>>CHAIR DESAI: Okay. In the back from APC, I think.
>>ASSN FOR PROGRESSIVE COMM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just looking at the program and trying to pick up on this issue of Internet rights and principles, it seems that on Tuesday, the 17th, the whole afternoon session is being devoted to report-backs from roundtables and workshops. I'm wondering if that's the best use of time there in the sense of it may well be that a thematic of Internet rights and principles could also be run on that afternoon.
It seems that -- I'm not sure what the rationale is of excluding it from plenary debate. But with a significant groundswell around it, it seems that every effort should be made to accommodate it formally in the program and not simply as one of a number of workshops.
I don't know -- it's just not clear to me what the rationale is at this stage. And I would caution against a situation in which those people who are -- feel strongly about it and do not see it reflected in the program adequately take it outside of the forum.
That, I think, is a distinct possibility. And it's something which the IGF should be aware of.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Anybody else wants to comment on this issue? We have -- we have a little certain discussion, is this necessary, first, on the overall theme of the Sharm El Sheikh meeting. There are proposals. One was in terms of opportunity for all. Another was in terms of Internet rights and principles. A third was to see where we could connect it with the economic downturn.
Right now, we actually do not have any clarity on, if you like, the headline for the Sharm El Sheikh meeting and I would like some feedback from you on what is it that you would like to see as the headline for this meeting.
Second, there were issues about how to handle the question of rights and principles, and I don't think we came to any conclusion. There is one proposal, which is that we take the session which has been earmarked for reporting-in and use that for a -- presumably session on Internet rights and principles. We can discuss later as to what form that would take.
I just wanted to emphasize that one of the reasons that the session for reporting in was put in was the feeling that we had -- one of the areas where we had not perhaps done as well was to connect the workshops with the main sessions and that we needed to clear some space for that.
Our experiment in doing it in the morning in Athens, frankly, didn't work. And the idea that it would be somehow taken into account by the presenters in the -- also may have helped in few cases.
We are still struggling with that whole -- so let's not lose sight of that goal, that we have to find a way of connecting the very valuable work which is being done in those workshops with the main sessions.
So can I invite people for comments then on the, first, proposal of the overall theme; second, your views and reflections on how we can deal with the issue of Internet rights and principles; and, third, with the more specific suggestion which has come about the reporting-in. Yes, Jeff from ICC.
>>ICC-BASIS: Thank you. A suggestion may be in the context of dealing with the rights issues that it would seem -- and the paper I think outlined this, that some of those issues seemed to relate very closely to the day where the panel session where we're talking about cybersecurity, privacy, individual rights are an important component of that discussion and that may be one way to incorporate those issues into an existing session. And also another idea would be that would be an opportunity to talk about the work that's being done in this area internationally already and some of the consensus that may have developed out there and bring those learnings into the session. So I think there is a nexus to some of the existing topics already without making it a completely new topic.
>>CHAIR DESAI: So reporting it into the privacy, okay.
Any other contributions on these matters? Yes, ETNO. And then Martin from Nominet.
>>ETNO: As active participants within the IGF, ETNO, the European Telecoms Network Operators Association, view these preparatory sessions as immensely important and we would like to begin by congratulating Mr. Desai for his reappointment and also the new members of the MAG.
ETNO has submitted a reflection document on the draft program format and structure for the 2009 IGF meeting, but I would like to take this opportunity to highlight a few key points contained within that submission.
ETNO supports the proposal for the overall title of the meeting as "Internet, an Opportunity for All." We believe this title reflects very much to the current world financial situation. It provides a positive overall theme, yet it's broad enough to cover all of the subthemes.
ETNO would particularly like to stress the issue of balanced representation in order to achieve a meaningful outcome. And for this reason, we suggest sessions that focus on particular aspects of the Internet must include those parties who are currently directly responsible for the areas under discussion.
ETNO supports discussion of a broad set of issues that are important to a variety of viewpoints and stakeholders. In other words, ETNO respects the-no-topic-is-excluded general principle, but we caution against tackling too many or too diverse a set of issues at one time. Further discussion needs to take adequate account of previous main session topics and the need to facilitate further debate on subissues that would benefit from greater clarity from discussion outside of the main sessions.
ETNO strongly believes that the program should be defined well in advance and that no main session slot left open for official meetings. If no concrete proposals are not covered by the sessions received well in advance, we suggest that the open last slot in the schedule be omitted.
More clarification is also required on the function and role of roundtables. Particularly, there is a three-hour session, would appear to be rather long for such a meeting without that clarification.
One issue which ETNO feels needs to be addressed is the large number of workshops and other events. Whilst respecting the diversity of opinion, we think that the workshops proposed are too many and we urge for similar workshops to merge.
We believe it would be more efficient, if not more democratic, to have many diverse voices in one room instead of being scattered in various rooms.
We continue to believe that it will be best if there are fewer events held in parallel with the main sessions, but with increased quality and that the number of workshops and other events should be reduced and resources optimized.
The IGF Secretariat and the MAG should continue to push for similar workshops to merge.
In concluding, Mr. Chairman, ETNO would like to congratulate both the IGF Secretariat and Egypt as the host country for this year's IGF. The intense amount of preparation and planning that has already taken place is clearly visible, including the use of new technology that will further enhance the standing of the IGF and broaden participation and engagement across the world.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Martin of Nominet?
>>NOMINET: Thank you, Chair. I welcome the synthesis paper that the secretariat has put before us, and I think that this is a good basis to help focus our discussion. So thank you to the secretariat for this continued and effective work.
I would like to draw attention to the general principles outlined in Section 3 which, I think, are a good and solid basis for trying to fit together our work over the four days of Sharm El Sheikh. I certainly recognize the problems of fitting rather a lot into a heavy program, but I would note the important role of the Internet Governance Forum in promoting exchanges between people. And looking at the seventh of these general principles, we strongly suggest that in a very heavily loaded agenda, time does need to be specifically allocated to the objective of encouraging ad hoc meetings.
