FINISHED COPY
EIGHTH INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM
BALI
BUILDING BRIDGES ‑ ENHANCING MULTI‑STAKEHOLDER COOPERATION FOR GROWTH AND SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
OCTOBER 24, 2013
4:30 BALI
WS 31
DEEPENING STAKEHOLDERS' ACTIVITY ON INTERNET GOVERNANCE
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.
>> Ladies and gentlemen, we're going to have the consultations around this activity. We'll be doing the Southern African IGF.
>> We have the IGFs here speaking on this. We'll speak about the ideas.
On my left, we'll ‑‑ we have the African Union. He'll moderate. We have ‑‑ we have the African IGF, and we'll speak about the Central African IGF. So, the process, we'll ask the participants to come up and so first, we will start.
>> Thank you very much.
Apologies, I will have to speak and then remove because I'm also engaged in another session. I apologize for that.
First I want to talk for a second, and the Interior of Egypt will be hosting the Arab IGF, the Arab IGF, for those that know about it, it is a fairly new initiative, it only met twice this year and the year before, and the first meeting was in an area out of Africa, in Kuwait, then it was in Algeria. I went to that meeting three weeks ago.
Speaking about multistakeholders, I want to give a background on the Arab IGF.
It came in late. We kept this as a community for a few years or more that we needed to do something about the Internet Governance and we had a meeting last year in Beirut, in Lebanon and it was ‑‑ it had very good reputation from all different stakeholders and it was a public consultation. In the community that was present, which was expressed the need for an IGF initiated. They discussed the details and stressed upon most is that they wanted the process to be initiated in a multistakeholder in all of the set up. They asked to have the Global IGFs and they asked to have everybody represented.
So. We had the first meeting, we will talk really about the second.
You asked about what are the challenges and success. Maybe from the success, we have managed to have participation from all stakeholder groups in the meeting. We have participation and that participation in all other activities. We have had participants from Civil Society, government, the biggest stakeholder group. We have volunteers and work on most international, technical end and Civil Society.
We have two different hosts. The first was a Civil Society; the second, a government host. This has had some effect on how the meeting is ran.
A bit of topics that are discussed, how the participation, how it goes, is related to how ‑‑ what the host is. That's a difference.
We look at the meetings and so we went out to have our meeting of the IGF and were hosted there by the Ministry of The Telecommunication there. Couldn't really talk a lot about that.
The problem when you go to especially regions where Internet Governance is not really well disseminated and it is not so good, you're faced ‑‑ some stakeholder groups don't understand this multistakeholder model. Sometimes they are ‑‑ there were tensions in the last meeting from different governments for example. That's okay. You reach out to the communities and spread the news.
Does that cover what you wanted? Thank you so much.
>> Thank you.
>> Good evening, everyone. I'm from Uganda. Speaking about the West African IGF, for many of us here, I think we know a bit more about West African IGF, it started in 2008.
ITU ‑‑ in 3 to 10 minutes, you may have to cut me short if I keep going.
I'll speak more about challenges and successes. I think it is good to talk about the success stories.
We have ‑‑ like I said, one of the success stories is we have been able to call an IGF every year despite the challenges. I think we have been able to do mobilization in funding, getting presentations from other countries and because we coordinate through the national, the Uganda community and we have been able to also be in the foreground, to get assistance here. We have usually presentations in all of the different countries.
So I think for us, one of the biggest success stories in terms of sustainability, being able to get participation and mobilization, getting people to attend this.
Speaking more about challenges, what I have seen, participation, especially talking about stakeholders, the countries, they have different stakeholder participation. This year, the West African IGF, there was a lot of precipitation from the government and the community. There's no participation from the Civil Society. Also we had limited expression from countries like Kenya, Ranga, that kind of limited the number of issues and the discussion in terms of getting perspectives from those countries.
Right now we're having a challenge of having to go back to that drawing board and establish a stronger steering committee that can fit into the forum and also have that original discussion, the original group that we studied within 2008. I think the challenge right now, it is limited participation from the national countries and also participation from stakeholders, government and private sector in different countries.
Thank you.
>> The East Africa IGF where we have talked about participation and we hope you can advise on that more in the discussions.
>> Thank you. As for the North African IGF unfortunately, there is not yet any session, any addition of the North African IGF that is a hub. Because of the situation in Tunisia, particularly the government is not the best for such an activity.
For the IGF, it was a program that we looked at in September and also because of the situation and the political situation it was to be held. The stakeholders, this is done in a different manner. The North African ‑‑ I can't say anything, no activity has yet been done.
