[governance] Suggestions for Delhi - process

[linda misek-falkoff]

Dear Parminder, and greetings All:

Your post is so very comprehensive...  thanking you much for the information
and insights.

An aspect I would like to participate in is "remote" access and related
topics so we really expand the "attendee" list via e-attendance.  On review
of the many materials I gathered while attending online throughout Rio
IGF-II, I hope these experiences may help for New Delhi.

The facilities were really quite productive even in the face of need/desire
to expand (Thx Jeremy) and the people, on the human side of "man"/machine
interfaces, were really super too .. and in real time (Avri, Adam, others
made themselves e-available) among others including those here.

With best wishes and appreciation of the reports and great progress,

LDMF.
Linda D. Misek-Falkoff
*Respectful Interfaces* Program of the Communications Coordination Committee
For the U.N; online ARPAnet forward; original programmer, GML starter set,
forerunner of HTML; colleague and friend to those here; other affiliations
on request.


On 2/15/08, Parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:
>
>
> Hi All
>
> Sorry for making this email high priority. It contains some text for a
> possible caucus statement on improving the IGF format for Delhi, which
> needs
> some urgent attention from the members, and I wanted it to separate it
> from
> the other interesting discussions taking place on the list.
>
> At this time we propose to make three statement - one on MAG renewal, some
> text of which is already being discussed, another on our suggestions for
> improvements in format for Delhi, some text for which is given below, and
> a
> third one with a few possible themes for the main sessions.
>
> For offering suggestion on format for Delhi, I have tried to stick to
> fewer
> things rather than give a long list.  The main thing is to make the
> plenaries more purposive and attractive, and have a clear workshops
> structure around it. And that its preparation should be more through and
> facilitated by dedicated working groups.
>
> I will add other things, like a real lunch break to the text in the next
> stage.
>
> (starts)
>
> (Opening pleasantries are yet to be drafted.)
>
> In providing suggestions for how New Delhi IGF should be organized, Civil
> Society Internet Governance Caucus understands that the IGF's mandate and
> functions can be divided into two broad categories. One is of providing an
> open space for discussing any and all public policy issues  regarding the
> Internet for all stakeholders, therefore, inter alia, encouraging
> a  closer
> interactions between stakeholder and groups who 'do not often 'talk' to
> each
> other'. The second set of mandates and functions can be clubbed in the
> category of providing some relatively clear directions and possibilities
> in
> the area of global public policy, and for this purpose plug the gaps in
> terms of ideas, possibilities, interactions etc in the global
> institutional
> framework in this area.
>
> The structure of the IGF meeting should be adequate to meet both these
> purposes. The first purpose listed above is largely being achieved, and
> IGF
> is now recognized for its characteristic of a town hall meeting where
> anyone
> can come and voice one's opinion and concerns.  However, the requirements
> for the purpose two listed above - that of some clear contribution to the
> global policy arena - may need us to explore some structural improvements
> for the next IGF meeting, without taking away its open town hall meeting
> character.
>
> Many participants at Athens and Rio felt that there were too many
> workshops
> going on at the same time, even overlapping with the plenaries, and the
> attendance at and the interest in plenaries was quite low. It was even
> more
> so in Rio than in Athens. This severely compromises the 'convergent
> identity' of the IGF, as one global forum with some discernable internal
> cohesion, apart from just being an open space encouraging diverse
> deliberation.
>
> One reason for this low interest in the plenaries was that there were too
> many workshops being held at the same time as the plenaries. But equally,
> or
> perhaps more, important reason was that the themes of the plenaries were
> just too broad and participants really did not take much away from any of
> these sessions. Apart from being too general, and allowing each speaker to
> make her own interpretation of the issue, the non-specificity of the issue
> under discussion allowed people to often/ mostly speak on areas which were
> remote from any implication on global Internet related public policy,
> which
> is the chief purpose of the IGF to discuss. Such diversion or dilution is
> to
> some degree acceptable in case of workshops, in interest of diversity and
> openness, but not for the plenaries which represent very precious prime
> time
> for the IGF, and there is only that much of it in a whole year.
>
> We should therefore seriously explore new possibilities that could put
> life
> back into the plenaries and allow the IGF to meet its outcome-oriented
> part
> of the mandate as well.
>
> First is the issue of the large number of workshops. We do understand that
> limiting the number of workshops too drastically will affect the diversity
> of the kinds of discussions that are held, and of the groups that are able
> to use the IGF space. Therefore we think that we should continue to allow
> as
> many workshops as the limits of available logistics allow, to encourage
> diversity and broader ownership and participation in the IGF.
>
> In order to address what, in this context of allowing the maximum number
> of
> workshops, appears to be a conflicting imperative of strengthening the
> plenaries, for the sake of an 'convergent identity' of the IGF (as opposed
> to the divergent identity built by multiple workshops) and improving its
> outcome-orientation, we may need to bring a two-pronged approach to
> organizing the IG.
>
> One approach is of allowing multiple diverse workshops, as is done at
> present, while keeping some general themes in mind, so as to not allow
> things to go too much out of IGF's domain and priority areas. These
> workshops can be called type A workshops, and the current main themes of
> access, openness, diversity and security can serve as over-arching themes
> for organizing these workshops in clusters, so that each stream can stay
> separate, enabling people interested in any one theme to attend all or
> most
> of the workshops in that theme.
>
> For making the plenaries more productive, they should be organized around
> some specific global public policy issues, which are found to be of utmost
> importance, and not around hold-all themes like openness and access,
> discussions around which do not produce any fruitful outcomes. We suggest
> some such topics in a separate statement. A lot of preparatory work should
> go into preparing for these discussions, which should be done through
> working groups set up for these purpose. These working groups could
> consist
> of members of the MAG plus some other experts and stakeholders. These
> working groups must also synthesize the outcomes of these deliberations
> and
> present them as a document.
>
> Some workshops - called type B - should be arranged around the selected
> topics for the plenaries. There should be a limited number of them, with a
> vigorous effort to merge proposals for such workshops in a manner that
> preserves diversities of geo-politics, special interests and different
> viewpoint, but retains the clear purpose to increase the effectiveness of
> the plenary sessions.  Selection of and preparation for these workshops
> should be done by the concerned working group along with the sponsors of
> the
> workshops. Type B workshops should not be held in parallel with the
> plenaries.
>
> This dual architecture of an open space for diverse workshops and a
> relatively tightly organized structure of plenaries on specific global
> public policy, well-organized through a working group, and also resulting
> in
> an outcome document (even if stating a variety of positions, and not a
> consensual or negotiated one position) will enable the IGF to fulfill its
> mandate in a much better way than it is able to do at present.
>
> We understand that such dual tiered workshop structure - one kind of
> workshops tied with plenary topics, and others independent - was proposed
> and tried in preparation for Rio, but apparently it did not quite work out
> in any purposeful manner.  We can get it right this time around with
> better
> selection of specific topics for the plenaries, and more through
> preparations through dedicated working groups.
>
> (I wan to put some text of dynamic coalitions here.. Will prepare some and
> add. Inputs are welcome.)
>
> (ends)
>
> Parminder
>
>
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