The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the virtual Fifteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), from 2 to 17 November 2020. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> There is no interpretation. I don't see.
>> MAKANE: Let me know when I request start.
>> IGF: This is on the IGF code of conduct and if you have any questions, please go and post your question. We're going live in the next 30 seconds. Thank you.
>> MOCTAR: Can we go live?
>> IGF: The session is live.
>> MOCTAR: Thank you very much distinguished participants, ladies and gentlemen, welcome to all of you wherever you are. I hope you and your loved ones are all fine, well and safe. My name is Moctar Yedaly. I am very humbled and privileged on behalf of the union commission. The forums are discussing digital inclusion specifically related to capacity building digital transformation. More specifically, the forum shall focus on activities related to Internet Governance, capacity building with the support from the European union through (inaudible) project. Being an acronym for the policy integration regulatory initiative for eastern Africa. To do so, I have been requested to align speakers most of them you know. From the African commission, Mr. Adil and then Mr. Makane Faye. And the chair of the Mac, and then Sandro Bazzanella who is a project manager and I hope (inaudible) is joining us soon from the UN economic union from Africa and we are supported by madame (inaudible) who is the reporter of this session. And the remote moderator. Without further adieu, I would like to give the floor to Margaret who is the chair of IGF. Mary, please.
>> MARY UDUMA: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening wherever you are joining us from. It's my pleasure to be here today to highlight what we are doing at the African level when it comes to internet governance. My name is Mary Uduma. For now I'm the chair of the Africa Internet Governance forum. I greet you all and welcome to this session.
The ninth edition of the IGF Internet Governance will be hosted by ECE. And it will be virtually. Before now, we thought that Nigeria would have hosted it in person, but due to the pandemic, we went through on uncertainty of the virus removed. AU and the most international (inaudible) counseled or in person (inaudible) or events. So we still have opportunity to do individually from the 25ing to the 20th of November, 2020. It will be presented by the Africa school on Internet governance, which will happen on the 23rd of November. And Africa used IGF will also happen on the 24th of November. The theme that will be issued a call for workshop, proposals and from the community and we'll be informed we're working on the agenda for a 3‑day program which will start on that 25th. And we're hoping to have breakout sessions and pair sessions. The first day being the 0 or day 1, we'll have pair session in the morning or in the afternoon. Sorry. And then on the 27th and third day is 27th will also be doing a plenary sessions with lined up topics that we're finalizing to host those. And one of the important ones will be the high level panel on those two and what happened at the global (inaudible) that is coming out of global IGF. We'll have reporting session and we'll have opening and closing sessions as well. The thing is we'll finalize and as soon as it is done, we'll share it with everyone in the community and the details on how you will join platforms you're going to use and speakers and other rest of the publish it on the website as soon as we conclude the finalization or conclude the theme and sub‑teams and the program. So outside of individuals (inaudible) will be shared very soon. Please set the dates. Remember 23rd November. Youth 24th. The main IGF Africa IGF will be 25ing and 27th. It will be as exciting as we used to have it online. And with partners and support from AU and ACA, I know it is going to be a very good outing for us. Join and publicize it as well. The website will soon be updated for your information and communication and outreach. This I very much. That is what I have for us as now because we have only two machines I had to speak ‑‑ two minutes I had to speak. Back to you, Moctar. Over few, Makane.
>> MOKANE: Yes. Good afternoon, everyone. We are organizing a second forum ‑‑ it was interparameter network on ICT. We are here with three members. Professors and Mary is the chair and did the first presentation today in the morning. So the talk that we are going to lane as recommended by last year's IGF, the African governance forum network where we have the first here in (inaudible) will be launching the rest of African parliamentary network. And I'm sure the request the African lists have parliamentary network and we hope we'll support this network. But due to COVID‑19 couldn't go ahead on time. Thank you.
>> MOCTAR: What is a PRIDA, Sandro, and how is that working? Over to you.
>> SANDRO: I would like to share the presentation that I have prepared for you here. Forgive me. I hope you can see my screen.
>> MOCTAR: Yes. We see it.
>> SANDRO: PRIDA built in fact from the African commission and Internet governor an from January 2018 and they were key principle where the idea was strength of the (inaudible) of the African stakeholders of IGA. In fact an engagement from national, regional and African (inaudible) global debate. This is processes and principles which are an open accessible resilient and (inaudible) internet. That was feat the idea with localized content to support IG debate and policymakers from an African perspective. From that ‑‑ PRIDA was therefore strategy that's been presented (inaudible) shared to you (background noise/voice talking)
>> MOCTAR: Sorry to interrupt. But we are interfering with ‑‑
>> SANDRO: Are these interpreters ‑‑
>> Excuse me. Sorry to jump in. This is from the IGF in secretariat. Now we have the interpreter join. We need to assign her as an interpreter from English to French. So you will have two different channels. There will be no interference.
