A variety of indicators can be presented in evidence of UIA responsiveness to
the interests and concerns of different constituencies in the non-commercial
community over the past decades.
Statutory obligation
The UIA statutes (last modified in 1986, following transformation into an
institute in 1953) specify its aims to be:
- To contribute to a universal order based on principles of human dignity,
solidarity of peoples and freedom of communication
- To undertake and promote research and study on transnational associative
networks, considered essential components of contemporary society
- To collect and distribute the most comprehensive documentation possible on
international organizations and associations, both governmental and
non-governmental, and on new forms of transnational co-operation
- To collect and distribute data on the various meetings organized by
international bodies
- To encourage and undertake all activity aimed at promoting the development
and efficiency of non-governmental networks, as well as
intercommunication between people working in the international framework and
in inter-associative co-operation
- To study, categorize, analyze, compare and illuminate world problems as
perceived by international organizations
Proactive Engagement
It is useful to stress that the UIA is extremely proactive in its coverage of
a community that may be variously described by terms such as non-profit,
non-commercial, voluntary, civil society, independent sector, third sector,
citizens organizations, etc. None of these terms is satisfactory, especially to
bodies that may or may not wish to be labelled by them - and may in fact be
hybrids of the qualities that these endeavour to imply. The UIA also profiles
intergovernmental bodies many of which use the .org domain in preference to the
.int domain to which they have a privileged right as bodies constituted by
treaty.
The UIA is proactive in response to the community of organizations and to the
concerns of its many constituencies. Unlike registries that act only in response
to incoming requests, the UIA undertakes a variety of initiatives to extend the
range and depth of what it registers and profiles in relation to the global
community of organizations. It notably uses the network of formal contacts
indicated by organizations to ensure that all bodies so indicated are registered
to whatever degree is appropriate or possible. Its strongest bias might be
described as an effort to profile perspectives that reflect contrasting biases.
Unique Competence of the UIA
UIA has thrived over decades through its experience in understanding the
global non-commercial community and studying the diversity of these
organizations. Its subsidiary Diversitas is thus well-positioned to ensure that
these stakeholders will have an opportunity to participate in the development of
the .org domain.
Given the unrivalled database developed by UIA of the non-commercial
community, and decades spent analysing their interests and needs, Diversitas is
in a unique position to help them fulfill their mission by:
- Responding to their interests
- Developing policies for .org
- Developing value added Internet services
UIA has developed an extensive database of more than 50,000 international
organizations worldwide that has been cross-referenced in myriad ways. This
database and contact list will be harnessed to help solicit the views and
opinions of these organizations. This capability is unique.
UIA maintains inter-related databases on more than 56,000 world problems,
50,000 inter-governmental and non-governmental (NGO) organizations (and their
meetings), 33,000 organizational action strategies, 3,200 human values and 4,800
approaches to human development, as well as integrative concepts and metaphors
of relevance to governance. Items in each database are extensively hyperlinked
among themselves and to other databases. URLs are provided to more than 26,000
Internet resources of international bodies [access via www.uia.org/data.htm].
The chart below provides a sampling of prominent international non-profit
organizations to update their profile in the UIA Yearbook of International
Organizations. A more complete list appears in Appendix
D.
Such resources position UIA / Diversitas extremely well in terms of gauging
opinions from the international non-profit community as well as providing a
communications vehicle to respond to their views.
A Consensus Driven Process
Diversitas will use a number of approaches to encourage an open,
consensus-driven process, including:
- Meetings around the world, benefiting from Internet technology, bringing
together key stakeholders
- E-mails, faxes and letters to key non-profit constituencies to gauge their
perspectives
- Setting up an interactive web site for selective polling on specific issues
Diversitas is uniquely qualified to put such communications processes in
place, given UIA's current role as registry for more than 50,000 non-profit
organizations globally (most with their own organization and individual
members).
Diversitas is intended to reflect the diversity of the non-profit community
worldwide and those with unique expertise in this area. UIA will assist in
extending its current information flows to include regular quarterly
communications with thousands of non-profits, informing them of key issues,
asking for their views on a wide variety of questions related to the .org
domain, and offering value-added services to them so that they can better serve
their constituencies.
