IGF MAG Meeting
Geneva-Palais des Nations
23 November 2010
Afternoon Session
3:00 p.m.
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The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the IGF MAG Meeting, in Geneva. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>>MARKUS KUMMER: Good afternoon. I hope you enjoyed the delicacies of the U.N. women's bazaar since I'm sure the Brazilian colleagues enjoyed their caipirinha. We have -- I'm sorry for being a little bit late, but we have prepared a summary record of the meeting which I think captures the essence of what we discussed.
One of my favorite sayings is "The perfect is the enemy of the good." I know we could discuss at great lengths on how to refine and whatever, but I think it is important for this meeting to nail down certain key elements, and that is basically what we have tried to do.
What I would suggest, maybe I walk you briefly -- can you read it? Is it -- it is showing?
Do we have -- oh, you switched the things, yes?
Okay. The text streaming is on the left and the summary record is behind us.
Now -- well, you can also, of course, come closer, but I think as you so delicately said, make it as big as possible for the aging eye when you showed it to me.
[Laughter]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: So it's always difficult to read when you sit further back, so make it as big as possible on the screen.
I mean, the first para is basically saying that we met. I think we got the dates right. Yes.
And basically also saying why we are holding this discussion, with a footnote which refers to the press release issued on 5 of May.
Can you show the press release?
The footnote right at the bottom of the page.
Just a footnote with a reference to the press release, which is really very small, yeah.
Basically, it says (poor audio) was referenced in the press release of 5th May, 2010, where it asks the MAG to discuss, make proposals with regard to, its own functioning.
The second paragraph reflects the fact that this meeting was held open to observers and that we basically reversed the Chatham House rule and that the functioning was open and do retain the possible of invoking the Chatham House rule, I think as we already discussed it yesterday.
I think this is a major step to change the functioning of the MAG, which is a de facto description of what we have done, but I think it will be taken note, I think this is one of the criticisms, that the MAG was not open enough. And I don't think you can be more open and more transparent than that, than making the discussions available as a live text stream.
The third paragraph recalls the MAG questionnaire.
The fourth paragraph -- can you scroll it down -- reflects, I think, basically the general discussion yesterday, confirmed the general sentiments expressed in the discussions, but it was felt that the -- you slipped it up again. Can you...
But it was felt that the MAG had performed -- been consistent with the Tunis Agenda.
The fifth paragraph would be basically also what we discussed, that it is important to have continuation, so to recommend a renewal of the mandate with a suitable rotation of its members.
And then followed the discussion on the role and function of the MAG. Basically the agenda-setting, and the overall program development and support function, to pick up on -- I think it was Ayesha who formulated it so nicely -- and it has some of the more specific tasks that were listed.
Now, here we may not be complete. Some members may feel that others may be necessary, but basically we felt how best to plan and organize the meeting, organize main sessions and workshops and so on.
Yes, Theresa, please.
>>THERESA SWINEHART: (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Sorry?
>>THERESA SWINEHART: (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: For the aging eyes, yes.
>>THERESA SWINEHART: (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: No. I mean, as I said, this is basically a very first walk through.
>>THERESA SWINEHART: (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes. Okay. Okay. Yes. Jennifer.
>>JENNIFER WARREN: I'm sorry to interrupt, but I've just gotten an e-mail from Heather Shaw, who says that the meeting -- when she tries to dial in, it says the meeting has been cancelled.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: What?
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>JENNIFER WARREN: Excuse me. I just needed to make sure.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Cancelled?
>> That's the morning session. I sent to links. One --
>>AVRI DORIA: For the ones that have the link open, I'm sharing the document there.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay, okay, okay. Can you scroll down again and again make it as big as --
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: On the specific tasks, let me go to 8.
As I said, it's just a quick walk-through.
And then we have a list of the commitments as we discussed: Attend three meetings in Geneva a year, participate in the yearly meeting, participate in intersessional work, and also the outreach to wider community.
Number 9 reflects the rotation issue, basically repeating what we discussed in previous meetings, that as a principle a third should be rotated every year.
Number 10 sets out the criteria for selections of MAG members: Willingness to commit to work and follow through, proven ability to work as a team member, active participation in the IGF process and extensive linkages to stakeholder groups.
Then Number 11 discusses the selection process, noting that the so-called black box approach was not sufficiently transparent and should not be pursued anymore, and recalling that the selection of governmental MAG members is one thing that there we have the regional groups with established processes but the selection of intergovernmental members needed further reflection.
Number 12 relates to the three intergovernmental stakeholder groups and specifically makes the point, picking up on the points made by Ra�l on the technical community, and also recognizes the points made by various colleagues that each stakeholder group had its different culture and different selection procedures and they should be allowed to have their own specific -- develop their own specific selection procedures.
Para 13, can you go down a bit, refers to this triage we have been discussing and mentions this -- we do understand there's not sort of a firm, universal consensus on that we want this and how this should work, but we nevertheless felt it was the most likely way to have a rough consensus would be to develop something along these lines, that there is some element that passes this triage, and we picked up the idea that a trusted team of either former or outgoing intergovernmental MAG members could exercise this function.
And also, the point made by Parminder that this would not be a vetting, this would not be a veto function of proposals, but basically this is what we have done in the past.
We have in the past always asked stakeholder groups make more proposals of names than available slots because only then you have the possibility to juggle around a bit and find a balance in terms of regional stakeholder agenda, whatever, also constituencies.
And again, this would not be, in that sense, a decision-making body, that it would still have to submit the proposals to the Secretary-General for approval. And the last paragraph, I think the numbering may have to be changed because we inserted a new paragraph, but it says basically that we would suggest that this should be used, these proposals, for the upcoming renewal as recommended in this paper.
Now, can we send it out on the list as a draft at this stage?
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Can you send it out?
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. Are there general comments? Is there something important we left out? I mean we may still be able to fiddle with some of the details, and as in the past, before posting it, we will have a written procedure but, I mean, we usually have posted it fairly soon after the MAG meeting, and also in this particular case, because of tomorrow's meeting, I think it will be good to -- I mean, even if it's a rough draft thing, to be edited or whatever, to have it available as an input into the discussions.
Not least showing that the continuous self-improvement process of the IGF and the MAG actually works.
Are there macro comments before going into the details? Overall?
Otherwise, I would suggest then going it para by para to...
Okay. We have these couple of sections.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I do apologize. Do I have to repeat from the start in the first para I don't think I have to read it out again. Second para, the MAG decided to open its meeting to observers and make its proceedings available in the form of a live-text streaming. This verbatim record is available on the IGF Web site.
This proceeding is recommended for future meetings, plural, in order to enhance the openness and transparency of its work. However, the MAG retains -- retains with an "S," the possibility of having closed meeting segments and of making remarks off the record under the Chatham House Rule. But it's basically a reversal of past procedure where everything was under the Chatham House Rule unless decided otherwise. So today's meeting was open and we leave the possibility of deciding otherwise.
So far, nobody has asked for a closed segment.
3, the session built on the discussions of the open consultations held on 22nd September 2010. A paper prepared by the Secretariat synthesizing comments that have been submitted on a questionnaire prepared by the MAG served as the main input to those consultations.
The questionnaire contains the following questions, and that's a cut and paste from the summary record of the main meeting.
4, the MAG confirmed the general sentiment expressed in the consultations; namely, that it's work had been consistent with the mandate set out in the Tunis Agenda. The MAG recommended the continuation of a multistakeholder body that would serve as a de facto bureau to steer the IGF process and prepare the annual IGF meetings.
No comment? Okay.
5, as a -- Alvaro, did you have a comment?
>>ALVARO GALVANI: It's really hard to read if we don't have the text --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Hasn't it arrived yet? Yes?
>> It is coming now.
>> It just got to me.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I suppose those with a Gmail address have got it.
[ Laughter ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, shall we give it a little bit longer?
Another possibility is perhaps you could sit a bit closer to the....
[ Laughter ]
>> (Off microphone).
>> Sorry, sorry.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Not to worry. Not to worry.
>> Sorry, everyone. Sorry.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, why don't I give you time to read it by yourselves.
Still anybody who hasn't got it? Juan Carlos?
Tulika
>> This is Tulika Pandey from India.
Just a little clarification that maybe my understanding is not right. The MAG recommendation -- I am talking about point 4.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes.
>> The MAG recommendation continues. Recommended the continuation of a multistakeholder body that would serve as a de facto bureau to steer the IGF process.
Do we just mean the meetings, per se? Or do we mean the entire process here?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, that was basically mentioned in the discussion that one of the functions of the MAG was to steer the process and the other function was to prepare the annual meeting. I mean, the process would include also the slightly broader discussions, I mean all the discussions we have to prepare the meeting as part of the process. The annual meeting is one thing, but -- And we deliberately used the multistakeholder body, whether it's called the MAG or not could then be left to the discretion of the Secretary-General if he decides. But the general feeling was there was a need to have a kind of multistakeholder group.
But does it cause any problem this formulation?
>> I was not really talking in terms of any problem. And I also did not have an issue with the multistakeholder body.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay.
>> But I was more trying to understand "steer the IGF process," which implied for me the entire process of the IGF establishment and the (inaudible). So I just wanted to understand that.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, it was my understanding that it reflected the discussion; that the MAG was here to steer the process and not just to prepare -- I mean, in a way, it's part of the same package. By preparing the meeting, you create the process and the MAG is steering this process.
But I think it also -- when you -- the national and regional meetings are also very much in a way part of this process, although we have not yet clearly sort of defined detailed guidelines.
Jeanette, please.
>>JEANETTE HOFMANN: (Off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Sorry, Jeanette. Basically, I understand that all these bullet points, they may need refining, and we may need to add. But can we take it para by para? Are we happy with the way it is worded or we need to refine this para 4, steer the IGF process and to prepare the annual IGF meeting?
>> Markus, if I may again put in a point. Might rightly put in now that it would involve a set of guidelines or directive, if we may use the term, I know it is not proper here, for the regional and national IGFs, which is where my worry point was, which is where I was trying to raise this question.
Because when you say that the MAG here would steer the process of IGF, would it thereby imply that it would also steer the national and the regional IGFs? If it is not so, then I have no problems at all.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I don't think it would mean that, but it would discuss also the linkages and, in a way, what we discussed to bring in the output from the national and regional as an input in the global meetings. And that would be part of that.
>> I'm fine with that.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for this.
It's fine? Okay.
So I think we are fine up to para four.
Alvaro.
>>ALVARO GALVANI: Just a brief comment, just to be accurate. The Tunis Agenda set out a mandate for IGF as a whole, didn't it?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes.
>>ALVARO GALVANI: And the way we wrote here, talking about the MAG and talking it had been consistent with the mandate set out in the Tunis Agenda, is that accurate?
I mean, it seems that the mandate, the Tunis Agenda refers to the MAG.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: This was part of the questionnaire we developed at the last meeting.
>>ALVARO GALVANI: Uh-huh.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: The question we asked, and nobody questioned the question, has the mandate been consistent with the Tunis Agenda.
