FINISHED TRANSCRIPT
EIGHTH INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM
BALI
BUILDING BRIDGES ‑ ENHANCING MULTI‑STAKEHOLDER COOPERATION FOR GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT ‑‑
OCTOBER 24, 2013
4:30
INTER‑REGIONAL DIALOGUE
The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Eigth Meeting of the IGF, in Bali, Indonesia. 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.
>> I have one ‑‑ let me just ‑‑ some logistics. I have only this. So today we're going to be focused on getting your ‑‑ and sharing your experiences on how the global IGF agenda has influenced your national and regional IGF agendas. We'd like to really hear for example what are your main takeaways from this week that is almost over. How do you see that this IGF is going to in some way make some change into your next national regional IGF. So we'd be delighted to hear about it. If you don't mind I'm going to pass the mic and hear about it.
Oh, that's a great idea given the fact that we're a short number of people, it will be great to have your names and you can start sharing your thoughts about it, okay?
>> SOPHIE MADDENS: Hi, I'm Sophie Maddens. I'm with the Internet Society working with our regional offices.
>> LAURA HUTCHINSON: Laura Hutchinson and we provide a secretary for the UK IGF.
>> ELLEN WOOD: I coordinate for the program and our IGF initiative.
>> RICHARD WOOD: I'm Richard Wood. I'm a counselor and when I was on staff. I organized the first two about 2 NETOI events.
>> MARILYN CADE: New Zealand gets the price for the best name. I'm Marilyn Cade and I act as the chief catalyst of IGF USA.
>> PARTICIPANT: Edward from .Asia. We serve as the regional IGF. We're also helping to get the new IGF started.
>> PARTICIPANT: My name is ‑‑ I'm the from University of Madrid and I'm with the Spanish IGF.
>> JEREMY BLACKMAN: I'm Jeremy Blackman. I'm from the Cybersafety Specialist at The Alannah and Madeline Foundation also AU IGF Ambassador.
>> PARTICIPANT: My name is Fenish Blackman. I'm perfect the Australian Taxation Office. I'm here as somewhat as an interloper, I suppose.
>> PARTICIPANT: I'm Michael Roe from German IGF. I don't see my colleague as being the host for the next in 2014 in Berlin and I can also include the part from my side.
>> PARTICIPANT: Hi, I'm on behalf of the Spanish IGF as well.
>> My name is Eshamime. I'm with the National Telecommunications Regulatory Authority of Egypt. We serve as the of the ‑‑ IGF.
>> Thank you so much. I got one. They are just naturally in my way. I'm one of the Australian members of the IGF second year running for that. I've been a founding member and continuing contributor to the APR IGF.
>> Thank you to everyone. I would like maybe if you want to start we are trying to identify which are the main ticket ways from this week and how do you think it's going to affect or influence your national regional IGF initiative.
>> CHERYL: Well, off the top of my head first of all, I would suggest that I'm going back to the Australian IGF and our organizing committee with a good sense of the amount of interaction and local buy‑in from all parts of the community to make a multi‑stakeholder community work. I would also like to identify some key parts of our community that would like ‑‑ I think we are there and the ambassador program now up and running and having been successful when they target that into a particular sectors next time. So we pick up on some of those in the remote and rural areas of interest. Those particularly I mentioned business yesterday that we at least had something for start up enterprises. I don't see that here. I think we would want to keep that. I think it's more a compare and contrast of the types of themes and areas of interest we have identified already.
Obviously, it would be remiss of me to not say we all need to do a better job on the disability aspects. This is not being glib, I would suggest we don't think in the Australian AU IGF we've done a fantastic job of making it an absolutely accessible venue. I think international internet governance forum venues need to be looked at very seriously.
>> Yeah, obviously I'm not the person organizing an event but, I think what this event has reinforced for me is good as some of the formats that we do use in New Zealand. Our good formats, particularly, the more round table type of format that we're using right here, and we use in a bigger scale at NETUI and not so many of the panel type of approach. We do have panel as when you got a larger group of people and in the front but the smallest panel approach that we see in these rooms is not something that we tend to use a lot.
The other thing was the duplication of topics with different communities seem to us to go against the idea of getting communities talking to each other and so it's not something that really forms a part of our event. I don't see ‑‑ and I could initially go the other way and suggest that it's something the IGF could look at not doing. So yeah, I think it's something ‑‑ this I think is worth mentioning about when we started the NETUI, as the person who organized it, I hadn't been to an IGF event so I didn't base it on the IGF. I didn't anyone who had been to an IGF. The format this we tended to start with was the back format of people in a room discussing a topic. Then weeded to the topics that were prier determined in advance as they are for the IGF and came up with a really hybrid format that I think it's worth people considering as another way of going.
>> MARILYN CADE: So the IGF USA, my name is Marilyn Cade. It's very different as I said yesterday from all of the national and regional initiatives. We're highly politicized after this week's meeting. We came here and we've always come here with a group of informal ambassadors who very seriously, the responsibility to be workshop organizers, panelists, heavily engaged. This year brought fewer people in that role which was quite a disappointment. We also had to postpone the IGF USA. It's scheduled for December the 12th. Because of what has happened here and we've always had a big focus in strengthening and enhancing the IGF. So of the best of our sessions have actually been specifically about what's going on with the CSTD working group on improvements to the IGF was one of our sort of topics where we did a three hour session. It's always been very heavily focused on the IGF itself in terms of governance and strengthening it and building awareness about it.
Because of what's happened here we will go back to having a highly politicized and highly polarized IGF USA. And not because of the topics of the IGF and not because of the surveillance topic which we were planning to dress in the session, we had to postpone but because of the approach that has been taken by the ICANN CEO to create a parallel universe and so our goal is going to be ‑‑ particularly because the fact has held in Washington DC, our goal is going to be very difficult to try to make sure that we actually stay focused on the IGF and the purposes of the IGF. For me, you know it's a very different world that I'm going back into. Maybe when we come back around that would be a question to think about as well, you know, what's happened here. Because the surveillance topic tomorrow morning will also be something that will be of high influence in our session. We might come back around and think of ‑‑ you know, okay I'm done.
>> EDMOND CHUNG: Okay. That's fine. I'm Edmond Chung. In terms of the APR IGF I explained yesterday, the program structure somewhat models after the global IGF. So there's a significant influence of that. There's also ‑‑ I guess part of the reason is that the multi‑stakeholder steering group that we have for creating ‑‑ I guess curating the program, a lot of them are on the Mac as well. That contributes to it. So one of the things is that for example, in the last few years it's been those same streams like openness diversity. It's like a test. I need to remember all of these.
That was managing critical internet sources previously. This year the Mac has sort of taken it away similar and you see it taken away from the Asia Pacific regional IGF as well and added in the multi‑stakeholder approach stream. So the entire program very much models after the global IGF and we've seen actually a good thing ‑‑ an emerging trend out of this and we're sort of having a preparatory meetings. I mentioned yesterday as well. We're seeing workshops that try to be ‑‑ try to hold a preparatory session during the APR IGF and they can sort of gather additional information coming into the global IGF. As far the ICANN IGF since it was the first year and it took a while, a lot time, to convince the stakeholders that it's even relevant. It's going to be a one conference. It's still going to be ‑‑ the spirit is still going to be multi‑stakeholder of course and cover a number of topics but it's too early to say how they interact.
>> Is it an initiative in the formation?
>> It is in formation but it was just confirmed last week so the venues are set. The government has put the money into the bank account so that things can actually move. Unfortunately it's very late. We're trying to invite some people there but the problem is that we had the venue and stuff set up. It's going to be November 7th and 8th. So those dates once the government confirms those dates cannot change it as well or it's going to take another ‑‑ I don't know how long to get through the process. So it is the first year it's ‑‑ we're hoping, you know we are looking to get it done and from there hopefully build an annual initiative out of it.
>> Well, first of all it's a bit premature to say what we're going to take away from here. Some things come to mind. First of all there has been talk already and not precisely, not necessarily, inspired in the IGF but conversations that have taken place in the IGF. There has been a lot of talk on the role of governments. We have somehow censored also because we've been speaking in the hallways with other Spanish stakeholders that our government should also be more involved. There has been a lot of talk about what multi‑stakeholderism is, how it should work and whether the IGF should evolve and how does it stay meaningful. We sense this is a transformation that needs to happen. The hype of building a multi‑stakeholder dialogue already passed. The stakeholders are looking for more.
They want to see what impact it can have. They're no longer comfortable going for what seems to be an event after all. I mean, once you've surfaced some of the challenges, then you start to get comfortable in it, it's just ‑‑ people, want something more out of it. I think there has been a lot of talk about it here which reinforcing the feeling that we already had when we came here and then it has somehow facilitated or catalyzed some conversations on what could happen in Spain. So we're actually trying to image what the next phase looks like. I don't know if anything wants to add something.
>> Maybe in ‑‑ I don't know if we might consider some kind of call for workshops kind of like here at the IGF. I mean, we have working groups but the topics are decided so in a meeting, in a global meeting, working groups are established. So I don't know ‑‑ we have like two sessions, which are, I would say, equal ‑‑ wait and maybe we could introduce some kind of ‑‑ so that workshop can be proposed more open. I don't know how to explain myself.
>> So we do have a very transparent process but it looks like it's all the same people proposing the same topics. So maybe we should really work out how to enhance this to open participation. It's open all the way. It's transparent all the way. It's webcasted but sometimes we get the feeling that it's the same people proposing the same topics always over, always. Was that it?
>> JEREMY BLACKMAN: I agree with a lot of those points of those who had gone before, actually. I want to concentrate on the idea of duplication. Jeremy Blackman of AU IGF. So the idea of duplication of topics which is something that you just mentioned about the same people coming together to nominate the same kind of themes. For speaking interest the point of view of a topics that as an ambassador I brought to the AU IGF, looking at internet issues and kind of meaningful engagements and voice. It has to be acknowledged that in Australia at least, there's many, I guess the topics in regards to using the internet are discussed in other forums, primarily education conference circuits for example and round tables, et cetera but also forums. But I think.
You know there will be a lot of learning for me at the global IGF in terms of having the values of those issues at the IGF forum. It's a question of the national IGF in Australia making the AU IGF the foremost forum. I think it is important because it ‑‑ the other issues that cross over and in so many sessions that I've been to it has come back to education on some level. You know, education about the internet, not just to do with youth, particularly. So if I think about all of those stakeholders in Australia who should be involved going to work in AU IGF, I think that's really important to make to, you know, fly the flag for the IGF format and as a forum. So I'm really thinking carefully but ‑‑ because it does bring a whole new lens that's much more holistic. We're not just being stuck in a education sector or stuck in a mental health sector.
>> Can I just say ‑‑ to that point there, it's really important that we don't have these sessions that are only for our community that people feel that they can go to the sessions of the other communities and that is where you get that cross over that the added value that they cannot get at their education conference or whatever conference it is. It's because they're directing with the other communities at your event.
>> It's been a big microphone for some of the issues for that reason it's brought in those other issues ‑‑ metaphorically microphone.
>> Literally as well.
>> Venetian Blackman speaking. I was going to make a comment. This is the first IGF that I've gone. I found it really interesting that within the focus we use this word multi‑stakeholder, and it's been used constantly over the last few days. I think I found it really interesting to me. Cheryl, as she was saying, the concept of business engagement in this forum is something that we need to explore further for future events.
I think there's more for us to unpack in that as well. I haven't spoken to a teacher in the last few days. Where are the teachers? I'm sure there are ‑‑ there's three, fantastic. We've got three teachers. So I think we need to look at those other stakeholder groups of the community and bring them into these forums so that we get that cross‑pollination of ideas and concepts and that broadening of education. So that they're going back no their sectors with some new insights and new context and understanding of how these things link together and continue to espouse those concepts within their community as well.
