IGF 2016 - Day 4 - Room 6 - OF12: COMMONWEALTH INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM

 

The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Eleventh Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Jalisco, Mexico, from 5 to 9 December 2016. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. 

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>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Welcome to this important meeting of the Commonwealth Group, and this is has become a tradition at all ICANN and IGF meetings.  We have an agenda, which I will project on the screen. 

Yes.  For those who are just coming in, I was expressing my welcome message to everyone, and I'm happy to see a cross-representation here from Africa, from the Pacific as far as the Cook Islands, and from Sri Lanka and so on, and also our friends from the Caribbean, Europe, and the U.S. as well.

This meeting is one of our regular meetings which we normally have with the ICANN and IGFs, but before I proceed, let me extend my official congratulations to Mark sitting on my left, who we effectively promoted as the vice chair of the GAC.  It's a new culture --

(Applause)

 -- it's a new culture which we have established within the CTO to promote everything Commonwealth, including Commonwealth candidates, and we've achieved this in a number of areas.  At the ITU, we had a number of elections to ITU Study Groups, and one of the most contested was Study Group 2 chairperson, and we effectively supported the gentleman who won the election, Phil from the UK and also at ITSO, that was a very hotly contested election, and we did everything to support the Commonwealth candidate, Patrick Masambu, who is now the DG elect, from Uganda of ITSO, so if you're thinking for contesting for an election, once you're a Commonwealth member, please let us know.  We put the oil in the campaign for you.

Let me also thank my young sister here, Bernice, who has agreed to do notes for this meeting, even though I know it's the fish record, but she has kindly agreed to write the notes.  She's a student in one of the universities in Kenya, right, and she takes this as part of her internship.

Yes.  We have an agenda, which is projected on the screen.  Okay.  The agenda is very simple.  We've done the first one.  We go to the second.  There are just a few points.  One is to hear from Mark, who is going to be telling us about the Commonwealth Principles to Internet Governance, and I will provide you with an update at what we're doing at CTO headquarters.

Mark will come back to talk about the output documents and the outputs, and then our friend Tracy Hackshaw, from Trinidad & Tobago, who will give us an update on the Commonwealth Cybercrime Initiative, and then we'll have closing remarks.

We wanted this to be effective and efficient, and by 10:00, we should be out of this place, so at this point, let me pass the mic to Mark, who's going to look at the second issue. 

>> MARK CARVELL: Yes.  Thank you.  Thank you, Shola.  So this agenda item is about the application of the Commonwealth Principles to Internet Governance, and the principles we're talking about here are those that were agreed for the Commonwealth cyber governance model at the -- they were agreed at the Commonwealth ICT Minister's Forum, as a guide for members to plan and implement actions in policy development, recreation, and legislation, cross-border collaboration, and capacity building, so that's the purpose of the -- of those principles, and they're derived from the Commonwealth values set out in the charter that was agreed back in March 2013, as I recall.

Of course, the charter emphasized the importance of democracy, development, human rights, and the rule of law, international peace and security, and economic development, free flow of information, and so on, so key values that relate directly to Internet Governance policy, so I will just run through the four main principles with a cross-reference to where I see Commonwealth action is taking place to implement each of the four.

The first one, we contribute to a safe and effective global cyberspace, and here I picked out some of the key elements under this principle most relevant to what we've been discussing throughout this Internet Governance Forum here in Guadalajara, so the elements I see under this principle, which we should bear in mind are multistakeholder, transparency and collaborative governance, net neutrality, interoperability, safety, and affordable access.

So how is this principle being applied?  Well, we have participation very actively here in the global Internet Governance Forum, and this is a Commonwealth subset of that, if you like, as the Commonwealth Internet Governance Forum, so we are actively supporting multistakeholder dialogue in these key international events, and, of course, there are many regional initiatives and national initiatives throughout the Commonwealth membership implementing this principle.

Second principle, actions to support broader economic and social development.  Here the key elements I identified under this principle are enabling innovation, cultural and linguistic diversity, digital literacy, and international cooperation, and, again, of course, we are engaged as Commonwealth members in many of the international discussions here at the IGF and at the national and regional level.

Third principle, tackling cybercrime, and key aspects of this principle we should bear in mind are collaboration and doing this in a very multistakeholder process, involving working alongside the private sector, technical community, and others, law enforcement agencies and others with an interest in tackling this very important aspect of the fact of life today that cybercrime is a big challenge for all stakeholders.

And, of course, our main way of implementing that is through the Commonwealth Cybercrime Initiative, and Tracy Hackshaw, to my left, is going to give us an update shortly in our agenda on that.

