FINISHED - 2014 09 05 - Closing Ceremony - Anadolu Auditorium

FINISHED COPY

 

NINTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE

INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM 2014

ISTANBUL, TURKEY

"CONNECTING CONTINENTS FOR ENHANCED

MULTI‑STAKEHOLDER INTERNET GOVERNANCE"

 

05 SEPTEMBER 2014

16:00

ANADOLU AUDITORIUM

CLOSING CEREMONY

 

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The following is the output of the real‑time captioning taken during the IGF 2014 Istanbul, Turkey, meetings.  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.

 

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>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Ladies and gentlemen, we will start in two minutes.  Thank you very much.  We will start in two minutes.

Ladies and gentlemen, let's start the closing session of the Ninth Internet Governance Forum.  Thank you very much.  If you could all take your seats.  Thank you.  And I will invite the Chair and UNDESA to take their seats on the podium, please.  Thank you very much.

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it's my pleasure to open the Closing Ceremony of the 2014 IGF meeting in Istanbul.  In the Closing Ceremony we have 12 speakers from all stakeholder groups who will make closing remarks.  It is my honor to introduce the first speaker, Mr. Vyacheslav Cherkasov, Senior Governance and Public Administration Officer of the Development Management Branch in the Division for Public Administration and Development Management, United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UNDESA.  He will speak on behalf of Assistant Secretary General Thomas Gass, general for policy coordination and interagency affairs of UNDESA.  Mr. Vyacheslav Cherkasov you have the floor.

>> VYACHESLAV CHERKASOV:  Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues and friends.  We are delighted to be here with the IGF community in this beautiful City of Istanbul, and those watching live around the world to deliver these closing marks.  We would like first to thank the Chair of the Ninth IGF, His Excellency Lutfi Elvan, Ministry of Transportation, Maritime Affairs and Communication of Turkey as well as Hamadoun Toure Chairman of the Board for welcoming us to this meeting.

The importance and timely focus of the Forum on Connecting Continents For Enhanced Multi‑stakeholder Internet Governance and this vibrant venue attracted more than 3500 delegates who actively engaged in the discussion here in Istanbul and remotely from the world.  144 nationalities were represented.  That is a new high record set for future Forums.  We thank you for the success and warm hospitality.  We also acknowledge the dedicated work of their team of the Department of Information Communication Technology of Turkey for their huge efforts to put on this successful meeting.  The United Nations is extremely grateful for your crucial contributions that have made this IGF such a success.

We gratefully recognize the outstanding preparatory work done by the community of volunteers and each and every member of the Multi‑stakeholder Advisory Group under the guidance of the Chair Ambassador Janis Karklins.  They have put together highly relevant and useful topics, and insured that the top global experts have designed the very sessions and the various sessions and workshops.  We would also like to recognize and sincerely thank all of the donors who have contributed financially and in kind to help to put this fabulous meeting.

Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, we gratefully acknowledge our colleagues with United Nations Department of Public Information for their extensive coverage and professional communication outreach this week, our friends from the United Nations office from Geneva and the Department of Safety and Security for providing strong security, excellent Conference services and interpretation.

The technical web team from the United Nations office in Nairobi and their local assistance staff also deserve our gratitude for connecting this group thousands of devices each day.  Special thanks as well to be given to the dedicated live transcription team for their outstanding work that provided the opportunity for the effective communication to all participants, including those at the remote locations.

It was truly a team effort to enable remote participation which brought so many more people from all parts of the world into our deliberations through the past week.  The national and regional IGF initiatives should also be recognized as they are further expanding the importance and inclusive multi‑stakeholder Internet dialogue to new countries and regions over the past year.  We are certain that these initiatives will continue to grow and prosper in the coming year and on.

The Internet Governance Forum is more relevant and important than even before.  Moving forward policy discussions will require more, not less, multi‑stakeholder interaction models which is one that IGF provides.  Year after year the IGF has continued to evolve in parallel in so many issues and challenges face the community and the world.  The IGF has also continuously identified good practices and local solutions for adoption, adaptation and scaling up from the bottom up and inclusive framework.

Leading up to the tenth IGF, there we will be increasingly more intercessional participatory processes to be more systematically monitored and act on the opportunities and challenges that the Internet bridges.  This week we have worked together to contribute to the fostering of the trustworthy cyberspace that promotes peace and security, enable economic and social development and respect Human Rights.  This year the best practice Forum drew together the knowledge, wisdom and expertise of the stakeholders to provide useful insights to the whole Internet community on the developing, meaningful multi‑stakeholder mechanism regulations and mitigations of the unwanted communication.

Internet security, environmental development, online child safety and protection, all stakeholders are encouraged to continue and comment on the draft best practice document of the IGF which is going to be available on the IGF website until 15 September.  This work will continue on an ongoing basis.  The IGF Multi‑stakeholder Advisory Group is aiming to continue to improve and strengthen the IGF in line with the CSTD Working Group accommodation with the participation of everyone here in multi‑stakeholder Internet Governance community.  As we approach preparation of 2015 IGF the renewal of the process will be launched as soon as next week.  It will be expected that one third of the current members of MAG will be replaced and we invite the IGF community to start thinking about suitable candidates.

