[WSIS CS-Plenary] Summary of UN ICT Task Force Policy and Governance WG Meeting, 14 April 2005, Dublin

[Ralf Bendrath]

For your information - the summary of the Dublin meeting on governance. 
Mainly dealing with ICT Task Force follow-up (Global Alliance) and 
Internet Governance.

Best, Ralf

-------- Original-Nachricht --------
Betreff: [ictpolicy] 	Summary of ICT Policy and Governance Working Group 
Meeting, 14	April 2005, Dublin
Datum: Fri, 27 May 2005 15:31:17 -0400
Von: Serge Kapto <kapto at un.org>
Antwort an: ICT Policy and Governance Working Group 
<ictpolicy at unicttaskforce.org>
An: ictpolicy at unicttaskforce.org


Dear Colleagues,

Please see attached a summary of the working group meeting convened during
the Eighth Meeting of the Task Force last april.

Comments are welcome.

Best regards,
Serge

---------------------
(Text converted from MS Word Document - Ralf)

Agenda Working Group 1, UN ICT Task Force Meeting, Dublin, April 14

1.	Welcome by Working Group 1 convener, the Association for Progressive 
Communications (Anriette Esterhuysen)
2.	Recap of WG1 meeting in Berlin, Nov 2004
3.	Update on research into developing country impact and participation in 
the WSIS (David Souter/Karen Banks for APC)
4.	Reports on WG1 member activities
5.	The Global Alliance: should it be established, and if yes, how, by 
whom, for how long, and for what purpose?

Notes

3. Update on research into developing country impact and participation in 
the WSIS (David Souter/Karen Banks for APC)

David Souter updated the WG members on the research APC is conducting on 
developing country participation in the WSIS process.

The objective of the discussion was to inform members of the research, 
partly funded by the UNICT Task Force, and get feedback on perspectives 
and issues that should be included in the ongoing work.  Research, in the 
form of face-to-face interviews and responses to written questionnaires, 
began in Accra, Feb 2005, during the African WSIS regional meeting.

WG1 members responded with very valuable points including focusing on 
issues such as:

-	Group of Friends of the chair: what is the impact/influence of the 
countries  - Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Senegal, Ghana - that participate in 
this working group (and for that matter, those participating in the two 
taskforces on financing mechanisms and internet governance)
-	Coalition building: what has been the relative effectiveness of the 
different regional groupings and their impact on the process. The 
experiences of Africa and the GRULAC (Group of Latin American and 
Caribbean countries) have been very different in the process
-	Impact of decisions:  what is the impact of decisions which will emerge 
from WSIS on developing countries
-	Digital Solidarity Fund:  have discussions about the DSF detracted from 
other aspects of the broader financing mechanisms discourse and negotiation.
-	Role of Secretariat:  it was pointed out that the role of the WSIS 
secretariat should be covered by the research as this often has major, but 
hidden impacts

4. Reports on WG1 member activities in relation to Internet Governance

UNECA: has run a series of workshops on Internet Governance and 
multi-stakeholder partnerships and will host a workshop on Internet 
Governance and capacity building in Addis in July 2005

German government: in partnership with Siemens, hosting 5 sub-regional 
level internet governance capacity building workshops. This was in direct 
response to South Africa’s request for support for developing country 
capacity building to engage in IG debates. The workshops are targeted at 
governments.

Cairo (held); Cape Town (May 18th); WSIS LAC meeting, Rio (June 7th); 
South East Asia  (possibly Hanoi) dates tbc; and Eastern Europe (dates tbc)

WGIG: A brief report on the WGIG’s process was given by Karen Banks

Prof. Klaus W. Grewlich, Ambassador, German Federal Foreign Office, Member 
of the Panel of Advisors to the UN ICT Task Force) noted that WGIG hasn't 
dealt with governance tools, treaties, conventions, hybrids etc and would 
need to define the right mix and match of these tools
http://www.unicttaskforce.org/perl/documents.pl?id=1492

John Mathieson of the Internet Governance Project 
(www.internetgovernance.org) shared information about their proposals for 
ICANN reform: What to do About ICANN: A Proposal for Structural Reform - 
http://dcc.syr.edu/miscarticles/IGP-ICANNReform.pdf and that the IGP is 
interested in internet governance capacity building in the longer term.

