@EXT: RE: United Nations report on Internet standards

["Marcolla, Sara Veronica" <[e-mail]>]

I do understand it. However, in many cases, when the one and only governmental representative on a list/working group etc agrees/disagrees on a position, paper or policy, he or she does not so in personal capacity. He or she is representing hundreds of stakeholders "behind", who entrusted this specific individual to follow up and engage on behalf - often - of entire governments. That is, hundreds of people, or even hundreds of governmental agencies. 

This vote, however, gets counted as one, as the one of any Joe or Alice. This is the big issue of participation,  with regards to government engagement in a multistakeholder environment. Often administrations do not find a good investment to make sure an individual is delegated to do so (with all internal coordination efforts, in some case at national level, in other even at international level), just to have one voice diluted so much.

Kind regards,

Sara Marcolla

Europol - O3 European Cyber Crime Centre (EC3)
www.europol.europa.eu



-----Original Message-----
From: ietf <[e-mail]> On Behalf Of Keith Moore
Sent: 27 March 2020 23:30
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Re: @EXT: RE: United Nations report on Internet standards

On 3/27/20 5:47 PM, Marcolla, Sara Veronica wrote:

> The issue is, when government representative participate to IETF (or a RIR, or ICANN, or a NOG), they do so in their official capacity, thus representing to some extent their organisation. They (we) do understand the concept, however it is impossible to attend without this sort of "official" hat. So on one hand there is Joe-as-himself, and on the other hand there in Alice-as-a-whole-government-rep. How do we make this work better for everyone's benefit in IETF?

In all cases the burden is on the contributor to build rough consensus for their proposal and they do so not by wielding power but by making a sound case that their proposal benefits the Internet as a whole. Perhaps some people cannot help "wearing a hat".   But the hat isn't going to have much persuasive power and may be a liability.

Keith


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