[governance] Consensus call in progress on CSTD submission
Jeremy Malcolm
jeremy at ciroap.org
Fri Mar 11 05:28:07 EST 2011
I have just sent invitations to participate in a poll, the purpose of
which is to assist the coordinators in determining whether there is a
rough consensus to issue our submission to the CSTD's Working Group on
Improvements to the IGF. The text (including Parminder's latest
suggested amendment) is below.
The poll will be held open until 6pm GMT on Monday. Sorry again for the
short deadline, and for the limited time that was available for
discussion, both of which were out of my control.
If you didn't receive an invitation to vote in the poll, you have two
choices:
(a) you can register at http://www.igcaucus.org (you'll get your poll
invitation within a few hours); or
(b) you can reply on the list instead.
Thanks.
________________________________________________________________________
1. Review of IGF vis-à-vis Tunis Agenda – paragraphs 72 to 80
In terms of its principal mandate, the IGF seems largely to be on its
way to becoming a unique global forum for multi-stakeholder dialogue on
Internet governance. However it is important, for this purpose, to keep
up the on-going process of evolutionary innovation evident at each
successive IGF meeting. To keep up the interest and engagement of
stakeholders it is important that the IGF take up the most pressing
global Internet governance issues and seek a policy dialogue on them,
with the objective of such a dialogue helping processes of real
policy-making in these areas. Overall, IGF’s success will be judged by
how much it manages to influence these real policy-making processes. If
this is taken as the central criterion of success, one can say that IGF
is moving towards fulfilling its mandate, but not quite yet there. It
needs to continue to pursue structural evolutions that (1) enable
“effective and purposeful policy dialogue” on “issues that require most
urgent resolution” and (2) strengthen links with institutions and
processes of real policy making.
In this connection, the IGF must extend its effort to “facilitate
discourse between bodies dealing with different cross-cutting
international public policies regarding the Internet” (paragraph 72(b))
and “interfacing with appropriate inter-governmental organisations and
other institutions on matters under their purview” (72(c)). We give some
recommendations on how the IGF could do this in sections 2 and 5 below.
The IGF has also not been able to make any significant progress towards
fulfilling its mandate under section 72(e) of “advising all stakeholders
in proposing ways and means to accelerate the availability and
affordability of the Internet in the developing world,” and section
72(g) of “identifying emerging issues, … and, where appropriate, making
recommendations.” Our suggestions for how the IGF might make better
progress in these areas follow in sections 3 and 4 respectively.
The IGF has however, had considerable success in at least three areas:
1. Getting stakeholders with very different worldviews to begin
talking with each other, and at least start to see the other’s
point of view, if not accept it. This is a very important
initial step because it is widely recognised that Internet
governance requires new and different governance and policy
models beyond exclusively statist ones.
2. Building capacity on a range of Internet governance issues among
many newer participants, especially from developing countries
with under-developed institutional and expertise systems in
Internet governance arena.
3. Triggering regional and national initiatives for
multi-stakeholder dialogue on Internet governance, and forming
loops of possible interactivity between the global IGF and these
national and regional initiatives.
Paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda, (a), asks the IGF to “Discuss public
policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance in order to
foster the sustainability, robustness, security, stability and
development of the Internet.” There can be no doubt that this discussion
is beginning to take place. The participation, the increasing quantity
and quality of workshops, even the controversies that arise, are proof
that this discussion is taking place. The continued interest in
workshops is an indication that this process is still dynamically
growing and needs to continue so that discussions may cover all aspects
of the debate and include all actors, particularly in areas such as
rights, inclusion and others, which have not been adequately addressed.
The Tunis agenda also calls for “development of multi-stakeholder
processes at the national, regional level” similar to the IGF. As
already noted, some national and regional processes are already taking
shape. IGF should further encourage such processes and seek to establish
formal relationships with these initiatives, including through IGF
Remote Hubs.
