[governance] Re: IGC questionnaire response to date Q 2 "remote participation" (Q6)

[Ginger Paque]

Sylvia Caras wrote:
> Is "Remote Participation" understood to include transcription and
> archiving?  Is adding those terms redundant?
>
> " ... the use of Remote Participation, including transcription and
> archiving, as a tool ..."
>
>   

Sylvia, thanks for this point. This section was eliminated from Q2 a 
version or two ago, as it is addressed in Q6, and no longer seemed 
relevant here. How about adding your phrase to Q 6, as follows in the 
first para of Q6:

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, including transcription and 
archiving.

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.

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.

The Internet Governance Caucus calls upon the IGF Secretariat to fund 
the IGF programs and participation in a substantial way, to improve the 
quality and diversity of participation. There are two aspects to be 
considered in this regard: a) The absence 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 are 
not seen at the IGF, and governments are not represented on a high 
enough level and b) The present participants of the IGF do 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 the IGF, the quality of panels and the diversity of 
participation are compromised.

With this rationale, the Internet Governance Caucus recommends that the 
IGF should consider liberal budgetary allocations supported by 
unconditional grants from business, governments, well funded 
non-governmental and international organizations 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 opinions 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 create a fund large 
enough to have significant impact in the quality and diversity of 
participation.

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 does not prove its value to the 
international community by adopting mechanisms for the production of 
non-binding statements on Internet public policy issues.




Sylvia Caras wrote:
>> 2. To what extent has the IGF embodied the WSIS principles?
>>
>> ...
>> 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.
>> ...
>>     
>
> Is "Remote Participation" understood to include transcription and
> archiving?  Is adding those terms redundant?
>
> " ... the use of Remote Participation, including transcription and
> archiving, as a tool ..."
>
> Sylvia
>
>   
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