[governance] Reforming MAG

[Meryem Marzouki]

Le 12 févr. 08 à 16:58, William Drake a écrit :

> I wouldn’t suggest not advocating something solely on the grounds  
> that it won’t be accepted, but I would suggest that political  
> viability ought to at least be part of the calculation when  
> deciding what it’s worth spending time and collective reputation on.

Bill, these are two different ways of arguing for the same thing:  
self-censorship.
Our collective reputation (as CS, generally speaking) should be based  
on our tenacity in asking for what we think is best for the public/ 
general interest. Not on asking for what can be easily obtained  
("political viability"). Leave this to others..
Moreover, constantly asking for (what we think is) the right thing  
helps either to obtain it, or to demonstrate that other stakeholders  
either ignore these demands or explicitely counter them. And this is  
an achievement, too -- as we obviously are in a long term perspective:)

in a previous message, you also said:

> Number and Composition of MAG Members.  While I understand the  
> rationale for Milton and McTim suggesting a radical reduction in  
> numbers, I suspect it’s a non-starter on political grounds and  
> support Parminder’s wording on size and rotation.  On reducing the  
> number of government participants, on the hand, this is tough not  
> only because of the regional formulas etc but also just because of  
> the need for political buy-in, which obviously isn’t acute across  
> the board.  On the other hand, it would seem that some don’t  
> contribute much to the dialogue and that their presence has not  
> translated into financial and political support for IGF.  Would it  
> be sensible to add a sentence or so suggesting a slight reduction  
> in the context of overall rebalancing and that we’d hope that only  
> governments that are prepared to attend and actively contribute  
> would seek to be represented?  Or would that be viewed as unfair to  
> lurkers needed on diversity grounds, e.g. LDCs?

Really unfair, we all know that LDCs would be the ones targeted.
CS couldn't argue for this (that's where CS should be sensitive on  
its collective reputation!). Either we argue for 1 gov rep. for each  
of the 6 UN regions to downsize the MAG, or we don't spend too much  
energy on this, and we concentrate on equal size for all  
stakeholders. Even better: we state the concern (as in Parminder  
draft), and we suggest both of these acceptable alternatives, with a  
preference for an overall downsized MAG.

Meryem____________________________________________________________
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