[governance] What next with the IGF Improvement?

[parminder]

Hi All

Sorry for the long delay, but to finish my report on WG on IGF improvements:

I had mentioned that, in my view, there were three key issues on which a 
possible WG report with recommendations on IGF improvements got stuck; 
IGF outcomes, selection of MAG members (especially non gov members) and 
IGF funding. India's contribution had important proposals on all these 
key issues, which in my view were quite reasonable, as I argue below.

My earlier email dealt with the most important of these issues - IGF 
outcomes. The present one will list some of the key constestations 
around the other two key issues.

_Selection of MAG members:_

This issue for me is very important vis a vis establishing the meaning 
as well as legitimacy of multistakeholderism. And I hope we can generate 
an internal debate on the positions different actors took on this issue 
in the WG, and take otherwise. I quote the relevant parts from India's 
submission in full in this regard:

    "The selection of non-government representatives to the MAG has to
    be made more transparent and democratic/representative to better
    represent different sections of the society, more so the
    marginalised. Efforts have to be made to obtain as globally
    representative a group as possible. At present, there are no
    specific processes to ensure these imperatives, and the selection
    process is largely /ad hoc /and mediated by some key global
    stakeholder bodies, without due transparency about the process
    followed to ensure that the diversity of interests and views in that
    particular stakeholder group are duly represented."

    "We recommend an accountable, transparent and diversified
    stakeholder selection process for stakeholder representatives. Such
    a process should demonstrate its connectedness to the full range of
    diversity within each stakeholder group, especially those from
    developing countries, and otherwise less represented groups. Each
    stakeholder group while selecting its representatives should
    describe the process used in making the selection, and also
    specifically mention what steps were taken to include a full
    diversity of views and interests, and less represented groups,
    including those from developing counties. To get the selection
    process right is very important for the success of the unique
    multi-stakeholder experiment in global governance that the IGF
    represents."

       "One way of ensuring that specific interests are kept out of MAG
    is by stipulating that the business sector members should not be
    representatives of specific private companies, but represent
    different trade associations like in the areas of telecom, software
    companies, etc. The technical community members could similarly
    include representatives from key technical and academic
    institutions. The selection process for civil society members could
    be made similarly democratic, with representatives selected by a
    network of NGOs working in areas associated with Internet policies,
    thus representing a really broad spectrum of civil society."

(quote ends)

In addition was also proposed a table indicating a quota based selection 
from each geographical region so that geographic diversity was ensured. 
(At the meeting India did say that this was only to serve as a broad 
guideline, and was meant to stress that concern that there should be 
enough internal diversity within non gov reps in the MAG, and it should 
not get dominated by reps from the North.) In the table proposed by 
India, the total number of MAG members remained more or less the same as 
present while there was a small increase in the number of gov reps (from 
22 to 25), quite large increase in CS reps (7 to 11) and some reduction 
for business (13 to 9) and tech community reps (13 to 9). As mentioned, 
India made it clear that all this was open to a reasoned discussion.

I find the above proposals quite reasonable. Multistakeholderism is for 
me a means to ensure that

1) a sufficient and full diversity of legitimate interests are 
represented in policy making processes

2) the accent has to be on getting in those interests that are otherwise 
(through other processes of representation) are most likely to be kept 
out, or under-represented

(3) there has to be conscious, deliberate and very strong measures, on 
an ongoing manner, to ensure that a multistakeholder process is not 
captured by certain dominant groups, which would defeat the very purpose 
of multistakeholderism ( in the same as our struggles for more democracy 
represent our efforts to ensure that the 'governmental' method of 
representation is not captured)


I see the India's proposal completely in keeping with what I take to be 
as the key tenets and logic of multistakeholderism. And therefore I 
supported it. However, once again, there was no constructive engagement 
with this detailed proposal. Business and technical members said that 
the manner in which 'they' ( theywho? is of course never clear) choose 
members to represent their stakeholder group should be left to them and 
no guidelines etc are necessary. I do not agree to this  argument. It is 
setting up multistakeholderism for capture, which is a big problem many 
democratic governments have with it. Progressive civil society certainly 
has a big problem with such possibilities of capture of MSism. We 
ourselves would like to see strong and specific processes towards 
ensuring that such capture does not take place. As long as we agree on 
this imperative, what those processes would in fact look like can always 
be discussed. This was also India's position, and they wanted a 
discussion on this issue. Here is a clear instance of some developing 
countries coming forward for doing a constructive engagement with 
multi-stakeholderism and key non-gov stakeholders shying away. They need 
to answer why did they do so.

