[governance] Organising for multiple forums

Tue May 31 06:41:32 EDT 2011

Hi Ian,

Thanks for touching on an important subject that as Jeremy shared was
also raised in the past but fizzled out as discussion died down but
there is opportunity here as once Ginger discussed on the list during
her coordinator tenure.

The fundamental aspect here that you have touched is institutional
form and what Jeremy shares is the foundational structure that can
gain the confidence of donors and at the end of the day financially
sustain the existence of such an institutional capacity.

I think the inherent fears of an institutional form (non-for-profit
organization) is the development of politics, lobbies and
bureaucracies. Then the housing of such an institution, the choice of
country, obviously will have to be somewhere around where all the
action is and might receive the consensus of being in Geneva if the
consensus did happen.

This remains a touchy area I guess for the many of us in the
developing world that how this structure would be governed and which
members may gain control over such an institutional structure and
might end up with a lobby supporting only a handful of views from a
certain group.

Due to the open nature of IGC's current list form where members are
from any stakeholder group, it also raises concern over the kind of
consensus that may result tending to bend over to certain sides, yes
these are just assumptions but they do remain a major concern.

I would at this stage suggest to first conduct a small research
activity and see if the whole idea of institutionalization even gets
off the ground with consensus. Lets say move forward with what we have
suggested in the past to have working groups, focal points, issue
experts etc.

There are two approaches here. First the the focal point approach,
why? Possibly because we can't have the whole IGC switching to every
issue that comes its way and we need a certain form of expert working
group of volunteers that can tackle a given issue from a particular
internet public policy arrangement or institution.

Say the focal point is either one or two members that lead a
specialized working group on a particular subject. For example, the
IGC Human Rights Focal Point may lead forward from IGC the IRP Dynamic
Coalition Output to other forums and thus bridge both sustainability
to the output as well as position IGC in the debates.

Let me share an example from Katitza and the OECD Civil Society
interventions the CSISAC. Now more or less we need members of OECD
countries to follow and intervene OECD activities. Similarly, the same
would be to coordinate the creation of working groups on each topic.
CSTD has APC and IT For Change participation. Similarly we have some
on the WIPO Development Agenda, then we have the CSTD Working Group on
Improvements and therefore can also have working groups for e-G8,
eG20, IGF, and perhaps other UN affiliated activities that link to or
impact the Internet Governance space.

Now there were some recent IGC internal working groups established
around strategy etc.....these working group leaders can be declared
focal points from their groups and produce and forward to IGC periodic
summaries or reports to the IGC Coordinators for presentation to IGC
for consensus. Creation of new Focused Working Groups, streamlining
existing working groups and initiatives etc will help to create a
picture whether we can exist as an Organization with legal
incorporation, structure, offices etc.

Its hard to do so but it is not impossible to achieve. It can't be
done without showing output and displaying that developing countries
did have an equal footing in the overall process and did witness their
perspectives reaching these forums etc. So it has to be an exercise
first over a period of a year to determine whether this is a workable
approach or not.

-- 
Regards.

