[IRP] IRP Digest, Vol 12, Issue 39

[Fouad Bajwa]

Hi Everyone,

I have an interesting question for everyone and then some suggestions
for the statement that might play a practical impact.

The statement is pretty long to be read out and tackles issues in
detail and if we look at how the floor is managed during the open
consultation, this statement might not be read in one go.

There might be two ways to manage this, first, the statement be sent
to the IGF Secretariat for record and secondly, the statement be split
up to be read by our representatives as the issues come up and they
eventually will be because in the past open consultations, these
issues have come up and Civil Society has intervened in a very
organized manner being able to deliberate in a detailed manner with
arguments and counter arguments.

What do you think? I am really interested in our members making all
these statement components adequately delivered on the floor of the OC
so that all stakeholders present also get a chance to hear them,
intervene and deliberate on them and get these discussions recorded in
the transcript of the session.

If we look at the statements, I believe that the OC program will
provide such an schedule that these issues will be all covered. It
might also be appropriate to structure the components of the statement
in this manner as well. For example, this is just an assumption at the
moment but the first session might start on the subject of General
Organization and General Participation followed by Remote
Participation and then Emerging Key themes.

Secondly a few suggestions though they may be late:

> 1)      Emerging Key themes:
- Can we mention stakeholders from both developing and developed
regions/countries so that wide range can be strengthened and a
possible thought of who and from where can be countered?

>a.      The challenge for this coming year is to focus on how upholding human rights can be achieved in practice;
- Is it possible to add the word encouraged in the above phrase as "on
how upholding human rights can be encouraged and achieved in practice"

> b.      With this in mind we would like to see not only workshops but also main sessions that look more closely at what a 'human rights agenda',
- Is it possible that we mention "a main session" instead of "main
sessions" because I feel that this will be really achievable and once
a main session on HR is achieved, we can even decide to have it in
multiple phases throughout the day so efforts for one main session on
HR will possibly play in our right. Also, there is a need to request a
Super Workshop (a model originally suggested by Markus but for the
development agenda ) that provides the opportunity to have all
workshops on HR feed into this and then this feeding into a main
session on Human Rights (if we can achieve this as a main session
theme! We need everyone's support on this when the issue comes to the
floor). Is it possible to request this Super Workshop in this
statement.

Also, where it says " we think this year is the moment to broach more
specific questions or policy dilemmas within these broader themes", I
think you have an edge here because there have been legislations in EU
(reforms to the Telecom Act), UK (more strict legislation) and
Australia (the issue of illegal downloads and prosecutions) last year
that effect the freedoms of Internet users in those countries both
negatively and in some instances positively. This gives an edge to
bring into discussion to the floor since those
 stakeholders will also be there. What if we also add the issue of
legislations also in place somehow because that strengthens this
phrase that policy making is happening?

> And finally c.      The coalition is ready and willing to contribute to organizing and facilitating main sessions along these human rights related themes.
- We should possibly add "The coalition is ready and willing to
contribute to organizing and facilitating main sessions along these
human rights related themes |with other stakeholders|." Why add other
stakeholders because main sessions take together all three stakeholder
members of the multistakeholderism and this will be an encouragement
to stakeholders like Council of Europe and European Union to actively
participate. Now that Google has had its share of issues in China,
this is also an opportunity for companies like those to come in on
these issue because their rights were also breached?

>2)      General Organization:
- I have a clear reason to believe from my participation with all of
you in all meetings during the previous year leading to the IGF 2009
that all innovations suggested by CS including the HR issues and the
Development Agenda were ignored in the main session programming. These
interventions were given by the CS MAG representatives but still
ignored. Within this statement we should recognize the IGF as an open
space and that it ignored to accept the suggested innovations (that
have also been suggested in earlier years) and that these should now
be adopted as open spaces for dialogue evolve according to need of
stakeholders and that is what IGF's actual mandate lays out.

- This is also an opportunity to propose super workshops where
workshops on similar themes can report back and then feed into the
main sessions. This is possible because it was suggested by the
secretariat last year for the Development Agenda super workshop but we
couldn't get enough support for it within us. The same can be done for
the HR as mentioned earlier.

- Finally, this particular statement can be improved and reduced
because it feels repetitive in its parts and


>4)      General Participation:
- I'll leave the remote participation part because our members that
enable remote participation are very clear on what their needs and
requests are.

- In terms of general participation, we should immediately ask the IGF
Secretariat to furnish the statistics on participants with clear
stakeholder group distribution so that we are well aware of the total
number of participation in terms of developed/developing as well as
distribution of stakeholders from those regions so that we can
specifically assert the need for these improvements.

- The issue of youth and gender participation including regional
diversity is missing, please don't miss this issue. There were more
youth present from Arab world countries but lesser participation of
youth from other African States, South Asian, Asia Pacific, Central
Europe etc. and Women could be easily be given a head count which is
still very devastating in terms of participation because that has to
increased in upcoming meetings and activities.

> a.      set up more coherent - vertical and lateral - links between  discussions.....
- We have to suggest how to do it otherwise statements without
solutions are usually not picked up by the participation in general as
well as the Secretariat. This is a fundamental improvement that we CS
groups will have to bring forth because we are not behind others and
other stakeholders and we can, really, we can make possible solution
suggestions and that should be clearly reflected in our statements.

- There are some things that can be added but time constraints would
limit further editing? Would it?


-- 
Regards.
--------------------------
Fouad Bajwa
Advisor & Researcher
ICT4D & Internet Governance
Member Multistakeholder Advisory Group (IGF)
Member Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus (IGC)
My Blog: Internet's Governance
http://internetsgovernance.blogspot.com/
Follow my Tweets:
http://twitter.com/fouadbajwa
MAG Interview:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATVDW1tDZzA