[governance] IGF Review Question 6 start

[Jeremy Malcolm]

On 08/07/2009, at 10:42 PM, Ginger Paque wrote:

> "6. If the continuation of the Forum is recommended, what  
> improvements would you suggest in terms of its working methods,  
> functioning and processes?"
>
> Since the value and effectiveness of the IGF are obvious, with near- 
> unanimous response that it should continue, we believe that the  
> review  should focus on addressing the issue of more inclusive  
> participation.   More importantly, the energy not needed in a review  
> of the current process could be spent in the search for ways to  
> foster more active inclusion of rarely heard and developing country  
> voices through, but not limited to, remote participation.
>
> And here we include for example, Indigenous peoples worldwide,  
> people with disabilities, rural people and particularly those who  
> are the poorest of the poor and often landless or migrants, those  
> concerned with promoting peer to peer and open access governance  
> structures built on an electronic platform, those looking to  
> alternative modes of Internet governance as ways of responding to  
> specific localized opportunities and limitations, and those working  
> as practitioners and activists in implementing the Internet as a  
> primary resource in support of broad based economic and social  
> development.


This requires a willingness to consider the inherent limitations of  
structures and processes that may have seemed natural or inevitable in  
2005, in the wake of a somewhat traditional intergovernmental summit.   
For example, it may not be most inclusive and appropriate for the  
"forum" of the Internet Governance Forum to be conceived as an  
isolated face-to-face meeting held in a far-flung city.  Rather,  
perhaps the IGF should take a leaf out of the book of other Internet  
governance institutions such as the IETF and ICANN, in which most work  
and engagement takes place between meetings in online and regional  
fora, and for which global face-to-face meetings are more of a  
capstone for the work done elsewhere.

Similarly, we must no longer avoid considering the need for new  
structures and processes for the IGF that would allow it to produce  
more tangible outputs through a process of reasoned deliberation.  In  
the past various such innovations have been considered - including  
speed dialogues, moderated debates, and roundtable discussions - but  
always the MAG has demurred from going through with these reforms due  
to the reticence of some stakeholder representatives.  Although it may  
be palatable to all - change never is - the IGC contends that the IGF  
as a whole will suffer in the long term it it does not prove its value  
to the international community by adopting mechanisms for the  
production of non-binding statements on Internet public policy issues.

-- 
JEREMY MALCOLM
Project Coordinator
CONSUMERS INTERNATIONAL-KL OFFICE
for Asia Pacific and the Middle East	

Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM
7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg
TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599
Mob: +60 12 282 5895
Fax: +60 3 7726 8599
www.consumersinternational.org

Consumers International (CI) is the only independent global  
campaigning voice for consumers. With over 220 member organisations in  
115 countries, we are building a powerful international consumer  
movement to help protect and empower consumers everywhere. For more  
information, visit www.consumersinternational.org.

____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance