Your Excellency Secretary-General Guterres, Your Excellency the High Commissioner for Human Rights, We write to…
Andrew, Deborah, Nnenna, Imran, Anja, Jeremy, Carolina, Marianne – intermittently, Claudio – online
AGENDA – STEERING CALL
I – WSIS plus 10
Andrew proposed to circulate a questionnaire to the wider BB platform to assess interest in contributing to the WSIS plus 10 process. It will gather information about
◦ Current levels of awareness/interest in the Process
◦ Priority areas that could form the basis of a potential civil society strategy for engagement
◦ Views on ways to engage in the Process
◦ Views on the new proposed MDGs
The survey would be informed by a survey already carried out by APC.
The survey would then feed into an informal working group on the WSIS process set up by the Best Bits meeting in Istanbul with the goal of developing a collaborative CS position on the WSIS process. GPD would have limited funding to enable some people to attend the UNESCO meeting in Paris in March to discuss proposals.
II. NetMundial Initiative
The SG briefly discussed the NMI where the question of CS participation was disputed. The SG noted that there were not many strong candidates. It is understood that some of the CSCG representatives are considering nominating themselves. Overall the SG felt that if good candidates did not present themselves that was a reflection of a CS view of the process and that there should be no particular attempt to secure representation. The SG agreed to take no action.
III – ITU update on plenipotentiary
CS representatives who attended the ITU plenipot gave already met to evaluate the conference and overall it was felt that the CS representatives were more organized than they had been in the past and had worked well together. It was agreed that Carolina would prepare a short summary report in January to circulate to the wider list.
IV – Fund raising
– It was agreed that Andrew, Anja, Claudio and Deborah would work on a concept proposal for financial support to BB
– The March BB meeting would be an opportunity to follow up on fund raising
V- Procedures
– The WG on procedures has produced a revised set of procedures to be reviewed by the SG by15th of January and sent to the wider BB list by January 20th. The deadline for broad list comments would be February 20th wit the goal to launch in March
VI – Carolina has put together a list of events for 2015 at
Jeremy will add this to events calendar and the BB list will be asked where they think engagement will be and what would be helpful to support.
Apologies
Jeremy Malcolm, Marianne Franklin
1. Updates from work initiated at the IGF Istanbul meeting
ITU
Planning for the ITU plenipotentiary is underway with various pads established that focus on different work streams. In weekly calls over the past few weeks, the fluid group of Best Bits participants agreed a working method, decided on which topics that are being debated in this PP-14 the group should work and allocated the drafting. The group are working on (1) process issues (ITU transparency and publishing news in Twitter under #OpenITU. (The CS letter was sent and already there is a victory, see: http://newslog.itu.int/archives/648 ) and (
2) 5 or 6 substantive topics (e.g cybersecurity, international interconnection and NN, privacy, spectrum, access, etc). The substantive comments will be consolidated this week and hopefully, by Monday 20th October, there will be a public statement that can be used to collect support. Joanna Varon, Lea Kaspar and Carolina Rossini are coordinating the BB participation in Busan, and we are waiting a confirmation for a room that CS can use for daily coordination.
WSIS plus ten review
The working group on the WSIS review will start work once the ITU plenipot is over.
MAG nominations
AP agreed to speak with Jeremy about whether any guidance/advice will be, or should be, given to CSCG nominees to the MAG
Future strategy meetings
UNESCO will be holding a major international conference on the internet and the WSIS process in Paris on March 3rd and 4th 2015. It was agreed that the steering group would try and convene a BB strategy meeting before the Paris event on 1st and 2nd March and also convene a physical meeting of the steering group. GPD may have a small amount of funds to contribute to the cost of such a meeting and AP agreed to manage the organisational arrangements. At Nnenna’s suggestion possible agenda for discussion would be
1. Our mission as BB
2. The goals do we seek to achieve
3. What benefits/values do we seek to give to network participants?
4. What role do we want to play?
5. What outcomes are most needed in the CS IG space?
Future funding
After some discussion it was agreed that the framework set out by Nnnenna above was an important starting point for any discussion about funding. Rather than start with the “what” of BB we should be clear about the “why” and “how”. This would include how BB could build an identity, without it being a membership organisation; how to improve both internal and external communications; what kind of systems and processes one would need to put into place to make such things sustainable; how to create and sustain a genuine BB community. It was agreed that it would premature to seek funding for a Secretariat until there was greater clarity about these key questions.
