[governance] Montreux
Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro
salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com
Mon Feb 28 06:08:07 EST 2011
Dear Anriette,
Seeing through all your lenses, helps us to get an enhanced perspective.
Vinaka (Thanks),
Sala
On Mon, Feb 28, 2011 at 10:37 PM, Anriette Esterhuysen <anriette at apc.org>wrote:
> Dear all
>
> Thanks to Wolfgang, Izumi and Marilia for their reports on the meeting.
> Having different perspectives is extremely useful. Below are some more
> reactions from me, and information, in response to Marilia's report.
>
> Anriette
>
> On 28/02/11 03:53, Marilia Maciel wrote:
>
> [snip]
> >
> > *1 - General impressions*
> > >
> > Multistakeholder participation and equal chance to intervene on this
> > space seems to be something widely accepted now. India, Iran and others
> > welcomed the participation of other stakeholders, which was very
> > positive. Non-gov actors could speak on equal footing.
> >
> > The mood was not very good at the beginning of the meeting. The
> > Secretariat’s lack of responsiveness, the fact that they conevened the
> > meeting in Montreux during Saturday and the fact that the questions that
> > would supposedly structure report were not discussed in advance all gave
> > place to criticism, which the Chair did not take well. Saying it short,
> > we are dealing with an unskilled Chair/Secretariat and this is something
> > to worry, given the huge amount of work ahead and the lack of time.
>
> I agree that the Chair and Secretariat could, and should, have handled
> procedural issues better.
>
> At the same time I think that the procedural issues were a bit
> over-politicised.
>
> Some of the governments felt that the working group should have met
> earlier (when most of us non-governmental stakeholders would not have
> been able to be there), and some said that 'no work had been done for 2
> months) when many people worked hard on their submissions to the list of
> topics posted in January.A bit sad that those governments did not
> recognise the importance of non-governmental stakeholders. Interesting that
> some said that no work had been done for 2 months. Hmmm.
>
> Sala, you asked what the procedural issues were. They were, in summary:
>
> a) Format of the list of topics for input going out to working group
> members without working group members being able to first comment ON THE
> FORMAT. OMG, no wonder it took ages.
>
> I agree that it would have been better to first ask for input on the
> structure. The structure of topics had several big gaps in it.
>
> At the same time, one could have added your comments on the structure in
> your submission for the sake of progress, or raise them as additional
> points on the first day of the working group meeting, rather than halt
> the process.
>
> But again, more skilled management would have helped.
>
> b) Duration, and venue of the meeting. Several governments felt the
> meeting should have been in Geneva, and longer. If it is in Geneva they
> can keep in touch with other important negotiations, e.g. the Human
> Rights Council and WIPO.
>
> They also need special permissions from their missions to go and stay at
> a hotel in Montreux.
>
> My opinion is that the first point is legitimate for small missions. The
> second is not really, it is just an hour by train and easy to commute
> from Geneva to Montreux.
>
> c) Overall process of how the report is to be drafted not discussed
> before the gathering of inputs started.
>
> My opinion is again that this is a valid point, but there was no need to
> overstate it, or politicise it to such an extent as people did.
>
> So what? Let's discuss the core content issues, and then get back to it. I
> suppose if people have flown thousands of miles to discuss, you would want
> to ensure that you maximise discussions on core content issues.
>
> My feeling is that it is only once you have all the content in front of
> you that you can come up with a really good structure for the document,
> and that, once everyone has given their inputs, that you will get a
> sense of what kind of drafting process will be best.
>
> I was reminded of my political naivety repeatedly during the meeting :)
> Being practical does not have much room in a process where so much is
> intensely political. And, the structure of the document is extremely
> political. This I do agree on.
>
> In the defense of the chair I want to say that he is not an experienced
> UN bureaucrat, and felt he was taking on a convening role, rather than a
> negotiating role. I understand that he got fedup.
>
> At one point he said that if the room wanted to continue to discuss
> procedures they could get another chair. I was very pleased that the
> Iranian delegated responded with a very clear expression of support for
> him, and a call that he should stay on as chair.
>
> As for the CSTD secretariat.. I agree.. they need to put much more
> effort into managing this process and giving the chair the support he
> needs. Their capacity is very limited though... essentially one staff
> member and a bundle of interns (who are all really excellent by the way).
>
> >> *2- Structure of the report (jump this topic if you don't want to hear
> > about procedure)*
> >
> > The meeting begun with a procedural clarification asked by India and
> > Egypt. They asked if the questions of the draft structure were the ones
> > that would guide the writing of the report and asked who would actually
> > take the task of writing it. Some people argued the draft structure was
> > an agenda for the WG meeting only, not the actual structure of the
> > report. Personally, I found this approach a bit nonsense.
>
> I did not really find this 'nonsense'. To me it made sense to have those
> topics as a starting point. The agenda was open for discussion. I agreed
> with India and Egypt that key topics were missing. But, why not just
> propose that they were added to the agenda, rather than open up the
> entire process and waste a day?
>
> One of these 'missing' topics were: key characteristics of the IGF as
> contained in the Tunis Agenda. I also felt we should start discussion
> with this topic. But really!! The way in which they expressed their
> concerns was unnecessarily confrontational.
>
> > The chair said that we would only discuss that at the end of the
> > meeting, but suggested that maybe an ad hoc group could be created to
> > write the report.
> >
> > India made a point that we could not go into substantive matters if we
> > were not sure that we were actually discussing points that would table
> > the report. In my opinion, the points made by India were very pertinent,
> > but unfortunately lead us to be caught in procedural matters again on
> > the first day.
>
> > Suggestions were made about new questions that should be introduced if
> > the points were going to guide the writing of the report. Ex: the first
> > question should be an evaluation of the fullfillment of te IGF mandate
> > vis-a-vis the Tunis Agenda, so we would know and document exactly which
> > are the key-areas for improvement.
> >
> > India distributed a proposal that changed a bit the structure from the
> > questionnaire proposed by the secretariat. The business sector also
> > presented a proposal.
>
> > Both proposals were successfully merged during
> > coffee brake.
>
> The business sector did not really present a proposal. One individual
> from business and one from ISOC tried to help by working with the
> secretariat to do a merger of the Indian proposal and the original
> agenda, using 'track changes' and brackets and they bamed it 'Room
> Document'.
>
> This unfortunately did not address some of Indian's primary concerns,
> such as the sequence of the discussion (they wanted to start with Tunis
> Agenda, and with the link of the IGF to agreed development goals).
>
> I was personally quite annoyed :) I had just got India to agree to the
> original agenda, but with their key points inserted in the sequence
> where they felt they should belong.
>
> The creating of the agenda as a 'room document' with bracketed text
> resulted, unintentionally, in the meeting starting to negotiate the text
> of the agenda! Which some people saw as the draft structure of the
> report, and others just as an agenda. Sadly, this happens often as
> sometimes people can be lazy listeners and rely on the drafters to capture
> both the letter and the spirit. It takes a certain amount of vigilance, I
> suppose t
>
> For me this was the most frustrating part of the meeting. Again, not
> having clear direction from the chair on 'what' we were doing did not
> help to make things simpler. Although, I am not sure anything could have
> helped at that point :)
>
> After new disgreements, the draft structure was approved
> > on the beginning of day 2, being called as” key elements for the
> > report”, which give us room to believe that new issues can be included
> > if the relevant (I dont think any of the issues can be removed, though).
>
> After the session on day 1 a few of us stayed behind and I talked with
> the three different groups that were discussion the agenda. Moving from
> one to the other, I managed to get them to agree to a merger, without
> hierachy, of the India/Egypt proposal and the original, in a new sequence.
>
> Basically this was the 'room document' but in a new order. I made it
> clear to all the parties it would not be a structure, and it was with
> that understanding that they agreed on the list of topics.
>
> India said, in fairness I thought, that they would accept this
> compromise but if it was opened for discussion the next day they would
> insist on their 'day one proposal' being accepted.
>
> Here I made a mistake. When working with the secretariat on typing this,
> myself, someone from the Indian delegation and someone from the US
> delegation and a business representative tried to come up with a
> non-contentious title for the document. I proposed: Schedule of topics
> for discussion on 26 Feb' thinking it was sufficiently neutral :)
>
> The document was emailed to all working group members by the secretariat.
>
> To my surprise when it was tabled the next morning, Egypt objected to
> the title, saying it should also be the structure. This took up another
> hour.. but in the end, India, Brazil, Pakistan presented compromise
> proposals and a very constructive phase of the meeting started. Bummer
> >
> > *3 – Outcomes of the IGF*
> >
> > As I said, I did not manage to take many notes on day 2, while speaking
> > and listening, but my impression was that there was general support that
> > the IGF would have as outcome something that would cover convergence and
> > divergence on policy matters and be apt to feed into the process of
> > police making taking place in other relevant bodies. The actual ways to
> > do it were not consensus, the approach mentioned by Wolfgang (a lot of
> > messages emerged from workshops) was one of the possibilities on the
> > table, some others were advanced as well.