Moving on: The IGFs in Africa, they're not with stakeholders. I don't think there is a difference, but I think there is a lot of understanding, from the beginning, finding the IGFs, the initiatives came, I said to one stakeholders but the effort to make the other stakeholders join, before organizing any ‑‑ any session of those IGFs but if you don't join with the society, I don't think the others will join later. So my point of view, it has to be done in the beginning. Thank you.
>> Thank you for your suggestions and next, we will have talk about that issue of the IGF.
>> HI, everyone.
I work with the Progress of Communications and in West Africa. Thank you.
I'm going to talk about the Southern African IGF and what our experiences have been.
I think we have the youngest original IGF in Africa. We held the fist IGF in 2011, and this year we had another meeting. This is our second IGF in Angola.
We're working, we're working with the government, governments, APC, Civil Society, academics, we're working ‑‑ for both events, we have been hosted by governments. Which I think is a good thing for us. Civil Society has been able to assist or to give input into the agenda.
I'll just go through this, the strengths and challenges.
The strength: We have had government involved for the two events. A coordinating team is ‑‑ we're planning on having a coordinating team being led ‑‑ I think if you have the Africa IGF you're able to meet with Cecelia, and also we managed to fundraise for national IGFs not just in African countries but other countries.
I think our strength is we're able to maybe link to other regional IGFs in Africa and beyond.
The challenges we have, I think, is our understanding of the Internet Governance. In relation to that, it is to help with organizing the meeting held in July, not just for Africans but maybe everyone, so that we can participate in the Internet Governance processes meaningfully.
Another change which I think most of the speakers have talked about, lack of finding, the Internet Governance issues. Also, the decisions you make, you say oh, it is not a decision‑making space, and I think that no one always listens to you. So funding, it is really a challenge for us.
I think I'm done with the Southern African IGF.
>> Thank you. Thank you for sharing the issues. I'm sure she can help others.
Before I give the floor over for, we'll have another. (Audio muffled).
>> Is that it?
>> Okay. Go ahead. (No audio).
(Awaiting English translation).
>> I'm going to give you an idea of that.
(Awaiting English translation)
He said the South African IGF, it is starting to move slowly and they have organized four national IDF in Central Africa and the Republic of Congo, the Cameroon and DRC. The IGF, it is in the fourth session. It is organized in August.
He said that during the last process, and agreed to get a mailing list for the stakeholders and also decided to discuss with the regional institutions, the community for Southern Africa and the community for Central Africa, the Bank of Central Africa countries and ECA. They also did some listening to all of the stakeholders because the process is not perceived by all at the same level.
Now that we said that the process was led by Civil Society, but the government has started to participate actively and in all the countries the process was occupied by government. They have decided that they'll organize the national regional IGF in various countries to be able to again have the national stakeholders.
The problem that we're seeing, some of the stakeholders think that the process belongs to them while it is supposed to be a process which is universal and should belong to everyone. That's what's spelled out from Central Africa.
Now, we don't have Carlos here. We'll open the floor for discussions. Comments.
I'm sorry, I think West Africa is represented? Is represented here? Can you give us 3 minutes on the issues? The stakeholders’ issues?
West Africa, the IGF, please, before we open the floor? Thank you.
>> Thank you. Let me just begin by recognizing the national representative from West Africa here and also Mrs. Duma, the convener for the Nigerian IGF. I'm a part of the Ivory Coast IGF.
For this past six years we have been holding the regional ‑‑ the subregional IGF, and this year it was held from the 3rd to the 5th of July.
We were impressed by the turn out. So far we can say 2013 has been the most successful of West Africa IGF because out of the 15 countries only two countries were absent. At least 10 countries have high national processes going on now. We had ITU, the West African ITU representative, that was around, and we also registered the participation of international police and that was very instructive to do.
One initiative we have, the country that chairs will also assume the chair until the next year. Currently the West Africa IGF will be chaired until the next session it holds. So, the successes is that we're achieving the total Internet Governances across all countries. At the moment we have 10‑15 and we hope to do 15 out of 15 as the years go by. The stakeholders extending and increasing.
Funding is still a challenge. We do not have institutionalized funding for now. We have the economic commission of West African States, the coordinators at national levels have sent a request for more engagement from the regional body and we hope that will be achieved.
What have we learned from all of this?
We have learned that it is important to have national motivators, national conveners, and a national coordination, a coordination of all of the nationals, that is what makes the subregional. It is still most important to support the national IGF itself. That's where the matter comes home, where we can move up. We have to be a bottom‑up process and the best way to do that is to recognize, to reinforce, the capacity of IGF processes at national levels. I think I'll stop here so far. Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Please, who has a list of participants? Can you circle it to everyone and bring it forward please? Give it to Kofi.