Ambassador Janis Karklins will continue to exercise the functions of the MAG Chair in 2015.  Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, we conclude by noting that this current mandate of the IGF is set to end next year.  The United Nations consistently support its Member States in their review of the world on Information Society.  We trust that you will reach out to your respective constituencies and communities to raise awareness about the importance of this review to answer continuance of the IGF.

We wish you safe travel back to your homes, and see you in, at the Tenth IGF next year.  Thank you.

(Applause).

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Thank you, Mr. Vyacheslav Cherkasov for your remarks.  Our next speaker is Mr. Qian Bo, the Director General of the Department of International Organisation and Conferences for Ministry of Foreign Affairs China.  Mr. Qian Bo, you have the floor.

>> QIAN BO:  (Awaiting English translation).

In order to build a safe, peaceful, open and collaborative cyberspace in a transparent and democratic Internet Governance system.  Mr. President, as the world's largest Developing Country, China has attached great importance to the development and accessibility of the Internet.  Today the digital divide between north and south is narrowing, but new gaps have emerged in terms of access quality and broadband penetration.  With the deepening of globalization eliminating digital divide as a great significance for the prosperity of the world economy.

>> MADALINA CRETU:  Hello, everyone!  Thank you.  My name is Madalina Cretu, I am from Moldova and I will be 14 in ten days.  By the way, how many of you have delivered speeches at 14?  (Laughter) I am very nervous, but it is a privilege to be on this stage and share my reflections on the IGF with you.  This is my first IGF.  It is impressive how much you can learn and how many people you can meet in the IGF.  I said hello to people from Turkey, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Uganda, U.S.A., India, Serbia, Germany, so many more.

I heard so many new words and acronyms, IGF, Internet Governance Forum, MAG, Multi‑stakeholder Advisory Group, ICANN, ISOC, EuroDIG, Council of Europe, children online, decision making, Civil Society Governments, Access and so many more.  I wish I had lessons at school that would teach us about all of this, but in Moldova we don't have such lessons.

Did you see any other kids at this IGF except for myself and my younger sister?  Not many.  If everyone in the room wants Internet to be open, safe, and accessible for all, including for kids of my age, we need more kids and teens in the IGF or maybe we need a youth IGF.

(Applause).

Thank you all very much.  It has been a great pleasure to be here, and thanks to my mom for bringing us to the IGF.

(Applause).

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Thank you, Ms. Madalina Cretu, for your remarks.  Our next speaker is Mr. Chris Painter, Coordinator for Cyber Issues, Department of State, United States Government.

>> CHRIS PAINTER:  Well, that's a hard act to follow, I have to say, and congratulations on that speech.  And that certainly shows why we are here to really preserve an open, vibrant and multi‑stakeholder Internet, not just for old guys like me, but for the new generation, so thank you for that.

And what an incredible week this has been.  For those who doubt the value and vibrancy of the multi‑stakeholder process, they only need to come to IGF and come to the regional meetings and see how this process works.  It's truly been a pleasure to spend this week here with you at the IGF.  I want to thank many people who have made the event possible, our Turkish hosts, the IGF Secretariat and Multi‑stakeholder Advisory Group.  It is because of your effort that the IGF remains an annual highlight of the Internet Governance meeting calendar.  I have had the privilege of attending IGF every year since Nairobi.

At each of these meetings I have been struck by the quality of engagement across a range of perennial issues including Human Rights, security, development, economic growth and many others.  The IGF's ability to sustain a maturing multi‑stakeholder dialogue about the big issues surrounding Internet Governance is one of its hallmarks of its success.

Every one of the IGF meetings has been unique and the IGF makes a valuable substantive contribution to the global dialogue on Internet Governance.  But it also contributes to providing a space, a space free from the pressure of formal decision making and negotiations where all stakeholders can communicate and understand each other's perspective and develop more collaborative relationships.  This reduces misunderstanding across stakeholder groups when we engage in other venues.  This year's IGF has displayed these traits.

It has picked up where last year's IGF left off advancing the conversation on pressing Internet Governance issues of today such as promoting access, advancing rights online, including privacy rights, capitalizing on the Internet's potential to spur economic growth, fostering science, technology and innovation across many sectors, and, of course, deepening conversations about the multi‑stakeholder model and the IGF itself.

This year's IGF has played its usual nimbleness by introducing timely things.  I was happy to take part in a session devoted to NETmundial on Monday where the community came together to learn of the successes of that Conference that was held by our friends in Brazil.  In response to NETmundial, there has been a track on net neutrality this week including a main focus session on day two.  For the first time IGF's best practice Forums will produce a tangible output that captures our work here and for the use of all.  There has been important sessions devoted to the recently launched IANA transition and ICANN accountability processes.

There have been many decisions of important events on the horizon for the Post 2015 Development Agenda and ten‑year review of WSIS.  Most importantly this IGF is focused on the institution itself.  Our conversations this have week have focused on implementing key improvements, sustaining long term, and making this Forum the most meaning and vibrant venue for Internet Governance.

For each of these timely issues, the IGF provides a space for stakeholders to collaborate in new ways.  In all of these ways the IGF has been a great success.  The questions that we now face is how to make the most of this meeting and the success.  Just as the theme of this IGF was connecting continents, an important way to make the most of this Conference is connecting conversations.  Let's make our work here relevant throughout the next year and insure that the 2015 IGF builds upon this one.

