[bestbits] [governance] Re: Call for nominations for civil society representatives for the IGF Multistakeholder Advisory group (MAG)

[michael gurstein]

Coming in late to this discussion I want to support Daniel (and Deidre’s)
comments but also add that restricting funding support to those from LDC’s
is highly discriminatory on several levels.  While agreeing that
extraordinary efforts should be made to ensure as wide a diversity of
opinions as possible and that the inclusion of those from LDC’s needs to be
a funding priority given the overall absence of available local resources
for participation in these activities there is within this position the
assumption that those from the Developed Countries will themselves have
access to resources for participation.

 

While this is certainly true in many instances it is generally true only for
those with close affiliations of some sort to one or another of the major
institutional sources of funding—universities, major NGO’s, major donors,
more recently ICANN etc.  Of course, not all suitable and desirable
participants from DC’s will have such affiliations and it is at least
arguable that those with the most independent and critical perspectives are
those least likely to have such access to resources or to feel constrained
in their positions if they were to accept support from certain available
sources.

 

My feeling is that an appropriate funding formula would be based on overall
likelihood of effective and useful contribution where issues of
geographical, gender, and normative diversity are all equally included as
criteria.

 

M

 

From: bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net
[mailto:bestbits-request at lists.bestbits.net] On Behalf Of Daniel Pimienta
Sent: Tuesday, September 23, 2014 4:13 AM
To: Best Bits
Subject: Re: [bestbits] [governance] Re: Call for nominations for civil
society representatives for the IGF Multistakeholder Advisory group (MAG)

 

I support all the issues that Deirdre raises and would benefit immensely
from hearing about solutions for the problems she presents.


Mishi,

Back, beetween 2000 and 2005, we have been (quite succesfully I would say
from the many evaluations) experimenting methodologies for what we called
"Distance Participation" in the project MISTICA (Methodologies and Social
Impact of ICT in Latin America - http://funredes.org/mistica ) and at the
same time we were also experimenting with imbedding translation into virtual
community communication (to solve the second barreer for participation after
distance which is language). MISTICA was not multistakeholder by design (it
was centered on civil society) but indeed have make some interesting
contributions to democratic process in virtual spaces which could apply to
multi-stakeholder communities.

The following paper (which by the way was translated from Spanish by Deirdre
:-)) could give some insights to the whole process:
At the Boundaries of Ethics and Cultures
<http://funredes.org/mistica/english/cyberlibrary/thematic/icie/>  : Virtual
Communities as an Open Ended Process Carrying the Will for Social Change
(the  <http://funredes.org/mistica/english/cyberlibrary/thematic/icie/>
"MISTICA" experience) .

The method had nothing to do with the use of synchronous resources for
broadcasting the meeting; it was, by design, an asynchronous management
based on the following axiom:
even if a virtual community organize a face to face meeting the center of
gravity of the community remains virtual.
The whole design of the meeting was made with that principle in mind, e.g.
not allowing decisions be made by the lucky minority in face to face
encounters but keeping a whole community process for decision making. This
way of processing trigger many interesting consequences which warrant due
and democratic processes and, I would say, provoke a radical change in the
way face to face participants perceive their own participation.

This obviously requires to think the design of the meeting differently,
organizing delayed interactions after meeting sections, but that will keep
face to face participants in sync with the community and allow sometime some
interesting situation when a face to face participant can also interact by
the virtual asynchronius channel.

The same type of methodologies were also experimented at the same time by
colleagues working for Fondation pour le Progrès de l'Humanité in order to
manage the Alliance for a Responsible, Plureal and United World (
http://www.alliance21.org <http://www.alliance21.org/> ). The French article
on Wikipedia does refer to Distance Participation (see
http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alliance_pour_un_monde_responsable,_pluriel_et_
solidaire ).

If people are interested I coud offer more details off the list.


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