We considered seeking funding to invest in a consultancy to help the think through these issues. One option would be to try and commission such a consultancy process to report to the wider BB network at the meeting in early March.
It was agreed that we should collectively draft a brief for such a consultancy and explore the possibility of such an initiative.
AP will explore the possibility of using Adobe Connect or WebEx for the next communication call.
1. BB Steering Committee working arrangements
1.a. BB Steering Committee Elections
Core decision: BB Steering Committee is opening this http://bestbits.net/wiki/main/procedures/ for review. We would like other members of the Bb community to join a task force, and work on a set of basic rules to guarantee regional reps and allow regions to weigh in. Proposed deadline: end of 2nd week of August. If you want to join, send us an email.
1.b. BB Steering Committee will hold monthly calls
1.c. Consensus building and internal decisions: the members of BB Steering Committee will have 2 weeks to contribute to the formulation of procedures, texts and statements, and 1 week to make core decisions.
(i) Internal decisions will move forward based on the following quorum:
*** 1 week > 50% + 1 = 5,5 people = 5 people
*** Is silence consent? = No. It is incompatible with the quorum logic. So, we will not use “silence as consent”
*** “TIME SENSITIVE” issues – 48 hours for decision
1.d. How to achieve decisions within the Steering Committee, but also in the open BB lists. The conclusion is a 3-part process:
(a) Mailing list, but if no consensus is clear then (b) polling and when necessary use supporting tools such as (c) http://liquidfeedback.org/ or https://www.loomio.org
1.e. Communicating with BB: consolidated emails will be sent when necessary by one member of the Steering Committee in the name of the whole group. The goal is to be as transparent as possible and always share meeting notes.
2. Review of BB processes and procedures http://bestbits.net/wiki/main/procedures/
2.a. Create a working group with volunteers from SC and broader BB community. SC members who volunteered: Imran, Carol, (others from SC?). If you want to volunteer, please send your name to Carolina with the subject “volunteer for procedures review process”.
2.b. First focus: BBSC election procedures.
3. BB Plans for IGF 2014
Although there’s no specific funding for organizing a meeting or covering travel of participants, the SC thought it would be valuable to still try to pull together a meeting with those planning to go to the IGF, and SC members that have volunteered to help organize.
3.a. Planned day: all-day, August 31st (before IGF Day 0. See IGF program at: http://www.igf2014.org.tr/)
3.b. Task Forces moving forward:
(i) Task Force for Meeting logistics: Andrew, Carol and Deborah. Looking into 4 different venues.
(ii) Agenda Development task force: Anja, Andrew, Jeremy. All have provided ideas in a collaborative pad that was developed into a survey that will be sent to all in the open BB list.
(iii) Funding for participants: No funding available. Members of SC are looking into pooling some funding to offer some travel support to some participants, but still unlikely.
3.c. Need for BB list members input for agenda development. If you want to help build our pre-IGF meeting, please take the survey at : http://bestbits.net/limesurvey/index.php?r=survey/index/sid/554994/lang/en. Besides logistical questions, the last question is focused on the agenda. In that question you will be able to vote on the topics you find relevant, including those that the steering committee found relevant during our last call, and propose your on topic. We will then consolidate the proposals and prepare a poll to be sent to the open list later. A new idea for this year is the possibility of a time slot for a policy “slam” where people take 10 min to present or discuss something relevant to them to the whole group.
4. BB nature and the way forward
After a long discussion during the call and over the SC mailing list, a couple of scenarios emerged. We plan to send a separate email on this topic.
4.a. Fundraising Opportunities for BB: APC and GPD have inquired about possible support from the Ford Foundation, but there does not seem to be any remaining funding available for 2014. Future efforts of fundraising will depend on a broader discussion on BB way forward to be held (most probably) online.
There are no upcoming events.
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Best Bits mailing listBest Bits was a global civil society network on the topic of Internet governance, that was formed in 2012 and closed in 2019. Many of the former members of Best Bits participate in the Internet Governance Caucus.