2. Improving the IGF with a view to linking it to the broader dialogue
on global Internet governance as directed by the UN General Assembly
Resolution on “Information and communications technologies for
development” (adopted on 24 November 2010)
A side-effect of the IGF’s reluctance to develop output documents, and
to evolve processes suited to developing these, has been its relative
insularity in the Internet governance regime. Other institutions of
Internet governance are unable to consider any concise outcomes of the
IGF discussions as inputs into their own deliberations. As such, the
IGF, whilst not irrelevant to those who participate in it, has proved
less relevant and significant to outsiders than it deserves.
This points to the need to create mechanisms so that IGF outcomes are
appropriately connected to the processes of other IG institutions. For
example, just as at the Vilnius IGF meeting online moderators helped to
bridge between online and offline discussions, so too there could be
rapporteurs whose job it would be to summarise relevant discussions at
the IGF and to forward them to external institutions, and to receive
feedback from those institutions.
Ideally these summaries would include both main sessions and workshops,
since much of the valuable discussion at the IGF takes place in the
latter. Alternatively, they could be limited to the main sessions
provided that a better mechanism for feeding the output of workshops
back into main sessions is realised (this is explored in section 8
below).
A emerging model for this process (though other possible models may also
be explored) is found in the “messages” or “recommendations” produced by
national IGFs such IGF-D (Deutschland), and regional IGFs such as the
East African IGF and EURODIG. Ideally this would become a two-way
process in which the institutions addressed could also turn to the IGF
with issues they wished the IGF to address through multi-stakeholder
dialogue.
More detail of possible mechanisms for recording outcomes from the IGF
process are considered in section 4 below, and more specific means of
linking with other organisations dealing with Internet governance are
considered in section 5 below.
3. How to enhance the contribution of IGF to socio-economic development
and towards IADGs including enhancing participation of developing
countries
To enhance the contribution of the IGF to socio-economic development and
towards the IADGs, the IGF should identify the linkages between Internet
governance mechanisms and development, and consider options for
mainstreaming development considerations into IGF discussions and
Internet governance processes, as appropriate.
To enhance the participation of developing countries, it will be
necessary to establish a special funding mechanism by to help actors
from developing countries to continuously engage in the IGF and related
organisations and meetings. Fellowship works carried out by
DiploFoundation, DotAsia Organisation, the Internet Society and other
institutions offer a good reference for this, but they should be
expanded to a larger scale. Targeting youth groups or the younger
generation of professionals will have, in the long run, an effective
impact.
Funding mechanisms for developing country participants must take into
account clear criteria (for instance, age, gender and whether a
particular group works with the marginalised people we want to bring to
the IGF process). There should be an open opportunity to apply for
funding, and opportunities should be published and disseminated widely.
Transparency and timely decisions on funding decisions are also
important.
Another way to enhance participation is by providing technical training
to policy makers and policy training to engineers to help close the gaps
between and within the under-represented and also even the
well-represented. To differentiate between this capacity building role
of the IGF and its policy discussion role, they should be clearly
differentiated at IGF meetings, and perhaps the capacity building
workshops held on a day before the main sessions and the more
policy-oriented workshops begin.
4. Shaping the outcome of IGF meetings
The IGF should consider how to improve its orientation towards the
development of tangible outputs. These may amount to “messages” rather
than to recommendations, declarations or statements. The difference is
that messages would take into account diverging opinions, and capture
the range of policy options — however this should not preclude the IGF
from developing processes that are better at facilitating a convergence
of opinion through reasoned deliberation. Whilst consensus will not be
achievable in every area, an important objective for a policy forum such
as the IGF is to produce a high-quality reasoned consensus on policy
issues where possible.
A first step towards the production of such messages or recommendations
from the IGF is to create the necessary structures and processes for
improved reporting from the IGF. This could include the use of a
reporting template by workshops and main sessions.
Messages or recommendations could be based on:
* An overall chairman’s report (though this alone may not be a
sufficiently inclusive process).
* Discussions in each session, compiled at the end of the IGF
(though experience has shown that some session organisers can be
lax in preparing such summaries).
* A repository of best practices discussed at the IGF (though in
emerging policy areas, best practices may not exist yet, so the
IGF’s outputs should not be limited to recording these).
* Discussions of thematic working groups (which would need to be
created), to continue following the annual IGF meeting and be
largely conducted online through open and inclusive processes.
