Nominations to IGF Advisory Committee - Info

[Meryem Marzouki <marzouki@ras.eu.org>]

Dear all,

As you probably know, an IGF Multi-stakeholder Advisory Committee  
(MAG) will be set up by the UN Secretary General. This announcement  
is available on the IGF website (www.intgovforum.org):

"Advisory Group to be set up to prepare for the first meeting of the IGF
In light of the consultations on the convening of the IGF, held in  
Geneva on 16 - 17 February 2006, the Secretary-General will set up a  
multi-stakeholder Advisory Group to assist him in this task. The  
Group will consist of about forty members, representing governments,  
private sector and civil society and include members of the academic  
and technical communities. The members of the group will be chosen in  
their personal capacity. All stakeholders are invited to submit  
recommendations for members of the Advisory Group to the IGF  
secretariat by 18 April (igf@unog.ch). Relevant intergovernmental  
organizations are welcome to attend the meetings of the Advisory Group."

As you can see, there is not much information on the role of the MAG,  
but one can expect that it will start by choosing the priority issues  
of the IGF, as well as be the major forum for decision making on  
process, etc. This it is expected to play a major role in all  
activities related to IGF.

The MAG first meeting will be held in Geneva, on May 22-23, some days  
after the next IGF consultation meeting to be held on May 19 in the  
same town.

The CS Internet Governance Caucus (IGC), which de facto acts as a  
kind of plenary for what relates to internet governance issues and  
specially the IGF, has started a process to nominate CS participants  
to the MAG, to be submitted to IGF secretariat. While this is not the  
only mean for nominating CS participants to the MAG, this nomination  
process  started by the IGC has the advantage of being a joint/ 
coordinated CS @ WSIS one.

At this step, the IGC has set up a 'nominating committee' (nomcom),  
made up of 5 randomly chosen CS people out of a list of 34  
volunteers. This nomcom will select the 15 CS MAG participants to be  
recommended to the IGF.
It is now time to propose names to the nomcom. The deadline to  
propose these names is April 10, 2006.

Avri Doria, from the IGC, has run the process to set up the nomcom.  
She has now issued a call for proposals, with some criteria, that I  
am forwarding to this list in a companion message.

The HR caucus may now proceed in two ways:
(1) We decide as a caucus, to submit some  names with the required  
information. This would provide an addition information to the nomcom  
that it may use (or not) in its selection. This additional  
information is: "this list of people are supported by the HR caucus".  
Please note that the selection is however based on the individual  
capacities of proposed peoples, and this additional information is by  
no mean a guaranteed "added-value" to the proosal
or
(2) We don't do anything, and interested people can apply either by  
self-submitting their names or by having their names submitted by  
others. Non self-submission should make sure that the proposed person  
agrees on his/her nomination. But please keep the caucus informed of  
any (self-)nomination of/by its members, thanks.

In any case, I'd be happy to answer any of your questions on the  
nomination process, since I'm following this as a member of the IGC.

Best
Meryem