National and Regional IGF Initiatives:
Planning the IGF 2016 Substantive Session
- Virtual Meeting VIIab: 22 and 23 June 2016 -
About
1. The seventh virtual planning meeting for the National and Regional IGF Initiatives’ (NRIs) Substantive Session at the IGF 2016, took place in a week of 20 June. Due to the challenges of different time zones, and in agreement with the NRIs coordinators, two virtual meetings on the same subject agenda were hosted, but in different times, for the purposes of the coordinators and members of the Asia Pacific region to join the meetings in appropriate hours. Thus, two meetings with the same agenda were held: Wednesday, 22 June 2016, at 13:00 p.m. UTC, [referred to as Meeting M1 in this document ] while the second meeting was on Thursday, 23 June 2016 at 8:00 a.m. UTC [referred to as Meeting M2 in this document] .
2. Both meetings were hosted by Ms. Anja Gengo from the IGF Secretariat and moderated by Ms. Marilyn Cade, MAG Member and Coordinator of the planning process for the NRI substantive session at IGF 2016, supported by Mr. Juuso Moisander, MAG Member. This Summary Report will reflect the content of both meetings.
3. The agenda is attached to this document as Appendix A1 and a list of Meeting Participants as Appendix A2.
SUMMARY REPORT
Introductions and Agenda adoption
4. Participants introduced themselves stating which NRI they are affiliated with, and were asked to share any updates on their Initiative’s activities and future plans.
5. The Host shared the agenda with everyone. Under last agenda item, Any other Business (AoB), it was suggested to add brief update on the organization of the informal gathering of the NRIs at the ICANN 56 meeting that will be held in Helsinki, Finland from 27-30 June 2016.
6. The coordinator of the IGF Best Practice Forum (BPF) on Cyber Security, Mr. Markus Kummer joined the call in order to briefly update about this BPF. It was agreed to add this update under the AoB item.
7. A suggestion was made to move the agenda item 4, reflecting the updates from the IGF Secretariat on the second position, for the purpose of having a continuity of the discussion on the organization of the main session. All suggestions were anonymously adopted.
Updates from the IGF Secretarat
8. During the Meeting M1, Mr. Brian Gutterman represented the Secretariat, while on the Meeting M2, Mr. Chengetai Masango was speaking on behalf of the Secretariat. An update on the IGF Retreat was provided. The overall purpose of the Retreat, deadlines and an agenda were presented. Concerns were raised on a short deadline and the Secretariat was asked if there is a chance for a potential extension. Participants were informed that the deadline of 1 June is a formal one. However, that does not mean that the possibility for submitting the written input would be taken away.
9. Participants asked questions about how their potential inputs will be used during the Retreat. It was explained that the Secretariat will gather all reports and potentially make a summary. That summary will be used as an input during the Retreat discussion.
10. Particularly, Participants wanted to know if the remote/online participation will be available. It was explained that most probably remote/online participation won’t be available, at least in a classical way as it is used during the Open Consultations and MAG Meeting, for example. However, the logistics of this segments are still been developed. One of the potential options was to have live tweeting from the venue or to publish summaries after each day.
Discussion on the organization of the NRIs main session for the IGF2016
Format of the Session
11. Following the suggestions from the Initiatives that responded to the Public call for sending inputs and suggestions for organizing the 2016 NRIs Main Session, the Participants expressed their support for having a round table approach. This was fully supported on both meetings.
12. It was suggested to rethink the idea of having identified two to three policy key issues that are being discussed in the NRIs respective communities, and to present them at the session to the Round table approach and identifying 2-3 policy key issues to be presented. The process of identifying the issues has to be conducted in a bottom up manner, meaning that the Initiatives will have the responsibility of consulting their wider community for identifying the themes.
13. Concerns were raised regarding the actual implementation of the above proposal, as the intention is to avoid the situation where number of Initiatives will be just listing their own issues and topics, without interfering with other content providers. It was emphasized and supported by the participants that the main goal of this session is to have interactive dialogue.
14. For the reasons above, it was suggested to launch a call for identifying two to three topics from each of the NRIs. A clustering will be conducted after and two to three most common topics will be identified.
15. As many participants suggested that the session should address the administration issues, it was proposed to organize a separate session for this purpose. The suggested proposal stated that this session will be focused on identifying the main administration and management segments regarding the NRIs processes, where NRIs coordinator, designated members, and representatives of the IGF Secretariat will be present.
16. As recently, the EuroDIG regional IGF was held, a Coordinator shared the experience on the particular session dedicated to all European IG(F) initiatives.
17. It was said that the session was discussing the main challenges and different practices regarding their initiatives. Some stated that they emerged, as they were inspired by the sub-regional IGF. As the EuroDIGs’ practice is to produce messages from the session, the Participants were directed to the EuroDIG’s set of Wiki Pages, where the messages are available.
18. The Coordinator shared that this session showed that there are good and bad practices, and that such a diversity is present within the NRIs that there is no one solution fit all model. But the point of this session, was to share experiences and it was expressed that this should be also the goal of the NRIs main session. The Participants supported the idea that the NRIs main session should follow this example, of producing output messages.