Fouad

On Tue, May 31, 2011 at 9:01 AM, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:
> Folks,
>
> I’m starting a new thread here, following from the many comments that have
> been brought up here following particularly from e-G8 that we need to
> organise to be able to represent civil society in more than one forum in
> future as regards internet governance issues.
>
> Wheras previously our main emphasis in Internet Governance Caucus (IGC) has
> been on IGF, we now need adapt to the fact the IGF is no longer the only
> forum – or perhaps even the main one – where internet governance issues (in
> a wider understanding of the term, not a narrow ICANN/NRO one) are being
> discussed.
>
> In future there will be e-G8, eG20, IGF, and perhaps other UN affiliated or
> more subject specific forums where there is a need for civil society
> perspectives on internet governance to be presented and co-ordinated.
>
> To me IGC, because of its wide representation and openness to differing
> perspectives, is the obvious body to take on this wider and much larger
> task. However, it is not capable at present of stretching that far for a
> number of reasons.
>
> So I do think we need to put some effort into changing our organisation to
> give it the capability to represent civil society on internet governance
> matters in multiple forums and through multiple voices.
>
> I do not believe that we could undertake this necessary task without at
> least a part time employee and some minimal travel for funding. In order to
> receive such funding, we may also need to have a more formal structure or at
> least an affiliation with a more formally constructed body able to provide
> the administrative functions on our behalf.
>
> I believe we will need to commence to act soon in this direction if we are
> to fulfil our mandate in the broader internet governance arena. So I am
> opening up this topic to get a general feeling as to how we might proceed
> and whether people have specific suggestions. We may need some sort of task
> force to work on this.
>
> Just opening this up for general discussion. To me the priorities are
>
> a structure able to receive funding
> a funding source for at least part time secretarial functions and some
> travel
> a realisation that the game is changing and we have to change too
>
> That’s my initial thoughts.
>
> Ian Peter
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Amali De Silva <amalidesilva at yahoo.com>
> Date: Sun, 29 May 2011 19:04:44 -0700 (PDT)
> To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com>, Jeremy
> Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org>
> Subject: Re: [governance] :   e-G8 forum
>
> Civil society plees for representation have been heard NYT article - needs
> an organized input for future meetings - to echo others on this list ..
> http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/30/technology/30tech.html?pagewanted=1&ref=technology
>
> Amali De Silva - Mitchell ( personal note )
> Vancouver Canada
> Private & Confidential
>
>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 5/25/11, Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com> wrote:
>
> From: Ian Peter <ian.peter at ianpeter.com>
> Subject: Re: [governance] : e-G8 forum
> To: governance at lists.cpsr.org, "Jeremy Malcolm" <jeremy at ciroap.org>
> Received: Wednesday, May 25, 2011, 2:22 AM
>
> Not sure that I would argue about abandoning e-G8 – I think its quite useful
> if imbalanced, and is opening up some lines of communication with some
> excellent interventions and some good attendees.
>
> I’d rather discuss how we could make IGF as relevant by attracting the same
> calibre of attendees. IGF government attendees are usually way down the
> picking line; the business reps are not quite CEOs of large players such as
> Paypal, Google and Facebook – and similarly our civil society reps are not
> quite Jimmy Wales, John Perry Barlow etc.
>
> In other words, IGF has failed to attract high profile opinion leaders. If
> it continues as a second rate forum it will probably just fade away and
> no-one will notice. Which would be a pity – IGF is far more balanced,
> strives to achieve global and balanced inputs, and could be a really
> relevant and useful vehicle.
>
> From our point of view, I am interested in how we can strengthen our inputs
> by involving and communicating with some of the higher profile civil society
> people who are not so involved with us at present.
>
> Ian Peter
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org>
> Organization: Consumers International
> Reply-To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org>
> Date: Wed, 25 May 2011 14:32:00 +0800
> To: <governance at lists.cpsr.org>, Roland Perry
> <roland at internetpolicyagency.com>
> Subject: Re: [governance] :   e-G8 forum
>
>    On 25/05/11 14:16, Roland Perry wrote:
>
> In message <B97535D24829433AB1D5ECAC3B6AA468 at userPC>, at 06:53:13 on Wed, 25
> May 2011, Michael Gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com> <mailto:gurstein at gmail.com
> <http://ca.mc1123.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=gurstein@gmail.com> >  writes
>
>
>
> Who is the host for next year's meeting?
>
>
>  According to Wikipedia:
>
>  "Each calendar year, the responsibility of hosting the G8 rotates through
> the member states in the following order: France, United States, United
> Kingdom, Russia, Germany, Japan, Italy, and Canada."
>
>
>  We could go further than we have, and argue that there should be no e-G8
> next year, even if it were opened to broader participation, since it is
> duplicative and it distracts attention from other fora in which civil
> society's resources are already thinly enough spread.
>
>
> --
>
>
> 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
>
>
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