[governance] What a mess!

Mon Apr 3 11:55:41 EDT 2006

[the last message I read on the list is the second posting with the
subject line "what a mess" by Meryem - don't have time right now to
read all the day postings]

Dear Meryem et al.

A mess, indeed, and as I read your last emails, I even feel like the
whole situation is more than a mess! I know we have more important to
do right now, but I do need to address something that bothers me in
your presentation of the situation.

1/ To anyone who has been reading the postings on this list, it is
not a mystery that both Ken and I are also participants in ACSIS/the
African civil society caucus. In that space, we are of the very few
engaged with information policy and IG issues.

2/ ACSIS as any other constituency wanted to submit themes that could
address its concerns, so I made proposals there and submit them here,
too, hoping that there would be some discussion that might improve
them. As you probably know, no caucus questions the unraveled
credentials of the IGC in the Internet governance issue area. And
please be reminded that at the time, we were left with no clear
guidelines to organize this submission process (and dont read the
past with the principles that you Meryem are putting forward only
now). So for me, no one really knew the fate of those proposals we
were making, as far as IGC was concerned.

3/ Meanwhile ACSIS felt comfortable with my proposals and went
forward with the submission (I didnt, but the ACSIS President did
with the group's consent, including mine, of course), while Ken was
discussing with Parminder (on this list) whether it was
(strategically) appropriate or not to submit a capacity-building
related theme to the IGF agenda. Eventually they agreed it would be
better not to submit it as an IGF plenary agenda item, but Ken still
wanted to draw attention of the IGF to support capacity-building
activities (as I understood it). So those 2 proposals are in fact of
a different nature (as to whether or not they are proposals for IGF
plenary agenda), and they are in different languages so some first
felt it was good/better to submit them in different files, still as
ACSIS proposals.

3/ In ACSIS, when we send out contribution, we dont mind any
ego-entertainment issues (which we may have inside, sometimes, as any
human grouping); when we agree to endorse and contribute any idea, it
is sent out as ACSISs, period. 

So, from all the above, it is normal that you find on the IGF website
those two separate contributions as ACSIS's and with no individual
names. This is not the result of Ken or Mawaki posting anonymously
their proposals, and trying again to have it posted by this Caucus.
Nobody attempts to deceive anyone here.

In addition, your very personal view being proposed now as a
principle/guideline for submission was certainly not obvious to
everyone of us, that is, the "principle of non multi-caucus
endorsement." I understand that a submission by one caucus (i.e. the
entire and exact list of proposals) should not be resubmitted as such
by another caucus, but I dont see why individual proposal from one
caucus list of proposals cannot be endorsed and resubmitted by
another caucus, if it pleases and if it wants to support it. And
again, at the time we were trying to put these together, nobody knew
for sure whether we were going to discuss and try to agree on a
limited number (even if higher than 3) of proposals. And you know
more than everyone else that the caucus didn't give the green light 
(so neither did I) for the Friday submission.

I hope this clarifies, and certainly, if the caucus decides to go
with your guidelines, I dont see any problem withdrawing those
problematic proposals from the IGC submission.

Mawaki

--- Meryem Marzouki <marzouki at ras.eu.org> wrote:

> Sorry to bother you again but I've now found that proposals sent by
>  
> Robert are now included (for those which weren't already sent by  
> their proponents, as submissions from their authors (or, in the
> case  
> of Mawaki and Ken, by the African CS).
> The 8 proposals sent by Robert are presented on IGF website as  
> described below.
> 
> Questions and comments:
> 1/ this means that the governance caucus appears NOWHERE, and has
> NOT  
> A SINGLE proposal
> 2/ How it comes that Mawaki's two proposals have been sent (before 
> 
> Robert sends them) by the African CS proposal, Mawaki being not  
> named? Mawaki has never told us this, which could have been a
> helpful  
> information: his proposals were to be sent by another WSIS CS  
> constituency, and not by the governance caucus
> 3/ Same applies for Ken's proposal (sent later on, and presented as
>  
> the second submission by the African CS constituency, Ken being not
>  
> named.
> 
> Here is what one can found on the IGF website, regarding the 8  
> proposals sent by Robert:
> 
> > <Equity for critical Internet resources.doc> (Mawaki's proposal)
> ==> "The African Civil Society For The Information Society (ACSIS),
>  
> 29 March 2006"
> 
> > <affordable Internet access.doc> (Mawaki's proposal)
> ==>"The African Civil Society For The Information Society (ACSIS),
> 29  
> March 2006"
> 
> > <e-voting.doc> (Ginger's proposal)
> ==> "United Nations Association of Venezuela, 29 March 2006"
> 
> > <user centric digital identity.doc> (Garth's proposal)
> ==> "Telecommunities Canada 31 March 2006"
> 
> >> <The WSIS Principles on Internet Governance.doc> (Bill's
> proposal)
> ==> "Project on the Information Revolution and Global Governance  
> Graduate Institute for International Studies Geneva, and Computer  
> Professionals for Social Responsibility, 31 March 2006"
> 
> >> <Publicness.doc> (Parminder's proposal)
> > ==> "IT for Change, 31 March 2006"
> 
> >> <Open Educational Ressources.doc>
> > ==> already directly sent by the WSIS Education, Academia and  
> > Research Taskforce, kept as is
> 
> 
> >> <Promoting capacity building strategies-fr.doc> (Ken's proposal)
> ==> "The African Civil Society For The Information Society (ACSIS),
>  
> 30 March 2006"
> 
> _______________________________________________
> governance mailing list
> governance at lists.cpsr.org
> https://ssl.cpsr.org/mailman/listinfo/governance
> 

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