FINISHED TRANSCRIPT
NINTH INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
"CONNECTING CONTINENTS FOR ENHANCED
MULTI‑STAKEHOLDER INTERNET GOVERNANCE"
2014 SEPTEMBER 4
0930
EVOLUTION OF THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE ECOSYSTEM AND THE FUTURE OF THE IGF
MAIN ROOM
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The following is the output of the real‑time captioning taken during the IGF 2014 Istanbul, Turkey meetings. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> IHSAN DURDU: Excellency, ladies and gentlemen, good morning. My name is Ihsan Durdu. I will be chairing the session today. Once again, as the host of IGF 2014, I would welcome you all to this beautiful historical city of Istanbul. I see some familiar faces here. Regardless, I hope you all have memorable times and enjoyable stay here in Turkey. Thank you for your attendance.
Special thanks again for Subi and Marilyn for organising this session.
Now we will resume the meeting. I open the session on the Evolution of the Internet Ecosystem and the role of the IGF. This session will have two subsessions with several speakers. I will use the town‑hall approach in the format in engagement with participants in the room, as well as remote participants joining us online.
The first session will ask senior leaders from several organisations in the Internet Governance ecosystem how the ecosystem is evolving, what issues and external factors are, and the key activities are driving the process, progress, as well as coping with existing and future challenges.
The focus will include several global processes, initiatives such as NETmundial, CSTD working group on Enhanced Cooperation UN CSTD, WSIS+10 review, ITU, ICANN, UNESCO, UNGA, resolution on WSIS, review of modalities, and etc. All these will inspire the dialogue and engagement of the participants in the room and online.
The second segment will open with statements from admired speakers on implications of the first segment discussions towards the broader Internet Governance ecosystem, inclusiveness of all stakeholders, and for the IGF itself.
Among all other questions, the session will ask what are the key issues, problems, and challenges that organisations within the Internet Governance ecosystem are facing today; how IGF and other related processes might be able to address them so that multi‑stakeholder model that we all believe in can move forward, bring out the desired outcomes.
Just my personal observation, high level and high number participation IGF 2014 Istanbul shows that. IGF is live and moving forward. The support is there. And so much is expected from the inclusive process. Today we have a number of well‑respected experts and high‑level officers with us here to share their thoughts, contributions, and their input. This session will be an interactive discussion session. I hope everyone here and participating remotely will have a chance to contribute to this very important thought‑sharing session.
Now I would like to introduce the moderators. Jovan Kubalija from DiploFoundation and Nermine el‑Saadany from Egyptian government. We also have remote moderator, Miss Samantha, who will introduce questions from our remote participants.
Jovan and Nermine, now you have the floor.
(Applause)
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you. Good morning, everybody, distinguished panelists, good friends, colleagues. We really, really are honoured to be in Istanbul and I think that we can say that the venue of the IGF reflects the current phase of the IGF. Istanbul is a place of rich historical heritage. We have been hearing that it is a bridge between ‑‑ a real bridge not only between continents, but between new and old, between modality and tradition. And that metaphor of the bridge has been inspiring a lot of our discussions so far. And I'm sure that while you were walking by bus or lovely parts of the city, you got some sort of energy through social osmosis, and it inspires us also to try to create more bridges in the field of Internet Governance. Bridges should cover some digital divides, old ones and the emerging and the strength in the space of the Internet Governance.
This is one metaphor that is important to inspire our discussion, metaphor of the bridge. The other one is metaphor of the building. And I don't know if you can see the old building. Well, this was the building which was created in 2004 to explain the Internet Governance field. We have five floors. As you can see, it wasn't perfect building. It was building under construction. It is still building under construction. And while we are discussing the future of the ecosystem, Internet Governance ecosystem, we may think about also this metaphor of the building. What should we build? Should it be bazaar, like Istanbul? Should it be shopping centre? Should it be door or many doors? Should it have elevators? How far will the elevators be? There are many, many issues that we can develop around this metaphor of the building under construction.
What we probably should aim in our discussion and our efforts to improve Internet Governance field, we should aim at perfection. We should try to make ideal space, ideal building. But we should be modest and realistic about limitations to build the perfect building. And while we should be aiming at perfection, we shouldn't be disappointed if our future IG building won't be as perfect as we planned.
This is some sort of metaphoric introduction to our discussion. Two metaphors: the bridge and the building, building under construction, inspired by this lovely, lovely city.
Now I would like to invite an introduction to our session and the main topics that we'll discussion. Nermine.
>> NERMINE EL‑SAADANY: Good morning, everyone. And thank you also for that introduction and for the metaphor. Pleasure to be your facilitator today discussing among key experts. Is it okay? The voice is okay?
I will share with you some housekeeping sessions today. The session will last for three hours and we'll have a sort of 30‑second break where Jovan will introduce something that might be of interest to you. The session is expected to be as interactive as possible and we will pose some of the questions and seek some of your views and reflections on the discussions and interventions that will be flowing around the floor.
As we have mentioned, we have a town‑hall discussion and we will discussing, actually, two very important issues. We will be discussing, as Jovan has mentioned, the Internet Governance new architecture or the ecosystem evolving around the Internet Governance. This is very important, and we've been listening to intense discussions for the last year or so how to involve the Internet Governance at large and what possible solutions and scenarios that can pave the way for more fruit for discussions and forward.
There will be a very important issue as well, the enhancing of the Internet Governance per se. The Internet Governance reaches its 9th year. Next year there will be a decision by the UNGA in New York to renew this forum. Of course, as an active participant here in Istanbul IGF, we would like to see it renewed. We would like to see it as well as a forum that's possible. So we will be dividing that discussion within the two segments, between those two areas and without. Further ado, maybe Jovan, you can discuss that discussion.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you, Nermine. We will start with the ecosystem which sometimes is quite an interesting confusion on the ecosystem question. We based the Geneva platform in the world organisation the famous international panel on climate change. Those people are dealing with natural ecosystem. In one of the discussions with one of the leading scientists, he got interested in our views of the notion of IG ecosystem. I tried with my best efforts to explain to him, but he has been asking some scientific questions and trying to increase the precision in the meaning of the ecosystem.
And I need the help when I return next week to Geneva to explain to him exactly what the IG ecosystem is. And we don't have a better person to help me in this exercise than Vint Cerf. The challenge is to explain it in two minutes.
>> Vint Cerf: I'm going to try. First of all, let me stay that the building model feels to me as if it is too rigid of a metaphor.
>> You have to keep your headphones far away from the mic.
>> Vint Cerf: How about that? Maybe I could go to the other end of the room.
First of all, the Internet ecosystem, not just governance, the Internet ecosystem consists of all the interested and affected parties, both natural and artificial, institutions and individuals. Second, it's a loosely coupled system. And that's very important. The relationship among the parties needs to be flexible. It's a multi‑stakeholder ecosystem. Is that not working?
>> Would you get closer to the mic?
>> Vint Cerf: How is this? Is that better?
>> Jovan Kubalija: Much better.
>> Vint Cerf: I hope I'm not going to be docked my two minutes for that.
This is an evolving system. New institutions and new artifacts in the Internet environment are created at need. There are new and evolving practices for governance. So, for example, in the earliest days, the advance research projects agency ran this whole programme. Then the natural science foundation, this is in the U.S., NASA, the Department of Commerce, NTIA, all this is an evolving system of governance. And then on the technical side, the Internet architecture board, the root servers, the EITF, IANA, the register industries and the number of resource organisations in ICANN, these are systems and entities in the government system that created that need.
There are direct and documented interaction practices among these various parties in the ecosystem. There are indirect and informal processes and practices. The IGF is one of those relatively informal processes, for example.
There is an expanding interest to WSIS to WGIG, to the expanding regional and national Internet Governance forums, which spring up like flowers after a spring rain. In ICANN there were several panels that were commissioned to speak to this. One of them was about the Internet Governance ecosystem in particular, and we said that that ecosystem exhibited a set of principles about which many, many differently organisations and individuals have spoken. The NETmundial codified many of those principles.
The same ecosystem also had the possibility of documenting relationships among the various parties, a web of relations, a web of commitments among these interacting governance elements. I thought if I could finish very quickly, speaking for the numbers resource organisations and the other Internet register industries in terms of challenges that face us in this ecosystem, one of them is the run‑out for the IP version for Internet space and all the policies that have to be invented in order to cope with that run‑out. And the second one is the long and almost interminable introduction of IPv6, which is going to be as essential as the Internet of Things is upon us.
Mr. Moderator, I will stop there and hope that it's been a helpful contribution.
>> JOVAN KUBALIJA: Thank you. You have always been very active in the Internet Governance platform. Yourself has been very active player as well and we see you even on social media and so on and so forth. Could you please share with us your views on the key issues and challenges that the Internet Governance ecosystem now faces and how can we enhance the way forward.
>> MERVI KULTAMAA: Thank you for the opportunity. And I couldn't agree more. It is a fascinating audience. I did it a lot of time to enjoy the city, but I enjoy all the inspiring people that are gathered herein. Having said that and asking your question, it is of that we are speeding up the technology and the interest of a lot of people is tremendous. So we can't afford to go on and on in bilaterals and Congresses and gatherings like this and talking again about processes.
Now, we need to deliver in the implementation. And that's not an easy one. Not at all, but I still think that the IGF sort of main importance because it is a globally recognizable institution, and that we can't blame when it's not functioning hundred percent as we are dreaming of, then we have to take a couple of decisions, so to say.
I care about multi‑stakeholder system. That, for me, is the right model, but if you care about it, then you want it to work, and that is where we have to communicate also to the outside world that we are aware of that and that we will deliver. You want it to be effective so it's not one of those hobby horses that's fascinating and nice to be involved with, you have to get it in a credible form. You need to stick to the openness and the transparency and accountability transparency and inclusiveness. For me, inclusiveness is also serving another issue, for we are all worried about our economic development and that still so many people are not joining the economic development. This is an opportunity and instrument where we can just get it.
So on one hand, public societies have a role to play. It's not black and white. It is multi‑stakeholder formula, but we still have to involve governments. Therefore, I'm a strong believer in the IGF. And we have to fulfill our roles. We have to uphold human rights, and I want to repeat that also in this country, and you can't keep me out of that. We need to be aware that human rights are extremely important and that it is connected with open Internet. Of course, also I am aware that with systems of an open Internet, it's not only all positiveness, but we have to act also in a decent way that it is getting human rights in the centre and the rule of law, of course.
On the other, we can't lose the private sector. We can't lose private sector leadership that has given us so much about in which talking about openness. Therefore, I am impressed, and yesterday during this session the Developing Countries were proving that they are extremely active and that they are very creative. So now a majority of Internet users are in Developing Countries, so be aware that there's so much talent at stake. And it needs more participants and needs more representation. Also that, for me, is one of those lines talking about the IGF.
We need to achieve all those things without fragmenting the global Internet. It is a global instrument, and that is the strength. Let's keep it like that, but also take into account that transportation would be the end of a successful story.
So not an easy one. No doubt about that. Many options, and that could be attractive, and that could also stimulate discussions. But we can go on with discussions and discussions and not come to a real conclusion.
Just finalizing, the IGF has successfully brought together different stakeholders and different stakeholders in that discussion fora. It is an open and frank and operational and intersessional discussion. No platform or whatever body you are thinking of can grow and develop properly if it has to renegotiate every time a body of existence. We should take responsibility on that, too, that anyhow, the responsibility is at stake and that we take this issues that indeed the UN hopefully can act accordingly and create some stability to this fora. But the IGF needs to show its connect. Therefore, I think a couple of issues are at stake. Multi‑stakeholder formula, yes. Involvement of governments, yes. Having an opportunity to create the possibility for the IGF to act and not every time being concerned, and then we can just push it in the right direction.
Thanks.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you for reminding us of the constant and consistent position on the question of IGF as a key place for discussion on Internet Governance globally, and also bringing an interesting metaphor that we don't need ‑‑ although we deal with digital world, we don't need black and white solutions or ones and zeros. We need analog solutions that reflect the modern society.
Once more, we are honoured to have with us today Mr. Sharma, Secretary of the Ministry of Communication and IT of India. We know that India is one of the key players in the global Internet Governance with very vibrant society. The ministry, we would like to hear from you. What do you feel are the main challenges and opportunities for the fora of Internet Governance. Thank you.
