AW: [governance] What next with the IGF Improvement?

Wed Mar 30 03:07:16 EDT 2011

Why to centralize the "drafting"? IG you havew 80 workshops there is no need that a centralized multistakeholder working group tries to summarize what happend there. If you nominate for each workshop a rapporteur and if you give her(him some clear guidelines how a message shoud look like then yu have a decentralized "drafting" which avoids capture by one group or fighting over kommas and brackets. I understand that this raises another question: Who nominates/selects the rapporteurs. Here we could have probably a quota system which would avoid that rapporteurs are coming from one stakeholder group only. 

w

________________________________

Von: governance at lists.cpsr.org im Auftrag von Jeanette Hofmann
Gesendet: Mi 30.03.2011 00:12
An: governance at lists.cpsr.org; parminder
Betreff: Re: [governance] What next with the IGF Improvement?

Hi Parminder,

> 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.

Actually, I don't want to decide this question. I would prefer to look
at these issues as a process rather than a binary decision. We have
faced the issue of formal outcome versus no outcome at all over several
years. Both options have support from strong groups. The way out of such
constellations is evolution not an either/or constellation. What I would
have liked to see is an experimental approach where each annual IGF
meeting will try out new versions of reporting taking on board the
experiences from regional and national IGFs.
In my view, it would have been sufficient if the CSTD WG would have
endorsed such an open process.

jeanette

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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