The Tunis Agenda does not refer to the MAG, but the Tunis Agenda refers to the IGF as such. But has the MAG been in accordance with this mandate as set out in the Tunis Agenda. And nobody said that the MAG had overstepped the limits of the mandate.
>>ALVARO GALVANI: Perfect. The common understanding.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I think so. Yes.
We have comments from Juan Carlos and (saying name).
Juan Carlos first.
>>JUAN CARLOS SOLINES: Thank you. Since English is not my mother language, I was wondering if the use of the word "guide" instead of "steer" is clear for most of the people who read the paragraphs. Because "steer," I don't know if it's clear for everybody.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Steer as in Steering Committee. I think it's a fairly widely -- English is not my mother tongue either, but I mean I think it's widely used and well-known, as in Steering Committee.
>>JUAN CARLOS SOLINES: Okay. That's fair enough.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I think there is no issue of comprehension.
Fouad.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Thank you, Markus. Regarding the point number 2, can I give a comment on that?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Of course you can.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: We've added in transparency to the meeting, but at the same time I would like to point us back to earlier this year when we had discussed within the MAG about the issue of the recommendations or the messages.
There was a statement that was included into the summary when we were present. And after we left like a day after that when something came out on the mailing list of the MAG members, that particular clause was taken out without proper consensus of all the members of the MAG.
So this is one area I wanted to highlight, that if we are going towards transparency and we are also putting it into our summary, can this be insured that what happens publicly in the MAG is not actually taken out, diverted at any point in the mailing list? And what would be the level of transparency within the mailing list for observers? Because this is a clear question which I have been asked by some of the stakeholders regarding this issue. So maybe a bit of clarification on that.
And on point number 4, do we have a proper agreement on the word "bureau"? Maybe steer and guide would be nice, but bureau is defined by certain principles or rules of its operations. So I'm still confused by the use of the word "bureau."
Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I will give the floor to Vincenzo, but I can talk at this at some length.
The Tunis Agenda refers to the bureau, but it has language of a cost efficient -- what else does it say? I think -- Well, but it used effective and cost efficient. And this is language that is commonly used in connection with the U.N. Secretariat because member states want the Secretariat to be cost efficient and effective.
This is never language that is used with the bureau in connection of intergovernmental body as by definition governments are always cost effective and efficient.
And "bureau" is used in the U.N. as another word for Secretariat. You can go to the book store, I actually made the investment for the book UNITAR issued on the guidelines for delegates, and you can find it here up in the book store and we can look it up on the bureau, and it says -- I have the French version here. The English was not available, but it is a nice souvenir, to keep it.
It says (speaking in French) that's the bureau as we know it. Number two, (speaking in French) that is Secretariat of certain organizations. And right at the beginning when the IGF was set up, the Secretary-General's office asked for a legal opinion, and the legal opinion looked at all the mandate and said the point of the mandate relating to a bureau has been implemented by setting up a Secretariat in Geneva.
But the de facto bureau was not wording, it was Vincenzo. So please, you have the floor.
>>VINCENZO AQUARO: Just to confirm it is a word already used by U.N. and also in the draft resolution is mentioned as a de facto bureau for the Secretariat of the IGF.
So this is a word that is already in use. There is no confusion what it does mean.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for that.
And the other part of the question, I honestly don't recall in detail the sentence you were referring to, but presumably we had -- after each, we had an online process, and presumably there was no consensus on that sentence, and then it was taken out. But we never doctor the real-time transcriptions. We archive them as they are, and anybody can go look it up as it is.
You have another question, and we haven't discussed that, whether we should open our list discussion to nonmembers. We never discussed that, as it happens, which we may wish to do so, but it was not part of our discussion. And just for the efficiency of our meeting, I would suggest shelving this discussion to a later moment. Whether we want to do it this afternoon or not. But I mean, let's get through the paper as it is.
That was, I think, all the questions Fouad has raised.
Are you happy with the answers or -- Not quite, but okay.
As long as we are all sufficiently unhappy, that's basically the definition of rough consensus. As long as you can live with it.
Okay. Then I take it number 5, I don't think there was anybody asking for the floor.
Number 6, the discussion focus on the function, role of the MAG and the two main functions. Do we have also agreement on that?
And then -- Sorry, there is Ayesha and Emily.
Ayesha, please.
>>AYESHA HASSAN: Thank you, Markus.
Just one question. When we say to be renewed for another year with a suitable rotation, do we know what we're saying in "suitable"? My personal view would be it would be natural attrition, people who wanted to leave, people who needed to leave. But people may ask what is "suitable."
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, sometimes there's advantage of having a diplomatic ambiguity.
[ Laughter ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I mean, an ideal rotation, if later on we go on the rotation we mention a third of the members. Now, whether this will be suitable for this year or not, I think we may -- actually may be to our advantage to leave that open, whether search would be implemented already this year. It may or may not.
Emily, you had another?
>>EMILY TAYLOR: Just being a little bit slow on the uptake and a comment on paragraph 4. You mentioning the wording of the Tunis Agenda on the bureau, I notice that it says "establish effective and cost efficient bureau to support the IGF, insuring multistakeholder participation." And it might be an idea to lift some of those words, because we have got the ideas in paragraph 4 about how the MAG is ensuring multistakeholder participation within the bureau. So it might just be a good idea to reference that.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, we could add in commas, to steer the IGF, comma, ensuring multistakeholder participation, for instance.
I think everybody here is quite happy with multistakeholder, so....
[ Laughter ]
>> (Off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Ensuring multistakeholder participation. Yeah.
Okay.
7, then -- oh, Jeanette, you have a concrete proposal. Now she has left. Has she given it to somebody else? Yes, Kyle. Raul wants to say something?
>>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Yes, thank you, mark cuss. Regarding point 5. I don't know how to say it politely but it would be interesting to say something like the rotation should start by the people that has had some problems to accomplish these duties as MAG members. Every year we know that there are a number of people that don't participate in the list and don't attend any meeting, and even they don't participate at the IGF main annual meeting.
So I think the rotation should start by these people.
Regarding point 6, I think that there are -- you identified two functions for MAG members, for the MAG itself. I think that we have had in the past some responsibilities also not only about the overall program but the overall organization of the meeting. As we have cared about some practical things that could affect participation of the people, like remote participation facilities and even the kind of rooms that are available level that would be appropriate for holding parallel workshops.
I think that we should include as one of the MAG functions some, as you said, with some ambiguity, also responsibilities. I don't want to repeal the micromanagement functions, but just to say something that we could assist in the overall cooperation of the meeting.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: The support function, and the specifics in para -- in the following para, in para 7. Jeanette had some concrete proposal there.
7, I do realize that we may need to say more, but I think the point made just by Raul deserves to be fleshed out in para 7. But the -- I think the overall program development and support function contains all these ideas, which are then fleshed out in para 7.
And on your comments on the rotation, I get the point and I think it was very much what Freda said earlier this morning. The (inaudible) of its members, perhaps we could add that we could taking note of their contribution to the IGF work. Not necessarily the pillars should be rotated out but those that have never showed up. So it's very diplomatically taking note of that contribution to the IGF work or something like that that could take note of Raul's comment.
You had it? Sorry? It's already there. Okay.
That should be a comma. Members, comma, taking note of their past contributions to the IGF.
Yeah.
Okay. And the 7 now, the specific tasks.
Emily, did you ask for the floor or did you not put down?
Juan Carlos?
>>JUAN CARLOS SOLINES: Thank you. It seems to me like the 7 as it is framed is more focused on logistical aspects. It's more like I don't see clearly what the intellectual or expertise contribution of the MAG members is reflected here.
I told -- I said this morning that I consider a critical role to identify and discuss emerging issues for the IGF. I think that that goes beyond, you know, these preparation, organization, coordination tasks.
So I don't know how we can reflect more the intellectual contribution that we conduct.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, yeah, the emerging issues is contained in setting the agenda, but we can obviously add a bullet point. You're right, this is more on sort of organizational aspects. It could say develop the program or something.
Yes, of course, there is substantive work there, there is substantive discussions. The first bullet point, develop the program.
Other ideas?
I mean, this is basically a -- No, the first bullet point of 7. I mean, we have overall program development. Develop the detailed program.
Ayesha, please.
>>AYESHA HASSAN: One idea would be to also address Juan Carlos's concern by putting something in paragraph 10 about the familiarity with Internet governance issues or experience in something like that and that makes more of a substantive connection. And while I am on the mic I will just say that I think somewhere we should put in the fact that MAG members serve in their individual capacity. We had mentioned that earlier in the morning.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: True, true, true. That is missing.
And also the selection of workshop. Developed a detailed program, select workshops. Make that the second bullet point, develop the detailed program, select workshops and other meetings.
Parminder, Jennifer.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: 7 starts with specific tasks performed by MAG members. Do you mean MAG or MAG members? In the sense that first is the MAG's main function and MAG members look at, for example, select workshops, define how best to plan. It's the MAG function.
Do you see a difference? Or I'm just probably --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, not really. But basically, in order to select MAG members, we say what they are supposed to do. So whether we say --
>>PARMINDER SINGH: Okay. This is towards trying to say what kind of responsibilities --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I mean by outlining the responsibilities, you get a clearer idea of who you want for the job, but --
>>PARMINDER SINGH: For this purpose --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I don't think it makes much of a difference, as such.
Jennifer?
>>JENNIFER WARREN: I'm sorry to raise just a small issue. In the bullet, "organizing main sessions and workshops," I would probably suggest deleting "and workshops," because --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: True.
>>JENNIFER WARREN: -- that's a much broader group that does that and particularly now that you've substituted the "selected workshops" --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Correct. No, no. This is very helpful, because if you do it on line, it takes pages, so the more we can do now, it's -- Fouad?
>> Clarification, please. What exactly did you want changed?
>>JENNIFER WARREN: After the words "organizing main session" delete "and workshop."
>> Okay.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: And then Parminder? Fouad? Sorry. Fouad was --
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Yeah.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: No, we conditional have two people speaking at the same time.
Fouad, yeah?
>>PARMINDER SINGH: Oh, I'm sorry.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Yeah. Regarding the comment on the workshop removal, I would say we shouldn't remove the word. We should add "facilitate workshops."
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Because "facilitate" would be the diplomatic word.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Facilitate is fine.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Because the amount of effort some of the members put in sometimes is significant, so -- yeah.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Actually, can we then streamline the language either as defining or organizing, facilitating, throughout?
Are there other -- did you ask for the floor again, Jennifer?
Parminder?
>>PARMINDER SINGH: Yeah. Essentially the same point, because not every -- a lot of input has come that there should be better connection between workshops and plenaries and MAG does get involved in trying to figure out how to organize and select and connect it to the plenary session, so...
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, actually we -- why don't we put that in? As published linkages between workshops and main sessions.
Can you make it as a third bullet point? Yeah? Selecting workshops for the meetings.
Okay. We can sort that out, the order, afterwards.
Fouad?
>>FOUAD BAJWA: It may be worth adding that -- how to better organize, right?
