IGF 2021 Day 0 Event #68 Civil Society Pre-event: Internet Governance in times of Crisis

With more than one year since the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic, civil society has gone almost entirely online and so has advocacy and activism. Internet Governance is a topic that gathers both national and global aspects and relies entirely on proportionate participation from all interested stakeholders and their participation. In 2021 and past the vaccine rollout - in some parts of the world - people are preparing themselves for resuming at least some level of onsite activities. From enhancing the already existing differences imposed by the digital divide, the fake news pandemic and also newly-introduced data protection discussions in light of the need to facilitate data collection from citizens regarding their travel histories and their contacts with others, the post-covid world will have to deal with a lot of challenges. The goal of this pre-event session is, therefore, to gather input from Civil Society Organizations and activists about remedies to the pandemic-introduced issues and inequalities, as well as the new ways of organization we have all been forced into. We plan to gather the Internet Governance Caucus members and other interested individuals for a conversation about the post-covid world as the past year and a half presented very few opportunities for CSOs to gather and discuss alternatives out of this crisis.

Lastly, it is important to mention this session holds connection to the 'Economic and social inclusion and human rights' and 'Universal access and meaningful connectivity' main focus areas for this year's Internet Governance Forum

In order to enable a fair and open discussion around the new means of civil society organization in times of crisis and means to get out of this in a collaborative way, the session moderator will frame the discussion with brief introductory remarks, after that, the proposed session will be divided into three parts of speakers interventions followed by a Q&A in order to allow audience to bring their views and inputs to the session. Another important factor to encourage interaction was the selected session format - gathering. This session does not have pre-defined panelists as we mean to promote a collective discussion with CSOs and Activists all at the same table, and we believe this will allow us to have a more frank and open conversation on the proposed subject.