>
> Yes, consensus on the idea, but work to be done on how to do this. The
> detail might well be delegated to the MAG and the secretariat.
> >
> > *4- Remote participation*
> >
> > Huge support about it. It was really important to talk about RP in the
> > CSTD WG environment, since some representatives did not know it in
> > details. RP was recognized as key element for inclusion, a key
> > innovation from the IGF that deserved more support and joint efforts to
> > enhancement. Workshops conducted completely online during the IGF
> > (including from hubs) were suggestd. Some meetings of the MAG and OC
> > could take place online as well.
>
> Agree.. lots of support for remote participation. I think to some extent
> more support from developed countries, than developing countries. I
> think this is not so much because they don't think it is important, but
> because they are not convinced that an IGF where developing country
> participants participate mostly remotely, while those physically present
> are mostly from developed countries, will be an IGF that really reflects
> developing country interests. :)
>
> Agenda setting is a big thing here.. and we did not talk about it enough.
>
> Marilia made it clear to everyone present that the remote participation
> successes result from voluntary work, and she mentioned the names of the
> members of the working group.
>
> > *5- How to write the report*
> >
> > As said before, at the beginning of the meeting, the chair suggested the
> > creation of a smaller drafting group for the report, that seemed to have
> > been generally accpeted. Many people spoke for it, no one spoke against
> it
>
> > On the second day a proposal circulated that the drafting group would
> > have the role to compile the points raised in all consultations and
> > write a first version of the report, then circulate online for comments.
> > In depth discussions would take place in the next meeting of the WG.
> > Everybody agreed and then we discussed the composition during lunch.
> >
> > The proposal advanced by Brazil was that there should be 1 country per
> > region (total of 5) plus 1 from the business sector plus 1 from
> > technical and academic community and 2 from civil society. The reason of
> > the 2 reps from CS, according to them, was that CS represented many
> > diferent views that are difficult to capture. India supported.
>
> The background to this was a morning coffee break discussion where I
> proposed that civil society has more than one rep in the drafting group,
> as we have to represent more diversity. Brazil accepted this and
> continued to lobby for this during the rest of the day, but the private
> sector strongly opposed this idea, as it would diverge from the formula
> used to convene the CSTD working group.
>
> I found this quite bloody minded and procedural :)
>
> As civil society we need to keep in mind that if we want more influence
> in the IGF we will need to take on not just governments, but also some
> of our fellow non-governmental stakeholder groups.
>
> We have much in common with them, but we will not always agree with
> them. This is inevitable, if we are acting in civil society interests.
> But it should also not harm our generally constructive relationship with
> business.
> >
> > This proposal seems to have disagreed very much the business sector, but
> > instead of discussing and making a conter-proposal they took a step back
> > and decided to be against the draft group.
>
> I am not sure that is exactly what happened. They had supported the idea
> of an open voluntary drafting group from the outset. So for them a
> drafting group was always going to be a compromise. Same for some
> governments (led by the US) and for the technical community.
>
> They argued that we should
> > leave for the secretariat to come with a report and our role should be
> > to discuss it. Developed countries (Finland, US, Portugal) and Russia
> > backed the proposal. I think it is a pitty and a dangerous political
> > move in face of the faults commited by the secretariat and the chair. In
> > addition, Brazil raised a good point about the incoherence to preach
> > that multistakeholders can take issues and do things collaboratively and
> > then leave this important matter in the hands of the secretariat.
>
> I practice I don't think these are such mutually exclusive options. The
> secretariat will have to compile input anyway... so the first draft
> which will be made up of compiled input cannot be produced by anyone
> other than the secretariat.
>
> But then they need to work with others to give the process legitimacy,
> and to give the working group ownership.
>
> I think a smaller group is necessary... it will save time. So I do
> support the formation of a drafting group that people feel comfortable
> with.
>
> I believe that this drafting group should:
>
> - not include people who did not attend the Feb 25 and 26 meetings
> - not have the right to introduce new text - they should work with text
> from compiled inputs, and the proceedings of the first working group
> meeting
> - I support the Brazil proposal on composition of the working group, but
> would add to it the condition that it does not include people who were
> not at the meeting.