>> MOCTAR: Thank you very much. Go ahead, Sandro.
>> SANDRO: I was talking about the main of PRIDA it is to support an established national IGF and schools of IG which will be the focus to show and see how quickly we have to now. It is an existing regional within IGF and to streamline the process to come with a voice and global debate. Last year we had Open Forum, but in addition this year, we will have a hundred specific PRIDA workshop takes place. This is taking place with the support of capacity building and sustainability, which is now started this year. As you see, I was focusing on the first level which is the creation and the support of establishment of national IG forum and school of IG. You will see ten countries that have been identified for 2020 on the left. You will see that nine of them have already run the school of IG for this year and they have plans now to be finalized by the end of this year. And we have already been able to support national IG in four of those ones and we are planning to support the remaining one to the end of this year.
2021 is already a (inaudible) open and those countries have responded positively. But there is still room to other countries. So this is a call for any countries that would like to have a national IG and school of IG in establishing this country. If there is not, contact us and we will try to do our best.
Some figures coming out of that. Nine countries that we have run, we have 267. Out of that, we have 33% completion rate, which is for online session a very good success rate. In addition, taking into account, there was no national IGF before entirely run and removed it to COVID crisis. I think this is specifically impressive figures. If you look, we also pay attention for a gender balance. We have asked and more meet female participation. I think we have reached higher than comparable event for this kind of meeting now with a 33% rate of participation. But we'll continue to try to work on increasing that number. If we look to age composition, we are targeting relatively young participation level with the people mainly under the age of 30. If you look to the kind of 20 impact that we had, there was a question asked to our 20s and the people with receiving that certification what was the view before the course and after the course. You will see that most of them have moved up on the capacity and some of them even being moved to what they consider as master or event (inaudible) influencer for others which means that we hope by that and by continuously running this, people are able to create a more sustainable environment and therefore at a national level. If I look now for supporting the content that have run in more general framework, what we have already achieved is a train of material which is here in the review. We have an IGF used for creation of national IGF to set up national processees nationally. And we have also developed content for those national schools of IG. Now in the (inaudible) published, we will have a training content for a more general content for IG for African communities and another one targeting for (inaudible) and diplomat. And then finally an action plan for creating a sustainable training on IG in Africa. And a more lodger term, we have a status report specifically covering Africa and with localized data to the PRIDA network. And that's I would say that is explaining for national IGF and regional schools for next year. There is still possibilities of countries who do not have them at national level to contact us and try to do our best next year and the year after to take you on board and to have a creation of national IGF and schools of IG. Thank you very much. And I give you back the floor.
>> MOCTAR: Thank you very much. That was a great presentation. The next speaker will be ‑‑ they will talk to us about the district transformation and strategy in Africa and AU activities. Over to you, Adil.
>> ADIL: Thank you very much. I think I would like to give our condolences on the passing of Marilyn Kate. She was one of the pioneers of the IGF and (inaudible) (low voice) secretariat.
Going to talk about (inaudible) for Africa and in a nut shell, I think this is a grouping for Africa to transform social and economic outlook. To allow Africa to lead benefits of the force in the field of evolution as well as realize the AU agenda as well as the SDG. So this is kind of a general objective of the ‑‑ of the GTS. And just to be more specific, I speak (inaudible) and specific items from the digital strategy with the strategy aims at fulfilling number 1. Built and secure single market in Africa by 2030. Movement of person, services and capital (inaudible) and individuals and businesses can be accessing and engage online activity in line with Africa. Second, by 2030, all people should be digitally empowered and able to access safely and securely to at least (inaudible) all the time wherever they live in the continent and affordable price of no more than (inaudible) through a smart device manufacture in the content in the price of no more than 100 USD to benefit from key service s and con tent of which at least 30% is developed. The third there are so many objectives, but I wanted to show case you have a specific target that the strategy can achieve it. The third is 99.9% of people in Africa have a digital identity as part of the (inaudible). If I have ability to share my screen if possible, otherwise I have a diagram. I will illustrate what it is and what Africa is all about. If you just allow me one minute to share my screen, I will be able to show you this diagram. Can you see it?
>> Indeed. We see.
>> ADIl: This is the strategy in Africa and you have a foundation still up for the digital strategies. There are four of them, enabled environments. Infrastructure and digital human capacity and digital innovation. And then it's going to go through cross sectoral environment in terms of digital industry, digital trade and financial services as well as digital agriculture. There are also digital transformation strategies and digital content and verification, ID and (inaudible) and technology, security (inaudible) (low voice). The good news is that it has been adopted by the AU head of government area this year. And we are in the process of developing this implementation strategy. So we are going ahead with the implementation of this. The vehicle for which we are going to transform other society and our economy. And this is a multi‑stakeholder and a (inaudible) of the multi‑tutorial and it reminds me of the person that we took to develop to the (inaudible) of the government that I think it was also adapted by (inaudible). Thank you very much.
