[governance] Despite Renewal, the IGF is still on life support

[Deirdre Williams]

Last year at Joao Pessoa someone (and not a civil society someone)
suggested to me that civil society needed a reminder of the Civil Society
Declaration to the World Summit on the Information Society "Shaping
Information Societies for Human Needs" Unanimously Adopted by the WSIS
Civil Society Plenary on 8 December 2003
<https://www.itu.int/net/wsis/docs/geneva/civil-society-declaration.pdf> I
would suggest that the most important word in the heading is "Unanimously".
We seem to have moved away from a spirit of collaboration and co-operation
to one of confrontation. Thirteen years ago, in spite of its diversity,
civil society was able to adopt a declaration unanimously. Nowadays it
seems that we have been divided most effectively, and are being ruled. At
the end of his message in this thread Bill states the condition "... if
energies can be mobilized", but the energies won't be mobilised unless we
can concentrate on finding areas for collaboration and set aside the
business of defining our differences.
We were able to do it before. Can we find the discipline to do it again?
Deirdre

On 14 December 2016 at 06:59, parminder <parminder at itforchange.net> wrote:

>
>
> On Wednesday 14 December 2016 12:32 PM, Arsène Tungali wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
> An interesting article from Samantha Dickinson.
> http://blogs.cfr.org/cyber/2016/12/12/despite-renewal-the-internet-governance-forum-is-still-on-life-support/
>
> Any thoughts on her reflexions? Do you feel she is pessimistic about the future of the Internet? What's your take on the future of the IGF?
>
>
> Since there is a lot in the article about problems with IGF funding, let
> me remembered that in the CSTD WG on IGF improvements, it was just I and a
> few developing countries (sorry if this figure is under-reported and
> someone else too supported, but then it cant be more than 1 or 2 more) in
> the room that rooted for UN funding for the IGF -- all others were
> vehemently against it ... They should perhaps tell us why they took such a
> stand. In absence of such stable public funding for policy deliberation
> spaces - which is a simple and key democratic principle, it will have to
> depend on private funding, as now, which would obviously be "interested"
> funding, and come and go depending on whether the IGF is furthering those
> private interests or not.
>
> I take it to be a most unfortunate stand of IG actors - including a lot of
> civil society ones - to oppse stable Committed UN funding for the IGF.
>
> On an entirely unconnected note, I am in complete disagreement with
> Samantha, the author of this article, when she wants IGF to be more like an
> "electricity governance forum" or "road governance Forum" where users of
> electricity or roads do not come and discuss various uses of electricity
> and roads, but where, presumably, it is all about engineers discussing how
> electricity or roads are made and provided.  In this spirit, she will like
> to have Internet related human rights and trade issues to be discussed in
> HRC and WTO etc rather than in the IGF. Pushing for that IMHO would be the
> surest way to kill the IGF. IGF for me is most about how the Internet
> affects all sectors of the society. These affects, their nature and
> trajectories, are as much an Internet governance issues as a governance
> issue of that particular sector. But yes, it should be studies and dealt
> with in a manner that the two governance arenas connect and work together.
> For instance, IGF and global Internet norms/ policy making spaces must
> provide larger principles about Internet, data, algorithmic decision
> making, and so on, and within there larger social-political frameworks
> trade governance bodies should deal with trade related issues about
> Internet, data, software, etc...
>
> parminder
>
>
>
> What do you think is the main issue that needs to be focused on for the next IGF in Geneva next year?
>
> How do you think the IGF should do to not lose some stakeholders such as the Gov and the private sector?
>
> Please do share your thoughts.
>
> -----------------
> Arsène Tungali,
> @arsenebaguma+243 993810967 <+243%20993%20810%20967>
> GPG: 523644A0
> Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo
>
> Sent from my iPhone (excuse typos)
>
>
>
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-- 
“The fundamental cure for poverty is not money but knowledge" Sir William
Arthur Lewis, Nobel Prize Economics, 1979
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