[governance] IGF workshops

[William Drake]

Hi Parminder,

On 6/15/07 6:51 AM, "Parminder" <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

> I want to re-state my proposal that IGC does some workshops at IGF. It will
> serve both to push our substantive agenda, and to enhance the profile of
> IGC. I had earlier proposed three themes for workshops. All these are from
> our agreed priorities for IGF agenda (as per our input to May IGF
> consultations). 

As I said a while back,

On 5/1/07 8:07 AM, "William Drake" <drake at hei.unige.ch> wrote:

> Second, if we really want to foster dialogue on the four themes proposed,
> probably we ought to consider proposing workshops on each.  This could be done
> in addition to or instead of making a statement about the plenaries.  If it's
> impossible for the caucus to agree on such workshops, then varying coalitions
> of the willing could evolve each, perhaps with the caucus/list serving as
> initial facilitators.

Since there was no follow-up discussion on joint caucus proposals and
subsequent dialogues underscored the diversity of perspectives here and the
difficulty of reaching agreement, I decided to revert to my original plan of
doing something on a coalition of the willing basis, as per all the
CS-initiated workshops at Athens.  So I'm going to propose a workshop on a
Development Agenda that builds on the meeting I organized in Geneva in
February and the GigaNet cluster on the same.  The framing parallels the
GigaNet wording and is hence different from the two sentences included in
the caucus themes proposal, which focused on "disadvantaged peoples' access
to, and effective use of, the Internet."  We added the DA clause to the
title but didn't elaborate on it amidst all the debate on the core resources
theme, so I'm drilling down into this aspect.  Anyway, bottom line, there
will be a proposal that is more or less compatible with,

> (2) Global Internet policies Impacting Access to and Effective Use of the
> Internet by Disadvantaged People and Groups - The Development Agenda in IG
> (this can also build on the giganet session on a similar theme)

As to the others,

> (1) Global Internet Public Policy - Issues and Institutions

> a) What is "public policy" on the Internet and when do we need to use global
> institutions to establish it? The Tunis Agenda distinguishes between
> "technical" and "public policy" issues, and between public policy and the
> "day-to-day technical and operational matters." What makes an Internet
> governance issue a "public policy" issue, and what happens when policy
> concerns are closely linked to technical administration?
> 
> b) What was intended by the TA's call for the "development of
> globally-applicable principles on public policy issues associated with the
> coordination and management of critical Internet resources" and how can this
> goal be pursued? 

I argued from the outset that the way this was specified seemed a bit
diffuse and seemed to blend into the core resources theme, which has since
been built into the main agenda.   I still think that; "what is public
policy" is not a real issue with respect to many other domains of IG, like
intellectual property, privacy, security, etc. where there are clearly
settled policies in place, for better or worse.  I strongly suspect that the
caucus would have a hard time agreeing a clearly specified, non-redundant,
and compelling formulation on this and also getting co-sponsors on board in
the next two weeks.  I'd suggest dropping this for now, but if someone else
wants to put the work into trying to make it work, go for it.

> (3) The Role and Mandate of the IGF.

If there were to be a caucus proposal, I would suggest it focus on this.
The topic is clearly specified, non-redundant, and entirely workable, and
one would think we'd be able to reach agreement on a proposal since it
doesn't have to do with core resources etc.  It's also something the caucus
has been raising for a long while---in fact, for some of us, since before
the WGIG---so Cs has already put down markers on it and can make a distinct
contribution.  I'd be willing to collaborate with others on this if there's
interest.

Cheers,

Bill


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