FW: [GAID Advisors] RE: [Gaid-cs] Suggested Guidelines for Nominations Committee - Renewalof GAID Steering Committee

Fri Aug 24 00:00:57 BST 2007

Phillipe and all,

Further to my earlier note I have just now approached a colleague with
both a global perspective and very important grassroots experience about
being nominated for the GAID Steering Committee. Here is his reply: 

Dear Michael

Thanks for the idea, but I'm hesitating, because I haven't a strong
financial basis for continual international work...

My feeling is that many (most?) of those who might be most qualified and
useful in their participation on the GAID from a CS perspective would
necessarily disqualify themselves for similar reasons.  Unless we as CS
deal with this issue then I think our effective participation within the
GAID and thus the GAID's effectiveness itself will be significantly
diminished.

I'm not clear how this should/could be dealt with in light of the
request from the GAID and the tight time-lines presented, but this issue
has been raised with the GAID at various times and I think now would be
a good time to re-open these discussions with the GAID secretariat and
to work actively towards a resolution. 

Best,

Mike Gurstein  

Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.

Centre for Community Informatics Research, Training and Development

Ste. 2101-989 Nelson St.

Vancouver BC CANADA v6z 2s1

 <http://www.communityinformatics.net/>
http://www.communityinformatics.net

tel./fax +1-604-602-0624

-----Original Message-----
From: gaid-cs-bounces at wsis-cs.org [mailto:gaid-cs-bounces at wsis-cs.org]
On Behalf Of CONGO - Philippe Dam
Sent: August 22, 2007 10:45 AM
To: 'CONGO WSIS - Philippe Dam'; 'GAID-CS'
Cc: tracey at traceynaughton.com; bruck at research.at;
rbissio at chasque.apc.org; Henning.Wegener at t-online.de; ershova at iis.ru;
alain.berranger at gmail.com; rinalia at gkpsecretariat.org.my;
rodrigob at cdi.org.br; titi at mindset.co.za; anriette at apc.org;
Astrid.Dufborg at gesci.org; hiroshikawamura at attglobal.net;
dcogburn at syr.edu; george.sadowsky at attglobal.net; gurstein at ADM.NJIT.EDU;
bnnrc at siriusbb.com; kayadi at planet.tn; st.amour at isoc.org; iza at anr.org;
jrmathia at maxwell.syr.edu;
wolfgang.kleinwaechter at medienkomm.uni-halle.de;
pape.diouf at iued.unige.ch; drake at hei.unige.ch; qshatti at safat.kisr.edu.kw
Subject: [Gaid-cs] Suggested Guidelines for Nominations Committee -
Renewalof GAID Steering Committee
Importance: High

Dear all, 

As you know the GAID Secretariat recently circulated a note on the
partial renewal of the membership of the GAID governing structures. In
particular, it was announced that one of the two seats reserved to civil
society representatives in the GAID Steering Committee should be renewed
before the next Steering Meeting taking place in New York on 19
September 2007. The GAID Secretariat invited civil society to identify
nominations from among their constituencies, through a self-nomination
process. 

Timelines for the renewal of Steering Committee membership are as
follows:

GAID Steering Committee

Deadline for outgoing members 

to express their interest in a renewal 

of their terms

15 August 2007

Deadline for new nominations for membership 

1 September 2007

Date of the membership renewal 

19 September 2007

New York

Based on the experiences of the CS Nomination Committee for the IGF
Advisory Group and GAID governing structures in the first half of 2006,
we proposed that we use of similar model for this process. However, due
to the very short time available and to the fact that only one seat is
going to be renewed, and in order to increase the representative
ownership of the nomination to be done, we also proposed that a
Nominations Committee to submit a recommendation for the member of the
Steering Committee should be identified among the outgoing civil society
members of the GAID Strategy Council and High Level Panel of Advisors.
Those two proposals received several supports among CS constituencies. 

Selection of the CS Nominations Committee 

Members of the Nominations Committee will preferably have to demonstrate
a long-standing engagement in the Information Society-related processes
within the UN, in particular WSIS, as well as a good experience of civil
society self-organised working processes. 

Out of the 25 civil society members of the Strategy Council and of the
High Level Panel of Advisors (see list attached), at least 5 individuals
should volunteer to serve within the Nominations Committee. The final
number of members of the Nominations Committee could be flexible
(preferably between 5 and 10 persons). They would act in their personal
capacities. 

Volunteers should announce their wish to participate in the Nominations
Committee no later than Friday 24 August 2007 at 12:00 am GMT. The
NomCom's final recommendations would have to be forwarded to the GAID
Executive Director no later than 1 September 2007. 

The work of the Nominations Committee would be facilitated by a
non-voting facilitator (I propose my service to serve in that capacity
and to use the CONGO website for more transparency and updates if
needed). 

Thanks for your attention. We will try to make it as simple as possible
for volunteers serving in the nominations committee. I'll circulate some
more information on proposed timelines for identification of candidates
and proposed guidelines for selection tomorrow.

Looking forward to your reactions. 

All the best, 

Philippe

!DSPAM:2676,46cdf9bf267901188379713! 
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