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One step forward, two steps back
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19/5/2009
With a steady influx of new progressive civil society voices at every renewal (this time including Fouad Bajwa, and last time Graciela Saleiman), the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) cannot forever hold off the momentum towards the eventual achievement of its mandate from the Tunis Agenda.
China seeks to end the IGF
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14/5/2009
The biggest bombshell out of yesterday's open consultation meeting came from China:We feel that the IGF has contributed a great deal in light of its historic mandate. ... But it's not enough for developing countries who don't have enough resources and don't have the capacities to participate in this kind of dialogue without further commitments being made, which is why the points of view of developing countries, especially when it comes to Internet governance, ... are not sufficiently reflected in our discussions, which is why we don't agree that the IGF should continue its mandate after the five years are up.
To what extent has the IGF addressed the mandate set out for it in the Tunis Agenda?
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23/3/2009
An excerpt from my answer to this question in response to the IGF's questionnaire on the continuation of the Forum:
Round tables proposed as the IGF's engine for outputs
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3/3/2009
Following on from the MAG meeting that took place last week after two days of open consultation, an official summary of the meeting has just been released. The most important development foreshadowed here takes forward two of the ideas brought up during the open consultation meeting: firstly that there are certain areas in which a consensus on the need for action has emerged or may emerge, and secondly that the IGF needs to evolve some structure that could produce proposals for such action.
IGF Procedure Proposal
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25/2/2009
Francis Muguet delivered this proposal to the open consultation meeting this week:
Comments on a maturing IGF from this week's consultation
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25/2/2009
Here are summaries of some of what I consider the most insightful criticisms and suggestions about the IGF that came up at this week's open consultation meeting in Geneva, for those who weren't able to attend personally or virtually, and can't be bothered wading through the transcript or synthesis paper. The overall theme of the comments was that as the IGF is maturing, it is time to raise the level of the discussion, and at the same time to narrow the number of parallel sessions in which it takes place.
Jonathan Zittrain on the Internet Governance Forum
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28/1/2009
Here is a pertinent extract from Jonathan Zittrain's The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It, which I'm currently reviewing (a bit late, I know) for the Journal of Information Technology and Politics.
"You have talked enough. Get a move on now and do something."
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11/12/2008
The quote from Ghandi, "First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win," may have become a cliché, but it seems apposite to describe Nitin Desai's about-face on the capacity of the IGF to seek consensus on policy recommendations. By the time of the taking stock session at Hyderabad, it had become clear that even Desai could not continue to resist the tide of opinion that the IGF should move beyond mere discussion to policy development. Summarising the clearly expressed views of speakers such as Alun Michael from the UK, Everton Lucero from Brazil, Parminder Singh from IT for Change and Bertrand de la Chapelle from France, he asked,
Conclusions on Hyderabad IGF
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7/12/2008
The third meeting of the Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad was notable for having introduced a few, mostly long-awaited, innovations that inch the forum further towards the model of an effective multi-stakeholder policy development institution described in the Tunis Agenda. However in each case the limitations or flaws of these innovations have detracted from their potential. Consider the following:
Day 4 of Hyderabad IGF - controversy and departure
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6/12/2008
I have to confess I attended no other sessions today than The Role and Mandate of the IGF, due to work commitments and an early departure. This session was chaired by Lee McKnight of the Internet Governance Project, who had earlier caused scandal by taking a vote (shock, horror!) at the workshop on The Future of ICANN: After the JPA, What?. So this was bound to be a controversial session - and my paper the most of all, at least according to my spies in the audience. But is anything that I said really that controversial? Read below and judge for yourself.
