Building Bridges ----The Role of Governments in Multistakeholder Cooperation

FINISHED TRANSCRIPT

 

BUILDING BRIDGES: THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENTS

IN MULTISTAKEHOLDER COOPERATION

BALI

22 OCTOBER 2013

MAIN SESSION

9:30

 

 

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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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>> M. KUMMER: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Please be seated. We would like to start.

May I ask you to take your seats so that we can start the discussions. Right. It is a very big room and we're not that many people in the room, so I would encourage you to move closer to the stage to create a more intimate feeling for the discussions. My name is Markus Kummer. I'm Vice President with responsibility for Public Policy at The Internet Society, and I'm also the interim Chair of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, who prepared the programme for this meeting.

We have a very distinguished panel to discuss the role of Governments in Multistakeholder Cooperation, and the overarching title is "Building Bridges." The idea to this title came after last December's conference, World Conference on International Telecommunication in Dubai, which was rather acrimonious meeting, and there was a generally felt need to get together to build bridges, to talk to people, to reach out to other people who didn't share necessarily the same opinions.

And one of the issues that has been with us since the World Summit on the Information Society is the Role of Governments in multistakeholder cooperation. Before we go into the discussion proper, let me also make some more technical announcements. We have interpretation in all six languages, and the headphones for interpretation are outside this room, so if you want to be prepared, and people are encouraged to use their native language, other languages than English, we have interpreters here. But you will need headphones to listen to the interpretation. And they're available outside this room.

I would also encourage you to Tweet as you can, as we go along. The hashtag is IGF2013. Nowadays if you're not Tweetable, you don't exist, as we discussed when we prepared this session, so please do. We also encourage remote participation. We have a remote moderator, and we hope to bring in participants as often as possible.

To shape the discussions, we issued a call for Public Policy questions. This was a recommendation that came out of a Working Group under the auspices of the Commission for Science and Technology for Development, CSTD. They recommended that the IGF session should focus on two or three policy questions, so we received input, and we will put them up on the screen at one point. I don't know yet whether this is ready.

And also, we prepared some sheets of paper where you can write down a question you may have, and we have our room helpers who will distribute the sheets, so if anybody wants to write down a question, they can pass them on to our room moderators sitting in the front. Jeanette Hofmann and Matthew Shears. They will try to moderate the room and group the questions if they receive them in advance, but you can also ask for the floor more spontaneously. Having said all that, I will now introduce the panelists, and I start with my ‑‑ to my right.

We have the Minister from the U.K. He is here with us, Ed Vaizey. And to the right of him, Ambassador Benedicto Fonseca Filho from Brazil.

And to my left we have Ambassador Danny Sepulveda from the United States. And to his left, Virat Bhatia from AT&T in India. And next to him we have the Chairman of the Internet Engineering Task Force, Jari Arkko. And on the very left, Civil Society representative, independent consultant, Avri Doria.

With that, I would invite Minister Vaizey to give his vision of the Role of Governments in multistakeholder cooperation. Please, Minister.

>> E. VAIZEY: Thank you very much. Yesterday I spoke from the podium, but today I'll speak from the panel in order to maintain the huge informality of this session. And I hope that people will feel free to participate, ask questions, heckle, boo, cheer, stand up and applaud when you feel it's appropriate.

We are very pleased that the Government of Brazil are leading this important discussion at the IGF, and I'm very grateful that I've been invited to participate in this panel, because it gives me an opportunity to put forward the U.K. Government's perspective.

We were very interested when Brazil proposed a formal ITU opinion on the Role of Governments at the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum in Geneva in May, and it provoked us. We sat back and thought: What is role of Government? We never really sat down and articulated it so this is a great opportunity to do so, and it's a great opportunity at this Panel Discussion to hear what other people's views are.

In one sense it's almost indefinable because the role of Government is so wide, and as the Minister in the U.K. Government responsible for Internet policy, as it were, I'm very well aware that at almost every level, Internet policy affects all other Ministers in the Government, whether it's health or education, home office security, foreign policy, and so on. So one always potentially runs the risk of being too amorphous, but when you drill down as to where Government plays an important role, we've come up with four themes, which I hope might help shape the ensuing discussions.

I think the first theme would be, obviously, to support the building of infrastructure. In the U.K., we are lucky that we have a very competitive Telecoms marketplace so the infrastructure has been built by the private sector, both fiber built by BT and Virgin but also for mobile operators, building out a 4G network. But the competition framework that we've put in place means that this infrastructure is also accessible to most consumers, because prices are low, and the services they receive are very advanced.

But Government has intervened directly to support the buildout of networks to places which are not economic, rural areas. So we are putting north of a billion pounds into supporting the buildout of infrastructure, and again, although the majority of infrastructure is paid for by the private sector, I would emphasize that Government sits behind that by providing the regulatory framework to ensure competition and fair pricing.

Then I think Government ‑‑ the second point is that Government has a role, as it were, to make sure that the domestic legal framework is fair and consistent. There are many cliches that surround the debate on the Internet, and most of them are cliches because they're true, and one is that what is illegal offline is also illegal online. There's no peculiar exemption. If an activity takes place on the Internet, that means it should somehow be allowed if it's not allowed in the physical world, but there are also roles for Government to update frameworks where a legal issue is peculiar to the Internet, for example, electronic signatures might be a good example of that.

And we also intervene on particular issues where the Internet has perhaps exacerbated an issue, so the infringement of intellectual property rights, for example, we passed legislation to allow rightsholders to warn people if they were infringing intellectual property. We work with the Internet Watch Foundation to combat the prevalence of child abuse images, and we work with Internet service providers to provide parents with suitable controls to protect their children from inappropriate content.

But again, it's important to emphasize that we work in partnership with the private sector and with Civil Society, because we find that is the most effective way to get things done. Top‑down legislation can often be behind the curve, unwieldy, bureaucratic, and if you want an effective result, then it's important to work in partnership.

I would also emphasize a key principle here, which is that Government intervention is not the same as Government control. Government can act as a broker, as a representative of its citizens, and it can intervene in issues that are causing great concern, but that is not the same as controlling the Internet. And I think that leads on to my third point, and it won't surprise you that the U.K. is a strong advocate of the rights of freedom of expression. And I think it's important therefore that Government plays a role in defending free expression on the Internet, defending cultural diversity, defending gender equality, and also helping its citizens to engage with the Internet by providing them with the opportunities for education and skills that they need to gain access to the Internet.

The Internet, as we all know, is a massive force for good, but there are also dangers, and again, Government finds it ‑‑ in the U.K., we find it very effective to work with Civil Society, particularly with children at school, to give them the opportunity to ask questions and to learn effectively how to use the Internet, and to use the Internet safely. And that again is a important role for Government.

And then finally, it won't surprise you to learn that our fourth principle would be that Government can help to support the multistakeholder process and partnership, working at what I think has been at the root of the success to the Internet over the last two decades. We do this by writing checks, by providing financial support for key groups, but also supporting the IGF process. We were the first to set up our own domestic IGF, and by making sure that our presence is felt at important events such as this.

So I think, Chairman, if I could sum up, Government of course, has a role, but I hope that I've shown that throughout all of this, Government has a role as a partner, not as someone that dictates how the Internet develops, so we partner with the private sector to buildout infrastructure and we provide funding where the economics don't stack up, and we provide the regulatory framework to ensure that that infrastructure is competitive so that consumers benefit from low prices.

We partner with the private sector and Civil Society on key issues such as the infringement of intellectual property, the protection of our kids online, combating child abuse images, but we also emphasize the point that our legal domestic framework applies to the online world as much as it applies to the offline world.

We support strongly freedom of expression on the Internet, and we are active participants and supporters of the multistakeholder framework which we think is essential to the continued success of the Internet. Thank you for not heckling.

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you, Minister. Now before I turn to Ambassador Fonseca Filho, for those who were not at the world Telecom policy Forum in May organised by the ITU, there was one so‑called draft upon. This is the equivalent of a Resolution more or less which is the outcome of the WTPF Brazil put forward on the Role of Governments.

The first draft was I would say criticized, or there were many proposals for change, but the Brazilian Delegation overnight went back to their hotel room and redrafted it, and came forward with a revised opinion that I think many would agree with me would have been agreed by the meeting had there been more time. But basically we ran out of time.

And the Secretary‑General of the ITU said, well, this opinion can now be taken elsewhere, and he explicitly mentioned this meeting here, the IGF meeting, and that was then, when we had a meeting shortly thereafter to finalize the programme, we thought why don't we take this to the IGF, and here we are now. And over to you, Ambassador.

>> B. FONSECA FILHO: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and I thank you for this introduction. You have rightly pointed to the fact that the draft opinion that emerged from the WTPF was the result of extensive consultations we held with different parties, both Governments and representatives from other stakeholders that attended the meeting, and in doing so, we tried to focus on the core ideas we wanted to convey through this draft opinion.

And the core ideas are that in recognition of the role and responsibilities Government have in the multistakeholder model, in the multistakeholder pacts, you could maybe use that expression, we should devise ways through which this role should be operationalized to its full extent. So we are not aiming at expanding the Government role and responsibility to the expense of other stakeholders. Rather, we are recognizing the fact that there are different responsibilities, and try to devise ways through which that could be enhanced.

And this came out of the realization that in the context of Internet Governance discussions, there is very sparse participation on the part of developing countries' representatives, insufficient representation. I would say not only on the part of Governments, but also other stakeholders from developing countries, and particularly from the least developed countries.

So this was an attempt to address this situation. Of course, as Government we are proposing from the angle of Government how that could be further enhanced and further operationalized, the participation of Governments, but a point that was also made by our Delegation is that with you and since Brazil embraces fully the multistakeholder approach that we view legitimacy in engaging the same exercise in regard other stakeholders so it is legitimate and I would say necessary and urgent to explore ways through which Civil Society participation can be further enhanced, and particularly I would stress Civil Society representatives coming from developing countries would like to see more representation from those sectors.

Private sector coming from other regions can also be further stimulated to participate and benefit from the structure we have from the processes we have, and so on. So I think the Brazilian proposal has to be seen in that light. It is not exclusive to ITU, as well. We initiated it at ITU but it was made clear that the discussion belonged everywhere. We can discuss how to operationalize the role of Government and other stakeholders within any existing institution that deals with Internet.

So we are very pleased that at the end we could come up with some core ideas that this was an important notion that could be pursued, and I'd like just to refer briefly to some provisions, the key provisions, of what was named the Brazilian Proposal on Operationalizing the Role of Governments.

So basically we view that ITU and other international organisations have legitimacy in the process, and they can and should ‑‑ they should support meaningful Government participation. So this is also recognition of the legitimacy of participation of ITU and other institutions in this process. Markus Kummer referred in the beginning to the WCIT meeting in Dubai and we agreed it led to very acrimonious outcome.

It is ‑‑ and Brazil tried to play an approach and role and facilitator role, as we always try to do, in the process, since we, as is maybe widely recognized, we share characteristics that enable us to talk to different Constitutions, different groups. So I would say we have maybe with more facility, we can engage into let's say a mediation exercise. And we tried to do that to the benefit of the meeting.

At the end, the outcome was not the one we looked for, but we were a bit amazed by the realization that for some parties, even the mention that ITU should have a role in Internet Governance was something that raised immediate concerns and rejection.

So we thought it is some of part of the consensus that emerged from the Tunis Agenda should be reaffirmed. The legitimacy of participation of all stakeholders including international organisation but also governments because the same rejection that applies to international organisations to some extent also applies to Government. So this was let's say in the origin of the proposal.

And then we recognized that those organisations can provide meaningful ‑‑ should assist Governments in meaningful participation, but we at the same time, we reinforced the notion that multistakeholder Governments of Internet must continue to involve all parties, each in their respective roles and responsibilities. And to that end, all stakeholders should continue to cooperate in good faith.

The most let's say operative part of the opinion request invites the Secretary‑General to support through the ITU Secretariat capacity building of developing countries, in particular least developed countries, to exercise their rights and fulfill their responsibilities relating to international ‑‑ Internet related Public Policy issues, as per paragraph 35A of the Tunis Agenda and to continue promoting openness and transparency in the decision‑making process within ITU.

This is something I'd like to highlight that Brazil fully supports that discussions with the ITU on Internet Governance should be open and transparent and we are ‑‑ this is a point we make in the context of ITU.

