[governance] Montreux

[Anriette Esterhuysen]

Hello all... my last message on Montreux for a while.. I need to get
back to the huge pile of work waiting.

One point that I think was not stressed or explored enough during the
discussion:

- the IGF secretariat should be independent

What this means, why it is important, and why it should be ensured, did
not come up at all I think.

This should be stressed in all further submissions, and I think we can
benefit from coming up with concrete ideas on this in the IGF space.

I had proposed that civil society representation in the MAG be doubled.
Other CS reps supported this. A bit more on this:

- my specific proposal was that the current number of civil society
people in the MAG be doubled with:

* half the number being drawn from civil society organisations that work
specifically on internet policy issues,

* and the other half drawn from civil society organisations working on
substantial issue areas such as sustainable development, cultural and
linguistic diversity, peacebuilding, etc. and who represent the
interests of specific groups such as women's rights groups, people with
disability, online workers, etc.

I would like to know how members of the IGF feel about this proposal.

My argument is that:

- CS represents more diversity... etc.  this has been elaborated on
already by Wolfgang and others

- Business and the tech community largely, not exclusively, but
definitely largely, has common positions in the IGF context. This
creates imbalance in the MAG, with business and the tech community being
more influential than other groups. While there are loads of things that
CS would have in common with these two groups, there are also
differences, and it makes it difficult for us as CS to broaden the scope
of the IGF.

Wolfgang made a very important point in one of his inputs yesterday:

- The tech community constituency in the IGF is supported to be the
technical AND academic community.. but it has been made up mainly of
technical community people, with academics dealing with non-tech aspects
of IG being included in the CS slate

This reduces the number of CS organisational representatives even
further, and does not do the academic community justice. They have a lot
to contribute.

Anriette








------------------------------------------------------
anriette esterhuysen anriette at apc.org
executive director
association for progressive communications
www.apc.org
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