AW: [governance] RE: WSIS Forum 2011

[Meryem Marzouki]

Le 7 sept. 10 à 08:25, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang a écrit :

> ICANN is travelling around the world doing outreach, IGF is  
> travelling around the world doing outreach, why the WSIS Forum,  
> which needs outreach, should stay in traditional places?

Because, and this is obvious, they are of a different nature and they  
have different objectives.

- ICANN is a private organization which attendance is mainly  
corporate business organizations, and has the needed money to bring  
some CS on board (seatbelt fastened).

- IGF is still an UFO (institutionally speaking) which raison d'etre  
is heavily relying on CS (and IGOs). Conversely, CS and IGOs find it  
the unique place where they may rise their profile in the IG and  
related fields.
Both ICANN and IGF, in order to justify the necessity of their  
existence and unicity, *have* to reach out to (or to organize  
meetings in, at least) different countries [on a side note, who can  
seriously state that IGF 2009 has changed anything in Egypt re: IG  
matters?]

- WSIS Forum is the (recently) institutionalized follow-up to WSIS,  
which was, if I'm not wrong, a UN intergovernmental process led by  
the ITU (and this was by no mean an accident, contrarily to what  
someone said on this list). Since the end of WSIS, well before  
becoming the "WSIS Forum", it has been struggling for its existence  
and necessity and for taking over the other two. Now, what it needs  
is certainly not to travel around the world, but to seat itself as  
such at the UN headquarters (which is in NYC).

ICANN showing its own well know problems, and considering the fact  
that whether it travels around the world or not, this doesn't change  
the essence of the organization and its decisions, let's talk about  
IGF and WSIS Forum:

The former is more inclusive, but is toothless, the latter is likely  
to mainstream IG issues and make decisions, but is above all an  
intergovernmental process, in pure UN sense.
CS may be part of both, but probably not showing the same profile  
(and consequently not the same framing of issues) at each venue. It's  
not necessarily about the height of this profile, but really about  
its orientation (susbtance) and its nature (mainly CSOs or mainly  
individuals).

In my opinion, there is the strategic choice. Not in counting CS  
participation from different countries at one venue or the other.

As regards IGOs, they can survive (in this field) only at IGF.

Best,
Meryem


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