First, we need to connect those who are unable to participate in this year's IGF with the important conversations that we have had here.  That means finding ways to take the lessons that we have learned this week and sharing them with those who are not here.  Second, we need to connect next year's IGF with this one by insuring continuity, workshop themes and organising them in ways that build upon this year's conversations and this year's progress.  We need to continue to find ways to create local fora for multi‑stakeholder engagement through regional and national IGFs.

These provide valuable opportunities to continue the conversation between IGFs and involving additional voices including, as one of the ministers said in the opening, voices from Governments and Government agencies who don't normally participate in Internet Governance discussions or not the ICT ministries, just involving all of those people in the other stakeholder groups.  We must work together to secure a financial footing for the IGF, so I urge all of you here to consider a contribution to the IGF Trust Fund, and we think that's very important.

Finally, we need to insure that these conversations continue.  That's why we called for an extension of the IGF mandate at UNGA this year.  We renew that call again here today.  We welcome that many stakeholders have coalesced around an extension and they have recently endorsed a statement to that effect.  So thank you, everyone, for contributing to just an amazing and great week.  The conversations that took place here constitute a robust body of work and I look forward to working with all of you to connect this week's conversation and conversations and thereby strengthen the work of the IGF and with it the multi‑stakeholder system of Internet Governance.  Thank you very much.

(Applause).

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Thank you, Mr. Chris Painter, for your remarks.  And our next speaker is Burcu Kilic from Public Citizen.  You have the floor.

>> BURCU KILIC:  Welcome to my beautiful country.  I hope you enjoyed your time in Istanbul, the city of two continents, the city of past, present and future.  It was great to have you here.  We had a long week of discussions focusing on Internet, and how we can promote its expansion globally, how we can provide broader and more inclusive access and how we can empower societies and individuals through Internet and provide social and economic justice.  I really enjoyed these discussions and I learned a lot, but one thing that caught my attention, all this week, I don't couldn't help myself but thinking whether Internet has a gender,  why men in suits were the majority of speakers on most of the panels except for the ones about the women empowerment and gender issues, thankfully.

I thought I was the only female speaker here, but apparently we are 2.5.  And I am a woman, and I am from Turkey.  I check all of the boxes.  I am an IGF minority.  I think I should get like two extra more minutes for that.  That would be a positive discrimination.  I'm here to speak on behalf of Civil Society and we, the Civil Society, are concerned with the growing frequency and sophistication of Internet filtering and content blocking by the Government.

This list shrinking of space for freedom of expression it limits public access to information and violates Human Rights, but we are hoping that we can all come together to find legal, political, and Human Rights respecting approach to resolve these concerns.  Thus, we wholeheartedly endorse and support the efforts of Turkish Civil Society.

I really hope that you had an opportunity to interact with these smart, extremely courageous and passionate people who were representative here.  The topic of IGF has to change every year, but the problems that we discuss do not change until they have been solved.  The issues of state surveillance and, please, let's not forget the corporate surveillance, are both burning issues.  We find ourselves in the midst of an all out invasion of what's none of their business coming from both Governments and corporate sources.

Bearing in mind that privacy is a fundamental Human Right, center to the maintenance of democrat societies.  Any state surveillance should be in the framework of necessary and proportional international principles.  Corporate data collection has to be reigned in and taken out of the realm of opt in and opt out contracts and never ending terms of services.

I am, tonight I am flying to Vietnam, and I am flying to Vietnam for the TransPacific Partnership Agreement negotiations, and I would like to direct your attention to trade negotiations and their increasing impact on shaping Internet Governance because these negotiations are closed.  They are a Forum for making Internet policy, leaving the policy that favors businesses with major lobbying corporations and taking on a transactional nature such as we will give you X if you get Y, rather than the open and multipart Forums deciding issues on the merits.  We would prefer for great ideas to be debated and decided publicly.

For instance, the content industry seek intellectual property protections that go beyond what most economists see as helpful and can ultimately reduce rather than expand the richness of culture and speech online.  Similarly, how do we adequately protect user privacy if cross‑border provisions are negotiated principally from the perspective of IT companies and privacy experts?  This is why we need IGF as a permanent and strengthened Forum because IGF is one of the few Forums that gives, that gives voice to the most important constituency so each of us are accountable Internet users.  When I say this I speak for all of us here, IGF should be made permanent, democratic, multi‑stakeholder Forum within the framework of United Nations that should be reformed and strengthened.  Lastly, I want to reemphasize that Internet belongs to us, its users.  Governments and corporations are merely our trustees and they are accountable to us for their actions, not the other way around.  Thank you.  Safe travels back home and come back again.

(Applause).

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Thank you, Ms. Burcu Kilic.  Next speaker is Mr. Hossam Elgamal, board member and treasurer of African ICT Alliance and Vice Chair of Eitesal Association.  You have the floor.

>> HOSSAM ELGAMAL:  Thank you.  I will try to make it brief.  First, I would like to express our thanks to our hosts, the Government of Turkey, for their gracious hospitality in this beautiful historic city.  The image of IGF 2014 includes Istanbul's iconic bridge over the Bosphorus, a bridge at the crossroads of civilization joining east and west, new and old.  Indeed the discussion prompted by this year's IGF theme, Connecting Continents have clearly demonstrated that we are all at cross roads.

