The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during an IGF virtual call. 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, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Good afternoon, morning and evening. Welcome to MAG 9. The reminder this morning is being recorded. There is a transcription and the summary report will come out a couple of days after this meeting. Before I start, I would like to note the people who have sent their apologies for not being able to attend. That would be Sylvia, Avia, Gee Acinna, and Darcy. Now, I will give it over to the Chair to start the meeting.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, Chengetai. And thanks to everyone for being here, irrespective of what time zone it is for you. Welcome to the meeting. We are getting to closer to the June meeting. I think, Chengetai, we will have one more call before we have our face to face meeting?
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, that is correct.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: It must have been strange to celebrate under these circumstances. I hope you found a way to do it irrespectively. I want to say to you all that I'm aware and I know we're all aware that the circumstances are very difficult. I have been checking in with individual MAG members, particularly in the light of the evaluation. You know, we really we can't take full brunt that people can work like they would like to. People have circumstances that are challenging. Personal circumstances and work circumstances. So just to encourage us all to be in solidarity with one another. I want to give a special I don't know if he's in the meeting, but just to mention Liban from Somalia who is still not able to go home. He's still in India with his family. That is not an easy situation for him to be away from home so long.
To thank everyone for the workshop evaluations. There is good progress. I think we're down to five people that have not been able to start the work. Some might not be able to. I know many are working offline and will upload your evaluation. Chengetai will update you, it looks like the work is proceeding well.
I want to make mention of the fact that many of you discussed this with me one on one. What the situation is with regard to should we face reality where we cannot have a face to face IGF? I think we're all aware that there is a possibility and in fact quite strong possibility that is what will happen. We cannot say anything officially yet, but I can reassure you that between myself and the Secretariat and UNDESA, we're talking about this actively. I encourage all of you to begin to apply your minds to how we could go about it should we be forced into the choice of having IGF virtually this year. Begin thinking about it, talking about it, we have ideas that we will also share in the coming days.
Finally, I want to share with you that I've been in discussion with ISOC and I'm happy to report that ISOC will be cosponsoring a paper, a short paper that analyzes participation in the IGF over the last since the inception of the IGF. We actually have statistics going back to 2006 and I would like your input on what I think would make a good short series of papers to publish this year to reflect on the IGF's achievement of the mandate, considering that we are now five years into our works of the 10 year mandate. I will share more about the writing.
We have partial found of funding for one of these papers. I think others, one on participation, possibly one on how certain topics have evolved in the IGF. Another aspect of the IGF's mandate that I think can benefit from deeper analysis is the extent to which the IGF has been a platform for dialogue between different institutions. So I'll be writing more about that, but I'm very happy to say and thanks to ISOC that we have funding towards at least one paper, which will analyze the statistics that we keep, that we have and make recommendations on how to keep better statistics in the future.
So I won't take up any more time. Let's move on with our agenda. I don't see any hands or questions. But please, if anybody has questions or want to follow up with me on any of the remarks I've made so far, just add your name to the speaking queue and we'll get back to that. Now I will hand on to Chengetai for item 2. Which is checking on the progress of action items from our previous call.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Anriette. For the last virtual meeting that we had, the action items we had agreed on are they were to have the same order of fields on the workshop proposal and the workshop evaluation form. Luis has done that. I think you can attest to that, they do now appear in the same order. For the next session item was for the agenda of the second open consultation and MAG meeting.
We did change the times to UTC hours. And we did do some slight modifications to that agenda. And you can see it, it's under the documents link in the email that we sent and I think also Luis can put it into the chat for you.
The Chair has also added the items that need to be completed before the next before the June meeting. So that is also there in the agenda.
And I think that's all for the action items. Anriette. Shall I go to the Secretariat update.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Please go ahead, thanks for that.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: So for the Secretariat update, we have to look at the notes.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: You have to be funny so we can make Veni laugh more.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: I will try. I can't promise anything.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: It is easy to amuse Veni.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Oh, okay. For the updates as Anriette stated, the evaluations are going well. This is a reminder that 29th of May, that is this Friday is the deadline for the evaluations. In the system, 36% have been completed. That means 17 MAG members have finished the marking process, the evaluation process.
And we also have 16 that are still in the process that are partially complete. Of course, we have those that are logged in and doing it through the Excel sheet and once they finish with the Excel sheet they update their marks. So that is part of the remainder. And a few people have not started. And as Anriette has said, she has followed up on those, and they are various reasons why, so we have to be understanding. We are dealing with some extraordinary circumstances and some people don't have, you know, the Internet connection at home. Some people can't get home. So there are various reasons why certain people have not started the evaluation process.
There was I did receive some queries from some MAG members about Internet connection and whether or not we'll be able to support them in some fashion because, you know, the price of the Internet connection is very, very expensive. I mean, I can attest to that. I think Zimbabwe is the highest. It is quite ridiculous.
So this is being looked at by UNDESA. It is not just for the IGF, but, you know, it is system wide by UNDESA, and they're formulating some sort of standard to deal with that. So all I can say for you for now is just please keep any receipts associated with getting Internet, paying for Internet, especially for this high usage during the month of June. And this might you may have the opportunity of submitting those receipts and getting a refund.
Unfortunately, this is just for those MAG members in developing countries. If you are living in so called developed country, this does not apply to you. This is unfortunately due to the rules of the IGF trust fund. So you have to be in one of those countries in the Global South.
And then the final thing is that there also has been a request for translation or interpretation during the open consultations. It is a bit difficult to do it during the MAG meeting because of the times and also there is also chunks the interpreters we have them for a couple of hours if we have them for a full two hours or eight hours, it is still one charge.
So for this time around, we would like to concentrate on the open consultations, so the stakeholders who come in if for the open consultations can have the benefit of the interpretation. Is there any objection to having French and English interpretation for the open consultations? Unfortunately, we can't have all six languages, but it seems that since French and English is the working language, at least where the IGF Secretariat is based ... that's what we can offer the at the moment. We can offer it if there is no objection for that effort.
Okay. I don't see any objections. I'll just let the Chair call that.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that Chengetai. The floor is open for questions. Jutta, you are first to have the floor. Please.
>> JUTTA: Thank you Anriette for giving me the floor. Hello, everybody. I have a short question to the Secretariat that I'm wondering whether we could have the weekend as an extension for the evaluation process? So since the 29th is a Friday and then we have the Pentecost weekend lasting until Monday. I was hoping it might be possible if we may ask to have these few weekend days to bring in all of our results into the evaluation tool? Thank you.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Chengetai, do you want to respond to that?
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes. I am just seeing if there is any objection from the rest of the Secretariat team. There isn't any. Yes, there is. If you can do it before, please do it. If not, that is fine. You can have until Sunday to do it. Yes.
>> JUTTA: Thank you.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks. I think that is a fair and reasonable request, Jutta. I'm glad we can say yes to it. Any other questions or comments before we move on to the next agenda item? I don't see any hands. No one in the speaking queue.
I would like to move on to the questions about the evaluation workshop process. I would like to add to the agenda item 4.1 which an update from the Working Group on the workshop process. They're working on a document they want to share with us. Before we do that, let's just open the floor to any questions. Please feel free to share anything that's come to mind, something you struggle with in the process.
I'm curious to hear what people's general reflection is on the quality of the workshop proposals this year. So any questions or any comments on your work in evaluating the workshops? Paul, you have the floor.
