alac-ncuc --> icann civil society caucus?

[Milton Mueller]

great idea, Carlos! I support the spirit of this proposal entirely but of course caution that the details matter. I wish I could be in Argentina to discuss it.

Dr. Milton Mueller
Syracuse University School of Information Studies
http://www.digital-convergence.org
http://www.internetgovernance.org


>>> Carlos Afonso <ca at RITS.ORG.BR> 3/7/2005 10:08:53 AM >>>
Regarding NCUC and ALAC, I would like to advance a proposal to NCUC (I
will write some ALAC people separately on this).

Civil society organizations are not really strong in terms of
participation in the ICANN processes. Currently we have NCUC which,
unfortunately, is too small to be considered representative (not
necessarily our fault as NCUC members, rather lack of interest from most
organizations on the governance themes, as they are busy with their own,
frequently far more important issues). NCUC members also have a lot of
other important issues to handle and end up not being as proactive as
the ICANN processes require.

Thus, NCUC ends up by being subsidiary to issues raised or motivated by
the gTLD business, when there are many other issues we ought to bring to
the fore -- many of which are currently haunting WGIG members.

ALAC, on the other hand, was never viable as representing the elusive
"Internet user" -- unless we want to create an international Internet
services' consumer association linked to Icann, which is not the case.
ALAC is trying to move into being an organization of NGOs (in the view
of some, these NGOs would be exclusively associations of individuals or
of other organizations, which I think would be too restrictive),
creating an hierarchy emulating the current Icann-RIRs structure, with a
concoction called RALO.

I think we are diverting our efforts -- precious efforts of the few ones
who consider Internet governance as a priority issue -- by keeping the
ALAC and NCUC efforts as dissociated as they are now. My proposal is to
join efforts, in practice as well as institutionally, by creating an
organized civil society caucus within ICANN which would deal with far
more issues than just whois, gTLDs' problems and such, and which would
absorb NCUC and ALAC. If we had this in place and functioning as I
dream, we would have far more impact from civil society on the WGIG
process right now.

I would like this to be the major theme of the joint ALAC-NCUC meeting
proposed for Mar del Plata.

fraternal rgds

--c.a.

Frannie Wellings wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> Who will be at the ICANN meeting in Mar del Plata?  We should try and
> coordinate the NCUC-ALAC meetings.  One possibility for a joint
> meeting would be on Tuesday afternoon from 2-4, which will be before
> the WSIS workshop.  So, who is going and would this time work?
>
> Best,
>
> Frannie
> --
>
> .
>

--
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Carlos Afonso
diretor de planejamento
Rede de Informações para o Terceiro Setor - Rits
Rua Guilhermina Guinle, 272, 6º andar - Botafogo
Rio de Janeiro RJ - Brasil         CEP 22270-060
tel +55-21-2527-5494        fax +55-21-2527-5460
ca at rits.org.br            http://www.rits.org.br 
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