I am a member of ICC‑BASIS initiated by the international Chamber of Commerce who represents the global business community in Internet policy discussion.  I'm from Egypt, a country which sits at the crossroads between two continents, Asia and Africa, and instead of a bridge, we have the Swiss canal which acts as a major global trade link connecting north and south.  Egypt is a Developing Country where business is driven by small and medium‑sized enterprises, SMEs, for which the Internet is a major enabler for both local and international growth.  However, the  SME depends not only on technology but on the policies that take place and to boost online trade and eCommerce.  That is why it is so key that SMEs' voices are heard, in particular from Developing Countries.

More needs to be done to enable the participation of SMEs.  ICC is working to expand business participation across sectors and geographies.  And we welcome the support of the IGF association which will contribute to the financial stability of the IGF including helping to enable exactly this kind of participation from Developing Countries.  There is an ever increasing dependence on the secure, stable, resilient Internet for businesses and financial services, logistics, healthcare, automotive and other sectors to properly function addressing the challenges of governance on and off the Internet to maintain such a secure, stable and resilient resource should be a business imperative for them.

And we will do all we can to bring them into the IGF.  Businesses of all sizes must include an Internet Governance dialogue and that means highlighting that the work of the IGF include not just the challenges to Governments but also to help countries, companies and individuals benefit from increased economic growth that can be a tool to enhance societal benefit.  This IGF must focus on potential improvement and enhancement.  There is an emerging need for a broad range of stakeholders not just to renew the IGF for another five years but to further extend the re‑endorsement to enhance its stability and ability to engage in longer term improvements.

There has similarly been broad recognition across stakeholder groups this week that the IGF will also require enhanced and stable funding.  A unique element of the IGF is its ability to facilitate broad conversations as stepping stones to consensus and practical office for knowledge transfer.  It is a laboratory of diverse exploration, not a negotiation that is tied to a specific topic or the development of a tax as its initial objective.

In that way, IGF is not suited to an outcome.  It is a home of diverse projects and ideas resulting in a rich variety of outcomes.  Discussion of various elements of net neutrality at this IGF is an example of meaningful dialogue on a complex and controversial subject promoting better understanding of various positions, clarifying misconceptions and highlighting public's further exploration to facilitate conversation.  These are all important office of IGF and lose none of their significance by not being reduced to a single document.  Better capturing, learning and making it portable and applicable, especially for developing economies is another enhancement that we need to continue work on.

Part of the enhancement may include the development of tools to better associate existing resources to issues under discussion, what some have called a policy router.  Finally, the road of regional and national IGF is an important catalyst to the IGF.  We should ask how we further energize the national and regional IGFs in only direction of communication and knowledge transfer, not just between IGF and national and regional bodies, but also among national and regional bodies that can share outcomes and knowledge transfer and help pressing issues to consider.  We must also explore how such a network of regional and national IGFs can form a backbone of intercessional work.

In short, we need to do more to evolve and sustain the IGF going forward.  It is a conviction of the global business community that the IGF as a multi‑stakeholder Forum must be long and rich and its ongoing value must continue much beyond 2015.  But above all, the IGF must endure in its multi‑stakeholder Forum  bringing diverse perspective together to discuss the issues at the forefront of Internet policy making.  Diversity is the best, and the only way to achieve a culture of informed policy choices.  This is a plan that fosters and protects the transformative power of the Internet across the developing and the developed economies alike.  Thank you very much.

(Applause).

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Thank you, Mr. Hossam Elgamal, for your remarks.  Now, I would like to invite Ms. Salam Yamout.  She is the cofounder and Vice Chair of the Lebanese Internet Centre and a member of the board of the RIPE NCC.  Ms. Salam Yamout, the floor is yours.

>> SALAM YAMOUT:  Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.  My name is Salam Yamout and I'm speaking today on behalf of the Internet technical community.  I would like to thank our host, the Government of Turkey, and all of those many stakeholders who have contributed to make this Ninth Internet Governance Forum a success.  First, I would like to comment on the term multi‑stakeholder that you have heard many times this week.

This concept was identified by the WSIS process more than a decade ago as an essential part of the Internet success, but even predating this definition, we in the technical community have identified our organisations to be open, bottom up and inclusive.  What does this mean?  It means that seven years after my first IGF in Hyderabad, I have the honor to stand in front of you representing the technical community.

This means that after visiting the ISOC booth in the IGF a few of us got together and started the ISOC chapter in Lebanon.  This means that I, no matter my affiliation, no matter where I came from, I was able to join the technical community listening, contributing, and interacting with new colleagues from all over the world.  But the technical community is part of the larger ecosystem, another term we have heard this week.  This ecosystem is a collection of diverse organisations and individuals working independently, autonomously and cooperatively in an environment of permissionless evolution and innovation.

I admit it's a complicated mechanism, and it is only by participating that I understood the fundamental functioning of that ecosystem and the organisations I work within.  I admit that it was a shift in culture from the top down command and control environment I came from.  In technical terms, the Internet is a single global network, unfragmented, neutral, providing end to end connections.

