[governance] Update from today's MAG call
Thomas Lowenhaupt
toml at communisphere.com
Fri Aug 2 17:14:18 EDT 2013
Fouad,
Perhaps in those situations where there is an under-developed civil
society, and with other non-business sectors unable to pick up the
slack, that organizers indicate and certify same, and in those instances
organizers be required to subsidize a presence of the missing sector(s)
with a portion of the business (or perhaps government) funding.
Best,
Tom
P.S. I've a cultural bias built into the above that says civic society
is right for all cultures. I am not certain of that.
On 8/2/2013 5:01 PM, Fouad Bajwa wrote:
> One of the potential factors in organizing regional or local IGFs is
> that organizers are constrained by their context sensitive issues. For
> example, if a regional IGF was to be organized in Pakistan, we would
> have no one but corporate sponsors because that is the cultural
> environment here unless only one stakeholder group chipped in the
> finances such as civil society but for them to see any benefit in an
> IGF is yet far from reality.
>
> There could be a framework that keeps equity and justice in the centre
> but how organizers actually meet their targets for financing their
> local IGFs is really not the remit of the global IGF or its policies
> per se.
>
> Best
>
> Fouad
>
> On Sat, Aug 3, 2013 at 1:35 AM, Thomas Lowenhaupt
> <toml at communisphere.com> wrote:
>> George,
>>
>> Agreed. And that would be acting like a professional.
>>
>> Best,
>>
>> Tom
>>
>>
>> On 8/2/2013 4:24 PM, George Sadowsky wrote:
>>
>> Thomas,
>>
>> I agree with you, but I don't like the idea of singling out only IGFs for
>> application of this policy. IGFs are like many other professional meetings,
>> and should be treated as such.
>>
>> How about this as an alternative? Professional meetings of any type should
>> be transparent regarding the sources and processes of resource acquisition
>> for their events and their other activities.
>>
>> George
>>
>>
>>
>> On Aug 2, 2013, at 8:48 PM, Thomas Lowenhaupt wrote:
>>
>> With regard to bottom up, I agree that "national and regional IGFs should be
>> able to make the decisions regarding the nature of their IGFs that are
>> consistent with the needs an desires of those countries and regions." But
>> transparency as to the source and process of resource acquisition should be
>> required to use the IGF name.
>>
>> Tom Lowenhaupt
>>
>> On 8/2/2013 12:05 PM, George Sadowsky wrote:
>>
>> All,
>>
>> I think that national and regional IGFs should be able to make the decisions
>> regarding the nature of their IGFs that are consistent with the needs an
>> desires of those countries and regions. The IGF is not a franchise operation
>> within which the top can dictate the behavior of the smaller meetings
>> presumably feeding into it.
>>
>> In fact, it would be more appropriate if representatives of those smaller
>> meetings agreed upon the policies associated with the global IGF, not the
>> other way around. This should not be a top down operation.
>>
>> The reason that the "no commercial recognition" policy applies to the global
>> IGF is that it is a UN sponsord meetng, and therefore UN rules apply. This
>> is not true for regional and national IGFs.
>>
>> Note that I am not saying anything about the desirability or
>> non-desirability of such a policy at lower levels, but rather that it is
>> their decision to make on an individual basis, not a decision or even a
>> recommendation that should be made at a global level.
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Aug 2, 2013, at 5:49 PM, parminder wrote:
>>
>>
>> On Friday 02 August 2013 02:09 PM, Grace Githaiga wrote:
>>
>> "Can one now expect that this is also made a basic condition for regional
>> and national IGFs, among some basic conditions that are listed for such
>> initiatives, and these conditions are enforced".
>>
>>
>> Parminder, can you clarify on this sentence?
>>
>> In my opinion, I do not think that this is a sound proposal to start
>> imposing conditions on say national IGFs. Is multistakeholdersim not about
>> getting all stakeholders on board to discuss these issues? For example if
>> say Kenya is holding the Kenya IGF and a telco company decides it will put
>> in money since it has been part of the process, should that not be accepted?
>> At KICTANet, we have a multistakeholder model that brings even the corporate
>> stakeholders on board, NOT necessarily to influence the IGF but as partners.
>> Further, different national IGFs have different models of fundraising. What
>> works in Kenya may not work in say Tanzania. Kindly clarify.
>>
>>
>> Grace,
>>
>> Happy to clarify.
>>
>> First of all, it should be clear that I only seek that those conditions be
>> made applicable to national and regional IGFs that many of us here ( as
>> also the UN IGF MAG Chair and others) agree that it is appropriate and
>> necessary to apply to the UN IGF.
