The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: So, Chengetai, are you ready?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, I think we should start.
So good afternoon, evening, and morning, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the first day of the MAG meeting for the IGF 2020, for the June set of meetings. Thank you all for being with us. And just a few things that we have to say before the meeting.
The meeting is being recorded and also live-streamed on YouTube. There is a transcript, and there's a link to those transcripts on the front page of the IGF website, so please feel free to go there and get those links.
There is no interpretation today, but that's fine. I think we can all understand each other, and I had also like to say thank you very much to the Government of Poland for providing it during the Open Consultation day.
If you would like to day the floor, could you please use the speaking queue? If there's a technical problem and you cannot use the speaking queue, just put your name in the chat, and somebody from the secretariat will put your name in the speaking queue, and you can easily see where you are in the speaking queue by looking at the screen or going to the website link.
Once the chair will call your name, if you're -- when she calls you to the floor, can you please say your name slowly and also your affiliation. Once you've spoken, could you please make sure your microphone is off, and also please make sure that your microphone is off at all times if you're not speaking. We had a couple of on-mics yesterday, and it's very, very distracting to the speakers.
Also, could you please, when you speak, speak at a measured space, not too slow and not too fast, so that people whose English is not their first language, or maybe their second or third language, can understand you, and also the transcription can get you properly.
I think I have said everything. If not, Anriette will fill in the things that I have not said.
Over to you, Anriette, please, to the chair, to open up.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you very much for that, Chengetai. And congratulations to you and your team for having prepared well. And I think we had a good Open Consultation, but we'll get to that later.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Anriette.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: And welcome to all the MAG members. Welcome to observers. And welcome to our captioners, who I wonder where they are and what time it is. Somewhere in the U.S. And thanks again to ICANN for making that possible.
I'll do a quick review of the agenda, and then we can get going.
So today we have until quarter past 1:00 UTC so for the next 45 minutes we're just going to review the agenda, and we'll do a debrief on the Open Consultations. We really just want to get a sense of how it went and what we should factor into our planning for IGF 2020.
By the way, if you note, we've got the annotated agenda on screen. And just a reminder here that we'd like all the MAG members to rename themselves on Zoom, just so that we know which group we can put you in, because we've assigned you, or you've assigned yourselves, to workshop evaluation groups, and it's easier for Luis to cluster you into breakout groups if your name indicates which group you're part of.
Our next session will be a breakout session, but it's an informal, social breakout session. It's only 15 minutes. We'll randomly put all the meeting participants, MAG members and others, into breakout groups. And you can really talk about anything. You can talk about a virtual IGF if you want, but it's just a good time to connect with one another. And I think my only request is that when you say -- when you greet one another, just tell one another where you are dialing into from the meeting, just to give us a bit of a sense of the spread of the MAG and where all the MAG members are. Some are at home. Some are not at home. So that's really the only requirement.
And like on the first day of the Open Consultation, this will be automated. You'll be automatically randomly clustered. We'll have fewer groups this time. And when your time is up, you'll be automatically sent back to plenary.
Then we have a MAG plenary session where we have the workshop evaluation groups report their work. We've added a little bit more detail to the annotated agenda in response to, what seemed to me, popular demand for more parameters. But we'll discuss that later when we get to that. So we'll have a plenary discussion. After that plenary discussion, the workshop evaluation groups, they'll do their reports, but then we'll break out, and based on the discussion of those reports in plenary, the same groups will revisit their initial recommendations and affirm those.
So I won't go into more detail. We can go through the detail at the beginning of each session.
And that essentially is -- is really the agenda for today.
We've put an optional task for that breakout session. Should you have the time and should you feel that way inclined, please do talk about some of your preferences for a virtual IGF, but I don't want you to be distracted by planning and designing a virtual IGF. You know, the primary task of this MAG meeting is for us to finalize our workshop selection and also to look at the overall program, the design and the main sessions. We might have to adjust that based on the virtual IGF, but I don't think we should not meet our primary objectives of the meeting. But if there's time, if you want to discuss virtual IGF parameters in your breakout group.
And that is really it. We are asking those that are still awake and able to be with us to come back for a very short closing plenary. The groups are not required to report back. We've given the facilitators and the moderators time to do that. We'll report back tomorrow. So that's really just getting together quickly, making sure we are all on track, and clarifying what the next steps are for tomorrow.