We should not take these fundamentals for granted.  The technical community plays an essential role maintaining these features and these features are vital to preserving the Internet as we know it, not just for the next billion, but for the billions to come.  The discussions this week have touched on some of these issues, fragmentations of the Internet, the consequences of technologies like carrier grade net for users and policy makers, and, of course, the technical administration of the Internet including the IANA functions.  We have also heard from so many about the importance of our regional communities and forums.  Coming from a region whose Internet community is growing, I see the need for capacity building.

This facilitates our engagement in the various Forums where specific regional as well as global issues can be addressed.  These discussions emphasize the important role of the IGF in our Internet Ecosystem, a role highlighted in the output of the NETmundial meeting in Brazil earlier this year.  They also underline that there will never be a single solution to the challenges of Internet Governance nor a single leader.  The Internet itself is constantly evolving and our governance processes must evolve adapting and building on past success.  The transition of the United States Government out of its oversight over the IANA functions is an example of the evolution.  We would see this as yet another opportunity to prove that multi‑stakeholderism is not just another "buzz" word.  It's a mature model that works to solve practical challenges.

It's in that spirit that we in the technical community look forward to working with all stakeholders in their respective roles to meet current and future challenges.  We also support an ongoing continually improving Internet Governance Forum as a vital platform for meeting these challenges.  Sitting on the sideline or engaging in the exclusion is your choice as the famous 70's writer wrote, your living is determined not so much by what life brings to you as by the attitude you bring to life.  Thank you.

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Thank you, Ms. Salam Yamout, for your remarks.  Our next speaker is Milton Mueller.  He is professor at Syracuse University School of Information Studies, U.S.A.  Mr. Mueller, you have the floor.

>> MILTON MUELLER:  Thank you.  I would like to thank first the host country and the IGF Secretariat for the excellent facilities and the well‑organized event.  I also want to shout out to the local alternative informatics activists in Turkey for their courage in mobilizing an ungovernance Forum, and this was indeed an excellent group of people.  Looking back over the past four days, we have had an intense dialogue about the problems and issues posted by Internet Governance.

We have the feeling, and this is what makes it exciting, that we are building some new kind of political community, maybe even revolutionary new forms of governance.  At this closing, I would like to take this idea a bit further than it's been taken before.  Right now, for better or worse, we have attached the label multi‑stakeholder to this system and the term has taken hold.

Let's face it, it's a lousy label.  It's an ugly term.  I can see people marching for liberty and equality, I can see them laying down their lives for democracy and rights, but multi‑stakeholderism?  Really?  This isn't just about words.  In some ways the label is good, but in other ways it misleads us, it frames a political debate in the wrong way.

The global Internet Governance debate is not about having multi‑stakeholders in the room to discuss and negotiate policies because the old system of Government and intergovernmental organisations tried to do that too but in a very different way.  The key difference is that multi‑stakeholderism elevates non‑state actors to decision makers with the same status as Governments, and that is a radical change.

You can't help but go back to that famous 1996 document by John Perry Barlow, The Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace, the idea that cyberspace was a separate political community.  Now, his idea that the Internet was immune to control by states, of course, has been discredited, unfortunately, but remember, Barlow drafted a declaration of independence and that does not mean that existing nations have no power, it means that the residents of cyberspace maybe want a distinct nation of their own.

You may laugh at that assertion, an Internet nation?  What does it mine?  Surely everyone knows that states are territorial, that Internet service providers are based in physical facilities that are located in jurisdictions, that users and jurisdictions and laws are also attached to users, but these arguments carry less weight than you might think.  There is nothing terribly crazy or controversial about the concept of an Internet community, a society of people formed in and around Internet connectivity.  Internet users actually do have their own interests and in keeping identity their own norms and own modes of living together.  Well, a nationality is just a community that wants its own state, its own political system.

It doesn't really matter whether existing sovereigns have the power to impose rules on it.  What matters is whether the Internet community can be organized to assert and gain their own political independence.  Existing sovereigns already had dominion over the American colonies when they declared independence.  China and Africa were carved up by foreign powers before their independence.  Every movement has had to display some pre‑existing form of sovereignty.  Every nation is an invention based upon an imagined community.

So what we need now is an Internet national liberation movement.  But how would the Internet create its own state?  How would it function?  How would it assert sovereignty over other states?  These are good questions that can't be answered here.  But the pioneers have hit on key techniques.  One is to globalize the flow of technology, the flow of content; another is to keep core technical coordination functions out of governmental hands; another is to radically undermine, perhaps in the way that WikiLeaks and Edward Snowden, did the exclusivity of the data and intelligence that nation states enjoy.

Bitcoin has even shown that we can have a global non‑state currency.  We don't want to destroy territorial Governments.  They do important and useful things within their territories.  It's just that they are the wrong political units for global Internet Governance.  We need a new political community for that, and that, I hope, is what we are building here.  Thank you.

(Applause).

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Thank you, Mr. Mueller, for your remarks.  I would like to invite Mr. Victor Lagunes, our host for the 2016 IGF.  He is the Chief Technology Officer for the Office of President in United Mexican States.  Mr. Lagunes, you have the floor.

>> VICTOR LAGUNES:  Thank you so much, Tayfun Acarer.  Thank you for hosting us and thank you for being such a welcoming country.  I find so many similarities to Mexico that I even didn't miss that much of my dear Mexico.  The food, the people, the history, I know you feel very proud about your country and I thank you for your hospitality.