>> We will have a lot of work to do today.
Now, we open the floor for discussions. We have 20 minutes. Anybody who would like to have the floor, it will be brief, try to give ‑‑ provide some solutions to the issues which were raised by the various presenters. Thank you.
Sorry, sir. We have Jim and a Dan on remote participation, just so you know.
>> Okay.
>> Okay, if they have questions after they can ask. Let's give the floor first to the participants in the room.
I'm taking the first list.
>> What is your name please?
>> (No microphone).
>> We have three speakers.
You have the floor.
>> Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to all of the presenters here for the foot on the ground. Some are more successful than others, but still it was good trying.
I just wanted to stress on what Nana said in concluding her message.
National level is very important. If you want to succeed with this model we have to do it from the national level.
In Senegal we really succeeded, we had private sector, academia, government, we had regulators, everybody together in the same room from 9:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and we had very good discussion. Really, we're really on the same footing. If every country has the same understanding when we go at the regional level, this level, we can succeed the model.
If one country doesn't take it seriously it is difficult to do it together. At all levels.
That's all I wanted to point out. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Thank you for your suggestions and recommendations.
You have the floor.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks to all of the participants for reporting what happened.
Being one of the sponsors of IGFs in the African region as AFRINIC I would like to ask everybody that they make even more efforts at home, I would like to really pose the question so that we can have a frank discussion here.
We are all feeling the heaviness of what we have to put in the community. We do take our development hat very seriously in the region. We have been supporting IGFs, but inasmuch as we can support the Africa IGF maybe the subregional IGFs, we can't keep supporting the national IGFs. I want to know for those that have tried the national IGFs, what is it that they're doing to really get the funding to support them and to continue that? I'm saying that just because we have been swamped by requests to do that and, you know, we're among ourselves here, let's be frank, our budget is not endless.
There are quite a few things that we're doing, you know, among others, you know, the development agenda being supporting IGFs and we're really happy to do that. You know, I want to make sure that people understand that we can't be funding, you know, all the way to the national IGFs. I would like to also draw attention to the fact that, you know, we can't be at all national IGFs, at all regional IGFs, the African IGF. The meetings are just piling up.
So, maybe one of the things that we also need to do is seriously look at the way that we're having the meetings and making sure that, you know, it is most effective. It is a lot of money. It is a lot of energies.
We're in a continent where travel, everybody knows, is absolutely, you know, takes time, is very expensive. Please, let's try to make it, you know, the meeting agendas, you know, more effective. Here I'm calling to ECA, AUC, I'm calling, you know, to all of the coordinators of the regional IGF. We have to have the dates together and make the agendas more effective. We can't continue to have meetings every ‑‑ practically every single ‑‑ every other week on the continent. It is not sustainable.
Thank you.
>> Thank you. Before going, giving the floor over, I concur that we should find ways to streamline the meetings and we just ended a meeting on E‑participation. I think IGF is defining ways of good participation and what I suggest is that for any physical meeting, you should take 1% of the budget to build E‑participation capabilities. That means, you know, the money used for travel, for so on, we take that information, that 1%. So when there is a meeting, you can have all of the means to have the E‑participation of people in that country or in that city. If people don't have that access themselves from their houses, from their regions, then they are unable to have the precipitation and the regrouping of meetings, which, of course, it is very important.
I believe that the discussion about stakeholder participation, we should make sure that all of the stakeholders in the country participate not only directly in the meeting but also financially and Realistically, you know, when you put the problem of the Civil Society, meeting in a country, it is not expensive. They can normally fund it themselves. They go to the international level for funding. It is not really involved. It is usually very limited travel if there is, only lunch, coffee breaks and government should have a budget for this. I support what you said.
Sir, you have the floor.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you, Mr. Chair.
My question goes no Nina: From a logistical point of view, what is it that a country can do to set up a national IGF?
>> Sorry. I was also playing my role as chief twitter.
The question is what can a country do that does not have a national IGF ongoing?
>> AUDIENCE: Yes.
>> I'm not a political person. The question is what can we do; am I correct?
That lady there, she's the regional and has a lot of capacity.
So, first thing, know who is inclined, who is born, whose lived there today, tonight, tomorrow, get them. Start a mailing list.
The first question in that mailing list should be what can we do? Begin that discussion. Make it open. Make a call.
