[governance] Statement for the Feb 13 meeting

[Vittorio Bertola]

All,

this is the draft I've been working upon in the last couple of days. I 
was offline, so I had no way to go back and read the entire discussion 
we had in the last couple of months, neither I could read the latest 
submissions... I'll try to do so in the next few days, but in the 
meantime I thought it better to post the draft as it is now, so that 
specific editing suggestions can be made as soon as possible.

I'm attaching it in the ODT format since we'd better start to practice 
what we preach - however, I'm pasting a text-only version below for 
those of you who are still stuck with Microsoft-only readers :)

Regards,

=====
Consultations on the Internet Governance Forum, Geneva, 13 February 2007
Statement of the Internet Governance Caucus


The Internet Governance Caucus, as the main coordination framework for 
civil society participation in Internet governance discussions at the 
WSIS and then at the IGF, would like to provide feedback and opinions on 
the subjects of this meeting.

The first IGF meeting in Athens was without doubt a great success. It 
was interesting and well organized, and many important matters were 
discussed. Specifically, we express our satisfaction for the widespread 
embracing of the multi-stakeholder principle in the structuring of 
panels and workshops and in the definition of themes. We would then like 
to provide some practical suggestions for an even better meeting in Rio.

We think that the plenary sessions as designed in Athens were 
interesting, especially for the general public, but that adequate 
attention should be put to all the issues pertaining to one main theme, 
rather than focusing on just a few. This could be obtained by shortening 
the plenary sessions, which should be kept as a “special focus” event on 
certain “hot” issues, designed in a journalistic style. At the same 
time, separate, more traditional plenary sessions (though always in a 
fully multistakeholder style) should host the general summarization of 
the discussions, including those from the workshops.

Workshops were usually interesting, though some effort should be made to 
better integrate them with the overall themes and flow of discussions of 
the IGF. Specifically, it should be ensured that all workshops meet the 
multi-stakeholder criteria, and that at least half of their duration is 
allocated to open floor discussion rather than to panel presentations, 
to prevent some workshops from becoming just a showcase for the 
organizers, or a lobbying event for a single group of stakeholders. 
Clear guidelines should be given to workshop moderators to this effect; 
also, the Advisory Group, after collecting all workshop proposals, 
should consider fostering the organization of workshops on issues not 
addressed anywhere, or requesting organizers to merge their workshops if 
too similar. Finally, workshop results should be collected and presented 
with more evidence as outputs of the IGF meeting, for example in a final 
“Acts” book.

 From a practical standpoint, it would be important to ensure that 
sufficient time is allocated for a lunch break, and that adequate “quick 
food” options are offered to delegates. Also, it should be kept in mind 
that many participants, especially from developing countries and civil 
society, are on a tight budget; adequate accommodation and meal options 
should be provided.

About the Advisory Group, while supporting the concept, we express our 
dissatisfaction for the very limited representation of civil society in 
its first instance, which amounted to five or less members over about 
forty. We think that the significant participation of civil society and 
individual users, as proved by the WGIG, is key to making Internet 
governance events a success both in practical and in political terms; 
thus we would like to see such participation expanded to at least one 
fourth of the group, if not one third, and to the same levels of the 
private sector and of the Internet technical community. We confirm our 
support to the civil society members of the incumbent group, and stand 
ready to provide suggestions for additional members.

We also reiterate the need for the IGF to be considered as a process, 
rather than as an event. We support the concept of “dynamic coalitions” 
and their activities; however, there needs to be a way to “bless” their 
work and give some recognition, even if not binding, to their products. 
The IGF was created to help solving global problems that could not be 
addressed anywhere else; simple discussion is not enough, and would 
betray what was agreed in Tunis and is clearly stated in the mandate of 
the IGF itself. We stand ready to provide more detailed procedural 
suggestions on how this could work in practice, or to participate in any 
multi-stakeholder working process to define it.

About the themes for Rio, we are generally satisfied with the areas of 
work as defined for Athens, but note that some of them are much bigger 
than others, and thus many issues falling into them failed to get 
adequate attention. We would like to propose to break the “Openness” 
group of items in two, one about human rights and freedom of expression, 
and the other one about intellectual property rights and access to 
knowledge. We raise the attention on the importance of access not just 
in terms of physical connections for developing countries, but also in 
terms of accessibility of technologies to the disabled and other 
disadvantaged groups; this could also become another group of issues per se.

We are aware of the complex discussion on whether the “narrow” Internet 
governance themes, such as the oversight of the Internet addressing and 
naming system, should be part of the agenda in Rio. Inside civil 
society, there are different points of view about this matter; however, 
we all agree in the deep dissatisfaction for the lack of transparency 
and inclusion in the so-called “enhanced cooperation” process, which, as 
agreed in Tunis, should discuss these matters in a multi-stakeholder 
fashion. We ask that prompt communication is given to all stakeholders 
about the status and nature of this process, and that, independently 
from the venue chosen to host it, steps are taken to ensure the full 
inclusion of all stakeholders in this process.

We would like to close our statement by thanking Mr. Desai, Mr. Kummer 
and all the members of the Advisory Group for their hard work in favour 
of this process. We look forward to another fruitful and successful 
meeting in Rio.
-- 
vb.                   Vittorio Bertola - vb [a] bertola.eu   <--------
-------->  finally with a new website at http://bertola.eu/  <--------
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