>> PAUL: Thank you, Paul Rowney here. From my perspective, I just wanted to make a comment. I'm evaluating the inclusion workshops. We have a few host country proposals there. In general, they tend to be, the ones I have seen, most are quite weak. They fail in the usual areas that a newcomer would fail in. I'm wondering whether we should try to find a way to help the host country to help their constituents to be better at submitting workshops. Because I think it is quite important to get good Working Groups from the host country that pass merit through the normal processes, rather than through a balancing process.
Last year, with Paris yeah, with Paris, we had a plea from the host country then because there were none selected. And it's not ideal that we don't have representation from the host country. I'm just saying, if we can find a way to work with the host country to ensure that their constituents are better educated on submitting a workshop proposal so they get in on merit. Thank you.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Paul. That's an important point. But I think we should leave that for later on when we look at the meeting agenda the June meeting agenda. There is a checklist of what we need to do before that meeting. I think we need to add this maybe we should do this immediately after we have completed the evaluation process. So in between the completion and the June meeting. So Chengetai, let's make a note of Paul's input. I think it is important. Now we want to complete the ranking and evaluation. This week is not the best time to address that. But next week we can get to that.
Jennifer and Jutta, I see you asked for the floor. We have actually my question that I raised at the beginning of the session is to get feedback from you on how you experienced the workshop proposals this year. We prepared a Zoom poll. We want to experiment more with Zoom features. So before we give Jennifer and Jutta the floor. Chengetai, Luis, can you activate the poll for us?
So if everyone can just have a look at that. It's quick. And fill it in. We'll get a result immediately . How does that look, do we have a result yet?
>> Excuse me, Anriette.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: People who are calling in, I assume you don't have access to this.
>> Yes.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: So I'm really sorry. I'm going to ask Chengetai just to read I can read. I have the questions here. I will read them to you so you know what we are asking. And how have you found the evaluation process so far. A, smooth, B, smoothly smooth but with some difficulties at times. Option C, challenging. Option D, very challenging. So Susan, I'm sorry you can't participate, but that gives you a sense and maybe you can make some comments once we open the floor again.
So do we have our result ready? Y.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: I'm handing it over to Luis.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: This is an interesting result. For those that can't see it. 30% found it smooth. 58% mostly smooth but with difficulties at times. 13% challenging. And no one found it very challenges. This is useful feedback, I think for the workshop evaluation and workshop Working Group it is mostly positive. In that we have here only 13% that have really found it challenging.
So now I'm opening the floor. If anyone wants to speak their response to the poll, please do so. Jennifer, you have the floor.
>> JENNIFER: Thank you, Anriette. Hello, everyone. So I just wanted to really reflect a little bit on the evaluation process. I think this year, at least for the quality of the proposals I have reviewed in tranche one, again, I think a lot of the first time submitters are not really clear on what makes what makes a good workshop proposal. I think this is of course a continuing thing that we need to do I don't know with outreach or improving people we want to see workshops from. Many are failing on the policy questions. They're failing on a few of the other things that we're really looking at. Maybe it is another thing that we need to make sure we're very clear on our criteria but this is something that is ongoing. I don't know if the list got my email from yesterday, but I found it curious because I have never actually given a score before, that if you pick the lowest evaluation for all the categories, the resulting score is 1 and not 0. And I think that is probably to encourage people not to I mean encourage people to continue submitting, because getting a score of 0 would be awful. I found it very funny. Because that actually gives me some idea of what the spread of scores would be, you know, between all the scoring. So that's pretty much my take away from this.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that, Jennifer. I see there is also a lively discussion in the chat group, including some suggestions for how to improve the process. But I think we'll do that in a more systematic way, because I do think we need to evaluate what has worked and has not worked as well. As was said, 13% is still a significant number of people that found it challenging. Jutta, do you have something to contribute here?
>> JUTTA: Yes. Thank you for giving me the floor. First of all, I wanted to thank Luis again for doing such wonderful job and also with the new start and new order of the criteria, it is much easier to do the evaluation. With regard to the proposals, my impression was like some have already written in the chat that the quality was a bit lower than we had last year. We did not achieve on most proposals we did not achieve better diversity results than we had last year. Also, we tried to make it easier for people to achieve that. Some are really of low quality where you just think they have not understood what makes a proposal that is good enough to make it into the whole program. I do think that is really we need to think about that. Because if people do that, they elaborate on a proposal, they ask all the speakers, have core organizers, so on. In the end, they still do not fulfill not only the expectations of the MAG, but the expectations of people attending the IGF because our objective is to have a program that people find interesting and satisfying and bringing something forward and so on. So then we really need to consider how we can yes, how we can improve that. That we don't sit among those proposals and think oh, my God!
It is not all of them, but some of them really they don't fulfill the quality benchmark. I'm sorry to say that.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, thanks, Jutta. It is important to note that. Maria Paz.
>> MARIA PAZ: Hello, everyone. Thank you for giving me the floor. Yeah, I agree with the community much Jutta. I want to reinforce that my impression from a different track I understand that I am in the data track. And environmental. My impression from the data proposal is that compared to the ones received last year, there was not the same level of quality, although there are very good ones among the proposals, there are many of them that clearly I agree with Jutta, they don't understand or didn't read carefully the instruction about how to build a proposal. I'm particularly concerned about the diversity, the diversity issue.
Because I think that we made an effort, tried to explain and been a little more flexible than in the previous year in the way in which we will analyze the diversity fulfillment. But I have experience in the review that this year, the diversity issue, it was increased compared to last year.
I found in some cases this could come by the fact that the quality of the proposal in which those diversity issues are not fulfilled are the ones that have also issues in overall quality. But in other case they're not but proposals in your elements, but there is such a huge gap in the diversity item. And I think that this may be will be something that we should consider carefully in terms of the alternative of submitting mergers in some of those proposals. I think that this is always something problematic and the MAG try to avoid as much as possible to do these mergers. But in some cases, I think that this will be the most appropriate solution probably for handling the issue of diversity in the case of proposals that are very good quality in general.
For example, one of them is totally Latin American speakers and the other one is totally Asian speakers. The two of them are very good in quality in the policy questions and the frameworks in general and they are intended to be global, because the other issue is that we say maybe there are a space for particular a discussion that are intended to be regional. And I tried to be sensitive of that in my review. And I didn't penalize the diversity in the case in which they organize, clearly signalized that this was intended to be a regional discussion, I think we should allow space for that. Many cases this is not signalized, geographic diversity is a huge issue. I don't know if this is the consequence of the pandemic and less people have less time to connect and agree with other regions. But I think compared to last year, this is a bigger issue this year. Thank you.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Maria Paz. I note you also had a question which I am asking Luis to respond to about how the scoring was not displaying. Can you just ask that question so that everyone can hear it before I turnover to Mary and Carlos?
>> MARIA PAZ: The issue with the score it happened to me last year also. Sometimes when I finish to score one proposal, there is not the total of the score doesn't show up. Only the items and the final number is 0. But I assume that this is a glitch that will be fixed when some final review is collected. But it is just that it happened to me last year. If I recall correctly, Luis explained that for some reason sometimes that happen. But the total score was finally reflected. I don't know if that's the case.
Okay. Thanks, Luis.
>> It's only me, or the system has died?
>> I can hear you, Carlos.
>> From anybody?
>> Yeah, from you Mary, also. But I'm not sure
[Inaudible, multiple people speaking]
>> We can take over! Mary and Maria Paz, let's take over.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: GRULAC is taking over. Sorry. I was muted. Just before I hand over to Mary and then to Carlos, I want to encourage people that are commenting in the chat to speak. Because you are making important comments. You know Hanna is talking about diversity and Ibasia is agreeing with Gunela on various things. I will give the floor to those in the speaking queue, I will encourage the text chatters to also speak with their voices.
