The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in João Pessoa, Brazil, from 10 to 13 November 2015. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MODERATOR: Good morning, everyone. Hopefully we'll have a few more people join us. It is early on a Friday morning. My name is Matthew Shears. I'm with the center for technology. We are here in Workshop 52, IGF, strengthening the mandate. The IGF has run the course of its first mandate. We're now at the 10 IGF mark. We are in the process of review. It has been regularly reviewed around the time it's been around and now we are at the end of that review process. It's been a big subject of discussion. The IGF will be an issue on the WSIS+10 reviews that will occur in December at the end of this year. We have a good opportunity here with this group of experts, who I will ask them to introduce themselves in a moment to think about the importance of an IGF as an institution to the multi‑stakeholder model, and when you think about the region IGF and the overall ecosystem, the Internet Governance ecosystem. How do we apply those going forward? We'll break this into three parts. We'll spend the first part talking about why it's important to extend the mandate. We'll do the second part on what are the key issues that we've learned in terms of strengthening. How do we see the IGF strengthened in the future?
The third part is really a bit of a brainstorming and we really need to make that as interactive as possible, which is what is our vision for the IGF over this next mandate? And what we would really like to do is keep the comments to two minutes from the speakers, three max. What we really want to do is to have a good discussion. And I really do urge the audience to ‑‑ the participants to ask questions of the panelists so that we can get a good discussion going.
So I'm going to ask the speakers to introduce themselves. Could we start with you, please, very briefly.
>> Good morning. Thank you. I am vice president from engagement of the Internet Society. I'm very happy to be here in this workshop. But I have been working in IGF since before its inception. Since to be part of the group of the Internet Governance in the summit in the creation of the IGF in the first eight years as a member. So this is something that's very close to me.
>> LEA KASPAR: Good morning. My name is Lea Kaspar. I work with digital where we have our programs in Internet policy. We generally work in promoting human rights online through a number of projects with our partners around world. I currently serve as Civil Society representative on the IGF and I've joined.
>> Jose gamut. I'm a member. Thank you.
>> CAROLINA ROSSINI: I lead the Global Work for Public Knowledge in Washington. I am actually a lawyer from Brazil. I have been working this space for over 50 years. Thank you.
>> PAUL WILSON: I'm Paul Wilson, with APNIC, which is the IP address for Asia‑Pacific, originally in technology in the ISP entry in Civil Society. It was one of the early tech organizations to get involved with WSIS. I've been involved with IGF as a member in the Asia‑Pacific region. Thanks.
>> DAVID FARES: 21st Century Fox.
>> GEORGE SADOWSKY: I'm George Sadowsky. I'm a member of the ICANN board. Previously I was a M3AAWG member for the IGF for the first four years. I've done technology transfer in the UN in the Developing Countries.
>> HU XIANHONG: My name is Hu Xianhong. I'm from UNESCO, Internet Freedom and Governance.
>> I'm Derrick from the Internet Society, African Regional Bureau. I have been supporting IGF from the beginning and it's still supporting not only international level, but at regional level. In Africa we have the most active and regional IGF and we are happy to be supporting that. Thank you.
>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: CEO with Internet magazine, M3AAWG member, first year. Prior to that I spent a few years at the Internet Society. I attended every IGF and WSIS conferences leading up to the IGF as well.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Lynn. Okay. So a couple of points for you to bear in mind as we have this discussion: What we're looking for are the following: Identifying the critical needs, strengthen and stabilize, how all stakeholders can collaborate to address these needs, identify potential actions for all stakeholders to engage with their national governments, and missions to extend the IGF mandate and strengthen its model, and develop common messages about the IGF. Develop those common messages, highlight the strengths of the IGF, and really to come up with a vision of how the IGF should evolve. I'd ask Lynn.
>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Matthew. I was the CEO of Internet Society during WSIS 1 and WSIS 2. In line with the views of many others at that time, I found it positive that a new organization was not needed and the Internet Governance issue should be addressed through the Internet Ecosystem or through other UN meetings and international organizations, obviously, in a multi‑stakeholder model. But there was also an element of a counter‑strategy in our position at the time, but the point remains nevertheless.
So when you're part of a consensus process, it's important that one supports the final consensus no matter what your position was going in. I put tremendous effort in resources around many of the IGFs and many of the national regional IGF initiatives. I'm not speaking for ISOC. Having left there last year, I wanted to remind everyone this a little bit of history, because it's my hope that that will make the very obvious ongoing support that I have for the IGF that much more compelling.
So there are new advances and impacts in virtually every aspect of our lives thanks to the Internet. It's obviously no surprise. IGF provides a much needed global platform. At the same time one of its most useful points is it joins together and enables the national and the regional IGF initiatives. Together they advance issues globally, as well as through all the intersessional work. For me, the main work reason to strengthen the IGF and the regional and national IGF initiatives, is that they help advance key, difficult, complex, nuanced issues, bringing more progress and more value to regions, nations, villages, and, of course, to individuals.
Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: We'll go through the speakers and open it up for questions. Paul, do you want to jump in and give us a couple of minutes on why we need to extend the mandate?
>> PAUL WILSON: Yeah, thanks very much, Matthew. I think very simply the IGF is here to address Internet Governance challenges. It's assuming it's needed and has done a respectable job in that it is going to be needed while there are new Internet Governance challenges and questions and changes to come. I think it goes without saying that the Internet has got huge growth ahead of it. Everyone knows.
On an early trip to China during the 3G boom, I was just astounded to see that there were a million new subscribers to mobile networks every month in China. This year there has been ten million new LTE subscribers every month. The scale and the pace and the nature of changes are just staggering. I think there is no doubt it will create challenges and questions that need to be addressed and new innovations in from cryptocurrency to identity to the Internet of Things. It's got to change things very dramatically in the next five, let alone ten years. There are things we can't anticipate at all. That includes technical developments plus the interaction between those things with each other and with the institutions of the world.
So really, I'm very simply and very simplistically maybe. If we needed the IGF ten years ago, then I think we need it more now. The extension of the mandate would be good. Much stronger message would be an extension for ten years, I think, is a statement of confidence and consensus that this is something that, as I say, will be needed for as long as we have new Internet Governance challenges to meet. And I don't think anyone can see the end of that.