One key indicator for the success of the IGF, as evidence for need of the forum and how stakeholders have taken the opportunity it provides, is quite how many people in organizations want to be involved. But success always has a downside, and. In this case, fitting everything in and fitting everyone in is obviously a major challenge and ensuring that newcomers are brought up to speed. I'm particularly pleased to see that we're taking time in a busy schedule to try and make sure that we're doing that.
The national, regional and community-based initiatives that have been mentioned at the start of all this discussion I think are very much in line with the spirit of Paragraph 80 of the Tunis Agenda which encourages the development of multistakeholder processes at the national, regional and international levels to discuss and collaborate on the expansion and diffusion of the Internet.
As an organization actively involved in promoting such multistakeholder cooperation with the U.K. IGF, the European Dialogue on Internet Governance, and work on a commonwealth IGF as well as local -- locally based initiatives, we welcome the idea of being able to give feedback from regional and national initiatives and actions.
This sort of cooperation will help us prepare for the IGF. It will also help us draw the widest possible benefit from the IGF processes as we share ideas through wider communities and take actions based on what we have learned.
Turning now to your question about the headline, I must admit I find the ETNO idea of the "Internet, an Opportunity for All" is one that fits nicely with a lot of the workshop -- proposed workshop themes and so certainly would welcome further consideration along these lines.
I do have a slight caution on the merging of workshops. I certainly recognize the need and would recognize some marriage brokering to try to make best use of time and to try and make sure that we were developing the discussion through wider networks rather than just with our immediate friends.
However, I'm also very concerned that this might lead to forced marriages. I'm sorry to borrow your earlier metaphor here, Chairman, but I think forced marriages often don't work and, therefore, the sensitivity is going to be exercised to avoid making rather tricky and difficult decisions.
The comment on workshops and linking them to the main themes, I think one of the main benefits of workshops ought to be to help inform the discussions in the plenaries. And so I would see a value of trying to link workshops through -- to the main sessions and rather than perhaps having a separate day or separate afternoon to look at feedback from all the workshops, actually try to get feedback from the workshops directly into the relevant main session.
And, finally, the U.K. IGF hopes that this year in Egypt we'll see an increased engagement by parliamentarians in the IGF process. This is a real opportunity for the IGF to hear and understand the concerns of citizens via the voices of their elected representatives, and I hope that Sharm El Sheikh will provide the opportunity for parliamentarians to discuss with other stakeholders how these citizens' interests might be addressed. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR DESAI: George and then IGC.
>>GEORGE PAPADATOS: Thank you. I think Mr. Boyle raises some very interesting points. Basically, it seems to me that the workshops have been kind of the bread and butter of the IGF, and there are a lot of people that attend IGFs just for workshops. So by trying forced marriages, I have a feeling that we may lose some in the process or some may take their workshops elsewhere.
As far as the initiative on the parliamentarians, I would like to see a workshop or something similar on parliamentarians, otherwise they would not come. I have suggested in the past closer cooperation with the IPU on this, that we could work something out. At least I'm willing to participate in such an initiative.
The third point is that there is a term that has been used kind of loosely. I have been hearing two different versions, or three, regional and national IGFs, regional activities, multistakeholder processes and so forth.
I was wondering whether the ones that have instituted or initialized those processes call themselves IGFs? If they don't, I wonder why we should call them IGFs ourselves rather than regional initiative or multistakeholder processes. Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: IGC?
>>GINGER PAQUE: Okay, I'm speaking not as the IGC actually. I'm reading a statement for a very small voice from the ISOC chapter of the Philippines. The newly -- I wanted to read it before we get off completely the theme of Internet rights and principles because they do touch on it.
"The newly rejuvenated ISOC chapter of the Philippines would like to emphasize our interest for Internet rights and principles as a major theme for the IGF 2009. We addressed this theme with great support as it is currently a vital and emerging topic for Internet governance. This support is in align with the ISOC Philippines upholding the spirit of core values that guide our policy work and our ability to connect, to speak, to innovate, to share, to choose and to trust.
As citizens of a small island developing state, we also highlight the necessity for continued development of remote participation as a tool for the Philippines and for other small island developing states, to improve our participation in international policy-making processes, in particular in the IGF process.
The Internet governance working group of ISOC Philippines chapter is establishing a remote hub for the upcoming IGF that will serve as a means to keep Filipinos abreast of emerging global and local IG issues. Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: (inaudible).
>> Hello. Thank you very much. First of all, thank you for the interesting papers that you prepared for this meeting which serve as a good basis for this discussion. I just have a few remarks trying to answer the questions you just raised.
First of all, we also welcome the feeding in of the national and regional initiatives as part of the beginning of the IGF. With regard to merging workshops, we think that especially for small delegations, it is a problem if there are too many events and we think that even forcing some workshops to merge might be useful also for having really interesting workshops that have to take into account different views and different experiences.
So we would at least try to reduce the number of the workshops a little bit and give some incentives to merge workshops.
With regard to the main sessions, we would also support having Internet rights and principles as one of the main sessions because we think that this is a remaining key issue for the whole Internet and should be -- should have adequate visibility in the IGF.
With regard to the reporting-back, we could think of using the slot reserved for the reporting-back for the fourth main session on Internet rights and principles and maybe a proposal would be to integrate in every main session the first half-hour -- to dedicate the first half-hour of every main session for a reporting-back on the workshops that are linked to the issue. That might also help to integrate people from these workshops into those main sessions which is something that we sometimes in some sessions last year missed a little bit. That might be a proposal that instead of having one session on reporting-back, integrating the reporting-back into the four main sessions.
