[governance] What next with the IGF Improvement?

[Roland Perry]

In message 
<2DA93620FC07494C926D60C8E3C2F1A8D2BCB8 at server1.medienkomm.uni-halle.de>, 
at 09:21:44 on Sat, 26 Mar 2011, "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang" 
<wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de> writes
>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.

It didn't get off to a very good start - the first meeting was at 
lunchtime in Vilnius, during a week where (like Nairobi) lunchtime 
meetings were supposed to be banned. You may recall that the outcome 
(WGIG-only participants, no room for Technical Community) was 
immediately controversial.

>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."

I think that a report could have been produced, if there was a critical 
mass of government subject-experts in the room, rather than 
Geneva-mission representatives. My observation, at several venues, is 
that the subject-experts are much more willing to work into the evening 
and get a report finalised. That's what happened at last year's main 
CSTD meeting, despite there also being more mission-folk in the room 
than at a typical ITU meeting.

>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.

This WG's output was never going to affect the way the Nairobi meeting 
was conducted; therefore despite the lack of replacements for Nitin and 
Marcus, and the MAG un-rotated, everyone should do their utmost to make 
the Nairobi meeting a success. And that includes getting all the 
workshop proposals in on time (20th April - only four weeks away) and 
having a reasonably amicable final planning meeting in May.

>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.

I don't think the 2nd Committee will accept any input other than from 
ECOSOC, who in turn expect most of the work to be done at CSTD. So you 
have to arrange for special meetings of both. And the chair yesterday 
was already making noises about there only being 3 hours in the schedule 
at the CSTD for further discussions, so I'm not optimistic that we can 
do much more than live with whatever the chair produces out of 
yesterday's meeting.

>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.

But there's a deadline for such submissions.

>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".
>

-- 
Roland Perry
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