[governance] current politics around the IGF

[parminder]

Hi All

I agree a bit of discussion here about the current politics around the 
IGF, in light of our priorities, would be useful.

There are two directions (which could at times look as opposing) in 
which things are being pulled, or can move.

One, retaining the core features of the IGF as we know it.

Two, seeking (small to substantive) improvements in the IGF.

I do think that the danger of, and problems with, landing up with no 
improvements in the IGF at all, is as much as that of not retaining the 
'currently core features' of the IGF.

I myself do not think there is much danger of loosing these 'core 
features', but since others seems to, it will be good for them to both 
list these 'core features' and tell us why, and how, there is a danger 
of losing them.

In the same way we can discuss what kind of 'improvements' may be being 
proposed, and which kinds may be good and which not. Which kind of 
'improvements' may result in the IGF losing its core features in a way 
we dont want it to.

     >It'd be better to give certain governments and especially UN NY
    reasons to think carefully about the desirability and
     >sustainability of the "improvements" they're considering. (Bill)

Bill, can you roughly list what you think the proposed "improvements" 
whose sustainability and desirability needs to be thought carefully about.

Parminder





On Tuesday 24 August 2010 12:27 PM, William Drake wrote:
> Hi
>
> On Aug 24, 2010, at 12:15 AM, Jeremy Malcolm wrote:
>
>> On 24-Aug-2010, at 12:51 AM, Bertrand de La Chapelle 
>> <bdelachapelle at gmail.com <mailto:bdelachapelle at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>> What Bill was alluding to is that irrespective of who speaks, the 
>>> message is the most important and it has : a) to fully take into 
>>> account the issues that are being discussed (and will be in other 
>>> fora like the UN GA and the CSTD), which means a strategic approach; 
>>> and b) that if the IGC proposes a name, there is agreement that the 
>>> speech is not up to the speaker to draft entirely on its own but 
>>> should reflect the various sensitivities present in the IGC itself. 
>>> This should be our understanding (and practice) of democracy.
>>
>> I agree up until now, but...
>>
>>> This *clearly calls for draft speeches to be elaborated on the list, 
>>> *as has successfully been done in the past, with sufficient 
>>> opportunities for people to input and sufficient respect to the 
>>> diversity of viewpoints.
>>
>> This I think would be a new practice for us. Yes we have done as you 
>> describe with IGC statements many times, but not with opening and 
>> closing civil society statements, which have not been treated as IGC 
>> statements and have been left to the reasonable discretion of those 
>> nominated.
>
> What I said was "we should be somewhat strategic about how we use 
> these opportunities and perhaps even coordinate a bit on the message." 
>  I didn't mean this to imply group cooperation on writing text; 
> speakers should of course be trusted and free to say what they want. 
>  I just meant a bit of coordination might be helpful to them, e.g. the 
> caucus could discuss a little what sort of message people think would 
> be useful, and the speakers could consider taking on board anything 
> they think particularly important or reflective of consensus.  The 
> important point is to be cognizant of what's going on with the 
> politics around renewal and use the opportunity to intervene 
> effectively in the debate; to me at least, a general run-down of known 
> CS positions on various IG issues wouldn't be sufficient, it's not 
> 2007 or whatever.  It'd be better to give certain governments and 
> especially UN NY reasons to think carefully about the desirability and 
> sustainability of the "improvements" they're considering.
>
> Best,
>
> Bill
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20100824/11001874/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.cpsr.org
To be removed from the list, send any message to:
     governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org

For all list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t