[governance] IGF consultations - extending IGF's mandate

[Ian Peter]

Parminder, while not disagreeing with the substance of what you have
suggested below, I think the question is not so much "getting views on the
issue of extending the IGF's mandate"

 

The agenda item is "preparing the review process".

 

In the questionnaire circulated by the Secretariat, this is phrased as

 

"The Tunis Agenda calls on the UN Secretary-General "to examine the
desirability of the continuation of the Forum, in consultation with Forum
participants, within five years of its creation, and to make recommendations
to the UN membership in the regard". This consultation will have to take
place at the Sharm El Sheikh meeting. How should it be prepared?"

 

 

Rather than predetermining the outcome of the consultation, I think there
will be a large emphasis on what the process of consultation should be, (
and a belief that the process should determine the outcome rather that our
thoughts at this stage). Please let me know if you have information that
suggests otherwise.

 

If that is the case, we should concentrate more on what the process should
be. From our previous statement, we have

 

"As mentioned in the TA, 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 may also be very useful to go beyond IGF
participants to reach out to other interested stakeholders, who for
different reason 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, not
due to the fact that they are not impacted by IG and therefore may not have
legitimate interest in it, but because of various structural issues. In this
context, it is especially important to reach out more to constituencies in
developing counties. 

 

Since the IGF has had 'development' as a central theme, it is important to
make special efforts to reach out to various actors involved in development
activity, 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. 

 

It is not therefore enough to announce open consultations, but tangible
efforts to reach out to different stakeholders and constituencies should be
made. 

 

If it is found necessary to do a expert evaluation to help the process of
review, the process of selecting the 'experts' should be based on
transparent rationale, and follow an open and transparent process. It is not
advisable to rely on a pro bono evaluation, by any agency that offers it,
for such a politically sensitive and important assessment. In selecting
'experts' possible biases should be anticipated and accounted for. Due to
the primarily (global) public policy mandate and role of the IGF, 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. "

 

 

 

 

I suspect that the discussion will move towards clarifying an acceptable
process, and other comments may be left aside for later consideration. In
that case, are we happy with our comments from last September or is there
something we should add?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ian Peter

PO Box 429

Bangalow NSW 2479

Australia

Tel (+614) 1966 7772 or (+612) 6687 0773

www.ianpeter.com

 

 

  _____  

From: Parminder [mailto:parminder at itforchange.net] 
Sent: 17 January 2009 17:20
To: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Subject: [governance] IGF consultations - extending IGF's mandate

 

Dear All

The Feb open consultations of the IGF have a specific purpose of getting
views on the issue of extending the IGF's mandate. This issue will be
considered by CSTD (commission of science and technology) and later UN's
ECOSOC in 2010. The WSIS (world summit on the information society) mandated
that the decision on the issue will be taken in 'consultation with IGF
participants'. It is the first time that open consultations will be for 2
days, and the reason for this is that oneday will be exclusively devoted to
considering this particular issue. 

Now, it is not entirely clear if 'IGF participants' are only those who
gather for the annual IGF, or the open consultations also in some form
comprises of IGF participants. In any case, the open consultations in Geneva
are supposed to give MAG its directions, and since MAG takes all process
decisions, inputting into the forthcoming consultations can have important
bearing on the process that will be followed in terms of what may constitute
'consultations with forum participants' for deciding on continuation of the
IGF. However, I am of the opinion that we should also put in our substantive
comments on the continuation of the IGF right away. 

Just to kickstart the discussion, my view is that;

(1) First of all we should clearly, and unambiguously, state that we will
that IGF has a crucial and unparalleled role in the area of IG, specifically
global public policy making in this area. For this reason, not only the IGF
should be continued beyond 2010, but it should be suitably strengthened. 

(2) We should also assert that there are two clear, and relatively distinct,
mandates of the IGF -  first, regarding public policy functions, as a forum
for multistakeholder policy dialogue, and second, regarding capacity
building. Both aspects of the IGF's role needs to be strengthened.
Especially, one role (for instance, capacity building) should not be
promoted to the exclusion of the other (policy related role). If the IGF is
assessed not to be sufficiently contributing to its one or the other
principal roles, adequate measures should be considered to improve its
effectivenesses vis-a-vis that role. 

(3) The IGF should be assured stable and sufficient public funding to be
able to carry its functions effectively, and impartially in global public
interest. 

Also is enclosed the contribution IGC made late last year to the synthesis
paper on this subject.

parminder 




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