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

[Jean-Louis FULLSACK]

Dear Baudouin

You wrote :

> Moreover, the implementation of its WSIS Action Lines proves sufficient.<

I'm not satisfied at all (rather I'm very disappointed) with the recent WSIS Forum outcomes !
Is the emphatically touted Broadband Commission a serious answer to the "digital divide" ? And what about "Connect Africa" and its "Marshall Plan for Africa" ? Just another slogan ?
But also : where was the African Union, BAD and Co during the WSIS Forum ? 
And what are 12 submarine cables along the African coasts doing for exchanging coms in Central Africa for instance ? Who is caring about that waste of money (some 7 billions dollars) ?
We aren't far from Internet governance when we are speaking of such issues : for Internet to be "governed" correctly it first of all needs to be  implemented ! I.e. there must be relevant traffic nodes (exchanges, GIX, PoP, ...) and a resilient network for interconnecting them on the continent ! In Africa, IG is first of all about the topology of the continental backbone, i.e. the location of IXPs, GIXes and PoPs for holding the " domestic African" traffic wthin the continent and useing the shortest or most economical links. This topology needs a relevant Internet architecture : here IG is to be at work ! Moreover, the insertion of Africa in the international traffic flow needs selected landing stations (and satellite hubs) to be the gateway stations to the global optical fiber routes that really connects Africa to the World. But, please, only this African traffic that is outgoing from, or incoming to, the continent, and not e-mail traffic between Brazzaville and Kinhasa nor this one from Accra to Lome.

Sorry for being at the "grass-root level" for our higher level thinking friends of the list. I still believe there is a missing link in the CS IGC if we only deal with "higher layers" of the NW model. Especially when we are willing to include DCs (and that is obviously a true and full CS duty). Tell me if I'm wrong ...    

Jean-Louis Fullsack
CSDPTT



> Message du 19/11/10 14:38
> De : "Baudouin SCHOMBE" 
> A : "parminder" 
> Copie à : governance at lists.cpsr.org
> Objet : Re: AW: [governance] Consensus Call for CSTD IGF Questionnaire -
> 
> 
 Again I totally agree with you. It is in this context that national IGFs must be carefully prepared to open the debate locally with strong participation of multi stakeholders including agencies knew the United Nations system in the country.Écouter Lire phonétiquementIt is an inescapable reality, and this is only my opinion, in most developing countries, particularly in Africa, we are obliged to work with the UN system that accompany the African governments in 90% of their developement program.
> Moreover, the implementation of its WSIS Action Lines proves sufficient.
> The biggest difficulty we encounter is the non-appropriation of the Geneva Action plan both the Tunis Agenda. What makes some countries there is still no national ICT strategy or national ICT policy or even a blueprint.
> At the stage where we are, it will require African countries to work closely with regional organizations like the African Union, ADB etc. .., subregional organizations such as ECOWAS, SADC, ECCAS ... just to name a few .
> That is to say that African civil society still has much work to do both at the national, subregional and regional levels.
> Work in synergy  is strongly capital  with the Caucus Global Civil Society.
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> Baudouin
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> 2010/11/19 parminder 

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> On Friday 19 November 2010 06:00 PM, 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.
> Yes, certainly. I agree.
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> I only want it to be ensured that these national and regional IGFs are legitimate, representative, with funds for diverse participation, especially of those who are from or represent marginalized groups.... Some private dominant groups - or processes basically led and driven by such dominant groups, with some smattering of co-optive 'inclusion' - may not simply self declare themselves as national or regional IGFs.. Parminder 
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> 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.
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> 
BAUDOUIN
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> 2010/11/19 parminder 

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> 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
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>  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. 
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> 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. 
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> 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?
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> 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. 
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> 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. 
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> 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.
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> 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. 
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> parminder 
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> 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 ____________________________________________________________ You received this message as a subscriber on the list: governance at lists.cpsr.org To be removed from the list, send any message to: governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org For all list information and functions, see: http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t ____________________________________________________________ You received this message as a subscriber on the list: governance at lists.cpsr.org To be removed from the list, send any message to: governance-unsubscribe at lists.cpsr.org For all list information and functions, see: http://lists.cpsr.org/lists/info/governance Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t 
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