Internet Governance Forum Open Consultations Geneva, Switzerland 16 September, 2008 Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Open Consultations on the Internet Governance Forum, in Geneva on 16 September in Geneva, Switzerland. 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 session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. [ Gavel. ] >>CHAIR DESAI: Good morning. May I welcome you, the newly constituted Multistakeholder Advisory Group to Geneva. I would like to take this opportunity of also welcoming some of the members of the previous group who are here and to really thank everybody who has been involved in this process in the first MAG, potentially those who are no longer part of the new MAG, for the work that they have put in and the continued commitment to support this work, which is testified by the presence at this meeting. But as you know, we have had -- decided that the MAG must have some turnover in order to ensure that fresh blood comes in. Anyhow, the new MAG has been constituted, and this is, in effect, the first meeting of the new MAG. And there are several members here who are participating for the first time. And I welcome them and look forward to working closely with them, as closely as we have worked with other members of the MAG in the past. The primary task of the MAG, of course, is the organization of the Internet Governance Forum. This is an open consultation where the members of the MAG are present, but there are many others who are not members of the MAG. And the whole idea behind open consultations is to provide that broader outreach. And the whole idea is that we listen to what people have to say before the MAG meets so that the MAG can take on board. I mention all this because I know that people who have been part of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group in the past are familiar with the logic of this arrangement, which -- but I was just mentioning this for the new members who have joined the MAG now. And I hope that the MAG members will listen very carefully to what's going on and will refer to it when we meet tomorrow and the day after to do the more detailed work in planning for the Hyderabad meeting. The agenda for -- this is, of course, in many ways the primary task of this meeting. A draft agenda has been sent around through the Internet. And the elements on that agenda are, of course, the adoption of the agenda, the discussion on the agenda and program of the Hyderabad meeting. We -- the third item would be the -- a presentation on the logistical arrangements. We have a team from India present here, including the permanent secretary of the ministry of -- the department dealing with information technology in Hyderabad itself is also here. He is one of the key organizers of this event, apart from the people from the federal government. And we'll get a briefing from them on where are we on the logistical arrangements. And I'm sure some of you will have questions, which I hope they will be able to respond to. We have, after that, a -- another item, which is the report, some discussion, on the dynamic coalitions. These are the ones which emerged from Athens and again in Rio. These are the coalitions which have been formed for the purposes of pursuing specific areas of action, since the IGF itself is not an executive body, it's not even a legislative body. And it's, essentially, a discussion forum. But there are dynamic coalitions which are pursuing specific things. And we will have a discussion on this matter after we discuss the Hyderabad arrangements. A further item that we need to discuss here is the whole question of the mandate that we have to advise the Secretary-General on the whole question of the desirability of the continuation of the forum. This is something that we have started discussing in the past. But even though the forum has -- if you like, only two of the five meetings have been held -- the third one will be held in December; two more are to be held still from the five-year mandate that we have -- our feeling was that we need to start a discussion on the modalities of the evaluation of how the forum has functioned, what its role is, in order to be able to do this work in good time, so that the Secretary-General can take a considered view when we come towards the end of the mandate of the forum in 2010. These are the items that we have. To repeat, the Hyderabad discussion, meeting agenda and program, the logistical arrangements for it; a discussion on the dynamic coalitions; a discussion on the review process that we should be following; and, of course, any other business that any member, any participant present here may wish to raise. So with your permission, I would like to take this as the agenda for this open consultation. Thank you. [ Gavel. ] >>CHAIR DESAI: Let me then begin with a discussion, then, of the agenda and program of the Hyderabad meeting. And let me first turn to Markus Kummer to walk us through the arrangements, what we have agreed so far and what is it that we need to discuss -- sorry. United States. >>UNITED STATES: Thank you, secretary. We'd like to take this opportunity to thank the secretariat for convening this meeting. The United States takes the opportunity afforded by the Internet Governance Forum secretariat to make suggestions with regard to the preparation of the third meeting in Hyderabad, India, in December 2008. We would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the IGF secretariat in its efforts to ensure that the IGF process -- >>CHAIR DESAI: Could you do that after the -- just started this -- do you mind? I thought you wanted to comment on the agenda. But you want to comment on the Hyderabad arrangements. Let Markus introduce it and then I can call on you first. >>:Thank you. >>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you, Chairman. Let me start with an apology. The agenda has the wrong year. It says 16 September 2007, and, of course, it should be 2008. I have a very bad habit. I always work on old documents and work on them and update them. And here I forgot to update the year. Also, I'm not sure whether we were able to upload all the project documents we received and the contributions on the Web site. They started accumulating in the past few days. Some of them also got lost, I noticed, in our overefficient spam filter. But this will be done in the next few days. We are also in the process of updating, upgrading our Web site. We will revamp it and migrate it to a CMS, content management system, which will be easier to navigate, more intuitive, and we'll have more community tools available for participants. I'm sure that will be welcomed by the wider community. As it happens, we have consolidated the proposals over the past few months we have received. And we are in the process of preparing a detailed schedule of the meeting, of what the meeting could look like. We're not quite there yet. But the broad principles are that we want to have the workshops ahead of the related main sessions so that they can feed into the main sessions, and we want to avoid duplication with the main session. That is, that any workshop related to access should not be held in parallel with another workshop related to access, and they should not be held in parallel with the main session related to access, and security, and so on. In terms of, the facilities will allow us to accommodate all the workshops that are listed now on our Web site. We have a total of 98 slots. We don't need to fill in all the slots. We will leave slots open for meetings, ad hoc meetings that various stakeholder groups may wish to have in Hyderabad. And we will also -- no official meetings will be held, as that was expressed by stakeholders, during the lunch hour, so that there is time, breathing space, for networking. And no official meeting will start after 6:00 in the evening. These were, I think, two broad points made when we took stock after the Rio meeting. You will have noticed that the workshops that are posted on our Web site have color-coding. We have green as workshops that fulfill the criteria of multistakeholder participation and multiple perspectives. We have workshops that are in amber. That is, they fulfilled them not quite fully, be it the names have not been submitted or be it that they're not multistakeholder enough. And I think there's one workshop left that is in red. But -- where more needs to be done to flesh out the proposal. We have been working in the past few months on the main session workshops. That was a process driven by proponents of workshops that are now merging or in the process of merging to join forces for a main session workshop. And they are assisted by volunteers from the -- I noticed you said MAG, the acronym. I always say MAG. So maybe we should have an agenda item on how to say so. I stick to MAG -- by MAG volunteers. And the new members have also started joining in. And I think one way to take the discussion forward would be to ask the various leads of the main session workshops to give us a status report of where we are in this regard, as the main interest, presumably, will be on the main sessions. I think that is more or less the broad picture, and I'll leave it at that. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Before I open the floor, can I perhaps also suggest that we listen to the -- I hope most of them are there -- the people who are organizing the main workshops, there are one, two, three, four, five -- six, six workshops which are directly connected with the principal sessions. And if I may, with your permission, I would just like to call on them to make a quick -- give us a quick update on where are we on the organization of these, what we described last time as sort of, if you like, the key workshops connected with the main sessions. First, on the workshop on access, with the subtheme was reaching the next billion, someone from -- there's Karen, if you could, just tell us where we are on this. >>KAREN BANKS: Can you hear me? >>CHAIR DESAI: Yes, I can. >>KAREN BANKS: Fine. Thanks. The main session on access is a group thus far including BASIS ICC, ISOC, Nokia Siemens, APC, the CSGMS from India, and PKI ISOC. We've had some good discussions the last couple of weeks and submitted an updated proposal which will focus on access, reaching the next billions, with an "S." And one of the main things that we thought important to notice that we are now talking about more than one billion, and some two and a half, if we include the mobile connected. The main session will focus on three aspects of access to the Internet, which will help bring Internet to the next billion or billions of people: Demand, supply and development. And we'll explore each of these layers through the lens of governance and related issues. We're hoping to support the whole process by developing a background paper, working with the different members of the group, providing opportunities to anyone who's interested to contribute in terms of comments, questions, so on, so forth. We have an initial list of proposed speakers and moderators that have been submitted to the secretariat. And we will continue working from today with those groups. I think that's probably about it for now. >>CHAIR DESAI: The next one is the -- main session workshop feeding into multilingualism and diversity. Patrik Fältström was leading the work on that. >>PATRIK FÄLSTRÖM: (No audio). Now, okay. So where we are on this workshop is that we have just reached consensus that we are going to focus on the ability for people using small languages and languages all over the world and enabling them to be able to communicate, to be able to create content and information in their own language and in their own script. And then starting with that, we are trying to look at what are the actual needs to be able to do that, like localized software, and -- as secondary needs. And then as tertiary needs, internationalized domain names and internationalized identifiers. We are trying to look now for panelists and other kind of organization -- people that can talk about experiences regarding helping people to communicate. And we are going to meet tomorrow morning before the MAG meeting in the cafeteria for people who are interested to talk more about this issue. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. The -- on the security side, we have two workshops leading in. One is, are we losing the battle against cybercrime. Marilyn Cade. Is she here? Marilyn. >>MARILYN CADE: Thank you. I'm very pleased to be able to report on behalf of my fellow organizers, we have a number of workshops that have agreed to come together, and we span a very broad and diverse group. Council of Europe, WITSA, DiploFoundation, the Global Internet Policy Initiative, the ITU, ISOC. So we're bringing together four existing workshops. And we're pretty far along in identifying speakers. We have identified a moderator. We have, I believe, the commitment of a chairman for the session. Our focus is on looking at -- what we hope to do is provide a fairly well-defined mapping of the different challenges and issues regarding security of the Internet and on the Internet. And we will map out the threats and the challenges, the different kinds of illegitimate or illegal behavior and attacks, and identify a wide number of the actors who are engaged in addressing these challenges. We also plan to address how the challenges will change as we connect the next billion and then the next billion, driven by the different -- the vast increase in numbers of users and the diversity of applications and content that will be accessed via the Internet. So we'll be working to finalize the workshop speakers and to formalize and get in final form the complete list of speakers for the workshop over the next -- I hope next few days. >>CHAIR DESAI: The next one is again feeding into the security session. And that's -- the title is fostering security, privacy, and openness. Ask can I call on Andrea Beccalli. >>ANDREA BECCALLI: Good morning, Mr. Chairman. Thank you. Well, the organization of the main session workshop on fostering security, privacy, and openness, I will say is going rather well. We had further discussions with the workshop proponents. Now we could finalize and narrow down the theme of the workshop. So we will have a brief introduction where we present the link between the three notions presented in the main -- in the title of the workshop. So, namely, security, privacy, and openness. And then we will explain why we will focus on the issue between -- the balance between privacy and data protection and try to explicate the intricate relationships between security, privacy, and openness. This workshop is also trying to have as much as we can a multistakeholder component and include a broad geographic representation. We try to involve also local authorities and communities from the region, from the (saying name) region. I should say that the process of merging the workshop presented some difficulties at the beginning also, because it's something new. We haven't been faced to such exercise. It will be nice also to share this experience with the other workshop -- main session workshop organizers to see how we can, in a way, figure out a common way probably or some suggestion for the next IGF on how to undertake these merging process. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. That's a good thought, and I hope we take that up in the MAG -- sorry, MAG, when we meet tomorrow and the day after. Then the -- for the fourth main session, of course, as you know, it begins with the whole issue of governance, Internet governance. And there are two sets of workshops. One is on the transition from IPv4 to identification. And is Adiel here? Adiel's not here? Can somebody else brief us on where we are on this? Chris? Milton. >>MILTON MUELLER: Milton. >>CHAIR DESAI: Milton. >>MILTON MUELLER: If you'll hold on a second, I'm going to have to bring up a document. I didn't know that I was going to be doing this. >>CHAIR DESAI: Maybe I can ask the next people while do you that. Then Bill Graham, if you can tell us where we are on the workshops dealing with arrangements for Internet governance, global, national, regional. Bill. >>BILL GRAHAM: There we go. Yes. Thank you. I think we're a little slow on this, because the debate has been back and forth quite a bit on a few topics. But I think we're converging on a -- an acceptable description and set of speakers fairly rapidly now that we've been through those more fundamental issues. We have a group of 14 working on this, merging two workshop proposals with some additional inputs to make sure that we deliver a good discussion on arrangements for Internet governance at the national, regional, and global levels. So I'm quite confident that during the next day or two, we'll be able to achieve agreement and post the details. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Milton, on the -- this is on the IPv4 to IPv6 transition. >>MILTON MUELLER: Okay. All right, the workshop. >>:Microphone, please. >>CHAIR DESAI: Mike. >>MILTON MUELLER: Okay? So this workshop involved not only the migration from IPv4 to IPv6, but also the regional Internet registries as governance institutions. We're going to cover the following points: The introduction, setting the scene, what is the nature of the problem in addressing? Solutions for the problem, and challenges facing the deployment of IPv6. We're talking about the operational as well as the social and economic factors and the policies and incentives that would be involved. And also looking at the future. We will have 8 different panelists, and a few discussants. And these panelists and discussants will come from five or six different organizations, including several representatives of the regional Internet address registries. I think I would like to reinforce the comments that the delegate from UNESCO made that the process of merging these workshops was very interesting, and we would need clear parameters in the future. For example, some people propose basically starting from scratch with the agenda and program, and others viewed it more as trying to merge the prior proposals. And the people who had put in proposals were very concerned that their -- since they had withdrawn their workshops, that they not be -- everything that they wanted to do would not be lost in the process of the merger. It also was not exactly clear -- This is a very important issue, actually. Some people said that the purpose of the panel was purely sort of educational and informational, talking about best practices. Others said that it should be about the policy discussions. So we have, I think, in this merger, come down somewhere in between there, but I would think it essential to clarify that. That we certainly want to be talking about policy in the Internet Governance Forum. I think that's all, unless there's any questions. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. And so we have just heard from the six -- what we call the six main session workshops. And the floor is now open. And may I first call on the United States. >>UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I apologize for our earlier eagerness to get the statement read. I have copies of the statement. I won't read it all. I will just go through the high points, if you can call them those. We recall that the establishment of the IGF was one of the key outputs of WSIS where world leaders asked the U.N. Secretary-General in an open and inclusive process to convene this new multistakeholder policy dialogue as well as to report to the U.N. member states periodically. We reiterate our commitment to the results of WSIS. The promise of the IGF, which is an open and inclusive dialogue among all stakeholders of the international Internet community, to discuss critical issues concerning the future of the Internet is viewed by the United States as a positive development. The United States continues to believe that the IGF should be a truly multistakeholder event. Therefore, it is important that processes and procedures be as transparent as possible. The United States again thanks the IGF Secretariat and the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for continuing to facilitate this dialogue and for coordinating the program, agenda and format in Hyderabad in December 2008. We also would like to endorse the comments made by ISOC on the program agenda in August 2008. We anticipate that we will offer additional views on other appropriate occasions regarding the program, agenda, and forum of the third meeting. Thank you again. >>CHAIR DESAI: The floor is now open for comments on the agenda and program of the -- yes. >> ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Andrea Saks, and I am the coordinator of the dynamic coalition on accessibility and disability. I would like to make a comment directed at Patrik Fälström, if I may. I believe he said he was looking for, if I understood him correctly, more people to present. And we were only granted 90 minutes in the regular session, not in the main session. I have speakers coming out of my ears on the subject. And some of them directly relate to the specific subject that he mentioned, which deals with language and people who are indigenous and do not necessarily have a written language. I have somebody specific for that. I would like to just put it to the group here that maybe some of our people can work together, and we can expand the diversity area in -- great, I got a yes. That's all I needed. That's fine. Thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: Good. This is the purpose of this. This is one example of the advantage of the open consultation, that something comes up which actually helps matters. Who else wants to comment on the agenda and program of the Hyderabad meeting? Because the main focus now is -- last time we discussed this, we did have a certain understanding. Yes, I have Canada, is that? Yes. >>CANADA: Thank you, Chair. At this time, I would like to make a few remarks regarding the agenda and program for Hyderabad. Canada supports the overall theme for the Hyderabad IGF of "Internet for All," as well as the guiding principle of maintaining and reinforcing the informal, interactive, multistakeholder format of the forum. In Canada's view, it is further important to not lose sight of the ongoing cross-cutting theme of development and capacity building as the format and themes of the IGF continue to evolve. Regarding the general session debates, advance preparation with the careful involvement of the session moderators will help ensure a broad and productive dialogue for all participants. Moderators could receive questions and discussion topics beforehand, and draw upon this material to help structure the exchange. The "taking stock" and "the way forward" session currently proposed for the Hyderabad program could provide a first opportunity for participants to provide feedback on the format of the Hyderabad meeting. In closing, Canada may also have comments this afternoon on item 5, review of the desirability of the continuation of the forum. Canada looks forward to Hyderabad in December and thanks to the Indian government for hosting the third IGF. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Karen Banks from APC. >>KAREN BANKS: Thank you, Chair. It's more a practical question that maybe we can talk about now or tomorrow the MAG could discuss, how the main session and the debates are going to be linked in practice. What kind of mechanisms will there be to ensure that there are linkages in terms of outcomes from the main session feeding into the debate. The moderators, will we, as in the past, have moderators from the broadcasting union? Do the main session organizers have to be thinking about moderators for the debate session? How many people -- Just these kinds of questions, so that we can think about this main session holistically in our planning. The second point is actually about the workshop reports. I wanted to acknowledge the work that the Secretariat's done in terms of providing statistics on processing in the IGF, which is very useful. And because of a little bit of research I was doing, I asked for more information about the work and discovered that there are also -- there's also some gender disaggregated data. And I would like to suggest that to be able to use that information more effectively that workshop reports, and main session reports, include gender disaggregated data in terms of speakers, panelists and moderators. I think that would be very useful. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. One thing that we need as well from this discussion, which we need to talk about in the MAG, is the procedure and modalities for the merger of workshops to constitute what we have called the main session workshops. The second, related to that, which Karen has just raised, is the link between this and the debate in the session itself. And I'm just trying to draw the lessons out which we need to focus on as we move on. Any further comments, remarks on the agenda and program? Marilyn. >>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And I am speaking on behalf of ITAA, the Information Technology Association of America. My comments this morning will be brief and I will make further comments this afternoon. We'd like to thank the executive Secretariat and the MAG for their work, and also the host country of India. We'll make further comments of appreciation later. Today, for this morning, what I would like to comment on is the importance of the, we believe, the truly multistakeholder nature that should be reflected in totality throughout the agenda, and increasing efforts be made to try to grow and increase the gender diversity and regional diversity of participation in all of the sessions. We fully support the general program and the selection of the theme "Internet for All," and would like to see that theme carefully reflected in the open forums, in the best practice sessions, and in the workshops. And we know that is truly the goal that everyone is trying to strive for. We do have a comment that is, I think, reflective of a comment made by Karen Banks. And I'll start by saying we would like to see the title of the afternoon sessions changed from "debate" to "dialogue and debate." As we said in our May submission, we actually believe that the term "debate" may be presupposing disagreement rather than different perspectives, and striving for understanding of views. We do think that there should be a flexible but identifiable link between the main workshop sessions in the morning and the debate dialogue in the afternoon. And we think that there should be a bit of structure offered to perhaps encourage submissions of some initial kick-off topics for those afternoon sessions, so the moderator, working with the MAG, could sort of build an initial build-up of identified participants, keeping the afternoon dialogue debates as interactive as possible. Thank you, and I will come back with later comments, as appropriate, later. >>CHAIR DESAI: So the proposed idea is that we call the afternoon session dialogue -- Debate and dialogue, rather than just debate. Invite comments, reflections on the title, if you like, of the afternoon session. Remember, to remind people, we are moving forward from the previous two IGFs in this IGF by this greater structuring of the workshops and, if you like, the big main sessions. And the idea was that we have -- the morning, it is very oriented, where the panel would be there, there will be discussion of very specific issues, exchange of information on best practice, all sorts of things. And the idea is that from the morning, we distill some important themes or lessons which are then the focus of the debate in the afternoon. And the point is well taken that the intention is not that we think that there will be some proposing a point and somebody else opposing it. We will be much more complex than that, and in that sense, what Marilyn is suggesting is to use the term "dialogue." We can debate and dialogue rather than just debate. May I invite any further comments that people have on this. Yes, Bill Graham. >>BILL GRAHAM: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. ISOC submitted a paper on this that's available on the Web site. I would just like to -- since we are talking about the main session debates, we would really support the notion of changing the title to "dialogue and debate." The whole concept of an open debate seems to us, in ISOC, to have a bit of a cultural bias, and it isn't -- an open debate isn't something, I believe, that all -- people from all cultures would feel comfortable in engaging with. So it's really essential that we not -- we try to make these as open to all participants as possible. We think that the choice of moderators for the debates is particularly critical here. And after much internal discussion, we really think that the moderators should be chosen for their expertise in the area as well as their ability to chair a meeting. I think being able to be actively engaged in the debate in the sense of understanding what the points are, without requiring a lot of discussion on the floor, will really be quite vital to keep the discussions moving. I also think that we should open a site on the IGF Web site for people to raise topics for the debate and dialogue in advance of the meeting. This will help the moderators and the MAG to prepare for those sessions and ensure that there's a good balance of views rather than taking a chance of their being capture by any one particular point of view. I think, also, this may be the solution to the challenge we faced in past IGFs of how to get rapporteurs from the independent workshops to have their input into the discussion. And I think we should take steps to encourage the rapporteurs from those workshops to enter into the debates to bring the perspectives that had been raised during their sessions. So I think, generally, both here and in the MAG session over the next two days, we need to give a lot of thought as to how these are going to work so we can ensure that they are successful. I think the final point I would make, and partly this is in the contribution and partly from my experience working on some of these efforts to merge main sessions, we really need to spend some time going forward thinking about how that merging process goes forward, and achieve some agreement and provide guidance to ensure that these sessions are valuable sessions and not entirely confined to the inputs from the sessions being merged. That's been a discussion in a number of the organizing groups, and I think further guidance could really help with that. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I have ICC/BASIS, I have Ayesha Hassan, I have ETNO. Ayesha Hassan? Yeah. >>ICC-BASIS: Thank you, Chair. On behalf of the members of the International Chamber of Commerce and its initiative business action to support the Information Society, including businesses and business associations from around the world, I would like to just draw on some of the comments that have been made this morning and provide our thoughts. We would join the suggestion by Canada and ITAA and ISOC to change the name of the afternoon sessions. We had also raised concerns in previous input about the use of the word "debate" and what it connotes. So "debate and dialogue" would have our support. We would also join the input from ISOC on the moderators. We have also discussed this and thought about the previous IGFs and the experiences. There certainly maybe some sessions where the broadcasters that have very kindly provided their services would be the appropriate type of moderator for the session. There are other sessions where the expertise in the subject area and the ability to facilitate would also achieve one of the other objectives of the IGF in Hyderabad, which is to truly build on the discussions on these issues that have taken place in the previous two IGFs. A suggestion for making the afternoon sessions as productive as possible would be to also consider having the moderators of the afternoon sessions, and any other experts involved in those sessions, be in the room for the workshop sessions in the morning. This will create a good preparation and enable them to build on the morning discussions. We would also suggest that consideration be given for the workshops in the morning. Thinking further about this since our input in August, we considered that the workshops in the morning could also help to really set the stage and we might want to consider not diluting the momentum of interaction by having too much interaction in the morning, so that a lot of the discussion and exchange can happen in that respect in the afternoon. We would join others in also emphasizing that the cross-cutting themes of human and institutional capacity building and meeting development needs should continue to be a real focus in all of the sessions, and we would join others in strongly urging close attention to multistakeholder involvement in the sessions, as well as geographical, gender and regional diversity. I would also just like to provide one input on a couple of points on the emerging issues sessions. We support the idea put forward by ISOC in their written contribution to include the views of entrepreneurs on emerging issues on Internet governance. And we, too, appreciate the important entrepreneurial community in India. We would also encourage the involvement of entrepreneurs from India, the South Asia region and the world. And to keep the balance of input on emerging issues coming in from a range of stakeholders from around the world. This point of balance and variety of input from stakeholders from around the world would be a point that we would encourage be kept in mind for all sessions as the program is further developed. I'll look forward to providing input on other agenda items, thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Mr. Zahid Jamil from ICC/BASIS. >>ICC-BASIS: Thank you, it's a pleasure to be a new member of the mag, and I would like to make a few points in dealing with the program, I would like to highlight the important role of the IGF in the main sessions and encouraging dialogue on cross-cutting policy issues, especially with regard to developing countries. Just a few examples are a dispute resolution provider for ccTLDs locally. And Pakistan, for instance, was able to develop, wholly and solely because of the IGF in Athens and then meeting with the Hong Kong (inaudible) in Nominet of the U.K., and led to an institutional buildup in capacity-building within the country on a multistakeholder basis which includes not only business, civil society, but also government interests. Another important policy-making exercise is with regard to how the IGF caused that to occur in Pakistan was the (inaudible) data protection rules that have recently been issued by the ministry of I.T. in Pakistan, but definitely because of the civil society and business and a lot of the interesting debates and policy discussions that took place at the IGFs. And the last one is that there is a preparatory at the national level IGF event that is also being planned this year. This is important because I think it must be highlighted that the main sessions in the IGF have an important role in providing human institutional capacity building and development needs, especially with regards to policy discussions. And this should be kept in mind when looking at the agenda as we go across the next two days. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you very much. I think what was said is quite interesting, that I think we are in our third year, and I think it would be interesting to document some of the instances where having the IGF has led to certain very practical results, and he has mentioned some but there are others. For instance, the whole area of child protection. What has happened because of people finding out things in the IGF which then leads to them to do certain things. And I think it's very important that we start documenting this. And I would encourage people who have any knowledge of these things to find some way of passing it on so that the Secretariat can start putting it together. Because I think it's important that we have a sense of what are the types of interactions which are leading to very valuable, practical results, and see that we encourage those types of interactions and provide the space for those when we organize the IGF. Now I have ETNO. After ETNO, I have (saying name) from El Salvador, and Mr. Park from the technical university in Delft and then Milton Mueller and Bertrand De La Chapelle from France. >>ETNO: Thank you, Chair, and good morning to you all. I speak on behalf of ETNO, which is the European Telecommunications Network Operators. Mr. Chair, we have submitted a comprehensive written contribution on the program and schedule of the Hyderabad meeting, and in this intervention I would like to highlight some of the issues contained there First of all, regarding the overall theme, "Internet for All," we understand that the title must be short and inspiring. However, the title must not create inappropriate anticipations or imply some form of universal service obligation. We find "Internet for all" general and wide ranged, which certainly cannot be exhausted in the Hyderabad meeting. We have noted that the title and the agenda have been submitted to the U.N. Secretary-General and cannot be changed, but we would appreciate, however, a small explanatory text underneath the overall theme setting or, rather, limiting the framework for the discussions in Hyderabad in order to be more realistic. We support in principle the new format of the third IGF. Of course, there is room for some improvements, particularly in the duration of the main session debates and the re-introduction of the reporting back sessions. More specifically, we suggest keeping the two-hour duration of the main session debates and using the third hour for the reporting back session. I can give you some more details of how this can work. The first day, the extra hour can be used for the opening ceremony, while the last day where there will be two main session debates, the extra hour in the morning can be used for reporting back, and the extra hour in the afternoon for a possible closing ceremony. And on the condition that the main session debates which will follow the main session workshops on the same themes will be interactive and not wasted in presentations or replies by panelists, that can be done, by the way, in the morning in the workshops. And the two hours for the debates should be plenty of time to deploy the topics. As for the reporting back sessions, many find them extremely helpful because someone may hear, in more than one language, a brief summary of what was discussed in previous main sessions but also in all the other main events -- I'm sorry, all the other events that were held before. It is also a form of outcome that many stakeholders are asking for. Therefore, we urge that the reporting back is re-introduced in the program, and that there is one-hour session prior to the main session debate. As regards the main session debates, we join others, like ITAA, ISOC, ICC, and we consider by the term "debate" it is meant an interactive discussion, and we hope all participants will share this understanding. We support the idea that these sessions are interactive and that they will not have panelists or designated respondents. Still, we would like to propose the idea that besides a brief presentation outlining what happened -- what has happened in the morning, there is a keynote speaker to stimulate discussion, rather than having the moderator trying to do that. The idea about the keynote speaker could be quite useful for certain main session debates, if not for all. That is, in other words, instead of having a moderator, to have a keynote speaker for some sessions. We would also like to repeat our previous position about best practices, which we still think they fit better in the debates or the workshops, and we are very concerned that thematic or country presentations are baptized as best practice forums, in the absence of a reliable mechanism to justify them as such. Therefore, we underline that if best practice forums remain in the program, it they must be very limited, specific, well justified, containing all the necessary details and accepted after wide agreement. I have two more remarks regarding the substantive program. First, the battle against cyber crime must be viewed as an issue which will demand constant attention and vigilance. It is not a simple case of winning or losing one battle, and the way this topic has been described in the program fails to recognize this point. We strongly suggest that the title of the relevant main session debate reflects this approach. And the last comment, we're still concerned that the title "Arrangements for Internet Governance, Global and National/Regional," is very vague, general, and not well understood. In fact, it is not clear at all what it will be discussed about. We would like to stress that by using such a title under managing critical Internet resources, discussion is likely to expand away from areas that demand immediate attention such as the imminent discussion on the transition from IPv4 to 6. We believe that care must be taken within IGF not to duplicate discussions that are more appropriate in other existing fora. Therefore, we see this session as a scouting one in terms of what the landscape is, global and national, or regional. What has been done and by whom. Aim at a better understanding of critical Internet resources. Mr. Chairman, as I said, we have submitted written contributions, and I ask all those interested to have a look at it if they have time. They are posted on your site. And we also have comments for other items of the agenda, and for that you will allow me to come back. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: I turn to -- Miguel Alcaine, from El Salvador. >>EL SALVADOR: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. We do not have any difficulties with the inclusion of the word "dialogue" in the title for the afternoon sessions, as long as we keep the word "debate" as well. We have to keep the notion that there are different points of view. And here, we'd like to support what has been proposed by ISOC. Indeed, we should have an Internet site in addition to the site of the secretariat so that all stakeholders can share their views and their main ideas. Now, on the workshops that have been identified or merged, the fact that this task was not easy shows that we need to do some significant work in advance. And we hope that the Hyderabad meeting will have good results. And we believe that the Internet Governance Forum is moving in the right direction. Now, on the debate or dialogues about policies, that was mentioned by one of the speakers, something that could take place in one of the afternoons. I'd like to specify that discussion on policies is something that is very important from the point of view of learning. And we, I believe, should prepare some guidelines on how we can work during these workshops in order to also have a greater impact on future work. And all the opinions of experts and all the people participating in these workshops should be an inclusive process, without any exceptions. And on the issue of the moderator, we support the proposal that was made by the International Chamber of Commerce that if, indeed, it is good to have keynote speakers for some meetings, but for other meetings, we need to have experts, but experts that could actually moderate meetings. And, finally, Mr. Chairman, I'd like to invite the organizers of workshops and the main sessions, but also all of those who will be actively involved in the Hyderabad meeting, I'd like to urge them to include the idea of development and capacity-building. Thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: Let me just add to the list that I have been giving issues with the MAG -- one thing that I hear from people is, some, you know, if you like, concern about the moderators for the afternoon session, would there be people with substantive knowledge, would there be people like broadcasters? What is the role? Would we have a keynote speaker who sets the theme? I think these are issues which will need to -- this is close to the more general issue of the link between the workshops in the afternoon session which was raised in the morning. And I would urge the MAG to spend a fair amount of time going through all of the issues which arise in terms of these linkages, including the questions that have been raised about the keynote speaker, the nature of the moderator that you would have, if you have a moderator, that is, in the afternoon session, and what is the input that will be provided into the afternoon session. Apart from the issue of the title, debate, dialogue, or whatever, debate and dialogue. Okay? I now have Ms. Park from the TU Delft. >>TUDelft: Thank you, chairman. >>:Microphone, please. >>TUDelft: Y.J. Park from Delft University of Technology. As a new member, I am very glad to make a contribution to the Internet Governance Forum as one of the civil society members from WSIS Internet Governance Caucus. I would like to support the principle of multistakeholder for the Internet Governance Forum, expressed by the United States government and government of Canada. However, I was somewhat surprised to note there is a substantial lack of participation from governments in many discussions of Internet Governance Forum based on my recent exposure to MAG and experiences of main session workshop coordination. After this morning's main session workshop report, we could note that the five leading coordinators of the six main IGF workshops were from non-state actors: Civil society, ISOC, and business. The remaining one is coordinated by UNESCO, intergovernmental institution. For example, we do not have any coordinator from government for multilingualism main session workshop. As the United States government acknowledged earlier during the WSIS, state actors are also key actors, together with other non-state actors. Taking advantage of this intervention, I would like to solicit more participation from government in this forum so we can truly make Internet Governance Forum a truly multistakeholder Internet, public-policy forum. Secondly, I would like to make a comment on multilingualism main session workshop as one of the new coordinators who joined this discussion recently. One of the critical global coordination challenges in the context of multilingualism on the Internet is to get global consensus on how to implement internationalized domain names. It has taken almost ten years to implement Internationalized Domain Names under ICANN's coordination, without any specific plan as of today. It proves this topic deserves more attention than any other multilingualism issues, and hope IDN can be one of the main areas of the discussion. Thank you for your attention. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I hope governments are listening. And they do need to participate more vigorously, if you like, in both the organization as well as the actual meeting itself. We can't force them. And so I hope they're listening to -- This is now a plea from civil society to governments, saying, "Please engage more effectively in an institution that you have set up." I hope the governments are listening. Milton Mueller. >>MILTON MUELLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I'm Milton Mueller, I'm from the Internet Governance Project and from Syracuse University. I want to discuss this assault on the word "debate" that seems to have occurred in some of the earlier comments. Let us begin by asking what the word "debate" means. A debate occurs when there are some defined propositions and people take different sides on those propositions. A debate is a structured examination of multiple arguments and positions regarding those propositions. A debate is a discussion of the validity of the arguments for and against a proposition. A debate is a discussion of the supporting evidence for and against a proposition. Now, taking that into consideration, when people say they don't want to use the word "debate," I wonder what they want these dialogues to be about. Are these to be coffee conversations where we discuss the weather? Are these to be casual expressions of opinion? I think not. I think we want there to be debates about public policy at the Internet Governance Forum. I think that's what the forum is for. I'm very concerned that we continue to have these kinds of debates and discussions about the nature of the forum. You will recall that there were people who at any time think we should discuss critical Internet resources in the forum. This was shown to be something we didn't need to fear; that it was very productive to engage with these issues. Of course, there are debates about those issues. I will continue to resist, and I'm sure that many people in civil society and among governments as well, will resist any attempt to neutralize the forum as a space for policy change. If there is no role for the concept of debate in the forum, then you have -- neutralize the forum, you have made it a useless institution. Thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. [ Applause ] >>CHAIR DESAI: France. >>FRANCE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Nitin. I should let my colleagues take off the headsets so they can listen to the interpretation if that is required. I am taking the floor today on behalf of the European Union presidency, and I am pleased to be able to make this statement. I should begin by congratulating Nitin for the renewal of his mandate, as also I should like to congratulate the new members of the MAG for their appointment, and the former members for having been renewed in their mandates. I would simply like to express one regret, that is that the renewal of mandates was done late in the year, and we hope that next year, the renewal of the MAG will take place before the advisory session in May. More specifically, in connection with the first item of the agenda and the structure of the Hyderabad meeting, we appreciate greatly the work that was done by the MAG, since it has progressively structured the third IGF around three main themes, with three categories of sessions. There's also a linkage between the workshops, the main workshops or panels, and the debates, or dialogues. The objective for us is for all stakeholders to be able to interact and to develop a joint vision of the problems with which they are confronted. I note in passing, with interest, the expansion of the village space or exhibition area, which will make it possible for participants to show what their activities are. Generally speaking, we support the wording chosen for the different themes. The expression "towards the next billion, in inverted commas, and here I support Karen Banks' comment about the fact that we are moving towards the next billions, with an "S." This confirms the development orientation of the IGF. In the same way, the theme of, in inverted commas, "Fostering Security, Privacy, and Openness," is of the highest importance, in our view. Currently, we are increasingly dependent on the Internet for all activities in professional and everyday lives. The European Union believes, in particular, that this subject is important, because these three objectives -- security, privacy, and openness -- can be pursued at the same time. We hope that the Hyderabad forum will prove this. More generally, the European Union attaches great importance to the usefulness of the IGF as being a multistakeholder forum, as was stated by our U.S. colleague and other persons after that. This platform concerns public policy, which plays the role of a think tank, to some extent, where different ideas can be confronted without giving rise to a formal negotiated document. I wish to insist upon this aspect today, because the informal nature of this process does not, in our view, mean that there will not be a particular result or that there is less commitment on the part of the stakeholders. In particular, we expect of the panel and of the debates that they identify common subjects for the various stakeholders, and even common objectives. Furthermore, very specifically, we give our great support to the idea of having a common template so that the various workshops can be made aware of the work being done. This is important for workshops to be able to disseminate their results and to provide a report in the principal sessions. Furthermore, we note with interest amongst the results of the forum the emergence of several initiatives which are multistakeholder-led at the regional and national levels, and we have the pleasure of announcing that France will organize a workshop -- it has already proposed this -- concerning national and regional initiatives in that connection. We hope this workshop will make it possible to identify best practices, which will facilitate the replication of such efforts in other areas and regions. Furthermore, the E.U. attaches great importance to a balanced participation of all categories of actors. This reflects what Y.J. Park has just done, and, in particular, we encourage all stakeholders to participate in IGF, including governments, and to take full advantage of the innovative format of interaction provided. For their part, the E.U. member states remain actively engaged in this exercise, of course, through their participation in the MAG and all preparatory processes. The European member states also participate through their active participation in dynamic coalitions and sponsoring several workshops in Hyderabad. We are also organizing other events which will feed into the Hyderabad debate, namely, a European dialogue on Internet governance, which will take place in Strasbourg at the end of October; Italy, for its part, as many of you know, is organizing a forum on Internet rights in Sardinia also at the end of October. Last, but not least, we have heard that Lithuania is a candidate to host the IGF in 2010. There are two important points I wish to add as I come to a close here. And that is, emerging issues, new subjects, and the importance of these being dealt with in such a way as to identify challenges for the future. This will provide an opportunity for the European presidency to report on the ministerial conference to be organized in Nice early October, concerning the Internet of the future. We hope that the Hyderabad session "Taking Stock and the Way Forward," in other words, the recapitulation meeting at the end, will be used to begin to launch the debate on opportunities for continuing IGF beyond the five initial-year period. And we can come back to this at the last part of this afternoon's meeting. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Now, Ms. Park, we will be happy to know that quite a few governments are coming in and speaking now. You know, the participation of governments and NGOs is roughly proportional to the distribution of PCs and Apple MACs. Just seems to -- I have Indonesia, the Council of Europe, and then Greece. After that, I will come back to the others. Indonesia. >>INDONESIA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is (saying name) from the ministry of ICT, government of Indonesia. In this opportunity, I'd like to extend my appreciation to the IGF secretariat, who has given me an opportunity to be a MAG IGF member. I am looking forward to working with you all members. In this opportunity, I'd like to appreciate the success of the first and second IGF meeting, in Athens and Rio de Janeiro. And I support and thanks to the government of India, who is going to host the third IGF meeting. Now, in the first and second IGF meeting, there are no kind of formal documentation that we can use as reference to plan our work in this area. Here I propose and support the proposal which has been proposed by Pakistan, that we have a kind of formal documentation that contains a summary of each session, either the main plenary sessions, as well as the workshops, that can be produced as IGF document. And each of the sessions, I think, can be collected by the session or workshop organizer and then submitted to the secretariat to be produced as IGF document. I thank you for your attention, Mr. Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: Actually, information on the -- is available in the form of the chairman's -- it usually includes overall review of what came out of each IGF. On the workshop reports, we've tried to encourage workshop organizers to give that. But it's a little difficult to force them to do it, you see. But certainly we have a space available for that. But I do hope that we can -- yes, may I turn to the secretary, and he may -- he will guide us on what is available now. Now as a new MAG member, you can perhaps look at some of that. Yeah. >>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes. Thank you. Indeed, there is an awful a lot of information available on our Web site. We have the live transcriptions of all the main sessions. We have the Web casts and the audio casts. But we also noticed that, like several delegations made the point that they prefer something they can take home with and not just have an electronic document. And this is the reason why we are planning to produce a book that will reflect, document the first two IGF meetings, in Athens and in Rio. And it is planned that the book will be distributed in Hyderabad, that it will be published for the Hyderabad meeting, and then, hopefully, from then on we produce every year a book with the proceedings of the annual meeting. So I hope that will move towards what was suggested by you and various other people. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. And I now have the Council of Europe, and then Mr. George Papadatos from Greece. >>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen. Let me thank the secretariat for their continued valuable assistance, and to our distinguished Indian colleagues for their work in preparing and hosting this year's IGF. Mr. Chairman, intimately linked to the core themes of the IGF program and in the true spirit of the IGF, I would like to inform you -- and as highlighted, touched upon by Bertrand de la Chapelle, that an open-ended and evolving group of stakeholders from the private sector, governments, international organizations, and civil society have come together to organize a European dialogue on Internet governance, also known as EuroDIG, which will be hosted at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg on the 20 and 21st of October, which, as it happens, falls at the beginning of the European Parliament session, in the hope that there will be parliamentary input into this dialogue. EuroDIG.org offers a multistakeholder platform for European actors to discuss the 2008 main themes of the IGF in preparation for the IGF. Such dialogue will be invaluable in our preparations and discussions, in particular, through reporting back into the IGF. EuroDIG, we hope, will break new ground in the way European governments, the private sector, and civil society communicate with each other on Internet governance by providing a level playing field for multistakeholder discussion on key issues, such as fostering security, privacy, and openness, cybercrime, and the management of critical Internet resources. EuroDIG.org will also provide a means to present and discuss European-led IGF workshops in a post show-and-tell session. And it will also provide a means of outreach to those in Europe -- a Europe which, for the Council of Europe, consists of 47 states -- who will not be able to be in Hyderabad. So for those interested, please consult the Web site, EuroDIG.org for registration and more information. Mr. Chairman, it is in this spirit of cooperation that the Council of Europe is working with an increasingly wide range of stakeholders in preparation for the IGF. In particular, this has led the Council of Europe, at the request of the secretariat, the IGF secretariat, in certain cases, to merge two of its proposed workshops concerning cybercrime and data protection, into the main-session workshops on fighting the battle against cybercrime and fostering security, privacy, and openness of the Internet. It has led us to merge our workshop on persons with disabilities with ISOC China, and we have also merged our workshop on governance for gatekeepers, shaping access to the Internet with the World Broadcasting Union. Mr. Chairman, in working ever more attentively to respect the required multistakeholder balances and representation needed for workshops, we are experiencing an even greater level of synergy with IGOs, private sector, and civil society. One excellent example is the trilateral initiative by the Council of Europe, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, and the Association for Progressive Communications to prepare a code of good practice on public participation, access to information, and transparency in Internet governance that will be taken forward at a workshop in Hyderabad, seeking to discuss this proposal with Internet governance entities and other stakeholders. However, Mr. Chairman, all of this cooperation needs to be fostered to ensure good preparations for Hyderabad. Workshop organizers need to have as much information as possible on a rolling basis about who, which expertise will be present in Hyderabad so that we can maximize the sharing of our expertise and participation. And this should not be left to our differing abilities to network to find out. I would therefore suggest, Mr. Chairman, that the rolling list of registered participants, complete with the information about their profiles and interests, be made available to all workshop organizers as soon as possible. On another very important matter, Mr. Chairman, I would like to support the recent calls of the Internet Bill of Rights and others for the reassertion of a rights-based agenda for the IGF, which the Council of Europe has repeatedly stressed in IGF preparation meetings and through its written submissions. Rights and freedoms within the context of an Internet for all are too important to be set aside when reaching out to the next billion or billions of users. Mr. Chairman, I would beg the question, how can we properly discuss public policy on access, multilingualism, privacy, freedom of expression, children's protection, and so on without a cross-cutting rights agenda in place? Especially as we become more and more dependent and reliant on the Internet in our everyday lives to communicate, to work, for knowledge, and for leisure. I would therefore point out, Mr. Chairman, that rights and freedoms will be addressed in several Council of Europe workshops which are organized and co-organized with other actors, in particular, the workshop on protecting children's dignity, security and privacy, applying international law to protect their best interests, the workshop on beyond universal access, the public value of the Internet as a goal of national information policy, and the workshop on expression and image online, developing an evolving personal identity. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: After Greece, I have, if I may just mention the next slot, (saying name) GIIC, Daniel O'Neill, the MAG member from APC, Valeria Betancourt, and then IIST, then Natasha Primo, then Colin Oliver, from Australia. So that's -- WITSA, after Greece. First Greece, and then WITSA. >>GREECE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me briefly react to a statement made by Dr. Park, of Delft University. She noted the declining attendance of governments. And it is a fact. I could -- I share those views, and I could take this discussion a step further to say that if one looks at what happened in Athens and then in Rio, and so forth, there are some -- the statistics indicate that there is declining attendance, possibly declining interest, in the MAG itself, in the meetings themselves. But just to state the fact does not answer the question. I think the question is, why are governments losing interest, at least the ones that they do? And I think that that deserves some consideration. And probably we should hear more from governments on that subject. Secondly, on the term "debate," I have a slightly different take on this than Milton Mueller has. I think that the reason that it causes concern is because it is a colored, it is a coded word that reminds U.N. debates. And I've seen this on a number of occasions. I don't think we should be bound by all these words. We should use them freely. And I don't think that "dialogue," which means something completely different than "debate," can be substituted in this particular case. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. WITSA. >>WITSA: Hi. My name is Anders Halvorsen. I'm the public-policy director of WITSA. It's a pleasure to participate here in the open consultation, and I know that all of my colleagues here and I look forward to another successful IGF in Hyderabad in December. Among several colleagues here today, I am also honored to have with me Mr. David Oliver of Fujitsu, who is the chairman with our WITSA public-policy committee. WITSA has been an active participant in the IGF from the beginning, including in the preparatory meetings for the WSIS. We further contributed to this process as a founding member of the CBI and are a founding partner and member of BASIS. Moreover, WITSA has published several statements regarding IGF, WSIS I and WSIS II. WITSA fully supports the IGF and reaches out to its members in order to encourage their attendance at the IGF sessions and workshops. WITSA also promotes awareness of an interest in the IGF at its conference and meetings, notably, our global public policy conference and the World Congress on Information Technology. WITSA also co-organized a workshop entitled "Enhancing Multistakeholder Participation and Policy-Making" at the 2006 IGF in Athens. In Rio last year, WITSA worked with five organizations to organize a workshop on access entitled "Qualifying, Quantifying, and Meeting the Challenge of Internet Access Costs." WITSA strongly supported four inaugural IGF themes -- openness, security, diversity, and access, as well as the cross-cutting theme of capacity-building. Indeed, WITSA presented a detailed report in preparation for the inaugural Athens forum which proposed a ten-point plan with the emphasis on security and reliability of ITC networks and services, the integration of ICTs in government services, and establishment of pro-competitive, predictable, transparent, and nondiscriminatory legal systems. The WITSA report also urged the removal of trade and innovation barriers and encouraged the creation of public/private partnerships in education and training to develop much needed skills. WITSA believed the IGF should continue to emphasize the role of the Internet in economic development, and the importance of capacity building as a vehicle to boost Internet access in developing countries. Reaching the next billion Internet users, information, infrastructure, access, managing Internet critical Internet resources, cyber security and trust remain very important topics to our WITSA members. After 2008 IGF, Hyderabad, WITSA would like to focus on the challenge of connecting the next billion users to the Internet. We should also include a discussion on how this can be done in an environmentally sustainable way. The Internet services and applications provide new ways to communicate and transfer information, including voice and data and video services. These services can facilitate telecommuting, teleconferencing, e-commerce, telemedicine and other applications that will save consumers in business travel expense, traffic congestion and time, as well as reducing greenhouse gas emissions. An IGF discussion should focus on how ICT in Internet use can address environmental problems and what type of complementary actions may be needed to maximize potential benefits. With regard to other emerging issues, WITSA suggests the consideration of the following items for discussion: Conserving ICT for environment; importance of ensuring and leveraging innovation and creativity, including in nontraditional areas; the impact of the changes to the Internet that will be driven by the massive increase in wireless and mobile users; the opportunities and challenges of social networking applications and other emerging innovations and applications. WITSA believes the real value of the IGF is in its multistakeholder, open and informative nature, allowing a variety of views to be expressed on an equal basis and a full range of experience and expertise to be shared so that all can continue to learn more about how to use and grow and expand and protect the Internet. As such, the IGF should remain consistent with its mandate for facilitating a dialogue and not engaging in negotiation of formal documents and outcomes. WITSA also supports the importance of the IGF's focus on engagement with developing countries and seeking ways to encourage participants from those countries to participate in the IGF process and annual forum. Thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Then I have Mr. Onishi from Fujitsu. >>FUJITSU: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Distinguished delegates. My name is Norihiro Onishi, and I am here today representing Fujitsu. At the IGF Rio conference last year, Mr. (saying name), a Fujitsu board member and former chairman, talked about the need for greater business involvement in the IGF process, and better awareness among corporate executives about Internet governance. Fujitsu works with many business and I.T. associations to promote the IGF, its consultations, and outcomes. Through our involvement in groups such as the Global Information Infrastructure Commission, Keidanren, the Japan Business Federation, the World Information Technology and Services Alliance, and ICC/BASIS, we encourage these business groups to provide comments to the IGF Secretariat. Representatives from these organizations are providing more detailed comments to this public consultation today. We at Fujitsu hope that these additional efforts, which complement what other business and multistakeholder groups are doing to raise awareness of and encourage participation in the IGF will produce a successful meeting in Hyderabad, India in December. We look forward to seeing all of you in Hyderabad. Finally, we would like to express our appreciation to Mr. Desai, Mr. Kummer, and the IGF Secretariat for all their support of these IGF consultations and conference. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Next is Mr. Daniel O'Neill from GIIC which was just referred to. >>GIIC: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Dan O'Neill. I am the executive director of the Global Information Infrastructure Commission. The GIIC appreciates the opportunity to comment on the program, agenda, and format for the upcoming IGF meeting in India. We would like to thank the Chair and the executive Secretariat for their efforts to implement a successful consultation format, including early debrief and planning meeting in February, the midyear session in May, the final session in September, all culminating in the IGF in early December. This consultation process works well so that all interested stakeholders can plan contributions to and participation in IGF meetings. The GIIC believes that the current structure of the program, as presented, should work well, and supports the key themes under the overall theme of "Internet for All." Reaching the next billion users, promoting cyber security and trust, managing critical Internet resources, taking stock in the way forward and emerging issues. We recognize that the Hyderabad meeting will have its own character and will go beyond the formats used previously. We prefer to see an informal, interactive, multistakeholder format, as it is generally recognized as one of the key factors for the success of the first two meetings, and should be maintained and reinforced as a guiding principle. We did observe in previous years that attendance at the main sessions was limited due to conflicts with many fine workshops. It would be better to manage the main sessions with as few conflicts as feasible. The main sessions provide an excellent way to summarize discussions and share additional insights and viewpoints. Therefore, the current recommendation to include a tighter linkage between the workshops and the main sessions is a good one. We also support the approach to engage persons with proven expertise and experience in matters related to Internet governance for the main sessions. At the 2008 IGF Hyderabad, GIIC would like to focus on the challenges of connecting the next one billion users to the Internet and include a discussion about how this can be done in an environmentally sustainable way. Overall, the impact of ICTs and the Internet on the environment needs to be fully explored. ICT has had the greatest benefit and effect on business and economic structures, such as efficiencies in business processes, and the shift away from manufacturing towards the delivery of services. A main environmental impact has been the increasing power needs of ICT products as the production of electricity support the spread of ICT, and the greater Internet use can add to greenhouse gases. Another concern is the rebound effect of the greater efficiencies in business processes and transportation enabled by the Internet, and ICT's lower prices and increased demands for material and energy, thereby offsetting environmental gains and could result in neutral or even negative impacts. This discussion on environmental concerns could also highlight data, policy, and directed research in areas where ICTs can help with climate change solutions in ways similar to ICT's effects on communications and business, while providing an environmentally sustainable Internet for the next billion users, or more, around the world. In addition, we should explore how best these topics could be incorporated, possibly as workshops or a special session into the IGF program going forward as emerging issues. Finally, we would like to congratulate members of the MAG, both new ones and those that have renewed. As in the past, we wish to see the composition of the MAG reflecting the multistakeholder nature of the Internet and those interested in the IGF. We look forward to their contributions in the planning process. The GIIC remains committed to working closely with the IGF and its leadership to ensure the success of the Hyderabad meeting in December 2008. Thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Then I have Valeria Betancourt from -- a MAG member. >>VALERIA BETANCOURT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to first of all thank you for giving me this opportunity to participate in this discussion as a member of MAG. I would like to say that on the 20th of August of this year, an open multisectorial dialogue started on Internet governance in Latin America and the Caribbean. This process was started by the LACNIC, RITS and APC. And this is a process that was promoted through for discussion groups and it was continued through online discussions. And the discussions involved 325 people from various sectors from 20 countries of the region. And we have interpreted this as a sign of maturity in the discussions and a very important step in further promoting the Internet. I would like to find out what are the mechanisms that can be promoted in order to ensure that these types of regional inputs can feed the finalization of the Internet Governance Forum agenda. >>CHAIR DESAI: (Inaudible) sustainable development. >>HEATHER CREECH: Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Heather Creech from the International Institute for Sustainable Development. We would like to thank the IGF stakeholders and the Secretariat for supporting the processes that has allowed sustainable development to emerge as a significant issue for the forum's consideration, and that this is certainly consistent with the linkage between Internet governance and sustainable development being recognized at the end of the Rio forum in the Chairman's summary that this would be an emerging issue. Since Rio, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development at the ministerials on the future of the Internet economy earlier this year in Seoul adopted sustainable development as a major area of concern for all working on Internet issues. And this is evident in the outcome documents of that meeting. And we are also excited about a number of workshops that are now on the agenda for Hyderabad which will begin to look in more depth at various aspects of the Internet and sustainability, whether dealing with environmental impacts or the development agenda. It is our view that the issues being addressed through the IGF -- security, critical Internet resources, access and so forth -- have significant impact on and relevance for the achievement of global sustainability. Without a stable and secure Internet accessible to all, the world cannot work together to solve global problems. We need, though, to better understand where and how the development and deployment of the Internet may have significant positive or negative impacts on environment, economy, and society. And I'd certainly like to thank GIIC, and others, for pointing out the fact that there may well be some impacts that we don't understand as yet. By making the linkage between the development and deployment of the Internet and sustainability development, we believe that the IGF will be making a positive contribution to other global public policy debates, and in so doing, ensuring a continuation of its mandate into the future. We hope to work with all of you on strengthening this connection with sustainability as a relevant theme for the Internet's future from the points of view of all IGF stakeholders. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you very much. Can I ask Natasha Primo who is also a new MAG member. >>NATASHA PRIMO: Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank you all for the opportunity to contribute as a new MAG member in this open discussion. And I look forward to continuing my contribution as a civil society representative, active within a multistakeholder forum such as the IGF and within the MAG as an instrument to ensure all viewpoints are equally represented. I would like to return to the input by Mr. Jamil ZAHID earlier on the ways that the experience of participating in the IGF in Athens and Rio has led to interventions within Pakistan and taking forward and building awareness of the IGF and also the importance of building a multistakeholder and participatory process within Pakistan. I would like to return also to the comments by the Chair on the importance of documenting the impact of the IGF at the national and regional levels. The question I would like to pose for this meeting is how will this be done. And one avenue that I would like to propose for discussion, perhaps later this afternoon, perhaps in our MAG meeting in the next two days, is whether we need to create the capacity within the IGF Secretariat to research and record precisely the different ways in which the IGF is finding traction and relevance at the national level and at the regional levels. And as part of a way also of documenting the relevance of the IGF for future discussions, and for its continued existence. Thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I gather there's going to be a civil society led exercise on a global Information Society watch. I hope that that global Information Society watch will be collecting information from civil society organizations who are located at the ground level, so to speak, in countries. Will also collect information on the types of issues that have come up in these two contributions. So let's hope -- but we can discuss. I think this is something which we can talk about further in the MAG. Can I now turn to Colin Oliver from Australia and then (saying name) from APC, and then Ayesha Hassan from ICC. >>AUSTRALIA: Thank you, Chair. I would like to begin by thanking the Secretariat for their committed work in preparing for the meeting, and we were very pleased to listen to the report this morning on work toward the main session workshops. I think it's a sign that the multistakeholder character of the Internet Governance Forum is continuing to develop. And we're optimistic that this will assist us in taking the discussion to a new level, with a higher level of dialogue and interaction. I would like to agree with your point, Chair, that the interactions facilitated by the forum are important and should be documented where they lead to new cooperative endeavors, especially across different regions and between different stakeholder groups. I'd also like to agree with those who have pointed to the issue of capacity building as a cross-cutting issue. But I think for all of that, we may be missing something. And I would like to say it's important to recognize that Internet governance needs to take account of innovation. It's almost another cross-cutting issue that is implicit in some of the very recent comments made with regard to sustainable development and also the GIIC contribution. I have heard people say that innovation is not a governance issue, but on the contrary, I would argue that good public policy needs to take account of it, and sometimes to encourage it. There are particular opportunities in India to consider the role of innovation in supporting access, capacity building, multilingualism and a number of other issues, and we'll be interested in working with our Indian hosts to explore this further. Finally, taking on the comment about the need for governments to engage more, I would like to say in this area it is important to have inputs from all of those in civil society, the private sector, and even governments where they can contribute to this innovation perspective. One area where it's important for governments to be alive to innovation is in the area of reconciling the objectives of security, privacy and openness. Certainly this is an area of particular importance to the Australian government and one where we are very interested in a dialogue that will help us move toward best practice at home and internationally. One of the reasons we so strongly support the multistakeholder approach to governance is because we consider it important to maintain the innovative and creative development and use of the Internet. So I encourage us all to keep this issue in mind. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Then I have Willie Currie from APC. >>APC: Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. Would I like to comment on a couple of points that have been raised during this morning's discussion. To say APC supports the "Internet for all" as the overall theme for the third IGF. We feel it's an important expression of a macro-policy goal. And we don't support the ETNO suggestion of attaching a footnote to it. We would rather encourage ETNO to come and discuss their viewpoint in the access main session and debate. And on the debate issue, we support the use of the term "debate" as articulated by Milton Mueller. We feel that policy does involve debate, not only dialogue, in order to sharpen understanding of policy options. We also feel that debate is a way of making the plenary sessions more exciting and dynamic, and to address the problem that was found to be the case last year in Rio where main sessions were not attracting audience. Debate, properly handled, is a way of making those sessions more interesting for the audience. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: And I have Ayesha Hassan from ICC and then UNESCO. And then Parminder. >>ICC: Thank you, Chair, for giving me the opportunity to just come back on a few points, given the contributions of others that we have had the opportunity to hear. I would like to support the input from ETNO on the discussion around cyber crime. I failed to point out, we also have submitted a lengthy contribution with details about our thoughts and contributions on various sessions. It's available in the back of the room and on the Web site of the IGF as well. We do continue to question the description of this topic area and have suggested that it should be articulated in a way to provide important factual information about the trends in crime online. It should help to raise awareness about the real problems that are being faced and progress that has been made to try to address them. This discussion would also include what cyber security is and how it has an impact on cyber crime. In our view, cyber crime poses challenges to all stakeholders, and cyber security involves all stakeholders. This is an important opportunity to have a discussion about effective policy and regulatory approaches, as well as technical fixes and good practices and helpful initiatives. On that session, I would call the people's attention to our detailed comments in written form. And I also wanted to provide a comment on input from some stakeholders who have encouraged the introduction of an emphasis on rights issues. Some have noted this would be, in particular, in the fostering security, openness, and privacy discussions at the IGF in India. ICC/BASIS members believe human rights are very important and support them. However, we do not believe that reorienting these important discussions on the challenges and opportunities of ensuring security and privacy and openness to focus on rights would be productive at the IGF in India. Having said that, business does believe that the IGF can serve as a forum where discussions regarding existing rights, recognized by the global community through the U.N. and other treaty-making bodies, can take place, sharing views and experiences. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: UNESCO, and then Parminder. UNESCO. >>UNESCO: Thank you, Chair. Good morning, or good afternoon. My name is Miriam Nesbitt. I am here representing UNESCO with my colleague Andrea Beccalli who spoke a little bit earlier. Andrea has been involved, as many of you know, with some of the organization of the workshops. In that respect, I would like to add my thanks to the Secretariat for the great support that has been shown through a process that, though complex, really does seem to be working. There's been quite a bit of dialogue about how to keep to the cross-cutting themes of development and capacity building, rights issues, freedom and openness, while trying to deal with the practical issues of just how we organize this, how we're able to coordinate, how we have good moderation, effective moderation, dialogue and debate. I really do appreciate, too, and I'm sure everyone does here, that we're having this meeting today. This kind of an open consultation is really important and very helpful. And that really brings me to my point. I wanted to be sure that we take advantage of being here in person. We do so much work using technology, but when it comes down to it, being able to take advantage of being in the room and knowing who is here and talking about some of the remaining details of making effective workshops I think is really important. So Andrea and I welcome the opportunity to talk to people and to take advantage of this consultation meeting today. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Parminder and then France. >>PARMINDER SINGH: Thank you, Chair. I take the floor first of all to support my colleague Willie Currie's statement that the importance of the right "Internet for all" as the overall theme should be emphasized, and the proposal of ETNO to put a footnote is not an acceptable proposal, and the proposed footnote about that it should not suggest anything like a universal service obligation is something I think is an open issue and needs to be discussed at the workshop -- at the IGF itself. I would rather say that the way we have been interpreting the term "Internet for all" may have erred too much to a market-based approach or a market supporting policy-based approach. And we should also emphasize the fact that Internet for all connotes a rights-based approach. And I would point to the indicia in the fact that the in the program sheet that says that this term has been taken from the UNESCO's "education for all" theme, which is an expression of the universally recognized right to education. And our organization has given written input which explores and explains the connection between this theme "Internet for all" and the rights-based approach to the Internet, and it also argues that a rights-based approach is not opposed to a market approach, but it subsumes it and it merely states the high political priority that Internet for all assumes in our political system. And it would obviously also use the market systems to ensure that the Internet reaches everybody. And I support a couple of speakers who did mention the rights approach before, just Ayesha and other speakers, but to also insist that beyond the rights which probably they were speaking about, social, cultural, and economic rights are also universally agreed human rights, and they also have a strong implication in the Internet area. A last point on the issue of debate was this "dialogue" term. I don't think there's really so much of a problem with using either term normally. But I think Milton's statement and the support really given to Milton's statement is more connected to the fact that the primacy of a policy dialogue as an important part of IGF's mandate has to be maintained, and debates have a very important position -- part in policy dialogues and the policy spaces. And I would support that we continue with the term "debate" and do not change that. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Then I have India, and then France. Ravi Shanker from India. >>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. I also would like to welcome all the new members to the MAG, and wish that all of them who are going to participate would definitely come to India at the IGF in Hyderabad. I would like to give a little update on what is happening in India as a buildup to the IGF per se. The Indian industry has expressed a lot of concern on cybersecurity, per se. And this is one aspect which has been articulated by a number of speakers as well. On the broad themes of openness, we understand that we do have to have this factor of openness enshrined in it, while addressing the issue of cybercrime and cybersecurity in itself. Multilingualism is an area where we would be sharing some of our own experiences. And I am very happy to note that some speakers have suggested that this should be a focal point during the IGF in India. What has stemmed from the Internationalized Domain Names in ICANN will definitely reflect itself in the IGF at Hyderabad, where multilingualism will be a key area. Access is an issue that becomes critical to the growth of the Internet in itself. I would like to mention that industry associations, cutting across different spectrums and different concentrations, whether it is the telecom, whether it is the Internet service providers, whether it is any other industry forums of software development, all are common to a common platform to see that the IGF themes are well discussed, debated, and lead to cogent action, though they understand there are not outcomes, but cogent action that would occupy the public policy domain. I would also like to mention here that the Indian Parliament Association would also be very keen to have discussion and dialogue on public-policy issues. I must mention here that the chairman of the standing committee on information technology in the Indian parliament has himself expressed the issue of participation at the IGF. I have had some discussions with a few other country delegates who are present here that parliamentarians would be very eager to participate. I leave this to the IGF secretariat to handle it, because this is, per se, between the IPU and the IGF secretariat which will be able to address how the parliamentarians could partake within the realm of the IGF. I would like to mention that there are a number of workshops, and the Indian Industry Association has articulated their point that they would like to partake in each and every workshop, because they feel that they could contribute with their experience, with their relevant local flavor. This, I thought I would put forth before the forum here in order that it should be seen that the Indian government and the Indian industry are in constant engagement to see that the IGF in India is showcased in a proper manner and we would be playing a very good host to all the delegates who would come to Hyderabad. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: If I may point out that the place that we are meeting in Hyderabad is actually very close to what is called Cyberabad, which is the Cyber City part of Hyderabad. And, I don't know, you can correct me. There must be, what, at least 100,000 people employed in I.T. there? >>:Roughly. >>CHAIR DESAI: Roughly, 100,000 people employed in I.T. surrounding this convention center. So you can expect a lot of them to turn up at this. The -- Let me turn now to France. >>FRANCE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a very brief follow-up on some of the comments that have been raised. So this is not a presidency statement. It's more a direct comment from France. Also in line with the debate about "debate," as Milton has raised, and I would like to make a transition to what's a concrete element in the schedule to illustrate what I mean. For people who know me, I'm not one to shy away from a good debate on an issue. The question we have, though, is, what is the purpose of a multistakeholder forum? And I do believe that inasmuch as it is important to further the opportunity for the different actors to share and express their differences, which is the essence of a debate, the purpose is not to stage antagonisms, but to help build consensus. I agree with Milton and many other interventions that there is no real consensus without straightforward presentation of the positions of the different actors. And in this respect, we should not shy away from the term "debate." But we need to keep in mind that the purpose is for all of us to move one step further each time and develop common understanding, then common goals, then potentially coordinated actions on issues that are of common concern or interest. And the consequence for -- from that vision is that it is very important that the main workshop sessions end up shaping in a certain way as was mentioned before, the angle of the way the issue will be presented in the next dialogue and debate session. So it is an important role for the moderator of the main workshop sessions to be building on the discussion to shape a way to ask questions in the debate so that it helps build consensus, and not only, as I was saying, stage antagonism. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Sorry. Did you want to comment? Yes, and then Milton. From Webforce, and then -- and then Milton. >>WEBFORCE INT. FED.: (No translation). I should like to say that the previous speaker, that I believe was France -- and here allow me to say that I'm surprised to hear a representative of France speaking English, and we have to listen to the interpretation rather than the original language. Apart from that, we participated at the World Summit on the Information Society four years ago very actively. I should like to make a general remark. It is my impression that here, we are again making the mistakes that slowed down the summit on the information society. In other words, we are making the same mistake a second or a third time. When we talk about cybercrime, for example, some studies have been carried out not only at the ITU, but through different departments and by different governments. We don't take account of those studies, those statistics. Instead, we begin to carry out the same studies, without having defined cybercrime properly. And then we try and suggest measures. Whereas, already, measures have been taken years ago. I am just making this general remark. Can we not expedite the forum and governance, recognizing that ICANN, to date, has handled Internet very well, it has made Internet work? Perhaps it will be necessary to have a commission, a committee, or some international supervisory body made up by states and for us to get down to the action very quickly. If we confine ourselves to talking, I must say, we are already on the summit on the information society and have been there for three years already. We can do this also in the field of Internet, universal action. In other words, what have we done so far? What was the point of the summits? There has been a lot of blah, blah, blah. I apologize for that. I am one of those people that was also going blah, blah, blah. But let's realize, we have not been very effective. Let us try and be more efficient. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. That is all I have to say for the time being. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. And I have Milton. >>MILTON MUELLER: Thank you. This is Milton Mueller again, Internet Governance Project. Picking up on both of the last comments -- actually, I think they're related -- in terms of how to handle the main sessions, you have a complicated subject matter, something like the scarcity of IPv4 addresses and the transition to IPv6. Now, what is being suggested on the one hand is that the main session workshops become sort of educational lectures, and then there is the hope that people will understand these lectures well enough to then debate policy proposals. The alternative view is that in the main sessions, people should be con- -- directly presented with the points at issue, that we have -- that we pretty much know what are the points where there is policy discussion, debate, and dialogue. We know what the problems are, and that we have to get started right at that level. You are not going to, for example, start a main session by explaining the technical characteristics of I.P. version 6. That, in itself, would take an hour. And anybody who has no idea what we are mean by I.P. version 6 is not going to learn enough in this initial main session to go engage in an intelligent debate three hours later. So we have to take certain kinds of knowledge for granted. And I think that the place to start -- and this is not really inconsistent with Bertrand's position -- the place we have to start is with recognized issues, recognized points of conflict, and provide the informational background about them. So this applies across the board. The other thing we have to recognize as a place to start these main session discussions is, they have to be about global governance. There's no reason for us to talk about issues or areas which can be handled perfectly well by national governments or local initiatives or by private sector market initiatives. So, for example, in the multilingualism discussion, I was a bit surprised to hear the emphasis on content generation, which I don't think is a governance problem at all. It may be a resource problem in certain countries. But unless there's a need for a global coordination or a global policy, I don't understand why we're spending time on content generation when there are multilingual issues such as the domain name system which do require global coordination. So I think when we're dealing with critical Internet resources, we have to begin by focusing on the issues, the points of contention. And the problem we're having in some of these negotiations is that there are -- I think there are people who don't want to face the fact that there is contention. They don't want us to recognize that there are different factions, different groups with different interests that are negotiating and debating and discussing the problems and the differences. Yes, Bertrand, we should not stage antagonisms in an artificial way. We should recognize the existence. And who can -- who cannot recognize the existence of antagonisms and differences in policy clashes around the world around Internet governance? Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Anybody else? Okay. So I think we can probably stop -- end the discussion on this agenda item and maybe -- I'm not sure. We have a quick -- probably a quick round on the logistics in a moment. Let me just say that what I think -- yes, did you want to comment, the Russian Federation? Yes, please. >>RUSSIAN FEDERATION: Good morning. I'd like to use this opportunity to speak Russian, in fact, and say that the Russian Federation would like to raise the issue about including the morning, the issues of internationalization of the Internet. And there are certain contradictions that exist between the Tunis program of the high-level meeting on the information society, which have enshrined the fact that the Internet is a public resource of a global nature and the fact today is that the use of the Internet is in the hands of only one corporation and doesn't guarantee an equal use of this very important informational resource which has very large impact on the social and economic activities of human beings. During previous meetings, this issue was raised and was supported by participants, the issues of the internationalization of the use of the Internet is one of the central areas of activities of the forum. And it was thought very soon the process of reforms will begin of ICANN in light of the negotiation of the contract. But the representative of the Department of Commerce of the United States to ICANN has said that the process of reforming ICANN may be postponed for an undefined period of time. And this is why we believe that this issue should be discussed during the morning session. In Hyderabad. >>CHAIR DESAI: Hyderabad. There is, of course, a session on arrangements for Internet governance, which is presumably where you would wish to pick this issue up. That is one of the sessions in Hyderabad. Critical Internet resources is on the agenda in Hyderabad. Let me just say that listening to what people -- did you want to comment? Can I just ask who else wants to speak before I end this agenda item? Anybody else? No. Eurolinc, please. >>EUROLINC: I'm going to speak in French, although sometimes I must say the interpretation is not very accurate. I think the distinction must be made between the content, which must be applied in the framework of the implementation of the Geneva guidelines for action, and the problem of access instruments. And the instruments for access, effectively, and its governance falls within the purview of this forum. However, if we involve problems of content, it's my impression that the problems of access are lost. And as to the problem of multilingualism, I am the focal point for the dynamic coalition on this, we draw a distinction clearly between these two aspects. Lastly, this forum must also be able to be a place where different options can be expressed in connection with the techniques which make it possible to have access to the network. I don't mean just Internet. I mean to the network. So that is a principal message. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Okay. I think there are several things I take away from this discussion which I hope the MAG will look at. One set of issues basically relates to the connection between the morning workshops and the afternoon sessions, whatever we call them. Let me provisionally call them policy dialogues. But the MAG will have to discuss the various questions which have been raised, which reflect also what people expect out of that. The extent to which there would be -- The important thing is, they must not become repetitions of what we have done in the morning. And there are various ways in which the connection between the two can be extended. Several suggestions have been made, like, for instance the participation of the moderator or keynote speaker for the afternoon session in the morning workshop so that they're not starting from scratch, so to speak, but are informed by what came out of the workshops. A strong effort at structuring the workshops so that at the end there is some clear statement of issues which need to be taken up in the session. There have been several suggestions, things, questions raised here about what is it that we are talking about. Several people have, for instance, in the context of multilingualism emphasized that what we are talking about is governance, not necessarily content issues. But I think we will have to be realistic and say, in an open forum, you can't always make sure that people talk only to the agenda. Well, that's true here also. But -- we cannot always ensure that people talk only to the agenda. But, nevertheless, I think the expectation of what we want people to talk about should be reasonably clear. But I hope the MAG will take this issue up. A second thing which came across to me fairly clearly is, I think many people sensed, expressed, if you like, a certain concern that in this effort at sort of the four themes, the workshops, and the subsequent debate, will we lose sight of the cross-cutting issues? Cross-cutting issues like human and institutional capacity-building, the developmental dimension, if you like, the rights and re- -- may I add, it should be in the rights and responsibilities dimension, would we lose sight of that, Colin Oliver mentioned innovation and technology issue as something which cuts across all of the six themes, workshop themes, that we have, whether you're talking of access, of multilingualism, cybercrime, security, privacy, openness, transition from IPv4 to 6 or arrangement with governments. And we will have to find a way of making sure that, on the last day, we draw together the lessons with regard to these cross-cutting themes from all of the sessions, apart from trying to reflect it in each session also. Some message at the end on what is it that is -- what this has to say with regard to human and institutional capacity, with regard to public-policy design, with regard to innovation and technology, with regard to Internet rights and responsibilities. Maybe necessarily I'm not sure we know how, but I hope the MAG will address this issue. There are a couple of other things also which I mentioned which are not directly subsumed under this. The whole question of the reference documents, which Markus clarified. The question that has been raised about reporting back sessions. There was this issue which was raised by only one speaker about the term "Internet for all." I'm not sure to ETNO that I will say this necessarily implies an automatic, universal service obligation. We have used terms like this for health. We have used it for education. We have used it in many other areas where the implication was not in terms of a universal service obligation, but more in terms of what people have a right to expect, how the system is to be designed so that if they -- that they can -- they're not disbarred from accessing it. So these are some of the issues that probably come to mind. Nevertheless, you have raised the issues, I'm sure the MAG will consider this when it meets over the next couple of days. I think there are a lot of very valuable suggestions which have come. One in particular which I wish -- I hope we will be able to pursue more effectively, though it's not directly connected with the agenda for Hyderabad, is trying to document better the specific instances where the IGF process has helped in concrete action, particularly at the national, possibly at the regional level also. Because I think it's important that we understand what are the bits in our working processes which do have some value, and then see how we can preserve that value or enhance it in the IGF. There are many other things, I'm sure, that we will derive, because fortunately, most of the MAG members are here, and apart from me, they also have been listening to this discussion. So I will take this away. And on the basis of this, have a -- sort of continue to refine the substantive program for the Hyderabad conference. We now have just five minutes left, and I'm not sure that's going to be able to cover the logistical issues. Perhaps when we come back we will take up the logistical -- a briefing by our Indian host on the logistical arrangements which are being made in Hyderabad, and any questions that you have. And after that, we will have the other two items, the discussion of the dynamic coalitions and the discussion on how do we go about the whole exercise of the evaluation. I would like to stress that the purpose of that second discussion is not to come to any closure on this, because the evaluation is not due for another year and a half, at least; but to start thinking about how do we do it. And any ideas, suggestions that you have in this open consultation would be most valuable and would then be taken to the MAG as well as to the Secretary-General in New York. So thank you very much. Mr. (saying name) has lost his badge. He is welcome to come and collect it, if he is still here. Not here? All right. So thank you very much. We reassemble at 3:00 here. (Lunch recess.) IGF Consultations Geneva, Switzerland 16 September, 2008 Afternoon session [ Gavel. ] >>CHAIR DESAI: Can we just start, please? Please, settle down. We -- China wants to have a word on -- still on the earlier agenda item. So we are -- may I just request them. And then after that, we'll have a quick briefing on the logistical arrangements in India. Then we move on to the dynamic coalitions. Yes, China. >>CHINA: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I would like to express on behalf of the Chinese government's delegation to express our thanks to the IGF secretariat, its thanks to your thoughtful preparations that all stakeholders can express their views and have a consultation on the Hyderabad meeting to be held later this year. I would like to put forward several comments. First of all, as to the program and the agenda of the meeting, I think during the meetings in February and in May, we have already -- we have already had debate on this in a constructive manner. And nowadays, the agenda reflects the concerns of all parties, the overall concerns of all parties. We are pleased to see that the Secretary-General of the United Nations has already accepted the consensus reached during the two previous IGFs. And it was reflected in the invitation to all participants to the Hyderabad IGF. So I think that this session should concentrate on logistics and on relative arrangements for the Hyderabad meeting so that we can ensure success of the Hyderabad IGF. Secondly, we think and we hope that, thanks to efforts by all parties, the Hyderabad IGF can become a Rio plus. And to achieve this, I think we need to solve one particular issue. It's to ensure that we have a real interactive session among all participants, to avoid that participants are there only merely to attend the session held by panelists, and so that the participants are not merely audience for the panelist session. I think during the meetings in February and in May, we have held very extensive consultation on this issue, and we have already arrived at the term used for the afternoon session, which is the term "debates." I have listened carefully to the interventions by other participants, and I heard that there was a proposal to add "debates" and "dialogue." I think it's not important whether we use one term or the other for the afternoon session, but, rather, what is important is the objective that we need to achieve. If we are using the traditional way of dialogue in previous sessions, then we need to clearly know that who is holding a dialogue with whom. Is it a dialogue among panelists themselves or panelists with the moderators? We hope that, actually, the Hyderabad meeting can contribute to dialogue among all participants so that the participants cannot be merely an audience, but, really, real genuine participants in the session, and to be a party in the dialogue, in the debate. Otherwise, IGF would only be a kind of conversation. And IGF would be a kind of chat room, I mean, like the conversation room. So how can we achieve the the objectives, the mandate entrusted to us by the Tunis summit. We have an old Chinese saying that says, when you debate, then the truth becomes more evident. And Internet governance, when we are facing with so much difficulty in the public sector, I think it is on the public-policy issues, I think IGF should genuinely provide an opportunity and a forum for all parties to engage in debates. And I think this is key to the success for the Hyderabad IGF. Thirdly, I would like to thank, again, the Indian government for the preparation and for their thoughtful arrangement for the Hyderabad IGF. And I'm convinced that with a hosting country as the Indian government and with the Indian people as hosts, the Hyderabad IGF will achieve resounding success. I thank you, Mr. Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Now, I believe it's very helpful. Little quick calculations. There are roughly 100 people in this room. And about 30 of them spoke in the morning session, which took about 150 minutes. So we -- that was roughly an average of five minutes per person. So one-third of the people could participate. And, on average, the time available was five minutes per person. So now the question is, when we have 1,000 people participating in -- it's ten times the number -- how are we going to do that? And I think the point I take is very sound, that we must ensure interaction. That people will not come to IGF simply to listen to experts. They also want to come to contribute their views and their opinions. So I think it's very important that we, the MAG, when it looks at the arrangements for the afternoon sessions particularly, really gives some thought to how do we ensure that we have the maximum number of people being able to join in that discussion and debate. That, I think, is -- Okay. Can I have a quick -- we have to review the logistical arrangements in Hyderabad before we move on to the dynamic coalitions. Oh, you want to use -- want to present something on the -- >>INDIA: Thank you, Chair. At the outset, I would like to mention that the government of India is very keen to ensure that all the logistic arrangements for the third meeting of the IGF are handled in a manner which ensures that the host country agreement provisions are fully complied with. Having said that, I will come straightaway to two or three points which would be of immediate interest to the delegates likely to participate. First would be the question of accommodation. I understand that the IGF registrations have commenced from the 10th of September. We in India have nominated event manager for the event per se, and our Web site should be ready by 24th of September. Mr. Kummer, the executive coordinator, is likely to be in New Delhi on the 23rd and 24th, when all these aspects relating to the facilitation for the delegates would be worked out to the minutest details. I expect that all the arrangements to enable booking should be in place by the end of September. By 30th of September, we would think all the aspects regarding the availability of rooms, the tariff, et cetera, should be fully known to all the delegates. I would like to see that it is done by the 25th, but I would think that, being realistic, 30th is the correct date. The second aspect I would like to mention is that there is a hotel appertinent to the venue, the Hyderabad International Convention Center. This hotel is known as the Novotel Hotel. The earlier planning missions of the IGF, led by Mr. Markus Kummer, have detailed that the MAG delegates be housed in the Novotel Hotel adjacent to the venue in order that all the MAG meetings could take place as early as possible and it becomes convenient for the MAG delegates. This aspect has been factored in in our discussions with the Novotel authorities. U.N. delegates, also as per the executive coordinator's viewpoints, would be housed within the Novotel Hotel. The third aspect is, as the host country, we would be providing for transportation from the Hyderabad international airport to the respective hotels wherever the delegates would be housed, and then also during the course of the event, the inter-hotel transfers to the venue would be done. This is to ensure that all delegates are able to attend the sessions in time and without any delay. These aspects have been worked out to a fair degree of details, which we will go through with Mr. Kummer once again during his visit in September 2008. The third aspect is with regard to grant of gratis visa. We have already discussed this issue with our Ministry of External Affairs, and they will be shortly issuing letters to all the embassies and high commissions around the world. My request to the IGF secretariat is, no sooner the names of delegates are known, when their registration is confirmed, if they could share this information with the host country's officials, it will enable us to do two actions: To inform the respective hotels and confirm them that so-and-so are the delegates, so that the list of delegates is available, and our event managers are able to see that the delegates are properly accommodated in the hotels they desire to be housed in. And also, that the names are shared with our Ministry of External Affairs and conveyed through them to our diplomatic missions around the world so that the delegates do not have any waiting time in respect to the grant of visas. These were the points that I wanted to mention. And we, as the host country, are very eager to play host to the delegates from around the world, and the traditional Indian hospitality will be on show. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Any questions? May I just add one thing from my side, which is I think that I would urge delegates who also recognize that security will be tight. So when you will be coming with lots of equipment, et cetera, et cetera, do budget for that in terms of time. Because security will have to be tight, again, for any large meeting in any part of the world. But right now, particularly so in India. But I would just urge that you keep that all in mind when organizing your meetings, particularly if it involves the participation of people who are not registered delegates, and so on. Any other questions? Yes? Mr. Muguet. >>FRANCIS MUGUET: Yes, I would like the Secretariat to provide more information about the financial mechanism to help civil society, mostly civil society from developing countries, to attend this meeting. And also, as well, to have the list, at least the names of the new donors, and how is evolving the situation in terms of funding of the IGF. Thank you. >>SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you for this question. We have actually made some information available also on our Web site. We have a list with frequently asked questions, and one question is precisely asking whether there's any financial assistance. But we do have, you will recall, the funds the government of Canada generously made available for the purpose of financing participation from participants from developing countries. And we have given the contact address at the ITU. I don't know whether the delegate from Canada would like to add something, or the representative of the ITU. But we have already made use of these funds for this meeting here and were able to finance some MAG members through these funds. Yesterday, we had a meeting to discuss these aspects, and there was also a representative of ISOC, mentioned that ISOC has its own program. Maybe we can also make this information available on our Web site. Lastly, the situation as to the funding, we discussed all the aspects of the financing of the IGF trust fund which is, in the more narrower sense, the funding of the Secretariat. And the biggest contribution is, of course, the host country. That is the biggest part of the budget related to the IGF as a whole. But the financing of the Secretariat, if that's what you are interested in, there is no particular new development, and the donors are listed on our Web site. We have some donors who indicated they will renew their contribution, and others are considering. But on the whole, we have been able to broaden the financial basis. We now have -- I would have to search a bit in my statistics, but I think we have roughly 7, 8 governments who have contributed, and we also have increasingly contributions from the private sector which is greatly acknowledged. But these contributions do not allow us to finance participation on the scale the contribution of Canada allows us to help participants. It is enough to help some of the MAG members with travel, and it allows us also to finance the fellowship program we have with the DiploFoundation. We have two fellows, they are not in this room right now, working with us. One is from Western Samoa, and the other one is from Rwanda. So this is basically a very positive program which gives us capacity, and at the same time it gives the fellows participating through the program, gives them capacity when they return back to their country. But this is a very short update on the funding. And with your permission, Mr. Chairman, just briefly, also, to tie up what our Indian friend said about the logistics of the meeting. We will be blessed with ultra-modern infrastructure in the convention center, but now also, since the last meeting, they have opened the new airport. So in Hyderabad, you have a state of the art airport which will certainly facilitate the transiting. And the last remark may be, if you do have any questions, please send us the questions. We will share them with our Indian host. Some of them we can answer, some of them they can answer, but we will expand on our frequently asked questions. And I hear that some people found them already quite useful. There are many detailed questions which are easier to answer in a broad community than if you have to answer each e-mail with these detailed questions. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Incidentally, I may add that the airport is state of the art, but the road from the airport is not. [ Laughter ] >>CHAIR DESAI: So -- >>SECRETARY KUMMER: It is the first 500 meters. >>CHAIR DESAI: It's a little far away. So there is a fair amount of time involved. Yes, Madam Cavalli. >>OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will read a statement in the name of the IGF remote participation project. Since the beginning of 2008, a group of interested IGF participants from many civil society organizations has come together and has been voluntarily working to propose concrete mechanisms that could enhance remote participation in the IGF Hyderabad. This group proposed the creation of IGF hubs. These hubs would hold local or regional meetings, which would exhibit the Webcast of the IGF as well as hold panels and roundtables, to discuss the themes of the IGF from a local perspective. This forum should serve as a stimulus or a starting point for the debate of local and regional issues and implications for the development and participation of a network of interested people. Until now, the following organizations have volunteered to organize local hubs. From Brazil, organization is City of Knowledge from University of São Paulo. In Egypt, organization is National Telecommunication Regulatory Authority. In India, in New Delhi and Mumbai, organizations are Rajesh Aggarwal and Nikhil Aggarwal. In Mauritius, organization is Internet child safety Foundation. In Argentina, the organization is Internet Society Argentina Chapter where I am a member. We urge the Secretariat to acknowledge and support this and other initiatives to involve groups of stakeholders who do not have the resources to attend the IGF in Hyderabad. In particular, technical support information and collaboration are needed immediately to avoid severely hand handicapping this and other efforts. The Working Group asks the MAG to give attention to this project in the meetings that will take place on the 17th and 18th of September and to discuss the details required to move the project forward. It is of ultimate importance to provide the necessary information to the people involved and to formally include the Hyderabad organization on this discussion. We also invite suggestions, collaborations, and affiliations for other regional hubs to include more under-represented and under-involved stakeholders. The Internet governance community can find more information on the Web page which is www.igfremote.com which will soon change to .org, which is currently in development. Or any interested party who want to organize hubs can get in touch with MariliaM@diplomacy.edu, or VirginiaP@diplomacy.edu, or you can contact me. Thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: That was very helpful. I hope people have noted down the addresses, but otherwise it will be there on the Web site. It will be there on the Web. Yes. This is on the logistical arrangement. >>ANDREA SAKS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the things our dynamic coalition did, and this is the dynamic coalition on accessibility and disability, is provide guidelines for people with disabilities. The paper is on the Web. I am not going to take a long time in explaining it. It's already on the Web. We submitted it on Friday. And it deals with logistics for people with disabilities as well as communication tools. I'm delighted to see captioning. These lovely ladies are doing a fantastic job, but things, for instance, like the hub should also contain time stamped captioning so that afterwards, the Webcast can be viewed by other people at a later date with the captioning intact. It is not a criticism of what happened in Rio, but we did collect comments from disabled people who attended Rio who told us of our experiences, and we felt that the dynamic coalition of accessibility and disability should also be a tool for the IGF to help make IGF meetings in the future more accessible, especially for those, that 10% of that billion, or billions you are talking about, because the U.N. convention states 10% of the population of all people are disabled in some form, either temporarily or permanently. So we hope this document will be useful to our hosts and to the Secretariat of the IGF for now and for the future, and thank you for letting me just tell you of its presence. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. That's very helpful. And I think we should certainly have a look at access issues in Hyderabad. I think it should be okay in Hyderabad, in terms of disabled access and so on. It's a very new center, so that should be okay. It should be okay in Hyderabad. But we will have a look. So thank you very much. I think this is more or less what we have on the logistics. Let's move on to the other items. The next item on our agenda is the dynamic coalitions. These, as you know, are things that developed out of Athens. The idea was that when people came together, there were areas of joint action that they could think of. They came together voluntarily, and since, in some ways, the IGF was responsible for their coming together, there is a connection with the IGF process, and the Web site does report the -- what has been done on the dynamic coalitions, and there are many of them -- there are 14 dynamic coalitions. And I'm not going to read off the whole list of them. The list is available at the Web site. And I think it's useful if we have a brief discussion on this. There's one particular dynamic coalition which I wanted to emphasize, because it's an area where the IGF process, particularly the discussions in Rio, have had a very positive impact, and that's the dynamic coalition on child safety, on online child safety. We are very privileged to have with us present in this room Senator Magno Malta of Brazil who has been chairing the Parliamentary Investigation Commission Against Pedophilia and Child Sex Abuse. And I really have great pleasure in inviting Senator Malta to tell us a little bit about his work in this area and what he thinks we ought to be doing in Hyderabad and any guidance for the dynamic coalition which is working on this issue. Senator Malta. >>SENATOR MAGNO MALTA: Mr. Chairman, I'm going to attempt to speak in Spanish and speak of the progress that we've been making in Brazil. In Brazil, we have two distinct approaches on the question of safety, as regards the structure and threats to human rights. First of all, if you look at infrastructure, you can look at this in terms of international technical cooperation and the development of technology and relative threats. Human rights are a complex phenomenon. There are different dimensions relating to economic, spaces -- individual, social and cultural ones -- and developments and implications for ethics, education and health, public safety, and science and technology. Nonetheless, we have to reach agreement on the fact that human spaces and human rights are universal as set out in international laws established by the United Nations General Assembly. And all must be respected internationally, including in national and regional legislation. And I have been working so as to protect human rights. I have been trying to combat violence and child pornography, racism, and to deal with questions of freedom of expression. There's no question regarding the space vis-a-vis others. It is a very of protecting rights without, at the same time, jeopardizing them. Nonetheless, there is growth of social networks and Web sites where the content is generated by users. And this has led to many new opportunities for communication and friendship. Unfortunately, these services have also expanded their distribution of pornographic content and facilitated abuse of children and the circulation of images and created new opportunities for harassment and abuse of children and adolescents. And this endangers children everywhere in the world. The situation in Brazil is a paradigm because it represents the start of a new form of creation of social control and of course promotion of governance, a balance between the rights of users' requests for data and implementation of national legislation and international service providers, and of Internet services throughout the world. In thinking about Orkut of Google in Brazil, that can help us find the balance between prevention and reaction in the area of human rights and respect for the cybernetic rights of normal users, their privacy and freedom of expression in democratic countries. Maturity, which the phenomenon of social networks has taken on in Brazil, is unique in the world. Some specialists believe that Brazil is three years ahead of the rest of the world in the establishment of good social networks and bad consequences. The trends in the growth in child pornography and social networks services is very disturbing in many developing countries. Particularly in Brazil, India, and Paraguay. The present instruments of international cooperation are not adequate to deal with the abuse of minors on the Internet, particularly in developing countries. In Brazil, the new social classes and judicial measures aren't necessary to deal with the abuse of minors and other cyber crimes against human rights. And also to compel the industry to adopt measures and to cooperate with the law and the judicial system. The European Union, based on the free normative model, has been a good experience in effective corporation between the government, the private sector, and the academic community in developing a safer environment for children nationally and regionally. This could be applied in other countries with similar results. Nonetheless, it is not clear that this type of model can be applied as-is internationally -- in particular, in developing countries -- without a strong ICT industry and a social responsibility of cultural enterprises. The next IGF in India, one must look into the growth of child pornography on the Internet so as to assess the effectiveness of various measures. We must look at the abuse of pornography on the Internet and see how one can assess the effectiveness of various measures that are currently available to combat cyber crimes. To discuss and address the gap between developed and developing countries in terms of public strategy, social sectors and the private sector in this connection. And lastly was to identify and to discuss public policies, judicial cooperation, and procedures and approaches for multistakeholders. And to consider, too, what additional measures should be adopted at all levels, internationally, with a new development perspective. Mr. Chairman, in Brazil, we have data and information through Commission of Inquiry of the Brazilian Senate regarding Google and Orkut. And we have been looking at the divide in Brazil. In our hands we have data and information regarding persons who are pedophiles, and this is worldwide, and it is available to the entire world. And it shows those criminals who have been committing crimes on the Internet against children worldwide, Brazil is ready to provide this. Thank you, sir. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you very much. And it's -- I'm really grateful to you for your contribution. And I'm sure that this is something which the people who are present here will take on board, particularly when we are looking at the preparations for the Hyderabad IGF, there's also the work of the dynamic coalition on child safety. I thank you, senator, for being here and for your very valuable contribution to our discussions and debate. May I now turn to -- would you like to say a word on the dynamic coalitions? Just to start, Markus. Yes. >>MARKUS KUMMER: You will recall, we had a discussion last year, also in the September meeting, we were asking as the secretariat, we were confronted with the situation, we had requests to be posted as a dynamic coalition, and we asked for guidance, what are the criteria. We said, originally, it has to be multistakeholder. Does it need to include representatives of all stakeholder groups or is it enough if it's just maybe one or two? And to sum up the discussion we had then, the general feeling was that the dynamic coalitions were an experiment, and we should give them a little bit more time to develop, and it was generally acknowledged that it should be revisited and their relationship with the IGF ought to be more clearly defined. I think I -- the only clear guidance I got from that meeting was a dynamic coalition should be at least more than one person. Because there was I think at the time one person with several hats who said, "I am a dynamic coalition." So there we said, "No, you are not." Now we have 14, and there are more in the pipeline. We've been approached by people who said, "We are in the process of setting up a coalition." And we say, "Okay, the more, the merrier." But, nevertheless, I think the more we have, the more urgent it is, actually, to look at these questions, what are the criteria, what is the relationship with the IGF at large. We also asked for reports, if they had a meeting in Rio, please send us a report on the meeting and also please send us a report on the activities since. We certainly do not want to burden dynamic coalitions with additional bureaucracy. But I think it's good to know whether a coalition is alive and well and actually is dynamic or whether it's just a sleeping coalition on paper and doesn't really do anything. But of these 14 dynamic coalitions, I think only five submitted a report. Now, does that mean we are going to delete them from our Web site or should we push them a little bit more to deliver a report? We did receive a few reports in the last few days. As deadlines approach, people do remember maybe they ought to do something. But on all these questions, I look forward to guidance so that we know how to react when confronted with these questions. >>CHAIR DESAI: Markus's reference to this dynamic coalition of one member reminds me of the Marxist society in my college, which had two members and three factions, because -- [ Laughter ] >>CHAIR DESAI: -- one member, one member changed his view on a Kronstadt Rebellion depending on how much alcohol he had consumed. May I now open the floor for discussions on the question that he has raised? Yes, Italy. >>ITALY: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Italy fully supports the European Union position presented this morning by the French presidency. That we also thank for having introduced the Italian initiative on Internet rights. I wish to provide some more information on the subject. Italy has organized the second edition of the dialogue Forum on Internet Rights, the FIR 2, which will be hosted by Sardinia autonomous region in Cagliari on 24th October. The FIR 2 is meant as a follow-up to the first edition of this initiative, which took place in Rome in September 2007. Its aim is to keep up the international discussion process launched by Italy, together with other actors, during the Athens IGF to define a shared set of principles able to steer the democratic and inclusive development of the Internet. The result of the FIR 2 works will be presented at the IGF in Hyderabad. Copies of the notes were sent to the permanent mission in Geneva to invite government as well as all relevant stakeholders are available on the table at the end of the room. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. And let me just list the names I have. I have Heather Shaw from ICC, Wolfgang Kleinwächter, and Nominet. And somebody else. I saw a hand here. >>ICC-BASIS: Thank you, Chair, on behalf of ICC and its BASIS initiative, I'd like to provide some comments on dynamic coalitions. After two IGFs, and in preparing for our third, we believe it is timely to clarify what dynamic coalitions are. Perhaps by establishing certain criteria, and review which ones really are active. To add to the list of criteria that the secretariat just cited, we believe that accepting one particular viewpoint should not be a criteria for belonging to a dynamic coalition, nor should it be the goal of a dynamic coalition to advance one particular viewpoint and use the IGF as a forum for such advocacy. Dynamic coalitions should be opportunities for stakeholders from a range of perspectives to come together and to discuss and work on issues between IGF events. In that regard, we encourage dynamic coalitions to inform the broader Internet Society about their existence -- I don't think that many of us realized that there are currently 14 such coalitions -- and about the progress of their work between the meetings, rather than focusing on activities at each IGF event. Indeed, it is a good idea to require dynamic coalitions to submit reports on their activities. Meetings can be organized during an IGF event, and reports on the status of the work can be presented at such meetings, or in the reporting-back sessions. However, dynamic coalitions will be more productive if they are run as meetings rather than extra workshops, drawing upon the range of stakeholders present at the IGF. This would help define the dynamic coalitions' focus in the year to come and consider the related issues that are important to new participants who may not be active in the coalition. Dynamic coalitions should propose workshops if wish to use that format and it should then not be called a meeting. In addition, in allocating meeting room space in Hyderabad, we suggest that the space only be reserved for dynamic coalitions that meet the criteria that we establish. On IGF branding generally, IGF or U.N. branding should not be used in the name, logo, or materials of dynamic coalitions or other events. To allow IGF branding gives the appearance that the coalition or event has the imprimatur of the IGF. The IGF secretariat might assist in this regard by developing disclaimer for use on the dynamic coalition workshop and other reports and Web sites and that states that the materials are not endorsed by the U.N. or the IGF. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Wolfgang Kleinwächter. >>WOLFGANG KLEINWÄCHTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The dynamic coalitions are certainly the most visible result, outcome, from the IGF so far. But what we see now also is a second forum which was -- mushroomed from the IGF. And these are national IGFs and regional IGFs. And I think, you know, with this new institutional platform or networks or whatever is appearing, I think we see a fantastic form of outreach. If you go back to the Athens meeting and the Rio meeting, it was always said that the outreach starts on the local and regional level and global is an umbrella for all these local and regional initiatives. I'm involved now in the preparation of the European Internet governance dialogue which takes place in October in Strasbourg. And we will have all the workshop proposals from Europe, and gives them an opportunity to prepare for Hyderabad. So we have a poster session where we give each workshop holder five or ten minutes so that they have a chance to get input from the various constituencies and then to come better prepared to Hyderabad. I think this is a great thing. The other is on the national level. On November 11th in Germany, we have the first Internet governance Deutschland. And we have learned last year that the United Kingdom has started it with the IGF UK. And we have heard today and I see around that more and more countries are starting these IGFs. And I think as we -- when we discuss the procedures for or criteria for dynamic coalitions, I think the national and regional IGFs are another but similar category which should partly be included into this procedural debate. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I've got Nominet there, then (saying name) and then Kenya. >>NOMINET: Thank you, chairman. My name is Martin Boyle. I'm with Nominet, which is the dot UK Internet domain name registry. But I'm taking the floor to speak about the U.K. Internet Governance Forum just so helpfully trailed by Wolfgang. And I thought, probably rather like Wolfgang, that an input here would be useful because of the way we have structured our approach. And I wonder whether some of our experience might help the understanding of the nature of dynamic coalitions and perhaps help people who are trying to establish them and set them up. I didn't comment during the discussion of the agenda, but as it's relevant to our approach, I'd just like to say a couple of words of introduction. The overall theme of "Internet for All" for the Internet Governance Forum in Hyderabad puts us right at the heart of a major challenge. It's an appropriate theme for us to have in India, which as such evinced challenges in terms of social and digital exclusion, but has also some remarkable success stories to tell in terms of tackling the digital divide. So why is this important for the Internet Governance Forum? Simply because if the Internet Governance Forum can do anything, it is in helping us all respond to very real challenges. And a good way of doing this is by drawing on the experience of others and understanding why specific approaches are successful or not. That is a good example of how the IGF brings a new, cooperative approach to addressing Internet issues by bringing together key partners from around the world with experience from across the whole range of Internet issues. We have a framework to help one another respond to the challenges we face, an example of "think global, act local" at work. But we will only realize the potential by careful preparation. It is for this reason why a number of countries are -- and we've heard of a few of them from Wolfgang -- are putting in significant efforts to prepare for the IGF at a national level. The U.K. IGF is an important framework to help us prepare our contribution to the international discussion. We've modeled it on the very concepts of the IGF, drawing in stakeholders from business, from governments, and, crucially, from civil society and from parliament, which provides a very strong link to the concerns of the citizens. The headline message we hear from these stakeholders are: The need to increase public awareness of safe Internet use practices worldwide; the need to take comprehensive view of how to ensure the Internet's capacity to be a force for good and that this is promoted; the differences of culture and opinion about its direction are explored openly on a worldwide stage. We fully support the concepts identified by France on behalf of the E.U. this morning that security, privacy, and openness are not mutually exclusive goals, but can and need to be addressed together and not in silos. That the universal reach, presence, and impacts of the Internet means that its potential for being exploited for antisocial and criminal purposes is considered in balance with its potential for education, opportunity, social inclusion, and human development. Best-practice forums at the global, IGF, and national -- for example, the U.K. IGF -- and local community levels could help boost Internet access. We would encourage people and organizations in the nongovernmental sector to develop their own networks. And we need to consider the multiple requirements of different users, taking into account age, culture, linguistic diversity, and disability, to improve access to the Internet. We have put significant efforts into identifying examples of excellence. The Nominet "Best-Practice Challenge," of what works well in the U.K., to help stimulate solution-led discussion about issues that we have confronted successfully. As an example and drawing on the comments of the intervention by the senator from Brazil, the Internet Watch Foundation in the U.K., which was set up as an industry initiative, has been a particularly successful way of addressing child abuse on the Internet. And that, for the second year running, has been identified as a winner of the Nominet "Best-Practice Challenge." And we have several initiatives looking at mobilizing the strength of multistakeholder engagements to address people's concerns, as examples, a crime and disorder reduction partnership led by one of our M.P.s that is helping shape the thinking in addressing low-level crime on a national basis. It is our responsibility to put in the effort to ensure that the IGF is not seen simply as a talking shop, but that it serves as a place where new ideas and innovative approaches can be worked out collectively and independently, where issues of concern can be explored openly, and where actions and outcomes can be pursued collectively in ways that are good for the peoples of the world, but which do not threaten governments or the activities of business and commerce. Time invested in the IGF or in work deriving from it through the dynamic coalitions and through national initiatives leads not to decisions that are owned by anybody and therefore which exclude others, but to help informing our approach to the issues that affect our citizens, our businesses, and our societies. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I now have Kenya, then Senegal, then France. Kenya. >>KENYA: Thank you. Kenya wishes to congratulate chairman Nitin Desai for his reappointment. We also wish to welcome all the old and new MAG members. I would like to inform you that Kenya will be hosting an east African Internet Governance Forum in November, ahead of the India forum scheduled for December. We are hoping that this meeting will provide an opportunity for east Africans to dialogue and debate on Internet governance issues that are relevant to our region. The meeting will draw stakeholders from civil society, private sector, government, and media from the four east African countries -- Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, and Tanzania, and possibly Burundi -- and we are hoping that we will be able to present the issues that arise out of this meeting, or rather, the summary of the outcomes, at the Hyderabad meeting. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Senegal. Where is Senegal? France. I think Senegal -- sorry, I forgot about El Salvador. And then France. >>EL SALVADOR: Thank you, Chairman. El Salvador agrees with Professor Kleinwächter to the effect that IGFs at the regional and national levels are a second physical entity arising from the Internet Governance Forum through dynamic coalitions. However, IGFs at the regional and national levels gain their identity from the forum itself and are thus better circumscribed. They have a structure that is more readily adaptable in geographical terms and in terms of the issues that need to be addressed. In this respect, I agree with the statement made by the Chamber of Commerce, the International Chamber of Commerce, that it is necessary to develop criteria for dynamic coalitions so that they can be identified with Internet Governance Forum. One of those criteria should be specifically the submission of reports to the IGF. Unfortunately, despite the fact that this might be seen as a bureaucratic step, there is no easier way of knowing whether a dynamic coalition is working and is doing well. It is the simplest way. And then, after establishing such criteria, what we would suggest would be a code-based -- colors or something similar -- to distinguish the dynamic coalitions that have met the established criteria and others that might have met this at a lower level, as we've been doing, for example, with the workshops. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. France. And then I've got Ms. Park and then Argentina. France. >>FRANCE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a few points, quickly. First to thank India for the information that they provided on the organization of the next IGF. Expect we are looking forward to the full success of the IGF in Hyderabad. Regarding dynamic coalitions, and here again, I'm speaking on behalf of the European Union presidency, we do appreciate the self-organizing nature of dynamic coalitions as they emerge as the main innovation of the Athens meeting. Their main benefit is that they allow actors who are interested in the same issues to form thematic networks. And this helps prepare discussions at the global level. I would even add that as the example of our Italian colleague shows, dynamic coalitions can also have the benefit of helping organizing intersessional events, even sort of thematic forums, that feed afterwards in the general IGF. But in general terms, we support the role of coalitions as facilitators rather than pure advocacy groups and therefore stress the importance for them to be multistakeholder and as open as possible in terms of facilitating debate. A last point in that context is, this approach is the approach that we have adopted at the European level to organize, actually, the European dialogue on Internet governance that will take place in Strasbourg, because a loose coalition of interested actors has organized in a network to facilitate the setting up of this event. So it's another illustration of the methodology. And we will be interested in having feedback from all actors, as I said this morning, regarding their national experience in the workshop that France is organizing in Hyderabad. Thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: Ms. Park from Delft. And then Ms. Cavalli. >>TUDelft: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do support the spirit of dynamic coalition that integrates the principle of multistakeholders. However, we also have to be very careful to implement decision-making mechanism to the Internet Governance Forum. According to the draft program provided by IGF secretariat, our agenda during the IGF will be filled by a series of workshops, main workshops, dynamic coalitions, and best-practice forums, without any serious global Internet policy-making channels. As Wolfgang Kleinwächter and Martin Boyle from Nominet mentioned, we do now have some platform to discuss along the regional level and national level. Such a platform should be used to raise awareness on the issues related with the Internet governance and information society. On the other hand, our global Internet Governance Forum should be effectively used to discuss the substantial Internet public policies. This morning, we found collectively the need to bring more public policy debates to the Internet Governance Forum. That position was also supported by government of China this afternoon. As of today, there is no place to discuss public policy debates at the global Internet Governance Forum. Therefore, I would like to approach, as one of the new members, we, as MAG members, should discuss how to integrate Internet public policy debates more seriously during the MAG meeting from tomorrow. Thank you for your attention. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. >>OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will speak in Spanish. As a platform for a discussion and exchange of views, I'd like to mention, in particular, for countries of the Latin American region who are here today or who might read the transcript of the meeting, that on Argentina's initiative and then, with Brazil's support, Argentina proposed the establishment of a group on Internet governance within the framework of the regional plan for the Information Society in Latin America and the Caribbean, ALAC, in 2007, and now for 2010. This is a group that has multiple participation and has a number of activities regarding dissemination and debate. And we had thought of holding a debate in Argentina before the Hyderabad meeting, and we have held some dissemination seminars on issues such as transition, IPv4, and we've had the assistance of other bodies. And we are working on a plan for the coming year. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Webforce. >>WEBFORCE INT. FED.: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I'd like to make one comment. I'm talking about Internet for all, as the title of the meeting. I can say the same thing as for billion. Other people can say, "Yes, I would like to do this, but give me the means to have ADSL, broadband, and telephones, and I'll be very happy to have the Internet." So, in fact, here we were almost falling in something that one can consider absurd. Everyone wants the Internet. But for the Internet, people need the means to have the Internet provided for them. So we have to look at this question and how resolve this question of Internet for all. Now, the second issue that comes to mind here, it is something that we can call -- and I have the example of the senator from Brazil. Argentina just spoke. And I find that it is quite interesting when I hear people say that we have to have defense against pedophiles and other things, and all the bad things that happen on the Internet. But when we deal with Internet governance, then between the use of the Internet, the protection of the Internet, the protection of different freedoms, yes, perhaps we can talk about individual freedoms. But we should not go any further governance in order to govern. What is governance? Is it the provision of particular Internet language? Indeed, we'll be moving to IPv6 very soon. And we have millions of Internet protocol addresses to be attributed. So, indeed, we have these opportunities that the Internet is offering. But Internet governance is not something that should be defined by thousands or millions of people. Governance is something like running a country. We have countries where the president is elected, you have deputies, and prime ministers. And they govern. So we should look at these two issues, Internet governance and Internet for all. And I'd like to hear what you have to say, Mr. Chairman, because it seems that there is dissemination here of ideas, and we're talking about multilingualism. And, obviously, these languages should be used, but it is clear that the Internet will not be something akin to Balkanization or whatever label can be used. Are there certain limits when we talk about multilingualism before we talk about these things? Because when we talk about languages, do we talk about dialects? We'll end up with too many languages. We cannot have the Tower of Babel here. We cannot talk about these things in such a manner. We have to have certain limits. Well, these are some comments that are not on a specific point, but are rather of a global nature. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I'm not sure I want to take you up on that. The only thing is, on multilingualism, if you had a postal system that said you could send a letter only if you write it in English, then we would all say there is something wrong with that postal system. And we would certainly wish to have a postal system which allows us to write in the language that we are most comfortable in. Whatever it is, I don't think we are trying to get into the substantive issue. But I hope you come to Hyderabad, and we will have lots of time there, and I'd be happy to debate some of these questions there with you. Can I now turn to Senegal, which I believe is ready. Senegal. What happened? No? I think what Senegal wants to announce is a West African regional meeting. Am I right? Can somebody -- Does anyone know? I think this is what they wish to talk about, that there is going to be a west -- would you like to say something on this, please. >>N. M. DIOP DIAGNE: It's not Senegal. It's Ivory Coast. >>CHAIR DESAI: Ivory Coast. There we are. >>COTE D'IVOIRE: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for giving me this opportunity to address this august assembly. I would like to announce here that the governement of C™te d'Ivoire, Organisation internationale de la Francophonie (OIF)Ê and the African Union areÊ organizing the first african regional conference on cybersecurity AF-Cybersec 2008 in Yamoussokro (Ivory Coast) 18-20 november 2008 in Yamoussoukro, the political capital of Cote D'Ivoire. For additional information you can consult the Web site, www.afcybersec.org, and you will have additional information about this conference and about the host country, Cote D'Ivoire. And this conference is part of the preparatory process for the IGF to be held in India and also will be held before a conference on Internet to be held in Addis Ababa at the end November. And I would like, through you, Mr. Chairman, to invite everyone here to participate in this conference, a first for our reason, and invite you to contribute to the success of that conference and share the experiences in the area of cyber security, and to help us develop a strategy in this area. And I would like to thank you once again, Mr. Chairman, for giving me the floor. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Anybody else? France? Francis Muguet. >>FRANCIS MUGUET: Yes. I'm speaking as a contact point for the coalition on linguistic diversity. We welcome the points made by Dr. Ischbach (phonetic) relating to the possibility in the IGF of promoting policy recommendations or policy-making in keeping with the IGF's mandate. In this context, we should mention that the report of the Rio session of the Coalition on Linguistic Diversity contains recommendations which I'll read out. They are extremely brief. The Coalition on Linguistic Diversity draws attention to the need to provide institutional, technical and financial support for bodies working in linguistic diversity, to sensitize technical and policy bodies regarding Internet so as to work closely in cooperation with those bodies, fostering linguistic diversity, stresses that such cooperation should be multi-partnered, open and transparent. It is still underscored this aspect that might apply to dynamic coalitions' space that is for promoting recommendations. Of course, this is also a space, as the representative of France has said, a space for debate and dialogue among all partners. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you very much. I think this has been a very valuable discussion. First if I might say a word on the dynamic coalitions, on what I get from this meeting. Actually, it is something I never understood, why they were called "dynamic." They are coalitions. Call them open coalitions or something. But one thing, certainly, dynamic means is they are moving, they are doing something and that they are not dead. And so I would say that one of the things that we have to watch out for is that in the enthusiasm of the moment, somebody launches a coalition which then does very little afterwards. So I think the reporting is important, not because, as a bureaucratic device, but simply to establish that it's actually doing something, and that the work is going on. And one suggestion that I will put to the MAG tomorrow, which is perhaps something which is relatively easy to do, which is that we do require them to report every six months, and we include in the main list only those who have sent a report and put the others in an archive. We don't throw them out. They are in an archive. If you don't send a report, you will be in the archive. If you send your report, you are there. So at least that has put some pressure to report in. So we don't say that we will throw you out or any such thing, but we put it in the archives, so it's always available there for people. But I think something like this, we would have to bring in. In terms of the other issues, it also has to be reasonably clear that whatever comes out of the dynamic coalitions is not necessarily to be treated as anything which is an IGF recommendation or proposal. And that, I think, can be made clear in the disclaimer, in the Web site itself. I don't think it's possible to have a strict rule saying that dynamic coalitions will not make recommendation. Francis Muguet has given us an example of a dynamic coalition which did make. So I don't think that is the issue. I think they can, and, sure, if they come up with something, which is like the one on child pornography, they can certainly come up with recommendations on what should be done, which may well be something that is very broadly endorsed by people also. So I think we might have to be a little flexible. What we can say is this is the voice of a group of people who are meeting in the dynamic coalition, and they are saying these things, and I think the key characteristic is the openness and transparency. The reporting is with the transparency comes in, and the openness and multistakeholder dimension is something which I think we have been stressing. So these are some of the lessons I draw, but I hope that the MAG will discuss this at greater depth tomorrow and see what we can do to, if we like, have a reasonably tidy house as far as dynamic coalitions are concerned. I think the more interesting dimension which has come up is the fact that there are now clear, if you like, images of the IGF at a national and regional level. And these are even more -- much more directly connected with IGF. In fact, most of them seem to be designed essentially to feed into the IGF. We haven't been treating them as dynamic coalitions in that sense, but they are, in some sense, a contributory effort to the whole process, whereas regional meetings, which have been mentioned, and national meetings which have been called, national arrangements which have been put in place. And one of the lessons I certainly draw from this is that we will need to find a way of reflecting this very valuable contribution to the work of the IGF in some form in -- here and certainly make it much more widely known. And I hope that the MAG is able to discuss this issue, also, tomorrow. So this is the agenda for the MAG tomorrow, and day after, at least as far as this item of dynamic coalitions is concerned, and I shall interpret it to include a discussion of the national and regional IGFs, which were mentioned here. Can we now move on to the last item, and that is the -- to start a discussion on something that we are required to do, which is the whole question of the evaluation of the paragraph 76 of the Tunis Agenda: Request the Secretary-General to examine the desirability of the continuation of the forum, in consultation, I think it should be in consultation, with foreign participants within five years of its existence and make recommendations to the U.N. membership in this regard. In some ways, this open consultation and the MAG meetings are the space where the people who have been most directly engaged and involved in the IGF do meet. And clearly, for the Secretary-General it would be valuable to have some sense of what the assessment of the people who have been most directly involved is. But it would also be helpful, as many people have argued, that in addition to what in effect would be a self-evaluation -- because if we were to sit down and do an evaluation, in a sense, we are evaluating ourselves, you see, because we are the people we are talking about. It's like a self-evaluation. That in addition to the self-evaluation, would it be valuable to also have an independent external evaluation where somebody looks at the actual working of the IGF and checks to what extent has it met the expectations which are implicit in the decisions taken at Tunis where the -- Tunis and subsequently. So these are some of the ideas and proposals which have been floating around. Now, what we need to do now is not to come to a conclusion. Certainly not to a conclusion about the IGF. There's time for that. Not even a conclusion on how we do it, but at least begin the process of a dialogue on this area. Because even though we still have three more IGF meetings to go, I think we should start talking about -- because we are required to do it within the five years, so that before the five years are up, the Secretary-General can make a recommendation on how the IGF -- on the basis of how the IGF has functioned, which the U.N. membership would then look at. So the floor is open, and I invite your reflections on how this evaluation process would be. And maybe to start this off, I'll ask Markus to give us a sense of the timetable for this evaluation as he sees it. Okay? >>SECRETARY KUMMER: Yes. Thank you. We made available a short paper on the timetable on our Web site. It takes as a starting point the paragraph 76 of the Tunis Agenda you just read out. My apologies for the typo in the agenda. It's done properly on the timetable on our Web site. So there are several actors in this process. It's clear that the Secretary-General is asked to do something, and is asked to do something with informal consultation with forum participants. And then after that, he makes recommendations, and the final decision is with the U.N. membership that is with governments, whereas the consultative process leading up to his recommendations is done in a multistakeholder format. And again, the formal consultation with forum participants seemed to be clearly indicating that this will have to take place at one of the annual meetings. Now, given the wording, this review -- this review process has to be done within five years of the IGF's existence. So if you take Tunis as a starting point, then it ought to be finalized by the end of 2010. By then, the General Assembly would need to take a decision on whether or not to continue or to discontinue the IGF. And looking back from that, that gives us also a certain sense. It may still look far away, but the process needs to be prepared well in advance. And the report of the Secretary-General to the U.N. membership will be the report, the annual report, on WSIS follow-up the Secretary-General submits to the CSTD, which then gets put forward to the ECOSOC and from ECOSOC to the General Assembly. So the report is generally prepared, or the input in the report has to be ready in January 2010. That means the formal consultations will have to take place at the IGF meeting in Cairo, and if they take place in Cairo, they need to be prepared well in advance. We cannot go into an IGF meeting and just to discuss the IGF itself, should it continue, should it be wound up. Yes, it will have to take place there, but it has to be part of a process that needs to start well in advance. And looking -- Again, looking back at that. So we need to start that process. We will have a possibility in Hyderabad to address the issue of the review process, but shortly after that, I think we ought to prepare it in earnest. We had internal discussions within the MAG on how this should be done, and this is also publicly accessible in the forum section. And to sum it up, there are basically two different scenarios. One scenario, which will be limited to the self-evaluation. That is the process that we usually conduct in open consultations in the IGF. And the second scenario would supplement the self-evaluation with an external evaluation. And we have already received an offer that is from infoDev, a program which is hosted by the World Bank and which has as one of its core competencies precisely evaluating and monitoring ICT for the programs. And the proposal was that they should start this process already in Hyderabad. And the two processes would run in parallel, and then it would culminate in -- again in the consultation in September next year, and would lead to the Cairo meeting. In the discussions on both scenarios, there were different views were held. There are advantages and disadvantages to both scenarios. The scenario one, the self-evaluation, has as an advantage, it is a well-known and well established process of collecting comments, creating a rolling synthesis document, revisiting the documents as more discussions occur and we receive more contributions received. It is a process, I think, most stakeholders are fairly comfortable with. An advantage is also that active and committed stakeholders have a very strong voice in such a process. Disadvantages, it is a relatively small sample size. We have regularly 20 to 30 contributors, and also the objective of the process may be questioned as the answers would come mostly from those actively involved in the process. And with that goes also that some may question the credibility of such a process. The second scenario with the external evaluation, one of the arguments put forward is precisely that it would give credibility to the process. An additional argument is that it will be possible to bring in participants who don't normally take part in these Geneva-based