[governance] Update from today's MAG call
suresh@hserus.net
suresh at hserus.net
Fri Aug 2 18:34:46 EDT 2013
Purely my personal opinion from earlier being on the apia board, that operates the apricot network operators conference.
Let us just make a case for funding transparency and a clear documentation of sponsor benefits, which should under no circumstances be linked to conference content, rather than singling out business, government or civil society sources of funding.
It leaves the door open for any organization, irrespective of its affiliation, to hijack the conference agenda if this firewall between sponsorship and content isn't built in, and enforced contractually.
I agree with the rest of what George and Thomas have to say here.
--srs (htc one x)
----- Reply message -----
From: "Thomas Lowenhaupt" <toml at communisphere.com>
To: "Fouad Bajwa" <fouadbajwa at gmail.com>
Cc: <governance at lists.igcaucus.org>
Subject: [governance] Update from today's MAG call
Date: Sat, Aug 3, 2013 2:44 AM
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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