>> MODERATOR: Thanks, Paul Wilson. I'll come back with you and Lynn going forward. Give us a consensus.
>> Extending beyond five years? Because I think ‑‑ well, I will take it from the second part. I think that the question is not should it be extended but should it be extended ten years, not five years. Five years now that we have seen the value is crucial. The UN will take at least ‑‑ take around one year to finalize the budget. Then two years later it will start back up the project. It will become a short project. It is not a short project: It would certainly require attention and also to be able to recruit if any ‑‑ this would come the next questions, to a stronger secretariat office that would be able to handle all the coming challenges along with it. And I think one of the reason why manslaughter this is important is we have learned a lot. But I think there are still many stakeholders we need to get. This would take time. I stop here. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. We have gone through our first three speakers. So I really hope that you've got some questions. I also encourage the panelists to ask questions of each other. I'll come back with a couple of questions, one for Lynn and one for Paul Wilson.
How have you seen the engagement in the IGF? You mentioned in the beginning that there was some reluctance in ISOC for the IGF. Over time how have you seen that change, Paul, if you could, perhaps, add to that what are ‑‑
>> Lynn ST. AMOUR: There is no clear response. You need to engage in dialogue. To the first part of your question, the technical community is amorphous. And I think the one thing that I note, and I can lead the ISOC panel to speak about the activities ISOC, so there is more participation over the years like the ITG and the IEB.
People start to get into some of these complex issues that really too impinge upon technology and technology on policy. I think it's more important that we bring more people like that into the discussions. So I have seen an increasing number of what I would call the real Internet technology participating in. I think it's a very useful thing.
>> PAUL WILSON: I think the IGF has changed the technical community quite dramatically. Since Day 1, these organizations have been absolutely proud of a completely open model. Anyone who wanted to participate in ICANN, etc., has been able to walk in the door. We've been proud of that. What the IGF has helped us to do as part of a global movement is to actually become much more intentional about being open and being inclusive. The difference between many simply open and many intentionally multi‑stakeholder inclusive is like the difference between many simply nondiscriminatory and being affirmative action or intentionally moving towards the world that you actually want and becoming dedicated to openness. You see it everywhere within the programs of organizations like ICANN and ISOC who are actively bringing members of communities into these organizations and facilitating their entry into the processes. It's really a huge change.
There is a book that more specifically also a book that is in production for the WSIS+10. So just more specifically the changes over the last ten years could really be charted in terms of the focus and the level of attention, the type of attention being paid to specific issues through the IGF. Close to our heart is critical Internet resources, which we write about.
Anybody interested in asking a question?
>> It's not really a question.
>> MODERATOR: Comment.
>> So the question here in the segment we're discussing is why it's important to extend the IGF. I'd like to say a few words from the perspective I have Civil Society and why I think this is important.
When I first attended IGF, I remember having discussions with my colleagues. I was a skeptic. I was thinking this was a discussion forum. People still think that. We have to be honest about that. There are a lot of criticisms about the IGF and how it works. But I think we can talk about how we make that better in the next segment. But having participated in a couple of IGFs, and in parallel, having participated in other spaces where Internet related public policy is being discussed, what has become really super clear to me is that the space or nongovernmental stakeholders engaged in these issues is narrowing. I'm not talking about the technical spaces. I'm not active in ICANN and IGF, but they are taking places at the UN level, whether we like it or not, they are happening at the UN level, the first, second, and the third committees, simply at the ITU and a number of other spaces in UN system. And in these spaces our voices are really, really marginal and very, very limited. We have a very limited impact there. So he IGF really provides a unique access in space to discuss. Not just discuss, but contribute to policymaking in this space. And I think that's really important to say. I think that there's parts of it mandated have not been fulfilled that we can discuss and why it's important to make it even better, but we can come back to that. Thanks.
>> MODERATOR: Thanks. There is a mic. We have a roving mic if anyone feels inclined. George.
>> GEORGE SADOWSKY: Thank you. I think the most direct question of why the IGF mandate should be extended would be a reflection of the reality of the situation. If you look at the growth of ICTs and Internet Governance over a long period of time, there has always been one conference, which has been involved in the field where there have been a wide set of issues discussed, whether sectors come together and talk about common problems. The IGF is it. You look at 2500 people here in the hall and that's proof enough that this is a really important and central and without competition, I think, conference. And I think if for some cataclysmic reason the UN would say enough of the IGF, I think we would recreate it. I think it's that useful.
So why don't we build on what we have? There are obvious problems that we have, improvements that could be made. That's fine. Everything in the world is capable of being improved. Let's build on what we have and let's make sure that we have enough of a time horizon that we can plan that it does things over time that we can plan ahead, that we don't have to worry about short range issues, that we can understand that this is important. The events will change. The forum will be here, but it will be here and something people can rely upon.
>> MODERATOR: Raul.
>> Raul ECHEBERRIA: Thank you. The reason why we have to renew the mandate is represent reality. In fact, I think that's probably UN take the position with regard to the UN participation in the IGF. This is a community that has been created. And I think if the IGF doesn't exist, we will meet anyway under the same rules somewhere with the debates that we are having here.
I think that's the IGF has been the most informative experience, not only in Internet Governance, but in international Internet Governance. It is having impact on other fields. We see how discussions have impacts. I agree with Lynn. There have been many issues heard in the intergovernmental processes, but even in those processes there are more doors and windows being opened that change the way that we can be influenced. I think this is a process that can go only one direction. It is much different than ten years ago or 12 years ago when we met in Geneva, when we can't even go into the rooms to see what people were discussing.
Now in the last few weeks ago in New York, in the discussion it was not as open the issue had been, but we had the opportunity to speak and engage with the governments inside of the building. That's a big change with regards to what happened many years ago.
We have learned to work with each other here. This has been a long way. So I think that's not renewing the IGF would be away to waste the investment we have done in learning how to direct. Even if we continue doing similar things but in a different context, it would mean to go through the new learning curve that would be very expensive. So this is why I think we have to continue.
