[governance] Caucus at IGF stock taking meeting

Thu Feb 1 07:10:22 EST 2007

Hi All, 

Requesting once again for points that need to be take up at the stock taking
meeting, which paticipants from the IGC may be able to raise at the meeitng.

Meanwhile, I am forwarding a document which we will submit tomorrow to the IGF
to meet its deadline of the 2nd for making it to the synthesis paper. Elements
from this documents may also be considered, if found useful, by Vittorio to seek
a consensus document for the meeting. 

Parminder

Taking stock and the way forward 
(contribution by IT for Change, in response to the IGF questionnaire for the
stock taking meeting in Geneva) 

What worked well? 

The open format without a heavy governmental feel, but with a strong
participation of governments nonetheless, worked well. The distributed workshop
sessions that were organized by different stakeholders, with all requests for
workshops being allowed, gave a sense of ownership to all stakeholders,
especially those from civil society who tend to be left out from agenda setting
positions in global policy forums.

The innovation of setting up dynamic coalitions appears to hold promise to
develop constituencies and consensus on certain IG related issues, and to
possibly trigger specific activities on these issues. 

What worked less well?

The plenary sessions held in a journalistic mode were perhaps (only perhaps)
fine for an opening IGF meeting but this format needs to be revised in
subsequent meetings. We need more focused sessions conducted by subject experts,
and the panels need to be smaller. They should be able to conduct an informed
discussion/ presentation, which no doubt is always a difficult task in huge
conference situations like at the IGF. But taking relatively focused subject
areas will help greatly. This will increase the topic selection responsibility
of the IGF MAG, but with more lead time available for the Rio meeting this can
be attempted to be done through a participatory process. However, some crucial
decisions may still have to be taken by the MAG.

Although the overall thematic focus of the Athens meet was on development, most
workshops did not address this issue. This shows the limitations of just opening
up a facilitative forum without direct support and action to highlight and
discuss such priority issues, when the interested stakeholders may be
disadvantaged in capacity on many fronts. This also makes the case for the IGF
to evolve into a more proactive organization, apart from such evolution being
required by the IGFs mandate listed below. 

Suggestions for improvement in view of the second IGF meeting?

Our concern remains that the IGF in its present shape, as was evident at the
Athens meeting, is able to fulfill just a narrow part of its mandate given by
the Tunis Agenda (TA). And we see no signs of what is meant to be done regarding
the larger part of the mandate which goes beyond IGFs role as a facilitative
forum for open discussion, to issues like interacting with different IG related
organizations (TA 72 c), facilitating discourse between them (72 b), facilitate
the exchange of information and best practices (d), do capacity building (h),
promote and assess the embodiment of WSIS principles in Internet governance
processes (i), advice stakeholders (e),  identify emerging issues and make
recommendations(g) and help find solutions (k). 

The stock taking meeting should do a serious exercise to develop processes and
structures in the IGF that can enable it to meet these parts of its mandate. A
couple of suggestions in this regard are listed below:

1.	All major IG related organizations, like the ICANN, US government, ITU,
WIPO/WTO etc, should be invited to hold open forums at the annual IGF meeting to
enable a stakeholder dialogue, as also facilitating discourse between them.

2.	The IGF must be able to develop elaborate papers and reports on various
important themes of IG, employing experts, especially in under-researched areas
like developmental aspects of IG. This must be an ongoing exercise. (To cite an
example, similar work was done by the UN ICT Task Force.) This will enable the
IGF to fulfill its mandate in respect of many of the above listed areas.

3.	At its annual meeting, and in the in-between periods, IGF should be able to
hold workshops of its own (other than those held by various stakeholders) on key
themes  for example, on the issue of promoting and assessing the embodiment
of WSIS principles in Internet governance processes and on development issues
in IG. These workshops should also be held in the regional and national contexts.

4.	To be able to undertake the above activities, and to fulfill other required
responsibilities, IGF must seek to establish some kind of a permanent structure.
This requires adequate funding for which a case should be made at this stock
taking meeting and the issue taken up with various possible sources of funds. 

Any other comments or suggestions?

Included in above. 

Did the synthesis paper, which gave an overview of all contributions received
and which was translated in all UN languages, meet a real need? Should a similar
paper be prepared prior to the next meeting?

Yes, it meets a real need, and such papers should continue to be produced. 

Quoting "l.d.misek-falkoff" <ldmisekfalkoff at gmail.com>:

> Dear Parminder, Vittorio,  and All:
> 
> Thank you for the opportunity to input to these important discussions.
> 
> In terms of present scheduling, I submit here the following, with
> appreciation for the openness in regard to all governance matters:
> 
> From the perspectives of *Respectful Interfaces* (Coda: 'Achieving *Dialogue
> * While Cherishing *Diversity' ) - *and integrating project and enterprise
> models of many sorts -  sustaining the values of *inclusion* across the
> board is very important.
> 
> The Civil Society Voice along with other constituencies should and shall
> with the good efforts of those here be part of all phases and aspects of
> Internet and general ICT capacity enlarging:
> ** R*equirements, *E*quipping, *S*pecifications, *P*lanning, *C*hecking, and
> *T*ransfer. *
> 
> These Policy-To-Action phases are of course iterative and flexible, to guard
> against potential narrowness of unilaterally imposed "finished" end-products
> and services based only on rigid or externally conceived "target
> audience" marketing strategies.
> 
> And thank you again as Representatives and individuals, for the *
> inclusiveness* present here.
> 
> P.S. As for inclusion in Rio, it is suggested in good cheer that more events
> will be open to more people if elevators are not blocked and especially
> where there are stairs without rails (though I appreciated that in Athens
> the Hotel Staff took some of us with disabilities downstairs through
> inner-wall (seeming) routes - 'not uninteresting' side trips in themselves !
> ).
> 
> Best wishes and warm regards, Linda.
> Dr. L. D. Misek-Falkoff
> *Respectful Interfaces Programme*, Communications Coordination Committee For
> the U.N. (NGO).
> 
> 
> On 1/30/07, Parminder <Parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> > I understand that Vittorio is trying to put together some views expressed
> > on
> > this list for inputting into the stock taking meeting. while we cant make
> > it to
> > the deadline of the 2nd to submit a formal input document, if we are able
> > to
> > agree on a few common points, these can be taken up on the behalf of IGC
> > by IGC
> > members participating in the meeting...
> >
> > so please contribute your views on the matter - specifically, what points
> > will
> > you like to be raised in the stock taking meeting regarding the conduct of
> > IGF
> > meeting in Athens and looking forward to the meeting in Rio. the format
> > given at
> > http://info.intgovforum.org/Q2006v2.php may be a useful indicator of what
> > is
> > being sought for the meeting... However, views can also be contributed in
> > a more
> > open ended manner, which Vittorio and I can try to integrate into a
> > possible
> > consensus document.
> >
> > Parminder
> >
> > www.ITforChange.net
> > IT for Change
> > Bridging Developmental Realities and Technological Possibilities
> >
> >
> > Quoting Avri Doria <avri at psg.com>:
> >
> > >
> > > On 31 jan 2007, at 03.29, Ralf Bendrath wrote:
> > >
> > > > The privacy coalition is meeting Sun afternoon.
> > >
> > > can you send the details on where/when this will be held?
> > >
> > > in fact, it might be good if those who are in the know about the when/
> > > where of other DC meetings would publish the details somewhere.  i am
> > > willing to add them to the igcaucus list, but maybe the igf community
> > > wiki is the better option.
> > >
> > > i am assuming that these meetings are open to anyone who happens to
> > > be in Geneva at the time.
> > >
> > > thanks
> > > a.
> > >
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> 
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