>> Michael speaking for IGF take‑aways here. We already ‑‑ due to the fact that we are running the Eurodisc 2014. We postponed our national IGF and we'll do it as a wash up off the Eurodisc. What's interesting in this case is when ‑‑ and I know that you joined or that you have been at the Friday session just before ‑‑ I was interested what Faddi said with you but also the discussion with the Brazil conference. This will definitely influence the Eurodisc of 2014. For whatever reason someone must have had an idea the motto we have for the Eurodisc is multi‑stakeholder dialogue. A ‑‑ this totally perfectly fits into the current discussion with the Brazilian conference with what Faddi said and, I mean, this is the major take‑away. The movement we currently have within the IGF taking place for many years is moving very slowly and now it seems to be a very huge step on its way within a very short timeframe which might come through the Brazilian conference who knows.
These are the major take‑aways for the Eurodisc as well as for the IGF.
>> My name is Hassam. For the IGF, I think because of the way it was established, it is anchored on the umbrella of the states and the UNS core. So to the extent it follows the format and the way the global IGF is prepared so we have the AUGMAC which is multi‑stakeholder advisory group that oversees and sets the themes and main topics for the main sessions. We do put calls for workshops as well. So the workshops are usually based on those calls. This year, we have received almost 40 proposals, 39 exactly, and we have selected 12 of them and we've done the usual work. For the take‑aways at least on the format side, I think round tables as some have mentioned, they're more engaging then the traditional panels. This we need to try to introduce to the arbor IGF as well. Also, the flash sessions and I think it was initially by the Eurodisc, I think also, we can make use of this formats in the IGF on the substance most of my notes actually mention somewhere in the discussion but still, I think I captured on the discussions around the principles of internet governance. I think this is something the arbor IGF could initiate as something for the ‑‑ I have seen many countries and many regions have put some set of principles and I think we can initiate this discussion since this is the only multi‑stakeholder forum in the region.
For me, a very important take‑away is also trying to trigger new national initiatives in the region because of course, multi‑stakeholderism does not work perfectly unless you have the full system at different levels. We have started to see things developing. In Tunisia, they have their new national IGF. Our colleagues, are also contemplating an informational IGF as well. So we will try to support as much as we can. The selection for topics for the main things. I have the idea and I took it from last year's discussions, the possibility to make public surveys and see what topics matters most to the communities, instead of just having no matter how many multi‑stakeholders there are. Sometimes they are the same people also suggesting the same topics. So maybe we can try to be more innovative on this. Another take‑away and this is the last one, because I heard it from a lot of colleagues here. We need more discussions on the topics and less discussions on the processes. This is one thing actually that the global IGF doesn't do enough of.
We discuss a lot on multi‑stakeholderism engagements, but people are eager to discuss the actual format that we're discussing. That should be it.
>> Just I'm going to break here on the table to introduce the people that have joined us in the last minutes. So just ‑‑ I think.
>> Thank, you. I teach communication and journalism and new technology. We have an active women's development at the women's college. We're often accused of overstating our own case. I don't think we can do that enough. I also run a foundation called Media for Change. I'm currently on the mag of the India IGF which the Indian Government has just initiated. There's a process that we have which is called the India Internet Governance Conference. I serve on the mag as well and the global mag. So there is a lot of learning ‑‑ there's a lot of understanding and my reason for being here is that at the core of what I wish to take away from the IGF that is unfolding at the moment. There are many critical issues and many persistent and urgent problems that we seek to solve. What this platform does is that it gives me an opportunity to engage with all of you who are on the table. I love the fact that this table is so intermittent and so compact. I wish that we had more people in the room. That is of course something that we can resolve by disseminating everything that is happening. All of us are circles that can influence more conversations when we go back. But I do hope to see that we can institutionalize and link up with our different experiences and our problems that we hope to solve. As far as the take aways from here and how they're influencing the India experience, I will just comment briefly on that, Ricardo. It is a country which is fascinated and really interesting one at that.
When it comes to teachers and master trainers, there's a lot of responsibility fairly or unfairly that's put together. Yes, there are the same people, the same conversations that happen because even multi‑stakeholderism privileges certain stakeholders. We've tried to examine this problem from several aspects and of course, there is the question of legitimacy of one stakeholder against the other stakeholder. There are voices that constantly get left out. But what we try to do in terms of the India experiment, and it's a tough one because you can only do so much in terms of representation and participation. But we put out an open call for the mag. We also made business contribute a certain amount of money. They did that voluntarily. Barat is not here today but he led this movement from the front. We have one of the oldest chambers of commerce contributing and putting together civil society industry, academia and media. On the mag for the first time we had four young people. It the people who were actively participating. We had six panels proposed from the government. They engaged and interacted. As a result of that, the first IGF, the global IGF was hosted in India in 2008 and then there was nothing.
Today, in the first half, we just ran almost a full session and we were worried, skeptical, that we might not have enough people in the room. This was an open forum that was proposed by the government of India. You had people and officials sitting, running through the entire one and a half hours responding to questions and appreciating the energy and the fact that they're here. This is what they're missing. I think it's a constant effort to bring all the stakeholders together at the same timetable. A lot of problems, I still believe can be solved at a local level. We don't have to very often borrow from the global conversation. But what this has done for us is its underscored the importance of multi‑stakeholderism in more than ‑‑ I kind of emphasize that enough because there are a lot of decisions that were taken entirely by the government. So we're in the room and we're here to stay.
I won't unleash the tyranny of the mic any further and pass this around.
>> Thank you.
>> I'm Christina from the Arab IGF. I actually have nothing to add after what my colleague has added. I just wanted to say that one thing that came together, maybe it's time to bring it to this table since it is so intimate. There was a discussion why there's not much input coming from the regionals into the main sessions. I was thinking that maybe actually, I was inspired by the discussion we had in the session of yesterday we had. For example, the Arab IGF participants come in and put some issues forward. So I thought we need more of our participating not us as coordinators but just the people who are participating in the regional IGF and have individuals come in and speak within their own experience within the sessions that are taking place. I think we're missing some of that and we should channel that in.
