[governance] Final Report of CSCG Working Group

[Ian Peter]

(please circulate as appropriate to other lists)

On May 31 2016 a CSCG Working Group (CSCGWG) was established with the Terms of Reference below. This document is a Report of the Working Group's activities; comments on what we have been able to achieve follow the Terms of Reference.

I believe the Working Group has been a useful exercise, resulting in some improvements to the operations of CSCG and some clarifications of basic procedures. Many thanks go to all who participated and worked so well together.

TERMS OF REFERENCE 

To examine the current structure and mission of CSCG, and whether this structure and current membership is the best way to ensure that civil society representation is representative (including geographically, politically, and in respect of gender balance)

  1.. To consider in this examination whether a structure capable of receiving and administering funds to assist with civil society representatives attendance and travel should also be established

  2.. To consider workload including

    1.. The role of chair or co-chairs and rotation

    2.. whether it is in civil society’s best interest to rotate nomcom membership rather than continuance of one representative group making all decisions

    3.. liaison with other bodies to improve representivity in stakeholder selection procedure

  3.. To examine current selection procedures to see whether improvements should be made

  4.. To consider the role training could play in the future of CSCG

  5.. To consider whether this Working Group should continue in some form after delivering its report.

  6.. To report back to civil society networks with any resulting recommendations by August 31 2016

COMMENTS


TOR 1 - The question of a funding structure was discussed, and there was general agreement that this would be an excellent step forward. As regards a structure for this, it was generally thought this might best be done as a separate entity to CSCG; perhaps with CSCG members being trustees of such a body. Perhaps the entity might also be associated with a currently existing civil society body capable of receiving funds. In general, it was thought this was a substantial body of work which might best be addressed by a separate working group. 


TOR 2 - The discussion of workload resulted in some substantial changes which are now underway, including

    a.. new arrangements for chairs and co-chairs

    b.. two representatives per coalition member, and rotating nomcom membership

    c.. procedures for considering new members for CSCG

TOR 3 - A detailed review of selection procedures was undertaken, resulting in a review of existing procedures. The revised Procedures have been forwarded to CSCG for adoption.


TOR 4  -Training was discussed. There were no formal outcomes to this discussion, but we do recommend that the training discussion be continued forward, particularly with any working group established to look at a funding mechanism.


TOR 5 - The Working Group has decided that it should wind up its activities, and any new working group should be established by the newly seated CSCG if it considers it appropriate to do so. 


TOR 6 - This report is in fulfilment of this requirement.


As Chair of the Working Group, and as outgoing Chair of the CSCG, I would personally like to thank everyone who participated for their willingness to work together on this, their enthusiasm to see CSCG strengthened, and for the way they worked together to get these outcomes. I am sure that the work of this group will be useful to the future of CSCG.

And as this is likely to be my last post as Chair of the CSCG – my term expires in two weeks – I would also like to place on record my appreciation of the work undertaken by the current members of CSCG – Norbert Bollow, Robin Gross, Chat Garcia Ramilo, Nadira Alaraj, and Arsene Tungali. It's very easy to praise chairs of groups, but the reality is that the strength of CSCG comes down to the efforts of its member representatives, the trust they enjoy and engender for the operations of CSCG, and their considerable efforts, often in short time frames, to ensure the best possible civil society representation. Their efforts have required that they support inclusion of diverse voices, including opinions they may disagree with, in order to ensure that the wide range of voices within civil society are heard. Thanks also to their predecessors who got this exercise underway – many people have contributed to CSCG become a respected organisation. I am pleased to have been able to be part of its growth.


 

Ian Peter 
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