[governance] IGC questionnaire response to date

[Ginger Paque]

Here is a very rough draft, what we have to date. I will work on it 
today, adding missing parts and working on text.

I am posting this in such a rough form because we have very little time. 
Please opine on substance. I will post an edited version later today, so 
please do not take up editing and grammar issues--I suggest we get 
consensus on substance first, and polish last. Please post agreement / 
objections as soon as possible so we can work them out. Thanks.


1. To what extent has the IGF addressed the mandate set out for it in 
the Tunis Agenda?

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 IGF in this regard


2. To what extent has the IGF embodied the WSIS principles?

The concept of "rights" continues to stress the importance of openness 
and universal access. This framework will continue to emphasize the 
importance of access to knowledge and development in Internet 
governance, while adding to it the basic right of individuals to access 
the content and applications of their choice. This is in keeping with 
current debates regarding an “open Internet”, and relevant aspects of 
the often confusing network neutrality discussions.

The inclusion of "principles" allows for wide discussion of the 
responsibilities that the different stakeholders have to each other. It 
allows for open examination of the principles that should govern the 
Internet, particularly in its commercial facets.

Within the mandate of the IGF and in support of strengthening this 
multistakeholder process, we ask that the IGF Secretariat continue and
expand the use of Remote Participation as a tool for attendance at the 
IGF 2009 in Egypt as a proven method to include new voices. To that end, 
we recommend that the Secretariat recognize the Remote Participation 
Working Group as a collaborating organization for the RP at the IGF 
2009, especially in the area of Hub participation, and facilitate the 
use of the RP resources from the first planning stages for this 4th meeting.

3. What has the impact of the IGF been in direct or indirect terms? Has 
it impacted you or your stakeholder group/institution/government? Has it 
acted as a catalyst for change?

Text from Shiva:

IGF, irrespective of its direct impact on the policy making process of 
Governments, is changing the way Government's perceive Civil Socity 
involvement in the policy making process. During the preparatory pahase 
as also during the last three IGFs, Governments had an opportunityh to 
experience the mutli-stakholder participatory process of the IGF and are 
becoming comfortable with the process of consultation. This 'roundtable' 
equality is largely an IGF achievement.

As for the direct impact, it has been minimal. The policy making process 
has not sufficiently paid attention to the deliberations at the IGF. A 
point that I raised at the IGF session at the ICANN meeting may be 
relevant:

(from the meeting transcript)
IGF does not have powers to decide, not have the powers to recommend.
But at the same time, 2,000 or 3,000 brilliant minds to get together.
These are people committed to Internet and they spend three days
deliberating on various issues and there could be a way by which
session reports could be generated and positions of each stakeholder
could be classified and identified, grouped. And that could become
some kind of a reference paper. It could become a reference document
for governments which could -- when it makes decisions, it could refer
to that paper, "This is the idea of paper on privacy. This is the
idea
of paper on security and what we want to do is in conflict with
this or
in agreement with this." And that could guide them and may not
comfort
them, but it could be a very good reference paper that could give an
idea of what is happening in the real world. Right now the decisions are 
taken by government, by businesses in
complete isolation of what is happening at the IGF and does not
reflect
the mood of the IGF.
So this is something that can be proactively done by the IGF
Secretariat to prepare summaries, prepare position papers and
report on
the mood of IGF. Thank you.


4. How effective are IGF processes in addressing the tasks set out for 
it, including the functioning of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group 
(MAG), Secretariat and open consultations?

At the outset of this statement on renewal and restructuring of the 
Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group, the Civil Society IG Caucus will like 
to appeal to all stakeholders that we should all use the full term 
"multi-stakeholder advisory group" or MAG, at least for official 
purposes, because multi-stakeholderism is the most important aspect of 
the IGF.

MAG is the driving seat of the IGF, and restructuring MAG is basic to 
making IGF more effective and productive. We very much appreciate the 
new measures of transparency taken with respect to MAG's working. We are 
of the view that MAG should work through two e-lists - one open and the 
other closed. Since MAG discusses issues of public importance, normally 
discussions should be open to public scrutiny. However we do understand 
that there can be some circumstances that require closed discussions. 
All discussions taken to the closed list should be listed, and summaries 
of them provided, as appropriate. By the same rule, transcripts should 
be provided for all face-to-face meetings of the MAG, unless some topics 
are expressly chosen to be dealt in a closed manner, in which case such 
topics should be listed, and summary of discussions provided, as 
appropriate.

*Membership of the MAG*

• The MAG should be large enough so that its members bring the required 
balance of stakeholder interests, diversity and experience, but not so 
large as to cause the group to be ineffective. In the present 
circumstances, we think that 40 is a good number for MAG members. One 
third of MAG members should be rotated every year.
• In the interest of transparency and understanding the responsibilities 
of MAG members, when making appointments to the MAG we request the 
Secretary General to explain which interested group that person is 
associated with. The rules for membership of the MAG should be clearly 
established, and made open along with due justifications.
• Civil society has been under represented in the multi-stakeholder 
advisory groups appointed in 2006 and 2007, this anomaly should be 
corrected in this round of rotation and a fair balance of members among 
all stakeholders assured. Fair civil society representation is necessary 
to ensure legitimacy for this new experiment in global governance.
• We agree that the organizations having an important role in Internet 
administration and the development of Internet-related technical 
standards should
continue to be represented in the MAG. However, their representation 
should not be at the expense of civil society participation.
• Stakeholder representatives should be chosen based on appropriate 
processes of self-selection by stakeholder groups. We do appreciate that 
it is difficult to recognize any one stakeholder entity, or even a given 
set of them, as completely representing the whole of that particular 
stakeholder group. This complicates the process of selection, especially 
in the case of civil society and business sectors, and provides scope 
for the final selecting authority exercising a degree of judgment. This, 
however, should be done in a completely transparent manner. Deviations 
from the self-selection processes of stakeholder groups should be kept 
to the minimum.
• When recommending members of the MAG all stakeholders should ensure 
diversity in terms of gender, geography, and, where applicable, special 
interest groups.

