[governance] Reconstituting MAG

[Jeremy Malcolm]

On 09/01/2008, at 1:32 PM, Ian Peter wrote:

> So maybe something like "we believe that equal representation of the  
> three
> major stakeholder groups - government, business, and civil society  
> is in the
> best interests of advancing the multistakeholder concept. As regards  
> the
> full complement of representatives who might broadly be seen to  
> represent
> various aspects of civil society, we believe it is the best  
> interests of
> stakeholder balance, transparent operation and reporting, and  
> involvement of
> a wider group of stakeholders, that at east 75% of the civil society
> representatives be chosen from a broad range of candidates submitted  
> by the
> Civil Society Caucus."

I am not going to push against this, but it has long worried me that  
the Secretariat believes it has fulfilled its duty to include civil  
society simply by consulting with the IGC and ISOC.  The IGC is a very  
elite group, and I think it is vain of us to think that we can  
represent civil society.  Most ordinary Internet users have never  
heard of the IGF or WSIS, and aside from the geeks who might join the  
Internet Society, are not going to have a voice if the civil society  
representation on the MAG is to be constituted by IGC and ISOC nominees.

Whilst what is needed in the longer term is a serious programme of  
outreach to ordinary Internet users, in the meantime, and as a  
compromise which might be included in our consensus statement on the  
reconstitution of the MAG, if 75% of the MAG is to be chosen from  
candidates submitted by the IGC, that fact should be prominently  
stated on the IGF Web site in the call for nominees (hopefully there  
will actually *be* one next time), so that any non-insiders who might  
be interested in nominating for the MAG will have a clue that their  
best chance would be to further investigate this mysterious IGC and to  
communicate their interest through it.

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm LLB (Hons) B Com
Internet and Open Source lawyer, IT consultant, actor
host -t NAPTR 1.0.8.0.3.1.2.9.8.1.6.e164.org|awk -F! '{print $3}'


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