I also thank the IGF Secretariat and the MAG for their continued effort in fostering a multi‑stakeholder model for the good of the Internet.  Friends and colleagues, within the very core of our national strategy, our president highlighted the relevance, the importance for an open, inclusive, transparent and trustworthy Internet.  We within the Mexican Government believe that Internet Governance model is a work in progress, and it's a live process in which we should work in collaboration.

The industry which brings continued innovation, competition to the model, Civil Society to insure that our rights are not only respected, but protected, and the academic community to help us understand better what we have achieved, where we have failed, and to bring models in for future and better uses, and, of course, the Government to insure there is healthy competition of innovation, but there are transparent mechanisms to further build trust in the Internet Ecosystem.

In Mexico we are convinced that the Internet is a very powerful platform that will not only help but drive in a very strong part our social and economic development.  It is for this reason that the Mexican constitution was even changed to guard the Internet access to all Mexicans, a very ambitious goal, but one which needed to not only bring online services to all Mexicans but establish a platform for continual growth.

As we have been discussing these days in the IGF, the ecosystem is evolving and this evolution comes along with a revision of some concepts that we thought were cut in stone.  We discussed net neutrality, we discussed privacy, we discussed infrastructure issues.  And these conversations need to be continued.

We congratulate the forming of the IGF Support Association and we also trust and endorse that the mandate for the IGF will be renewed next year.  As Mexico reaffirms its commitment to the multi‑stakeholder model, we reiterate our strong interest to host the IGF a year after our Brazilian neighbors in 2016.  Mexico, as Turkey did this year, will offer a warm Forum for open and rich discussions.  We look forward to continue building an open, strong, robust, and trustworthy Internet.  Safe travels home.  Thank you so much to you all.

(Applause).

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Thank you, Mr. Lagunes, for your remarks.  The last three speakers.  Our next speaker is Mr.  Kerem Alkin.  He is also member of the Internet Improvement Board and Chairman of one of the NGOs in Turkey.

>> KAREM ALKIN:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Ladies and gentlemen, as a member of the multi‑stakeholders of the Global Internet Network since 1945 mantling the international peaceful settlement and despite effective measures strengthening friendly relation with respect‑based, often equal rights between countries and the principles of the self‑determination of the nations, providing solutions to international economic, social, cultural and humanitarian issues with any sexual, language‑based and religious‑based discrimination, to insure cooperation in the development of Human Rights, adapting the role of being a central point between the countries with the intentions mentioned above, we all are thankful to the United Nations due to its efforts and services for the betterment of the world.

Under the light of the United Nations' mission, we try to do our best for using the Global Internet Network and the national broadband policies for the leverage of the regional and the global development of the world.  In today's world in which the Internet reaches 40% of the world's population, and being used by nearly 3 billion people, by means of Internet Governance Forum it is a great pleasure that topics such as the Internet sustainability, robustness, security, stability, are being discussed in a United Nations led international platform.

Turkey has a great development in the recent years in the field of information and communication technologies as being the host country of this very important Forum also reinforces our belief that Turkey is on the right track.  To conclude, we are all grateful to the United Nations for pioneering the important organisation, to the Ministry of Transport, Maritime Affairs and Communications for arranging the host country as Turkey to the Ninth IGF, and to information and community technologies authority for undertaking the organisation of the event.  Thank you.

(Applause).

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Thank you, Mr. Kerem Alkin, for your remarks.  Now, I would like to invite host of next year's IGF Ambassador Benedicto Fonseca Fitho.  He is the Director of the Department of Scientific and Technological Affairs of external relation of the Republic of Brazil.  He will speak on behalf of the Brazilian delegation.

>> BENEDICTO FONSECA:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  I would like to start by thanking the Government of Turkey for hosting us, also I would like to thank the IGF Secretariat, the MAG, the MAG Chair, and all those who have made this meeting possible, that means you, the committees.

We have very meaningful discussions in the context of this IGF on a range of issues and some of those were mentioned here, net neutrality, access, developmental issues, the ICANN process, follow‑up to NETmundial and the strengthening of the IGF process itself.  We look forward to resuming discussions on those issues in Brazil next year and we will be working towards making it a success by seeking to strengthen ever more IGF.  And in our view this has been discussed in the context of this meeting as well.  There are so many angles through which we should work together and we are willing to do it, to keep discussions within the IGF meaningful related to issues that are timely, that are relevant to communicate the content of those discussions to the outer, outside with those that are not involved as we are here, also to seek to include participants from the sectors from all walks of life to have more young people, and to, and I would like to emphasize these elements to relate to other existing processes and fora.

To my understanding, a clear measure of success of the Internet Governance is to make the vision that was conveyed by the WSIS process, the agenda Tunis document a reality, a reality in which Internet Governance is composed by a multiplicity of stakeholders working in cooperation in their respective roles and responsibilities to make sure that the system as a whole will function better.

We would like to work towards realizing that vision and we think that this entails that the IGF would also seek to relate to those existing foreign processes and I would say in particular the intergovernmental processes.  We can remain in silos, discussing among ourselves in those different settings or we can try to build bridges and make the best out of all of what we have.  Those are collective constructions we have achieved over the years, and I think, and this is what my Government has been trying to do to achieve the best of what we have in mutual cooperation and respect.  So building bridges is something that is very dear to us.

