FINISHED COPY
NINTH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE
INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM 2014
ISTANBUL, TURKEY
"CONNECTING CONTINENTS FOR ENHANCED
MULTI-STAKEHOLDER INTERNET GOVERNANCE"
02 SEPTEMBER 2014
09:00
DYNAMIC COALITION ON PUBLIC ACCESS IN LIBRARIES
ROOM 7
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The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the IGF 2014 Istanbul, Turkey, meetings. 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 to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MODERATOR: Once we've gone through the first part, we'll crowd the stage and there will be no one.
>> Okay. I think this is working now.
>> I understand there is a Hall 7 and Workshop 7 where people were sort of sent in relation to this meeting. So I'm going to suggest to give five minutes to give people to move from Hall 7 to here and then we'll start.
[Pause.]
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Well, I think we're going to move on with the meeting, why not? Good morning. So if you've come to this room, you are hoping to participate in the Dynamic Coalition on Public Access in Libraries. This is the third meeting of this Dynamic Coalition. And there's enough of us here in the room, I think, to do a quick round of introductions, actually, which hopefully won't terrify the people who have come in.
I'm Stuart Hamilton. I'm the Deputy Secretary General at the International Association of Library Associations and Institutions, or IFLA. And along with another NGO called Electronic Information for Libraries, we're the co‑convenors of this Dynamic Coalition. The Dynamic Coalition was formed following the IGF in Kenya where a pretty large workshop was held on public access and there was deemed to be enough interest in this subject to get a group of like‑minded people together to continue to discuss what we can do in the Internet Governance area regarding public access to ICTs.
Now this Dynamic Coalition in its very name does focus on libraries, but I would like to think that we're actually a little broader than that and can talk also about community centers and telecentres in the broad context of public access.
But I know that there's some familiar people to me here today, but do we have a microphone that can go around? Because there's only a few of us, it would be really great if people could just introduce themselves to each other. Yeah, if you can start perhaps.
And you can just say a couple words about your organisation. I know that many of you are actually going to be sharing your speeches in just a moment.
>> Good morning, I'm Leana Mayzlina and I'm the digital access campaigns manager World Pulse, which is an organisation that is an online community of women that works to empower women through digital communication. And I will be speaking a little bit later, so I will leave the rest of the introduction until the presentation.
>> Hi, my name is Leena. I come from the Internet. My day job is to be the Africa Regional Coordinator for the World Wide Web Foundation. And I'll be sharing later about some of the things we do. But access is one of the pillars of the work of Web Foundation which was founded by Sir Tim Benzly, the original founder of the World Wide Web as we know it today. And the Web has become central for us as a tool for access. And what we breathe in and breathe out on daily basis. And that explains why we are here this early morning.
>> Hello. My name is Fren Clement. I'm from Luxembourg and I'm representing the para ‑‑ international. I'm working with libraries in Luxembourg, especially the national library and in the realm of creative commons and works. It is dear to my heart and that's why I'm here.
>> Hello, my name is Gabriel Guillemin. I'm legal officer at ARTICLE 19 where I lead the organisation's work on Internet policy. ARTICLE 19 is an international free speech organisation based in London. But with regional offices around the world in countries such as Brazil, Mexico, Kenya, Senegal and Bangladesh and in other places. But I'll talk a bit more about our work later.
>> Hi, my name is Riyadh. I'm a PhD student from Oman. My area of research is copyright and access technology. I'm just here to see what's here.
>> Hello. My name is Hamada Tadahisa. I am Chair of Japan Computer Access for Empowerment and Steering Committee of Association of Library Evolution. Thank you.
>> Yes, good morning. My name is Yacine Khelladi. I'm working with the World Wide Web Foundation also on the Alliance for Affordable Internet initiative. And I just started about two months ago as a Latin American and Caribbean coordinator for that.
>> My name is Ema Osha and then work with the Association for Progressive Communications. I coordinate our APC policy work in Africa. And public access is one of the main issues or one of the focus areas that we are looking at under access and rights in Africa.
>> Hello, good morning. My name is Martha Giraldo. I'm from Colombia, and actually I'm ICT development specialist. After through the years, this is what I can say I'm doing now.
>> My name is Mike Jenson. I'm also with the APC based in Brazil. My area of specialty is access issues in general, and we'll go into a bit more detail later.
>> STUART HAMILTON: So really the purpose of the Dynamic Coalition meeting is to share information in a very informal way. So it's actually not a problem that there's only a few of us here this morning because we can have an informal discussion about what we're up to, what's going on. And I'm really pleased that our colleagues from Japan, Luxembourg and I didn't quite catch exactly where you were from, sir? Oman. And there's two nods towards copyright , which is always one of the best the sort of issues to get into and we can certainly share with you a couple other sessions which we think might be of interest in that area.
As I say, it's an information sharing exercise. We meet once a year and sort of say what we've been doing, what's been going on in the area of public access. And I think the presentations we got this morning come from a number of organisations which are doing some really excellent stuff. One organisation which can't be with us this morning which is a key player in the Dynamic Coalition is called Beyond Access. They have sent a few slides which I'm going to share in the beginning of this session because I think it will give a bit of an overview of what we think that libraries can bring to the party.
Now, Beyond Access has a kind of novel concept. It attempts to work in the countries with a three‑pronged approach. It brings teams of librarians. It brings together people from the government, and it brings together people in the development centre, so the projects they roll out have these kind of three-pronged approaches.
They have a kind of simple mission statement. They are focused explicitly on public libraries. And they're focused, really, on bringing access to ICTs through public libraries. And they're trying to make policymakers in particular, but also the development community, aware of the fact that libraries exist. There are 320,000 public libraries worldwide. I think 230,000 of those are in developing countries. So they offer a really good resource to both government policymakers who are trying to deliver development goals and also development organisations who need partners in the community.
These are the countries that they're currently working in. And you can see that they've got projects underway or starting in these places. Now, I'm just going to run very briefly through these projects, because in each place they work with different partners and different themes. By scrolling through these, I can just show you some of the areas that we think libraries can really play a role. Particularly in the context of Internet Governance and also in the context of things like the Beyond 2015, post‑2015 development framework.
So their projects are focusing on things like increasing access to government services in the community, digital inclusion which covers access and economic opportunities. Myanmar has been opened up the last few years in government organizations, working on literacy there. Again, access to government services. This for us is quite key, the actual idea that we have a lot of buzz phrases and a lot of emphasize at the moment being placed on the open government partnership or open government data. We're kind of interested to actually see how policy makers are going to implement that in the community, in the libraries working on that in a number of Beyond Access countries.
