[governance] IGF Review Question 6 start

Sun Jul 12 00:02:09 EDT 2009

The funding model is sound. The methods for determining participants and panelists is suspect.

--- On Sat, 7/11/09, Sivasubramanian Muthusamy <isolatedn at gmail.com> wrote:

From: Sivasubramanian Muthusamy <isolatedn at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [governance] IGF Review Question 6 start
To: "Jeanette Hofmann" <jeanette at wzb.eu>
Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org
Date: Saturday, July 11, 2009, 5:37 AM

Hello Jeanette Hofmann and All,

The phrasing is rather conversational, more in the nature of discussing this with the Caucus at this stage. The phrasing definitely needs work when this idea forms part of the statement from the Caucus to the IGF Secretariat.

Here is the logic. The scale of funding suggested for Panelists ( and for participants ) appears to be sizable in terms of the actual physical, direct outlay by the IGF Secretariat as expenses for organizing the IGF.  But $ 700,000 or even a million or a little more is minuscule if we pause for a while to assess and understand the true cost of the IGF. Calcuate the time spent by 1,000 of the most active particiapnts in deliberations in preparation of the IGF, in lists, in observing MAG meetings, in email communications with fellow participants and the time that actually is spent traveling to attending the IGF.  A hundered hours spent by everyone of the 1000 participants is a fair estimate ? Plus 150 hours travelling to and attending the IGF.   For these 1000 participants alone, it is (100+150) X 1000 = 250,000 hours of time that be valued at at least $ 50 per hour, considering the profiles and positions of most participants,  which amounts to $ 12.5
 million for 1000 participants spent invisibly. Calcuate the cost of time of more active participants, for instance, those assigned to IGF work by Governments, Business Corporations, the MAG members and the host team, and their support personnel. That would be an equal or a larger sum. Add to that the actual IGF outlays by the host, sponsors and the IGF Secretariat. Add to the that the cost of sending and receiving email messages like this, and the invisible cost of online space for discussing IGF issues. 

For most participants, especially for me, the "economic cost" ?  of an event such as this would be a concept a bit too technical, but my guess is that if we assign an economist to estimate the true cost of a year's IGF meeting, he would place his estimates somewhere (way) above $ 100 million every year. 

A hundred million is spent visibly or invisibly, but for want of a visible and direct million, the quality of panels are compromised, the diversity of participation is compromised. My suggestion for a $700,000 (unconditional) fund was kept low at that level, for a start. I would consider even more liberal budgets for panelists and participants as mariginal expenses that would double or triple the quality of the IGF.

Thank you
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Jeanette Hofmann <jeanette at wzb.eu> wrote:

Hi,

the suggestions below seem unrealistic and a bit over the top. I find it important that the secretariat has steady funding to do its job (independent of stakeholders' interests) and that funding is available for active participants (i.e. workshop organizers) from least developed countries.

The secretariat can encourage IGF supporters to donate money but it is not responsible for providing such funding. We should be careful about how we phrase such matters.

jeanette

Sivasubramanian Muthusamy wrote:

Hello Coordinators,

As part of point 6, we may have to suggest to IGF to work on ways of getting the IGF better funded to extend unconditional travel support ( as opposed to travel support from a Business Trust which may have implied conditions ) at least for panelists. To begin with IGF may have to set up a fund to extend comfortable assistance to about 200 lead participants ( panel speakers, team organizers etc. ) which may have to cover standand class airfare for distances upto 4 hours and business class fare for distances in excess of 4 hours, and hotel rooms for 5 days in one of the top two recommended hotels with incidentals considering the fact that most of the panel speakers invited would be high profile individuals who are required to be well treated, This would require the IGF to find between $500,000 - $ 700,000 as unconditonal support from Business, Governement, well funded NGOs and International Orgnaizations and from the UN. Such a fund would enable the IGF to
 bring in really diverse opinion to the IGF from Experts who are not the ususal IGF participatns. It would also help those participants who have a keen intrerest in contributing to panels but have difficulty in traveling to the IGF.

Sivasubramanian Muthusamy

Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
Blog: http://isocmadras.blogspot.com

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On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 10:04 AM, Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org <mailto:jeremy at ciroap.org>> wrote:

   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
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   www.consumersinternational.org <http://www.consumersinternational.org>

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