>> MOCTAR: Thank you very of, ADIL. One of the cross cutting areas of this transformation strategy in cybersecurity private and person data protection. Without further adieu, I believe Mr. (inaudible) was not able to join. I would like to give the floor to Keith to something about the youth African IGF. Is Keith around?
>> He is presently of the parliamentary forum. (inaudible) on cyber terrorism.
>> MOCTAR: Wonderful. We believe we have two panelists that couldn't make it. So I would suggest we start with the Q&A and I will be asking online moderator to start shooting with the questions, please.
>> Hello? Hello?
>> MOCTAR: Mary?
>> Mary. I'm not sure what's on this.
>> MOCTAR: At this point in time, we'll just ask questions from the participants, which is actually very good to have enough time to have as many interactions as we would with the participants. So, are there any questions?
>> Hello? Hello?
>> SANDRO: Thank you. I think it is a very important question. We are targeting and explaining my response and also participation in our national activities. There's been a question that came to the west Africa regional forums which were actively targeting an inclusion of parliamentarian and that is something very important. West Africa started to think about it and we started a discussion with them before when the COVID crisis started and we have been enabled to besides been on some ways extended the conversation, but now I am very pleased to see that currently this parliamentarian session takes place in west Africa online. We are giving ‑‑
>> MAKANE: (inaudible) online.
>> SANDRO: I think what the lessons that can come out of that can be shared with other regions and help other regions to set up similar regional initiatives especially taking into account that parliamentarian (inaudible) of conflicting views on how the society and therefore the Internet should (inaudible). I think it is very important to have them onboard also. So we're more than happy to have that current collaboration and I think we will do a debriefing with you after this west African experience and CIMA works, what did not work, what can be improved and how perhaps we can pass the same proposal or initiatives to the other regions. I would be more than happy to support.
>> MAKANE: Thank you.
>> MOCTAR: Thank you. There is two questions that are very pertinent to you, Sandro. Is it possible to have to provide Internet governance at University of Bening? That's question in 1. And I will be working with you on that answer. The African Union is using traditional approach ignoring and I underline that. Huge population of the Interconnected population in your rural area despite all the funding through PRIDA. But the impact is very small especially to people we are presenting where the community draws. How can we improve this together? The question is coming from remote hub in Tanzania. But I will go to the first question. I will answer to the second one.
>> SANDRO: Okay. I don't know what is exactly the case. The point is offer training there or work with them. Just have (inaudible) to questions. If it's to work together, I will be more than happy and they can contact us because we are always looking for local partners and if you ‑‑ do you want to add something to that?
>> MOCTAR: ADIL, do you have something to add to that?
>> ADIL: We are (inaudible) of ID training in Africa at the national regional level. And we are, of course, PRIDA there will come a time when (inaudible). So we are thinking about what happened after PRIDA. We want to give the countries the ability to sustainably provide (inaudible) in IG. The output of this study is going to be an action plan and we attempt to implement the action plan if it calls for giving the (inaudible) through universities or given the training through school of ID. So we are awaiting the conclusion of this study and baited on conclusions, we are going to implement the finding.
>> MOCTAR: Okay. Thank you very much. Let me try to answer three questions. The first one with regard to access to rural areas. Now, from PRIDA point of view, it was considered mainly to work on two major areas. One is the building African capacity on Internet Governance to have and allow Africans to be present on the global dialogue on internal governance. And the Harmonization of policies and regulation. This is the right of the incision and two things we're doing. In the course of action, then we had the transformation strategy in the COVID‑19 had them made us to think how better to reorient part of the activities of PRIDA in order to address the challenges brought by the COVID‑19, the need for digitalization and the need specifically for Africa to leverage on the ICTs. And this is why we redesigned it a little bit and start addressing two priorities. One is on the health sector and one on the edge sector. Now, that doesn't mean that the questions related to rural area has not been addressed by the African Union. There is another program for infrastructure development in Africa in one of the key approach to that is really to InterConnect and to provide Connectivity to the real areas and through a building infrastructure road, transport and ICTs in order to unload the population from the rural area to the more inclusive or included into the African (inaudible). So that PRIDA is mainly addressing the issue of infrastructure.
