[governance] East Africa IGF - day 2, discussion of ITRs

Thu Jul 19 09:43:38 EDT 2012

Hi,

>
> As for involving the UN Regional commission, I did not know you have
> asked for that. I checked online, and found no evidence. Sorry. And
> while I do not mind seeking their involvement for coming years, I am
> not sure if that is essential for claiming regional IGF.>
>
> I did not say it is essential for claiming regional IGF, because i have no
> idea what is essential for claiming regional IGF. But by your statement you
> seem to have some idea about what may be essential to claim an IGF. Can you
> please tell us about it.

A few years ago,when we are trying to organize IGF Japan, I asked
Markus what are the criteria to host an National IGF. The answer that
time
was " There is no fixed standard nor process to recognize natoinal or
regional IGF. Just be open and multi-stakeholder".  I have not seen
any explicit process or even discussion about the definition of regional and
national IGFs.

We tried to be as open and multi-stakeholder as possible. Have we
reached to the level? It depends.

>
> If by some stroke of luck (going against the structure and political economy
> of luck in this area), IT for Change landed funds enough to organise an
> international event, and we chose to call it the Asia Pacific regional IGF
> and called some civil society persons, and some government guys, and some
> small businesses, and maybe forgot big global businesses, etc etc... would
> it work in your opinion or not. Or would it be considered impermissible to
> claim regional IGF. What criterion we must fulfil for as you put it for
> 'claiming regional IGF'. Just asking.

I think arguing in this hypothetical manner is not quite constructive.
If one camp wants to organize a regional IGF, make it known
sufficiently well in advance, and if someone is not happy about this,
bring that
and discuss. I agree that I did not respond to your email in April. But
you also did not raise this again until today. As far as I am aware
no one else from the region brought this kind of issue to any of organizers.
We sent out call for participation, for the first time for APrIGF. The
publicity was not as quick as we wanted to be, in part due lack of
funding.
I think most funding support came at the last minute, but I am not
directly involved in the fund-raising part nor the secretariat at all,
so I might be wrong.

We sent general notice or invitations to most governments via ICANN
GAC and other channel formal and informal and received a few
responses.

izumi

>
> parminder
>
>   At least, we
> have not heard any request from either IGF secretariat, or government
> members we have contacted directly and indirectly, nor any civil
> society members in this region.
>
> I again apologize, but am not sure that missing a single response be
> interpreted
> as evidence of non-transparency. That, to me, is exaggerating the things and
> not
> helpful for constructive dialogue.  If you take your request that
> seriously, I wonder why you have not reminded me one more time before
> making this assertion. If I were you, I would have sent a friendly
> reminder, before making such unilateral criticism.
>
> izumi
>
>
> 2012/7/19 parminder <parminder at itforchange.net>:
>
> On Thursday 19 July 2012 09:18 AM, Izumi AIZU wrote:
>
> Hi Adam and all,
>
> Asia Pacific regional IGF, is also ongoing since yesterday, for three days.
>
>
> Dear Izumi and Peng Hwa,
>
> My best wishes for the meeting. However, that reminds me that when you
> announced this so called regional IGF I has asked you for a few
> clarification vide my email to the IGC on 25th April (enclosed and also
> content cut pasted below). I am surprised that as the main organisers
> neither you nor Peng Hwa considered it necessary on answer my queries.
> par minder
>
> Disclosure: I was invited for the meeting but refused to attend because of
> its overly business ownership, and non transparency as inter alia evident in
> not responding to my direct questions about the event. I have been trying to
> persuade the organisers for three years now to make the event more open and
> inclusive, especially for more marginalised groups etc . And among other
> things invite the Asia Pacific UN regional  commission to be part of the
> meeting as Latin American and African regional IGFs have done. But this has
> been to no avail.
>
> Below is the content of my email of the 25th April.
>
> Dear Izumi
>
> Can you proffer more information on who is organising this meeting, who is
> is funding it etc...
>
> In general, as you know, I am quite against policy dialogue forums (which I
> understand this meeting is supposed to be, taking from the UN IGF) being
> organised primarily by the business sector, especially when such a forum
> claims a monopoly and therefore authoritative position, which is implied in
> the name of 'the' 'Asia Pacific regional IGF'.
>
> Mine is a somewhat unpleasant task of raising what may appear to be
> difficult question with regard to sincere and hard work being put in by
> people like you and Peng Hwa, both of whom I greatly respect. But all of us,
> most of all civil society, must be subject to accountability and to hard
> questions when required. So, my apologies for that. However, I do request an
> open discussion on the subject here in the IGC.
>
> I do not think that you would much look forward to a time when the policies
> that determine what education our children will have, and how, will be
> determined by processes led by private companies in the business of digital
> content, educational software etc. Do you? Or, to a time when our health
> policies will be determined by processes led by big pharma companies and
> private hospital chains. However, what is being done in Internet governance
> today is precisely and inescapably leading us towards such a model of
> governance and policy making. To that extent, we will have to take
> responsibility for our actions. I am merely trying to take responsibility
> for mine in raising these questions at this time. And I look forward to your
> responses. Apologies once again if this is inconvenient and/ or an incursion
> on your busy time.
>
> regards, parminder
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
                     >> Izumi Aizu <<
Institute for InfoSocionomics, Tama University, Tokyo
Institute for HyperNetwork Society, Oita,
Japan
www.anr.org

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