[kictanet] Fwd: [Internet Policy] IGF Bali

Fri Aug 2 10:49:42 EAT 2013

@barrack
thanks 

________________________________
 From: Barrack Otieno <otieno.barrack at gmail.com>
To: memakunat at yahoo.com 
Cc: KICTAnet ICT Policy Discussions <kictanet at lists.kictanet.or.ke> 
Sent: Thursday, August 1, 2013 9:08 PM
Subject: [kictanet] Fwd: [Internet Policy] IGF Bali

Meshack et al,

You asked a question about the IGF, the email below might be of help.

Best Regards

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Markus Kummer <kummer at isoc.org>
Date: Sat, Jul 27, 2013 at 2:32 PM
Subject: Re: [Internet Policy] IGF Bali
To: "internetpolicy at elists.isoc.org" <internetpolicy at elists.isoc.org>

Dear all,

It is great to see so much enthusiasm around the IGF!  We all agree that the IGF needs a more solid financial base - but the current model should be maintained insofar as the funding should go to the central operation and not to the host countries! Patrick made some good points, especially as regards cluster funding. This really ought to be pursued further.

Having said that, I feel that it is necessary to take a step back and to look at some of the basic facts. First of all, the UN has not received any official confirmation that Indonesia is withdrawing its offer to host the 2013 IGF. The UN has accepted the offer, but it has not yet issued an invitation to the event. The Under-Secretary-General of the UN is the convenor of the meeting, on behalf of the Secretary-General, in accordance with the Tunis Agenda. Only he would be able to cancel the event. However, cancelling is not an option.

Currently, the UN in New York is in touch with the Indonesian authorities at various levels to find out whether they are willing to honour their commitment to host the 2013 IGF.

I made the point at yesterday's MAG call that bailing out the Indonesian organizing committee would create a moral hazard. Nick picked up this point - it would indeed be a dangerous precedent that in the end might weaken the IGF instead of strengthening it.

Hosting an IGF meeting is a considerable effort, both in terms of workload as well as in terms of funding. We do not have the figure of how much each host country has spent in the past, but estimates vary between USD 2-3 Millions. This should be no surprise to the Indonesian hosts as the IGF Secretariat had explained to them the obligations of a host country as early as in 2010.

It seems that the organizing committee was not able to deliver. The question now is who should bail them out - the Indonesian Government or the international community? The missing USD 1 Million is peanuts for a major economy such as Indonesia - if the Government is not willing to come up with that kind of money then it is clear that there is no political support to host the meeting. Again, as Nick pointed out, shifting a UN meeting back to HQ or to another venue would not be a first - this has happened before and it never was the end of the world. I fully understand that there would be a considerable amount of discomfort related to changing travel arrangements and maybe loosing money on cheap non refundable tickets. However, good news is that we have serious expressions of interest from other potential host countries.

The budget transparency has been with us for some time. This is a complex issue and we should avoid mixing apples with pears. There is on the one hand the Trust Fund that finances the Secretariat and, on the other hand, the budget of the host country. Both budgets are part of proprietary agreements between the UN and the donor or the host country, respectively. They can only be disclosed if all Parties to the Agreement agree to do so.

The UN may be bureaucratic, but whatever UN staff do is based on rules and regulations set forth by UN Member States. There is simply no point in discussing whether these rules are too cumbersome or not. Hosting a UN event away from Headquarters follows rules based on Resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly - that is the UN's highest legislative authority. These rules are not negotiable.

The basic principle is that the extra costs arising from hosting a meeting away from UN Headquarters need to be funded by the Host Country. These costs include funding transport and per diem for UN staff, such as interpreters, security personnel, secretariat and other technical staff. For staff that need to be replaced at HQ (e.g. security personnel, interpreters) it also includes so-called replacement costs (that is to pay for the people who replace those who went to the conference). It is obvious that these costs vary greatly from venue to venue. Nairobi, for instance, is a UN HQ which brings down the cost, as no security personnel or interpreters need to be flown in. Indonesia will invariably more expensive, as most UN staff would need to be flown in. The Host Country has the option of transferring all the funds directly to the UN or assuming some of the costs directly, such as paying for flight tickets and hotel rooms. The UN asks the host country to
 provide transport from airport to hotels and hotels to venue. It is up to the host country to decide how generous it wants to be with providing free meals and other extras - but that is not a requirement.