>> It will also be in the transcript, so that is also very important. It is best to speak.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Chengetai. Mary.
>> MARY: Hello, can you hear me? Can you hear me please.
>> Yes, Mary, yes, yes.
>> Yes.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, we can hear you.
>> MARY: Thank you very much Anriette for giving me the floor. I want to support all that has been said, but I but my own angle of recent issues is from the marking the I think they should have been a 0. That somebody did not describe the format. Especially format. People should understand what they need to respond to. By the way I am I am in the inclusion group. Most of the workshops I evaluated, they don't understand what the format that they're supposed to describe this format. And also describe how the interaction will be. So those are two criteria that featured so much. And there was no place to score 0 when people scored 0 for me. So the best I can do is give 1 or 2. So I thought about it and said is it that we did not communicate enough or they did not read the handbook that explained what they were supposed to do.
So that's where I had some scoring not just the scoring process. And for the if from scoring 0, you are putting your scores, comment is a 0. I find out that when I refresh the page, then all my scores will have gone, and I have to do the scoring again for it to add up. I don't know when I was refreshing or
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think he said that is a glitch he has now fixed. I think, Mary, Luis said that has now been fixed.
>> MARY: Thank you very much.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Mary.
>> MARY: My response is my issues are with the format they did not understand. And then the interaction or discussion facilitation. Most of the proposals did not come up with what is required in the evaluation. Thank you.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that, Mary. I know there is a speaking queue and I'm glad to see that it is a really long speaking queue.
Just a question from me. I know that the workshop process Working Group conducted a survey and that workshop proposers responded to the survey, did you also survey MAG members on their experience of the process last year?
>> JUTTA: I do think I can answer that quickly. As long as mag members were sending in proposals or related to that, I think we received some responses from MAG members. But mainly we sent it to the workshop proposers and not to the MAG at all.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Jutta. Good idea might be once we are in post deadline mode, but not too long after the evaluation process is to survey MAG members so we can capture all the suggestions for improvements. Okay. Next, we have Carlos Alfonso.
>> CARLOS ALFONSO: Hi, thank you, Anriette. I am one of the trust 1 group. I am one of those 13% who replied to the poll as challenging. Why I did that?
First is the question of some of the items that generate points for the certification of the workshop. And which are difficult to evaluate in many cases, several cases. One of them is the format quite difficult to decide which format is the best regarding the proposal that is being made. Depending on what the format is will impact the final evaluation. It may be defining value for them to be accepted or not. So the format is a problem. A problem for deciding what to do with that, if it is good or bad or whatever. The other issue is diversity, always very difficult to quantify that. No?
The number of options not necessarily provide the means to evaluate certain proposals. Which are very specific to certain issues. And are very well done. So this is another one which I am finding a bit difficult to quantify.
The other issue is interaction. Most people respond of course there will be interaction and online participation, et cetera. You know, you have say, okay, then fine, so let's give them the good points or whatever. But this is too general. It is quite complicated to evaluate that. I am trying to concentrate, first, on what they are proposing. Not if it is diverse, the format or if the interaction. And then from there I try to evaluate the rest. And check what is the final result in terms of points, no? Finally, there is another one issue which probably Maria Paz identified.
Which is proposals of a specific organization or a group located in a country and at least one case, it sounds like a promotion for the organization. Although the description is very good, the proposal, the content is very good. It is quite important to discuss that issue, but it is from the point of view of a single organization. In at least three cases, identified the problem as being not appropriate to do a workshop with that, but yes, it could be a day 0 session. And I don't know how to handle that. Just give it send the proposal to the local hosts, to decide what they do with that proposal, if they fit it into day 0 or not. Et cetera. So this is also a bit complicated. Although however, the content is very good. And it is a pity that it doesn't somehow show up in a session in the IGF, whether it is day 0 or whatever. So these are my difficulties so far.
I have about 10 or 15 proposals still to evaluate. So far, that's what I find out in terms of problems. Yes, a final note is that I remember that Jutta said the proposals are not as good as last year. I'm not sure if I can evaluate that. I don't remember quite well. I do remember that we had very good workshops last year. So maybe this is true. Let's see what happens.
>> SUSAN: Anriette, can I respond quickly to Carlos, this is Susan.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Go ahead, Susan.
>> SUSAN: Carlos, I think you raise important and valuable insights. Just briefly on the format question on that criteria, it is not the format it is not whether the format best suits the subject matter. The format scoring should be whether the format that they've selected, say birds of a feather or panel or Roundtable is accurate is reflected in how they're going to deal with or how they're going to manage the discussion. So as an example, if one were to have a Roundtable, then it should describe how each speaker will go around the table, share their perspective and be discussed or mixed in with other folks sitting at the table. Say they wanted to have a panel format instead.
It's looking at whether the content or the description of how the session will be run, whether that accurately reflects the format that they've selected. So I think that's a little bit different than what you just described. So I just want to make that point. And then just, again, very briefly, the question of whether or not MAG members believe that the session would fit better as an Open Forum or some other event, I think that's a tough question for us. I think the MAG wanted to be accommodating and that is the nature and the spirit of the IGF, there isn't necessarily a clear and clean process to try and take the workshop proposals and mold them into the different types of sessions. I think that will balance out in the final stages of the program development. But that is a very good question to raise. Thank you. Thank you. Sorry to interject.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: No, thanks, Susan. Please. Other people that are phoning in, don't hesitate to just interrupt. Because I know it is difficult for you to join the queue. Susan I think and Carlos, flag those questions about format, about whether the events should not be workshops. As long as you make notes of them, I think we can always come back to them.
Next, Roberto has the floor.
>> ROBERTO: Thank you Anriette to give me the floor. Good morning, good afternoon, good evening to everyone. I would like to divide this conversation into two parts. The first part, I think it is important for the people in the evaluation to have comments as alerts so they're aware of how maybe to address with the aspects that we have already faced during this process. I agree with all of you, there are several challenging things that we are facing when we are in this evolution process. And even with those process those proposals that comes from people that have that we believe they have experience, because it is not the first time they present their proposal, but they still have some problems about this issues. Particularly about diversity. And so it will be important for the other MAG members that are still in the process to have this alert and to see about coming from this experience that we comment how to better evaluate not better but to have some other key inputs in order to get a better variation during the final the remaining proposals that they have to evaluate.
And the second part, which is also important, it is that we need perhaps we will need to have I don't know how it was conducted, the previous years, perhaps the evaluation group already did the same. But for this year, it will be great to have these inputs. I think this particular meeting is going to be very useful, the transcript and the recording session will be really useful in order to systematize all of the great inputs and help for the future process. Not for the evaluation only, but for giving perhaps, some more specific detail, the criteria or how the proposal the proposer should prepare a good proposal. And also to make adjustments in all of this stage of the evaluation process. It will help us a lot. And I think it will be great once we finish this part, once we finally get the results for the agenda of our meeting in for the IGF in November. I think we need to have some space. I'm talking about us Working Group. Us evaluation Working Group in order to take all the inputs to do these tasks. Thank you very much.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Roberto. I think it's a work agenda for the workshop process Working Group that's rolling up as well. Hanna, you have the floor.
