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

Sat Nov 30 16:51:27 EST 2013

Dear All,

Thinking in line with Deirde "honest Broker" and Mawaki on "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".

Hope this is food for thoughts.
.

Sonigitu Ekpe

Mobile +234 805 0232 469    Office + 234 802 751 0179
 "LIFE is all about love and thanksgiving"

On Sat, Nov 30, 2013 at 11:19 AM, Mawaki Chango <kichango at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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