With regard to the overall theme, we think "Internet, an Opportunity for All" is a very nice sounding theme and might be attractive. The only problem might be that it might be too general for people to know what this means, what is being discussed at the IGF. That might be a reason to choose something like "Internet rights and principles" as a title, but we can also live with "Opportunity for All." Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Argentina and then --
>>ARGENTINA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to comment about the support of having information about regional and national meetings. I take the words said by George, I don't know if they are really IGFs, but we had an excellent experience last year in August with a regional meeting previous to -- yes, you -- the regional meeting held in Montevideo and there will be a new meeting in Rio de Janeiro this year. I think these initiatives are help developing regions and developing economies to have more focused issues in relation with Internet governance.
In relation with workshops and merging them, which I think it is fine because maybe there are many, I think that we should also consider that some workshop names or issues may be more isolated and not that much referred as, for example, childhood protection maybe because it is a new issue or maybe because it is an issue presented by some developing regions. So it would not be good that we take aside those issues that are rarely represented or few and not as many as some others like child protection. Thank you, Chair.
>>CHAIR DESAI: I had the gentleman up here in front.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Honorable Chairman, I'm Fouad Bajwa from Pakistan. I'm speaking on behalf of the ICT for the civil society group in Pakistan called the Pakistan ICD Policy Monitor.
We've experienced -- as everyone is aware, in 2005, we had a massive earthquake after which the focus of government shifted towards -- we have rehabilitation activities. Since then, there has been no participation from the government of Pakistan, and similarly the civil society groups are underrepresented at the IGF.
The workshop component of the IGF should be kept there because we see this as an opportunity to conduct workshops for parliamentarians and ICD government leaders whereby they can be, once again, re-educated and included into the process.
We feel that bringing in stakeholders and giving them independent workshop groups gives them an opportunity to be -- to be brought online with what other countries are doing in terms of Internet governance. So thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: I have Karen from APC and then did you want the floor, IGC? Okay, Karen.
>>ASSN FOR PROGRESSIVE COMM: Thank you. A couple of points. We would also encourage, I think, linking report-backs from workshops to main sessions. I think it is one of the main points that we made in the February consultation that a lot of people found difficult to see the connections between the workshops and the sessions and that would probably be a useful mechanism to make that linkage a little clearer.
On the main theme, we're also interested by the proposal of "Opportunity for All." But as I think Thomas mentioned, it might be a little too general. It could be opportunities to do all kinds of things, some of which a lot of people probably would prefer that we didn't do.
But -- and, also, I mean APC would certainly support a theme of rights and principles. But another option could be "Internet governance for All," which we also mentioned in the February consultation because it could provide a really useful framework for many activities: Capacity-building, developing country participation, gender participation, diversity of participation more generally, transparency, national/regional/community IGFs, remote participation.
And I think that focusing on Internet governance itself also helps us to really hone in on that very specific thing that we're all addressing in all of the work we're doing at the IGF. And I think sometimes we lose that focus.
Anyway, look, it is just another idea to sort of throw in for consideration. Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: (inaudible).
>>IT FOR CHANGE: Just to take forward from what Karen was speaking about, my organization also supports Internet rights and principles as an overall theme. But if it can be moved to a main session, it would probably work as well. And as for the overall theme, I agree that "Opportunities for All" is too generic and does not say anything. And what Karen suggests as "Internet governance for all" could probably be something like "Internet governance participation for all," which brings an element of participation rather than just Internet governance for all. So this was a suggestion. Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Okay. Let me see how we can move forward from this point. First, on the whole question of the reporting-in from the workshops, my sense is that everybody wants it in some form. I think there is a general feeling that we probably have done well enough on that front and that we need to do something which improves the feedback from the various workshops to the main sessions.
The two possibilities that have been put forward, one is represented in the draft program which is to have a session for this purpose. The other is a suggestion which has some saying you find some way of folding it in, into the main sessions.
I invite your comments on how you stand on that front.
On the issue of the overall headline, I think that we've had more or less repetition of the views that were expressed in February. And I'm waiting to hear some creative suggestion which somehow manages to find common ground. I am going to ask our hosts in Egypt, I'm sure they've given some thought to -- if nothing else, to the slogan for the conference. Maybe they would like to say a word on that.
May I turn to China, and then after that, I'm going to sort of conscript Egypt into speaking.
>>CHINA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On behalf of the delegation of China, I would like to present the position of the government of China on the fourth session of the IGF.
First of all, on the title -- the global title of the meeting, the delegation of China prefers the proposal put forward by Egypt, "Internet, an opportunity for all." We think that this topic is very closely linked to the international financial crisis we're going through at the moment. And in addition, it proves that the United Nations continue to work in order to promote the Internet. As we have said in February, the rights and principles for Internet is not an appropriate theme because the words "rights and principles" don't have an appropriate definition. As a meeting of the United Nations, it is not appropriate to adopt a theme which is not properly defined.
And on this matter, we suggest that we discuss the definition of "rights and principles" first of all, the workshop level.
Honorable Chairman, secondly, on the management of critical resources, the delegation of China feels that, first of all, the title of this theme should be "managing the critical Internet resources."
We feel that this title has been defined last year, after extensive discussions. And we think that this is a fairly neutral title. At the same time, it is a very sensitive theme, and we would suggest that we continue using this title this year.
Also, we would like to stress the fact that under the theme of "critical Internet resource management," we think that JPA is a very important theme and that it's not because we're going to reexamine JPA in September that we can't discuss it at the fourth session of the IGF. On the opposite, it's because we're going to do this in September that we should do it in IGF, too.
