[governance] Main sessions @ IGF

[Adam Peake]

At 6:06 PM +0200 10/17/06, Vittorio Bertola wrote:
>Adam Peake ha scritto:
>>Arranging panelists for the main sessions is ongoing.  Finding a 
>>balance from among people known to be attending is not easy. (Has 
>>to be from people known to be going, the secretariat has no cash to 
>>bring anyone.)
>
>I thought the question might be of interest to everyone: how are 
>these sessions organized? A set of panelists picked by the AG, and 
>then open discussion from the floor? Will there be a Chair's summary 
>of the session? Should positions be in writing? Presented in advance?
>
>How does the average participant raise his/her own issues and gets 
>them addressed, or at least reflected in the final summary of the 
>IGF? From the floor? Or by finding a panelist that can mention them? 
>Or - to be practical ;) - by lobbying the Secretariat?
>
>Sorry for the abundance of ?'s, I know this is a work in progress... 
>but I'd hate to have been waiting for one year, come to Athens with 
>a couple of "urgent issues that are not being dealt with elsewhere", 
>and then fail to get them at least recorded in the proceedings, if 
>not discussed. I think that civil society should at least have a way 
>to flag issues for subsequent work in "dynamic coalitions".



Vittorio,

It is a work in progress.  A very hastily arranged, quite large and 
quite high level almost semi-UN conference, with no money, doing 
stuff that hasn't been tried before in quite the same way.  So don't 
expect anything but a mess... right up until Monday 30 October when 
everything will be wonderful :-)

I think some of what you ask is online in various places.  I know the 
IGF site isn't perfectly designed (small staff busy doing other 
stuff), but there's really not so much there to click through.

Starting on the second day (note, this is actually missing from 
current program) from 9 to 10 there will be recap and review before 
thematic sessions begin.  This session will include an open mic.

There will be remote access/participation (questions).  There will be 
a "blogshpere" ... I think this means that the Internet will be 
monitored for comments and questions, and those will be brought into 
the relevant sessions (all sessions, not just re-cap).

No prepared statements from the floor.  Plan is to allow people to 
send prepared statements on video to be broadcast around the facility 
during the meeting. No news on this, if it will happen or not. I do 
not know if there will be facilities to record statements on site. 
But no statements from the floor is the rule, or every delegation 
will want their 4 minutes and we'll be back in a WSIS-like world.

Panel sessions are intended to be as interactive as possible. 
Panelist will not make lengthy presentations.  A few minutes to frame 
and issue or make a couple of points.  They will be moderated by 
professional journalists, a talk show style. See Nominet's 
consultation for an example 
<http://www.rawcoms.com/content/corporate/nominet/061009/index.html>

Kieren blogged the Nominet event 
<http://kierenmccarthy.co.uk/2006/10/11/igf-london-meeting-rushes-worries-and-lessons/> 
and has put up sound files 
<http://kierenmccarthy.co.uk/2006/10/14/nominet-igf-meeting-audio-recordings/#more-591>

While audience participation is very much desired, I think the MAG is 
also concerned about how to manage this (I am concerned...)  Long 
winded and out of context statements will mess things up. Some see a 
microphone and just feel the need to speak... whatever the subject. 
Civil society has a reputation from earlier consultations for being 
particularly guilty of this (perhaps unjustly?)

If the room is full -- 800 or 1200 people, not everyone is going to 
be able to speak.  Which is why we asked people to send comments long 
ago <http://www.intgovforum.org/contributions.htm>  Asked many times. 
This caucus promised and did not deliver.

Sessions.

The four main themes Openness, Security, Diversity, Access were 
picked by the MAG (went through themes suggested through the public 
comment process and picked out the most common, also looked at WSIS 
discussions and Tunis Agenda.)  We then broke the four themes into 
sub-topics we thought should be addressed and we'd need experts for, 
e.g. openness:
Content production
Access to Knowledge
Human rights - freedom of expression
(nothing new here, this is all on the IGF website... somewhere :-)

The MAG members were asked to start suggesting names of people they 
thought would make good panelists covering these topics.  Tried to 
keep in mind that there was no money to bring people, so we were all 
looking to people we knew would attend (and quite a few were coming 
for workshops etc.)  It's very easy to suggest names, but a waste of 
time unless the person's going to be in Athens.

No time for any formal consultation on this part of the process.  I 
have been asking people privately, but mainly for ideas of people 
from developing nations (north is represented OK.)

We are not sure of the number of panelists and structure. The panels 
are 3 hours sessions, so will need to keep things moving along.

Panels should be multi-stakeholder. Geographically diverse. 
Development oriented.  And know something about the subject that 
perhaps 1000 people would like to hear.

The list of names is still draft.  Not easy to balance geographic 
diversity, and to bring in enough experts from developing nations.

And we're trying not to use MAG members on panels.  May need to in 
the end, there are a few member who stand out as experts, and if we 
have gaps then we'd be harming the IGF for what otherwise is a very 
good/fair principle.

That's where things are at the moment.  We have a draft list of names 
for each session.  The people themselves have not been told (so I 
can't tell the list.)   We are looking to fill gaps. Things are 
looking OK.

Adam



>--
>vb.             [Vittorio Bertola - v.bertola [a] bertola.eu.org]<-----
>http://bertola.eu.org/  <- Prima o poi...
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