Fourth principle, rights and responsibilities.  Here the key aspects are defending human rights, freedom of expression, and access to knowledge leading to empowerment, and protecting vulnerable members of the community.

So, again, I think the record is very clear about the Commonwealth membership committed to implementing this principle through all national and regional initiatives and discussing them within the -- in the international fora.

So those are the principles.  I open the floor, really, to comments on how we can do more to apply them and what is going on, perhaps, in your particular areas of activity.  Shola, thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Thank you very much, Mark.  That was a very brief overview of what the Commonwealth is doing in the area of Internet Governance.

What I would like to do is to ask give your comments, ask questions, or maybe share some of your activities in your region with us.  If you don't want to speak, I will force you to speak.

Well, let me go to the nearest country here, the Cooks Island.  What are you doing there?  What are you doing there? 

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Well, this is my first (Off microphone) one of the things -- sorry.  One of the things about this particular aspect in relation to the Commonwealth -- the Cook Islands, in fact, is -- I don't think we're actually a member -- we participate in the Commonwealth games and all the other Commonwealth activities, but we are actually connected through New Zealand, which we are a protectorate of, and there have been a lot of situations, for example -- this is outside of this particular situation, but there have been lots of situations where we haven't been able to participate because we aren't members.  But at the same time, we still consider ourselves members of the Commonwealth, and in relation to this -- I'm not quite sure whether our Prime Minister actually attends Commonwealth Minister's meetings, does he? 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: No. 

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: No.  So one of the things I know is a real issue within the Pacific is that the -- there is a government -- government will to actually participate more actively in development of Internet Governance.  In fact, at the moment, there's a preoccupation with connectivity and affordability and all those sorts of issues, so when it comes to sort of like the next level of sort of governance -- eGovernance areas, it's only people perhaps like myself who is very concerned about the select development happens before we're actually ready to put it into place, and that would be sort of like a pretty general -- you know, it's, I think, a problem across the region. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Okay.  Thank you very much.  Also I must say we did have -- I think the regulatory agency that has been at one of our meetings in the past, so we look forward to good interaction.  Any other contributions?  Mary.

>>MARY: Thank you for the principles and the IGF principles.  One of the things I want to say is that I don't know how many of us are from the stakeholders, not only government because CTO, they relate at -- regulate at government level and telecom regulators now through ICT, but the Civil Society, the business stakeholders, the academia, the technical, you can stand for technical as well as government, so I don't know how we are reaching out to them to know that they are part of this process or this group so that each -- each of the stakeholders will be able to know there are rules and participate in making sure that we apply these principles.  That's one.

The other one is that at the time we had what we called Commonwealth IGF.  I don't know what has happened to it.  Maybe we want to look at it, is there anything we are doing wrong that the Commonwealth IGF is no more -- is like gone, and if we want to revive it or we just wanted to fizzle out, then there are -- there are also countries in the Commonwealth that are not yet -- who are in the international IGF.  Do we know them?  Are we encouraging those countries to at least have their own initiative and have their own process, national IGF or participate in their regional IGF?  So those are the three or four things I needed to raise here, and then we could discuss it further.  Thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Great.  Let me get some comment first, and then I'll ask Mark to respond.  Frank from Uganda.  Please introduce yourself. 

>> TONY: Thank you.  My name is Tony.  I work for a CSO organization based in northern part of Uganda.  Looking back at the principles that were mentioned, they reflected on two key issues.  One reflected on the affordability and then reflected on the access.  When I looked at that growing experience of what we are doing down on the ground with the communities who are rural-based and also some of the institutions who are based in the community, I looked at challenges of accessibility and affordability, based on their strength, on resources, and also based on how they can be able to be reached out and also to be helped, to get to know some of this.

If they get to know some of this, my concern is the sustainability.  Are they going to be able to sustain this kind of initiative at the grass-root level?  That's actually what we are looking at.  As my experience and with my NGO, we have done our best to not only do our activities in the urban centers but we are based in the rural communities, trying to reach out to the rural poor, provide the services to the community, and then the schools that are in the community.  Thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Thank you very much.  Any other comments? 

Okay.  I'll give the floor to Mark, but before I do that, let me correct an impression.  CTO is not just government.  We have members who are governments and ministries, regulators.  We also have private-sector members.  Facebook is one, there is another -- GSM is a member of the CTO, so we have membership from different stakeholders, and that is the kind of framework that enables us to reach out to our membership and provide value for what we're doing.  Let me turn to Mark to respond about the issues which have been raised. 

