[governance] Reply to Milton's blog post

michael gurstein gurstein at gmail.com
Wed Dec 19 19:22:16 EST 2012


Thanks Avri,

I guess what I'm trying to understand from your response is where you saw
your role as a representative of "CS perspectives" ending and your role as
"representing US national interests" (Amb Kramer) as beginning or perhaps
you don't/didn't see any difference or tension between the two positions?

M

-----Original Message-----
From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org
[mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Avri Doria
Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2012 2:29 PM
To: IGC
Subject: Re: [governance] Reply to Milton's blog post

Hi,

Not sure what you are asking.  But that won't stop me from trying to answer.

Though, I long ago gave up thinking about the Ism associated with the
participatory democratic form of governance we currently are working to
further and calling the multistakeholder model.

Of course no part of WTSA/WCT/[anything to do with ITU] was[is] adequately
multistakeholder.  It barely had a slight bit of multistakeholder about it.

Yes, on the US delegation we were participating as advisors.  And as expert
advisors I beleive we did our best to make sure that as much of the CS
perspectives as possible got fed into discussions.  I know that in the
internal discussions we got to speak freely and openly and I believe were
heard.  Decisions were made by others at the end of the discussions.

On other delegations the CS people participated as delegates.  They would
have to tell us about the degree to which their delegation was
multistakeholder in its processes.  In some I know they participated freely,
in others I know they remained closeted.

I think a step forward in the multistakeholder process was the creation of
the CS meta-delgation composed of the CS people who happened to be there
either as members of delegations of as the public to whom the meetings were
partially opened.  This group also included many people who were
participating remotely.  This group put out statements, met with Toure - and
argued for making the ITU process more multistakeholder, and worked on
sharing messages among delegations.  CS was at the meeting.  Barely, and
without proper consideration of its role as stakeholders.  But yet it was
heard.  A step in the right direction.

Don't know if this answers your question, but it is the best I can do.

avri


On 16 Dec 2012, at 20:01, michael gurstein 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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