Peru is a project that's going very well. You can see that they're partnering there with the national library. It's different in every single country. Some countries the national library is a good place to start, other places we have national library associations or big institutions.
When we say digital inclusion, again, we're looking very much at the provision of public access to ICTs, trying to solve the continuing digital divide problem.
Nigeria, working with the universal service provision fund there, which we think is an untapped area for us to put libraries into the conversation.
Namibia is a big project that kicked off recently and there you can see we're working on women's empowerment. There's another project I draw your attention to the Public Library Innovation Programme, or PLIP, which is organised by Electronic Information for Libraries. And on their website you can see tens of projects that are working in these very specific development areas, and women's empowerment through the provision of services in libraries that offer safe spaces and places for literacy, financial training seems to be a good area that libraries can be involved in.
So I just wanted to swiftly run through that to give you a little bit of an overview of where some of these projects are running. There's obviously many, many more project around the world, but Beyond Access is one of the partners in this Dynamic Coalition; and as such, really have a lot of material on their website which is beyondaccess.net. And they've been helping us with the production of some of the briefs which we're going to talk about later.
So I'm going to talk now for five minutes or maybe a little built less, actually, about what IFLA has been doing with regards to public access. But first of all I'll start by talking about the Dynamic Coalition itself.
So the Dynamic Coalition has about 126 members now subscribed to its mailing list. And we generally use the mailing list for exchange of information. It's not one of those lists where there's a huge amount of discussion. That might be something for us to talk about whether it needs to be or not. But it does share the information from projects like Beyond Access and from IFLA, sort of advocacy work and then the briefs that we've produced over the years. So there's generally some fairly regular traffic on that. And if you are looking for examples or if you are looking to get in touch with experts in this area, then joining that list is probably a really good place to start because it does open up access to a lot of people who know what they're talking about in this area.
Now, what does the Dynamic Coalition do? Well, we're focus, really, on raising the profile of libraries within an Internet Governance context. But of course all the organisations involved have their own objectives when it comes to public access. So IFLA has this year, or since the last meeting been working in three areas, all three of which I'm sure are going to be very familiar with you, but I'm just going to run through them.
First of all, we were involved in the NETmundial discussions which took place earlier this year in Sao Paolo, and I went to Sao Paolo and sort of flew the library flag. How many people went to NETmundial in the room? 2‑1/2? Okay. Well I think we can all agree it was quite the experience.
The interesting thing for us was that we were able to get reference to public access into the outcome document, which I think was actually something which was unexpected for us and I think was very good. So if you look at those Sao Paolo principles, you can see reference to the importance of public access when it comes to basic access to the Internet. And I'm sure you'll all be aware that this IGF there are ongoing conversations about NETmundial next. I'm quite reassured that whatever happens next, at least we've got a toehold in the framework document.
The second thing which has been a really big engagement for IFLA over the last 8 or 9 months has been the work we've done with the World Summit on the Information Society review. This was organised by the ITU and involved an awful lot of consultation, multistakeholder engagement. IFLA was down in Geneva six or seven times up to a week at a time trying to influence the documents there. And I'm extremely pleased to say that if you view the outcome from WSIS + 10, the high level event, public access is all over that document. We did some very hard work. And I believe in the priority section of that document, we even managed to get text in that developing library services should be a priority for governments over the next 10 years.
So it remains to be seen exactly what happens now to that document, but nevertheless as we know the WSIS process will continue to have its full review during 2014 and this document will have an important input. We are really pleased that we made sure that public access is all across that document.
And then the final area which we've been working on from IFLA's perspective which is relative to this, and I think we'll talk about it a little bit more later on, is the post‑2015 development framework, which is obviously going to be hugely important for setting governments' priorities in a development context after 2015. But I'm going to talk about that in the second part of this meeting.
Just to give you a bit of an idea of what we're going to cover this morning, we're now going to talk about what's been going on in the regions with regards to public access. We're going to take a look at what happened at the Latin American Internet Governance Forum and the African Internet Governance Forum.
Following that, we're going to talk a little bit about some briefing documents, which I don't think everybody will be aware of that we've worked on this year which we think can be useful to you when it comes to public access. And then we're going to have a bit of a general discussion about how the organisations present in the room are working on things like post-2015and the other opportunities that are coming up for public access. I really invite you, if you have a question at any point, if you want to raise your hand. If you have a comment just go with that. We're not going to talk for an hour and a half and then ask if you have any questions five minutes at the end. That's really rather dull. Are there any questions so far or any comments?
Okay. On we go, then. I'm really pleased, I asked Martha Giraldo, which IFLA has been working on public access issues in Latin America, to come and say a few words about what happened at the Latin American IGF in El Salvador earlier this year. IFLA tries to make sure that we have library representation at every regional IGF. And we try to work with our partners to make sure that we've got, if possible, workshops on public access or events going on there.
Now, Martha, maybe you want to just tell us what happened? And tell us what, perhaps we could be doing in Latin America in the future.
>> MARTHA GIRALDO: Thank you very much. I'm going to read, and I'm sorry for reading because I really feel more comfortable doing it like that, about how this preparatory meeting for the Internet Governance Forum which was called LACIGF 7 that was held in San Salvador from the 16th to the 18th of July of this year.
There was about 100 participants from the Latino American and the Caribbean countries. And the Forum included the following sessions: The Internet Governance ecosystem in 2014, where are we coming from, where are we going; Internet access challenges and opportunities for development; Internet and Human Rights; network Neutrality; Openness; The NETmundial process, it's results and regional participation; and also a final session for conclusions and wrapping. The sessions were organised like we already learned. As panels, with each one of them with presentations after panelist participation locally and virtually was opened and a moderator conducted session.
At this point I would like to call on the attention of the good organisation of this Forum in Latin America in relation to previous years, which made it possible not only to develop accurately the agenda but to get to discuss and read a final document with the resulting agreements. That was really great.
But before going into these agreements, I'd like to focus on the subjects that are most interesting for this session focused on libraries. The session or panel called Internet Access ‑‑ okay, sorry ‑‑ the session or panel called Internet Access Challenges and Opportunities for Development had the purpose to promote discussion regarding the challenges of the region in terms of Internet access for closing the digital divide. And it was in this session that Camille from Beyond Access and IFLA from Colombia, she delivered a presentation in this panel. She presented the Beyond Access project as a whole showing the evidence success related to the introduction of ICTs in library programmes and giving examples on how libraries can be utilized for public access of information and application of digital skills for development. She also mentioned the potential of the large number of libraries across the region for contribution or contributing to these goals.
