[governance] "new" process and players and its impact on IG

Wed Sep 21 17:55:36 EDT 2005

Hi Carlos,

I am sorry I did not get a chance to meet with you, but I just thought I
would share another perspective of this "new" process, being a newcomer
myself. I can see that the IG caucus group is a group that has been working
together to build concensus and common statements, and have done a great
job. I think however, we should note that on Monday night, the content and
themes group of the CS Plenary, changed the working methods of CS to mirror
the government group, i.e. Sub Committee A and B. They decided that the most
efficient and effective way for all caucuses at this point in PrepCom 3 is
to work using two CS working group...i.e. Subcommittee A group- which turned
out to be Internet Governance Caucus and Subcommittee B Caucus- which was
not in existence before an so newly created with Bertrand running it. 

Considering this change, there have been new faces from other caucuses being
asked to channel their statements and points of view within IG. I think Adam
and Jeanette have done a great job under the circumstances to make the new
comers feel welcome and become facilitators to take their views into IG.
Many are newcomers but have views they would like to share, which they feel
are relevant to the broad definition adopted by WGIG on Internet Governance.

Adam and Jeanette have counseled the new comers from these caucuses on how
to best impact Subcommitte A by making their statements relevent to the
issues on the table of governments and to start proposing text. They have
also explained that in lieu of verbal submissions, caucuses could submit
written statements. Given this new dynamics, there is little room for
concensus building and unified statements aside from IG and trying to get
views on the table from different caucuses that related to the issues on the
table. 

I know this is not the ideal circumstance given the work all of you have
done over the last year or two to build concensus positions, but it is
something that just happened as of Monday in the CS Content and Themes
Plenary, and we need to see how to work within it. What Bertrand with
Subcommitte B is doing is amazing too. His group meets 7-8pm every evening
and then again 10-11am the next morning. He works with small drafting groups
and tries to get concensus documents overnight, which is then reviewed by
the wider group the next morning. Whilst this is great, there are some NGOs
feeling very left out as they lack resources and energy to stay up 7-8pm and
overnight with Betrand's smaller group and again the next morning for coffee
in an area non-conducive for large group discussions. Those who can, have
been included. If this is concensus amongst CS, this can be said to be
questionable, but I think everyone is doing the best under the
circumstances. 

Of course I dont have the history of your first IG group concensus and so I
cannot comment on this, and I see there have been many responses on from
Bill and others to your mail, I thought I would share this thought on the
"new" process and players, so you also see how the dynamics and players in
IG Caucus has changed as of Monday, and how Jeanette and Adam are doing
their best under the circumstances. 

I think if we keep as open and transparent, and try to understand how best
to work within the current dynamics of the greater CS group, we can make
some headway, or we can discuss how to make the process better before end of
this week or the next.

Just some thoughts to share.

Regards,
Laina

-----Original Message-----
From: governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org
[mailto:governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org] On Behalf Of carlos a. afonso
Sent: Wednesday, September 21, 2005 3:51 AM
To: Jeanette Hofmann; WSIS Internet GovernanceCaucus; Robert Guerra; Adam
Peake
Cc: magaly at greatvideo.com; wdrake at ictsd.ch
Subject: Re: [governance] [WSIS CS-Plenary] slight postponement
oftoday'scaucus meeting

People,

Sorry for not being physically more present -- trying to work with the
Brazilians as the events unravel at subcommittee A, which is the reason of
my earlier arrival in Geneva.

I would like to express my concern (which is the concern of the Brazilian
NGOs working on Internet/ICT governance issues as well, like INDECS, the
Digital TV civil society caucus, CDI-PE, Rits, the Softwarelivre.org group,
several other members of the CRIS-Brasil campaign and so on) that, contrary
to what the caucus managed to present in subcomm B (a unified statement
built by a consensus effort, albeit in a rush, thanks to the great work of
the Ralf-Bertrand duo among others), our presentation in subcomm A was
piecemeal and the specific part on Internet governance mechanisms not based
on consensus.

I am afraid the presentation by Bill Drake is based on a vision which is not
shared by many civil society organizations. We understand we do not want a
"revolution" -- and this is mostly consensus -- but we need some significant
changes in the mechanisms, first, to consider the set of priority issues
which are not in the current ICANN-based system, and second, to take into
account the need for practical actions regarding paragraph 48 of the WGIG
report, among other reasons. If we endorse the statement as a consensus, we
are in practice almost doing what ICANN wants us to do, ie., defend the
creation of an innocuous consultative/advisory forum which might never be
really taken seriously.

I understand the opening statement by Adam tried to show this did not
represent consensus, but I did a survey later on among Southern delegates
(Brazil, India, Iran, Cuba among others) and most of them understood
otherwise. Many of these delegates also wrongly associate model 2 of the
WGIG report with the civil society caucus -- we must recall model 2 was
built under the influence of ICANN-related people and business reps in the
WGIG. Do we really want this perception to stay?
What will be our consensus position?

Just to make clear, my position (to which the Brazilian position has
basically converged) was expressed in my "parallel" paper written during the
last months of the WGIG. What are the other positions in the caucus on this
which we could analyze and try to build a consolidated/consensus position?

Or we just leave things as they are?

fraternal regards

--c.a.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Carlos A. Afonso
diretor de planejamento
Rede de Informações para o Terceiro Setor - Rits Rua Guilhermina Guinle, 272
- sexto andar 22270-060 Rio de Janeiro Brasil tel +55-21-2527-5494 fax
+55-21-2527-5460 http://www.rits.org.br
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

-----Original Message-----
From: Jeanette Hofmann <jeanette at wz-berlin.de>
To: WSIS Internet Governance Caucus <governance at lists.cpsr.org>,
plenary at wsis-cs.org, Robert Guerra <rguerra at lists.privaterra.org>, Adam
Peake <ajp at glocom.ac.jp>
Date: Wed, 21 Sep 2005 12:07:12 +0200
Subject: [WSIS CS-Plenary] slight postponement oftoday's  caucus meeting

> [Please note that by using 'REPLY', your response goes to the entire 
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> 
> Click http://wsis.funredes.org/plenary/ to access automatic 
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> _______________________________________
> 
> Hi everyone, unfortunately, weh need to postpone the IG caucus meeting 
> for 40 minutes. I would suggest we start at 3.10 pm in room E 30/56.
> The
> reason is that Adam and I have been asked to attend the bureau meeting 
> today.
> 
> Please spread the word to those who might not have Internet access 
> this morning so that we avoid people coming in vain and disappear 
> again.
> 
> Sorry again, hopefully see you at 3.10 pm then.
> 
> jeanette
> _______________________________________________
> Plenary mailing list
> Plenary at wsis-cs.org
> http://mailman.greennet.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/plenary

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