So that -- because that sets out a particular task, which is good.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, you basically would like to have a para or whatever discussing the self-improvement discussions, correct? How better to organize?
Or didn't I get it right?
>>FOUAD BAJWA: I was referring to this particular line about organizing main session and workshops. The issue we discussed about how better to create the linkage between main sessions and workshops.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Oh, instead of establishing linkages, how better to -- well, I think establishing is --
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Uh-huh. Okay.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: -- is the same. Juan Carlos?
>>JUAN CARLOS SOLINES: What exactly means by "preparing panelists"? What are we -- what is the specific task in preparing panelists? You mean selecting or identifying panelists?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: No, no. Having a pre-session discussion with panelists on how to organize a panel.
>>JUAN CARLOS SOLINES: Oh, okay.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, "preparing panelists" may give -- it's not massaging them or embalming them or whatever, but it's --
[Laughter]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: A better word? Yes, Ayesha.
>>AYESHA HASSAN: You might as well just put in moderators there, so say panelists, comma, moderators, and speakers, since that was actually what MAG members did.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Correct.
>> Yeah. Not -- I wanted to go a little bit back, because I was reading something I can even clarify better.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. Please, please.
>> Just I wanted to go back to point -- where is the -- yeah, Number 4.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Number 4, yeah?
>> Because it may be to better clarify also, we can add that MAG are supported by a Secretariat, (inaudible) by an Executive Coordinator, and reporting to the Department of Economic and Social Affairs through its Mission for Public Administration, Development and Management.
I would suggest to add this, so in this case, the linkages with that and also the support of the secretary.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. Can you give us the sentence?
>> Yes. Sure.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: IGF and MAG, okay.
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yeah. Para 7 there, yeah. Okay.
Can we go back to -- well, you can do that afterwards.
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes, yes, yes. Can we go back to para 7? Have we got enough intellectual work included now, Juan Carlos? Could you adjust this to the...
Anything else we should mention?
I think it's fairly comprehensive. Is "preparing panelists" -- we understand it, but is there another --
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
[Laughter]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes. I agree, but --
Fouad?
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Thank you, Markus. One of the invisible rules of the MAG members which they perform on their own without any actual request is outreach that they do within their countries or within their regions, and this outreach results in more interest by various stakeholder groups.
For example, if you look at my own case in Pakistan, I would not only be liaising with my stakeholders, I would also be liaising with the private sector, I would be convincing the government.
The national policy which is being drafted in Pakistan currently for 2010, the ITE policy 2010, carries a particular section now on Internet governance, and this has been made effective by the ICT's interventions and by mine and the other stakeholders from ICT who are based in Pakistan. So this is one important point that should -- I think should be mentioned --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yeah.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: -- just for the record.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: No, no. I mean, you -- I totally agree. We do have, further down, mention of outreach, but I would be happy, actually, to include it into the main task already in para 6 as the main -- it clearly is one of the main functions. You could just say at the bullet point in para 6 "outreach" as setting the agenda, overall programs, development and support, and then just outreach. Just outreach.
We go into more detail further down, but, I mean, it is a -- I think an overarching priority, and -- assisting in the preparation. Well, we still have "preparation." They're not mummies. Right?
Emily?
>>EMILY TAYLOR: I'm not sure that we've quite covered the reporting on our proceedings bit. Which is also quite an integral part of the MAG World Wide Web. You know, that we're not publishing summary documents, these transcripts, and so on.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Why don't you add that.
>>EMILY TAYLOR: Should we add it?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yeah. Add a bullet point.
>>EMILY TAYLOR: And a suggestion. Instead of the "preparing," because "preparing" sounds a bit to me like the panelists are all up-and-ready chickens and --
[Laughter]
>>EMILY TAYLOR: Would maybe "briefing" or --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Briefing sounds good. Just briefing panelists, moderators, and speakers.
And the procedures as the last bullet point of the specifics, yeah, in 7.
How do we word it? Publish? Prepare?
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Sorry? Publishing their proceedings, yeah. Or publishing the proceedings of their meetings.
Publishing proceedings -- publishing -- well, actually here we don't have any of the on-line work, but I think we have it further down. Yeah?
I know that will come under commitments. Yeah. Fouad and George. Fouad first. Sorry. Oh, (saying name), then Fouad, then George.
>> Thank you, Markus. I was just wondering whether developing a detailed program does include identifying the issues of concern, because we do identify emerging issues that need to be taken up or other issues. Does it cover it or do we need to specially mention it out?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: We could add that.
>> Yeah.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Including or -- including the identification of issues of concern.
>> Of issues of concern in the area of Internet governance.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, it all is in the area of Internet governance.
>> Yeah. Right. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Then Fouad?
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Interestingly, (saying name) actually mentioned one area which I was going to step into detail is that one process is very well laid out and functional, which is the open consultation process, but throughout the year, on certain occasions as we go into outreach -- you've witnessed yourself in ICANN meetings as well; we've all been there -- certain feedback is received on a continuous basis which helps us in the area of emerging issues and so forth.
Would it be suitable to actually mention that this is one situation I wanted to give, if you had a different scheduled MAG meeting in which you were doing immediate improvements, can we have an on-line round of comments before MAG meetings whereby people can suggest (inaudible)?
These people usually don't participate remotely and they don't participate in open consultations, but the feedback is their ideas are there, issues are there, so do you think this is possible to actually mention? Because this is very important, that how do we want to facilitate our work, now that we're much more open and transparent? How can we take these ideas on-line?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Certainly this is possible, and the point was also made by Anriette in the morning, ideally we should have prepared this -- this discussion now through an on-line process.
But just a procedural grounds, what we could do for this report, have an additional paragraph with, "Among the ideas for further improvements were the following suggestions," something like that, right at the end, which is a non-exhaustive list, it's not a consensus list, but it's ideas thrown in for further discussion, and I think it could be helpful just to have this kind of open list.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: This would also be helpful that -- just in case, if the MAG is given another year and we do comment. Maybe that could be a starting point for discussions.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yeah. Why don't you start a paragraph -- a new right at the end, "Among the ideas for further improvements were the following suggestions," and then we have a number of bullet points and the first one will be the point made by Fouad.
If you have a -- if you have a concrete formulation for that particular bullet point --
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Brainstorming?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: To prepare the MAG meetings through an on-line process, or something.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Sort of also invite on-line community feedback on emerging issues and something along would -- how we -- what we actually do. That's the same feedback we invite.
So that could act as lots of background material that could be used.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I mean, up to a point, you do have, Fouad. We do ask for contributions and we do have on-line contributions and we do prepare papers that synthesize --
>>FOUAD BAJWA: But I still have a meeting that many still feel intimidated that maybe it's only organizational feedback, it's something which has to still be improved with --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: No, okay, but, I mean, it's just a question of we're reading this -- this sounds very much what we are doing, so maybe we should have a different thing? Would you have a suggestion, Jennifer?
>>JENNIFER WARREN: Just with respect to that, because I don't want to jump George in line, I was wondering if -- to deal with the intimidation factor -- you could have a mailbox for suggestions or emerging issues or something like that, so it doesn't sound like it has to be a prepared contribution, but, I mean, I was looking at our Web site and, you know, we've got all the tools for interaction there. I was just wondering if there could be something that specifically -- you know, a mailbox for suggestions or for MAG suggestions, something like that.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, what about saying stimulate or, you know -- whatever form it will be, but just --
>>JENNIFER WARREN: Identify methods for informal --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: That sounds good.
>>JENNIFER WARREN: -- input?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Identify methods --
>>JENNIFER WARREN: For informal input?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: -- for improved --
>>JENNIFER WARREN: For improved --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: -- input?
>>JENNIFER WARREN: Input. Yes. That's what I meant.
[Laughter]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Identify methods for improved --
>>JENNIFER WARREN: Input.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: -- input into the consultations/MAG meetings, yeah?
Does that meet your concern, Fouad? It does.
Then you can get rid of the first one, yeah. No. Yeah, that's fair enough. George?
>>GEORGE PAPADATOS: I want to go back into the word "briefing," which is slightly better than the "prepping," but on the other hand, it -- I think there is an element of consultation which is not reflected here because they do consult with the panelists and so forth. I mean, it's not just briefing them, actually.
So I don't know how we can deal with that.
I don't know how we can capture that element.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Theresa? Yeah?
>>THERESA SWINEHART: You know, something along the lines of "support as needed" or -- you know. Some panelists need and request a bit of support, and other panelists come in and are ready to go, so I don't know. I'm just throwing suggestions out.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: True. Native English speakers? You prepare your panelists, Ayesha?
[Laughter]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Jennifer?
>>JENNIFER WARREN: I'll try again. When I coordinate panels, I don't coordinate the panelists, I coordinate panels.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay.
>>JENNIFER WARREN: And that includes the prepping of some panelists, the briefing, the coordination of their, you know, different presentations.
So that might work: "Coordinating the panel."
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. Coordinate panels --
>>JENNIFER WARREN: That doesn't work? Okay.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, no, we could have coordinate panels, including briefing of panelists.
[Laughter]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Briefing -- including briefing and supporting --
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Coordinating panels, including -- well, I think we're making too much out of this somehow.
[Laughter]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Juan Carlos?
>>JUAN CARLOS SOLINES: I was thinking coordinating the intervention of speakers, moderators, and panelists.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I think it gets more and more complicated. Ayesha?
>>AYESHA HASSAN: Maybe we can simplify and say, "Coordinating panels and" -- or "coordinate panel and support panelists, moderators, ta-da, ta-da, ta-da."
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. Yeah. Okay. "And supporting." Okay. Are we happy with that? Fouad? No?
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Not that exactly. I mean, not changing that.
I want to also add something which was brought up many times that like for example in the IG4D session, we constituted sort of a working group, which included like nearly 56 members who were helping to design that, so that was a pretty good task, in my opinion, because me and Bill Drake were working extensively on that, and it is something that was started from MAG, so I think there's a possibility of mentioning that where necessary, establishing working groups, thematic working groups, to organize say main sessions or panels.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yeah. But this is not the only session. We had -- basically for each main session, there was a dedicated group which was not -- I mean, I think it's worth retaining this. I mean, it was not just MAG members, but it was an open group, MAG members with other experts.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: That's what I wanted to --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yeah, yeah. No, no. It's a fair point.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Yeah. Because we started from here and then we had like these various groups in meetings for three, four hours and we came out with something substantive.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: No. There were various lists created to prepare the main sessions and so on. There was an on-line process. Maybe we could have it higher up in the 7 as well.
Maybe we start on 7, develop... selecting workshops... meeting...
You know, it might be as a third point, selecting workshops... megs... well, no, we have organizing main sessions there.
Organizing main sessions and, where, necessary, participate in dedicated working groups, something like that.
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: And when necessary, participate in thematic working -- in dedicated thematic working groups.
Okay. Anything else we need to say on 7? It just shows that you've been working hard.
You can make it present tense.