Business and technical community while refusing to engage with India's 
proposal were intent on pushing the 'triage' proposal that had come from 
the last MAG meeting. As per this proposal a committee of old MAG 
members will do a kind of triage over recs coming from different 
stakeholder groups, who  would be left to themselves to choose their 
process of selection of their reps and forwarding the names to this 
committee, without any further guidelines of openess, transparency 
diversity, representativeness etc. There are at least two things wrong 
with this proposal - one, that the old MAG members committee would 
perpetuate a nincestuous system of inclusion and exclusion which I am 
not at all comfortable with. Even worse is the proposition that, for 
instance, business group members will decide on selections from civil 
society. One can well understand what kind of exclusions and inclusions 
this will entail. It is important to mention that many of the civil 
society members of MAG opposed such a system of selection, and for 
unclear reasons the proposal was taken as adopted by the MAG meeting  
despite this opposition (Katitiza, Graciela, Fouad, Valeria and others 
present can vouch for this).

The issues that this above debate raises are crucial to engage with for 
anyone who champions multistakeholderism, and i hope we in IGC can also 
discuss them throughly here.

Let me discuss the IGF funding issue in my next email.

Parminder


On Tuesday 29 March 2011 11:57 PM, parminder wrote:
> Dear All
>
> I will take the following para from Wolfgang's email to present what I 
> think happened at the meeting of the WG on IGF improvements.
>
>     "I am not sure whether this was by intention. If I create an unworkable environment which does not allow the production of anything which is meaningful than nobody should be surprised that exactly this is happening. Such a "planned failure" can be used as a good argument to change the whole direction and to discredite the innovative forms of multistakeholder collaboration. It is easy now for governments, which were not members in the group, to argue: "Look, multistakeholderism does not work. We - as governments - are different and have other working methods. So let us alone when we try to translate our (national) agendas into an international dialogue.""
>
> Excuse me to respectfully disagree with what is sought to be 
> constructed here. It is a predictable script with predictable villains 
> - of course, those developing countries, who else. A UN meeting on any 
> IG issue perhaps need not even happen for this 'result' and 'analysis' 
> of it to be produced :) . I keep hoping however that we would open our 
> minds to look beyond this predictable response that we seem to remain 
> stuck in.
>
> Why did the WG meeting break down? Were there countries already 
> predisposed to the failure of the WG? It may be interesting to note 
> that developing countries had been seeking early and greater number of 
> meetings of the WG since late last December, a request that was not 
> heeded. Why would they want more meetings if they always wanted this 
> WG to fail as it finally did?
>
> Then when Montreux happened, and there was not much that came out if 
> it, some very interesting things happened in the last hour or so of 
> that meeting. Brazil, India, Egypt and some other developing countries 
> wanted a multistakeholder drafting group to work between the two 
> meetings to come up with a draft with which the second meeting could 
> start. Everyone knew that was the only way to produce a report within 
> the 2 days of the WG meeting that were left when the group 
> reassembled. A multi-stakeholder drafting group was proposed with 
> about the same ratio as the overall WG - 5 gov members and 5 non gov 
> members. However, on civil society's prompting some developing 
> countries (lead here by Brazil) proposed that civil society can have 3 
> members instead of the originally proposed one becuase they represent 
> greater diversity of views, with one member of business, one of tech 
> comminuty etc. Business and tech community, and then some major 
> devloping countries, said a clear no to this proposal to expanded 
> civil society membership of the proposed drafting group.
>
> Very soon thereafter, business said 'no' to the very proposal of a 
> drafting group, they wanted the secretariat to prepare a draft. Tech 
> community and major developed countries also seemed to be supporting 
> this position (without their support it wont have carried). Here I 
> will stop and pose this question to ourselves, as civil society, 
> because this question is also important in terms of the most central 
> substantive issue concerning IGF improvements that become the key 
> point on which disagreement could not be closed out, whereby the WG 
> failed to prepare any recs.
>
> Do we as civil society prefer representative/ multi-stakeholder 
