[WSIS CS-Plenary] FW: <incom> Creating spaces for civil society (and ICT enabled communities) (post) WSIS

[Rik Panganiban]

Michael,

We've heard this message from you a number of times about grassroots  
inclusion, and its good that you continue to hold our feet to the fire.

 From the first prepcom, I have always felt that the NGOs who managed  
to get accredited to the Prepcoms were not going to necessarily be  
the ones who were actually on the ground implementing important ICT- 
related projects at the grassroots.  Lots of this is due to the cost  
of participation, the UN / ITU cultures, the existing NGO networks  
present, and a lack of outreach.

Luckily, as WSIS progressed, I saw more and more groups who were  
actually doing good stuff on the ground being involved in the WSIS.   
I.e. the grassroots caucus, telecentres caucus, human rights caucus  
and others were actually being populated by folks with direct  
connections to the people being impacted.   Not by the tens of  
thousands perhaps, but certainly more than the handful of "UN NGO  
professionals" like myself who tend to dominate these events.

I think many of us would agree with you that much more needs to be  
done to bring into the fold the real civil society on all levels,  
particularly the ones who are doing the heavy lifting on the ground.   
We appreciate very much your advice on how to make this happen, given  
our significant resource and staffing constraints as we enter into  
the implementation phase.

I think a key question lots of us have is how to make sure that  
researchers, grassroots activists and NGO networks on the ground are  
involved in the national level implementation process.  Ultimately  
much of the battle is going to be at the state and local levels.

Best regards,

Rik Panganiban
CONGO

On Dec 27, 2005, at 6:24 PM, Gurstein, Michael wrote:

>
> Hi Willie,
>
> My compliments on your thoughtful and informative commentary on the  
> WSIS
> process and sorry that my response has been so delayed but real life
> intervenes from time to time...
>
> Let me start by saying that I well recognize and applaud the "gains"
> that "Civil Society" seems to have made at WSIS. They were, in the
> context of Internet Governance and even in broader and longer term
> matters of modalities of "global governance" potentially of  
> considerable
> significante.
>
> My problem is that I don't see any necessary connection between "Civil
> Society" as it was constituted before, during and apparently after  
> WSIS
> and the kinds of "Information Society" issues and objectives with  
> which
> I'm concerned.
>
> A bit of background.  I'm the Chair of a Research Network that is
> concerned with "Community Informatics", that is "using ICTs to enable
> and empower local communities".  Most of the researchers in the  
> network
> including myself are working with communities, community activitists,
> community ICT practitioners in trying to figure out how, and then
> implementing ICTs to support the range of applications of interest to
> local communities--e-learning, e-health, local economic  
> development, and
> so on.
>
> I would say that both the researchers and those in communities see the
> problem with most ICT4D efforts and why most haven't been  
> successful as
> being that they are implemented "top down" and fail to include those
> most directly concerned, the users and the local implementers, in  
> their
> design, development and implementation.
>
> Before I came to WSIS I did a fairly extensive round of consulting  
> with
> both the practitioner and the research networks around these and  
> related
> WSIS issues.  What I got from the practitioner side was a very strong
> sense that they hadn't been included in WSIS; that they didn't see any
> way for themselves or their interests or concerns to be included in  
> the
> process; and that the whole thing was pretty much of a waste of time.
> What I got from the researchers was a sense that whatever was being  
> done
> in ICT4D so far, whether through WSIS or related efforts, was more
> top-down business as usual.
>
> So I should say that I didn't come to WSIS with the assumption that
> re-adjusting processes of Internet Governance or making advances for
> "Civil Society" in global governance processes was going to have much
> significance for the folks that I was in discussion with.  And what
> concerned me even more was that all the policy space was being  
> taken up
> with more or less technical or structural issues of Internet  
> Governance
> with the issues and objectives that would be of value and significance
> to the folks that I'm working with being more or less completely
> ignored.
>
> Equally, I saw that there were virtually no linkages from the  
> literally
> thousands of people on the ground in the various practitioner networks
> (as for example the 10,000 or more community telecentres  
> represented by
> the Telecenters of the Americas Partnership--I'm on their Steering
> Committee) and the on-going discussions of WSIS and including the
> various Civil Society interventions and on-going areas of  
> participation.
>
> As an aside, I understand from a somewhat limited experience with
> involvements of Civil Society in various earlier Summits (for  
> example on
> the Summits on the Environment and Sustainable Development) that Civil
> Society in those areas had more or less direct and continuing linkages
> with very widely dispersed and quite broadly based grassroots  
> networks.
> This was the strength that Civil Society brought to those
> events/processes and was I believe, the basis for Civil Society's long
> term policy (and
> programmatic) influence in these areas. Quite honestly I saw almost  
> none
> of that in WSIS...I recognize that circumstances were different and  
> that
> the issues in the Information Society space aren't as immediate or as
> directly mobilizing and of course, the funding hasn't been available,
> but I also think that those presenting themselves as "Civil Society"
> didn't made appropriate attempts to be, dare I say, "inclusive,
> people-centered and development oriented" and the result is what we  
> saw,
> a Summit whose major outcome is a set of recursive policy engagements
> (the Internet Governance Forum) on the one hand, and mumbled  
> platitudes
> (the Internet Financining Mechanisms) on the other.
>
> Further though, where could we go from here? Can anything be done from
> this point on?
>
> Let me say that I think it would be immensely valuable and on all  
> sides.
> if means were found to constructively engage communities, community  
> ICT
> activists, ICT practitioners and so on in post-WSIS processes.  These
> folks understand quite directly what the issues are and have direct  
> and
> useful experience in the range of practical matters towards  
> building an
> Information Society "from the bottom up".  Let me give a couple of
> examples from a few casual interactions with practitioner  
> acquaintances
> I encountered at WSIS...One, an individual involved in setting up
> satellite based telecenters in rural Africa mentioned that government
> regulation in some circumstances was raising the price of setting up a
> telecenter from $6000 US to $60,000 US!  A second person related to me
> the difficulties they were having in working with a community as it
> learned to make effective use of ICT access in support of local
> trade--how long it took, how labor intensive it was, but in the end  
> how
> real and sustainable transformation was taking place. A third person
> discussed the possibilities of using remittance payments facilitated
> through the local telecentre as a capital pool for local "venture"
> investment and so on.
>
> The challenge it seems to me is how to create a means to facilitate