>> MODERATOR: Thanks Raul. Any questions from the audience? Any comments? Don't hesitate to raise your hands.
>> Audience: Good morning. My name is Alan. I'm from the Youth IGF program from Latin America and Caribbean. This year we are in 73 here in IGF. I would like to ask if you have purpose to continue these kind of things to ask the youth people to come to the IGF to engage them in their discussions about the Internet? Because we are very ‑‑ we are the main public that the Internet achieve, so we have to be part of the discussion of how the Internet's been made. So I'd like to hear your comments about that. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Could we take the comment that's in the back.
>> Audience: My name is (?) I'm one of the Internet Society ambassadors. One thing I would like to share is from last few years I've been coming to the IGF for support of Internet Society. I strongly believe this is the platform for us, the underdeveloped and least developed countries who are trying. Our issues constrained. Our government doesn't listen to our issues. At this forum, at such forums, we bring in stories to tell. We bring in passion, energy, to tell you people to inform your people that we exist. We have rights. We have all those universal declarations, but when it comes down to practice, it's nowhere. There's no freedom of expression. When I tell you this, I'm very sad to say this, but when it comes down to national part of practice, there is no freedom of expression. People are still getting jailed for writing on Facebook. And that's surprising.
Forums like these voices ask us to come up and we learn so much and we take back so much, and we can coordinate that in a more efficient way to create a better situation. That is happening. We are changing. And I believe it's the whole evolution process of Internet. It's how we are growing. It's not about just seeing it from a single point of view, whether we should update it or not. No, it is changed. It is the possibilities. It is what we can do. It is about us, about you, about me, about everyone. It is not just about the developed nation. It is about us. It is about growing together, because we don't feel it. Until and unless I'm here sharing my stories, nobody's going to see it. My energy will ‑‑ it's like ‑‑ it's our thing to say. It's our platform to say. And I believe it has to be mandated. It has to be extended. Further support have to be given to make further voices come down here and speak out for the youth IGF has to be run, further programs has to be done.
Thank you.
(Applause)
>> MODERATOR: That was marvelous. Thank you. It reminded us sometimes we forget how important an open forum is like this. Thank you very much.
>> Thank you, chair. I want to share some point of view from the U.S. perspective, because imagine ten years ago IGF ‑‑ now is okay? Ten years ago IGF was one of the 11 action plans following the WSIS process. WSIS is one of the UN typical summit, but it has revolutionary aspect to impact multi‑stakeholder approach. At that time I don't think anybody really thought IGF could have he involved to such a huge influence platform as we are now. Even during an ongoing WSIS platform review process, if you have read the WSIS draft of outcome document, it's all we have already draw the conclusion it should be renewed, should be play more important role.
Also, understanding that the U.N. is an intergovernmental process and every decision has to come through why the consultation with different member states are at a different stage of Internet development, they might have a different view. It takes time to reach the consensus in the end. With UNESCO we have just endorsed options for the future actions on Internet, just a mandate our 195 member states, including even more inclusive UN bodies. They all support, one option is a way to support the WSIS and also IGF. So at the UN level is really positive constructed, no problem. And certainly I like to comment on the use participation in the IGF. That's a very crucial issue. I must tell you that for UN, for UNESCO, we are all sharing the same view that they are the future. They are also now shaping the policymaking process. Like IGF, we have so many youth participation, we are supporting where we are covering the cost for the youth to join our sessions. Even UNESCO general conference we offer youth forum which we will have the network 2,000 young people from different parts of the world talking about the extension. We need to do it better.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. George has a comment and if there are any more, are there any comments from other participants? George, and then we'll move ‑‑ oh, okay. Take George and then gentleman there in the front and move to the next section.
>> GEORGE SADOWSKY: Multi‑stakeholder means multi‑stakeholder. It includes youth, the answer to your question is yes. It also includes people who want to talk about freedom of expression and other things. There are many kinds of multi‑stakeholders and all of us are multidimensional in the sense we are involved in different things and have different things we want to improve in the world.
One of the benefits of having the IGF under the UN is that governments see these things to the extent that we're able to present the issues that are important to us, I can at least ‑‑ we can at least make them visible to governments so that governments who do engage in repress I have behavior are able to understand that there are people who have problems with it and are making those problems known. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. The gentleman here and then Carolina.
>> MICHAEL ALUGIA: My name is Michael Alugia. I, too, am an Internet Society ambassador. This is my first IGF. I have never been involved previously. But just like me, the IGF is especially in scope is a relatively new institution, which means that as it continues to expand, it's going to, I think, in many ways be challenged. What is it? What is it doing? But as the Internet itself expands, it will continue to incorporate nontraditional, many nontraditional actors. That for me is incredibly important to see that IGF is a space. Whenever it was incepted with the WSIS process, I don't know that anybody would know that library associations would be involved; Save the Children was going to be here, because now it extends to child online rights and online privacy and protection.
Just in general, with that in mind, especially considering how there are so many people from so many different places. This is one of the primary purposes that I see the IGF being here and why it is so absolutely critical, because this provides absolute equalizing platform, where I, somebody that has never been to an IGF before, but cares dearly about Internet Governance can sit around the same table and be listened to and understood and really collaborate to try and make the Internet a much better, more open space.
>> MODERATOR: Carolina.
>> Carolina ROSSINI: I don't know if I need to speak after Mike spoke. I think I understand the sentiment that's before him because I think it's more, George, than just the concept of multi‑stakeholderism. It's actually the openness that people ‑‑ the openness and likeness that a lot of people have why they are in IGF, that they would not have back home. And the ability of younger folks and even us in some cases to have some ‑‑ to have access and opportunity to talk to some people that might not answer our call or when we are back in our countries. It's really ‑‑ additionally to that for national Civil Society, I think it's really important for them to have chance to express themselves, because then they gather support from other countries that then exercise peer pressure internationally. There are a lot of strategic and tactical issues for the existence of the IGF. It is the same case the access should the business folks and vice versa. So thank you for your frustration and also for your passion. That's really invigorating.
