[governance] Re: IGC questionnaire Q6 for review

Sun Jul 12 13:21:11 EDT 2009

Hello All,

On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 6:59 PM, Ginger Paque <gpaque at gmail.com> 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, in keeping with WSIS principle 13:
>
>
>
> “In building the Information Society, *we shall pay particular attention*
> to the special needs of marginalized and vulnerable groups of society,
> including migrants, internally displaced persons and refugees, unemployed
> and underprivileged people, minorities and nomadic people.* *We shall also
> recognize the special needs of older persons and persons with disabilities.”
>
>
>
> 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.
>
>
>
> [Vanda, edited]
>
> 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 the IGF – are a powerful tool to foster the implementation, in a
> regional/ local level, of several suggestions raised during these years to
> address the Tunis agenda stipulation for "development of multi-stakeholder
> processes at the national, regional… level". This should be complemented by
> more formal support for Remote Hubs to the annual IGF meeting.
>
>
> [Shiva, edited]
> The IGC suggests that the multistakeholder community and the IGF establish
> a program to offer improved funding to extend travel support for panelists.
> Such funds would enable IGF main sessions and workshops to bring in more
> diverse opinions to the IGF including experts who have particular expertise,
> but 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.

In place of the above two paragraphs, the following text may become part of
the the IGC response to Q6:

 The Internet Governance Caucus calls upon the IGF Secretariat to fund the
IGF programs and participation substantially and significantly better to
improve the quality and diversity of participation. There are two aspects to
be considered in this regard: a) The absence or non-participation of some of
the world's most renowned Civil Society opinion leaders is noticeable;
Business Leaders who are otherwise committed to social and other governance
issues off IGF are not seen at the IGF; Governments are not represented on a
level high enough and b) The present participants of the IGF does not
represent all participant segments and geographic regions. This needs to be
improved and it requires various efforts, but availability of various
categories of Travel Grants for different classes of participants may help
improve participation by those not attending the IGF for want of funds.

The true cost of the IGF (including all visible and invisible costs to the
IGF Secretariat, participating Governments, Organizations and individual
participants) would be several times that of the actual outflow from the IGF
Secretariat in organizing the IGF, as reflected in the IGF book of accounts.
If an economist estimates the total visible and invisible costs of the IGF,
it would be an enormous sum, which is already spent. For want of a marginal
allocation for travel support to panel speaker and participants, which would
amount to a small proportion of the True cost of IGF, the quality of panels
and the diversity of participation are compromised. With this rationale, the
Internet Governance Caucus recommends that IGF should consider liberal
budgetary allocations supported by unconditional grants from Business,
Governments, well funded Non Governmental and International Organization and
the United Nations. The fund may extend uncompromising, comfortable Travel
grants/ honorarium to 200 lead participants (panel speakers, program
organizers, who are largely invitees who are required to be well received
for participation), full and partial fellowships to a large number of
participants with special attention to participants from unrepresented
categories (unrepresented geographic regions and/or unrepresented
participant segments and even to those from affluent, represented regions if
there is an individual need ). Such a fund would enable the IGF to bring in
really diverse opinion to the IGF from Experts who would add further value
to the IGF. It is especially recommended that such a fund may be built up
from contributions that are unconditional (as opposed to a grant from a
Business Trust with stated or implied conditions about the positions to be
taken) and may be awarded to panelists and participants unconditionally. It
is recommended that the IGF creates a fund large enough to have significant
impact in the quality and diversity of participation.

Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
http://isocmadras.blogspot.com
http://www.onewebday.org/stories
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