[governance] Strangeness in the IGF programme

[Lee W McKnight]

To elaborate further, with permission of the Caribbean Internet Forum Chair, Courtney Jackson's attached remarks excerpted from the forthcoming report on the 7th CIF, summarize its history and accomplishments.

These include drafting text on regional IG in 2006/7 essentially at request/on behalf of national political leaders and regional institutions. To cite one specific example.

Another time the message was initiated from the private sector - re a looming bandwidth collapse as undersea fibers neared their expiration date - and spurred regulators to streamline processes so new investors would feel welcome to lay fiber in the region.

Of course scale of Caribbean vs whole world makes IGF challenges in crafting messages different.

But maintaining flexibility in form and process is key for ensuring messages may have practical impact.

Lee


________________________________________
From: Hakikur Rahman [email at hakik.org]
Sent: Saturday, March 06, 2010 5:23 AM, 
To: Jeanette Hofmann; Lee W McKnight
Cc: governance at lists.cpsr.org; Milton L Mueller; Parminder; Carlos A. Afonso
Subject: Re: [governance] Strangeness in the IGF programme

At 09:37 06-03-2010, Jeanette Hofmann wrote:
>The option would be to aim for messages which reflect rough
>consensus on a controversial issue so that messages would imply real
>achievements.

Sometimes not even controversial issues, but predominantly agreed
issues lack proper attention from the hierarchies in many countries,
despite the clarity and necessity of the message to be adopted in
policy issues.


>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.

Not unlikely. Perhaps, frequently held local events (regional ones)
could establish platforms in creating them.

Best regards,
Hakik



>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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