Whatever form its outputs take, efforts should be taken to ensure that
they are transmitted to relevant external institutions through
appropriate mechanisms. Processes for efficient distribution of outputs
to all relevant bodies and missions must be established. One method for
such distribution would be the establishment of a rapporteur role such
as that discussed in section 2 above, perhaps under the auspices of the
MAG.
Finally, to ensure the effectiveness of the evolving mechanisms used for
developing and disseminating outputs, the IGF should define ways to
better capture the impact of the IGF, such as through an annual report.
5. Outreach to and cooperation with other organisations and fora dealing
with IG issues
As already noted in section 2 above, the IGF lacks a strong cooperative
relationship with other Internet governance institutions. They do not
yet recognise the value of the IGF’s contribution, in bringing
multi-stakeholder deliberation to bear on pressing Internet governance
questions. In particular, it is necessary to increase the influence of
the IGF over decision-making bodies.
One concrete strategy to this end that could be immediately implemented
could be to strengthen the link between the IGF and the CSTD, being the
body with main responsibility for WSIS follow-up. Specifically, the CSTD
should take into account inputs from the IGF when drafting its annual
resolution. The IGF should then concentrate on developing similar links
with other global decision-making bodies both public and private.
The IGF also has a watchdog role to play, pursuant to its mandate in
paragraph 72(i) of the Tunis Agenda, wherein it can review and ensure
the accountability of all fora involved in Internet governance. This
could also be the specific responsibility of a new multi-stakeholder
working group within the IGF, reporting to the MAG.
6. Inclusiveness of the IGF process and of participation at the IGF
meetings (in particular with regard to stakeholders from developing
countries)
Improving the inclusiveness of the IGF requires three main strategies to
be addressed:
* Capacity building.
* Outreach.
* Remote participation.
Capacity building should focus on institutional capacity (eg.
governments, civil society organizations), rather than on individual
capacity. Some suggestions in this regard have been given above in
section 3 above.
The IGF should develop an outreach strategy to include in the IGF
processes groups that have not yet been included, from civil society,
small and medium sized companies, decision-makers, parliamentarians and
youth. This should involve the production of a roadmap to identify
key-players in each region that need to be included. Such an exercise
could also assist the IGF to understand the real barriers for
participation.
Integral to this is the issue of funding for developing country
participants (especially to developing country policy makers), which has
also been addressed already in section 3 above.
Remote participation is a vital feature of an inclusive IGF, and should
be formally recognised as an integral part of the IGF. Basic features to
be supported are that all IGF meetings, MAG meetings and open
consultations should be webcast, recorded and captioned, and options for
remote participation put in place. This must include not only
participation that is simultaneous with the annual meeting itself, but
also asynchronous participation that is not dependent on the timezone of
the participant.
The tools and techniques used to enhance remote participation should
give participants the opportunity to effectively influence
agenda-setting and IGF debates. Too often, the undue emphasis on
real-time discussion at the IGF means that remote participation comes
too late to be relevant to the IGF’s proceedings. This can be avoided by
re-conceptualising the IGF as an ongoing global process that takes full
advantage of online networking. By the same token, the participation of
remote speakers should also be encouraged.
To achieve the necessary level of remote participation, resources must
be provided. To date, the resources that have been poured into the
annual meeting have been disproportionate compared to those devoted to
remote participation – which has a much greater inclusive potential.
There has been an over-reliance placed on volunteer effort, which the
IGF has been very fortunate to receive. Neither has there been any
effective outreach or support to the administrators of other Web sites
and popular online fora that comment on IGF or broader Internet
governance issues, and could supplement the IGF’s own efforts to include
the community in its work.
7. Working methods of the IGF, in particular improving the preparation
process modalities
Much has been said about the need for the IGF to interface in a useful
way with external policy makers, but the IGF’s working methods were not
originally developed in a way that readily advances this aim. Focussed
reform to the IGF’s institutional machinery will be required to improve
its capacity to contribute to Internet governance policy making
processes.
7.1 Current modalities: open consultation and MAG
The open consultation meetings could be improved by:
* Seeking the inputs of national and regional IGFs regarding the
issues to be discussed in open consultations, especially the
agenda. The MAG could take responsibility for this.
