ICC BASIS intervention at CSTD Consultation on enhanced cooperation, 18 May 2012, Geneva

Delivered by Ayesha Hassan, ICC BASIS

Thank you Chair.

My name is Ayesha Hassan. Thank you for the opportunity to contribute today on behalf of the International Chamber of Commerce and its Business Action to Support the Information Society initiative. ICC BASIS includes companies and business associations from across industry sectors and geographies and sizes and serving users and customers globally.

Any actions that are taken should be guided by the Tunis agenda and build upon the work on enhanced cooperation initiated by the UN Secretary General. Enhanced cooperation is more than just intergovernmental relationships. The Tunis agenda clearly refers to greater cooperation among existing organizations, not the creation of new entities or processes. It references the importance of existing institutions and organizations engaged in Internet governance to improve their interactions and cooperation across and between such organizations/institutions.

Over the last 6 years, the UN Secretary General has developed a well established process for enhanced cooperation through outreach to relevant UN agencies and also relevant multistakeholder and technical organizations, including all stakeholders. We welcome the thoughts shared today on how things have evolved and how there are now more living examples of multistakeholder processes.

We concur with previous speakers who emphasized that the Internet , its usage and the Internet governance landscape have evolved since the WSIS in Tunis in 2006. This is important to remember as we look at enhanced cooperation today. Focusing on the definition of enhanced cooperation in the abstract would be counter-productive and would not be informed by the complex reality of what is happening and the evolutions since Tunis.

Many examples of enhanced cooperation have been highlighted today by several governments and speakers. The IGF, the WSIS action lines Forum and many other forums have catalysed enhanced cooperation efforts. It is a fact. Our common goal should be to further the assessment and discussion bearing in mind the multistakeholder word and spirit of the Tunis agenda—–the role of all stakeholders is woven into all aspects of it. In addition, the evolutions since 2006 underscore the critical role of cooperation between stakeholders to accomplish these goals.

Given the evolutions that have occurred in the past years, it would be useful to start the next phase of assessment of enhanced cooperation with an affirmative analysis of these examples to create a common understanding of how these efforts have been successful, and identify areas where there are challenges that remain. This kind of assessment could build on the annual performance reports process started by the UN SG and go further to capture the many new initiatives that have emerged. In addition, dialogue on Internet policy issues are taking place in many forums, let’s get a comprehensive understanding of these discussions and assess where there are unnecessary duplications. We appreciate that other speakers have also called for such an assessment/mapping.

This assessment could then be the base for further discussions at the CSTD.

As this assessment and analysis goes forward, a few observations from our perspective:

The goal should be to get more stakeholders to participate in the existing Internet technical organizations.

Governments and international institutions should make their Internet policy related and decision-making activities more open and inclusive of all stakeholders. Governments, regional, and international organizations that have been more open, and that have shown a commitment to enhanced cooperation, have proven to be more effective in their work.

Efforts to advance enhanced cooperation must be founded on a commitment to openness, inclusiveness, and outreach, so that the entities that may be affected by decisions are able to participate in the development and implementation of those decisions. In this vein, the Internet technical community is an essential stakeholder group along with governments, business, and civil society, and should be recognized as such.

As we move forward, we believe it is important to remain sensitive to the limited time, human and financial resources of all stakeholders and build forward instead of moving backwards. Thank you Chair.