>> It's Marilyn, and I'm going to insist on responding to this. We were experimenting, right? I think it's premature to ‑‑ because I think we should have people ‑‑ why, well, yeah, I know. I put out a call and asked for people from the IGF. They're very busy. You know the answer I've gotten is two of the people who intended to participate remotely, run into business crises back at home. So I think before the mag starts judging ‑‑ no, no, Christine, really, I want the mag to start listening to these people and us instead of saying you need to do this and you need to do this. This was supposed to be an experiment so why don't we add into our questions why didn't anybody volunteer and many of us made efforts to reach them and then in our report, consider our feasible ‑‑ it is, and see, again, next year if this is something that we should try.
>> I want to ‑‑ yeah, no one suggested anything. It was actually me trying to analyze what is the issue. I just felt from what I sensed that we're sitting together as coordinators which is a huge step forward. I sense this year we've had a really ‑‑ I mean, last year it was also very good, but this year is really good. I think it's been well organized and well coordinated. But I think we should find some channel. That's just a personal suggestion. We should find some channel for our stakeholders and some of them are present here. We have so many from the Arab IGF here. They don't have the courage to volunteer for something. Maybe we can have one open microphone session for the people who participated in the region just to come and talk about things. I don't know, I'm just throwing in ideas.
>> In fact, I encourage everyone to participate in tomorrow's open mic session. It will be an excellent opportunity to talk about these things and to raise your voices. I just want to finish the introduction of the people that arrive later. Do you have the mic?
>> Okay. Thanks a lot. My name is Ludwig. I'm representing Eurodisc here and Swiss IGF. Michael explained well the challenges and next opportunities for Eurodisc 2014 in Berlin. So I do not have to add anything what Michael already well explained. I want to raise another point. We had last spring, the first Swiss IGF, which was still a kind of a pilot project.
For pilot project, it went quite well, but I have to admit, we had the usual suspects only. And not much more. We were missing all of the members of parliaments and this is something in my opinion is one of the greatest not only on the Swiss level but the European level. We had quite a few members of the European parliament at Lisbon at our last event. We have here in Bali, one outgoing member of the German parliament, no member of the Swiss parliament, very few members of any European parliament. So to make it brief, I think the political class in most of the European countries have not understood the message. They've not understood the IGF has not understood the next challenges. I was thinking in spring of this year, when Prism came up, that revelations around Prism would be kind of a wake up call for the political elites in our countries but I was wrong again.
They're still sleeping. They still have not understood. It came out last night. He said Angla, our newly elected chancellor was spied on by ‑‑ may, well, you are a very nice and diplomatic person. I'm a journalist. I'm a little bit more strict and to the point. I was sure from the beginnings that she was among the victims of the spying and not the only one for the moment perhaps the most popular one. So and I hope that this revelation makes it clearer and clearer and clearer over the next time, that all of us are concerned about internet governance and we can view ourself as victims of the internet or as actors towards creating conditions on the internet. I think this is a very important point at the moment. A very important challenge. There are so many things on the table. I think we have a big chance ahead. Thanks.
>> Hi, everyone my name is Hanam. I'm the manager of the internet governance program. I'm also a Mag member in the IGF, and was responsible for coordinating the session. So I'm not sure what the question is that we should answer. Well, mainly, you know, the issues that we can frame them according to the Arab regional contacts, all the discussion about NSA and surveillance then though there was not much interest from the Arab region because apparently what the US government does goes in line with the agenda of the Arab region. They didn't really complain about that and there was no concern whatsoever about the privacy of people in the Arab region.
Well, it's a fact. For me, I'm mostly interested in the human rights issues so all the discussion that we had regarding, you know, how to frame freedom of expression, there was a lot of talk as well about privacy, you know we're so concerned now with the privacy online that we might forget how to protect them off line because you know cyber security online is important it's a priority. But it doesn't have to happen at the expense of security of people on the ground. I do work with activities it can be very challenging, really, to build capacity of these people. But then, you know, they take a lot of risk, you know. And being engaged in similar activity. So for the Arab region it's very specific. I'm taking away from me a lot of talk that we had here, but I always have to customize it according to the Arab region. Its my homework that I take away with me and I need to work on it.
I'm not sure if you would like to have feedback about the Arab IGF or you already had that in the previous two days. You were fed about everything. I think Christine and Waheed was here yesterday so ‑‑ yeah. So my experience is a little bit more about the national IGFs. I haven't participated or organized a regional IGF. But the regional IGF that's held in the Asia Pacific, contrary to the expectation perhaps is among the smallest in terms of attendance. I'm informed that in Tokyo, two years ago there were many rooms with more speakers than delegates and it wasn't dramatically better. Earlier this year when it was held in ‑‑ I'm going by the words that I've been given by one of my colleagues that I saw at the end of this year.
In addition to that, since this is a discussion on regional IGFs, I want to finish, it's not clear to us how regional IGFs are being award. What's the process through which a country or region or somebody gets a regional IGF. So I think we have ‑‑ you know, I know that it's all very cool right now to talk about the whole things of the past four or five or six weeks or two months or whatever that's going on. I think we need to establish ideas as an institution. We shouldn't worry about the episodal importance of the discussion. Those will come on. There's a lot more on surveillance this time next time. It could be somebody else and so on and so forth. What we really need to do is establish the basic importance of IGF as a concept. I can tell you that for Asia, at least if that 100 people are attending a regional IGF where 50 of them are from Korea and then the organizing committee. So that means some 25 people traveled to that IGF. That's really not the numbers that we want for our national internet governance conference which is a steppingstone to the one ‑‑ we had 40 people from 12 countries and 40 speakers in 12 sessions in three days. That's what I want to highlight on regional IGF. If I can talk about the national IGF. Just so you know the Iranian government has started to process ‑‑ there is a mag that has been set up. Thirty‑five stakeholders have been invited fairly evenly divided.