Thirdly, now, as to security, the delegation of China feels that this is a very important question. At the present time, security in the Internet, on the Internet and cybercrime is something that has become a worldwide enemy. And here we need to talk about regrouping the energies and resources of all parties concerned and to strengthen the international mechanism in order to promote security and stability for the Internet at the worldwide level.
We also think that there are some vital matters that have not been incorporated on this theme, for instance, how do we promote open source or intellectual property or traditional library resources. These are all very important questions in order to promote dissemination of knowledge.
We also think that this is a theme which should be discussed in the opening title.
We have also noted that some have talked about the URL blocking. On the URL blocking, this is a very sensitive matter.
In order to guarantee the security of states and to guarantee the interests of citizens to fight against terrorism and other crimes, all countries have the right to filter the contents of certain Internet sites. And I think that this is something that all countries are in the process of doing.
IGF as a meeting hosted, under the auspices of the United Nations, talks about URL blocking. Now, will this give an impression to the outside world that the United Nations are against content blocking? Are the U.N. against the practice of certain states filtering some Internet sites so that when we talk about "blocking," should the theme of blocking be incorporated in our IGF meeting? We have to be very careful about that.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR DESAI: I can see quite a few flags up.
Let me say, Mr. Bajwa, you wanted to come back. And then I have Miguel there and APC. Before that, I want to ask Egypt to have a word.
>>EGYPT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and good morning, everyone.
I would like only to reflect here in general format about the themes and the workshop of the forum in Sharm El Sheikh.
I would like to stress again that the theme of "Internet governance, opportunity for all," is cross-cutting for all challenges and opportunities. And for the implication of the financial crisis, let me remind ourselves, Mr. Chairman, that by now, after almost a year from the financial crisis, the ICT sector and the Internet is looked at like a best-practicing for the economies at large, not for a crisis per se. And we have an opportunity within to reflect that on our -- in our forum.
As well, Mr. Chairman, this is the year of the evaluation. And I think the crowd over here and our colleagues would share with me that we need to deliver the message of the importance of this forum and the building on for that kind of dialogue. So we don't like to give any indications of any kind of negativity within. And the theme of opportunities would, I think, reflect that quite in a good format.
I think if you would like us to think of more enhancement for this kind of theme, I would like to suggest "Internet Governance: Opportunities and Challenges," or "Internet Governance Towards Global Cooperation," for example, or to get out of any negative implications for the first theme.
As for the workshops, Mr. Chairman, I think and I would share the views from different colleagues that it is the bread and butter for the Internet governance, and we were very happy to see a number of workshops presented from new colleagues and from new entities as well as older organizers as well. And I think we will be challenging ourselves to overcome the parallelism, but at the same time, maintain most of the workshops presented as much as we can.
For the reporting back, I think it would be better if we can integrate it in each session, not a reporting-back session, so as not to -- you know, to repeat ourselves or to have a more nonactive sessions.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Bajwa, and then Miguel, then APC.
>>F. BAJWA: Honorable Chairman, this is to provide an alternative to the question at hand.
We are all aware that the Internet raises significant challenges for public policy and sustainable human development, both internationally and for individual nations. And the IGF provides that particular platform to its workshops to share and approach those issues.
And most significantly, capacity-building has been an important focus at the IGF.
And what if the idea of "Internet Governance for Development," IG for D, was introduced as a session, instead of the reporting session, for reporting the feedbacks from all the roundtables and the workshops. And this would serve as a stock-taking activity as well, to collect, record, and share information on so many IG-related initiatives by various regions of the world. This may help reduce the concerns of the participants as well as to help to serve as a possible solution to your question.
So Internet Governance for Development may -- IG for D -- may also emerge as a main theme as the IGF continues to evolve in the future.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Miguel. From El Salvador.
>>EL SALVADOR: Thank You, Chairman.
Regarding the overall topic, I believe that has to be appealing to the press and to everybody. So if we want to be more precise with the overall topic, one idea might be "The Internet: Better Life for All," instead of "opportunities."
But in that kind of thinking, I share the concerns of Egypt that the slogan has to be positive for the press and for everybody.
Regarding the feeding of the workshops into the main sessions, I will say that that will be the case for the workshops that are related to the main sessions.
And that also takes me to the point of merging workshops.
The workshops that will need to be merged are those workshops that are closely related to the main sessions.
So starting these main sessions, you will need to feed in the results of the workshops. As to the rest of the workshops, the idea of Internet governance for development session might be worthwhile exploring. But a word of caution needs to be said that this session needs to be not choppy, needs to have a follow-through. And it's difficult if you have 80 or 100 workshops, or 60, let's say, and try to make a unified presentation of all of these. But that'll be exactly the challenge. Otherwise, we may lose foot on these sessions.
And let me finish by pointing out that to the youth involvement, I believe we need to strive to the youth involvement.
I was shocked, to say the least, reading this week about this phenomena called "Sex Teen," where the youngsters are sharing not-that-appropriate content without measuring the consequences, even there might be considered criminal activities in some countries, and they are doing it without knowing. And they are also part of the solution. They are the solution to that problem.
And I do believe that in the line of concerns of the IGF, we need to take this really into account.
Thank you, Chairman.
>>CHAIR DESAI: (Off mike.)
>>ASSN FOR PROGRESSIVE COMM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Willie Currie, from APC.
I was intrigued to hear the representative from China say that there's no appropriate definition of Internet rights and principles, and then very soon after making this assertion, to assert perhaps the Chinese government's view of Internet rights, to quote, the right to filter the content of Internet sites.
And it seems to me that there's room for a very interesting open dialogue session on different understandings of what Internet rights may be. Clearly, the Chinese government has a very specific understanding of a particular right.
That said, I would support the Chinese representative's point about including the issue of the JPA as an issue under the "Critical internet Resources" session.
I think it would be, in this year in particular, quite embarrassing for the IGF not to address it specifically when it is one of the major issues under debate this year.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: George, and then ICC.
