[Mmwg] MMWG contribution to consultations

Wed Feb 15 18:39:59 GMT 2006

Hi all,

I support Jacqueline's proposal for an MMWG contribution. The proposed
Agenda for the consultations (see :
http://www.intgovforum.org/agendafeb2006.htm) is :

   1. Adoption of the Agenda
   2. Nature, character and structure of the IGF
   3. Substantive priorities
   4. The first meeting of the IGF
   5. Any other business

As the Internet Governance Caucus will produce a general statement on the
Forum that will directly relate to item 2 (see parallel thread on the
governance list) I think we could focus on practical suggestions for the
Athens meeting to feed into item 4.

I believe that if we move as quickly as possible into practical - and
hopefully obvious - elements for Athens, it will help establish precedents
and move our agenda forward. The general debate (items 2 and 3) will
initially go on for a while, say, up to the end of the first day probably
without producing a real agreement on formal procedures for the Forum.
Therefore, the stage will be set to put forward a few concrete proposals for
the Athens meeting. After all, the title of the Consultations is :
"Consultations on the convening of the IGF" which could be interpreted as
concerning ultimately the Athens meeting.

In light of the discussions in Malta, I suggest to build on the following
concrete elements :

 1) let's prove the movement by walking, ie. by organizing the first meeting
in *Athens as an open conference*, accessible to all stakeholders with a
simple registration process with no prior accreditation (like the former UN
ICT TF Open Forum on Internet Governance in New York in March 2004)

2) let Athens be a three-day event organized around three components :

   - *two plenary meetings* :* *one at the beggining (general debate) and
   one at the end (wrap-up session), they coould last half a day each, or the
   first one could be a full day;
   - *a few (5-6 for instance) thematic break-out sessions *around a few
   themes explicitely mentionned in the Tunis Agenda section devoted to
   Internet Governance; this would facilitate the structuring of future
   discussions around "thematic threads"
   - a special *"poster session"* (half a day for instance or three
   hours) with precise 3 or 5 minutes slots (ie a total of 30-60 presentations)
   for participants to indicate among the list of issues mentionned in the
   Geneva Plan of Action and Tunis Agenda, those they would like to see
   addressed by the IGF; a sort of "call for posters" would be issued in
   advance and submissions should indicate the nature of the problem, the
   rationale for seeing it addressed withn the IGF and the proposed way
   forward; Nota : the strict 3-5 minutes format was adopted very efficiently
   in the WSIS' first phase Regional conference in Tokyo in Janary 2003

3) the Athens Forum should heavily rely upon the *use of information
technologies* (online tools, teleconferences, even videoconference if
possible) to facilitate participation of actors form all sectors and all
regions.  In particular, wireless connectivity, webcasting and most
importantly real-time captionning are strongly requested.

 4) The forum should *take inspiration from the way the Internet itself
works *: allowing heterogeneous governance mechanisms to
interface/coordinate, in the same way the Internet allows the
interoperability of heterogeneous communications networks. The Forum allow a
network of activities undertaken by the various stakeholders, respecting a
comon set of "protocols" indicating :
- how each activity is set up
- how it is conducted
- how it interfaces (input and output) with other activities

5) *Financing* of Forum activities should be scalable, multi-stakeholder,
distributed and distinguish different elements :

   - the permanent financing of *a small secretariat* : financial
   contributions as well as in kind (in particular people on secondment from
   various entities); the secretariat itself coould be progressively
   distributed around the world in several locations according to local support
   (analogy with the multi-located Team of the W3C)
   - the financing of *each annual meeting* (contributions from a host
   county, sponsoring and possibly registration fees for participants); the
   annual meeting (there could be several but this point is open) could either
   be alwaysint he same place or, preferably in my view, be held in different
   locations each year (one continent per year in the first five years of the
   Forum)
   - the financing of *activities related to each Thematic Thread* :
   seminars, conferences, working groups, drafting groups if recommendations;
   particularly interested actors could pool support for issues they are
   interested in,with clear provisions to handle potential conflicts of
   interest and strict disclosure and transparency of contributions;
   - the financing of *a capacity-building and inclusiveness
initiative*towards participants from developing countries or needy
ones in developed
   areas; the idea here would be to have three dedicated funds established
   within each constituency : one among governments, one among private sector
   and one among civil society (you could even have a fourth to facilitate
   participationof small international agencies); each fund would be
   contributed to by the richest actors of each constituency in order to help
   the participation of their less favorized members (rich companies for small
   one, rich governments for poor ones, etc...)

On the last set of points, interventions in the next two days could focus on
the last element (the creation of three funds) if there is agreement among
ourselves; the other points would just be addressed lightly or kept for
future interventions if there is no consensus.

This list of elements is very detailed and could be shortened for
distribution. But I wanted to present the main ideas I intend to put forward
on a personnal basis. I hope this helps the definition of a common statement
within this MMWG group. Pick what you want !

Best

Bertrand

  On 2/15/06, Jacqueline Morris <jam at jacquelinemorris.com> wrote:
>
> Hi
> Rather than working on a total mechanism and not saying anything in public
> until we get that sorted, would it be interesting to ppl for us to pull
> together some BASIC PRINCIPLES as a first step that we can present at the
> consultation that we think that any mechanism needs to subscribe to? We have
> articulated some, I believe, and that might be an easy consensus first step.
>
>
> --
> Jacqueline Morris
> www.carnivalondenet.com
> T&T Music and videos online
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>
>
>
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