So that is it. Any questions or comments on the agenda?
I don't see any.
So, on that note, I declare the meeting open.
So let's look back at yesterday.
So I want to start by thanking the MAG members. I felt that you had a very good -- I was very comfortable with the balance of MAG members being in listening mode but then participating, particularly when there were gaps in the discussion. Because that's very important. So I think, you know, there is -- we need to sit back and listen, but also, we need to participate. And I was very happy with the balance.
And Chengetai and the secretariat have prepared a short summary for us of highlights of input that was received. But before we look at those, are there any general reactions on the open consultation that anybody wants to share?
And I -- did someone ask for the floor? I saw there was a name that went -- that appeared and disappeared. Did I miss someone?
No.
Luis, I see no.
So, yes, anybody who wants to share some general reflections on the open consultation days?
Jutta, please go ahead.
>>JUTTA CROLL: Thank you, Anriette, for giving me the floor. I just wanted to say very briefly that I do think we had an excellent open consultation session over the last two days. And it makes me very much looking forward to also having a virtual IGF -- I was a bit reluctant to -- when the announcement came that we would have a virtual-only IGF in November. But after these two days with so many people engaged in the debate, and also with high-level participation, I really did appreciate also the session yesterday in the afternoon with Under-Secretary-General Fabrizio Hochschild. So I -- this makes me very confident that we can cope with the situation and that we will have a very good IGF also it's virtual.
And thank you for making this possible, because I do think it's really a joint effort. It needs all that we can put into that exercise. And I'm really happy to continue with that.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, Jutta.
Yes, I also felt encouraged by that. And I have to apologize, it was an error in my judgment when we planned the agenda. I should have allocated much more time to the Q&A with Fabrizio. I didn't anticipate that there would be so much interest in that.
Salyou, please introduce yourself for the record.
Salyou, I assume that you are an observer and that your mic is muted. Am I right?
>>LUIS BOBO: This is Luis. We cannot unmute him. There is a momentary issue in his site. Sorry.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Salyou, we can't hear you right now, but, please, you can type your comment in the chat.
I don't see anyone else asking for the floor at this point. There are a few comments in the chat. I do really want to encourage MAG members to speak today rather than use the chat. We're not a huge group, and it is -- it's a good opportunity for us to hear one another's voices.
Salyou, I hope you can type.
But, Chengetai, if you are ready, let's look at your summary of the takeaways from the open consultation, particularly those that are relevant to the planning of IGF 2020. And then, hopefully, MAG members will have more to share.
So, Chengetai, can you take the floor, please.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Sure. Thank you very much, Anriette.
I would just like to mention as well that the summary was also produced with the help of Samantha Dickinson, who is working at the secretariat as the communications consultant. I think she is the only one whose name has not been mentioned over the past couple of days. So just to mention her.
So for the summary, this is what we derived as relevant for the MAG discussions.
So the four thematic areas -- that is, trust, data, environment, and inclusion -- are still relevant for the IGF 2020. I think that was underlined. And nobody disagreed with that.
And there was a suggestion to have a main session on the digital cooperation roadmap linked to the 2025 renewal of the IGF and the WSIS+20 meetings that will be going on then.
And there was a suggestion as well that we should keep the music night. We can have a virtual music night. We have over 40 people registered for it, so we can do something in the line that has been happening on YouTube, et cetera, over the pandemic when everybody was at home.
Also, there was a strong sentiment to maintain the youth track. And there was a request for the IGF to make sure that gender-based violence is discussed somewhere in the program. And I think that was answered that it will be particularly addressed with the BPF on gender. And also -- there's a sprinkling of that also during the workshops as well.
Many thought that a high-level session for ministers later than originally scheduled in the IGF week so that there will be more clarity about the IGF Plus model. So we should hold the high-level sessions later on than previously, because previously, they started -- the IGF used to have the high-level sessions on the Sunday and Monday. So there's a suggestion that we have them at the end of the meetings.
Then there was -- becoming an online event means that some agility can be built into the program. A session on emerging issues can be added where people can share information about what is emerging in their country or region.
