[governance] [bestbits] February 19-20 open consultation and MAG meeting

[Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro]

For those who may not have the time to go through the link and thread on change in dates for the IGF.  Many thanks Bill for providing the link and allowing us to read and follow the discussions.

 I must say that Fiona Alexander and Olga Cavalli showed sensitivity and wisdom in engaging in an inquiry with the host country.

Whilst Markus made an assessment an interpretation that the change of dates was diplomatic speak for finding a lower cost option, I found that other MAG members were agreeing without engaging in an inquiry.

I like how Fiona raised that the "vacation time" is not a legitimate reason to justify a shift in times. I would respond to Mark (UK Govt) who raised the issue of vacation time interfering with leaders being on vacation is that we live in a global world. If leaders feel that it is a priority event, then they will rearrange their schedules to attend.

Patrick mentioned that the MAG should start looking for other countries since Turkey has backtracked on the time issue etc to which he was reminded by Markus that the MAG does not have the remit to do that.

It appears that they are trying to negotiate the times. Perhaps one way the IGF Secretariat can deal with the change in dates issue is where IGF venues are picked for the next 3 years giving countries time to raise funds, allocate resources and prepare in advance.

The other option is to have an IGF once every two years and allow the local, nation, regional IGF processes to feed into the IGF instead of just having it annually for the sake of having it annually.

Regards,
Sala

Sent from my iPad

> On Jan 31, 2014, at 1:31 AM, William Drake <wjdrake at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Hi
> 
> Nobody is debating whether any country is perfect, the Syrian refugee crisis, or anything similar (?).  There is a discussion in the MAG about the scheduling of the IGF meeting, and the possible consequences for the IGF in terms of attendance, political support, costs to participants, the planning process, etc. of it being unilaterally changed to mid-August.  If anyone is interested, the discussion is on the open MAG list, http://mail.intgovforum.org/pipermail/igfmaglist_intgovforum.org/
> 
> Best,
> 
> Bill
> 
> 
>> On Jan 30, 2014, at 10:43 AM, Nick Ashton-Hart <nashton at ccianet.org> wrote:
>> 
>> - Best Bits (double-posting)
>> 
>> +1 to these sentiments. No country is perfect.
>> 
>> 
>>> On 29 Jan 2014, at 23:31, Salanieta T. Tamanikaiwaimaro <salanieta.tamanikaiwaimaro at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>> When we complain about slight inconvenience when there are thousands of displaced persons who suffer daily from the loss of a family member and destruction to their communities, for some reason it just seems trivial especially if what is being debated and objected to is "vacation time".
>>> 
>>> I mean like "seriously" "what the funny?"
>> 
> 
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