>> MODERATOR: I can only second what Carolina said. For those of us involved in this case, it is really invigorating. So we'll move to the second segment, really about focusing on what are the IGF strengths and also, what do we need to look at to make it stronger? What are the issues we need to take it forward? I'll switch the order around a little bit and ask David to go first on the issue of strengths.
>> David: So thank you. I'm actually just building on what Michael and Carolina have just said. I think there are ‑‑ of the many great things the IGF does, the characteristics that make it the premier forum for the discussion on Internet Governance, I think there are two that stand out. They've already been highlighted and I'll put them together. The first is the fact that there is ‑‑ everyone comes to the table on equal footing. It's one of the rare forums where that happens. And I think that's not a problem that it doesn't happen in all the other forums. If you go back to the Tunis Agenda in Paragraph 35, everyone recognized that on different subjects different stakeholders take the lead.
But what you need to do is make sure that leaders are doing it in an open and transparent way and trying to build consensus across all the communities. But here we're all on equal footing. It makes it a neutral platform where Michael can speak to an ambassador. That is very, very unique. I think it's something we need to preserve.
The second characteristic that I think that makes this so unique is the fact there is no negotiated text. Everybody can come here and speak freely and speak openly. We can exchange best practices. We can critique these best practices. I think these two characteristics bring us together. We're not going to always agree. That's okay. But we all come committed to advancing our shared objectives and trying to find common ground where we can. So this unique and premier forum has to continue so that we can continue those kinds of conversations.
Just to what I think your question was about the technical community, I think there is one other thing that I would like to raise. Before the IGF, before all this Internet Governance, I think all of us worked in silence. I'm a policy wonk, and then there are the techies. It brings us all together, the IGF. I understand technology better. Hopefully I think the techies now understand policy a bit better. That makes your technical work better and our policy work better.
>> MODERATOR: What I would really like to know as well as the strengths what are the critical needs. Not to put you on the spot, but if you can come back in. If there is a critical need, I want strengths and critical needs that need to be addressed going forward.
>> David: The huge needs is the fact we need to have an extension for a significant amount of time so that we know we're not always scrambling to get funding to make ‑‑ to try to lobby to keep the IGF going forward. We need a sufficient period of time to extend the mandate. That, I think, will built strength into the system. I also ‑‑ there are lots of things that we can do to strengthen and continue to debate these issues, but I think that extending the mandate so that we can work together as communities to find common ground is the key.
>> MODERATOR: I can see the panelists are itching to say things. I want to go through the order we had on the issue of strengthening. If I can turn to John, give you two minutes so that we can get the discussion going. Thanks.
>> I want to talk about three aspects to strength in IGF from our point of view at a critical moment we are looking forward to the 2030 agenda. The 16 sustainable development goals have already been endorsed in September. How we position IGF in this big agenda, which means which side really important for every country. There are national development agenda. So I think this is very important because Internet ICTs are really cross cutting every sustainable development goals. We can serve a very instrumental force to formulate a joint synergy approach. That's a first.
Secondly, I want to say the multi‑stakeholder approach, I know they're very different definitions. From our point of view, I still see the gap between the north and the south. Not only youth, but the women and girls should get involved and disabilities. We need completely social inclusion into this forum. Civil Society, of course, human rights issues, I must say that in the past years I have observed such increasing attention to the human rights issues. Civil Society voice can be heard here by politicians, by policymakers.
Number three, I would like to again to encourage you that still it's not only time duration of the extension, but also we need to really improve the content, the subject discussion here.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Thanks. Next is Carolina.
>> Carolina ROSSINI: Well, we had discussion on strengths a couple of years ago. Actually, one of the ideas which was tried to understand if we shouldn't have something a little bit more towards commitment, and I think there was a multi‑stakeholder decision that that was not the case and I do believe that that has liberated that freedom to speak your mind in equal footing. I have a lot of funny stories about the equal footing. Equal footing does mean Civil Society saying to the ambassador no, you cannot enter my (?). That actually happens in IGF because we are here trying to view this collaborative narrative which we understand has Information Society. And I think we do need ‑‑ I agree with some of the comments about the five years.
Sometimes when you have a renewal for five years, you spent five years trying to renew for five years instead of just jumping into discussion. So you should have this period to brief and to actually understand what we're going to do. It's really important. I was very emotional, because you know me. I get emotional. With the youth program this year, the amount of young folks from around Brazil from a lot different backgrounds and ethnicities. I think that is one of the great strengths of the IGF. Again, I want to retire, like, tomorrow. I work since I'm 18. Come on. We need you guys. Actually, this is one of my life missions. I've been doing training. I was a law professor. I've been doing training. I wrote some of their courses.
Now we have open education resources, open software, open license course on open Internet that's interactive. It's short term, so we have reviewed 40 curriculums and lots of methodology. We filled a niche that was missing. We instead of doing whatever Civil Society and A, B, C, are doing, I'm fulfilling a different niche. We need this dialogue to identify where we can use our various resources better. So I think that's one of the strengths. Actually not actually helping us move forward. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you Carolina. George, Raul, and then Lynn.
>> GEORGE SADOWSKY: First, I can't do any better than David in identifying the strengths of the IGF, the concept of the equal footing and no negotiated text are crucial to success.
But another topic, one of the reasons we need the ten‑year time horizon or more is that we're not only building an IGF. We are building a network of IGFs. We're building it at the international living. Why is that important? That's where the problems are. In talks here I've noticed one of the talks on zero rating, somebody said what are the solutions to something or other. And the answer was, "That depends." What does it depend on? Local legislation, local regulation, local attitudes towards capitalism, economic organization, culture, history and the like. Those problems, they exist at the local level. We can deal with them at the Internet level, but it's relatively unsatisfied because so much depends.
Where they exist is where they can be solved. And we can help that by encouraging the development of national IGFs to identify the problems, to bring the solutions or to bring problems to the international level and be helped by what is what they hear here. It's anecdotal, but it's important. We can be more informed about what the issues are in the various countries with respect to the problems that exist now and are being discussed and exist in the future and are being discussed. I would argue that one of the things we ought to spend time on is how do we strengthen on an informal basis, probably, the relationships between the national and international IGFs and use them in a complimentary manner.
Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, George. That's a very important issue. How do we look at the ecosystem of IGF and what is the value of that and how do we increase the linkages and how do we increase the strength and the role of that. I would go one step further. It's how do we export that model of multi‑stakeholder into other policy spaces? I think that's something maybe is another discussion another day. But it's a preliminary alcohol screening device opportunity there. Now I've the ‑‑ we'll just complete this and then Lea and Hossam and David.
>> I agree very much with Dave, the renewal of the IGF, because it would permit the stakeholders to have long time strategies, more stable secretariat. This is ‑‑ I know you are trying to define other things. IGF is not something static. So it's not that we have something that we have had the same for ten years and now we are discussing whether there are improvements. The IGF has been permanently and every year the IGF has been very different of the previous year. Maybe we don't realize the changes between two years, but if we take the 10th one now, we compare it with the first one in Athens, we can see huge differences. For example, the first three or four years it was almost impossible to discuss about human rights. Now we have made decisions on human rights. Even in the contents, there were some contents in the beginning that were kind of the who, and now we are discussing everything.
In Bali, we had the IGF was the first place when we have a very controversial discussion around controversial topic, which was surveillance. We had all the main actors, the U.S. Government, human rights organizations, companies like Google. Everybody discussing it an open manner. Why? Because this is the place when they feel comfortable having discussions even on those controversial issues.
But that doesn't mean that we have to continue the main improvements. We can do it to continue. This is the main improvements. And we are doing a couple of things that ‑‑ one thing is many people think or some people think that's ‑‑ we don't produce enough outcomes. And now we are the last two years we have been producing those best practices. And I think that this is exactly what we have to do, because even, out of the same countries that would not be happy with the outcomes if we produce outcomes. There are some people that don't want to dictate how they should manage the Internet in their countries. So what we are providing are policy options. This is exactly what we had to do. But we have to improve that. The best practices we should have more people involved in the discussion on the production of best practices. We should produce best practices in more topics, and those best practices should be more visible. But I think we are going in the right way. The other point is the point that George mentioned, the national IGF. This is one of the improvements of IGF. But when people ‑‑ when some people who like to see more concrete impacts of the IGF discussions on policymaking, we have to have in mind that 95% of policymaking happened at the local level. So sometimes we come to the IGF. We have interesting discussions. We learn a lot from others' positions and we know what is happening in other parts of the world, but we come back to our countries and we don't have places for landing the discussion in our local reality.
So this is very important. It's the way that ‑‑ I agree with guilty or not guilty. It would be good for bringing progress, for bringing solutions, but also for creating really the impact the public policies with all the discussion that we are having in the multi‑stakeholder fashion. In fact, these discussions in the local IGF will permit us, because when we meet the government of our countries here, we meet the private sector. Civil Society, technical people. When we come back, there is no excuses. We are the same that we are discussing here. So let's continue the discussion in our own field. This is one of the things.
I want a small mention the secretariat of IGF. This is more operational. We need a stronger secretariat. That's one thing that is important for me is they should have more procedures for spending resources and taking these issues on how to do things. And I think I see that this is a small obstacle. Maybe it is related also with the station of the mandate. If the mandate is extended for ten years, it would give also time for the UN and the IGF secretariat to develop their own procedures with long‑time expectations. We'll permit them. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Lea, thank you.
>> Lea KASPAR: Thanks. I've been itching to say a couple of occasions. So recently we had Civil Society get‑together and run up to the WSIS review in New York. There were about 40 participants there. We were discussing the mandatory renewal and what is the Civil Society view on the extension of the mandate. What we landed with and we contributed to the joint statement into the official consultation is actually mandatory renewal, but five years. And I know a couple people were surprised by that.
How can you, Civil Society? Why don't you go for unlimited extension? A couple of people said we needed a longer extension. That would make more sense for the sustainability funding mechanisms. There are a number of arguments that support that. The downside with having a longer extension or unlimited extension is don't put pressure on actually implementing improvements. The IGF has existed for ten years. We have to be realistic about the fact that the mandate, even original mandate under Article 72 of the Tunis Agenda, has not been fully implemented.
I don't know how much people are familiar with this, but there was a working group on IGF improvements that came up with you recommendations a couple of years ago. There were a number of recommendations that have not been implemented, a number of recommendations that have to do with the ‑‑ I was just looking at it. It has to do with IGF outcomes. It needs to have more tangible outcomes. It needs to improve visibility of its outcomes. It needs to improve its working modalities, etc., and funding mechanisms. Things have improved on certain level, improving how we evaluate workshop.
I think that has brought in, thanks to a number of M3AAWG members who have pushed for this, a greater diversity of discussion. So I think the question that we have to ask is what constitutes an improvement. Look at the fact that we couldn't discuss human rights in a main session a couple of years ago and now at all; right? Now it's on the agenda. You could say yes, it is an improvement.
The participation of governments in the IGF has been decreasing. If question say oh, we're doing so well. We're discussing all these issues. We bringing them all to the IGF, but actually the people who make and implement policy are going to other places because they don't, for whatever reason, I think we need to have an honest discussion about why that is happening and what we actually mean by the discuss and what we actually mean by implementing improvements. So we have guidance. It's not ‑‑ we're sharing opinions here, but there is guidance that we should be implementing. I think what I'd like to hear from people here is how do we actually do that? If we say, okay, ten years extension, but what do we do? I'm a member of the M3AAWG. In the next year what would be M3AAWG to do? How do we implement these recommendations? Thanks.
>> MODERATOR: That's a great point. And agree, so I have a whole line of people who want to speak. So just a question.
>> Audience: I'm not convinced that the government participation has been decreased. So you have data or something? Can you elaborate? From my ‑‑ I pursuit ‑‑
>> MODERATOR: I think that would be useful, if you could share that, Lea. I do agree with Lea that it is this community's responsibility to say what we want to see evolve and what we want to see strengthen going forward. We can't just assume the M3AAWG is there and going to do it. We need to contribute and participate. Before we get to the questions, one in the back. I've got three here. Are there any comments or questions from remote? Nope? Okay. We will start back there, please. Then I'll come to Hossam, David and Paul.
