1 - 28 February, 2011 | Internet Governance Forum

The following text is excerpted from an ongoing discussion on the IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group mailing list. The only changes made relate to an effort to anonymize the comments in respect of the Chatham House rule and separate issues related to logistics and internal procedures. The discussion took place between 1 – 28 February, 2011.

(Writer A)

All the best Markus!

Thanks once again for everything you have achieved with the IGF, and good luck to your new position at ISOC.

(Writer B)

Very best wishes to you, Markus. The MAG and the IGF will need to quickly figure out how are they going to carry on without you :)

(Writer C)

Dear Markus:

It was a pleasure to work with you in the MAG and IGF. Your effort was a key factor in what was achieved so far. We wish you all the best in your work with the ISOC.

(Writer D)

Dear Markus,

It was wonderful working with you Markus, I am sure we will have plenty of opportunities to work together in your association with ISOC.

Looking forward to remaining in contact with you.

(Writer E)

Dear Markus

Your leadership at the IGF will be hugely missed!

It also goes without saying that I have all the trust in Chengetai to prepare next meetings really well.

(Writer F)

Thanks again Markus.

Good luck in your new position!

All the best,

(Writer G)

Dear Mr. Markus,

Again, it was a great pleasure to work with you in the MAG and IGF. I

wish you all the best in your future work at the ISOC. Hoping we will

still meeting you in IGF and other forum.

Best regards,

(Writer H)

Dear Markus,

It was a great pleasure to work with you in the MAG and IGF. I wish you all the best in your future work at the ISOC.

Looking forward to remaining in contact with you.

(Writer I)

Dear Colleagues,

I would like to request a bit of time from your busy schedules to

contribute towards the updating of the IGF Wikipedia entry at

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Governance_Forum.

This entry serves as a major source of public information about IGF

and as it progresses requires regular updates and improvements.

I thank you in advance.

(Writer J)

Greetings All,

Now that the request for comments period had closed, I assume we will soon receive a copy of the first draft of a programme paper.

However, time is short and it occurs to me that it might be helpful if we kick off our discussions on the list. I have no idea how many comments have been received but for your information and edification I attach the one put in by auDA. I would be interested to read comment papers posted by others on the MAG, or their organisations.

Finally, since we know that Markus has now left and that Nitin will not be chairing our MAG meeting on 24 February, may I suggest that we take the opportunity of this list to consider who we would like to appoint to Chair our meeting. Perhaps we could have it jointly chaired by both a government (our hosts, Kenya?) and non-government member of the MAG?

Thoughts?

(Writer K)

Writer J,

Thank you for bringing this subject up.

I think your suggestion is excellent, and I support your idea.

(Writer L)

Writer J good point, full support.

Alice would be a good chair and it would help her to adjust the preparations for Nairobi according to the local needs. Any volunteers for the non-governmental co--chair? What will be the rolöe of Chengatai?

(Writer F)

I am in full support of Alice Munyua as a chair.

Would also be in support of Chengetai as a co-chair.

(Chengetai Masango)

Dear All,

The question about who will chair the February meeting is under consideration by NY.

We gave them our recommendations and they said they would get back to us as soon as a decision is made.

I will refrain from commenting on this in order not to prejudge any decision that NY will make.

I cannot be a candidate for co-Chair as I will be in charge of providing Secretariat support for the meeting.

As you may recall from Markus' email to the MAG list of 31 December, he recommended that the mandate of the

MAG, which ended after the Vilnius meeting, "be extended on a provisional basis until a new and hopefully more

sustainable solution has been found". I am still awaiting an official announcement on the matter but I trust that one

is forthcoming. Should this not be the case then we could have 2 full days of open consultations.

Best regards

(Writer M)

I support the proposal. Alice and Chengatai can co-chair. I have spoken

to Alice and she is ready.

(Writer N)

Hi,

I also support Alice for chair and Chengetai for co-chair.

Best regards to all.

(Writer O)

Hello all,

I fully support the idea of having Alice as chair. Attached, please find the inputs APC submitted for the IGF programme.

(Writer P)

Chris,

I understand we are still "between" decisions, however I think this is an excellent idea and will support it

(Writer Q)

Dear all,

I support Alice as well as Co-Chair or Chair and am certain this will ensure productive meetings on the 23rd and 24th of February. I think it would be useful to consider how best to select a Co-Chair from the non-governmental stakeholder groups and candidates for Co-Chair that would help support these preparatory meetings, and distribute the burden of Chairing these sessions.

I have also attached ICC BASIS’ reflections on IGF 2010 and recommendations for the IGF 2011 programme for your convenience.

(Writer R)

Thanks for kicking this off, Writer J. It will be valuable to have these contributions in advance of the meeting. I've attached the Internet Society contribution with suggestions for the program for Kenya. I've been told by colleagues that they don't think we highlighted sufficiently our enthusiasm about the youth theme, so I'll take this opportunity to draw attention to it more specifically.

I also support Alice as co-Chair or Chair, and I too have a preference for having a co-Chair drawn from among the non-government members.

I believe that the private sector, civil society and Internet technical community now have sufficient experience of working together to have developed the trust needed to facilitate selection of an appropriate co-Chair.

(Writer J)

Chengetai, (and everyone),

I appreciate your note and acknowledge that it would be impossible for you

to take the role as co-chair.

In respect to the appointment of a Chair or Chairs, both the IGF and the

MAG are open multi-stakeholder bodies and discussions like this are

healthy and indeed should take place on the list. After all, how else will

the people in NY have any idea what we think. And, given our involvement

in the last 5 years of the IGF I'd have thought that what we think might

be worth listening to.

