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.