* Organisations that are part of the Internet governance ecosystem
could be invited to share a one-page document regarding their
suggestions on specific thematic issues. This will improve the
inputs that go into the IGF and this is important if the IGF is
expected to serve as a clearinghouse.
* At least one of the open consultations should take place as an
online meeting.
The MAG also requires reform, both in its composition and its working
methods. On the former count, the MAG needs to become become more
accountable to its constituents. This may involve moving on from the
existing “black box” approach whereby the United Nations Secretary
General selects MAG members from a range of nominees put forward by
various parties, pursuant to selection criteria that are not published.
An alternative approach is the selection of MAG representatives through
a bottom-up process driven by the stakeholder groups, subject to
appropriate criteria to ensure regional and gender balance and a
diversity of viewpoints.
In particular, civil society has been under represented in the MAG to
date. This anomaly should be corrected in this round of rotation and a
fair balance of members among all stakeholders assured. Fair civil
society representation is necessary to ensure legitimacy for this new
experiment in global governance. We agree that the organisations having
an important role in Internet administration and the development of
Internet-related technical standards should continue to be represented
in the MAG. However, their representation should not be at the expense
of civil society participation.
Another reform that might be considered is to rescind the special
privileges that representatives of intergovernmental organisations, and
special advisors to the chair, currently possess. If the MAG’s processes
are opened to broader oversight by the community, such special
privileges would soon become redundant.
It is also very important that the established process by which
one-third of the MAG members are rotated each year is executed
methodically, so that the composition of the MAG is completely refreshed
every three years. Without this, it is too easy for the MAG to be
captured by particular interest groups and for under-performing members
to hold the MAG back.
As to the working methods of the MAG, more significant reform of should
be considered to assist the IGF to fulfil its mandates in “interfacing,”
“advising,” “identifying issues,” “giving recommendations” etc.
Specifically, the MAG could be more effective if it worked through
thematic and functional working groups (some of which have already been
identified above). These working groups should prepare for each main
session and the set of workshops connected to this main session. Working
groups can also be used for managing internal tasks of the MAG more
effectively. It could thus be strengthened and enabled to take on a more
effective role in reporting, and in facilitating substantial discussions
throughout the year.
7.2 IGF Secretariat
The autonomy of the Secretariat should be a paramount consideration. It
should remain convened by the UN Secretary General, with an independent
budget and a Secretariat under contract with the United Nations
Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA). This provides it
with a formal link to the UN system, which is important to ensure the
continued participation of governments in the IGF.
The Secretariat should not be subsumed into any other functional UN
organisation or process, because this could jeopardise its perceived
independence, and could introduce new impediments to the continuation
and development of the informal and open processes that the IGF has
innovated.
While the UN should be a funding source and facilitator in aspects in
which its neutrality is implicit in the nature of the functions offered,
the MAG should be set up to be as independent as possible from the
secretariat and the UN.
As a multi-stakeholder body, important organisational decisions for the
IGF should by default be the responsibility of the MAG rather than the
Secretariat - this should include the responsibility to approve UN
appointees to the Secretariat, the appointment of any “special
advisers”, and (in consultation with the host country) the dates of IGF
meetings.
The Secretariat should also strive to improve its transparency and its
responsiveness to stakeholders. Very often emails to the Secretariat are
not returned, and suggestions made by stakeholders are not specifically
responded to. Whilst maintaining its strict neutrality, the Secretariat
should also be proactive in facilitating the IGF’s evolution and should
make statements that detract from the breadth of the IGF’s mandate in
the Tunis Agenda.
8. Format of the IGF meetings
The IGF’s main sessions should be focused on specific issues concerning
the conduct of Internet governance per se, rather than on more broadly
framed issues pertaining to the Internet environment generally.
This requires a willingness to reconsider the current structures and
processes that may have seemed necessary at the time of the IGF‚s
inception but which may now be reconsidered in light of current
practices, technology support opportunities, changed international
financial and environmental conditions and so on. For example, it may be
appropriate for the Internet Governance Forum to be reconceived from a
single face-to-face meeting. Rather, the IGF might consider how other
Internet governance institutions such as the IETF and ICANN, conduct
their work and engagement between meetings in online and regional fora,
and for which global face-to-face meetings are a capstone for the work
done elsewhere rather than the single element in the process.
