IGF 2020 Second Open Consultations and MAG Meeting - BPF on BPFs

The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual intervention. 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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>>MARKUS KUMMER:  Hi.  I'm Markus Kummer.  I'm facilitator of a process that is asked to review our best practice forums and develop criteria for evaluating, proposing and approving future best practice forums.  It is known as the BPF on BPFs.  

 We have started our work.  In the first stage, we established an inventory of past best practice forums from 2014 to 2019 for the first five years of their existence.

 And we identified key actors that would help us to establish a first draft report that will go as an input into a broader community consultation.

 We held two calls so far.  And the result of these calls will be incorporated in a draft report that is in process of being prepared.

 The overarching questions this BPF on BPFs is supposed to ask is what worked well with past BPFs, what worked less well, and maybe most importantly what we would do differently with hindsight.

 The draft outline of the report will be circulated shortly.  It has, as a first part, an introductory element with a history of the BPFs and the second part would then document experiences, document success stories and achievements, identify challenges, proceed to a SWOT analysis, and come up with lessons learned and recommendations for future best practice forums.

 The report will contain four main building blocks.  The first block will have a document with the modalities for establishing and running BPFs.  A second one would include a tool box for future BPF facilitators.  And a third one would contain recommendations and suggestions for future BPFs.

 And the fourth building block would include metrics that would help evaluate BPF proposals and BPF outcomes.

 The first -- the fourth block, the metrics has proved the most difficult so far.  We have realized that maybe establishing quantifiable metrics may not be that easy.  Yes, we can ask how many people subscribe to a list, how many calls were held.  But they may be less telling than more qualifiable metrics such as the outcome, has the output of any given BPF been taken up by other relevant institutions as it has an impact, has it influenced processes outside the IGF.  But this is work in progress.  

 We look forward to your input.  You will have an opportunity to comment on the report once it's been issued.  And we look forward to your input into that.  I thank you for your attention.