>> HANNA: Thank you, Chair and even while celebrating, I hope yours and you are safe. Thank you for calling me out, and meekly adding into the chat. For what it is worth I will add to the discussion here as well. Happy to hear the digital options are being considered for November. I think that even if the in person meeting goes ahead, I think that there should be scope for a ramped up digital capacity and ramped up digital participation options, given that countries may be at very different stages and there still might be restrictions for people to travel even if the host country is able to accept them.
Second the second point is a related one on diversity. So I'm not sure if this has been everyone's experience, but from what I've seen, in places where a meeting is designed to include a diversity of regions, people have been a lot more available to participate since what you are asking them for, when you invited them, what you are asking them for is to just get off their couch instead of to get on the plane and travel. So the time commitment and budget commitment associated is much lower than in normal timing.
So I think that this is an opportunity that we could harness. And it might have been just that, you know, the workshop deadline for proposals was early so the opportunity wasn't clear. To give the benefit of the doubt to those proposing, perhaps they didn't think as much about opportunities for diversity through remote participation. But maybe that can be clearer when we provide feedback to those that propose and when we look at the main sessions as well. I also, on a related point, wanted to just put out food for thought. If we look in hindsight at the themes and how they're laid out this year, the fact that we start with data and environment might have at the outset already been off putting for a lot of potential proposers or would be proposers from the south. Given that for many countries, inclusion and access is an absolute priority still, you know, many people have reminded us that half the world remains offline. Maybe putting that I know they're not in order of priority. But maybe visually, that made the whole thing less accessible.
And maybe that is something that we can think about in how we present the themes moving forward. Or in future years. If you will still have me in the conversation in future years, everyone.
Third and last point, on evaluations themselves, since the question had to do with the earlier question was on our experiences, big thanks to the Working Group on workshop evaluations and to Luis for all of the support and achievement. I think that just one slight hopefully constructive point. For me at times, there was a discrepancy between the speakers listed and the stakeholder groups listed and then the description of the speakers.
So between the qualitative and quantitative fields, there was a discrepancy. There was a promise of diversity that was not reflected in one or the other. At times, it was hard to figure out whether it was there or not. I will not repeat what others have said about the format and diversity in general. Perhaps that is one thing for us to figure out how to avoid a discrepancy and make it clear what people are actually proposing.
Finally, somebody made a point about, you know, looking at mergers. You know, I saw in the trust group there was one all Ghanaian panel, but I couldn't give a five for diversity. There was one all Polish panel. Maybe we can look in June at potential mergers or inviting people to reach out to other groups as well. Thank you very much. I'm looking forward to the rest of the meeting.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Just give it a couple of seconds for Anriette to get back. Also, we'll just go to the next speaker. Who is Gunela.
>> GUNELA: Okay. Thank you. I will follow up with similar comments, but from a slightly different perspective. Again, with diversity for example, in the inclusion track, there were some related to feminist issues and all women speakers. And it is a matter of how one deals with that. So that's one question. And I suppose I try to be generous in a number of aspects and that included diversity. If there were, for example, geography in global south, I added up each one and tried to find as much diversity as possible. Obviously, if it wasn't there, it wasn't there. But I sometimes I'm guessing there is still a lot of debate about the various diversity criteria and that will come out I'm sure in the June meeting when we discuss this further. So that's a guidance that is useful, especially as a new MAG member doing this.
Also wanted to comment on the format. And trying to work out how to mark that. Times it just seemed like it was very limited in what people describe. They hardly described anything to do with the format, but more on interaction. And I'm wondering if with the new website that will be designed, is there some way of including algorithms picking up particular words when it comes to various sections of the workshop proposal in regard to say format. If they're talking about a Roundtable and breakout sessions, is that included then further on in the description and other sections of the proposal? It is just one idea.
I'm also wondering when it comes to people actually reading the criteria for putting in a good workshop proposal, I suspect there is a number of proposers who don't. Sometimes some of the content is quite good. It is not structured in a way that makes it easier to give a good grading to. And I know I gather that this has been an ongoing issue about how to present this information to prospective proposers. And I'm wondering if a video could be useful. Some people might be more responsive to that.
And the last question is about the lead time to the information about to the proposers about the various criteria. The criteria for the evaluation. But also for the MAG members evaluating. It is very clear as we start the process. So it's I suppose it is up to the Working Group on evaluation to then maybe be working earlier to help us to be consistent in what we're doing. Thank you.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Gunela. I think there are lots of good ideas here. And maybe we can look at next time round integrating the manual with the application form so that you have pop ups of, you know, a checklist for format. A checklist for diversity and so on. I want to make a few more remarks on diversity, but first let's complete the queue. Jennifer. Jennifer, are you muted? We can't hear you?
>> JENNIFER: No, I wasn't sure if it was my turn to speak or Amado.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: It is your turn.
>> JENNIFER: Amado has been on the call for some time
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: He has his hand up because Luis added him. Amado is next.
>> JENNIFER: I was going to bring up the point you wanted to talk more on. I was on the chat and reminded perhaps this is better on record as well. Two points. I guess the first point is picking up on what Gunela and you just said. I was thinking about what colleagues have written on the chat regarding how proposers self identify that they have considered diversity options and perhaps what you just said is what I was thinking as well. To have a pop up or something. Instead of saying yes we are fulfilling the criteria, they click on it, it will remind them, this is the criteria that we need for fulfilling diversity. Not that you have fulfilled it. That is one small point for the Working Group on the workshop process.
The second one I really wanted to talk about here is the regional focused workshops. I came across quite a few in a selection of trust 1. And I have had a little bit of problem or difficulty thinking about it. Because some of them are actually really well crafted. There has been a lot of thought put into writing the proposal. There has been a lot of thought to the format. To the interaction, but at the end, I realize if, you know, the diversity part will definitely affect the score on many of the areas because if you are not contemplating including people in the participation or interaction, and you're just proposing a regional based workshop for people within your own region and not really contemplating inviting perhaps local participants or people from other regions to learn from your region, it is very difficult for me to I guess rationalize it for giving a good score. I have been flagging these proposals on my own Excel sheet. Because I feel like when we come to discuss and decide on what goes into final agenda, this is actually very important. I feel that the MAG has a good role in trying to guide the workshops. I don't want to talk about mergers just yet. I know a lot of people have sensitivity regarding that, especially since a lot of proposers do spend a lot of care and time crafting what they hope to present at the workshop in the final IGF.
So hopefully this is something we can pick up on. I look forward to hearing more discussion on how people have been treating the regional focused workshops. Thanks.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Jennifer. It is a very challenging point. We will come back to it now. Amado, I'm sorry you had to wait so long. You have the floor.
>> AMADO: Thank you very much, thank you, Jennifer. I want to add to the comments from Jennifer, that probably a good practice for the MAG will be to look for how to connect with the proper groups that we are interested to be participating at the IGF. I have also the impression that they really do not know each, I mean, among the NRIs or the regular ones. And they really lack how to approach these in which would be representative of the standards or policymaking suggestions or the real way how to solve these issues.