ISOC also proposed to cooperate with the MAG on hosting a track of sessions dedicated to local case studies on emerging issues. And this one modality should be agreed on between ISOC and the MAG, as well as, of course, the stakeholders in general if they have views on that.
As was mentioned, the Under-Secretary-General of UN DESA, Mr. Liu, also joined us and gave us a address. And part of the contents of his address was that the IGF is currently halfway through its ten-year mandate given to it by the U.N. General Assembly in 2015. And it will be up to the United Nations General Assembly to renew and update its mandate again in 2025.
The Under-Secretary-General also mentioned that on Monday, he submitted a note to the U.N. Secretary-General outlining how UN DESA is going to follow up on his roadmap in enhancing the IGF in collaboration with all stakeholders, including with the MAG members.
And Mr. Liu also noted there's much more to be done, including better integrating intersessional work, enhancing the visibility of the IGF, addressing its long-term sustainability, and resources necessary for increased participation of stakeholders, especially those from developing countries.
The USG invited MAG members and interested stakeholders to work with us and come up with concrete solutions for a stronger IGF.
And as you know, yesterday, we had the Q&A on the digital cooperation roadmap and the IGF Plus. And this was started by the Under-Secretary-General, Mr. Fabrizio Hochschild, special advisor to the Secretary-General. And he explained the U.N. Secretary-General's roadmap for digital cooperation, recognized that technology is too fast-moving and there is little appetite among U.N. member states for new conventions or new U.N. bodies. So the report tries to work with what already exists and strengthen these existing bodies and organizations by making them more inclusive and outcome-oriented. And this also included the IGF Plus.
For the recommendation 5a and 5b, the consultations have shown wide support for the multistakeholder cooperative model and also wide support for the IGF Plus model.
In the consultations, many people have called for a clearer agenda setting at the IGF, a leaner agenda, and a better interaction between the discussions going on in the IGF and the discussions taken elsewhere. A linking mechanism, of sorts.
There's also been suggestions to have a mechanism to coordinate follow-up actions on the IGF, discussions, and link them to the appropriate normative and decision-making forums. There were suggestions to have a more focused IGF agenda based on a limited number of strategic policy issues.
Stronger links among the global forum and its regional, national, and subregional and youth initiatives was also encouraged.
Integrating program and intersessional policy development work to support the priority areas was also one point that was noted.
The roadmap says the Secretary-General will create a strategic and empowered high-level body building on the experience of the MAG. This body will not replace the MAG but aims to better connect global leaders, global opinion makers on the digital policy issues that are increasingly important in today's world.
The NRI survey also showed a lot of support for having the future IGF Plus be able to make recommendations as well as for closer integration between the national and regional initiatives and the IGF.
Also that some of the functions suggested for an IGF Plus could perhaps be better performed at a more localized or regional level.
Timelines for implementation of the roadmap have yet to be mapped out, and during the Open Consultations, it was noted that it's important to consider how to evolve the Best Practice Forums in the context of IGF Plus.
And that's the end of the summary. Thank you, Anriette. Back to you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, Chengetai, and thanks a lot to Sam and pointing out we haven't yet thanked her yet. Sam, thanks so much for your summaries and your work on the newsletter, and it's very good to have you with us as one of the team.
Any reflections or any comments on these highlights? We've got a few more minutes, so I think this is a good opportunity for us to have general discussion, particularly on the Roadmap for Digital Cooperation, and also in part received on the virtual IGF.
I think the inputs received on thematic content we can revisit later when we get to the main sessions, in particular.
And just for the record, everyone, so that you understand our protocol for MAG meetings is that we give MAG members the floor first if they've requested it and observers after. But if there are no MAG members in the queue, we will -- provided that time allows, we give the floor to observers as well. So Salyou, have you managed to sort out your microphone?
>>LUIS BOBO: Hi, Anriette. This is Luis. It doesn't seem so. Sorry.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: And, Sylvia, you say that you can't load the speaking queue. Do you want to -- are you requesting the floor?
Okay. Sylvia, you have the floor.
>>SYLVIA CADENA: Thanks, Anriette. Sorry, got -- lost control of my keyboard. My apologies.