>> MARK CARVELL: Yes.  Thank you, Shola, and thank you for all the comments.  I think they hit on some key issues and challenges which this global IGF is addressing and also, I mean, affordability and access and how to sustain the situation when addressing those problems, I think, is where we value the Commonwealth community, sharing best practice and knowledge and disseminating information about partners and what has worked and not worked so well in the past, so I think that's a very important point to register from this discussion.  And it sort of links, really, into Mary's point about the future of a Commonwealth Internet Governance Forum entity, and we will touch on this a bit later and perhaps in more detail, but we have the legacy from the earlier initiative for the Commonwealth Internet Governance Forum, and if we look back on the history of that, it achieved quite a lot.  We developed a child protection toolkit, and it was the base for launching the Commonwealth Cybercrime Initiative, so the Commonwealth Internet Governance Forum, I think, as a forum within the global IGF, did a lot of important work, and we -- we're in the lead really in terms of developing tangible outcomes from multistakeholder dialogue within the UN Internet Governance Forum.  The responsibility has returned to the CTO, and there is a Commonwealth Internet Governance Forum page on the CTO website where we've captured the earlier work done with regard to the child protection toolkit and the links across to the Commonwealth Cybercrime Initiative and so on, and it's the base there, I think, for doing further work and developing the concept of a Commonwealth Internet Governance Forum, so it's not fizzling out.

We're at a crucial stage, really, of revisiting it as a concept and perhaps even creating the opportunity for stand-alone Commonwealth Internet Governance Forum event in the future, but that's something for us all to discuss.  So that's what I say on that.

With regard to national and regional initiatives, the NRI's initiative, we've got this new acronym, NRI now, through the work done from the MAG, the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, to create a place at the center of the IGF for the national and regional IGFs to present on what they're doing and also to engage across the network that's now pretty firmly established for all the NRIs, so that is the medium, I think, for advocacy of national and regional participation, which is another point, Mary, you valuably raised about the regional Internet fora.

So we have a job to do to promote further adoption of national multistakeholder fora throughout the Commonwealth membership, and I think the Commonwealth Forum here is a good place to start that advocacy.  I don't know if -- Shola, if you want to add to that: 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Okay.  Thank you.  Oh, yes, please. 

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Off microphone)

>> MARILYN CADE: I'm going to make a very quick intervention.  For anyone who doesn't know me, it's my fault.  My name is Marilyn Cade, and I want to make a direct intervention in support of a comment that Mark made and in special recognition of those of you in this room here who are already launching and coordinating national IGFs.

The Commonwealth IGF, in and of itself, is really a fabulous initiative, but I urge you to also consider the new network that has been stood up at the Secretariat where I ask as the coordinator to support.  We made a pledge last year at the substantive session of the NRIs to double the number of national IGFs in the next two years, and we also called for the creation of a focal point at the IGF Secretariat because up until that time, the NRIs and the regionals all emailed their questions into [email protected].  Since last year, Anya, and I have helped to launch new information, and at this meeting we have identified six more.  They're all from your interested parties.  I think the NRIs that -- the comment that Mark made that I would just like to build on is -- and Shola has heard me say this before -- we can debate public policy at a global level; we can debate it at a regional level, and we can only implement it at a national level, and I think the NRIs have a huge, huge opportunity ahead of them.

Let me just say I am thrilled and terrified that at the NRI session today I have the top official from the UN coming for 15 minutes where he will hear just a brief introduction from the NRIs, and so I hope we'll have, Shola, you there or perhaps Mark -- Mark, I know is going to be there.  It's not a direct call to action, but there are significant resources available right now that can help countries to get started and work further with you, and with that, I'm leaving. 

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Off microphone)

>> MARILYN CADE: This meeting is at 11:30.  Right now it's in Room 9.  I'm trying to get a larger room.  The only speakers will be an NRI coordinators or someone who has in formation because of the limited number -- we have a tough agenda, but it's not that it's not an open meeting but it's a working session.  Thank you for the time. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Thank you very much.  We always appreciate your contributions.  Any other comments before we move to the next agenda? 

Okay.  I see none, so what I'm going to do is to move quickly to updates on what we're doing at the CTO. 

Okay.  Well, some of you at the recent resource we had last year, two years before, we informed you of the six goals that we're trying to pursue in the next three or four years.  Just briefly, we're enhancing the value of CTO membership, and because of the framework we have, we have, you know, organizations like Facebook joining us, which has added value, and we also are promoting a regulatory environment through events on spectrum, quality of service, and I mentioned something about OTTs literal.  We're also looking at improving investments, enhancing investments.  I'll mention something about that later. 

