21 May 2013
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The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Open Consultations of the IGF, in Geneva. 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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IGF - Open Consultation
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. We'll start in two minutes.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Good morning. This is a test for remote participants. Can you all hear me.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen, can we please all take our seats? Thank you.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Good morning, Ladies and Gentlemen. Welcome to the second Open Consultations and MAG meetings for 2013. Before we start, I'd just like all -- to remind all of you that if you want to make an intervention, would you please raise your hand and then when the chair calls you, could you please state your name and affiliation clearly. This is also for the remote participation and for the scribes so that they can write your name down. Thank you very much. So without further adieu, I would like to introduce our honorary chair, Mr. Ashwin Sasongko, director general of information applications from the ministry of communication information technology, the Republic of Indonesia. Thank you.
>>ASHWIN SASONGKO: Thank you. Excellencies, distinguished delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, good morning. My name was mentioned, is Ashwin Sasongko, (indiscernible) delegation, and first of all, I would like to express most sincere welcome to all of you in IGF for participating in the second Internet Governance Forum Open Consultations and multistakeholders advisory group meeting, the (indiscernible) process of the eighth IGF meeting 2013 which is planned to be held in Bali, Indonesia. On behalf of the entire community I would like to express appreciations.
Let me also take this opportunity to commend to the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, UNDESA, and the IGF Secretariat for the success of the first Internet Governance Forum and Open Consultation and an annual meeting hosting UNDESA and Secretariat IGF in Paris, February 2017. And I believe many of you are also coming to that meeting in Paris. And of course, the excellent organization of the second Internet Governance Forum Open Consultation and IGF meeting that we have today and the next Wednesday and Thursday.
It is a great honor for me to chair this meeting together with the chairman, Mr. Markus Kummer, UNDESA, Mr. Vyatcheslava Cherkasov, IGF representative Mr. Masango Chengetai. Excellencies, distinguished delegates and Ladies and Gentlemen, we have made some progress in developing the development agenda in IGF. But we think more have to be done in order to make the internet can play a very important role in promoting the human, economic and social development in a safe and secure global cyberspace. Therefore, we need to act fast as well as to set up new strategies to ensure cyber peace at national, regional, and international levels. Especially bearing in mind of the WSIS that needs to be achieved by 2015, which is just a few -- well, one years to come. As we're discussing many aspect of the Internet have happened during WSIS -- well, we have WSIS meeting last week and also in ICANN and also other meetings. We have several meetings regarding the structuring of the management of ccTLD domain name with ICANN and others discussion. The cross border of data privacy will also be the main issues in the next meeting of electorate (indiscernible) group of (indiscernible) hosted by our -- my ministry in Bali, also in Indonesia. By the end of this year, WTO will also discuss economic aspect of the Internet, hopefully in IGF.
As you might have been aware, security issues are also a rising issue. While we had discussion in (indiscernible) in Paris last February, UNDESA also discussed internet security cybercrime in Austria. Originally it is also an important issue in my area. For example, just before IGF meeting ministerial meeting of Aizu, Japan, will also set up security proposals as to how to move forward to handle cyber security. I'm hoping that we'll make great progress in shaping the structure, the agenda, and the issues which are going to be discussed in the next IGF meeting. It has to be our priority to ship a valid agenda that will be attractive to all stakeholders and continue to ensure that the IGF meeting will be productive and meaningful by addressing the key challenges that face all (indiscernible) stakeholders into this world. Excellencies, distinguished guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, I'm honored to take opening note to this forum and taking this opportunity to discuss the theme and subject of the eighth IGF that will be held -- planned to be held in Bali, Indonesia. It is very timely to discuss the critical roles of information officers in isolating cyber security for more productive use, most in private and public sectors in Indonesia. It is more international multistakeholders that is only a matter of time to achieve their information society that should empower information officer and put them as (indiscernible) . Excellencies, distinguished delegates, Ladies and Gentlemen, realizing there are so many aspects related to Internet, some of them are even very crucial as well as sensitive, I believe the next IGF where hopefully all of these aspects above can be discussed comprehensively, it's a very important meeting in shaping the global Internet in the near future. How the positive aspect of the Internet can be more developed and the negative aspect can be more suppressed, how all the countries while taking the benefit of the borderless world of Internet can also respect all countries cyberspace sovereignty, this is the balance that we have to achieve to make sure that our Internet, our cyberspace, can be developed and useful for all of us. For (indiscernible), I would like to hand the discussion process to our chairman, Mr.-- my friend, Mr. Markus Kummer. As we did in Paris, we worked together for -- to make sure that we have good discussions and get a good result for the program of the next IGF meeting. Mr. Kummer.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And good morning to you all. Thank you for reminding us that the IGF does not live in a vacuum but it is part of a broader international agenda. I think this is a very important aspect.
Let's start with a formal aspect. The Secretariat has prepared a draft, an annotated draft agenda that explains what are the desired main outputs of this session. That would be to have hopefully an agreement on the main theme and sub-themes we will then propose to the U.N. in New York for convening the meeting. We will have to come to an agreement on the main sessions, on the content and their format, and also an important part of our work will be the (indiscernible) of the Workshop Proposals.
The formal agenda is up on the IGF web site. Agenda item 1, in that agenda item is welcome and adoption of the agenda. Agenda item 2, brief overview of the workshop proposals. Agenda item 3, general discussions about IGF annual meeting preparations. 4, update on logistical issues by host country. 5, discussions on possible main theme and sub-themes. And 6, any other business. Can I take it that we agree on this agenda. As I don't see any hand up, I assume we have a tacit agreement and the agenda is adopted.
Let me also indulge in saying a few words before diving deep into the agenda, and I would like to recall the -- I think it was a productive meeting, I agree with you, Chairman, that we had fruitful discussions. The Paris meeting came shortly after the Dubai meeting, which was an unnecessarily divisive meeting. And there was, I think, a strong sense that the IGF would play a productive role in the aftermath of Dubai. And one of the proposals for a main theme was building bridges. And I thought that had some support. As it happened last week, we were also here in Geneva, we had the WSIS forum but also had the world telecom policy forum and the secretary general of the ITU, Mr. Hamadoun Toure, on the eve of the meeting at a small gathering and he himself said that the WTPF was here to build bridges. It was necessary to build bridges between the sides that were a little bit entrenched in their positions. And we had actually a very positive meeting, and it ended on the discussion of a proposal by Brazil on the role of governments in multistakeholder cooperation. On the whole, delegates to the WTPF welcomed the proposal as a good starting point, and that could have been the starting point for a negotiation but we did not have the time and in the end the opinion was not adopted and Brazil gracefully withdrew the proposal. Then there was a brief discussion on where that proposal should be taken up again. Many governments said there was not one single forum for taking this discussion further. There was the CSTD. There will be the CSTD working group with enhanced cooperation, but they also said there will be the IGF. And the secretary general of the ITU in his closing remarks said, this proposal would take it further, it would be discussed in the ITU but not only in the ITU, also in the CSTD and the IGF. So this, I think, is a clear invitation, if not the mandate, that we have to take this on board and discuss a little bit also in Bali on the role of governments. This is very much linked to discussion on enhanced cooperation. The advantage -- I think we cannot further comparative advantage is that the IGF will provide a multistakeholder platform for discussing this. And then after the meeting we had a few discussions with our Brazilian friends and also the outgoing MAG member from Brazil. This is very unfortunate for us, fortunate for him. He has been promoted and is moving to another ministry in a more senior function but we are losing him in the MAG context so he's not here with us today. But he reminded us that it was very helpful actually for Brazil, the discussion we had back in Nairobi on what was then the IPSA proposal. It helped Brazil clarify also a little bit their position.
So to cut the long story short, I think this is something we need to address in whatever forum. I think it would be almost unthinkable for the IGF not to pick up this offer that comes out of the ITU context and discuss in a multistakeholder context how governments should be engaged. We all know this has been a fairly contentious issue since 2005, but I do think that the IGF can play a very positive role in this regard.
Now, let me also say, ask -- we had a few submissions, I think three submissions to this meeting. So the Secretariat did not as -- which is the usual practice -- prepare a synthesis paper of these submissions. Also some of them came rather late. But I would like to ask those who submitted comments whether they would like to take the floor, and I would also open the floor to other delegations, other MAG members. Oh, and I should, before I open the floor, I should also welcome the incoming MAG members, congratulate them on their appointment and thank the outgoing MAG members for their hard and constructive work. And congratulate those MAG members who have been confirmed in their position.
Okay. Would anybody like to make a general comment, and would those who had made submissions like to take the floor and present their submissions? If not, then we would move into the discussion on the workshops. Yes, I can see Matthew Shears from the Center of Democracy and Technology, please.
>> MATTHEW SHEARS: Thank you, Chair. Matthew Shears with CDT. We did submit some comments. I'm not sure they're actually up yet, but they were late, I'm afraid to say, as Markus noted. It's a couple of pages on how we would like to see the Internet Governance Forum evolve going forward. There were a number of proposals, most of them had to do with increasing the relevance of the output or materials that come out of the IGF, and I draw your attention to that document. We do propose that when it comes to looking at the workshops, that if possible we try to structure those workshops so that the outputs are very much geared toward how do we meet a particular issue, how do we meet the challenge, what are the concrete steps that can be taken, what are the viewpoints on specific issues. We feel that there is a real need to increasingly create and add relevance to the outputs from those workshops. And in as much as we can actually provide delegates who come to the IGF to go away with concrete findings on particular issues, that will be extremely helpful for the IGF going forward. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for that. I had China, please.
>>CHINA: Thank you, Chairman. China has also prepared comments on the preparation process of the IGF this year. After this paper -- submitted before the deadline of the meeting and our proposal will focus on the overall theme, the main themes, and also the working methods of especially the preparation mechanism of the IGF.
First, concerning the overall theme of the IGF this year, our thinking is that the -- the discussion on the overall theme of the -- this year's be based on the discussion of this February meeting. As in February meeting we have discussed the (indiscernible) views as Mr. Markus Kummer said, that the building bridge is a very good option. Actually because of (indiscernible) there are still huge diverging viewpoints among many stakeholders about their global Internet Governance mechanism. Especially how to find a common ground through communication and discussion and we think that this is -- is especially the role of IGF which can play as a bridge among different stakeholders. And this role should be valued and strengthened. So it is widely believed that this bridge is indispensable to combine efforts of different stakeholders. Hence, it is highly desirable and appropriate to make -- to set building bridge as one -- as the -- one of the core options of the eighth IGF overall theme. Besides, in February meeting many -- I think many views about the theme of enhancing multistakeholder cooperation. As our views that it focuses on the important singular from the -- you know, the first meeting of CSTD working group enhanced cooperation this year and also echos the important steps taken by all stakeholders toward seeking to establish a substantial mechanism on global Internet Governance. In the meantime, it highlights the multistakeholder participation mechanism which is advocated by IGF. However, it is noteworthy to note that the call of enhancing cooperation lies at the top in the mechanism for Global Internet Governance which is multinational, democratic, and transparent, which is stated in the WSIS.
Based on the above consideration, we propose that the overall theme of this year is building bridges, enhancing multistakeholder cooperation for multinational, democratic and transparent Internet.
Our second proposal is concerning the main themes of the IGF this year. At the meeting of this February most of the delegates were of the opinion that the traditional main themes should be replaced by some new ones which are under consideration. Obviously we support to make changes. But we think that alteration does not equal to complete removal. The traditional main themes have been used in the past seven IGF meetings which are the fruits of very (indiscernible) and hard consultations and most of which are still highly relevant to today's situations. So a complete abandonment -- abandoned of the traditional meetings is not constructive methods of working.