>>
>> Inter alia, such conditions are that while private companies can donate
>> money to the IGF, which goes into a trust fund, all measures will be taken
>> to ensure that there is not the least possibility of any quid pro quo at all
>> for these donations, including providing positions on the MAG, giving
>> speaking/ chairing slots, special recommendations for speaking slots,
>> special invitations to what could otherwise be selectively closed high-level
>> (policy related) meetings, logos in and around the spaces where actual
>> policy deliberation takes place, and so on....
>>
>> Do you indeed disagree with my position, whereby do you think that these
>> above conditions, with regard to policy spaces, that democratic propriety
>> demands UN IGF must observe, should not be made applicable to national or
>> regional IGFs?
>>
>> Before I go on, I just want to make sure that I really understand what you
>> are saying here, and you understand my position.
>>
>> parminder
>>
>>
>> Rgds
>> GG
>> ________________________________
>> Date: Fri, 2 Aug 2013 09:38:55 +0530
>> From: parminder at itforchange.net
>> To: governance at lists.igcaucus.org
>> Subject: Re: [governance] Update from today's MAG call
>>
>>
>> Kudos to Markus for making a such clear affirmative statement on the isuue
>> of commercialisation of IGF...... And for also having strongly disapproved
>> of the Indonesian fund raising document/ strategy in February itself, and
>> for asking the local organising team to discontinue it and take the document
>> off their website. To make things clear in such strong words is really good
>> " the only thing that can be sold on the premises of the UN meeting is food,
>> and that has to be at a reasonable price".
>>
>> Can one now expect that this is also made a basic condition for regional and
>> national IGFs, among some basic conditions that are listed for such
>> initiatives, and these conditions are enforced. Safeguarding policy spaces
>> from commercial/ corporatist influences is as important at regional and
>> national levels as at the global level.
>>
>> As mentioned earlier, I remain rather concerned that the Chair of Asia
>> Pacific IGF called the provisions in the controversial Indonesian IGF fund
>> raising document as, and I quote
>>
>> ".....providing some traditional "value" back to contributors. The deal is
>> nothing new - it seems to be a rather standard sponsorship arrangement."
>>
>> If indeed it was a rather standard sponsorship document, why did then the
>> MAG Chair disapprove of it and ask for its withdrawal?
>>
>> I am not sure therefore how they do it at the AP IGF, but I do see enough
>> reason to be concerned about it. If any clarification in this regard is to
>> be forthcoming, I would welcome it.
>>
>> There seems to be a consdierable lack of clarity about what the IGFs - as a
>> somewhat formal (and therefore, and to that extent, monopolistic) 'policy
>> dialogue space' and a new insitutionalised form of 'participation in
>> governance' and a new experiment in participative democracy - mean and how
>> they must be organised, and strongly insulated from private interests. And
>> for this sake, one need to be almost paranoidly pro-active rather than being
>> slack and accommodative. Insitutions of democracy are built with such
>> extreme care and caution, and being stickler to basic norms.
>>
>> parminder
>>
>>
>> On Wednesday 31 July 2013 06:32 PM, Norbert Bollow wrote:
>>
>> Here's a quick update from today's MAG call (I listened in as an
>> observer.)
>>
>> Almost all of the discussion was around how to proceed in regard to
>> 2013 IGF meeting. Markus said that cancellation is not an option. There
>> are two serious expressions of interest from potential host countries
>> to step in on short notice if Bali doesn't work out. Failing that,
>> there's the option of having the meeting at the relevant UN HQ, which
>> for the IGF would mean Geneva, but since it might be difficult to get
>> so many rooms, that might mean that only a scaled down meeting could be
>> held. Also hotel rooms can be problematic in Geneva. Google/Vint Cerf is
>> willing to do a fundraising effort to try and save the Bali IGF. Some
>> preliminary news, on the basis of which the MAG might be able to
>> recommend something, is hoped for by the end of next week.
>>
>> The current recommendation is not to cancel flights to Bali that have
>> already been booked, but also not to book a flight to Bali if you have
>> not booked yet.
>>
>> The commercialization problem was only touched on briefly. Markus said
>> that the basic rules are fairly simple: UN meetings cannot be
>> commercialized, there can be no sponsor's logos on the premises of the
>> UN meeting (and this rule has been enforced, he gave an example where a
>> compromise had been made in which sponsor's banners were put up outside
>> the premises of the UN meeting but in a place where they were visible
>> from the meeting's cafeteria), the only thing that can be sold on the
>> premises of the UN meeting is food and that has to be at a reasonable
>> price.
>>
>> So it seems clear that the IGF is not in direct danger of getting
>> commercialized - that objectionable Indonesian fundraising strategy has
>> simply been declared dead.
>>
>> Greetings,
>> Norbert
>>
>>
>>
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>
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