>>GEORGE PAPADATOS: Thank you.
On the issue of reporting to the main sessions, without getting involved into a theological discussion, I think some of the problems can be solved by have the workshops submit a written contribution to the main session as to what it's all about. And if they are content to do that, then we should be content in having on hand one page of what transpired. And that can really compress the time available.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: ICC.
>>ICC-BASIS: Thank you, Chair. Briefly, I wanted to respond to a few of the ideas that have been put forward.
First of all, we would support integrating the reporting-in to sessions and making a concerted effort with the session organizers and the moderators to ensure that the workshops and other events that are related to the main sessions get an opportunity to bring forward key points from their discussions.
ICC/BASIS had recommended that the -- my second point on the critical Internet resources session -- we had recommended that the discussion should be about the root server system more generally, given the JPA and the expiration date of 30 September. And we would remain supportive of that position.
We understand that any issue can be brought up in the discussion. But as we're describing the discussion, we think it would be more productive to have the root server system be the point in the description, recognizing that the JPA and anything before or after, et cetera, would be part of any contributions to that discussion. So it isn't meant to stop discussion; it's just meant to describe it in a way that would be productive and more broad.
Number two, I wanted to suggest that as we're going forward, people have mentioned the need for the involvement of a range of stakeholders, particular groups, young people. I know we've been approached to identify young entrepreneurs, et cetera.
And as we've prepared to come here for this consultation, I just wanted to underscore I think a concern that exists across stakeholder groups, which is, the budget realities and travel restrictions and issues that all of us are facing in the current economic climate. So as we're looking at the schedule, I think we have a real opportunity to shape the program and take into account the range of stakeholders that we want to ensure can come, the various kinds of travel restrictions or authorizations they have to go through, and anything that we can do to make that more possible for them to be present.
My last comment is on the title. Listening to comments especially from our host country, Egypt, and from APC, I was going to suggest that perhaps a combination could be "Internet Governance: Creating Opportunities for All."
Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Yes, Parminder.
>>IT FOR CHANGE: I support the Chinese delegate's suggestion that dissemination of knowledge, Internet for dissemination of knowledge should be treated as one of the key themes. It is one of the most important international themes at present, and I think it is relatively underrepresented in the IGF scheme.
Access to knowledge is becoming a main theme in WIPO, and its connection with ICTs is also being explored.
I think the "Openness" sessions or "Openness" slot was the one which was supposed to take care of access to knowledge issues. But it's more dominated now by privacy and security dichotomy. And, therefore, probably we can use the theme of "Access to Knowledge" in the "Access" slot. And that -- I also support the suggestion by Bajwa and by Miguel that IG for development should probably also be treated as a separate theme and not only as an overarching theme where it actually disappears and there's no real discussion on it.
So probably the "Access" theme can explore access to knowledge and IG for development as the two subjects within the theme.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Yes. Bajwa.
>>F. BAJWA: This is a statement I would like to read in support of Mr. (saying name) and the ICC were sharing regarding youth participation.
This is from (saying name), who is not present here physically. Net-Aman is the youth Internet safety focus group of the cyber peace initiative launched by the Suzanne Mubarak Women's International Peace Movement. Since our inception, I have had the privilege to engage with different stakeholders to help identify the means by which the online rights of youth in Egypt are protected, in addition to carrying out our primary mandate of raising awareness amongst youth on how to use the Internet safely and responsibly. In this endeavor, and with the help of our partners and affiliates, we have been quite successful in our outreach, delivering our message to tens of thousands of school students between the ages of 13 and 18 from different socioeconomic backgrounds and varying geographic locations around the country.
As an active member of this focus group working on this campaign, I must admit that I myself have learned a great deal from the youth I have interacted with.
Africa as a continent is a late-comer to the boundless opportunities floating in cyberspace. Although Egypt is a relative leader amongst African nations in terms of Internet penetration and usage, there is still a great digital divide between us and more developed nations of the world. Furthermore, the predominance of youth amongst Egyptian Internet users and the fact that the younger age groups represent the minority of the Egyptian population, in addition to the widespread Internet illiteracy amongst the older age groups, creates quite a challenge in Egyptian society, pushing Egyptian youth center stage as an important stakeholder in all Internet-related issues.
The recent surge in Internet access in Egypt and the Middle East and North African region, MENA, that occurred over the past ten years took place after the evolution of the Internet to its current Web 2.0 state. This has resulted in a perpetual acceleration from 0 to 100 kilometer per hour in Internet usage, especially by the younger age groups. Without really understanding what the implications are, apart from the crucial issue of privacy and security, that most users have little awareness of the social, political, intellectual, and economic benefits of the Internet and not as of yet have been taken advantage of adequately.
At this point in time, raising awareness to these issues is vital, but not nearly sufficient for future generations to reap the potential rewards. The key lies not in just raising awareness and providing security, but, most importantly, empowerment, empowerment of youth in Egypt and countries with similar --
>>CHAIR DESAI: Can I -- this is on the program. I don't think we need a statement from the young man, whoever it is who sent you this.
Can you just simply say what his suggestion is.
>>F. BAJWA: Their intention is to bring in a main theme for the youth.
>>CHAIR DESAI: So one sentence can be made fairly readily. But the rest is really a fairly -- is a statement that he will want to make in Sharm El Sheikh, not here.
>>F. BAJWA: Okay.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Can I -- you suggest that -- there is this question of the workshops folding in.
I want to put to you a suggestion. See, my impression of the past three IGFs is that the workshops are not of the same character. We call them "workshops," but some of them are really more like a space for a conversation and a dialogue, and do not, in that sense, have a product, a result in any sense.
Basically, what happens is a group of people meet. They have a conversation, and they go away. And the only report you'll get from that workshop is that such and such workshop was held, and that's it.