I think this is maybe the most important idea. I'd like to say this is a living document. We came to the WTPF with a version of the document. It evolved. We have this present version. It is I would say subject to continuous improvement. For example, when we refer to the notion that ITU should contribute to capacity building in regard to the exercise of ‑‑ and the discussion of Internet related Public Policy issues, we should maybe also have the understanding that this should take place in the context of the areas in which ITU is mandated to operate, as per the Geneva plan of action, and its own functions.

I don't think ITU existing developing countries in intellectual property or anything that would be let's say outside the clear scope of ITU. And that's why this discussion belongs in other Forums in which particular aspects of Internet Governance are dealt with.

I'd like just very briefly to refer to the intervention just made by Minister Ed Vaizey, and to acknowledge the proposal and to thank the U.K. for this proposal. I think EU are viewing it from a different angle. We're viewing it from the necessity to provide capacity for the role to be operationalized and the U.K. proposal which we endorse 100%, points to the outcome. Once Governments are fully empowered, what is the expected outcome? And we would fully concur that these are core roles for Government to play, facilitation role, to provide for the appropriate regulatory and legal framework, and to promote freedom of expression, to foster the multistakeholder model.

So we fully agree and again, this is maybe a different way to see the kind of idea we wanted to convey through our draft opinion. And I think maybe I should stop here at this point, thank you, and just, as a very last point, to indicate that one of the policy questions that we are raised in the context of the preparatory ‑‑ preparation for this meeting, within MAG, refers to the fact of how participation of Governments relates to what you call the self‑regulatory budgets, such as IETF and others.

And I think it's also a very important point if we could look at ways how to operationalize the participation of Governments, to take into account that in some areas, like those of self‑regulatory agencies, the Governmental participation as such is not what is required in the first place, but Government should be appraised and incorporate also their views in the process. So I think the question that was raised and I would quote, there is a lot to do about Governments trying to regulate the Internet through the ITU. A lot of work, however, currently takes place in self‑regulatory budgets. Governments may not sufficiently be aware of it. An important question should be: How can governments be integrated in self‑regulatory Internet bodies so that their concerns are heard and were possibly mitigated, without impeding on the economic development and freedom of information flows.

Who needs to be brought into contact to establish these, and where? So I think this is one element that should be clearly also in the picture as we look into ways through which the Government as part of the multistakeholder pact could have their roles and their responsibilities exercised, taking fully into account the fact that in some cases, those self‑regulatory bodies are there. They're doing very important work, and this should be acknowledged by Governments and also incorporated fully in their proceedings and not trying maybe to supersede or to compete or to overlap with something that is being done and very well done by self‑regulatory bodies.

Thank you very much.

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you very much, Ambassador, and I think the role Brazil played already at the WTPF really helped to build bridges between what were two camps in Dubai. The tone definitely at the WTPF was definitely much more conciliatory than two months before. The policy questions, Ambassador Fonseca Filho mentioned are now up on the screen. You can also find them on the IGF website, and we will get back to them later. But I would agree that the question number 4 is a very central question.

Now, before I turn to Ambassador Sepulveda, I noticed that what I said at the beginning that if you're not Tweetable you don't exist has already been Tweeted but for copyright purposes I have to give him the mention. He mentioned that when we had our preparatory meeting. So over to your Ambassador.

>> D. SEPULVEDA: I appreciate the recognition. I want to thank you for having me participate here. I appreciate the Minister's and the Ambassadors' comments. I recognize the participation of Civil Society and the technical community and I look forward to having a two‑way dialogue in this very large room with our friends who are here as well. I was actually at the WTPF in question and I'm intimately familiar with the Brazilian proposal and the conversation that took place there and the conversation that has taken place since. I would like to take a step back and say a few things. It's perfectly understandable Governments have a very strong interest in having this conversation. The Internet, the network itself, the connection between networks was initiated as a private grand experiment well over 30 years ago and today it's a crucial part of the global economy, of free expression and inclusive Economic Development so again naturally our governments, any Government is going to want to have their people have access to what has become one of the most revolutionary and greatest communications tools of all time.

And it has been governed historically under the multistakeholder system, which has been under a process of continuous improvement. I don't want to talk about this particular proposal by Brazil or this particular conversation as a proposal and a conversation that's taking place that is initiated in a vacuum. It is taking place as we have seen the multistakeholder system grow from what was originally really a very small community of technical experts in academics and some research aspects of Government, to what is now actually a very large community and a very sophisticated system of multistakeholder institutions.

And we've always worked to improve the transparency of the system, and to ensure that it serves the needs of Internet users and their Governments, and that it adapts to the increasingly dynamic world in which we live.

Over the years, there have been various proposals to suggest that a single intergovernmental body should be enlisted to strengthen the Role of Governments in existing multistakeholder processes or overtake some of those processes. I want to note that the United States respects these ideas. We're members in good standing of the ITU and other organisations in which ideas like this have been raised and we applaud the effort and thought put into these proposals and believe that it reflects a common aspiration to ensure that the multistakeholder system includes all stakeholders and all stakeholders are treated equally but that it is also true that the proposals we have seen today setting aside the current proposal we're discussing relative to Brazil have, to our mind, often presented a challenge in that they would do little to improve global access to the innovative and accessible Internet, and could even work against that goal if improperly implemented. It is our point of view that we start with the premise the multistakeholder system has proven itself more successful than any preexisting model for the deployment and governance of a new technology.

That is not to say that it's perfect and its improvement is something that all stakeholders have sought from its inception and we believe that the rising rate of stakeholder participation in the system, for example at the GAC in which Brazil and other members of the developing world are active participants and very effective participants, that the rising rates of stakeholder participations in the system proves to the community. The community of stakeholders has made ongoing and demonstrable improvements toward full inclusion.

Ideally as we move forward with this conversation, any suggestions for further improvement in the Internet Governance systems would not just focus on any one institution, or narrowly on the Role of Governments. If that is not handled carefully by focusing on a single institution or by focusing on this one specific stakeholder you could easily disadvantage other equally important stakeholders and I take great comfort in the Ambassador's expression of having this conversation not just at the ITU but in multiple fora with a focus on all stakeholders ensuring the communities of the developing world are encouraged to participate in the multistakeholder institutions just as much as the Governments of the developing world.

So we will continue to seek to expand that discussion beyond strengthening the hand of Governments and Internet institutions to ensuring all stakeholders are paid their due respects and afforded a meaningful and equal opportunity to participate. As we'll hear from others and as we've heard yesterday, Civil Society, academia and others have also called for strengthening the roles and we must also address their concerns.

We the United States fully acknowledge the need to find ways to better integrate Governments and other stakeholders from the developing nations into the multistakeholder institutions that govern the Internet today and more importantly so do those institutions. We applaud Brazil's commitment to the multistakeholder governance at home and abroad, the CGI system they use domestically to manage their internet issues is a multistakeholder system.

We offer our hand of friendship in a joint effort to expand the role of all stakeholders from the developing world in the multistakeholder process. And we would posit that while the ITU may be one of numerous entities that can assist in that effort, it may not be the best one to assist in that effort.

I would also like to note and separately that we have great admiration for the manner in which Brazil pursued the construction of its pending Marco Civil legislation. It was originally drafted and introduced as a collaborative work.

I went to Brazil and met with the Bill's author and he walked me through the transparent process that included debate on the construction of the text and it produced a call for free and open Internet in Brazil that the Brazilian Government embraced. We still have outlying concerns with potential inclusion of localization requirements. But nonetheless, the underlying text and the underlying intent of the Marco Civil legislation and the effort that Brazil has made to incorporate its Civil Society and its industry and the construction of that legislation is an admirable one, and we want to commend that.

Further, we followed with great interest the recent news stories about the potential for an Internet Summit that would be held in Brazil in April 2014, and I want to take this opportunity with my counterpart, the Ambassador from Brazil to reiterate that Brazil and the United States share a vision of the Internet that ensures freedom of expression, security and respect for Human Rights. We also share an interest in strengthening the existing Democratic governance structures with inputs from Governments, Civil Society and the private sector.

And given these common principles and vision that the U.S. and Brazil share, I appreciate Brazil's leadership role on this issue and we look forward to hearing more about what the Summit itself will seek to achieve and if there's a way in which we can be of assistance.

But as we approach the Summit and as we continue this discussion going forward, please understand that the United States Government strongly believes that the global community is best positioned to benefit from a vibrant and growing Internet environment, where commercial, Civil Society and Government stakeholders jointly participate in the existing distributed set of Internet institutions, each performing specific tasks without unnecessary duplication or encroachment on the role of others.

Again, we welcome this debate, we appreciate the opportunity to engage in cooperation and collaboration on the challenges we face. And we hope we can get to a place where everyone, particularly our friends in the developing world, can fully engage the multistakeholder system helping to bolster it's accountability, inclusiveness and responsiveness to the needs of the global community of Internet users. I hope we can think creatively in order to bring more developing country Governments along with our counterparts in Civil Society, academia and industry to the table of the multistakeholder institutions and I hope we can grow and evolve together. After all, that's the point of what's brought us here today. It's a common appreciation for the good that the Internet has enabled and can enable for those who are not yet connected and an interest in the future of the Internet.

So I look forward to working collaboratively with everyone at this table and again I very much appreciate the opportunity to share those thoughts. As we move forward in this conversation if the audience would like to have a more detailed conversation about the text itself we can do that. And again, thank you very much for the opportunity to participate.

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you. I suggest we move down the table without further ado. Virat, would you be next?

>> V. BHATIA: Thank you, Markus. Excellencies, Honourable Minister, fellow panelists, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, some remarkable points have been made already this morning by very eminent panelists which strengthen the intervention that I seek your permission to make. The concept of multistakeholderism let me say at the outset as we see it from the private sector includes the business and has the business playing a very vital role as a key stakeholder in the bottom up transparent inclusive Internet Governance related decision‑making processes. This is the sense of the Tunis Agenda and to interpret it in any other manner would be to do injustice to this fine document that has weathered the test of time not withstanding the multiple and significant developments several IGFs including this 8th IGF being held in this beautiful city of Bali. Let me elaborate the rationale behind this submission. Close and informed partnership between the Government and other multistakeholder groups is not only necessary but in fact a conditioned precedent to an enlightened Internet Governance approach, and that includes three of the four themes laid out by the Honourable Minister from U.K. Governments often try to balance many competing things in their role to implement and enforce policies in National and public interest. However, in the Internet world, somewhat different from the old traditional Telecom World, the Government is neither a big player itself in most cases, nor does it have years of accumulated technical and economic capacity to manage the space on its own.

This distinction is important between Internet and traditional telecommunications, and the Tunis Agenda must be seen from the prism of this fine distinction as should be the role of global multilaterals such as the ITU. The Government is not always very close to the facts of the various stakeholders that the Government represents, whether the private sector, the technical community, the Civil Society and especially the youth.

Sometimes a new policy initiatives sounds like a tremendous and a simple idea, but in fact, the policy can have chain reactions that can unintendedly disrupt other processes, and assumptions and by consequence the work of other stakeholder groups. That's because policy could be based on a set of incomplete understanding if the current environment or simply a wrong set of assumptions and therefore ongoing engagement, not just consultation, but including the inputs provided by various stakeholders is crucial. So the Government with its tremendous responsibility on its shoulders must move very carefully and deliberately with a well informed understanding and an openness to consult, engage and include the inputs from industry, technical communities, and Civil Society.

It is precisely for these reasons why multistakeholder institutions are of such great value. They have mechanisms built in to ensure that the dialogue must happen, and in turn, this is the biggest risk that faces traditional multilateral institutions based on policy making where only Governments have a formal role.

There is a risk in a multilateral fora and intergovernmental bodies whose importance is otherwise second to none that the essential consultative process and the process of including the inputs between the Governments and other multistakeholder processes may not occur in a complete or a meaningful or a timely manner. Each one of those is important if the roles have to be performed in the manner that we expect them to be, and be meaningful.

This is particularly vital to fields such as Internet where no doubt, there are important Government policy concerns, but also the actual management of infrastructure, network, devices, spectrum, and several other resources, as well as the whole concept of permissionless innovation is undertaken by a multiple set of stakeholders outside the Government.

Let me reference the WSIS for a moment. It is always clear from the WSIS that the issue is not Government versus multistakeholder. That's a false distinction. It has always been each entity participating according to its mandate and expertise. Government and other stakeholder groups have different and complementary mandates and expertise. The day‑to‑day technical operations of Internet were never understood to be the mandate of the Governments, but rather the mandate of Internet, technical communities which in most cases are also understood to be the private sector.