We are doing a lot of work on broadband.  I've highlighted two areas.  We're doing a lot of work on promoting culture of cybersecurity and effective cyber governance.  Mark has just highlighted the principles, and we are appropriating these at a national level.  I think Mary mentioned one important thing, that we can all do these at the Commonwealth, or ITU or ICANN.  At the end of the day, the implementation is on a ground level, and that's what we're actually focusing on ourselves.  We're promoting the development of use of ICT applications, encouraging you to design applications which can be used locally.  And we also ensure effective coordination.  This is the kind of thing we do here.

In terms of the achievements which we have been able to reach, mark mentioned about the past work which was done, and all of that has now been transferred to the CTO website.  By the way, this will be there for every one of you, the PowerPoint, so you can also get the information, and I will ask you before you leave, submit your contact points, your business card to -- can you raise your hand, please.  So Bernice will take your contact and she will ensure you have all this information sent to you.

We also have the online child protection toolkit, which was compiled by John Carr in collaboration with International Center for Missing and Exploited Children and other partners, and this is being updated.  We hope to have a new version by early 2017. 

We continue to organize meetings in the margins of ICANN.  We had in Marrakech, we had in Helsinki, Hyderabad was there, and Mexico were also here to update on what we're doing.

Basically, some of the achievements we have been able to -- which at these meetings, one, we've updated our members on the annual stewardship transition.  We've discussed how to improve and engage Commonwealth countries at the GAC level.  We're encouraging more countries to join.  This week I was engaging with the Bangladesh Minister, who really wants to get engaged and we have now establish add framework where Bangladesh will be participating in future GACs properly, and I'm very pleased about that.  We've disclosed the implication of the new gTLDs, and one thing that is unfortunate, particularly in Africa, they have -- not a lot of activities have happened there, so we want to encourage our member countries to go active in that process.

Like I said, we do encourage our member countries -- three times a year, we bring very senior colleagues within the regulatories to the UK and they spend a week.  We have a variety of resource people, who we expose them of the issues around the industry, and they always have the benefit of visiting Ofcom, which is the regulator, Facebook, for example, and there are others who have taken an interest in what we're doing, and the next batch coming in April will be visiting the new center in the UK

Again, we have -- in the area of cybersecurity, at the national level, which is quite important for us, we've been able be to develop strategies for Malawi, Mozambique, and Tanzania.  I have colleagues that are there helping to wrap up these activities.

We've also assisted -- for those who are helping with strategies, we're helping them implement, Botswana, Cameroon, Uganda, Rwanda.  There is cybercrime, and what we've been able do is have the security agencies and other stakeholders, and particularly, the effort has been focused on Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nigeria to tackle cybercrime.  In Fiji we've helped them develop their cyber security strategy through agreements, and one other thing which we're doing is develop and promote standards.

Just two weeks ago I was in Kingston, Jamaica, where there was a lot of interest in actually promoting standards for all the businesses that are there, SMEs who want to make sure that every single company in that country is compliant and can also be ready for potential cybercrimes.

One initiative which we taught to encourage the youth is to start the Commonwealth youth ICT application awards, and we had two winners from Uganda and Cameroon.  Very interesting applications which can you check on our website, and one of the applicants from Uganda, one of the winners, as soon as we announced his name, his president invited him to his office, and that was quite, you know, very great for us.  There's a lot of things happening within that space.

We -- in terms of other programs, next here we have annual cybersecurity forum, and the next one will be at the BT Center.  BT is very interested in this and they're supporting us quite a bit.

Some of the topics which we'll be discussing, including telegovernance, approaching cybersecurity, privacy, and data protection, protecting critical information infrastructure, cyber standards, cyberspace and extremism, government's role in developing cybersecurity, protecting the vulnerable, and building control of cybersecurity.  The ITU director of standards has accepted a petition to be a keynote speaker.

We are very worried about standards in terms of their minister is not there.  We've invited him and he's acknowledged he'll be there to talk more about how countries can benefit more.

In Europe, it's easier for countries to come together and deal with the standards that they have, but when we're in the Caribbean, in Africa, they wonder what kind of standards they should be adopting, so what we're doing in Commonwealth is to use what is working, in the UK there is a group called ISME that the UK government has actually authorized to be the reference point for standards verification, so we're doing that across the Commonwealth for countries who are interested so that they can be certificated.  So that's how they can go and from the infrastructure for cybersecurity plans.  For us that is the key.

We -- many of the initiatives which I have taken particularly is reaching beyond the Commonwealth, and we on Monday I did address the high-level meeting and there were two issues which I talked about.  One is about Internet Governance and what we have been doing.