Similarly, attention must be given to the effectiveness of the IGF’s
intersessional work program, which is currently limited to open
consultations, MAG meetings, dynamic coalition meetings, and loosely
connected national and regional meetings. In particular, there should be
a better mechanism than at present for these other groups and meetings
to present their outputs to the IGF as a whole. This would require the
IGF to set more stringent standards for such groups and meetings,
including open membership, democratic processes, and perhaps
multi-stakeholder composition.
Concretely, main sessions could be improved by means such as the
following:
* Focusing on public policy issues and controversial issues,
rather than technical details and innovations.
* Fostering periodical meetings with the participation of the
organisers of national and regional IGFs.
* Setting aside a budget for inviting speakers to main sessions.
Invitations to speak should be based on expertise, not on who is
already attending the IGF.
* Identifying key global policy areas that require attention early
in the year, creating working groups around these areas and
sharing background material to be discussed in sessions
throughout the year (at thematic meetings and/or online). They
can then be discussed in a more in-depth way at the IGF.
* Following up from main sessions online, with the help of
dedicated working groups for each issue area, who can help in
the development of a community-driven conclusion document
(recording consensus or otherwise) as a concrete output from the
session.
Workshops could be improved by considering the following suggestions:
* Creating a mechanism for improved, stronger links between the
workshops and the main sessions.
* Scheduling the two first days of the IGF for workshops and the
two last days dedicated to main sessions, best practices fora
and roundtables.
* Giving stricter obligations to the workshop organisers, in line
with the idea of the feed to the main session, to provide
summaries of the workshops directly to the main sessions and
also to the whole outcome of the IGF.
* Developing a template for the proposal of workshops. It would
make evaluation of the proposals easier and would allow limiting
by default the number of speakers.
* Stricter evaluation of the workshop proposals, including a
reduction of the number of panellists.
* Participants should be able to give feedback and evaluate the
workshops they attended online.
* Conducting wrap-up workshops that would summarise discussions
carried out in several workshops and forward an input to the
main session.
9. Financing the Forum (exploring further options for financing)
9.1 Review of the current situation
We congratulate the IGF secretariat on doing exemplary work in the last
few years, on a very thin resource base, and in difficult conditions
where different stakeholder groups involved in the IGF have very
different orientations and expectations of the secretariat. A lot of the
IGF secretariat’s work is indeed path-breaking in the UN system.
However, it is very evident that the secretariat needs much better
resource support that they have at present, if we are to fulfil all our
expectations from this unique global institution. The Secretariat should
be provided with resources needed to perform its role effectively.
Further, as noted in section 6 above, perhaps with the exception of
webcasting, remote participation mechanisms have not been well resourced
to date. This has limited the ability of the IGF to reach out to
affected online communities around the world.
9.2 Options for ensuring predictability, transparency and accountability
in financing IGF
As a global policy related institution it is important for the IGF to
have stable public funding, and to insulate itself against any
possibility of special interests influencing its working through control
over funding. Such funding should not only enable appropriate and
streamlined functioning of the IGF secretariat, the annual event and
other proposed and inter-sessional activities, it should also be used to
ensure equity in participation in the IGF across geographies and social
groups.
The United Nations needs to recognise that the IGF is the outcome of a
UN process and should ensure that it has the resources it needs to
fulfill its mandate as defined at the Tunis Summit in 2005. A
significant source of funding should be public funding through the UN.
Donations from other donors from any stakeholder group should also be
facilitated, but a public register of such donations should be
maintained so that the IGF’s neutrality is not questioned.
In addition, as noted in section 3 above, a fund should be established
to support the participation of people from developing and least
developed countries in the IGF annual meetings and the IGF preparatory
consultations.
--
Dr 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
Consumers for Fair Financial Services
World Consumer Rights Day, 15 March 2011
Join the global consumer movement in demanding access to safe, fair and
competitive markets in financial services for all.
http://www.consumersinternational.org/wcrd2011
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