AW: [governance] Consensus Call for CSTD IGF Questionnaire -

Lee W McKnight lmcknigh at syr.edu
Fri Nov 19 09:23:40 EST 2010 

Avri,

Agreed re regional orgs.

In fact CARICOM has been involved in Caribbean igf-type meetings for years, pre-dating existence of 'the' IGF.

Along with CTU, ECTEL, and regional reps from ISOC and ICANN; and I expect similar is also already  taking place at other regional igf's. Maybe others can comment on that too.

Lee
________________________________________
From: Avri Doria [avri at psg.com]
Sent: Friday, November 19, 2010 8:26 AM
To: IGC
Subject: Re: AW: [governance] Consensus Call for CSTD IGF Questionnaire -

Hi,

This seems to make a lot of sense to me.

I also wonder, what did people think of the suggestion I made that developing nations also work through the regional intergovernmental organizations that their nations belong to, of which i believe there are scores e.g.:

African Union
ASEAN
D-8
SIDS
USAN
...

or  smaller groups like

CARICOM (The Caribbean Community)
Indian Ocean Commission
SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation)
SADC (Southern African Development Community)
ECOWAS (Economic Community of Central African States)
ECLAC (Economic Commission of Latin America and Caribbean)


Wouldn't this complement the work being done in COE and OECD etc  and make sure that everyone was invovled and that the development perspective was heard and reinforced?  What am I missing?

a.



On 19 Nov 2010, at 13:30, Baudouin SCHOMBE wrote:

> I totally notice with your argument, Parminder, when you explain the need for participation of developing countries in discussions to defend their interests.
> It is for this reason that I insisted on national and regional IGF before world  IGF.
> In this way, civil society can come to mobilize actors at both national and regional levels through training workshops and multi-stakeholder forum on issues of Internet governance.
> This work must be done in synergy with the IGC, to convey the same information while allowing the flexibility to respond to national and express their views.
>
>
> BAUDOUIN
>
>
> 2010/11/19 parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>
>
>
> On Thursday 18 November 2010 01:52 PM, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" wrote:
>> Hi everybody
>>
>> thanks for the work. I am sorry that I jump in in a very late stage. I have three comments:
>>
>> 1. 3a: The old debate on receommendations is not really helpful. In the past CS tried also to use the terminology "messages".
>>
> Wolfgang
>
>  Global CS did never abandon the concept of recommendations in the IGF context, though at places 'messages' may also have been used. Recommendations (or 'recommend') is mentioned in the Tunis Agenda's mandate for the IGF and we seem to have largely supported it, in some form or the other.
>>  The problem is as soon as you introduce a process to negotiate a text which then has been the subject of voting you change the nature of the the whole event. Even if you stress that these receommendations will be not binding, this does not matter. In the Un context (like in other intergovernmental mechanisms) the category "receommednation" is well defined and you can not avoid that an IGF recommendation is seen as something similar to what other Un bodies are doing with receommendations. Again I prefer the "message". BTW, I will circulate later this week the Interim Report of the Council of Europe Cross Border Expert Group where we propose also the elaboration of some instruments. The Council of Europe - or other organisations with an established procedure to negotiat texts - are a better place for such
>> an excercise.
>>
>>
> Sure, it may be a better place. But I or my country in not in the CoE (though CoE instruments finally do impact me). So which 'better place' do you think I can look upto? Can you please provide me an answer to this.
>
> I continue to be (unpleasantly) surprised at the manner in which the concerns of developing countries in terms of their non-participation in global policy making and the global shaping of the ICT pehnomenon is ignored so blatantly, in a group which wants to describe itself as a global civil society group.
>
> We may all glibly talk about development issues or IG for development. Pl take note that in the IGF plenary on IG for development the prime issue which came up was that IG for development first of all means due participation of developing countries in global IG related policy making (see the Chairman's summary). What does the IGC plan to do on this issue? Ask us to watch and cheer on CoE and OECD policy making processes?
>
> I can still understand the stand of someone like Milton (though I do not agree with it) who is a bit afraid of supporting new institutional development for democratic global policy making as coming out of the current 'core' UN configurations (which is why he is afraid of the enhanced cooperation or EC process), even as an positively evolutionary process (which is my considered expectation of the EC process). Because he does, correspondingly, support a more open, diverse, multistakeholder process like the IGF making some clear positive contributions towards development of global Internet policies through making policy recommendations.
>
> What I cant understand is the position of those who both oppose the EC process (in whichever evolutionary form) as well as oppose possibilities of the IGF making recommendations (I see Wolfgang, Katitza, Bill, Jeanette among others state that position). Moreover, they all seem to closely associate with OECD/ CoE policy making processes, which are in fact much less open, transparent, multistakeholder etc than even the 'enhanced cooperation' model which, for instance, I proposed and they strongly resisted.
>
> I am unable to understand why a comity of powerful nations needs specific well-structured systems of making inter-country policies (which then become default global ones) and all countires as a global group, which (unfortunately?)  include developing countries, should not aspire to any such structures. So, it appears, that while (global?) CS should enthusiastically support the former (CoE / OECD kind of process) it is presented as its bounden duty to strongly oppose any such - or in fact structurally even much better - institutional developments  at the global level.
>
> And I also do hope that the IGC members form developing countries both increase their participation in IGC kind of groups, and become more vocal in articulating their interests.
>
> parminder
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>>
>> 2. 6a: I thin SOC has an IGF Fellowship Programm.
>>
>> 3. Under nine we could say that we ould like to see that the IGF enhances its function and could become, inter alia, an observatory, a clearinghouse, an early warning system and a watchdog.
>>
>> Sorry for the late reply. If it is too late then ignore it.
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> wolfgang
>> ________________________________
>>
>> Von:
>> izumiaizu at gmail.com
>>  im Auftrag von Izumi AIZU
>> Gesendet: Do 18.11.2010 03:13
>> An:
>> governance at lists.cpsr.org
>>
>> Betreff: [governance] Consensus Call for CSTD IGF Questionnaire - Clean version
>>
>>
>>
>> Here follows are the Clean version of the Final Draft for the CSTD IGF
>> questionnaire answer
>> in full text. Sorry for the confusion.
>>
>> Please respond if you agree or disagree as soon as possible.  Friday, Nov 19
>> is the deadline for submission. More comments are also very much appreciated
>> as we can further feed them into the Consultation meetings next week in Geneva.
>>
>> Thanks!
>>
>> izumi
>>
>> ------------
>>
>> FINAL Draft for Questionnaire on improvements to the IGF
>>
>> 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. These emergence and development of the
>> multistakeholder principle and practice are perhaps the biggest
>> contribution IGF has achieved so far. 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 with multistakeholder approach is another
>> achievement.
>>
>> 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.).
>>
>> a) One mechanism we can suggest is to come up with some form of
>> recommendations where all stakeholders have [rough] consensus. They
>> 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.
>>
>> b) The Secretariat and MAG should be strongly encouraged to directly
>> foster discussion and debate of difficult issues in main sessions,
>> instead of avoiding them.
>>
>> 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 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?
>>
>> No.
>>
>> END
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