They hope to hold an IGF. They haven't had the first meeting yet. So the effort that we had already, has been put on hold because you can't have a competing event if you don't want to have one because of the same stakeholders. So we're quite happy that the government has taken a lead based on the movement that we started. Hopefully in the next year or so we will have the IGF. As I said in the previous meeting that we had, I think we need to be very, very clear for countries that are not the same old of the same old, that these are the four things that you need to do to get the IGF off the ground. That is three multi‑stakeholder groups, a website, a report, and we must clarify that the governments are neither required to initiate nor fund the IGFs that you can start off on their own. Because if you don't do that, I want to caution you again, and again, you will not go beyond 40, 45 because everybody is then looking to the government and there isn't enough either understanding or interest or motivation to do this.
Now, if you want to really make this, you know, a global movement, then we should be and I think we have ‑‑ we have to admit that we have failed in doing so and we've failed our fellow citizens by not giving them clearer actions on how we can move in.
I am going to close from what I had heard from a 75 year old lady from Ukraine at the last IGF, when she asked us for a template for how to hold an IGF. I was asked this on webcast, and I choked because it seemed like we had been repeating this. But I was wrong and she was right because in the countries such as those have a model, a template how to do this. They will never get this off the ground. So worry less about those who have it because we'll find a way to evolve it and improve it. Let's worry a lot about those who are not in the door yet.
>> Just, I think you two are still missing the first question.
>> Thanks Laura Hutchingson from UK IGF. I've got a number of take aways and as a number of people have already said, their changing the environment is going to affect the topics and how we discuss them going forward. The participation of UK stakeholders in workshops will inform the discussions back in the UK, and in parliament we've got an MP here and he wants to discuss cyber security in a parliamentary discussion.
As Ellen already said, practical points in terms of workshop structure roundtable discussions like this work really well and that's a good take away for us. I agree with the comments made on the sort of multi‑stakeholder model in showing that you've got that board basis of support and for more groups, I think that's something that we need to make sure we're doing. We've got many learning points from the sessions that we've held here in terms of the regional and national regional dialogue. I made some really useful contacts. I think it's a really great opportunity and first step and really important here for cross pollination of topics in the weeks. There are lots of mirroring. A lot of people are talking about the same topics. I think it's important for us to share information between us.
There's lots of ideas that I want to steel like the Australian ambassador program.
>> EVELYN: For me all though we wouldn't have so many sessions about multi‑stakeholder and the principles of IGF, those have been the outcomes of us thinking about the way we do it, the practice, the length between those principles and definitions and practices. It will be quite important. One of the things that's come out, I think for us is about the transparency and inputs to outputs, and things that we could do even better about that. And thinking about how we do it.
I think that because of the changing sort of environment and the things that will be happening over that year, that the things are being discussed about capacity building and broadening and deepening engagement with our communities will be quite important. Yeah, I think so ‑‑ so I think one of the things actually yesterday's session, I didn't sort of get to share about sort of what's unique, and one thing that we've done this year, which this has reinforced for me works well, is that we did away with having streams.
Just created they were like tags like ‑‑ what used to be streams were tagged. Every session had to have at least two, sometimes three. So you're actually looking for topics to be cross cutting. We moved to two facilitators instead of one. We looked for them to be from different communities that they would work their networks to have different people in the room.
So what were streams were sort of like how you would have hash tags human rights into tweet. We would have hash tash ‑‑ not hash tags but access, so every session had a couple of tags so you knew what was going to be talked about instead of a stream. So flavors of the session in a consistent manner.
Yet thinking about how to do that but I think that cross ‑‑ that cross discussion between groups is some of the best sessions I've seen here, you know. I look at the panel or the speakers and see, you know, do we have different views, you know? People from really different perspectives. The more different, the better actually is what I've seen so ‑‑
>> I think I just noticed the way that Ellen used there that we ‑‑ in the communities and that's when we're thinking of our stakeholder groups in New Zealand we're just thinking of communities. We don't use the word stakeholder groups when we're putting things together. I think it's really important to think about the words they're using. People don't think of themselves from coming from stakeholder groups. They see a program full of stakeholder groups they might not be very comfortable with it. That is one of the reasons too. Why we didn't use the word governance and forum in the name of our event because those are words that basically potentially just put me off. Who wants to come to a governance conference. Yeah, sure the people who are the "in people" about internet governance, but if you're trying to get a whole lot of other communities then that's not a good name.
>> It's actually the unique thing which I've learned here. I haven't met any other initiative that haven't had any name that's not IGF ‑‑ then do it. Because it's about ownership, right. It's your community.
>> New Zealand is a bicultural ‑‑ well, country and it has a certain kind of participating way of being.
>> Jeremy Blackman from AU IGF again. I want to fit into that point, and I want to contradict it slightly in terms what I'm saying that when I mentioned of bringing into the other stakeholder into the IGF, I think the global wins that what we bring back in terms of what we put forth, specifically in use issues, since we're been invited to fit into the human rights chatter. Also being inducted into the coalition of child safety online, will have a lot of legitimacy in Australia. So a lot of people thinking about the Australian communications and media authority will see the impact that this is making on a global scale and give it legitimacy at a national level, definitely.
>> Australian, IGF ambassador. I'm just aware that when it talks about the dynamic coalition, it should also have accessibility and disability would be very valuable to have at cross‑connection.
>> Okay. So I think it's interesting. I just want to give my impressions. I'm Sophie Maddens. I'm from ISOC and working with the regional bureaus, obviously they work with some within some of the regional IGFs. So it's interesting for me to think back and look at some of the impressions that are from this table and from the week as well. I think you have some organizational issues, agenda setting issues, and take aways.
I think on some key points that I've taken from this table as well as no capture, no one organizer, the multi‑stakeholder input into the agenda. It's interesting for the take aways to see the comments made. What's the impact for the next year as well? What's the impact from some of the discussions and what can be taken away from that.