And also I think allow me to suggest to you to find a way to connect with the different related activities from the U.N. standpoint, from the different U.N. agencies who are already addressing similar points as we are trying to. And also how can we take advantage of the mandate from the WSIS to the MAG, how to get into the most relevant counter wise organizations from the private sector, the Academic sector, certainly from the Government, who would be willing to change the point of view together with other countries in the region or other countries in different regions and make a rich environment on how to exchange experiences and look for work to promote final declarations or promote joint documents who can really bring them to the next step of the digitalization or to the next step how to collaborate internationally. Or how to come together with some funding in order to move forward. That's pretty much my comment. So far workshops, I am in the inclusion group. I have very similar point of view as Paul, some of them really missed the point of how to take advantage of the IGF. Thanks.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks Amado, I think your comments also touch a little bit on some of the work we'll do once we finish the workshop evaluation process. And looking at the high level sessions. Looking at how to integrate other institutions, so on. I think there is a lot more of building the program around the IGF other than the workshop evaluations. The workshop evaluations is a big chunk. I think what is useful about it is it gives you a sense of what is on the table. What are the issues, what are the strengths and weaknesses and content that will be contributed by the workshops.
I just wanted to reflect briefly on the diversity, it clearly is challenging. It is challenging to evaluate it for you. But also challenging for the workshop proposers. We need to look at that. I think the only thing I will recall is that when we started the process earlier this year, we said we didn't want a tick box approach to diversity. I think that that is important. I think your intuition, the way in which you get a sense of whether they are grasping the diversity or not, I think that is very important. Possibly more important than just the score or maybe the score can reflect your insights.
On region, you know, I think that's a really tricky issue. Because, you know, the world is made up of many different regions and different realities and they're all connected. And the IGF has to be relevant to people and people live in regions they experience realities in regions. I think we have to be careful as a global community to not have different standards for different regions.
You know, a GDPR issue for example, would people see that as just a regional issue, it a European issue but it affects the rest of the world. I say "we" here even though I'm from the Global South, I think we sometimes evaluate what happens in the north as being more global than we evaluate what happens in the south. I'm not saying you're doing that I think it is easy to do that. So much of what happen s in Internet driven and comes from governance in the global north. I would say the workshop might seem regional. Look at what they're addressing and if they can manage from a particular region and best be discussed from people from that region. So just keep that in mind, you know, not everything is global in the same way. These are issues you can discuss once you have done your scoring. We will come back to this when we go through the agenda for June. Because we have prepared some milestones for you that we feel needs to be completed before we get together in June. Thank you very much, everyone for this input. It is very rich. I can see you have all given a lot of serious thought to this process.
So let's now move on to the next agenda item. We're running a little late. Don't panic we will not go late. I checked in on the Secretariat, we will do the update on inter sessional activities on the next call and we can update one another in the email list.
So let's move on. Next item is finalization of the agenda for the June meeting. This is really important.
>> I'm sorry?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Go ahead.
>> I'm sorry to interrupt. We had the point, 4.1.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Oh, yes, I forgot. Thank you for reminding me. Yes, we added your report. This is the report from the workshop process Working Group that have done more work on a reference document. Roberto, please.
>> ROBERTO: Thank you Anriette again. I'm not sure if I can quickly share a little bit about the document? If you agree?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Please go ahead. We still have some time. Just don't take too long. Please go ahead. If you can show it, that is good.
>> ROBERTO: Great. Sure. I'm not sure if you can give me permission to share the screen. Luis, can you please.
>> LUIS: Sure, I will give you permission.
>> >> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you.
>> LUIS: You can do that now.
>> ROBERTO: Thank you very much. We finished our work last week, 21st, Thursday, what we prepared as the group is the general guidelines for the workshop evaluation process. It is really actually really concrete document, but we think it is going to help us a lot after we finish our individual evaluation process. We are remembering what are the different stage that we have before and the one that are important are that all the aspects go through once we end the evaluation process in May 29. So all the different stages are related here. We tried to put the different aspects that we may face once we get together as thematic evaluation groups. And with different criterias and even with some examples in the Annex. Since we are getting closer to that date, Anriette and colleagues, we would like well, for you to have perhaps a quick review with the Secretariat Anriette, and after that, if we have this approved, we could share it with all the MAG members. That would have from my side Anriette. Thank you very much.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you very much, Roberto. I know this document is useful. I know some MAG members feel it would be good to have it sooner. It is a value and we can use it next year. Yes, we will do that, we will definitely look at it, comment, and in fact there are some dates related to the June meeting plans that we probably should integrate into your document. So thank you to you and everyone in it the workshop evaluation process Working Group. Ben, you asked for the floor. Please go ahead.
Ben, are you muted by any chance? I can't hear you.
>> LUIS: Sorry, Anriette. It appears he's not connected to audio yet. I will check two phones here. The phones here, I have unmuted the phones.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Ben, are you able to speak now?
>> BEN: Sorry. I was connected. Sorry about that. I just wanted to point out in addition to Roberto's presentation flag to MAG members that there will be work to do in the week before our meeting so the evaluation groups will come together for that week June 5 12, it is quite an intense week of work to take the collective rankings of our thematic track and turn them into recommendations for the MAG meeting. So just to kind of prepare colleagues that that week, the 8 12 of June, there will be an extra quite a lot of work. Quite an intense week of work.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks. In fact, even more work than normal because we're having a virtual meeting, I think there will be even more preparation. Is someone asks for the floor?
>> JUTTA: It is me, Jutta. I want to remind that in the same week we have the EuroDIG meeting that is also on June 10, 11, 12. We need to bring that together in the work that we do for the preparation of the virtual MAG meeting that some of us will attend EuroDIG meeting.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, 10 June is really more of a cutoff point or even 9 June for many of us.
So thanks for that, thanks to the group. Let's move on to item 5. What we have here is an update on the agenda that we presented to you previously. We tried to address some of the concerns that MAG members expressed last week. Or two weeks ago. It is still a work in progress. And also keep in mind that it hasn't yet been harmonized with all the points made, the milestones that is in the document that Roberto just presented. We still have to harmonize that. Let's just go through this help Chengetai, you want to talk us through this? Shall we share it? Do you want to make a start?
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: I can make a start and then you can carry on.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Okay.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: As we said for the June meeting, these are the milestones that actually Anriette set out to be done before the MAG meeting. So that is an in depth review of the workshops with a high degree of variance. As you know, we always have these workshops which MAG members do not agree upon. And so those workshops, with the variance, when Luis generates the statistics, he also generates the variance of each workshop. So that's for those of you who don't know what the variance is, I assume all of you do, but I will just say it anyway. Is that if we have 10 people marking one workshop and some people give it a high score and some people give it a low score, then that workshop has a high degree of variance. If everybody agrees it is a good workshop, give it a high score or all the evaluators agree it a bad workshop and gets a low score. It has low degree of variance. Those workshops with a high degree of variance, that means something interesting is happening there. Why is there a disagreement on the quality of the workshop?
So with those workshops, the Secretariat will highlight them, and then it will be the task of the thematic groups to go through them and discuss those workshops to see whether or not they should be included or not. Because these workshops are usually the more controversial ones and actually generate more discussion where there is more disagreement on the topic than those ones with a lot of agreement on it.
And then the MAG should agree on which workshop proposals should be eliminated. I think if if we do that at least we have done part of the job. So if each thematic group can agree that, okay, these workshops will be eliminated and then we can concentrate on those ones where the discussion should be around.
And then we have the final ranking of the workshops both thematic track, that is what the Secretariat will do. It will just be statistics, based on the evaluation.
Yes, and then in construction of the thematic track, it's not just a matter of getting all the high ranking workshops, let's say we have I mean, this is just a number out of the air. We have 20 workshops per theme. It is not a matter of having the top 20 and putting them into the theme. No. The theme has to make some sort of thematic sense. There should be a thread running through that track in some way. It doesn't have to be completely. It can also be different. But the MAG each thematic group should come to some sort of agreement on how they would want to construct the themes, this track based on the workshops and of course based on the scoring and also based on those ones that they deem to be interesting workshops.