Note – since this report, the IGP has created an archive of all proposals 
in the public domain dealing with internet governance.

Ayesha Hassan of the ICC shared details of resources focusing on the 
policy and practice work in helping governments in applying laws/putting 
them into place.

ICC Commission on E-Business, IT and Telecoms:

Toolkits for policymakers, businesses and other stakeholders on a range of 
issues [security, security for SMEs, privacy, telecoms liberalization, 
government IT procurement]
http://www.iccwbo.org/home/menu_electronic_business.asp#tools

Recent policy statements [VoIP, IPv6 and more]
http://www.iccwbo.org/home/menu_electronic_business.asp#policystatement

Policy statements from before 2003:
http://www.iccwbo.org/home/e_business/menu_electronic_business_before2004.htm#policystatementbefore

Nii Quaynor from Afrinic/Afnog suggested that Afrinic could collaborate 
with other IG capacity building initiatives (http://www.afrinic.net/)

UNECE will host a ministerial meeting in South East Europe, June 30/july 1 
with UNDP and stability pact (EU funded). Intended to be a preparatory 
meeting for WSIS, but member states would like to focus also on broadband 
policy.

5. The Global Alliance: should it be established, and if yes, how, by 
whom, for how long, and for what purpose?

Participants broke out into small ‘buzz’ groups, no more than 3-4 people, 
and were asked to respond to the following questions. A summary of the 
session was shared with the closed session of the UNICT TF and all WG1 
members felt this was a very worthwhile exercise. The questions the groups 
addressed were:

1)	What was valuable about the UN ICT Task Force?
2)	With hindsight, what could have been done better?
3)	Should there be a Global Alliance for ICT and Development?
4)	What should such a Global Alliance do?
5)	How should it work?

A synthesis of the responses is below:

1)	What was valuable about the UN ICT Task Force?

“Level playing field”: Brought various stakeholders (governments, private, 
civil society, IGOs) on a reasonably equal footing, at least in the Open 
Fora (more than in the TF itself probably)

Perspectives and expertise: space for new vision and perspectives, and 
benefited from the special expertise of various members in areas such as 
ODA, education, etc.. Provided opportunity to address, for example, the 
linkages between financing/MDGs and ICTs

Open debate: An open forum allowing people to disagree with one another. 
In the case of the 5th TF meeting, the Open Fora ended up “driving” the 
Task Force, rather than vice versa, which was good.

Spin-offs: Catalyzed thematic networks such as GESCI, with own support 
mechanisms, and active convenors;

Networking: Creation of regional human networks/nodes. It brought together 
UN regional commissions and other agencies, in a way that produced more 
intense cooperation than other processes to date. This has been a very 
valuable contribution as interagency collaboration in the UN is difficult 
to achieve and maintain.

2)	With Hindsight, what could have been done better ?

Clearer more transparent processes: Identify, scope of operations and 
constitution could have been clearer and it’s development more 
transparent, It was not always clear on what basis members were invited to 
join the TF, in what capacity, and whether self-selected or not. The 
formation process could heave been more interactive and inclusive for 
civil society and private sector actors (a more bottom-up selection 
process instead of picking-up of personalities)’

Better preparation: Meetings could have benefited from more structured 
preparation of agenda, background paper development and member preparation 
for the events

Role and diversification of private sector membership: the UNICT TF has 
attracted companies that have prioritised ICTD as part of their model, but 
we need more than participation in discussions and showcasing of 
activities. Several have demonstrated a real commitment, reflected in how 
they are doing business. We would hope in future to have more medium 
sized, developing country participation. The lack of a strong ICD 
framework initially may have prevented more developing country participation

More facilitation of collaborative projects: GESCI is a great example, but 
there should have been many more

More assessment of member benefits: how have members benefited from 
participation in the alliance. Need to assess whether the TF has responded 
to specific needs, relevant in terms of cost efficiency

3)	Should there be a Global Alliance for ICT and Development ?