Coming from ‑‑ coming around the table for a second question to put to this group, looking ‑‑ discussing that, and I would like to see from the group, is this the type of discussion you would like to have next year? Would you like this to be included in next year's IGF as well. Seeing what the relationship, what the take aways can be for the regional IGFs from the internet ‑‑ from the global IGFs region and national IGFs, from the global IGFs. So what can the take aways be there. So we'd like to have your input for that input for that to see if will we organize it for next year as well.
>> No, no. Please, the people who haven't spoken first be sure to introduce yourself.
>> Hello. I'm from New York United Nation's headquarter and I was Russian, but I was working for over 25 years at the United Nations and spent a lot of time in the developing world, you know, helping the developing countries for the future promotion. Right now I am from New York for the IGF trust fund, so actually this is supporting the IGF secretary and helping and moving the IGF forward.
Also, I really would like to express my sincere appreciation and admiration to all of you because ‑‑ especially the national and regional IGFs. From my experience one of the key elements for the internet is the preventing from fragmentation. This is, I believe, is one of our key directions to prevent IGF from the fragmentation. You're in the trenches just at the national level and the regional level is fighting. It's really that I believe this is extremely important that your contribution to this process to prevent the fragmentation of the internet.
On the other hand, you see, that if you look around in terms of the world map or how many on the regional IGF does exist, if you look especially from the prospective of the less developed countries so you can see the huge ‑‑ you know, empty hole which does exist unfortunately at this time. That's why I consider the trench line is broken in a number of the directions, and I believe that it's really important for the IGF community in order to fill this gap and to help the countries that ‑‑ specifically countries that must be heard and participate and also to move forward with the national community and be on the same equal level; because we're talking internet is equal to everybody. So everybody has the equal access to internet. But what I believe is that it's time to move from the slogan and from the words to the real actions.
What I saw from my perspective that we look from the areas of the United Nations and see what can be done and what can we do jointly with you and how we can move forward together.
I know that you see that I've been approached several times ‑‑ on many times, some people from the developing countries, especially from the LDCs. You can see that we have actually no one from Africa. Yeah, we quickly ‑‑
>> There's a competing session that was supposed to have been scheduled at a different time.
>> Okay. Very quickly. No, but what I'm saying so that what I wanted to say all of them ask very simple questions. Why do I need my country IGF? What I really would like to benefit and how the country can benefit from this and second one, how I can do it? What exactly needs to be done? I know that she's going to take this too ‑‑ she's going to undertake the research and also to come up with a certain type of guidelines. What I just wanted to ask you, you know, please help her so that, then based on the gathering of the knowledge ‑‑ because you have the unique accumulative knowledge which we can not afford to lose. So we have to preserve it and move forward. So based on this one ‑‑ we just delivered ‑‑ it's noted like a model.
It's like a framework. So then the countries who would like to do it can easily can get it so that they see how it can be done based on only your experience on your everything that you're doing. Plus, also so that they ask you to help them as well.
Second one that I heard about is that it's very important that the voice of the region and the national and the country IGF to be heard. I know we have a mag numbers in here but what I would like to share with you if you don't know so ‑‑ that actually mag it's multi‑stakeholder advisory group so the secretary ‑‑ so in order to preparing the IGF agenda for the global IGF, the cycle started from February and it's finished by May every year.
So what my recommendation to you is please, try to send you a message in terms of the what is the agenda of the next global IGF, what would you like to be included? So the mag members which you're familiar with or even directly to the mag meeting so then mag members can take into consideration and, you know, that reflect properly in the future agenda of the next global IGF. So all of this has to be included, to be taken into consideration and be heard and utilized. So this is the last thing which I wanted to also share with you. And from my perspective, you see that I don't know whether you have this certain type of coordination within the regional and the national IGF themes for the forthcoming year. So I believe it would be probably more efficient if let's say you come up with an overall idea what is going to be discussed within. What is the very important issues discussed within the next year, because you see that once you have very broad ideas and very broad areas, sometimes it's very difficult to get some ‑‑ you know, some recommendation or something very concrete to be utilized.
If you're a little bit narrow and have common feelings that these direction is extremely important and everybody will benefit from this, again it's a little challenging but at least, you know, it's something that everybody did ‑‑ you derive from this one movement so that everyone can really benefit from it. So in terms of this question, do we need such a regional meeting, I am just pleased to have ‑‑ my legs as well. I'm really happy that I was able to attend your meeting, and I'm extremely, extremely in favor of you to have this coordination meeting and even more so. So maybe, you know, to facilitate and invite the countries who would like to set up the national and regional IGFs and to participate and attend your meetings to learn from you. Also, you know, maybe in order to have an addition of exposure and outreach to invite them to facilitate and participate remotely. So it's someone who can really go so at least can benefit from the session and then also so that shares with the rest of the country saying look, I heard, I understand. Let's go. Thank you very much for everything that you're doing, and so that you're really, really strong.
>> Can I ask a question?
>> Sorry, first it was Sharon, I think was going. After that is Christine. Edmond.
>> Yeah, I wanted to know what the numbers of national and regional IGFs are. Definitely the support of the IGF secretary is important. Are there restrictions or ‑‑ I don't know. Because we actually tried to see if it is ‑‑ I know that time is also not in favor but sometimes it is important for the regional and the national IGFs at least for the regionals, I'm sure, to have someone represented from the secretary Yiet represented at the meeting are there restrictions.
>> There is only one restriction, money.
