[governance] IGF Cancelled

[parminder]

Hi Marilia

Firstly, about your positions, I think we shared almost all positions at 
the WG meeting...

That said, it is important to discuss what positions different actors 
held, and what issues were deliberately pushed aside. Now, which point 
gets time for discussion and which doesnt, itself is often politically 
determined... or determined by the power configurations that are 
manifest in the room...

It needs to be clearly pointed out that committed UN funding was opposed 
by the business sector, technical community and the developed countries. 
They also rejected out of hand a committed ICANN funding model. That is 
a fact.... It is important to know what happens in public committees 
which are responsible to the public, and this issue is most germane to 
the current IGF imbroglio. .

As for civil society reps, other than you, I found the views were 
lukewarm.... And that is important to know as well. As for 'mixed 
models; - of course there was not one view on the table that the 
voluntary model of funding would be banned or anything.... So the only 
operative part of a mixed model was strongly pitching for a committed UN 
funding, and I know it that there wasnt any such pitch made or supported...

I would not give much weight to what a UNDESA official was musing about 
the UN's general state of funds, orientations etc.. The group neededd to 
recommedd what it thought was right to do, and was needed to be done. It 
had all the power. After all is was sending its advice to the General 
Assembly, which can decide anything. Is it that if the same official 
have said that multistakeholderism is difficult to be really accepted in 
the deep UN corridors we would bypassed that part....

And do you remember the kind of devices that were invented, and 
obstructions made.... It was strongly and repeated proposed that the UN 
can in fact *cannot* fund the IGF.... This is one of the funniest things 
I have ever heard. UN GA can do anything, and the WG's was to be an 
advice to the UN GA.... But this complete falsehood was propagated by 
involving high - ups or insiders that you know about and I wont want to 
go into naming.... I think it is important to report these things to the 
people who were not present...

People need to know what has gone into bringing the IGF to the state 
that it is in today, especially in terms of the funding... And what was 
the contribution to it of the working group constituted to specifically 
suggest improvements in the IGF. These lessons are also useful for the 
future, because we are not far from the 10 year review of the IGF.

Happy to further hear your views  on this... And thanks for sharing them 
in the first place..... parminder




On Saturday 27 July 2013 09:18 PM, Marilia Maciel wrote:
>
> On Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 3:13 AM, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net 
> <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net>> wrote:
>
>
>     Such a proposal for using ICANN collected funds to support the IGF
>     was put forward in the WG on IGF Improvements by my organisation
>     as well as by India, and supported by developing countries. Why
>     did other non gov stakeholders (including civil society) and
>     developed countries oppose this proposal.... Can at least the
>     civil society members of that group who are on this list
>     explain.... I can see why private sector or corporate funded
>     technical community did not want it... can also see the agenda of
>     US supporting developed country constituency.... but why did civil
>     society oppose it... If the IGF is really their most loved child...
>
>
> Hi Parminder!
>
> As a participant on the WG on IGF improvements, I would just like to 
> comment on what I recall from memory:
>
> - The issue of allocating sustainable and predictable public UN 
> funding to the IGF was tabled and discussed among members despite the 
> time constraints we had. As I remember, most CS representatives, 
> including myself, supported this proposal of UN public funding 
> (meaning: public UN funding and private voluntary funding should 
> coexist). As you said, there was strong opposition and the proposal 
> was not included in the report. But we must also acknowledge that UN 
> posed main obstacles to that. UNDESA came to one of our meetings with 
> the purpose to tell us that it was fruitless to put forth such a 
> proposal (UN funding), because UN funds were being cut all across the 
> board. If the UN executes decisions of member countries, maybe it is 
> also fair to say that countries that support UN public funding for the 
> IGF also lacked political articulation and let DESA "impose" that line 
> on the group, saying it was an "impossible topic". Sometimes it seems 
> to me that no one wants to put more money (either because they dont 
> believe in the importance of the IGF or because current lack of 
> transparency on fund management - a real big problem - prevents them 
> from willing to commit). It is a vicious cycle and a blame-game.
>
> - If I remember correctly,  the proposal to use ICANN funds to support 
> the IGF was not properly discussed in the group. When the proposal was 
> tabled, the group started to dwell on procedural issues: if the group 
> had competence to propose it, if the UN had legitimacy to propose it, 
> if it was juridically feasible to propose it, if we could propose it 
> in a group in which ICANN was not represented, etc...  Some group 
> members were openly against it, but, to my understanding, this 
> proposal did not get to be discussed in depth and substance, reason 
> why I think it is not accurate to say that CS members were against 
> it... Speaking on my own behalf: I needed more time to think and 
> understand all the implications, but the discussion did not continue. 
> I think (i dont remember exactly) the vehemency of opposition made 
> clear that the group would not have consensus on that issue and, since 
> the report was consensus-based, we moved on.
> Marília

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