Copy me. I'm happy to be a resource person. I'm African. That means that I'm everywhere. Copy anyone here you think can help. Copy Mark. Let us begin to talk about what we can do. Then we can bring people from networks.
First thing, begin a mailing list, begin the discussion.
Then, engage other people. Engage the organization authority agency, people in the ministry, people in IT business, who manages, twitter, there is a whole ‑‑ there is a hashtag right now for us on twitter. Let's not make it a political issue. I know that everything can turn political very quickly.
I'll be very honest with you, this is a process for discussing how the Internet can be meaningful and also feed into global discourse. Let's begin and invite all stakeholders, use all available communication channels, including social media and let us call on all stakeholders.
IGF at national level needs little or no funding, but what it needs is a process with all stakeholders involved. When we begin talk, we know each other's mailing list, it is easier to hold a face‑to‑face meeting.
Let us look at our national issues. We have a big population, we have to take that as an issue, is it a land‑locked country? We have to take that into issue, into consideration. What is cost of access? These are the things that interest all.
Please, please, please, let's keep politics out of it. It is very capital for the success of the national IGF.
>> Thank you. Thank you.
Leon?
>> Thank you.
I want to respond. I'll start with the most current, how do you start a national IGF.
I have been involved in Internet Governance since around 2008 and I'll share the experience from that Ghana perspective.
First and foremost, what do you want to achieve out of the Internet Governance? Why do you want to hold it? You know, is it for the sake of just it is everywhere? If that's the case, you're bound to not succeed.
I think with what Nina said, before you even get ‑‑ yes, first, getting the participants from there that are here. When you go home, try to find out what the Internet issues are, bring in the government aspect, what is missing. I think one thing that I have seen, we in Africa, we tend to jump on to the global bandwagon.
When we started in East Africa, I think we had a slogan that we think globally and act locally. I think that is something that we should need to take home. Drawing maybe from Uganda, we have decided to change the whole game whereby we first hold online discussions, which is important, you never get everyone to participate face‑to‑face. So, we have so many mailing lists, technical, Civil Society, we throw out issues from access, cyber security, the critical Internet resources, the CCOTD, all of the topics, in there, we go in and look at the most discussed topic. This year around we tried it.
Because one of the challenges we have been having is the missing voice, it has been the private sector, the ISPs, the people in the market, in the industry itself. What we decided was let us try to hold an all‑night discussion, capture the issues, see how we can bring in these people.
For me, I realize usually when we come, we have a long program, a full‑day program. At the end of the day people come, you find that someone is not interested in this, but you have a whole, you know, panel, they not come. You have someone looking at a particular issue.
This year around we had the online discussions and we had two issues. We had access and are looking at just the infrastructure aspect of it. How we can engage with government or try to address the issue of our cyber security. When we looked at that, we looked at the aspect of the online freedoms. You know, that's why we're able to get the precipitation from the stakeholders dealing in that. We had fundings from the ISPs, not money per se, but I did find a neutral venue. We have them give us bandwidth and we do that participation with the moderation.
Another thing, you can go to the booth, see if they can help, because they have this platform which you can use for the remote participation, it is free of charge.
I think it is important to address the issues rather than just jumping on to address each and everything which comes on. Thank you.
>> Okay.
>> Thank you. That remark, it really made me think about how to make our IGFs non‑political because the political kill our problems, our efforts. There is always problems in politics.
If we try to be far from the politics but with the governments, it would be really an element of success of our IGFs. Someone asked why to do IGFs, is it because everywhere there is IGFs? I don't think so. I think that it is Gina's idea to bring all the stakeholders together and to discuss the Governance of the Internet. If we don't do, others will do, other also act on behalf of us. I think that IGFs, national, subregional, regional IGFs are very important. The Global IGF I think has to be the ‑‑ if you want, the sum of all the others, the IGFs. I think that the idea was to ‑‑ was that the national IGFs report to the subregional and the subregional IGFs report to the regional and et cetera and at the end we have the regional IGFs reporting to the Global IGF.
Thank you.
>> Thank you very much. Thank you.
We have to finish here. Is it ‑‑
>> No. We have a comment from a remote participant in there.
>> Please, go ahead.
>> He says I think that thanks to UNICA and thank you for leading and installing the Africa IGF. I have asked before in Arabic and it is about the ACA and EU, what they can do to get the regional support of the regional IGFs in West Africa, et cetera. I believe that their support increases for IG to be done in this region. Thank you.
>> Finished? Okay.
>> Okay.
>> I want to speak on two things.
One, let's talk about, you know, that there is no endless budget. I think what we can also try to do at the national level is to work with what we already have. You know, the different meetings already there.
