At 03:25 AM 3/4/2006, Wainaina Mungai wrote:

I was under the impression that a "KICTANET statement" is a joint statement that needs wider consultation so as to legitimise the words below....because KICTANet does not exist without its membership. I may have been wrong.

Dear All, My sense here is that Colleague Wainaina is questioning the PROCESS (earlier he also questioned the outcome). Firstly, I respect his views even though I may disagree. My experience is that almost all organizations do not exist in a policy vacuum. Every organization and institution represents certain principles, positions, norms and expectations that could be either formally documented or even just tacit. If we talk of the boy scouts or the Red Cross for example everyone has some idea what those institutions stand for, even if they have never read the relevant mandate. This situation has two implications: firstly, that those who join these institutions are SUBSCRIBING to the general positions of those institutions; secondly, it means that a spokesperson for the institution can actually make a pronouncement on an issue reflecting the position of the institution as long as that position is based on existing general positions, expectations or principles of that organization. This further means that in many cases individual members do not necessarily have to be consulted. Sometimes contacting every member would indeed prove impractical, difficult and time consuming (imagine if a Catholic priest had to check with every Catholic before issuing a statement against an abortion incident). I am therefore disagreeing with colleague Wainaina that unless HE (or every KICTANET member) is consulted, a resulted position is not a valid KICTANET position. In this particular instance he has to prove to me that the statement is against what KICTNET generally believes in or stands for, not that he was not consulted. Kind Regards, Waudo Siganga