[governance] IGF consultations - Transcriptions from yesterday + my intervention

[Vittorio Bertola]

All,

the transcriptions from yesterday are online:

http://www.intgovforum.org/contributions/IGF-1-0216.txt
http://www.intgovforum.org/contributions/IGF-1-021606pm.txt

Also remember the live streaming at http://streaming.polito.it/IGF-live

And so I can now copy my intervention, for those who might be interested 
in reading it:

 >>VITTORIO BERTOLA:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I would like to start by 
the concept that was agreed in Tunis Agenda about a forum based on 
authoritativeness and not on authority.
  I think this implies that participation and inclusiveness are vital 
elements to get support and for a forum to be effective.  And this leads 
me to my first very specific point which regards rules for accreditation 
and participation in the meetings.
  I think it is very important that there are no barriers, there are no 
obstacles for anyone who wants to participate in these meetings.  It 
should be very simple online-based registration system.  In general, you 
should make it possible for any stakeholder who wants to participate to 
join the meetings.  And this, speaking for what regards civil society, 
does not just include accredited or established NGOs but also includes 
informal groups, online campaigns, and even the individual users 
participating as individuals.  And then the most important point I 
wanted to make I think we all want this forum to have an impact.  I 
think we want this forum to be able to solve issues; otherwise, it will 
be useless.
  And so I would like to reiterate the idea that the IGF should be seen 
as a process and not as an event.  And the reason is clear.  I think 
that -- I mean, can you solve issues by meeting once a year for three 
days, maybe discussing 10 or 15 different issues, maybe in a room filled 
up by 500 people?  I think it's clear that you can't.
  And so if you want to change the Internet, I think you need to do it 
the Internet way.  You need to encompass the flow of spontaneous 
initiatives that are born every day on the Internet to solve the issues 
about which all the users of the Internet care.
  And so, my proposal, you need working groups.  You need to have open, 
online collaborative initiatives that are started by the people who 
care.  So all stakeholders that care about the specific issue can gather 
and form an online discussion forum and start to discuss and build 
consensus and actually work out best practices and recommendations.
  And then at the same time, I think you need some coordination among 
all these different working groups.  And this is why I think you also 
need a steering group.  Not a bureau, but a steering group that can 
advance the work and oversee the advancement of this work, can adopt the 
documents and the recommendations that are prepared and agreed by the 
different working groups, and also can take care, of course, of the 
program of the meeting.
  And I think this should be a sort of moral leader of this entire 
process, a group of people coming from all the different stakeholders 
that act as peers in their individual capacities, that are broadly 
respected and are especially open minded.  And possibly, these people 
should be self-selected by the different constituencies and stakeholder 
groups.
  But perhaps just to advance the work at an interim stage, I would 
suggest that they are appointed by the secretary general.
  I think that we need all of these elements to meet the challenge at 
this point in front of us.
  And to conclude, personally, I would really like to spend a word of 
support for the excellent work that the former WGIG Secretariat and 
chairmanship has been doing and are still doing.
  I think that many people here hope that they would be allowed to 
continue in the IGF.
  Thank you.
-- 
vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...
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