[governance] Discussing the Agenda for Rio in Geneva

[Parminder]

Sorry, the doc on IT for Change's contribution to the stock taking exercise
did not come through with my previous email. I am cut-pasting it below.
Parminder

____________________________________________________________________________
Taking stock and the way forward 

(Contribution by IT for Change, in response to the IGF's questionnaire for
the stock taking meeting in Geneva on 13 February 2007)



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 IGF's mandate listed below. 

Suggestions for improvement in view of the second IGF meeting?

We remain concerned 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 IGF's 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 undertake 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 (among) them' (TA).

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 a more substantial
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. This includes governments who may be interested in
promoting fair, open and representative global public policy structures for
IG. 

5.	Since IGF is a global public policy body on IG issues, the money
that is collected from Internet domain owners by ICANN which is already used
for some IG activities, should also be used for funding IGF. In any case,
IGF apparently has a better representation of the full variety of
stakeholders who pay for Internet domains, directly or indirectly, than most
organizations who at present use earnings from Internet domain allocation.  


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.
________________________________________________
Parminder Jeet Singh
IT for Change, Bangalore
Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities 
Tel: (+91-80) 2665 4134, 2653 6890
Fax: (+91-80) 4146 1055
www.ITforChange.net 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Parminder [mailto:parminder at itforchange.net]
> Sent: Monday, February 12, 2007 11:42 AM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Subject: RE: [governance] Discussing the Agenda for Rio in Geneva
> 
> 
> Hi
> 
> (And, requesting special attention of IGC members who will attend
> tomorrows
> meeting)
> 
> This is outside of the consensus developing exercise for a caucus
> statement.
> 
> 
> Like Milton I think Carlos has suggested some good points that may be
> considered by IGC participants at the meeting. Now that Carlos himself is
> attending the meeting, he sure will take these up, but what I am
> attempting
> here is the possibility that a set of points/proposals can be taken up
> under
> some umbrella theme/ideas with collective force of all IGC/ CS
> participants
> at the meeting.
> 
> My point of departure for this is the strong sense that the existing
> governance structure of IGF has taken a certain attitude (which is very
> very
> political, in my view, and not just administrative though that's how it
> may
> be passed off) that IGF is to be, more or less, an annual IG conference.
> George Sadowsky's comments (and he is a special advisor to the chair) are
> quite forthright on this issue, and he has cited the 'general feeling' in
> the IGF governance structure and not just his own views.
> 
> To substantiate his assertion, one only has to note the drift of the
> synthesis paper prepared by the IGF for this meeting. While the paper does
> a
> good work of putting different views together, it does betray the mind of
> the present IGF governance structure on this issue(As Jeremy has noted).
> Very strangely, it seems to, in a way, give legitimacy to the view that
> the
> Tunis agenda mandated only a 'discussion forum' task for IGF, and anything
> else will mean going beyond the Tunis agenda.
> 
> To quote the synthesis paper
> 
> " Other commentators however emphasize that the IGF should not of itself
> seek to change or expand its mission, which was the result of careful and
> lengthy negotiations within the WSIS. They see the role of the IGF as a
> platform for exchanging information and ideas and sharing best practices
> in
> a true multi-stakeholder format."
> 
> But we all know that the precise opposite is the fact. And we have spent a
> good amount of energy to repetitively quote the subsections of para 72 in
> this regard.
> 
> I think that an important task at this meeting is to politically challenge
> this 'establishment view' of what is the WSIS mandate for the IGF. It will
> be good to propose setting aside a complete session to discuss the Tunis
> agenda para 72 threadbare, and in its light see what formats etc are good
> for the IGF. I appeal to the members attending the meeting to ask for this
> special session. It will give political legitimacy and substance to our
> demands.
> 
> No one is advocating that we get so much caught into 'substantial outputs'
> agenda that we get trapped into a typical UN style nitpicking text
> negotiation rounds. We are aware that that's not what IGF is. But it isnt
> what the present establishment is making it out to be either. We need to
> find the balance, and for this first of all to sit with an open mind to
> all
> possibilities.
> 
> Carlos has made some great points, and so have many others on this list. I
> am in particular enclosing an email of Bertrand's. I am also enclosing my
> organization's submission for the synthesis paper.
> 
> One last point, I think we should also insist on more stable and
> legitimate
> (and not just private, and pro bono) sources of funding for the IGF, which
> alone will allow it to fulfill its mandate.
> 
> Thanks.
> 
> Parminder
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________________________
> Parminder Jeet Singh
> IT for Change, Bangalore
> Bridging Development Realities and Technological Possibilities
> Tel: (+91-80) 2665 4134, 2653 6890
> Fax: (+91-80) 4146 1055
> www.ITforChange.net
> > -----Original Message-----
> > From: Milton Mueller [mailto:mueller at syr.edu]
> > Sent: Friday, February 09, 2007 4:29 PM
> > To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
> > Subject: [governance] Discussing the Agenda for Rio in Geneva
> >
> > Carlos's message is worth discussing seriously. I have done him the
> > favor of changing the header.
> >
> > Dr. Milton Mueller
> > Syracuse University School of Information Studies
> > http://www.digital-convergence.org
> > http://www.internetgovernance.org
> >
> > >>> ca at rits.org.br 02/08/07 8:16 PM >>>
> > In the meantime, a group of countries tries to get organized to insist
> > that the IGF should be mainly a space for ICANN bashing and/or
> > replacement, while other groups are preparing to propose that the main
> > topics in Rio should be exactly the same as in Athens. A majority
> > (Brazil not included) of GRULAC (the Latin American and Caribbean
> > government group at the UN) members, for example, insist the agenda for
> > Rio should be exactly as it was for Athens -- that generic, almost
> > useless group of four topics: open standards, access, security,
> > diversity... the weather, soccer, who won the lotto... If we continue
> > this trend, we better turn IGF into an international old-timers' chat
> > space (sponsored by the UN!) like the Brazilian Academy of Letters or
> > some other sleepy, tea-soaked thing -- this way we would not need to
> > worry about it anymore.
> >
> > Several post-Athens contributions are worried about format as well as
> > content. My view is that we need a process in each meeting in which we
> > arrive at thematic and procedural resolutions. Plenaries "moderated" (I
> > prefer to say "manipulated") by professional TV hosts do not work well,
> > and even scare some of the panelists (specially some of those whose
> > native idiom is not English). We need thematic specialists as
> > moderators, not "crowd handling" specialists or showmen -- it seemed the
> > purpose here was to keep true debate dissolved into generalities.
> >
> > In my view, we main focus should be on thematic workshops with the goal
> > of presenting a resolution proposal in the final plenary -- the main
> > meetings would be shorter and would work just as "seeds" for the
> > workshops. These would constitute the official set of recommendations
> > from IGF.
> >
> > fraternal regards
> >
> > --c.a.
> >
> >
> > ____________________________________________________________
> > You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
> >      governance at lists.cpsr.org
> > To be removed from the list, send any message to:
> >      governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org
> >
> > For all list information and functions, see:
> >      http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance