The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF 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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>> MODERATOR: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We are going to start in one minute. So, I will kindly ask everyone to take their seats, please.
Once again, good afternoon from beautiful Kyoto, to everyone who are here in person with us. We are indeed very lucky. And certainly good afternoon, good morning, good evening to ‑‑ where all of our colleagues are joining us online. I think we have already a nice ‑‑ yes, a nice participation, diversed, of the NRI colleagues joining us.
It's still quite early in many parts or the majority of the ‑‑ of our globe. So, I think Europe and Africa, especially the North and South America, it's still early there. But I really greatly appreciate our colleagues for joining us online.
Just for the record, my name is Anja Gengo. I work at the IGF secretariat. And one of the ‑‑ one of my core responsibilities is to work together and support the network of national, regional, subregional and youth IGFs.
When we started working together as a network, when the IGF secretariat dedicated a focal point to the NRIs, we had, if I'm correct around 50 or 60 NRIs. That was the time when we were all enjoying Brazil in 2015.
Today we speak about more than 160 officially recognized NRIs. The network is not just remarkably growing in quantity. It is growing in quality. If you look at the work that's been done at individual NRI levels, then you can see there are strong efforts continuously into making the IGF processes at national or regional levels or specifically targeting youth engagement and youth empowerment to be as inclusive as that's possible.
And we have the NRIs, for example, that are strategically not hosting their meetings in the capitals, but they are touring the countries. Because colleagues from Brazil are on my left side, so they are one of the examples, Italian IGF, Polish IGF as well, and so many others. And I think those are excellent practices to mention at the beginning.
This is a traditional coordinated session, we host at every annual IGF meeting. And it is a day where we take the advantage of the fact that many of us are here present in person at the annual IGF meeting, and, of course, to connect with our colleagues online, to reflect on what has been done so far. Where do we stand? What's the status quo? And what needs to be done.
Apologize. I have instruction here.
Thank you very much. I hope our colleagues in Zoom can hear us well and see us well.
As I said, it is time for us to reflect, and specifically to try to compromise, brainstorm what needs to be done for future for a strong NRIs network, which means strong internet governance and intergovernance forum ecosystem. And the momentum, you would agree is very important, because politically speaking much is happening, also processwise. You know that we are approaching the review of the vistas plus 20 in 2025, that means the review of IGF's mandate in 2025. And the question today that we have this session is what is your view in terms of how to make the internet network stronger for a strong internet governance ecosystem and specifically in the 20 review what could be the role of the (?) other processes which are happening in parallel to everything that's been done so far, that is the Global Digital Compact but also we shouldn't forget about the Sustainable Development Goals on which already was reported that we are behind and I know that through the NRIs, the concept of sustainable development is very much addressed on several levels.
Now, I think we are very happy that part of the NRIs network is, on behalf of the poverty gall IGF, Ana was chairing the CSCD, the commissioner for science technology and development with the United Nations and because the CSDD issued a roadmap for vishas plus 20 review, before maybe we ask individually all NRIs to speak about in general, what could we all do together collectively but also individually to make sure that we are a stronger network and what could be the role the NRIs could play in this plus 20 review. Maybe I could ask Ana to, as a chair, speak a little bit about the processes with the CSDD, how do you see the WSIS 20 coming up, and what's the value of local inclusive processes with respect to internet governance.
I think, Ana, you have the microphone next to you. And I hope you can hear it.
>> Thank you very much. So, I am Ana (?) from Portugal, and I am a member of the Bureau of the Commission on Science Technology for Development of OCTAD, which is the body of the United Nations that has the responsibility to follow up on an annual basis the WSIS process. And since last session of CSTD last March, it started the process for the reviewing of the WSIS+20.
So, I would like to share with you, because I was appointed chair of CSTD for one year, until next March. It's relative chairmanship of the role. And so now I would like to share with you, as I was saying, that for the review, the ECOSOC adopted in June, so last June, resolution requesting the CSTD to collect inputs from member states, all facilitators and other stakeholders, and to organize during its 27th session in March 2024, and in the session in the following year, in 2025.
Substantive discussions on the progress made in implementation of the outcomes of the WSIS during the past 20 years. And to report thereon through the ECOSOC to the General Assembly.
The CSTD members adopted last March a roadmap, so adopted a roadmap at its annual session in March 2023 to guide the work on WSIS+20 review.
What is this roadmap about? So, the roadmap includes open consultations at regional and global levels by CSTD or in partnership with other UN agencies and UN regional commissions, a survey to all stakeholders, governments, international organizations, private sectors, civil society, technical communities, including academia, as well as written inputs from contributors to the regular UN Secretary General's annual report on WSIS.
It will prepare a synthesis report by the CSTD secretariat based on these consultations and written inputs which will be submitted to the discussion at the annual session of CSTD in 2024 and 2025.
At the third layer of this roadmap is a report of CSTD of these discussions to be submitted through ECOSOC to the General Assembly as inputs to the General Assembly's review in 2025. So the roadmap is very ambitious. And it's full accomplishment depends, of course, on the availability of resources for these purposes.
But what I would like to underline is that the first consultation will take place on the 10th of October. So, next Tuesday at 3:15. In the main hall, I think. So, it will be the first consultation, the first multi stakeholder consultation.
As Anja said, we have over 160 national and regional initiatives of the IGF. That is so powerful. But the problem is whether over 160 governmentsee they are all aware of the national and regional initiatives of the IGF.
So,ing there a lot of work to do among all these stakeholders. And another thing we have to underline all the time is that it's not only about public and private sectors plus civil society. Is private sector, private sector, technical community, academia, national organizations. So, there are several stakeholders. There are not only three.
At the same time, we are having the discussion. Digital Compact. Everybody says it's a parallel process: It should end by the Summit of the Future by September 2024.
So, it's the same community that is going to discuss it. But it will include governments. So, it's up to this 160 national and regional initiatives to inform your governments on the status quo, on the importance of these NRIs, because this make a huge difference.
See, where we were in '23‑'25 and where we are now.
>> ANJA GENGO: And I have to say that, it's very good that you are in the role of the chair with such strong direct experience as a founder of one of probably the youngest national IGFs and now one of the most exotic IGF, which is such a good practice in the (?) network and I hope it will be followed by other language centered communities.
The floor is now open for you. So, there are a couple of microphones at the beginning. So, don't have to queue. But I will ask for cooperation from the colleagues on the first rows to pass on the microphone if we have interventions from the back. And I already see another signing up to speak.
So, the question is, what do we do to ensure that the enterized network is better connected, first of all, that it's sustainable, that we are not leaving anyone behind. And then what Ana said very importantly, that we are on the radar of those who are making decisions and to make sure that we have a channel that those decisions are impacted by information coming from a multistakeholder nexus.
Maybe you can start from the experience of your national and regional IGFs. What is it that you are missing in your communities and where we could maybe better support each other.
Maybe I will ask for another to take a microphone from the first row. But I will share my experience when Ananda is getting ready. This year was privileged to participate in person in a few regional IGFs primarily and, of course, online in a number of national, subregional, regional and youth IGF. And I have seen a difference, for example, with the Asia Pacific regional IGF, I see Jennifer is here, seeing a strong concentration of government entities coming from Australia as your Host Country but also other countries in the region. That is something that will change, Jennifer will tell us. Strong support from ‑‑ other regional IGFs as well, but I wonder who is missing in our dialogues and how do we engage them better. That's the question. Ananda, you have the floor.
>> My name is (?) for the record. I represent Youth IGF network, one of the youths (?) impact.
My question is sharing the experience, how do we engage in is like when we start doing things, people start to recognize and, like, stakeholders, actually, accept, like, if we national use IGFs and while we do our first, it is like what is youth IGF? What does it do?
And on the second year, a lot of stakeholders as well really engaged and, like, they are happy to be there and, like, learn more about it.
What we focus is, we focus on capacity building of youth so they know about the IGF system and other stakeholders understand the gravity of the issues that are happening around the digital landscape. That's what we are doing.
And what I see missing is, like, real sustainability model. I am also part of AP IGF, and how do we get the host for the next year is really a pain. Who will host the event. Like, for next year, Taiwan has proposed, but after that, another host has to come up and that is not that easy. Like making a regional IGF's success is really many people have (?) in that and the sustainable model is not at fixed. For EuroDIG it's multilayer. There's EU that supports more in the maintenance and organizing.
I think the government part and maybe other regional, multilateral organizers should chip into that so these kind of initiatives are sustainable and can go.
And another thing is, like, interconnection between these IGFs. There are 160 IGF already. How do national and youth initiatives from APEC really connect to the Asia Pacific regional IGF? We do not have any mechanism right now. How do regional IGFs connect? There's no mechanism. There is a youth Asia Pacific IGF that is not connected to youth IGF in the region. There is a body but how do we connect. There's the same in YouthDIG and all of the regional youth IGF that are.
So, we need to have a specific mechanism that is interconnected with ‑‑ from the youth initiative, the national initiative to the regional initiative and I think there are more sovereignal IGFs as well so there need to be a concrete model where all can communicate and maybe collaborate. So, that's it. Thank you so much for the mic.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Ananda. Can I ask Poncelet? Because I see Jennifer raising her hand. Just to help with the microphone to get to Jennifer. Or maybe I can come, actually, down and help with that as well.
And then we will come back to this row and then we will go there.
>> AUDIENCE: I will keep on standing over here. So, I am not looking at everyone.
Hi, my name is Jennifer Chung. I am part of the Asia Pacific regional IGF Secretariat.
Just reflecting quickly on what Anja has posed in the beginning and then I will reflect a little bit more on what Ananda shared. So, the question really is, you know, what is missing? What is the part where the NRI networks can be able to fulfill its strengths? We have 160 plus strong. How can we leverage our network, what we do best into the upcoming processes such as WSIS 20, whatever is going to happen with the GDC.
Really being able to open the channels to the decision making people for them to be able to hear what we have to say, the kind of best practices, the issues that we face in our region, in our subregions, in our national jurisdictions and all of that.
And the second part is, having those decisionmakers come to our meetings to be able to see what we talk about, to be able to feel exactly how internet governance is being discussed in each and every single one of our forums and meetings.
What Anja has mentioned earlier is actually really important. Asia Pacific regional IGF, we have had a stakeholder engagement committee that has been looking at and analyzing the participation data across the years. And identifying the subregions, and also the stakeholders that we are missing that we need to bring to the table.
This year, really happy that the Australian government has really stepped up and been able to bring in more government folk that we are missing from Australia and also around the region. The sec thing that we think has been really good for the Asia Pacific regional IGF, and I think I reflected this in last year's coordination session, is for us, having co‑located events, actually, increases the exposure of local ‑‑ the local people. So in this case, the Pacific community and the community within Australia itself. This year we had NetThing, which is the Australia NRI, we had Pacific IGF which is, of course, a subregional IGF in the region, and also the Asia Pacific Youth IGF. So, we, actually, had four co‑located events.
Having that there, actually, increases a lot of cross‑pollination of issues, bringing other people to be able to understand a lot more issues. I think that is something, perhaps, a subregional or a regional IGF can consider in terms of sustainability.
And the second thing that I wanted to point out is because we had the parliament track at ABIGH this year, I think this is something we also need to think about a little more. They are also decisionmakers in the various jurisdictions and they are the ones who are going to be making the regulations, the laws, the bills, and they need to understand what is being discussed in the community about all of these emerging issues, AI being one of them, internet governance, of course,.
And then finally, I wanted to echo what Ananda just said. It is really important to be able to facilitate multiway dialogue. It's not just one way. Not just two‑way. Especially when we are talking about our network being so big now. It needs to be kind of a learning symbiotic relationship. And I think the Asia Pacific Youth IGF this year tried for the second year to hold, kind of, the Asia ‑‑ an APAC youth leaders dialogue. I think hopefully they can evolve that and grow that as well. And, perhaps, that's another way for the NRI network to think about, you know, being able to leverage other events that are going to be talking about similar activities and including those people who are at these events already, who may not already come to your meeting. I think that is really important. Thanks.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you. Thank you very much, Jennifer.
I saw a couple of hands around you. Also I see Carlos is the closest to you. Then (?), then we will go back to where Emanuel and Nizar.
>> Thank you. Hello, everybody. Well, I think we have a lot of improvements from the very beginning when we start this kind of process, multistakeholder process. And this is mainly because the United Nations give us a lot of support with people like you, for example, that works very hard for this kind of process.
The most challenging is how the government of our countries can collaborate more. And, I guess, we can make this better if we are able to have more help with United Nations to work with our governments.
And maybe also if we can have only big countries can host these big events, like Japan or Brazil and Latin America or America. But the small countries are not able to host these kind of big events.
So, it's not so easy for the government to understand what is going on in the world about this.
So, if you are looking for some way to make this sustainable, let's get more involved with the government. I think this is a very good issue. Thank you very much for all your work and thank you, Anja and (?) for your support also.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much, Carlos. Carlos is from the Ecuador IGF, just I'm sure there are colleagues who are not maybe not familiar. We know each other well. We spend a considerable amount of time each month together.
>> I work for the telecon regulatory impact (?) but I also volunteer for regional and other initiatives, national initiatives and IG.
I have to comments, being wearing two hats, I have permission to make comments, one from the (?) side and one from the other side. If you look at government participation in the regional and at the global IGF, it is increasing because I believe that the discussion has become more respectable and more cordial between all the stakeholders.
When this process started, of course, there are points that you have to be strong about when your voice has to be strong, you have to make your point but I think the governments have realized that the discussion on internet governance, it is not a one‑handed decision. It has to be a multistakeholder decision and now becoming more active in these kind of forums because these discussions are more progressive in nature now.
That being said, being associated with APR IGF, I think there's a lot of room for improvement. I think the government participation in these forums is increasing but I don't think it is at that level where we can say that there is an equal participation among all stakeholders, including the government.
There will always be a disbalance but there has to be certain threshold that has to be maintained. We have seen it growing over the years and I believe this year it was around 25, 30%, maybe, very common stakeholders were there.
Now, for the other thing, when we are talking about strengthening the NRI's network, there is a natural progression that you see. For example, for example, my journey started with the school on internet governance that we have in Pakistan. The school on internet governance and I think there is an IGF, AP IGF and global IGF. Identify people or the next generation of leaders that we see on a national level and then maybe on a regional level and then maybe share this between us, introduce them to people who are at the global level or regional level so that right kind of people are being selected for forums like APR IGF and IGF. The next internet leaders from our country or from our region.
One of the things that we can probably strengthen a bit more within the 160 plus network that we have is information sharing about personnel that actually being invited and being selected as fellows or as participants at these events. Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much. You have already the microphone. I'm sorry. To the third row, then we will come back to the middle one.
>> Hello. My name is Andreas Spas. I am from New York. I wonder why IGF does not have a lot of data from the United States. And by the time when I go to the UN with a lot of youth and when I am talking about the IGF, they don't have no knowledge about what IGF means. And this is my sixth one. I am coming. And each time I make sure I bring with me student from different part that can see how wonderful that programme is.
And I think, yeah, I need to do a better communication with the regional as we can have a platform when we send people, it not a one‑time deal. I feel like IGF is one‑time deal anytime they have a session. That's why you know about it. After that, it's like a dead end and they don't have somebody who know exactly how it is. And it is sad because it is a programme under the UN and each time I went to the youth meeting and I tell them based on the competency and what they are talking about the internet, how difficult they have for policy strange, infrastructure and internet governance and they don't even know about the IGF. And I want to make sure that idea of IGF is not a one‑time thing, when this session is ending but people can know about it especially. If you are in the UN, advertise it. Because the global communication, I think I'm the one who send them the link. They didn't have the link about the IGF. Now I think supposed to have a better understanding on that. Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you. Thank you very much for your comment and suggestions.
I think, is it Poncelet? Yes, Poncelet. Maybe we can give the floor now to you.
>> Yes. Thank you very much. Poncelet speaking, for the records.
