[governance] location

[Jeanette Hofmann]

Hi Bertrand

I did indeed completely misunderstand what you mean. Thank you for the 
extra explanation.

jeanette

> Dear all, dear Jeanette,
>  
> I must not have been clear enough. And Avri's comments help clarify things.
>  
> There was NO idea whatsoever in my comment about a rotating secretariat. 
> And YES, I support an initial secretariat in Geneva. AND, I believe 
> Greece should put in place an organizing committee for logistical 
> matters related to the first meeting.
>  
> More precisely, what I meant is :
> - there should be a small independent start-up secretariat established 
> as soon as possible around Markus and Geneva - as far as I am concerned 
> - seems the best location; this secretariat would deal with general 
> initiation of the process and particularly in the case of the first 
> Athens meeting, with organizing further consultations on its substantive 
> agenda and format; these consultations, facilitated by the secretariat, 
> would constitute an informal Program Committee for Athens 2006 (and 
> maybe help produce a more formal one)
> - Greece, around George and their existing national Steering Committee, 
> should organize the logistical aspects of the first meeting in Athens : 
> rooms, translation, remote communications, connectivity, ....; they 
> could for instance set up a IGF 2006 Organizing Committee
>  
> In SUBSEQUENT phases, for instance after the first meeting of the Forum 
> in Athens, the "support functions" of the various Forum activities would 
> develop along three dimensions :  
> - for each annual meeting, hopefully in a different country each 
> year, the host organization woould establish its own organizing (and 
> possibly program) committee(s)
> - as thematic threads (and eventually working groups) emerge in the IGF 
> process, various actors could volunteer to support them from their 
> own location, with temporary thematic support teams (can be a single 
> person part time, actually)
> - the initial secretariat would in parallel develop as needs arise and 
> possibly establish antennas in various regions to cater to specific 
> needs, progressively building a DISTRIBUTED (not rotating) virtual 
> secretariat 
>  
> Once again, please keep in mind in terms of location a clear distinction 
> between the Secretariat(s) and the activities of the Forum. The worst 
> thing would be to maintain the intellectual framework of a traditional 
> organization : one location, all activities there, etc... As a matter of 
> fact, we do not need to reinvent the wheel : this type of conference 
> organizing mechanisms are absolutely routine in many areas. And after 
> all, even traditional intergovernmental organizations organize meetings 
> in different parts of the world apart from their headquarters and they 
> have offices in various places. The only difference is we want to set 
> that up in a more organic way, without lengthy debates on diplomatic or 
> international civil servant status and heavy procedures.  
>  
> Best
>  
> Bertrand
> 
>  
> On 2/14/06, *Avri Doria* <avri at psg.com <mailto:avri at psg.com>> wrote:
> 
> 
>     On 14 feb 2006, at 18.02, Jeanette Hofmann wrote:
> 
>      >
>      > I find the idea of a rotating secretariat dangerous because that
>     makes
>      > it vulnerable to the institutional competition between various UN
>      > organizations.
> 
>     i don't actually remember discussing a rotating secretariat.  but it
>     may have been a terminology difference.  what i was talking about was
>     the idea that the logistics of setting up meetings could rotate among
>     other organizations.  if one thinks about a secretariat as a group
>     that does lots of stuff and also organizes the logistics of meetings,
>     this one piece was conceived of as possibly rotating.  at least that
>     is what i was thinking about.  this chunk can get large and
>     cumbersome, so this was one possible way of keeping the secretariat
>     lean and focused on the substance of the forum administration.
> 
>     a.
> 
> 
> 
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