[WG-Strategy] Draft: Ideas how to operationalize the MHLB

[Juan Fernandez Gonzalez]

Dear Colleagues:

This is my first entry on this mailing list, therefore, let me, first of 
all, send my greetings and my best wishes that you are well and safe in 
these times of pandemic.

I want to comment on the very interesting document posted by Livia and 
Jorge on how to implement the Multistakeholder High-Level Body (MHLB) 
proposed in pp.93(a) of the Report of the UN Secretary-General, 
(doc.A/74/821).

But first, please allow me to make some general comments:

I am of the opinion that the IGF during these years has fulfilled more 
or less satisfactorily its mandate to "Discuss public policy issues 
related to key elements of Internet governance ..." (pp.72 Tunis Agenda)

In particular, it has been very successful in providing the possibility 
for members of civil society and academia to bring to the global stage 
their interests and concerns regarding the Internet.

And without a doubt, for the other stakeholders, the private sector and 
governments, the forum has been less attractive or useful.

(An objective indicator, which underscores this assessment, is the 
decreasing participation of representatives of these two stakeholders in 
the MAG open consultations.)

To address these (and other) shortcomings of the IGF is that the 
Secretary General of the United Nations has promoted the debate on 
Global Digital Cooperation.

And although the first (chronologically) document: the Report of the 
High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation proposed several models to 
achieve this, the second document, the above mentioned UNSG report, 
seems to point that the preferred path is the IGF+ model or some other 
sort of improved IGF.

As you know, many suggestions have arisen and continue to arise on this 
proposal.

But I want to focus on only two, which I consider the most important:

First is the need to strengthen the institutionality of the IGF within 
the United Nations system. This is of paramount importance to the 
government sector.

Second, that the results of the debates, especially those where 
consensus has been reached, do not remain 'up in the air', but that 
there is a clear path through which they can be operationalized.

Precisely, in order to establish this path, it is that, in my opinion, 
the MHLB is useful.

And in order to create that path expeditiously, the 'High Level' 
component is essential.

Not only to channel the IGF results to relevant international 
organizations (inside and outside the UN), but also to get the business 
community to respond appropriately.

As Anriette may recall, there is an earlier precedent for a high-level 
multi-stakeholder advisory group in the field of ICT created by the UN 
Secretary-General: the ICT Task Force.

In the following URLs you can see what it was about, and perhaps find 
some similarity to the case at hand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Information_and_Communication_Technologies_Task_Force

https://www.un.org/webcast/ict/members.htm

Please pay special attention to the set of excellent books that emanated 
from the work of that group:

https://shop.un.org/series/ict-task-force-series

I conclude by putting the link to the communiqué of the creation of that 
group 19 years ago:

https://www.un.org/press/en/2001/dev2353.doc.htm

/I warn you that for some reason beyond my comprehension, the official 
site of the ICT Task Force has been taken over by something related to 
bodybuilding. (!!)./

Best regards

Juan

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