Our first views is that it is necessary to keep the main theme of management of the critical Internet resources. The first reason is that the CIR theme is the core issue of WSIS and also the IGF as the follow-up of the WSIS. Secondly, in the past seven IGF meetings the CIR theme has drawn all attention from our stakeholders as a central issue, where a general -- great number of participants made heated discussions. Thirdly, it is a pity that IGF has not offered any recommendations concerning how to solve the global top-level CIR management. However, the substantive discussion should be continued. In 2010 U.N. General Assembly empowered IGF to extend its mandates to 2 -- 2015. Now, as only two years left before WSIS 10, so IGF should lose no time in advancing the discussion of key themes in a bid to assist opportunity for any new progress. In that case the CIR issue should not only be preserved in the main themes for this year's IGF meeting but also should be giving priority in the process of organization and also preparation of the main theme conference and also workshop and Dynamic Coalitions. Besides, the WSIS has intended to solve the CIR issue by setting up the mechanism of enhanced cooperation. Hence, in that case, the enhanced cooperation issue could be included as the sub-theme of this main theme. Also, we have noted that number 36 workshop proposal, which is entitled, "Who Governs the Internet, How People can have a Voice," we think that this workshops can be identified as a feeder workshop to the main theme meeting.
Our second proposal to the meeting is we think that it is illogical and inappropriate to list human rights/freedom of expression as one of the main themes alone. As the issue of human rights and freedom of expression in the sub space has been already included and dealt with in the main themes as access, diversity, security, openness, and privacy. So there is no need to single out human rights/freedom of expression as one of the main themes alone.
Our third proposal is that the principle of multistakeholder cooperation is initiated by the IGF and agreed by all parties. So it could be considered as one option for the main themes this year. Meanwhile, other themes like access and diversity, security, privacy, et cetera, are among the concerns of developing countries and should be taken account of as appropriate.
Our next proposal is about the preparatory mechanism of the IGF. The first is concerning the improving of the efficiency of the preparation. The current mechanism is two preparatory meetings of which the second one determines the themes, leaving just four or five months before the opening of the annual forum. It is recommended that the efficiency of IGF preparation should be further improved by deciding the themes at the first preparatory meeting next year and notifying all involved parties at the earliest dates in the name of U.N. secretary general.
Our second proposal concerning mechanism is to fully utilize the role of workshop as providing inputs for the annual forum. It is recommended that in the IGF preparations next year the second preparatory meetings will be allocated for stakeholders to conduct their workshops and Dynamic Coalitions to discuss the random topics and report the results of the discussions to the MAG meetings so that later can utilize the relevant materials as input for the annual meetings at the end of the year.
Our third proposal concerning working methods is that simultaneous interpretation in six official languages should be provided equally. Within the U.N. system six official languages enjoy the equal position. As the IGF is the conference under the U.N. framework, it is hoped that the future IGF preparatory meetings, especially the open forum -- Open Consultations, will strictly follow the U.N.-related recommendations to provide six language simultaneous interpretation on an equal basis. Thank you, Chairman. This is our proposal. Thank you.
>> Thank you, very much for this. Allow me one brief comment. The references to enhanced cooperation and multistakeholder preparations relate very closely to the Brazilian proposal on the role of governance. And that's what I said in my introductory remarks. And there we have a draft text that we might wish to consider and put forward. So that will be very closely related.
And on the interpretation, this is not resource neutral. This always depends on the availability of resources, interpretation, costs. What do we have? We have English and French here. That's only two languages, but it's not unusual that the U.N. has interpretation in two main working languages for informal meetings. But, of course, for the IGF itself, the main sessions are always translated or interpreted in all six languages.
Before I give the floor to other speakers, who has submitted an opinion and who has submitted a comment and would like to introduce the submission? We know China and CDT have submitted a paper. Anybody else who has submitted and would like to prepare. If not, I give the floor to either speakers. And may I remind MAG members that they should not necessarily occupy the space, but the MAG is here to listen to the input from a broader community. But, obviously, I will give you the floor as well. I think Martin Boyle was the first to ask for the floor, and then I will recognize the United States. Martin.
>>MARTIN BOYLE: I admit I did not submit a paper to this discussion in advance. But I ask the floor, because I wanted to echo your point about the discussion last week and, in particular, the importance of the discussion that Brazil led in the role of governments. And it seemed to me that this is a big opportunity for the IGF to show that discussions in multistakeholder environments can bring into play the various and different voices on a key activity, a key topic and a topic that's been exercising us for some years.
I would note, though, that, if we are going to go ahead on this, we do need to think very carefully about the shape of the discussion. And one of the things that did strike me last week in the WTPF was that the lack of a big panel in that plenary discussion did help because the inputs were coming from the floor and from quite a wide variety of different stakeholders from the floor. And I think, perhaps, that is something we do need to take into account. The other thing I think we do need to recognize is that while we should be careful not to go beyond the mandate of the IGF and produce negotiated outcomes, we should be conscious of the need to come up with some fairly good guidance from that process. So certainly I would support us looking very, very carefully at how to orchestrate such a discussion so that we can get the most out of it.
My second comment was associated with an input that we made for the first consultation meeting, which was to pick up on some of the lessons that came out from the WCIT discussions and to look at some of those quite important issues that were coming up in WCIT, things like spam, things like IP addresses and security and access. And to try and find a rather wider space again trying to look at whether there were useful outcomes that people could then take away, whether they be a guidebook, whether they be a list of contact details and fora where they could get further and additional information.
And I'm a little bit disappointed in -- and I have to admit I haven't got through all several hundred workshop proposals yet. But I was a bit disappointed not to see any such proposals looking at that sort of wider framework of taking longer than just one workshop and specifically aimed at regulators and governments who were having problems and issues in addressing some of these problems. I don't actually have a solution for you but, I wonder whether there is something there that the MAG perhaps needs to be a bit more proactive in setting up a forum that would allow such a discussion to take place. Again, though, as I say, looking at directly involving the people who were saying well, we haven't got a forum for discussing spam; we haven't got a -- we're not doing anything about cyber security. Because everybody knows that's not true. We need to try and make sure that people are aware where to go. Thank you, Chair.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. United States.
>>UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you, Chair. Admittedly, I did not submit written contribution to this meeting either. But I appreciate the floor for just a minute to make a few contributions.
We, too, in the United States would like to thank the IGF secretariat and the MAG for its continued preparation for the IGF in Bali. And we're delighted to participate in this open consultation. We're also pleased to join the MAG in this current rotation and look forward to our participation in the work going forward.
Although she doesn't need much introduction to this group, please allow me to recognize Fiona Alexander of NTIA and our Department of Commerce who will join the MAG. If you don't know her, I encourage you to introduce yourself to her over the course of the meeting over the next couple days.
We'd like to express our opportunity to express our gratitude to Heather Dryden of Canada for her participation on the MAG on behalf of the North American contingent of the WEOG and thank her for all her contributions to the IGF and its evolution to date. In absentia, Heather, hello, if you're listening. And we thank you all those from the stakeholder groups that are leaving the MAG this time around for their contributions and extend our congratulations as well to the new slate of members. We look forward to working with you.
We welcome this opportunity to engage with all the stakeholders in the continued planning for the IGF but also for IGF matters and improvements generally. We look forward to the further discussions on the workshop proposals and format and content as well as the format and content for the main sessions. And, like others have said, we welcome creative ideas about how to organize them in a way that is informative and importantly interactive. We welcome the robust number of workshop proposals that have been submitted, especially by those that were submitted by and include new participants to the IGF.
With regard to the themes for the conference, we continue to endorse S and T for D as a subtheme or something that can be woven into the workshops overall and reflected in the main sessions appropriately and appreciate the support that we got for that idea in the February consultations. We certainly welcome other ideas. The building bridges notion is something that's attractive to us, but especially those that do reflect the multistakeholder approach. And in that vein we support the proposal our colleague from Finland put forward in February for enhancing multistakeholder cooperation for growth development and human rights through the Internet. I think discussions today will be very robust in that vein.
We'd also like to add our support for an introductory session for new participants as part of the IGF program at the front of the program. If there's an appropriate way for the U.S. government to participate in the developing or running of such a session, we'd be happy to do so.
We'd like to make one suggestion regarding the MAG and that is to have the MAG communications and the ad hoc working groups that were created in February to be open to stakeholders. There may be several ways to establish this kind of openness. But we believe it is worth exploring the options available to make the discussions and proceedings truly open.
Last, but not least, we look forward to hearing from our Indonesian hosts of IGF 8 on the status of their planning and logistics. And we thank you once again for your commitment and hospitality in hosting us in beautiful Bali.
Thank you, Chair for the opportunity to make a few remarks this morning:
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. I have two MAG members who asked for the floor. Anriette and Subi.
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Markus. Apologies for taking the floor as a MAG member. I won't be here tomorrow.
Firstly, in response to the opening remarks, I think it's really exciting that there are these developments that have taken place which are -- which, in fact, demonstrate the value of the IGF as a complementary and connecting space. And I'm not sure if you're aware -- and I think maybe later today it will be presented -- there is a civil society proposal for exactly such a mechanism for discussing the Brazilian proposal tabled at the World Telecommunication Policy Forum within the IGF framework. So maybe we'll hear more about that. And, just in response to China, I think that I actually really like the proposal for the overall theme. I would just propose removing the term "multilateral," because that implies that the intergovernmental might be interpreted as such. But I like the idea of building bridges, enhancing multistakeholder cooperation for Democratic and transparent Internet governance perhaps.
And then, just to respond to also to China's remarks -- because I think it's relevant today -- about old themes versus new themes. In Paris we also looked at this issue, and there were different opinions on it. I remain convinced there's room for compromise. So, for example, we could retain the old CIR theme but in this particular IGF deal with it through a specific policy question such as how do you enhance multistakeholder cooperation in the management of resources? Similarly access and diversity can be framed by a question related to freedom of expression or human rights, security opening and privacy and so on. So I think we can reach compromise on that. As long as we still recognize the workshops, the issues that there's a demand for people to discuss.
And then I think, you know, too, just to add the points -- and maybe it's a question on the agenda format as well. In Paris we started talking about the overall structure of the IGF. And I think the concerns raised about the main sessions were not just about the old themes. They were about the fact that the main sessions in the format that they were being organized had ceased to work. They just weren't interesting or effective any more. So I think we shouldn't lose that. And so, if the IGF community can give us feedback on that today, that would be very useful. We also talked about mechanisms such as roundtables on those main policy questions to allow us to synthesize what was discussed at the IGF. So let's not lose that either. Maybe it might be worth talking about that a little bit before the content of the workshops or maybe come back afterwards. I don't think we should lose that, otherwise the MAG might unintentionally slip into a let's do it like we did it last year way of working, which I think would be a real pity.
And then, just finally, on the preparatory mechanisms. I think I really agree with China that, if those resources can be found, it would be really a powerful mechanism to include participation.
And I just wanted to ask China for clarity on the proposal for preparatory processes. Was the suggestion that some of those workshops actually take place before the global IGF, maybe at regional events? And then outcomes are discussed at the global event? I'm not sure that was the proposal, but I like it. I think it's a really creative idea, and it might also be a way of integrating some of the regional IGFs more effectively into the global IGF.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for your comments. This is one thing we were planning today and I forgot to mention it.
We had in Paris a very strong discussion on the need for being innovative and changing a little bit the format. And I think that was the main thrust behind coming up with new suggestions for headings.
And I also agree that the -- there's not a necessary and natural dichotomy between the traditional headings, which are very broad and high level, and the themes we discussed. They all fit into these -- into the traditional headings.
Also the workshops we tried to experiment a bit. But this was also very much behind our efforts. And we all agree we were far too late. We should have started that way earlier at the end of last year. But one of the objectives was to give a community input into agenda building. And whether or not we have succeeded in that is up to us to decide. And we'll see at the end of our three days' meeting. But I think we get a very clear indication, shall I say, of community priorities when looking at the workshops. I don't know whether you would like to explain or answer to the question of Anriette. Yes, please.
>>CHINA: Yes. I think our -- the proposal to the working methods -- yes. Your understanding is right, that the second -- we propose that the second meeting of the IGF preparatory meeting could be used for the workshop, holding a workshop and working of Dynamic Coalitions so that the result of this workshop and Dynamic Coalitions could be a report to the annual meeting. Because coming back the annual meeting hosts the main sessions and in parallel with the workshop and Dynamic Coalitions. You know, many people is coming to this meeting room and that that meeting room and couldn't find the focus of what it wanted. So, if we are setting a preparatory meeting for the workshops and just for the holding of workshops for the Dynamic Coalitions and for the annual meetings, which are including the main meetings and hold consultations and hold all the discussions on the very important issues. And with all the workshops, the workshops could be moved to second preparatory meeting. That's our proposal. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: This is something we'll have to address as we move forward, but I think we all agree that there is room for improvement. I have two more requests for the floor. Subi and Zahid.