Sometimes ‑‑ she talked about, you know, being invited to meetings every other week, you find sometimes the discussions are the same. So maybe we need to streamline like you said and not ‑‑ may not also ‑‑ do we need to look for funding from outside or whatever, but I think on the national level you can work with, you know, the regional institutions and then they can contribute in whatever way they can.
The one question made me smile, you know, what can we do to have a national IGF. I think that they have already responded already. What I can say, there is an organization that has been trying to, you know, help in organizing a national IGF there and the problem is who can be our focal person? I think we have that person here already. I can't. Yeah. I think we can link up after the meeting and, you know, talk about what we can do and, you know, a lot of people here can help us ‑‑ can help us organize that first IGF, yeah. I'm just saying you don't really have to look far. It has been activities that have been done in African, regional level. Thank you.
>> (Speaking French).
>> Let me try to just say what he said. He said that he's thanking AFRINIC for the efforts they have done to support the Internet Governance process in the country and continent. He also said that the support is needed even though there's a need to involve other stakeholders in supporting the IG process such as the private sector. He said that our efforts should include that, and also to involve ‑‑ it is not obvious in some countries that this support will come, public awareness that we should try to do so.
I would like to stress that what has been said, we really strive to provide support but I think also we're not talking from multistakeholder, but the subregions, the countries which are hosting these that should do their best to involve all of the stakeholders. The stakeholders, they're funding a lot of issues, even though the IGF is not a decision making organization but they have information and what it brings when hosted by a country, when organized, this is all important processes and I believe the private sector should and will find its way in.
When you look at the last African IGF organized in Kenya, the private sector has done a lot in funding, they did another than what the government was expected to do. Sure, the public said we need to engage it and get them involved in this processes. Let me now give the floor before we go to the next session.
>> Thank you. I just want to talk about something that you raised here, the E‑participation.
I have some figures here.
We have them, from 2010, IGF, the forum, it was held in Egypt, the African participation was only 7% of the total of participation. When we employed the learning about participation, these rates, they raised to 30% you will see from 7 physical participation, to 30%. Not that means ‑‑ we can't link the private sector participation by funding the E‑participation, the remote E‑participation when we organize the national IGF, regional IGF and continental IGF, the private sector can get involved in these IGF by the final shot of support of the E‑participation, the remote participation, by putting in place by implementing the frustrated that we need in order to let all stakeholders, multistakeholders in Africa but all in our national, regional continuing IGF. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Thank you.
In fact, that's true. We need to really promote E‑participation because if you can see where we are using the WebEX or as a tool, even the video conferencing to participate in the three‑day meeting, why do you need to travel? You reduce the carbon emission, the load, we have to strengthen in one, two sentences each capacity where we have challenges that they can participate. They can come together, they can participation better.
That concludes the first part of the meeting.
The next will now deal with ‑‑ before that, let's thank our panelists. They have brilliantly made clear, concise suggestions and have met your share of the day. Thank you very much for your participation and we look forward to the summary from our finalists.
To now the next panelist, that should come in, this panel will be moderated. We have Mary, from the Nigeria Alternate Group, we have AFRINIC, we have ICANN.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Thank you. We don't have a lot of time to talk about ‑‑ where is my paper? The African Stakeholders and Regional Initiative. Okay.
As you may know, the African struggle starting with this meeting had many focus on having access to the infrastructure, having access to the Internet, to the lookout content. In a nutshell, building the ecosystem on the Internet within our subregion. Today, having built the infrastructure, we unfortunately are facing some cyber issues. Namely cyber security, how to protect our data, how to protect our infrastructure. How to make our E‑commerce better? In addition to that, we have the capacity building to the citizen, also to the government. We have the national legislation, the national superstructure, the superstructure is the framework.
How to enhance corporation on Internet Governance between continents and to emphasize the multistakeholder? How has the African stakeholder decide on the multistakeholders principle in the Internet Governance issues? That's in some areas what we're ‑‑ what we're going to discuss now. I have as a panelist, thank you, from the francophone, also to my left, I have the vice president of ICANN. To my right, Mary Duma. Chair of the NARA. Also Mada Fatima and AFRINIC. Thank you very much.
I will not be long. I will give the floor to our panelists to discuss about this issue, how to enhance African stakeholders on regional initiatives. Okay, you have each 3 minutes, please.
Who wants to take the floor first?
