[governance] Should the IGF be reformed?

Chris Prince Udochukwu Njoku udochukwu.njoku at unn.edu.ng
Wed Mar 21 23:27:02 EDT 2018


I like the submissions here so far. Although some of us have opposing views
regarding reforming the forum, I noticed that no person had objected to
Raul's assertion that the world was much better with the IGF than without
it!  This means that none is saying "To hell with IGF."

Also to me, the IGF is a good thing for many reasons, including Raul's,
Anriette's and Raoul's. I understand Ayden wants IGF reformed but he
doesn't believe reformation is possible. Before anyone can say whether
Ayden is right or wrong, and to help us answer Arsene's questions, let's
look at certain features of the IGF we have now.

1. There are too many movements and too much good sounding talk that
translates to only a few actions. It's a discussion forum; yes, but what
are or should be the aims of the discussions? It seems to me that many
participants are focused on either having a large retinue of travels or
enjoying travel funding.  Some others are satisfied with just organizing
sessions to display oratorial skills or to show they can organize sessions
in a high-level meeting.  What should be the outcomes of such sessions is
not a consideration. This links naturally to No. 2.

2. There are too many sessions. Raul mentioned this. This obscures the
priority attention and general participation some sessions deserve. It's
worse when an essential subject/topic have duplicate to quintiplicate or
more sessions. For example, over 5 Internet shutdowns sessions and about 6
sessions on fake news were held in IGF 2017. In most cases, what actually
separates one session's topic from another is the wording. As Raul
suggested, sessions should be limited to a number that allows somewhat
exhaustive discussions of subjects. In this way, participants can return
home with convictions for concrete actions.

3. Remote participants aren't given the same recognition as on-site
participants, added to the situation identified by Alex that only a few
persons participate remotely. The low statistics of remote participation
might be a result of the non-recognition. I had remote-participated in
sessions where my chat questions and/or submissions weren't replied to.
Yet, such international discussion meetings as IGF about Internet are an
excellent opportunity to authoritatively showcase and guarantee the virtual
property of the Internet which is central to its working and to any myriad
of benefits it can give.

4. So many important stakeholders are left out: a) populations that speak
only mother tongues; b) rural folks; c) low income people; d) the
physically challenged (which are often a mix of the other groups); e)
students; f) the uneducated / illiterate population; etc.  Most IGF
participants who claim or think they represent any of these people are not
true representatives. Mechanisms should be in place to make the forum more
inclusive.

5. Government delegates / participants in many cases are people who have no
authority to make recommendations or take decisions and don't even give
reports when they return to their countries after meeting.

6. Stakeholders who should be central in certain sessions are often absent
in the sessions. Is it proper that no African governments rep was present
in a session on Internet shutdowns taking a toll on Africa's economy?
That's just one example of sessions not having the appropriate participants
for productive discussions. Do we leave things that way?

7. IGF, regional IGFs and national IGFs appear to be operating in
isolation, independent of one another in practice. Themes of meetings are
often unrelated, neglecting the truth that one forum ought to be feeder
node to the next. This needs a remedy.

I strongly think CS reps in MAG have a duty to present these and other
shortcomings to MAG's discussions table. Depending on the strength of their
business cases and way any recommendations in those lines will be made,
since MAG doesn't take decisions for IGF, changes in favour are likely to
take place.

Contrary or more views needed.

CPU

On Wednesday, March 21, 2018, Alex Comninos <governance at lists.riseup.net>
wrote:
> Remote participation needs to become a real and appealing thing for the
IGF to become relevant.
> I have not taken part in IGFs since Bali due to geographical and
financial constraints.
> RP is always far in the background with almost no participants. It's also
really hard to actually get that terrible Cisco software working on
anything but a windows PC.
> I did do some serious RP for the Mexico IGF. It could be a very powerful
tool. One can easily monitor many sessions. Also one tends to be less
distracted by schmoozing and travel fatigue.
> The IGF has failed to communicate to the average netizen that it exists,
what it is, and that we are all stakeholders.
> On Mon, 19 Mar 2018, 20:40 Arsène Tungali, <governance at lists.riseup.net>
wrote:
>>
>>
https://www.internetsociety.org/blog/2018/03/lets-reform-igf-ensure-healthy-future/
>>
>> A blog from Raul (ISOC) about the need to reform the IGF. I know this is
what so many other people believe we should do. Let’s talk about it!
>>
>> Can we discuss what are the changes that we would like to see happen to
make the IGF as strong and powerful as it used to be? As of now, no one
know where the IGF 2018 will take place and we are in March! All i know and
heard from Chengetai is that they have 3 countries in mind but are yet to
decide!
>>
>> Now that the new MAG was announced, what are our expectations of its
members? What do you think of new and past members? What can we expect from
our CS representatives there?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Arsene
>>
>> -----------------
>> Arsène Tungali,
>> about.me/ArseneTungali
>> +243 993810967
>> GPG: 523644A0
>> Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo
>> Sent from my iPhone (excuse typos)
>> ---
>> To unsubscribe: <mailto:igc-unsubscribe at lists.riseup.net>
>> List help: <https://riseup.net/lists>
>>
>

-- 
CPU
_______________________________
----------------------------------------------------

*Chris Prince Udochukwu Njọkụ, Ph.D.*

E-learning specialist; Information and knowledge management expert;
Educator; ICT4D advocate; Researcher; Founder & President, Researchers on
ICTs in Higher Education in Africa (RICTHE Africa); Founder, ICT4TeLe (ICT
for Teaching and Learning - an e-learning initiative for educators and
allied workers)

Alternate e-mail: udochukwu.njoku at ieee.org,
dr.c.p.udochukwunjoku at outlook.com

Skype: pastoronmission;  Twitter: @DrCPUNjoku

Tel.: +234 8077227038, 8063450674, 8108218762

Project 1:  https://sites.google.com/a/unn.edu.ng/eteachingproject/

Project’s Facebook page:
https://www.facebook.com/ETeachingProjectUniversityofNigeria

Project 2:  https://sites.google.com/a/unn.edu.ng/nidnet

Blog: http://www.chrisprinceudochukwunjoku.blogspot.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prince.udochukwunjoku

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisprinceudochukwunjoku

 We mustn't remain with old ways of doing things, especially if they're not
yielding desired results.
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.igcaucus.org/pipermail/governance/attachments/20180322/b705b402/attachment.htm>


More information about the Governance mailing list