[governance] Re: IGC statement/questionnaire Q3
Ginger Paque
gpaque at gmail.com
Mon Jul 13 08:39:13 EDT 2009
I have tightened and shortened Shiva's proposal for Q3, also taking into
account Ian's and other comments. Please comment.
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?
The Internet Governance Caucus recognizes an improvement in the level of
discussion between stakeholders since the WSIS process. It is observed
that there is greater collaboration during the IGF phase than during
WSIS, and less confrontation. In the 2009 workshop proposals, due to the
request by the IGF Secretariat to merge proposals, there are panels that
include business, government, academia and civil society working
together and exchanging ideas on various levels.
The impact of the IGF is seen on a deeper level. If the question is
posed differently in order to examine the impact of the IGF on
participants, it can be seen that the participants as individuals or
organizations have gained from the flow of knowledge at the IGF which in
turn gets shared with and influences the respective stakeholder groups.
One might also ask different questions such as "Has your involvement in
IGF increased your knowledge of internet governance?, "Has your
involvement led to meaningful contact with other peers that has assisted
in your work? and "Has your participation in the multi-stakeholder
process changed or affected your perspective on any particular
governance issues?" to understand additional impact of the IGF.
The Internet Governance Forum is also changing the way other
international policy process and governments perceive civil society
participation in the policy making process. During the preparatory phase
as well as during the first three IGFs, governments have had an
opportunity to experience the mutlistakholder participatory process of
the IGF and are becoming comfortable with the process of consultation.
This 'roundtable' equality is largely an IGF achievement. The IGF
process promotes trust in the functionality of the participatory
governance process and this will have other widespread impact.
[The Internet Governance Caucus proposes that the IGF Secretariat
introduce a mechanism to record and archive all sessions by text
transcript and collated audio visual records as a searchable research
resource, as also assign neutral personnel to prepare consensus/
stakeholder position reports on issues/sessions.] [Move this section to
No. 7? ]
Sivasubramanian Muthusamy wrote:
>
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 2:22 AM, Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
> <isolatedn at gmail.com <mailto:isolatedn at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hello All,
>
> The following is a more complete response to Q3:
>
> On Mon, Jul 13, 2009 at 1:58 AM, Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
> <isolatedn at gmail.com <mailto:isolatedn at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Hello All,
>
>
> ( statement further fine-tuned. Finer changes are inlaid into the
> following text)
>
>
>
> The Internet Governance Caucus notices an improvement in the
> level of discussions between stakeholders since the WSIS
> process. It is observed that there is greater collaboration
> during the IGF phase than during WSIS, and it could also be
> said that there is far less confrontation. It could also be
> said that as IGF progresses into its fourth year there is
> increasing constructive collaboration. ( For instance, In the
> 2009 workshop proposals, due to the request by the IGF
> Secretariat to merge proposals, there are panels that include
> business, government, academia and civil society working
> together. - should we say this ?)
>
>
>
> The impact of the IGF could be seen on a deeper level rather
> than superficially. If the question is posed differently to
> examine the impact of the IGF on participants, it can be seen
> that the participants as individuals or organizations, the
> participants have gained from the flow of knowledge at the IGF
> which in turn gets shared and influences the respective
> stakeholder groups and others.Variant questions such as "Has
> your involvement in IGF increased your knowledge of internet
> governance? , "Has your involvement led to meaningful contact
> with other peers who have assisted in your work? and "Has your
> participation in the multi-stakeholder process changed or
> affected your perspective on any particular governance
> issues?" etc.may elicit a positive response.