The standard Host Country Agreement provides the legal framework for the meeting. It puts the UN flag over the meeting and guarantees diplomatic immunity to all participants for any word spoken or written in the context of the meeting. For understandable reasons, this fundamental right is not negotiable. The IGF, with its open door policy, has expanded this notion of diplomatic immunity well beyond the boundaries of  what is usually accepted by UN conferences. Any participant with "proven expertise and experience" is accepted without an onerous accreditation process, as it is normally the case for ECOSOC accreditation and other UN conferences. This is a huge accomplishment in terms of furthering multistakeholder cooperation under the UN flag. Putting up with UN rules and regulations is a prize worth paying for this!

To cut a long story short: let's stay calm and see whether Indonesia is ready to abide by some of these basic principles and willing to fund the IGF. If they can explain with a reasonable and reasoned budget where the shortfalls are, then we can see whether there is any need for the international community to chip in - but, as I said earlier to some of you: we are not there yet! I do hope that in the end we will go to Bali - but at the same time we should keep all the options open and be ready to shift to another venue.

Best regards
Markus

On Jul 27, 2013, at 9:32 AM, Seun Ojedeji <seun.ojedeji at gmail.com>

 wrote:

> Hello Patrick,
>
> Thank you for providing this much information as it makes things clearer; looking at the budget, I also agree there are way lots of things that can be reduced as I see that almost half of the budget is relatively for personnel stuff (including the hotel accommodation).
> This brings me to ask; why should an event host bear such a huge cost burden towards the UN? Can't the UN also take charge of some of the responsibilities as I believe they should also have budget for this.
> Nevertheless, I am not saying all these to defend the host as I also expect that the host knows the current normal drills to hosting an IGF before agreeing to host such an event. IGF Bali is not the first and if Bali is raising this funding concerns, then I will say it's unfortunate. A host country that cannot guarantee at least a 50% funding by her government towards an IGF event budget, should not be granted the hosting rights.
> As things stands now, it's just like world is at the mercy of the host :-)
> A word to the IGF secretariat is for them handle the situation in a way that will ensure that the future hosting of IGF will be protected from an experience as this. Raising funds now(like the $5 page earlier suggested) to save this may the useful, however it could also create an impression to future hosts and overall determine the life span of igf conferences itself.
> sent from Google nexus 4
>
> On 27 Jul 2013 05:57, "Patrick Ryan" <patrickryan at google.com> wrote:
> Dear all,
>
> As many of you know, the budget and funding issue has been a pet project of mine since February, and has been quite intense since I joined the MAG in May.  It's a frustrating process because the way that the UN accounts for projects is not standard (they don't use GAAP accounting, for example), it's obscure, and the details are limited to donors.  This makes it really complicated: there's no way to attract donors unless there is transparency, and even when one becomes a donor, there is still much to be desired. I'll spare further soap-boxing on this point for another day, but offer some of the following facts for the community.  I don't claim to understand all of this nor have any of us verified them, but at this point sharing them is the only thing that I can see as a path towards resolution.  We have two concrete asks that we think can be helpful.
>
> #1, Request for ID-IGF: tell us what number is needed.
> The organization in Indonesia that is now sponsoring the IGF is ID-IGF, and their fundraising brochure is here. It's actually a $2m total figure (although we've also heard $2.5), but the source for the $2m number is on p. 8 ("The overall fundraising target for hosting the IGF in 2013 is USD $1,966,560.20")  There are certainly many things that can be reduced, as Vint mentions. Thus, we ask ID-IGF to provide us with a bottom-line number on what they need to raise to move forward.
>
> #2, Request for UNDESA: clear the path for Tides.  As of right now, if any individual wants to fund the IGF, they need an individual contract with UNDESA to do so.  That is a complicated process and does not scale (it took Google more than six months to negotiate the contract last year).  While crowdsourcing would be wonderful, it's completely impossible.  We have a proposed solution, but it is stalled.  We propose working with Tides.org, a non-profit that can aggregate funds.  Through Tides, we could set up a simple website and crowdsource. Here is my email about Tides as sent to donors and MAG in Feb and in May, and here the actual Tides proposal that Tides sent to the IGF.  Our request to UNDESA: clear the path for the Tides proposal so that crowdsourcing can be enabled (UNDESA and Tides have met various times and have exchanged documents, but after five months, it is still open, but should be able to wrap quickly).
