[WSIS CS-Plenary] How the World was made to forget the Human Development Agenda in Internet Governance - Part 1

[Fouad Bajwa]

How the World was made to forget the Human Development Agenda in
Internet Governance - Part 1

Part 1 - Independent analysis of the global Internet Governance regime by:
Fouad Bajwa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fouad_Bajwa
Member - Civil Society Internet Governance Caucus (IGC)
Member - UN-IGF (MAG) Multistakeholder Advisory Group
Member - Member ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC).

1.1. Setting the Stage of Multilaterism in a World of Technology:
Global events and forums that have cultivated the way we perceive
Information and Communication Technologies ICTs. Major events carried
out by multilateral agencies in the past including the World Summit on
the Information Society and the ongoing Internet Governance Forums
have been creating spaces for open dialogues that weren't earlier
possible between various Multistakeholders in the past. The
multilateral system wasn't open to the intervening of Civil Society
directly on policy related issues since the governments collectively
discussed and took decisions through mutually drafted consensus based
resolutions that were approved at the United Nations General Assembly
in New York every year.

1.2 Multistakeholderism and the new laws of participation:
The emergence of inclusion of multistakeholderism within the
Multilateral System has given birth to a new form of participation
that was only possible earlier through observation only.
Multistakeholderism, a phenomenon that brings other entities including
private sectors and civil society into the global dialogue process
with the government members of the Multilateral System is relatively
very new and Civil Society itself is evolving its approach to respond
to this new profound role in the global policy making arena where it
can be heard in detail. Since this global policy dialogue intervention
front is very new, Civil Society is still in the process of acquiring
the knowledge and experience required to effectively play its role and
represent the voice and interest it brings to the platform of
Multistakeholderism. It really is a new awakening.

1.3. Influential Moderation and Deception:
The lack of knowledge and experience plays a major benefit to the
multilateralists that today also comprise of the private sector and in
some countries, owners of the private sector as their organizations
also govern the national governments due to their influence. Within
the Multistakeholder process, the corporations that have outgrown from
their domestic boundaries to global fronts have a more assertive power
and influence over the lobbying process that is unified in the
diplomatic process of Multilateralism. Despite the fact, that is how
the world has been for over a century now that corporations tend to
fill their pockets with revenues beyond the government's budgets in
many countries across the world.

1.4. Meeting the Opposition Eye-to-Eye:
When the Multistakeholder process evolved into the state of its
current existence, where, it brought face-to-face the Government, the
Private Sector and Civil Society, the game of diplomacy and
Multilaterism reached new heights. The opposition was at the table
with the influencers where the Governments could enjoy the dialogue
because the mediators and facilitators would emerge from the Private
Sector. Where Civil Society felt it was making an effective
intervention, the Private Sector would get the opportunity to outplay
them because its hard for the Civil Society to find their comments in
interventions to be recorded and included into the Multilateral
decision making process on an as it is basis.

1.5. The Misconception - Influence changes face:
Civil Society believes its sitting at the table, whereas it somehow
forgets, the Private Sector stakeholders cannot let it reduce their
interests and opportunities. They cannot let them create more
watchdogs on them in both their regional and global markets,
definitely, they cannot let Civil Society disrupt their business as
usual. So the prime power play has made an innovative shift in the
Multilateralism arena globally. The influencers have also become
mediators whereas the two parties that really interface on issues that
affect Human Rights, Human Development, Human Peace and Security,
Humany Socio-Economic Development etc., sit facing each other but
cannot truly reach a decision, why, the diplomatic role has also been
transferred to the Private Sector. The Private Sector is now in a
better position to lobby because they can as their position within the
policy process has been automatically improved by the participation of
Civil Society.

1.6. Yet to learn the new tricks of the trade:
Instead of only interfacing the outbursts of Civil Society in various
settings, often offending and offensive ones, the Private Sector has
been successful in pulling the Civil Society actors into the global
Diplomatic Setting where there are codes of conduct and rules of
engagement practised for decades, the norms of which cannot be simply
altered by the participation of a new group of Independent Diplomats
that represent no governance system but represent the voice of those
that are governed by all the systems of this world. The Civil Society
has come into a role of new learning and understanding. Civil Society
Diplomacy is a new concept and is very fresh to determine its final
destination. It is facing manipulation, anti-lobbying, disorientation
and disconnection in the Multilaterist process because it is trying to
understand the new grounds it has come to stand on and make itself
heard, understood and included in what is called the system of global
policy making.

End of Part 1 - "Welcome to the world of Internet and Technology
Multistakeholderism in a world of Internet facilitated Multilaterism."

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Regards.
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Fouad Bajwa
@skBajwa
Answering all your technology questions
http://www.askbajwa.com
http://twitter.com/fouadbajwa