>>SUBI CHATUVERDI: Thank you, Markus. I'm going to keep my comments really brief. I'm really here to learn. I'm truly delighted to be here. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to play a small but significant role in how we look at Internet and governance.
I come from India, and I spent the better part of the last week looking at the 155 proposals. I just have some very brief inputs there, because we're going to go down and look at how and which ones are going to go through. In the absence of looking -- and I know there are many challenges, and the secretariat is doing a wonderful job at that. But in the absence of looking at the proposals in isolation without having them bunched under themes, we do run the risk of looking at some very well-written perfect proposals. And then there are others who are not half as smart or maybe half-baked which would not have identified key panelists but are coming from governments or newcomers. And this is a very humble submission. If we could -- when we're looking at identifying workshop proposals that are likely to come through, if we could look at prioritizing newcomers' governments who we do believe and we've all agreed that we need to engage with at a greater level, they might not have the right inputs right now, but in the proposals they mention they're looking to MAG members for guidance and support.
This morning I've also circulated a document that bunches and organizes all the workshop proposals under the themes that we've called out. So, if we could just look at doing that, that would be wonderful so that we can inculcate more diversity of voices and new voices at that.
Birds of a feather is wonderful as a format for holding a workshop. But, if we tend to have the same voices in the same room, it's something that we want to look at in terms of diversity.
Also, just as a suggestion for the theme, I come from a developing country and we look at emerging economies. If Internet and governance could also be linked to the idea and development at the heart of Internet, if that could build bridge and we could look at an open, sustainable Internet that looks at access and diversity and stability of Internet governance, that's about all. Thank you for giving me the floor, Markus.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. No, that was also, I think, a clear general understanding that came out of the Paris meeting that we really should look out to newcomers and encourage newcomers and give them the benefit of the doubt. That is a general criticism that the IGF is seen as a club of insiders and that, I think we have to be very careful that we don't give that impression. Zahid and then also Paul Wilson and ICC basis.
>>ZAHID JAMIL: First of all, I'd like to say it's a pleasure to have served on the MAG. And I'd like to welcome all the new MAG members. And you're right to see it open up and have more members rotate through is wonderful and look forward to helping them out. I had just two or three points on what I heard so far.
On the issue of human rights that was discussed and had a lot of support. And, maybe we could come back to it later. I think that it would be a challenge to say that human rights is covered under all the existing previous themes. So I think that we do need to sort of give a little more focus on it, as we've already tried. We have actual workshop proposals on that theme.
Second is on CIR. I completely agree with Anriette. I think that's a very good middle way to have enhanced multistakeholder cooperation. Because, if you're going to see CIR again on the schedule, many people from developing countries and other places say, okay, we're going to thrash the other issue again for three hours on that one general topic. And, in fact, if we have much more detail, as we have seen, proposal for workshops and themes such as enhanced cooperation, multistakeholder principles, things of that nature, what we're doing is going into detail which goes forward. And, in fact, the CIR issue under that theme, et cetera, is taking those issues forward. So I would call that progress. And that is exactly what would be helpful in that situation.
Thirdly, and importantly, I know maybe I should have mentioned this earlier in the day when we had these issues. But I come from a developing country and coming to Geneva are challenges. There's cost, and we just heard about translations. We heard about the fact that money will have to be spent, resources are limited. So it raises the question in my mind at least that when are we going to talk about the resources and funding and financing of the IGF in general? And I don't see it on the agenda. I thought maybe that's an important point to discuss. I know it was mentioned last time and there was some support about discussing it. And, in my mind, would it be possible to maybe keep a certain period of time either today or tomorrow available to discuss that so we can actually make this sustainable? Because I think it's an important topic, and to discuss it openly would be helpful. Giving people maybe time overnight to think about it or maybe sometime later today. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Paul?
>>PAUL WILSON: Hi. As a MAG member, I want to say thank you very much to the secretariat for all the work and runup to this meeting and the process we're going through. Looking forward to the next couple of days and to working with the new members. And sorry for the opportunity not to work with the old members. But thanks to all the outgoing members for their contributions as well.
This is not a personal comment, but it's a -- I just wanted to draw your attention to the contribution, the third contribution to this meeting which came from the Asia Pacific regional IGF. And that was a request or a proposal for a session in Bali to allow for national/regional IGFs to share and discuss information about their meetings. I won't go into all the detail. There's one page of text there, so it's quite easy for people to see on the list of contributions. But it does talk about assembling a group within the IGF structure of the IGF coordinators from different national regional bodies and some structure around reporting by those members into a session in Bali and some expectations of what we'd get out of the session, how it would work and what its purpose would be. So I just draw everyone's attention to that because it was one of the three contributions that was made for this meeting. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for that. And you can take that as a given. I mean, we had a discussion on the bit on the list that we want to create a very strong regional and national track to bring these together. We had actually started creating a list serve for that issue. But it did not take off. So we will need a leader. And, turning to you, I just wonder whether you would be willing to volunteer to -- well, we need somebody who's here to do that.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Okay.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: And I think you also had productive ideas on the list discussion. So we will have a discussion -- we have a breakout into working groups then when we have the MAG meetings. And I think this is -- will be an important track at Bali IGF.
>>PAUL WILSON: Can I hold you in suspense and give you an answer sometime in the next couple days? Thanks.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: No, I mean, that is the plan. We had that in the past, an interregional dialogue session in any case. But ICC basis and also -- what? Yes. And recognize Marilyn. Yes.
>>AYESHA HASSAN: Thank you very much. I join other colleagues in thanking the outgoing MAG members, and I look forward to working with the new members. I'm speaking here as ICC basis and apologize for taking the floor as a MAG member.
I just wanted to build on Anriette and Zahid's point. I support Anriette's idea of the angle this year of critical Internet resources and the way in which you formulated a particular angle that would be taken up in main sessions. We've had several general CIR sessions, and we see that there are several workshop proposals that are really drilling down on a range of CIR issues, which, as we're talking about tracks, it might be useful to highlight that there is a CIR track in the workshop proposals which would encourage people to go to those session and go into more depth on other CIR issues in order to build on those discussions this year. So just a thought, if we can highlight it in a particular color or make it very clear that CIR is being discussed, but it's just being discussed in the workshops more generally. And then the angle that Anriette has put forward would be a good angle to describe what we're doing this year.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Again, to go back to the Paris meeting, the general feeling was a repetition of what we have done over past years having the very broad discussions on the general heading has outlived its usefulness, and we need to drill down a bit.
Also the point has been made that three hours are very long for a session. And, looking at the summary report from the MAG meeting, we were requested to look into the possibility of having more flexibility in the sessions. And we did. But, unfortunately, this is not possible. This is an agreement that the union of interpreters have with the U.N. They work in two 3-hour shifts. We can have three 2-hour shifts, but that's again not resource neutral. It costs quite a bit more. We have to respect their working hours, and it is a stressful job to translate into live interpretation. So we have to respect that.
But what we can do is split it up at the outset. We don't have a 3-hour session, but we can have two 90-minute sessions and have a 15-minute coffee break in between and then have a completely different session. I think we have done -- made that in the past that we maybe change panel in the 3-hour session. But we don't need to stick to 3-hour sessions with one theme. We can split it up. Let's say have a 90-minute session discussing the Brazilian proposal on the role of governments and then have a 90-minute session on spam or whatever. That could be under the heading of critical Internet resources.
But Marilyn asked for the floor, and I recognize Olga as well. Please do say your names before you take the floor. It's for our scribes. They're not in the room. And they need to know the names, yes.
>>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Markus. My name is Marilyn Cade. I am an individual member of the business community, and I want to thank you for your attempt to coach -- to coax, coax those of us who are not MAG members to take the floor and to coach the MAG members to provide space for the non-MAG members to contribute. There are not many non-MAG members here in the room. But I think it's really important to understand, in the time that I've been coming to these consultations, I've observed a growing tendency for the consultation day to actually end up to be a consultation with inputs from the MAG members on the consultation day, not just on day 2 and day 3, which is the meeting of the MAG.
So I think that, really, the consultation day is about all of us in our individual roles, not as MAG members even if some of us have that role on day 2 and day 3. So I would just say -- so I'm not discouraging the comments from the MAG. But we've got to figure out a better way to get more input on the consultation day.
I welcomed the suggestion from the U.S. that the MAG list be opened up for transparency reasons. We no longer, due to resources, have the summaries provided. In Paris, at the consultation, the decision was taken to establish working groups on certain topics. And non-MAG members raised their hand to ask to be added to those working groups. There was then no outreach to the community to follow up on that.
So, while we're here, I hope we can ensure that there is complete openness and acceptance from not just MAG members who are interested but non-MAG members as well who may be able to contribute to the working groups. And I heard that as the intent, but I just asks to consider how we make sure that happens.
The -- I also really was interested in the comments that Subi offered. Because I do think it's natural that experienced players who are very concerned and committed in the success of the IGF may want to contribute and perhaps may be offering workshops and comments and not pausing long enough to let new speakers and new players reach the floor, so to speak. Stepping back and limiting our own enthusiasm about the number of workshops we propose or the number of speaking roles we accept may be the very thing that we need to do. Those of us who have been around a while -- I put myself in that category -- not just MAG members to enable these new voices and these new participants to feel comfortable.
So I think one observation I have is I went through the workshop proposals, and I counted. I counted not only the number of proposals that different entities proposed but also the number of times that some of us appear as proposed speakers. And I guess I'm going to ask us to really think hard about stepping back and spending our time -- and I don't want to use the word "mentor." I want to use the word "coach" -- step back and think about taking a different role. It is going to be a harder work to find new voices and coach and coax them. But it is what we need to do to make the IGF a success and to broaden and deepen and diversify the participation. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. We have a remote participant. Okay. We have a remote participant on hold. While waiting for her to come in. Olga. Yes.
>>OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, Chair. I also want to join other colleagues in thanking the outgoing members of the MAG. Welcome the new ones. And thanking the secretariat for organizing this meeting and EBU for offering their nice venue and also nice coffee outside, which for me this is very important.
And I will make two comments. One as a MAG member. I would like to help in working in this regional national track. So, if I can help or you need my help with other colleagues, I'm happy to contribute with that. And I would like to make a comment as a representative of the government of Argentina and not as a MAG member.
There are concerns among Latin America countries in relation with the new gTLD process in ICANN. This issue has been raised in several regional forums. Recently, it was included in the declaration of Montevideo during the regional Information Society regional meeting. I'm speaking now on behalf of Chile and Argentina. Also it was addressed last week during the WTPF meeting.
So we think that the IGF would be a very good space to debate these kinds of things and this issue perhaps in the critical Internet resources track or in some workshops. We do include the new gTLDs issue, but we think that that multistakeholder global space could be a good space to keep on debating about this. Thank you very much, Chair.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And Patrick Ryan, please.
>>PATRICK RYAN: Thank you. Hi, my name is Patrick Ryan with Google. I'm pleased to be part of the class of incoming MAG members. I want to pick up on the intervention that Zahid Jamil joined us with a few minutes ago regarding the IGF budget, which I think is important for a variety of reasons. But it's personally important to me so I can make sure I'm not part of the last incoming class of MAG members. That's not the legacy I'd like to leave behind. In order to make sure that many other people will have the opportunity to rotate in and out of the MAG, a healthy financial background and a strong business plan are crucial. And a healthy budget will be important to continue the growth and outreach of the IGF and to gain trust in all stakeholders. We support the multistakeholder model. All of us do. But the multistakeholder model is not without cost. The topic of budget is something that should be discussed on a regular basis at IGF meetings. An hour for such a suggestion tomorrow could be very useful. I believe Zahid suggested doing this, and I want to support that suggestion. The role of the MAG may not be to include oversight of the budget, but I do see the MAG's role and the role of all of us that believe in the IGF to make sure it continues to be a healthy forum. To the extent that UNDESA and other U.N. bodies cover finances, they're indirectly spending tax dollars for member states. So transparency is a really important matter for everybody. And it's also important to open governance principles that UNDESA itself promotes. While it's clear that the IGF is healthy in terms of its substantive debate, it's not so clear in terms of its ability to execute and to evolve. And finances are part of that. Importantly, we still have a long way to go in terms of transparency on this front. For example, the overall budget should be available and viewable by everybody, not just donations but overall cost and expenditures as well as the contract that the United Nations signs with the host country. So I hope we'll be able to address these and other topics tomorrow as an ongoing topic as well.