>> So I'm going to start by telling you just very briefly that I guess the story of AFRINIC, which is ‑‑ which started as an initiative from the technical community and people who felt really not on the technical people, but some who are in the policy process who at some point felt like, you know, Africa cannot continue to be served by three different registries at the time. They got together and said we need to do something about this. Put together a discussion list, met in 1998 to start the first ‑‑ in fact, the First Internet Governance Forum, that's what we called it in 1998. From there basically worked tirelessly with the whole continent and community to set up Africanique.
Though people do not know it, this is really a consensus among the technical community, government, Civil Society. Government has help us from the beginning. You know, when you're on the Website, there is a bit of that, we have a bit something that tells the story of Africanique. We have had ‑‑ let's say involvement of stakeholders, all stakeholders in the region from the beginning. What we need right now is even more involvement.
AFRINIC is a community affair, we work with policies. Policies that are done via what we call the policy development process.
That process is a bottom‑up, not a stakeholder thing. You go to the Website, you can subscribe to any of the mailing lists, you can participate in all of the discussions on policies that are being done. You can say your views on the rate of depletion right now of IPv4 and what's happening to IPv6 on the continent. You can help us shape the future of policies on Internet Protocol in the region.
What we are seeing is that we have a core cluster of people that participate. We don't really have the bigger community. Except that the bigger community needs to realize that whatever that small subset of people that participate decided by consensus, it is going to come back and bite them. So, everybody really needs to participate. The operators, the governments, the individuals, the ISPs, Civil Society. We're all potential operators and users, which means that at one point in time we're going to be, you know, needing those and making sure things are going on the way basically that our stake is being covered. Okay. We need to absolutely participate. We need to be there. This is a process that's there and open for everyone.
A lot to recognize here, you know, one is from ‑‑ this is a man from Kenya. He's a board member. These are all people ‑‑ one is actually from the academic sector, you know, one of those that participates all the time in the tirelessly ways because funny enough the academic community in the African region is really a strong participant and strong opinion maker in policy development around what's happening in Africanique. Come, ARFINIC, we really need that, I know that the content is, you know, on ‑‑ only now being conducted. A lot of us are actually involved in whether the international, regional processes, I know that we can come down to making sure that the organizations that are supposed to serve us, serve us even better. Thank you.
>> Okay. Thank you. We're talking about the engagement in Africa. I'm thinking about, you know, all stakeholders, government, private sector, Civil Society.
When it comes to private sector the main issue is, first of all, strengthening them at the local level. We know that you have only internationals at the local level and, I mean, sucking our resources, I might say that, that's happening really. Weakening our local enterprises in the IG and in an ad sector. That's one thing.
The second thing, so we need good regulation to stem from, the private sector. The second issue is about around Civil Society participation. For this I'm going to talk a bit about this, alone, it is the regional at‑large structure in ICANN. We're working on a capacity building program. That's important for us to be able to participate in the policy development, processes as stated by Anne Rochelle. This is the regional level, and we all need to participate, we all need to participate and what we need to understand the issues, how it works, how we can participate.
Partnership is very important. If the local private sector is different, they can partner with Civil Society to support them across the building and to also allow them to participate, you know, using funding ‑‑ we can say we're going to participate at equal footing but if we don't have the means to attend the meetings. You don't have the means to get connected to a Broadband Internet it is difficult for Civil Society members to participate and government has ‑‑ I mean, they have an important role to play.
This is a moment for me, a time for me to make a call to all Civil Society members here in this room that I can be organizing and at‑large summit in June, in London and all ‑‑ all will be invited, so, please invite, we need more, I have letters, scripts of children from Africa. Please apply. Get the application before January so you'll be invited to attend, to participate and participation in that private building program.
Thank you.
>> Thank you. Okay. Thank you.
I just want to paint a picture of our region. I want to say that in our region government plays a higher role.
The highest spender in our region, it is the government. We're still struggling to get the private sector to hand over the engine of development to the private sector. This is a very, very hard thing for us to do. For that reason, because of that, the government will play at all kinds of levels but will not understand what ARFINIC is doing, will not understand what they're doing.
How come we still want to ‑‑ government needs to know the rules, this one, that one will play. We have in Nigeria, because of ‑‑ particularly because we're in this environment, we have people, they're not strong enough, so as she said, strengthening is key. I should also add, she's also key.
We need to communicate the rules of this order to add government. They used to play, but together they're able to bring the rules and activities to the government, so that government is open to that.
Secondly now, I want to say that, I think that ARFINIC ‑‑ I think it is Anna, right?
It is all of those together, I want to bring out that issue. That initiative by all of those who participate. They should be able to all be part of this if it isn't as long or African ‑‑ OIFS, it should be realtime, part of that.