And I can testimony this for my last position in the country was that as a director for the planning phase of a project funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for modernising the libraries in my country, which is Colombia. This was based in the Ministry of Culture and National Library. And it was a complimentary project with the ICT Minister plan of connecting the 100 percent of the municipalities with a broadband connectivity by the end of this year. Actually, the Minister of Communications of my country, the ICT Minister is around here. And he's going to give some presentations on his plans.
But my concern is that with these two big projects, the connectivity of the country and also this project of modernising libraries, giving them an a good infrastructure in terms of ICTs and also processes of education with all the librarians and all these things, my concern is that there is not really a national plan for making available the pertinent information for the citizens' needs.
Therefore, I intervened in the session, bringing up to the discussion the importance of keeping division on the necessity for agreeing on possible real mechanisms. I don't know what should they be. But it includes policies, maybe platforms, systems, applications that really facilitate access to information so that Internet turns to be a real opportunity for development and as a requisite for true information and knowledge society.
And that's my invitation.
Continuing with the regional IGF meeting, I would like to tell you about the conclusions out of that three days of discussions which were general in all this Internet aspects and the IGF purposes. So the conclusions were divided into three points. The first one was the relevant principles for the region. The second one, the topics that need further discussions; and the third one, the mechanisms to implement a regional agenda for Internet Governance.
Development principles of the region, mainly the Forum ratified the decisions taken in NETmundial related to Internet Governance, thus confirming that the main focus should be that of the Human Rights emphasis, on freedom of expression, privacy and personal data protection, access to information, freedom of association and accessibility.
In addition, development was very important as an issue for the region. Open standards, multistakeholder, transparency and accountability, cultural and linguistic diversity.
Some topics that were pointed out like points that needed further discussion in the conclusions, they are to define the meaning of development according to our region specificities. Second one to promote the universalisation of Human Rights exercise be it national brothers, strengthening, also strengthening about the balance between intellectual property and access to knowledge and information. Further, discussions about neutrality. Strengthen debate and evaluate practices related to civilians in communications in our region. Discuss about use of Internet aiming piece. Update the meaning and implementation of Human Rights in the digital world. Strengthen the capacity to develop local content applications. And further the understanding and discussions about intermediary responsibilities in the Internet.
And at last, which are the mechanisms that were proposed to be implemented on the process for the development of our future regional agenda for Internet Governance in Latin America. There were some points which are related to followup, bottom‑up participative, inclusive, democratic and multistakeholder process for consensus building; develop awareness and further understanding on the meaning; reach and relevance for the future of Internet; make use of the existing structures to disseminate principles, for example, the Ilac, the Ctell, and other regional blocks; identify opportunities to replicate the NETmundial process at national levels; strengthen the meaning, processes and mechanism for meaningful participation in the multistakeholder model; promote development of Internet Governance Forum at country levels. There were some presentations of already experiences that are going on that way; strengthen the regional LAGIGF meeting as a place of convergence and exchange among the community; strengthen remote participation; develop mechanisms for synergies among national, regional and global level; pursue funding sources to secure sustainable participation from regional stakeholders and global and regional Internet government processes; capacity building of all stakeholders and last, facilitate the identification of national best practices and its possible dissemination at a regional level.
So that was the résumé of what happened in Latin America. Thank you.
>> STUART HAMILTON: Thank you, Martha. You held a side meeting with other organisations with access to organisation. Do you want to talk a little bit about that? Because that was a very interesting outcome.
>> GIRALDO: Since the conversations on the Forum were related to technical still and also about governance of Internet. But this new different aspects of related to Human Rights and access to information and all the things were not tackled, really, at that moment.
I suggest that if we could ‑‑ but there were a lot of persons that were really interesting on talking about that. So we had the permission and we had a nonformal meeting in the next room, a coffee time. It was about 45 minutes. And it was just really to get into get more deep on starting from those aspects of what is that meaning of development for our region and how the Internet can we try to see how to advance on that on our development, what's needed about that?
And specifically in terms of access to information or the things that we're liking to see there at this moment, access to information was one of the big points, also thinking of the libraries as the idea places to develop this appropriation processes. And not only libraries, because not all of the Latin American countries have a good infrastructure in libraries, but also school places and some other centers, technology centers, access to information centers.
So it was very interesting having this meeting because there were about 12, 15 persons and they were from 8 countries that came to the meeting. And we got ‑‑ we included these, the outcomes of the meeting with this general paper and we hope it will continue. We're very happy because, I mean, I think the people is really thinking that we should start opening these conversations and talking to them also in these regional meetings for really advancing on these aspects.
>> MODERATOR: This is what we're trying to do in our regional IGS is to try to find a way to reach some sort of next step that the library folk in the region themselves can pick up. And as we go through this session, it would be interesting if you hear anything that you think we should particularly be picking up, if you can help us or have any ideas for that, then we'd like to sort of build on that.
Emilie, you were at the African IGF. There we did a very specific workshop on public access. Perhaps you could give us five minutes or more on what happened down there.
>> We held a side event at the Africa IGF in July in Abuja Nigeria and the meeting was attended by about 200 or more people coming mostly from the library community. We also had people from academia, civil society. It was a full multistakeholder type meeting.
And our agenda mainly focused on Africa ICTs and development and public access to ICTs in Africa.
And the discussion really was lively. We had very short presentations and more time for discussions. And what came out mostly from the discussions was there's lack of political will to fund libraries and also that the provision of public access has fallen off in most of the African countries that were represented there.
This is mainly because of the growth of mobile technology. But some people also say that, you know, of course there is the growth of mobile technology but it is still very expensive the not everyone can afford to ‑‑ not everyone can afford the data to be able to access most of them. So I'll just go through the discussion and the recommendations that came out of that workshop.
Another thing that came out was in the libraries, in most libraries, there is redundant skills, the library themselves or the library professionals do not have the skills to make it easy for users to use the technology that is available in the libraries. And also that these obsolete equipment, mostly which is dumped by international organisations or aid organizations, these are dumped in the public libraries for use but they're obsolete.
There was also one participant from southern Africa mentioned that libraries are targets for ‑‑ when there are protests against the government, they are usually the targets for showing public anger and their equipment stolen from libraries.
So if we look at the recommendations, one major recommendation was that there's need for resource allocation mainly for libraries to be able to give the services that are required. This can be financial resources or human resources, qualified librarians, or qualified library professionals especially in technology issues.
