[governance] Strangeness in the IGF programme

[Jeanette Hofmann]

I fully agree with Lee. Messages are not an end in itself.
If we interpret messages as a summary of meetings (the Eurodig model?), 
there is the danger that they turn into routines without much political 
substance. On the other hand, we should not forget that the chairman's 
report, which sums up issues that have been brought up, has been the 
only form of consensual outcome so far.

The option would be to aim for messages which reflect rough consensus on 
a controversial issue so that messages would imply real achievements. 
More often than not we would probably end without any messages. I 
sympathize with this second option but don't find it a likely path.

jeanette

Lee W McKnight wrote:
> If I may draw upon the experience of the Caribbean Internet Forum - remember it's the grandaddy of regional Internet governance fora, established in 2002 (athough it has always mixed ig + regional ict4d):
> 
> Some years there may be a need to draft a message/(and horrors, even a full text) and which may even have a planned path to be passed up the chain to specific political leaders and other institutions awaiting the message.
> 
> And other years not at all, and definitely not for every single thing discussed.
> 
> Lesson for IGF: we definitely don't want to turn into an ad bureau only crafting messages; but sometimes there is something to say and a message can be delivered in one or another form.
> 
> Lee
> 
> 
> Sent: Friday, March 05, 2010 7:45 PM
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Jeanette Hofmann; Parminder
> Cc: Carlos A. Afonso
> Subject: RE: [governance] Strangeness in the IGF programme
> 
> Kudos to our MAG members for coalescing around the "key messages" theme. I understand that CS and governments have been working together on this.
> Jeanette's caution about making the entire IGF into a strenuous competition to get your pet "key message" adopted is a real concern. But in response to her observation...
> 
>> whiile outputs in the form of messages may increase the relevance of
>> events at the IGF, we should be sensitive to the risk that they might
>> alter the dynamics of the discussions.
> 
> ...I was thinking back on my experience with various IGF main sessions, and there have been very few discussions there that had _any_ dynamics, much less positive ones.
> 
> Too many main sessions discussions, and even many workshop discussions, are flaccid, static presentations, with little focused engagement among the s-s-s-stakeholders (there, I said it. yak), they move in an unfocused manner from one issue to another. I suspect that the possibility (or threat?) of something morphing into a "key message" would concentrate people's minds.
> 
> My fear is that key messages will end up being fluffy teddy-bear messages that no one can disagree with. But the effort to strive for meaningful ones could be interesting.
> --MM
> 
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