[governance] Dynamic Coalition working methods (was: Coalition on IGF Fund)

[Ralf Bendrath]

(Adapted the subject line)

Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
> Not really, my concern is more that the informality of the coalitions 
> makes them unaccountable to the IGF at large.
First of all, the IGF at large is accountable to nobody. It is at the
moment an "open house", as Niton Desai said, it can't (yet?) make
decisions, and its composition is more or less random. So why should any 
dynamic coalition be accountable to the IGF?

> (a) agreeing on some criteria pursuant to which they can be accredited 
> (not sure if this is an appropriate word, what do others think?)
I suggest "recognized", which is more informal.

> for conformity to standards of openness to multi-stakeholder 
> participation, transparency and internal operation by consensus;
To my understanding (and as somebody who has a pretty large coalition on
his back now), they are self-constituting entities / processes. We have to 
take care to not interfere in their inner workings too much from the 
outside, especially in the forming stage when the whole momentum is still 
fragile.

One big problem will be the participation of governments. We have the 
French Government in our privacy coalition, and are in discussions with 
the Italians and the British. A major problem for them seems to be the 
explorative character of the coalitions, especially when addressing 
"emerging issues". They can only participate if the bylaws or statutes 
clearly state that the positions they take are not officially cleared 
government positions. We might even have to use Chatham House Rules or 
something like that fort parts of the coalition work if we really want to 
engage them in an open dialogue. And this is just EU governments. Try to 
think of Iran or others who might be willing to participate.

Bottom line: There seems to be a trade-off between openness and broad 
participation. If we don't carefully address these issues, we will have 
some nice NGO-Business dialogue, but no governments on board.

> (b) allowing the output of an accredited dynamic coalition to be put to
>  the IGF at large to be considered and, potentially, ratified and 
> adopted by consensus (through some also yet undefined process).
It will only be "adopted" or "ratified" by a more formal forum, e.g. a 
WSIS-follow-up summit in 2010. Forget about anything else in the first 
years. And if you push too hard here, we will just fend off governments 
willing to work with us.

What we will try in the privacy coalition is certainly to develop some 
position paper / FAQ / draft recommendations to be "considered" by the 
next IGF. If this works in an inclusive multi-stakeholder process, it will 
be more than I hoped for.

> I'm considering where to take things from here, but I'm open to 
> suggestions.  I would be happy to draft a list of criteria, develop a 
> rough consensus on it here and on the plenary at intgovforum.org mailing 
> list, 
Is that list populated yet? Especially: Is there a significant number of 
government reps? We can come up with anything we like at the moment, but 
the biggest problem seems to be the participation of governments. Don't 
overwhelm them.

> and then ask Adam or someone to put it in front of the Advisory 
> Group.  An alternative is that a Dynamic Coalitions Dynamic Coalition 
> could be formed to develop the draft criteria.
Please... Not another meta-structure.

I think if we come up with good *substance* that is supported by a large 
number of stakeholders from all groups, especially by enough governments, 
we will have an impact and will have made clear that multi-stakeholderism 
can produce quality outcomes. Everything else has to evolve, and we have 
to leave some room for trial & error. If we formalize it too early, it 
won't work.

Best, Ralf
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