19. After this update, the discussion is continued. It was said that the session shouldn’t be focused on the participants discussing parallel issues, but that it should be all about dialogue, meaning the topics should intersect. Sharing common grounds to be identified around topics and to focus on policy issues in identified areas.
20. The above proposal was supported and it was suggested to cluster the received themes into a broad framework, so that all NRIs will be able to fit in their topics.
21. It was suggested to generate a survey, so that the topics be gathered. On this note, it was explained that the survey was sent immediately after the First MAG Meeting, and that the results were presented on previous calls (for easier reference, to see previous Summary Report VIab, published on the IGF website).
22. As it was proposed that the presentation on the topics will have a lightning talk approach, one participant raised concerns that this might result in having a content that is superficial.
23. It was agreed that the discussion on this segment will be continued after the two topics frameworks are being identified, amongst the received individual topics.
Organization of the NRIs Booth at the IGF 2016
24. The Participants agreed that it is a definite decision to organzioe a joint Booth at the IGF2016 Village.
25. The Coordination will be conducted in cooperation with the IGF Secretariat, as it requires the coordination of more than 60 NRIs teams.
26. The Participants were informed that the members of the Youth IGFs were invited.
27. One Participant raised concerns that the Booth will not be properly staffed and that it should be organized jointly with the IGFSA. However, the members from the IGFSA present on the call explained that this cannot be arranged as the Booth has different purpose.
AoB agenda items
28. Participants were invited to participate and contribute to the work of the Cybersecurity BPF. All stakeholders are invited to submit written contributions addressing the questions as showed at the IGF website by 19 August 2016. It was explained that initial drafting of the output document will begin on 15 August, and that this should be considered a soft deadline as contributions will be welcome after the 19th of August, particularly contributions from IGF National and Regional Initiatives (NRIs). Contributions will then be compiled and synthesized by the Secretariat, and further circulated to the community for comment and further work towards an output document for the BPF to be presented at the 11th IGF in Guadalajara, Mexico from 6-9 December.
29. The issue of funding for the NRIs was raised and it was recommended to explore all potential options for receiving enough funding to attend the Meeting.
30. It was briefly explained that the Secretariat will organize an informal session for the NRIs during the ICANN 57 Meeting in Helsinki and that all information will be distributed through the NRIs mailing list.
Next Steps
31. The Secretariat will summarize the key suggestions raised during two meetings and will distribute the meeting summary during the week of 4 July.
32. The Secretariat will help the NRIs coordinator to conduct clustering of the substantive topics and call for feedback from the NRIs network.
33. Next meeting: The Secretariat will distribute the Doodle poll for the members of the NRIs to cast the votes for the best time slots for the two virtual calls, during the week of 25 July.
34. For any suggestions or questions regarding the Report, kindly contact the Secretariat at: [email protected] or [email protected].
APPENDIX A1:
AGENDA: National and Regional IGF Initiatives. Planning the IGF 2016 Substantive Session: Virtual Meetings VI: 22 and 23 June 2016
1. Introductions
2. Updates from the IGF Secretariat
3. Updates from the NRIs Coordinators
4. Discussion on the NRIs Main Session organization
5. Additional IGF2016 Activities of the NRIs: Booth and preparation material
6. AoB
APPENDIX A2:
MEETING PARTICIPANTS
- Abdeldjalil Bachar Bong, Chad IGF
- Abdelhamid Al Rahamneh, Jordan
- Ali Hussain, Pakistan
- Baudouin Schombe, Congo IGF
- Brahim Ousmane, Chad IGF
- Brian Gutterman, IGF Secretariat
- Carolina Aguerre, Argentina IGF
- Chengetai Masango, IGF Secretariat
- Christine Arida, Arab IGF
- Fotjon Kosta, Albania IGF (in formation)
- Giacomo Mazzone, Italy IGF, MAG Member
- Israel Rosas, Governemnt of Mexico
- Izumi Okutani, Japan IGF, MAG Member
- Jahangir Hossain, Bangladesh IGF
- Janvier Ngnoulaye, Cameroon IGF
- Jennifer Chung, APrIGF
- Judy Okite, Kenya IGF
- Julian Casasbuenas G., Colombia IGF, MAG Member
- Juuso Moisander, Finland IGF, MAG Member
- Laura Watkins (Hutchison), UK IGF, MAG Member
- Maheeshwara Kirindigoda, Sri Lanka IGF
- Makane Faye, Africa IGF
- Marilyn Cade, USA IGF, MAG Member
- Mark Carvell, Commonwealth IGF, MAG Member
- Markus Kummer, IGFSA
- Mary Uduma, Nigeria IGF
- Michael Oghia, SEEDIG
- Miguel Ignacio Estrada, Argentina IGF, MAG member
- Norbert Komlan Glakpe, Togo IGF
- Sandra Hoferichter, EuroDIG
- Shita Laksmi, Indonesia IGF
- Shreedeep Rayamajhi, Nepal IGF
- Shreedeep Rayamajhi, Nepal IGF
- Sorina Teleanu, SEEDIG
- Susan Chalmers, IGF USA
- Zeina Bou Harb, Lebanon IGF (in formation), MAG Member