[governance] the matter of MAG rotation 2010

[Fouad Bajwa]

After Parminder's and Jeanette's discussion, I would like to share
some views of my own to stimulate more research into this issue.

In my opinion the MAG+ meeting has its pros and cons and either may
outweigh its importance if the clarity on the process's  polarity is
not carefully observed or maybe one of the most powerful positions on
IGF that we may take in the very near future.

The MAG+ meeting is a good idea as it gives us (IGC) the opportunity
to participate together in order to forward the Civil Society concerns
in front of all other stakeholders of the multistakeholderism. There
was a great deal of willingness, cooperation and sharing  displayed
amongst all multistakeholders that showed an internal planning
innovation but was not successfully displayed in the IGF 2009 main
programming. See the contradiction we experienced last year. Why, CS
issues continuously deliberated during the Open Consultations by
IGC/CS participants as well as IGC's MAG members weren't entertained
much despite interventions and counter arguments/discussions during
the two day MAG meetings in June. Innovation to the main themes of the
sessions as suggested by CS wasn't entertained much in the program.
Why? We shouldn't forget the other two stakeholders of the
multistakeholderism.

This is a display of the other pressure groups in the process from the
multistakeholderism, the governments and the private sector
inter-related in setting and backing the agenda and less responsive to
innovation as happens with an open dialogue space as the space is
supposed to readjust itself according to the suggestions evolving from
within that space. Science, Technology, Telecoms and the Internet
advances and effects social, economic and political structures at a
phenomenal rapid pace but the open spaces tend to represent the red
tape turtle, why is this?

The space of the Internet has two critical stakeholders that effect
its present as well as future, Civil Society - the people, users,
producers, consumers and then the Private Sector - the
trading/business/commercial/corporate/capitalist/monopolistic systems
that sell to or service the people. The governments play the role of
watch dogs, governance, regulation, censoring, filtering, facilitators
and infrastructure. Whose side would they be on? Within the structure
of the IGF and in particular MAG, the siding of the governments with
any one stakeholder in the multistakeholder turns the tables and that
is what can be understood from the current challenges in the IGF
political environment that we are collectively facing.

The open consultations can be easily over powered by a wide range of
stakeholder interest groups and if there was a MAG convened after
that, one key stakeholder sided by the governments would be able to
continue to influence the programming of the IGF. So both are inter
related. Within the context of the MAG+, as many of the participants
may have observed, the MAG representatives of their stakeholder
respective groups of the multistakeholderism combined with the
members/interest groups (from the stakeholder groups they represent)
displayed a powerful grip on the programming of the IGF2009. This is
the open imbalance that most of us have been intervening here and at
the meetings about.

This is one of the notorious speed breakers in the process towards
innovation to the open space for dialogue on Internet Governance and
its related issues. Two stakeholders wiggle out of the Human Rights
issues and then one group continuously opposes the development agenda
because then the CS/People's stakeholder group will be supported by
the Governments stakeholder group because the element of development
and cooperation today has to be supported by this default
relationship. Interestingly the issues of Human Rights with regards to
the Internet and the issues of Development or exploring an agenda for
development with regards to Internet Governance or so inter-related
that the scared stakeholder group totally freaks out at the idea of
anyone of these coming into the main program. Their strategic button,
their commercial and business benefit to countries and pressuring on
governments is the only means to counter anything they consider as
propaganda or lobbying to affect their positions and this is very
visible since ages.

What we now have to understand is that how can we use this situation
wisely to raise our concerns and to get considerable improvement in
the process. Having a MAG or not having it is again up to the
collective intelligence and consent of the all three stakeholders of
the multistakeholderism, i.e, Governments, Private Sector and Civil
Society. From what I observed on the MAG mailing list was the first
two stakeholders of the stakeholderism grouping up again. This is a
very big imbalance and there is also a certain level of fear displayed
here that outside groups might be able to come in and over power the
process through political siding based on personal or group agendas
etc....and this issues can be applied in different terms and views to
the different stakeholder groups of the multistakeholderism. Okay, we
do have a common understanding amongst most of the MAG members for a
MAG+ meeting but the rotation is still a critical issue.

I do see it as both a critical and important issue and that we should
collectively and intelligently handle this with careful tact and
observation. Do we want to experiment jeopardizing our position amidst
this continuous lobbying against our concerns or should we strengthen
ourselves within this moment to collectively emerge as a strong IGC
stakeholder group that participates actively and heavily in the Open
Consultations PLUS MAG+ meeting, strongly raising our concerns,
rotating the MAG, changing not only faces hiding behind several hats
but developing strength to over power the lobbying? How do we go about
this? What is our collective stance? Do we have a short and easily
describable stance or plan of action here? How can we productively use
the OC or MAG+ to bridge the gap and facilitate our stakeholder group
without compromising our position to the lobbies that may use the OC
and MAG+ to overpower their positions and continue to effect
prevention of innovation to the IGF Main Programme?

MAG or no MAG shouldn't be a threat to our concerns and the views and
issues brought forward by our stakeholders of the IGC. We should move
ahead to rotate the MAG membership, have improvement and replace the
people with the same faces and multiple hats.

So since I don't want to counter argument, Parminder and Jeanette, how
can IGC make use of this important OC+MAG+ meeting and strengthen our
position? What should we do to get the Human Rights and Development
Agenda issues on the main programming? What kind of reforms that we
collectively agree upon should be applied to the MAG and how do we see
the IGF post 2010 and our position within that? How do we
re-strengthen and represent ourselves in the wider Internet Government
activities? How do we involve ourselves in other forums of ITU and
convince them to include IGC/CS in their processes? How does IGC
engage at ICANN to represent CS and so forth?

-- 
Regards.
--------------------------
Fouad Bajwa



On Sat, Jan 16, 2010 at 12:03 AM, Jeanette Hofmann <jeanette at wzb.eu> wrote:
> Hi Parminder,
>
>
> Parminder wrote:
>>
>> Hi Jeanette,
>>
>> The proposal continues to bother me a lot in its possible wider
>> ramifications. So excuse me to seek some clarifications, and engage in a bit
>> of debate on the issue.
>
> I have no problem with that, on the contrary.
>
>> Jeanette Hofmann wrote:
>>>
>>> Hi,
>>>
>>> we discussed some of the implications you mention below.
>>>
>>> This year's meetings following the February meeting could be regarded as
>>> an experiment to find out if a MAG is needed at all.
>>
>> But why this experiment and not many others that could be attempted. Like
>> MAG taking a more pro-active role of doing more inter-sessional work,
>> preparing background papers etc - stuff which has been a part of many a
>> proposals for IGF evolution, including from the IGC. I think this thing
>> being done in the name of an experiment can be very pre-emptive.
>>
>>> Perhaps open planning meetings such as the one we had in September 2009
>>> are sufficient for setting the agenda; perhaps the need for some sort of
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