The UIA is sensitive to the fact that there are few, if any, examples of
global, multi-cultural, multi-lingual, multi-sectoral coalitions managing a
long-term project subject to the level of technical requirements and 24/7
reliability so appropriately stressed by ICANN. UIA / Diversitas Transition Team
will therefore act progressively and prudently to build up a governance
structure that is as responsive as possible whilst giving priority to continuity
of service. The challenge is to enable experiments in governance and service
facilities that do not place the basic service at risk. There seems to be a
strong case for using simulation techniques for exploring the constraints and
possibilities of more ambitious proposals for governance and services.
Diversitas plans to identify appropriate individuals and organizations to
participate either on its Board of Directors, Policy Advisory Committee and
Technical Advisory Committee for the .org domain. In particular, there is a set
of non-profit coalitions that UIA will contact to encourage their participation
in the consensus-building process on questions such as:
- How to best develop and market the .org domain for the non-profit
community
- How to offer the most useful value-added Internet services at the lowest cost
to non-profits located around the world
A number of organizations support the approach taken by UIA. They believe
that both the stability of the .org domain and its continued development will be
best served by a non-profit managing these functions for the global non-profit
community.
There will be more opportunities for participation going forward, as we
develop networked communications with thousands of non-profits globally (see
Section C35 above).
As a demonstration of support for this bid, ICANN requests letters of
endorsement. A number of letters of endorsement are attached. However, we
believe that other indicators of support may in our case have greater relevance.
In different ways, each of the indicators below makes the point that the UIA
could not provide the services it does (as described in Section C15) without the
long-term support of the highly disparate, multi-cultural, multi-lingual
community of non-profit bodies.
Voluntary collaboration. In contrast with registries empowered by a legal
(e.g., a business register) or technical (e.g., URL) obligation to which bodies
are impelled to respond, the UIA registry activity is based on voluntary
response. This means that the UIA has had to develop a quality of caring contact
with such bodies that is minimally invasive, or politically problematic, in
order to sustain the level of support.
"Thick" registry. The UIA would like to argue that the "thick
registry" activity in which it has engaged with the long-term collaboration
of thousands of international bodies in practice is a demonstration of support
that is far more eloquent than letters of support. "Thick registry"
profiles maintained with the collaboration of members of the .org community are
in this sense measures of clear support for our work.
Interpretation of "representation". Despite its name, the UIA in no
way claims to "represent" the global network of civil society bodies
or their interests. However, it does claim to "present" them as
transparently as possible - and to a much higher degree than is possible through
the filters of layers of "representative" bodies that are often
obliged to present their views in competition with each other. These bodies are
necessarily forced to reduce the many views of the complex variety of the
millions of bodies in the .org community - through the mechanics of polling and
voting systems - to their binary outcomes. In its registry activity, the UIA
claims to present an ecosystem rather than be primarily responsive to
temporarily dominant perspectives.
Custodial role of UIA full members. To safeguard the integrity of its
registry operations, the UIA has opted for a formula in which this is guaranteed
by co-opted individuals who have in different ways been associated in positions
of high responsibility with respect to the international nonprofit community in
all its variety. They are of necessity sensitive to its importance and needs.
Many have been directly responsible for the management of one or more individual
organizations, or have been sensitized to their concerns. Use of individuals
with this background has enabled the UIA to avoid the problematic dynamics of
the politics of a highly diverse community of organizations and agendas that is
difficult to reconcile with the long-term development and maintenance of a
registry capacity designed to be responsive to every organizational perspective.
UN/ECOSOC Resolution. The UIA's work in profiling international non-profit
organizations has been covered by a UN/ECOSOC Resolution since 20 July 1950
(Resolution 334B (XI)). This post-war resolution follows support by the UIA for
League of Nations registry activity in the pre-war period (1921-1938), that
itself was based on the UIA registry activity initiated prior to the 1914-1918
war (as acknowledged in a League Council document, A.43 (B) 1421, 5 September
1921). The UIA's consultative relationship with the UN since 1951 is based on
this activity.