Addressing the fundamental business and finance of the IGF will be one way to ensure that the IGF will continue as a viable concern for a very long time into the future. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. I think as regards transparency there has been -- Chengetai is just checking what's available on the Web site, but I think there's much more available -- the budget is available on the Web site actually. But point well taken and we can set aside half an hour, an hour or so to discuss these issues. I think it's important that MAG members are fully informed and are aware also of some of the constraints and the difficulties.
Do I take it that we have some -- yes. Netherlands, please. Oh, sorry. We have also a remote participant. Yes. But Netherlands, please. Then remote participant.
>>NETHERLANDS: Thank you, Chair, Arnold van Rhijn, Ministry of Economic Affairs from the Netherlands. And not being a MAG member, it's for me a privilege to take part in these preliminary discussions towards IGF in Indonesia. And we are ourself -- ourselves are quite busy here preparing the IGF in the Netherlands. On the 30th of June we will have our annual IGF meeting, a truly multistakeholders meeting, everybody involved dealing with Internet Governance. We also have proposed three workshops for Bali, and two dealing with cyber security and one dealt with the participation of youth in our deliberations. Of course, the decisions to have these workshops is dealt with by the -- by the MAG. Unfortunately I have to say that one of the three proposals we have sent in didn't make it. And that has to deal with the participation of -- the more effective participation of youths in our deliberations. In our country we are taking lots of efforts in selecting these youths, more students, to go to the IGF meetings. We have our so-called lower house debates, and I'm privileged to be on the selection committee of these debates. And at last we will have two students going to these meetings. When they reported back to us on their participation in Baku they were a bit critical about their participation because they thought well, we are -- we are just students and we're confronted with, of course, experienced adults in this field. So they didn't feel they were taking part in these discussions. And I think we have to make more attendance to more -- we must make more attention to have these students take part or these youth take part in our discussions.
I don't know what has been done with all the other proposals. I think there were three more proposals about these participation of youth, but I would like the hear from you if those workshop -- the other proposals -- made it because once again, those young people are the future and, of course, they have a lot of knowledge how they deal with Internet Governance. And so I would just like to stress this -- this issue. Thank you very much.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for that. Yes, the young people are our digital natives. I do recall I participated in a very lively and very thoughtful workshop last year at with young people, so, I mean, it has happened but it has been a theme that has been with us for many years. I think everybody agrees on the importance of including young people. The devil seems to be in the detail. So definitely point well-taken. Can we now ask Nurani to make her intervention, please.
>>NURANI NIMPUNO: Good morning, everybody. Can you hear me?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Loud and clear.
>>NURANI NIMPUNO: Thank you. Markus. Good morning. My name is Nurani Nimpuno from Netnod. I'm sorry I can't be with you today, but unfortunately the Open Consultations in the MAG meeting are clashing with the supplemental Internet forum which has a lot of relevant content actually for the IGF as well.
Well, I'd like to say that -- I'd like to support some of the previous comments that were made about developing the themes of the IGF. I think Anriette's suggestion is an interesting one of the problem of multistakeholder cooperation and the CIR. Maybe we can look at continued cooperation in the CIR space.
I also agree the comments made previously that the human rights being such a strong theme in both the (indiscernible) and the Open Consultations in February but also that we saw in the workshop proposals that we got in, I think in the preliminary workshop proposals there were 32 that addressed the issue of human rights. So I think it should be given the attention it deserves.
And finally I'd like to agree with Marilyn Cade's comments about finding ways to engage new participants. Not just non-MAG members, but I think we're all -- there's a core group of (indiscernible) individuals that speak at the IGF. I think while that's a very positive thing, we also need to look at finding ways of getting new people involved and coaching them into the IGF.
I'd also -- I'd also like to make -- make the point that the -- hello?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes, please carry on. We can hear you. We seem to have lost Nurani. But I think we got her essential points. And maybe she can send us in writing what we have lost. Now, if there is no -- if there's nobody else, then I think we could go into our agenda, and the formal point would be then the brief overview of the workshop proposals. Chengetai, could you guide us through that point, please?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Sure. Thank you very much, Markus. As you know, this year we decided to experiment a little bit and modify the method of the selection of the workshops, main themes, and also the sub-themes. So we had a preliminary call for workshops where workshop proposers gave a brief summary of what they were planning to do or to propose for the IGF 2013 meeting. We issued the call on 8 March and the deadline for submission was 27th March. We received a total of 222 preliminary submissions, proposal submissions, and the MAG took a look at those and assessed them, and a total of 101--
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Okay.
[ Laughter ]
Let's find out where that comes from.
[ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: No, I think it comes all the way from Sweden, but we'll just mute -- okay. All right.
[ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes. So we had -- 101 workshop proposals were invited by the MAG to fully submit -- to submit full proposals and also 31 preliminary proposals were conditionally invited, as long as they collaborate with another suggested proposal. So we had the second call, which was for the full workshop proposals, and as discussed in the February meeting, those workshop proponents who -- first-time workshop proponents could also submit without going through the preliminary stage. So after 7th of May we had a total of 142 -- sorry, after 7th of May deadline we had a total of 156 fully furnished proposals which were submitted.
The MAG has looked at them and has assessed them, and we are going to discuss them in detail tomorrow. We are also going to break them out into thematic groups, and MAG members in these groups are going to discuss them tomorrow. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you for that. And we will have our open meeting, so it's not just MAG members. So whoever will be interested in these thematic groups. Well, one issue we have discussed in Paris and we have also discussed online since is the overall number of workshops. That was a general criticism made by many stakeholders, that we had far too many parallel. Events in the Baku. All in all I think we had 10, sometimes even 11 parallel tracks. And -- in Bali, we could do the same. The facilities are such that it is possible to accommodate the same number of workshops, but again, then we would not be responsive to the comments received. And the comments said it was confusing to have so many parallel tracks and there would be clearly a need to reduce the number of parallel tracks.
Now, when adding up the various slots, we calculated how many slots would be available for workshops. If you reduced the number of tracks to about six, that would bring down -- would leave us the maximum space for about 80 workshops, and that would also then include other events such as open forums. Like in the past, we will again ask relevant organizations to present their activity in an open forum, there will be Dynamic Coalitions and so on. But the effort -- the big effort we are requested to do -- to make is to bring down the overall number of workshops and that would roughly mean reducing the number by half of the proposals we have now, so that one out of two would go through. We would go down from 149 to something, 70, ideally a bit less. But I think we can be flexible in this regard. But this is something, at least I sense, that we had a general agreement in the MAG and that we would respond also to concerns made from the outside.
Now, one of the arguments in favor of having as many workshops as possible was that many people said if I'm not a speaker, I will not be able to go to Bali. I need to present to my superiors when submitting a travel request that I have a speaking role, that I have a role to play. And I heard that from other organizers of meetings, somebody in the World Bank, that you can roughly multiply the number of events by six and then you have the total number of participants and I think in the IGF we could see that in the past, that there's a direct correlation. And so there is maybe an issue by reducing the number of workshops that we might make it difficult for some potential participants to get travel clearance from their superior. However, there may also be a sort of in between way. We recognize there are many valuable proposals made forward but while maybe not retaining the workshop, we could issue official invitation to those people who made the effort of submitting a workshop proposal that they come as speakers. That might help them when they're asking for travel permission. Also, of course, our Indonesian hosts make it very difficult for us. Bali is a holiday destination and there are some superiors who might laugh when their staff come to them and say I really, absolutely need to go to Bali.
[ Laughter ]
So we have -- we have to take all this seriously. I was once I think at a meeting of APEC and OECD in Hawaii and I can assure you I found it difficult to get travel clearance. But I do see that there are people who would like to react to that. Milton first and then Marilyn. Milton.
>>MILTON MUELLER: Thank you, Markus. This is Milton Mueller from Syracuse University, the Internet Governance Project. I have, you know, been somebody who has submitted one or two proposals to various -- almost every single IGF, and even -- I have been an advocate of reducing the number of workshops but I think the way you're going about it might be a little bit arbitrary and a bit discouraging of greater participation. The idea of coming up with a minimum number of tracks such as six strikes me as possibly not -- not the correct way to go. One thing I've never understood is why we don't focus more on getting organizations that submit, you know, a dozen proposals to reduce their number to a fixed number because then those organizations are in a position to decide what is really the top priority, which workshops they're really going to make a good job out of, and which ones they're just kind of throwing out there to, I don't know, occupy space or something. So I think the quality is the key issue. If you're going to err, I would rather have a free marketplace for workshops in which some people miserably only attract two or three attendees perhaps but others are going to be overcrowded, but I would rather err on that side and have a full diversity of views than to restrict people who both would not come and might be discouraged from bringing in new ideas or really excellent workshop proposals. I think that's a chance that would happen, that some really good proposals might get restricted if you're too rigid about the number of simultaneous tracks. So if you do go with the number of simultaneous tracks idea, I would raise it at least to eight, and I would also encourage you again to explore limiting the number of proposals by single organizations, if you're legally going to cut the number in half. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. I think the latter proposal, that's definitely something -- a point the MAG made also in February. I know not everybody respected that, but that is -- will be part of the process that we are strict in this regard. Single organizations cannot come up with that many proposals. Personally, I have no strong feeling either way. The idea to restrict the number of workshops was in response to comments received, and I think on the whole, we received much criticism to have too many parallel tracks. It was -- the program was confusing because it was too many parallel events. But if the MAG in its wisdom comes to the conclusion that after having heard all comments, yes, but we had many excellent proposals, so we stick to a relative high number of workshops, so be it. But it is really up to this meeting to decide. And we have to decide on the basis of the proposals. Marilyn, and then ICC Basis.
>>MARILYN CADE: My name is Marilyn Cade. I'd like to strongly agree with you, Milton, and to ask us to think a little differently. I'm frankly very disappointed to hear that the MAG would propose to reduce the number of workshops to 70 or 80. And I'll go back to saying, I read the proposals and I counted. And 70 or 80 workshops will mean that workshops proposed by MAG members and well-established and historically-strong contributors get space and new people don't.
I was at -- I was able to attend parts of the WSIS action line forum last week and there were workshops in which there were panels of four or five people and an audience of four or five people. I don't think that works, but I don't think that's what we had at the IGF. And I also think at the IGF we're trying to not only have informational sessions where you can have 100 people in a room and a panel of presenters and a little bit of exchange with the participants, I think we're evolving to needing different kinds of interactions and a room that's got 25 people in it in a round table environment that are exchanging in-depth discussions and moving past stating opinions and getting to true dialogue may be a phenomenal contribution to the IGF.
I haven't heard very many workshop presenters complaining about not having a workshop. I think the main sessions last year did receive a fair amount of criticism in that they were -- and I think what I heard in February in our discussion is we wanted to really seriously consider redesign and changes in the main sessions. I would urge us to return to the philosophy that if there are rooms, we make them available and we focus on helping workshop proposers to strengthen their proposals, if that's what's needed to pass the checklist of the MAG. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. ICC Basis and then Olga and Anriette.
>>ICC: Thank you. Ayesha Hassan speaking for ICC BASIS. I'd like to support and build on what Milton and some of Marilyn's points have been about. I think that there are some proposals that may not fit in the track that are actually very well thought out but they are very much related and relevant to the Internet Governance Forum's mandate, so we need to look at this, I think in a qualitative way to look at proposals that really will add value to this year's event. We also -- I think it's fair to go back out to proposers who have a significant number of proposals there and ask them to choose. There might be ways in which they would now, having seen the proposals that are out there from other people, they may consider not just merging but also just consider what do they want to prioritize for their entity or organization this year and give up some slots that way.