Okay. Then in 8 we basically have the -- we added "in the individual capacity." That's an important point. Commitment of the individual MAG members in their individual capacities include, and then we basically have the list of meetings. And again, the outreach in a little bit more detail. Basically the two-way path. That is, listen to the community and bring in comments and go back to the community.
Christine.
>>CHRISTINE ARIDA: Yes, I don't know if there is a method to maybe specify national and regionally here. Make outreach to wider community, maybe, specifically nationally and regionally, because it was not mentioned.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Actually, we had it mentioned and then it got lost, and then we don't have any mention anymore on national and regional.
Make it national and regional IGF initiatives.
And why don't we continue, then, "and bring other networks into the MAG." And intersessional, by the way, is with an "S" not a "C." It's not cession, it's session.
>> (Off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: It's correcting. It doesn't make sense to have intersessional with "C."
Jennifer, yours is down.
Not to worry.
Okay. Then 9 is a basic principle on rotation, which would be what we had before but never implemented.
Yes, Alvaro.
>>ALVARO GALVANI: If we want to keep this paragraph, maybe we should add a third of nongovernment MAG members. Since we have discussed a lot with the difference between the stakeholder governments and the other stakeholders, this modification would be in line with paragraphs 12 and paragraphs 13 that make this difference between governmental stakeholders and nongovernmental stakeholders.
So the idea would be add that a third of all non- -- of all nongovernmental MAG members.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: That was not the understanding in the past. In the past, it was the understanding that all MAG members should be rotated. However -- Sorry?
>> (Off microphone).
[ Laughter ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I mean, that was what we said in the past. As I said, we never implemented it.
Maybe we could add "in principle" to make it clear that it's a principle, and we know what happens with principles.
[ Laughter ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: That in principle. That, comma, in principle," prefer that all MAG members should be rotated. Alvaro, you are not happy.
>>ALVARO GALVANI: Yes. Is that -- the whole document states very clearly a bit different approach towards government stakeholders and other stakeholders. Just, I understand your point, but --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: The only difference is the selection process. We do understand that governments have their own procedures and processes. And I think the nongovernmental stakeholders respect that, and at the same time, they don't want governments to interfere in their own respective processes. It's a kind of agreement not to interfere into each other's affairs.
But the rotational principle was always considered as applying to all the stakeholders.
I mean, the -- Bertrand yesterday made the point that there are several organizations and governments that have been quasi permanent seats. And we have also discuss, for instance, with the European Union, they always made the point that presidency is represented and, at the same time, the Commission, and they make the point it cannot be any other way; otherwise, it doesn't work for the 27 member states.
We always have found an agreement, also, with governments.
And then we have held -- we have gradually added all the host countries of the first cycle who are represented in the group. But we have always included the governments into the rotation process.
But I see that -- I recognize Raul would like to see, and yes, I can imagine strong feelings on that one.
Raul, please.
>>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Yes, I think you including, adding in principle is okay. I would add something like ideally about what members should be rotated. So thus keeping some doors open to different behaviors.
In fact, it is not only a constraint for governmental representatives because it could happen also that, a given year, there could not be enough candidates or volunteers for rotating one-third of the nongovernmental MAG members.
So I think that we should be more principled in the wording of this point.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. Thank you.
Well, what is better, "ideally" or "in principle"? Maybe we could also add a sentence, "However, it was felt this principle should be implemented in a flexible manner."
(Laughter.)
>>MARKUS KUMMER: George.
>>GEORGE PAPADATOS: Yes, with regard to governmental representation, I have noticed in the past, while -- I have to go back and check my notes. While the president of the European Union and the Commission, which is now a little bit different with implementation of the Lisbon Treaty, I'm not sure whether they were counting as members or not. Because I have not -- there were regional group representatives in here that were not counted as members of other regional groups.
So that needs to be clarified.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: You are perfectly correct. The European Commission is invited like intergovernmental organization to participate on a permanent basis. But the rotation is just the presidency. That's correct. Sorry.
The question is do we add a line on that flexible manner to leave open all the loopholes?
Raul again and Juan Carlos. Raul first.
>>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: I would say ideally, about one-third of the MAG members is should rotate, blah, blah, blah. And I would add, "However, it was felt that this principle should be implemented in a flexible manner." It's a very good solution. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Juan Carlos.
>>JUAN CARLOS SOLINES: Thank you. I was going to say that I find that the sentence as it is is right.
You know, the whole document, in principle, can be modified. We are by the end of a cycle, and this is the outcome of this meeting. But technically, everything can be modified, and everything is in principle.
So in this particular case of number 9, I think that we are talking about a general agreement. So there is a general agreement or there is not. There is not a general agreement in principle. It's a general agreement what is written here.
So I don't see why we should introduce something that applies to a whole text.
Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, the idea is the second sentence does not apply to the whole text but to this particular principle. I mean, it's understood this is not something that will be implemented as it is as we are not in a decision-making -- It's not this meeting here that will decide what happens. It's this meeting here that launches some idea. And I think in the past, it was always felt that, yes, ideally a third should be rotated; however.
Frankly, I am very easy on that, but if it makes some people a little bit easier by having the second sentence, I do understand it's maybe a little bit contradictory.
George.
>>GEORGE PAPADATOS: I have a question regarding rotation.
We know that each year there are a number of people who are either no-shows or resignations or whatever. What number are -- How many of the MAG are departing voluntarily each year? Do we have any idea? Or could be departing applying some of the rules that are no-shows, they never show up and all that and will, in a way, be edged out?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: We have had that sentence, where is it, taking note of their contribution to past work.
>>GEORGE PAPADATOS: But do you have any idea of how many? Because it may be self-rotating.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: There is a certain number, but it is never a third. The natural rotation. I mean, there are always a number of people.
There has been somebody nominated by the Russian Federation who never actually turned up. But I don't see the Secretary-General by just deleting the name of a representative of one of the permanent members of the Security Council. He was officially proposed by, you know, the Russian government.
But, I mean, yes, we have taken note of this comment that those who don't participate actively should not be on the list of renewed MAG, if there is a renewed MAG.
Jennifer, Michael, and Fouad.
Jennifer.
>>JENNIFER WARREN: If we're almost to agreement on the sentence, then I will raise another point, which is given that point 9 talks about rotation, would it make sense just to move it up to follow point 5, which talks about a suitable rotation of its members?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes.
>>JENNIFER WARREN: So there's continuity.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay.
Anything that helps to make the text flow better is welcome.
>>JENNIFER WARREN: Know substantive change proposed.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. Move 9 -- put 9 after 5.
Okay. Michael.
>>MICHAEL KATUNDU: Thank you, Chair. Michael Katundu.
I would like to support the idea of having that "flexible" sentence. And the reason why I say this, Chair, is because we want this to be a bottom-up process, and to have that then the honor should on the stakeholders. And if the stakeholders themselves are comfortable with the nominee they have and if by any chance they do not rotate the nominee, we do not want the MAG to assume the responsibility of asking that stakeholder to go ahead and replace or substitute that nominee.
The reason I say this is because we want to be as flexible as possible for this process to go forward, because it's not an easy one, and we know a number of people are nominated to be in this kind of a forum. At some point it becomes a challenge because of other responsibilities and may be assuming.
So whatever principles we are coming up with here, we ought to be as flexible as possible to accommodate areas and disciplines of people who (poor audio).
Thank you, Chair.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Fouad.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Thank you. This comment is not relevant to the text but to the rotation.
With the particular aspect on the participation for MAG members from developing countries.
First of all, I appreciate the amount of support that the Secretariat extends to us in acquiring the visas to come to Switzerland. Secondly, this is support to get us timely travel assistance.
At the same time, I will like to suggest that since we are mentioning that the MAG responsibilities include meeting three times a year and so forth, it would be very useful if we could have possible suggested dates for the three times of the year. This is for future, should the mandate be renewed, that we have the dates available, suggested dates, so that it can make it easier for us to acquire the visas. Because certain date announcements do not actually comply with the requirements of the Swiss consulates in the developing countries. And times there is more time required to acquire the visas, because we have had some MAG members who couldn't make it because of the visa issue.
So it would be really useful to possibly acquire a yearly visa, which there are very flexible, thanks to the assistance of the Secretariat in contacting the Swiss mission.
So this is one small (inaudible) colleague from this as well to somehow make it more quicker to process the travel visas, because this year we have a small problem.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: This is -- Fouad, I am fully aware, but this is an ongoing -- and this time, I think two or three MAG members in the end, we had agreed the process, whatever. UNDESA had done all the necessary footwork to process all the forms for the travel assistance. But then it goes to UNDP, and they are on the ground in your respective countries. And for some reason they leave it notoriously until the last minute. And usually the issuing of a ticket is linked to the issuing of visa. And two or three people could not get their visa because the ticket came in too late. But I'm afraid this is nothing we can do about. This is sort of an inherent difficulty in the system.
But one thing you can do is apply for the -- I mean, the -- The planning point is well taken. Yes, we do have to discuss that, and we will try to establish a calendar of meetings for this year. But you cannot establish the calendar of meeting unless you have the dates for the annual meeting added to our link. You cannot prepare a meeting unless you know when the meeting takes place.
And you can go to the Swiss embassies if you have the necessary support letter explaining that you will be issued a ticket by the United Nations, and so on. There is very little we can do except saying the ticket is being processed, but you can apply to the visa. And we have done, whenever requested, sent -- write letters. The Swiss really try hard to make it possible. They are fully aware of their role as a host country of the United Nations. And their embassies and missions abroad are well informed and attach great importance to attendance in U.N. meetings in Geneva.
But, I mean, I don't think this needs to be part of this support. These are internal issues. And we do our best. We can, let's be assured. But it's also a two-way street. You can communicate and ask for what is needed. And I think in your particular case, it was also with the CSTD Secretariat, Charles had helped you also with the visa. On the whole that works.
Jennifer, did you have a point?
Who else?
Andrey.
>>ANDREY SHCHERBOVICH: Yes. Only with a couple of words. It is better maybe to make possible to send just a letter of invitation in simple form because of some of the members are funded by institutions. For example, if they have projects related to Internet governance. And since they are projects, they need to come here to consultations like this.
For example, it's my personal experience I'd like to come here at June or July -- I think June -- for consultations of the IGF and I didn't get funding from my sponsor, just from the university.
Because I have no letter of invitation. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Can we stop this discussion? If you have any problem with visa or invitation, send an e-mail to the Secretariat and you will get it. I mean, you got -- I think you were in touch with the Secretariat for this meeting. This is no problem. We do this as a matter of course, but you have to signal it to us. You can do that by simply sending an e-mail.
But can we go back to our main core business and that is the finalization of this report?
Which paragraph --
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I think we are finished with 6, no?
We are -- hang on. Yes, we have the -- we have done 9, I think. Yes?
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. Then 10? Okay. Then we have the criteria for selection -- selection, I think, should be singular, Avri. Avri?
>>AVRI DORIA: Excuse me?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Selection should be singular. Should it be selection of -- doesn't matter.
"The following qualifications and competencies are felt to be essential: Willingness to commit to work and follow through, true ability to work as a team member, (inaudible) participation in the IGF process, extensive linkages to stakeholder groups."