> engagement between those making policy and directing high level ICT4D
> investment and those on the ground who have experience (successes and
> failures) in making it work.  What didn't happen in WSIS was that kind
> of engagement, so would it be possible post-WSIS as an outcome, to
> structure that engagement?
>
> Think for a moment about creating truly "multi-stakeholder" working
> groups on for example, "ICTs, remittances and local economic
> development", with participation from the private sector who would
> provide the technology and deal with infrastructure, hardware and
> software issues; with the UN agencies and the World Bank who would
> handle the global policy and regulatory matters, and overall
> co-ordination; civil society folks who would be concerned with privacy
> matters for example;  and the community telecenter operators and those
> involved in local economic development who would deal with  
> designing for
> effective use, with implementation issues, with training, with how to
> make these processes socially and organizationally embedded (and thus
> sustainable) in the local fabric.
>
> Think also about similar Working Groups in ICT for community based
> e-health (including AIDS), for local e-learning and so on and the
> development from these of horizontally and vertically networked  
> caucuses
> of those with both the policy skills and the real on-the ground
> information as to the policy issues of most importance to pursue.
>
> And then lets think about what would be needed to actually make
> something like this work.  First there would be the need for a
> recognition that those doing the work on the ground were necessary
> partners in the process.  That their participation would require
> financial support and facilitation (including linguistic) and not the
> laughable and profoundly discriminatory "voluntary and in-kind
> participation" and further it would require enabling processes of  
> local
> self-organization and representation rather than selection from the  
> top
> and "representation by designation"--remember these are "partnerships"
> so the "partners" need to have a measure of independence.
>
> One could even envisage that these Working Groups might make some  
> useful
> ("bottom-up") contributions to Internet Governance issues ;-)
>
> So in the end, do you think this could provide the makings of a  
> workable
> collaborative and inclusive agenda for Civil Society and the other  
> WSIS
> "stakeholders" moving forward post-WSIS?
>
> Best,
>
> Mike Gurstein
>
> Michael Gurstein, Ph.D.
> Chair: Community Informatics Research Network
> http://www.ciresearch.net
>
> Editor in Chief: Journal of Community Informatics
> http://ci-journal.net
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: incom-l-bounces at incommunicado.info
> [mailto:incom-l-bounces at incommunicado.info] On Behalf Of  
> wcurrie at apc.org
> Sent: November 29, 2005 10:56 PM
> To: incom-l at incommunicado.info
> Subject: <incom> Creating spaces for civil society in WSIS
>
> Prior to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), UN  
> Summits
> were largely closed spaces for inter-governmental debate and  
> negotiation
> on issues of global public policy such as sustainable development  
> or the
> position of women. Civil society summits ran in parallel to those of
> governments and usually at some distance. So during the UN Summit on
> Sustainable Development held in Johannesburg in 2002, governments  
> met in
> the elite business zone of Sandton, while civil society met in the  
> black
> township of Soweto.
>
> In WSIS, there was a certain recognition that the Information Society
> involved policy issues in which governments were one stakeholder
> alongside the private sector and civil society. The history of the
> internet as a grand collaboration between technical communities, the
> private sector, civil society organizations and governments meant that
> governments needed the participation of all stakeholders in the  
> process
> of deliberation at WSIS. Hence the WSIS process began as an invited
> space in which all stakeholders were involved until the point of
> negotiations, which remained the prerogative of governments. The  
> private
> sector and civil society were nevertheless able to make statements to
> the plenary meetings of governments, while they were negotiating the
> text for the outcomes of the Geneva and Tunis Summits.
>
> In addition to this, the atypical Summit format as a two year process
> starting in Geneva in 2003 and ending in Tunis in 2005 also created a
> space in which civil society could mobilize. A range of civil society
> organizations and academic institutions took up the issue of internet
> governance, which used as their focal point the internet governance
> caucus that was affiliated to the civil society process within  
> WSIS. And
> the point of disagreement between governments on internet governance
> gave civil society an opportunity to engage more actively in the
> process. The key shift was in the establishment of the Working  
> Group on
> Internet Governance (WGIG) as a multi-stakeholder body, in which all
> stakeholders had representation. This created an open space in  
> which all
> stakeholders had representation and had a significant effect on the
> outcome of the
> internet governance debate in WSIS.   Within WGIG, private sector and
> civil society participants were on a par with government participants.
>
> The WGIG report made four sets of recommendations - on the need for a
> forum to discuss broad public policy issues related to the  
> internet, on
> oversight models for internet governance, on measures to promote
> development and access to the internet (especially with regard to
> international interconnection costs)and on capacity building for
> developing countries to participate more effectively in internet
> governance.  With the exception of the issue of oversight models,  
> civil
