[governance] Comments - afternoon, Friday

[Milton Mueller]

Some comments below. I assume that this will be our response to Desai's call for comments in 10 days on the structure of the program committee? 

>>> apeake at gmail.com 2/18/2006 12:25 PM >>>

Q. MEMBERSHIP OF THE PC (AND WE AGREE ON PC)
>A. QUITE SIMPLE: ALL STAKEHOLDERS SHOULD BE REPRESENTED, EQUALLY AND AS
>EQUALS.  ALL REGIONS SHOULD BE REPRESENTED.  MUCH WE CAN ALL LEARN
>FROM WGIG PROCESS IN TERMS OF SELECTION AND COMPOSITION, BUT
>ESSENTIALLY MORE BALANCED IN TERMS OF REPRESENTATION.  WE ARE VERY
>AWARE OF THE DEVELOPMENT PERSPECTIVE OF THE FORUM.

I would prefer that you strike the WGIG reference, and that you add something about keeping it small. No more than 15. WGIG was a deliberative and drafting body, and we DON'T want the program committee to be that. We also DON'T want it to have 40 members. If that happens, all the important deliberation shifts from the open process to a closed committee. And people think it is more and more important to be on the PC rather than participating in the process.

The idea is that the PC should be a minimal size required to represent, but should also have very limited powers. E.g., PC does not "pick" themes and force us to discuss them, it simply approves and prioritizes themes proposed by Working Groups.

THE PC SHOULD NOT BE AN ADVOCACY SPACE, NOT SOMETHING PEOPLE LOBBY TO
GET THEIR PET ISSUE TAKEN UP.  A TRUSTED GROUP THAT WORKS TO CONSIDER
SUGGESTIONS FROM ALL STAKEHOLDERS.

WE SUGGEST WORKING LEVEL (REFLECTS A QUESTION IN THE QUESTIONNAIRE.0

Here again, I am suspicious of "consider suggestions." Instead, I would like to see a formal process for creating working groups around specific themes, and the PC simply eliminates those that are out of scope or badly drafted, and conslidates duplicative suggestions. But it does not decide on its own what the themes are or should be. 




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