AW: [governance] Reply to Milton's blog post

Mon Dec 17 04:36:58 EST 2012

HI,

the problem with MS within the ITU is that according to the existing procedures CS can participate only via national delegations. This is a (very small) step in the right direction but has negative sideeffect: It is widening the North-South gap. While nothern countries have no problem to invite CS into their national governmental delegations (and even give them a governmental badge) this is not the case in many southern ITU member states and countries as Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran and others. Nenna can tell a story how difficult it was to come to Dubai (regardless of the fact that she organized a national IGF in her home country, she had no chance to become a member of their national delagation. Finally she found another government which invited her to the Dubai experience). She told this Toure in our meeting and we told him that the MS model is more than to recommend national governments to bring some non-governmental people to ITU conferences. To have no CS from developing countries in ITU meetings is not only a missed opportunity, it produces also imbalanced results and deepens the conflicts. What we need is an procedure which allow CS to participate independent from their national governments (and waving the fees). 

This should be raised as one of the future ITU policy issues during the forthcoming World Telecommunication Policy Forum in May 2013 in Geneva and lead to changes in the ITU Convention at PP 2014 in Korea. 

Wolfgang 

________________________________

Von: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org im Auftrag von Suresh Ramasubramanian
Gesendet: Mo 17.12.2012 03:38
An: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; michael gurstein
Cc: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>; Avri Doria
Betreff: Re: [governance] Reply to Milton's blog post

What, in your opinion, is wrong here?  Other than that civil society can't participate on their own of course, to represent their own organization's viewpoint?

If they agree to be part of a USG delegation as subject matter experts, it is in the entire delegation's collective interest not to present mixed messages.  

--srs (iPad)

On 17-Dec-2012, at 6:31, "michael gurstein" <gurstein at gmail.com> wrote:

	Avri and all,

	I have no doubt that the below (taken from the transcript of Amb Kramer's press conference following the WCIT) was a valuable and interesting experience for all involved but I'm assuming that you will agree with me that it raises some significant questions as to what exactly is meant by multi-stakeholderism and more specifically the role of Civil Society in these multi-stakeholder processes.

	M

	Amb Kramer: Now your second question - you said "lobbying." It's a good question, but I'll rephrase it. It's not lobbying per se. We had - have a delegation here of 100 representatives, roughly 50 from U.S. Government that are people from State Department, FCC, Commerce Department, Department of Defense, et cetera. We had about 40 people from industry, industry being either internet players or telecom players, and then another 10 people or so that were members of civil society. Their job as delegates is not to lobby. They - as a matter of fact they have to sign an agreement that says they're representing national interests.

	So what we did is put them to work in a couple of areas. Number one is to be subject matter experts about what does the internet look like in these different places, what are the challenges and security issues going forward, why is spam being discussed here, et cetera. And they - the industry provided very, very helpful insights, positions, et cetera, that informed our positions more broadly on a national basis.

	A lot of that thought process, thought leadership was then used in our bilaterals to work with other countries. And when I said that's the real benefit of this conference, we had some great discussions. The second piece of their work as members of industry, civil society, et cetera, was to do outreach. And the beauty of outreach when you get in this setting is you're able to talk to a lot of different countries, a lot of different players, and share the points of view. And that's been a huge benefit of our delegation.

	-----Original Message-----
	From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
	Sent: Sunday, December 16, 2012 4:58 AM
	To: IGC
	Subject: Re: [governance] Reply to Milton's blog post

	On 16 Dec 2012, at 13:40, Oksana Prykhodko wrote:

	> I asked to include me in the official delegation, and they did not do 

	> it, because they did not have money for my trip. I am not sure that 

	> they really did it if I had money, but at that moment I  had nothing 

	> to answer to them.

	i think that most of the non government types on the delegations found their funding elsewhere.

	i don't know of any delegations that funded CS to join them but perhaps I am uninformed.  anyone else know of any?

	they let us join, but we had to find funding elsewhere.

	and since so many are intimating that the CS types on Member State delegations were co-opted, at least it seems we paid for our own co-option.

	avri

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