However, it has always been understood that the Governments have a key role in the development and implementation of policy, as was laid out by the Honourable Minister from the U.K., but the framework including the legal framework as I submitted for your consideration, and in doing so, the Governments must rely on all members of the Internet community to develop the best and the most complete Public Policy.

This point was underscored by the understanding that Internet Governance is much broader than Domain Name System, it's value, culture, policy, technical operation that comprises the Internet. As such, an effective Internet ecosystem must rely on all parts of society: The Government, the private sector, and the Civil Society, according to their expertise and mandate.

Let me close this comment by reemphasizing that the multistakeholder governance is therefore a system by which all Internet ecosystem participants, including the Government in their mandate and expertise work on equal footing for the greater benefit for a stable and innovative Internet environment.

I would, in addition, place an additional responsibility on the Government, especially in cases where strong culture for consultation and inclusion of views does not exist. That is precisely in these situations that the Government should not only embrace multistakeholderism, which goes beyond consultation and into a meaningful engagement, but, in fact, act as a facilitator and a catalyst of multistakeholder bottom‑up, inclusive, transparent decision‑making processes for Internet Governance.

Thank you, Chair.

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you very much. That was Virat Bhatia speaking and not Jari Arkko. The scribes follow the list of speakers we had circulated before. Please make sure that for the archives, you correct this and make sure that it was Virat Bhatia. We now turn to Jari Arkko, the Chairman of the IETF. Please, Jari.

>> J. ARKKO: So I actually think if the minutes showed that that previous speech was from me, that would have been very wise words. Thank you. So thank you, Markus, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for the opportunity to talk. And many wise words have already been said, and I'm sort of struggling a little bit to figure out what to say in addition, but as a representative of the technical community, I look at this from the angle of what kind of cooperation we need with the Governments, and from a very practical perspective. And I wanted to raise three comments basically.

First historically the Internet technology was largely under the radar and there was little need for regulation, policies or Government involvement. Fast forward to 2013, the Internet is critical to all of our data lives. Now we are finding in a technical community that there are areas where there's a need to discuss between the Governments and ourselves. The engineers at the IETF and elsewhere realized they can't work on technology alone in all cases, and things like emergency calls are something that we have to work on in the larger community.

Standards in this area are of course safety critical. It's also very much a case for needing one standard for the whole world as otherwise when I travel from Finland with my smart device, here to Bali, it might not be able to do emergency call here.

Another example is technology for dynamic radio frequency allocation using something we call white space for wireless communications. The technical community is not in the business of deciding what frequencies are white space or set in the requirements on how static or dynamic allocation happens. Governments and intergovernmental bodies are.

But the technical community is building the practical components for the dynamic negotiation between an access point an Admin Agency such as the effort we have at the IETF, the pause Working Group. We need to understand the requirements for this functionality and the various agencies need to be comfortable with the types of solutions being built.

My second point is that we all talk about how the Internet has enabled incredible innovation, and when we talk about governance, the user, the involvement of Governments, this week it's important to think about them in terms of what the future will bring, and not just today's Internet. I wanted to highlight something that we see in the technical community very well and at the IETF as well, the speed of innovation is increasing. For instance, the Web protocol stack is undergoing significant change with HTTP 2.0. Voice over IP is moving to browsers with something called Web ITC. The Internet of Things is coming to us. The basic networking standards are on the way such as moving from IPv4 to IPv6. And the point I want to make is many of these changes have fundamental impacts to Internet Governance and the way that various players including the Governments need to view them. Governing an almost limitless address space is very different from governing scarcity.

Having any Web server be capable of becoming a voice provider will make it difficult to regulate voice traffic. So these are real trends that are happening today. And my third and final point is that I wanted to talk about the practical issues in working together between the Government and the Internet technical community. I think all of us have realized that we need to do that and we need to do more of that than we have done in the past. We have the motivation.

But there are a number of practical issues. First is little knowledge of what the other side does. I do not have the full picture of how Government address technical issues or how regulation processes work. Similarly, the Governments have historically talked to other types of people about telecommunication matters. Now the situation today is quite different. The world has changed. Most of the work on Internet technologies elsewhere, standards organisations are different and may even work in different ways. We both need to learn how the other side works.

For instance at the IETF we have an open model where anyone can contribute and our standards are adopted by voluntary basis. So in summary, my main point is that I'm not so interested in discussing or maybe the question of what organisation all this belongs to is not so interesting as the actual work. There's a lot of exchanges that have to be done between the different sides, and a lot of practical discussion have to happen, a lot of learning has to happen and that's the important thing. Thank you.

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you, Jari. This is actually the first time an IETF Chair is attending an IGF meeting and addressing an IGF meeting and in many ways I could consider the IGF is the policy equivalent to the IETF. We don't take decision. We have a rough consensus approach here, as well.

Over to you, Avri, Civil Society perspective with a strong technical background.

>> A. DORIA: Thank you. I'm actually quite leased to be up here with all these gentlemen in Bali. And I need to point out at one point, I was sort of introduced as a representative of Civil Society. And to keep myself out of trouble, I must indeed say that my comments have not been reviewed by anyone in Civil Society. And in fact, I come with sort of a luxury of having been a Civil Society participant in policy worlds such as ICANN, in technical worlds such as IETF, and the IGFs, et cetera, so I'm actually given quite a luxury of sort of looking.

When I look at the Role of Governments, I have to admit that I came to the acceptance of Governments having a role very late in life. And my first reaction for many years was: Why? Why would they have a role? Now, over the years of IGF and such, and having listened to many wise Ambassadors, Ministers, and Chairmen, I've actually come to accept that there is a role, but in looking at that role, I look for: Where would that role grow from? What would be the origin of a Government role?

One of the first things that comes to my mind in terms of looking at a role for Governments is indeed Human Rights. And universal declarations of Human Rights and other instruments that have made the Governments responsible for protecting our rights, protecting our rights in the non‑internet world, and protecting our rights on the Internet.

So that role of theirs, as a protector of our rights, does indeed mean that they really do have a role, and I see that role as stemming from that.

But in terms of understanding how that role can be played and how that role can be developed really depends on the degree to which they are defending those rights, the degree to which they are supporting a multistakeholder process that can be seen as growing out of our right to participate, to associate, to express, to learn, to share knowledge.

So insofar as they protect us, insofar as they further the enterprise, indeed Governments do have an important role, but that role really needs to be gauged by the degree to which they are indeed serving the people of the world, serving the people of their countries.

The Governments have come to the Internet sort of late, and so in that role, very often we do an analogy to the role that they took in telecommunications and have tried to sort of impose the role they took in telecommunications on the ideas of the Internet. Now, as we sit here on this panel, I'm very relieved to hear sort of that hasn't been the position of anyone on this panel, and yet I do have concern that that is still the position of many in many Governments, and believe it's something that we need to be careful of.

One thing I see as a very important role for Governments in multistakeholder processes is their capacity growth, that Governments are new in many ways to the notions of cooperating with other sectors of society. Many have listened to us in various times, but they don't necessarily work with us. They don't necessarily cooperate. So over the years from the Working Group on Internet Governance to the WSIS to the evolution I've seen in the IGF I have watched the capacity of Government to cooperate both among themselves and with the rest of the stakeholders has increased. And I think that is also a very important part of Government's role in these organisations, in these processes, is to actually increase their capacity to basically participate in a participatory democracy with us, that the democracy goes beyond the one that has elected many of them as representatives, or perhaps as first or second‑order derivatives of representatives, but has actually something where they have learned to actually work with others.

I'm very pleased, as we get to the point where we hear that Governments are indeed fostering freedom of expression, or at least are planning to. And indeed doing so at times. But that's new, and so that's something that I'm hoping that as Governments become more involved, it does become more, that they do more to defend and support freedom of expression on the Internet, freedom of association on the Internet, freedom of Assembly on the Internet.

We need to go beyond. We need to basically look at all of the Human Rights that Governments are charged with protecting, and make sure that they are indeed doing that on the Internet, and I'm really glad to see a realization of that, a growth in that multistakeholder process.

Governments have a role in multistakeholder processes. The ITU has a role in multistakeholder processes. They are important roles. But I have a concern, as they get more involved, as they get more of a role, that their role isn't a role that pushes the rest of us out of the tent. And so that's something that perhaps again, being a sort of ‑‑ not having to vet my comments, that I basically can admonish us to really maintain a focus on, that as Governments get more of a role in the Internet, that that role does not in some way decrease the role of others in the Internet.

So how can the Governments continue to be involved without, in a sense, disturbing the involvement of the rest of the players in there? So as we approach 2014, with various Summits and various proposed Summits, I'm really looking at them with a bit of apprehension in terms of, will we be allowed to observe? Will we be allowed to participate? And the point to which we really haven't gotten yet: Will we be allowed to participate in the decision‑making?

Because once we are involved in the decision‑making with Governments, Governments will, in my view, have gotten to the point where their role in the multistakeholder process has actually come to fruition. Thank you.

[ Applause ]

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you, Avri. Yes, that was a very interesting first round, and I wonder whether any of the panelists would like to have a spontaneous reaction to what one of the other panelists said? If not, we would then go to the ‑‑ yes, please? Ambassador, please.

>> B. FONSECA FILHO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman you were too quick but I like to make very brief comments. Just to highlight and stress that we do not see there is a contradiction in operationalizing the Role of Governments and disturbing the multistakeholder model. We do not see there is a contradiction. On the contrary, we think that through capacity building, through information and the identification of avenues for cooperation, some of the difficulties that were highlighted by other participants can be addressed, namely the identification of cases in which Governments would feel comfortable enough to know there are processes taking place that do not require their participation so I think that maybe rather than expanding the role or expanding the role that can give comfort to Governments that some of their concerns are being addressed and maybe identify ways through which their from a National point of view a contribution can be made. Because for example if a Government feels that in some aspect of Internet Governance there is not sufficient input from some country, it can be identified that it would not maybe be appropriate for the Government to provide some of the input but other stakeholders from the country and then we can also discuss how that can be addressed. So we see this exercise as something that is not leading to let's say the kind of danger that was highlighted.

I think the danger is real. We must address this and make sure it does not ‑‑ that by pursuing this we are not let's say giving rise to something that's an intended that would harm the multistakeholder model. And Brazil fully embraces the multistakeholder model. I want to repeat that. Another point I want to make. You have mentioned Mr. Chairman that this is the first IGF meeting that's attended by the Chair of IETF. I would also say this is the first IGF meeting that is attended by a Brazilian Minister, a Minister of Communications that is in charge of Brazilian regulatory Agency. He's here in town and will deliver a speech at the opening session as well and it highlights the importance my Government attaches to the multistakeholder model, and as Ambassador Sepulveda was saying also to extend a hand to the exercise, to signal the intend to be part of something larger than Government.

And indeed, one of the main messages my Minister will convey, and I do not want to anticipate too much what he's going to say, but he has already said that in yesterday at the High Level Leaders Meeting is that in preparation for the meeting we intend to hold in Brazil be a Summit, high level, as President Dilma has proposed, we wanted to have a very clear multistakeholder approach in the preparation, in its realization, so one of the purposes of the Minister coming here is to express very clearly that Brazil does not see this as an individual initiative that is coming from one country or one ‑‑ we want it not to be let's say the leader. It was said Brazil is leading this.

We do not want to be seen as leaders, but as a party that wants to facilitate the discussion on some important aspects we feel should be discussed, but with the full participation of all stakeholders and this is the meaning of the Minister coming here.

This was very clearly expressed by President Dilma and it was also said that if you're not Tweetable you're not in the world and President Dilma yesterday she Tweeted and she expressed clearly the adherence to the multistakeholder approach and she highlighted that she was sending Minister hear to highlight that message.

One point also I'd like to make and I want to be very clear about that, that Brazil Marco Civil the Internet framework we're discussing in Brazil, basically all its portions emerged as was said by another party through consultations that were held previously. In that sense, there is a difference to the localization requirement that was included later on but it must be said that this was included as a result of the unfortunate developments that have taken place in the last 6 months regarding disclosures of information and this is one thing that occurred to Government that should be made. This is part of the reaction. This of course is going to be discussed in Congress. Parties will have plenty of opportunity to intervene. There are different views. Some views argue it's not a good idea. Others will defend it.

There is a vibrant debate in Congress and in Brazilian society now, and this is part of the democracy, of the legitimate mechanisms we have. The Congress will debate and make a decision on this. So this is also something I'd not like to let untouched in this meeting.