All responded ‘Yes’, there is a need at least for a multi-stakeholder 
policy forum, and most actors do not want the past efforts to be wasted. 
However, there were various conditions or concerns, which qualified the 
general positive reaction:

Yes:
-	as long as there's no ‘mission creep’ and bureaucratisation for it’s own 
sake
-	if there is reasonable parity, truly equal committed partners, and more 
diverse membership
-	provided it has clear objectives and a solid development framework
-	with the political support of the UN

4)	What should such a Global alliance do ?

No direct operational role; rather an open, facilitating framework for 
discussion. Its multi-stakeholder nature will give it legitimacy. Its role 
is to help actors establish clear common pictures, goals and methods on a 
given subject.

Main focus could be : ICT for Development (i.e. : leveraging ICTs tools in 
existing policies AND reforming the way aid is allocated and monitored). 
The Alliance could also expand to : the Development of the Information 
Society (general policy issues)

The number of policy issues to address will only expand. They will be 
handled in numerous parallel fora, including various international 
organizations. The Global Alliance could play a key preparatory role for 
such discussions in the following dimensions :

•	Agenda-setting : Help actors collectively identify issues of interest or 
concern
•	Convening : gathering all concerned stakeholders around each theme
•	Catalyzing : facilitate the formation of thematic networks and clusters
•	Improving Coherence : help agencies and other actors distribute 
responsibilities among themselves on overlapping issues
•	Capacity Building : raising awareness and training, particularly in 
developing countries, both for governments and other actors
•	Produce Concrete Recommendations : suggest initiatives or specific actions

The Global Alliance could also provide a framework to address competency 
disputes between competing bodies on a given theme.

5)	How should it work ?

-	effective interaction and cooperation with the private sector/civil 
society and academics
-	truly universal, inclusive, and multi-stakeholder
-	have a close working relationship with whoever will govern the 
implementation of the WSIS Declaration and Plan of Action
-	no end date but should undergo regular review and evaluation of work 
with the possibility to decide whether work should continue
-	it would need a secretariat

Process of constitution

-	can't be hand picked
-	needs to be some nomination process
-	constituencies should be consulted
-	criteria for nomination/selection should be transparent
-	need to be able to work with the wider constituencies in an ongoing basis
-	forums are a good way for non-members to participate

END

Appendix

Specific comments from Bertrand de la Chappelle:

Online-Offline : The architecture should use a combination of offline 
meetings and online tools (synchronous and asynchronous).

Self-sustained thematic networks : like Gesci, they should find their own 
financial and human resources and become self-supported. Governments or 
other actors could volunteer to host, support or lead. Governance of each 
network should be multi-stakeholder (three co-coordinators for instance?).

Structuration in Clusters : Thematic networks could be grouped into larger 
clusters (for instance a Health cluster might contain several initiatives 
or networks). A group of Cluster convenors could be established to 
facilitate ongoing work.

Thematic meetings : several thematic meeting (by clusters for instance) 
could be organized during the course of the year at the discretion of the 
respective Thematic Cluster convenors.

Annual meeting : One annual meeting would gather a fixed number of actors 
(e.g. 200, 300 …). These would be jointly designated by the different 
thematic networks with the objective of forming a balanced representation 
of the viewpoints of the various gender, regions, ages, constituencies and 
themes. Designation would take the form of a special participatory process 
based on the aggregation of lists of candidates provided by the different 
networks and a second pass to select the ones preferred by the most 
actors. This annual meeting would be the opportunity to review progress in 
the different clusters and programs, determine orientations and new 
agendas, as well as for networking among participants.

Steering Group : A limited Steering Group / Commission would be designated 
to ensure continuity and articulation of work between the different 
networks and sub-themes. It would be composed of about 12-15 independent 
people designated in a similar way as above for a limited period (one or 
two years). The first Steering Group / Commission could be composed in a 
manner similar to WGIG.

Distributed Team : A full-time facilitation Team (small secretariat) needs 
to be set up, if possible in a geographically distributed form. But this 
Team needs some sort of connection with the UN and/or its Secretary General.