The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in João Pessoa, Brazil, from 10 to 13 November 2015. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MODERATOR: We are going to start in two minutes. Those people ‑‑ we invite you to really sit around the table. I think that would sort of foster discussion around the issue.
Good morning. Let us start. We have interpreting services and we will have a mix the exposure. We will speak Spanish, English, and Portuguese at the same time. Thank you very much for being here. Just two words briefly: As I am responsible for the session, we organize this jointly with several members of the technical community present in Latin America and we would like to have a teaser session to discuss different concepts and how the technical community is organized. This work was developed with some concrete examples recently. It was based on the elect and it seems to be an interesting moment to reflect on some experiences in the region. Enrique is here with us. He will be our moderator.
>> Good morning to all who are present. I will speak in Spanish. In some rooms we have excellent services. Here we are fortunate to enjoy these services.
When we talk about the creation of this workshop, we feel proud here in Latin America to have important collaboration activities within the technical community. We have the private sector, the Civil Society and governments also involved in this. I believe it's important to show this work as Carolina said. This will be a teaser session that will help show the work that has been done so far, which is of excellent quality, and this will allow us to identify improvement opportunities and to reinforce or increment the participation and cooperation within this region.
We are surrounded by many great friends here and work colleagues of the Internet Governance work group since it started in this region. We have the presence here of great specialists and an important gender balance as well, and a balance among Latin American countries from different sectors.
Many sectors are represented here today. We also have a great deal of experience. Before introducing the members of this panel, I will explain how the activities will work in this session. Let me start by introducing Lynn St. Amour, who will help moderate this panel. We will both be co‑moderators. So she dispenses any formal introductions. She's a member of the Internet Society and works with the protection of children's online presence.
Thank you very much for sharing this perspective on Latin America, as well as a global perspective on these matters.
With no further ado, let's open the session. When the speaker give their talks, we ask them to be brief. Please limit your talks to three to five minutes and share your experience in terms of the collaboration of your sector within your own organizations as well as other organizations within the governance processes. Carolina mentioned the IGF, the Internet house. All these different institutions. It would be interesting if you could touch on two issues. First, is there sufficient cooperation amongst the different interest groups in Latin America and the Caribbean? What we have is already good, as we mentioned. We want to know if this is sufficient. How do you see within your environment the reinforced cooperation in action? So later, after the talks, we will open for Q&A.
Now, I would like to introduce to you from right to left, in a clockwise fashion, the director of NIC.br, Demi Getschko. He is a pioneer for the Internet and also a member of the board of eLAC. He is a very important person in this area, who leads ABASA, the Argentina Internet Society. He has done this for many years. He is an active member of ICANN since its origins. He is also a president of eLAC and regional association and we also have ‑‑ we will ‑‑ he will also share a view of the private sector.
We will have an important view from the government standpoint. Carla, thank you for your presence. Carla is from Costa Rica, which is one of which is one of the governments that has supported us in a very open fashion in the multisector fashion. This was done in a very sustainable way by means of several terms of this government. Therefore, we can imagine and conclude that there is a more stable policy within the government of this country.
We will have a discussion on national platforms which is the Internet committee and the government is very present in this discussion. Eleonora will bring a very interesting view. She has worked with the Civil Society in a very active way supporting Internet Governance organizations and currently she works in the public policy area for Google.
She will share an important. She also dispenses any formal introductions. She is present since the beginning was WSIS project. She wants offered an integrating standpoint from the Civil Society, several organizations besides WSIS.
Now Sebastian Bellagamba, one of the first to work with the Argentina. I think Gabrielle and Sebastian, they will fight to figure out who started first, but they will have a very interesting debate on Internet Governance.
And they hold a local workshop for the Internet Society in Latin America and the Caribbean. He also participated in the eCANN association in the region among any other activities. We have a very important view when you are a bit further away. Maybe you could approach more. He will talk about the government of Cuba. And he will talk about governments in the era of the information society.
So these are our panel members.
>> DEMI GETSCHKO: Thank you for the invitation. I will speak in Portuguese. I would like to thank the organizing committee.
Just to start the debate. Since the beginning, we had collaborated, secondary DNS exchanges. This was a common action in Latin America, also between this continent and others and we never took into account the costs or bills associated with this. It's just the Internet collaborating to keep the network working. There are always some threats. One of them is a bias. We were talking about Internet exchange points in another room. They were discussing, no, this activity needs to be self‑sustainable, etc. We have to be careful with this. Self‑sustainable, of course, everything in the end has to be self‑sustainable, but it depends on which cuts we make. My arm is not self‑sustainable. I can be self‑sustainable, but part of me is not self‑sustainable.