And second one was there's need to build the capacity of libraries, of librarians and library professionals. And also that schools can be places where public access ‑‑ where the public can have access to technology. But that the schools themselves need to change their policies to include people who are not part of the formal system because you find that in the rural areas, schools are sort of sacred. You cannot just go in. But the schools themselves or the ministries of education need to change their policies to be able to cater for people who are not part of the formal systems.
The other recommendation was that there's need for libraries to be relevant. One of the major points was why are we even having this discussion? The library concept is dead, that's what one participant said. But the recommendation from the group of people there is libraries need to be relevant. They need to ensure that young people can come and access information through gaming. And also libraries need to be cultural centres, to incorporate the African culture where oral history is the main way of communicating. So they should be places where children or people who are interested can access oral literature or oral stories or folklore.
And going back to the point of equipment, that there's need to have budget allocations for maintenance of equipment. You have a library that is well‑equipped today but in two years' time, the equipment is not working because there is no funding to ‑‑ there is no one who is maintaining the equipment, so there is also need for maintenance of equipment.
And there's also need for government to ‑‑ government or any other interested stakeholders to ensure that there is solid deployment in the rural areas mostly and even in the urban areas because there is a lot of power cuts. And even if the library is well equipped, the librarians are well qualified, but there's no power for the equipment to be used. So maybe it's an option to look at other sources of energy for libraries.
The other point was that ICTs in general are not even part of the post-2015 agenda. And while it is good for us to look at public access, maybe we need to look at it holistically as part of ICTs and globally that ICTs in general be part of the post‑2015 agenda.
And the last recommendation was that there is a need to include librarians and information professionals in government decisions or ICT policy discussions and even have a course or as part of the curriculum for the Africa Internet Governance school have something dedicated to librarians so that they can be part of these discussions and they can participate meaningfully.
And the participants were also looking forward to the IFLA conference in South Africa in 2015 and maybe take forward this discussion there at that conference.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. From my perspective, what we have there is a big set of challenges. I think there's a lot of things there that we will need to overcome. Of course I've been working in this sort of long enough to know that they are very difficult to get around. At the IFLA conference we had last month in Leon, I was able to sit down with the Minister for Communications in Angola, who was just telling me that they just built 15 new library media centres. We know in Namibia there's a really big project to develop public libraries.
Where the governments kind of "get it," we're kind of beginning to see some African governments to move as libraries of public access. But in other places it's undeniable that the image of the public library you have in your head just does not exist in African countries, they would look completely different. As you say, we have suffered from many cases of equipment dumping. And if you're working on old equipment, it's extremely difficult for librarians to get up‑to‑date skills that's actually going to make a relevant contribution to the community.
So what we've taken the approach very much of is we need to raise the profile of public access within policy discussions. And I'm going to turn now to Mike on my right from APC because APC, IFLA and the Technology and Social Change School at the University of Washington got together earlier this year to sort of make a couple of briefs for policymakers, for people interested in these issues about actually why you should choose libraries as a place to support for public access in your community. Mike, maybe you might want to say a few words about how we tackled that and the sort of recommendations we made and what we hope to achieve with these.
>> Mike Jensen: Thank you, Stuart. Just for the people who are unfamiliar with the APC is the Association for Progressive Communications. It's a network of NGOs around the world as well as an organisation that has been working from the early 90s on access to the Internet.
APC takes a rights‑based approach to promoting issues around use of the Internet as well as access to the Internet. And in relation to the access areas, we are focusing in particular on areas such as access to radio spectrum, broadband strategies and more recently now public access. And IFLA's really been leading the charge in this area and we're very happy now to build this collaboration with IFLA on promoting public access, particularly in institutions such as libraries.
We feel this is particularly important because in fact public access was part of the policy agenda more than 10 years ago, but since the explosion of mobile phones and the sort of growth in the perception that broadband access is going to take place in the home, public access really has fallen off the policy agenda. Now, we feel that without public access, we really can't bring the level of potential of the tool of the Internet to the end user to the extent that is available today mainly because with the mobile access that we have and the very high cost access we have, people can't really gain the immersive benefits of large screen, high definition access with good multimedia qualities. And then of course the support around it.
So in terms of public access, we really felt that there is a need to bring that back into the policy agenda and we're very happy to have been developing some sort of sensitization tools with IFLA. We've been lucky enough to have access to a lot of the recent research that has shown that actually mobile broadband and residential broadband hasn't really provided an adequate substitute. In particular, the University of Washington has been carrying out a long term study in this area at the technology and social change group there.
And the three organisations have come together and produced a set of briefings on the public access issue which we first distributed at the Commission for Science and Technology for Development earlier this year. And then refined that for the World Summit on the Information Society 10‑year review later on this year where we held a couple of good workshops in that area.
So the idea here really is to bring the issue ‑‑ I think the first point is to bring the issue back onto the policy table there, to really make government policy makers realise that they can't just sit back and assume that the mobile operators will provide access to everyone. The high cost issue is something in particular that is a particular constraint and we're also collaborating with the Web Foundation's Alliance for Affordable Internet to look at that issue.
But there are many vehicles for which public access can be delivered, but we feel that libraries is probably one of the most ‑‑ has the highest potential, I think, because these organisations that already have boots on the ground. There are libraries there. There's something that can be built on that governments with constrained budgets can actually use to add on the facilities needed to create this environment that is not just a question of the high speed access and better screen technology than you would find on your mobile phone or the high cost broadband connections that are available in developing countries in the home, but it's also the safe environment that is available in a neutral space such as a library.
And the research has shown, really, that this is an important attractant, is the fact that people who may not feel comfortable in accessing information, for example, on sexually transmitted diseases from their home or their work can go into a library and feel safe in accessing that material there. And also being able to access someone who knows how to navigate the Internet and knows how to access information is a critical component there.
So libraries definitely are one of the top priorities for policymakers around the world to ensure that those public access facilities available at libraries.
But of course we are keen to see public access spread through whatever other institutions that might be amenable to this, such as post offices and purpose‑built community telecentres. The vehicles for this can vary from universal service funds to particular development projects with support from bilateral funding agencies and also just even private sponsored collaborations with private sector players who in a number of countries in West Africa, for example, the Internet Service Providers are working to support public access in libraries and schools and other amenable facilities. So we've developed a series of briefs on this area, together with IFLA, and I do believe we have printed a number of copies that are going to be available at the APC booth.
>> MODERATOR: I think we have some also here. We have some copies of the brief here. So don't leave the room without picking up copy of the brief. And they're on the APC booth, as well.