>
> #3, Request for UNDESA: share the budget details with the community.  We've asked many times for more transparency in the budget, as noted above. I've documented this request with UN officials as well.  It's crucial and not at all controversial in government entities, and it's fundamental to create trust and attract further donors.  We've asked UNDESA to share that and think it's important that it be acted upon.  Request for UNDESA: share the overall budget details on the IGF with the community, both for the IGF activities and for in-country budgets.
>
> These requests are straightforward but we'll need the community to support us if you agree.
>
> Patrick
>
> ------
> patrick ryan
> public policy & gov't relations sr. counsel, free expression and int'l relations
> patrickryan at google.com | +1.512.751.5346
>
>
> On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 8:52 PM, Smith, Bill <bill.smith at paypal-inc.com> wrote:
> ... and I don't believe we have ever been able to get what in business we might call a reasonable budget. Large-scale events like the IGF are expensive and a figure of 2.5mm USD is not unreasonable. I can also state the 900k USD figure for UN "security and support" is in line with estimates I have hear bandied about. I have also been told that those costs are unavoidable for a UN event.
>
> I, and I expect many others, would consider an attendance fee quite acceptable. Of course there will be issues that would have to be addressed but they are manageable. Perhaps tomorrow will be a better day.
>
> On Jul 26, 2013, at 7:23 PM, "Vint Cerf" <vint at google.com> wrote:
>
>> the numbers i have are not quite that favorable. I have been told the target is $2.5M and that the Indonesian ISP Alliance has raised $900K of that leaving a shortfall of $1.6M. I don't have adequate breakout to know what is included in these figures. In Azerbaijan, the government apparently tried to pay for all the food and maybe we could ask the attendees to pay an attendance fee to cover that? Until there is more clarity as to out of pocket expense for the venue, networking, other services, it will be hard to raise funds, I think.
>>
>>
>> v
>>
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Jul 26, 2013 at 7:49 PM, Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch <apisan at unam.mx> wrote:
>> Wyn,
>>
>> the consideration that good and trusted friend Peng Hwa conveys is contained (having read him) in my question re unreasonable demands by the UN - and it sure looks like one!
>>
>> It's very tempting to second-guess what is going on, it's sure the full truth may never out, there does seem to be a lot of mischief and games going on... so let's keep a watchful eye.
>>
>> One sure thing we will need to do is more transparency in the use of this kind of funds and to understand whether such a bill can be justified and accepted at all. Keep in mind for the right time.
>>
>> Yours,
>>
>> Alejandro Pisanty
>>
>>
>> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>>      Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
>> Facultad de Química UNAM
>> Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
>>
>>
>>
>> +52-1-5541444475 FROM ABROAD
>>
>> +525541444475 DESDE MÉXICO SMS +525541444475
>> Blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
>> LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
>> Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
>> Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
>> ---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
>> .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
>>
>> ________________________________________
>> Desde: internetpolicy-bounces at elists.isoc.org [internetpolicy-bounces at elists.isoc.org] en nombre de Winthrop Yu [w.yu at gmx.net]
>> Enviado el: viernes, 26 de julio de 2013 18:17
>> Hasta: internetpolicy at elists.isoc.org
>> Asunto: Re: [Internet Policy] IGF Bali
>>
>>    In that vein Dr. Alejandro, the numbers show that the Indonesian organizers
>> had already successfully raised US$1.15M, a not insubstantial amount.  Yes,
>> there is still a shortfall of US$1.05M. But it seems to me that without that
>> single $900K expense item (mentioned by Prof. Ang below), then the Indons are
>> already very close (only $105K remaining) to meeting their target budget?
>>
>> WYn
>>
>>
>>
>>  > ---------- Forwarded message ----------
>>  > From: *Ang Peng Hwa (Prof)* <TPHANG at ... <mailto:TPHANG at ...
>>  > Date: 26 July 2013 08:50
>>  > Subject: [Rigf_program] IGF in Indonesia cancelled
>>  > To: "program at ... <mailto:program at ..." <program at ...