So we need to create self‑sustainable opportunities. It does not mean that a help desk should be self‑sustainable. It will not generate revenue. Our statistical data in this area is deficient here. The media in an event like this is also not sustainable. This needs to be transplanted to our region. Jointly, we should be able to generate much more self‑sustainable things. To give you some specific examples from this area, good practices such as DNS SEC, the expansion of IPv6 that we are trying to improve it. Also, legislation. There's a good example here. In the Internet it's better for you first to discuss concepts and then create the legislation and not the other way around, because otherwise legislation can hinder the growth of things.
So jointly we can develop much more. We see many countries and governments with very good initiatives of good faith, but they are only partial. If we could generate a broader discussion forum, well intended and good willed people would have access to more complete information and taking directions that would have been less damaging to the Internet as a whole.
So I see a lot of optimism in meetings like this H we always participated in the Latin America forums. Whether the LACNIC or LACNOG, or whichever NAC. We root for this to continue like this.
>> ARIEL GRAIZER: Thank you very much, Demi, for sharing this content, and also for sharing your ideas. I also thank for the opportunity of participating here. As we just mentioned, everything that starts with LAC, we're always there. I will talk based on the Internet Chamber of Argentina to show the changes we make that we made in our constitution. Understanding how we should cooperate. Initially we had a company chamber of Argentina with data and services. Afterwards we understood that we should become the Argentina association for the Internet and start to work with other players. We started to work with other groups and started to have a different interrelationship. Now we have fundamental actors, which would be the academia, basically. We have more than national ‑‑ more than 16 national universities in Argentina. We have governments and provinces as well as the national government that are part of our organization. We work together with the government and in the case of the Argentinian national government and tax entities, they're all members of our association.
We also include the Ministry of Justice, which is a member of our association. So we have the entire infrastructure of the Ministry of Justice that also works during elections and for the last four years we have changed our constitution. Each one pushed for better cooperation. In our case, cooperation is very important, but what do we do towards this? Under the LACNIC's umbrella, governments participate at different levels. The government may change in a state and then policies will also change likewise. Some governments are more predisposed to work in an open fashion and under cooperation. Other governments take more time to accept this or that model. I am just describing a situation that occurred in recent years. We had a process of change, where some were swifter and others took longer to adopt these measures. As a model instructor, we wound up adopting this model in our association, respecting each one's pace.
This is how we will achieve the best results.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Ariel.
>> CARLA VALVERDE: It's a pleasure to be here with you. I come from the Ministry of Science and Communication of Costa Rica. I would like to share with you what we call the Internet Consultive Council. This is a multidisciplinary group, including representatives of several sectors throughout the country. The purpose is to discuss the Internet topic, and also with the ministries on behalf of the country's development. This counsel was created in October 2012 and has been in effect since then. It includes the participation of 18 institutes grouped into ten sectors. We have the academia, the telecom regulators, also the government, executive power, NGOs, the judicial power, and we also have the population representatives. We include the entrepreneurial tourism and other important sectors.
So topics like the ones that we are discussing here today, Internet Governance, what happens is that the governor presents a proposal. Based on this proposal all representatives give their contributions in terms of working messages. In this meeting we discussed line by line the position of the country. We make observations. Based on these observations, the counsel elaborates a proposal that is circulated by electronic mail so that their representatives have a second opportunity to make comments. Finally, after this process, we generate a recommendation as to the standpoint of the country. In this way, using the words and the standpoint of the country, we define the public power, private sector, and academia with regard to each one of their positions.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Carla. Should we make any observation on enhanced cooperation, this, of course, can occur at a global level but also at a regional level and also locally. In Latin America and the Caribbean we have some interesting examples in terms of regional processes. It's worth mentioning that we have a regional Caribbean process that also is greater than the global one, the global finishes in 2010 and the career in 2011. What Carla mentioned, we have that happening in Brazil, Colombia and Mexico. I think it's important to understand the enhanced cooperation within this dimension. Could you continue, please?
>> I apologize. I'm losing my voice. Thank you very much for this invitation. It's a great pleasure to participate in this panel, and to learn from your experiences, which are very valuable, like the experience in Costa Rica.
I would like to tell you about two experiences that I find very interesting. And I had the pleasure to participate in. One was the regional governance forum for Latin America and the national forum that we are starting in Argentina. We are very happy to see that the Latin American forum is growing and a multi‑stakeholder for even more relevance. The first experience was in 2011. We had just a few members representing the Civil Society.
Year after year we see that their participation is now being strengthened. Now we have some representatives of human rights group now that this is part of the agenda.
I would like to speak a little bit about the organization and processes which can be very complex. And I think that sometimes they should be reviewed. When we have a multi‑stakeholder process in the IGF context, this is one example of that. I think that governments should participate more because this will attract even more governments. Businesses have been participating in IGF from the very beginning, but we believe that there is room for further participation of governments and also for more participation of the private sector. After all, this is space for a dialogue, on an equal footing, and also with more participation from governments and businesses.
