[governance] [bestbits] Civil society transparency

[BANGO]

Civil Society Transparency? Must be careful that you are not setting up some mechanism that leads to elitism and that would pass itself off as representing civil society, but which will fail to represent the grassroots especially. What would be the motive for NGOs, especially grassroots, to comply with a transparency register?

 

Personally, I am more concerned with those who seek to set up power bases. Civil society is not about power bases because power bases work against civil society. We must seek to understand the concept of civil society. It is not homogenous, it is about diversity.

 

ROK

 

From: governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org [mailto:governance-request at lists.igcaucus.org] On Behalf Of Carlos A. Afonso
Sent: Sunday, May 24, 2015 8:59 AM
To: parminder
Cc: Ian Peter; governance at lists.igcaucus.org; BestBitsList; Forum at Justnetcoalition. Org; A general information sharing space for the APC Community.
Subject: Re: [governance] [bestbits] Civil society transparency

 

Parm, all this fuzz just to expel Nick??

 

--c.a.

sent from a dumbphone


On 24/05/2015, at 09:31, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net <mailto:parminder at itforchange.net> > wrote:

Ian, and reps of civil society networks on the Civil Society Coordination Group (CSCG) ,

I propose that CSCG sets up a civil society transparency project, somewhat on the lines of the EU Transparency Register, pl see http://ec.europa.eu/transparencyregister/public/homePage.do .

It should in fact go beyond the EU initiative which is a general one for all lobbying groups, whereas we here are concerned with civil society which should set the highest example of transparency and accountability. The 'register' can have self filled information on objectives of an organisation, principles followed by it, if any, its funding, partners, and so on.... 

This is at present just my proposal, but I hope one or more civil society networks in the IG space can own it and push it... CSCG would be well placed to run this project as a neutral space so that there is no accusation of bias that any such initiative is being employed for partisan purposes. In any case, a simple initiative for openness, transparency and accountability can hardly be partisan.

The register can have optional higher level features whereby a group/ org can declare its means of public accountability, whether and how its internal governance is done, how matters can be taken by with their oversight bodies, like board etc, and whether they have any means whereby they respond to public question on their work, etc.

For such genuine cases where such transparency can harm an organisations work, or security, such organisations, and only such organisations, can be exempted employing a clear process and set of criteria.

Remember, both the UN report on improvements to the IGF and the NetMundial Statement highlight the issue of transparency. I also recently read in these lists how we should make bridges with the OpenGov movement which is almost wholly about this one thing. Time we begin practising what we preach. 

I look forward to hear responses to this proposal..

parminder 

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