[governance] Results of poll on IGF opening and closing speakers

Jeremy Malcolm jeremy at ciroap.org
Wed Sep 8 21:24:56 EDT 2010


The results are as follows.  128 responses were received, 117 in full and the balance in part (ie. only one of the two questions), from 463 invitations sent.  This is a response rate of 27.6%, which is reasonable by IGC standards, bearing in mind that some people are subscribed twice or more under different addresses, and that we have some lurkers, eg. from the IGF Secretariat, who do not participate in the IGC's consensus decision-making.

I'll take the results question by question.  On the first question, there was a clear enough view that Ginger and I, as the IGC coordinators, should take the opening and closing slots; this was also the only choice supported by more than half the respondents.  Parminder and Wolfgang were next most common choices.  Karen Banks and Valeria Betancourt were the women who received the most support, though with less than one third of respondents for either of them.

Therefore I will be recommending to the IGF Secretariat that Ginger and I speak.  If they do not agree with this, then I will suggest that Parminder and Valeria speak (although Karen received equal support, Valeria pips Karen on geographical diversity - sorry Karen).

Here are the percentage breakdowns for the first question (sorry, this may look bad if your email program doesn't support HTML):

Which four names should be put forward as civil society speakers? 
Answer	Count	Percentage
Fouad Bajwa (a)	33	25.78%	  
Fatimata Seye Sylla (b)	28	21.88%	  
Valeria Betancourt (c)	36	28.12%	  
Wolfgang Kleinwachter (d)	55	42.97%	  
Parminder Jeet Singh (e)	64	50.00%	  
Co-coordinators (Jeremy Malcolm and Ginger Paque) (f)	75	58.59%	  
Karen Banks (g)	36	28.12%	  
Ben Akoh (h)	17	13.28%	  
Katitza Rodriguez (i)	32	25.00%	  
Marilia Maciel (available for opening only) (j)	33	25.78%	  

On the second question, the most popular answer was "Involvement of civil society in enhanced cooperation model for Internet governance".  There are five other answers that were also clearly more popular than the others: the development dimension of IG, the retention of the IGF's core characteristics, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and the desirability of improving inclusion and participation, and the desirability that the IGF continue to evolve and innovate.

Leaving aside "Other", there were only three questions that received support from less than a third of respondents: congratulating the IGF on its successes, the gender dimension and the role of dynamic coalitions.  So leaving these aside, all of the available choices of theme were quite popular.

Here is the complete breakdown of responses to the second question:

What are the top five themes to suggest the speakers address in their presentations? 
Answer	Count	Percentage
Congratulating the IGF (on the completion of its first term, its innovative structure, etc.) (a)	32	25.00%	  
Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Internet (b)	65	50.78%	  
Development dimension of Internet governance (c)	70	54.69%	  
Involvement of civil society in enhanced cooperation model for Internet governance (d)	78	60.94%	  
Retention of IGF's core characteristics (multistakeholderism, openness, consultative program shaping processes) (e)	68	53.12%	  
Desirability that IGF continue to evolve and innovate as necessary, within its non-binding mandate (f)	54	42.19%	  
Gender dimension of Internet governance (g)	16	12.50%	  
Desirability of improving inclusion and participation (including remote participation) at the IGF (h)	57	44.53%	  
Role of dynamic coalitions (i)	24	18.75%	  
Non-negotiated outputs such as "messages from" or "recommendations at" the IGF (j)	37	28.91%	  
Other 	10	7.81%	  

Of the ten "Other" responses, four link in with other available answers:

Desirability that IGF continue to evolve and innovate as necessary, with a modified mandate to give its outputs more weight [an extended version of answer (f)]
An articulated, hierarchical scheme for producing consensus "messages" or "recommendations" [an extended version of answer (j)]
Consideration of a more serious role in global net gov policymaking, building on first 5 years of talk shop [an extension of answers (f) and (j)]
All of these are obviously important... hopefully we can work all of the ideas in - e.g. combine those around IGF characteristics, enhanced cooperation and continuation of IGF [links answers (a) to (j).

The other six are more or less novel:

ICANN review and IANA contract
Increased involvement of developing country participants in shaping the agenda of the IGF, greater role for regional and national meetings in shaping the IGF rather than the MAG
Network neutrality, privacy and communication freedom over the Internet
Importance of an open and accessible Internet
A Review Report (from CS) on MAG Responsibilities vs Accountability w.r.t. UNSG mandate (which global issues resolved or what challenges handled by IGF MAG at Global Challenges for Internet Global Level)
Free Software - Free Knowledge

So, it appears likely that Ginger and I will speak, and that we will focus on the themes that received the greatest support - whilst trying to at least touch on most of them.  Ginger has offered to speak first, and will cover "involvement of civil society in enhanced cooperation process".

Graphs of these results are available on our Web site at http://www.igcaucus.org/node/37.  The exact results of "who voted for what" will also be put online in due course.  If you want to see them now, I can send you the raw data files and you can pore through them at your leisure.

-- 
Jeremy Malcolm
Project Coordinator
Consumers International
Kuala Lumpur Office for Asia Pacific and the Middle East
Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
Tel: +60 3 7726 1599

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