In Nigeria there is an institute we have. It is a digital suit that's a melting point where the business people, that's the operators, the government, academia, they come together, and they're the base of that institute. We need to encourage us, as Africa, to be part of such program. We have courses that can be ran. Something like that is happening in Uganda, Kenya, the communication commission, they have having of that nature. The only thing, to have a strong expert group and this group is very, very key, he only went ‑‑ I could understand hoarders. At the African IGF, a number of people came from there, because of our young bearing, I rung the bell, told everybody this, what was happening, less the communication and also what's happening.
Thank you.
>> Thank you very much.
Now I will give the floor to Mike, please.
>> Thank you.
Without further avenue, I'm good a move on here to actually ‑‑ contact and I'm here to actually ‑‑ to check out the VP in Africa who couldn't make it here to Bali, talking about deepening the modeling, featuring on the Goines and on Africa.
I think as said before by some, Africa is a huge continent, 54 countries, there's a lot going on, meetings, events, of course, for anyone either individual or organization we cannot be at each and every event. Even with the increase of staff and all this that I can meet. In the past few months we hired two more engagement managers in Africa, one in East, one in West. I think even with that the reality is we have to consider other means we have other terms of engagement, technology, Internet, this is used digital engagement.
I can ‑‑ in the past year I started to focus more on engagement tools, online engagement tools. We started with my ICANN and that's a platform that provides information on projects and initiatives and news, at ICANN you can subscribe to the serve and pick the options you're interested in and get updates on those topics. In every service we launch, we are keen to make the content available in different languages. We have everything available in six languages and in Portuguese and on the cam, it goes on to exploring and other means of additional engagement.
We launched a platform a few months ago called Icanlabs. This is where people can propose ideas, pose questions, discuss topics and also can learn about certain topics. Part of the labs, the major part of the labs' platform, it is an online education platform. The debatable version which would be launched in the next ICANN meeting offering education, materials on different ranges of topics related to the ICANN. That doesn't mean that the initial engagement will take over sort of the human kind of engagement, not at all. It is a complimentary sort of element to help with the out region and helping by reaching out to millions, millions of Internet users in Africa and the other developing countries.
Thank you.
>> Thank you.
Now Emanuel, please.
>> I would love to speak French. I think this is important in the Internet area. Is it clear?
>> (Speaking French)
>> Thank you very much. I will give the floor over to the translation. After that, I will end the program.
>> Thank you.
I'm trying to ‑‑ I tried to summarize what Emanuel has said, although he can say it himself into English. He wanted diversity and wanted different people to speak.
He said that the Internet Governance question is essential. In IGF, there is an opportune, an opportune place to discuss all of the questions related to IG. Since the beginning, his organization, the francophone organization has been contributing and strengthening the organization in the continental level by asking countries to participate in all of forums, not only the government but various stakeholders were provided and invited to participate. They have been working to make sure that the forum happens when needed.
He said that the stakeholders represent at all of the levels. He's saying when thinking about the government, we think of Minister only, not thinking about the parliament, why the parliament is an essential part of government. He's also asking if we're working with the chambers of commerce in Africa. They're a part of the process.
He said that despite the weakness of the ICT industry in Africa or because of the weakness in Africa, that this is not sufficiently represented, I think he's right. When you look at people that are representing from the private sector, this is also the case in all of the discussions. He said also that multiculturalism is not worked in and asking if we have the languages in West Africa, we have French, English that I know. We don't have the Spanish and Portuguese because the U.N. language in Africa is French and English only.
He's saying also about discussing about how we should also concentrate on the African position to get the feature of the IGF. I can replay to him for this, we'll discuss it when the time comes but for the time being we're only discussing this issue, we'll have a forum to discuss Africa's position in the weeks to come.
Thank you.
>> Okay. Time is running.
What wants to take the floor? Who else? Okay.
>> Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate that our friend from francophone spoke in French for diversity. I normally do the same at ICANN, but at ICANN we have translation, here we don't have. To save time I will speak English.
You asked if parliamentarians are part of the stakeholders, they are part of the stakeholders. I have to remind you, you're in the WSIS, the parliamentarians was one of the 21 families of the Civil Society. They're not excluded, they're part of the society.
Second thing, you ask if Africa ‑‑ you said that Africa had better have a better position regarding the change which is going on now. Better than running after the multistakeholders model. I don't agree with you because to have a position, if we don't ‑‑ if we don't stick to the multistakeholders model we'll have the position of the governments only and I don't think it is a good thing. I think that the Minister, that this is a really good thing for our people.
