[governance] Reconstituting MAG

[Parminder]

I still hope we will be able to develop an IGC input into the MAG
reconstitution issue. 

 

I will list the key issues for this purpose, following some exchanges on
this list and the summary of MAG discussions on the issue forwarded by Adam.


 

(1)     A main issue is about stakeholder quotas. Should it be fixed, should
there be a minimum number, or should there be no such guideline at all and
it be left to the judgment of the ultimate authority for constitution of MAG
to come out with an appropriate composition representing the full diversity
of stakeholders.

(2)     Then there is the issue whether 'technical community' (which also
needs some kind of definition) should be considered a separate stakeholder
group or not.  

(3)     How do we see the balance of skills versus representative-ness as
criteria for composition of MAG. What other criteria and guidelines are
relevant in selecting members. 

(4)     What percentage of MAG members should rotate annually?  

(5)     How members from each stakeholder group should be chosen? Should it
be  a strictly a stakeholder group controlled process, should stakeholder
groups give nominations and the UN SG mostly go by it other than for clearly
stated reasons like of geo/ gender balance, or it should largely be a UN SG
controlled process whereby a good consideration is given to stakeholder
nominations. 

 

Then there are more structural issues like,  

 

(1)     what is the nature and authority/ decision making power of the MAG

(2)     What kind of decision making processes should be put in place to
make MAG effective (we noticed the paralysis it suffered on perhaps the
only, and very minor, issue that it has ever tried to take a decision on -
selection of speakers for the plenaries. 

(3)     The very important issue of what should be done to ensure
transparency and accountability of the MAG. 

 

There are some other minor issue like the role and selection of the Chair
and the relevance and role of a co-chair.

 

If members could put forward their views on these issues we can explore the
possibility of a consensus statement. 

 

Parminder 

 

 

  _____  

From: Parminder [mailto:parminder at itforchange.net] 
Sent: Sunday, January 06, 2008 6:38 PM
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: [governance] Reconstituting MAG

 

This is to trigger a discussion, and possibly evolve a consensus statement,
on the issue of reconstituting the MAG - or in the official language
'suitable rotation among its members, based on recommendations from the
various interested groups'. A discussion thread has been opened on this
issue on the IGF website at http://intgovforum.org/forum/ . Strangely, there
is no clear call for sending comments to the IGF secretariat as is the norm.
But I think they would in any case take in comments as they have done for
all MAG meetings, and publish them in the comments page. 

 

Parminder 

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