>>R.S. Sharma: Thank you very much, Excellencies, friends here this morning. Taking on from the last speaker where you said it was not black and white, it's actually gray. So there are many shades in which, actually, you know, giving labels to these things creates a lot of problems. So I think we should surmise that Internet is not some kind of one issue. There are many layers to this and these layers will have to be dealt with differently for different layers to require different kind of expertise, different kind of interventions.
Internet Governance deals with a large number of issues: Systems and processes ranging from issues such as coordination of names, numbers, protocol parameters, to issues such as multilingualism and of course infrastructure. There is no doubt that Internet Governance mechanism require the involvement of all the stakeholders, since the evolution of Internet has been a product of many different diverse groups working together in a loosely coordinated manner.
Currently institutions such as ICANN, ISOC, IETF, and the worldwide consortium and involving new systems to address the modern issues required to dispassionate determination are best to deal with the particular issue, and have the highest amount of expertise and responsibility when it comes. And this may be the governments, the technical community, the private sector, or the Civil Society, as the case may be, or a combination of each of these in any particular issue.
No technical issue is devoid of policy implications, and likewise, no Internet policy can be framed without a deeper understanding of the technical issues of the underlying infrastructure. In India, on the first India IGF forum, the India IGF will serve as a platform for sharing knowledge, experiences, and expertise including legal, economic, and technical inputs for developing a long‑term vision for the future of the Internet.
We hope that the discussion at the India IGF will directly feed into both the globalized IGF as government‑making process in India.
We should consider strengthening the role of the IGF, and as India has emphasized in our submission to the working group on improvement to the IGF. The IGF may serve as a clearinghouse for public policy issues related to the Internet. This would inform and help in development of the best practices on development issues, which may be taken into further consideration of developing shared principles, norms, rules, while formulating domestic laws and policies.
India proposes to participate in a global platform in area of security, and WOTC. It should aim to have best practices on these and continue strengthening such organisations with design aspects suited to other Developing Countries.
This would be an effective way of addressing present and the future challenges and respect of Internet Governance and help with the open and seamless nature of the Internet in innovation and its process of organic development.
The spirit of Enhanced Cooperation has been used to ensure that existing systems are adapted where required to meet the future challenges.
Thank you very much.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Sharma, for developing further this method for introducing Neelie Kroes on the gray scale of Internet Governance. The best is U.S. coordinator for international communication, Ambassador Daniel Sepulveda.
Daniel, I would like to ask you to elaborate on this gray scale spectrum. What do you see as the main challenge and possible solution? What are probably the darker parts of the gray scale spectrum in both positive and negative way as a challenge as a possible solution. Go ahead.
>> Daniel Sepulveda: Thank you very much for having me. I'm thrilled to see how engaged everyone is and how large this particular crowd is. I look around this particular table and I see a lot of colleagues and a lot of friends. And I think that this is a joint and community effort at improving our Internet Governance processes and ecosystem.
During last year's IGF there was a palpable sense of a community that was on the move, diverse group of individuals and institutions with a desire to take this experiment. And the global Internet Governance system is an experiment in governance to the next level. It was somewhat tense, but that tension was a reflection of our coming to terms as a community with the knowledge that it was time for some degree of change. And change has come. Most of it for the better.
Our consensus at NETmundial, to which we have to give an immense amount of credit to the host country of Brazil, as well as our friends in the community that helped organise that event, as well as the IANA, transition mark a pivotal movement. Global stakeholders can unite on equal footing in order to preserve and progress the promise of the Internet.
Now, at this IGF I sense a release of creative determination, a determination to improve, preserve, and strengthen this forum for the good of the community and a determination to build on the legacy that we have inherited. And for me, from our perspective, that legacy of an open system established by Mr. Cerf and Bob Crocker, legends in this community, we have to treat it with humility and respect, and at the same time recognize that as the network broadens and reaches the billions of people in the world, that they not only will want to, but have a right to participate in its governance and future.
So I think the rest of this conversation will be largely about how we can build on what's been achieved over the last year and did not to make this system dramatically more participating.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: We have been listening to government perspective on Internet Governance and evolving ecosystem. I would say that we need to keep the Internet open, transparent, inclusive with the more inclusion from the public as well as the private and Civil Society, and more importantly to keep it not fragmented. I would like to defer to you, Kathy, as a representative of a very active organisation, ISOC, and ask you how do you see this and how do you see to maintain these principles, if I may, and keep it not fragmented.
>> Kathy Brown: Thank you. And thank you also for having the Internet Society be here and so active in this forum. We consider one of the most essential parts of the ecosystem that Vint just talked about. It's about discussing ideas and quickly moving to wanting, as Neelie keeps telling us, to implement.
I want to say a couple things about this idea of "governance." First of all, the word worries me. It is too close to the word "government." We're not here trying to set up some other house, although I understand the effort here. We're here to talk about how we govern ourselves on the Internet. And so I want to just think about that as to what it is we're trying to first achieve. Then I have some thoughts about how we do it.
I think it's always necessary to reflect back on the essential nature of the Internet. Why do we care so much about this thing? Because it is one of the most innovative inventions, we call it a technology, but, of course, it's far beyond that, that humankind has ever endeavored.
While there were original inventors, it was small computers that were connected in a way never before seen. It is scaled to what we now see to a multinational, no transglobal communication and connecting kind of technology. What are its principles? It has a global reach. Any end can reach any other end. And that is an amazing part of this nature all by itself. But it is also good for general purposes. The Internet allows all kinds of things to happen on it. Thus, those gray areas about how we govern ourselves with any particular purpose we choose to use the Internet for.
Next, it supports innovation by anyone anywhere in a permissionless way. It does not require someone to go to an authority to ask that one can invent and to innovate upon it, which is why it has grown the way it has.
Finally, it is accessible. Anyone can connect. Anyone can connect; thus, when we talk about governing, I think there is a first principle that we must keep in mind, and that I get concerned about when I hear sort of how we're building new structures. The first principle is, "Don't break it. Don't break it."
We have to make sure that this Internet keeps evolving and growing and that the next, as I've said all week, unborn innovator gets the opportunity to use this great invention of mankind.
Second thing: It is distributed. This is a distributed ecosystem because of the nature of the Internet itself, the problems that arise are distributed. Thus, the governance of those problems, of those issues, of those things we think we need to solve are indeed distributed. No one authority can decide all of that.
Next, it must be everywhere. So anything we do must preserve the ability for it to grow to everyone. Any governance, ideas, or structures we have must ensure that we can extend the Internet to where it is not. Two‑thirds of the world are yet to be connected.
Finally, it's multi‑stakeholder. What do we mean by that? Because of the very nature of the Internet and how it is used, there are many interests. Because we have many uses, there are many interests. There are the interests, of course, of the technical community that keeps on innovating. But, of course, there's the interest of the medical profession, of folks who use the Internet for all kinds of other reasons, education, business, finance. Many stakeholders involved.
So how, then, do we govern ourselves? We govern ourselves in distributed kinds of systems that allow folks to actually contribute. So I'll stop there, but I think I wanted to make sure we laid groundwork for the rest of the conversation.
Thank you.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you. Thank you, Kathy, for providing us and reminding us of the core principles and values of the Internet space and nicely wrapping up the first part of our discussion.
We are now moving to exploration and discussion on the concrete processes and experiences in attempts to facilitate this evolution of Internet Governance space. We have around the table people who spend hours, days, and if not months in discussing evolution of Internet Governance. We'll try to harvest their experience, the experience in this field.
While I'm introducing this, I would like to remind you that on the IGF website there is very useful summary of the different activities, processes, decisions made by the organisation in the IG ecosystem. Please visit the website and consult this valuable source. Our next speaker is Ambassador Benedicto Fonseca Filho from Brazil. Benedicto was involved in the preparation of NETmundial, a very successful event in April of this year.
The floor is yours.
>> Benedicto Fonseca Filho: Thank you, Jovan. I should start by saying in reference to the discussion we just had that in our view, my personal view, the challenge that lies ahead of us is very much the one we were facing ten years ago in WSIS, how to make sure that in that constellation of actors, fora by Vint Cerf, how to make sure that the various elements of this ecosystem we have can relate in a way that we'll involve along the lines we have been, promoting in the multi‑stakeholder inclusive transparent way, taking into account different roles and responsibilities of different stakeholders. So we are talking about the different formats, different issues. One major element that in my opinion is badly needed to be tackled is how to make the different processes and fora interact more and profit more from each other.
I think the multi‑stakeholder way of doing things and processes in IGF embodies this and should seek ways to engage with the processes. From the multi‑stakeholder perspective, bring a contribution in the overall Internet Governance ecosystem by trying to identify principles, actions, interventions that are needed to improve Internet Governance.
Then we were taking a very broad view, referring, of course, to the role of IGF that in all these constellation has certainly a very specific, very important role that is to provide for the discussion of every issue. Nothing is off limits to be discussed at IGF. And I think as a result of the discussion we have at IGF, all those processes can benefit. Therefore, it was an honour for us. We are proud to have partnered with the international community, not as government, but as members of the Brazilian Steering Committee, which was on the Brazilian side on the other side of NETmundial in order to bring that contribution.
Again, I think the challenge is how to make sure this ecosystem as a whole will improve and be seen by all stakeholders as providing avenues for corporations for solutions in a way that we'll address everyone's concerns. And the solution, of course, is to try and explore mechanisms for this to happen. We have been exploring a few ideas in the context of conversations we have had. And we'll be ready to explore.
I think one thing that is badly needed is to bring the outcomes of IGF to fora that normally composed primarily of people that do not normally come here. I think an effort is needed in New York to make sure that people that are there will see what they do in aggregating to the discussions, the inputs that emanate from IGF discussions.
Thank you so much.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you so much. Remind me to allow you all that we have a clock, two minutes for each speaker. I hope you don't hate me for that. I'm eager to listen to all interventions as we can, but let's take for the beginning to the two minutes clock so we can listen to all your interventions.
I will refer back to you now, and I will say that you've been very active in the NCI of ICANN. You inspired us all how you were able to present your point. I would love to listen to your views and the challenges and the opportunities that these challenges provide us as well within the ID platform.
Thank you.
>> Fadi Chehade: Thank you, Nermine. Good morning to all of you. I think I see two challenges ahead of us. The first is to take our knowledge and our expertise and our passion about this Internet and how we govern it to other communities so that we can engage the broader public in how we govern our Internet. Industries are going to be very critical in this discussion. The Internet now permeates all industries, all walks of life, all societies. While we are 3,000 people in Istanbul, there are billions of people out there in many organisations that are still not at the table. But they need us and they need us to reach out to them.
So the first challenge we have is to engage all of them. And the Internet of Things makes that challenge critical. If we do not appreciate that the Internet will imbue every aspect of society and industry in politics, and we do not engage those responsible in all these areas in this dialogue we have a problem.
The second challenge we have is to evolve Internet Governance just like the Internet Governance itself, with permissionless innovation. Just like we want the Internet to be a place for permissionless innovation, we should allow permissionless Internet Governance. We should allow everyone to participate in this debate, and I think it's two ways. We first should inform them and then when they're here, we should engage them. These are big challenges.
Thank you.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you, Fadi.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you, Fadi, for outlining the two main challenges. Our next speaker is Alan Markus. Alan, we would like to hear from you how do you see the developments in broader ecosystem, especially through the interview of the new NETmundial initiative.
Thank you.
>> Alan Markus: Thank you, Jovan.
So first I want to thank everyone here on this panel, because I am quite humbled by the stature that you all represent. I'm not equal in terms of expertise in this particular area. But I am an observer, and I certainly am observing quite a bit about the IGF, about NETmundial and other fora that are speaking on these issues. What I'm hearing, and where I think we can be helpful and supportive as we learn, is the opportunity to contribute to the broader international effort, particularly focus on advancing a multi‑stakeholder Internet Governance. We heard that. We heard that from NETmundial. We hear that here. So we're looking at this as our opportunity to contribute in this fashion.
In fact, we have two very, very specific contributions that we think could be helpful and where we need to learn from this process on the best way to accomplish them. And to an earlier speaker, a better way to bring these processes together.
First is that recognition that these issues now are much broader than just the Internet space. There are industries and sectors and communities that are not part of this discussion today that very much need to be a part.
