[governance] preparing for IGF 2008

[Meryem Marzouki]

Hi Adam,

Thanks for asking.. Some first suggestions from someone having not  
attended IGF 2007:

Le 27 nov. 07 à 11:00, Adam Peake a écrit :

> Are the themes right? Should any be dropped, should any be added?  
> Radical reform of the whole agenda will not happen, so incremental  
> changes may work. The caucus workshop on the mandate seems to have  
> been well received. We need to be realistic about what can be  
> changed (in my opinion.)

Unfortunately, there are no transcripts from workshops, but in the  
main sessions transcripts, I see from Bill's report on the IGC  
workshop (http://www.intgovforum.org/Rio_Meeting/IGF2- 
TakingStock-15NOV07.txt) a very useful proposal which seems still  
realistic to implement:

"[...] an option that some people thought was interesting was, what  
we could do is try to have essentially the dynamic coalitions and the  
workshops and so on able to percolate up from the bottom, from the  
edges of the network, as the chairman said, the -- some of the ideas,  
some of the key points that have come out of their work, bring that  
to the larger community for discussion in a plenary setting. [...]  
And if we could find a way to leverage what they [wokshop  
discussions] have generated and bring it into a wider debate, that  
would be helpful. That doesn't necessarily mean adopting the  
recommendations.  It means simply addressing the issues on a broader  
basis, giving more people a chance to respond to the ideas, and so on. 
[...]"

Obviously, it's not that easy to pick up 3-4 of these key points. But  
it would be worth give it a try. We can try to set up a first list,  
and then have it refined. Or we can ask all workshop organizers to  
provide ONE proposal/issue as a result from their workshop, that they  
think would fit a plenary session discussion, and this would form the  
initial list.

The proposal should be more than simply dropping a keyword, or an  
entirely open issue. It should come with a well prepared background,  
stating different views already expressed (as this is supposed to be  
an outcome from workshops, there have been previous discussions  
leading to such background).

Some ideas have already been proposed: the "Internet bill of rights"  
is one of them.
I would like to propose another one, which is the result of a  
workshop organized by APC and Co. (see CoE & APC press release at:  
http://www.apc.org/english/news/index.shtml?x=5310569=): a proposal  
for a mechanism to foster participation, access to information and  
transparency in internet governance, based on the Aarhus Convention  
on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and  
Access to Justice in Environmental Matters.
I'm sure there are many others.

On workshops, I support the already expressed idea, by Max and  
others, on prioritizing really global IG issues, with a fixed,  
manageable, number of parallel workshops (not simply based on the  
number of received proposals /  number of available slots). But the  
difficulty lies in the definition of what is a global IG issue:) As  
some messages already shown, an agreement on this seems hard to obtain.

Another suggestion, not related to content: the transcripts are  
really useful, much more than webcast or videos in my opinion.  
They're useful for people not attending and also as archives for  
everyone. I understand funding is limited, but I would favor putting  
the money on the transcripts, including the transcripts of workshop  
sessions, and on translation of these transcripts. This is very  
important for inclusion. Maybe the translation costs can be shared  
among participating countries and international organizations, so  
that many languages can be available.

Best,
Meryem

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