I was at the real Netmundial, and for all its flaws, I thought it was an 
impressive attempt to do the thing right.  My takeaway from that was 
that Civil Society, despite ten years of getting organized at IGF, was 
not ready to fight off the inevitable power grab which was coming, and 
which frankly we saw acted out in the closing hours of the deliberations 
over the final texts.  I am afraid my view of what is going on at the 
WEF is much less optimistic.  I would like to know whether Fadi led us 
into this willingly, or made an astute executive decision that WEF was 
happening and ICANN had to be there.  Given the lack of transparency 
thus far, I am not optimistic about the answer to that one.
I think Civil Society ought to hold out for no more proliferation of 
fora, which can only weaken our already weak position.  Build the IGF 
into a proper, funded, multi-stakeholder organization.   In the 
meantime, clean up ICANN so that it can take a leadership role, and 
that, in my opinion, is going to take lots of work.
Let us not go willing or silently into the WEF process.  Apparently 
nothing happened this morning, the time to tune in is close of day when 
we get to the real agenda.  May the force be with our few reps there at 
the meeting, who will have to fight hard.
Kind regards,
Stephanie Perrin

On 14-08-28 10:50 AM, Sam Lanfranco wrote:
> Forum NETmundial Initiative: Food for Thought
>
> With the maturing of the Internet ecosystem, in addition to the land 
> rush to grab new gTLDs, there is a land rush to grab control of 
> aspects of global Internet governance, and these go well beyond the 
> proposed internal changes in the balance of power within ICANN, as 
> flagged by Robin’s comments with regard to ICANN and GAC. The 900 
> pound gorilla quickly growing in a closet in Switzerland is the new 
> NETmundial Initiative being hosted into existence by the Swiss based 
> World Economic Forum. It builds on the Brazilian NETmundial event but 
> has no formal relationship with that event.
>
> http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_2NETmundialInitiativeFAQ.pdf
>
> In the words of the Forum "...the Initiative will seek to make a 
> contribution to the positive evolution of multistakeholder Internet 
> governance...". Some insight into how this will be pursued is 
> reflected in Forum’s approach to this task, drawing on its 
> "leader-level multistakeholder communities". The participants list for 
> in its initial scoping workshop today (August 28, 2014) is at:
>
> http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_4NETmundialListofParticipants.pdf
>
> The rationale for this Forum effort notes (no surprise to any of us) 
> that: "There are a range of non-technical policy challenges…. which 
> would benefit from the participation of economic, security, human 
> rights and other institutions and experts in a multistakeholder 
> setting in order to strengthen understanding, enhance trust and 
> identify potential areas of common ground".
>
> The second area of effort (again no surprise to any of us) is to 
> galvanize support for capacity building for: "a) to support developing 
> countries which wish to enhance their access to the Internet and build 
> their own multistakeholder governance frameworks; and b) to explore 
> ways to strengthen the capacity of the decentralized Internet 
> governance ecosystem to respond through distributed governance groups 
> to specific issues or problems that arise, including those encountered 
> by developing countries which may not be in a position to readily 
> identify relevant expertise and resources."
>
> The plan is to follow today’s meeting with "…a six month period of 
> consultations with a broad range of stakeholders and experts regarding 
> whether and how to establish a dedicated organizational structure to 
> support these activities going forward, whether or not connected to 
> the Forum."
>
> What are we to take away from this? I will note only two of several 
> likely outcomes where civil society will have to remain aware and 
> engaged.
>
> 1. There is a high probability of the establishment of a new 
> "dedicated organizational structure" as a significant Internet 
> governance player.
> 2. The tendency will be toward a "leader-level" (top-centric) notion 
> of multistakeholder engagement and a focus on "the transnational 
> nature of the Internet" [Forum wording]
>
> From a civil society perspective many of the challenges and tasks here 
> are similar to those faced within ICANN’s multistakeholder processes, 
> with one major exception. There is the issue of whether or not to 
> establish a dedicated organization. Civil society could argue that 
> there are already adequate venues to address the Forum’s concerns, but 
> that would probably be counter-productive. There will be bottom up 
> multistakeholder involvement via the public comment process, but that 
> is a limited option in terms of actual decision making here.
>
> As an opening position for civil society dialogue around this 
> initiative I would suggest that civil society approach the initiative 
> at three levels:
>
> 1. It insists in a full dialogue on what sort of multistakeholder 
> engagement model is being considered if such an organization is to be 
> established.
> 2. It stresses full transparency and accountability along with a broad 
> definition of who constitute stakeholders and their roles in decision 
> making.
> 3. At the same time civil society organizations: (a) look inward to 
> increase the transparency and accountability of their own leadership – 
> some of whom are part of the "leader-level" group in this Forum 
> initiative; and (b) turn more of their efforts toward deepening and 
> broadening awareness and engagement of their own constituencies in 
> these deliberations and the core issues at stake.
>
> A significant part of this civil society effort would focus on the 
> second area of effort in this Forum NETmundial Initiative. That is 
> capacity building work and it is needed independent of the 
> establishment a dedicated organization as a result of these efforts.
>
> As I say above….food for thought…to feed the dialogue.
>
> Sam L.