[governance] summary of the advisory group's discussion about

[Adam Peake]

At 9:29 AM +0530 1/24/08, Parminder wrote:
>  >Parminder:
>  > "excerpts" means in this case the posts were extracted from the
>>larger discussion on the list, not that portions were taken from
>>individual posts (unless to anonymize etc.)  Not a summary either as
>>I mistakenly characterized.  Nothing has been sanitized.  Sorry for
>>any confusion
>
>Thanks for the explanation, Adam.
>
>>Jeremy:
>>A member of the advisory group suggested the discussion be made
>>public.  See writer B on page 6.
>
>>Adam
>
>A good thing is a good thing whatever its causal factors. Though it is
>difficult to believe that this move, and the previous one in September last
>year to publish a summary of closed door proceedings of MAG, has nothing to
>do with UN SG's direction to improve the flow of information to
>stakeholders....


Parminder, Hi.

I think we can be pretty certain both were a result of the Secretary 
General's request for greater transparency.

Advisory group meeting notes were a response to suggestions made 
during the open consultation September 3. And while it's not explicit 
in the advisory group's email, I think pretty clear the reason for 
making the email available was to follow the SG's instruction.


>Adam, your simplistic explanation above raises 2 points


I thought by pointing to the post where it was suggested people could 
see for themselves what was said rather than hearing my 
interpretation. You don't need filters when the source is available.


>On the negative side - does it mean future email and face-to-face
>discussions will not have open full transcripts (if anonymized).


(Negative?)

Not yet been discussed on the advisory group list if future email 
from the list would be made available.  I hope it will be. I expect 
there'll be some issues people won't want made public, but as a 
general objective I can't see why other threads shouldn't be 
released. But I'd stick to threads rather than the whole list.

If you think the email extract useful then please send a note to the 
secretariat saying so. Showing appreciation's perhaps a good way to 
help it continue: say thanks and ask that as a general trend it 
continues.

By full transcripts of face-to-face meetings do you mean real-time 
transcriptions of the closed advisory group meetings, same as we have 
from the open consultations? Best I can remember no one's suggested 
this. I imagine the main problem would be resources: money to pay for 
the scribes, and also perhaps some technical set-up issues.  But you 
could suggest it.  In the meantime I'm expecting reports from the 
advisory group meetings to continue.



>On the positive side - if one of the MAG members asks for it (which we urge
>CS members of MAG to do regularly) will they be made open?


Will what be made open, the currently closed advisory group meetings?

Has the caucus agreed it wants this?  I think a bad idea.

One thing I would like to see is a roll-call of who attends the 
closed meetings, particularly who the observers are.

Adam




>Jeremy's observation is with respect to the fact that we have regularly
>asked for providing records of MAGs closed door deliberations, and in
>September consultations these points were added to outcome doc on the basis
>of CS inputs, though we are under no illusions about the power of these
>interventions vis a vis UN SG's diktat.
>
>This is also not to minimize MAG's own initiative to open up its
>deliberations which speaks of their increased confidence in being able to
>relate to and be accountable to different stakeholders. We do hope that such
>reforms keep taking place, and as Jeremy says CS and IGC has an important
>role here..... I mean here to stress the significance of Jeremy's
>observation and imploring....
>
>Parminder
>
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