[governance] A couple of thoughts for the MAG discussion

[Marilia Maciel]

Mike,

You make important points. I think that we have two main sources of funding
for participation in the IGF process, one that comes from organizations
(ISOC, Diplo, APC, etc, etc), and other that has a more "public" character
on the sense that it is an amount of money given to foster participation,
which is, I believe, is delivered through ITU/IGF Secretariat.

When the resources come from the organizations, I think that they are
entitled to develop their own methods of selection. I would encourage,
though, the this selection follows some bottom-up agreed guidelines, such
as strive for regional, gender and age diversity, foster the participation
of new comers and be transparent.

When it comes to funding that has been given to foster participation, I
think that the rules of procedure need to be clear and more strict, for
instance: public call for applications, regional, gender, age balance,
focus on underrepresented groups, results made public in due time, etc.
Which means, interested participants deserve a transparent selection
process and they should not need to succeed in the market place, as you put
it.  It would be great to hear what others think about it, taking into
account the upcoming WG meeting to draft the report on IGF improvements.

I also agree with your second point. I think that remote participation is
an integral part of the IGF and it's complementary to it. But it is not a
substitute to physical attendance. Remote hubs have a very important role
in community building and capacity building and their inputs can be shared
through remote participation channels. But full two-way interaction needs
adjustment of the methodology of the meeting per se, so views can be
delivered physically or remotely in an indistinctly manner. We are not on
that level yet. The IGF is a physical meeting that is very open for remote
interventions. Our wish is to keep improving remote participation, but we
cannot forget where we stand.

Marilia

On Tue, Feb 14, 2012 at 6:34 PM, michael gurstein <gurstein at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> Re funding for CS participation in the MAG/IGF: there is the practice and
> there is the principle... from a practical perspective the issue of funding
> may certainly be catch as catch can but the effect of that is to give
> precedence to those who are best in a position to obtain such funding and
> what is being accepted as the principle here is that the worth of something
> (such as civil society participation in governance) is measured by its
> success in the marketplace (i.e. its capacity to attract funding). Is this
> the principle that we want to accept?
>
> We should also be a bit careful I think in looking at remote participation
> as a panacea -- unless the overall structure of participation/decision
> making/influence rendering is designed/redesigned so as to reflect the
> legitimacy and equality of remote participation, then with the simple
> layering on of remote participation we are accepting that some are allowed
> "first class" participation (access to more effective influence on
> outcomes/decision making) -- f2f -- while others will only have a "second
> class" position -- since we know how much of outcome determination/decision
> making in events such as this takes place during the private f2f
> interactions coffee breaks, lunches corridor discussions etc. Is this the
> practice we want to accept?
>
> Mike
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________
> You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
>     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
> To be removed from the list, visit:
>     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing
>
> For all other list information and functions, see:
>     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
> To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
>     http://www.igcaucus.org/
>
> Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t
>
>


-- 
Centro de Tecnologia e Sociedade
FGV Direito Rio

Center for Technology and Society
Getulio Vargas Foundation
Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20120215/3024d4a3/attachment.htm>
-------------- next part --------------
____________________________________________________________
You received this message as a subscriber on the list:
     governance at lists.igcaucus.org
To be removed from the list, visit:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/unsubscribing

For all other list information and functions, see:
     http://lists.igcaucus.org/info/governance
To edit your profile and to find the IGC's charter, see:
     http://www.igcaucus.org/

Translate this email: http://translate.google.com/translate_t