>> That's why we want to ask you in order to that ‑‑ but you see that the IGF trust fund we do have is based on the contribution. So it means that we have someone from the donor community who knows about this one. Unfortunately, we do not have such strong sustainable financial components. Given that we try to utilize the resources, also try to get some young professionals from the especially developing countries, LDC's, less developed countries, to be able to also train and do the IGF secretary Yiet so that they can come back to their countries, and we can also use them and be able to start developing on the national and regional IGFs, in the regions where we don't have such a strong presence. That's why we would really like to send our ‑‑ on that hand we also have some recommendations from our top management saying to, please, if it's internet, we don't want to use ‑‑ save on the traveling and try to use various types of ‑‑
>> MARILYN CADE: So I would just like to ask a point of clarifications. It's Marilyn Cade. I think what you were sort of saying is because this meeting is not only for coordinators, in fact, none of the meetings have been only for coordinators, but all of us suffer from the number of people who come from the national initiatives are actually very heavily embedded in the rest of these programs. It's been kind of interesting that it's been only the that's certainly what has happened to the IGF USA and then people got diverted by the purple elephant turd. My question to you is that it sounded like you were saying maybe we should have a special one hour session for the people who have a concept of a national or regional concept in formation which would be about information. That was what I thought you were saying other than that would be an additional thing.
>> Everything that would help the countries where they don't have the national or regional IGFs. So learn from your experience and where they can easily get it and then to understand but something as simple as you mentioned, you know, that they have a template but never been materialized because so of that, some of this template is only taken from the textbook not from the life.
This is something that I say once you just are going to meet and meet with the number of the regional mission of IGFs, you have the fresh loop. You really see what works. You can also share from my experience, is it possible to be done? I'm just sharing with you. We've been approached many, many times. Some countries say we want to do. What is the mechanism? How can we do it? What kind of legal procedures and all of this stuff. You're an expert in this area so you can make recommends and give this advice.
>> Can I just make a suggestion? I think a template idea is great. I think something that can be done would be helpful is simply setting up a mailing list. And anyone who's wanting to start something can be simply edited so that mailing list and can start asking questions right away.
>> So that was Richard.
>> MARILYN CADE: So that was Richard and my name is Marilyn Cade the transcript. Can I say that there have been two initiatives in formation who have reached out to existing coordinators, one is the Persian IGF initiative that some of us have met with. Just to reinforce the comment that James made that you're actually helping to mentor the MCAL.
>> I have a question which is if you're going to do this, we should try ‑‑ this is we should try and do this within the next two or three‑months to get the guidelines and a set no later than June because otherwise we'll hit the next IGF with the same 40 countries. Let’s not do that. Let's have 20 to 30 new countries get out before we get to the next IGF. The later we get the later we lose them. This is for all of us who put together the guidelines officially so that when somebody calls in we can ‑‑ here are the guidelines, be done with it. If you can't give them money at least give them direction. The second question that I have is that there are regional IGFs and Asia Pacific has a bit of a region.
So we've not been able to succeed with the Asia Pacific IGF given the diverse interest and what's going on. It's not that big right now. Hopefully, it will become big. What is the rule or the guidelines to do a subregional IGF? For example, south Asia IGF would have 1.8 billion people represented across seven countries. Would it make sense to have ‑‑ guys it's Maryland speaking again.
>> MARILYN CADE: Guys, its Marilyn speaking again. Let's be ‑‑ let's think about this. Let's look and let me just clarify something. Some of you know that Dima Ebstein and I have been working on a study that have ended up with some sort of examples of how what has been done and our goal is to raise the money to do this study, to publish it by March. So it would look a little bit like imagining the internet which is a study that I did in 2009 with some of you. But let me just talk ‑‑ let's use Africa as an example. I'm sorry that the Africans are not here but ‑‑ there you are, sorry. Guys hold on, I want to just talk about the continent for a minute as an example, okay? In Africa, there are subregional IGF initiatives like the east Africa, the central Africa, the west Africa. I'm looking at the two of you, and I don't actually think you're from that part of Africa. I know, but then there are also national initiatives and now there's a continent initiative. So to your point that there aren't any hard and fast rules, we've always taken the position in the coordinators that it's that flexibility that should be celebrated. So there's nothing that ‑‑ there's no rule that would keep there from being ‑‑ Marilyn is talking again for the record.
>> PARTICIPANT: Some of us look for rules. So the fact that the west doesn't have rules and doesn't believe that without beliefs, it's going to happen is not how it works. Some countries follow rules, guidelines, please help them. We need to put some structure out. If you can form a regional IGF, we should state it. Some subregional IGFs should be formed. The point I'm trying to make is that if you make it clear and explicit of what can be done or the range of what is possible as part of the rules you, will see this mushrooming very quickly. I can tell you this from outside, I have attended 7 IGFs. I've held an initiative in India. Perhaps the biggest national initiative and we're constantly nervous about whether we're doing something wrong. We, who have been in every IGF.
>> MARILYN CADE: So it's Marilyn. My response is that I think the point is that that's what we should be ‑‑ that's the suggestion that we should be coming up with. When I said there's no rules, I mean, that it's not that the IGF sets it, it's that we make the coordinators and interested parties make the recommendations so Barat has made a recommendation. It's this group and the rest of the coordinators that would propose that.
>> I think the template is one of the suggestions about what else we can do. FAQs. Do you have another idea of what else could we plan for the next IGF, thank you.
>> Thank you. Sure.
>> Just before ‑‑ sources of funding if you could just list down what are the traditional sources of funding that voluntarily funding is allowed, you don't have to have input that the kind of stuff should be included so people know these things.
>> Cheryl for the transcript record. I'm one of the 19 or 20 that filled out the form on behalf of initiatives and on the behalf of the Australian IGF, I refused to answer the question. On our specifics of our fund funding model, I'd be happy to answer proportional questions, but it is not for public scrutiny. So that's ‑‑ I'm very definite on that.
>> I'm not saying that. I didn't say that so can I ‑‑ well, funding models, those questions have actually been answered in the surveys. We should build on that but don't expect too much detail because a bunch of us have filled that out.
>> I didn't say that. Let me clarify this is a FAQ about saying where we find funding. You have to find voluntary funding with businesses and governments or any other sources. This is how normal IGFs works that's all. This is not about disclosure this is about ‑‑
>> We're sole sources in some cases. When its sole sources, that's it.