There are other workshops which are more substantive in the sense that they actually are working towards a result, say, for instance, workshops which are dealing with -- let me not mention any particular issue. Can we draw that distinction?
Second, to me, partly, the concerns that some people have about the number of workshops, Markus's proposal to do what Martin has described as "forced marriages," Martin's sort of more generous view of a more polygamous approach, which would allow these people to carry on, how can we do that? And one possibility I thought was that we give a certain position for reporting in to workshops which at least come together for the reporting in. That is, instead of if we have 60 people coming in one after the other, it will be very tedious. We will say to each person, "Okay, you have two minutes." Instead, what we say is, "Okay, we have four workshops on child protection. What we would like you to do is to come together and, together, as four workshops, come up with a statement on child protection which should be placed before the plenary." That in itself will increase the weight of what goes before the plenary. Because it comes not just from one group, but comes from three or four different groups.
So we see whether we can combine some of these thoughts and say, "Okay, we will have a process of reporting in, but it's not something which we do as automatic." So that everybody who runs a workshop says, "I demand my five minutes in front of the plenary." No. First, there must be a product. And one test of the product is the statement which comes from it, the written statement, which they're required to provide.
And that will give an indication, that the statement simply says that 30 people met and talked about this, fine, that's very interesting, but that written statement is sufficient for that purpose.
But if it's something more than that, then you say that's interesting.
And, second, we give a certain preference to a group of workshops which say, "Yes, we all talked about this, but we then came together, and we have a common statement which we would like to present to the plenary."
I just would like you people to comment on this. Because we have to find an answer to this, because I think not everybody has been a little dissatisfied with the connect. But we must distinguish between workshops which have something to say and workshops which just met. And that's my one thought.
Second, to give a privileged position to those people who are actually making an effort to come together with others. And that's because we have to encourage that.
On the theme, we can come back to that. I thought the suggestion which came about Internet governance creating opportunities for all is a possibility, because in some ways, it is more active than simply an assertion of a fact, saying that, no, you will have to do something to create opportunities. That's one possibility.
Third issue, on the handling of how do we generate some type of dialogue on the issue of rights and principles and where.
I think we can come back to that, particularly if you have an open slot available. If we were to shift the reporting in to the main sessions, then I think we can come back to that and see how best to structure that.
But let me, for the moment, leave that to the one side and let's try to get a little reflection on the first two issues.
I have a string of people now, Council of Europe, Marilyn Cade, Egypt, Olga Cavalli, France. Let me start with that, Council of Europe.
>>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, on a personal note regarding what you have just said, I think that the IGF is much about diversity and about the diversity of workshops. So I'll be very -- it's much about the bread and butter, as George has said. And I would be very concerned and -- about thwarting the workshops by trying to overmerge and also trying to bring together consensus always. I don't necessarily think it's about consensus. I think one of the things we learned in the EuroDIG process last year was that you can have different opinions and you can share those different opinions. There's not necessarily one opinion shared by all always.
So yes to diversity in workshops, perhaps avoiding, first of all, strict, you know, duplication where there's an immediate duplication that can be dealt with, but keeping diversity.
Regarding reporting in, yes, I think there's a real benefit in reporting in. Perhaps there should be more reflection on structuring that reporting-in, making it very short and very, very clear, you know, what were the three issues or the five issues which were dealt with, what are the three or five takeaway messages for the plenary, keeping it very, very short. I know in our own work in the Council with dealing with ministers, they only have three-minute interventions. So why workshops reporting are having five minutes, I don't know.
Yes to a prominent place for Internet rights and principles. This is what we're doing at the Council of Europe on -- almost on a daily basis.
As regards the title, "An Opportunity for All," yes, it is an opportunity for all. Yes, it's the future. But I also think it's about freedom and value. Freedom we have and we have already existing through the Internet. And value which is existing now, not just in the future. So I would like to see some reflection about current, established benefits and the future opportunities.
So freedoms, values, and opportunities for all.
Now, on behalf of the Council of Europe, let me thank you, the secretariat, for the work on the program paper. And some words of thanks to our Egyptian colleagues and their friends for organizing this year's IGF. And to add that the IGF and the Council of Europe and the Egyptian authorities are working closely on common issues of concern and interest. I think this is one of the major features of our coming together in the IGF, to facilitate relations, dialogue, and cooperation between entities, countries, bodies, organizations, even persons who are like-minded yet who would probably have never come together otherwise. So this is where the diversity kicks in, I would say.
The Council of Europe is committed, as ever, to dialogue and to cooperation. We've already had some very useful discussions in the European Parliament and the European Commission. Similarly today, we have a dialogue continuing with colleagues dealing with hosting side events on cybercrime this lunchtime, and also with colleagues, together with partners UNECE and APC on an informal consultation on a code of good practice on participation, access to information, and transparency in Internet governance. These are two distinct events this lunchtime.
At the end of this month, the 47 Council of Europe member states will be meeting in Reykjavik as part of a ministerial conference on the media and new communication services in order to discuss, inter alia, freedom of expression, the right to privacy, the openness of the Internet vis-à-vis critical Internet resources, and Internet governance, the responsibilities of the private sector vis-à-vis human rights. This ministerial conference will for the first time in an intergovernmental setting take a multistakeholder dimension, for the first time, bring in representation from civil society, business, and youth.
And the inspiration for this originates from the World Summit and also from the IGF. And it's thanks to the IGF for this basis.
The regional initiatives, yes. Council of Europe dialogue and cooperation will continue supporting EuroDIG, the pan-European dialogue on Internet governance, which is well underway, thanks to this year's hosts, the EBU and AFCOM Switzerland, and an increasing array of other actors to that end.