>>AUDIENCE: I'm from the Association for Privacy Communications. I just wanted to build on what Lea was actually saying. I think we have to just to build on what Lea was saying. We have to move away from the narrow understanding of the IGF mandate as stated in the agenda. As Lea was saying, there are some recommendations that have not been implemented yet. They have to do with the role that the IGF has around capacity building, around building interinstitutional dialogue, about also facilitating the identification of emerging issues, and also identifying solutions to challenges that out there, in terms of Internet policy on regulation. So I think we have to ‑‑ if we want to strengthen the IGF, I think we have to emphasize the role in its full dimension.
Rather than just renewing the IGF, obviously we have to make sure that it has the resources to continue over the longer term and play in a very active role in integrating the role of the Internet, in the achievement and monitoring of both WSIS and the sustainable development goals. I think that if we want to move forward, we have to strengthen those linkages between the IGF and its contribution to WSIS and the sustainable development goals. And part of the IGF strengthening, as Lea pointed out, it's government's participation. I do agree that if we don't have an increasing and active engagement of governments, the IGF won't be strengthened in the way that we want to see it.
Also, I think we should look back to the recommendations of the CSTD working group on Internet improvements ‑‑ IGF improvements, and also NETmundial statement, the principles and the roadmap. I see those references as very important references for us in the future in terms of strengthening the IGF.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Hossam.
>> Hossam EL‑GAMAL: Quickly, what is there I talked what was said, but it open up and this is very important for many of the stakeholders. But one thing that is very important I'm talking about from a Developing Country, it helps really having a maturity track to learn and to share knowledge and to share experience. So many come here without knowledge to share and it builds up over the years. This is one of the most important parts for developing work. Certainly sharing best practices that is growing ‑‑ and exercising those best practices, is very important as well. It started created a momentum. Those are very dear to my point of view. What is required and what is needed, again, stronger secretariat. One thing that is very important and firsthand I would express it, I came to IGF by coincidence. Someone told me there is something called IGF, why don't you participate? But there is not enough awareness in many countries. They know nothing about it.
There is a very important role from the secretariat, at least social media. We are the Internet and we don't have enough marketing activity out reaching activity for the IGF and from each stakeholder. Some places they have more mature stakeholders, some less. But certainly much, much more is required from the awareness perspective. That basic concept of the IGF is creating awareness. So at least telling us about and going through it.
The multi‑stakeholder, we took a lot that is fact we are very limited. We are talking about obstacle that is in one industry be but we are not serving ‑‑ we are mainly serving others. Number one, in business community, very few SMEs. This is true. If we are going ‑‑ 90% of the companies are SMEs in the world. If they are not here, then we are not doing our homework. So in one of the stakeholders, so I'm starting with our community, we need to involve more of people like me that would share different views. But also in Civil Society, by coincidence I've seen many ‑‑ excuse me, you are Civil Society, so I'm surrounded by Civil Society ‑‑ much concern of human rights, which is totally right, but the fact is I haven't seen many Civil Society talk about development. I've seen great Civil Society doing development work everywhere, doing eHealth, eLearning. We need to see those because those are firsthand experiences on the ground. Those are the ones that you want to you create the policy to help them, along with everything else. But let's open our minds further within those stakeholder communities. We need certainly to have other industries. We are serving health. We are serving education. We are serving banking, finance.
So we need ‑‑ certainly the next IGF 2 should be more about them, not about us. We are the enablers of course we need sustainable funding in order to be able to get those remaining four million unconnected. We need to have more from this economies participating so we understand their own challenges. I agree with the fact we need more government participation. A, renew for longer term, the government will start participating more, because they know there is a momentum and it's not ending. It's beginning.
Lastly, I think if there would be more showcasing with different other industries, think about the government of Developing Countries. They would love to be able to make more policies for health using ICT, how to. So we need to start showing them this more. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Excellent points. I have to say that my experience in meeting new people here is that many of people are here for that education and capacity building and development aspect, which is wonderful. Carolina, you wanted to quickly respond?
>> Carolina ROSSINI: It's just information that I actually agree with we need for those 89% not represented here. And I think that that, again, is one of the things we over the years have defined. We have a social responsibility or duty here to ‑‑ maybe the variation of the IGF, do some form of open consultation. Because those folks, exactly because they are small and medium size business, they do have other priorities. I agree with you that they need to be represented. Some of the associations are here, but sometimes the associations and the members do not agree. So maybe how we can forward the IGF with some form of preparation through the regionals and what are the forums using technology to actually reach out to some of those folks. There was a concerted effort to reach out to youth. So I think we can do that also for the enterprise.
>> Hossam EL‑GAMAL: I feel like it's my duty, from policy perspective, this is what I've seen. Financing models. We need tracks for innovation. We need track for local content clearly. Those three are very important and many local ‑‑ many Developing Countries do not have ‑‑ do not know how to proceed. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. David.
>> David: Hossam addressed one of the key points I was going to make. Over the years you see greater diversity and participation in IGF, whether his from expanded participation by representatives from the developing world across all the stakeholders, the youth now. And gender equality debate, etc., these are all really important things.
We need to increase that diversity so that the learning that does take place here and we can have greater interaction between what's happening with the global IGF and the local territories, regional, national IGFs. But that is also ‑‑ it's not just incumbent on the secretariat, it's incumbent on us. From the discussions that we have had just in the audiovisual industry, being very parochial here, we were able to get representatives from of the Brazil audio industry and the Indian audiovisual industry. We have to accept a certain amount of responsibility to bring that here, because their views aren't always exactly the same as ours from the U.S audio video industry. It's a shared responsibility to do this and to trickle back down what we learn.
>> MODERATOR: Paul and George, the fellow in the blue shirt and the lady.
>> PAUL WILSON: Thanks very much. I think we all have improvement of the IGF at the global level is important, but I think we should always also remember that we don't have to hang everything on that. We as a community can continue to develop the IGF not as the single global event, but as a whole system, a loose system, an ecosystem or even a movement as some people have described it. That's up to all of us. There's the local level, the national, the regional, the global. The global is one of those components. It's really no longer key to everything. We hope it will be renewed and we hope it will be improved and I think we can expect some of the frustrations that go with the nature of the UN system to continue their constraints and we may be stuck with those.