And finally, and I am sorry for taking so long, just to highlight that we are very comfortable with this discussion, since Brazil is coming from a point in which we fully embrace multistakeholder model, we participate in the discussion with this approach. The Government indeed tries to play this facilitating role, catalyst role, in regard to multistakeholder participation.

And we view Internet move into a new paradigm of cooperation among countries and we want to be part of that. Again, we do not aspire to a leadership role. We don't think in the Internet it has a place for leadership, but rather if we can assist and work together with all parties to address some of those concerns, we'd be more than happy to do so. Thank you.

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you, Ambassador. On that note, that at least on the panel we have a large consensus on the role of Government, that there is, I noted the Government as a partner, and there's no dichotomy between Government and multistakeholder cooperation, and several speakers identified the need for capacity building, for building a culture of engagement, consultation, and the capacity for cooperation.

And also, this is a process. We have not reached the end point, but we have made huge progress in developing a culture of talking to each other. I do remember also the beginning of WSIS, where it was rather awkward, where it was difficult. The techies had to learn diplomatic language. Diplomats had to learn to be more technical but I think here, now we have reached a level of I would say a comfort zone that we can engage in dialogue.

And now I'm looking forward to the dialogue that Jeanette and Matthew will engage from the floor, but can we maybe first turn to our remote moderators? Do we have contributions from ‑‑ no? I see heads nodding. Okay.

Over to Jeanette and Matthew.

>> J. HOFMANN: By way of kick starting the debate I'd like to offer a matter that I picked up from Ambassador Fonseca Filho comment and that is the notion of a live if living book. Perhaps we could actually look at this debate as on going book we co‑author or have been co‑authoring over the last 10 years. From that perspective, we have perhaps reached volume three. When we look back at the discussion and Markus just mentioned that during WSIS, we could clearly see a very antagonistic atmosphere, and also an antagonistic language we were all speaking and now we have sort of moved so much closer to each other's perspectives, and positions that perhaps we have now reached a point where we can indeed turn to more operational issues.

Several of the speakers suggested we should indeed look at practical issues of multistakeholderism, what do the stakeholders, what do they need to do to actually make this work in a better way than in its infant stage.

So Markus suggested the idea that the IGF mate become a policy equivalent to the IETF. Is that conceivable? And what would it require to make this work?

As you know, we have a list of questions that you can refer to, but of course you can also come up with your own questions if you have different ones. You can use the peace of papers that have been distributed, but you can also just grab a mic. Whatever you like.

So here are first questions. What about the remote participants? So perhaps you start.

>> SUBI CHATURVEDI: Thank you, Jeanette. Thank you for giving me the floor. I'm Subi Chaturvedi, a Professor from India. I teach young girls communication policy and Internet Governance, and I run a Foundation called Media for Change. Thank you, Bali and ‑‑ thank you so very much for a culture of innovation and acceptance. As the theme today is Building Bridges and we have had very welcome speeches I'll keep my remarks brief. I want to carry the conversation further from where we left off yesterday, and these are called the taxi drivers diaries on Internet Governance because this is about innovation.

I mentioned yesterday briefly about how they would ask me if I needed a taxi today, yesterday, day after, and I kept saying: No. Since we're looking at an interesting problem to solve, here's what happened yesterday evening. They offered me a card and they said, do I want to change my destination? Or is it some other date I'd like to take the taxi? I believe we're Building Bridges but when we start to build bridges over choppy waters it is important to set new landmarks and find common grounds of conversations. My question is to Ambassador Fonseca. I briefly mentioned when it comes to Civil Society our challenges are many especially when Civil Society and academia from developing countries are trying to get to a location which might needs 30 hours of flying. There's a lot of common ground that is shared in culture, in democracies, in common cultures and histories and practices.

We want to know whether we will be part of this conversation, and how. When we talk about intergovernmental bodies and when we look at an experiment which is truly inclusive bottoms‑up transparent like the IGF, it gives us opportunities to engage with each other in terms of conversations that we can have. We want to know whether we will be in the room, and what is it that you will do to facilitate these conversations? Thank you so very much.

>> Jeanette, we've got something here.

>> I am from Government. My only question: How can Internet of Things be used to promote global governance and regional integration of nations, since bilateral and multilateral agreements are not guaranteed due to challenges of boundary policies and failure of legal framework to promote equality among nations and Human Rights?

>> J. HOFMANN: Next is Norbert Bollow.

>> NORBERT BOLLOW: Thank you. Norbert Bollow speaking on behalf of the Swiss Open Systems User Group, which is an open source organisation in Switzerland. I would like to start by quickly commenting on the idea that maybe the IGF is the policy equivalent of the IETF. I would say maybe the IGF could be part of something like that but certainly a layer would need to be added on it that actually produces policy documents. The IGF does not create anything like Internet drafts and RFCs layer. We absolutely need the layer to create something like that for policy.

Addressing more the role of Governments, and obviously, this kind of RFC‑like process, it would strongly need to be tied somehow to the Governments so that this output process from the IGF would become an input process for actual Government or National law‑making action. What's the point of having outputs if they are not used for anything? Speaking more specifically from the perspective of our group, which I said we are very interested in open source, we have been engaging in the IGF process for some years, and there are always great workshops here on the topic that we're interested in. But I have a big frustration.

What needs really to happen on the ground with Governments actually understanding this and understanding how it can be used to apply it to their problems, and then doing it, making it happen, that is simply not happening. What is happening right now is that there are some things that are very much in the interest of big international companies, and they have the capacity and skills and understanding to get done what is in their interest to do, but the things that are not so much of their interest, they simply don't tend to get done.

And I think Governments need to take a much stronger role in just making these things happen. For an example, I would mention that free and open source software can have a huge role, a critically empowering role, in preventing communication surveillance by foreign intelligence services. But this is not something that will happen on its own. It will need to be brought forward.

My organisation is very happy to be part of it, but Governmental stakeholders also need to be part of it. Otherwise it's simply not going to happen. Thank you.

>> J. HOFMANN: Parminder?

>> P. J. SINGH: Hello. I'm Parminder from an NGO, IT for Change. I thank the panel have presented one of the most interesting and useful sessions I have ever been at any IGF, and I'm very sure these session transcripts will be analyzed and seen for some time.

I also thank the Honourable Minister from the U.K. to lay out a very good vision of what they see as the role of Government which I completely agree and the Ambassador added a few points which makes it more contextual to the governance at the global level.

Also Virat Bhatia set a good point, meaningful engagements. There are those points of agreement. I take Jeanette's evocation that we move to practical steps and before that I want to just have some clarifications. I did hear that people should do it in their respective roles where Tunis Agenda is not separate but some kind of respective roles but I also heard equal fatting. When we go to practical things that kind of thing needs a little more clarification and I want to build on what is being said that it should be meaningful engagement and institutionalizing meaningful engagement but I heard said we need to participate in decision‑making we as stakeholders and I think line drawing is very important about what is the role of Government.

And when I say Government, two things. I mean a Democratic Government and I mean all pillars of the Government which is executive, judicial, and legislative. The role of the Governments for me are two. One is that they are the final institution which determines what public interest is. That their inputs but they have then final judgment on the public interest.

And then, secondly, they use their judgment to make public policies which have a cohesive force on citizens, and therefore they can only be done in a very responsible manner. So as long as there are not other stakeholders who want to be doing these two things, they have to participate, they have to be consulted. There should be institutionalized engagement model, but as long as they don't come and want to be doing that, that's important, because it's a basic Democratic principle. And I often hear in the room they want to be part of decision‑making on equal footing, a term whose meaning I completely lose and that is of concern of many groups who believe in democracy and who believe in global democracy and multistakeholderism should not become a way to subvert them and the participation process should not become a way to paralyze Public Policy making because public policy is very important ‑‑

>> J. HOFMANN: Could you cut it short. There are lots of people who want to speak.

>> Parminder: So it's a Public Policy issued. Should not be allowed to be created in that sense.

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you, Parminder. Is there something on the panel who would like to take this up and respond? Okay.

>> Hello. I'm Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro, Sala for short. I'm speaking on my own behalf and not for anyone. I'd like to first ask a question and perhaps just very ‑‑ that's okay.

In terms of Internet Governance Forums and this is a question I pose to the panelists, in your mind in the year 2013, is public sector, private sector, and Civil Society, are they equal players when it comes to Internet Governance Forum? That's my question.

And the brief commentary, very brief comment from me before I take my seat and very quick is this: For there to be a multistakeholder cooperation, and in terms of building trust and cross‑collaboration, we can have suspicion, and whilst you can have suspicion, where you have suspicion, trust can't really be built and so that's why I ask my question.

>> M. KUMMER: We have a remote participant. Can we maybe go to the remote moderators?

>> Thank you. We have remote participation here. Previously there was a comment and probably I request for everyone to keep the microphone closer to the mouth so that remote participants can hear or speak a bit louder. The question comes from Wafa Ben Hassine from Tunisia. She says how can we ensure that the governments have a legitimate and sincere interest in promoting multistakeholderism? And how can we overcome the lack of trust that emanates from all the sides? Probably all the stakeholders also, particularly in developing countries. Thank you.

>> I run a nonprofit organisation in India. My question is to the Ambassador from the U.S. Government. If the U.S. Government really believes in the multistakeholder model it is espousing, what are the short‑term and long‑term plans of its practicing what it is preaching when the entire world is now lost in the deluge of the revelations and is unable to see Governments in any other light, despite their important role? Thank you.

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you. Do you want to respond?

>> D. SEPULVEDA: I do wish to respond. The question is imminently fair, and the question as I understand it is how do your values, professed values, match your behavior? And again, a perfectly fair question.

We have multiple systems by which we incorporate our multistakeholder community into our policy making process. I actually come out of Civil Society. I started my career as an activist, an immigration activist, in Washington. The Senator who became President of the United States started his career as a community organiser as a Civil Society activist in Chicago. The Secretary of State started his career as an anti‑war activist after the Viet Nam war, and one of the most famous visions of that was his participation before the United States Senate and the testimony he gave after the war that helped mobilize the system in opposition to the Viet Nam war and the closing of that particular event in our history.

I can go through a litany of mechanisms by which we incorporate the public sector, academia, the technical community, industry, in our Public Policy processes. We have an open Advisory Committee process. We have an open regulatory process. We have an open Congressional process. And we have an open press. As it relates specifically to the questions of surveillance and the degree of trust that has been threatened, in the Internet and relative to our position, as a steward, one of many stewards of the Internet, it is again a fair question.

The President has spoken to it multiple times. I would let you know, and I'm sure you do know, but I will clarify, that there are multiple forms of review ongoing relative to our intelligence review processes. There is an independent review of a 5‑panel expert session that will be reporting to the President and to the public. There are Congressional reviews and open Committee hearings on the subject. And there is an internal system of review within the administration.

We and the President has said on multiple occasions: Engage in intelligence gathering operations, much as most if not all of the countries of the world do, and we're in the process of ensuring that our intelligence gathering operations are consistent with our values and we will be reporting to the world as that process moves forward. Again, the President as you can read in the papers today spoke with the French Prime Minister and made that comment again.

So hopefully that answers your question and I'd be happy to elaborate on it, if necessary.

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you very much. Just to remind you, one of the questions here also refers to the rights and concerns of users in other jurisdictions that is perhaps an issue that can be discussed in this environment. What about State actions that actually affect users, citizens of other jurisdictions? Thank you.

>> M. KUMMER: Jeanette, please, can I make an organisational announcement? This issue obviously is high on the agenda of this year's IGF, and the session on emerging issues will be devoted on Government surveillance. It will be on Friday morning and don't look at the programme as it is printed. Consult the programme as it is on the website. We agreed that yesterday with the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, the new programme will be the whole morning will be devoted to that issue so there's a three hour session on Friday morning devoted to the Government surveillance.

And please keep consulting the website for changes. This was just an organisational announcement. This issue will also be discussed, I would imagine in the special session on Human Rights on Thursday afternoon, and there may be other sessions and workshops, as well.

>> Thank you. I am from Bangladesh. I am working on the nonprofit organisation. My question is: I would like to share one issue example. The issue is one policy in developing countries is maybe working fine and good but it may be challenges in developing countries. So how can we resolve by implementing this position by global policy? Or may we need Internet Governance policy for resolve this issue locally?

If not resolve locally so how can we bridge between global and local policy to resolve this type of issue? One of issues I share with you for example excess control or filtering of cybersecurity. Thank you.