I will say in terms of I would like to make my comment in terms of improving based on what we have in Africa and I will use the Gambia as an example in which you have to have overall buy‑in from your government and your minister is involved, your parliament is involved. And even the local UNDP office is involved. So, in the sustainable way the government has a budget for it. The UNDP supports it through their governance programme. And I think generally when we ‑‑ if other countries apply, I'm looking at what Ana said earlier on with the CSTD, they can come on the top and during our regional IGFs to support and speak, but it also make sure that the African regional IGF, we shall have it harmonized, that all countries do this on time before it happens. Because we still have a situation whereby there's no harmonized calendars and I think that applies to all regions. We should have a harmonized calendar that you have your nationals and the first quarters of the year and then the third quarter of the year you have your regional before we come into the global. So, that is something I would like to see happen and we should try to engage our various UNDP regional boroughs, whether it's in Asia, Africa or Europe to make sure they are involved in the process at the regional to amplify the voices. Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much, Poncelet.
Any other comments?
>> Okay. Thank you very much, Anja. And first of all, I would like to thank the Secretariat for the work that you put in, in organizing us. It's not a small job. It's huge. But I think your team does have very good job of putting everything together. That is number one.
Number two, I would like to give an example of what we have start doing in Tanzania. You know, the IGF previously in Tanzania was known for having an event in a year and you wait for another year when you have the next IGF.
So, what we are trying to do now, however, shoestring budget based is to have issue‑based, capacity‑building workshops where we invite all the stakeholders to be able to engage with us. For example, we had the issues of digital taxation and we involved all the stakeholders including the tax man and the ministry, and now our IGF has been known for all these, you know, activities that we organize as intersessional activities towards the end ‑‑ towards the calendar of our national IGF.
So, what I would recommend for us to be stronger and to continue to be ‑‑ we are relevant, to continue to be more relevant, is that we become issue‑based, you know, oriented outfit where, as we engage our multistakeholder on the ground, we also take issues that are on the ground and turn them into intersessional activities.
For example, in Tanzania, we were very instrumental in terms of the personal data collection Act that came into force last year. And also we are now very instrumental in the digital strategy that the Ministry of (?) is rolling out for input. So, I think we are willing to take all these intersessional capacity building activities and invite all the stakeholders we will make some inroads in terms of making sure we become more relevant on the ground. And in the process, we will be known at the ground level as, actually, people who are not just doing the meetings. They are, actually, they are there to make sure that the issues on the ground is being discussed on and be acted upon.
Last is about the issues of connectivity, for example. Our national IGF also and took a project on connectivity. And we began a project known as transdigital inclusion project where we train women and young people on digital literacy and also we have created an example, an exemplary community digital innovation hub where people from the community can come and access internet and also, you know, learn about how to use the internet and so on and so forth. So if we have some tangible project that we are, actually, doing on the ground, people will see us, not only as discussing the issues of internet governance and internet development but, actually, creating solutions.
So, I think we also have to take this route where we do some concrete, even very shoestring budget oriented leader project in our communities that people can also emulate.
So, I think that can also be very helpful in terms of making ourselves strong and continue to ‑‑ because if there was no IGF, for example, if you were, let's say, in the worst case scenario, you say today, no IGF. IGF has become one of the grassroot movement. Where you can actually implement a lot of stuff through the multistakeholder outfit that is on the ground. So, I think let me say that will be my 50 Cent contribution. Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much.
Please, you have the floor.
>> Thank you, Anja. This is Mohamed (?) from Bangladesh. We are creating so many community, IGF community in Bangladesh, youth IGF, member of the parliament IGF and also Bangladesh's school of internet governance.
Now we are hearing 18 IGF, 18 IGF. IGF process now is adult right now. Now we are searching how IGF process is sustainable. So, my observation is, why not we are creating on research in IGF under the United Nations IGF process.
This results in working with university, academia involved. They are find out what is the sustainable model is the IGF process. This is our observation. Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you. Thank you very much Anu. Can I ask you to provide on the microphone behind you, and then we will go back to (?). Yes.
>> Thanks. Thanks, Anja. Satish Babu from India. Our IGF, our school on internet governance started eight years back. A couple of weeks back re‑edited the school on internet governance. The school itself was very instrumental in pushing for an IGF which we didn't have for the longest time.
So, three years back, we ‑‑ the school itself took the lead and pushed the government and finally the last two years we have had the IGF.
Second point is that the IGF has brought together the high‑level ministers to the grassroots level together in one platform. I think for India's size that is' very important development.
The third point is that not all regions or countries have multistakeholder structures to drive this.
In our case, what has happened is that this IGF itself, India IGF itself has become a multistakeholder body that is not into pushing for decisions at this point, but at least discussions are happening in the multistakeholder model. I think it's a very important development because IGFs are there in many countries put very few countries have proper multistakeholder structures like Brazil has or like Europe union has.
IGF can become for the future the multistakeholder level model that can be then strengthened to make decisions also. Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you. Thank you very much, Satish. Emanuel. Please.
>> Thank you very much, Anja. So, at the Togo IGF, my name toga Emanuel at the Togo IGF. We have recognized that organizing a forum a day or two where the recommendation have not been implement is not really sufficient, because we have tried last year to track for the last 90 years all kind of recommendations we out out there and what has been the implementation so far.
So, we have noticed that in Togo, for example, the regulatory participate in the name of the government, at the ministry usually they don't usually come as actors. They come as participants. So, it's quite difficult to track the implementation with them because they are not actors in putting on those recommendations together.
So, what we try to do this year is do stakeholder engagement with those stakeholders, the MPs, the government and the regulator. Because this is a problem in most all African countries where government don't usually feel discussing on 15 and civil society and other stakeholder like the business. So, this is a strategy we are putting in place together with Dr. Shango, we developed training material.
This coming November trying to organize a workshop for those stakeholders alone to explain what the internet governance means, the processes to them, because I think there's a lot of ignorance to usually where you send them a letter, they can designate anyone from the ministry to participate but they are not really actors and also implementing those how the recommendations.
