This is interesting. Actually, all of EuroDIG was interesting, and I'd highly recommend that everyone watch the recording (when it is available) of the brilliant open-mic session moderated by Emily Taylor where issues like this were fleshed out. But back to the article you linked to, this siloing of stakeholders into different venues isn't ideal for us. I wonder how many of these non-multistakeholder venues for such discussions are out there? Looking at the stats for IGF workshop proposals, dare I say civil society is over-represented when compared with business and governmental interests? I know that not every workshop proposal will be approved, but when 6 out of 10 proposals come from one stakeholder group (the one with the least resources), it's hard not to read between the lines and wonder why. Just look at who is going to GSMA's Mobile World Congress (which last year had over 100,000 participants, and they paid to attend!) vs the IGF… Why are fewer and fewer governments and inter-governmental organisations seeing relevance in it? Maybe the comparison here is unfair as these two forums approach the digital transformation of society from different angles, but visibility in terms of numbers of participants and diversity of stakeholder affiliation matters. If civil society becomes the only voice at the table, the value of our participation is diminished.

Ayden



On Fri, Jun 10, 2016 6:57 PM, Kleinwächter, Wolfgang [log in to unmask] wrote:

http://www.ip-watch.org/2016/06/09/eurodig-2016-multi-stakeholder-soul-searching/


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Ayden Férdeline
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