We could tap into better funding opportunities on a regional level, which is something that's very important to us. In the last few years, there have been very interesting experiences such as the governance forum in Mexico. This is an example of multi‑stakeholder participation and we saw progress also in Colombia in that sense. In Argentina we had a first experience. It was the dialogue on governance of the Internet. Carolina can tell you a little bit about how it went. It was an initial experience that we had with LACNIC and several other organizations represented in this panel. This initiative was based on the congregation, of stakeholders groups. It was a very rich initial experience. And we want to consolidate. We want to attract more members of Civil Society from the academia, private sector and government.
So I would be happy to give you more information if you ask me any questions about it.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much Eleonora. You have brought up some sensitive improvements. Both in global and regional level this coming together of the technical community and Civil Society is very needed. And we need more involvement of the private sector. I think those are issues that call for improvement, indeed.
>> VALERIA BETANCOURT: Thank you very much for this invitation to share our perspective. I think it's very encourage being to see that we count on so many examples. We have made many advances in the realm of enhanced cooperation, but also in terms of multi‑stakeholder participation. I would like to speak about the challenges. Multi‑stakeholder cooperation and enhanced cooperation are not mutually opposed. Sometimes we end up not taking this into account. It's, in fact, a false dilemma we are confronted with.
Once you separate the two issues, multi‑stakeholder participation and enhanced cooperation, we can't really evaluate the benefits we can get from each of those approaches.
I think it's important to observe that we have seen many advances in the region. However, governments are not very interested yet in participating in the multi‑stakeholder processes. So I believe that unless governments participate actively and consistently, we won't be able to achieve the success, just having their commitment in activities such as eLAC, I think it's something that undermines other processes in the region. So I think that we have to explore the synergy more in coming years.
In IGF we have regional governments that have been participating from the very beginning. And I think that we should discuss how to bring them more into this forum.
We see also that we have opportunities for multi‑stakeholder discussions of policies. This will bring more support to the discussions we have with governments.
Additionally, in some countries of our region, the opportunities for Civil‑Society‑led actions is success reduced. This is a great challenge when you work on the development of Internet policies that address human right’s needs. We have several concerning cases in the region and spaces such as eLAC and IGF to see what participation can be made to address these problems. What we want to avoid is to lose the advances we have obtained in the last ten years. Here I am referring to the adoption of laws that are not very conducive to public interest and I think that Civil Society can work actively and contribute actively to the development of Internet Governance policies. Going back to the ILAC case, I think it actually merits a case study. From the very beginning mechanisms were established for incorporation of nongovernmental sectors. And ifs very important the multi‑stakeholder discourse into effective actions. Of course, it's wonderful that they are sitting together with us at the eLAC working groups and at the panel discussions, but the translation into practice should be reinforced. So I think that we should review this issue with more attention. Thank you very much for your kind attention.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Valeria. We must also talk about some points of improvement. Now let's continue with Sebastian, but before that, allow me to call your attention to Andres Piazza. He's one of the co‑organizers, and I would like to compliment the work of LACNIC as an integrator of Internet Governance processes in the region. They have been fundamental and very generous for furthering these processes. So let's continue. Sebastian.
>> Sebastian bellagamba: Thank you, Rodrigo. I have just realized that I made a strategic error, because I'm sitting here, but with all the collaboration we have in the region, I think that in fact I am coming in too late. Everything has already been said by the previous speakers.
I think we should start with the concept of enhanced
cooperation. This concept emerged in the last phase of the Tunis Agenda. And Ariel said he had no include what it meant, but the fact is there is universal consensus in the sense that nobody knows what enhanced cooperation means. There are many possible interpretations. In such a way we have been increasing even enhanced cooperation, I think that we shouldn't go into the literal translation. And if we look to the regions, we were able to use enhanced cooperation within the WSIS framework.
I would like to add a couple of details to the discussion. This year we held nine multifaceted IGF dialogues. In all of them the governments participated in three subregional units. We had the LACIGF and the Caribbean meeting and one for Central America that took place in San Jose in April. In the three cases, the organizer is an intergovernmental and governmental institution that facilitates the process among stakeholders.
We need to improve the level of participation of some stakeholders. Valeria, something you said about ILAC, I was present in the first ILAC meeting in Rio de Janeiro. In that meeting the nongovernmental stakeholders just slammed the door on our face, basically. And I think that it's very interesting. From that moment to today, now we have a reserved seat in the ILAC coordination processes for all participants and stakeholders. I think it's very interesting to see how the momentum. We have several sectors. We have the executive secretary for SATEL here, the first time I intended a meeting to discuss IPv6 at SATEL we were talking about IPv6. They invited me. We gave our presentation. We thanked them, and then they said, okay, your time is up; you may leave the room, because it was a very ceremonial meeting with many authorities present. From that meeting 12 years ago to the SATEL we have just had, the change has been dramatic.
When we organize seminars with the government of the regions, it's a totally different picture. And we have to see that things are changing. Another point I would like to make, the role of governments. I think that we have to continue working on this issue and integrating governments. Many governments have changed their policies and adopted policies of state. It's not only a certain policy that applies to one administration or another.