How do we get them? We don't just go to them and say let's talk about Internet Governance. They look at you like you're speaking some other language. So finding a way to community and leveraging our communities to do so.
Second, a platform that will galvanize support for a specific delivery on some of these solutions that are already being defined here on the IGF and places like NETmundial so with those two opportunities, I think we could make a very positive contribution in advancing this multi‑stakeholder governance place.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thanks, Alan. As we all know, parliamentarians have been very active here in the IGF and throughout the years. And I would love to listen to your perspective about the role of the parliament.
>> RAFAT TRZASKOWSKI: I used to be a parliamentarian, but now I'm a Minister of Digitization of Poland. So I'm going to give you my governmental perspective right now. First of all, if you want to keep the Internet as it is, unfragmented, and open, my greatest plea to you is do not take multi‑stakeholder for granted, because there are quite a lot of governments who want to tell you what to do. I can tell you there are quite a lot of worse governmental representatives than myself. Always think about it, because we talk about multi‑stakeholder approach, but it can never be guaranteed. Most importantly, we have to think about quality of two‑way communication, because it gives us engagement that is for sure. But the question is whether it will guarantee quality of two‑way communication. We have our own share of experiences in Poland when people were demonstrating on the streets against ACTA. We are consulting that for quite a long time, but we've learned from that moment on that it is all about the quality of consultation and interaction, that we have to be open and engage the people when we actually make certain decisions. That's why we've decided to create the Digitalization Council in Poland, sort of the Polish IGF. Not only engage people, but try to listen to them and try to feed into the political process. And I think that this is really important, because one thing is to be open.
One thing is to engage, and another thing is to try to feed into the political process of actually making decisions. And this is the most important thing that we have to actually work on, to have that link with the policy process through recommendations. But also when we are actually making laws on international level, we have to have, excuse me for using Marxist terminology, a terminology "transition belt" into actual making those decisions. Because it's all good that we actually discuss things, but then sometimes that's the end of it. And I think this is the greatest threat that can be posed to the whole process. Because if it stops there, who is going to intervene? The governments will intervene. It will be very interesting and engaging, but there will be nothing come out of it, nothing coming out of it. So that's why the link to the policy process is the thing that now we have to focus on and start working on.
Thanks.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you, Minister, for an enriching perspective about the multi‑stakeholder processes with the recent history in Poland. Thank you once more.
I will introduce our next speaker in slightly novel way. I will ask you the following question: How many of you have read or aware of the blog of Professor Milton Mueller? Could you raise your hands?
Okay. Great. Great. Milton, you have a great following in the room, and a well‑deserved following in the room. Milton Mueller is the professor at the University of Syracuse. Please give us two minutes. I know it will be a difficult reflection of the discussion.
>> Milton Mueller: I'm a two‑minute man. So use my two cents in two minutes. I see three key challenges: Globalization, the IANA transition, and cybersecurity, which includes surveillance.
Now, with respect to globalization, there's a lot of talk about fragmentation. But it's not really technical fragmentation, it's the way the Internet fosters a global communication and a globally integrated market for information services. This globalization triggers serious geopolitics as specific nation states seek to protect themselves from it, both for political and economic reasons.
One of the big problems is a tendency of certain states and economic group to equate a global information space with the political homogeny, which is the United States. The Snowden revolution revelations support this to further globalize our approach to privacy rights. When it comes to surveillance, is it feasible to encroach the rights of foreigners anymore? On to the IANA transition, it's very important to do this and to do it right. At stake is not only the accountability of ICANN, but the credibility and long‑term sustainability of the nongovernmental model of Internet Governance. We need to denationalize ICANN and the mechanisms that are not reliant on a single government or intergovernmental agency.
Finally, for cybersecurity, I'm talking both in the civilian and military sense, we have to cope with the dangers of militarization, even among more liberal stakes to protect these policies for cybersecurity.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you for keeping the time. In fact ‑‑
(Applause)
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: I will take from the brief comments from Milton and I'm listening to the denationalizing ICANN and the other terminologies that you brought. I think our discussion will not be complete if we did not bring in what is happening in New York at the consultation of the WSIS and the Enhance Cooperation. And we have Mervi with us, and I would love to call upon you, Mervi, to give us some of maybe the highlights of what's taking place in New York.
>> Mervi Kultamaa: Thank you very much, Nermine, and thank you for calling me to this panel.
Actually, I would prefer to talk about the work of the commission on science and technology for development as such, since we haven't been part of the negotiations that took place in New York on the modalities of the overall review of the General Assembly.
Talking about the work of the CSTD, as you know, the CSTD is really the only party that follows up the WSIS commitments in the entirety as it does as the very important task. And at the moment the CSTD implements a request from the ten‑year review of WSIS outcomes. We have taken this work very seriously. We are collecting all stakeholders, views, and experiences on the implementation of WSIS outcomes and we do this through an open invitation for inputs. Please look at our website. We welcome all kinds of contributions to the review. And the deadline for sending them is 15th of September.
Also, we organise face‑to‑face meetings, since we try to meet all stakeholders in the corners of the world, and more are in the pipeline. So the commission will discuss this ten‑year review in the next intersessional panel, which takes place in Geneva at the end of November and takes it forward from there. The commission also holds a substantive discussion on the ten‑year review in the next annual session in 2015. And then the outcome of its review will feed into the overall review of the General Assembly, which you, Nermine, just referred to. So these are the commission's activities at the moment in regards with the ten‑year landmark of the WSIS implementation.
I would like to touch upon the multi‑stakeholder cooperation as well, since we have various experiences of that in the commission. The CSTD, I would say, has hugely benefited from the interaction with experts from various fields. Multi‑stakeholder cooperation isn't just about having different stakeholders sit in the same room. We have realized that. It is about doing something that would not be done otherwise.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Mervi, could you wrap up?
>> Mervi Kultamaa: I would say the multi‑stakeholder cooperation in the CSTD has raised knowledge, awareness, and understanding across different stakeholders. And I would thank everybody who has supported us and been part of our work.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you, Mervi. Along the same lines, I would like to invite Preetam Maloor from the high‑level negotiations and the Telecom Policy Forum.
>> Preetam Maloor: Thanks. I'll use the phrase "latest experiences." I'd like to start by thanking you for inviting ITU. For us, Internet Governance is a global dialogue, and each forum, be it IGF, WTPF, CSTD, might the organisation refer like the WSIS+10 that I'll talk about, NETmundial and others, they essentially contribute to moving the discussion a little bit and to improve our understanding a little bit more. So it says essentially a global dialogue. I'd like to highlight the WSIS+10 that was just mentioned that we had in Geneva in June of this year. It was hosted but co‑organised by UNESCO. And I'm speaking fast because I'm looking at the clock also.
This was preceded by yearlong multi‑stakeholder process. Everything posted online. Everyone wanted to contribute. The documents were fully only multi‑stakeholder process, and it was adopted by consensus in Geneva in June. Many of you here in the room were there and participated in the process.
We had 1,600 stakeholders from 140 countries, 100 ministries, deputies. So a lot of people, a lot of high‑level delegations, and a lot of stakeholders. And we believe it sets a good stage for the discussions on the overall review process, including CSTD, including the General Assembly. This is good material adopted by consensus.
Last year we did something similar at the WTPF, following a very similar process, open to all stakeholders and an outcome which was enriched by the prospectus brought by each of the stakeholders. We are very thankful for everyone that participated. We'll continue to work hard to, of course, improve ourselves in providing a platform for you. And we look forward to counting on your trust and support.
Just a couple of lines, the challenges are clear here. The challenge is always to get consensus among a diverse set of stakeholders, each with their own perspective and responsibilities. That's the beauty of the whole process: consensus among diverse set of stakeholders. And I really look forward to having you at ITU in future events.
Thank you.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you for bringing experience from the latest examples of the multi‑stakeholder processes at ITU. Our next speaker is from Turkey, Mr. Salmem Ketevanlioglu. I'm sorry if I pronounce it improperly. He'll bring us the perspective what is your intake from this IGF and what are your views on the future evolution of Internet Governance ecosystem.
>> Salim Ketevanlioglu: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, distinguished ministers, distinguished ambassadors, participants, ladies and gentlemen. I would like to welcome you to our country once again.
Before the future of IGF, I think we will do better to focus on the past of IGF we were asked for Turkey's begin on WGIG. We wanted something that was participating, transparent, and we wanted to include multi‑stakeholder in the process.
Before the Tunis Summit in Geneva at three meetings, again, Turkey advocated for the stability of the Internet, the continuity of the Internet, and we wanted changes not to be revolutionary, but to be evolutionary. And the theme of this meeting is evolution, so that's also quite pleasing for us.
In 2013, at the 68th General Assembly of the UN, we advocated again for the continuation of the IGF. And after 2015, again, we want IGF to continue in a multi‑stakeholder fashion. So we emphasize this all the time. This needs to include participation from all stakeholders.
In 1970s, Mr. Vint Cerf is here, when Internet first came into existence. If this Internet Governance Forum had been organised back then, I don't think there would have been this many participants. Currently we have 3,000 participants here in Istanbul. And this goes to show that the Internet has also evolved. The fact that there's such a wide participation, sadly, does not mean also that decision‑making processes also include this many stakeholders. Hopefully in the future this will change, especially about CCLD, issues like CCLD that pertains to all the nations. The decisions should not be made by a couple of technical specialists only. These issues need to be discussed by politicians, by diplomates. The decision needs to be made in a joint fashion.
As for the future of the IGF, we wish IGF every success in the future and we hope that IGF will continue to include as many participants as possible, and in the decision‑making processes we want as many parties to be involved as possible.
Thank you.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you so much. And back to another very important process that has been taking place for maybe the previous year, and I would refer back to you, Peter Major, to give us some highlights on the Enhanced Corporation Working Group and the conclusion of the group work, please.
>> Peter Majors: Thank you, Nermine.
I just want to reflect on the remarks of Neelie Kroes about Internet Governance Forum being neither black nor white. If I look around, I'm one of the representatives of the white shade of gray.
(Laughter)
Getting back to the Internet Governance and on the working work. It was a challenge. It was a multi‑stakeholder group based on the experience of the first multi‑stakeholder group of the CSTD, which was on the improvements of the IGF. And I'm pleased to tell you that most of the recommendations of the previous working group have been already implemented or being implemented. And it was a very successful one.
Now, in the IG ‑‑ Internet Governance meetings probably we have ups and downs. I should remind you about the conference in international telecommunications. I should remind you of the WTPG, so I think Enhance Cooperation, the working group, it served the process was very successful. We had very, very interesting discussions about the roles of governments. One of the results I should emphasize is the mapping exercise to identify existing mechanisms and Enhance Cooperation subjects are being treated, and to identify the gaps.
Now, the work of the working group has been posed at this time, but the work is being carried out by the secretariat of the CSTD and proved the results of this mapping exercise are being carried over during the intersessional meeting which Mervi mentioned earlier. Hopefully, we shall continue in this direction.
Thank you.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thanks, Peter. May I welcome Dr. Tayfun Acarer, and I would like to ask you, from our host country, who are the key challenges and opportunities that you see in the ICT and the value of the IGF? And I would request that we put our speakers, because it will be in Turkish.
>> DR. TAYFUN ACARER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And as for ‑‑ well, I would like to say welcome and good morning to all the participants. This is quite a beneficial forum.
And as for ICT, well, there are many issues, many challenges, of course, but I would like to touch upon the need for infrastructure especially because data is increasing day by day. In the last 13 years, between 2000 and 2013, data used increased by 190%. So we need to enhance the fixed and mobile infrastructure without delay, otherwise we are going to experience many hurdles, many bottlenecks.
Of course there are certain challenges here as well. Yes, we want to enhance the infrastructure, but how are we going to do it? There are certain handicaps involved in this process. Especially in Turkey, we focus on fixed infrastructure, fiber infrastructure, and we provide exemptions for companies that are going to invest in this. In the last couple years the fiber in Turkey has been enhanced as a result. Of course, we also use the International Service Fund, but this is a separate topic. Otherwise ‑‑ well, in order to make sure of the benefits of what the Internet has to offer, we need to focus on infrastructure.