Act project dealing with those areas is posture sector for (inaudible). We have with the university postal union and postal African ‑‑ postal African Union, five years ago, we set up a project InterConnecting posture from electricity point of view and energy point of view to allow them in rural areas to financial inclusion for e‑Commerce and for (inaudible). So although PRIDA is not talking about rural areas, (inaudible) are talking about it. Now, this also address the question to address by other to show with regard to the issue of community network. First of all, we are very supportive for the community networks. We are actually the first among the big institution that really is endorsing through our ministry that took place this year in 2019. And we have hosted many workshops events related to community networks and we will be including the issue of real areas. There is an agency specific area because one of the first pillars of the digital infrastructure and distal infrastructure includes digital rural areas. I hope I answered those two questions coming from those two speakers.
Now, there is an issue related to status sent anyway somebody in Tanzania saying that the African unit, let me read that slowly. I don't see that question anymore. However, my understanding that is we need to really be very supportive to the small and medium businesses and the African Union actually when they say that one of the element of the DTS was ready to promote. We have started working on so‑called manifest first steps. Actually, we started in 2017 where we had the first meeting and we were surprised by the evidence of (inaudible) looking for 300 start ups and getting 3,000 start ups and we still haven't really tapped into that potential to make it work, but it is part of the program. Are there any questions coming from the floor? Do you have any questions?
>> MARY: There are a lot of questions on question and answer. There's one from Lawrence. Most indigenous businesses on our component in are mid‑sized. Most start ups bring into this number as global pandemic is forced, each impact in every small especially to people we represent in the real community. Sorry. Sorry, sorry.
>> MOCTAR: I did answer to that question.
>> MARY: There's another one. Okay. There's one. Do you consider communities that we have answered that? Is it possible for (inaudible) to get support to provide Internet Governance cost and I answered that. What mechanisms are in place? What mechanisms are in place to leverage on the relationship between the AU and the recs and insuring ‑‑
>> MOCTAR: Let me answer that question, Mary. You are aware that the recs are considered will building block of the African Union integration. The recs are actually having an addition to that, they have assigned with the AU commission and agreement about corporation and how to coordinate together. And every year, there is a summit between the African Union leadership and the Rex leadership. At the level, at the technical level, there is a strong corporation between the African Union and the rec and specifically every project we have considered so far we have a community or Technical Community on that project and all the time include the last part of the stakeholders in part of the managing (inaudible) projects. Specifically when they have a continent original impact. However, there is a middle management kind of missing links that we need to improve. I hope it will be considered that will be enhanced the relationship between the Rex and the African Union. As I say, the top level there is a corporation. On the low level there is a corporation. We need to improve the middle links in order to make sure that the corporation is fully enhanced.
>> ADIL: (inaudible) is on now.
>> MARY: Excuse me.
>> ADIL: (inaudible) is on at special point.
>> MOCTAR: Let me answer the last question before we give the floor to talk about corporation.
>> MARY: Following up with the participants that receive training recently in Internet Governance.
>> MOCTAR: I leave that to Sandro to respond to that question.
>> SANDRO: You can repeat the question?
>> MARY: How (inaudible) following up with participants that received training recently on Internet governance? Any follow up?
>> SANDRO: I would present and complimenting on that. As you are presenting, I would say last year for PRIDA was a strategy in building blocks and one of them the train the trainers aspect why we had a training developed and a session specifically to be dedicated to the creation of the pool of trainers. That pool is called upon when we need to support countries of local stakeholder regional content and stakeholders when they are setting up the meeting and we as I was doing my presentation, we are currently working on an update of our training materials so that trainers have a follow up activity in 2021 and 2022. But ideally, you want to compliment on that?
>> ADIL: Thank you very much. Yes. What I want to ‑‑ on what you have said is the fact that I can hear somebody in the background. If you don't speak, can you mute your mic? So what we are trying to do was to create a network for ambassador in the country. And in fact, some of you who do the training, we have approached you when we are about to do national training or regional training. So you are going to be the national level as well as the (inaudible) continental level. So this network is very important to us and in fact, during the (inaudible) this year, we've changing the format this year. We will have a session or a day dedicated to making sure that the trainer along with the opposite LMNI to debate on the issues that are currently discussed during IGF. So that you are constantly in the loop and rest assure. Once we ‑‑ once we try to reach to do training in certain countries, you are going to be contacted. We have your names or inside the region. We have your names and database of trainers. So the pool is big. We have almost 100 trainers and that's why maybe you have not reached out to you yet. But eventually you will get contact and I think the first contact will be through this (inaudible).
>> MACTAR: At this point, I would like to pose a little bit and give the floor to Mactar Seck. Give your point of view and how as an African contribute to that. Go ahead, Mactar Seck.
>> MACTAR SECK: Okay, thank you. (inaudible) interpretation. (speaking non‑english language)