> working group based processes to produce key substantive documents in 
> the IG space, or do we prefer secretariat based processes for such an 
> activity?
>
> (If we can form a clear response to this poser, we will know where we 
> are vis a vis 'the key' contestation at the WG meeting regarding 
> substantive improvement to. the IGF. So lets be try and be clear and 
> specific on this. I think the question is clear and direct enough.)
>
> In fact, when the drafting group proposal was shot down at the end of 
> the first meeting of the WG in Montreux, the Brazilian rep made an 
> incisive comment, pointing to the paradox how when he and some other 
> (developing) government reps are proposing a multi-stakeholder 
> drafting group, some major non-government stakeholders were opposing 
> it. No one responded, of course. Do 'WE', as IGC, have an answer to 
> this paradox.
>
> Since we are on a connected point, let me hurry to what were the real 
> differences on which the WG process broke down (though I still think 
> with some deft managing we could still have come out with something 
> substantial, but on that later.)
>
> There were three key issues of disagreement - IGF outcomes,  MAG 
> selection (especially of non-gov stakeholders), and IGF funding. Among 
> these, the make-or-break issue was 'IGF outcomes'. If this issue could 
> have been agreed upon we would have got a very good report, and that 
> would really have been a substantial step forward for the IGF, and for 
> global IG. Without looking throughly at what happened around this 
> central issue we cannot get the right picture of the WG proceedings.
>
> Here, the only real proposal on the table was India's proposal ( 
> enclosed ) made during the Montreux meeting itself. This proposal was 
> not acceptable to developed countries. This, in my view, was the real 
> issue because of which the WG process broke down. So before we start 
> assessing what really happened and who is at fault, let us, each of 
> us, and if possible, collectively, form an opinion if this proposal is 
> fine by us, and the right way to go ahead. If it is the right way to 
> go ahead, then whoever did not accept it needs to be blamed for WG 
> failure, not those who proposed it, and those who supported it.
>
> There was no clear counter proposal (to India's) for IGF outcomes on 
> the table. though the term 'messages' was thrown around a few times. I 
> specifically asked the proposers of 'messages' from the IGF as the way 
> to get outcomes to clearly put out the envisaged process of producing 
> what is being called as 'messages', and also to explain how this 
> process would be different from the Chairman's summary, and a shorter 
> bulletted Chairman's summary, already being prepared at present. I 
> never got a clear reply, which if it was put on table would have 
> constituted a specific outcomes related proposal.
>
> Let me try to focus further on what was the real point of difference 
> across the table. IGF already produces long and short summary of 
> plenary proceedings. So the essential difference between India's 
> proposal and the present practice (or the 'messages' proposal) is 
> about who does the 'summing up' and how. Back to the question that 
> arose regarding drafting the report of the WG on IGF improvements - 
> are we more comfortable with secretariats doing such stuff, or do we, 
> we the evangelists of multistakeholderism in policy shaping/ making, 
> support multi stakeholder working groups doing it. That is the core 
> point we must decide. And depending on which way we decide it we can 
> then know which side of the main contestation at the WG we are on. And 
> then perhaps, if we really must, we can choose our villains. And if we 
> indeed are inclined to suspect a 'planned failure' to use Wolfgang's 
> term, then see whose planning it could be. Though I suspect that with 
> some more real hard work we could have got some good results from the WG.
>
> It is for me a cardinal moment for IG, for civil society advocate on 
> IG and for multistakeholderism. We must decide and make up our mind. 
> Can a multistakeholder group cull out enough focused and well directed 
> stuff on policy inputs - areas of convergence, and divergences, but 
> with relatively clear alternative policy options as done by WGIG - 
> from an IGF process that is to be specifically designed to help it do 
> so. This process starts from choosing clear and specific policy 
> questions for IGF's consideration, forming WGs around each chosen 
> issue, developing background material around each, WG then helps plan 
> the process at the IGF through right format, speakers etc, help 
> prepare appropriate feeder workshops, then arrange round tables on the 
> chosen issue at the IGF before it goes to the plenary, and then the 
> denouement, the multi stakeholder group brings out a document which 
> could be 2 pages or 10 on key areas of convergence, divergence etc, 
> with 'relatively' clear policy paths and options. Things may be 
