[WSIS Edu] El foro del internet/internet forum/forum internet

[Meigs]

Dear colleagues

For those of you not on the plenary list, let me transmit the report made by
Milton Mueller on what happened last week at the IGF meeting. Do you think
our education and research taskforce should submit a theme, as is implied?
Which one should it be? All this taking into account that we have to stay
mobilized for the e-learning and capacity building action lines...

Divina


Chers collègues
Pour ceux d'entre vous qui ne seriez pas sur la liste de plénière, veuilez
trouver ci-dessous le rapport fait par Milton Mueller sur ce qui s'est
produit à Genève la semaine dernière, pour la préparation du forum sur la
gouvernance d'internet. Pensez-vous que la coalition éducation et recherche
doive soumettre un thème? Et lequel?  Ceci en gardant àl'esprit que nous
devons rester mobilisés sur les lignes d'action prioritaire e-learning et
développement des capacités...

Divina

Estimados amigos de la lista
Para los  de ustedes que no estarían sobre la lista de plenaria, os mando
más abajo el informe hecho por Milton Mueller sobre lo que se produjo en
Ginebra la semana pasada, para la preparación del foro sobre la gobernanza
de internet. ¿ Piensan usteds que la coalición educación y investigacion
deberia someter un tema? Y cual? Esto guardando  claro  que debemos quedar
mobilizados sobre las líneas de acción prioritaria e-learning y desarrollo
de las capacidades...

Divina

Internet Governance Forum Takes Shape After Geneva Consultations

Desai asks for advice on "themes" and program committee; no date set
for first meeting. IGP encourages civil society actors to submit preferred
"themes" such as human rights, freedom of expression and privacy,
as few governmental or business entities are interested in those topics.
Submissions should be sent to wgig at unog.ch.

February 20, 2006. The open consultation in Geneva on the emerging
Internet Governance Forum Feb. 16-17 managed to build consensus around a few
features 
of the new institution, including open participation, a 4-day time span for
the first 
meeting, and a structure that combines large plenaries with breakout groups.

The Chair of the meeting, India's Nitin Desai, concluded by issuing a call
for 
participants to propose a structure for the "multistakeholder group" that
would 
vet the Forum's agenda, and asked for more public input on the "themes" or
discussion topics for the agenda of the first meeting in Athens. The meeting
was marked by tensions over "multistakeholder governance" and efforts by
some governments and business interests to make certain topics off-limits to
the Forum.  

Nearly everyone who spoke gave rhetorical support to the "multistakeholder
principle" - the idea that governments, business and civil society should be
equal partners in developing policies through the IGF. In reality,
governments 
of all types constantly chafed at the new model, and repeatedly threatened
to 
revert to old ways. The government of Iran openly complained that it had to
listen to so many civil society voices. The European Union, though committed
enough to the principle to set up a special meeting with civil society
actors, 
had similar trouble accepting diverse views. Some governments even proposed
that the forum have three separate Bureaus, one for governments, one for
business, and one for civil society -- an idea that, if implemented, would
confine the different stakeholders to separate decision making silos and
eliminate 
true cross-sector dialogue. Nevertheless, the meeting itself was run on an
equal 
status basis.

Sharp exchanges took place over the nature and scope of the themes or issues
the IGF could take up. As expected, business and Western governments
urged the IGF to avoid anything controversial or anything that intersected
with 
the activities of existing international organizations. They tended to favor
spam 
and cybercrime as focal topics. Some complained that these participants
viewed 
the IGF as a once-off annual meeting rather than as a true policy
development 
process feeding into more authoritative venues. Brazil and other G77
nations, 
on the other hand, wanted to use the Forum to develop "public policy
principles" 
for the coordination of internet resources, and -- picking up on a proposal
from 
the IGP -- saw a role for it as a vehicle for the development of an Internet
framework convention. It became apparent that efforts by the EU and
Australia 
to keep the IGF away from those topics was motivated by their attempt to
resolve 
the unfinished WSIS business by means of private, bilateral, government-to-
government negotiations with the United States. Civil society actors present
at the 
meeting strongly opposed those efforts, noting that if the truly important
and 
controversial issues were removed from the Forum and confined to govt-govt
meetings, then para 72 of the WSIS agenda has been completely abandoned
and the Forum's promise of broader, more open and inclusive form of policy
development has been rendered hollow.

The structure of a IGF "Program Committee" or "Bureau" was another key area
of controversy. This would be the representative body designed to make
decisions 
about agenda and some content. IGP proposed a 12-person council, composed of
5 government representatives (one from each geographic region), 2 business,
2 civil 
society, and 2 academic/technical, plus the chair. Most Western governments,
the 
private sector and civil society supported a small body, which they
preferred to call 
a "program committee" in order to emphasize its limited powers. Some
governments,
however, wanted a larger body which they could populate with representatives
of 
their preference, turning the thing into a top-heavy and politicized
decision-making 
authority.

At the conclusion of the meeting, Desai summarized the results as follows:
 * A date for the first IGF will be announced in a few days.
 * The Forum will have open participation.
 * The first IGF meeting in Athens will take 4 days
 * There will be a plenary and space for smaller meetings.
 * Participants were asked to fix their ideas on three major themes and
transmit them 
to the Secretariat by March 31.
 * It will be a UN process and thus will need a host country agreement
 * There was no consensus on a management structure, or even on what to call
the representative decision making body. Desai did, however, rule out
separate bureaus. 
He asked participants (especially governments) to consider this issue and
respond by 
Feb. 28. Once the UN process constitutes it, they will solicit names from
the various
stakeholders and that will take several weeks.
 * In a victory for the civil society advocates, Desai concluded that the
text of the 
WSIS Agenda doesn't rule out any topic. What the Forum discusses, he said,
is 
just a matter of priorities.

There were strong demands for some kind of regional process to accompany
things. 
Desai noted that such a process can't get off the ground easily, as it must
involve 
the regional commissions.

All in all, the outlines of the new Forum are still hard to discern, but in
those areas 
where consensus was reached the results were not bad.

The Internet Governance Project
http://www.internetgovernance.org