Versión Español |
Interview to Vladimir Radunovic Coordinator, Internet Governance Programmes, Diplo Foundation
1.- How did you get involved with the Internet Governance (IG) topic? In 2003 DiploFoundation has organised a capacity building programme in Serbia on IG. After completing the programme successfully and participating at the WSIS in Geneva in 2003 as a fellow (awarded by Diplo to successful participants) I have been invited by Diplo in end 2004 to contribute to editoring the IG Portal. In 2005 Diplo launched a global IG Capacity Building Programme (IGCBP) and entrusted me of running it within the next years. Along with the programme I have become more and more involved with the IG process including the participation at the events and various trainings and also development of learning materials and delivering trainings worldwide.
2.- Which is your organization’s role at the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) -both at the regional preparatory IGF for LAC Region and at the global IGF, as well? Diplo Foundation, as an education-focused international NGO providing capacity building in IG to professionals from developing countries worldwide, aims at bringing the topic closer to the future leaders in the field, raising awareness and providing in-depth knowledge and experience through knowledge exchange within online trainings, developing research skills through policy research activities, first hand experiences through policy immersion within the IG events, and networking through building up the community of trained and involved professionals and facilitating discussions and follow-up activities. Since 2005 more than 100 professionals from LAC region have been trained under Diplo's IGCBP programme, most of them becoming directly involved with the IG process on either LAC or global level, or most commonly both. Many successful students from LAC have further initiated training and networking activities with assistance of Diplo and on their own.
3.- Which do you think is the most prominent signification/implication of the IGF? On a general level of international relations and processes, the IGF process is significant for building up an inclusive multistakeholder process to discuss the burning international issues and share experiences and best practices. In spite of its non-binding character the forum-like environment has offered a great opportunity for opened and unlimited discussions of both academic and policy profile, as well as networking and building up joint projects to face the existing challenges. On a level of development, unlike the ICT4D platform which might show impacts on shorter terms, the IGF process aims at impacting the global development on longer terms by starting up the long process of resolving extremely complex and inter-related political, technical, economical, legal and social issues. Alongside, through capacity development and community building the IGF process is bringing the new class of ICT/IG leaders from various regions- especially empowering youth as the "successors" of Internet - that can set up the basic preconditions for bridging digital divide and accelerating the development of the countries in transition, the developing countries and especially the least developed countries. As an open forum IGF can not have negative impacts of a global scale. Yet if misused or abused by institutions or organisations for self-promotion and funds-fishing the process can loose its credibility and drive the interested stakeholders away from it towards other possible alternatives. Instead of a competitive approach, thus, the stakeholders should aim at collaborative work and joint efforts in fields of common coverage and interest, for the benefit of all.
4.- To your way of thinking: Which are the virtues and advantages of the organizational and institutional structure of the IFG?. Which are its disadvantages and constrains? The open character of deliberations and discussions and the openness to all interested stakeholders which are being treated equally within the process due to lack of structures and power of binding decisions are the main advantages of the process. Additionally, due to the power of online tools and remote participation within the key events and throughout the process the extended participation of individuals and organisations without sufficient funding for in-situ participation is an important value added to the innovative model of global governance. The model thus brings a form of a collaborative inclusive governance, much needed for facing the challenges of new era - the challenges of Internet as an emerging public good as first. While the non-binding character is possibly a price for the existing openness and inclusiveness to all stakeholders, it also keeps the top decision-makers away from the deeper devotion to the process and closer to bilateral and multilateral arrangements of the conventional diplomacy. This, alongside, brings the constant problem of financing the process due to lack of interest of key and most powerful decision makers- commonly financially contributing to the process where their voice can be weighted heavier than some others and result in concrete binding decisions. Not the least, the eventual lack of fresh breeze in the process in form of the growing number of emerging leaders - new trained professionals might result with the closed group of people stuck in one spot turning the same set of speeches round and round in a continuous meaningless loop. The process should thus always tend to get more and more individuals and organisations involved to allow for new idea and deliberations to be brought about.