Yet another thing I would like to emphasize is as follows: Mobile systems, communications ‑‑ well, communications is shifting towards mobile systems. 91% of communication in Turkey takes place on mobile devices. We have 3G, 4G. In a short while a need for frequency will emerge.
And I think the biggest or the most important resource in this is frequencies used in broadcasting, especially land broadcasting, is diminishing in scope. In its stead, new generation broadcasting, like satellite or Internet broadcasting, is gaining prominence. So that's frequency. That ranges between 400 to 800 megahertz. This needs to be put to use. Well, there are many problems about ICTT, but let me focus on opportunities instead. The most important opportunities have to do with diminishing the digital divide. This is also a human rights issue as well.
Of course, this is ‑‑ this also has other implications. This also means adjust distributional wealth and all the opportunities and the mass migration into metropolitan cities. This also diminishes that risk. As for ICT, finally, I would like to talk about that. Of course ‑‑ well, I would like to give you a couple of figures. As of today, on my way here, I was given some statistics. As of today for this forum, IGF forum, that is being organised in Istanbul, 3,400 participants are physically attending from 155 countries. Probably tomorrow this will increase to 3,500, and the total number of countries will increase up to 160. And this is an impressive participation, level of participation.
This goes to show that IGF is a need for the global community. We are discussing many issues here, many interesting topics are being discussed. What needs to be done here, as far as I'm concerned, is to work in a more systematic fashion. And we also need to talk about a universal declaration for the Internet, and we need to start making this happen. We need to start talking about privacy, cybersecurity, child pornography, protection of personal information and so on and so forth, and take concrete steps. Thank you.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you for your intervention for hosting us in such this greatest in Istanbul.
Our next speaker is from the OSCD, Director for Science and Technology in the Industry. I would like also to invite our remote participants. They should engage more. We would like to hear also their views later on after Andrew. The floor is yours.
>> Andrew wyckoff: Thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to speak to this group.
As you know, OEC takes an economic prospect based on economic analysis. Here it is very clear that Digital Economy is the most dynamic force in the economy, creating numerous opportunities and challenges, but I would say it's quite a disruptive force. And it's coming at a time with a lot of fragility in the economy. It's not being universally embraced by all parts. We bring a historical perspective as well. By the nature of the history of the intent and our member countries, we've been at the forefront of these Internet Governance issues for a very long time, at least dating back to a ministerial meeting we held in Ottowa in 1988, which for us ushered in a multi‑stakeholder approach. That recognized early on the huge economic potential that the Internet could bring.
We've also been working on for decades issues like privacy, broadband diffusion, and most recently public sector information as an input to the new Digital Economy.
These policies are useful, we think, globally. And we've improved our outreach effort. As I said, we've been early adherent of the multi‑stakeholder process not only in our policy recommendations, such as those delivered in 2011, but also in practice. We formally invited the Civil Society in 2009. The biggest challenge is the whole economy, which is now dealing with the Digital Economy. I see it very clearly at the OECD, where we are unique in having a multidisciplinary perspective that covers every policy issue.
I have joint meetings with big data. I have joint projects on the G20 mandate we have on base erosion and profit shifting, focusing one element on the Digital Economy. And now I'm moving to work with my colleagues and the employment director. And we'll have in 2016 in Mexico, we'll have a conference that will help us and look forward to dealing with the IGF with this challenge and we are happy to support it in that endeavor.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you for bringing evidence‑based policy making in the IG discussion, which is highly important.
Now, we close the first phase with very valuable intervention from our speakers. Now I would like to invite audience, both here in the room and the remote participants, to reflect and to use this unique opportunity to pose the questions to our panelist and then they will answer.
You should queue in front of these two microphones. We'll take four questions. Realistically speaking, we have ten minutes. Obviously short questions, to the point, preferably reacting to some of the points that were raised during the discussion. Please you have a real challenge to ask the first short question.
>> Audience: Good morning, everybody. Thank you very much allowing me to make some comments. My comments is two‑part. First part relating to the Internet Governance Forum. The most important issue in Internet Governance is multi‑stakeholderism. In that process all the stakeholders inclusive should participate. Nevertheless they should have equal footing. That equal footing does not exist.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Could you pose the specific question.
>> Audience: That is a question that has not been answered. How the equal footing of the multi‑stakeholder constituencies, governments, Civil Society, private sector, technical community and academia to be ensured?
>> Jovan Kubalija: The second question?
>> Audience: The second question is we need to talk about the inclusiveness. The inclusiveness means to reach the Developing Countries. And I see that how it should be ensured that Developing Countries have that.
Now, about the IGF itself ‑‑
>> Jovan Kubalija: We have two questions, very limited time. First, how to achieve equal footing, and second, related to some extent how to increase the inclusiveness.
Thank you very much.
>> Audience: I have a question about the IGF.
>> Jovan Kubalija: We'll discuss after the break.
>> Audience: The IGF ‑‑
>> Jovan Kubalija: We will discuss the IGF evolution after the break. Our second speaker, please?
>> AUDIENCE: Good morning. I'm the editor of Utopia. My question to the panel this morning is what is the Plan B? Every panelist has sung the praise of the multi‑stakeholder model on the assumption that it's the only possible model for global Internet. At the same time, I get the impression that there's pressure toward a multi‑stakeholder model and there are a lot of topics being discussed in various workshops at this conference which are far removed from the technological topics for which the multi‑stakeholder model was originally designed.
So what if this pressure becomes too strong? What if the multi‑stakeholder model crumbles under this pressure? What are some of the options for other global Internet Governance.
>> Jovan Kubalija: The question is what is the Plan B?
>> Audience: What is the Plan B?
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you very much. Panelists, you have three questions. How to achieve equal footing, how to increase inclusiveness in ecosystem, and how to ensure that we have a Plan B or how to consider different options.
I think Rafat, you stated you shouldn't take the multi‑stakeholder for granted. Could you answer this question?
>> RaFAT Trzaskowski: I wanted to take the first one. I wanted to say I'm a government minister. And I know that many NGOs are not happy with what happened, for example, at the NETmundial. You always look for the perfect solution, but always remember that the best is the enemy of the good. I mean, I've never seen anything that open in my life when it comes to discussions, engagement, and so on and so forth. It doesn't mean that it cannot be improved, but it is one of the most open formats I have ever seen.
The problem is the one that I've mentioned. The problem is how do you then feed it on into the political process so then the footing ‑‑ equal footing is still there? So it's not that we speak freely, we have the equal footing in meetings like these, because I think this is guaranteed. This meeting proves that.
Then the question is this is not forgotten, and that it's not taken over by the big guys and then the whole equal footing is just a symptom of the process and doesn't feed into the actual making of decisions.
>> Jovan Kubalija: The general notion and look into the specificities how to ensure the robustness of multi‑stakeholder process, that's unique bridge between discussion and policy making processes. Thank you for your reflection.
Now, we will just check if we have any comment from our remote participants before we wrap up the session and move to the second part of IG. We don't have any comment.
Nermine?
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Regarding Plan B, can someone from the panelist, maybe Kathy, you can refer to Plan B, if you can.
>> Kathy Brown: In listening over the last couple of days, I think that's the essential question that's being asked. How do you take what our best practices, what our ideas that are actually already being implemented. By the way, much is happening. Much is happening out in the world. And if you start to actually map what is happening, I think we would have a better discussion than some notion that nothing is happening.
I think our best Plan B are national IGFs. I'm very delighted that there is a grass movement for the national IGFs, the people in their regions, to actually discuss the issues closest to them and closest to their government. We saw one example in Brazil how this can happen. There is a natural sort of community that comes together who are on equal footing in the beginning of the conversation. They structure it that way. There's a decision as to whether what has to be decided really needs to go to a legislative solution or to a community solution or to an individual or corporate solution. All solutions are not the same.
Once that happens, then there is an ongoing consultation. I'm looking at Brazil only as an example. Consultation process, and when and if, if government action is required, it then has an implementation process that also includes the stakeholders body. That is one example that is worth looking at for thinking about how we actually execute on this terrific and absolutely necessary idea.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you, Kathy. We have a question from remote participant. Subi, please.
>> Subi Chaturvedi: Subi Chaturvedi from the remote moderator. There is a question privately sent for Andrew. Andrew, they're asking if you plan to integrate insights from multi‑stakeholder governance processes, public voices, and individual opinions with the study of the Digital Economy that you just shared with us.
Thank you.
>> Andrew Wyckoff: It may not be well‑known, but we have an official committee at the OECD, the digital policy committee at which stakeholders sit and they read our documents, provide comments, which are then considered in the redrafting and finalization of these documents. That's how they're involved. We've done it with business and organised labor for a long time. It's only since 2009 we've invited formally the Civil Society through a federation called CSAC to participate in this process as well.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you, Andrew. We can wrap up discussion and I will try to just highlight a few points from which went through our discussion. The first one is there is a real challenge how to preserve dynamic and development‑oriented Internet space and in that space Internet Governance, while at the same time, addressing challenges of our time related to cybersecurity, cybercrime and other challenges which are emerging.
We heard that much is happening. Also, the underlying message is we have to broaden IG footprint in terms of inclusion, but also extending knowledge about IG to the communities worldwide. Then we also heard from the IG's not black and white. It is really process with many shades of gray, and many different dynamics. A lot is happening in the IG.
IG should be evolution, not revolution. This is one of the things that came from our discussion. Multi‑stakeholder process shouldn't be taken for granted. We have really to see what are the elements to dissect the process and see how to strengthen it and to make it more robust.
Now, this is ‑‑ those are a few points of discussion that I'm sure we will find the other relevant inputs and insights in the discussion after the short break. This was zoom out session and now we'll zoom in.
We were thinking how to make a short break. There were various ideas, including to start IG Pilates. But since I'm not a great expert in Pilates, I ask that we take a stretch for approximately 10 seconds ‑‑ 30 seconds. You are more generous. We'll continue with the discussion on IGF. Thank you for all comments.
(Applause)
>> JOVAN KUBALIJA: Okay. Folks, your 30 seconds is over. Please take a seat and we'll get started on the second session. The privilege being the coorganizer is I get to lock the doors.
Please take a seat. We're going to start in two minutes.
>> IHSAN DURDU: Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, I think we should start the second part of the session. Please be seated. I would like to add some personal experience. Welcome all the inclusiveness and getting involved all different parts of the society, including government bodies and political policy decision‑makers. I think we need a lot more dialogue, consultation, and education.
In many cases many parts of the society and even some decision‑makers are aware of the multi‑stakeholder model, how it works and processes and what are the benefits that can bring into society? This is a very important part of the action plan.
Nermine, thank you.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for your patience and keeping the room quiet so that we can, if possible, so that we can continue our discussion. We have been joined now with Mr. Engida from UNESCO. It has been very active. They have studied on Internet. I would like to welcome Mr. Engida. What are the results of the ‑‑ Mr. Engida and what are the Internet Governance platform in general?
>> Getachew Engida: Thank you very much. First of all, I think UNESCO considers the IGF to be one of the WSIS's most important outcomes and we continue to strongly support it. We've made this point very clear in our submissions to the MAG, chairs called for information on the impact of IGN and the chair of CSTD concerning WSIS.
UNESCO confirmed also in November 2013 the final statement of the outcome of the WSIS review, which acknowledge the importance of IGF and renewed its commitment to the Internet Governance Forum.
Only following the Snowden affair, UNESCO members set out heated debate on how the Internet actually impacts on UNESCO‑specific mandate. Some members wanted to have an instrument. Others wanted standards and guidelines, and others just didn't want to touch it.
After long and hard debate, they came to a consensus where they've asked the secretariat to undertake a comprehensive study on Internet‑related issues and what future actions UNESCO should take. And this study should be as comprehensive and inclusive as possible. We've been doing that over the last few months, which will culminate into a draft report. It was on international conference in March 2015 for which I take this opportunity to invite every one of you. UNESCO is calling anchor principles or frameworks, if you like. The first one is human‑rights based. And the second is openness, and the third access. Access broadly defined, as we have discussed over the last few days, and the fourth is multi‑stakeholder approaches.
Within this framework, we will be dealing with issues related to freedom of expression and the free flow of information, the rights, privacy, and all those related issues. And I have been with some groups this morning actually taking input and feedback from our stakeholders on these issues. So this is where we are. Our UNESCO is committed to these principles.
