[governance] Inter-stakeholder issues in a multi-stakeholder environment

Sat Nov 30 05:19:40 EST 2013

Dear Deirdre, all:

Thank you for this useful clarification. I definitely think as we discover
the limits of "multistakeholderism" we need to go beyond just criticizing
its inadequacy or adverse effects to start formulating (conceptualizing) a
different model of participation and inclusion (if only as practitioners),
which you have just started doing, it seems to me. If people want to keep
the MS model and just clarify its content/mechanisms, that's okay; if they
instead want to come up with a different label for the new concept, we may
still try.

Along the same lines and in light of the recent developments on this list,
I was thinking IGC may need to be reformed so as to clarify and highlight
what we have in common and what we believe we can achieve together. And
again that will have to take into account the model of participation and
inclusiveness we seek or think is best in the IG policy space. People have
pointed out the fact that the latest NomCom headed by Ian was able to
cooperate and be effective despite differences, etc. I would submit the
main difference between the NomCom and the IGC as a whole, which enables
effective cooperation, is that the first was organized around a specific
mission. That suggests to me that if we want to make progress and stop with
the polarization and the negativity, we will need IGC to stop being
_mainly_ a discussion list for the sake of discussion and to be reorganized
around tasks, focusing on working on specific outputs or drafting inputs to
a policy process, etc.

Of course people are free to post whatever they want: post links to
articles or to blog posts, share other information they deem relevant or
even start open open-ended conversations or debates. But maybe we need to
find a way to distinguish those exchange streams from the ones that
directly concern the work of IGC --which again is not just a discussion
list. So that co-cos or any other member would read the former only if they
want and choose to without impacting on the work of IGC. (Regarding blogs,
for instance, I would personally encourage members wanting to comment on
any blog post should do it in the area for comments on that blog page,
assuming there's no harm for the commenter to subscribe to that blog.)
Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud to what we can do to improve the
atmosphere on this list for a better and productive cooperation. We need to
put our heads together and do something about this if we want IGC to remain
relevant.

Mawaki

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --
Mawaki Chango, PhD
Principal & Founder, DIGILEXIS Consulting
http://www.digilexis.com
m.chango at digilexis.com
twitter.com/digilexis
twitter.com/dig_mawaki
Mobile: +225 4448 7764
Skype: digilexis

On Thu, Nov 28, 2013 at 3:09 PM, Deirdre Williams <
williams.deirdre at gmail.com> wrote:

> Dear Mawaki,
> Thank you for helping me to clarify what I was thinking.
>
> Civil society, as we are using the term, seems to embrace "all of us" and
> therefore is a very unwieldy thing to provide "representation" for. Apart
> from any other considerations the societies within which we live have
> coalesced around a broad range of norms, values and priorities. To my mind
> the differing priorities create the greatest obstacle to reaching
> consensus. To make matters worse "civil society", as well as standing for
> all of us also stands for "each of us"; that is "civil society" is the most
> likely champion of the rights of the individual as well as of those
> individuals taken together as a group, a society.
>
> If I wanted to propose a conspiracy theory I would suggest that one of the
> best ways to discredit the claims for consideration of individual and
> social rights is to create an entity called "civil society" and offer it
> one, or more, seats at the table to speak for individual and social rights.
> Divide and rule is a method which has proved successful, but aggregate to
> divide to rule, that's a really innovative twist.
>
> Which is why I think it's important to emphasise the individual and social
> policy perspectives, rather than the people comprised by "civil society".
>
> Consider the nature of "all of us". Many of us have no idea what "Internet
> governance" is all about, and do not understand the rather arcane language
> that is used, particularly the acronyms, and especially if we belong to the
> group that has little or no knowledge of English. All of us however are
> affected by the Internet, even if we don't use it. But most of us don't
> think through a prism of "the Internet"; instead we are concerned about the
> privacy of our personal information, our rights to express ourselves and
> associate with others, what things cost, our control over the money that we
> earn, our security, etc., all of which may in some way be connected with
> the Internet.
>
> The main aspects of issues have been fairly well established. I would
> suggest that there are 5 - technical, governmental, business, social and
> individual. Not all issues will have all 5 aspects, but very few of them
> will have only one. In some cases the relevant different aspects will align
> harmoniously, in others a point of balance will have to be negotiated. Each
> of the 5 will need a team of advocates to argue and support the claims of
> that aspect. Each team will need to have a broad geographic spread - for
> example in the technical aspect what is possible and desirable in Denmark
> may not work in Cameroon. Each team will need to be able to focus on the
> particular aspect for which it is the advocate. Each team will therefore
> "argue from a particular perspective" rather than "belong to a particular
> group".
>
> George asks "where?" I don't know. We need a marketplace, an agora. We
> need a place of trust and safety. Possibly we need a virtual hammam to
> which could be brought naked ideas?
>
> Setting up another new space is always problematic, but trust is a very
> expensive thing to lose. Trust is in fact priceless: you cannot buy it. It
> will grow back by itself given a favourable environment, but the current
> environment is unfavourable to the point of being toxic. What is needed is
> an "honest broker" who can be trusted, by everyone, not to build empires
> and to insist on fair play. And to finance the enterprise? The cost of
> maintaining the space could be provided in equal shares by all of the large
> enterprises for whom the Internet is a source of revenue - as a free gift -
> the money to be scrupulously and publicly audited annually.
>
> This is an attempt to look at the problem from a different direction.
>
> Deirdre
>
>
>
>
> On 26 November 2013 08:27, Mawaki Chango <kichango at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Nov 25, 2013 at 4:53 PM, Deirdre Williams <
>> williams.deirdre at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> I began this message 12 days ago in response to a thread started by
>>> Michael Gurstein
>>> Let's Get Real Folks--Re: [governance] Re: [bestbits] DISCLOSURE REQUEST
>>> Re: Funding Available for Strengthening Civil Society
>>> I gave up. Now I am encouraged to try again by this new thread
>>> Re: [governance] Inter-stakeholder issues in a multi-stakeholder
>>> environment
>>> begun by George Sadowsky.
>>>
>>> Is there any way to shift the focus from the people to the issues?
>>> In the final analysis everyone belongs to civil society. That point was
>>> made by a representative of a local telecommunications company at a recent
>>> workshop on IXPs held in Saint Lucia. As he said, his children also query
>>> the speed of the Internet at home when they have to do their homework. The
>>> only people excluded from civil society are incarcerated prisoners, and
>>> that also is a statement that can be questioned. If I understand him
>>> correctly George Sadowsky is making the same point. Civil society is us -
>>> all of us.
>>>
>>
>> Sure! We may declare everybody is CS and expect any institutional policy
>> process to open mike to whoever walks in and requests to speak as CS. From
>> my part, I was working on the basis of assumptions I thought were widely
>> recognized as part of the current landscape --and even an inevitable part.
>> If we want to talk about _multistakeholder_ processes, then we cannot but
>> recognize multiple stakeholders, thus boundaries. If we have set up IGC as
>> a membership structure, then we have necessarily identified criteria for
>> membership, thus boundaries. Mine was an attempt to clarify and even extend
>> those inevitable boundaries (based on our operating assumptions); I didn't
>> participate in creating them and am not necessarily advocating for
>> maintaining or reinforcing them. I can content myself with any other viable
>> way to make my voice and voices of any people with legitimate concerns
>> heard and taken into account.
>> I think I have said all what I had to say on this topic.
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Mawaki
>>
> .....
>
>
> --
> “The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William
> Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979
>
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