[governance] IGF public consultation

[Carlos Afonso]

You are right, Jeanette -- we missed a good opportunity, and were saved 
in some way in the last minute by Anriette's statement, which touched 
some crucial issues, like the role and "modus operandi" of the two 
co-chairs, the renewing and the process of the MAG and so on. Her 
statemens were made on behalf of APC of course, but were quite relevant 
in my view and I quote some portions in full:

On the MAG -- "...it would be important not to again have a delay in the 
renewing of the mandate, because it has made your task so much more 
difficult. And in terms of renewal and rotation, we endorse the 
suggestion that there's some turnover of membership, but it's also 
important to have continuity. And we would propose roughly a process 
that would create some kind of nomination process to bring in about 30%, 
30 to 40% of new people every year. And aside from a nomination process, 
a transparent process.  It might also be good to link this to 
assessment.  It might even be useful to ask members of the Advisory 
Group to do a self-assessment of how effective they feel they have been 
in fulfilling their role. I think that it would also be important to 
achieve better balance between stakeholders on the Advisory Group, 
particularly with the input of civil society and also regional 
diversity. And then to ensure that the Advisory Group that is 
constituted actually operates as such.  The issue of resources which 
have to be addressed. And as we know from the current Advisory Group, 
because there isn't financial resources to support participation, it 
becomes de facto a group of people that can afford to come or that are 
geographically close to the location of the meeting.  And that's just 
not good enough. I think that -- the nomination process, that's very 
important. [...] I think whereas it's not a good idea from our 
perspective to create too many rules, we do feel that the work process 
of the Advisory Group should be more structured. Participation requires 
transparency, it requires good information and communication and flow. 
It also requires accountability, and a little bit more procedure, time 
frames for submission on aspects of the Advisory Group's work. Time 
frames for submitting content, comment on the agenda, names of speakers. 
  So to facilitate participation in that way. I know that virtual 
participation is very important, and we appreciate that, but it's not a 
substitute for a good, solid, transparent process that allows people 
over time to give input to the work of the Advisory Group. And then I 
think also to endorse perhaps what some of the other speakers have said, 
informality is very important.[...] I think it's important to not lose 
that role of the IGF where it creates spaces for people to just network. 
  And I think the Advisory Group needs to keep that in mind. I also 
think the process, the internal work process of the Advisory Group is 
very important, that there's clear communication within the group.  At 
times today, it felt like some of the Advisory Group members were 
speaking, because they needed to speak, when, in fact, ideally, they 
should be listening, because the closed consultation is the space for 
Advisory Group members to speak. The open consultation is the space for 
Advisory Group members to listen. But I can also understand why that has 
been -- it's been difficult for the Advisory Group, because you [the 
MAG] haven't really had an opportunity, perhaps, to work enough on this 
IGF. And I think, finally, just to look at the review and assessment 
process. [...] it's very important to use that and to have an approach 
of evolving the functioning, the rules of procedure, terms of reference 
of the Advisory Group. [...] let's have a cycle every year where the 
Advisory Group can reflect on its own functioning and rules of procedure 
and build on that."

On the co-chairs -- "...the other principle we would like to endorse is 
the idea of the host country co-chair role.  It's a legitimate 
principle.  It's important that governments take the IGF seriously and 
that they participate.  And we have the president of Greece having 
played a really effective role in hosting. And at the same time, it is 
important to avoid the host country co-chair or the host country 
government having undue influence over the agenda and over who 
participates.  And we have to take a long view on this.  There are 
different governments who will host various IGFs. So while we feel as 
APC that too many rules is not a good idea, but at the same time let's 
avoid setting precedents that we might regret in the future. And again 
here, a review and assessment process will be very helpful after this 
IGF  to look at the co-chair role."

frt rgds

--c.a.

Jeanette Hofmann wrote:
> Hi, in case you didn't notice there was no caucus statement yesterday. 
> While the business sector had interventions on almost every issue on the 
> agenda, the caucus didn't have a single one. There were only 
> contributions by ICT for Change, APC, some other organizations and a few 
> individuals. This is a missed opportunity to influence the discussion on 
> the further institutionalization of the IGF. It also makes the role of 
> cs people in the advisory group more difficult. We have less papers and 
> interventions to refer to in the advisory group meeting than other 
> stakeholders.
> jeanette
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-- 

Carlos A. Afonso
Rio       Brasil
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