>> MICHAEL JENSEN: Just finally that APC has also signed onto the Leon Declaration supports this area, and I think Stuart will give us some more information on the Leon Declaration.
>> MODERATOR: That's a nice kind of segue into the second part of our panel this morning.
Before I just do a swap of some people on the stage for some people in the audience, are there any sorts of questions about what you've heard so far this morning or any comments? And do we have any remote participants? It's very early, isn't it? That's fine.
So in the interest of time, I'd like to say thank you to Martha and to Emilie. I'd like to invite Leona and Yacine and Gabrielle to join us up here.
What we're going to do in the last half hour is talk about what's coming up next on the public access agenda. And I've invited representatives from the Web Foundation/Alliance for Affordable Internet, from Article 19, and from World Pulse to join Mike and myself just to discuss what's on the agenda for these organisations in the bigger context of public access and what sort of opportunities there might be for all of us to work together over the next 12 months.
So in the interest of time, even though we're still changing around, Gabrielle, I'm going to hand straight over to you and give you your five minutes on this.
>> GABRIELLE: Thank you very much. I hope you can hear me. Just very briefly.
>> MODERATOR: can you it on and bring it a little bit closer to you?
>> GABRIELLE: Okay. Thank you very much, Stuart. Just very briefly, before we talk about the post-2015development agenda, I'd like to get back to what Article 19 does, for those of you that are not maybe familiar with our work.
Article 19 is an international free speech organisation that defends freedom of expression and freedom of information around the world. The way we do this is based on international standards on Human Rights and Freedom of expression in particular. So we refer a lot to the reports of the UN Special Rapporteur on Freedom of expression or the reports of the Special Rapporteurs on free expression around the world. We do also a lot of work in the UN Human Rights Council and are also involved in a number of regional mechanisms that address free expression issues.
The work we do, we also develop international standards so as to give a progressive interpretation of international standards on free expression and Human Rights in general.
We also work at the national level. In the areas that we work on, we will push for legislation that is progressive on, for example, the right to information. And I'll talk a little bit more about that later. We also do amicus briefs in cases where free expression or access to information comes up.
>> Could you explain what an amicus brief is?
>> GABRIELLE: I'm sorry. In court cases an amicus brief is an expert that will bring its expertise to the court to explain the broader point of public interest that is raised by the case, essentially.
So we have different ways of working. And both at the international level but also regionally to ensure that the international standards that we work on can trickle down at the grassroots level. The areas that we work on include more traditional media regulation. But amongst the key pillars of our work, there's also obviously the right to information and a digital Internet policy. What's interesting here for us is that I'm actually here on behalf of one of my colleagues, Dave Bannister, who leads our work to access to information. I myself for Internet policy work.
And what's really interesting is that Dave has been leading our work around access to information as part of the Sustainable Development Goals and is very much involved in discussions around open government and open data. And so the digital angle for us on this issue has come more for our work on access to information, which traditionally for us has been more about governments providing information about public services, information about issues of public interest but by governments more than from the Internet policy work that I do.
That said, I thought it might be interesting to mention very briefly before I move on to the various processes that are currently going on is that, for example, I'm not sure if this is something that you'd be familiar with, but UN Special Rapporteur on free expression, Frank La Rue, published a very important report in August 2011 where the digital divide and access to the Internet was a very key issue. And there he talked about access to libraries, that the need for policies to develop better access in remote areas and have more telecentres to enable people to get access to the Internet. So I think it's nice linkage between these different areas and how it's all interrelated.
Now, just talking about the work that Article 19 has done on access to information, as I mentioned, we've been very involved in the Millennium Development Goals and now the Sustainable Development Goals and the post-2015 development agenda.
For us access to information is key to empower people to demand their rights and public services. So if we refer back to the discussions we were having even about access to, say, the Internet in libraries, it's using rights to information, access to information legislation to ask, for example, where the budget has gone on developing access to the Internet. So it's really using that to enable people to challenge governments and demand their rights. In our experience, the very fact of having access to information legislation, for instance, has been very key to giving people the ability to ask for their right to food or employment.
So access to information is key. And we've been pushing hard for it to be included as part of the Sustainable Development Goals. And this is something that we've worked on with IFLA. And we were on this briefing that will be distributed. And we were very pleased that this was recognized as very important components of the development agenda by the High Level Panel of Eminent Persons. And by the U.S. Secretary General.
But we still think there needs to be more work done. More recently, the UN General Assembly appointed an Open Working Group of 70 countries to develop the draft Sustainable Development Goals. And there have been several meetings. Throughout the negotiations, the need for a governance goal and access to information, free speech, public participation and Human Rights were raised by Civil Society and Member States.
But it seems like there was a sort of north/south divide with countries like Indonesia and Brazil who have strong RTI laws publicly opposing governance and the right to information.
So the final version of this Open Working Group included targets on access to information but weakened Human Rights and dropped specific mentions of free speech, media association and assembly. For us obviously as part of access to information work, it makes complete sense to include access to ICTs as a means of furthering access to information. But ICTs were very little discussed during the Open Working Group's discussions and was not included in any meaningful form until the final version. Now that's coming up next , the Secretary General will release a report in November/December with recommendations and the UN General Assembly will begin negotiations in January and finish in time for the summit in 2015.
And the truth of the matter is we don't really know what the process is going to be like, but we hope to work with others to write about governance, organized meetings and bringing up public access, the right to information, access to information and government data and calling for these targets to be met. So we'll be taking part in those discussions.
>> STUART HAMILTON: Can I just ask, how many people are following the post-2015 development agenda just as part of their job or as an interested spectator? Okay. Nobody on that side of the room. That's shocking, really.
But once again it's going to be another year of complicated UN processes. And you're going to hear a lit many bit about how our organisations are involved in that. But if you do need a 101 or something, I am available for 101 tuition during this conference.
So, Leana, over to you, IFLA has started working in the last year or so, access to ICTs, women and girls. And we've got a lot of things in common with the library. So maybe you can tell us what's on your agenda and what's coming up for you.
>> LEANA MAYZLINA: Good morning. I'm Leana Mayzlina. I'm the Digital Access Campaign Manager at World Pulse. And to tell you about the work that we are doing with organisations like IFLA, A4 AI, Web Foundation, it seems like all our partners are in the room, I first want to give you an introduction to World Pulse and our mission and what we try to achieve through our work.
World Pulse is an online community of tens of thousands of women from nearly every country in the world that log on and connect online in order to generate change in their community and to really be leaders within their community and impact policies and decisions that affect them. They log on to find resources, to start campaigns, to generate connections in order to be able to create the kinds of change that they want to see in their communities on different issues, anywhere from education to maternal health to digital inclusion.