>>  > <mailto:program at ...
>>  >
>>  >
>>  > Folks,
>>  >
>>  > This is sad but official: the Indonesian organizers have cancelled the IGF.
>>  > The announcement was made by the chair of the organizing committee (a
>>  > businessman) after a meeting with the minister and the civil society group.
>>  >
>>  > There is a news report in Bahasa Indonesia at
>>  >
>> http://inet.detik.com/read/2013/07/25/135130/2314218/328/kurang-dana-forum-internet-dunia-batal-digelar-di-bali.
>>
>>  >
>>  >   Use Google translate and you will be able to read.
>>  >
>>  > I had met the civil society organizers just this week. They were asking for
>>  > possible tips on fund raising. After exploring the options, we concluded that
>>  > they had approached most of the likely sponsors. Yes, there were some
>>  > possibilities they had overlooked but these were not many.
>>  >
>>  > According to the news report, out of the US$2.2M (Rp22 billion) budget, they
>>  > had raised US$900k. The Ministry had given US$250k. So they had a shortfall of
>>  > US$1.05M.
>>  >
>>  > Third party sources I checked (i.e. Not the Indonesians themselves) said that
>>  > one major cost was that the UN had asked for US$900k to fly personnel and
>>  > security apparatus to the meeting.
>>  >
>>  > Knowing a little of the inside story, I would say the situation is more
>>  > complex than one might have guessed. Next year is the election year for
>>  > Indonesia. So companies are asking: if I support you now but you do not win,
>>  > what happens? Then two weeks before the IGF, there is the APEC meeting in the
>>  > same venue. So the feeling that is Indonesia will be on the world's stage at
>>  > that time already. Meanwhile, the Minister of Communication, whose ministry
>>  > oversees the IGF, is under allegations of corruption. It's one of those series
>>  > of unfortunate events.
>>  >
>>  > Regards,
>>  > Peng Hwa
>>  >
>>  > --------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>  > CONFIDENTIALITY:This email is intended solely for the person(s) named and may
>>  > be confidential and/or privileged.If you are not the intended recipient,please
>>  > delete it,notify us and do not copy,use,or disclose its content.
>>  >
>>  > Towards A Sustainable Earth:Print Only When Necessary.Thank you.
>>  >
>>  > _______________________________________________
>>  > Rigf_program mailing list
>>  > Rigf_program at ... <mailto:Rigf_program at ...
>>  > https://mailman.dotasia.org/mailman/listinfo/rigf_program
>>
>>
>>
>> On 7/27/2013 4:12 AM, Dr. Alejandro Pisanty Baruch wrote:
>> > Hi all,
>> >
>> > for all I know ISOC and ICANN already make substantial monetary contributions to
>> > the IGF, in different forms. They have been key all over the years.
>> >
>> > I am glad to see that Google is making a commitment of the right size - enough
>> > of a fraction of the total cost to be significant, a real commitment, and also
>> > leaving enough space for others to co-own the sustainability of the IGF.
>> >
>> > I regret that this situation can also be seen as a victory for extortion -
>> > parties not honoring their initial expected commitments finding someone to pay
>> > for that - and think that we will need to understand the details better (was the
>> > UN demanding too much or something unfair? were the parties in Indonesia missing
>> > their targets?) in order to judge and to manage this into the future.
>> >
>> > It remains to be seen whether the extortion worked, or an honest deal is
>> > stricken, in Indonesia or elsewhere, and the result will help distill who is
>> > actually committed to an open IGF and who may be not so. Certainly Google's
>> > contribution has to be welcomed and one would hope that it starts a sort of
>> > bidding process in which parties compete to complete the support the ITF needs.
>> > Much remains to be sorted out.
>> >
>> > But it is undeniable good news that there is a way to provide sustainability to
>> > the IGF from a multistakeholder set of contributions, and for now I'll reserve
>> > all other judgment and celebrate!
>> >
>> > Yours,
>> >
>> > Alejandro Pisanty
>> >
>> > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>> >       Dr. Alejandro Pisanty
>> > Facultad de Química UNAM
>> > Av. Universidad 3000, 04510 Mexico DF Mexico
>> >
>> > +52-1-5541444475 FROM ABROAD
>> >
>> > +525541444475 DESDE MÉXICO SMS +525541444475
>> > Blog: http://pisanty.blogspot.com
>> > LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/pisanty
>> > Unete al grupo UNAM en LinkedIn, http://www.linkedin.com/e/gis/22285/4A106C0C8614
>> > Twitter: http://twitter.com/apisanty
>> > ---->> Unete a ISOC Mexico, http://www.isoc.org
>> > .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .
>>
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-- 
Barrack O. Otieno
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Skype: barrack.otieno
http://www.otienobarrack.me.ke/ 
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