AW: [governance] IGF consultations - extending IGF's mandate

["Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"]

Just to kickstart the discussion, my view is that;

My comments are inside

Parminder:
(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. 

Wolfgang:
In this generally way I would agree but the question is what do you mean by "strengthend"? If you understand that this includes that the IGF should be transformed into a negotiation body I would disagree. In my eyes the absence of a negotiation process is a strength and not a waakness of the IGF. It has liberated the debate. Negotiaiton would close it again. Look at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Nobody would come and argue that the WEF should adopt policy recommendations to save a disorganized world. But political leaders, business tycoons and also NGOs going to Davois to get inspiration, to have contacts, to learn from other perspectives. In my eyes such a "Davos for ther Internet" is needed more than a "blabla-declaration" at the end of the 4 days meeting. the WEF in Davos does not gove receommednations but send messages. I ma in favour of IGF messages, but I am against IGF Recommendations. I understand that there has to be a place in the global IG architecture where political recommendations have to be negotiated. But we should not be naive. If it comes to hard realities, governments will start such a process (and exclude non-governmental stakeholders as civil society) anyhow. They can do this within existing organisations or create a now channel. It depends from the political will, the various interests and the punlic pressure "to do something" (which could be the case in the fight against cybercrime of Childpornography on the Internet). Multistakhoderism is still a "pioneering concept" and not a reality in the power diplomacy of the 21st century. My proposal is not to overstretch the IGF itself but to strengthen the "Dynamic Coalitions" to do part of this job of working on receommendations. The DCs are bodies which are self organized and totally free to give themselves a mandate to do this. If a DC has the right participants (multistakeholder is one of a basic criteria to be recognized as a DC) and you have enough strong governments, private sector and CS as members any political recommendation coming out from the DC could play a very influential and important role. The challenge here for the IGF would be to agree on a more formal procedure for the official recognition of a DC. This could become a function of the MAG (as ALAC recongizes, based on technical criteria, At Large Structures/ALSs)
 
Parminder:
(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. 

Wolfgang:
This is okay. But the IGF should do this in collaboration with the general follow up of WSIS. Close cooperation with GAID would be also a good idea, in particular if it comes to capacity building. 
 
Parminder:
(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. 

Wolfgang:
It is always good to ask for money. A frist concrete step would be that the IGF gets a budget status in the UN. But this decisi0n is made by govenrments only. How civil society can lobby for such a governmental decision? Private sector is an unstable partner in this time of financial crises. Look at the GAUID experiences. The only fact that the former CEO of INTEL chairs GAIDs Strategic Committee does not mean, that INTEL, which jumps now into a greta valley, has opened its pockets. Or look into the DSF. How much they got since Tunes? Did somebody ring bells loud enough to get notieced during the recent Lyon conference? With other words: I fully agree but we shiuld realstic and to very concrete. 
 
Wolfgang
 
 
 
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