Within the work of world pulse, one of the most relevant areas to what we're talking about here are campaigns. And what the campaigns look to do is to crowd source the wisdom of grassroots women leaders around the world on different topics that are relevant to the community. Again, these can be a wide range of topics, for example, girls' rights or our current campaign which is around digital inclusion.
So I want to tell you about the current campaign that we are wrapping up. The campaign is called Women Weave the Web. And it's a campaign to help bridge the gender digital divide, which as I'm sure everyone knows is a really major problem. On top of the digital divide, there's also a very strong gender digital divide.
So this campaign is getting voices of women around the world on this topic, making recommendations on what they see as changes that could be instituted. So as happens oftentimes in forums like this and other types of international processes, you have a lot of decisionmakers who are not necessarily connected to their constituents or women in their communities or others who are already generating some changes and have clear recommendations on what can be done in their communities to make digital inclusion a reality.
So our job is to crowd source the voices of those people who are already locally creating change, analyze all of those voices, and then deliver them to partners such as advocacy organizations, international Forums and others so that we can sort of bridge that divide between decisionmakers, policymakers and people around the world who are creating local solutions.
So with this current campaign, it's our longest and biggest yet. It started in January and finished up in August. And we received over 600 submissions from over 70 countries speaking out on how digital inclusion and digital empowerment can be made real within the communities and talking about some of the things that are already being done: community centres, telecentres, libraries, some best practices of what they recommend to be incorporated into policy and taken to a larger scale.
Also some community members have been able to participate in some fantastic speaking opportunities such as some of the ‑‑ such as social Media Week Nigeria, Rights Con. On this panel with Stuart. We also have a session here at IGF tomorrow where a community member will also be present. And they've also participated in some of the A4 AI Forums.
So where all of this connects very closely with the work that IFLA is carrying forward and also the Leon Declaration that Stuart I'm sure will talk about more soon is that one of the biggest outcomes of the campaign, after we analyze all submissions, is the need for public access. And this has been repeated over and over nearly in every country from where we've received submissions. Public access is key and libraries are also key. They also mentioned telecentres, community centres. But it's very much a transversal topic. And it impacts women in every community. And women in every community see this as a potential solution to many of the issues and barriers that they're coming up against in order to be able to claim their rights and as you said, you know, be empowered to know what their rights are and to demand those rights.
So, connecting -- looking through the recommendations which will be released soon, we already have some of the preliminary ones. And what's very interesting to us and also makes us convinced that we're on the right path is that many of the recommendations to come out of other communities needs and demands are almost verbatim also what is in the Leon declaration. And to see that coherence between what people on the ground are saying, what the boots on the ground are saying as Mike said and what is being presented to decisionmakers in Forums, it's great to see that there's coherence between those two.
So I just wanted to share five of the most, I would say, relevant recommendations that came from these 600 submissions to the topic of public access.
One of the main ones was to provide women‑only hours at the library, which as we know in some communities makes a big difference because of reasons of safety and culture; empowering women through literacy and vocational training, which some libraries are already starting to do. I know some of the libraries within the Beyond Access initiative are also starting to carry forward; partnering with schools for after hours Internet access. Schools are another very underutilized resource where there frequently is access but it's not always open to the community. So this is one way bring together another resource that's out there to support digital inclusion. Train women to use a number of different technologies to increase avenues to Internet access. This goes back a little bit to what Emlar was saying in regards to having librarians that are knowledgeable about different types of technology and making that type of technology and the training available to women. And in addition to that, empowering women through literacy and vocational training and last but not least partnering with social and government agencies to increase awareness of resources that are available in the digital environment.
So this goes back a little bit to it's not only having the access but also having different agencies present and teach about what kind of resources are out there. So once you're connected, what can you do with those resources? How can you demand your rights? How can you get your voice heard?
So once these -- all of these recommendations are released, these, as I mentioned, are sort of the preliminary ones. And we'll have a big recommendations package release in the late fall. We'll be delivering the recommendations package to our key partners and the partners that are doing advocacy work primarily. And we hope that this package can be used as a tool kit and as almost a backup for some of the work that is being done with very concrete stories and ideas and recommendations on what can be done.
So we look forward to working with our partners on incorporating some of these recommendations and voices within post‑2015 agenda that you just mentioned and other large processes that are happening to make sure that these recommendations on digital inclusion are incorporated into these decisionmaking and these sort of larger processes and decisions that affect women around the world.
>> STUART HAMILTON: Thank you very much. When will the recommendations be published?
>> LEANA MAYZLINA: The recommendations will be published in November/December. A little bit of self‑promotion: we have a workshop to present the other recommendations not specifically on public access but also incorporating those at noon.
>> STUART HAMILTON: Do you know which room it is in?
>> LEANA MAYZLINA: You can ask me afterwards. It is written down.
>> STUART HAMILTON: There's lots going on. Those recommendations are going to be very helpful for us when we think about library services can be doing for women and girls moving forward.
I'm going to do two things now. There's been enough mentioned about the Leon Declaration for me to give you a copy of it so you know what I will be talking about it a few times. And at the same time as I get up and hand it over to Nena, who we have been working with the Web Foundation and Alliance for Affordable Internet, particularly in the post-2015 development framework but more generally within let's take a look at public access, let's look at its relationship with affordable access and what A4 AI is doing. Nena, tell me what's on your agenda, I will give out copies of the Declaration when you speak.
>> NENA: The first on my agenda now is to get running Internet for this workshop because mine is going up and down. So that's my personal agenda. And I don't have the means of getting smooth flowing broadband Internet while I'm seated here.
My name is Nena, and I come from the Internet. That means that I live and work and do most of my activities online. So if I don't have Internet access, I wouldn't be able to work, wouldn't be able to travel, wouldn't coordinate anything and I would probably end up depressed and they would declare me mad and quarantine me in the hospital and that's where I'll die. And so for me Internet access is life. And part of being here is to keep myself alive. So it's a matter of survival for some of us who live in Africa and work for organisations all over the world.
I work for the World Wide Web Fo-undation. And for some of us, the Web did not begin with IGF. The World Wide Web is 25 years old. And so if you are 30, the Web has been around for a long time. And if we are here today, it is because of the work that some older people have done.
When Tim Benzly put out the protocol that allowed machines to talk to each other, he said this is for everyone. And that is why we are here. That access should be available and affordable for everyone. That's why we're here.