But the regional and national levels, that's where participation and distribution of the message and the model can happen where the aggregation of the voices can continue to happen. It's an interesting comment about freedom of speech at the national level, because in a session yesterday about regional global IGFs, there were comments that at some of the national events where they were working well you get a really vigorous level of debate, whether it's Russia or Japan. You get people speaking in a local language and culture, and really fierce about what's happening, which is all part of the diversity as well.
You've got innovations that happen within IGFs formats and outputs, the Asia‑Pacific regional IGF took the brave and bold step of producing a synthesis document last time. That was our chosen path at the time. We got NetHui in New Zealand. We have got friends of the IGF website, which is a fantastic resource which is taken the openness of the IGF to a new level of allowing data mining and really powerful archive. I hope the global IGF recognizes this. But the movement within the IGF I hope is unstoppable. I hope that's where we're going.
>> Moderator: Friends of the IGF, definitely worth a visit, excellent source of those of you looking at videos from past IGFs on specific topics. George.
>> GEORGE SADOWSKY: Thank you. I see a task emerging. I heard my ‑‑ fellow panelist, Hossam El‑Gamal, the business sectors that aren't necessarily involved here. Lea Kaspar has noted government participation may be declining, although that's not clear. I think when one sector isn't adequately represented, all of us lose in the long-run. And the sectors, the stakeholder groups that we have become accustomed to referencing in the IGF as well as in ICANN and other organizations, have been pretty gross in terms of size. Civil Society, what does that mean?
Government, business, those are really very heterogeneous sectors. I think it's easy to consider a few representatives of representing the sector or the stakeholder group. We need to know what the space of the world likes like. The Internet is invading the world in all of our functions. We need to understand that the programs for the future IGFs should be tailored in such a way that encourages, more inclusivity from those parts of these stakeholder groups that aren't necessarily included or active in a major way up to now.
Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thanks, George. The gentleman ‑‑ I don't remember your name from before. You can just reintroduce yourself.
>> MIKE ALUGIA: Something that should be stressed as well is the fact that this is a forum that really allows for relationship building. I think it's often not really just about listening, especially when it comes to contentious topics. It's really about understanding. And I recognize and I think it would be kind of naïve to assume that politics would evaporate, would completely disappear. However, it's a lot easier to have those conversations about contentious topics that really engage in understanding. As a discussion space when we can go beyond titles and affiliations. The second quick comment that I'm really glad that especially Raul touched upon, I think first, is just the BPFs. I've been involved with three of the six BPFs this year. We already received praise for how useful they are. I wanted to underscore that they are in no way an exercise in futility. They have been useful. They are useful and will continue to be useful as they are built upon as working documents.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. The lady in the blue. Yes.
>> Thank you very much. My name is (?) I have come from Europe and represent the Inexo organization, which is the network of children's NGOs working across 22 European countries and a few outside to get children's views and experiences about the policy agenda, in Brussels mostly. I'm really pleased that in this session where children have actually been mentioned, because in the whole conference that's just completely invisible. I'm pleased that young people are here. You've really spoken.
I went to your session yesterday, but the age goes to 30. They could already be parents, which is great, but we're talking about children and also very young children who are going onto the Internet at a decreasing age. And their views are just nowhere.
I'm not just making the plea like other people have made. We are all making pleas in a way and speaking to the converted for our interest group to be somehow here and at the table. But why are we doing that? We don't do that because we want a seat at the table we do that because it's very crucial for good policy. If Internet users in developing world, I believe it's about half of Internet users are children in the developed world is a third from the latest research I read. This is significant numbers of people, young people, going online. And they have got a disproportionate representation about what they experienced there at a big forum like the IGF.
So I wish that that should be taken on board when we talk about extending the mandate. I'm sure there will be quite rightly other organization making representative of their interest and there should be greater diversity. But it's really critical that we hear the voice, because they're the innovators. They have vast experience more than adults who sometimes play safe. Children explore, like they explore the Amazon, like they explore street play. They explore on the Internet. They're often quite unprotected. So it's not just about child protection in terms of safeguarding children, putting them in boundaries, but really the active participation with active participants in the Internet community.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Excellent point. I've just realized we're actually getting very close to the end and the discussion has run away from us, which is wonderful. So I'm going to call a halt to the speaking ‑‑ to people who want to ask questions and make comments. So I've got the gentleman in front in the blue shirt.
>> AUDIENCE: I'll be brief. My name is Nick. I work for the UK government. This is my first IGF my take homes for this is it's a forum for learning, for ideas, innovation, for best practice, free expression of views, and with that, then, a mechanism for accountability as we take those ideas and views into different forums, implementation and local legislation and then into the U.N. as well.
I was concerned by the statistics that government participation is decreasing. One of my take homes is that I feel it absolutely needs to increase, to come and hear these discussions, which I found so valuable. And not just from the one government department that might be involved in ICANN or in the WSIS. There is a range of government departments that have an interest across the board in this growing space. So my take home is that I'm going to try and raise awareness within broader government departments to come and get involved next time around.
I noticed that the UK's national IGF, which is my first UK IGF earlier this year. There was a really limited participation by young people. So I commented in the youth IGF session yesterday that I wanted to work with them to see how we can increase that in the next UK event, because you are the most dynamic users of many of the Internet services. But I previously, if we to have time, I'd really like to hear from the panel how you see the relationship between the global IGF and the national IGFs and how that can be developed in terms of discussion topics and the dissemination of ideas. As we look in the UK towards next year's UK IGF and make it sort of better and better. Thank you.
>> Could I say something quickly to Nick? I sit on the steering committee of the UK IGF. If you're taking anything home, could you ask the question of why UK has not sent ministerial representation to this year's IGF. It's great you're here and a number of colleagues, but this is the first time that the UK government has not sent a ministerial representative. We can talk about this. This is another example of what's the trend.