So we have institutionalized policies in Costa Rica, for example, we have the advisory nature in law making that will not be affected when the administration changes.
The advisory committees will remain in place in subsequent administrations, too. So I think that we have learned how to work with each other. Of course, we all have our different points of view and interests, but we've learned how to work even when in disagreement. We concur on a few things, but it wouldn't make sense to spend the week here if we all were in agreement about all topics. And this is what makes for a very rich debate.
I'm very optimistic when I look to the growth curve of our cooperation.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Sebastian. It's great to hear that things are moving forward.
>> Thank you, Rodrigo. First of all, I would like to congratulate and thank Rodrigo and Carolina for setting up this panel, and my congratulations to you. I am in great company.
Like Sebastian said, well, I am coming too late in the list of speakers. Everything has been said. Carolina, you said in the beginning that the tone of this panel should be provocative. And I have to admit that I don't like the permanent enhanced cooperation. As Sebastian said, this is a term that dates back from the Tunis Agenda; however, it's a translation. It's a direct translation of the term in English. In Spanish we talk about greater cooperation, not enhanced cooperation. So I will not go into the details about how this term was coined, but the design of this concept was such that we have several interpretations. The diplomat that coined the term is now retired and teaches in Suri. He was the negotiator working on behalf of the European Union. And this year we have the 10th anniversary of the Internet Governance group, and he was working on a book. He participated in the negotiations, and he tells the story of how the term was created. So maybe you should take a look at the book. Like this, you see the author of the term sheds some light on how it was developed.
Okay. So the topic is cooperation, whether even enhanced or not. As Sebastian said, we should all work towards increasing this cooperation. So I have participated in many conferences, many regional IGF meetings. I was able to see that cooperation between the different stakeholders has been increased. And as Rodrigo said, technical community and social society, which have a greater propensity to cooperating informally without following any protocols, this has grown. But cooperation between states and the private sector is now not on par with this other cooperation. And we have here two sectors that operate on a greater level of formality. I'm not saying I approve of this or not. I'm just stating a fact. This is how they work.
And the public sector also follows some strict rules of participation. So I'm just basically repeating what you said previously. LAC, if we reinforce LAC for the participation of the private sector, and governments in this framework, it will be beneficial for all. I think we need to reinforce this participation and I've made this a suggestion to the pertinent actors. LAC works in cooperation with ‑‑ and we also have SILAC. I would like to make a side comment. Inclusion was included in discussions not by chance, because some organizations have discriminated against the participation of some countries. So inclusion is not irrelevant topic in this discussion. SILAC is an organization. We must admit, ladies and gentlemen, that besides all technical aspects and human right aspects that are very important, there is also political dimension to Internet Governance. It has become a battle field of geopolitical forces. And this is an effect we cannot evade from. However, I think that we should reinforce our link with eLAC. Some documents have suggested that eLAC should be a forum for the exchange of information; however, this has not been put into place institutionally.
This is an important aspect, the institutional part, and I suggest we move forward on this path. My intervention dealt with what has already been said. I will conclude now.
>> MODERATOR: I believe so, thank you very much. I believe so, because we think this sparks the discussion. If eLAC also had a multi‑stakeholder participation space, this would be good. Unfortunately, we can't do this now. What we will do now in this first phase of our workshop is to open the debate, listen to the people who are following us, to give their talks. Also, we will have remote participants. We have 30 minutes for this. And once we finish, we will ask Lynn to continue to moderate, asking our participants or panel members to make some final considerations.
Then we will have an additional five minutes for conclusions. And I will try to highlight some points. So now let's open for comments. Would you like to say something? Ladies first.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much, Rodrigo. Thank you also to the panel organizers. This is a very interesting panel. There is much to be said here. I know I won't have enough time. I would like to start talking about a topic that we were discussing, which is governmental participation in these Internet Governance spaces. We are always asking governments to get more involved and to participate in these discussions. And in terms of the committee, the program as Civil Society representative this year, we had a certain number of governments that participated. And this was greater than other actors. This was quite surprising. The communication process was very strong. And this is very optimistic. I think we still lack some qualification on behalf of governments on this topic. They are very willing to participate, but they don't have so much knowledge about the process of these topics; therefore, we have this word of enhanced cooperation or ‑‑ this means each one within their roles of multi‑stakeholder, we can have a cooperation of other actors, including governments, so that we have richer participation within these processes.
I would also like to mention something else related to governmental capacity. It was a course that we had the first time this year to qualify governmental representatives, mainly in this Internet Governance Forum. I hope this continues so that we continue to qualify more and more governmental representatives.
This is an example of this enhanced cooperation in our region. Also, in other spaces that I participate in Latin America and the Caribbean that represents Internet users, we are celebrating on the next days or we are discussing a memorandum of understanding with LACNIC, which would be another example of cooperation with users and the technical committee. I think it was mentioned about this example. Another event that also took place this year, which was the joint holding of LILAC and IGF event for us to involve all stakeholders in both events. I would like to share a message with you according to what Sebastian mentioned. We will have an ascending curve. Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Fatima.