Another way we could look at this is look at some of the very well thought-out proposals that are really on point for main sessions and offer for the proposers to actually be integrated as the main session, perhaps drawing upon the speakers they have identified and recognizing them as partners and organizing it so that they would get the profile or recognition that they have actually contributed to this year's program. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Olga.
>> OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you, Chair. I would like to agree with ICC in perhaps integrating some workshop proposals into main sessions. I think we should not reduce the number because I've organized several workshops along different IGF's and maybe you have a lot of people or few people in the room, then people contact you afterwards because they read the transcripts. So sometimes there are a few people in the room but it has a lot of value for those people there and sometimes people get the information afterwards and comes to you as organizer or participant, as a panelist. So there is value in this diversity of workshops. So we should perhaps help enhancing some of the proposals or perhaps merging them with main sessions, but I think that we -- if we have the space and the resources that we should not reduce them. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. We have a remote participant. We seem to have a technical problem. The interpreters cannot hear the remote participant, so there will be no interpretation. Please.
>> Thank you, Markus. We have one intervention from Robert (saying name). Support Marilyn Cade's suggestion that for this and future IGFs to be successful we need to facilitate and mentor those who are proposing session for the first time. (indiscernible) concerned that MAG at times too involved. Their role, in my opinion, would be for MAG to help with guidance and light-handed touch. Also, support enhanced cooperation between enhanced transparency and enhanced engagement of different stakeholders and not just enhanced -- enhanced involvement of governments.
Jeremy Malcolm has sent us an intervention. A group of Civil Society stakeholders, including Consumers International, the Association for Progressive Communications, ICT Watch Indonesia, the Center for Technology and Society at FGV Law School in Brazil, and seven other so far have put together a joint proposal for the IGF to take on the challenge of developing a multistakeholder opinion on operationalizing the role of governments in the multistakeholder framework for Internet Governance. The starting point for this process would be the text table by Brazil at the World Telecommunications ICT Policy Forum last week. But because the IGF is not a negotiating body, we have developed a much more interactive and multistakeholder process for discussing the text. With the aim of --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Sorry. Can we come back to that later?
>> It's two more sentences.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay, finish the two more sentences.
>> And non-binding output by consensus. The process that we propose is detailed at this Web site. I will give you the Web site later. I encourage everyone to visit that page to read what we propose. Thank you very much.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Well, the latter proposal is basically relating to what I suggested from the beginning which had some support on picking up on the Brazilian draft opinion discussed last week at the WTPF. Avri, would that be with regard to that one or to the workshops? If it's on the Brazilian opinion can we shelf that for a later discussion?
>>AVRI DORIA: Yes. I just want to make a note that I want to bring that up when we talk about main sessions.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Yes, that was said here, we discuss it when we discuss the main sessions. Now we are basic at the point of how to deal with the workshop proposals. The starting point was much criticism received that there are too many workshops and we made the proposal to reduce drastically the number of parallel tracks, but that doesn't seem to find support in the room. Anriette.
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Markus, thank you. You know, I think that what's happening here is a little bit -- it's illustrative of the fact that the IGF preparatory process is still very linear, that we don't have very established procedure because I think -- I mean, I support much of the sentiment in the comments about not limiting the diversity, but let's just remember that the reason why the reduction of workshops is on the table in the first place is because the MAG was asked to do this. There was very clear input from the IGF community in the Paris Open Consultation and in responses to the Baku IGF that not the MAG but IGF participants felt there were too many workshops. So yes, diversity is important. But let's not backtrack. Our responsibility is to listen to how people evaluate the IGF and to try and implement changes. And perhaps if we had more procedures such as an actual evaluation of the IGF from participants, then we'd have more data that we can use to guide our decisions. Instead of kind of shifting from one serious consideration to another serious consideration. So --
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, thank you for reminding us. It's -- the idea to reduce the number of workshops did not just come out of the blue. It was in reaction to a community request. And I just wonder is there anybody in the room who actually had -- I mean, I remember in past years there are people who said we have too many workshops but then you try to tell them your workshop has not been chosen, then they went up to the roof. So there's always this side to it. But is there anybody in the room who made actually a complaint about the many -- too many parallel tracks and maybe criticism? Yes, please. Yes. European Commission.
>>EUROPEAN COMMISSION: Hi, good morning. Yeah, we actually made that comment. We felt there were too many -- too many workshops. We thought they were overlapping workshops. And in a certain way competing because then it -- they were often competing with the plenary, and in Baku we often saw the main room half empty. So we still call for streamlining of the overall organization. Thanks.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. United States and then ICC Basis.
>> UNITED STATES: Thank you, Chair. I just wanted to offer my recollection, as foggy as it might be, of the discussion in Paris. I don't recall there being a specific discussion about the number. Perhaps a little bit more about the confusion or as was mentioned that conflicting issues might be going on at the same time. But the main thing I remember was that there was the issue of whether workshops conflicted with the main sessions and the tension of whether you attend the main session or a workshop. I know that we have yet to discuss sort of the format and organization of the main sessions, but maybe that decision -- maybe that could all be taken together. So again, I support the notion that we don't want to limit the ability to participate to the extent possible, and I guess for lack of a better word, more quality control or consolidating where there may be duplicates is the way to go. But maybe not to a lesser number per se. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Just to remind you there was also a number of written submissions and there was a general thread that they said there were just too many parallel meetings and too many parallel tracks. Economic Commission for Africa, please.
>> UNECA: Good morning, everybody. As this is the first time I am taking the floor I would like to welcome the new MAG members and also thank the outgoing as well as to request the continuing members to provide the necessary mentoring and coaching still of the members they have.
On the reduction of the number of workshops, definitely during the first selection there were some recommendations for mergers. I don't know now what we have done with that and, of course, this trend should continue when we have the new workshops also because if the recommendation for merger doesn't take into account the new proposals then the first proposals would lose.
The suggestion I have is also to maybe try to limit the number of plenaries running concurrently with the workshops because in several international meetings we have seen that they can schedule a plenary for three hours and workshops for the remaining three hours so there will be no competition between the plenary and the workshop so people can have time to go to the plenaries and also have time to go to the running workshops. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: This is definitely the last suggestion some of you can look at. And that automatically will reduce the number of workshops. If you take away whole slots of a main session, that would take away, if you have parallel tracks, at one stroke, depending, eight parallel tracks would be 20 workshops less. But the idea to have maybe themes suggested by workshops in a main session is definitely worth considering. That will give value. If you think this is interesting, give them space. And, as I said, we are not bound to have three-hour main sessions. We can divide into two. And this definitely could be an option. We say okay, if you want to add greater value to the main sessions, make sure there's nothing taking place in parallel. Sorry, can't recall your name. Oh, yes, I can. Jim Prendergast. Yes, I remembered your family name, but not your first name. Jim Prendergast.
>>JIM PRENDERGAST: Thank you, Chair. You know, if you step back and think about this, this is actually a wonderful problem we have that there are so many different parties and people interested in submitting proposals. I think it's a testament to the value of the IGF. So I think that's an important point to consider.
One thing that really shouldn't be overlooked is Olga's point about the IGF being a snapshot. Workshops than happen can be recorded and referred to over time. So even if you can't attend in person, there's still a vault of knowledge that you can refer to afterwards or months later. So thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. I agree with that. I think it's a good problem to have, that we have this terrible problem we have too many good proposals. And it indicates there are unbroken interest, and people do vote with their feet. So -- but, I mean, we have to find a way. At the same time, we have also we cannot ignore the concerns expressed by the community.
I'm following the principle many people have when they have a party and invite too many people, family holds back. So MAG members hold back, and I give non-MAG members the floor first. I recognize Elliot from Cisco and Martin from Nominet. Please, again, state your name before you speak.
>>ELIOT LEAR: Thank you very much, Markus. My name is Eliot Lear. I work for Cisco Systems. I was just going to comment this is not a unique problem that we're facing. It's one that other organizations face, too. And it's one where you have many people wanting to provide material. And one thing that you have to capture is who wants to actually take in this material. And I think it would be interesting to explore mechanisms to address your earlier point, Markus, about travel approvals as to maybe having some sort of delayed approval process for sessions to say, okay, we're going to take a poll of participants. Who wants to participate at these various sessions in order to take in the information? And we'll release that information in the first session. Or something along those lines. It's sort of an off-the-cuff idea. But my main point is please recognize that you want to make sure that there's actually people who want to take in the information.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Yes, I think we had a discussion on different formats. And I think the roundtable format found a lot of favor that you would maybe have at the end of a series of workshops on the same track, have a roundtable bringing to the the people who have a workshop. But this could also be used bringing together the people who were proposing to have a workshop but were not finally selected. But we could group them into one session, for instance. But we're on the brainstorming mode, and I think all good suggestions are welcome.
Martin Boyle from Nominet and Matthew Shears from CDT.
>>MARTIN BOYLE: Thank you, Chairman.
Well, I think you've just identified my main point, which really was how do you try to bring some sort of coherence and certainly cross fertilization between quite a lot of workshops? If I remember correctly -- there might have been one or two examples where this didn't happen -- but, by and large, the main sessions and workshops on the same theme did not overlap in Bali. So that wasn't the reason people weren't turning up to the main room. The thing to think through is how we relate those main sessions and the workshops so that the ideas that are being generated in the workshops actually do make a wider audience. And it's that sort of overall coherence that I think for me in Bali was one of the most confusing parts.
I remember going through to the security openness and privacy plenary session where there were report-back opportunity for all the workshops. But they weren't structured. So you had to sit through the whole of this workshop -- the plenary during that discussion on one issue. When that interrupted, you had a number of different workshops that were reported back. But they weren't on the issues that had just been discussed, and they weren't on the issue that was just about to be discussed. So you -- you were then confused as to why there was that relationship between them. And you ended up with something that sounded very ad hoc and random.
So I think my plea is, yes, I'd love it see some sort of roundtable discussion to try to pull out related ideas and issues. And I would love to see us trying to identify some of those key issues and making sure that we've got the coherence on some of those key issues. Thank you, Chair.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. A reminder, actually, you were in Baku last year, not Bali. You're going to be in Bali this year.
>>MARTIN BOYLE: You are indeed, Chairman, perfectly right. Do we always have to go to somewhere with a short name beginning with "B"?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: And another point is actually, at the very beginning, we said these are not plenaries, these are main sessions. We tried to emphasize that the IGF was different. Plenary is usually, in the U.N. context, people read statements and that's it. Whereas, our ambition has always been to make the session as interactive as possible. Whether we succeeded in that is yet another story.
The main point is well taken. I think that was -- came across very clearly in Paris that most people thought the main sessions, as they were handled in Baku, should not be repeated in that way.
And especially the reporting back of the workshops, it just did not work. It was not reading of statement but it was not -- did not feed into the thematic discussions. So there is clearly room for improvement. But I also would -- I like the suggestion from our colleague from the Economic Commission of Africa considering having maybe main sessions without any parallel sessions. That would automatically give value to the main sessions, and we could then maybe feed in a series of workshops or also invite people who have proposed workshops to animate such a main session. So, by doing that, we would automatically eliminate many slots for workshops. We have to be aware of that. It could be a creative way of responding to the criticism of having a confusing program and making it more attractive at the same time. My concern is whatever we decide, we have to communicate clearly that we listened to the criticism of having confusing program with too many sessions. But we came to the conclusion that this way of doing it for this or that reason would address these concerns. I can see Milton is going to react. Yes, please.
>>MILTON MUELLER: Well, it sounds like the agenda has shifted to main sessions. Is that correct?
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Only insofar as they relate to the workshops.