The second thing is the investments.  Many of our countries still require a lot of investment, even in the response of medium-scale businesses, so what we have done is engaged the government of UAE, and they've agreed not to only support but to host a first Commonwealth investment for ICT for emerging markets.  You're all invited.  It's from the 10th-12th of April.  It's going to be an exciting event.  There are organizations that are already interested.  I have wonderful friends here from the U.S. who is -- has capacity to help countries to write projects such that they are -- there are a lot of projects across Commonwealth that cannot get financing because the proponents of this project don't have that capacity to prepare projects from conception to implementation, so we're going to bring in ministers, countries, every member of the Commonwealth will have some time slots to present their projects, and there will be financial institutions, there will be bilateral meetings.  ICANN is already informed.  There are a lot of opportunities for young people, and they are taking advantage of them.  We really want to bring them onboard and find those who can help them to start their small businesses.  It's very important for us.

Finally, we have embarked on a major study, OTTs.  Now, all of us are beneficiaries of OTTs.  We all use WhatsApp, we all use fiber, but we've gotten a lot of questions from our members.  In South Africa, the parliament has raised issues on tax, on levies, are they paying taxes, are they contributing to the access fund?  We also are conscious of the fact that these services are extremely useful, not only for the social environment but also for business, so what we're trying to do is to look at all the issues involved and then come out with a better understanding, which I think is one missing, understanding of the dynamics of what it is, how did it work, what are the benefits, how can countries be involved, did they have to have policies to encourage, do we need to regulate, do we need to step back?  These are the issues we're looking at.  We've already sent out questionnaires to various stakeholders.  There are questionnaires for policymakers, there are those for the regulators, those for users, also those for ISPs.  Check our website.  Please, let's have your input.

We intend to publish a major report next year, and it will be given out free so that countries can then decide what kind of framework they really want to adopt.

There is a journal called eCommonwealth, if you want to tell us your stories and we'll publish them.  If you don't tell your stories, we'll publish them.  As long as you're a member of the Commonwealth, we will publish that, and that will be shared.  Whether you're from Sri Lanka, wherever, please tell us your story.

If you have issues or questions, we can discuss them.  Yes. 

>> SUSIE HARGREAVES:  Thank you.  My name is Susie Hargreaves.  I'm from the Internet Watch Foundation, which is the hot line for removing child sexual abuse material in the UK, but we also work around the world.  We have 16 reporting portals across the world, and we're very delighted to be working with CTO and also working with many countries in support of helping you develop reporting mechanisms for reporting and removing child sexual abuse content, so if there's anything we can do to help, please have a word with me, but I have a question, okay, so that was my pitch.

My question was in terms of the Dubai event, are there specific countries you're targeting in relation to emerging markets?  Which ones in particular are you focusing on or is it just a very general thing?  Thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Okay.  Any other questions?  I'll take a few and then respond.  Yes, please.  I decided to have him sit next to me, only because of his attire. 

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: And also because we are countrymen.  Thank you very much, Secretary General.  The presentation was very illuminating, and thanks, Mark, too for your consistent engagement.

A quick question.  Are we looking at emerging issues like DOA, because we in business, there have been a lot of questions asked.  We're looking at sort of fragmentation level, so I think it would be good for CTO to take some of these issues frontally.  Thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Thank you.  Any other questions or comments? 

>> We have one in the back here. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Yes, please.  Let's see your face. 

>> SEGUN OLUGBILE: Yeah, thank you.  I'm Segun Olugbile.  I'm from Nigeria.  I wanted to comment on the CTO Internet Governance Forum.  When I heard about it, that CTO is actually planning or they have the Internet Governance role, something came to my mind, and I had a question that came to my mind, and the question is is it where the CTO is trying to create another, you know, engagement so that all the countries and all the CTOs will be engaging in discussion on Internet Governance?  But I would like to suggest that the CTOs should rather help to strengthen the existing regional and national IGF so they can help build the capacities of the country involved rather than to create another pilot Internet Governance Forum, so I just want to bring that to the meeting today.  Thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Thank you.  Any other comments?  Yes, you have a question? 

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: A comment. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Okay. 

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: Thank you so much.  When you look at the CTO website, you find that the issues surrounding youth is one of the major agendas relating to the CTO, and there's so many opportunities for the young people and the youth in the Commonwealth countries, and I think we need to come up with initiatives which can really help in terms of creating awareness among the young people about the various opportunities that they can leverage when it comes to the Commonwealth aspect of it, and also to build solutions which are able to solve problems relating to the Commonwealth countries.  Thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Thank you very much.  So let me respond quickly to the questions.