>> I'd like to thank the panelist. For myself I'm not sure whether there's translation. For me, in fact, the Government naturally does have a National function of safeguarding neutrality and the function of safeguarding the common good without forgetting it finally functions as a protecting of the public good.

But the question is, I'd like to know, how can we act in such a way that public activities don't get mixed up with the activities of individuals in an Internet area which is entirely taken up with what can be represented in two words: The word business and freedom for those in the public sector, and Civil Society in Africa. How can we act in such a way that we cover all of this?

>> Good morning. I am from LACNIC, the Internet Addresses Registry in Latin America and Caribbean. The question is related to the recent launch of the Montevideo Statement done by 10 Internet organisations and specifically not only directed to Ambassadors in the panel, but also to the rest of the panelists, the question is: What do you think about the oversight role and how would Governments should behave regarding this role in the future, or maybe how this oversight role should evolve in the short future?

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you. Anybody wants to take this up? Please go ahead.

>> V. BHATIA: I wanted to respond to the remote participant from Tunisia whose question pending and my distinguished Delegate who spoke about how do you combine the developing country piece with the what's happening at the global level and how do you make it relevant? And I'll draw upon the four pieces that the Honourable Minister from U.K. read out and if you look at that it actually lends itself to a perfect example of how it's done and I'll try and reference in there a little bit because of the developing country part of the question.

Building infrastructure, as he spoke of one of the first ones, unless the Government provides the environment which is investor friendly and works with the private sector very closely it would be virtually impossible to build infrastructure for the kind of Internet that we sea in the future. In fact, in countries like India, vast majority of the infrastructure and subscribers of the approximately 900 million that are on the net, sorry, on mobile, and about 160 million who are on the net is owned and run by the private sector. And so Government has a crucial role in consulting and implementing that legal frameworks he spoke about again. You can't do that on this. You've engaged every stakeholder in the community especially the Civil Society, the lawyers, those who are going to be impacted by what's in the legal framework. Defending free speech, gender equality, the moving child pornography, he spoke about those issues require a lot of engagement with Civil Society groups, people who specialize in these matters because if the laws are not written in a manner that's acceptable so each one of the pieces the Honourable Minister spoke about actually lends itself to how institutionally Governments would get involved in the in the multistakeholder engagement in a meaningful manner.

But to answer the Tunisian question, I think from the developing country perspectives, where the traditions are not strong for seeking consultation or including inputs into policy making, then in those areas, writing laws or principles that ensure such consultation actually does help, and building such independent institutions does help.

I'll just close by saying that in the telecommunications infrastructure that we built which now underlies the entire Internet traffic that's growing in India and the subscriber base, there is a requirement under law for the regulators to consult and act in a transparent manner, and a provision is available to those who are not happy with the decisions of the Government or of the regulators in case they believe sufficient transparent consultation has not occurred and the inputs have not been taken.

So wherever the traditions are not strong, bringing language into law, into policy, is always helpful because then it sort of lays out clearly what different people have to do. Thank you.

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you very much.

>> Hello and good morning. I'm from the regulator in the Kingdom of Bahrain. For basically, I'd like to provide an observation, an emphasis and finally a query based on the comments. And I'd like to begin by thanking the panelists for owl their interventions. In particular I'd like to thank the Minister from Brazil for his administration's proposal.

First of all, it's been my observation through WCIT and the WTPF and the deliberations thereof that there's a lot of mistrust towards Government. Sometimes it's a misplaced mistrust. It's just a subconscious bias, to the point where I've found that some people have been asking: Why doesn't the Kingdom of Bahrain support the multistakeholder model? To which I would respond: Well, we do. In fact, we're on record as having stated that.

And this is just an example that sometimes what we're saying is interpreted in light of what we expect to hear, rather than what's actually being said. So I would caution against this subconscious mistrust of Governments and actually listen to the argument that is taking place. The emphasis I'd like to place goes back to some of the comments raised by the Honourable Minister from the U.K. which is, what is illegal offline is also illegal online. And this is what's guiding a large part of the discussion on public policies and with the Role of Governments in that Public Policy because ultimately, we have different laws. We have different customs. We have different frameworks throughout all the countries in the world. And yet, we have one Internet.

So how do we relate those physical boundaries into this new digital layer of geography that we while making sure that everyone's rights and responsibilities are respected? Which finally leads me to my query: Where do we go from here?

This has been discussed ever since the Tunis Agenda came out, and yet we find ourselves in a loop discussing the same points over and over. Now, hopefully the recent discussions that happened can actually break that cycle, so I ask: Where do we go from here? Thank you.

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you very much. I hope we are not in a loop. I still insist that we are moving forward, that the language is really changing.

Now there's somebody from Indonesia, from ‑‑

>> Yes, thank you. I'm from Indonesian ICT Society. Actually, I'm not questioning, but I like to support what's been mentioned by His Excellency the Minister from U.K. Even I'm coming from the ICT Society, but actually on this discussion I would like to stress that we still do need the ‑‑ what the intervention of the Government. For instance in Indonesia, we have been ‑‑ during this ‑‑ the Internet and the ICT society is very extremely developing with impact and also the society, especially on the values and the cultures, on the education of the children also.

So even as in the portion as the society that I would like not too many control from the Government, but when we do things that negatively impact of the Internet into society is not small actually, especially education, in the cultural and the values, we still do need the what is it, we may be not saying this is control but the intervention from the Government.

This is what I lake to insert. Thank you very much.

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you very much. Anybody from the panel who wants to comment on this? Otherwise, there would be now a question directed to Honourable Mr. Minister Ed Vaizey.

>> M. KUMMER: Jeanette, we have somebody over here who would like to speak.

>> Thank you very much. I'm from the Indonesian ICT Society, so I want to continue what my colleague just mentioned regarding the statement made by the Minister from the U.K on the Government intervention. From the business Sector, usually we are thinking that there is another judging, because usually it's related to the license. How do you let's say act on this kind of let's say behavior of the Government I believe in developing country and the Government also want to collect the money from these kind of services. Thank you.

>> E. VAIZEY: I'll try and answer some of the points as best I can. First of all, I'm pleased my four points are now framing the discussion, which was my original intention, so thank you for the last three questions. And indeed, some of the panelists who are referring to those four issues.

I think if I start with what the panelist from Bahrain, the regulator from Bahrain said, where do we go from here, earlier, one of our moderators talked about this being a book that is being continuously written so one doesn't necessarily know which direction the journey will take. I think the point is that the authors should include everyone from our society, so Government, business, and Civil Society in that discussion. That is the fundamental point I want to make.

Clearly, as I said in my opening remarks, governments will pass legislation which affects what happens on the Internet. We as a Government have passed legislation as I said earlier that was specifically directed to enable rights‑holders to send letters to people who were infringing copyright by downloading on the Internet. And we did that through legislation, although we haven't actually implemented it.

In contrast, in the United States, a voluntary agreement has been reached between the Telecom providers and the rightsholders to send warning letters to people who are infringing copyright, so the United States has taken a voluntary approach. We've gone down a legislative route.

Then you can flip that over, and we allow rightsholders to use existing copyright legislation to get an injunction to block a website where infringing material is present. Newzbin2 is the first website that's been blocked in this way, and it's using existing civil legislation and it didn't cause really any controversy in our country, but by contrast, in America, when that was proposed as legislation, it caused a Titanic debate, and that proposal was dropped.

So in terms of how Government legislates, different cultures will take a very different approach. Two very similar approaches such as the U.K. and the U.S. sometimes take different approaches to tackling the same issue. But I return to my point that that is Government intervention in an issue which happens to involve the Internet, if I can put it that way.

So we as Governments take the protection of intellectual property extremely seriously. Clearly, the Internet affects how intellectual property can be attacked. We take the protection of our children extremely seriously. Clearly, the prevalence of the Internet affects how children can be affected by inappropriate content.

And so there's nothing I think philosophically ‑‑ there's no kind of philosophical barrier that says Government shouldn't intervene in this way but where I feel very strongly and I think my Government feels very strongly is that Government shouldn't seek to put in place a framework to control the Internet. And we feel that for philosophical reasons because of our support for freedom of expression. But we also feel it for practical reasons, because we've seen the innovation that a free Internet has brought about.

The barriers to entry being relatively low, the opportunity to engage with millions and now billions of people in different ways are absolutely formidable, so I think when we are debating this constant debate, this constant journey about the multistakeholder approach versus a Government regulatory approach, everyone should realize, and trust is important here, but everyone should realize that developed nations and developing nations how important the multistakeholder approach.

And it was formal lied at WSIS but it's always been there, how important that approach has been to supporting the innovation we've seen on the Internet. And that if you take a top‑down approach, you risk shutting out incredibly important voices who have just as valid points to make about the future direction of the Internet.

So the Internet is constantly evolving. We don't know what the fourth, fifth, or sixth volumes of the book we're writing collectively will be. But as I say, the fundamental principle must be that there should be multiple authors with equal voices.

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you very much. Perhaps ‑‑ can I just ask a follow‑up question? And remained you of the first question that was collected, and there was ‑‑ the first one actually asked whether the Governments which pitch for multistakeholderism in the international arena also adopt Internet‑related policy making in their respective countries within the multistakeholder approach.

Since you referred to the domestic legislation regarding protecting intellectual property rights, could you imagine, as the U.K. Government, to do this within the framework of multistakeholder policy making?

>> E. VAIZEY: Well, I mean, we do follow through in the sense that we were the first ones I think to set up a domestic IGF. We have the Multistakeholder Advisory Group on Internet Governance, which helps frame our policy towards the Internet. But again, we as a Government obviously consult on all our legislation, so we are a free, open and Democratic society. Whatever legislation we propose, regardless of whether it relates to the Internet or not, is consulted upon.

It can be challenged. In fact, the legislation that we put in on intellectual property which was specifically aimed at protecting intellectual property rights on the Internet was challenged in the courts and we had to amend the legislation as a result, only in a small technical way. We effectively won the court case. So we always do consult. But again, it's important to say that I think our approach to Internet policy making is very much multistakeholder.

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you. There was another comment on the panel?

>> V. BHATIA: I was just going to add on this whole issue about the constantly changing scenario and the changing role of the Governments, and I just want to reference a case from India again for your consideration. As I said, we have about the world's second largest population for ‑‑ second largest population in the world, then second largest mobile population in the world and consumers who use mobile phones were contributing 5% of the total Bill every month to the USO fund but the business was so good and it grew so well that the need for the USO fund to put out phones in rural areas and those who couldn't afford it was never required so billions of dollars were collected by way of this fund and the Government changed attack midway about five years ago and converted the USO fund that was meant for rural telephony and changed the rules, changed the legislation, and is using that money to build the first large $4.5 billion National fiber optic network which will be devoted to ensuring that 250,000 villages are connected through that process.

This is one of the many things that the Government can do as this book is written on the first piece of the Honourable Minister spoke about which is building infrastructure, where in a unique case, consumers have contributed to money for rural telephony which has now gone on to build a National Internet backbone. So I'm just giving you one example but there are many such places where Governments can continue to innovate in this role as the book is being written because it couldn't have been imagined this would be the use of this fund even five years ago.

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you very much. Now I'll hand it over to you.

>> Thank you. My name is Dewi. I'm from Ministry of ICT of Indonesia. I would like to address my opinion about multistakeholder. First of all, about the motivation of each party involving multistakeholder itself. So there is a huge difference of motivation from each Sector. For example in Government we often our motivation to integrate the Internet is often motivated by how to keep the country, how to keep the sovereignty of the country. Meanwhile, the private parties, their motivation is mainly about how the demand and supply, how much the profit can I gain from this business?

So Civil Society is somehow in between. And the second thing is about multistakeholders is I tend to see that developed countries who already apply the multistakeholder tend to force the multistakeholder system to developing country with the same pattern. It seems like going to copy/paste their model, the model of multistakeholder in their country to a developing country which is maybe doesn't work because we have different culture, we have different Government system in regulating the Internet itself, so this is the main concern for me if we're talking about the multistakeholders, because like last week, I talk with the representative from Microsoft when we discuss about one of the Minister regulations so they often talk about profit, demand, supply and then we talk about how to keep our country from surveillance, how to keep our society from pornography, how to keep ‑‑ so this is contradicting roles and interests.