>>MILTON MUELLER: Okay. Well, actually, that's precisely the relationship that I want to address. So this is Milton Mueller from Syracuse University Internet Governance Project. And I think this is a very telling relationship. Because the fact of the matter is that what really draws people and gets people enthusiastic and participatory to the forum is, in fact, the workshops. And the main sessions have been an unambiguous failure almost every year. It's fundamentally one of the strangest ironies of the IGF is that we get some of the most committed and interesting people talking about Internet governance in the world in one place. And then in a main session we don't know what to do with them. We really don't. That's a hard problem. Because we, you know, we say this is a non-binding discussion forum and what kind of discussion can you have in a big room with 2,000 people in it? So I think that the solution to the main session problem is not to, essentially, force people to go to them by not having anything else going on. I really, really strongly believe that. You have to have a clear idea as to what you're doing in those main sessions. And people have to buy into that in some way. They have to feel like they're engaged and that the main session is actually doing something important. So that's why I think it would be tremendously risky to both shut down a large number of workshops and put more emphasis on main sessions unless you have a very good strong idea as to what you're doing in that main session, which is why I really want to speak in support of Jeremy Malcolm's idea as to trying to actually do something with a main session which would make people feel like they were actually accomplishing something.
I think I'll need to speak about this later in the broader context of the IGF's competition with the ITU as a policy development entity. But, in the context of just talking about the relationship being workshops and main sessions, my point here is don't think that you're going to make the main sessions a success by, basically, throwing people out of workshops and giving them nothing else to attend.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Matthew?
>>MATTHEW SHEARS: Thank you, Chair. Matthew Shears, CTD.
I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea of reducing the number of workshops to achieve a particular number. That seems very arbitrary to me. I think the purpose of these workshops should really be driven by the need to bring new people to the IGF and to bring new ideas to the IGF in terms of workshops and areas that we may look at. So, rather than try to come to a particular number, perhaps we can look at workshops in that light. Which workshops are bringing new people to the table? Which workshops are bringing new subjects for discussion? Perhaps some workshops could and should be merged, if that's appropriate. The number of the workshops by the same organizing entity might have to be reduced. I don't think that's an unreasonable request.
And, having been on the MAG in the very beginning of the IGF, I recall those days. And the role of MAG members vis-a-vis workshops was to be an as-needed addition should there be other speakers who were not available or there was a need to fill out a workshop. And maybe we can go back to that and perhaps encourage more new faces to come forward to fill out those workshops where there are MAG members on there as proposed speakers.
And, just to come back to an idea that was raised in February in Paris, there seemed to be a lot of support back then for workshops feeding into a kind of roundtable discussion which would then feed into the main sessions. And I think that is an excellent way forward for synthesizing the learnings for the workshops. And, hopefully, that would point toward a more valuable outward-oriented mechanism for the themes in general. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Marilyn.
>>MARILYN CADE: I support the comments that have been made. I want to go back and focus on a comment that Milton made and talk about my experience in Baku in the main sessions.
I observed two interesting things. The really interesting discussions were going on in the workshops, I think. But, in addition to that, the structure of the room was such that a lot of people ended up sitting in the back of the room and having other conversations. And I could see that that was really annoying some of the people who planned the main sessions. And I would also just point out that these are main sessions. They are not plenaries. And I want to really reinforce that. There's an opening session and a closing session. But these are main sessions. Plenaries are something different. And I hope we're not migrating into thinking the main sessions are plenaries, which means everybody has to be summoned together to hear the same thing. The diversity and interest that people bring to the IGF, I think, is really its strongest value. And if no one -- if someone comes to an IGF and has the kind of learning experience and builds relationships and networks and gets the kinds of satisfaction that they need out of participating only in workshops, we still ought to think that's a success. I'm a big believer in the main sessions, but I think we've got to refine our thinking. And one way to do that might be to make them a 2-hour session followed by a -- can I just finish -- a 2-hour segment followed by a 45-minute to an hour effort to understand what key points have been brought out during that session by the use of more formal rapporteur approaches.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you, yes. 2 hours and 45 minutes, that works, yes. You frightened me. Thought you wanted to change the working hours of the interpreters. Zahid. And Chip. Zahid first.
>>ZAHID JAMIL: Thank you. I just want to say I think the issue with the -- having the reporting in from the workshops into the main sessions was we wanted some sort of a connection between the main sessions, the workshops also. Not that this is a plenary, I completely understand and accept that. Maybe one of the solutions could be -- and this is just an idea I'm throwing out there -- is to have the panelists who will be in the main sessions at least attend one or two of the workshops on the other days. When they participate in those workshops, maybe from the floor or otherwise, there may be some sort of an understanding that people would have in those workshops that maybe our view may come out on the main session and give them some incentive to come to it. Otherwise what we have is a main session where a discussion is completely disconnected sometimes from what's been going on in the workshops. That's just a thought.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. We have also a remote participant. Can we --
>> So this is intervention from Shahram Soboutipour.
As a MAG member from a developing country, I would like to echo an issue that I have noted in countries like mine. The issue I see is that the main concept of the IGF is not yet been cleared among different stakeholders in developing countries. I think that is desire usually comes from the efforts of private sector as the stakeholder who benefits from Internet in the business layer. So that makes it feasible for them to invest on this. But the problem is the weakness of IT businesses and organizations in developing countries in comparison to Internet joint companies and organizations. This issue makes the stakeholders from developing countries to be less involved in IGF. So maybe, as a solution for the imbalance of the number of workshops submitted by these giants and not to restrict the number of workshops, I recommend a method of CIR for workshop presenters to commit voluntarily on investing participation of stakeholders from develop countries in a balanced form.
There is another intervention from Nurani Nimpuno.
I was trying to make the final point before I got cut off that I believe we can both improve the quality of the workshops and reduce the number of workshop proposals through the MAG working more continuously throughout the year, suggesting mergers where appropriate but guiding workshop proposers and having more dialogue with them. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Now I have a number -- Chip, yes, please.
>> Thank you, Markus. And greetings to everyone who have come to the consultation. I think my associate here, Mr. Jamil, has expressed my point. I think we're thinking along the same lines, which is tying the main session with workshops. If there are themes that can be introduced that not -- that could then provide further discussion in the workshops and, given that information and discussion at the main session, could actually encourage more discussion at the workshop if everybody's -- kind of has the same set of information to start from. So I think that could be one possibility for tying the workshops and the main sessions together. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Now I have a number of MAG members who asked for the floor. Izumi, Subi, Paul, Mark, and Theresa. Izumi, you've been waiting for a long time. Thank you very much. My name is Izumi Aizu, MAG member from Tokyo. First I'd like to express our gratitude to outgoing members first and to the secretariat and the others like the EBU who made it possible to be at this venue. On the numbers of the workshops and the quality, I agree with Anriette that we must be bound by the community input we had in February. And I clearly remember there were a lot of outcries or criticisms about the Baku's organizational issues.
But, at the same time, I have a question. Is there any specific reason to target to 80 or is it about half? If I may.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: That was a calculation based on the streams. If we have six streams, then we can have roughly 80 or --
>>IZUMI AIZU: With the number of rooms available or something like that?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: No. It's just because there was a call for reducing the number of streams. So, if we have six events going on at the same time, that's roughly the amount of workshops that we can have. If we increase the streams, so we have 8, 9, 10 -- in Baku we had at one time 11 rooms going on at one time. So it --
>>IZUMI AIZU: Okay. Having finished my evaluation of 186, pragmatically, I tried to cut off to those who are below the level of acceptance. And just, without having any target numbers, my result is those who got under 3, including 3, because the total, if you make it, is 6 -- were 40 something. So that leaves 120 around -- a good candidate. It's just my personal evaluation. But so we may have to deal with this gray area between 80 and 120. How do we do that with 120? And I believe you guys may have roughly similar, if not the same, target numbers. That's our challenge ahead.
I think overreaction to the Baku's experience may lead to the too restrictive or reactive results and may lose some diversity or wider sort of views or results as we are discussing. But we can tentatively agree, let's say, 80 or 90 as a starting point. But tomorrow we'll go into the breakout sessions, right? So that our MAG members are grouped into different themes, tracks, to work out how many workshops we can save and how many workshops we can just delete and how many are in betweens and bring back these and see how we can decide rather than just discussing abstractly at this point whether 80 is good or not or half is enough or not or -- I think we -- we should go one step beyond to make it more pragmatical. But, at the same time, taking into account all the comments from the community and do our best job. That's my humble proposal.
For the main session I agree also with something -- Jeremy remarked and something echoed is we can try to do some output-oriented main session. It was also suggested by the CSTD implement working group report that the IGF as a whole may better have some kind of more output-oriented works. And I think it's a good starting point to do this kind of experimentation, so to speak. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Subi?
>>SUBI CHATURVEDI: Thank you, Markus. I'll keep my comments really brief. The IGF, as a process and as a structure, I haven't yet seen anything which is more bottoms up and inclusive. I want to draw from Patrick and Zahid's comment on sustainability and the idea of being around. And, when we discussed funding, the issue of remote participation and there not many new members in the room today. For, personally, it has been a struggle to be here. So, when we do get into the session which looks at funding, if you could also look at bringing in more voices from developing countries and underrepresented communities in the room physically to facilitate that presence here, that's one point. As this facilitation and encouragement -- because remote participation is a wonderful medium. But it's a bit like watching TV. You're not in the room.
My second point was about more voices and diversity. While evaluating the proposals, one looked at business in a lot of opportunities, different stakeholders talking to different stakeholders in the proposal. The panels are multistakeholder in their presentation. But one way of also looking at more collaboration so that we could look at silos being reduced at least slightly. It's a difficult process. It's a lengthy conversation. But, if we could encourage, while making proposals, also look at similar teams collaborating with different stakeholder groups.
And also the connectivity issue: One would like to talked about and share what is happening during the event. So, if we could also request our host country as to where we are in terms of connectivity during the days of the event.
One space also where I have a couple of questions is the pre-event. What is the kind of space that that offers for workshops? If we could also look at using that space more creatively and to also facilitate more voices there. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Paul?
>>PAUL WILSON: Thanks, Markus. As a MAG member, I can comment both from personal experience but probably more importantly from what I've heard particularly in Baku. And I agree. We have to listen. We have to respond to what we hear from IGF participants. I didn't hear any complaints about quantity as such. What I heard about was -- and what I think I've always heard about in almost every comment here is quantity combined with overlapping and redundancy and confusion and so on. So I think we should be clear about that. I think the MAG can do more work on quantity, on scheduling, and structure. And I've got plenty of comments on those things I'll reserve for tomorrow.
But I would say, if we can fix the quality issues, the scheduling and structure issues, then it would really be a tragedy to still be -- to be rejecting good proposals which can be fit in just because we've decided that we are going to limit the proposals.
So I'd also support, you know, not putting a hard cap on these things but to be looking at the causes behind -- you know, we seem to be potentially working against the success of the IGF if we're saying we're just going to limit things arbitrarily. And, you know, in that case, if we get these things sorted and people are still complaining that there's too many things to go to, then I'd say thanks very much. That's great to hear. Bring your colleagues next year or watch the Webcast. Thanks.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Ayesha?
>>AYESHA HASSAN: Thank you. Ayesha Hassan speaking on behalf of half of ICC basis. I'm only taking the floor because in the past ICC has called on a streamlining of the number of parallel events that go on. And so I wanted to clarify at this point -- and I would just support things that Matthew and Izumi and others have said about -- and Paul about quality versus just a strict quantity issue. I think if we just look at, as Izumi is pointing out, where are we with the assessments from the MAG members? We might see that we've already reduced significantly, if we're looking at the quality of workshops -- I know, as Izumi pointed out, I don't know how many I gave lower than 4. But it was -- there's, you know, a significant number that probably will fall in that category. I also would like to support Subi's idea of looking at where some things may actually lend themselves to being a pre-event. And that may be another way to look at it. We can talk about this tomorrow. But I would just -- let's look at where we are and then look at how the schedule can be creatively planned before we arbitrarily axe people's workshops. I think there are some really quality proposals that should be integrated into the program.
Lastly, I would just say it might be interesting to experiment this year with one main session where we have a reduced number of workshops in parallel. Picking, as we've said before, topics that are maybe having open forums or Dynamic Coalition meetings and leaving one main session with a little bit more priority and just see how that works. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Thank you also for outing yourself as one of those organizations that have called for a reduction. Theresa, you asked for -- you put your thing back?
