[governance] Purpose and mandate of the MAG ?

[William Drake]

Hi Bertrand,

As stated, the purposes you list are consistent with what the industrialized country governments and the private sector have been pushing.  They want to limit the forum to just an annual gab fest, we talk about something and go home, and a MAG focused only on planning Athens would fit with that orientation.  But the caucus in Tunis and CS folks more generally have pushed for a broader, multilevel configuration in which the IGF is an ongoing process of dialogue, analysis, and capacity building.  In this formulation, there could be working groups and other initiatives (I advocate one on application of the WSIS Principles to extant governance mechanisms) working primarily virtually, and any outputs they might devise---reports, recommendations, whatever---could potentially be brought into the annual conferences, either just for information or for possible discussion/action.  The MAG presumably would have to play a role in supporting these developments.  Hence, in the MMWG input agreed last month, we said, inter alia,

"6. The Programme Committee [now MAG] should facilitate the bottom up formation of 'Discussion Groups on Internet Governance' (DGIGs) on various aspects of Internet governance, in particular with regard to the issues listed in Section V of the WGIG Report. The Programme Committee should establish transparent procedures and criteria for the formation and recognition of any of such groups or initiatives stakeholders may wish to organize on relevant topics.   All stakeholders should be able to propose groups on a bottom-up basis.  Any such groups should be open to all stakeholders that may wish to participate, transparent, and based primarily on virtual collaboration.  They could engage in a range of activities, e.g. inclusive dialogue, monitoring and analysis of trends, conducting studies, and developing recommendations for action.  Furthermore the Program Committee should also define transparent procedures and criteria according to which such groups could propose any results of their activities as possible inputs for consideration in the annual meetings."

Perhaps it was just an oversight, or are you now saying you disagree with this approach?  

I hope that at least some of the CS people who end up on the MAG will support what we've argued for prior.  It will be an uphill effort, but if the restrictive model of the IGF goes unchallenged and is implemented without debate, the potential value of the IGF will be limited, and the work we did over several years in calling for a forum that could be used to monitor, assess, and promote dialogue on the conduct of IG in various contexts (as opposed to just talking about individual issues) will arguably have been wasted.

Thanks for clarifying,

Bill


-----Original Message-----
From: governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org [mailto:governance-bounces at lists.cpsr.org]On Behalf Of Bertrand de La Chapelle
Sent: Wednesday, March 22, 2006 12:07 PM
To: Governance
Subject: [governance] Purpose and mandate of the MAG ?


  Dear all,

  Here are a few preliminary comments on what the role(s) of the MAG could be. 

  Purpose of the MAG

  The MAG is established for this first Athens event. A new one should be put in place for next year. 

  Its role is to help organize the Athens event in terms of substance. This could involve at least three elements :

  - Agenda-setting : facilitating the establishment of the final list of themes. In this context, the MAG role is less to make a final decision but to catalyze and reveal the rough consensus (cf. Avri's previous comment that rough consensus does not appear on its own but must be catalyzed). This includes, when issues are contentious, suggesting formulations that are acceptable to all parties in order to allow them to get on the Agenda 
  - Identification of actors : help identify possible speakers and relevant organizations that should/must be involved on a given issue. This could mean launching and managing a "call for speakers" on each issue retained on the Agenda after the May meeting and a "call for identication of already involved players" in order to form the introductory panels on each issue. 
  - Promoting inclusiveness : it is of the utmost importance that participation in the Athens meeting involves actors from developing countries and groups that were not involved directly in the WSIS process but are relevant to the issues. MAG members in that respect should play an active role in advertising the Athens Forum in other spaces (a sort of ambassadorial role :-) and identifying ways and means (including financial with the help of foundations or other supporters) to facilitate participation of such actors 

  In a certain way, the members of the MAG would act as "Trustees" to guarantee the embodiment of the principles of multi-stakeholderism in the first meeting of the IGF.

  Comments on these suggestions are of course highly welcome. I thought these elements might also be helpful for the nomcom to select people that could provide useful competences in that respect.  

  Best

  Bertrand




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