First, there was an issue about Dubai.  We don't have any particular countries we're targeting except emerging markets.  We're -- not only Commonwealth, countries beyond the Commonwealth, and it was intentional to choose Dubai.  We spoke to them and said what we're trying to do, and they said wow, this is great.  We have a lot of financial institutions within Dubai, let's have a way to build it up together.  This idea came partly because of my participation in ICANN meetings, and I see a lot of opportunities.  One, for example, called for invitations to gTDL and others.  These are opportunities we can benefit from.  Why is it not happening?  Is it because they don't have investors who can partner with them? 

So we thought this forum could be a forum where we could help everyone, not only youths, even governments.  There were things about dream projects and I remember the one to Cairo.  And it doesn't happen?  Why?  Is it because it wasn't a viable project?  We're trying to bring all these together, investors, let them talk, and it's going to be continuous efforts.

The issues about emerging issues, this is why we have this gathering.  It's your contributions that will define what you do so I think we will definitely look at all these issues in different engagements.  Are we trying to create a different platform?  No, what we're trying to do is facilitate.  We're not saying anything different than what is being said at the IGF globally.  We're also trying to say at our level, because you have an institution, because you have resources, let us help countries to achieve what globally IGF is trying to achieve, so it's more or less like adding value, reminding them of what they need to do. 

In terms of the opportunities, yes, again, like I said, this is the forum where your views will be taken into account.  If you think there are things we could do for the youth, please let us know.  We will be able to assist.

Any other comments?  Yes, please.  Please introduce yourself. 

>> IVY HOETU: Hello, everyone.  Good morning.  My name is Ivy Hoetu Ghana.  I work with the telecom regulator, but I am here as an ISOC ambassador.  My -- okay.  I know CTO has been there for some time, and with top officials from Ghana who have help with these things at the CTO.  Since the CTO's goal is to help in development of Internet and ICTs in the -- among its Member States, I would suggest that you reach out to the national government that they will be involved more into some of these activities.

I'm here on the ticket of ISOC.  There are other colleagues from Ghana who are also on the ticket of other organizations, ICANN and all that.  The telecom regulator doesn't have a rep here.  The Ghana minister of communications doesn't have a rep here, and I believe it's the same for the other regions or countries who are part or members of the CTO, so I would suggest that we reach out to these governments so that they will be involved more into some of these things.

The Ghana regulator is doing well in terms of ITU Study Groups, but aside from ITU, I have not seen any other organizational activities that the Ghana or the telecom regulator and other ICT agencies in Ghana are actively involved in.  Thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Thank you very much.  Now, you've raised a very important issue we could discuss for one hour, but it's at the center of the IGF.

Now, in many countries there are issues as to who's responsible for issues of Internet.  In your country, in my country, many countries there's this competition to the extent that sometimes your regulator steps back because there's another agency that takes importance.  Nigeria is at a regulatory level.  There's an official here, a director, so there are some regulators here and they are very heavily involved.  There's a cross-section of countries.  Mark represents a government.  Mary used to be a regulator, now she's in the private sector, and since you're an Ambassador, take that message back to your regulator, and I hope next time we have more people from the regulatory agency, and I hope the way we write our reports, it's not really for ISOC, it's also for your regulator because they pay you and they've accepted you should come here on their behalf.  Mary. 

>> MARY: I want to make a comment.  I think she challenged CTO that at your different fora, IGF issues should be brought up as part of your program, so whatever -- whether you're -- whether it's at the ministerial level or it's at the regulators' level or at the real Commonwealth, so we shouldn't -- we shouldn't step back from, you know, giving this conversation -- giving this information -- South Africa just is working up, and they are now strong in the IGF issues.

The minister came, minister of communication, and high level of issues are here, so she's asking you to -- to extend this conversation and information and sensitization among the nations.  Thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Thank you very much for saying it better than the way I said it.  We took your views on both.

Any other questions?  Yes, please. 

>> TONY: Yeah.  Thank you.  My name is Tony again.  My concern is on the proposal issues.  You talk about proposal support person who will help people who wants to develop proposals.  At what level is that proposal development, at country level or at any other level that needs to be done? 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Very simple.  One, we are inviting everyone, governments can come to the platform and present projects; individuals can come present their projects.  It's a mix.  There will be a deadline which is the end of February to submit your proposals, and if you check our website, you'll see all the principles there.