Now Eduardo will speak.
>> Eduardo: I would like to congratulate you on your work. Also, congratulate you for the Spanish session. I would like to mention a concern and later open an invitation on cooperation. I think we need to reflect on enhanced cooperation from a local standpoint. My concern is based on the fact that over the last months we have observed some laws in our region. That did not coordinate with local sectors in some states and some local economies. We had laws being passed that do not have a common understanding of offering inclusion and access; therefore, we need to defend intellectual property as if it is a supreme right we need to defend. This is a pity, because in most countries where we presented this bill of law or law, there are mechanisms to dialogue on governance. And local governance forums on the Internet as Sebastian mentioned, and the governments could assist mutually to propose more adequate solutions in order to benefit a greater number of society. Not just one or two companies. Also, defend old fashioned models. So I invite government ‑‑ I know we don't have many representatives from the government here. Fernando is probably the bravest of all. I invite you to use these dialogue mechanisms. Many of them they have this name: Dialogue for governance between Mexico, Costa Rica, etc. And we should favor these forums so that they can lead to bills of laws.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. We started to encounter some coincidences in terms of comments. We will have Eduardo, then Andres.
>>EDUARDO SANTURO: Thank you very much. I am Eduardo Santuro. I come from Colombia. I also am president of the LACA directory. Now I will speak a little about my Columbian perspective and the perspective of my country.
With regard to this topic, I will share some elements that are also discussed in my country. First of all, as Juan reminded us, we are working for some time with this enhanced cooperation. We had good development, but it moved about slowly. It occurred by means of spontaneous generation of some groups, and we have some countries that encountered some dialogue spaces for these topics.
We have a lot ahead of us to work in this field. That's what we can conclude. Not just governments, but somehow all were touched by these topics, but within our societies we have several social sectors. I myself find it odd that in Columbia, in the parliament and the Congress; we have never talked about governance ‑‑ Internet Governance. This had not been mentioned at any opportunity. So it's odd not to have public debate on this topic in the country. We are trying to work with one or two senators that understand on this topic so that they can become aware of what is happening. And we would like to also call the attention to other sectors of government and society that we do not just work with ITC issues.
We still have a lot ahead of us. We need sectors, professional colleges, and other sectors of society participating in this debate, not just those that we think have a role in infrastructure or the use of telecom. The same way that Valeria mentioned, I would like to say that we made headway, but it has been slowly progress, and we need to pay attention to reinforce this support. And another thing I'd like to mention is there are various sectors of society, not just the government, that are not focusing on the need to participate in these discussions. Their participation would be essentially for us to advance on this Internet topic I and public good.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Eduardo.
>>PAOLO UNO: I am Paolo Uno. I work at the law school of the university. I would like to say that we work, thanks to the work of Carolina, and the Internet Governance in Buenos Aires. And I would also like to say something that seems that I think is important. We are a federated nation that is very large, and many people are not able to go to Buenos Aires where things happen. In terms of participation five years ago, we could not go to Congress on issues related to laws. Now, however, I believe in forums like this we have the opportunity to work and influence by sharing our experiences and participating in building Argentina legislation.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. We have one remote participant. So we will hear our remote participant and later we will open for the others in the room.
We have a question. This is a question from Miguel Estrada from Argentina. He believes that we have a lot of work to be done in terms of remote participation. This is a crucial portion of inclusion during this IGF, and also other forums. And it's very difficult to be part ‑‑ to take part in some sessions due to technical issues or sometimes due to lack of time.
Since remote participants are usually left to the end, if there is time. Oftentimes we are not able to see the presentations and who is speaking. So to be inclusive, we need to work very well for remote participants felt as if they are in the room. Thank you very much.
>> I was not prepared for a question. But yes, I agree. This is very important and this is a fundamental aspect.
Now, with Andres.
>> ANDRES PIAZZA: I will try to add some things. First, cooperation that we have in a region, it's difficult to contribute in some way when my colleagues have already mentioned so many things. The same thing is applicable to remote participants. Despite the difficulties, it is necessary to work to resolve these issues.
I don't want to tap myself on the shoulder. There is cooperation that is unique in other regions, because there is integration and solidarity. This is not observed in other regions, however. One of the most important points is the fact of eLAC, taking on challenges. We are still lacking. Some of these players or stakeholders have sacrificed their own short‑term interest to strengthen local processes in the long term. I think this goes the path forward. This is a path worth highlighting, so that we can continue to advance in cooperation. Maybe cooperation is one of the first elements that we should take into account in our cooperation.
A specific example in IGF we see that the strongest actors are those who participating less. The weaker ones, as the social society have been participating intensely. This reinforces the idea of government integration in this type of debate. Of course, there is still a long path forward.
