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Well said, Nabil, <br>
And thank you, Alejandro. To respond to your question - <br>
<br>
To us, as a chapter, the big issue two years ago (and perhaps
today?) was (is?) the lack of desire from ISOC HQ to support the
chapters' ITU-related activities. I am putting the questions in
brackets, as I am not sure if ISOC has supported any chapter's
representative to go to Dubai for the WCIT, or is planning to
support anyone in the coming months to help their governments with
expertise. I saw that Lynn mentioned in her New Year's wishes that <br>
<pre wrap="">"A recent example was the U.N. World Conference on
International Telecommunications (WCIT) in Dubai,
where ISOC staff and members played a critical role", </pre>
So i guess ISOC might have helped some, but lacking other
information, I cannot be certain. <br>
<br>
Here's an example, though, what treatment three chapters - ISOC
Armenia, Bulgaria and Poland asked ISOC.org got in 2011, when asking
for a very small grant, co-funding in fact, related to the ITU. I
would be happy to get information that ISOC has changed its
position, and has decided to support chapters in their efforts to
educate governments around the globe in Internet-related matters. My
own observations from the WCIT and other ITU-related events, is that
governments need a lot of education, and the chapters are the
perfect organizations to provide it. If we don't act today, in 2014
people will be even more concerned about what the ITU is doing, and
will have even less opportunities to help positively to their
governments' efforts. <br>
<br>
The response was, and I quote:<br>
<br>
<pre wrap="">"In reviewing your application, we felt that your project was very
ambitious in scope and suggest that you target your activities to
national processes."</pre>
<br>
You can judge on your own if the project was "very ambitious", by
reading what our colleagues sent to ISOC:<br>
<br>
"start quote <br>
<b>--- background information:</b> <br>
October 2010 marked the end of a 4-year cycle of the ITU, the UN
body dealing with telecommunications, and recently with ICT.<br>
From October 22, 2010, the ITU is in a new situation. It has a clear
mandate to work with the relevant Internet organizations, which
includes also the ISOC chapters.<br>
At the October meeting, the ITU managed to accept updated
resolutions 101, 102, 133 and a new one, WGPL/8. They all urge the
ITU to collaborate and coordinate its efforts with the Internet
organizations. But this alone does not mean the ITU has
“surrendered” to these organizations1.The accepted resolutions at
the ITU Plenipotentiary meeting (PP10) are aimed at a number of
Internet-related issues. <br>
(Aside of the above mentioned resolutions, see also these articles
from the (Tunis Agenda2): 29, 35, 68, which provide the bases for
the ITU involvement, and were used in the PP-10 resolutions.)<br>
These resolutions answer the question WHY ISOC and the ISOC chapters
should care about the developments in the ITU policies, having to
deal with the Internet.<br>
But the ITU resolutions are only part of the task, and there's more
to be done by the Internet-related3 organizations – they should a)
provide information documents to the ITU, b) provide documents to
governments, to be used in their work at the ITU, and c) support the
organization of workshops, seminars, tutorials and other forms of
education for ITU members.<br>
This is exactly what the three ISOC chapters - ISOC-Bulgaria,
ISOC-Armenia, ISOC-Poland - that apply with this joint proposal have
agreed to do.<br>
Without a broader effort to reach to the ITU member states, the
above mentioned resolutions will not be used for the good of the
Internet, and the current model of the Internet4 instead of being
improved, most probably will be harmed.<br>
Further, there are still proposals, suggesting the need for a new,
alternative internet (with small “i”), which – when built – would be
closely controlled by the governments5. Such an approach continues
to need to be addressed, because it leads towards neglecting the
achievements of the Internet, including its current multistakeholder
governance model, where the governments are just equal partners with
everyone else6.<br>
<br>
<b>--- and Objectives:</b><br>
There are three main objectives of the project :<br>
• Contribute constructively to the work of the ITU member states and
sector members;<br>
• Engage ISOC and the ISOC chapters more actively in the discussions
at the ITU about the way the Internet is developing;<br>
• Provide feedback from ITU meetings to the broader Internet
community.<br>
Information from the ITU will provide interested parties and members
of the current project proposal with a stronger empirical basis to
make policy assessments; inputs into research and policy development
from the project proposal will provide the ITU members with the
essential perspective of the people who created, developed, and
continue to contribute to the innovative nature of the Internet.<br>
Improving the relationship between businesses, civil society and the
ITU member states will lead to better-informed and more widely
accepted policy frameworks.<br>
The success of this approach was demonstrated during the PP-10, and
results in the texts of the Internet-related resolutions.<br>
<br>
<br>
____<br>
1) See for example the February 14 2001 <a
href="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/business/2011-02/14/c_13730415.htm">Xinhua
interview</a> by Houlin Zhao, ITU deputy SG on IPv4/IPv6.<br>
2) Tunis Agenda: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/6rev1.html">http://www.itu.int/wsis/docs2/tunis/off/6rev1.html</a>
<br>
3) For the purpose of this document, these are businesses, civil
society, governments, Internet users, who are engaged in ensuring
the Internet works 24x7.<br>
4) We have accepted the current model as built on the basis of equal
access, network neutrality, open standards, and with full
participation of all stakeholders.<br>
5) See for example the <a
href="http://www.itu.int/md/meetingdoc.asp?lang=en&parent=S10-RDG-C-0003">joint
proposa</a>l from Syria and Saudi Arabia (password required).<br>
6) See for example <a
href="http://isocbg.wordpress.com/2010/10/20/bg-itu/">this
document</a> , presented to the ITU Plenipot 2010 by the
government of Bulgaria, which quotes and discusses some of the wrong
assumptions about the Internet. There are more such assumptions, and
many of them are in documents already submitted to the ITU for
discussions.<br>
<br>
end quote"<br>
<span style="color:black"><br>
We actually managed to send several people, with our own
resources, to the WCIT, without any help from ISOC. I wouldn't
claim their contributions as critical, but they did what they
could, talked to governments, others, and tried to bring awareness
of the issues discussed. Julia herself managed to come, too. </span>
<br>
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<pre><span style="color:black"><o:p>
</o:p></span></pre>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Best,
Veni Markovski
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.veni.com">http://www.veni.com</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.facebook.com/venimarkovski">https://www.facebook.com/venimarkovski</a>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://twitter.com/veni">https://twitter.com/veni</a>
The opinions expressed above are those of the
author, not of any organizations, associated
with or related to him in any given way. </pre>
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