> difficult initially, but it is my understanding, and I would like to 
> hear other views, that this is the only real way to go for 
> multi-stakeholder influence on policy making. And the steps I have 
> described here were essentially the gist of India's proposal.
>
> Is this proposal more multistakeholder friendly, or can those who 
> opposed it could be considered multistakeholder friendly. So, Wolfgang 
> when your email, again somewhat predictably, comes to that part on 
> 'friendly governments', I would like to really know what you mean by 
> this term in the context of the happenings at the WG on IGF.
>
> I simply cannot understand how many of us even in IGC seem to be more 
> comfortable with secretariats rather accountable and representative 
> multistakeholder working groups writing key documents which have clear 
> political import. Can we not see that even if we seem to be at the 
> moment happy with some specific personnel who constitute the 
> secretariat at a particular time, this situation could easily reverse. 
> Would we then change our view on whether secretariat should do such 
> stuff or alternatively, a multistakeholder WG. To make what I am 
> saying more clear, just consider what if the key secretariat personnel 
> were not put there by a particular country whose political positions 
> we generally agreed with but by another country (which could happen 
> any time) whose political opinions we were much against. This is 
> purely hypothetical, put putting real countries and real people in 
> this imagined situation will greatly help make clear what I am driving 
> at.
>
> I will discuss in a separate email tomorrow the two other main issues 
> that were contested that I have mentioned above (MAG composition and 
> IGF funding). Also will refer to some other issues mentioned in 
> Annriette's and Marilia's reports. However, it is the IGF outcomes 
> issue which was the real thing around which everything revolved, and 
> which was to determine if anything substantial could come out of the 
> WG's meeting. Our judgments about what happened at the WG, in my view, 
> must most of all be informed by this issue.
>
> Parminder
>
>
> On Saturday 26 March 2011 01:51 PM, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" wrote:
>> Dear all
>>
>> I am not surprised about the outcome. It was crystal clear after the Montreux meeting, that it will be impossible to reach a reasonable result within the given time frame. The whole planning and executing of the launch and the work of this UNCSTD WG raises a lot of question.
>>
>> I am not sure whether this was by intention. If I create an unworkable environment which does not allow the production of anything which is meaningful than nobody should be surprised that exactly this is happening. Such a "planned failure" can be used as a good argument to change the whole direction and to discredite the innovative forms of multistakeholder collaboration. It is easy now for governments, which were not members in the group, to argue: "Look, multistakeholderism does not work. We - as governments - are different and have other working methods. So let us alone when we try to translate our (national) agendas into an international dialogue."
>>
>> A second scenario could be, that this is another step in what Bill Clinton said in San Francisco when he defined "Internet Governance" as a process of "stumbling forward". In this case a lot will depend upon the Nairobi IGF. If Nairobi takes on board a number of reasonable proposals which has been made by various members of the UNCSTD IGF Working Group and if Nairobi becomes  an "outstanding success", this will make life much more difficult for the governmental negotiators in the 2nd Committee of the UNGA to change the direction.
>>
>> What are the options now for civil society?
>>
>> Option 1: General frustration. We leave it as it is, lamenting about the failure of the process and watch what the governments will do.
>>
>> Option 2: Working together with friendly governments who have a voice in the CSTD, to work towards an extension of the mandate of the existing group until May 2012 with the aim, to produce a more serious analytical interim paper with recommendations until September 2011 (the draft could be discussed in Nairobi) for presentation to the 2nd Committee of the UNGA, which starts in early October 2011.
>>
>> Option 3: IGC takes the lead and starts a open drafting procedure for an alternative report, inviting other non-govenrmental stakeholders and friendly governments to join the process. The report could be presented via a friendly government to the UNCSTD meeting in May 2011 in Geneva. On the eve of the UNCSTD meeting in Geneva we could have a half day open multistakeholder workshop under the title "The Future of the IGF: How to improve multistakeholder collaboration".
>>
>> Best wishes
>>
>> wolfgang
>>
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