And I hope that Internet Governance, IGF, can facilitate those different interests, how we meet ‑‑ or at least I don't hope that we'll came out with the same interests, but at least we understand each other, so as a Government, I often feel that like society see me as enemy, and some of private company see me also as enemy. When we talk about Data Protection or building infrastructure ‑‑ infrastructure building, is when the Government try to kind of limitation, give limitation, we often seen as enemy of the Internet development.

>> E. VAIZEY: I think that's a very interesting point, and I think that it's important when Government is subject to criticism and people quite rightly want to say Government shouldn't overinvolve itself in the Internet or regulate the Internet.

I would echo to a certain extent what you say, that business and Civil Society must also understand Government's perspective. So again returning to some of the issues that exercise great passion in the U.K., protection of our children, protection of intellectual property, it is I think incumbent on business and Internet businesses to understand what Government wants to achieve and work with Government. Funny enough that's the best way of preserving the multistakeholder model. It's the best way of ensuring this partnership, this very strong partnership which has been so important to the development of the Internet, continues.

And it's a rather ‑‑ it's a paradoxical thing when you talk to an Internet company who says, we will only do this if you pass legislation, which seems to invite Government to regulate the Internet, and what they should be saying is: We understand and share your concerns and we'll work with you to provide tools. And that's what's happened in the U.K. so with Telecoms providers they now provide the filters for consumers to use if they want to block pornography in their home.

And that is a good coming together of Public Policy issue working in partnership. So it is important, you're quite right, that business and Civil Society shouldn't see Government as the enemy, just as Government shouldn't see business and Civil Society as a problem they have to deal with.

>> M. KUMMER: Ambassador Fonseca would also like to react.

>> B. FONSECA FILHO: Thank you. Actually I'd like to maybe at this point maybe react to some interventions. And I think some very good points were made and I think we should to the extent possible also react to some notions that were presented. So first of all I'd like to address the Professor from India. I think she raised a very important point regarding what would be the Brazil's view in regard to participation of stakeholders and I understood in the light of the preparation for the meeting Brazil, so as I have said at the beginning we intended to be completely have a participatory nature from the beginning from the inception, from ‑‑ we have of course some ideas and the Minister will spell some of those ideas in line with what President Dilma already expressed at the General Assembly but we want it to be constructive work and that stakeholders should be fully involved so answering to your questions, yes, we want you to be in the room and be a participant in the process. In regard to the concern that I also expressed that our proposal should not only be seen as a way to enhance participation of governments, of course as Government we are looking how to operationalize the participation of Government, but we are also concerned about other stakeholders' participation.

I'd like to make reference to a very good partnership we have with the Brazilian Steering Committee. You know of course Government has budgetary constraints of many nature but through the Brazilian Steering Committee, participants from Civil Society find they can come to these meetings with the moneys that are collected through the operation of .br. Part of it is invested to this end. I think this provides a very good example of how we can work constructively Government ‑‑ the Government in Brazil consult, we're not outside it but as a body how it can assist in providing further assistance to other stakeholders.

And I say this because of course we know of international organisation that collects millions of dollars and I think it would be very good if that could also be used to support, to have public interest in mind and support the system as a whole. I think that would be a very good way to use the money that is collected.

I'd like also to address what Parminder said about equal footing, and I don't think we should engage a lot on this, but as we read, as we go through what is stated in regard to the design of international public policies pertaining to the Internet, it is clear that it is something that Governments should be implemented is on an equal fatting.

So the reading of Paragraph 69 seems to indicate that as we regard the design and adoption of public policies, when we're talking about equal footing we're referring to governments and of course we are ‑‑ this is in the context of the multistakeholder model that is let's say an overriding concept that should be there, but as we refer to this particular issue regarding Public Policy, it's clearly on the side of Government that ‑‑ I don't know if this would address what Parminder said because sometimes we're confusing the multistakeholder model should embrace everything and I think it's ‑‑ the part of the beauty of the model is that each stakeholder has roles and responsibilities that are differentiated and Government cannot of course get away from its responsibilities in regard to issuing public policies.

Another point I'd like to comment, there were many interventions relating to how can we expand and have a larger role for IGF? And the notion that IGF could be the policy equivalent to IETF, and I'd like to comment that my Delegation strongly supports that IGF would have more effective participation, its outputs could be more outcome oriented maybe is not the word but to have more resonance outside the context of its meetings.

When I was in Baku last year, it was my first IGF. I was extremely pleased with the debate. I could participate. I could attend the wealth of information, of notions that were conveyed, the vibrancy of the debate, and this is not exactly captured as the outcome. I think this is something my Delegation would strongly support, that we seek ways alongside the Working Group recommendations, I think we should be working in that direction.

Another point I'd like to comment as well, regards the breach of trust and this is something that will be dealt in the final session but only to say that from the perspective of my Delegation, there is lot ‑‑ some part ‑‑ a way of addressing this is reinforcing the debate on ethics and privacy. This is something Brazil initiated at UNESCO and it will be taken up by the next General Conference in November. And I would also refer to the speech that President Dilma delivered at the United Nations that maybe the time is right for us as a community, international community, to launch a discussion on principles and norms that should govern Internet and should refer to the concept of an international civil framework based on our own experience. We think this is maybe a constructive way through which we could, out of these circumstances, try to further refine the framework we have.

We think it would be indeed a very important development if we could get this. Another point is the kind of oversight role that Governments could play, and I think it was referred to the Montevideo Declaration.

I would interpret that maybe this is referred to ICANN specifically, and one thing I'd like to comment in that regard is that we see the oversight role of Government being made without any detriment to the multistakeholder dimension of the organisation. This is something to be clearly preserved. The multistakeholder dimension, the bottom‑up decision‑making should be preserved, but then we see ICANN evolving and being commensurate with the challenges and the context of the 21st century as an institution that would have an international let's say oversight more than one single country oversight.

And finally, I'd like just to refer some of the interventions that developing countries do not have a tradition of consultation. It's very dangerous sometimes to make that kind of statement. Developing countries are more than 100 countries with different circumstances, different contexts. In the case of Brazil, we have a very strong tradition of consulting Civil Society. We have had in the last years, over 100 National conferences on the issues such as Human Rights, child rights, you name it, that started at local level and then State level, regional level and finally National level.

So again we are very comfortable with the notion of consulting widely with the population and we would say that that's the complexity. As we are looking at all the points we are raising from an international perspective, there are so many different ways in which countries deal with those issues that it's a tremendous challenge.

And finally, the point ‑‑ I'm sorry, so many issues ‑‑ but the point that was raised by I think the last speaker regarding motivation of Governments, I was a bit surprised because in the case of Brazil, our motivation to participate goes much beyond the protection of sovereignty. We want through Government participation also make sure there is adequate consideration to the issue of inclusiveness, social inclusiveness and also fostering the environment for economic prosperity, development. We're also concerned about Human Rights, child abuse, all this, so it's much complex I think the kind of interaction Government has.

And I fully agree with Minister Ed Vaizey that the important thing is to make sure that as Government is participating in the multistakeholder model, it will not be seen in contradiction or being an enemy to other views. Rather, that maybe the perspectives are different, but the concerns are also very wide, since Governments have of course also as the U.K. paper indicates, a very wide ranging responsibility regarding public interest. So that permeates various areas so it's not restricted to one single concern.

Thank you very much.

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you for those comments.

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you. We have more from this panel and I would also like to say a few words in terms of organisation of the session picking up from our colleague from Bahrain. Where do we go from here? And also what you said I think that we collectively agree that we want to take the IGF a step further and come to take away more type of tangible outcomes in whatever form they will be.

So this can also be in the Chairman's summary that we really ‑‑ and that is in line with the recommendations from the CSTD Working Group on IGF improvements, that we highlight where we have points of convergence, but we can also emphasize that there may be points of divergence where we don't agree.

But having listened to this discussion, I find we have broad points of convergence, and Minister Vaizey's framework of the four themes I think found very broad support.

While we might discuss on some of the details of the regulation, but I think the fact that Governments have a responsibility for infrastructure, for setting the legal and regulatory environment, and also the duty to protect Human Rights and freedom of expression has been ‑‑ nobody contests that I think in the room, and it has found broad support.

Human Rights to begin with, we didn't discuss that in particular and that really emerged over the years as a very central issue in Internet Governance discussions. And then I think maybe first and foremost, when we talk about the Role of Governments, that we talk about partnership with the other stakeholders, and that Governments should not be seen as the enemy, although some remarks from the floor implied that this may still be the case. But I think at least I would feel that this room agrees that they should not be ‑‑ it should move beyond that, and Governments should definitely not be seen as enemies.

They do have a role, and we have to work with Governments, but the remark that some developing countries may have problems finding their way around the multistakeholder system clearly relates to the importance of capacity building, and that was also made ‑‑ that point was made by several speakers, that we need to assist also developing countries to find their way into the multistakeholder system, help them to build a culture of consultation, engagement, and to have the capacity to cooperate, and that can also mean financial assistance as quite often it's also traveling involved.

So where do we go from here? I would agree with my co‑moderator Jeanette that we do go forward. Sometimes it may seem as though we're going around in circles but I think it is an upward spiral. We may revisit the same issues, but we revisit them at a higher level of understanding, of comprehension, and also of culture of dialogue.

But please feel free to disagree with my attempt to try and capture the discussion. This is the only way to validate it, but if you all agree, I think we do have already I would say a good take‑away, but let's also listen from the floor.

Before going back to the floor, Ambassador Sepulveda wanted to react. Please.

>> D. SEPULVEDA: Very quickly before returning to the floor I wanted to in the first instance, understanding that we would all like to see continued improvements in all of our Internet Governance institutions including the IGF, I do want to take a moment to value the conversation that we're having right now, and that it is a conversation and not a competition, and a discussion and not a debate, because the pressure of solving or imposing a solution on all as a function of this conversation is not imposed on the conversation itself.

I think that there's immense value in that. It allows us to have a frank and open discussion about issues that are very ‑‑ that are still not resolved either within ourselves or between us and that there is an immense amount of value in that process in and of itself. I would hope we continue to value that.

I would also like to take a moment to note that I think there has been immense progress, even in the short time that I've served, in coming closer together on what we see as challenges and what our potential solutions are to those challenges. So in the first instance for example, we wholly agree with the analysis of Brazil and other that developing country Governments and develop societies including industry and the Civil Society and academia and the technical community in the developing world does not have adequate participation and does not have adequate room at the table and voice for participation in the existing Internet Governance institutions.

The question then becomes: How do we make that real? And I would say that there has been real progress at the different institutions in making an effort toward that and I would say that that call has been heard to a large degree, and that manifests itself in the multiple offices that ICANN for example is opening around the world. The increase in financial support that is being given to developing countries to go to ICANN to participate in that.

The increasing sophistication of the GAC and increasing participation of the GAC at ICANN for example. It isn't to say we can't do it better. It isn't to say we don't agree there's a need for collaborative work to improve on the system and I think that this conversation and the continued conversations and the answer to the question of where do we go from here, well, it sounds like we're going to Brazil in April. But we'll have to see how that particular event is constructed but then there's Egypt or wherever ‑‑ where the World Telecommunications development conference will be held and the Plenipotentiary in South Korea. We have continuous meetings because we're building on the previous work and the areas of consensus we can come together in good faith toward the end that we all want, which is the full inclusion of everyone in the world in an open and inclusive Internet.

And I think so from the point of view of the United States and building on many of the things that the Minister from the U.K. has said, we for example have a global broadband initiative in which USAID is helping countries around the world in development of broadband plans and in the development of universal programmes we spearheaded the alliance for an affordable Internet bringing together a public‑private partnership with up to 30 different actors from the technological community, from the public sector and the private sector to talk about what the public policies are that we can put into place, many of which the Minister covered are working well in the U.K. For example, how can we adapt those kinds of pro‑investment, pro‑deployment policies around the world to ensure that everyone has access?

So I think that we are coming together around a set of common causes that are rooted in the democratic, small "d" democratic, deployment and inclusion of everyone in the global Internet and I think that that's a positive development.

>> Chair, we have a couple more questions from the floor. Thank you.

>> Good morning, afternoon. I'm a private consultant representing ‑‑

>> J. HOFMANN: Could you speak louder, please?

>> W. DE NATRIS: Is this better? I'm a private consultant, but also representing NL IGF. We're going to do some pretty good sessions on Thursday morning and afternoon in which some of you are represented in best practices in breaking down silos.

>> J. HOFMANN: You need to put the microphone closer.

>> That's better, okay. We'll have pretty good examples actually with most of you represented in the panels we're doing but to come to my question I've got about 3 different ones which are all together, but I want to start with giving you a very small personal experience I had this month with The Internet Society where I did represent to teach Governments about spam enforcement in the Netherlands.