>>THERESA SWINEHEART: Yes, I'll give back my time. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Okay, Mark.
>>MARK CARVELL: Good morning, Markus. And good morning, everybody. Mark Carvell, U.K. government and MAG member. I just want to concur with many points that have been made. The starting point for the U.K. is to support the bottom-up process for the main part of programming of the IGF. We don't see much value in posing some top-down radical arbitrary reduction in the number of workshops. We should build on what is enriching the IGF through workshop proposals. I thought, actually, in Paris, in our discussion about the various formatting that we could introduce, that was one way of accommodating the number of proposals. We could -- you know, we've just been talking about pre-events. But also mention has been made of flash sessions which worked well in EuroDIG. There are ways we can retain a lot of what is coming up from stakeholders in terms of issues and ways of approaching those. So that's my first point. We want to keep that and not impose some arbitrary reduction, especially as we've heard from our hosts that we have quite a lot of facility for a lot of this activity to be undertaken.
My second point is to pick up on what's been said earlier about output-orientated main sessions. That's very much concurs with the U.K. government's approach that we -- we do ensure that discussions in main sessions allow some sort of packaging of results, of options. And this was talked about earlier. And we made this point in Paris and subsequently. And it fits also with discussions about the IGF held in our conferences that we have some kind of immediacy of output. And main sessions can achieve that. And we're very mindful, as we said in Paris, of the issues that cropped up in the WCIT, as you, Markus, recounted this morning. And we just had the WTPF where, again, you know, we're looking, really, to steer some of the main areas of concern expressed in the WTPF -- role of governments, capacity building, ensuring governments can participate in developing countries, least developed economies, small island states -- we look really to the IGF to be examining these concerns and coming up with results, options, ways of doing it. Some takeaways. So that's a key element of the main sessions. We ought to see put into objectives and to maximize participation in those main sessions. As we said earlier, Subi and others have said, this about involving representatives of stakeholder communities including governments actively in those main sessions. So, separating out the time slots for main sessions from the richness of workshops, I think, is something we should seriously look at in the programming.
So I look to the MAG, really, to be looking at this from that kind of high-level approach. And it would reduce our workload as MAG members, actually, if we didn't have to sort of agonize over whether we score one workshop, highly qualitative workshop more than another workshop. I found that a very agonizing approach. And I haven't completed it. And I have to say I've kind of, you know, feel it's not an objective I want to fulfill to score workshop proposals in that way. But let's look at some of the key themes that are coming up and packaging contributions through kind of workshop roundtable main session chain. I like that idea that came up. I'm sorry. I can't remember who to put it to. But I think that's a very good approach to the programming. Thank you, Markus and colleagues. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. We have a remote participant.
>> We have an intervention from Fatima Cambronero.
As a new MAG member, I want to raise an issue regarding the number of workshops. For the people who attend IGF for a first time, it's a bit difficult to understand how the meeting works and having many meetings at the same time is -- it's difficult take ideas to implement in their own communities then. If we want new people and especially young people are involved in the process, we need to achieve a lower number of parallel sessions and also be able to provide simultaneous interpretation in different languages of the U.N. in the maximum number of workshops. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: The last point, again, there's a lack of resources. We will not be able to provide interpretation at the workshop. I can guarantee that already at this stage. Again, as a procedural issue, we prioritize remote participants and then non-MAG members. So Avri, you were asking for the floor.
>>AVRI DORIA: Thank you, Markus. I want to speak in favor of the larger number of workshops in terms of the diversity of workshops. I do understand the necessity to perhaps limit them. And I would think in terms of both looking at quality but also looking at duplications. And very often we've seen, even when we try to minimize, many of the workshops come out on similar or same topics. Now I do not recommend following the procedure in the past of just telling people to go off and merge. I do recommend that, perhaps, the MAG look at these, decide which is best. And, perhaps, if they decide that several things could be merged, it would be MAG members themselves that would organize that merging but they would actually get in there and work with the organizers to do it as opposed to just telling them to go away and merge, because that doesn't appear to work.
I also want to -- and I don't know that the topic has come up much this morning -- but want to sort of say something sort of non-supportive of the whole notion of feeder workshops. That has seemed to me to be artificial over the years. If, indeed, we were designing main sessions first and then coming up with a notion of what workshops could help feed into a main session, then it might work. But the way it's been done over the past couple years has really seemed quite artificial in that a number of things that might bear some resemblance or might not have sort of been grouped in to being called feeders for a main session without any real rhyme or reason or at least any apparent rhyme or reason when looked at from the session itself.
Finally, I do support the notion of tracking. Whether it's 6, 7, 8, four tracks and then some non-tracked, I think that the notion of tracking make sense. And, finally, going back again to the multiplicity of sessions, want to repeat they make a very valuable resource going on for the people that either didn't attend or did attend but didn't manage to make it to everything they needed to, they have an historical record. And they are something that people can build on.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Anriette.
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you. I'll try to be brief. I support all the comments about the diversity that it's not just a question of number. It's a question of diversity and overlap. But I just want to highlight something which maybe we haven't touched on. I think one of the issues with going through this year's workshop proposals as well is that you see the same speakers being repeated. And on multiple panels. And they're often MAG members or they're organizations like my own organization who is an IGF regular. And I think that one of the criteria that we should apply and that the MAG should apply tomorrow when it works, are workshops that actually bring new speakers to the IGF. And because often these are two-way process. And it's a disconnected process. People develop their workshop proposal. They send it in for submission with speakers to be confirmed. And the workshop is accepted. And then a few months later they start looking around for speakers. And they grab speakers and panelists from those that they know will be at the IGF. And I think that's how we end up so often having MAG members. And I think we really need to try to break that. There might be a little bit of unfairness in that one would maybe preference workshop organizers who have the resources to bring themselves to the IGF. But I do think using that as a criteria is important. And really discourage that trend among workshop organizers to just put the same old names, you know -- women, Africa, civil society equals, and then you have like one of three names that might come up.
And then just to respond to just the recent comments. I think roundtable Mark Carvell mentioned that we discussed the idea extensively in Paris. And Matthew Spears also mentioned it. And we looked at it also as a replacement for the feeder workshop idea. So that's what we discussed in Paris. And I think I support what Avri said about tracking. And I think, if we have some tracks, I don't think we necessarily need to limit workshops to tracks. But, anyway, those tracks which also then link to policy questions, which was identified in the CSTD working group on IGF improvements report, can then become tracks where we organize a roundtable that has a discussion amongst workshop proposers in that track. They come together. They talk about what happened at their workshop outcomes, points of consensus, points of dissent. And then that feeds into -- well, last year, we used that mechanism to feed into the taking of stock in session. So let's not lose that idea as a replacement for -- so roundtables as a replace, for feeder workshops and as a mechanism for bringing together and synthesizing what emerged from workshops on a particular theme or in a particular track.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And, based on the themes we identified in Paris, as you will have noticed the secretariat grouped the workshops under some headings. And they make basically natural candidates for this kind of roundtable.
Liang Guo, please.
>>LIANG GUO: Thank you. I notice that there are two things discussed. One is quality of the proposals. Another is have more -- newcomers especially coming from developing countries. I would like to address the idea I mentioned in Paris that, actually, the newcomers, especially from developing countries, can hardly propose the proposal as high quality as developed countries because the language and education and many things. I think we need, in some way, not just what was -- ignore those so-called low quality proposals from developing countries but try to help them have a better quality.
Also talk about human rights. To the developed countries, human rights, mainly about freedom of expression. But to developing countries, the most important human rights is how to get everybody online to get more information to help them to benefit from the Internet. That's also a different focus. Okay. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you.
Well, I think one of my major takeaways of this morning's discussion is we really should prioritize the newcomers workshops proposed by people who have not been workshop proposers in the past. And, even if the quality is considered lower, then let's help them to enhance the quality and find speakers. That's a general thread throughout the discussion. But there are several more speakers and also a non-MAG member. Recognize Matthias Langenegger in the back.
>>MATTHIAS LANGENEGGER: Thank you, Markus. I'm Matthias Langenegger. I'm from the Computer and Communications Industry Association. And I would just like to concur with a number of speakers before me that we encourage the MAG members to prioritize workshop proposals from newcomers this year, especially those from developing countries.
And one problem that I think a lot of the newcomers have is that it's more difficult for them to find funding to attend the IGF meetings. And one suggestion I have is that there be some kind of mechanism that connects newcomers and new speakers with other workshop proposals where they could speak as well or meta sessions or main sessions or other types of events. Because the more events that they are able to speak, the more engaged they are in the process, the easier it will be for them to go to their funders and say this is what I was asked to do. And I think this will make it easier for them to gain a stronghold, sort of an entry into the IGF process and make it easier for them to attend IGF meetings in the feature. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Susan.
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Thank you, Markus. Susan Chalmers, policy lead Internet New Zealand. I'm a new MAG member, and it's an honor to be here. I just wanted to share a thought that is on the cusp of the present agenda item and the next agenda item, so dealing with substance of the workshops and the main sessions.
Milton had asked previously how you can engage a big room with 2,000 people and get them excited and feel like they're doing something important.
I attended my first ICANN meeting in Beijing. And I was there during the open forum where people have two minutes to present their thoughts on issues not only on ICANN issues, but you saw a lot of people expressing thoughts that were dealing with issues outside of the natural province of ICANN.
And so, in my humble opinion, that reflects an opportunity or a demand for a forum of the same kind of format that I think that the IGF could be well-placed to provide perhaps as a main session at the end of the program. So I just wanted to offer that idea for consideration by all within this room and without the room, that the IGF have a main session towards the end that follows the format to allow people to express their views not only on what the substance of the workshops were, but also to make suggestions directly to the MAG while they are at the IGF. And I think that way they can be able to express those suggestions while issues are fresh in their minds. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Actually, this is very much the format we used to follow at the beginning when we had the taking stock session at the end, which was more of a type of open mic session where people gave off-the-cuff reaction on the format of the meeting what they liked, what worked well, what worked less well. That sort of transformed itself into more elaborate session which, frankly, I don't think it fulfilled its purpose at the Baku meeting. It was a huge panel. And it was very interesting as such. But it did not allow this kind of immediate feedback which can be very valuable. And it has, actually, helped the IGF to evolve, I think, this kind of feedback. Ana, you have been waiting a long time.
>>ANA NEVES AMOROSO: Thank you very much. I'm trying to build up a lot has been said, namely, by Avri. I'd like to say that I have some problems with the workshops running at the same time of the main sessions. Because I don't understand then the added value of each. But so I think that is something that we should work on a little bit. And we really have to minimize the duplication of themes. I think it will be very hard from the rating of the workshops. I saw that we have a very good people that are proposing very good workshops, but we can't have those -- all those workshops. So we have to be brave there.
On having the same speakers, I think it's a very good thing if we can combine them with new speakers. Because we know what -- what the well-known speaker will say. But we don't know what a well-known speaker will say when in dialogue with a new speaker. So from this combination, I think that the workshops will be richer.
On the participation of youth, I think that they have a lot to say, but I think that they have a lot to learn as well. I think it's a win/win situation. So I think that they could be included in some workshops. And we should never forget one thing: That, if they are digital natives, it's because of digital immigrants. So it's because of us and the other generation that allowed them to be digital natives. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. That's an encouraging word to another digital immigrant. Anju, you asked for the floor.
>>ANJU MANGA: Thank you, Markus. As a MAG member, I'd like to thank the secretariat for giving me an opportunity to participate in this MAG meeting. I'd like to thank the outgoing members and congratulate the new members. It took me around 21 hours to get here, but I got here safe and sound. Thank you to the IGF secretariat.
I represent the Pacific Island countries and territories and, in particular, the small island developing states of the Pacific, and they have very unique vulnerabilities, as I also mentioned last year. And it is very difficult for them to participate in such meetings, so they opt for remote participation. Since the small island states have very similar development challenges such as the small nations, small populations. For example, one country just has 2,000 people our smallest territory has only 56 people. So there's always limited resources and also remoteness. And also we're dealing with climate change problems.