The meeting host in Brazil next year will be the last one before the United Nations High Level Meeting to discuss the overall review of the WSIS outcomes, in particular, the future of IGF.  So we have the notion of the honor and also the responsibility particularly because we will be building, trying to build upon the very meaningful discussions we had here and also on the outcome of NETmundial.  We also have the honor to host in Brazil in April.

So we are fully aware and ready to accept to organize that challenge together with you, together with the community in Brazil that will live up to its expectations and by the time the United Nations General Assembly meet we want to convey a clear message about the importance of IGF, of the unique role that IGF plays in this ecosystem, and in parallel way that cannot be managed.

We want to contribute to this, and, therefore, we will be working in New York with our colleagues and other Governments to convey that notion.  I would like at this point to indicate that we would ‑‑ I know in the context of this meeting a few, a number of organizations have coalesced and put up a document of recommendations to the UN General Assembly aimed at recommending the extension of the mandate of the IGF.  We are fully in support of that.  We think it's very important that this message will be conveyed here in the preparation for the UNGA meeting, and we will, again, work in that context to make a contribution in order to render IGF a permanent Forum, an open‑handed mandate, and to explore ways through which IGF can have also financial sustainability.

In that regard, I would like to highlight we have been supporting through the Brazil committee IGF to continue to do so and we invite all those to consider contributing to IGF.  And we wanted in the context of the Brazil meeting also to discuss in there the financial sustainability of this Forum.  So I thank you very much, and we look forward to seeing you in Brazil next year.  Thank you.

(Applause).

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Thank you, Ambassador Benedicto Fonseca Fitho for your remarks.  Our next speaker is Mr. Janis Karklins, Chair of the Multi‑stakeholder Advisory Group and Ambassador for Latvia.  Ambassador Janis Karklins, you have the floor.

>> JANIS KARKLINS:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I cannot ‑‑ I do not have a speech, actually.  After listening to Milton, I thought everything that I wanted to say became a little bit irrelevant because it was too formal.  You see in front of you a happy man.  And this is not happy because the meeting touched the end because it is that we will have a next meeting and hopefully we will have many meetings further.  And because we will have opportunity to listen to inspiring ideas such as just we heard from Milton, and maybe one day we will have independent cyberspace where the distance between two points is non‑existent.

And today, what today sounds as maybe a mission impossible, actually it is, because if we look back ten years, everything we had on the table and discussed thoroughly in 2006, today is a reality.  We spoke about unsustainability of a very close oversight of one Government or organisation exercising coordination of critical Internet resources.  Today the situation is completely different, and very strict oversight has been replaced with a loose cooperation agreement which hopefully in the future will change the nature and will become cooperation agreement among everybody on every item, and this is the substance of proposals which one expert panel made in this regard.

IGF itself also is under scrutiny.  As you know we will have the discussion about extension of the mandate, and we will be measured against the recommendations which have been made by the Working Group on improvement of IGF and this, these recommendations were at the heart of discussions of the Multi‑stakeholder Advisory Group who did the planning of the meeting.  The MAG was just an architect, but the constructer, that is you, all those who came with proposals to organize workshops and who did organize those workshops.

I would like to express my gratitude to all those volunteers who did this job because that is because of you the IGF is what it is, and that represents or that makes us feel very good about it.  On a practical note, Secretariat has tried to capture the highlights and important things that have happened during these five days and put that on paper that I hope all of you have as a take away from today's session.  Of course, that's not only one take away.

We have tried to produce much more output this year in order to give more substantive input to the Internet Governance discussion worldwide.  This most probably will be introduction to Chairman's report of this IGF and we will have also traditional reflection, factual reflection of everything that has happened during this week.  Apart from that five compilations of best practices, apart from that, the synthesis of information, what has happened as a result of engagement in IGF.

And here I would like maybe to encourage do not hesitate to provide that information because we need to know what is happening.  We need to know, for instance, that two years ago in the workshop organized by EURDIG and UNESCO Vint Cerf was asked a very uncomfortable question why Gmail does not support IDN, and two years later Gmail supports IDNs.  Whether that was direct impact of IGF or indirect, but nevertheless, we had a chance to ask those questions, and most probably Vint went back to engineers in Google and said what the hell, why we don't support, and let's make it happen, and it is today a reality.  It reminds me, since the red light is blinking, it reminds me to thank Turkish Government for hospitality.

It was a remarkable, wonderful venue, wonderful setting, technical equipment, no comments, very good and we are very happy with that.  Also IGF Secretariat who worked tirelessly throughout the year and also during the meeting until late night also, UNDESA team who is extremely supportive to IGF and to all of you for being here, for contributing your wisdom and knowledge.

In concluding, special thanks to Mr. Markus Kummer, advisor, my advisor who helped me a lot in exercising my task, guiding the MAG, and to the MAG members who are fabulous.  This is the group  who is so dedicated to the task, so thank you very much and I look forward to cooperation also in preparation of 2015 IGF in Brazil.  Thank you.

(Applause).

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Thank you, Ambassador Janis Karklins.  Ambassador Benedicto Fonseca Fitho will now introduce a video about where the next IGF annual meeting will take place.  Ambassador Benedicto Fonseca Fitho, please.

