[governance] The seeds of change in the IGF

[Jeremy Malcolm]

I don't know what others thought, but I found yesterday's consultations 
to mark potentially a bit of a watershed moment.  I've blogged about 
this in more detail at igfwatch.org, but consider:

* This is the first time that governments (such as France,
   Australia, and Germany for the EU) have effectively acknowledged
   Dynamic Coalitions as the de-facto working groups that many of us
   had been asking for all along, by calling for the reception of the
   reports of Dynamic Coalitions as input into the plenary meetings
   - which also implies the development of processes and procedures
   for doing that and thereby integrating the Dynamic Coalitions
   more closely into the IGF as an institution.

* This also seems to be the first time *ever* that Nitin Desai has
   publicly acknowledged that "there is language in paragraph 72 which
   talks of recommendations as appropriate, and we still do not have a
   process for figuring out how to get to those recommendations,"
   rather than (well, as well as) repeating his "the IGF has no
   membership" mantra.  We are also told that this has now been
   explicitly considered by the Advisory Group.  Paragraph 72 was also
   referenced by Brazil, which - someone will correct me if I'm wrong
   - seems to be the first occasion on which any government has
   acknowledged the heretofore missing parts of the IGF's mandate.

* We have also been assured that criticisms of the transparency of
   the Advisory Group have been heard and will be addressed to a
   greater extent between now and the Rio meeting, and that views on
   the composition of the Advisory Group will be conveyed to the new
   Secretary-General.

Of course, there were dissenting voices as always (though mostly from 
the private sector, and even civil society, more so than governments), 
but nonetheless I found these consultations much more promising than any 
previously held, in suggesting that the IGF can be steered back towards 
  developing into a form that empowers all stakeholders (and those from 
civil society in particular), rather than remaining as an irrelevant 
talk-fest controlled by those with vested interests in maintaining the 
status quo.

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm LLB (Hons) B Com
Internet and Open Source lawyer, IT consultant, actor
host -t NAPTR 1.0.8.0.3.1.2.9.8.1.6.e164.org|awk -F! '{print $3}'
____________________________________________________________
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