When you get there, you'll find others who you can discuss with.  We can't start discussing all those things here, but as I said, there is a platform for everyone, small business, youth, government, private sector, more importantly to encourage governments' private-sector partnership.  Many governments believe the ICT sector is a cash cow, so they step back and don't put funds, and we are trying to say no, no, no, we need government investments, we need infrastructure, and Monday when I spoke at high-level meeting, I mentioned the case of the UK government that puts in billions of pounds to help access -- access gaps.  It might surprise you even in the UK there are areas that do not have access to high-quality Internet.  Now, if the UK is doing that, the other countries that are less privileged are not doing that, then there's something big we're missing, so on that point, I would like to close the bit on this particular issue, but my friend Nigel from ICANN -- I can't refuse him.  He's got a lovely voice. 

>> NIGEL HICKSON: Thank you very much.  Nigel Hickson from ICANN.  I don't think that says I can speak at all.  The point is from an ICANN perspective, we really value the -- value the work of the -- of the CTO being involved in the various discussions, and clearly, any -- any participants in the CTO arena, if you have any time, any concerns, any queries on the work of ICANN, obviously you can bring them to us at ICANN, but also, we talk regularly to the CTOs, so please use them as a conduit as well.

I mean, on the question again, the work that you've done in preparation for ITU meetings in the past has been tremendous.  I think the Commonwealth has this sort of unique perspective because it covers, you know, different regions, and so it makes the voice so relevant in the ITU context, and I just wondered whether you're going to do some sort of coordination ahead of the WTDC?  I know it's not until next year.  We haven't got this year over yet with -- over yet.  My English is not very good.  I apologize, but, yeah, the WTDC next year is quite an important event.  Thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Yes.  Thank you.  I assure you for every international forum we do preparatory work.  We do for the WTDC, for the spectrum, which was extremely successful.  It determined the outcome of the conference because we had a meeting in London with various groups.  We've done it for WTSA.  We encourage countries to propagate the right principles.  We are going to be doing it for the WTDC in Argentina next year.  We've established it.  The ministers have given us our mandates, and that's what we're basically doing.

Now, let me move on to Mark, who's going to give us a brief about the -- we only have ten minutes, and about two, three minutes for you.  Yeah. 

>> MARK CARVELL: Okay.  Yeah.  I'll be as brief as I can.  Policy options for connecting the next billion.  This is one of the leading tangible outcomes from the IGF, and it's now well into its second phase, so I think I'll just kick off with a question.  Who in this room has contributed either to Phase I of this initiative of the IGF, which is intercessional, it's not just rooted in this annual event, or in Phase II?  Who in this room has contributed to it?  One, two, three, four, five.  Good.  I'm glad there are contributions because I think it's imperative on the Commonwealth membership to contribute to this seminal work of the IGF.  It connects with the sustainable development goals, in particular paragraph 9-C, which is significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020.  That's a very challenging deadline.  There's been discussions here at the IGF about that, but it's an aspirational deadline, and I think the Commonwealth community has a great opportunity to contribute to this work and helping to deliver on that particular SDG, and, of course, it -- it impacts all the SDGs as we've heard in some of the discussions here at the IGF.

So I think I will just leave it at that, really, as this meeting underlining the importance of contributing to that, either individually or through national and regional IGFs.  Get in touch.  Showcase what's going on, identify the barriers, the problems, the needs for assistance and guidance in enhancing the opportunity to connect more and more people to the Internet.

I think I'll leave it at that, Shola, with the clear message out to all of you.  Thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Thank you very much.  I was going to take it as a mandate from you that we will do something in the headquarters, maybe a working group, that will also assist countries to have a framework that they can adopt at their level and also promote the international community.  Our job is to facilitate good decisions, so if we're in agreement, we'll take that as one of the outputs of this meeting.

Finally, we have a gentleman here, Tracy Hackshaw, who has been active in the development of the Commonwealth Cybercrime Initiative, so in two or three minutes, he will tell us how far he's come. 

>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you, Shola.  So just it's very brief.  The CCI, which is the Commonwealth Cybercrime Initiative, was established or formally endorsed in 2011 by the Commonwealth at a government meeting, and it's really a program of the Secretariat, the Commonwealth Secretariat, to assist member countries through multistakeholder partnerships, create a comprehensive program to reduce cybercrime.

Now, one of the key thrusts of the CCI is to reduce the amount of duplicity and replication of initiatives in Commonwealth countries that are happening between all the agencies that are involved in this area, so as an example of who's involved in the consortium that the CCI has called together, we have the AWG, the AUC, that's African Union Commission, the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, the CTO, obviously, ComNet, Council of Europe, DiploFoundation, Interpol, ITU, you name it, and there are, I think, over 30 of those organizations, and given our time is limited, I'll go straight to a quick update as to what the CCI has been doing in 2016.

