[governance] Reply to Milton's blog post

Mon Dec 17 05:18:12 EST 2012

Good points Wolfgang and McTim however they seem to be somewhat in tension
with each other... 

McTim quite correctly indicates that the ITU cannot be considered as MS
suggesting (I believe) that such a close linking of CS with a national
delegation might not be appropriate in a "true MS".

Meanwhile Wolfgang suggests the problem here as being that LDC's may not
have the resources to bring CS along (suggesting that the relationship
between CS and national delegations is perhaps an on-going and desireable
mode). However (he goes on)  it might be also desireable (possible) to have
a true MS consultation/negotiation where CS is participating both as part of
national delegations and a "procedure which allow(s) CS to participate
independent from their national governments (and waving the fees)". 

I'm wondering at concepts and definitions here...  If we accept that a part
(at least) of the definition of CS is that it is the group that (sees itself
at least) as supporting the public interest and thus in global MS fora as
presumably supporting a/the "global public interest", and if we understand
that national delegations to global deliberations would by definition be
supporting "national" interests then how would it be possible for those
(self-identifying and publicly identified) as CS to be members of national
delegations in global (or national) MS deliberations.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: "Kleinwächter, Wolfgang"
[mailto:wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de] 
Sent: Monday, December 17, 2012 1:37 AM
To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Suresh Ramasubramanian;
governance at lists.igcaucus.org; michael gurstein
Cc: governance at lists.igcaucus.org; Avri Doria
Subject: AW: [governance] Reply to Milton's blog post

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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