[governance] Re: IGC questionnaire response to date: complete

[Ginger Paque]

Hi everyone,
Please read this draft carefully. As far as I know, we are only missing 
consensus on Shiva's portion of Q6, and the update (from Fouad) on Q4. 
Is that correct? Please opine.

Please send your comments as soon as possible, as we should reach 
consensus and do a final edit tomorrow.  I will be traveling on 
Wednesday and will be offline from 3 a.m. (7:30 GMT) to 3 p.m. (19:30 
GMT) so I would really like to finish this tomorrow if possible to make 
sure we post within the deadline.

Thanks. Ginger



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

Agenda?

The IGF's mandate stipulated by the Tunis Agenda (TA) is specifically 
set in its para 72, while the imperatives that led to its creation are 
contained in preceding paras of the TA dealing with Internet governance, 
and specifically about public policy-making in this area.

In terms of its principal mandate, the IGF seems largely to be on its 
way to becoming a unique global forum for multistakeholder dialogue on 
IG. However it is important, for this purpose, to keep up evolutionary 
innovations that each successive IGF meeting has tried out. To keep up 
the interest and engagement of stakeholders it is important that the IGF 
take up the most pressing global IG issues and seek a policy dialogue on 
them, with the objective of such a dialogue helping processes of real 
policy-making in these areas. Overall, IGF's success will be judged from 
how much it managed to influence these real policy-making processes. If 
this is taken as the central criterion of success, one can say that IGF 
is moving towards fulfilling its mandate, but not quite yet there. It 
needs to continue to pursue structural evolutions that (1) enable 
'effective and purposeful policy dialogue' on 'issues that require most 
urgent resolution' and (2) strengthen links with institutions and 
processes of real policy making.

In this connection IGF is still to achieve any clear success in the area 
of 'facilitating discourse between bodies dealing with different 
cross-cutting international public policies regarding the Internet' 
(section 72 b) and 'interfacing with appropriate inter-governmental 
organisations and other institutions on matters under their purview' (72 
c).

IGF has also not been able to make any progress towards fulfilling its 
mandate under section 72 e of 'advising all stakeholders in proposing 
ways and means to accelerate the availability and affordability of the 
Internet in the developing world', and section 72 g of 'identifying 
emerging issues, ... and, where appropriate, making recommendations'.

It must however be said that IGF has had considerable success in at 
least three areas

1.      Getting stakeholders with very different worldviews to begin 
talking with each other, and at least start to see the others point of 
view if not accept it. This is a very important initial step because it 
is widely recognized that IG requires new and different governance and 
policy models than exclusively statist ones.

2.      Building the capacity on a range of IG issues among many newer 
participants, especially from developing countries with under-developed 
institutional and expertise systems in IG arena.

3.      Triggering regional and national initiatives for 
multi-stakeholder dialogue on IG, and forming loops of possible 
interactively between the global IGF and these national and regional 
initiatives (IGF-4 is trying this innovation in a relatively formal way).


Paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda, (a), asks the IGF to: Discuss public 
policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance in order to 
foster the sustainability, robustness, security, stability and 
development of the Internet.


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

The WSIS principles hold that Internet governance processes “should be 
multilateral, transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of 
governments, the private sector, civil society and international 
organizations.” Governments invoked these principles throughout the WSIS 
process, and in the Tunis Agenda mandated the IGF to, “promote and 
assess, on an ongoing basis, the embodiment of WSIS principles in 
Internet Governance processes.” Nevertheless, the IGF has not held any 
follow-up discussion on how to pursue this key element of its mandate. 
The Internet Governance Caucus has consistently advocated programmatic 
activity in this arena, and hence welcomes the Swiss government’s 
statement that implementation of the WSIS principles should be added as 
a cross-cutting issue at the core of all IGF discussions.

We suggest that a  process for the ongoing assessment and promotion of 
those principles within IG processes be established, per the Tunis 
Mandate. To that end we support the APC/COE/UNECE initiative "Towards a 
code of good practice on public participation in Internet governance - 
Building on the principles of WSIS and the Aarhus Convention" as a 
building block for such an effort.

A reading of the WSIS principles shows a clear emphasis on rights. Yet 
the IGF has side-tracked efforts to give rights and principles a 
significant emphasis in the meeting agenda, allowing a minority of 
voices to over-ride what is clearly a central obligation of the IGF.

The concept of "rights" should continue to stress the importance of 
openness and universal access. This framework must 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 "rights and 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.

 

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.


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?  [Fouad Basra is working on 
this as it needs to be completely updated]

At the outset of this statement on renewal and restructuring of the 
Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group, the Civil Society IG Caucus would 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 remote, 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.

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.

[The following text was re-submitted by Shiva, and then edited by 
Ginger, not yet seen by Shiva]

The Internet Governance Caucus calls upon the UN Member States to 
provide substantial funding for IGF programs and participation to be 
used to further enhance the quality of programs and to foster greater 
diversity of participation.^

There are two aspects to be considered in this regard: a) Present IGF 
participants representing various stakeholder groups are highly 
qualified individuals with diverse accomplishments but it is also true 
that IGF participation needs to be further expanded to include more 
Civil Society participants known for their commitment and 
accomplishments outside the IGF arena on various Civil Society causes. 
And b) The present attendees of the IGF do not represent all participant 
segments and geographic regions. We mention in for example: Indigenous 
peoples worldwide, people with disabilities, rural people and 
particularly those who are the poorest of
the poor, 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. Funding possibilities need 
to be improved and it requires various efforts, but availability of 
various categories of travel grants for participants may help improve 
attendance by those not yet seen at the IGF for want of funds. The IGF 
already has made some funds available for representation from Less 
Developed Countries, but such funding achieves a limited objective.

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 being spent each year. With an increment in funding for travel 
support to panel speaker and participants, which would amount to a small 
proportion of the true total cost of the IGF, the quality of panels and 
the diversity of participation could be significantly improved.

With this rationale, the Internet Governance Caucus recommends that the 
IGF should consider budgetary allocations supported by grants from 
business, governments, well funded non-governmental and international 
organizations and the United Nations. The fund could extend travel 
grants to 200 lead participants (panel speakers, program organizers), 
full and partial fellowships to a greater 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).

 

7. Do you have any other comments?

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.

 


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