This one, also we want each thematic group to update their thematic narratives. Because the thematic narratives were constructed without any reflection on the workshops that have come in now since each thematic group has had a chance to look at the workshops and see what is the main themes or what is the main objectives of each of the workshops. They can update the thematic narratives to adapt to the workshops that are going to be chosen. We hope to do this before June 10. As has been noted, there is going to be EuroDIG and there will be the year's TD10, 11, 12, if we can do those before the start, that would be very good.
And then we would want MAG members to basically have some thoughts on the main session. So we don't want you know, MAG members to come with a full description of the main sessions that they want, but just have some initial ideas. Because the objective of this year is that we the MAG as a group comes up with the main session. So we will not have competing themes or concepts, but let's do it as a group. Hopefully that way we can come up with main themes that are good and that everybody agrees on and people aren't because if people do construct these concepts, I mean, I do that my own self you know, if I work very hard on something. I would defend it much more heavily than if we do it all within a group. And so this year, we want to try that to do the main themes, coming up by consensus model within the group.
Now, as you know, the meeting, we agreed that the meeting will take place over the five days. We will have the main statements and briefings to be prerecorded beforehand. And then posted on the IGF YouTube channel. Hopefully by that before they're posted we will have a chance to have some interpretation into French, so they'll be both English and French. And also to have transcriptions or we can have some subtitles. We're still working on that. That is the hope that we will be able to do that. Just to increase the inclusion and also listening to what the MAG has said, especially Mary and Mary's group has said. We've taken that aboard. This is one step further to do that. To be more inclusive at least language wise.
Um ... as we have been told that we shouldn't have long sessions in the online sessions due to Zoom fatigue and also that people will be at various times of the days and they will also have other things that they have to do, we will have short plenaries and then have breakout groups to enable people to work in their time zones that suits them. Of course, it's very difficult to find a perfect time for everybody. Especially in those breakout groups when we're talking about the themes because those the thematic groups were constructed so they at least have a member from each basically U.N. region. So basically every single continent. But for other groups we can do it more flexibly. I think Anriette can go more into that when we go into the actual schedule.
Then, yes, we have a proposal for the breakout group methodology and the process. And I think Anriette is going to say a little bit more about that. Anriette, shall I carry on now? Or ... Anriette? Okay. I'll carry on until she interjects.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Chengetai, sorry. I wanted to
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: With the first day, with the consultations, this will be the most dense day to get the most through. And if you I will just jumping. So we have a total of 4.5 hours for the first day. And we have the opening session with the traditional welcome from the Chair, welcome from the host country Chair, co chair, UNDESA. And also an update on the COVID 19 and the IGF. As you can see from the slide, we have all the times at UTC. And then we have a briefing on the preparations and as I said earlier, that all these briefings and interventions will be prerecorded. And put on the YouTube channel. And those people will have a chance to write in questions. And when we have the live session during the open consultations, we will answer the written in questions and we'll also take the live questions as well. And of course, whatever we do on this day will also be put back on to the YouTube channel. We go to the workshop review process, we'll have the thematic tracks, the logistics, question and answer. Discussion on the roadmap and briefings from other Internet related initiatives or organizations.
We have sent out emails to all of the relevant organizations that we can think of, but obviously, invariably we do leave out one or two. If you haven't received an email, you think you should have an email, please just send me an email and I'll give you the details.
And then we have the closing by the Chair. And we hope to finish by 3:30 UTC. For the MAG meeting day 1 let me check if Anriette is there yet?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think it is fine. I'm here. My comments were really on the previous slides. But that's fine. But maybe we should pause. I just think I think Chengetai, before you go over the rest, can we go back to the first two slides, the milestones and the modalities to check if MAG members have questions or comments on that? Ben, I see you have asked for the floor.
>> BEN: Thank you. I can be heard more quickly this time than the previous confusion. I have a question about the milestones the MAG has to achieve prior to the meeting.
I don't know if you want to go back to the second slide on the screen. There are some tasks in there, which are in addition to or slightly different to the tasks that have been set out.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Ben, sorry to interrupt you. Luis, can you take us to the milestone slide? Thanks very much. Yes, Ben, I noted that we still have to harmonize that. Please go ahead.
>> BEN: Yes. So it is about Roberto and I feel a process to provide guidelines for what should be done particularly about what should be done in the evaluation groups to provide recommendations for the MAG. So there are things which are in those guidelines which do not appear in these milestones. And there are things in these milestones which do not appear in those guidelines. If would be great, yes, if Roberto and avid could harmonize those with the Secretariat.
One question is this idea of updating the thematic narrative, it is not something I remember from previous years. I wonder if it is necessary to do it before the MAG has decided which workshops are going to be approved. Is it something we can do afterwards? I'm just aware that as I said before, it is quite an intense week, that week before the MAG meeting to come up with the recommendations of which workshops should go forward. Do we need to kind of redraft the two or three paragraphs? Or is there something else that is meant by the thematic narrative?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that Ben. This is open for discussion. The reason I proposed that is because we're having a virtual meeting. And I think it will be easier for the breakout groups to have a base document that they can use. Because we are working virtually, and the breakout groups will be in time zones that are not necessarily feasible for everyone. So it is not cast in stone at all. Reflect on it, and we can discuss it over the next few days. It was just a proposal to try and help provide as much input as possible considering that we are having a virtual meeting. But it doesn't have to be done that way. It could be an outcome. The other reason for doing it is also that it can facilitate input, discussion around main sessions. But we don't have to do it that way.
Paul, you have the floor. I assume it is also on the preliminary the go ahead.
>> PAUL: Well, it has to do with the milestones, I guess. There is a lot of work we will do during this June meeting. There is a lot of assumptions on how the work will flow, alcohol be based on the on premise or virtual IGF. I sort of have a feeling that we should have as one of the milestones, are we going online? Or are we going to have an on premise IGF? It affects the formats and a bunch of the workshop submissions. Some of the workshops might be short listing might not be suitable for online. I don't know if it is too early to have a sense of which direction we're going on not. I have a feeling it has an impact on the work that will happen over those days. Thank you.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Paul. It will definitely have an impact. I think I can just say that we as soon as we have any updates, we will share them. You are absolutely right.
Just also to add to Ben's point. I see some people say some tracks, some narratives don't need a lot of updates, some might more. Let's leave that open for no. Roberto asked the Secretariat to leave comments on the Working Group document. We can build these suggestions and milestones into that document and then take it from there.
Paul, you are absolutely right. It will definitely have major implications. And hopefully we'll know sooner rather than later. Okay. Chengetai, let's go back. And just go back to day 1. Does anybody have any questions on the open consultation day? I don't see any hands. So let's move on to day 1 of the MAG meeting. I'm giving back to you Chengetai.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Anriette. So for the day 1 of the MAG meeting, this is the MAG meeting now. There is going to be a total of two hours when we are together, plenary when we're together. The first thing is the opening session, which is the traditional adoption of the agenda, there will be a MAG roll call, check in, traditional welcome by the host country co chair and UNDESA, then we'll have a recap of the input that we have received from the community during the open consultation day. The open consultation day is when the community has the chance to speak and the MAG meeting is when we reflect back on what the community has said and try to integrate their comments into the work of the MAG. And then we're going to have the discussion on the workshop selection. And thematic track so we can have a report back from the team leaders from the thematic tracks. And also the discussion, do we have a cohesive program as I mentioned earlier, about do the workshops make does some sort of a thread run through those thematic tracks? If so, good. If not, how can we improve it, et cetera.