Let me underline that the EuroDIG process is open and inclusive. Anyone interested in being part of the event can take part, can share ideas, and is welcome. It will take place on 14, 15 September in Geneva in EBU's premises back to back with the IGF consultations.
Mr. Chairman, in summary, in taking stock of the different standard-setting instruments, policy documents of the Council of Europe from cybercrime, to data protection, to freedom of expression, to dignity, to children's confidence on the Internet, and in preparing a new cycle of work which is increasingly focused on the openness of the Internet as a common critical resource with public value, which requires interstate cooperation and solidarity for its functioning effectively, I would underline the global value and the global vocation of the Council of Europe's work, which is being developed with freedoms and rights at its core, with increasing reference to guidelines and cooperation rather than rules and regulations, and with reference to informing and empowering users.
On that basis, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. And we remain very open and flexible regarding the format which is chosen for this year's IGF.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have Marilyn Cade, followed by Egypt, then Olga Cavalli, France, Francis Muguet.
>>TECH AMERICA: I'm going to speak for Tech America, a trade association that represents ICT companies with offices in the United States, in Belgium, and also serving Europe interests and also in China.
My comments are -- although I have more extensive comments, I'm going to focus on two of the three areas that you just asked for detailed comments on.
First, I would say that Tech America would strongly support the overall themes of -- that reflect the importance of the "Internet for all," "The Internet, an opportunity for all." We could certainly also support the recent emergence of "Internet governance, creating an opportunity for all." But I think one key message there for us is that we do want to continue to support a thematic overall theme for the IGF but continue to retain a focus on the other themes that we have all continued to organize around such as cybersecurity, privacy, openness, diversity but also to continue a focus on the cross-cutting themes of capacity-building and development.
In addressing the question of the workshops, we noted with interest the introduction of a concept of roundtables and while we do fully yet understand how the roundtables might be proposed, we would note that if roundtables are introduced, we would like to see openness on the organizing of the roundtables and not have a restriction to having roundtables organized only by dynamic coalitions. For instance, workshops, as they emerge might decide to become a roundtable, and that would be one point that we would make.
We have spoken each time at these meetings about the importance of a number of workshops, and I would agree with the previous speaker that it is not always about consensus, that is it is often about the diversity of opinions and understandings that actually bring us closer together even while we may disagree. And that has been a maturing that has happened in the IGF activities. We think that keeping a high number of workshops is important because many people come to participate in the IGF because of their commitment to a particular topic or particular focus and they get financial support and they dedicate their time in order to make that contribution to be able to participate. Being in the audience is sometimes not enough for people. They will participate actively only through workshops.
Finally, we would just say that as -- if roundtables are organized, we would like to see the roundtables remain consistent with the overall purpose of the IGF and not become conclusionary in nature.
Now, let me say something about an observation that we have. We see a high number of proposals in certain areas. But we do not conclude that because there is a very high number of proposals, for example, focused on protecting children online that we have reached a conclusion or that we are in agreement.
This is a very challenging set of topics and issues, and we would support seeing a number of workshops that continue to examine the challenges of child safety and protecting children online and also look at some of the existing and emerging approaches that are being taken.
I will have further comments, Mr. Chairman, but I will restrict my comments now to the focus on these areas.
>>CHAIR DESAI: I had Egypt. Yeah.
>>EGYPT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to support Ayesha's proposal for "Internet governance, creating opportunity for all." And as well, Mr. Chairman, I would like to reflect on your own suggestion regarding the reporting-back and how can we integrate the reporting-back compiled in the main sessions. And I think we can elaborate more on that suggestion.
Regarding the inclusion of youth as mentioned by Ayesha as well as our colleague who has been stating some remarks about activities. And in that vein, I would like to highlight some activities that we are doing in Egypt to guarantee the inclusion of youth in our activities. We will be hosting youth camp for about 100 youth from all over the world actually to make sure that the youth will be well-oriented and present in our activities in Sharm El Sheikh. This youth camp will be about 100 youth, and it will take place for the week before the IGF in Sharm itself. This will be managed by Net-Aman and the Cyberpeace Initiative headed by the First Lady of Egypt.
As well Net-Aman and the Cyberpeace Initiative has proposed a workshop for kids and this workshop will be led by the kids from 11 years old to 14 years old and we are doing all kind of facilitation to guarantee their presence, starting from their accommodation visa and other kind of logistics so that we can maintain their presence in our activities.
There are some other logistical arrangements that I would like to share with the colleagues, but I will await for your instructions Mr. Chairman, to highlight those kinds of arrangements. Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Olga Cavalli.
>>ARGENTINA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I would like to make two comments, one as a remote organizer in Argentina and the other as an Argentina representative.
In relation with Ayesha's comments about global crisis and budget constraints, I think the remote initiative is very important to allow participation from distant countries from the venue of the IGF, developing countries, youth, old people, everyone that wants to be part of this process.
We had an interesting experience last year during the IGF in Hyderabad. We held some remote participation hubs. We had one in Buenos Aires organized, by the Internet Society, Argentina chapter where I am a member, and we hope to do the same this year. We had some technical difficulties that we hope to revise and resolve with the local organizer here this year in Egypt. So I think having a workshop about that issue in Sharm El Sheikh will be useful, and I would like you to support this initiative again as you did last year.
And, also, we have presented some workshops and I would like to support the comment made by our colleague recently in considering diversity in deciding which workshops we will be having. I know that we have to merge, but we have proposed one in relation with the use of -- usage of Spanish and other about teaching Internet governance, that we think they are relevant for our region and for developing countries. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR DESAI: I had Bertrand from France and then Mr. Francis Muguet.