And after I had given my presentation, what actually happened is that the questions turned to the gentleman next to me representing the ITU in South America and saying: Can the ITU help us with this? Instead of asking me how could we through something together ask the ITU. And afterwards I went to these people and asked these people: Why did you ask it to the ITU gentleman? We asked it to the ITU because we don't know anybody else. It was several local Governments from South America.

And when I started engaging them further they said: Well, the IETF has never been here, and we don't really know anybody from the IETF, so how could we do anything technical? That's a few examples. Then I come to my question is that: How can you industry, technical community, Governments actually change this in the course of the coming years so that there's more knowledge spread to several regions where perhaps these organisations never come like the Working Group that's industry initiative they basically in the U.S. and in Europe, they don't go to South America because they don't have any members there so there's no sponsoring no et cetera, so how could Governments together with industry make sure this sort of knowledge goes into these regions and there's a last question, is there actually a clear view on what the needs of Governments in regions where these sort of conferences take place, may actually not go to.

So there a clear view on the needs of local Governments in developing countries? So thank you.

>> M. KUMMER: I suggest gathering questions from the floor. I know that Jari would like to answer but let's have a final round for the panelists to react to all of the questions we gather so that we have a good conclusion.

>> J. HOFMANN: So we first give the floor to Avri? She has ‑‑ okay. Then the moderator?

>> So I'm from Tunisia and also the United States. There is more discrepancy going on when developing countries promote Human Rights and participate and yet they don't act on these values. She wrote the majority of U.S. citizens do not appreciate the privacy invasion that U.S. Government has yet to admit to since we know is from leaks.

How can we adequately discuss the Government not being an enemy when our Government consistently engage in practices that are diametrically opposite to what our policy flat forms articulate? On public‑private partnerships how can we involve the average citizen in this conversation?

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you very much. Are we still in the process of collecting questions?

>> Thank you. I would like thank the panelists for their presentations. I really like the phrase by Minister Vaizey when he said that the Role of Governments should be seen as a network partner instead of someone who dictates. That's precisely what we're doing in the Netherlands. Our Government, in particular our Ministry, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are right now busy developing a long‑term study on how the Dutch Telecom market looks like in about 5 to 10 years and what the place of the telcos would be in the Internet value chain. This whole process, what is now going on, is a cooperation with all the partners of all the NGOs, the private sector, the technical society and so on.

So in our view, this National model of cooperation is a good one, a good one for the future to continue to build on. And what would be fine and wonderful if it would be in place in an international ‑‑ on an international level.

On the other hand, I heard also from one of the panelists, I think it was Avri Doria, when she stated that she had some concerns about a bigger Role of Governments in this whole process, because they would push out the other parties out of the tents, if I quoted her correctly.

So this indicates in my view that we're all struggling to find the right Role of Governments in this whole process and I think it touches upon the essence of the multistakeholder model and that is that all parties involved should act on equal footing.

Now, I have a question for the panel, and that is: How would you interpret the concept of acting on equal footing with respect of the Role of Governments? Thank you.

>> J. HOFMANN: Are there any further questions? You have another one?

>> First of all I'd just like to say that this is a really fantastic conversation, and I'm really glad to see the maturity and the level of trust expressed, and just hearing the diversity of perspectives coming through.

And I think for me hearing this now, it heralds a significant tomorrow for Internet Governance, and what I'd just like to add to the conversation is this, in terms of the increasing accountability and transparency within existing mechanisms and I know that a lot of the organisations already working vigorously and robustly in this area. But this is something that really should be pushed from the IGF space, increasing accountability and transparency.

The other thing also is in terms of increasing meaningful participation, it's bringing people to the table, so for example even within the GAC within ICANN, I'm not sure, I know that there are 193 countries but I don't think that you have 193 representatives of Governments to the table. And so the issue is not ICANN. The issue is bringing Governments to the table, and that sort of thing.

And by the way these are my own views. These are not the views of any of my affiliations and associations.

The other thing is standards bodies. It doesn't matter whether it's a National standards body or whether it's an international standards body but ensuring that there's greater accountability and transparency when nations can actually trust the ‑‑ that you can trust there's integrity in how things are actually processed. Thank you.

>> J. HOFMANN: Thank you.

>> N. HICKSON: Nigel Hickson from ICANN. Just a point and a question, if I may. The point is ICANN has been mentioned a couple of times, and I'd like to endorse what our colleague said, that ICANN is looking to internationalize its operations. We have opened various offices in different regions.

>> J. HOFMANN: Can you put the microphone closer to your mouth?

>> N. HICKSON: Usually my voice is loud enough, but I can do that, yes. So Fadi Chehade our Chief Executive, embarked on an operation to globalize the whole of the ICANN operation, and many people that come to ICANN meetings can see that firsthand. The GAC is 129 countries. We hope that will be expanded. There might be countries here that are not in the Government Advisory Committee and we greatly encourage them to be part of it.

The common ‑‑ sorry, the question that I have is I don't think I've heard and I might have been asleep of course, is mention of the World Summit on the Information Society and the review that's currently taking place. I think it was mentioned by the U.S. Ambassador that the ITU review conference is taking place in Egypt, or was going to take place in Egypt in April, of course. And that's an important step.

But there's also a further step when the UN General Assembly have to review the WSIS arrangements in 2015. And perhaps the panel might sort of just give an indication of what they hope will happen in terms of the WSIS review. Thank you very much.

>> Thank you Jeanette and thank you Chair. I'll keep my comments brief. Thank you for the second opportunity. I do want to reiterate the point that a colleague mentioned about keeping solutions local and domestic where problems can be solved locally but the IGF is a wonderful platform, and Markus, this is a question for you. I do want to see more young people and more women especially from emerging economies and marginalized communities and you wear many hats. So if you could dwell slightly more on the ISOC Ambassadors programmes and what is it that IGF as a platform is doing to bring in new voices. That's a real concern we have. Also in terms of solving problems at a local level and internationalizing experiences and institutionalizing best practices I do want to invite the house and everyone here to an open Forum that the Indian Government is putting together to tell the India story because the next billion users are coming online from these parts of the world.

So day 3 everyone is welcome, room 3, 11:00. Please do join us. Thank you, Markus.

>> My name is Wolfgang, from the University, and I want to add a question to the issue raised by the gentleman from the Dutch Foreign Ministry when he asked the panel what the Government think about equal footing. A lot of these multistakeholder discussion goes back to the definition of Internet Governance, which was elaborated by the Working Group on Internet Governance and adopted by the Heads of States.

And in the first part of the definition, we have these various roles of Government ‑‑ of stakeholders and their respective roles but in my eyes, the second part of the definition is even more important, because the second part speaks about head decision‑making procedures, shared norms, protocols and decision‑making procedures and I think Avri has raised this, when we're moving forward we have to face that somebody has to take a decision.

So my question is to the Governments when they react to the question from the gentleman from the Netherlands about equal footing, what is their idea about hearing decision‑making with other stakeholders? Thank you very much.

>> J. HOFMANN: So perhaps the Tunis Agenda also needs to be regarded as a living book, where we sort of start to reinterpret original meanings.

Shall we hand over to ‑‑

>> Jeanette maybe I can ask a question or build on some of the questions. We heard from the gentleman from Bahrain that he was asking what's the way forward, Minister Vaizey partially responded to that. Nigel from ICANN put out a question as to the evolving landscape over the next 18 months and I was wondering if the panel would mind commenting on how they see the importance of and how multistakeholderism will evolve in the context of the WSIS, the WTDC, the ITU Plenipotentiary. Thank you.

>> M. KUMMER: All right, thank you. Back to the panel with that. And I think also let's bear in mind that there will be various other sessions during this week that will relate to similar issues. Tomorrow we will have a session on the Internet Governance principles, and on principles of multistakeholder cooperation, and enhanced cooperation. We will have a session on Human Rights, and as I've already said, the session on emerging issues will be on surveillance. And the very last day we have the opportunity to, with an open microphone session, to take stock of the whole week, and these issues will be addressed in various sessions.

Who would like to go first? Shall we just follow down the line? And maybe start with Avri? She wanted to talk. Avri, please.

>> A. DORIA: Thank you. Okay, I appreciate this chance to respond to things. There were so many that I would like to respond to, but I think I'll restrict myself to very few.

But one of the things that I did want to go back to is a question that we were given on the sheet, the number 3 question in the second set, which says, can the exercise of sovereign rights by nations be restricted when it encroaches the rights of users in other jurisdictions? Or I would go, or even in the rights of users in their own jurisdictions.

And I think that one of the things that we need to look at when we're talking about Internet Governance, and the restrictions that some Governments do put on the Human Rights as expressed on the Internet. And at a certain point, when those Human Rights are restricted on the Internet, groups like this that go beyond just a single National interest need to look at those and need to look at them very directly. And need to basically not flinch away from a certain regard for those Human Rights because of a older notion of sovereignty that says on the outside of my walls, nothing I do can be discussed. Nothing I do can be faulted. So the Tunis Agenda does not restrict us, but rather puts us on an equal footing, where anything that goes on in one country is open to the discussion of the rest.

If what is going on is not in keeping with Human Rights as generally known and generally expressed, it is open to our discussion. It is open to our deliberations, and it should be open to our advice. And I think that that's a very important point for us to come back to, is that we can go beyond the narrow notion of sovereignty in the countries, because the countries have agreed to bind themselves, to make themselves responsible to Human Rights.

And I think it's our responsibility in the IGF and in all of our other efforts to always go back to those Human Rights documents that have been signed, that have been agreed to, and ask the questions: Is what a particular country is doing in keeping with their obligations? And I could go much further down those lines but I think that that is the measuring stick for any of our discussions going forward. And sort of using the cloak of sovereignty to protect actions and philosophies and motivations that go against documents we have signed is something that we really cannot accept silently.

And I guess I'll stop at that point.

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you. Jari?

>> J. ARKKO: Thanks. So again, there were many, many points, I'll just touch on two. The first one that I want to raise was this question of Governments and other types of bodies being more aware of each other. I think we all have a responsibility for making that to happen. At the IETF we've had very good success and experiences from the ISOC's policy guest programme where we draw on people around the world from various different places, regulator, Government, policy maker type people and introduce them to the IETF has been a very successful programme and thank you ISOC for that.

I think similar types of programmes, existing other organisations and I think the rest of the world could probably take some lesson here as well and where it's not applied, it's probably useful to do. The other thing that we've had good experience with at the IETF is when our leaders, when the Working Group experts go out and try to reach out to the other direction, go talk to Government and there is types of organisations and informal, what's coming down the pike and what's happening and trying to pull for information, that's also been pretty successful.

The other thing is that we all have a responsibility to engage the whole world. I mean obviously like Internet technology is ‑‑ it's not working as uniformly around the world as one might perhaps hope, so like in may country, in Finland, we have a lot of industry in this field but it's not true of all countries in Europe for instance and of the whole world so it's somewhat centralized but we have a duty to reach out to the different people working on this topic around the world, and we've been doing this by again with a programme where we pull individuals from different countries, developing nations for instance, and also going out of our way to meet in new places. We're planning a meeting in South America, for instance.

The other thing that I wanted to mention was what was raised by the Montevideo Statement and asked about the oversight roles and there's been a couple of other comments on that as well. I think Ambassador Sepulveda had it right when he said earlier that the multistakeholder system is involving, that is indeed right.

Just to give you one example at the IETF we depend very much on the IGF function to do protocol registry function, registration port numbers allocated for a particular purpose. A long time has been set up as a U.S. Government type contract organisation and run by ICANN. And after that setup, the communities, ICANN and I actually built quite a lot of machinery around these policies and processes, so we have signed agreements. We have set service level agreements. We have tooling, we have trucking systems, we have oversight bodies.

And so I think that's one example of the evolution and if there's any further evolution, I certainly hope there will be, it's probably in the form of trusting the models that have been created and moving from one country model perhaps to the models that we now have, and actually are running the thing on a daily basis.

And then finally I had ‑‑ people were asking about the way forward. So my three conclusions are basically that we need to continue connecting the people that have a need to talk to each other, the governments and various other organisations and it's a two‑way conversation. It's not Government telling someone else go do this, or the other way around. It's a two‑way conversation. We need the information from the Government, and they have a need to tell us some things as well.