And then we have the breakout groups. These breakout groups, we will break and then we'll report back the next day.
Now, the time slots are to be decided. We might just fall back on as Anriette said last meeting. We might just fall back on the traditional times that we have the meeting. And we'll try and set the times that is convenient for everybody. We have two MAG members that is at the extreme east of the globe. We'll give those earlier during the UTC hours so that, you know, they don't have to come at 3:00 a.m. in the morning, et cetera. So those would be the times. Then on the next day, that is on day 2, we'll meet again. And we'll have the plenary session reporting back from the thematic groups and have the final list of the workshops.
Day 2 of the MAG meeting we predict that will take roughly 3.5 hours of the plenary sessions before we have the breakout groups. We have again, as usual introduction by the Chair and in the afternoon also so later on in the morning, we have the second plenary session, which is the discussion of the main sessions, and the topping and tailing sessions. And after we have the initial discussion of the main sessions, then we breakout into breakout groups again and we report back the next day. Day three of the MAG. That is on the 18th of June. On day 3. We plan to have a total of three hours in the plenary sessions.
Now we report back to the main sessions, hopefully by then we would have, as a group, have constructed what would be the best main sessions for 2020 and then people can choose which main sessions they would like to facilitate. Then we can just plan the next steps and get back to that.
As you will notice in day 3, we're starting UTC time in the afternoon. And then later on in the afternoon, we have the reports back from the Best Practice Forums and the Dynamic Coalitions. That will be the end of the third day of the MAG meeting.
For the fourth day of the MAG meeting, we will start off with the updates from the Dynamic Coalitions and national and regional initiatives. And then we'll have update and review of the Best Practice Forums. That's our Best Practice Forums for 2020, Cybersecurity, gender and accessibility, data and new technology and local content. And we'll have the last plenary wrap up session and any other business that has not gone discussed during the week.
And day 4, we plan to have just 2.5 hours of that. The main the core of the MAG work, which would be the main session discussions of course would be ending on day 3, when we discuss the next step. This of course, work will carry on, online afterwards. I think that's it. I'll give it back to the Chair.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Chengetai. I can just sense our exhausting you all find just listening to this. We will the next step we'll take from the Secretariat side is to put this draft agenda into a document form and email it to you so you can actually annotate it, comment, ask questions. But I'm opening the floor. Are there any questions at the moment? Does anybody have totally overwhelmed by this? Do you think we'll making to make our way through it?
You know, the time slots for breakout groups, we were thinking of using Doodle polls to make it easier for you. We also recognize that not all, you know, thematic groups well, there are two kind of breakout groups there are the thematic groups, the ones you have been working in. It is very difficult to make those time zone base because you all are from different parts of the world.
But there are other types of breakout groups, for example those that discuss possible main sessions. Those we thought we could do by time zone, to make it easier for you and have those breakout groups in a time zone that doesn't require you to get up very early in the morning or lose a lot of sleep. So these are generally the suggestions. This is still a work in progress, but open to you for comment. Thanks to the Secretariat. Ben, you have the floor.
>> BEN: Thank you, Anriette. You started to clarify a bit of what I was going to ask which was about the breakout sessions and particularly on the workshops. So we'll have had recommendations from each evaluation group for which workshops should be taken forward and to each theme. As the breakout sessions are not full meetings, I assume they can't make any discussions, but rather they can provide some comments on the recommendations from each of the four evaluation groups. As you said, they can't be done by theme because of the problems, but I imagine that they're ways for MAG members to discuss and provide comments on what is coming out of each theme. I wonder whether the Secretariat will provide someone to take notes of events and report back. Or whether each breakout group will assign someone to report back from their discussion. Whether there is any thinking about that? Thanks.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Ben. We need to think a little bit more about that. I think ideally I discussed this with Secretariat, I think our preference would be to have MAG members share the work of facilitating the breakout groups and documenting the decisions. Remember, the sessions themselves will be recorded. But what I would like is for the breakout groups to in a simple format, and we'll give you templates to record the decisions so they can be shared with others. I think that will be the easiest way. And not saying that Secretariat won't be available to support you. But I think it would be useful for Working Groups, for breakout groups to always have a facilitator and Rapporteur. And we'll identify these prior to the meeting so people are prepared and they know what is expected of them.
I think the point is that is what I was saying. There are different types of breakout groups. I think this is also why preparing is so important. So the decisions about what is eliminated and what is to be discussed that is done before the meeting. That of course requires work from the Secretariat, so we need as much work done before the meeting.
Chengetai we need you to look at that, Ben's point is an important one. How do we make decisions in plenary and based on breakout groups. We need a flowchart. We need a decision flowchart for the meeting so we can see how the different sessions relate to the different steps in the decisions we need to make. Mary, you have the floor.
>> MARY: Hello? Can you hear me?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, we can hear you, please go ahead.
>> MARY: Thank you very much, Anriette, for giving me the floor. I was thinking I want to talk about (?) but I want to draw us to day 2, MAG meeting where we're going to plenary session and workshops. These plenary sessions are very, very important when it comes to discussing the workshops. I'm wondering if the time is slated to the two plenary sessions [audio skipping] [music in background]
would it be best to get every MAG member in for that discussion? I don't know whether that would work with as early as 8:00 and 10:00 is the best time to get everybody to participate?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: That's a good point. I think we need to you know, so the plenary times you have here are the plenary times that we would have had if we were in Geneva. That is 10:00 Geneva time. Yes. And MAG members raised this last week as well. I think as Chengetai said earlier, the proposal is to rotate the plenary sessions using the same time slots that we have been using for MAG calls. That one is not quite a time slot we have been using for MAG calls. Make we can make that adjustment. Chengetai, I'm not sure if you are ready to do that or respond now. Otherwise, we'll take that into account and integrate that into the next draft.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, we can make those adjustments. So you want them a couple of hours later. Correct. Because if you make them too late, we might lose the people from the Pacific region. And the east. But yes, we can shift them a couple of hours. Yes.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: As I said, it is still a work in progress, we'll be sending this to you as a written document so you can comment on it. Are there any other comments or questions? I see no one in the speaking queue. I'm looking for hands. Nothing.
So we still have the inter sessional updates on the agenda? Can we move on? I see no objections to moving on to the next agenda item. And we have just over 10 minutes left. So rather than go through all of the BPFs and the Working Groups one after the other, I just would like to open the floor?
>> MARY:(?) Hello, good evening. I'm sorry I missed your call.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Mary, can you mute your microphone, please?
>> MARY: Hey.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Luis, can you mute Mary's mic? Is there any Working Group or BPF that would like to share? We don't have to go through all of them. It has been a long meeting. If you have any questions or anything to share, Anya, if you have any updates on NRS, now is a good time.
>> CARLOS: Can I speak for the BPF for the local content.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Go ahead, Carlos.
>> CARLOS: We will have a PT Committee meeting tomorrow. To discuss next steps. I think we are okay. No problem so far. Except that the participation from the people subscribing to the BPF local content list is practically no existent. People are quiet. We did the main part of the proposal focusing on property rights or intellectual property rights, community rights of cultural production and so on. And no one complained or said yes or no, et cetera. It is a very silent list. And this is of concern. One of the things we want to discuss tomorrow is precisely that. How to stimulate participation in order for people to bring experiences from their countries or regions or areas of activity regarding the main objective of the BPF, which is, you know, bring your practices for discussion and model learning of experience. So let's see what happens.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Carlos. Just send a reminder to the MAG list. I really encourage MAG members to participate in the BPF calls. I know you are busy, but if you can, please do. Jutta, you have the floor.