And I think there was a question of experience and expertise in -- experience and expertise in Internet governance-related issues. Yeah.
Fouad?
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Markus, just a small question for clarity because I was asked this question two weeks ago that if any organization wants to associate itself to a particular IGF stakeholder group and participate within future MAG calls, what is their process? Is there some sort of an accreditation or some sort of a process we should have to go through to join in?
Because they don't associate themselves to an existing group. They're independent, but they want to join the IGF process.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Presumably that would be civil society, I think.
I mean, unless -- businesses usually they make money, correct, yeah? Generally, yes. Okay.
Technical community have something to do with running the Internet, and if it -- if they neither make money nor they run the Internet, then presumably they are civil society and then I think there is the giggle test as well, I was told. Yes, if people don't giggle when you say "civil society," then you are civil society.
Now, we had proposals from all sorts of various groups. They just send names and they go into the pot. Basically, that will then be up to civil society to find a mechanism on how to sift through these various proposals.
But that, I think, is not the business of the MAG to tell each stakeholder group how to organize themselves. We leave that to each stakeholder group.
Is there any other core qualification or competency?
Katitza.
>>KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: In previous meetings, we also think that expertise was a criteria for qualification of MAG members. It's not anymore there.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: All right.
>>KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: They're experts on the topic of the IGF agenda.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: It was added.
>>KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: I'm so sorry.
[Laughter]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: No, no. I mean, it was noted, yes. Okay. Yes, Parminder.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: Extensive linkages to stakeholder groups. We mean that stakeholder constituency which they come from, not across stakeholder groups.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I think we mean both, as far as I -- we came across a discussion -- we had this over the years. It's basically also the across stakeholder groups, and some people make the point, "Well, I'm part of this group and part of that group at the same time." Especially between business and technical communities. I think it was Patrik who made the point. He works for a major company, Cisco. He is an engineer. He's very much a part of the technical community. But at the same time, obviously, if you work for a major company such as Cisco, you're sort of part of the business community.
It was also felt that this was very helpful to have people with cross-linkages who can communicate across barriers, but I don't know whether we need to specify this or whether we actually -- obviously, it's important that you have not freelance people who don't have any linkage to their own stakeholder group. That's obviously the main criteria, that you want people who are representative for the -- while serving in their individual capacity, but they relate to their stakeholder group in a two-way communication. That is, they go back to their stakeholder group, explaining what happened, and they take on board what comes from their stakeholder group, and bring it into the meeting.
Now, we do not ask for each of the MAG members to be linked to all the other stakeholder groups, but if they are, this is a welcome additional qualification. That's how I see it.
Yes, Parminder.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: Could I suggest some language there, then?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yeah, please.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: Extensive linkages to stakeholder constituencies, comma, and possibly also to other stakeholder groups.
So the stakeholder constituencies are what constitutes that stakeholder group, but civil society constituencies are disability groups --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: That's fine. As you remember in the past, people are not too happy with the term "constituencies" but I have no issue with that. Parminder?
>>PARMINDER SINGH: Whatever groups constitute that stakeholder group.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yeah, yeah. I understand. Extensive linkages to stakeholder constituencies --
>>PARMINDER SINGH: -- constituencies --
[Speakers are overlapping]
>>PARMINDER SINGH: -- comma, and possibly also to other shareholder groups.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes. Stakeholder constituencies and possibly also to other stakeholder groups.
That's fine.
Fine with everybody?
Alvaro, I can see you have some doubts. Jennifer?
>>JENNIFER WARREN: Now that you've focused me on the word "constituencies," perhaps a way to go around that would be extensive linkages within one's own stakeholder group and possibly to other stakeholder groups.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. Within --
>>JENNIFER WARREN: One's own --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: -- one's own stakeholder group. That basically captures it right here, yes. I don't know why the constituency -- some people don't like it, I --
>>JENNIFER WARREN: It implies representation.
>> Yeah. I was afraid it that it seems to connect to the traditional representative government system, political system, which I do actually support a lot and we don't like those words "representative," "constituencies" as a reaction to the existing political system.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay.
>> Which I do support, though.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: And one's own, I think that needs an apostrophe of some sort. One's own stakeholder group and, comma, if possible, comma, to other stakeholder groups.
Okay. Are we all -- Alvaro?
>>ALVARO GALVANI: Just the same -- the suggestion came from the same concern regarding some specific details on governmental assignments or the idea of expertise and experience in Internet governance issues.
When it comes to government, this -- I don't know if you should add here, you know, legal competencies, or this is not necessarily -- we fully understand that there's a particular --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, basically, when we talk about the selection, we talk about nongovernmental, but maybe we can add it again. Selection of nongovernmental MAG members. Because clearly when we go to the governmental process, we talk about representation of -- it's a different process.
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. And then 11 goes on the black box approach.
I mean, Alvaro, you would qualify, I think.
[Laughter]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. 11. I think this basically captures the discussion we had that there was a general sense that the past approach would no longer be sufficient because it was not sufficiently transparent. For governmental MAG members, we do have processes, and for nongovernmental MAG members, there's a need for some further reflection.
And then 12, that goes on the stakeholder groups. and makes the point that was made this morning that we should continue recognizing the same nongovernmental stakeholder groups. Namely, private sector, civil society, and technical community. And leaving it to them to develop their own specific selection procedures.
And 13 then comes to what is at this stage, I think, more tentative, what we discussed on this triage.
Sorry, Theresa first and then Katitza.
>>THERESA SWINEHART: Hi. Thank you. This was actually a suggestion from Bill, but he had to leave.
Either at the start of 13 or as a 12 bis, something along the lines of stakeholder groups are encouraged to nominate a sufficiently large slate of candidates to provide some flexibility in selection of MAG members, to ensure appropriate balance.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: We have this idea captured but maybe not explicitly enough. No, it's further down, Avri.
It's the sentence -- but I think your suggestion is better.
Basically, we were asked to propose a number of candidates exceeding the number of slots available, thus allowing selection.
But could you -- it's the same idea but I think it's not he -- the explicit formulation I think is better.
Could you repeat it again?
>>THERESA SWINEHART: Mr. Bill? I'm Mr. Bill for this second. His suggestion was something like stakeholder groups are encouraged to nominate a sufficiently large slate of candidates to provide some flexibility in selection of MAG members to ensure appropriate balance.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: To me, that's -- well, not only encouraged. Requested, I think. Because it only works if you actually -- and in the past we have done so. We have always asked, "Please give us a number that exceeds the number of available slots," because only then do you have the necessary flexibility.
But why don't you give the -- or can somebody fetch the -- Seiiti? You got that? Okay. We got that. Okay. Okay.
Katitza?
>>KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: Thank you. Thank you, Markus. I have here Paragraph 13, especially the triage process that is mentioned. I would prefer to see civil society nominations be reviewed by maybe MAG civil society outgoing members who are actual MAG members, but civil society members.
The problem with how I read the paragraph is that it looks like that a committee of ex-MAG members consisting of all the stakeholders will recommend the recommendations from stakeholder groups or networks for people to become MAG members.
We believe that -- I believe that such kind of (inaudible) of it's a slate of recommendation by other stakeholders can tend towards diluting some of civil society recommendations, so we prefer that that kind of process be made by civil society.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Again, this is -- maybe it's a bad formulation or maybe we need to discuss it a little bit through.
I think this -- there's still a little bit of misunderstanding.
The idea clearly is not that civil society would not make their proposal, but the idea is that the overall selection would be made by a group consisting of civil society, private sector, and technical community, former MAG members or whatever, who would be a kind of triage committee, let's say.
Civil society comes up with a slot of -- with a list of 10 people for seven available slots, and then in the private sector the same thing, and in theory you can have a situation where by sheer coincidence you all have a member from the same country.
Let's say from Peru. And then in the end, if you don't have this triage, you end up with four MAG members from Peru by sheer coincidence.
And that's the idea, to avoid that, you know, in a friendly and nice way, among all the stakeholders. Say, look, it seems that you have excellent candidates, but we have a candidate from Peru. Can we not have our candidate? Because we are weak on Latin America otherwise. You know, we really need -- if we want to have a Latin American presence among private sector participants. We don't have any other candidate from Latin America except this person from Peru. Could you not give the preference to the colleague from Brazil instead of Peru? That sort of thing.
But it would not be what Parminder said, a veto, you know, that some supreme body would say, no, you cannot have this person. It would be a question of establish being a list which represents a balance across the regions, but also each stakeholder group ideally has a balance within their own stakeholder groups. If private sector does not have all participants coming from, let's say Asia or Europe. We want a balance across the board.
And in order to have this balance, you need some kind of discussion with people outside the respective stakeholder groups.
I see no other way to establish this.
Katitza, please.
>>KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: I just was thinking of situations. For instance, so I could say that the business sector representative, wishing that there are too many telecommunication providers, and we need more -- maybe more Internet companies represented in the MAG, and we would be able to give this kind of input in the other way around from civil society point of view. Some of us have strong opinions it might not be comfortable from other stakeholders.
So my opinion is if we prefer this civil society person and not the other civil society person because of their institutional or personal opinion on some issues that are dealt with in the MAG. That's my concern.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I understand there are certain sensitivities. The formulation here is also relatively soft. It doesn't say this is what it will be. You know, we can weaken it further, but I think Raul would like to come in and -- sorry, it's Valeria.
>>VALERIA BETANCOURT: Okay. Thank you, Markus.
I definitely support what Katitza is proposing. And I share her concerns in relation of how the process of selecting new MAG members will look like.
So the MAG has recommended the civil society and the technical community and the private sector are maintained as separate stakeholder groups with different -- because of their different organizational cultures and other aspects.
Before each -- Each stakeholder should be able to make decisions on its own representatives from within its ranks, from its own processes and procedures without interference from other stakeholders.
So I definitely would share Katitza's concern.
Perhaps a good way of doing -- of resolving this dilemma would be that civil society nominations are reviewed by MAG civil society or (inaudible) members.
Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. Other comments?
Ayesha, Jennifer, Michael, Graciela. Theresa as well?
>>AYESHA HASSAN: Thank you. I hear the concerns of Katitza and Valeria, and I think several years ago I would have been expressing a similar concern. And I think one of the things to highlight here is, I think, actually after five years, I think I speak for many people in the business community that we would be comfortable with alumni from the MAG, former MAG members who have also gotten the experience of working with a variety of stakeholders in this setting and on those issues, are aware of the concerns of the different stakeholder groups, are aware of the balancing that needs to be done.
I am willing to put my trust in this at this stage after the experience I have had with my civil society and technical community colleagues.
I actually think that there is a very healthy balancing discussion that can go on among former MAG members, because they are no longer in the MAG but they know the combination that works.
So I would ask for us to consider having trust. I think that that also puts the onus on each of the stakeholder groups to take a very intelligent, pragmatic approach to how they balance the list that they send in to this triage group so that they have already balanced sectors, viewpoints, geographies, in a way that it makes the job of the triage group much easier and just focusing on overall balance in their choices.