In the Caribbean they have continued doing cybercrime needs assessments.  That was started in Dominica.  It's expanded to Antigua and Barbuda, Barbados and Granada.  Key trends that were observed in the Caribbean, needs assessments, capacity building, the requirement for additional support for child honor and protection, and more public awareness.  There were several meetings that were held supported by the CCI in the Caribbean in St. Lucia in March 2016 and there were other meetings being held throughout the Commonwealth in that area.

In the Pacific region, Pacific region cybercrime, criminal justice training workshop was held in Tonga in February 2016, and at that workshop a platform was established to share knowledge and best practice in cybercrime and to encourage cooperation between jurisdictions.

In the Africa region, several activities happened, including where we met in March of 2016 they drafted a security bill and drafted a national cybersecurity policy and response to safe government.

The Commonwealth also was successful in obtaining a grant from the SCU to do a program called capacity building for awareness raising with the law enforcement public sector and Commonwealth Association.  This is the African, Asia-Pacific, and Caribbean country regions and some more information can be held available on the CCI website and social media.

Interesting updates as well on the virtual currencies working group.  The report was published in February 2016 about the impact of the Bitcoin and block chain technology movement, and the working group plans to continue its work in 2017 for technical guidance, such as central banks in working for this guidance.

And lastly, a review of the Commonwealth model on computer and the computer related crime has been engaged.  A proposed working group has been established.  Revisions have been drafted, and they have met once so far to consider international cooperation measures and provisions leading to electronic evidence among other SUs, so the next meeting will be held in 2017, and we're looking forward to your participation in that, and that's my rapid update.  Thank you, Shola.

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Great.  That's a very efficient summary.  Any questions for Tracy?  Yes, Mark. 

>> MARK CARVELL: Yes, thank you, Shola.  Just to add with regard to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the UK government is very pleased to support the CPA initiative on cybersecurity and best practice and so on.  There have been two meetings, I think, one in Australia and one in Windhoek, and there's another one coming up, so that's very important part of the Commonwealth mix, if you'd like, on cybersecurity.  Thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Good.  So now we come to any other business.  I see none, so I really want to thank you.  Let me just highlight some of the points which I had clearly from you.  One, I saw a need for us to step up our efforts, the governments.  The lady from Ghana did mention that.

There's a need to take a lead in contributing to emerging issues, businessman, am I right, said it very clearly.

We need to have, like, a working group on the policy options to respond to the next billion.

There was a realization that the platform which we created in Dubai, it's a golden opportunity and will encourage attorney participate, governments, private sector, SMEs, youth, and I think you all encouraged us to do our best in that regard.

We also had that we should do more in terms of our coordination efforts.  WTDC next year in Argentina we should prepare for it appropriately, and also the -- what we're doing on OTTs.  We did ask that you give us input.  Check our website.  Every group is included, so let us have as many input as you like.

And Mark did mention about the CPA, the government of the UK's providing support of parliamentarian.  It's important to get the parliamentarian's support, because at the end of the day, they make the notes.  I have committed to work with them so we can help this initiative.

Is there anything I've missed?  Yes, please. 

>> MARK CARVELL: Yes.  So just one piece of information, this kind of calendar thing following on from our discussion about the national and regional IGFs.  Marilyn reminded me earlier that at the next ICANN meeting in Copenhagen in March, there will be a session, a kind of lunchtime session, I think, that's squeezed in on the national and regional IGFs initiatives, and that's an opportunity for us.  Those of us who are going to be in Copenhagen, there's an opportunity to engage at a meeting to discuss the progress for the NRI's network and so on.  Thank you. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: Okay.  Finally -- yes, please. 

>> BEN WALLIS: Thank you.  It's Ben Wallis from Microsoft, and it was great to hear about the OTT study and great that you're looking for interest -- responses from all different sectors, and I found it on your website.  I just wanted to clarify when the deadline -- when is the survey closing?  I couldn't see a deadline there. 

>> SHOLA TAYLOR: The deadline has closed but we've opened it because of Microsoft. 

(Laughter)

Actually, deadline was middle of November, but we've extended it because our members wanted to take more time to respond, so you're welcome.

Now, one -- sorry.  Yeah, okay.  Just before that, just one -- I understand that the next IGF might be in Geneva.  If that's the case, please apply for Visas early enough.  Don't complain that you can't get a visa.  Apply six weeks before.  It's an appeal, please.  Especially from those from Africa.  Yes. 

>> AUDIENCE MEMBER: I also want to use this opportunity to really thank Shola Taylor as the Secretary General of the Commonwealth.  We will see more activities at least in our region, so thank you for our constructive -- can we all appreciate Shola? 

(Applause)

 

(Session concluded at 10:02 a.m.)