>> BENEDICTO FONSECA:  Thank you.  I would like with your permission, Mr. Chair, to break the protocol a bit and ask also to join me here on stage the executive secretary of the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee Hartmut Glaser because we are very honored, but the reality, the real host is the Brazilian steering committee here represented by Mr. Glaser, and I would like to give him the floor to make the presentation.  Thank you.

>> HARTMUT GLASER:  It's a pleasure for me to be speaking on behalf of Brazil, and I like to use one name of a very good friend here in Turkey.  I met him in Brussels, Ihsan Durdu, are you here?  Yes.  He was so kind to introduce me to this wonderful country, and we started a very strong relationship, a very good friendship and he visited Brazil, visited CGI and we are working together to construct a very, let's say, strong Internet not only in Turkey, not only in Brazil, but support IGF, ICANN and other activities.

Sometimes I get a request about my name and I introduce myself as my first name is CGI, my second name is multi‑stakeholder, and my family name is Brazil.  (Laughter).  So now you will know this country next time, and I like to announce that you have the Tenth IGF in November 2015, the dates 10th to 14th in a very different place.  Normally when we say Brazil, we think of Rio De Janeiro, we think of Sao Paulo, but there is a state in the northeast with the name Paraiba and the capital of Paraiba is a very, very simple  name Joao Pessoa.   Can you repeat?  It's not so easy, but Joao Pessoa will receive all of you next year in Brazil.

It's a city with 800,000 people, a wonderful city, beaches and a lot of very Brazilian typicals and I like to invite all of you to be with us next year in November in Jaoa Pessoa with Brazil and CGI together we are working hard.  It will not be easy.  It will not be easy to maintain the same level than Turkey, but we will try to do our best.  Welcome to Brazil.  Thank you.

(Applause).

Now, the video, please.

(Music).

(Applause).

>> TAYFUN ACARER:  Thank you very much for your presentation.  I would like to thank all speakers for their remarks.  We come to the end of the IGF 2014.  I will make my completing remarks in Turkish.  Could you please check headphones with you?

Distinguished Ambassadors, distinguished ambassadors of the world's Internet, ladies and gentlemen, we gather in Istanbul and we had a very robust crowd and we discussed the Internet at length, and we covered many angles.  And this year we had representation from 150 countries, and there were 3400 registered participants.  We had main sessions and workshops that also attracted remote participation, and as such, we reached a wider geography and 1200 extra people attended or participated in our discussions.

We discussed access, we discussed development, Internet policies, net neutrality, cybersecurity, critical Internet resources and Human Rights.  We covered all of these important topics.  At this year's IGF meeting, there was a special emphasis on Human Rights, economic, social and cultural dimensions, personal data, protection of privacy and IGF is a very important platform for discussing all of these topics obviously.  But in order to further boost the efficiency of IGF, concrete outputs are also equally important.

That's why at the opening remarks our minister talked about the preparation of an Internet Universal Declaration, and I would like to draw your attention to this.  The Internet Universal Declaration should without delay be prepared in a multi‑stakeholder fashion and this would be the best concrete output of IGF, I believe.  Dear guests, this year's IGF, there was a very large participation at the meetings, and all of the sessions were followed with great enthusiasm.

For this I would like to thank all of the participants.  The fact that the number of participants was high goes to show that IGF's importance is also increasing, and the need for IGF is also increasing.  I believe that the wide participation at IGF for this year was thanks to this, and the bar was also raised thanks to wide participation, and IGF will be held in Brazil next year.  So for Brazil and for future hosts, the bar has been raised.  And we wish Brazil every success and we hereby pledge that we are ready to provide them with all sorts of support as we can.

And finally, I would like to thank the IGF Secretariat, the UNDESA, MAG, and the employees of our institution for their invaluable support for the successful organisation of IGF for this year.  I also would like to extend my gratitude to everyone who contributed to this year's event.  I hope that you will be returning with pleasant memories from the Ninth IGF meeting, and we very much hope to see you in Turkey in the future for some other occasion.  And taking this opportunity, I also would like to relay to you the greetings of our minister, Mr. Lutfi Elvan.  With these sentiments, I would like to declare the Ninth IGF meeting closed, and I also transfer the Chairmanship to UNDESA, and for the last five days these premises were UN grounds and that will also be taken back.  Thank you.

(Applause).

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Thank you very much, ladies and gentlemen, for coming.  I would also like to thank the team from the host country, especially Aysel, Meral and Gokhan ‑‑ I like people being recognized.  They were very, very good.  We had a very good rapport with them, and they were excellent and they answered our questions 1:00 in the morning, and it was really great.  And I would also like to thank the Secretariat team from the IGF Secretariat.  I thought I saw Brian there, but, no, I will start with Nick, he was our intern from the Munk School.  I think when he first came he did not know what hit him.  And Sorina, who came to the IGF Secretariat on short notice to help me out especially and us out.  Thank you very much to Sorina.  Anju, Mr. Dufour - he has been with us for the last nine meetings.  Thank you very much.  And, of course, the writing team over there, I thank Sam, first time around, and Susannah too, first time around, and thank you very much, and all of those I forgot.

 

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The following is the output of the real‑time captioning taken during the IGF 2014 Istanbul, Turkey, meetings.  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.

 

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