Once again, I invite you all to join us first to respond to the question as to what you find on our website, and secondly, to join us in the conference the 3rd and the 4th of March 2015 in Paris. And that will lead to the general conference of UNESCO in 2015, fitting into hopefully positively to WSIS+ and review event at the UN General Assembly in December 2015. Thank you very much.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you.
Our next speaker is Alejandro Pisanty from University of Mexico.
Alejandro, please, the floor is yours.
>> Alejandro Pisanty: Thank you, Jovan. Thanks Subi, and Marilyn, and whoever else was instrumental in inviting me to this panel. I'll make some comments and try to be very brief in them. NETmundial has been mentioned and it's part of the evolution of the IGF as well. It was a process to identify existing consensus. It took several years to get there, six months to draft. This is one of the examples of things that happened at the sites of the IGF that can be useful in its progress, but the main discussions have to remain in IGF. The way IGF continues to work is best illustrated by the discussion on network neutrality that we have had over the last few days where you can separate the issues out by content or regions, answers by research to answer them, participants that will do the research and come back for a new cycle. Decisions will be made in some countries but not by the IGF. Mechanisms have to emerge in the world organically. The IGF is a great place for discussions among these mechanisms. The evolution also is not only creating new things, but also closing down some things that are obsoleted or superseded.
The IGF, in its evolution, in its openness, and its very broad format, still is not able to impact directly on very sensitive issues and to Civil Society in particular, like surveillance, censorship, blocking and filtering technical characteristics, but has to continue to be a highlight, a catalyst, especially when you use the infrastructure of the Internet in ways mandated by the upper layers.
Free speech has to be accompanied in what you allow in governance of the Internet, organising changes the world. For the opportunities of the Internet that are exemplified and reshaped by the IGF, but also the IGF is a great place where you can discuss what is the governance of the technical operation of the Internet and where the governance of people's conduct and speech, organising, etc., remains in the realm of social law and practice. It does not take over the routers and the switches.
We see several cases to finalize, where governments or intergovernmental organisations and other top‑downers, I will say, will tell you basically, when I want your multi‑stakeholderism, I will give it to you. Multi‑stakeholderism is built by the stakeholders. The only thing on the Internet that works top down in a centralized place and even there the way you get point in the game Tetris, and when you built the foundation, it vanishes into thin area.
>> Jovan Kubalija: We have high inclusion from Developing Countries. Our next speaker is Mark from the U.K. government. Mark, the floor is yours.
>> MARK CARVELL: Thank you, Jovan, and I'm very pleased to have been invited to participate in this session.
The IGF is at a turning point. There's no doubt about that. It's geared up. We had the CTD working group on the improvements of the IGF, which Peter Major referred to earlier, making recommendations on how to improve the IGF. And we've had calls for strengthening the IGF and so on.
So I just want to start, first of all, to consider where is the IGF in the Internet Governance ecosystem and its role in functionality, given that it's evolved successfully, it's been improved and enhanced and there's innovations coming into play and so on.
I see this as a critical forum. As we heard this morning, the Internet Governance ecosystem is very complex. There's a lot of initiatives happening. Just in practical terms, it's not possible to get to every meeting. We, the U.K. government, weren't able to get to the launch of the world economic forum NETmundial initiative. We just couldn't do it.
So you need some fora to enable us all to understand how all these initiatives are intersecting, which ones are more important, where the priorities are, where progress is being made, and how the whole evolution of Internet Governance is actually happening. So the Internet Governance really does fit the bill as a kind of central focus, a location for exchanges and information sharing about that.
U.K. government has supported the IGF from its very start. In fact, we were in at the genesis of it in the final negotiations in Tunis. We were one of the ones who led to the development of the concept of the IGF where everybody is around the table, all on equal footing. That's key.
So we've supported the IGF as a financial donor throughout and we've advocated with the mandate. We would like to see the mandate renewed for a ten‑year period, and we've contributed through participation in MAG in energizing efforts to contribute to its successful evolution.
That's my opening statement. Thank you.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you, Mark. We just have heard the broader view how the IGF should evolve and fit into this new and fast changing IG ecosystem or landscape. I would like now to open the floor for a few questions and comments from the audience. And I would like to invite Mr. Arasti to make the comments before the break. Your opening comments. Mr. Arasti, please join us and reflect on the future of IGF.
>> Audience: Thank you very much. In the democratic society, people should be left to express their views in the way that they wish. I had two comments with respect to the previous session, but I was asked or forced to modify my comments into a question, but I did it. But now I have a comment on the IGF, not questions.
IGF is established based on the UN process. So decision on extension of activity of the IGF depends on the decision of the United Nations. Number one.
Number two, we have discussed nine years exchange of view. Now is the time to come from the words and exchange of views to the action. What are the next step? What is the result of all of these views and discussions? Where we go? We have to go to the implementation.
If you want that IGF continue, first of all, the mandate need to be modified. We should have a mandate where is result in some sort of implementation. This implementation should be properly explained.
We could not continue to have sessions and sessions and discuss and discuss various issues without having any outcome in a sort of implementation. So words to be translated into action. Thank you very much.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you very much, Mr. Arasti, for highly important and relevant point that has been also mentioned in the first part of our discussion. We need concrete solution for some problems, especially for quite concrete problems and challenges. And I think that in the rest of our discussion we'll focus on the way how we can have outcome of the IGF process and how this outcome can affect the Internet Society and digital sphere globally.
Thank you.
>> JANIS KARKLINS: Thank you very much.
Janis Karklins, Ambassador from Latvia and chairman of Multi‑Stakeholder Advisory Group. I was not intended to speak, but the previous speaker raised the question, and I just wanted to answer that IGF has been created as a discussion forum where decisions would be nurtured, but taken elsewhere. That is why MAG made the call. And about 15 organisations responded to the call and provided information. What decisions and actions have been taken as a result of the engagement in the MAG ‑‑ in the IGF. So please consult that document and you will get an answer to your question.
To distinguished panelists, I would like to maybe ask your opinion in very concrete terms. IGF should evolve. How you see that practical evolution? How far we should go in addressing issues in very concrete terms?
For instance, this year you know we introduced the best practice stream, and that will produce the document on five practical proposals on five different topics. Do we need to go into negotiations? Or do we need to continue in compiling information about what has worked where and put that for use of everybody? I would be very curious to hear your opinion throughout the discussion.
Thank you very much.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you, ambassador. Thank you, Mr. Arasti, for your comments. The rest of our discussion will involve around these comments and remarks from our audience, as well from the conversations that were delivered during the first part of the discussion. If you're looking at the future of the Internet Governance, per se, and we are one year left before the decision by the UNGA in New York, I think we can pinpoint the most crucial issues or the challenges that the Internet Governance Forum are facing right now. And I would start by the issue of exclusiveness versus inclusiveness.
So from a perspective from one camp, if I may, we believe that the Internet Governance Forum is open and it's inclusive of all stakeholders from all countries and governments and so on and so forth. But the other camp possesses the challenge that actually the forum is being exclusive to the participants who have been there for the previous nine years. And I would be neutral, but if we look around the room, we will see some missing players from different parts of the world, from the Arab region, for instance. Even from Africa on a government level. There are few, but still we miss a lot of the many players that we can have from the different stakeholders. And I'm not speaking about specific criteria, but I'm speaking in general.
So I would like to listen to the views of two of our panelists here. I will start with you, Jimson. How can the IGF attract more players to the forum each year?
>> Jimson Olufuye: Thank you very much, Nermine.
My name is Jimson Olufuye. I have the privilege of being the chair of the Africa ICT Alliance, private‑sector led organisation to bring together ICT players in the private sector in particular, so that it can be involved in the process. We're based in Nigeria, and we currently have membership of 14 African countries.
My day job is managing a company, an ICT company, Internet based. But if Internet collapses, I'll be out of business and all the workers that are working with me. So this topic is very important. From our perspective, the private sector in Africa want to be involved. They strongly want to be involved. But our level of involvement so far, we need to consider the work of the CSTD. The CSTD have done a great job to date, especially with the chairmanship of Peter Major or in the working group and even Enhanced Cooperation emphasizing inclusiveness. There are still many yet to be part of this process. Many questions that is asked, what is in it for us? Business and private, what am I going to gain putting money to there? They do not appreciate the importance of this as it applies to businesses indeed. And so there is special consideration for businesses in Developing Countries to be involved.
The dividend for that in my Nigeria, where the government is actively working in the private sector, we have seen improve ‑‑ Internet improve. Even today, because of collaboration with the private sector, there is a one‑day clearing of check beginning from today. And so there is great improvement. And we need to let this go down to the national level. There are still many nations that do not have national IGF in developing least‑developed countries. So we need to continue the conversation, demand to be reviewed, and keep reflecting.
This is a living organism. The Internet and the governance of the Internet is quite organic and we need to focus on it because many people, impoverished people, depending on this.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thanks, Jimson. And I'll share with you some of the views that you have shared, but I would like to be even more specific, because if we are able to pinpoint some recommendations that we can include even in our report, that would be perfect. And I would refer to Phillip, and I will actually ask a question about is funding an issue when it comes to inclusiveness of more players from the different stakeholder.
Phillip? Did you hear the question? I was just trying to focus more on how to include more participants. And I'm asking if funding is an issue. Is funding an issue?
>> Phillip Grabensee: Thank you very much for the opportunity to share a few thoughts and address your question. Needless to say, that the multi‑stakeholder approach is the only way and the only right way to go ahead. I think it's been quite clear in that discussion in all that discussion over the last ten years which leads to today's discussion that there's no single model of Internet Governance. And so the community has to learn to find the right answers to the many individual challenges of the Internet world case by case, not open and transparent and inclusive policy development process.
That said, we do recognize the need for evolution and development of this model. In this context, we need ‑‑ we note that increased use of so‑called cross‑community approaches, which we see in the ICANN construct, the segment of the multi‑stakeholder approach we're traditionally mostly involved in. Such cross‑community approaches have improved mechanism for breaking down silos and enhancing cooperative development across broad and diverse interests. Moreover, we also note a very interesting development within ICANN, exploring mechanisms to call effectively and specifically early in the process developing process.
Accountability is implicit in this button‑up multi‑stakeholder model, and that is effectively built in. In addition, I can add significant accountability mechanism built in its own structures. Indeed, part of the driver for the recent work on enhanced GNSO and GAC collaboration was the own accountability and transparent work.
Only accountable players will have respect and my friend that was missing today, calls it the Rain Forest of the Internet ecosystem. The import of those accountable players would strengthen the IGF process, improve inclusiveness, including its original initiatives as was mentioned in the beginning, and will secure the IGF's role in the Internet Governance.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: I will defer to the audience, but I need to listen to some comments from Kathy and then Mark. If I may ask you to prepare your comments and reflections on this particular point, please. Kathy and then Mark.
>> Kathy Brown: I just want to talk about the funding. With respect to the global IGF, first, as we talk about the renewal of the mandate, I think it is enormously important that we include in that request to the United Nations sufficient funding for the secretariat. I don't believe that the funding is really necessary to organise and to think through the intersessional things we could be doing. By the way, look at that website. Imagine if we actually could keep updating news and best practices as we went along.
If that were stronger, we would be better. That said, that funding does not allow us to pay for the travel for folks to come here or to support the national and regional IGF. That is why the Internet Society this week facilitated the announcement of an association to financially support the IGF, both here on the global stage, but also on the regional and national stages.
If we were to be able as a community to get what I'm calling "sufficient," and I mean funding that is recognized by the world as big enough to support this movement, I think that financial underpinnings would do so much more to allow for the regional and national IGFs, which I believe are going to be the piece that is going to complete this maturity.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thanks, Kathy.
Mark, you have comment?
>> Mr. Carvell: Yes, I wanted to come back in on this question of improving inclusivity. And I think overall the IGF has performed fairly well in terms of levels of participation and diversity. We do see a lot of familiar faces, but I have a feeling, not based on any scientific analysis, that the numbers are showing that we're getting more people involved. But also, we must think about the preparatory process, and this extends to that.
I've been on the MAG. I've looked and evaluated all the workshop proposals in this bottom‑up process setting. And it's very disappointing in terms of the numbers of proposals coming from Africa, from Latin America, from Asia‑Pacific, and those regions in particular.