So, we hope that by engaging them alone, they can, actually, join the conversation, you know, where we organize our next IGF. And also is when we organize the schools, those government officials don't usually apply to join the school. So, it's also a very big problem.
So, we think that the workshop can try to solve that gap. And from the regional level as well, because, unfortunately to South Africa school of internet governance, at the regional level, the problem we have is that we don't have funding for the school. But those schools are usually expensive. And the school represent a kind of ground where we train the future leaders for those conversations. Because today has been a while. I don't aspire myself among the youth anymore because I'm on the (?) and I am on the youth for years. And this is same example in most African countries or west African countries where the same youth are the actors and they analyze.
The hope is that we should be able to train as much as possible young people to take lead in the, how do you call it? The youth conversation, while we actually grow, you know, in the NRI level. So, that is something. So, we should find a mechanism to fund the schools, especially the regional schools, because they are very important to train those community leaders. And if we don't have one already to be quite difficult for the sustainability of the processes at the regional level. Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much, Manuel.
Julian, please.
>> My name is Julian Bunes, I am talking on behalf of the Columbian IGF. Where we this year will be implementing our (audio fading in and out) so, one of the reflections that came out after the participation of all these spaces and we believe that we should continue supporting these initiatives to strengthen multistakeholder model, and also to identify those sectors that are under‑represented and find ways to get them involved in the process of the internet governance.
But very much focused also in incorporating people to get involved.
And we believe that we have to work in creating mechanisms that we can share the results of this local discussions to be systemized to produce these multistakeholder messages for the development and the strengthening of the internet, as has been done in the last IGFs and other experiences with NRIs.
And also bringing internet governance discussion to new actors. We believe that the exercise with Global Digital Compact in the Columbian IGF, what's very interesting in involving about 25 organizations in the discussions with different stakeholders and bringing together the inputs what's requested from the Global Digital Compact.
And also from that experience, we believe that this multistakeholder model should be recognized, protected, promoted and supported and essential element for internet governance.
This collaborations among all sectors, besides being fundamental, mostly strategic and appropriate way to move forward the global digital development.
Also, we believe that the Global Digital Compact should build on what has been built around internet governance at local and global, regional, national levels and other spacious and other initiatives that we have been debating in the past and discuss the future of the internet, for example, as (audio fading in and out). Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much, Julian.
Our special friend, I have to say, some of you will remember the bright days national IGF, then we had gap due to a very unfortunate situation in the country with the community. Mahesh is back with us, the national IGF is getting refreshed and getting back. And very happy to have you here.
>> Thank you very much allowing me to come back to the IGF. And and, actually, 2016 and 2017 was the brightest IGF sessions that we had.
But after 2019, with the Easter attack onward we had many problematic issues. Now we are placed in the financial crisis as a concrete. Even now we are facing internet government issues at the moment. Within those period, even though the forum is not conducted, there were many activities we did regarding the policies, regarding the X, regarding these things, but Internet Governance Forum is not a forum where I stand on an annual basis. There are actuals in between. In the cybersecurity Act in Sri Lanka, they have tried to produce it in multistakeholder annual (?) where we have gathered. We have done a few forums, not internet governance forums, actually, with the multistakeholders. We present our opinions and beliefs. Where the government had took their step back in 2019. Then after, onwards, now we are facing the same issue regarding the safe internet act that may have issues to be fragmented the internet. So, where connecting here, we are gathering here to keep one internet.
So, as a suggestion, we as an NRI network, we can do something. We had only 14 days to analyze this whole policy that they help prepared. So, what we can do, we can gather together as NRIs and work and we can share your opinions and we can build upon our beliefs on that even. This not should be Sri Lankan policy. It should be done by Sri Lanka.
So, what we can do it, sure, in whole NRI network. So, like propose that think and still we are planning our 2023 IGF version, a smaller version one. Hopeful your support will be there again with us. Thank you very much.
>> ANJA GENGO: You really deserve all the applause. Thank you for being here, the efforts and re‑initiating the national IGF. It's far from being easy.
Thank you very much. Any other comments? Yes, we have here a comment.
>> Hello, everyone. Thank you, Anja, for giving me the floor. I will make a brief intervention, try to respond to your main question. My name is Tana Lousner, I coordinate the working group of Brazilian, IGF and ECF, organized by Brazil Internet Steering Committee. And from our perspective, the issue of how to convey the message to decisions makers is key for this decision, for this discussion. Sorry.
In Brazilian IGF we have been able to gradually increase the participation of decisionmakers throughout the years, either by making adjustments in the form of the event to guarantee real multistakeholder discussions, with main participation of all sectors or even by leveraging the opportunities of our annual event to foster nationalized debates.
The Brazilian IGF was a key resource in the past when discussed the main Brazilian internet law and the same has been happening recently with new trends, such as the platform regulation debates.
I believe in our eyes should find ways to adapt networks to be more and more connected with local, regional and global debates, so that they can be seen as a valuable resource by decisionmakers.
Other than that, I believe we must find ways to strength our bounds and cooperation between the NRIs, be it to simply exchange experience, be it to build whole new partnerships for consolidated use for models of discussing, participating and impacting local, regional and global debates about the internet ICTs and the digital ecosystem as a whole. Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much.
We have no comments. Maybe I will just go ‑‑ since I think it was at the same time raise hand. So I will go to Roberto from Bolivia, then go to Quinault.
>> Thank you, Anja.
