[governance] DRAFT IGC Response to Questionnaire on improvements to the IGF - due Friday

Fri Nov 12 20:54:54 EST 2010

Dear all,

It is my (our) mistake not to consult this with you earlier. But things are
never
too late, I hope.

We have to submit our response to the Questionnaire on improvements to the
IGF
by Friday, Nov 19, for the CSTD open consultation meeting on Nov 24.

I tried to write the draft as follows. I know it's premature, but hope you
could
help refine them quickly.

Those CSTD WG nominees, please react quickly! but others, also, please.

I plan to come to the final draft on Wednesday and put it to the consensus
call,
so that we can submit it on Friday.

I also attach a Word file for convenience. If you so wish, please use the
"history" function to offer your edits.

In case we may not reach sufficient consensus, we may submit a
non-controversial version first, and then work on with you until the
meeting day and submit a revised one there aurally and with text
to CSTD secretariat. This time it's the first "informal" consultation
and the formal one will come on December and onward.

CSTD Nov 24 meeting is now announced here:
http://www.unctad.org/Templates/Page.asp?intItemID=5726&lang=1

hope this is OK with you,

izumi

----------------

DRAFT IGC Response to Questionnaire on improvements to the IGF
*
[Texts in Bold face are our response*]
*
*1. What do you consider the most important achievements of the first five
IGF meetings?

*IGF created the space for dialogue by all stakeholders in an open,
inclusive manner. It helped
many participants to understand the issues of their interest, as well as to
understand how other
actors understand, act and accept their issues. Emergence of Regional and
National IGF is
another achievements. Yet we still have not seen real tangible outcome
directly out of IGF process. *

2. How satisfied are you with the delivery of the results of discussions at
the IGF and the
impact they have had on developments in national, regional or international
Internet governance?
*
IGF has made a reasonable advancement of the understanding of the issues.
Yet, at national,
regional and international levels, we have mixed assessment for the impact
it brought.*

3. Which, if any, new mechanisms would you propose to improve the impact of
the IGF
discussions, in particular as regards the interaction between the IGF and
other stakeholders?
Please specify the kind of mechanism (e.g. reporting, exchanges,
recommendations, concrete
advice, etc.) and the stakeholders (e.g. intergovernmental bodies, other
fora dealing with Internet
Governance, etc.).

*One mechanism we can suggest is to come up with some form of
recommendations where
all stakeholders have [rough] consensus. It will not be binding, but could
still function as model,
reference or common framework. Working process towards achieving these rough
consensus
will create better and deeper understandings amongst different stakeholders.
*

4. In your view, what important new issues or themes concerning Internet
governance have
emerged or become important since the Tunis phase of the Summit, which
deserve more attention
in the next five years?
*
IGC feels that attention to the development agenda, issues concerning the
marginalized groups
or actors, have yet gained sufficient level of work at IGF and its outcome.
These may not be the
“new” issues, but we strongly feel they are very important.

Besides them, emergence of new technologies, tools and services, such as
cloud computing;
user-generated, SNS and online sharing services such as wiki, YouTube,
Ustream, twitter and
Facebook; DPI and behavioral targeting advertisements; wide deployment of
mobile services
including smart phones and tablet computers pose all kind of new challenges
for governance. *

5. What do you think should be the priority themes and areas of work of the
IGF during the next five years?

*Followings will be the areas of themes and works that have priorities we
think.

a) Enhancing multi-stakeholder framework within IGF.
b) Promote capacity building for developmental agenda of governance
c) Balancing the interests – to empower those of marginalized and
under-developed in all
organizations and fora dealing with Internet governance – such as ICANN,
W3C, IETF, RIRs,
ITU, WIPO, CoE, OECD, UNCTAD/CSTD and United Nations itself. *

6. How can the capacity of those groups that are not yet well represented at
the IGF be improved?
In particular, what could be done to improve the capacity of representatives
from developing countries?

*a) Establish special funding mechanism by IGF itself to help actors from
developing countries
to continuously engage in IGF and related organizations and meetings.
Fellowship works carried
out by DiploFoundation, dotAsia organization [other reference, please] and
other institutions
offer good reference for this, but they should be expanded in larger scale.
Targeting youth groups
or younger generation in profession, will have, in the long run, effective
impact.

b) Providing technical training to policy makers and policy training to
engineers will also help
close the gap(s) within the under-represented and also even
well-represented.*

7. How do you think more awareness of Internet governance issues and the IGF
process can
be raised amongst groups whose lives are affected by Internet governance but
who are not yet
part of the IGF process?

*a) Giving more weight to regional and national IGF meetings, making more
direct “links” to the
main IGF meeting will help outreach to those who have not yet involved in
IGF process. Securing
the same level of working framework of IGF, such as multi-stakeholder
composition and inclusion
of civil society groups (where such practice is relatively new or scarce)
should be maintained.

b) Ensuring a plurality of civil society voices be heard in Internet
governance processes will also
be effective in reaching out to those yet to participate.

c) Online meetings are most effective when provision is made for
participation both synchronously
(ie. in real time) and asynchronously. The remote hubs and moderators at the
Vilnius IGF made
good progress towards this direction. Using such tools as blogs, Twitter,
mailing lists, Facebook
and so on over an extended period may also increase the awareness.

d) Organizing some sessions completely online will create “level playing
field” among all participants,
and may also demonstrate the effectiveness of these tools/technologies, and
may also improve the
quality of services in turn.

e) Increase linguistic diversity. Using UN major languages other than
English at certain meetings
and occasions as main working language (translated into other UN languages)
will increase the
outreach to non-English speaking population of the globe and will give more
sense of ownership.
Currently, English is the only default working language, but we think it
does not have to be so. *

8. How, if at all, do you think that the IGF process (including the format
of the meeting, the
preparatory process, the development of the agenda, etc.) needs to change to
meet changing
circumstances and priorities?

*As we replied to the MAG questionnaire, the organizing work of IGF
primarily by MAG should
be improved. More outcome oriented direction might improve the quality and
value of IGF, but
this should be carefully exercised so as not to lose the open and free
spirit of IGF which
contributed a great deal.*

9. Do you have any other comments? (You may find it useful to refer to the
Note by the
Secretary-General on the continuation of the Internet Governance Forum
(document A/65/78 – E/2010/68) or to the contributions made in the formal
consultations held
online and during the IGF meeting in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt in 2009
(http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/2009-igf-sharm-el-sheikh/review-process)).

*[ANY COMMENTS? ]*

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