Maybe there is one mechanism that we could explore in the context of increasing linkages. And that is the national and regional IGFs. The U.K. was the first country to establish a national IGF. And the reason we did it was that we thought, well, this IGF is going to take place. What are we going to contribute to it? Shall we run a workshop?
So one of the rationales for our national IGF was to prepare for the global IGF. If, perhaps, the agenda setting for other newer national IGFs and regional IGFs could include a section on what are we going to do with the global IGF, maybe that would enhance the inclusivity to the contributions to the programming, as well as the flow‑through in terms of participation in the actual forum?
Thank you.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thanks, Mark.
Mr. Minister, you have a comment as well? And then I will open the floor.
>> RaFAT Trzaskowski: Yes, because we are asking those questions about inclusivity, about Plan B and so on and so forth. And I think that part of the answer is, as was just mentioned, to include the local communities. And I think that the British example should be followed and we should be creating IGFs nationally, which would actually feed into the process that we are just participating in.
Point number two is when we want, as I was saying at the beginning, to actually influence the policy process, I think that we should do something about the way we communicate. It should be a two‑way process. For example, I think that IGF should be adopting recommendations. Now, we can discuss how it should be done, but I think that that would actually facilitate that sort of two‑way exchange of views.
The next question is about structure. Here, I think if we want to improve the status quo, I think that MAG needs to change its nature from the organizational committee to actually a steering committee, which would ‑‑ has helped facilitate all the things that we have been talking about.
Finally, the last point, we need to streamline financing. I mean, we need to have money to actually organise our activities. But the most important thing is with no strings attached, which is going to be pretty difficult.
But I think without these changes, it will be very difficult to actually go into the next stage where actually the things that we do in here influence the policy process in a meaningful way. When we actually engage people in a grassroot kind of way, which is, I think, the way forward if we are to be taken seriously.
Thank you.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you, Your Excellency. You are forward looking because this is exactly the flow of thoughts that we would like to continue discussing with you and the audience, of course.
And I think we have a queue.
>> RAJAN MATHEWS: My name is Rajan Mathews. I represent SCOI. This is an association of private operators from India. I'm a first time attender at IGF and I have been very impressed with the open nature. There was no barrier to open entry, and the expression of opinions was very open. I'm very impressed with the forum of IGF. I would keenly encourage India to be able to piggyback on the strength of IGF in terms of a national presence to be able to integrate into the international forum. Again, we would strongly encourage the activities, the openness, and the inclusiveness of the dialogue. Again, the commitment certainly from the operator community in India to have its voice represented in the developing nation's perspective on inputs to the development of the Internet.
Thank you.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you.
Peter?
>> PETER MAJOR: Good morning. My name is Peter Major. I'm the chairman of the World Summit. We are running since 2003. We are running since 2003 in 160 countries as part of the business follow process, the contest and competition for best practice in eContent, in order to show what Internet and especially mobile can do and impact for diversity of cultures, content, and languages.
If you look back to 2003‑2005, IGF is a success story. UN GAID, the Global Alliance For Development faltered and was a failure, and IGF has continued. But if one looks at the relationship between IGF and ECOSOC and the United Nations system, it can be improved. That is a key issue that relates to the funding, because if one looks at the shameful time when it was not clear how the IGF secretariat and also the general speaker and the posters of the MAG to be funded could not be continued.
One of the key issues, however, is also to focus on the mandate of the IGF. IGF has taken on issues like ICT, so the impact in terms of ICT and development. But it's also very important that it considers the issues regarding the development of an interactive industry. But about that industry is actually the guarantee of universal languages and cultures in various regions.
One should also look at the process of the IGF as a success story. It has evolved from a discussion group where a lot of redundancy has been part of it into something which is much more forward looking and also focused towards decision‑making and support, as Janis has pointed out.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you, Peter. We have two more speakers before we reflect back to the panel.
>> AUDIENCE: I'm a journalist with the Indian Express. My question, if I may specifically to the representatives from Brazil and India. What do you see ‑‑ where do you see the role of government with the other stakeholders in outcome‑oriented Internet Governance process? Do you see them on an equal footing or as primarily.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Mr. Qian Bo, head of the Chinese delegation.
>> DR. QIAN BO: Thank you. My name is Qian Bo. I'm the director for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. I did not want to pretend to be the expert on Internet, but I think that this is my first IGF meeting. A few days before that, people asked me that what are the incentive for many new comers to come for this IGF.
I try to say something. I try to be silent, but I say something finally. Certainly, it is the importance of the Internet. And it is the importance of Internet for the ordinary people in China, particularly in China such a large population. And which we have also have more than 650 Internet users.
So when I was listening to different views from our representatives here, I find that, actually, China has a lot to say about how to look at the issues concerning Internet. In my view, this is a new thing, certainly. And at the same time, I very much agree this is a complex issue, because we have so many workshops. We have so many people coming. And even after nine sessions of IGF, we have not come up with concrete, clear, and common understanding of how we should tackle Internet issues.
Here I want to spent a little bit more time on our observations on how we look at the IGF. Today's topic is about the role of IGF. In Chinese way, we say that after observing several meetings of IGF, we find this is really like a teahouse. But I think that for the future, we have to make it more successful. There must be next step forward and to implement the proposals and good ideas in this session, in this meeting.
And the future of IGF, the success of future IGF, in my view, relies on very much on two issues. One is inclusiveness. We have to say multi‑stakeholder approach is a good one, but in 3,500 representatives, they are very representative. But are they really representative? We have learned that more than two‑thirds of the population are unable to access Internet. And how shall we bring them on board? Where are their views?
And how about the majority of Developing Countries which are still lack the capacity building? So I think, first of all, realize very much on the inclusiveness.
Second important thing I think also relies on the implementation part, which I mentioned just now. Without further steps forward, this IGF will continue to be a teahouse. And I would suggest that some other colleagues have mentioned that very important ideas, which I learned from, that is we must also try to facilitate the regional IGF, the national IGF.
In China we have sponsored several meetings, which are very successful. If we really mean that we want to bring all those interested on board, we must also focus on the national IGF. We must also focus and invest on regional IGF.
This is not only platform that we represent. I mean, we cannot claim that we are representing all the population in the world. So this is one of my observations.
Secondly, the role of IGF. We would very much emphasis on the importance of the role of the government. We support multi‑stakeholder approach. This is approach have accepted by almost all. This is the approach that, in fact, in many Developing Countries, including China, has already done so. When we talk about the scientific decision‑making process, the meaning of scientific is we have to do a lot of research. E have to listen to different views before the government is going to make policies, public policies. And we also should not be naïve that believing that the multi‑stakeholder approach is the most effective way.
Finally, there should be a multi‑stakeholder approach plus the different roles, particularly the key roles of the government. So I think that it is very important. Finally, the government should be brought on board and they should not be marginalized. And we should not try to fragment the different stakeholders. Every stakeholders has a role to play. So I think that it is pretty important we will continue to work on this IGF.
On the last part, on the funding issue, I very much agree that we must ensure the stable funding for the IGF. And we would propose that perhaps the funding for IGF should be brought to the UN regular budget, and certainly funding from the enterprises and private sectors is most welcome. But I think that we must ensure a stable funding for the IGF so that to make this IGF more successful.
Thank you very much.
(Applause)
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you. I see smiling, so I think you have achieved your point.
We have a remote participant?
>> Subi Chaturvedi: Thank you, Nermine. This is your remote moderator. There is an intervention from a MAG member who couldn't be here in person. He would like to share a couple comments. We would make it brief, and he would like to ‑‑ comments from the remote platform that he would like us to see moving forward on the NETmundial agreement and there are some specific suggestions for strengthening the IGF. The first one asked us to pick two issues that are pressing and mature and dedicate teams to welcome them online and meet face to face alongside the February and the May open consultations. He would also like us to see creating open online in the global community.
Also from the MAG and its chair, with the assistance of the secretariat, conduct active outreach to encourage activities particularly with the Developing Countries to participate in these teams. The teams could then produce draft discussion documents by two months before the regular meeting, followed by another round of public input and a final revision taking on board the views expressed.
The documents can then be discussed on a single day of the programme dedicated to this task to see if either recommendations are at least a statement reflecting and can be circulated to other relevant organisations. Thank you for listening. These are specific suggestions on strengthening the IGF and intersessional work.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thanks, Subi. And I think we had several specific questions. I remember to Brazil and to India, and maybe few other comments as well that you would like to reflect upon, but maybe we can do this in very quick manner so that we can continue with our flow.
Benedicto, please.
>> Benedicto Fonseca Filho: Thank you. I would like to thank the question and it also gives me the opportunity also to reflect on the point that was previously made on the issue of equal footing, how the multi‑stakeholder approach.
First of all, I would like to remind that for government, the basic framework under which we work and we try to be consistent with in everything, at least this is an attempt to try to do in Brazil, is to be consistent with the framework that was established by the Tunis Agenda, which is our basic parameter. So Tunis Agenda recognizes there are different roles, responsibilities for stakeholders that all of those stakeholders have legitimate concerns and interests.
So that does not mean equal role. Equal role in the context of Tunis Agenda applies specifically to the notion of even Enhanced Cooperation, in the context referring to public policies, governments should have equal role in designing those.
Of course there is an effort in the maximum extent possible. And this was confirmed by the NETmundial conference to extend the multi‑stakeholder approach whenever possible. And thank very much for Kathy Brown for having given us ‑‑ I think she was very precise in that description. I think much better than most of us could have done explaining how we try to work in Brazil.
Having the multi‑stakeholder discussion implementing various layers and levels. So it's ‑‑ equal footing is not always there. Just to give an example, in regard to critical resources, there's not equal footing. Governments are not implementing equal footing. Governments have an advisory role. And I think nobody's trying to say equal footing should apply there. But in some other governmental where there is not equal footing on multi‑stakeholder participation, there we are one hundred percent in favor of opening up intergovernmental discussions to multi‑stakeholder participation.
Discussions should be better informed boy multi‑stakeholder approach. Organising in some cases the decision will be intergovernmental. And I think this is a fact that should be recognized. I think the whole ecosystem request work in harmony if there is mutual recognition, mutual acceptance, mutual respect. I think we tried to do it in the context of NETmundial. I'd just like to quote something that I think reflects very much that notion in regard to cybersecurity and cybercrime. It says, "It is necessary to strengthen international cooperation on topics such as jurisdiction and law enforcement, assistance to promote cybersecurity, and prevent cybercrime. Discussions about those frameworks should be held in a multi‑stakeholder manner."
So I think we tried here to reconcile the idea of multi‑stakeholder discussion in processes that are intergovernmental, cybercrime, cybersecurity. All cybersecurity has dimension that extends beyond the government, but those; of course, cybercrime is a very precise area.
So I think there is a need to maybe have an understanding and, again, I think mutual recognition, mutual respect. I think this is the basis for the decision to work in a better way, making the best of the contribution of each stakeholder to the benefit of all.
Thank you.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you, Ambassador.
Your Excellency, please?
>>R.S. Sharma: Thank you very much. Firstly, I'll take that question from India which says that we should hold the regional or national IGFs. In India, just to inform you, we are having one in the end of November. And we certainly believe that we'll continue to have such consultations and discussions with all these stakeholders in our country, which actually impinge on the Internet Governance.
On the issue of our friend from Indian Express who asked the question whether everybody should be on the equal footing or not, I think I would like to agree with my friend from Brazil. Essentially everyone has a role to play in this game, and this is not a game which is played at one level. This is a multilevel situation. Let me explain that. You know, you have an infrastructure on which the entire traffic moves. Entire structure in India which is essentially the government of the country, along with the private‑sector participants create. And it is all private sector and certainly involve many, many standards and many, many other parties. Then comes the critical resources. Now, obviously the government says do not have a very direct role to play. It is something role‑based situation, which is happening. And, therefore, it should continue to happen that way.
Then comes the issue of, you know, security, cybersecurity. Now, certainly governments are not the only arbiter of what is the cybersecurity part. But certainly governments have a responsibility. And they will, obviously, have to get feedback from the industry, from the experts in that area. That is when they'll be able to make policy decisions or some kind of actions.
So essentially cybersecurity is an area where every stakeholder will certainly need to be consulted with their expertise utilized. But ultimately it is the governments who will have to take action in that particular space. Obviously in consultation and in collaboration with the private sector.
