[governance] IGF secretariat clarification on the 50%-50% rule for the MAG

[Carlos Afonso]

Dear people, in response to my request, in the MAG mail list, for 
clarification, Markus Kummer provided a thorough review of the issue and 
authorized me to copy it to the governance list.

Below is Markus' reply to my msg (which is just after Markus's).

fraternal regards

--c.a.

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: 	Re: [igf_members] clarification
Date: 	Thu, 6 Mar 2008 14:52:30 +0100
From: 	Markus KUMMER <MKUMMER at unog.ch>
To: 	ca at rits.org.br
CC: 	IGF Members

Dear Carlos,

You are right insofar as there was never any formal decision taken on
the composition of the MAG by anyone but by the Secretary-General
himself. As you also, rightly, point out, there is nothing in the Tunis
Agenda on how the IGF should operate, except some vague references that
it should build on existing structures, be light-weight and based on
multistakeholder cooperation.

For this reason we held broad-based consultations on these matters two
years ago. As was to be expected, different views were held by different
actors. Brazil, followed by other developing countries, first formulated
an approach that should be based on WSIS structures, that is on three
different bureaus - one for governments, one for private sector and one
for civil society. These three bureaus should meet separately and,
occasionally, jointly. The governmental bureau would be composed of
twenty members (four for each region) while the other two bureaus should
be composed of ten members each. Eventually, this proposal was endorsed
by the G77. (All regional groups indicated that, based on past
experience, they needed to be represented by at least four members to
establish a sub-regional balance.)

WEOG countries, and, as far as I can remember, also private sector,
spoke in favour of a small programme committee of about 10-15 members. I
can't remember in detail what civil society proposed, but they were
mostly in favour of an integrated multistakeholder body.

The Secretary-General found a formula to bridge the different proposals
- on the one hand, the G77 with regard to the the overall balance and
all the others with regard to an integrated group. The name chosen for
the group was also a compromise - neither 'bureau' nor 'programme committee'

This worked remarkably well. As last week's discussions showed, nobody
is perfectly happy with this formula - some governments find that
governments are under-represented while non-governmental actors find
that governments are over-represented. At least it seems that everybody
is equally unhappy - usually this is a sign of a good compromise.

The original draft of the summary report reflected this delicate
balance. The Chairman held the view that this formula was not open for
discussion and finally, at the request of a member of the group, we
settled for the formulation we have now (which, I admit, may be somewhat
ambiguous.)

One final remark for your consideration: after Athens, there was a
general feeling that it was important to increase efforts to engage
governments more, as governments had been somewhat reluctant to accept
the informal nature of the interactions with other stakeholders. Any
change in the composition would not be helpful in this regard.

If you are interested, you can read the history of the discussions we
had two years ago as it is recorded in real-time transcription on our
Web site.

I hope this helps.

Best regards
Markus


  >Dear all,
  >
  >I tried to track info on a decision which supposedly determined the
  >50%-50% rule, as stated by the Chair in our last MAG meeting as a
  >given,
  >and could not find any formal statement establishing this rule.
  >Certainly not in the official Tunis documents.
  >
  >Could this be clarified by the secretariat?
  >
  >fraternal rgds
  >
  >--c.a.
  >
  >--
  >
  >Carlos A. Afonso
  >direção colegiada, Rits (Rede de Informações para o Terceiro Setor)
  >conselheiro, CGI.br (Comitê Gestor da Internet no Brasil)
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