My role would be to get more input from the Pacific countries, but it's rather difficult to represent all small island states. We have a very good team in the Pacific that speak out during the global meetings such as ICANN, WSIS, and other global forums. And they also participate remotely. And currently they're also doing this from the Pacific.
A submission was made on behalf of the SIS last year at the IGF. And it was, basically, the prerogative to seek more feedback from the secretariat on the way forward. However, they felt that they didn't -- that nothing much was done. But they also feel that it's difficult for the secretariat to focus on these issues as they don't have time nor resources to assist everyone effectively. So we look towards the developed countries and also the partners, for example, Google or other -- DiploFoundation to assist more effectively and to seek more support. We would like to emphasize that, to avoid talking about the same issues every year, we would like to see more action plans. For example, who can help, how they can help, and how we can avoid making replications or duplications over and over as what Avri and Anriette pointed out.
We also would like to see how these themes basically fit into the WSIS process. Because not all the countries are aware of the IGF process. And this is a growing concern for us. Maybe, for example, the U.N. offices are not actively involved. And we wonder who has the role to coordinate this in the countries, this process.
And it's not so much about having too many workshops but more on so -- more so on what happens after the sessions or the workshops. To us, quality is more important than quantity. We question are the panel coordinators following through and highlighting what was proposed and what was working or not working in the previous workshop? And, if they're making a new proposals, how will it differ from the previous proposals? We feel that currently there were a lot of repetitions. And still there was some lack of diversity in most of the proposals.
Personally, I would like to have a greater value and to find ways to make it worthwhile for the Pacific contingent to participate. End of the day, of course, we'd like to learn from the processes and find ways for small island states to move forward but more with a coordinated approach and see how we can increase diversity and transparency. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And Paul. I keep forgetting. Please announce yourself when you speak. Sometimes I forget to give the family name, and as we have two Pauls, Paul Wilson.
>>PAUL WILSON: Thanks. Thanks, Markus. Yes, Paul Wilson, MAG member. As I said, I hope we'll be discussing specifically some of the quality issues, the content, the scheduling, and structure over the next couple of days, but I thought it might be worth mentioning a couple of ideas here that are maybe helpful. I had an interesting discussion with one of Susan's colleagues in Internet New Zealand recently about NetHui which is their national -- effectively their national IGF. And I have to say the New Zealanders have a very innovative approach to these things. So I do tend to listen because they've got a good record. One of the things that I heard about was the possibility not of streaming their content into separate streams but of tagging workshops with a small number of tags which represented a number of themes which allowed someone to follow a particular key word or a particular selected tag through the entire event. It makes scheduling easier on one hand but more complex on the other in that you need to avoid overlap between sessions which have the same tag at the same time. But it gives some more flexibility in terms of what people -- participants in terms of what they're watching and also some -- in some cases for the scheduling as well. So I'd like us to consider that idea.
The other thing, on another topic that we've discussed which is the panelists for any given session, I was kind of shocked at the small number of panelists being named in the -- in the workshops there, and I think we've sort of brought that on ourselves in a way by insisting that panelists be named in workshops and imposing a fairly short deadline. And I know that a number of us were named as panelists and appeared in the final proposals without ever having agreed. Again, it's sort of effective life in the way things happen. I think, you know, it would be horrible if we actually ended up with an IGF with exactly those panelists on it because I think it would represent a step backwards. Even last year I think comments I heard were that there were individuals who appeared on too many panels already. It's -- there's some risk in this proposal, but I'd like to see a separation of the proposals for content, the proposals for workshops which after all should be proposals for discussions of topics of interest and questions of importance. I'd like to see the separation between those proposals and the people who actually speak. And I'd like to see an open process whereby anyone can, in fact, express an interest in contributing to a given workshop through the IGF Web site. Now the process of dealing with what could be a large number of proposals would be maybe problematic, but I would like to see the ability for someone who feels they have -- they have something to say to put their name forward with some details of who they are. Not necessarily to sit on a panel, maybe to be asked to speak from the floor or be a resource person or something along those lines, but I really think we should open it up beyond just simply friends of friends to a more open process and I'd like to discuss that too, thanks.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Yes. This was definitely one of the main criticisms voiced, that there are too many same faces around. We have a remote participation.
>> Thank you, Markus. Nurani Nimpuno, Netnod. I would like to put forward an idea that is used in other contexts quite successfully and that's the idea of a list of resource people. The idea is that people can add their name and biography and indicate what topics they are able to speak on to an IGF resource list. I agree with the challenge raised by some in trying to find new people to speak in workshops and main sessions. You tend to go back to the names you know because it's easy, but maybe also because you don't know what other competent speakers are out there. An IGF resource list could help people to link up with speakers with the right qualifications. It also encourages new people to take a role in the IGF and get known in the community.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. Actually we have started having that. We have a list of resource person. Now, I think the point is well-taken. Maybe better use can be made of that list. And precisely picking up on Paul's point, when going through the list of workshops and we have the same names, then we can say well, maybe not this person but that person could be a speaker for your workshops.
Well, I think with that we can conclude our preliminary discussion of -- high-level discussion on the framework for workshops. I think it was very helpful, and if we come to the conclusion, after lengthy discussion, that the best way forward is maybe not to be too rigid and be pragmatic, not to have a rigid cap but assess the workshop based on their quality and I think I could hear that very loud and clear, prioritize new faces and in particular new faces from developing countries. Peter.
>>PETER MAJOR: Well, just as follow-up to the discussion -- Peter Major, MAG member. Just to follow up to this discussion we had this morning which was extremely interesting and sometimes contradictory, in Paris we agreed to create some working groups and one of them was the working group, MAG working group on the implementation of the recommendation of the CSTD. Well, unfortunately we didn't have a chance to have a face-to-face meeting and -- but I would like to ask you, those of you who are interested and -- well, first MAG members but non-MAG members as well, would like to attend some face-to-face meeting, I would say just to have this meeting just to -- before the afternoon session, if it's possible, to allocate some time and eventually in the -- during the afternoon session in case we have some coffee breaks, probably we may like to use this time as well. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you, and I was also going to ask that we might -- I think we close the list here now. The other working groups was one on the guidelines for workshops that was chaired by Mervi but they have basically delivered and that was integrated into the workshop template. And there was a third one on enhanced cooperation and there is a volunteer to guide and chair that one. But that is also very closely linked to what we already discussed in which seems to get some traction, the idea that we pick up on where we ended last week and bring the Brazilian proposal forward to the Bali meeting. I had already approached the Brazilian delegation whether they would be interested. I mean, my very simple proposal would be we ask the Brazilian delegation to present their draft opinion and take it from there, and now I could hear that there's also a proposal from Civil Society that takes it further. I was always very skeptical about coming up with a recommendation because it's when appropriate and this is always -- international negotiations are very sticky point because whenever you come up with anything, there's always someone who says it would not be appropriate. In this particular case, I think when the secretary general of the ITU asks the IGF to take up an issue and to look at it, then I think it is appropriate for the IGF to look at it. And we could take it from there, have the draft opinion on the table, see whether we can improve it. I think I heard many people in the room who said to have lots to comment on that, but nobody said it would not be a good starting point. And the fact is, it will be taken up in a context which is less open to multistakeholder participation. So I will consider this opportunity for the IGF to add multistakeholder comments on the role of governments and I think it's better to have this opportunity than to leave it to governments to do what they are going to do. This is presumably one big issue that will go forward to the next plenipotentiary meeting next year and Bali, in many ways, represents a unique opportunity for the community to give input into that and to say what we think. In many ways, as we had a discussion on the role of governments back in Nairobi on -- in 2011 and without the IGF there would have been no multistakeholder discussion on this proposal. But I don't think we need to take a decision now. This is open for discussion and we will take it up in the afternoon when we discuss the main sessions. But okay, there was -- Avri had already said she would like to say something and I can see Marilyn put her hand up. Avri, would you like to comment on this particular issue?
>>AVRI DORIA: Yes, thank you. So in terms of -- I didn't think we were getting to it until this afternoon. I was one of the participating authors of that proposal, and it was basically based on starting from recommendation 12 of the CSTD working group that sort of said take a set of policy discussions and then the recommendation 13 and come up with an outcome document to document the inputs, both positive and negative. So in this case what we're recommending is taking the Brazilian recommendation -- I mean the Brazilian contribution and trying to move further on that. This would probably be one of the first attempts at building a method within the IGF for discussions and coming up with some form of recommendation, whether it's messages, whether it's inputs to other fora, whether it's just general statements of the pros and cons of an issue would be determined by the discussion. So part of what we're recommending is a main session, but not just a main session. The main session would need to be built upon. Perhaps it would be built upon by a pre-session, kind of like was done last year on the topic of enhanced cooperation where there was a full day of discussions on enhanced cooperation and then we went into a main session on that, which I don't know -- I don't remember if we did a main session or a workshop but we went from there. But going even beyond that, asking the regional IGFs to perhaps also take up this discussion so there really is a bottom-up discussion on the ideas in the Brazilian contribution that comes to the IGF that we have a main session that discusses it, if we can arrive at something that looks like a rough consensus, wonderful. If not, perhaps we just have something where many participants are able to sign on to it and say yes, we support this or here's a minority view, but come out of the IGF with certain inputs to the rest of the Internet community, to the ITU, to -- CSTD, to whomever is discussing this, that basically delves into this and actually tries to make some progress on this very important policy discussion. Thank you.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. And I think we've reached lunch break time, so sorry, Marilyn. Can you wait until the afternoon? We'll revisit this issue. Just two brief comments. In international negotiations, and for those who remember WSIS, the difficult bit is always to agree on a draft proposal, on a common draft. And it happened time and again in WSIS that a draft came and was rejected and asked to be built up from bottom-up. In this particular case, we do have a draft that was considered to be reasonably reasonable. Not so that everybody was happy with this draft. Many comments, many delegations, I said so myself, I would have clear proposals for change. But however, many delegations indicated they would accept it as a starting point. And that is already a big step forward. And Brazilians, to give them credit, they are the first draft opinion and they revamped it completely after talking to various key stakeholders and took out some bits they felt would not be able to provide a basis for a common agreement. And the second draft opinion was radically revised in a very short time. So even if we were not able to come up with something, whatever it is, but I think there would be value in giving feedback to the Brazilians, how a multistakeholder community reacts to their ideas. That in itself would be, I think, of great value. But let's discuss that also a little bit more in detail. And I think by having an important item on the international agenda as an agenda item of the IGF would also attract policymakers from developing countries to the IGF. I think -- and there is also a ministerial held ahead of the IGF so that could also feed in nicely in a way we would have to examine, of course, much more closely. But with that, I would close the morning session, adjourn the meeting. And we resume at 2:30, correct?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: 2:30.
>>MARKUS KUMMER: 2:30 in this room. And do we have a room for Peter's group, or a small break-out room for the IGF improvement?
[ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: We'll find one and make --
[ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Come in here and we'll tell you maybe if you can have a break-out room. And we said he would give on boarding session to the new MAG members on some sort of administrative whatever details. I suppose it will be dead boring but I think at the same time we have to take it seriously. We heard in the past that new MAG members are sort of left to struggle to find out how things work. So we will try and tell you how it works. And if you have questions, please ask questions. No question is stupid. Only -- it is in which room?
[ Speaker is off microphone. ]
>>MARKUS KUMMER: Eigor, named after a famous Swiss mountain, the Eigor north face. Room Eigor. We start at 1:00. At 1:00 in room Eigor for the new members of the MAG. Okay. Thank you.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Just one more announcement. If you're planning something for the evening, we are holding a cocktail which is gratefully sponsored by ISOC at 6:00 after the afternoon session, and it's going to be at the cafeteria upstairs.
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>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Oh, and EBU kindly asked you to evacuate the premises by a quarter to 8:00 in the evening. Thank you.
>>ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: And just a quick announcement. Can all the Civil Society, new, old, MAG, non-MAG, people in the room just gather together and maybe we can have lunch or organize to meet somewhere. So just stay in the room now, and we'll organize something. Thanks.