, 2005 5:24 PM
> To: guru at itforchange.net; governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: Re: [governance] IG caucus - participation issues
>
> Guru:
> As I understand Jeanette's position it is more the expression of
> frustration at the extreme difficulty of trying to get coherent
> positions out of CS organs, when you have an open list in which
> someone who joined yesterday mixes with people who have been talking
> about an issue three years, two years, 8 months, etc. I know for a
> FACT that Jeanette supports an open list and expanding participation in
the caucus.
>
> Obvioously it's important to get agreed, consensus positions from the
> caucus when possible - especially about organizational issues and
> statements. As I have discussed with her, the real issue here is not
> the "disruption" of new participants, but the lack of procedures for
> voting or some other collective decision making mechanism.
>
>
>>>>"Guru at ITforChange.net" <guru at itforchange.net> 11/18/2005 8:49:16 AM
>>>>
>
> Hi,
>
> I am sending this mail from the CRIS meeting ..
>
> While addressing issues of IG, I heard Jeanette Hoffman, for the third
> time in two days speak about .... how the IG caucus has been working
> for a long time with its members achieving consensus and how in the
> recent past, after
>
> PC3, 'new members' have come in and have 'disrupted' the process. In
> the CRIS meeting, she also mentioned that ... 'we should make sure in
> the forum that such things do not happen'
>
> In the IG meeting yesterday, Adam clarified, and I too responded to
> her view, saying that IG being a large and complex area is bound to
> have different views and perspectives.
>
> I cannot understand how such closed views on participation can be
> propagated by a person moderating the caucus.
>
> It is clear who Jeanette is referring to as 'disrupting' the process.
> I
>
> suggest that this issue be clarified - whether the IG caucus would
> like
>
> these 'new members' to leave the caucus, or Jeanette should be asked
> to stop making such comments, specially when she is speaking on behalf
> of the IG caucus.
>
> Guru
>
> --
> regards
> Guru
> IT for Change
> www.ITforChange.net
> Bridging Developmental Realities and Technological Possibilities
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