Hello, everyone. It's great to be here again in this, as you said, traditional collaboration session, Anja. And I think I would like to share only a couple of examples, as you mentioned before, that I think are important for us to learn between each other and maybe as one of the colleagues said before, there's not necessarily a particular prescription or a particular mechanism that we can, actually, apply in the different regions or different countries.
One of the examples I would like to mention is how we managed to organize between the different IGFs in region in order to arrange a very interesting session we had last year, 2022, in which we, actually, achieved what we always wanted and that is to try to coordinate between all our regional IGFs in order to try to identify prioritized items, priorities in the region, or important common themes that also could be very relevant in order to take them to higher levels, meaning, of course, the global IGF. And as you said before, now, in this and for the next year, it will be very important, more maybe than ever to come up with this kind of concrete coordination and identification of the themes that we really like to push to have as part of the discussion in the agenda of the Summit of the Future and, of course, including in the GDC.
So, I think it's very visible. I want to take the opportunity to congratulate Julian, which under his leadership, you know, is going to take care about the Secretariat of the local ‑‑ the regional ‑‑ our regional NLAC, so I think it will continue this kind of coordination in the future.
And the other thing that I wanted to mention, because it's something we are also concerned about, is that participation of the governments. It's true that among all the stakeholders, it's really difficult in some cases to, actually, take them to the table, to the dialogue table in different countries. Some countries succeed on that. But some others don't. In our case, we had, I will say, we succeeded with them, in our case of Bolivia, IGF, we succeeded in having them at the dialogue table and we had very important results I am talking about from 2017 and 2020 when we have very interesting outcomes in terms of adjusting public policy, in terms that were very important for Bolivians.
I think the presence of them in these dialogues in our NRIs is very important and now it comes as a suggestion, Anja. We know that we always count on you, on the Secretariat. You are always open to be part of our dialogues and we thank you for that a lot, even the MAG chairs usually attend to this kind of event when we, actually, invite you. Because I think it's very important in our local dialogues to come with your participation because it gives even more formality to our events.
What happens in 2021, in our case, we couldn't manage to get the government because many of the people which ‑‑ or to whom we are discussing before were out of the offices. So, they changed the different authorities.
So, in this kind of opportunities, I think a good way to even get them again to our dialogue table will be to receive some sort of support from the Secretariat, meaning that maybe, I don't know if an invitation or a letter or something like that from the Secretariat, that goes to the government officials could help us a lot in order to positively persuade them to participate in these kind of dialogues. Thank you very much.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much, Roberto. And I certainly take that question and proposal to the Secretariat's management and up to discuss, and I do agree with you, probably, it will be helpful.
And I also recall these types of suggestions from 2016 and '17 and maybe it's time to act upon those.
Thank you very much. I think you had your hand raised. You have the floor. Yes, then we will go to ‑‑ further to Lilian, and I think I saw a couple of hands there.
>> Hello. (?) chairing the Internet Society Accessibility Standing Group. And we have talked a lot about underrepresentation of particular groups from the community and in the internet governance debate and one particular group, of course, is peer persons with disabilities. And according to the World Health Organization, at least 15% of any population has a disability. And so we are talking about 1.3 billion people across the world.
And if we are looking here at the IGF, it would be well, well under 1% of attendees, both online and on site to have a disability. So, we really do need to increase that, so that we have a disability voice speaking from a lived experience.
And from the Asia Pacific Region, the standing group has developed a very good relationship with the Asia Pacific school of internet governance to help train young people with disability and disability advocates to build that understanding, to build the new voice.
But in order to do that, people need to have support to be able to participate in NRIs nationally, globally. And it's quite ‑‑ it needs more support. We had an issue with APrIGF and needing more sponsorship for that support and certainly with the IGF support for persons with disabilities coming, that could be increased and certainly some persons with disabilities need travel assistance and assistance to be around the venue and also practical ways. And there needs to be probably more understanding of that.
So, we can have people here and, fortunately, without any coalition on accessibility and disability have had some support through Vint Cerf, Google, to bring people here. But we need a lot more. We need a lot more from various sectors. So, that's what I'm asking the IGF to provide, more of that support, so we can have the disability movements motto, nothing about us without us, here at the IGF. Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much, Guendila.
Let's hear from, I think Lilian was first. And then we will go to Mary, then we go through (?) and then I don't know who else was up. But you can prepare. Yes, please.
>> Can I use this? Is it on?
>> ANJA GENGO: You can hear you well.
>> Thank you, Anja, and thank you for organizing this session. I wanted to share some experience from Uganda and East Africa. My name is Lilian Naroga, I coordinate the Uganda Internet Governance Forum and the east African Internet Governance Forum. I think I have heard from a number of colleagues here talking about involving other actors, like government, private sector and the youth. And I think this is good.
From the Uganda perspective, we always had a challenge of bringing the private sector into, you know, these conversations because I think just around the whole wording around internet governance, you know, and most cases these conversations around policies, because in my country and maybe in Africa, we talk about so much regulation, then, you know, being practical about some of the things that come out of these conversations.
So, what we have seen right now is the private sector is reaching out to us to be more involved in these conversations. And just about last week, we received an email from MTM group, MTM Uganda, which is one of the leading telecom conversations in Africa, Uganda, to have conversations around digital human rights and (?) killing for young people and for women.
So, for us, this is a plus, because in the past, the platform has been used for, you know, bringing together people seeing how can we collaborate.
At the regional level, at the east African level we had a forum last year and some of the recommendations were to how do we involve more government people, you know, government entities into these conversations. And one of the key issues we are looking at the regional block was cybersecurity. And this is where the pain is. So, we are trying to see how can we translate our conversations into actionable items that can involve these key stakeholders that we are targeting.