*Role and Structure of the MAG*

With the experience of two years of the IGF, it is also the right time 
to revisit the role and the structure of the MAG. To start with, it will 
be useful to list out the functions that MAG is expected to perform.
• One function is of course to make all necessary arrangements for the 
annual IGF meetings. We must reviews MAG's experience with carrying out 
this function. What more needs to be done by MAG to further improve the 
effectiveness of the IGF? We are of the opinion that MAG must review its 
decision making processes to make them more effective. These are 
especially important if IGF is to evolve into something more than what 
it is today, to enable it to fulfill all aspects of its mandate.
• It will be very useful for the MAG to work through working groups 
(WGs). These WGs should prepare for each main session and the set of 
workshops connected to this main session. WGs can also be used for 
managing internal tasks of the MAG more effectively.
• We also seek greater clarity at this point about whether the MAG has 
any substantive identity other than advising the UN Secretary General. 
For instance, to carry out some part of the mandate which requires 
'interfacing', 'advising', identifying issues', 'giving recommendations' 
etc, MAG, in some form or the other, needs to be able to represent the 
IGF. It looks highly impractical that these tasks can cohere in the UN 
Secretary General.
• MAG should prepare an annual report for the IGF. This report should 
mention IGF activities and performance for the year against relevant 
parts of the Tunis Agenda which lays out its mandate, and also outline 
plans for the year ahead. We
suggest that this report, once adopted by the Secretary General, would 
also satisfy the requirements of paragraph 75 of the Tunis Agenda and 
prepare for discussion about the desirability of continuing the Forum 
beyond 2010.
• IGF should actively encourage regional and national level IGFs, which 
should be truly multi-stakeholder. A specific plan should be drawn out 
for this purpose, possibly using a MAG working group. Such a need is 
also expressed in the paragraph 80 of Tunis Agenda.
Funding of IGF, and Issues of Participation
The United Nations needs to recognise that the IGF is the outcome of a 
UN process and should ensure that it has the resources it needs to 
fulfill its mandate as defined at the Tunis Summit in 2005. We express 
our great respect and appreciation for the work of the IGF Secretariat. 
While severely under-funded it has still been responsible for many of 
the IGF's successes. The Secretariat should be provided with resources 
needed to perform its role effectively.
In addition, a fund should be established to support the participation 
of people from developing and least developed countries in the IGF 
annual meetings and the IGF preparatory consultations.

*Special Advisors and Chair*

The need for Special Advisors, their role in the MAG, and criteria for 
their selection should be clarified. Considerations of diversity, as 
mentioned above in case of MAG members, must also be kept in mind for 
the selection of Special Advisors. The number of Special Advisors should 
be kept within a reasonable limit.
We are of the opinion that in keeping with the multi-stakeholder nature 
of the MAG, there should only be one chair, nominated by the UN 
Secretary General. The host country should be able to nominate a deputy 
chair, an arrangement that would be helpful regarding logistical issues 
for the annul IGF meetings. In any case, we will like to understand the 
division of work and responsibility between the two chairs in the 
present arrangement? It may be too late to move over to the suggested 
new arrangement of one chair, plus a host country deputy chair, for the 
Hyderabad meeting, especially if the Indian government representative 
has already taken over as the co-chair, but we can take a decision now 
about the post-Hyderabad phase.
And lastly, the IG Caucus supports the continuation of the present 
Chair, Nitin Desai, as the Chair of the MAG. We recognize and commend 
the role that he has played in guiding the MAG and the IGF through 
difficult formative times


5. Is it desirable to continue the IGF past its initial five-year 
mandate, and why/why not?

The Internet Governance Caucus is of the view that the IGF should 
continue beyond its first mandated period of five years.

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 need 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.

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.

We congratulate the IGF secretariat on doing exemplary work in the last 
few years, However for this success to be built on, the IGF should be 
assured stable and sufficient public funding to be able to carry its 
functions effectively, and impartially in global public interest. To 
this end we believe it is important that no other UN organization gets 
involved in the IGF's management.


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.


Selection of the host country for any IGF meeting is a complex
decision. The IGC considers that the location for meetings should more
clearly support participation by individuals and organizations with
few resources. Accessible (perhaps even not urban) but less popular
sites should be chosen, where airline competition and routing options
make lower costs possible. City/country cost of hotels and food should
be taken into consideration as well. Final meeting dates and sites
should be announced 360 days in advance to allow for budgeting and
advanced planning, and to ensure that transport, food and lodging is
competitive and convenient.

[Text proposed by Vanda, needs polishing]

Considering the relevance of IGF and its achievements during its term 
and the need to spread and improve the resulting information and 
policies, the IGF should support regional forums around the world, using 
its mission and brand to strengthen movements already existing in some 
regions and to help others to start.

The regional forums - holding the stakeholder model, signature and the 
support of IGF – will be a powerful tool to help the implementation, in 
a regional/ local level, of several suggestion raised during these years.

[Text to be re-written by Shiva]
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 standard class airfare for 
distances up to 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 unconditional support from Business, Government, well-funded 
NGOs and International Organizations 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 usual IGF participants. It would also help those 
participants who have a keen interest in contributing to panels but have 
difficulty in traveling to the IGF.

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.

7. Do you have any other comments?
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