> society participation was decisive in the other three issues. And the
> issue of a forum became the key point of consensus in the Tunis  
> summit.
> So the decision in Tunis to establish an Internet Governance Forum  
> (IGF)
> was a result of civil society initiation of the idea within WGIG and a
> factor of the multi-stakeholder process that enabled stakeholders to
> interact.
>
> It is worth recalling that the idea of a forum was opposed by the US
> Government (USG) and the private sector during the second phase of  
> WSIS
> until it was clear that it had broad support. The USG also opposed the
> EU's 'new co-operation model' regarding the governance of critical
> internet resources and made it clear that it would retain oversight  
> over
> ICANN. This was to be expected as no Empire has ever surrendered its
> control over the means of communications. Nevertheless, the EU
> intervention opened a space to address the set of principles that  
> should
> apply to the oversight of ICANN. The combination of the IGF addressing
> 'broad' internet policy issues and the 'enhanced cooperation' process
> addressing 'narrow' issues of names, numbers and the root zone file  
> is a
> significant outcome of WSIS.
>
> After WSIS, the IGF will constitute a global public policy space of a
> new kind that is open to all stakeholders. Civil society organizations
> through the internet governance caucus played a leading role in  
> creating
> this open space for deliberation on the complexity of internet
> governance. They will take the process of creating this open space
> forward in the Internet Governance Forum when it meets in Athens in
> 2006.
>
> In the aftermath of Tunis, Michael Gurstein delivered a critique of  
> the
> civil society participation has emerged which constructs the main  
> value
> of WSIS as one of networking in a closed network of the privileged,  
> that
> in a self-serving way has perpetuated its existence by advocating  
> for an
> Internet Governance Forum and has lost touch with the grassroots  
> and the
> issue of bridging the digital divide. While this critique has some
> merit, it is too partial a view and dismisses the real gains that have
> been made by civil society participation. Remove civil society from  
> WSIS
> and there would be no IGF, no new global policy space for considering
> broad public policy issues affecting the internet, including access to
> the internet and the digital divide.
>
> Discussion of the issues of WSIS has not only taken place in Geneva or
> Tunis, but also at regional and national levels. At the Accra  
> PrepCom in
> February 2005, the most energetic participants were a contingent of
> youth, who had traveled from Nigeria to participate. Sangonet ran a
> series of workshops on WSIS issues in South Africa that provided input
> into WSIS. Even ICANN engaged in an extended roadshow around the world
> to put its case to practitioners and publics in various developing
> countries, including South Africa and Argentina. These activities
> involved a broad range of people in the WSIS process.
>
> One of the reasons that the issue of the digital divide did not  
> receive
> adequate attention in Tunis relates to the fate of the Task Force on
> Financial Mechanisms (TFFM).  The TFFM was convened as an invited  
> space
> by UNDP and could not be transformed into an open space by civil  
> society
> as was the case with the WGIG. This affected its outcomes which were
> more limited. Nevertheless, the TFFM report and the section on  
> financing
> in the Tunis Agenda provide enough hooks to be developed creatively by
> civil society activists in the post-WSIS phase. These include  
> references
> to the uses of public finance, the promotion of community and local
> government networks, a renewed mandate to Universal Access Funds, a
> welcome for the Digital Solidarity Fund and a recognition that  
> existing
> financial mechanisms have proved inadequate with regard to regional
> connectivity, broadband and rural connectivity in the developing  
> world.
> The combination of these factors may serve to support the introduction
> of open access models and community networking in the developing  
> world -
> precisely to bridge the digital divide.
>
> Michael Gurstein's critique of civil society participation assumes too
> easily that civil society activists engaging the WSIS process agreed
> with Ambassador Khan that they represented everyone else. This was
> simply not the case, however flattering Ambassador Khan's remarks.
> Gurstein's assumption that everyone in civil society was only there to
> network is similarly false and denies that civil society groups  
> meeting
> in the civil society plenary and caucuses had sufficient strategic  
> sense
> to understand the power dynamics involved in engaging with  
> governments,
> the private sector and international organizations at WSIS. The
> interventions of civil society activists made a material difference to
> the outcomes of WSIS in the text of the Tunis Agenda. In addition,  
> those
> civil society activists, who tried hard to support independent  
> Tunisian
> NGOs against the human rights violations of the Tunisian regime and  
> were
> harassed and chased by the police at the Goethe Centre in Tunis on 15
> November 2005, were not there just to network in a closed loop. For a
> few days, they helped open a space of freedom in Tunis and pledged
> ongoing support. A Luta Continua.
>
> Willie Currie
> Communications and Information Policy Programme Manager Association  
> for
> Progressive Communications



===============================================
RIK PANGANIBAN       Communications Coordinator
Conference of NGOs in Consultative Relationship with the United  
Nations (CONGO)
web: http://www.ngocongo.org
email: rik.panganiban at ngocongo.org
mobile: (+1) 917-710-5524

* Information on the WSIS at http://www.ngocongo.org/wsis
* Submit NGO Events to http://www.ngoevents.org