Lastly, the applications which are riding on the net, and obviously government do not have much role to play in so far as they do not look at cybersecurity issues, and the private sector will continue to have their role and the Civil Society and the other stakeholders.
So essentially I think labeling it as multi‑stakeholder is not really the right way to go about it, but really understanding that each component, what does each component of the whole system requires? And which are the best parties to deal with that problem? Essentially, that should be the approach. And if that approach is recognized and accepted, I think we'll certainly have a very harmonious way of doing things and we should also then be able to have not only a discussion forum that does not lead us anywhere, but a system which can really contribute toward the decision‑making and finally lead to some conclusions. That's our approach. And that's, I think, what should be pursued.
Thank you very much.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you so much. May I remind us all that we have left 40 minutes and we have two very important topics that we need to further discuss.
And I think, Alejandro, you have a quick comment, please? Because we need to move to the second point.
>> Alejandro Pisanty: Thank you. Alejandro Pisanty speaking. Related to expanding the notions that have been put forth to expand participation, sticking in their specific roles is a losing proposition. The fact that some decisions will be governmental or intergovernmental, such as national‑level cybersecurity or the fight against crime, does not imply that the IGF in similar discussions can be set aside.
Openness and inclusiveness interacting in a virtual circle, the more openness in a country, the more likely that different sectors from that country will participate. In the process it will be very diverse. It has to be the participation ‑‑ the participation has to be permissionless without negative concept when people go back to their country after speaking and learning in the IGF.
Effectiveness and decision‑making are sector‑content specific. The role of IGF to bring more people here is bring them here to understand more the issues that they will go back to either ICANN kind of mechanisms or to their countries.
The concrete outcomes question is now testable thanks to NETmundial. How long did it take to actually get the draft? What was the process? Was it robust with the risk to the different participants? This is something now that the IGF can now study on that case and then again to look at the cost and risk to the IGF itself of making that kind of change and whether that will be the participation.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thank you so much.
Allow me to take you to another dimension that we would like to tackle with you. That is a very tempting question, whether or not to have an output ‑‑ concrete output out of the Internet Governance Forum, a question that has been thoroughly discussed throughout the years and I would maybe give you a glimpse that we have seen two models during the previous year. We have seen the NETmundial with ‑‑ and I will quote the terminology and consensus output kind of, and we have seen as well the coordinate high‑level event held in June with the full consensus document. And we have seen here during this IGF the best practices forum as per Paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda.
And I would like to pose the question, do you see there is a legitimate point to start thinking about having a concrete output? And the second will be by my colleague Jovan how to do that. Do you see legitimate and feasible to have concrete output? If Joseph can elaborate on that, please.
>> Joseph ALHADEFF: The IGF has a unique DNA to facilitate the broad conversations, the stepping stones of the consensus. But it also has the ability to use those in capacity building for best practice and for knowledge transfer. The IGF in that sense is a laboratory for diverse exploration. It is not a body that is bogged down in negotiating text and should not become a body that is bogged down in negotiating text and is not suited for a unitary outcome. Outcomes, as we see them, are not negotiated documents. Alejandro said his concept of net neutrality and the conversations of IGF of a complex topic that does not have consensus; those conversations actually move the ball forward.
We found places where we need to do more research. We found more places where we had misunderstandings that were clarified. This in and of itself is a valuable output and should not be thought of anything less. To say that that's just talking is to miscomprehend the value of that conversation. We need to better capture the learning. Because you come to an IGF, you go to a very interesting panel. You participate in that panel in some way or another. You find, though, that when you go home, what you have is a memory that isn't actionable. And that's not enough. So we need to figure out how to make the capacity building and the knowledge transfer actionable, practical, portable, and applicable.
One of the ways we can do that is to link existing resources to discussions that are happening. And in that context we should be paying attention to the interests of Developing Countries. People have spoken about discussing the breadth of participation. We have taken this action item on from a business perspective to talk about extending the breadth of the types and sectors of companies that are represented, extending the geographies represented.
Finally, as we think about how to energize the IGF, and a lot has been said about the regional and national IGF. We need to communicate how to have omni‑communication transfer. Not just within the regional and national IGF, not just between the national and regional IGF and the IGF, but across all of them. And that is really the network and our first level of intersessional cooperation is building across the national and regional IGFs and the IGF so that that would be one of the places. And I agree, investment across all of those fronts is necessary.
With that, thank you.
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Thanks, Joseph.
(Applause)
>> Nermine el‑Saadany: Dr. Govind, can you share with us your views on having or have not concrete output of the IGF?
>> Dr. Govind: Thank you, Nermine, for giving me the opportunity to be here in this very enlightened panel.
IGF has been a quite enlightened, more enabler in the long‑run what we have seen like from 2008 when we hosted the IGF in India. And it has been quite insofar as more participation as more and more participation I can see in this IGF we have more than 50 participants from India from the various stakeholders. And that shows how the IGF is evolving in the country, how we are really seriously looking into the process, and how we're looking into the Internet, which is enabling the global medium, and Internet has been a catalyst for change, extending governmental outreach, positively enriching the lives of the people.
For India, the Digital India programme which has been brought recently by the Prime Minister, who is here, and we talked about yesterday. We show how the next billion is going to be added to the Internet and how far inclusive the capacity building and all of the respects we are going to work.
In IGF ‑‑ the discussion in the IGF, the amount of participation which is coming up, and the amount of the kind of topics which are going to come in this is as Internet is evolving, so that topics also evolving. It is not that static in the time frame, not right from the 2006 since IGF and 2014 this IGF.
You can see the variety spectrum of the issues and I can see that more and more critical Internet resources issues are the public policy issues and the funding issues. All are going to be discussed in a very, very elaborate and very, very widened way. This is, again, in India we are having our own India IGF that will feed into the global IGF. And we have a multi‑stakeholder process where we have selected from academia, and how inclusively we engage all stakeholders within the country, and as all the issues which are we going to discuss.
Thank you.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you very much. Wow, that's really, really a rich menu with so many ingredients. And I hope you will manage to cook a nice dish.
Before I pass the floor to my colleagues from academic community to reflect from expertise view on all of these ideas that we have heard, including the new metaphor of a teahouse, thank you for broadening the metaphor space of our discussion on Internet governance. I would just refer to Mr. Sharma's two points which are probably underlying in our discussion. One is the labelization of discussion. And it's extremely important, and looking at the concrete issue in trying to address very concrete issues.
The second point which was introduced by Minister Sharma and by Benedicto and other colleagues, that there is a space for harmonious relations, and this is a space to have a role effective ‑‑ constructive role of all stakeholders.
And I think it sets the stage for reflections from academic community how to do it, how to find that magic formula. What we said in discussion after NETmundial, how we should manage this process from blue skies, to the final phase where you have red lines. How to manage that evolution when you essentially have to capture the complexity of arguments, diversity of arguments.
It was done quite successfully in the case of NETmundial, but it was a real challenge. I would like to invite my good colleagues from the academic community, Jeremy Malcolm from EFF, Electronic Frontier Foundation, which wrote probably one of the most insightful papers on the IGF and how it should move forward. Stephanie Perrin also.
Jeremy, please, go ahead.
>> Jeremy Malcolm: Hello. Sorry, my desk microphone is not working. Thank you, Jovan.
As you said, this is a problem that is not new, and NETmundial did make some very good attempts at addressing this. Also, we had some suggestions from the floor that have come in by remote participation. There should be online platforms that could be used to develop outputs in a very concrete way.
So I would like to take issue, though, with the way that this is ‑‑ this question is sometimes framed. ICC who just spoke a few minutes ago framed it in terms of negotiated outcomes from the IGF. And I think that's not the right way to frame it. It's a very loaded phrase, which sort of suggests its own answer that, no, we would never want negotiated outcomes from the IGF, because that would be the death of the IGF. But no one has ever really been suggested that kind of process.
It suggests we're haggling over the placement of a comma like we would at the UN Security Council or something like that. But we don't talk about the IETF producing negotiated outcomes. That doesn't freak people out in the context of the IGF ‑‑ of the IETF. On the OECD is a forum where we would really describe it as negotiated outcomes. It's an inappropriate framing of the question.
The correct question is how can we produce outcomes while avoiding certain traps, such as number one, power imbalances where some stakeholders will dominate others by force of numbers or interpersonal factors or because of money and influence. We want to steer away from that. Also capacity imbalances, where some parties may lack the capacity to contribute their views in competitive way or lack of understanding of the issues, but also avoid a discussion where the people are chilled because they are afraid to speak because they don't want to paint themselves in a corner by expressing their views honestly. These are completely valid concerns. I accept them 100%. Also, they are well understood problems. There is a well-established literature and practice which addresses these problems. It's called deliberative democracy. It involves facilitated deliberations that are designed to facilitate well‑informed decision‑making. It's designed to neutralize these power imbalances.
NETmundial did make some progress towards this, but for the IGF, I think we may want to also look at intersessional online working groups who could create some draft outputs for discussion, and then these could come into a plenary session such as this one. I suggest that it could break into table groups to further deliberate, and then come back together for consensus, and then also decide if a consensus has been reached. My suggestion for that is we need a new body within the IGF, a multi‑stakeholder council. The ministry positively says the MAG needs to be into a steering committee. The MAG is what it is, and I don't think it will change very much. I think we need a new multi‑stakeholder policy body within the IGF that could exercise that steering function.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you, Jeremy.
If you have a quick comment to the Jeremy's intervention, please we'll have to ‑‑
>> Unidentified speaker: I think we can discuss ideologically forever where what is the meaning of negotiated text and whether deliberative democracy, appreciative inquiry or just plain facilitation. Our best way to achieve results anyway. When you are going to achieve an agreed text, you are going to have negotiations.
As I said previously to finish, this is now a test, experimental test proposition, which has to go back to NETmundial and see what it took to see what it took to get agreed text. Six months, thousand people, fully established secretariat.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Alejandro, in brief, you argued that if you have the outcome, it has to be negotiated. And that's no sort of solution. Then we have the next.
>> ALEJANDRO PISANTY: Okay. Thank you, Jovan.
I want to talk a bit about history here ‑‑ begin by talking about history. If you look at the IGF and how and why it started, it was at a time when issues around Internet Governance was not clear. It was servicing issues around Internet Governance. Nine years later I think we are much clearer about Internet Governance issues; what is included and what is not to be included. I don't think we can be as is. I call the Internet Governance in that form IGF 1.0. We now need a 2.0. I think the 2.0 is in some form of agreement, not negotiated agreement, as my colleague Jeremy has ably described, not along those lines, but really on substantive topics, substantive issues that we need to look at.
My own transition is W1, liabilities happening around here. That's another one. And I think on the substantive points that need to be done, I think the various institutions that are supporting the IGF, the MAG, the secretariat, even Internet, will need to evolve. They need to evolve so it's not just a matter of surfacing issues, but surfacing issues that point of agreement come to some point of agreement whereby something can be done.
The agreement does not have to be unanimous draft consensus. The agreement would be enough so the people can see these are things to be done and also things to be avoided. I think that we need to look also at some issues that need to be addressed: the critical resources, the management of critical resources. We need to look also at development, because then this issue will arise again for the WSIS+10 review. This is now put on the front burner and we need to look at that, and the evolution for supporting IGF.
>> JOVAN KUBALIJA: Stephanie, please, and then we'll have a fuel interventions from the audience. Queue in front of the microphone.
Stephanie, please.
>> STEPHANIE PERRIN: Thank you. Can you hear me?
>> Jovan Kubalija: Yes.
>> STEPHANIE PERRIN: My name is Stephanie Perrin. I'm doing research at the University of Toronto on surveillance studies and Internet Governance. But I'm here sitting in this chair representing Civil Society. And a lot of my points, I think, have already been made, particularly by our distinguished colleague from China. I'm sitting in this chair because I am a middle class Canadian of a certain age old enough to be a grandmother. I have sufficient resources, not ample, but if I care to donate my time to ICANN and my personal resources to a certain extent to work on Civil Society issues that I'm passionate about, I can do it. But we haven't talked about fairness. And I don't think this is fair.