5.- From your point of view: Should the Internet be considered a “global public good”? This is certainly a question of a high importance to be discussed within the IGF process. On one hand the business sector that initially invested large amounts of funds in building and extending the infrastructure and services logically perceive itself as the owners of the network and at least expects the decent revenues as incentives to further invest and innovate. On the other hand the dependence of the modern society on Internet and it benefits - from an economical but as well from the social perspective - leaves much space for its interpretation as the new global public good, that could possibly be treated similarly to the sea or the open space. It is certain however that the thorough debate should be waged with the involvement of all the stakeholders -the business sector and the civil society at first- to come up to the balance and the principles that would be acceptable by all. The recent enhanced discussions on network neutrality and openness related issues are a good example of the importance of an open dialogue towards identifying a zone of a possible agreement of all. a) What would it influence on, if a positive consensus would be reached on this issue? It is not certain if a consensus could be reached only around "Internet can be considered a “global public good”. Instead, it is more likely that this idea should be dissected and the detailed set of guiding principles could be defined with clear lines drawn not to be crossed by either side (with regulators possibly being the monitoring service and a warrant) - though the deliberation would require significant time and efforts of all stakeholders. As always, the devil is in details and only through a thoroughful analysis a common ground could be agreed on. Besides opening the doors of finding a balance between the needs of the business sector and the needs of the users (in fields such as privacy, freedom of choice, liability, intellectual property rights, etc) a positive consensus would raise trust among the stakeholders as well as the trust of users and further facilitate open discussions towards real joint deliberations of a win-win type. b) Why do you think that this topic has been taken off the IGF agenda? Through a prism of conspiracy theory a topic might have been taken off the agenda in order to slow down the process and push it into "catch 22" of discussing the interlinked issues in a loop without resolving whose the network is i.e. what are the basic rights of each stakeholder that all should agree upon. Nevertheless, the issue of public good has been put forward recently through debates on openness and particularly through Network Neutrality debate discussing the possible principles that would outline the interests and basic rights of all sides in the process - return for the business sector, broad palette of human rights (transparency, privacy, free choice and freedom of expression, ...) for the users, rights of governments to be concerned and alerted on security maters, etc.
6.- One of the emerging issues of the LAC preparatory IGF at Rio last August was if the IGF should only be a space for debate and exchange of ideas, or should it be a decision making instance. Which is your opinion about this topic? As discussed within Q4 and Q5, both models have advantages and disadvantages. Ideally, a balanced approach should be found that would both allow for openness and inclusiveness of the process at equal (or close-to equal) footing of all stakeholders, and for the amplified political weight of the outcomes of the process. One possible way forward could be based on a "name-blame-shame" model or on a model of a widely accepted practice - Council of Europe Covention on cybercrime there being a good example (many countries, even if have not signed or ratified it yet due to political reasons, have based its internal work on it): the widely accepted principles can be internalized by not only states but also all the stakeholders even if formally some would not be able to sign/ratify for any reason.
7.- From your point of view: Which is the significance/impact of IGF for LAC and all developing regions? The impact of IGF could only be seen few years after its initiation, and is growingly becoming evident. While the IGF has been initiated by the formal international document (Tunis Agenda) its emerging clusters -regional and national forums- have followed through a bottom-up initiative without any clear formal framework or documentation (IGF LAC, EuroDIG, African IGF...). Besides, through its strong developmental component and the capacity development activities the process has targeted the potential leaders of developing countries and have thus impacted these regions on a long-term scale - by providing a pool of experts skilled, motivated and networked to assist with the development of their respective regions. Not the least, due to its inclusive character the IGF process have also opened up the door for the issues initially not perceived as important or even not identified - such as the access for persons with disabilities, gender issues as well as many issues of regional and local concerns. Ultimately, the IGF process has -through its mushroom-like multiplication to sub-regions- set up the ground for the work in local languages, which has allowed the local trained professionals to meaningfully focus on global challenges from a local perspective, which is of specific relevance for developing countries of non-English speaking areas.
8.- What do you think about the future of the IGF, after its first five years? What would you recommend today on behalf of the IGF continuation after its first five years? The decision on the continuation of the IGF is a highly political one, and the states ultimately deciding on it might not be sensitive to its to-come long-term effect but rather disappointed with the lack of resolution of some concrete problems related to international political relations as well. Nevertheless, no mater what the future decision on IGF process under UN will be, it is its fully meritorious outcome of setting the seed of open and inclusive dialogue worldwide that will likely not fade away soon -either in the IG or in the global governance field. My personal recommendation as a participant of the WSIS and the IGF process since 2003 would be that the IGF process should go on. With the strengthened participation of governments and business sector -with a somewhat more structured relations if needed, or without- an inclusive and opened governance process of a widely-accepted principles alike the CoE CC model can show up as a successful pilot to future governance models and certainly beneficial to the field of IG.
9.- Could you tell us, from your perspective and experience: a) Who should participate in this process? All the interested stakeholders such as (but not limited to) business entities, civil society and NGOs, youth groups, governments, parliamentarians, regulators, international organisations, academia and think-tanks, as well as individuals. The IG field is a wide enough area to welcome the engineers, economists, journalists, lawyers, social workers, students, youth activists, etc. b) Why is it important to take part? As stated in Q8, the impact the involved professionals can make on their regions is enormous, through the "take-away" from the global process (both in terms of knowledge and skills and contacts). c) Which should the role of the different regional actors be related to the IG? All the stakeholders should work on providing the transparency of the process, involving more and more people, clearing up the interests of various stakeholder groups in various issues, and searching for zones of possible agreement within each in form of common principles they could all agree to, and - where necessary - also the regulatory approaches.
10.- Which recommendations should you give to the different actors from the LAC Region, related to the IGF? The following activities are suggested - yet not limited to: |
