[discuss] Just Net Coalition contribution on Principles for Netmundial.br

[S Moonesamy]

Hi Norbert,
At 02:01 07-03-2014, Norbert Bollow wrote:
>This sounds like you may have misunderstood something... we're not
>making any claim to be "representative of the views from the Southern
>Hemisphere" specifically. Certainly there was an intention that a high
>percentage of participants would be from "Global South" countries (aka
>"developing" countries), and I believe that that goal has been reached,
>see below.

Thank you for clearing my misunderstanding about 
the representative of the views from the Southern ...

>In the context of the Global North / Global South divide which as
>Wikipedia correctly notes [1] is primarily a socio-economic and
>political divide, I would count the participants on the basis of
>country affiliations as follows: 37 from Global South countries
>(Brazil, Ecuador, India, Phillipnes, Uruguay, Bangladesh, Thailand,
>Kenya) as opposed to 13 from Global North countries (USA, Switzerland,
>France, Ireland, Germany, South Korea, Canada).
>[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North%E2%80%93South_divide

I preferred to validate that reference.  I found the following:

   'The use of the term South to refer to developing countries collectively
    has been part of the shorthand of international relations since the 1970s.
    It rests on the fact that all of the world’s industrially developed
    countries (with the exception of Australia and New Zealand) lie to the
    north of its developing countries.  The term does not imply that all
    developing countries are similar and can be lumped together in one
    category.  What it does highlight is that although developing countries
    range across the spectrum in every economic, social and political
    attribute, they all share a set of vulnerabilities and challenges."

It is strange to say that India, Bangladesh, 
Thailand, etc. are part of the South.  I don't 
usually hear people from the Southern Hemisphere 
using the term "Global South".  Anyway, it is 
mentioned that it is shorthand used before the (current) internet.

>It is true that the geographic distribution was not perfect. Among
>Global North countries, "Estern" perspectives were underrepresented
>in relation to "Western" perspectives (in regard to what I call
>"Eastern Global North" perspectives we had only one participant from
>South Korea, but e.g. no-one from Japan), and within the set of Global
>South perspectives, not only as you noted the Southern hemisphere was
>relatively underrepresented, but also e.g. we had no-one from China. So
>there is indeed room for improvement in this regard. This problem is
>related to a significant extent to the issue of travel related
>challenges, in particular the issue of costs, but getting a visa for
>traveling to an international meeting can be a challenge also quite
>independently of the aspect of cost.

I am interested in the public views a person 
argues for or against.  It is encouraging to see 
that you have been transparent about the source 
of funding.  It is not possible to assess the 
perspective(s) the person will provide when the discussions are not open.

Regards,
S. Moonesamy