>
> >
> > DESA asked the WG to also portrait the lessons learned. highlight more
> > in the report things such as the multistakeholder carachteristic and
> > remote participation
> >
>
> This is an important point. DESA was proposing that multi-stakeholder
> participation, and remote participation, be added as 'headings' or key
> elements to the structure of the report. No one really supported them in
> a very explicit manner. But we should bring this up again before the
> questionnaire goes out to the community.
>
> I think the other key element that was missing is 'capacity building'.
>
> How the IGF can improve its capacity building role needs to be profiled
> in the working group report.
> >
> > *6 – Next steps* (please someone correct me if I am wrong, it was
> > mentioned fast):
> >
> > - The new structure of the questionnaire will be placed online, comments
> > will be open until March 15
>
> I would propose we add to the structure the following topics (we can
> draw on text in the Tunis Agenda to frame these more effectively):
>
> IGF's contribution to capacity building in IG
>
> Multi-stakeholder participation in the IGF
>
> Enhancing remote participation in the IGF
>
> >
> > - The Secretariat will compile older contributions, new contributions
> > and the points raised in this WG meeting and write a draft report
> >
> > - The report will be sent to WG members. They can offer comments
> >
> > - The text will be discussed on 24 and 25 March in Geneva.
> >
>
> I left before the closing. At the time I left I thought that the Chair
> said he would decide on the drafting process, and whether, and how, a
> drafting group would be convened.
>
> But things might have changed after Izumi and I left.
>
> >
> > *7- Submission of the report*
> >
> > DESA said they had contacted the office in NY and postponed the delivery
> > of the report to April 1st. Still tight!
> >
> > The report should have 17 pages maximum
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 5:23 PM, Izumi AIZU <aizu at anr.org
> > <mailto:aizu at anr.org>> wrote:
> >
> > Thank you Wolfgang for your quite precise and concise summary.
> >
> > Since I had to leave earlier than the meeting's closure, I could not
> > capture what was the closing, especially with
> > regard to the "drafting group" since several members including USG
> and
> > business were not supporting the
> > creation of such drafting group consist of WG members,
> > but rather to task it to the secretariat, to me that is not
> > the right path.
> >
> > I would like to underscore what Wolfgang mentioned here
> > about the good acceptance and recognition of Civil society
> > members and our inputs - compared with December where
> > it was very different. I spoke with India, Egypt, and some
> > other gov members informally during brakes and they are
> > really trying to accommodate us as peer members, and
> > valuing our input (and other stakeholders input).
> >
> > No one questioned the composition of drafting group
> > include non-gov stakeholders - yes, we had some difference
> > between CS and business for the number of members to the
> > drafting group. CS wanted to have more numbers than other
> > stakeholders since we are much more diverse than, say business or
> > academic/tech community. They disagreed and tried to keep equal
> > number.
> >
> > This does not mean, please, that CS members were supporting G77
> > position on outcome. As far as I can tell, no
> > CS members took that position per se.
> >
> > izumi
> >
> > 2011/2/27 "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"
> > <wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de
> > <mailto:wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de>>:
> > > Hi everybody
> > >
> > > here are some observations from the IGF Improvement meeting in
> > Montreux.
> > >
> > > 1. The first and most important point is that nobody challenged
> > the participation of civil society and other non-governmental
> > stakeholders as equals in the discussion and in the future drafting
> > of the final report. After the two December meetings of the UNCSTD
> > this was not so obviously expected. Even the government of Iran said
> > that it values the contribution of non-governmental stakeholders in
> > the process since 2003. There was no hostile climate. In contrary,
> > contributions from all five CS reps in the WG were taken as very
> > helpful and reasonable input.
> > >
> > > 2. A lot of time was wasted with the discussion on procedureal
> > issues. The discussion on substantial issues circeled for hours
> > around the questions of the "linkage" of the IGF. India, Egypt but
> > also Brazil used the languge of the UNGA resolution which says that
> > the IGF should be linked to the "broader dialogue on Internet
> > Governance". Some pepole in the room had the impression that this is
> > not a good language because the broadest dialogue is the IGF itself.
> > And there was some mistrust that this could become a formula to put
> > the IGF under the "enhanced cooperation" discussion in the UNGA.
