[governance] IGF workshops

[Parminder]

> 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

Bill

Do you want to do it only as giganet and any other partners you may be in
contact with, or will like to explore IGC co-sponsorship. I mean, if we as
IGC is going to do workshops, it of course will be with partners. And often
other partner may play the key organizing etc role. I am only making a
suggestion, it is of course up to the giganet group and others who are
already planning to decide on their partnerships plan. 

Anyway, I am very fine with the giganet formulation which focuses on
'institutional reform' rather than the phrase from our May proposal that you
quoted. For those who may not have seen the paragraph on development agenda
in giganet's call for papers, I am quoting it below. Correct, me, if the
basic concept of development agenda for the proposed rio workshop is
different. 

"In recent years, developing countries, civil society organizations, and
concerned academics have sought to promote broad "development agendas" for
reform of the international regimes and organizations dealing with such
issues as trade, debt, and intellectual property. But in the field of
Internet governance, no parallel initiative has taken shape. Developing
countries and other stakeholders did call for what they  said were
pro-development institutional reforms during the World Summit on the
Information Society (WSIS) process, but their suggestions were not
systematically explored as elements of a coherent development agenda.
Moreover, there was no broad consensus among the proponents as to what kinds
of reforms would actually promote development, as opposed to satisfying more
specifically political demands. In the post-WSIS environment, discussions of
development have tended to focus on capacity building rather than on
institutional reforms."(from giganet's call for papers for rio meeting of
giganet)

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: William Drake [mailto:drake at hei.unige.ch]
> Sent: Friday, June 15, 2007 1:49 PM
> To: Governance
> Subject: Re: [governance] IGF workshops
> 
> 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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