>
>
>
> Also, the Internet Governance Forum, irrespective of its
> direct impact on the policy making process of Governments, is
> changing the way Government's perceive Civil Society
> participation in the policy making process. During the
> preparatory phase as also during the last three IGFs,
> Governments had an opportunity to experience the
> mutli-stakholder participatory process and they are becoming
> comfortable with the idea and process of consultation. This
> 'roundtable' equality is largely an IGF achievement. (The IGF
> process promotes faith in the functionality of the
> participatory governance process and could inspire National
> Governments to emulate the participatory process)
>
>
> As for the direct impact, it has been minimal. IGF does not
> have powers to decide, not have the powers to recommend. This
> is a "design" aspect of the IGF which may be largely
> preserved. At the same time it is observed that due to this
> status of the IGF, the policy making process of National
> Governments and Regional Governments have not sufficiently
> paid attention to the deliberations at the IGF. The IGF brings
> together participants with different expertise from various
> stakeholder groups from various geographic regions around the
> world, who deliberate on Internet Governance issues but these
> valuable and meaningful deliberations have not been
> systematically channeled to contribute to the actual policy
> making process. IGF could devise a system by which
> Session/Topic Reports could be generated to summarize the
> positions of stakeholder groups on issues deliberated during
> the IGF. Though this may not constitute to be a
> "recommendation" or a "formal statement" from the IGF, such
> Session/Topic Reports could be released under different topic
> headings and could become Reference Documents to contribute to
> the National / Regional policy making process.
>
> Governments could adopt it as a convention to draw resources
> from the IGF Reference Papers on the relevant issues/topics
> while framing proposals for a new policy / change of an
> existing policy related to Internet. The proposed Reference
> documents could be on broad topics such as Security or Freedom
> of Expression to outline the overall IGF position with
> sub-sections on stakeholder positions, and also on sub-topics
> such as a topic on Cloud Computing or Social Networking. Such
> Documents would enable the National / Regional Policy making
> process to comprehensively and readily understand the "mood"
> of the IGF on a topic on which a certain legislation/
> directive/ guideline is being considered. At present decisions
> are taken by governments and by business corporations largely
> in isolation of the IGF deliberations, without taking into
> consideration the concerns of the IGF, nor consider the
> solutions proposed by the IGF.
>
> The Internet Governance Caucus proposes that the IGF
> Secretariat considers this as an action item and introduce a
> mechanism to thoroughly record as audio-visuals collated with
> text transcripts and presentations to be archives as source
> records of each panel discussion, workshop, roundtable, open
> forum, or in any other format, in every room. In addition the
> Secretariat may also assign neutral staff with synthesing
> skills to prepare consensus/ stakeholder position reports on
> issues/sessions. The IGF Secretariat may also proactively
> reach out to Governments to urge them to adopt it as a
> convention to call for IGF Position papers and related
> documents to be used as inputs in their policy making process.
>
> Sivasubramanian Muthusamy
>
>
> On Sun, Jul 12, 2009 at 8:51 PM, Ginger Paque
> <gpaque at gmail.com <mailto:gpaque at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> Shiva is actively working on Q3.
>
> I would like to see some recognition of the improvement in
> the level of discussion between stakeholders since the
> WSIS process in the impact. I think there is much more
> collaboration (in general) than during WSIS, and far less
> confrontation. In the 2009 workshop proposals in
> particular, due to the request by the IGF Secretariat to
> merge proposals, there are panels that include business,
> government, academia and civil society working together.
>
> We might also look at Ian's response to the questionnaire
> for ideas as well:
>
> *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?*
> You will probably have to probe a lot deeper to discover
> impact, and a lot of this would be at a personal level,
> which is not directly covered by the way that question is
> posed. Where individuals are impacted or have learnt,
> eventually that will flow though to stakeholder groups.
> But to get meaningful feedback on impact, you may have to
> ask a few questions along the lines of “has you
> involvement in IGF increased your knowledge of internet
> governance? “ “has your involvement led to meaningful
> contact with other peers that has assisted your work” ,
> “has multistakeholder involvement changed or affected your
> perspective on any particular governance issues” etc.
> These sort of questions would assist in getting a fuller
> understanding of what the impact might have been.
>
>
>
>
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