So, the World Wide Web Foundation, I will use the Web Foundation to make it shorter, does three things: Access, rights and participation. And the part we're talking about now is access.
Our project that talks about ‑‑ that deals with access is the Alliance for Affordable Internet. I have two of my colleagues here, Emilie, can you wave? Yes. Emilie is the membership coordinator of the Alliance for Affordable Internet. I spoke with her because by the time we started traveling, we were just a bit below 60 members. But by the time we alive here, we're over 60 members. So in less than one year, there have been over 60 members, governments, industry members, civil society, all stakeholders that have signed up and are active members of the Alliance for Affordable Internet.
My boss for Latin America and the Caribbean, this is a big handsome guy, Yacine, can you wave? Yacine is an access guru.
>> STUART HAMILTON: He's in the front. You can see.
>> Yes. He is in the front. Yacine is an access guru. If you are here, telecentres, that's the man. That's the man you need to talk to at all level across the whole world. In Africa, in Asia, he has gone around with telecentres. So he will be speaking to anyone about telecentres.
What do we do at the Alliance for Affordable Internet? First of all, our website is a4ai.org. The battle we are trying to win is the one of having affordable Internet for everyone. Access affordability for everyone. That's what we do.
And we started this with analyzing the affordability index. We published the affordability index, which is a study of affordability in over 80 countries. How much does it cost? Why does it cost what it costs? Where do you access the Internet? What is the impact of your access to the Internet to your economic life? These are the questions we ask. The affordability index will be launched again this year. And we do hope you will be there to read it.
We've started ‑‑ let me talk closely about Africa. Work in three, four African countries. Because we found out with the work we've done on affordability index, that it is not just ‑‑ access is not just a technical issue; it's also a policy issue. It's also an education issue. It's also a multistakeholder partnership issue.
So it's not enough, like some people have said earlier on, it's not enough to donate laptops to schools. That is not affordable access. It's not even access at all. Because we need to ask ourselves what does it take to make these computers work? What does it take to connect them online? What does it take for the students and teachers to buy in? And what does it take? What content is there for them and what use do they make of it for the betterment of themselves, their communities and their personal economies. So these are questions we work on.
We have signed MOUs with Nigeria, with Ghana, with Mozambique and pretty soon with three other African countries, that is in Africa.
What kind of work do we do? We go in country, like we say we are boots to the ground. We organise multistakeholder coalitions in country to tackle specific country issues. In some countries, it could be taxation. In some other countries, it could be spectrum management. So we're doing the training that is required. We are supporting in the policy reforms that is necessary. We are speaking with those who are in charge of infrastructure. And we are doing this in a multistakeholder framework which is key sustain ability. Because giving someone access to one day is not enough. Access needs to be access for life and that is what we're doing.
I did have the opportunity to address NETmundial and I did put it straight that if people do not have access, they wouldn't have life for a long time. 60 percent of Africans are still not connected. 60 percent globally are not connected. And only 19 percent in Africa have Internet connection. In a country where we have 1 billion and where we think the greatest growth is coming from, we still do not have 20 percent broadband connection for the people. So it means that my mother is not connected. She can only take phone calls but that's about it. Anything that happens online does not concern my mother. And I'm speaking for myself.
We have a continent of young people. We have a continent of people who are growing up. We have a continent of students. And we do not have Internet connection.
And we've been speaking like world organisations have spoken to what we do as web foundation on STGs. What we have said and we have written and we'll go down to New York and we will continue until we say it is that we need a clear‑cut access to information goal. If we fall below that, we are going to get a clear‑cut access to broadband Internet connection as a target, a measurable target. And we are committed to pursue this until we see it achieved.
So while we are committed as the Web Foundation, while I am committed as Nena, while we are committed as Alliance for Affordable Internet, while we work 15, 20 hours a day to make this happen, what will be your part? What do we require from you?
We require that you join us. If you would like to be a member of the Alliance for Affordable Internet, meet my lovely colleague Emilie. Emilie will do what it takes.
If you want to be a national partner, if you want to be a global partner, if you want to be a sponsor, all of that is possible. If you just want to be a work partner, all of that is available. But please, please do not sit and go back the way you came and just listen and go. We don't want you to do that. We want you to participate. You may want to put in resources that are not necessarily financial but human but expertise. All of that is needed.
So join A4AI or just make a donation for A4AI or the Web foundation for the work we do.
Facilitate access in any way you can. Not necessarily through us but if you are here, it means you've got an interest. And if there is any way we can work together to facilitate access in the areas of your own interest, we will be glad to do that.
And please speak to your governments. Every member of the UN is involved in the Sustainable Development Goals. Those are the goals that will replace the Millennium Development Goals that Gabrielle has spoken to us about, our colleagues have spoken to us about. And we are working with IFLA on this.
We will need for the Sustainable Development Goals to recognize the role that access to information plays. We didn't have it clearly stated in the NDGs but the NDGs were in the year 2000. Between then and now the Internet has made the world smaller but then it has made our divides larger because the people who did not have access then either to education, to information, to broadband are the same people who are getting poorer. So if we do not centralise, mainstream the role of ICT and especially access to Internet as a key issue going forward, then we may probably miss the train of development for half the world. Once again, 60 percent of the global population are not connected to the Internet. And if we're here for access, it means we're acting in it and we're asking you to join us. Thank you.
>> STUART HAMILTON: Thank you. Okay. That's a really good presentation from my perspective because it cuts off a lot of what I need to say about how we're looking at some of these targets.
Now, Mike, you and I have sort of 10 minutes left and I do want to hear a couple of words about APC see coming up on the agenda and then I probably need about 5 minutes to talk about the Leon Declaration so over to you for a quick one.
>> MIKE JENSON: I'll probably give you a bit more than five minutes because actually I think aside from the focus on trying to see what we can do in collaboration with IFLA and other organisations in the area of trying to improve the current STGs and get some aspect of the ICT component in there, we don't really have too much on our agenda. We do focus on public access on an ad hoc basis when we get involved in advising on the development of national ICT strategies and national broadband plans. So, for example, we've been giving some feedback in this area recently in the South African national broadband strategy. And we would take those opportunistic strategies there where we're able to become involved in the national Policy Development Process. But other than that, and the global collaboration with IFLA, we don't have any other activities in the public activist sphere planned currently.
>> STUART HAMILTON: That's actually quite enough to keep going on with, I think.
Okay. Well, I'll take advantage of Mike freeing me up to talk about what's on the agenda for IFLA. And I think I wanted to invite the panelists to talk about their engagement over the next year because the biggest thing for us most definitely is these high level negotiations on the next development framework.