If I were a grandmother in a remote village in ‑‑ pick a country ‑‑ China, India, somewhere in Africa, I would not be able to do that. I would like in my minute here to focus on what Civil Society cares about. And that's not so much the new mandate of the IGF, but the practical implementation of the issues that we have been discussing. And I believe that there is much work to do. First of all, we care about getting the poor and disadvantaged. From a economic fairness, you name it, we agree.
Secondly, we care about the practical implementation of human rights. There has been wonderful work done here this week and there will be more sessions coming on privacy and human rights. And obviously as a surveillance scholar I care about that. But rhetoric and principles doesn't bring it to the ground level. So we need to do that and there is work to do.
Thirdly, the mandate of the IGF. We care very deeply that we move to this level of maturity. This we get stable funding, that there is certainty that we will be here in ten years' time, expanding this discussion and bringing it to the people who are not there. That will take money. Not just tourism to bring people to the meeting, but money to support the people in the region. So that means regional IGFs, and it means finding more funding to help projects. So we look for that.
Thank you.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you, Stephanie.
Congratulations to my academic colleagues for staying within the time limit, which is a real challenge for academia. Bravo.
(Applause)
>> Jovan Kubalija: We have two interventions. Janet Hofmann. We'll take two more questions, but whoever should make comments should queue.
>> JANET HOFMAN: My name is Janet Hofmann. I'm right now drafting a statement. I would like to comment on Alejandro. It takes lots of people, lots of time, and lots of events to get it done. From my perspective, this is not the point. The main question for me success if you have a message and you get the feeling that it's broadly shared, that all stakeholder groups agree with you, how do you get it across? And I think we as a community need to learn to make progress in getting our messages across.
And it's not the question of whether we call it a statement or anything else, and I don't want to sort of have long negotiation processes. The question is how do we make what we do here relevant? One way of doing is to sort of write down sentences. They travel better than just words.
We want the messages from here to migrate to other places. And sometimes it needs to be written down so that it can become a reference point for next year's meeting so that we don't have to have the same workshop topic again. We can just say we discussed this last year.
What I would suggest what we do is that we don't let it be too ambitious, and that we need statements that all participants can agree upon. It would be already sufficient if we could have a process where a few groups say we support this, and if you also want to support it, sign on. But we need to develop processes to do that. At the moment, I'm bilaterally sending e‑mails, waiting hours for a response, because the network is not working. It takes a lot of effort. And we have to get better at that.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you.
(Applause)
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you, Janet, for bringing reality check that sometimes, as you indicated, we have to write sentences and draft the text. That should be output of some of the negotiating process.
>> RAUL ECHEBERIA: Raul Echeberia. I was first in the line, and she speak first and I have to change my game. My name is Raul Echeberia. I'm vice president of the Global Engagement in the Internet Society, former chair of the Executive Committee of NETmundial. My comment goes that we have been talking here about how to produce outcomes without negotiations, and the negotiation is needed or not. And I think that's the main lesson learned from NETmundial is exactly that, that we can produce outcomes, whatever the outcome is. But we cannot produce outcomes in an open button‑up without formal negotiation mechanism. I think this is the most novelty thing in the NETmundial because I believe maybe there are some examples, but I believe that it had been never done before, not even in the Internet Governance field, but at the international governance level.
I think this is the most important lesson that we learn from the process of NETmundial. We can do it. We did it one time. Many people some aspects of the processes of NETmundial, of course we can improve it. We demonstrated that it is possible.
My second comment goes in the direction that don't forget that it doesn't matter how concrete are the outcomes of the IGF, it will not turn in policy also at the local level if we don't have IGF‑like mechanism at the local level, because 95% of the policy making happens at the national level. So it doesn't matter how concrete the outcomes we produce here. We need other mechanisms at the national level for bringing our findings and combining with the national expertise, experience, and so be sure that the policies that are developed in the national level are influenced by the ‑‑ not only by the global experience, but the experience of others, but also for the different perspective of the stakeholders at the national level.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Anna?
>> Audience: I'm Anna Covich. I want to add on what Janet was saying earlier. On Monday we had the day‑long event on NETmundial and a discussion on what we could do about taking the agenda of the NETmundial document forward. What I heard here today is a lot about substantive issues that are there in the outcome document and how we can make sure that they get addressed in a better way, that more people are involved in addressing them, etc. But the outcome document also has a number of Internet Governance principles. And I think we can also do much more work on thinking what is the kind of leadership role that the IGF could play and actually putting those principles in practice. And I think there is still a lot of work to do. Particular lip around transparency and accountability. The proposal that Janet made is also a way to be accountable. We cannot just have conversations without having an outcome, because that also means that we lack accountability. So I think on the substance level, there is a question of accountability. There's also one more on the process level. I know there are lots of recommendations already floating around about, for example, how there could be far more transparency in the constitution of the MAG. And I think it's really important if the IGF continues that we also take all those recommendations on board and really push the Internet Governance principles part of the outcome document as well.
Finally, on a side note, since I have 30 seconds left, people ask again and again why Developing Countries are not here. I can say much more than 20 seconds about that. But one thing that's really a problem with the current workshop process, proposal process, is that speakers need to be confirmed when the workshop proposal is made. Most Developing Countries cannot even look for funding until they are sure they are on a workshop. You actually make it structurally impossible for new people to join the process. Thank you.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you, Anna. We heard from interpreters that we have ten more minutes. With them you cannot negotiate easily. Therefore, please stick to the short interventions.
What we have heard is that the real challenge is how to produce the outcome document or conclusion or concrete conclusions of the IGF. We have heard many, many concrete ideas and suggestions, dilemmas, risks, opportunities. And somehow I indicated at the very beginning that for me NETmundial experience was somewhere between blue sky and possibilities and red lines, and apparently I just found the color when you mix blue and red is purple. Therefore, we should try to find out how we can make purple color on the discussion of the outcome including the possible process of negotiations.
I would like to invite panelists to make last quick comments for 30 seconds. Please go ahead. 140 words. Please go ahead.
>> Kathy Brown: I'll be happy to start. I found this session amazingly good. I think there have been a lot of concrete ideas put on the table, recommendations that we need to take together and take a hard look at it. By the time we get to Brazil ‑‑ yes, we're going back to Brazil, thank you ‑‑ I would hope we have a stable and financially secure secretariat. We'll have our renewal of our mandate to be together. We will have advanced some of the best practices kinds of recommendations that are being developed here.
We will take a look at making sure that we're not disabling people from coming by the way we structure our programme. Enormously important. And we will see the rise of national and regional IGFs. If we get to Brazil and we have these things happening with some written documents, we think ‑‑ I think when we get there, we will start to see the output kind of activity that we want to see.
Thank you for a fabulous session.
(Applause)
>> Jovan Kubalija: On this side, Benedicto.
>> Benedicto Fonseca Filho: Thank you. I'll be very brief. I would like to restate something I said before. If we want to make a reality division that we had nine years ago in Tunis and was enshrined in the ecosystem, working to the full bringing the best of their capacity and expertise, according to different roles and responsibilities, I think it is imperative that bridges must be built among the different processes and existing fora. I think this is something that badly needed in order that what we are doing here will be in dialogue with other settings in which the multi‑stakeholder dimension is not so clear so that there would be benefit for the system as a whole.
Regarding the IGF, who will be host in Brazil next year, I think there is collective challenge before us to make sure that the discussions will be substantive, meaningful, that we will be organised in a way that we will lead to this. Also, I think very important point was made take into account what has been discussed before, not at each IGF starting as we are starting from zero. So taking into account.
Then, communicating this output, those outcomes, I don't think it was negotiated outcomes, but even though outcome that would be meaningful for people, that are outside in the circle we are working. I think this is the measure of success of IGF and we are committed to work towards strengthening IGF and benefiting from those process, at the same time also feeding to the benefit of system as a whole.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Fadi, please?
>> Fadi Chehade: Thank you for the organisers. It's very clear listening. We must move from dialogue to action. Let's move. We have a lot of work to do. I think this is immensely important. But we need to translate it into action and rapidly. The world needs us to do that.
The second message I would like to leave is to remind all of us the trepidation, the fear, the concerns we all had going to Sao Paulo we think of that as Mt. Sinai. We had courage and let's have courage. Let's innovate. Let's build on the past. Let's not walk away from what we do, but let's be courageous and innovate, the Sao Paulo experiment proves it is possible.
>> Jovan Kubalija: I think we have a few interventions on this side.
Stephanie, please?
>> STEPHANIE PERRIN: Stephanie Perrin. Thank you. Just a reminder, because we haven't focused on it, I think, much in this discussion, that one of the triggers for the president to hold NETmundial was the new discourse on Internet surveillance. Now, we are sitting here in one of the cradles of civilization as students of history. We know governments will always do surveillance of their own citizens and of other countries. We also know that business will always sell products and services to governments. This has gone on since the dawn of time. We know that.
So from Civil Society's perspective, wherever governments and business meet to talk about Internet, cybersecurity, and Internet Governance, we need to be there to keep an eye on them with respect to surveillance. Thank you.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you, Stephanie. Any other concluding remark? Mark, and then Joseph.
>> MARK CARVELL: We would not quickly support any introduction of negotiating mechanisms of text into the IGF. We do believe it is possible to formulate outcomes in the form of options, in the form of recommendations that could be drawn to the attention of relevant existing entities, the national and regional IGFs, and so on.
Secondly, we do support the existing funding mechanism as the appropriate one for the IGF whereby governments, private sector IGOs, individuals contribute to the trust fund. We would not support moving that into a UN budgetary process. And I conclude with the message to private sector and other governments, anybody with money to join the U.K. government and others to step up to the plate.
Thanks.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Joseph.
>> Joseph ALHADEFF: Going back to the idea of making knowledge portable certainly means you have to write it down. I completely agree with Janet what we're talking about is you have to better understand how you're reporting out what you've learned, because if you're not reporting out what you've learned, you haven't shared your learning.
And should you get a position where everyone comes to a consensus, then you report that out, and that's useful to another organisation that's actually going to draft the document related to it.
But if you start the process saying I'm going to draft two documents, we're going to get a group of people, and we're going to spend the next six months doing nothing but that, then IGF will become two documents, two projects, and not the broad experimental organisation that it is.
And I think the value is that we are the bridge between different points of view on issues of contention and misunderstanding, and this bridge allows people to cross to other organisations where the drafting gets done.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you.
I think we exhausted ‑‑ Jimson?
>> JIMSON OLUFUYE: Just to remind us, more than two thoughts, by implications, so many people yet to be aware of those critical issues, and we need to step up awareness going forward, and also implementation really needs to operate national and regional level, more cooperate level. For example, Internet points proliferated in Nigeria because of this.
Lastly, the government framework is very importance, governance of national IGF and regional IGF. It needs to be like the global, including everybody. So we need to take that message across. Thank you.
>> Jovan Kubalija: Thank you. It seems that we will have to somehow harvest this diversity and complexity into a manageable and easy understandable outcomes and outputs of the IGF. Harvesting are one of the few keywords we may develop further. I would like to pass the floor to chair for the concluding remarks.
>> IHSAN DURDU: Thank you and thank you for the moderators for their great help.
Let me just wrap up the session and, yes, we hear some keywords, like openness, accountability, sharing ideas, comprehensiveness, inclusiveness, equal footing, concession, capacity building, best practices, education, and outcome document. And even an action plan. So some people mention about outcomes, action plan, roadmap, etc.
Even if we cannot achieve a signed agreement, I'm sure we can produce some draft outcome roadmap. I think that would be useful for IGF. I am personally looking forward to coming to Brazil. And I thank Brazil for their hosting of next event. Yes, before next year, we have a lot of work to do. A lot of homework and preparations. And we have to make sure we don't block anyone contributing to this process. Inclusiveness is very important, and it's the key to success of IGF. And we all should be aware of that.
And I would like to thank to all many good speakers for joining us today for this important session, and thank all of you, all the participants for sharing their ideas.
Special thanks to Subi and Marilyn, of course, for their setting up this session.
(Applause)
I think they did a good job. I think it was a useful, good session. I think we have answered many of the questions that are raised during this panel, and good ideas, tangible outcomes hopefully will come out.
With these comments, I'd like to conclude the session. I thank again to all the participants, moderators, and anybody coming to the session. Thank you again.
(Adjourned)
***
The preceding is the output of the real‑time captioning taken during the IGF 2014 Istanbul, Turkey meetings. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.