As a side point, I would also argue that a distinction can be drawn

between the Chair for the open consultation day and the Chair or Chairs

for the MAG day.

With respect to your point regarding the MAG 'mandate', I hope that this

does indeed occur prior to the planned meetings next week. However should

members of the MAG wish to meet, that is a matter for them irrespective of

whether any mandate has been renewed or not.

Further, given the experience in planning for IGFs that currently resides

in the collective minds of MAG members, I think we should at the very

least offer our services to our Kenyan hosts so they may utilise them if

they wish.

(Writer S)

Writer J and others

While I fully understand the issues you raised I think any improvisation

regarding the Chair would be out of context and may not give legitimacy to

the meeting.

Appointment of a Chair temporary or other is the prerogative of the

Secretary General

(Writer L)

It would be helpful if the SG consult with the stakeholders before making any decision.

(Writer T)

At a minimum!

(Chengetai Masango)

Dear All,

Below is an announcement by UNDESA on the February IGF consultative meetings.

It will answer some of the questions raised on this thread.

The announcement will also be posted on the IGF website.

Best regards

Chengetai

___________________________________________

An open consultation meeting with all stakeholders will take place as

scheduled at the Palais des Nations in Geneva on 23 February 2011 to

discuss the preparation of the programme of the sixth Internet Governance

Forum, which will be hosted by the Government of Kenya in Nairobi with

dates under consideration. The open consultation meeting will be followed

by an informal MAG meeting with the same objective on 24 February 2011.

The open consultations and the informal MAG meeting will be moderated by

Ms. Alice Munyua, Head of Delegation of the Kenyan Government, with the

support of UNDESA on behalf of the United Nations Secretary-General.

Please be informed that the appointment of the Special Adviser to

the United Nations Secretary-General for Internet Governance and the

recruitment of a new Executive Coordinator of the IGF Secretariat are

underway and we will keep you informed of any future developments on this

matter.

We look forward to your participation at the forthcoming meetings.

(Writer N)

Many thanks Chengetai,

will there be remote access during next week meetings and consultations?

Best regards and thanks

(Writer K)

Thank you Chengetai for this information.

Choice of Alice as the moderator is excellent!

(Writer U)

I agree

Best wishes to Alice for the coming meeting.

(Writer D)

Thank You Chengetai for the information, it will be nice to work with Alice, I will be there for the meeting.

(Writer V)

Dear list ,

After the first conference of the Council of Europe Ministers responsible for media and new communication services in Reykjavik in 2009, the Council of Europe has been exploring possible international law responses to the need to protect and preserve the Internet as a means of safeguarding freedom of expression and access to information regardless of frontiers, taking into account its trans-border nature and multi-stakeholder model of governance.

In order to discuss with state and non-state actors how to work together to promote and preserve the Internet values including freedom, universality, integrity and openness, the Council of Europe will be organising the conference:

Internet Freedom - from Principles to Global Treaty Law?

Content, Stakeholders, Form

The conference will be held in Strasbourg, Agora Building, on 18 and 19 (morning) April 2011.

Registrations are possible and other information is available at http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/standardsetting/media-dataprotection/conf-int…

(Chengetai Masango)

Dear All,

Please find attached the draft of the programme paper we will be woking from and changing during the informal MAG meeting.

Best regards

(Writer J)

All,

I have volunteered to lead this so that we can take the large number of questions suggested and bring them down to around 6. Proposed deadline is 10 March.

So may I please ask for volunteers to assist with this on the list. Please let me know asap if you want to help.

(Writer P)

Writer J

I will be happy to volunteer/help.

(Writer F)

So will I.

Kind regards,

(Writer X)

Hi, although physically absent this time, I am happy to help with this

task.

(Writer Q)

Dear all,

I have volunteered to lead the effort to synthesize the proposed questions/issues for the EMERGING ISSUES session at the IGF in Kenya. Please let me know if you would like to join a small group to work on this effort.

We will need to have completed our work and submitted the synthesized questions by 10 March.

Let me know asap if you would like to help!

(Writer Y)

Estimados/as:

I have volunteered to lead the SOP discussion re: work on the proposed

questions/issues. Please, let me know who is interesting to join this

discussion.

All the best,

(Writer Z)

Hi Writer Y,

I would be happy to join and help on this.

(Writer Y)

Deadline: March 10.

(Writer R)

I am willing to work on it as well Writer Y.

(Writer AA)

Dear Writer J,

I'm volunteer to join.

(Writer X)

Hi again, it seems my reponse did not make it. So I resend it.

(Writer AB)

Thanks Writer Y for your effort. Pls count me in as usual.

(Writer O)

Hello everyone,

I will be helping with synthesizing the questions for the Access and

Diversity team. Writer AC has volunteered to assist with it so far.

Please let me know who might want to join us for the discussion/work.

Best,

(Writer AD)

Dear Writer Q,

I am ready to help you with this task. Please let me know more details on work to be done.

Best regards,

(Writer O)

I should have mentioned that the deadline is March 10th.

(Writer Z)

Hi Writer Q,

I'm happy to join and help on this.

(Writer AE)

Happy to help

(Writer Y)

Please Writer Q. Add me. I will try to find out someone else from civil society to join this group, too!

(Writer AF)

I'm in.

(Writer AG)

Thank Writer Y. I would be happy to join.

(Writer AH)

Dear Writer O and all,

I'm keen to collaborate in this group.

(Writer AI)

Happy to assist

(Writer AJ)

Writer J, I will be happy to help.