So, this year around when we organized the East Africa's political governance, we identified regional entities within the east African community and working with the Secretariat, the East Africa community we were able to identify about seven institutions. And we targeted, you know, to give them, you know, an introduction to internet governance but also targeting cybersecurity as one of the key areas that we wanted them to strengthen in terms of harmonizing regional policies and that kind of thing.
So, the key takeaway here for us is away from convening and talking how can we actionize the items, the recommendations we get from the community and stakeholders. And we are seeing this beginning to happen, stakeholders reaching out to us and they are like, so, for purposes of strengthening the ‑‑ talking about the continuity of the IGF that (?) and all that, I think we can use our initiatives as platforms of engagement because we are already doing that. But then we need to be able to target and identify areas of interest to particular stakeholders, because if we come with this, you know, bigger, you know, conversations and all that, we tend to ‑‑ people tend to shy away from these conversations. So the targeted conversations that ‑‑ the actionable items that we want to identify, I think, that is the key take‑way we can utilize from my perspective. Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much. You.
>> This is (?) from the China IGF. And I would like to shout a quick point. In China we will follow the internet governance event or issue, both happened in China or in global community. So, we will organize the (?) to discuss some of the hot topic, for example, the universal acceptance data governance, information accessibilities and such like that. And we will bring this information to the global IGF. So we would like to communicate, enhance the interaction with all of the regional or subregional IGF. So, maybe I will have received many mailing list of the event or I can learn many things from the other countries IGF.
So, I am wondering any other more way motivation mechanism to promote interaction between different regional IGF or country IGF, for example, if I have special topic I would like to discuss or would like to share with others, maybe we can generate a Zoom link or room meeting or we can discuss something like that. That's my quick point. Thank you very much.
And one more testament. China IGF will host social night on this Tuesday evening and welcome all of you to come here. Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much, Ri. And I think you will receive the invitation to a social event hosted by our colleagues at China national IGF so I hope we can also continue this excellent dialogue there.
Let's please now give the floor to Mary.
>> Thank you for giving me the floor. I think it should be evening, colleagues. I just want to share ‑‑ I want to continue from where Poncelet stopped.
I want to ask whether there's anything that the (?) at his own level will do to connect all the UN agencies in our countries to show interest in IGF processes in our countries, in our nations, in our region, in our subregional level.
So, I'm trying back to understand and Anja, if there's something that would be done at that level.
Now, I share what has happened in my own country. We decided that I started as the convener of the Nigerian Internet Governance Forum, but we came to a point to say, look, not one person continued to coordinate. So, we decided to move and find other stakeholders, instead of the nonstate actors. So, when we move it to a government agency, that agency will take it up as a project or a programme for the year and then fund most of the activities. So, it's sustained. So, just to share as an example.
And the Africa IGF, we hosted ‑‑ Nigeria hosted this year. It was government in particular that spent the whole money to host that Africa IGF, and it turned out to be very good.
When Nigeria decided to bid, it was government agency that bidded, and they put it in their budget. So, funding was not a problem. I know sometimes is always difficult to get funding for our initiative and our processes and our conversation and our discussions.
Well, at the subregional level, we involved the ECOWAS. ECOWAS is the subregional Economic Committee of West African States. And that's where our Secretariat is. And as part of the activity their yearly activity. And when we want to draw up our focus for the year, we look at what conversations the Member States would want or discuss and come up with recommendation. And when these recommendations are made is sent to the EKWAS present it to either the ministers level, I mean, meeting, at the EKWAS level or the heads of state. So, it doesn't rest or it doesn't stop from mere conversation. The communicate is always carried forward.
And again at Africa level, I am excited, the number of African parliaments that are attending the African track now is beginning to make sense, because those ones are IDA, chairpersons of the ICT committee at the parliament, or there were the cybersecurity chairpersons at the parliament.
So, when the executive will bring issues that are coming out from the conversation and recommendation and messages from the executive to national assembly to looking for funding and processes like that or look for support, I mean the parliaments will support and also policies that they will support will be the ones that are the conversations we have in internet governance. Thank you very much.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much, Mary, for bringing those good practices from the African IGF. I don't know if we have any more hands in the room. But I would ‑‑ if you agree, I would like to prioritize our online participants. We have a few NRI coordinators that would like to take the floor. And it's very, very early for them. So, that's much appreciated, your commitment.
Yao, you have the floor, and then Umut and then Abraham. I'm going to ask the technicians to unmute Yao Amevi,.
>> Thank you very much. Can you hear me?
>> ANJA GENGO: Yes, we can.
>> I am Yao Amevi. I am representing the (?). I am also a member of dynamic coalition technology.
So, before I start, I would like to thank you, Anja, for participating virtually to the youth IGF event. And the support really relevant and very grateful for your participation to this event.
Tackling this ‑‑ your question about how we can make our collaboration better than what are the best practices, I will say from my point of view, I used to call myself (audio fading in and out) newcomer to the IGF event initiatives. From what I have learned so far, the engagement from the NRI leadership is something we have to praise because you were there to support when we have initiatives and listen to us and then support in terms of organizing, networking and sharing among the different stakeholders at national.
But I think what is ‑‑ I have noticed to be done better could be how we can find way from the NRI leadership to better support national IGF event, especially youth event, in the way that ‑‑ I think I will stress that in some of our communication, if it is possible to give ‑‑ issue a letter of recommendation from the NRI or even from the UN when there's any NRI event and issue a certain matter of ‑‑ of the event (audio fading in and out). And there might be some (?) and other policy issues involved in that. But this is something I think if we do can strengthen engagement in terms of (?) stakeholders many government stakeholders when those organizers coordinators, National Coordinators want to organize.