> > Alternative proposed language was to link the IGF to "other
> > dialogues" but India and Egypt insisted in the "accepted language"
> > which, BTW, was introduced by the US government during the
> > negotiations in the 2nd Committee of the UNGA in New York in
> > November 2010. However both Egypt and India accepted an
> > interpretiaton that one of the functions of the IGF is to bring
> > information to other dialogues and that this formulation (in the
> > headline of Chapter 2 of the forthcoming report) will not include
> > any formal sub-ordination of the IGF under "another dialogue". My
> > comment here is that it is rather obvious that on the one hand IGF
> > and EC are two different processes which are not formally
> > interlinked but there are some trade offs on the other hand. The
> > IBSA was not discussed in detail. This will remain an open question.
> > Russia proposed again to link the IGF with the WSIS Forum but
> > produced protest against any form of "merger". In a second
> > interventon Russia clarified that they did not propose "merger" but
> > wanted to use "synergies" to avoid the waste of resources. There was
> > no support for a closer linkage between the two fora.
> > >
> > > 3. The debate about outcome did not create any new ideas. There
> > was a broad consensus that the IGF should not become a "negotiation
> > body", should not produce any "negotiated language" or "binding
> > recommendations", but should produce something which people can take
> > home and read within "ten minutes" and show their constituencies as
> > "outcome". My impression was that more and more stakeholders,
> > including governments, can live with "messages". The proposed
> > procedure to generate the messages was not discussed in detail but
> > the proposal to have nominated rapporteurs for each workshop and
> > plenary who have to produce one to three "short messages" from the
> > discussion was seen as a reasonable approach. This would guaratee
> > that there is a distributed system of messages production which
> > would reduce the risk of capture of the drafting by one single
> > group. 50 workshops would mean 50 - 150 messages from 50 rapporteurs.
> > >
> > > 4. Another key issues was the role and function of the MAG. The
> > idea to have the MAG (or the secretariat) like a bureau was
> > mentioned but got no suprport. The majority was in favour of a more
> > open MAG, more open consultations and a right mixture between
> > continuation and rotation in the membership. A related question was
> > the financing of the secretariat. India and Egypt called for a
> > stable public funding (to become independen from voluntary
> > contributions) but they did not say where the money should come from.
> > >
> > > 5. The broader involvement of developing countries was discussed
> > at length. There was a broad consensus among all participants that
> > the participation of developing countries - both governments and
> > non-govenrmental stakeholders - has to be broadend. There was an
> > outspoken wish to strengthen in particular civil society
> > organisations and small and medium enterprises in developing
> > countries and to enable them to participate more actively in IGF
> > activities.
> > >
> > > 6. There was a clear support for a stronger linkage between the
> > global IGF and national and regional IGFs. On the other hand,
> > dynamic coalitions were not really discussed. There was a proposal
> > to have in between the global IGFs also "thematic IGFs" but also
> > here no concrete step was planned.
> > >
> > > 7. The meeting decided not to go into the details of how to
> > organize workshops, plenaries, feeder workshops etc. Some proposals
> > were made how to improve the planning and the linkage between the
> > various sessions within an IGF, but this has to be further discussed.
> > >
> > > 8. The only thing (but this is not bad) the group could agree
> > after two days is the structure of the planned report to the UNCSTD
> > meeting in May 2011. There is now an informal drafting group which
> > will work together with the Secretariat to draft the report for the
> > next meeting, scheduled for March 24/25, 2011 in Geneva.
> > >
> > > I want to thank all friends of the IGC and the civil society for
> > their input. CS played and active and recognized role and made very
> > valuable contributions to the process. At the end Anriette,
> > Parminder and other raised even the issue to increase the number of
> > CS people in the various forthcoming groups because CS is different
> > from the other non-governmentwl stakeholders (broader, more diverse
> > etc.). Nobody really objetced this but there was no time left for a
> > discussion, Lets wait and see where we will go from here.
> > >
> > > Best wishes
> > >
> > > wolfgang
> > > ____________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > >> Izumi Aizu <<
> >
> > Institute for InfoSocionomics, Tama University, Tokyo
> >
> > Institute for HyperNetwork Society, Oita,
> > Japan
> > * * * * *
> > << Writing the Future of the History >>
> > www.anr.org <http://www.anr.org>
> > ____________________________________________________________
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> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade
> > FGV Direito Rio
> >
> > Center for Technology and Society
> > Getulio Vargas Foundation
> > Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
>
> --
> ------------------------------------------------------
> anriette esterhuysen anriette at apc.org
> executive director
> association for progressive communications
> www.apc.org
> ____________________________________________________________
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