I have two specific edits to paragraph 13 that I thought I would suggest just to tighten up the language. My view is that we should change the word "might" to "would" in the first line. And I would take out "as one possibility." This is a summary of our discussion. Just say "this triage," because we are describing the triage.
Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: So I think at the last point --
>>AYESHA HASSAN: I would take out in the second sentence "as one possibility" because we are not really going on to describe other possibilities.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: True, true. Okay.
Thank you for this.
Hang on. What is the sequence of events? I think it's Jennifer, Michael, (saying name) -- sorry.
Jennifer first.
>>JENNIFER WARREN: Thank you. I do understand the concerns, but I guess I would have two comments. One, I think we have a greater risk of criticism if we do not have some mechanism in place to address concerns about the potential omission of certain diversity, whether it's geographic, gender or otherwise. We have had that constant feedback in prior sessions where we have solicited input, is the concern about omission in that balance.
So I think by having a mechanism in place that can address that from potential MAG members that are put forward by the different constituencies, that that really serves us well.
And so I think we really do need to have something like this in place because I think the risk is greater by not having it than by having it. Because we all have mutually coexist on the MAG, and if one stakeholder group I think were to abuse or to try to abuse, because I'm not sure you could, but were to try to abuse that as was kind of put out there as a possibility, there's nothing to stop that from happening to that same stakeholder group.
So I think the principle of comity, not comedy but comity would keep everybody in check as well if it wasn't just trust.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And one point is you need this triage. The question is who does it? Is it the black box or is it some kind of mechanism the MAG set up. Otherwise, you leave it to the Secretary-General. You give a raw list, three raw lists to the Secretary-General and you ask the Secretary-General, choose and select. And then you are back to the black box system.
My feeling, also, is that the fears are exaggerated. I think in the past five years, we have built up enough trust, and Ayesha nicely put it, that we have come a long way. Five years ago, I think there would have been much more nervousness about this kind of proposal.
But there are still a few more people who would like to say something.
(Saying name), please.
>> Thank you. Actually, mine was just a bit of a question so I am clear in my mind. I listened, I like what Katitza said and what Ayesha said. Just something in between to clarify, and that's about this triage.
I just wanted to know what would be the advantage of having triage made up of former MAG members from all the three nongovernmental stakeholders as compared to having like an oversight group looking at the recommendations from different stakeholders which is made up of former MAG members from those stakeholder groups? So that we have, like, three oversight groups that look at what the different stakeholder groups have brought forward.
What's the advantage of having the triage? Because if I understood Katitza properly, it's like she would feel more comfortable if it was still the community of private -- of civil society that was looking at letters that have come from the civil society community, rather than also involving people from different stakeholder groups who, we have already agreed, have different cultures.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, the basic point is that you need to collate the various proposals that come up. I mean, if, by miracle, they represent the perfect geographical balance, all the better, but you don't know what will come out of these processes, and you may have imbalance in terms of region. And you need some kind of communication between is the three processes.
And the idea of having a sort of elder statesman approach, we do use the words "trusted" members, and people you know, people you trust who have -- you would not trust people you know have a personal agenda but who you know can actually listen, go to other stakeholder groups. And as I think as Jennifer said, there's also, you know, abusing of this, there's a fear of a backlash. So there's an in-built check and balance, and it does only work on mutual trust.
>> Thank you. It's clearer now for me. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. Thank you for that.
It was Graciela, Juan Carlos.
Well, ladies first if in doubt, yes.
[ Laughter ]
>>GRACIELA SELAIMEN: Thank you, Chair. I would like to support Katitza and Valeria's statements, agreeing on this criteria of having civil society MAG members or former MAG members choosing the short list of civil society --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: If I may. This is not the issue. The issue is who does the triage. Is it a black box, the Secretary-General, or is it a mechanism which comes out of the MAG?
>>GRACIELA SELAIMEN: Yeah, I agree that there must be this mechanism that comes out of the MAG. But respecting our difference, the autonomy of each of the groups. Although I think I view in a very positive manner what Ayesha and Jennifer have said about our present capacity of having built-in trust relationships among the stakeholders, we all know that political context can change in a very quick manner, sometimes much more quickly than we can foresee, as well as social and economic context. And we are inserted in this.
So I would like to stress the civil society point of view, taking this possibility of unexpected change that may happen in the future, I would support that we stick to the idea that each stakeholder within a group inside the MAG may suggest the short list of names that come from the broad community.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: But this is undisputed but this is not what we are discussing. We are discussing who makes this final triage. Is it the Secretary-General or is it staff or is it people selected by the MAG. And that's the question.
>>GRACIELA SELAIMEN: Yes, I agree that it must be people selected by the MAG.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. That is basically what we have in this paragraph.
Now, maybe you want to add some language saying, you know, "respecting" or whatever "the" -- or "transparency" or whatever. But, I mean, the -- clearly the idea would not -- you know, the general principle, I think, that you respect what comes out of the stakeholder groups I think is -- at least here in this room, I see undisputed. Maybe it's just a question of strengthening the language.
>>GRACIELA SELAIMEN: Yeah, I guess so.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: But Emily, you have asked for the lawyer. You're a lawyer. Have you come up with --
>>EMILY TAYLOR: I keep on -- yes. I keep on sort of putting up my flag up and then putting it down again.
I wanted to join in this conversation because I recognize the uneasiness that you're expressing.
I do think that what I'm -- what I understand the process to be is that each stakeholder group would be responsible for its own selection process, but they would come out with a short list that is a little bit longer than the number of places allocated, and then put their trust in -- you know, it's either going to be in the Secretary-General or Markus' replacement or a more transparent group of people that they have known and worked with in some cases to say, "Well, okay, we've got a few more names than we have spaces. Now considering gender balance and geographical balance, what are the recommendations that we're going to put forward to the Secretary-General?"
In no way, do I see that -- I don't think anybody sees that as subverting the processes of either civil society or the business community in making the selections in the first place. Or to take Parminder's view, this is not a veto. What this is is just a sanity check, really, to see whether we've got the right geographical balance, the right gender balance, and no more than that.
And I feel the same as Ayesha and Jennifer have expressed. I would happy to submit myself to that process of peer review, if you like, and perhaps I wouldn't be five years ago but now I feel okay about it.
So if that clarity is helpful, that's my understanding.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Just thinking aloud, in terms of comfort language, why not adding something that this (inaudible) group in consultation with the respective stakeholder groups, or something, you know, to make sure -- why don't you give preference to the candidate from Peru instead of that one for Chile because business has one also from Chile or -- you know, but do it in consultation, to make sure that this is not a (inaudible) coming from some kind of obscure supreme body, but it is basically a -- would be a team of facilitators to help the various stakeholder groups to find the appropriate balance in the MAG meeting. You know, I think could we add something like that? This triage could be carried out by a trusted (inaudible) who in consultation -- oh, you have done it already -- with the respective stakeholder groups, something like that.
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Michael. And Parminder and Juan Carlos.
>>MICHAEL KATUNDU: Thank you, Chair. Michael Katundu again.
Chair, I don't want to take ourselves back, but I think it's also important to appreciate the autonomy of various stakeholders and their independence and their (inaudible) and (inaudible) and so forth.
I know we are proposing that we should have names exceeding the number of slots available.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: That's what we have done in the past.
>>MICHAEL KATUNDU: Yes, I know, I know. But chair, we can also say if we have 18 slots and these 18 slots are distributed across the various stakeholders -- namely, the technical, civil society, and private sector -- and we need six from civil society, why can't they be left to sort out themselves, come up with the final list of six names. Instead of coming up with so much bureaucratic process of names that are proposed, then we have another forum which start vetting these names and then we start mixing technical -- the technical team with the -- with the civil society and so forth.
There is some kind of disquiet in this, and I think it's important that we appreciate because some of these stakeholders are quite mobile, we are not as fixed as we might want to imagine.
So how do we take care of some kind of dynamics within themselves.
The only way out is to leave them with the autonomy to select for what they are named and we take them as they are, because what it means is the names are forward, they are vetted then based on the criteria, and they feel they'll be able to serve their stakeholders and get back to them as required. Thank you, chair.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, my feeling is that there is an inherent danger that it doesn't work, and that the Secretary-General might reject the list because it's not balanced. Parminder.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: First of all, I think Katitza (inaudible) didn't understand that we are not talking about subverting the basic process. We are talking about the intermediate process, which is after the slate has been submitted by the stakeholder groups. Within the MAG whether a tripartite group should do the -- whatever it's to be done, triaging, or respective groups of that stakeholder group would do it.
So I think that we were very clear that that's what is the proposal, and they were proposing that only civil society does it.
Point Number 2 which I follow from Michael is civil societies, I can say with complete certainty, that you give us a criteria, civil society's slate is always triaged -- not triaged, but it's balanced across all the criteria you can --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: But you don't know in advance what the others will do.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: What?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: You don't know in advance what the other groups will do.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: No, that is what the point is.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yeah.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: We generally provide the gender quota, the developing country quota for others as well, in any case. That's generally the disbalance we actually suffer mostly, but we are perfectly fine to do it, because we are supposed to be representing the marginalized groups. So if the issue is just to keep a balance, civil society is not only perfectly capable of keeping a balance of their own group, they have always -- always done that.
So what happens is that beyond that, whatever is the criteria being applied is the issue which we are uncomfortable with. We should -- in addition to other issues of triage. It is gender, it is geographic distribution, what is it. We are afraid of that are non-criteria, because once the slate is bigger, we do not know how the slate becomes smaller. And then this issue (saying name) mentioned, the difference of culture, and I think it's very important to note that unlike unless the business community and technical community where there is a greater deal of who homogenization -- I mean that's perfectly fine. That's how that group is supposed to be. The heterogeneity in civil society is extreme. It's not even I'm afraid of a MAG group, ex-members, vetting that process because even there is exclusion with the civil society people who are inside and so many people who are not represented because civil society, as you said earlier, is whoever is not producing or doing a professional task. It's everybody else. Those exclusions are so extreme that that culture is not appreciated by -- by others as much as the civil society group would do.
So we still, I think, remain comfortable with if it has to be done at a MAG level, to be done by a member -- two or three members of civil society who are ex-members and we -- we can assure you that if we are given criteria, as you said, you would always come up with quite a balanced list. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Are you asking for the floor? Ayesha or --
>>AYESHA HASSAN: A couple of comments, I suppose. One is, I suppose I'm still a little confused about how any of our list of candidates that are delicately balanced and crafted to represent, as much as we can, the full balance, can be undone. If the eight for the five slots are satisfactory to us, they should be mutually interchangeable, so I don't know how there would be a disruption of the sensibilities that went into the picking of those individuals, whether it be the business, the technical, or the -- or the -- as you described them, or -- I can't remember the words you used, but I'll use "sensitive" stakeholder group.
I guess I have two questions. Would we be able to set this up so that it defines what those -- what the balance is that we'd be looking at, and that it would be in the exceptional circumstances of where, taken together, the slates do not achieve the balance in terms of gender, geographical and whatever other diversity or balance people were thinking of?