And also I think we should also find a way to harmonize, regional, local and youth IGF events. Sometimes you have noticed that (audio fading in and out) organize IGF event at national level, but I'm assuming there will be regional IGF or another NRI even. That will, I think, for the long run, since (audio fading in and out) for nationally, also have all the subregions stakeholders involved in those activities.
I think having clear path forward what we have done well in informing community on that. But I think strengthening the different (audio fading in and out) of different NRI initiatives and real time in informing the different coordinators and interested parties will be a great plus in that direction.
And I will now finish my talk. The fact that we need to issue a best practice for the NRI. And I know there's already best practice, but I think we really need something from the NRI community as a global, as an end group of best practices of what has been working so far and on top of which we can build and what is missing and what we can do in terms of merging different activities, including (?), including engaging and empowering different under‑represented (audio fading in and out).
And in terms of sustainability, sorry to be long. I think we need to take measure also to make sure that all these initiatives are sustainable and also take steps to keep track of the recommendations issues, national, regional and (?) events so we know, actually, why we are organizing this NRI initiative and that impacts are really visible and changes are being made.
And in that regard, I would like to stress Mary's point on how we make sure that a government is over when it comes to organizing, for example, international NRI events subregional initiatives.
And my last point, sorry to be long, (?) selection. Select people, newcomers, newcomers who are people never attended an in‑person event, how you make sure that the process is more open and if, for example, an applicant is not selected, I especially what is regionalwide is not (audio fading in and out) just general ‑‑ sorry, not (audio fading in and out) applicants that will be very useful. I will stop there. Thank you very much.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much, Yao. I am getting warnings here that we are very much over time and there's a session after us.
So, I would like us to wrap up with comments from two more online NRI coordinators. Remote, please, you have the floor. And then Abraham. And then we will conclude for today. But there will be plenty of opportunities to discuss further.
Umut, I hope you can be unmuted, actually, you are now. Umut, I see you were unmuted but we were unable to hear you here. So it could be something on your side.
>> Can I continue with mine?
>> ANJA GENGO: Let's hear from Abraham until Umut works on his audio.
>> Thank you. I would like to take this opportunity to appreciate your effort because sometimes I really want to understand how you are able to combine all this work from NRIs to all the IGF communications.
And I am ‑‑ having supporting the West Africa youth idea and the west African IGF to us as well and Ghana IGF and also belonging to the Pan Africa youth for internet governance.
It's been a very good discussion here, following in terms of partnership and other governments. But this is my concerns because when I'm thinking of bringing people in partnership as Mary was saying and other people were talking about, we also have to factor the equality in terms of participation. When we look at this IGF, Africa has been under‑represented because we had some challenges in terms of assessing the location and the events have been choosen.
And we really want to engage private companies, stakeholder groups that can also support the IGF in terms of whether they can understand policies and formulations.
But how can you also engage them when they can't get access to even witness the practicality of the IGF? I know private companies from different African countries who are trying to assess this year's IGF, but they couldn't because of their location, visual restrictions and others.
What I will suggest is that we must be able to also think through from the midlevel to the decisions makers how we choose the selection of a place for IGF, which will not restrict so many people. We must also have a model. I know the UN did very good work with the host government, but since we are not ‑‑ yeah, there should be an extensive communication to countries who are willing to cross the idea of how will you facilitate to accommodate all the people coming from all the different regions. I know Anja a lot of consistent emails to different countries, different people but still refusing. People were funded by the IGF and Secretariat, they refuse them because of some distance.
And I know it's very heartbreaking as well.
Involving government as a decision maker is very key. Sometimes we can ‑‑ IGF Secretariat and NRI can send invitation to the government so the government will be able to work towards to maybe we have funding for people. We can fund about 20 people to come to this IGF which will also be another platform so they can extend some of the fundings to other people who will be influential. So, this is my takeaway. And I really thank everyone for contributing to this. And we as a Pan African group of internet governance, we try, 1000 people in internet governors in different languages, sway Healy, English, Portuguese, Arabic and French. We are trying to create an impact within the various communities communities frame frame from 52 African countries but wanted to have a few to bring these people on what that we couldn't do to some other processes. Thank you very much and we appreciate that some of this contribution will be taken into consideration. Thank you very much. Thank you.
>> ANJA GENGO: Thank you very much, Abraham. Indeed, very valuable.
Umut, if you want to try once again, we have a minute to go. You can try. I think we still can't hear you. I see you are unmuted in Zoom.
But it could be that your verbal comment would relate to your written comment. And technically it's about finding a way to prove the way of sharing our inputs, messages, ways to engage multistakeholders and also our VPFs in order to know exactly what is going on with the NRIs and that is a message being said by several of you. The IGF Secretariat as you know will summarize all these valuable inputs into action points. This will inform our consultations for a bottom‑up planning of the work plan for 24. We will certainly after the IGF traditionally enter those consultations and hopefully start the next year with a new concrete work plan and I'm very glad that we are on the radar as a network of other processes as well. As Ana mentioned the CSDD, the WSIS+20 roadmap but also the GDC and thank you very much for your excellent, valuable work. Everything that you are doing. That's a concrete impact and change that we are witnessing and from the IGF Secretariat, just a big thank you to every single one of you. Thank you. See you at the gala dinner. And thank you, everyone, online.