>>FRANCE: Thank you, Chair. Regarding your previous question and the risk to overmerge workshops, I think it is very important to understand that being in the same room and interacting with somebody else doesn't mean that you have to agree with this person. I think the danger we have is to continue on some topics with the silo approach where one workshop addresses one component or one angle and the other workshop addresses something else, maybe a completely opposite view and they never are forced to interact. So it is not a forced marriage, it's forced interaction maybe.
The second element is I would make a distinction between three types of outcomes in workshops. Some are in very early stage of an issue, and the objective is to have a common picture. The second level is agree potentially on a common goal.
And the third level when an issue is real ripe is agree on common action or common methodology. Those different stages shouldn't be mistaken one for the other because if you try to agree on an action and you don't agree on the picture, you are in trouble.
And I would like here to take an example regarding the so-called child protection issue. I want to insist on the fact that in Hyderabad the message that was sent -- and I encourage everybody to look at the transcript -- that was fighting child porn is the consensus issue. Child protection at the moment is not a contentious issue. And it is very important we make the distinction because fighting child porn is an issue where there is agreement that there is a problem. So stage one is cleared.
There has been now an agreement that there is a common goal, we all want to fight child porn. So the critical stage at which we are is now to choose and make the policy choices on how do we do this. What kind of cooperation and what kind of angle? I don't want to get into the details, but it is very important to understand that in Hyderabad the agreement was on child -- fighting child porn.
And I must say that in the 16 proposals, I found very broad discussion on an issue that is very important, which is child protection in general, but not enough focus on this very specific topic where there is agreement.
And the last point is regarding feeding into main sessions. One way to do this is probably when the main sessions are being set up to include in the selection of speakers, as we began doing last year some of the panelists or maybe some of the people who are supposed to be reporting on the merged workshops. And it is interesting in the list that Markus mentioned the fact that you have 16 workshops on child protection or this issue. Doesn't mean you need 16 -- maybe it is easier to reduce to four or five in an appropriate manner.
On the other hand, there are very single workshop proposals that address very concrete topics, emerging issues that deserve being preserved because they are one workshop on a very concrete topic. But we can come back to that later. Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Francis Muguet.
>>FRANCIS MUGUET: I'm very pleased to tell the people that now I'm moving to the University of Geneva. I'm in the process of moving to Geneva, and I will, in fact, make some comments about your very acute and wise observation about the workshops.
In fact, there are two types of workshops. There are information workshops and output workshops. And the question is how these workshops can articulate with the proposal I made of having a recommendation at the IGF which some -- the willing dynamic coalition could make recommendation, will have -- be -- in fact, put all together in a document called "The Recommendation of the IGF."
It will be possible, in fact -- I will not see why it is not possible that some workshop will have, in fact, a very dedicated output, could also make some recommendation. Why not? So this is a question up to the air.
Secondly, I think we should avoid duplication concerning information workshops. That's for sure.
Concerning output workshops, I think it will be very difficult to merge this type of workshop because we need to respect the diversity of opinion.
Now, "merging," what does this mean? There has been a very interesting observation which I share I think from Marilyn that, in fact, from the perspective of academic and civil society, there is a need to be identified as an organizer of some workshop. Otherwise, you cannot get financial support and you cannot simply enter the meeting.
Now, I see there is a contradiction that maybe could be, in fact, resolved or may be a way toward this is to have not so-called merged workshops but I will call federated workshops where each contributor with its own speakers will keep its individuality, has a contributor to the workshops.
So the workshops will occur at the same times. There will be an interaction between the two in the same room, but in a way -- but from an organization, also, it will not be simply a merged workshop where, in fact -- I understand for some participants, mostly from governments, they have small delegations. They cannot attend all the workshops. But, also, they have to see also the other side of the coin, the people who are making the workshops. They need to be identified in able to be able to organize it. So I think there is a trade-off we need to define in terms of this organization.
Now, the other point is -- I would like to ask is when in this agenda will be discussed today the regional IGF initiative? It is a question of procedure. Thank you.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Sorry. The regional IGF initiative, was your last question about the regional IGF initiative?
>>FRANCIS MUGUET: Yes, for example, there is the commonwealth IGF. There is a session during lunchtime. I think also there is -- the Council of Europe talked about the EuroDIG. There are questions about a EuroIGF, also about IGF Europe. So the question is when does people want to say something about this initiative, the time during this meeting? At what time?
>>CHAIR DESAI: Now.
>>FRANCIS MUGUET: Now?
>>CHAIR DESAI: Yeah, because there was a question raised by George as to what are regional IGFs and (saying name) picked it up afterwards. So you are most welcome any reflections you have on that.
>>FRANCIS MUGUET: Okay, yes. So I'm going to continue, okay.
So there has been questions whether in Europe there could be an EuroIGF, which is something related to the European Union and, on the other side, something with a broader membership from all the countries mostly from the Council of Europe, all of Europe in the geographical sense.
There has been some, in fact, brainstorming among some European stakeholders and we present -- which are not there but could be called as the European Vint Cerf because it is the European PUNY of the Internet.
We have come together with the idea of proposing IGF Europe as a subset of the IGF, which means that the mandate will be exactly the same as IGF and so everybody can participate from the IGF because simply the mandate and the rules are the same.
Now, about the way of recommendations are established, this is a way maybe through dynamic coalitions. This is an option. So this process could be discussed at the next EuroDIG. And I'm pleased to say that this proposal has now been, in fact, formally proposed in a way through a Web site which is intgovforum.eu. So there is a mailing list that has been established, exactly a forum like that, ALAC.
So I would like to underline that this proposal shall not be felt as some kind of a competition with an institution within the European Union. The membership is different, and a EuroIGF could be something like the institution of the European Union set up by the European Parliament. Here at the IGF the goal is somewhat different. Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR DESAI: Fortunately, we don't have to organize an European IGF. It is difficult enough to get 180 countries to agree to it.
[laughter]