Secondly, we need to continue the evolution of the different parts of the overall system for Internet Governance. And then finally, I think all of these Forums and processes and discussions, they just need to be multistakeholder, no question about it. We should not even debate the situation where it would be some party that's only in charge, and would not allow others to speak.

The Internet is for the whole world and there's many, many players that have a need to say something when things happen, and if it's not possible to discuss between those different parties then it's not really working so I see that we all actually agree on this and the multistakeholder is what we're doing. And the rest is just details. Thank you.

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you. Virat, please.

>> V. BHATIA: Thank you, Markus. I'll try and attempt two or three points that were made. First, the issue of equal footing. I'm going to draw one example here, which is the point that was made first off, which is the Government's responsibility to build infrastructure. And just illustrate how equal footing would work in that one case.

It would begin ideally with the Government realizing that this is one area where private sector investment can be brought in and that the Government funds should be diverted to areas where private sector funding would not be available, such as primary education, rural health, rural infrastructure, roads, and other areas which don't make for a good business case and will not allow for private investment.

Once that realization comes into the policy and fact there's a shortage of Government funding available then you would be expected to write policies that would allow for private investment with an appropriate level of foreign direct investment, whatever is suitable for that country. That would then be followed by writing actual legislation, laws, whatever is required to provide investor confidence, and an environment in which investors can make that investment.

Ones such steps have been taken, then it would become ‑‑ the theme would shift to the private sector, who would bring in the capital, who would bring in the infrastructure, who would start putting out the switches, the fiber, start the spectrum and the process would begin. The Government would be required to build up a, let's say an independent regulator so that such capacity would be available and you could start removing some of the important functions out of Government which would be traditionally operated by the Telecom Sector.

At this time, the Civil Society would have an important role because they would determine and help the Government with which of the areas are underserved. Are there business cases that are not working in broadband connectivity for rural parts of a specific country? What kind of programmes can be rolled out on education, on e‑Health, on basic grassroots level empowerment using the infrastructure that the private sector hopefully builds out.

The technical communities would come in with their role which is: How can we stretch the spectrum to the maximum? What are the new innovations that are possible on the side of technology that will help empower people, women, the underprivileged? This will also have a role for the academia, a very important role, which is in many cases lead committees which will have these discussions. Write out papers which would project what the future of the investment should be. Put out case studies of what worked and what didn't work in the past. Do research across the world and provide information in the infrastructure building process of what's happened.

So we can go on and on but you can see that each of the multistakeholder participants that has been identified under the Tunis Agenda actually has a role in equal footing under just one piece, which is building infrastructure. You could then take this to the four other pieces that were mentioned ‑‑ legal framework, defending free speech et cetera, and we can go on.

But I think the youth for example, you would think what would they do? So they're the consumers of tomorrow. They are telling you what kind of services they need. What kind of educational and knowledge related capacity is required in the network to stretch the network to help meet the needs of the 21st century. So this is just one example of equal footing as we see it from the private sector.

It doesn't stop the role from the Government from beginning to the end. It doesn't stop the roles for the private sector from the beginning to the end and all the roles keep evolving but everybody does what they're supposed to do to bring this infrastructure puzzle buildout. Let's remind ourselves that 2.7 billion people across the world or approximately 40% of the world population, is online today.

Only 16% of the Asian population that continental we are currently in and hold this IGF after, is online. So there's a long way to go. On where we go from here, that's what our objectives are. That's what our sort of plans would have to be.

I also want to bring in a little bit about what the Governments can do to strengthen the multistakeholder processes. I think that there are fellowships being offered I'm not sure what the numbers are for young people to travel to events like this. I think it's two international events and two domestic events related to Internet Governance. I can be corrected. There are several people involved with that so they're instituting fellowships based on Government and private sector funding that are sitting there to expose more people to this entire dialogue that is currently on.

It's an excellent programme. People have traveled on that programme to this IGF and will to the future IGFs.

Then there are areas of new technology. For example the one piece we haven't built a lot on is mobile Internet so far as a discussion or M2M which is a huge area of discussion and buildup so I think that's something that the Governments are now opening up.

I'll just close by saying that for 2014 and '15 are crucial years. Let's just keep our hearts and minds open. Let's not decide too early on which way to go. I think this will evolve if we lend ourselves to this open consultative process of this kind and all the other meetings that have been mentioned that will occur during 2014. Thank you.

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you. Ambassador?

>> D. SEPULVEDA: Thank you, Sir. I don't want to take up too much time so we can return to the audience and our colleagues can finish speaking. I want to make one point however about the WSIS process. We are now looking at a WSIS+10 review. We're in the process of conducting a holistic review of seeing where the action lines, where we are relative to action lines as an international community, and I think two things need to happen. One, we need to finish that review. We need to assess if there's further work that needs to be done on the existing action lines, and then we need to assess how we can move forward to ensure that we achieve the completion of those tasks that have already been set before us.

I think it would be both premature in the sense that the 10 years have not been completed, neither has the review, to talk about either conducting some sort of new WSIS or instituting some sort of new action lines. We're not yet ‑‑ that is not a discussion that is ripe in our minds, but again, if there are others with different points of view, we would welcome hearing those, but we will be having that discussion over the next year.

>> M. KUMMER: There will also be the question of the extension of the IGF mandate and I hope the mandate will be extended because I feel we do need this kind of platform. Shall we go to the end of the table, Ambassador Fonseca?

>> B. FONSECA FILHO: Thank you. I would, as a final comment, reiterate that Brazil sees the multistakeholder model and IGF which is maybe the best expression of the multistakeholder model at the international arena is a very important place that serves as a meeting point for ideas, for contacts among different stakeholders and for cross‑fertilization of ideas and efforts. We are convinced that the quality of decisions and the legitimacy of initiatives is further reinforced to the extent that stakeholders engage Government, Civil Society, private sectors, all the stakeholders as recognized by the Tunis Agenda.

So we value the multistakeholder format, IGF and indeed Brazil has put forward its contingency to host IGF in 2015. I was thinking that I would like to propose an acronym for this exercise and I would suggest ICT, in which I would stand for "information." It's important and it has been highlighted by some parties, important that each stakeholder, each group of stakeholders, will be apprised of what others are doing, and this is maybe a starting point for the second letter of the acronym which is C, that is for "cooperation," to identify opportunities for cooperation and to make sure that all the concerns are addressed within this context.

And the final letter would stand for "trust." This exercise can only hold if there is trust, if there is mutual recognition and mutual acceptance of stakeholders. On the part of Governments, on the part of other stakeholders, it implies a change in cultures. We must recognize there are different cultures. Government usually manage things in a certain way. Civil Society has also a way of dealing, so we are talking about a collective endeavor, so it requires new ways of thinking, new creative ways of thinking.

And in that sense, this session that focus on the Role of Governments, we are very pleased to be part of the discussion. We think we had a very high‑level discussion, and from the perspective of Government it is sometimes even strange to see people say, oh, we don't think there's any role but I'm glad to see that this is evolving and it was acknowledged by participants even from the panel.

Since from the point of view of Government some roles have a clear demand for Government action, I would give two examples. In Brazil we have as you know an area that accounts for roughly half of the country in the Amazon, so it requires clearly a Government in cooperation about other stakeholders but it requires policy to be ‑‑ to address the situation in which we can make sure that the Amazon is connected, that remote communities are connected. This is something that will not be dealt with uniquely by the private sector, the Civil Society, so the Government has a clear role in that.

And if we can also think in areas like defense, it's also a clear area for Government in regard to cybersecurity. So I think the beauty of the exercise is this: To identify areas in which working the multistakeholder model, the mix and the intensity of cooperation will defer, and this should be acknowledged by Government, but also acknowledged by the other parties.

I would also briefly refer to the Summit that will be held in Brazil, and I want also to take note of the concern of other parties in regard on how this would relate to existing processes and I just want to make it clear that Brazil is respectful of the existing processes. Actually we have been active participants in all those processes, and we certainly would not like our event in Brazil to compete or to overlap with any of these important meetings taking place. The Sharm el Sheikh meeting of course is a very important process.

The CSTD meeting that we'll receive the report from the Working Group on enhanced cooperation is also a very important process, so we think this should be as we plan for our event we make sure these will not be touched upon. But referring to all these processes, in our view, there is a clear need for a high‑level review event, stand alone event either in 2015 or late 2014 to collect all those inputs that are being generated. The Sharm el Sheikh meeting will produce some very interesting outputs as Ambassador Sepulveda was saying but also the Working Group on enhanced cooperation, we expect it also to produce some very important ideas.

We have been discussing on the meaning of equal footing, what are the areas that Governments should engage into this? So I think the enhanced cooperation will provide some ideas on how to proceed in that, and this will take place later on.

Our meeting will take place later on and there are many important inputs being produced so we clearly see the need for a high‑level multistakeholder event that will collect those inputs and make some decisions, we are not envisioning to reinterpret it or to redraft the Tunis Agenda. We don't think this is a good way or wise way to proceed but we think that adjustments or some decisions taken by an authoritative body, multistakeholder body, might be necessary as a result.

I think it would be a pity if we lose the opportunity as we complete 10 years of the Tunis Summit not to engage in an in‑depth exercise that would go beyond more bureaucratic review of action lines so this is the position we are taking this.

And finally just to thank you and our partners and colleagues in the table for a very high‑level discussion for very active participation. Thank you very much.

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you. Minister Vaizey?

>> E. VAIZEY: Thank you very much, Chairman. I had the first word and now you've given me the last word. We have 3 minutes left of this session, so I will be brief.

I think the IGF needs to raise its presence. The speaker from the floor who started off the last round of questions made I think a very valid point that a lot of countries do think ‑‑ have a sort of default position of thinking about the ITU. The ITU has been around a lot longer than the IGF so it's important that we think about how we promote the IGF's activities around the world and that's something the U.K. Government wants to participate in. And it's very important.

And it's also I think important that at the end of IGF Summit's not necessarily policy proposals but some sense of the mood, consensus, the themes emerges, that people can take away from the IGF. So I think there is work to be done there.

But we supported some of the changes to this year's IGF, which have made it the best ever. So it continues to evolve and continues to play obviously an absolutely vital role in Internet Governance discussions.

I very much support what Nigel Hickson said about the globalization of ICANN. I think that's a very important steps being taken by ICANN to have a presence around the world. So the people ‑‑ it's always been the case with ICANN but again it's a perception issue. It's very important that all countries feel that ICANN is there for them, that they can have a role in participating and have a dialogue with ICANN and I think physically moving ICANN around the world is one way of doing that so I think that's very important.

I got slightly lost on the questions about whether Government was on an equal footing with Civil Society or business. I couldn't quite understand the point people were trying to make and I suppose that goes back to ‑‑ swings around in my last 30 seconds ‑‑ to the WSIS review. WSIS+10. In may view if it isn't broken don't fix it. It seems to be working pretty well. Clearly there will be an analysis of where we are, 10 years from Tunis.

But broadly speaking as I say again and I sound like a cracked record, this multistakeholder model, this participatory model of Government, business and Civil Society without people analyzing whether we're on an equal footing or not over overanalyzing whether we're on an equal footing works very well. It works extremely well for the U.K. It works very well for many nations for whom the Internet is becoming fundamental to their economy and the functions of their society and it will serve well other nations, developing nations, as they come on stream.

And that for me is where we are, but as well, I think the focus now has to turn to developing nations and to the billions that are going to come online in the next few years which is why I very much hope that everyone will be at the Indian Government's reception on Thursday at 11:00 to hear about their experiences because that is the next great challenge to absorb the next billion or 2 billion who are going to come online and change the Internet once again. Thank you very much.

>> M. KUMMER: Thank you. And I would like to thank all the panelists as one speaker from the floor said, we had an excellent discussion that heralds a significant tomorrow.

I think we really reached a large areas of convergence in our discussions and I take a very strong notion of partnership among all stakeholders of trust and partnership, and clearly also convergence that we do need to increase a meaningful participation of developing countries in all the Internet Governance arrangements.

I think it's the first time if I'm not mistaken Ministers engaged in a panel of 3 hours. Civil servants fear sometimes Ministers don't have the chance. Thank you for that.

>> E. VAIZEY: My civil servants know my concentration levels. It was interesting.

>> M. KUMMER: I would like to thank our remote moderators and remote moderators and I'd like to join me in giving a hand to all the panelists. It was really a good panel.

[ Applause ]

The meeting is adjourned and we'll be all here this afternoon, 2:30, for the Opening Ceremony and the opening session.

[ End of session ]

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