[governance] 2013 Preparations for MAG

[Suresh Ramasubramanian]

Let me add some below, in line with Fouad, tagged [srs]

These are entirely my opinion, from being on the management committee (till 2009) and fellowship committee (till now) of an asiapac wide network operators conference (APRICOT) for several years.

On 25-Nov-2012, at 9:58, Fouad Bajwa <fouadbajwa at gmail.com> wrote:

> To throw in some starters:
> 
> 1. Should the IGF continue to hold meetings in countries with
> authoritative regimes and repressed political environments? People
> from certain neighboring countries were not able to participate while
> the fear factor of participating in an IGF where the host country was
> authoritarian was high.
> 

[srs] Should the IGF hold meetings in comparatively remote locations compared to major airline hubs with liberal visa regimes and excellent conference facilities?  The point here is that such locations are more expensive to fly to than other locations on the same continent that are major airline hubs, with direct flights from more places around the world.   They may, in most cases, have more suitable conference venues so we'd get far less issues with remote participation, wifi based collaboration in the venue, acoustics in the auditorium ...
 
> 2. IGF should put out a call for hosts country expression of interest
> instead of expecting someone will bid with clearly laid out principles
> and process for selection.
> 

[srs] Fully concur.  Something on the lines of an RFP with clearly defined requirements for the host country, in terms of logistics as well as based on an evaluation of free speech rights in the country.

> 3. When do the MAG improvements actually happen with reference to the
> CSTD IGF improvements and when will they be reflected i.e. in future
> IGFs?

[srs] In other words, can we have some metrics on improvements already suggested and/or future improvements that are actually implemented, and make the leap from powerpoint / pdf to "ground realities"?

> 4. Logistical support interms of visa acquisition to attend open
> consultations or observe MAG meetings remains a challenge for people
> from developing countries and attention to detail is needed from the
> IGF secretariat. People from developed regions do have considerable
> advantage over this issue but do not represent the views and insights
> of developing country issues and inputs to the IGF.
> 

[srs] In the first (Athens) IGF, as I recall, the visa process was very smooth, even expedited, so that a Schengen visa was issued with far less paperwork than I have experienced on business or vacation travel to other Schengen countries.   For the rest, please see my response to point 1 above.  A location like Hong Kong, that requires prior visas from I think three countries in the entire world and extends a free visa on arrival to all other countries, and moreover has direct flights from most regions of the world, would be much more suitable than either Athens, Hyderabad or Baku, to pick a few past venues.

> 5. The time allocated to Main Session should be significantly reduced
> to half and the majority of Main Sessions should be restricted to one
> day otherwise this is negatively impacting audience division and the
> numbers in Workshop participation.

[srs] I wouldn't go that far   However it makes sense to identify a specified time slot for the plenary / main session events every day, and structure workshops so that they feed into the main sessions.   We also need to structure these main sessions so that not all of them become over-long panels by themselves, and have a significant number of rapporteur driven sessions which provide feedback from the workshops to the broader audience.

> 6. Workshop planing detail should continue to receive more attention
> especially interms of quality and issue. The issue around achieving
> gender balance, multistakeholder balance and regional coverage are
> really not working. The IGF pre-events have to be revisited and should
> receive more attention in terms of planning and projection as  these
> are receiving a lot of attention by participants.
> 

[srs] Fully agree.

> 7.  The visa issue despite being well managed by the host country
> remained one of them most unclear aspects of the IGF and the IGF
> secretariat should give more emphasis on detailing out these issues
> with future host countries in the very beginning.
> 

[srs] This goes back to my point about picking venues with liberal visa regimes, and/or venues that promise to expedite visas for bonafide conference delegates.   However, from the host country's standpoint, I can say that there will be a significant threat of misuse of these visas by a small number of people (for example, I have personally seen, in that network operators conference, fellowship applications from what are obviously "advance fee fraud" scam artists looking for a free ticket to the event - if we grant such a fellowship, once in the country they simply "disappear" and overstay their visa, then our local hosts face some heat for this).  So, nothing in this process should compromise on due diligence carried out by the country's visa authorities.

> 8. The venue planning needs to be carefully done as having venues
> outside the cities causes both stress and challenges to accessibility.
> 

[srs] Fully agree, covered above

> 9. An Internet Connectivity Team should be assembled by the IGF
> Secretariat that should work beforehand on the ground to manage
> internet connectivity to cover remote participation, connectivity for
> over 2000 participants keeping in view that this may mean planning and
> connecting 2000 people x 6000 devices (laptops, cell phones, wi-fi
> enable cameras, tables etc).
> 

[srs] It actually makes sense to hire and retain a professional vendor of conference networking services, such as Verilan, to provide the same (high, bound by SLA) standard of networking across events.   Funding for this will remain an open question though, with the current model of the IGF.

> 10. The sudden shift of Open Consultations and MAG meetings from
> Geneva to France for February 2013 without open consultation and
> comments from the community puts a severe logistical pressure on
> participation for those that find it a challenge to already
> participate in such meetings. This shift enables only certain

[srs] This might have been true earlier, but Switzerland and France are both Schengen countries.  So if you have already acquired a Swiss Schengen visa, you should certainly be able to use it for your travel to France.

I do agree that if the venue had been shifted from, say, Washington DC to Toronto, I would have fully agreed with you, but in this case, it is moot.

	--srs (iPad)
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