[governance] Proposal for selecting the themes of the Athens meeting

Fri Feb 17 06:35:53 EST 2006

Dear all,

Please find below the intervention I made this morning on the second day of
the open Consultations on the Convening of the IGF, propsing an iterative
process to select a few themes to structure the Athens meeting. Sorry for
not circulating it earlier for comments, the idea came to me yesterday
evening in view of the discussions on the first day.

Comments on this idea are welcome, as I believe the various cacuses in civil
society would be interested to participate in such a

*First Consultations on the Convening of the Internet Governance Forum*

February 17, 2006

Personal contribution by :

*Bertrand de La Chapelle*

Email : lachapelle at openwsis.org

Tel : +33 (0)6 11 88 33 32

Mr Chairman,

You invited us yesterday to contribute in a thinking aloud mode and I will
follow your recommendation here, presenting a few concrete ideas in a
personal capacity to feed the debate, focusing on the first meeting of the
Forum in Athens.

1)     The IGF should be established in the most pragmatic and
self-organizing manner possible. As the participant from Singapore mentioned
yesterday : we want the IGF to start small and evolve. To prove the movement
by walking, and save time, the simplest approach could be to *organize **
Athens** as a 3-4 days open conference*, with a basic registration process,
like the one used for the present meeting, open even to interested
individuals.

2)     Athens should address a diversity of substantive issues in a limited
number of *thematic sessions* (4 to 6 max), in addition to the necessary
opening and final wrap-up plenaries.

3)     The purpose of these thematic sessions is to allow all actors to
reach *a better understanding of each issue* and the challenges it raises,
even if they do not agree at that stage on how it should be addressed, or
what the solutions are. The only criteria should be that actors agree the
issue exists and should be addressed.

4)     Each session could start with *a panel* of experts from the different
categories of stakeholders presenting the different dimensions of the issue,
followed by an *overview of the main actors* involved in addressing it. A *
discussion* would then follow to explore how the Forum can facilitate
deliberations about it and interaction among the various actors.

5)     For each thematic session, a *rapporteur* would present the main
elements of the discussion in the wrap-up plenary to help structure
activities in view of the next annual meeting of the IGF.

6)     How should these themes be selected ? Several suggestions have been
made yesterday and surely will be today. But we need an iterative and
structured process to identify them in an open and inclusive manner. In this
perspective, following these consultations, an *open call for suggestions of
themes* could be initiated by the Secretariat, with a deadline of end of
March.

7)     Stakeholders would contribute *one page submission, in a proposed six
point format* :

a.      A *concise formulation* for the proposed theme;

b.     A brief *description* of why it is important in their view;

c.     How it is in conformity with the Tunis Agenda in terms of *substance*,
particularly in reference to para. 34 to 54;

d.     How it fits *within the mandate* of the IGF as detailed in para 72;

e.      Who the *main actors* in the field are, who could be encouraged to
participate in the Forum and its thematic sessions

f.       Last but not least, why, in their view, this issue should be
addressed *in the first annual meeting* of the Forum rather than in
subsequent ones.

8)     Submissions would be posted online by the secretariat. A *second
phase for online comments* would be opened for all actors to express support
or criticize the proposals during the month of April.

9)     The second round of open consultations envisaged for *May *could
then, in view of a summary of comments by the Secretariat, select the few
themes that gather the greatest consensus.

10)      At this second meeting, and only then, a more formal
*multi-stakeholder
Program Committee* would be formed to help organize the introductory panels
for each thematic session, and guarantee the involvement of the key
stakeholders in this field.

11)      Finally, during the Athens meeting, stakeholders who submitted
issues not retained for the main thematic sessions would be given the
opportunity to make short 3-5 minutes interventions in a special *poster
session of 2 to 3 hours* in order to further feed the agenda-setting
process.

Mr. Chairman, I will limit my contribution at that stage to this issue and
take the opportunity to thank you for holding this meeting in such an open
format.

_____________________
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