ELAC also could be a stricter event with greater formality than CLAC or the ‑‑ or others that always work with the idea of all actors at a same level.
There is still an effort to improve interact. This seems to be the right path forward, and also NGOs, like technical communities or Civil Society, to establish this strategy. Other institutions, it's more difficult to justify the short term sacrifices for a longer term process. But this attitude will lead to increase or enhance cooperation. There is work within the United Nations as well. First we need to define and later continue with the Tunis Agenda. This was a bit of a frustrating discussion; however, that did not lead to concrete results. I would like to highlight that everything in this meeting is in line with even enhanced cooperation. The problem is the approach and distinct cultures of this region with other cultural regions. In Latin America and the Caribbean we have the same view of enhanced cooperation. We need to seize this opportunity. We are able to reach a consensus. And we know that this is not just hat a global level, but also at a regional one. All governments, all private sector companies agree on this topic. This great richness in differences and this is part of the debate. With regard to the debate structure, I think all of us agree.
>> MODERATOR: Let's continue with Daphne, and then Carolina for our conclusion.
>> Thank you very much for the invitation. I work in the women's right group and also for telecommunications. I coordinate this program in Latin America and the Caribbean. As Sebastian mentioned, how much did this ‑‑ how difficult was it for us to enter this meeting room in 2005 where we today stand? And it was much work to have people hear us at that time. Cooperation is one of the most difficult issues, just like the gender one. To start talking about gender, to talk about equity or equality, also inserting gender into society's discussions is very difficult. And we need support and solidarity on behalf of people with whom we work on this topic. And in multi‑stakeholder spaces, in my opinion, it becomes clear that we can have a good response on behalf of many governments. This is essential for us to discuss things in a clear fashion.
Later, in Latin America and technical community, I acknowledge that there is solidarity and many colleagues following up on this and who helped us to work on this topic and define it more carefully. This reached eLAC in its entire work in two periods: 2007 and 2015. At these opportunities we had a work group that addressed gender topics of Internet Governance for technologies throughout the process. Once approved, the plan for 2018, there is no longer a gender group now.
Women can now insert and integrate themselves within any group that is formed. However, we have an objective for 2018. It's very important, and we hope this will develop and move forward. The 2017 objectives which we worked jointly with many colleagues, and also with governmental employees, we talked about promoting a global perspective from a gender standpoint, the public policies on digital development and using ITCs for women and children and allowing leadership of women in public spaces as well as private ones in the digital world. This is fundamental, and we hope this is developed in these years of work.
I would like to reinforce the idea that this cooperation has helped us to better specify this text. And this text can also be placed within the document. And we hope we are able to reap the fruit of this process.
Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: We hope these issues continue to move forward. We want everything to remain. Now with Salo and then Diedre.
>> Good afternoon. And thank you very much for allowing me this intervention. The only thing I could adhere is my Chilean accent. It was the only thing that was lacking in this room so far. And I missed that.
I agree with all of you with regard to even enhanced cooperation and what is being discussed within this forum. Sebastian was talking ‑‑ was trying to say something and I remember what happened at the meeting. No, no, I'm kidding. This never happened. The context has evolved enough and today all of us are here and working very well in the region. What I mean is that there are plans. We are working, I agree with you. And despite our work, there is still much ahead of us for us to achieve more concrete goals. Define these plans that allow us to move away from discourse and take more concrete action. The government has worked relatively well with the technical organizations in the region, very well, actually. But I would like greater commitment from the private sector with regard to these plans.
We lack a long‑term view with regard to Latin America. Once all these ingredients are working well and I think the best term is what we call a good wave, a good moment, good vibes. What we see here is difficult to observe in other regions. We have to make the best of this and we need to create concrete things based on this advantage.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for your words. Now we have Deidra. She always offers a very interesting perspective on the Caribbean users.
>> Diedra: We talk about multilateral, multi‑stakeholder, and sometimes we forget that LAC is also multilingual. I'm very happy to see Juan Fernandez here from Cuba. I would be even happier if someone from my government, someone with more status than I have, were sitting around the table discussing. We have a lot in common with you. We don't speak the same language, but we have a lot in common. I'm hoping and I hope you will all hope with me and that you will all push in any way possible you can that if the United Nations agrees to the extension of the IGF and it is held in Mexico next year, I might not be here, but somebody from ST. LUCIA will be here and will be part of the conversation.
Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Deidra. Let's continue now with Jesus.
>> Jesus MARTINEZ: Thank you very much, Jesus Martinez from Cuba. I have been following up on this issue of cooperation for several years, especially within the context of LACNIC. And I agree with much that has been said. We have to think about how effective cooperation is. Does it reach all corners? Is it efficient? And I think that we still have a long way to go before when we were young, we pushed forward the participation of governments. Well, now they are participating, but the effect is not felt in the society at large. So I think that Internet Governance is a long process. Ten years have passed and there are still countries where the concepts are not understood. So we have to manage and November towards our goal so that society becomes engaged in the process that we call the Internet Governance.