>> AUDIENCE: We did try. It wasn't for trying.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. We really don't have much time. So we've got I'm going to try and summarize this incredibly difficult, I won't try to summarize it. It would be impossible. Please go ahead, very briefly.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much. (?) Three quick reflections on what Lea suggested. I'm a former M3AAWG member. The current M3AAWG members should be pushed more. One is participation. We all agree on that. We all say yes we need to have it, but let's face it, ten years after the IGF, it's absolutely not where we wanted it to be. We have some humps, some rather remote observation. That means a lot of investments. Workshop was empty yesterday. No one serious taking it more than just services. It's not the service. It should had been a compliment of the IGF. Luckily, because zero rating session, we managed to quickly get the IGF of Slovenia to connect. Funding is an issue there, but I don't think that's such an issue. It's more of a high priority.
Second one is we mentioned that bringing people to the IGF, we need more fellowships. A couple of years ago there was a bunch of fellowships. Now there is some also from Freedom House and I've noted a number of fellowships mostly from nongovernment sector, not enough from governments.
I met maybe two or three government representatives that actually had chance of Developing Countries to get fellowships to come here. Not more than that. But more important than that, capacity building needs to be comprehensive throughout the year. We can't just bring people here. We have to help them understand and build their own opinion in order to get activated. We are lucky to have young folks over there that can quickly do that. So comprehensive capacity building is second one. The third one is the outreach to government, a quick reflection to the data. We did digital watch the research. We do the data mining of IGF transcript since 2006.
There is data that government participation is low, especially from Developing Countries and particularly from Africa. It's very, very low. I'll share that with you. We don't have the data, if it's decreasing, but I'll be happy to work on that and probably some opportunities share that with you. Key things that we have to have in mind when this comes to governments. First, they need to report something back to their headquarters. They have to get back with something. That's why we are helping with IGF daily and all these things you saw, digital watch.
Secondly, they want to have an impact. What happens if I, as a representative of government, miss the IGF? If nothing happens, I'm not going to go there. There need to be something that goes beyond policy options. I'll stop there and just to help you to summarize as we had the team of people doing data mining in real time, so they helped me and shared me some keywords and links from this session. The first one is the word cloud. The keywords were IGF, the need, discuss, and people for word. Top issues that were somehow linked to the session were digital divide in sense of bringing more people from Developing Countries, access to information, and freedom of expression.
So that's what we actually touched upon today, and lastly, similarity among keywords, some of the keywords, particularly what I liked was interesting was extension of the IGF was directly linked to outcomes and sustainability. That might help. Thanks.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Fata. Raul, Hu Xianhong. One minute each.
>> Raul ECHEBERRIA: I'll be very, very fast. I agree with the brother about remote participation. We have done a lot. We have to do much more. And I think that's should continue, bringing youth to IGF is very important. I had to say I'm very proud of what we are doing in Internet Society about ambassador's program, in general. Kudos for the initiative that we are partnering with them to bring in youth, the youth program. It has been very successful. It's something that we'll continue in the next years.
I agree with Lea, too, that there are not enough opportunities in the IGF. We have programs in IGF for governments, but there should be some programs oriented to governments, too. I don't know who should be responsible of that, but somebody.
I would like a comment with regard to development. I think it's very important. We have been talking about Internet Governance for development since the beginning of IGF. But to be honest, at the beginning we don't know exactly what we were talking about. We have made progresses in that.
The mention of development is more clearly included in the discussions in IGF, but now we have a very huge opportunity here with the sustainability development goals. We have to link our discussions. This is an opportunity for improvements for IGF for gaining more importance in the international environment. It's not that we have to discuss different things. Maybe we have to continue with the same kinds of discussions, bringing the same topics with selecting the topics in the same way that we do that. But we have to have those discussions in the context of the sustainable development goals. Seeing how the things that we discuss and contribute being with the IGF goals.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Raul.
>> HU XIANHONG: Don't forget UN is the beneficiary of the IGF because we are a huge family consisting of so many differently agencies. We had the coordination at this IGF, we got a chance to meet with other UN agencies. They are working in different areas and aspect on Internet Governance. Daily planning and strategy.
We couldn't think it's possible that now our member states are so Internet savvy and interested in Internet issues. The government putting not a matter of mathematics, but they need to look at the quantity and also impact. Because our members have been to IGF, they are more known to the issues. So they are requesting us to do more. They ask what are UNESCO doing this IGF and what (?) by the middle term strategy.
We have endorsed UNESCO concept in universality, which would not take place without IGF debates. Here we call for Internet based on human rights, open Internet access able for all and a multi‑stakeholder approach. That won't take place at all without the IGF, which is really impact being the governments from all channel at the all levels.
Last point is about regional and national IGF with the global. I have been to several regional and national IGF. They are not perfect. They don't really address all the crucial issues or can be driven by stakeholders depending on the resources. This is a good start. It's really not easy for any region or country to start discussion. Our field office is also mobilized to try to get involved and help to improve that discussion. This is already crucial for the future of strengthening of the IGF.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. This has been a fantastic discussion, thank you. I think it's probably been, in my experience, one of the best articulations of the reasons why we need an extension, the mandate, and what the strengths of the IGF are, and regional and national IGFs. And it makes me think that we should somehow, and I'm ‑‑ Barbara is frantically typing away over there, which is wonderful, but somehow we need to capture this, because it will be incredibly valuable as an input into the review rounds and the preparatory work for Mexico going forward.
And I think that's what we've done here is we've given some very clear indicators of what needs to be done with some very clear indicators of what needs to be added. Hossam made some great points on that, and also what we really need to cherish and take forward. I won't try to summarize.
What I will say is what became clear is that there is pretty much an overwhelming endorsement to the mandate for a ten‑year period. What is also interesting is that when I asked about critical things that need to be built on or developed, most of them, with things we were already doing, I recognized a value in that we just need to do more of it, which, again, is a good thing for us to realize and it makes us realize that this IGF is maturing, evolving, and IGF's really coming into its own. And it's wonderful to hear as well that it is having an impact in the U.N. system. It's having an impact beyond just the Internet Governance space, narrowly defined. Okay with that, I'd like to wrap up. And a round of applause for the panelists and the speakers and everyone. Thank you.
(Applause)
(Adjourned)