And then finally, perhaps there's a way for this language to specify that the trusted group would include representatives of each of the stakeholder group if it's not there, and I apologize. That just came to me. I didn't look to see if that language is actually there.
Those are my thoughts in trying to move us forward.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yeah. No, one -- the basic -- the main thing is geographical balance. It's true that the gender balance could be -- or should be ensured by each stakeholder groups among themselves, that's the point. But, I mean, we can add geographical balance. I mean, you could even have a process where you don't even give the names, you just give the country or the city of origin that this triage group says, okay, then let's go for these people. You know, let's anonymize the process and make sure we focus on geographical balance. But I can assure you that the Secretary-General would reject an unbalanced list in terms of geographically balance, and this can happen if you have three parallel processes, however perfect they are, individually, that you can have an element -- there's an element of uncertainty and you can come up with a list that does not reflect a suitable geographical balance.
And it will be rejected.
So I mean, here we're talking about the process, but maybe we should add geographical balance, if that's -- you know, that was one of the elements you felt the discomfort, that it's too wide -- widely defined, know we are talking essentially about the geographical balance. In the first line, can you say "to ensure appropriate geographical balance among MAG members."
And the --
>> (Speaker is off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, yes, but the gender balance can be ensured within each group. You know, you can go say "Don't -- "And make sure that your list coming out from each stakeholder group reflects suitable gender balance, so that not one group" --
And it's true, actually, the point that Parminder made that civil society usually provided a lot for gender balance because you took that very seriously, and you're quite right, the others -- and you can ask them, "Make sure that your proposals reflect gender balance." That's -- if you have eight -- give eight names, so four of them have to be women. That's -- that can be done with each stakeholder group.
But others asked -- Hang on. Heather, you haven't said anything today. Yes, Juan Carlos, and Ayesha.
Heather first.
>>HEATHER DRYDEN: Thank you, Markus.
In response to your last proposal, I do think it's important to reference gender somewhere as wells, and I think your proposal is a practical one.
If we're not able to come up with something for a kind of triage group to look at diversity, then it's simple, I believe. It means that the future head of the Secretariat and/or Nitin Desai or that role would need to carry out the same task.
And so that's the default, I believe, because the Secretary-General, as you've pointed out, isn't going to sit there and analyze this list of names. Someone must do this on his behalf and make recommendations. So we have just need to anticipate that.
Speaking from personal experience, recently I was involved in a process of selecting for review teams within ICANN. And the challenge there, because various constituencies were putting forward numbers of candidates very close to the available slots for that constituency or part of ICANN, it did mean that when looking at the overall composition of the review team, it was very difficult for myself and my co-selector to build in diversity.
So the gender balance isn't particularly good, and we had difficulty with geographic balance as well as a result. And so that's really just to further your point that by having more names than dedicated slots, you do allow that to take place at that level. And I think it's very important that we take that into account.
Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for concerning that from a very practical experience. This is very much what we experienced in the past. The more names you have, the easier it is.
But the point is, and the point (inaudible) is well taken. The gender balance can be not very easy to check. You can reject a list. It's a binary question. If you ask the 50% of your proposal should be women and it's not there, then you send the list back.
This is a -- really a preliminary check that can be carried out by any kind of Secretariat gathering these names.
The geographical balance is more difficult to establish. You can only establish this once you have the overall candidates from all groups.
Ayesha and Juan Carlos.
And Raul.
Ayesha.
>>AYESHA HASSAN: Thank you. I just wanted to state that I think our overall goal is to set up a process whereby we end up with a balanced and effective group. So with that in mind, I hear you on the anonymized first review regarding balance on geography and gender, and that's fine. You know, a first review to make sure the lists that have come in and the candidates are balanced. But I do think over the years we have seen that there has been, just as in civil society there are a range of views, a range of expertise, a range of interest being brought into the discussion of the MAG, the same goes for the business and the technical community. And you would have kind of a lopsided MAG if you ended up with only telecoms people all from South, Latin, and Central America from the business community. And even if you gender balance there, overall the work of the MAG would suffer because you had nobody with expertise from X, Y, Z.
And that's where I would like to state that I don't support an overall triage that's anonymized because there is something about looking at people's bios and backgrounds and understanding the combination of how different expertise -- sometimes interest and expertise can be covered by another stakeholder group. We can look at a civil society expert and say, you know what? They really bring in the range here. We don't need, necessarily, X, Y or Z from another community.
So in that regard, I would support the input to add gender balance as well to the criteria in 13, just so it's very clear that that's what is expected from the stakeholder groups and will be part of the triage that is performed.
Thanks.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you.
The gender balance would not be part of the triage. The gender balance would be part of the original proposals. Each stakeholder group would be asked to make sure that sufficient gender balance is reflected in their proposals.
Juan Carlos, and Raul then.
>>JUAN CARLOS SOLINES: Thank you. I would like to make two comments and one suggestion. Very briefly, in connection with what I mentioned yesterday in the open consultation, regarding the huge challenge that the whole process of the IGF and the MAG have ahead in the sense of creating a solid base of candidates and profiles and human resources that may continue with the process, I think that we should acknowledge that considering the huge impact that these issues have in the world and will have in the next decade, this is still a group of rather short number of organizations that all sectors. There are few, you know, civil society transnationals that are present and are leading this process. There are also one main business organization that is also leading the process. And I think that the challenge is to create more awareness and have much more organizations involved in the process and trying to contribute through the organization and through their members to the process.
So that's my first comment.
My second comment is regarding the balances that we are mentioning. Every balance has a caveat, particularly when we are talking about geographical balance.
In a globalized world with a lot of transnational organizations, maybe there is a, you know, North American working in Thailand. And, you know, being an organization from Canada and having, you know, a person from India working there.
So we should take into account that reality, which is the globalization fact and the fact that there are people from around the world working around the world.
My suggestion, based on my first comment, is that in number 13, when we're saying, "This triage could be carried out by a trusted group," I would suggest a trusted group that includes former nongovernmental MAG members. Because eventually, in this trusted group, should take part other members that are not former MAG members but can bring some, you know, different view to the table and can, you know, reinforce the trust that we'll have in this group.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. George.
>>GEORGE PAPADATOS: I may have missed that, but once all the nominations are finished and ready to be submitted to the Secretary-General, will the MAG know who is proposed? I mean, is this list going to be made available to the MAG for both government and nongovernment candidates? That's what I was wondering.
I mean, is there any way that we can know who is being proposed before the decision is being made?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, in the past, I think we never circulated the final collation of names. I mean -- The names are fairly public domain, as they were -- Not the governmental names that were directly addressed to the Secretariat, but, for instance, civil society, that was fairly widely circulated, members of the list. They were never actually discussed and circulated in the MAG.
Sorry, I had -- we had Raul as well.
>>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Thank you. Two things. First point is that as has been already pointed out by other people, I think Heather say this, that we need some kind of mechanism for doing this job. What used to be the black box should be substituted by something else.
This mechanism that is being proposed is one possibility, but if other people have in mind other ideas, it would be good to discuss those ideas.
But one thing is if the problem is with the mechanism or if the problem is with the job description of this group.
Somebody has to do that.
As we are forgetting, maybe, that there is not a single organization that could be representative of any of the stakeholder groups, as even we create coordination between technical and (inaudible) organizations that we believe represent all these group. There could be some other people that claim, for some representations, also to submit other candidacies.
Same can happen with civil society or private sector.
ICC can conduct elections or a selection process and make the recommendations, but other organizations could also submit names for being considered as MAG members. And so we need to create -- ensure the balance different from the different point of view, gender balance, geographic balance, because I don't think that's the -- that we can expect that all groups could solve even the gender balance. Because as I said before, there would be other people, other organizations that could assume the names. And so there will not be a single process being submitted in any of the stakeholder groups.
So I think that's -- I don't know, probably this is not a perfect mechanism, but I think that is a mechanism that has been proposed as a triage is workable. I'm very open to analyze other proposals, but I don't see any other alternative except coming back to the black box approach. I don't think that's what all of us want.
Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I think we cannot have three autonomous processes and hope that they work without any kind of triage mechanism.
I just wanted to -- we are basically running out of time and I find a minute.
We are at the beginning of a discussion, and I don't think we will find the perfect solution today where everybody agrees to. I think we recognize the challenge, we recognize the sensitivities, we recognize the need for finding something. But we, at the same time, we need to find language that reflects that. And I think one way to do it is to state this very fact, that we are at the beginning of a discussion, that there were different views on how best to do this. One of the possibilities discussed was however that there were certain caveats involved and mention the fact that this needed to be further discussed as we already have. There needed further reflection on that.
But basically, soften the language a little bit on this paragraph, say it's the first discussion on that.
Now, whether or not -- you know, we do say we feel the black box approach should not be further pursued, but if some people feel that this is a preferred alternative, then let's say so. But one thing we cannot say is that three parallel processes will give us a balanced outcome, because that would be twisting the facts.
Does anybody would like to add something or should we go into the text?
Yes, Katitza.
>>KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: I have a few language --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay.
>>KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: At the end of the paragraph, maybe we could come to say something like the decision of these groups would then be submitted to the Secretary-General, not by approval.
We -- Let me check.
Yeah, it was felt that some form of triage might be necessary to ensure appropriate balance among MAG members. As one possibility, this triage could be carried out by three groups of former nongovernmental MAG members. These groups could include MAG members who are being rotated out. Their selection would be based on proposals made by the (inaudible) group, which will be asked to propose a number of candidate exceeding the number of available slots that allow selection.
The recommendation of this -- No. And then the decision of these three groups would then be submitted to the Secretary-General.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: That would be the black box approach.
>> (Off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: How can a transparent black box?
>> (Off microphone).
>>KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: The decision of the three stakeholder groups would agree that the decision would be respected.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: That will not work.
>>KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: I just want to put it for my....
[ Laughter ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: No, I mean let's base our language on what we have and not -- I mean, we can have -- continue as we have done in the past, if you want that. But it's basically give names and the Secretary-General will then make a selection. But the Secretary-General will ask for more names than available slots. That's a fact. Or we can try and find the mechanism, and that's what we're trying to capture here, that would come up with a suitably balanced group. Whether the Secretary-General will then accept it or not is another story, because on the whole, the Secretary-General does not like to rubber stamp decisions as a principle.
But I mean, we could, you know, try and sell that as a process that is credible, has support within the community, is sufficiently transparent and guarantees a sufficient balance in all its aspects. But, I mean, there are -- Anything in between doesn't work.
>> I'd like to come back to you mentioned transparency. The reason I raise the issue of publicizing the list of candidates is not only for transparency but that's in conformity with U.N. rules. I don't know of any election process or appointment process where the names are not made public, so that all of us will know who are the people running and, in the end, we will find out who are being selected. I don't see anything wrong with that.
So I just would like to see that reflected in another sentence.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Can you propose a sentence?
>> (Off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Fine, fine. It's no problem. We can add that.