Going back to NIC for ten years, now celebrating ten years. And when we got to the countries and saw how the projects work, I think that there is a lack of understanding, lack of digital literacy in these countries. So we cannot really come to these meetings and do and talk and we have to go one level lower to become really effective. That is an example of that. It is something we have been doing for ten years. We would like all of us to reflect on this so that the respective governments in our region really take this matter to heart. We need to become more effective, objective ‑‑ the objective that really has to be fulfilled is reaching all people who lived on this planet. Thank you very much for your comments and for touching on the concept of digital illiteracy.
>> MODERATOR: Andres and Carolina, you have one minute each.
>> ANDRES PIAZZA: I'll be very brief, because a lot has been said. As Oscar said, it's a great pleasure to hear Spanish as the language of the panel. We hope that in the future we can have more sessions where we can use our own languages. Can you all hear me fine?
Cooperation between governments and the public sector is part of our DNA. We have been moving that direction for 30 years. We started participating in the debate later on, but it has been a very rewarding experience to participate in the LACIGF committees and to contribute to create LACIGF where we have increasing participation of governments and private companies.
I would like to refer to the eLAC process. In the future we have to determine what the role of governments is. Many times many times we are at the whim of the moderators in how we can participate in the panels and sessions. And I think that Internet Society chairs the discussions in many occasions. And I think that we have to make clear, how the different stakeholders participate in the debate. Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Andres. And we will finish with Carolina.
>> Carolina AGUERRE: A few questions and comments. I consider that there have been many progresses in achievements in the last decade in terms of capacity building in our environment. But still very distant from the outcomes we aspire to. The processes are not leading to specific results.
So this is a question we should ask ourselves. What's going on with the definition of enhanced cooperation that is part of the WSIS + 10 document? Is this the same as we used six years ago? But the governments and the other stakeholders, perhaps, have not understood it yet.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Carolina. I will hand it over to Lynn so that she can ask for the conclusions of our panel members.
>> Lynn ST. AMOUR: So I just wanted two quick comments and then I was going to pose a question to the panelist. But I like Carolina's question and maybe we could do a quick door. My perspective, the speakers were quite unanimous that there is a need for increased participation, there as national, regional or forums or political processes. Many focus on the need for more government and private sector participation. And there were certainly a range of comments on how successful enhanced cooperation is, notwithstanding the lack of clarity on the definition.
There were also a lot of comments on frustration with lack of concrete results. So the question I was going to ask was, again, despite the fact that the definition is enhanced cooperation, the term is so open to interpretation. One is to ask how happy everybody is with the progress being made? All of this is a journey, an evolution. While we're not there yet, are we happy with the progress? Because I think, frankly, that's a lot to ask already.
And then I was going to ask each panelist if they wanted to address just one action for what the next step would be to actually improve enhanced cooperation. Again, this is a journey. We don't know what's needed some years from now, but if we could all say what's the one next thing I'd like to see happen or I would go away and do this and progress and be useful. I also liked Carolina's question, too. We could leave it up to the panelist to choose either one of those.
Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. So now let's hear the final remarks of our panel members. In the spirit of fairness, we'll start with the speakers who spoke last.
I would like to start with a recommendation. Andres Piazza was talking, and he said that enhanced cooperation was translated in different ways in our region. But I think that it's not really about going into the ‑‑ a logical discussion of what enhanced cooperation means. Enhanced cooperation, and Paragraph 69 to 71 from the Tunis Agenda, and then compare the Spanish translation to the English original. All of this has been designed as part of a package. I sat at the negotiation rounds. It was part of the discussion about the roles of states, countries, and other issues and there was always this idea there's just one single country in the world that enjoys a privileged position in Internet Governance.
We needed to open an opportunity for other countries to have an equal. There was no concern how to solve this issue. So we left this door open for the future. But that was the purpose. And if you want to create cooperation and consider that all factors are always fortunate. Like Sebastian and Fatima said, positive cooperation should not be linked to this term, as an example of this term.
Let's try to continue moving ahead in our efforts. Rodrigo, you asked should eLAC be open to other sectors. I think that we have organizations that cater to different industries. We have Chambers of Commerce that cater to the needs of businesses. So it's just ICC BASIS. We have the organization that's cooperating, and they collaborate with other organizations. So I don't think that we should tell that they should open participating open society, the chamber for the chamber of commerce. And Internet Governance has a political component that should not be forgotten. It's just like playing the ostrich and hiding your head in the sand. What we have to do is to look for synergy and collaboration between organizations representing different stakeholders. As Valeria said before, this is something that is happening at eLAC. I think this is a very auspicious beginning and maybe I hope this will be strengthened in the future.
>> MODERATOR: Well, for Mexico we have several topics to discuss. So let's continue to hearing the final remarks.