Secondly, if Africa don't participate in all the international forums Africa will not have any chance to express its position. We need the multistakeholder model participating in the international forum to express the position of Africa as a whole and not Africa as governments.
Thank you.
>> Okay. Thank you very much.
Who else? Yes. We'll give you the floor after. Yes. Okay. Please.
>> I will speak French.
>> (Speaking French).
>> Okay. Thank you. Thank you.
I will give the floor to Mr. Emanuel and after that, we will conclude. Thank you.
>> (Speaking French).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much.
I just want to ‑‑ we have a remote participant?
>> We have a comment.
This comment, it is like that, I do not believe that the ICT industry is weak in Africa, I think that Emanuel should replace that initiative and get more private sector in our IGF just as some countries do.
In Africa we're looking at our techniques in this forum. To the extent that sometimes regional IGF we have more connectivity when this can easily be shorted out by the private sector. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
Let's go ‑‑ what I would like to say after all this intervention, is that we should maintain the multistakeholders principles because of the substance of our meetings here and it is the only way to get the real inquiries from African citizens, African population, all into account. We should not forget that the multistakeholders principles are the best way.
Then, the international organization, even Emanuel, I can say that we can invite them to support technically ‑‑ the technical aspect of the remote participants because if they want to get involved and if they want to get engaged in our issues in Africa, they should ‑‑ they should allow a lot of African participants to be a part of our meetings. The national level, the regional as well as continental and either can bring the technical expertise in order to have more Africans participating in the meeting, I would be very grateful.
This is the first things.
The second things is what the Civil Societies said, and I can read a summary in a nutshell, that a good partner ‑‑ public private partnership, these can improve the participation. If we can get this private sector ‑‑ and I know that in the last West African IGF held in July, the African union was not there, we had from the private sector Google, Microsoft, ARFINIC, Deeper Foundation, we had all of these partners. That means they are involved in this but they should get more involved than before by taking into account the technical aspect to have ‑‑ even if Africa, they're not there physically, not present in the meeting, they'll follow and give their voice, they'll give their input in the meetings.
Last things, also from the international organization, the multilingualism, it is very important. I'm francophone, I'm doing my best to speak in English, understand in English, it is not easy, we should improve this. At least two languages in our meeting will be better.
What else? Yes.
The strong ESPA group raised by our colleague Mary, a strong group. Not only getting outcomes from the meetings but also after the meeting we should implement the outcomes. I think it will be better to put in our resolution outcome that after each meeting we should organize some strong group in order to follow‑up with the mailing lists or the implementation of the outcomes.
If you will allow me, I know that we should finish at 6:00 but if you'll allow me, I will give ‑‑ okay. Thank you.
My co‑chair says that's not necessary to give the floor to the panelists, so I'll give him the floor back.
>> Thank you, thank you.
Now I think we have two positions before condition, including the remarks, I would like to inform you the summary, it is being prepared by our reporter sitting in front and ‑‑ where is she? Behind her.
So, we have the reporter, we'll leave that up to them.
We have ‑‑ I hope all of you have put your e‑mail addresses in the list which have been circulated. We have two lists. Okay, they're around.
So, we'll do the summary.
Before concluding, I would like to inform you that this session which is organized by the African union and ECA every year, this was ‑‑ this year, the stakeholders consultation and the process and I think it was very important to listen to what Africa was doing because it will strengthen our multistakeholders position. You heard what had happened in East Africa, where only had the government organize the last East Africa IGF, what's happened in South Africa where all of the stakeholders took part ‑‑ same as West Africa. In North Africa, they're still trying to come up with something and we hope for the best. You have seen what we have done. We have all of the stakeholders represented, we have given them private sector, Civil Society, academia, everybody was there. I think we should take this opportunity to thank again the government of Kenya for having the second African IGF.
[Applause]
>> The government of Kenya should be applauded for this. Also thank our other sponsors who help to us organize the African IGF, ICANN, Internet Society, the different organizations, Google, APC, and at the local level, we have the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology of Kenya, we had a test book, our main partner at the national level, we have had a main partner, on the national level, you have the telecommunication, they had hosted a dinner for us, we had Kenya educational work and ARFINIC that participated from the meeting. Least, but not last ‑‑ the last, not least, the mighty University of Kenya, and I believe is represented here by John, he's sitting here.
John, please, thank you. Thank you for all of your support.
AFRINIC, our own AFRINIC here, who has supported us through fire, the fire initiative which was given yesterday. It is a fine initiative that was initiated by ‑‑ it was given to our famous Internet group who started, we cannot forget our own organizations.
We thank all of you for having participated.
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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.
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