Parminder.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: Initially I proposed to comment about the anonymized part, which has been removed after Ayesha's intervention. Because in any case, any civil society list, and that was introduced on civil society's objections, but no list of civil society would really be anonymous. They are generally very public. I would assert in any case it would be known to all, so I agree an anonymized process would not work.
But Ayesha was also saying that internally a private sector group with no -- like telecom is underrepresented or others are underrepresented, and that was primarily the point of civil society and insulated the differences even much more. Though I still have problems with this and we have had discussions within the Internet Governance Caucus there was a lot of problem with this NomCom kind of process.
So I think we should add the last sentence that one such possibility which came out was such and such. Or there were people who thought this could be a good idea.
Another thing was that we said the geographic balance was the main thing they would be looking at. And we chose the part of that anonymized thing and then that got removed, the geographical --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: But the geographical is in now. Please remove the gender balance. Just say geographical balance there, because we can ask each stakeholder group to ensure an appropriate gender balance in their proposals.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: And if we can strengthen the process of the consultation with multistakeholder groups, I think if that group is really functioning, if they have a problem that this person is not (inaudible) because of this, should we ask them for the changes or --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Why don't we say this could be carried out by a trusted group of former nongovernmental MAG members. I think this was also one of the issues that the nongovernmental stakeholders create their own nongovernmental process. Former nongovernmental MAG members, third line.
Full stop. And then -- Oh, no. Sorry. MAG members, comma, perhaps including some MAG members who are rotated off. Rotated off. And then make a full stop there. Yes.
Okay. This trusted group would --
>>PARMINDER SINGH: Can we work in active consultation with stakeholder groups, in the sense if they want another name, they can always ask that group because --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: -- names rather than try to take the decision on their own.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: In active consultation with the respective stakeholder groups, I think it will have to say.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: Yeah.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: With the respective stakeholder groups.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: Active means you have to go back again. I am not happy with it. I am not happy with it.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: And then you would like also to introduce as one possibility -- I think we could say there was first discussion on the selection process, full stop. And then as one possibility --
>>PARMINDER SINGH: One suggestion was --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: One discussion. Is there was a first discussion was -- no. Right at the beginning. There was a first discussion --
>>PARMINDER SINGH: The first discussions already come in the first sentence.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: There was a first discussion on the selection process, you could say. There was a first discussion on the selection process. One possibility mentioned was a form of triage. I think that will make it sufficiently vague to see this is work in progress.
Does this give more comfort to our civil society members?
And then we need the (inaudible). Yes, George.
>>GEORGE PAPADATOS: Well, it's a very small sentence. The list of all MAG nominees to be submitted to the Secretary-General should be published at the IGF work site.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. That will be on 14, I think the second sentence there. Yeah. Okay. That's fine.
14, 14.
Second sentence.
>> Please (inaudible) streaming.
Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay. Juan Carlos.
>>JUAN CARLOS SOLINES: So just to make sure, the trusted group is going to be closed or limited only to former MAG members; right? Because I suggested before that says "that includes former MAG members" so that eventually we can include in these trusted groups somebody that was not MAG member.
But if we keep it like it is, it's only for former MAG members.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I think the idea was also to give comfort to MAG members by having people they know. Nobody would be in this group who is not known to the group.
>>JUAN CARLOS SOLINES: For instance, yourself, let's say, to give an example. You cannot be member of that.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I think that's a very bad example.
[ Laughter ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I have done this for long enough.
No, I think the former MAG members makes sense, I think. Clearly, it should not be the MAG itself, but people who were in the MAG and know the MAG and are known by the MAG.
>> Now, my second question, can you go a little bit up? It says proposed list made by the three nongovernmental stakeholders group. We should consider that these three groups are not formal groups; right? When we are talking about three stakeholder groups, what are we referring to? That the whole civil society is going to get together and, as a group, are going to put forward a list. That's what it is.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: This is basically the point made by Raul, this is difficult enough. Each stakeholder group would create their own selection procedure for civil society, for private sector, for the technical community.
>> Within the MAG.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: No, no. After that.
I mean, we leave it up to them. There are plenty of civil society people outside the MAG.
>> We leave that up to whom?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Whoever wants to say they -- I mean, self-organizing --
>> So it's like an amorphous group. We don't know to what extent this group is comprised of.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, what we heard this morning is each stakeholder group is separate, we have different culture, we have different traditions, we have different ways of organizing ourselves. Leave it up to them. I mean, there will always be somebody saying I am not represented by whatever the mechanism is.
>> Okay. And my last, which is not a question but a concern, is regarding the suggestion of having all the candidate lists published in the Web site, I understand that is for transparency purposes but, for instance, if somebody gets approached and asks to be put as a candidate, I'm not sure they want to be in a list out of which you are not going to be selected. I mean, these are the candidates but these (inaudible) or the majority were not selected. That's --
>> (Off microphone).
>>MARKUS KUMMER: No, no, but this was -- this point was made in the past. It might be difficult to get good people if this is handled in public.
George.
>>GEORGE PAPADATOS: I think the names that will appear on the list, they should be honored, but that they made it to the point where they are to be selected or among the nominees to the Secretary-General.
Not everybody makes it. Same thing happens, as (inaudible) said, elections and so forth. But on the other hand, all of us should be informed as to who was running, how many were candidates, and so forth. I think that's part of the transparency process.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: We have ten minutes left. If we don't have agreement, we can say, "One proposal was."
If you have a consensus that everybody thinks we should publish the list, fine. If we don't have consensus, would you be more comfortable, Juan Carlos, if you say "one proposal was to publish a list of all candidates"?
>>JUAN CARLOS SOLINES: I think, yeah, it's fair to say that. I don't agree. (Inaudible) is something public.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: That's fine. We are not here in past ten minutes to fine-tune whatever how we move forward, but I think it is worth mentioning that it was discussed that there was one proposal to make the list public. And it makes it clear, we say as one proposal, that not everybody agrees with that proposal.
I think we have a fairly good outcome, actually, of our meeting in terms of reflecting the discussion, giving an idea of what we want, who the MAG members are, what their tasks are, and who we want for the job and, you know, if somebody reads this, and many people would say no, thank you, I don't want to do that.
And that's also part of our job today.
And I think it will be a valuable input, I think, in the discussions of the CSTD dedicated working group tomorrow. And I think we have also moved a big step forward in terms of transparency by actually -- I mean, it was not -- when I asked our scribes to do this job, I thought let's do it for archiving purposes, but we went actually further than that. We made it transparent. We made it publicly available as a live text streaming.
I think with that we can call it a day.
We have ten more minutes left. I don't know whether we can still sample the caipirinhas of the Brazilian stall upstairs or whether they have closed shop, but now I certainly would be ready for one.
Katitza has something to say.
>>KATITZA RODRIGUEZ: Just to find the right way to say it, and this is hard.
I just want to make sure that everyone is in agreement with the text and that we are not going to change the text afterward via e-mail. This happened in the past when we talked about messages, is we agreed on the issue of the text in the messages and then that was changed in the mailing list.
If we have this line of transparency, I hope it keeps in the text, just as a comment.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: No, I mean it's -- If -- No, we have circulated, done some online work in the past, indeed, and I really can't remember this thing on the messages issue. But whatever -- Yeah, yeah, I do remember that you said so as well.
But now, in any case, we have the transcript. We can go back to that, what was said and what was not said.
And if you guys are happy with this text as it is, then I certainly will not complain because it makes our life much easier. And we say let's freeze the text as it is.
You will allow us to commas and to check the spelling, but we consider this a nonedited text that we will still maybe improve, correct, edit. But we consider this the final text. And there don't seem to be any further comments. Oh, there is. Emily, yes.
>>EMILY TAYLOR: Sorry to make a further comment but I thought that what we always do is circulate the text on the list. Some of the members are not here and they may well want to comment. Is that what you had in mind? I know we're all wrapping up to go, but --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, I mean in the past, it was never the intention of having major overhaul of whatever reflected the summary discussions, because I mean this is basically a summary report of a meeting that took place and it should be accurate in a sense. We have gone through it collectively. I think we have improved on it. And there is a merit in freezing it right now, but we can, of course, continue the discussion afterwards.
Yes, the point raised whether or not the list of candidates should be made available publicly, this is something we could not agree on. The whole idea of the selection process, this is certainly only the beginning of a discussion that I think in terms of improving on this paper, I think we reached a stage where we cannot go much further.
George.
>>GEORGE PAPADATOS: Yeah, as far as throwing this text open for comments, and by members who did not remotely participate who are not here, I cannot accept the fact that somebody will come in and say, "Well, I don't like that particular sentence. I propose deletion." That throws the entire text out of balance, and not all of us have the time to re-engage, you know, in an online type of endless discussion on this particular text.
And I think it's also a matter of time. Time is of essence, to be submitted in a timely manner to the Secretary-General, or it could help the New York process.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes, thank you.
Just one short comment. I noticed we have the last paragraph, that was basically the laundry list of improvements and now we only have one point, identify message for improved input. I don't know whether there were other issues floating around that people had ideas or have -- if not, we turn it into a one-sentence paragraph and put it higher up in the list. It doesn't make it sort of dangling at the end.
A comment. Were there other issues of improvements floating around? But I think we all reached the point where we feel we may need a drink or something.
[ Laughter ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Or go for a walk or whatever.
So then I suggest we turn this last sentence into a one-sentence paragraph and put it higher up somewhere where it fits better in this.
Yes, Fouad.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: You would just put more bullet points and mention the possibility of good tools, like dedicated suggestion box e-mail address.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: But that's the --
>>FOUAD BAJWA: And then the possible Wiki which retains those comments online, on the IGF Web site. And....
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, let's leave it as it is, and let's have the discussion on improved methods in a separate occasion.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Maybe this could be the starting point that stays there in all summary documents, and every time something comes up just list it in there. Just let it stay there.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay.
Can we, with this, conclude our meeting?
I thank you very much for your support.
Sorry.
>> Want to say a word.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Please.
>>VINCENZO AQUARO: Just few words at the conclusion of this meeting. On behalf of DESA, on behalf of my Undersecretary-General, the director of my division and myself, I want really to thank this distinguished advisory and Multistakeholder Advisory Group for the excellent group that made for five years. And this is, for me, the first meeting. For you, some of you maybe it's the last, maybe not. I'm sure not. But in any case, I really want to, on behalf of the DESA, really thank you. And of course I want really thanks my friend Markus, because without him, we must be honest, all this effort, all these successful meetings could not be happen.
So really, thank you so much, and congratulations for the future.
[ Applause ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: I would also like to say a closing word. Thank you very much for your cooperation throughout the years. This will be my very last meeting in this function, which is in a way a relief. But it was always a pleasure working with you. And I hope to see many of you also in the future. And with this, I close the meeting.
Thank you very much.
[ Gavel ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: And I think we also have to thank our scribes who performed their job from California.
[ Applause ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you, Laura and Teri. You did a marvelous job. Thank you. And my team, of course.
Is.
Thank you very much and have an excellent evening.