What I think is really important to point out is that most people here at the IGF, in my opinion, will have probably been following the world summit on the Information Society process for the last 10 years. But I don't see much evidence of a substantial engagement with what's going on in New York regarding the post-2015 development agenda. And when I go to New York, I see little to no awareness whatsoever of things like the Internet Governance Forum or the WSIS Summit so you have in some respects this kind of classic UN split where everybody over in America is talking about one thing and everybody over in Europe coming out of Geneva and Paris is talking about another.
So, you have, at the moment, a set of 17 draft goals on the table for the UN to consider in its new post-2015development framework. They will be discussed as Gabrielle pointed out at the UN general assembly this month, and then there will be a negotiation into the middle of next year where there will be the inevitable UN horse trading to probably get those goals down to a slightly more manageable number and to reduce the numbers from 190 targets down to probably maybe half of that.
Now, IFLA has a very clear position on this. We've worked with Article 19 to produce of a set of background papers relating to the fact that we want to see across the framework access to information recognized as a fundamental element supporting development. We pushed on this for the last 12 months. And we began to push at the same time for the inclusion of language in the framework that actually mentioned ICTs.
I think it's going to be a little bit of a wakeup call when the people in the Internet Governance community actually get around to taking a look at the documents on the table in New York because there are, I think, four mentions of ICT in the document in some strange places. I don't wish to belittle people's subject areas, but the main mention of the need for ICT for everybody is in the gender section. And in fact is not for everybody. It's for women only, which is great. Good for you.
[Laughter]
You know, I'm pleased but I know my dad could benefit a little bit from some additional ICT training. So the mentions of ICTs are in gender. There's some mention in the infrastructure goals. But generally speaking the language, it appears to me, has not been people with who are familiar with what's going on in the Internet Governance sector and the WISIS area. IFLA is one of the only organisations working across the two processes. So earlier we decided we would do something around this. We produced the Leon declaration on access to development and development which you have in front of you. We launched it the week before last at our annual conference in Lyons. And I'm very pleased to say that since its launch, we have over 245 signatory organisations to this declaration. About 60 percent from the library community. But more importantly for us about 40 percent from the development community, which is really what we were aiming at. And I can see some of our colleagues from IFECS who have been helping us promote this here in the room.
So the message I wanted to finish our Dynamic Coalition meeting with today is that if you haven't signed the Lyon Declaration, because sign it because it's going to form the basis of all of our advocacy work over access to information over the next 12 months.
By the end of September, we will be releasing an advocacy toolkit which will tell you how to go about doing some of the things Nena mentioned. You have to talk to your governments. You need to talk to policymakers in capitals so that people can turn up to these meetings in New York briefed. And we would love it if we were able to utilize the Dynamic Coalition to send delegations of librarians and digital rights activists and development organisations to take these lobbying meetings with policymakers. Because we realise much as we're talking about public access can be delivered by a number of partners. We happen to think that libraries the best. That won't come as any surprise. But we do understand that a number of partners can work in this area.
When we're going to the UN, we don't talk about libraries per se. We're talking about access to information. And that is the way that people are going to actually pick up on this and we hope run.
We did well to keep the language in the draft framework, which was released at the end of July. So we do have something to build on when it comes to access to information. We have a lot further to go when it comes to access to ICTs. But as we sort of bring this Dynamic Coalition meeting to a close, it's my responsibility to provide a report of not just this meeting but a little bit of an action plan for people interested in this subject over the next 12 months. And I will be putting forward the idea that we actually work on the post-2015 development framework together, because it seems to me to be an actual strong outlet for the sorts of work that the organisations who have spoken here this morning are doing.
So, we're going to be pushing the Lyon declaration here through the conference. I know that Mike is going to be speaking at the Main Access session tomorrow morning. I'm going to be talking at the Setting the Scene session after this. I know that a few colleagues have turned up who have got particular interest in copyright. And of course the libraries are doing some interesting work on that, as well.
So I'd like to direct you to the two sessions that IFLA is involved in here, Workshop 94 and Workshop 195, both of which are looking at copyright reform and will have a particular angle from libraries in cultural institutions because I think that's probably going to be the best place where we can discuss some of those more controversial issues and I'll be trying to be controversial in about 25 minutes when I get to the Setting the Scene meeting.
I am going to stop there. We're almost perfectly on tomorrow. I'm conscious that this has been a little bit of a one way information download for you, but then that is kind of the purpose of the Dynamic Coalition information sharing meetings. But I'd love it if anybody has any comments or questions at this point for me or for our panelists, now is the time. Or remote participants who have not gotten out of bed yet. We need the microphone.
>> Yes, we've talked about access to information and as we've seen there's a lot of aspects on access to information that we need to tackle. And of course the basic one is that of the infrastructure. But I would really recommend that we go until the point of making really recommendations for the governments. Because access to information is not only to put information on the Internet but also on how people is going to really fish for that information that's going to be a very, very difficult thing. And we need to make recommendations for the governments to work on how to make that information really respond to needs of the people and people can find really this information, what's needed. And that's what we're trying or will try to do in our country to start talking about this. In order to see what is the solution. But I don't know if the Internet itself, the infrastructure has something to do about that. How the local information of the countries is very important for the people in the country and how to access the information locally, the national information, how to make these bridges. And of course the other information is important, but how to do that is very important for us to point that thing.
>> STUART HAMILTON: I think that's a good time to say that the briefs that do contain some recommendations on public access, skills and training which is connected to your comment there. Actually, Martha, you've got some which you might give out. But they're also available in the APC booth in the sort of exhibition area.
Yeah, I think that is a good point to end on. We're talking about public access in libraries, but we're acutely aware that access is not enough. There is no coincidence that the slides I showed earlier on are from the Beyond Access campaign because we're talking about skills. You can't just plunk somebody in front of a computer. I think we tried that, didn't really work. You have to do the skills training. You have to get library and information professionals involved. You have to get people in the communities involved to make this work.
So I think that's something else I'll pick up from the report in this session and see if we can include an action line on things going forward on that in the next year.
>> Publicly distribute the paper, but I realized they are in Spanish.
>> STUART HAMILTON: Give everybody practice in Spanish, that's fine. Okay. Thank you very much for coming, everybody. There are plenty of other sessions with the access theme this week so I hope to see you there. Thanks a lot.
[Applause.]
(End of session.)
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The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the IGF 2014 Istanbul, Turkey, meetings. 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 to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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