[discuss] /1net Steering/Coordination Commitee

[Jeremy Malcolm]

On 21 Dec 2013, at 10:12 am, S Moonesamy <sm+1net at elandsys.com> wrote:

>> 3. How would the concerns of those not present in the discussion be dealt with?  (let's assume their concerns/knowledge are important, may influence the direction of the discussion, but they are not able to participate for a variety of reasons)
> 
> The discussion is open to anyone.  If a person does not voice out his/her concerns it is not an important concern.  For what it is worth, decisions are taken on a mailing list.  That provides a low barrier to participation (ignoring the time element).

In my opinion this is the source of a lot of the friction between the technical community and the other stakeholder groups.  Few governments work on mailing lists.  People whose culture places a high priority on the avoidance of interpersonal conflict don't work on mailing lists.  People who don't speak English don't work on English language mailing lists.  People without a technical background, but who have important insights from other disciplines to contribute to technical discussions, do not work on technical mailing lists.  People who don't know that a mailing list exists or that participation on it is important to their interests don't work on mailing lists.  That's a lot of people!

So, having a mailing list that is open is not adequate to ensure the inclusiveness of a process, or that any concern that hasn't been voiced on that list are "not an important concern".  To do that, much more proactive outreach and capacity building is needed.  This takes time and expense.  One of the most important roles of organised civil society is to seek to represent (in a loose sense) the perspectives of those who are unable to participate directly, but we are chronically underfunded and understaffed and we struggle to fulfil this responsibility.  Speaking personally, I can't count on my fingers the number of technical committees that I think are important, where consumers are not represented, and where my organisation doesn't have the resources to represent them.

-- 
Dr Jeremy Malcolm
Senior Policy Officer
Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers
Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East
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