[governance] Consensus call on IGF review - YESor NO response required

[Dina]

I am going to vote YES

--- On Thu, 9/11/08, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:

From: Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com>
Subject: [governance] Consensus call on IGF review - YESor NO response required
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Date: Thursday, September 11, 2008, 2:59 PM

Here is the second statement we have been preparing, and the less
controversial one. Again, a YES or NO response is required within 48 hours
to meet the Secretariat's deadline.


Review of the IGF


The Tunis Agenda (TA) calls for examining "the desirability of the
continuation of the Forum in formal consultation with Forum
participants, within five years of its creation, and to make
recommendations to the UN Membership..". In this regard, we have two
sets of comments. One set is regarding the process of the 'examining'
or
review of the IGF, and another consists of our substantive comments on
the role, mandate and structure of the IGF.

 

Process of review 

 

As mentioned in the Tunis Agenda, the process of review should be
centered on consultations with Forum (IGF) participants. These
consultations should be both formal and informal. It is important to lay
out clear formal processes, apart from informal ones. It will also be
necessary to go beyond IGF participants to reach out to other interested
stakeholders, who for different reasons may not attend the IGF meetings.
In reaching out, the process of consultations should especially keep in
mind constituencies that have lesser participation in IG issues at
present, including constituencies in developing counties including those
of civil society. Other groups with lower participation in IG issues
like women, ethnic minorities and disability groups should also be
especially reached out to. 

 

If it is found necessary to do a expert evaluation to help the process
of review, the process should be open and transparent. It is not
advisable to rely solely on a pro bono evaluation, by any agency that
offers it, for such a politically sensitive and important assessment.
The selected experts should have adequate expertise in matter of global
public policy and policy institutions. In view of the geo-political
significance of IG, it may be useful to have a reputed public policy
institution in the global South do the evaluation in partnership with
one such institution from the North. Even if reliance on existing global
institutions is sought, there should be adequate balancing of
perspectives, and partnerships are a good way to ensure it. 

 

It is important that the process of review starts at the earliest,
preferably with the forthcoming IGF meeting in Hyderabad. IGC held a
workshop on 'role and mandate of the IGF' at Rio (see
http://intgovforum.org/Rio_event_report.php?mem=30 ), and plans another
one with the same title in Hyderabad. The outcomes from this workshop
should feed into the main workshop on 'Taking stock and going forward'.
Substantive comments on the IGF mandate, role and structure 

 

On the basic question of the review about desirability of continuation
of the IGF, the Caucus is of the firm view that the IGF should continue
beyond its first mandated period of five years. 

  

It is important that IGF remains open to addressing all issues that are
in the IG space, no matter how controversial. Very likely, the more
controversial an issue, the more appropriate it may be to bring it to
the IGF where inputs from a diverse range of stakeholders can be sought.
Deliberations at the IGF can be used as inputs for global Internet
policy making, which will help make policy-making processes more
participative and democratic. 

 

The Tunis agenda calls for "development of multi-stakeholder processes
at the national, regional.. level" similar to the IGF. It is heartening
to note that some such national and regional processes are already
taking shape. IGF should further encourage such processes and seek to
establish formal relationships with these initiatives. Since the fear of
governmental domination is considerably higher at national levels, IGF
should use global civil society groups and processes to guide
appropriate multistakeholderisation of emerging national IGF spaces. IGC
offers its assistance to the IGC in this regard.

 

A greater need for the IGF to get deeper in substantive issues is
evident to some. It is desirable in this regard for the IGF to have an
inter-sessional work program in addition planning for the annual IGF
event. It will be useful for this purpose for the MAG to operate in
Working Groups, and also incorporating outside expertise in these WGs as
required. Some start in this direction is expected to be made in the
run-up to IGF, Hyderabad, whereby WGs of MAG members plus some outsiders
are expected to prepare for main sessions. 

            

As a global policy related institution it is important for the IGF to
have stable public funding, and to insulate itself against any
possibility of special interests influencing its working through control
over funding. Such funding should not only enable appropriate and
streamlined functioning of the IGF secretariat, the annual event and
other proposed and inter-sessional activities, it should also be used to
ensure equity in participation in the IGF across geographies and social
groups. 

 

We congratulate the IGF secretariat on doing exemplary work in the last
few years, on a very thin resource base, and in difficult conditions
where different stakeholder groups involved in the IGF have very
different orientations and expectations of the secretariat.  A lot of
the IGF secretariat's work is indeed path-breaking in the UN system.
However, it is very evident that the secretariat needs much better
resource support that they have at present, if we are to fulfill all our
expectations from this unique global institution.


________________________________


Ian Peter
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