[governance] caucus meeting notes

[Ralf Bendrath]

Here are my rough and unedited notes from the caucus meeting today. Hope
that helps.

Best, Ralf

-----------------------------------

Internet Governance Caucus, 11 November 2007, Rio de Janeiro

0. Parminder / Vittorio: Introduction & Agenda

1. broad discussion on MAG experiences and the role of the IGC in general:

- biggest problem for MAG was finding good speakers
- MAG mandate was very late this year
- most originally proposed speakers were male from the North, MAG and
Markus Kummer had to actively recruit women and people from the South
- what could IGC have done to help here?
-> speak out more loudly on what CS wants than the MAG members could
-> help the MAG
-> tell the MAG members about ideas
- MAG members have a mandate from UN SG to keep their constituencies informed
- should IGC coordinators become MAG members/observers or have a more
formalized relationship to the IGF?
- MAG members will rotate, about 1/3 each year, this is also discussed in
UN HQs,
- need to make sure that business people also rotate, which is not easy,
because they are paid to do this
- February IGF consultations must talk about stocktaking, substance and
rotation
- should CS seats in MAG be nominated by CS?
- Jeanette Hofmann: No, this formalization would only increase the
overhead and lead to side-discussions. CS MAG members are powerful if the
caucus has statements on specific issues, not because they are elected.
- but known difficulties for IGC to come up with position papers
- is the caucus in a position anymore to do this?
- we might need to use the voting system for this.
- easy to agree on procedural issues, but less easy on substance
- IGC and CS need clearer identity, but also clearer idea of what the
stakes really are (if we are a "stakeholder")
- Jeremy Malcolm: new mailing list (read-only), where only IGC
coordinators and IGF secretariat can post? Would increase transparency?
- IGC might become more effective if we create working groups etc?
- what are we here for in the first place?
- Wolfgang Kleinwächter: should we develop a CS declaration on IG as a
fundamental guiding document? There will be a World Summit of Internet
Users in Paris next year that could adopt it.
- Ralf Bendrath: Not sure if distinct CS statements are really helpful and
that much needed, because the conditions have changed. In WSIS, we were an
observer group and had to try and influence the Tunis Agenda or the Geneva
Declaration. The IGF does not produce these kinds of outcomes anymore, and
we participate on a very equal footing with everybody else.

2. Election of coordinators

- Vittorio's term is ending. We need to have (re-)elections soon.
- Unclear yet if Vittorio is willing to do it again.
- structural issues of the IGC have to be addressed and resolved before
people can decide if they want to become coordinator
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