[governance] IG Capacity Building

[Jovan Kurbalija]

Following upon Ken's and Parminder's inputs, here are a few points on
capacity building.   
 

1. Policy vs. Practical Aspect

a) Policy Aspect; during the WSIS/WGIG there was a consensus that there is a
need for IG capacity building. The main controversy was on   positioning
capacity building in the broader IG policy agenda. In after-Tunis phase I do
not envisage any major difficulties in the policy discussion on the
content/organisation of capacity building activities. 

b) Practical Aspect; trying to link capacity building in the IGF activities
(e.g. including the preparations for the annual forum, preparing background
research for the Forum). The WGIG already "walked the talk" and integrated
capcity building role in its work. It is likely that the IGF will follow the
same trend. 

What should be  the  capacity-building position in the IGF agenda items? The
most likely positioning of capacity building issues could be "LESS" than  a
full policy aspect and "MORE" than  a  simple practical aspect. One
advantage of capacity building is that one can trace the improvements and
monitor developments over the next few years (including quantiative
monitoring).
 

2. Capacity-building as the process

Another link between capacity-building and IGF is process-approach. The
capacity building should not consist of one-off course/workshop/training. It
should be the process developing epistemic communities around various
IG-related issues. The process approach would contribute to the IGF
activities by providing constant reality-check to the  IG-debate and
highlighting the link between "high politics" IG debate and  its  impact on
day-to-day reality in IG/ICT field (e.g. spam, access to the Internet,
knowledge sharing). 

 
3. Multistakeholder Approach to Training - Need for Communication Among
Different Professions

IG capacity building is more related to facilitating communication among
different professional cultures (ICT, policy, diplomatic, legal) than to
conveying information or knowledge. One of the main successes of the WGIG
was the breakthrough in inter-professonal communication. 

Whenever it is possible one should expose people to multistakeholder
discussion prior to any real negotiations (ideally in the training phase).
It is easier to understand "other professional logic" in the learning
process than in the real negotiating environment (e.g. a lot at  stake,
"face saving aspect"). Diplo's experience with multistakeholder composition
of course groups is very encouraging.
  
An immediate reflex is to associate capacity building with developing
countries. In the context of the improvement of inter-professional
communication one should not underestimate the needs for training in
developed countries. 


4. Innovative Approach

Ex-cetedra lecturing, conveying information is in the  past in many
training/educaitonal circles. People have information. They know how things
function or, at least, how to find  the  information. As a matter of fact,
professionally speaking", academic circles who followed the approach "only I
have the book" are the biggest loosers of  the Internet/Google revolution. I
probably won't discover too much,  if I indicate that exchange and
interaction makes all  the difference and will provide a value -added
element to capacity building. 
 

5. Neutral Approach

Parminede highlighted  this aspect which is essential. It is required for
responsible and reliable training to be based on providing  a  factual
basis, listing open questions and making  a  survey of different
approaches/perceptions. The experience from our IG courses shows that such
an approach facilitates a  real richness  in discussions and avoids falling
into any ideological simplifications. 


6. Multi-level approach


- short-term (just-in-time learning, preparing people for covering
particular issues, providing training prior to the major events).
- Medium-term (training and research activities for people interested in
IG-issues)
- Long-term (introducing IG courses in the curriculum of academic
institutions - computer science, legal studies, etc.).

 

As an illustration of both needs and interests for capacity building is the
IG Capacity Building Programme for 2006. We  have received close to 500
applications from developing countries. The interest from developed
countries which we had to turn down is on the same level. 

I hope that these points will help in further discussions  and preparations
for any side-event which we may organise in Athens.

Jovan            





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