>> Thank you, Rodrigo. Going back to what Juan was saying, I think that right path. We need more participation from governments and we should also create opportunities for even enhanced cooperation with governments. With so many models, participatory models, we have started paving this way in the nongovernmental sectors. So I think that there's a learning curve. And I think that we should create environments that promote participation of all. So we have to make sure governments participate and we have to be flexible in terms of the requirements they make to participate.
Well, a few comments about the understanding of enhanced cooperation. This can take place between governmental, nongovernmental actors, but I think we should foster enhanced cooperation between policymaking bodies, and specialized Internet Governance policymakers and also considering human rights.
The Inter‑American Human Rights Commission should be concerned with these topics. This is what we should move towards. In relation to roles and responsibilities, as Carolina asked, we have to ensure transparency and accountability. Not only considering the discussions between intergovernmental bodies, but also in relation to multi‑stakeholder discussions.
In Mexico, I think that a question was left unanswered. How legitimate about Internet Governance decisions will be when they take place outside of multifaceted environments?
As for concrete steps and next steps, I wish that governments ‑‑ I wish that governments would include human rights when analyzing their performance and their track records in this area. This would create an opportunity for all stakeholders to join forces and to promote human rights. And I would like governments to invite representatives of Civil Society and the technical community to be part of their official delegations.
Specially within the framework of the United Nations, ITU, the General Assembly, WSIS+10, etc. Another suggestion: Committing to and adopting the principles of NETmundial, I think this is a very important step to further even enhance cooperation.
Thank you very much. Valeria.
>> Valeria BETANCOURT: This is a very interesting panel. All companies in the sector should commit to reinforce multi‑stakeholder participation. We are very committed in that sense and we were very pleased to see that other companies are engaging in participation. Governments should also stimulate participation from the private sector. And this would attract the Civil Society, because we would have more funding. So it's in fact a virtual cycle that we create like this.
I think it's important to focus on the impact of Internet Governance forums and multi‑stakeholder discussions within the different countries when discussing policies. Those spaces should also be used to discuss government public policies relating to the Internet also with multi‑stakeholder approach. I think this would be a very important outcome.
>> Thank you very much. I'm very happy to discuss this topic. I agree with you that it's very important that we define public policies and we must observe the five policy points that are being discussed in IGF, within the larger discussion of the next billion users. Everything should be translated effectively in governmental actions. As Valeria was saying, accountability is essential. It's a very interesting discussion. But it won't amount to much unless we have clear action plans and accountability underneath everything. By the way, next year, October, November, Costa Rica will host Freedom Online Coalition meeting. I would like to underscore the importance of discussing topics that are coherent. Internet Governance is the spirit of the conference and you are all invited. We have not set a specific date because, as you know, we're still waiting for the news coming from IGF Mexico. As soon as we find out, we'll tell you what the date is.
>> DEMI GETSCHKO: I would like to start building on what Lynn said on a travel concept. I think that's it. He described what we do. I do not believe it's clear what is the final purpose of this journey. We will have to seize the best of this journey as we travel, as the concept of a journey may be. Some may say I have arrived where I want, and others will say I want to go further. This is the idea of participating in this process. Throughout this journey we will define new objectives and realities we have not encountered. Based on where we are, where we're going. This journey can represent great advances. Besides this, as Valeria mentioned, I would like to talk about participation of the sectors within governmental representation. Also, it's important to consider the participation of representatives of the national industry, because they also depend on this. So they need to occupy spaces. We can also help them.
The small and midsize companies, Internet operators, need that we explain and show to them what we're talking about. They need to understand the importance of the issue and the issues involving Internet Governance and how this can influence in the definition of their businesses. That's why the organizations, the chambers and governments, need to participate. It seems fundamental for governments to invite, as the example you showed, that invite them to participate in these forums. We are happy to be part of this journey.
>> First, I would like to agree with what he said. This description on this specific topic is very good based on enhanced cooperation. I would like to thank Sebastian. We do not understand this topic, and maybe it's good to continue not to understand this. Let's focus on cooperation, the noun, and not the adjective, whether it's reinforced or enhanced or whatever. I would like to thank Valeria's reference. This is a landmark to achieve principles. And I think this was an important point. We need to focus on these concepts so that we can advance more.
And the issue raised by Lynn, I remember a poem by Cavafy. And there he said that Ulysses' trip to Ithaca faced dangerous risks. But finally he makes it there. And Ithaca is the old Ithaca, so the trip or the journey was more important than the final destination.
(Off microphone)
>>‑‑ overall more similarity on how we see enhanced cooperation in both the progress to date and the progress that's needed than honestly I probably would have expected, given conversations earlier in the week and coming in here. So maybe that's just the nature of a forum. When you come to this sort of environment, you talk that way. But it felt that there was more homogeneity. That would be one take away.
>> MODERATOR: Finally, we have concluded. On behalf of Carolina Aguerre, I would like to thank all speakers, participants, and those participating remotely. Thank you very much for your presence.
(Applause)
(Adjourned)