>> I just want to briefly contextualize in the context of even democracies like India, there are, of course, no blanket civil societies. So there are person parts who believe process like this should only be institutionalized and they should rest with the government. However, the IGF has believed that they should be bottoms up and they should have at least three multi‑stakeholders.
That's all we're saying is that it didn't have to belong with anyone. It can be voluntary funding from any source. Just this information helps a lot more people. I think that's the point that Barat was trying to make. I just had one suggestion. We have a lot to thank you for by the way, the fact that we're here, this wasn't an easy process. There was several calls and many calls, and we almost didn't get here. So thank you for the persistence and thank you for facilitating a lot of people from developing countries to be able to ensure their participation in the meeting. You're right when you say that there are a lot of coordinators here and I started out by saying that we should have more people.
One of the things that we do want to suggest is maybe making a main focus session out of regional and national IGFs. I think we have to be in the big hall in the main room because there are a lot of people who come in and they want to know how is it that they can take away from this session and what is it that they can do back home and learn from those places. Also, we've just initiated this time a capacity building track. We're doing orientation sessions from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. Maybe some of IGF coordinators could also be there. The one on access and diversity perhaps and the one on multi‑stakeholderism. That was a session where we met just four new people but the fact that they had questions and we could respond to them. Maybe a capacity building session or a flash session on how it could in these parts the world. Thank you.
>> This is Vilsilv for the record. I'm going to last bring AU IGF Australian ambassador to clarify, just for future planning when it comes to accessibility with people with disabilities, both physical venue and also electronic accessibility is something we all can consider. For example, this venue, you might not think about it but it actually is pretty accessible. We have front entrance and for the toilets. The hotel associated close by is reasonably accessible. We have the captioning service which is really the designed for people with hearing impairments, but we will use to clarify points. We can joke about some of the proper names and how they're portrayed but it really is helpful. So these are some of the accessible features and there are others. There's a dynamic coalition on accessibility and disability but that actually has worked very hard to ensure that the IGF is as accessible as possible. There's still some way to go when it comes to remote participation and there will be a presentation about that at the inclusion for all session at 11:00 o'clock tomorrow. So it's just a reminder that if we are going to be inclusive, that we consider some of these aspects when we plan our national regional IGFs.
>> CHERYL: I think I was on a speaking list a while back, Marilyn can introduce me. I'm Cheryl for the record. And I am both keen to see this and answer your question, continue. I think we do need to have ‑‑ it will be open and inclusive and certainly able to be wandered in and out of and you know, we have people who aren't organizers in this space. I do think we do need to have the organizers of national subregional and regional initiatives have the opportunity to talk in public in a forum if need be. But the learnings that are going on here are very important.
I'm unsure whether the going around in endless circles and crisscrossing is the ideal way. I think we lose some thematic debate and we might want to look at that. I, for example, would like to have challenged the concept of having 400 people in a national initiative being a particularly large weight over what we would expect which is a reasonably high proportion of locals turning up wherever a regional one is. It's not all about travel.
I mean, saying that you have 45 or 50 people from a given country turning up at a regional inter‑governance and that's somehow a negative when you look at it at the proposition of people who have gone. There's all sorts of individual drill downs that we need to go through. And perhaps what we need to do is set agendas at these types of meetings and then continue some discussion points on agendas that run intercessionally. Because I think this is too much work to be doing just what we gather in the name of especially once a year IGFs. I think that's something that needs to be workshops. It seems to me that there might be an advantage for those who are for and have aspiring to have national, regional, subregional, or some other clustering. I'm not actually being flippant, small island development states are clustered.
There are other clusterings out there that might want to consider having NET2 type styles or robust internet governance forum type structures that we might do even a half day workshop as a pre‑event. It seems to me that our day zero, this time was because we were getting it all sorted. Perhaps we could to it and if we do it, it could be a professional facilitated workshop. I want to give credit where credit is due. I'm certainly going to steal shamelessly some of the fishbowl ideas into work‑shopping concepts for future AU IGFs because it is actually theater sports. You can in fact engage a large number of people. I have always liked hypotheticals. We haven't done hypotheticals in ours yet. I think the fishbowl concept is another. So if we just start cherry picking the good ideas, but we need a repository, respect the use of ‑‑ find out what's going on. We need to have some sort of repository as well. That will do it for me.
>> We have two minutes but ‑‑
>> Very quick, I wanted to bring some proposal to you. You see that when we have this opening in the IGF, the global one, we have this recession where we have a number of government, civil societies, private sector, what just you wanted to consider is that it may be for the next forthcoming IGF which will be next year, you as a group, give someone ‑‑
>> We did.
>> ‑‑ no, level session, right. I mean someone ‑‑ no, I am talking about the opening ceremony.
>> Yeah, we did.
>> You spoke on behalf of the regions.
>> Sorry, I missed it. No, no. I am talking about this representative for this group who shared. So I suggest we preserve these and then for the future so then the voice of the national and regional IGFs will be heard ‑‑ sorry for this one.
>> You're jet lagged.
>> On that note, I would just like to wrap up. I think it was a useful discussion on the take aways of this IGF and useful discussion on the way forward. On the way forward, there are a number of issues, the format and the clustering, and then the template and ask for a template for the proposal for suggestions of a template or guidelines as for the new kids on the block, and indeed others to cherry pick from the good ideas of others leveling up for next year. So see if there can be capacity building for regional IGFs as well. Keep it inclusive. Share the learnings but need for format and formalization maybe. Also in the agenda setting, look at some of the organizational issues for the agenda setting.
I wanted to talk a bit about the ‑‑ you talked a bill also about the template and guidelines ‑‑ some issues to cover in the template and guidelines is the sourcing of funding or the funding principles also, recommendations on how to organize the agenda setting of the regional IGFs. So those are a summary of some of the points on these two questions or the last question in particular.
>> Thank you so much. Thank you, very much for your participation during this week to everyone. Enjoy tonight.
>> We've got a meeting, let's go.
********
This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.
*********