processes; that is, participants who go to the IGF to participate there. We have M.P.s, we have CEOs. They don't go to Geneva. An exception, notable exception, is the Senator of Brazil we have today, but this is the exception who confirms the rule. We have more than a thousand people at the IGF itself. Here we have some hundred-plus. It would increase also the diversity of comments and the number of new points expressed. The disadvantage of an external evaluation, it's not like the self-evaluation where we more or less know how it goes. There could be surprises. There were, among other things, fears expressed that an external evaluation could expand the scope beyond the mandate of the IGF as it is currently understood. It was -- the point was also made that it might make it difficult to implement any change should it be decided or recommended to continue with the IGF because there would be so many viewpoints that there would be too many conflicting positions. So this is my understanding of the debate as we had it so far. With that, I give it back to you, Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: The floor is open. Milton, you wanted the floor. >>MILTON MUELLER: Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'd like to deliver to you the position paper on the review of the IGF by the Internet Governance Caucus of Civil Society. We developed a paper. In the interest of time, I am not going to read it word for word. I am going to try to encapsulate its comments. The Tunis Agenda calls for examining the desirability of the continuation of the forum. We have two sets of comments about that. One is about the process of examining or reviewing the IGF. The other is about our substantive comments on the IGF role, mandate, and structure. So as far as the process of review goes, it should be centered on consultations with participants. These consultations should be both formal and informal. It is important to lay out clear formal processes apart from informal ones. But we think it will also be necessary to go beyond IGF participants to reach out to other interested stakeholders who, for different reasons, may not attend these meetings. In reaching out, the process of consultation should especially keep in mind constituencies that are not able to participate in Internet governance issues at present, including constituencies in developing countries and civil society. Also, groups like women, ethnic minorities and disability groups should have special efforts made to reach out to them. If it is found necessary to do an expert evaluation, an external review, as Markus called it, the process should be open and transparent. It is not advisable to rely solely on a pro bono evaluation by any agency that offers it for such a politically sensitive and important assessment. The selected expert should have adequate expertise in matters of global public policy and policy institutions. In view of the geopolitical significance of the Internet governance, it may be useful to have a reputed public policy institution in the global south to do the evaluation in partnership with one such institution from the north. Even if reliance on existing global institutions is sought, there should be adequate balancing of perspectives, and partnerships are a good way to do it. So now for our substantive comments on the mandate, role and structure. On the basic question of the review about desirability of continuation of the forum, the civil society caucus is of the firm view that the IGF should continue beyond its first mandated period of five years. We believe it is important that it remain open to addressing all issues that are in the Internet governance space, no matter how controversial. Very likely, the more controversial the issue, the more appropriate it is to bring it to the IGF. Deliberations here can be used as inputs for global Internet policy-making, which will help make these processes more participatory and democratic. The Tunis Agenda calls for development of multistakeholder processes at all levels, and it is heartening to note that such national and regional processes are already taking shape. IGF should further encourage such processes and seek to establish formal relationships with these initiatives. Since the fear of governmental domination is considerably higher at national levels, IGF should use global civil society groups and processes to guide appropriate multistakeholderization of emerging national spaces. We offer our assistance to the forum in this regard as a vehicle for reaching these groups. A greater need for the forum to get deeper into substantive issues is evident to some. It is desirable in this regard for the IGF to have an intersessional work program in addition to planning for its annual event. It will be useful for this purpose for the MAG to operate in working groups and also to incorporate outside expertise in these working groups as required. As a policy-related institution, it is important for the forum to have stable public funding, and to insulate itself against any possibility of special interests, influencing its working through control over funding. Such funding should not only enable appropriate and streamlined functioning of the Secretariat, the annual event, and other intersessional activities; it should also be used to ensure equity in participation. To conclude, we congratulate you on doing exemplary work in the last few years on a very thin resource base, and in difficult conditions where different stakeholder groups involved have very different orientations and expectations. A lot of the IGF Secretariat's work is indeed path breaking in the U.N. system. However, it is very evident that the Secretariat needs much better resource support than they have at present if we are to fulfill all our expectations from this unique global institution. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: May I suggest that people focus more on the process of evaluation rather than their contribution to the evaluation. Because I'm not sure in an hour we have time to go into the second part of what was discussed. I think let's try and focus on the first part. And even the MAG I am going to suggest focuses more on the process than the conclusions. Because there will be time. We are not going to do this now. And not even in Hyderabad, in fact. It's really going to be at the next IGF. So there will be time and space. And at this stage, let's focus our attention on how do we design a credible process so that when the time comes to make a recommendation in Cairo, people feel comfortable with what has gone into the process. So it's very important that we focus on the process rather than the conclusions right now. The challenge of IGF has been very much a process challenge. Because we're trying to do something unusual and unique in this exercise. And I think for the same reason, I think we should be very clear that the process -- because now it's not simply a matter of designing a process which allows everybody to say what they want and record everything and then pass on a few thousand pages of comments to the Secretary-General. That's not going to work. The Secretary-General will expect something a little more focused from us than the thousand pages of a transcript. For that reason, may I request people now not to necessarily get into their views on the IGF but simply to focus on the evaluation process and how do we construct a credible evaluation process. I have Emily Taylor from Nominet. I have Chris Disspain. I'll come back. Then France, and then ICC, bill Graham and ETNO. Let me turn to Emily Taylor. Sorry, can you show your flag properly? That doesn't tell me who you are. Okay. Emily Taylor. >>NOMINET: Thank you, Chair. As requested, I'm going to address the subject of the process of evaluation rather than any of the substantive arguments as to whether things are good or not. There are a number of choices which need to be made. First of all, whether the evaluation should be done by an external body or by the MAG or by an internal process of some kind. When should the evaluation be done. And what are potential measures of success. On the first point, having listened to the remarks made by Markus Kummer, I believe it is better for the evaluation to be done by an external body, because it would have no vested interest or even emotional interest, if I can put it like that, in any particular outcome, and which it can be and seen to be completely impartial and therefore credible. Timing is difficult. We have only held two meetings so far. So in an ideal world, we would start the evaluation process slightly later. However, we also have to bear in mind the practical constraints that you have summarized, Markus. So my suggestion is that an external evaluator be appointed and that the process is initiated prior to Hyderabad, leading up to the Cairo meeting, as you have described. An organization such as The World Bank sounds like an appropriate choice. The evaluation should, of course, seek the views of those involved and also as wide a range of other stakeholders as possible. Finally, defining what we mean by "success" is challenging in a context like the IGF. Listening to the exchanges today and reflecting on Nominet's own experiences in working with stakeholders at the national level, I suggest the following not as an exclusive list, but just as some suggestions. The first could be, to what extent has the IGF had a practical impact in human and institutional capacity-building? As I said, Chair, the specific instances where the IGF has led to concrete action, what we would call the "but for" test, but for the IGF, would this have occurred or that have occurred? As Zahid Jamil noted, this is achieved through the sharing of best practice and is one of the reasons why Nominet set up the "Best-Practice Challenge" in the U.K. Another potential measure could be, to what extent have new voices been included in the policy dialogue, either through remote participation or through the emergences of processes at the national level? Examples we have heard today include not only the U.K. IGF, but colleagues in France, Brazil, Finland, and now we hear today Germany, and also African countries. We are looking forward also to participating in the Strasbourg meeting highlighted by the E.U. presidency as an example of regional processes. This concludes my input. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have Chris Disspain, then I have got France, ICC, Bill Graham, ETNO, CENTR, Egypt. Chris. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Is this on? Can you hear me? >>CHAIR DESAI: Yes. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Markus. I wonder, from your explanation, I wonder whether your two suggestions are actually truly exclusive. If I understand you correctly, the external evaluation would need to start before Hyderabad, whereas an internal -- or at Hyderabad, whereas an internal evaluation could actually happen slightly later. Would it not be possible to actually have an external evaluation that feeds into an internal evaluation so that you actually, if you like, get the best of both worlds, and then finish up in time for recommendations after Cairo. >>MARKUS KUMMER: That was the original intention. Basically, the external evaluation would be able to go around in Hyderabad, the evaluators to interview people, to ask M.P.s, "Why do you come to Hyderabad?" CEOs, people who don't come to our Geneva meetings. It could then also address certain -- or highlight certain questions that would need to be addressed. But the two would be mutually -- would interact, and it would feed into the self-evaluation process. And as a reaction to Milton's comment, the offer from InfoDEV was a very open offer. And they said they would be open to cooperation with other institutions, with other stakeholders. They would be seeking precisely the input and, for instance, the suggestion by the Internet Governance Caucus to associate an institution from developing countries. I'm sure that is something they would look at very favorably. It was certainly not meant to be as an offer exclusively InfoDEV. But the note I had circulated within the MAG said that other cofinancing or in-kind contributions to the external evaluation would also be welcome from other stakeholders. So it will clearly not be something that would happen somewhere hidden away in an ivory tower, but that it would feed into the other process. >>CHAIR DESAI: France. >>FRANCE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On this topic, the European Union would like to really thank the secretariat for having started this discussion on this matter and also thank the secretariat for the preparatory work that has been carried out, especially indicating the elements of a timetable, which are very important elements that need to be taken into account. We also have noted that the focus is given to the process of consultation and discussion, which is, indeed, a very good approach. In this context, we find that it is extremely important to have an inclusive process during the consultations of IGF. And this is in line with paragraph 76 of the Tunis Agenda. And also, this should be part of the IGF agenda, most notably, the session of taking stock and moving forward. I think this is a very good way of starting discussions inside the IGF and amongst members. And, finally, in terms of the methodology, at this stage, the preliminary stage, we would suggest that consultations in February would include two days of open discussions instead of one day, in order to ensure that we have enough time to have a broad debate, not just simply inside the MAG, but involving other discussants. And it's also important to ensure that this process will include a process of online consultations. And I'd like to conclude with one point that has not been raised during the statements made by European countries this morning, but coming to mind now. During the meetings of WSIS and the IGF, I was approached by some participants who were involved in innovative approaches, research programs. And I know that there were these studies that were carried out through interviews of many participants related to their experience and how they were innovative and what were their -- what was their vision of IGF. And I think that is very interesting to have this information and to see how these persons who carried out these studies could be involved in the process, which will lead to the situation that will not simply have one external point of view, but numerous points of views, which broaden the discussion within the IGF. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. ICC Ayesha. >>ICC-BASIS: Thank you, Chair. ICC-BASIS members believe that the IGF provides a useful opportunity for all relevant stakeholders to discuss important Internet governance-related policy issues and exchange experiences on challenges faced, solutions that work, good practices, and issues on the horizon. It also provides a place for new contacts to be made, partnerships to be formed, and awareness about initiatives and resources to be raised. With this background, we have discussed the consultation and review process regarding the desirability of the continuation of the IGF and considered the proposed timeline. On the timeline, ICC-BASIS members believe that the IGF in Athens and then in Rio have built upon the experiences at each event, and the IGF in India will do the same. Thus, we believe it is premature at this time to try to evaluate the IGF. And we strongly recommend that the timeline for the review process begin after the IGF in India, to allow for a solid reflection on the third IGF. The taking stock and way forward session in Hyderabad could provide a productive opportunity for participants to share their experience with the IGF, express what they think could be improved, what has worked well, et cetera. A simple survey for participants at the IGF in Hyderabad, to be filled out before they leave, could also be used to capture input on their experience at the IGF in India towards this review process. We support the self-evaluation approach, in a nutshell, and suggest input from participants, including preliminary thoughts on its continuation, could be scheduled as a specific agenda item at the open consultations in February, and, if needed, in May 2009 during the IGF consultations. Participants would be encouraged to submit their views in writing as contributions for discussion at these open consultations. We believe special effort by all stakeholders can be made to ensure that there is greater input in writing and in person on this issue. We also believe that this will serve as concrete input to the U.N. Secretary-General and the development of his recommendations. ICC-BASIS members do not believe that an external evaluation is required by paragraph 76 and believe that sufficient substantive feedback can be compiled through the consultation and written contributions. In addition, an external evaluation, in our view, poses several risks, including those that have been mentioned by Mr. Kummer in his overview, as well as risks such as bias and the possible reopening of issues that were completed by the WSIS process. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Bill Graham. >>BILL GRAHAM: They -- >>CHAIR DESAI: After that, I have ETNO, CENTR, and Egypt, and then Ken Lohento. >>BILL GRAHAM: Thank you very much, Chair. I think that the process of evaluation of the IGF will be something that's extremely important for us. And I appreciate Markus laying out the timelines and the various options in such a clear fashion. I have to say, I'm inclined somewhat to try to do both options. I think we would get different responses to an external evaluation than we would get, and different kinds of responses, than we would get from a self-evaluation. But the timing of the external evaluation concerns me quite a bit. I really worry about starting an evaluation after only two IGFs, because I really feel in the middle of the third, it's not fair to say that that would -- any interviews there would be influenced by the way the meeting is going, immediate perceptions, and so on, and they would not be thoughtful in the same way as if they were done after the fact. So one possible consideration would be the use of a professional external evaluator who is experienced in the field. That might speed up the prospects. And a design could be developed that wouldn't require face-to-face interviews, perhaps. As to the criteria for the evaluation, looking at paragraph 26, it's quite clear that there's really only one criteria required, which is to look at the desirability of the continuation of the forum. And I think keeping that as the focus of the evaluation is a very good idea. We should not stray too far afield. Opinions about individual sessions, while they would be interesting, really wouldn't contribute a great deal to the question of whether to continue the IGF. It strikes me that getting the views of longer-term participants would be a very useful contribution to that. Probably the most interesting and innovative approach would be to try to collect evidence of the impact of the IGF. Certainly around here this week, I've heard from a number of people from developing countries who have had anecdotes about how their or their country people's experiences at IGF has impacted the development of Internet governance mechanisms and ICT development in their countries. Trying to collect that kind of information, I think, would be a very useful indicator in looking at the desirability of continuation. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. ETNO, CENTR, and then Egypt. And then Ken Lohento. >>ETNO: Thank you, Chair. On behalf of our association, I would like to welcome the inclusion of this topic in the agenda of this meeting. And as the IGF has a mandate of five years, subject to review, and we're approaching the middle of it, it seems appropriate to start a discussion about how and when this review will take place. The review process requires broad-based consultations, and may we add, enough time, visibility, and transparency. Therefore, we believe that the first step must be taken in the Hyderabad meeting, and, more specifically, during the taking stock main session. There, we can have a first exchange of views of what we have covered thus far and what we have achieved. What we can do for the remaining of the IGF, and what is expected until 2010. What were the positive elements of the IGF and what needs to be approved so we can establish a common ground before we take any action. We can also discuss whether this can be done internally, externally, or both. By the way, we've heard about the InfoDEV offer to evaluate. We will have to examine all the details for that offer, but for that, we will need more information to become public. In general, this whole discussion about the review will lead us, in time, to informed conclusions and widely accepted suggestions for the future. We believe that after Athens, Rio, and Hyderabad, we will have enough experience and wisdom to assess properly the situation. Therefore, we agree in principle to the timetable you presented recently, and we suggest that you call for written contributions in the stock-taking of the Hyderabad IGF consultation in February 2009. As a preliminary reaction from ETNO, we recognize that the IGF has, will, and must continue to promote the dialogue on Internet governance, as well as the understanding of all the complex issues behind. Its truly multistakeholder nature is the other element we praise. And although there are plenty of other good arguments, just for these two, we believe it is worth continuing the IGF beyond 2010. However, we all must remain committed and work so that the IGF becomes better and better from year to year. Otherwise, we risk losing interest and faith. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: CENTR. You must tell me how we are required to pronounce your name, because you don't have an "E" at the end. >>CENTR: I'm Wim Degezelle, on behalf of CENTR, with a statement. It's not only about the review process, because it's our only statement. But first of all, I would like to say CENTR is the European ccTLD organization. We have over 50 members who account for about 70% of the ccTLD domain registrations worldwide. CENTR, first of all, welcomes the renewal of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, congratulates the MAG members with their appointment or reappointment, and appreciates the time and effort they spend on organizing the IGF. CENTR thanks the MAG and the secretariat for the work in putting together the revised program and organizing also this meeting. CENTR remains committed to and involved in the IGF. CENTR, in cooperation with the other regional ccTLD organizations, is preparing a workshop, which will take the audience on a trip around the world to eight different ccTLDs. Each of them are representing their own countries' national identity on the Web. The workshop will showcase the diversity of policy models for ccTLDs in the different countries. These different models are tailored to fit the local needs and to get the most from their local opportunities. No local situation is alike, and, therefore, one cannot copy and paste, nor identify the one and only best practice. CENTR looks forward to the review process. CENTR's main evaluation criteria are and will be whether the IGF has created a successful forum for dialogue in which all stakeholders can participate on an equal footing and which explores a wide range of issues relating to Internet governance through the sharing of best practice and experiences at local, regional, and global levels. We believe that so far, in the Athens and the Rio meetings, these goals have been achieved. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have Egypt. And then Ken Lohento, and then France. >>EGYPT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Allow me to speak in Arabic. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as this is the first time that I take the floor, allow me to thank you for the excellent manner in which you are conducting the deliberations. I should also like to thank the secretariat in preparing for the meeting in Hyderabad. And I wish every success to the Indian party in hosting the meeting. And we look forward to the beginning of the preparatory meeting for the process in Cairo. As for the item under review, there are certain questions that we would like to ask. We should also like to give our opinion on a few points, particularly on what was said by the executive secretary of the forum regarding the paper on the draft agenda or the timetable regarding the review process, which led me to review the -- what was adopted by the Tunis summit. And I should like to share with you what I have noticed so far. In the beginning, I feel that the review or the evaluation topic is one of the most important ones, even though we have been doing this since the beginning of the meetings at the forum. However, the content and the forum and the form of the meeting in Rio was not a typical copy of Athens. Therefore, we are progressing. But what drew my attention is the review of paragraphs 72, 73 on the mandate, which refers in paragraph 76 to the periodic meeting. In the Tunis Summit, there was nothing that said there should be a yearly or periodic meeting, but this is what we have taken a decision upon in the consultations that came after the summit. I believe that we should read paragraph 76 in light of the previous paragraphs. What is requested by -- of the Secretary-General, to take stock of the five years of the holding of the IGF, and to see the desirability of the continuation of the forum. Of course, we look forward to the third, fourth, and fifth meetings. We don't hope for the forum to stop after two meetings. I don't believe that any one of us can at this very moment to say categorically that we do need or we don't need the continuation of the forum. I reiterate, however, the importance of the review process and the evaluation process. However, who is going to do that? We agree with the opinion that says it is most desirable that we ourselves do the evaluation or the review process, we, the members of the forum. There is also the MAG, which meets periodically. The MAG prepares for the forum on the basis of what it deems desirable in the various discussions that take place. I believe the members of the forum are able to do the review and the evaluation. I believe we can launch this operation after Hyderabad and not during Hyderabad. We can do that in a calm and collected manner after the meeting. And we should not try to create a lot of suspense around the operation that is going to direct us in one way or another, but make it known that the review is to improve the process as a whole. And I should like to reiterate the importance of the preparatory process before every forum. Once again, I reiterate that the review process is preferably to be done by the members of the forum themselves, on the basis of contributions and analysis of contributions, and to be prepared in the form of a report that would be issued by the Cairo meeting. Thank you, sir. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have Ken Lohento, Francis Muguet, and -- >>KEN LOHENTO: Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My name is Ken Lohento. I am from the Panos Institute, West African, based in Senegal, and I'm also a member of the MAG. I would like to suggest that the review of the IGF is undertaken in a multilingual environment, for example, to have evaluation documents, forms, in all U.N. languages. I think this will help all stakeholders to share with us their opinions and hopes related to IGF. I would also like to suggest that the contribution of IGF in relation to Internet governance capacity-building for least-developed countries is evaluated and that ways to strengthen it are further explored. I would like also to suggest that we also try to evaluate how countries get involved in IGF by organizing local IGF initiatives, notably, in least-developed countries. I would also like to thank all the IGF -- the secretariat for announcing the proceedings of the last two IGF meetings will be published. This was a concern from some stakeholders, in particular, of the African civil society on the information society, and they expressed that in a document that's to be submitted presently. And I think that publishing these proceedings and pay attention to information resources needed by developing countries in particular, like information in -- related to best practice forum, will be very interesting for those stakeholders. And this could help a positive evaluation of the forum. I would like to urge the IGF secretariat, (inaudible) and international organization -- in fact, maybe this is not clearly related to the review process -- but I would like to urge those organizations to continue working to increase the resources to support local least-developed countries people and people with disabilities' participation in IGF in India and beyond, and to work to strengthen remote participation mechanism, such as the (saying name) initiative presented some time ago here. And to finish with, I would like to thank the Organisation Internationale De La Francophonie. I'd like to thank the organization of French-speaking countries for the support that it has been providing for the participation of some developing countries, most notably, several members of the MAG, the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, and the contributions made also to ensure that these participants can be at the meetings. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Mr. Muguet. >>FRANCIS MUGUET: I'd like to stress the fact, we should not take any hasty decisions here. I would suggest in my personal capacity that there are several evaluations that come from different types of stakeholders, and I would suggest that we would have an academic evaluation, because, in any case, one academic evaluation will be made by the Tedus (phonetic), and unfortunately I noticed that in some conferences there were communications that I would call a bit strange in comparison to what actually happens in the IGF. So I would be proposing a mixed academic evaluation involving academics who were involved in the IGF, as well as academics who did not participate in the IGF and have a dialogue at this scientific level concerning the interpretation of evaluations of the IGF. And since we are dealing here with a very important subject, I would suggest that if there are open slots in the Hyderabad IGF, perhaps we can devote some of the workshops to some of the proposals related to the evaluation of the IGF. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you, Mr. Muguet. APC. >>APC: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am tempted to suggest that, seeing as we are in India, we have IGF, the Bollywood musical version. Just responding specifically to the review and based on the previous responses, it might work most effectively to have three types of review. The self-assessment that was proposed, and that many have endorsed, and then an assessment done by participant stakeholder groups or institutions who have invested a lot of time and energy who can do an assessment within their own context and then feed that into a learning process and thirdly an independent assessment. And we certainly would think it's valuable and adds legitimacy to have an independent assessment. However, even with an independent assessment, it is important that there's ownership of that process and that the criteria that are being used, the methodology, the key informants that are identified, that there is some transparency and consultation around that. Just to make sure that there's participation ownership and that we don't end up with a situation where an independent assessment is rejected on the basis of participants in the IGF not identifying with the methodology that was being used. And one device that might be useful in managing these different types of assessments would be to convene a support group made up of MAG members and possibly others in the IGF community that have expertise in evaluation to assist the Secretariat in identifying the architecture, to use the term that you have used in your document, for the assessment and the different types of assessment. And then I just want to endorse something that Bill Graham said about time, long-term participants. I think it's very important for the methodology not just to identify people who happen to be at an IGF. I think what's they important is to assess whether participation over time has changed the perspectives of some of those, particularly the key institutions that are involved in Internet governance. So I think that's why agreeing on how to identify informants is, in fact, very important. And just finally a point on timing. I'm not exactly sure how firmly this is cast, but in the document on the Web site, it indicates that the final decision will be made after the last IGF. APC would propose that it would be important for the Secretary-General and the General Assembly, if that's where the decision is made, for the decision to be made before the last IGF, simply so that when we do have the last IGF, we know whether it will continue or not. I think that would be useful for those of us that are involved in this process. >>CHAIR DESAI: Qusai Al-Shatti. >>QUSAI AL-SHATTI: Thank you, Mr. Chair. First I would like to congratulate you on the renewal of your chairmanship to the Advisory Group, and my compliments also to the Secretary, Mr. Markus Kummer. On the evaluation issue, obviously the timing is an issue, as when to do the evaluation. And I would join my colleagues who said that two meetings are not enough, really, to evaluate the success of the IGF, or its continuation. Also, the continuation of the IGF really should not be based only on what we have done on the term of the five years. In my opinion, within our mandate, definitely there will be pending issue that may be important to be discussed and continue to be discussed, and this also should be a factor. So the factor should not only be in what we have done within the mandate and what we have achieved in five years within the mandate, but also whether there are important issues up to the level that can justify the continuation of the IGF as an independent policy dialogue platform. On the issue of whether it is an internal evaluation, whether the Advisory Group evaluates or what if it's an external evaluation, part of the evaluation is someone who was involved and witnessed the process and lived it. This is a qualitative evaluation. It cannot be quantified based on the chairmanship report on the report of the workshop or reading the text of the open consultation. It should be based on someone who was involved or witnessed the participation, who listened to what happened in the plenaries and saw the evolution of this process. So I would here question or wonder what will be the term of an independent evaluator or of an external evaluator. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: CBI. >>CBI: Thank you, Chair. I would, of course, support the notion that there should be an internal evaluation of the process, but I think it should not just be a question of the MAG doing that, because there would need to be an opinion of those people who were not in those groups, who were not involved in the MAG, as to how well the MAG has been able to focus discussion prior to and leading up to the IGFs every year. But supporting the APC intervention, I think it's absolutely essential that there be an external evaluation. It will hardly be credible, any internal evaluation in terms of a recommendation, unless there is an external evaluation that can be seen in relation to that. I mean, there's a well-known phrase, "Turkeys never vote for Christmas." And I think an internal evaluation would be treated with that degree of skepticism. However, I think it would be valuable, to continue the metaphor, if the external evaluation was not seen as somebody coming with the knife that was going to cut the head off the IGF. So I think in that sense, it's very important how the two relate to each other, and we need to think that through. It would be valuable if the external evaluation could be used in a way that could take -- using one of the words we have been using a lot today, part of the dialogue with the internal one, and in that sense they go in parallel and are staggered in relation to each another. It might, in that sense, be worthwhile starting an external evaluation before the upcoming IGF, not as a way of saying has it worked and that's it, but as a way of starting an evaluative process that can see over time over the next couple of years how well the process is shaping up. And that way it would also be able to feed into the dialogue in terms of the internal evaluation. And as a result, I think you would get a much more interesting and informative result at the end that the Secretary-General could reflect upon. That's all I had to say. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Kenya. >>KENYA: Kenya would like to support APC's interventions and suggestions around the three items mentioned, the first one being the timing where the decision is made around the continuation or not of the IGF are made. We agree with them that it should be made prior or perhaps during the last IGF so that the institutions and individuals that have been involved have a chance to then look at what to do after that. And then we also support the suggestion around doing both an internal and external evaluation as well as involvement of institutions and individuals that have been involved in the IGF process since the onset, and that have not necessarily been attending all the -- some of the IGFs. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Is there anybody else? Yes. Marilyn. >>MARILYN CADE: Thank you. My name is Marilyn Cade. I would like to note that I have some preference, as others, for the idea of a combined evaluation that could draw on the expertise and strengths of an external source, but then bring that information into consideration by the forum. And I will note that my preference is that it is the forum that engages in the evaluation and not the MAG. So here I would note that there's great value to the role of the MAG, but as mentioned by CBI, in fact, part of the evaluation will be what is working about the structure of the MAG, what can be improved, what is the nature, perhaps, or role of an Advisory Group in -- overall in the impact that it brings. So I think there should be a way to draw upon other resources from the community to participate in the evaluation. I also think that timing is our challenge, and I'm not convinced that we can actually launch a well-thought-out evaluation process by India. My thought is that we should focus on trying to launch that process in time for the February meeting in 2009. Thank you. I would make one other comment. Sorry. I'm thinking, as mentioned, I think, by ISOC, that we are going to be focused on the advisability of the continuation of the forum. And along those lines, we will also want to be thinking about the improvements. If we are supporting the continuation of the forum, we will be wanting to think about the issues and topics that are related to improving and strengthening the functioning of the forum. >>CHAIR DESAI: Anybody else? Markus, you wanted to say a word on the timing question. >>SECRETARY KUMMER: Yes. Anriette made the comment about the final decision. While I do understand the general thrust, by having it even earlier, that would mean we would have to start the process now in order to have a final decision at the end of 2009. But I don't see there's that much of a contradiction. If at the end of the Cairo meeting comes a very strong message, that will be transmitted to the Secretary-General and will be then part of his report to the U.N. membership, which is usually out, I think, in March or so as a report that goes to the CSTD. We would know the general thrust, and on the whole, it will be very unlikely -- well, you never know. Members stating their wisdom in the end may decide something completely different, but it would be carried by some. And CSTD in May would already give an indication. And there, you may be a better place, but I think it would be very unlikely that the ECOSOC first and then the General Assembly would overthrow what comes out of the CSTD. So it may be an apparent contradiction but I think we would get a clear picture and maybe there might be a country coming forward saying we would be interested in hosting the 2011 meeting, which would be, I think, an additional element to be taken into consideration. And as regards whether or not what could be done in Hyderabad, I mean, there is an imminently practical reason. If we do have an evaluator, there are people who have followed the forum. I think there were a number of M.P.s that were in Athens, they were in Rio, they will be in Hyderabad, but they don't come to the Geneva meeting, and there will be other people on the spot there that could be captured by the people who do the interviews. And it will be very difficult otherwise to get -- I don't think -- Yes, you can write them. They may or may not fill in the form. It is much easier to catch these people while you are on the ground. That would be very difficult if it's done in Cairo because Cairo would be then the process of all the stakeholders, whether they be the discussion. And Cairo should not be a meeting about the IGF. I think, yes, it will have to be done in the taking stock session that the IGF participants will address this, but what is discussed there needs to be prepared beforehand. Otherwise, you turn the whole Cairo meeting into a meeting on IGF evaluation, and I don't think that would be in the interests of the Egyptian hosts. I think the Egyptian hosts will want an interesting, substantive meeting, as were the meetings in Athens and in Rio and as will be the meeting in Hyderabad. These are a few off the cuff comments. >>CHAIR DESAI: That is very valuable. I can't say we have all agreed on everything, but I think let's continue this conversation in the MAG and see how we take it. Yes? Somebody wanted -- who? Bill? First, I think it's important to recognize, and this has to be made clear to whoever is doing it, whether it is us, our self-evaluation, an external evaluator, an academic institution or whatever, that the Tunis mandate is not to be evaluated. That's the starting point. It's not a question of saying this should not be -- that the mandate should be different. That's not on, because that's not what we are required to do, or what the Secretary-General is required to do. So that's off the table. What is on the table is given the Tunis mandate, what do we do? Second, as somebody has pointed out, really the primary thing that has to be decided is do we continue? Do we have a sixth and a seventh and eighth IGF? That's the only basic thing that is to be decided. And I don't think we should lose sight of that. Ideally, this should be decided, since IGF is a multistakeholder forum, on as wide a process of consultation with the stakeholders and an assessment of stakeholder opinion as is feasible. The distinction between self-evaluation and external evaluation is not really that sort of one is of the participants and the other is of some expert who is looking at it from a theoretical perspective. No. It's largely a matter of making sure that we don't limit the dialogue to, say, the hundred people who participate consistently in the meetings of the MAG and the open consultations which are held prior to that. It's important to recognize that the opinion of those who have come regularly, who have observed the IGF, if you like, at close quarters is, in some ways, more valuable than somebody who, let's say, turns up for one IGF meeting. And that opinion may not necessarily be of great value, but that's something which one would have to take into account. But nevertheless, you do need to make sure that you are tapping as wide a pool of opinion of the stakeholders as is consistent and feasible. No doubt that there will be lots of processes launched by stakeholders, by others, which will be producing ideas, suggestions, et cetera, for the evaluation. And there's some advantage in the MAG giving a little thought to things like parameters, criteria, et cetera. For instance, criteria of, quote-unquote, "success" of IGF. Like impact. Like whether it has given new voices to points which were mentioned by Emily Taylor which could add to this. So that one has, so to speak, not a template but at least some general orientation of the evaluation which is available to anybody who wants to do that. Because this is an open process. We cannot stop anybody doing an evaluation. If an academic institution decides to do an evaluation, gives a report, we can hardly be in a position to say we will not read that report. And it's important that we keep this in mind, that this is an open process. And I have no doubt that many evaluations will be produced as an input. Our challenge, really, is to see how we distill all this in time to be able to produce something which we can say reflects the opinion of the participants in the IGF process. It's not going to be easy, because we do not have a membership. And so how are we going to do that? And we will have to address this question in the MAG. What is the content of this evaluation? Obviously, the most obvious thing is do we continue? Is it worthwhile? Et cetera. But undoubtedly, there will also be a certain element of looking at past experience and learning from it. But this, in some ways, is something we have been doing continuously, as was pointed out by somebody. After all, each time we meet we do -- particularly in February, we tend to review the experience of the previous IGF. And we have been making changes. We have, fortunately, not sort of taken a view that we are satisfied with what we decided. In fact, we have tended to be fairly critical and say, well, that didn't work so let's change it. And we have been doing this. We have done this for two IGFs. Each IGF has been a little different from the previous one, and I have no doubt we will do something different in the Cairo IGF compared to, on the basis of experiences, further experiences that will come up in Hyderabad. There will be broader questions which we have not typically addressed. Not of continuation or not, but more structural questions. As somebody mentioned, the role of the MAG and so on. So these are issues which will probably be there. What I would like to stress is, in the end, the decision is not of the IGF. In the end, the decision will be taken by the member states in the General Assembly and ECOSOC and in CSTD. Those are the ones that finally will decide because they are the ones who give us the U.N. stamp. It is they and only they who can decide that this U.N. stamp is available for this process. So I think we must never lose sight of the fact that in the final analysis, what we need is something that will be credible in the eyes of the member states who have to take the decision. So far, very few member states have spoken. Mostly the people -- well, a couple of them have spoken. But so far, very few of the member states have spoken. And I think one of the things we will probably have to do is to find a way of canvassing the opinions of member states as to what would they find credible. Because in the end, they are the ones who are going to decide on this matter. Not the IGF. The IGF can only advise. We are only an advisory board, and we can advise, certainly. So we do have a tough job of trying to get coherent advice from the IGF, coherent in the sense that it isn't half a dozen totally contradictory messages which go out to the Secretary-General, and our message goes to the Secretary-General. And it's the Secretary-General who takes this on board and presumably puts up a set of proposals to the member states. In the end, it's the member states who are going to decide. Timing-wise, I would say that knowing the U.N. -- I think it would be very unlikely that a decision could be taken -- that the decision could be taken before the autumn of the last year. I think the way we have tried to design it, it will be -- it's not possible to take it in 2009, because the General Assembly ends in December, so there's no way you can take that decision in 2009 because you would then have to take the decision before Cairo, which is hardly feasible. It will have to be done after Cairo. And on the basis of what comes from the Cairo. Which means it will have to be in 2010, autumn. And I'm afraid this does mean that there's a little problem, because how do you plan for any future IGF beyond the fifth one if you don't know until the autumn of 2010 that you are going to continue or not? I think it can only be done on spec, so to speak, in the hope and assumption that this is the decision which will be taken. But I'd be very surprised if it is possible to crash this timetable in any way. And, in fact, it would be fortunate if we were to get that decision in the autumn of 2010. In terms of when do we start, I think we can discuss this in the MAG a little bit more. But one message I get which seems to be almost universal is that we will have to devote quality time in February for a discussion here in the open consultations particularly in the IGF. So I think we should factor that in. I don't think anybody has disagreed with the idea that we do devote some quality time in February to this exercise. And so I think that is the message which certainly is very clear to everybody here. I would suggest that we try and leave this at this point, because I don't think we can come to a closure on this completely, even at this meeting. The main issue that we will have to see is, what do we do in Hyderabad? How much to we do in Hyderabad? I noticed that there was a lot of feeling here that it's a little too early to ask questions about impact and usefulness after two meetings, when three more meetings are still to go. But there's also the argument that, can you lose an opportunity where a lot of people will be present who do not normally -- who are not easily accessible otherwise at the meetings in February, May, and September, when the MAG meets, and who otherwise you would not meet again until you get to Cairo. So there is that dilemma of how do we reach out to these people. There have been many other interesting suggestions on the possible contributions to this process. My own sense on the external and self is, there are some people who are hesitant about the external evaluation, presumably -- And I would like to stress here, the external evaluator has to be, essentially, a facilitator. The core issue is to get the opinion of the key stakeholders. They are the ones whose opinions matter. It isn't a matter of getting a brilliant professional who has specialized in decision-making or political processes and get their views. That is not likely to sway the member states. What the member states will be swayed by are the views of stakeholders. That is what will count for them. The important thing is the credibility of what is produced as reflecting the views of stakeholders. And I think we should look at it from that perspective. How do we put together something which will be credible as something which truly reflects the sentiments and views of the key stakeholders in this whole exercise? And if we judge it from that perspective, then maybe we will not have this strong clash between the idea of an external and an internal evaluation. And many people have said, we, frankly, need both, not just one. Also, is it -- do we really have to use the term "evaluation" in the singular? Can we think in terms of, you know, many tributary streams flowing into this and focus our attention on how do we use all of this information towards the latter part of 2009 to go to Cairo with something which provides a basis for communication from the IGF to the Secretary-General. These are some of the reflections that I have. And I can't say that I'm absolutely clear in my mind as to how this is going to work out. But I look forward to further discussion in the MAG. Oh, you want -- sorry. Yes, Greece. >>GREECE: Well, thank you. I want to say that I couldn't agree with you more on a number of points. I haven't been a delegate for a long time. Your perception on how the issue will be treated in ECOSOC and the different committees is absolutely correct. I think we should keep it very simple, and, as you said, credible. Now, any complicated work or presentation or reports by outside evaluators or -- may trigger discussions in those committees that may upset the whole process. And I agree with Bill Graham that the point is, do we want it to continue or not? And if you present the views in a credible way of the entire membership -- and I agree with you again that we have to canvass the entire membership of the IGF -- that, indeed, they want to go on, I think that that will be sufficient for the membership of the different bodies and the General Assembly, as I said, if it's credible, to go on and make the recommendation, of course, with a little bit of an introduction as to what this body is, because by then, I don't know how many delegates in the General Assembly know what the IGF does and what it is. Well, the other route is to have, as I said, the external evaluator or the evaluation. But that may complicate the issue in the eyes of the delegates of the member states at the different bodies. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I think, in any case, whatever it is, what goes to the member states will be the Secretary-General's report. And our challenge is to produce something which will be valuable in producing that Secretary-General's report to the member states. And let's think of it this way. I think we have some idea now on the direction in which we can proceed, but I can't say that everything is clear as yet. But I think MAG will have to discuss this. But the one thing which is absolutely, I think, fairly straightforward which we can decide in this open consultation is, we will devote quality time in February, when we meet after Hyderabad, for a substantive discussion, not just a procedural discussion, but a substantive discussion, on this issue. Today, we've had largely procedural discussion. But I think we should make sure that we design the February meeting so that there is enough time for this dialogue and discussion on this. This much is definite. The rest we will have to discuss further, talk further, in the MAG and with New York to see how best we can design this. Okay? Thank you very much -- There's a remote comment from somebody, we can -- >>MARKUS KUMMER: Under any other business, okay, there's a remote comment. Yes. >>ADAM PEAKE: Thank you, Chairman. It's a comment that's come in from remote access by e-mail from a gentleman called Rafik Dammak from Tunisia. He was a DiploFoundation fellow on the capacity-building program last year. And he and the Diplo community of members who took part in that program have been trying to improve the Wikipedia entries about the IGF and making it up-to-date. They actually commented on this in the open consultations in May. They wanted to inform everybody that the IGF entries are now available in the following languages, and these are: Arabic, English, French, Kinyarwanda -- which I think is a Rwandan regional language, -- Portugese, Spanish, Swahili, and Tagalog. He says they're hoping to contribute to the multilingualism efforts to contribute in local contents. Our purpose in announcing this is to encourage interested people to visit the IGF entries in the Wikipedia in different languages, and to join them in their effort to improve the information about the IGF. And more information about the team and their work is available from the DiploFoundation Internet governance policy portal, which is available from www.diplomacy.edu/ig. And thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. That's very helpful. I notice Hindi is not there. So -- I notice Hindi is not there. So we need a Hindi entry in time for Hyderabad. So we can get that translated into Hindi and Telegu. Thank you very much. This has been a very helpful day. And we'll take what has come out of this and go to the MAG and see -- and hopefully by the day after tomorrow, we will have a fairly clear idea of the Hyderabad program and perhaps some reasonable indication on how we will proceed with the evaluation. But on the second, I think the issues are much more open, and I look forward to seeing you all in Hyderabad, and, of course, later, in February, when we meet for the evaluation. Thank you very much. Meeting is adjourned. [ Gavel. ] [ Applause ]