>> JUTTA: Thank you, I was taking the floor on behalf of the Dynamic Coalitions coordination group. First, I wanted to apologize that due to technical issues, I wasn't able to report during last virtual meeting. I had some difficulty with my speakers and microphone as well. The dynamic Coalition met on 6 May for a meeting gathering most of the dynamic Coalition have been able to take part, so we had good resonance. We discussed, of course, what the MAG is up to, how the evaluation process will be. The dynamic Coalition representatives mainly agreed that workshop proposals in the thematic tracks should be proportionate to the percentage of overall number received for such and such track. We also got information from the IGF Secretariat on the dynamic Coalition session proposals. And 16 Dynamic Coalitions submitted their proposals, with 23% in the thematic track of trust. 6% for Department of Transportation and the major part was 71% for the inclusion check. Then there was some confusion regarding the annual report that dynamic Coalition asked to post to deliver. I think with the help of Markus and also the Secretariat, we have somehow sorted this out, so that Dynamic Coalitions now know better how to deliver their annual report, related either to the session they are running with the IGF annual meeting or having it as a separate report on all of the activities that have taken place throughout the year.
We also had a short brainstorming regarding the dynamic Coalition's main session, and there is thanks to several a Google Doc set up, gathering around the main session to be prepared by the Dynamic Coalitions. I think that's all. Thank you for listening.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Jutta. Would you please share those updates on the MAG list?
>> JUTTA: The report is already uploaded, I think. The minutes.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Oh, it is already there?
>> JUTTA: Should be there.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that, I see no other hands asking for the floor. Any other reports from inter sessional work? No comments or questions?
Secretariat Anya, do you have any updates for us?
>> ANYA: No updates compared to what was said in the latest MAG meeting.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Okay. We have come to our last agenda items. Thanks for that Anya. Thanks everyone. Any other business? Anything else anyone would like to bring up before we close our meeting.
>> CARLOS: Anriette, can I make a comment on the AOB?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, please go ahead, Carlos.
>> CARLOS: I think we will have a fascinating test drive of what would be the IGF in an online fashion. And this will be our meeting in June. So I would really recommend that if we think very hardly on how to record the process, the results, the difficulties and so on, because these will be for the meeting itself if we have to do it online as well. That's my
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think that is a good idea. Very good idea. If we start on the MAG list sharing experiences. I know many of us are participating in online conferences. Sylvia shared with the Secretariat and myself her experience of a large online conference she was in last week. There are various other ones. I think that's a good idea. We can start sharing knowledge and experiences and use June as a model, as a learning experience. In case we do need to go the route of the virtual IGF.
And then the regional as Jutta said, EuroDIG will be the first one, but there will be several virtual national and regional IGFs that we can benefit from as well. And Chenai, you have the floor.
>> CHENAI: Thanks, Anriette. My apologies to everyone that I was late. I was coming from another online Zoom meeting. I want giving an update on the gender IGF.
As Maria Paz has noted, we have a call next week, this next Thursday. I would like to encourage all MAG members and other BPFs to participate, I think what we are trying to do is asking how responsive we are in terms of gender issues, in other spaces, BP and IGF itself, not just necessarily the gender BPF, it would be good to have people participate in the call. It is going smoothly and we have calls every two weeks, in case you want to schedule that on the calendars, together with plenty [background noises]
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Chenai. Mary, you asked for the floor again, is that right?
>> MARY: Yes thank you very much. It is very, very short. I'm happy that we're going to use the June session as test case. Some of us at the regional level also want to do like the west Africa IGF and the online. And we're expecting to be supported by the Secretariat and I wanted to ask whether Chengetai, you can tell us whether we still have support from the from UNDESA as proposed to doing it online or face to face or [muffled]
hold the meeting online in July. So that's what I want to raise. And want to know whether we have support from UNDESA. And whether we'll have support from the platforms like the one that will enable us to breakout session. [Audio skipping]
And the governance online. Thanks.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, most definitely you will have the support of the Secretariat in the online platforms or any other technical assistance we can give you. If you want support for such as a small grant, just go and get in touch with Anya, and she'll tell you what needs to be done. We will support you to our fullest extent.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: We have two more requests for the floor. We have Jackemo. And Gunela. You have less than a minute each. Gunela, you go first and then Jackemo.
>> GUNELA: Thank you Anriette, I will be very quick. I wanted to ask [audio skipping] with the new website development? Has it started? Has there been vendors selected? Et cetera, et cetera. I'm just curious.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I can tell you, Chengetai can answer it. It is going quite slowly. It is met motions. I think it is going to be a long process. Chengetai, I don't know if you have any more concrete updates than that?
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: That is exactly it. There are a lot of hoops to jump through. First of all, we have to receive the money before we do anything. There is legal hoops, due diligence things that we have to fill out, et cetera, et cetera. It takes a long time. Everything takes a long time if lawyers are involved. We'll get there. And when we do, we will inform. Yeah.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think what my take away from this is, Gunela, it will take a long time. If any MAG members feels that there is something within the current framework and structure of the website that can be improved, share it. We can consider whether it is possible to make some improvements within the short to medium term. But the revamp is definitely not a short term initiative. We'll have to be patient.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, thank you. That's a very good point. If you have an idea, please, share it with the Secretariat, send it to me or Luis directly. He'll just keep it and of course, we will consult everybody, but if you have a good idea, please tell us. Gunela had a good idea with the algorithms, et cetera, which she said earlier on. So we are taking note of this. And we can start collecting ideas now, yeah.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, definitely. Jackemo, are you still with us?
>> JACKEMO: Yes, two quick points. One is the practical point, the video contribution that has been asked for the opening day, to send to the Secretariat via transfer or something like that.
The second is you were mentioning about the experience with the virtual meetings. As you know, BU makes a lot of meetings every year. We're facing this problem. I have prepared them not from my bosses about the various experience and students collecting material that are available. If you want, I can share with you. I would send to the Secretariat.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thanks, Jackemo. Can you share it with the MAG? You are on the MAG list so share it with the MAG.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: We did not receive the video. Can you resend.
>> JACKEMO: I have not sent yet. I will send to you.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: I was getting worried. There was a time I was missing emails.
>> JACKEMO: You said the 31st, you will have it by tomorrow. Okay. Accessory
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: We are giving people extensions if they need.
>> Extensions, I will look nice with extensions. Ha ha ha ha.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Don't make assumptions about people in Africa being bad with time.
>> JACKEMO: I will look nice with extensions, I'm sure.
>> Talking about Chair extensions. Braids.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Don't speak while the Chair is speaking. Thank you for your patience. We have gone over our two hours. Not a lot. It has been an intense meeting. I want to thank the MAG members for sharing your evaluations on the process. It is once you do it to share this level of detailed reflection and analysis. Thank you very much everyone. Thanks for your patience and your hard work. Stay well. Care for yourselves and those that are close to you. And talk to you online. Then we'll meet again in two weeks' time.
>> Thank you. Thank you Anriette and to you all.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you. Thanks to our captioner and to you all.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Next meeting is ninth of June, 11:00 a.m., UTC.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Chengetai.
>> Be safe.
>> You, too.
>> Bye.
>> Okay.