UNESCO recognition. The UIA's registry work is the basis for its formal
relations with UNESCO dating back to 1952. The UIA has been involved in UNESCO
efforts to evaluate non-governmental bodies, most recently in 1966 as the
leading member of the exercise to assess the basis for such collaboration and to
recommend a new pattern of relationships. As the intergovernmental body with the
prime mandate for information content and dissemination, UNESCO has also
acknowledged UIA's role as a registry for world problems and strategies in
response to them.
Profiling network of consultative relationships with intergovernmental
bodies. The major UN Specialized Agencies each have relationships with networks
of hundreds of international NGOs - which may each have relationships with
several such agencies. Since 1951, the UIA has been the only body to document
these complex networks - which it has made navigable since 1995 as hyperlinks.
Online use of the UIA registry by the UN system. 26 agencies of the UN system
acquired network subscriptions as soon as this was made available online in
2000.
Response rate on UIA questionnaires. The UIA questions some 50,000
international non-profit organizations in a two-year cycle regarding the
profiles maintained on each of them. The response rate for a core 10,901
"conventional" international bodies, across all sectors, is 48% within
12 months and 63% over 24 months. Those responding within 24 months have a total
of 233,466 links to 301 countries and territories (counting multiple links once
only), namely 75 % of the total links to countries for all bodies in that
cluster. Each such link presumably has the potential to generate web traffic -
and arguably might be considered as "supporting" the UIA registry
activity through the respondent parent bodies.
In the case of 9,496 national bodies with some international activity or
preoccupation, the response rates are 18% and 39%, respectively. The contact
also covers profiles maintained on some 25,000 future international events for
which they are responsible. The questioning procedure uses an evolving mix of
post, fax, e-mail and web, according to the facilities available to the
organization.
Survey response rate. Independently of organization profiles, the UIA also
uses a mix of e-mail, fax and web technologies to survey international
non-profit bodies occasionally on issues affecting them. Most recently, this
involved a survey of 8,000 such bodies with e-mail and web facilities, and
organizing international events. The response rate was 10%.
Standard reference source on statistics on international meetings. The UIA is
recognized as the standard source of international meeting data obtained from
individual international non-profit organizations. This data is important to the
billion dollar "meetings industry" involving international non-profit
organizations responsible for events and the various industries servicing such
events (airlines, hotels, interpreters, conference centres, etc).
Standard reference source on statistics on international civil society
organizations. The UIA's role as the most comprehensive source of data on
international organizations over a century is widely acknowledged in academic
studies of international relations and civil society, currently made available
in the Yearbook of International Organizations (volume 5). Most recently UIA
statistical data is now integrated into the new Global Civil Society Yearbook
produced by the Centre for Civil Society of the London School of Economics.
Integration of UIA electronic profiles into online educational systems.
Several educational systems have explored use of UIA profiles of organizations,
problems or strategies (with or without permission) as part of course material.
The CD variant has been used experimentally in training programs in developing
countries.
Usage of UIA online database data: 48,972 registered users (access by
username/password and IP recognition, both free and paying) plus about 50,000
listed organizations who all received individual special accounts allowing them
to check their profiles in the UIA online databases. Percentage distribution of
resolved accesses: .com = 29.38%, .net = 17.29%, .org = 12.49%, .edu = 6.00%
(one year average). Distinct hosts served (one year period): 115,076.
Links to UIA site. Some 2,900 web pages point to somewhere in the UIA site
(www.uia.org) of which 1,230 point directly to its profile via www.uia.org/data.htm (figures
from Google).
Plagiarism as an indicator of "support". During the period
1996-1999, when the percentage of international non-profit organizations with
web sites was less than 20%, the UIA listed all such sites (and linked to them)
in readily accessible pages that were widely indexed by search engines. As the
percentage increased, the UIA was obliged to provide such links from a database
designed to restrict abusive access.