Yes, thank you very much, Anriette, for giving me the floor. I wanted to echo the comments of -- about how great the exchange with the Under-Secretary-General was; that he answered almost all the questions, the difficult ones, straight on. So that was really interesting.
I just wanted to pick up on some comments that Maria Paz made on the chat yesterday about trying who figure out how some of those mechanisms would work and the opportunity for the MAG to provide input as a group to those -- to those options that may come up on the paper.
I think it's great that Hana and Rudolf are working on that piece, but it is a little bit weird, honestly, to have some MAG members involved and actively participating and others not knowing really what's going on. And -- because in the end, those decisions will affect not us, like me that are on our last year of the MAG, but it will affect the future of the IGF and other things that we have built. So it will be very interesting to see what mechanisms that are -- are possible to get a little bit more understanding of what is, you know, the thinking behind and to see how can we get behind it and support it and provide our expertise to the process.
There is, you know, simple things like that they seem to be kind of overlooked a little bit, on the panels report and on the roadmap, that may have been discussed as part of their own process about simple definitions, right? So, for example, what they really mean by digital cooperation, to what organizations or platforms or alliances or structures are they referring to when they criticize those platforms? I think that's important to know, because you can assume things that are actually not there.
So I appreciate very much the resources that Jorge shared earlier today, that Diplo put together a video where you can read the report with an expert and see annotated copy of the report. That's a good insight for those of us that have only contributed to one of the recommendations.
So, yeah, I think it's -- there is a lot -- there is a lot of work to be done and there is a lot of expertise on this MAG and the past members of the MAG, and it would be really good to find ways so that, for example, all the work that the group -- the working group on IGF improvement did on that massive spreadsheet that had documented everything that was suggested in the past and keeping track of all of that work that, unfortunately, we haven't been able to obtain as far as I know.
So there is a lot of work there, and I don't just want to pretend that all the new things are going to be shiny and better. And as Maria Paz mentioned yesterday, that the ways we have now are, for some reason, obscure and bad, whatever.
So it just needs a little bit more context, I guess, to digest that information and try to figure out the way forward.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Sylvia.
Maria Paz.
>>MARIA PAZ CANALES: Okay.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Please activate your camera, if you can.
>>MARIA PAZ CANALES: Yeah, I do that. Can you see me? Can you hear me and see me?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yes.
>>MARIA PAZ CANALES: Thank you very much.
Thank you very much, Sylvia, for quoting some of my comment yesterday. I just wanted to add a little bit on top of that to what she just had mentioned.
It's not only also about how the MAG can input with experience, which is very relevant, and I want to make clear, especially because Rudolf and Hana are part of this group, that I really commend and appreciate the effort that the group has been doing for reaching people, to the consultation. And I know we as MAG member have the opportunity to also put input into that process if we had enough time for participating in these different opportunities of comment, being that they have been working very hardly and very well for constructive. But besides that, that is really good effort in trying to reach more diversity of opinion and participation. I think that is really relevant the way this issue will be made about the different option that arise from this consultation process and all the input that's been gathered.
So I understand from the comment that they made yesterday, speaking or in the chat, that they are not in the role of deciding what model, what option will be taken. And I understand that, and I value that. But at some point, some decision will be made.
So to the point that Sylvia was mentioning, referring to this question yesterday, I think that this concept of that everything that is existent is being processed and made in an obscure way that is not clear for people outside the groups, I don't -- I don't see how that could be better if we stay with the decision-making process. It's not totally clear who would take part of that, what will be the following criterias. Because of course it's very relevant to gather different opinions, but later, as Chrystiane was mentioning yesterday in the chat, and I totally agree with her, there is a need of consensus to move forward whatever final decision is made in the subject.
So I really want to highlight that, because if all the purpose of proposing new structures and new modalities of engagement was providing more opportunity of transparency and diversity and all that, I think that this is a critical point that should be given attention in order to ensure that and not just repeat the process that MAG and other current structure have been working very hard for many years to bring that spirit of openness and participation and diversity.
I will leave it there for now. I have comments on the virtual IGF, but I'm not sure if this is the moment.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, Maria Paz. I don't see anyone else taking the floor, but perhaps Rudolf or Hana, you want to comment. And I don't think that we should put them under particular pressure because they are in the MAG.
But I think something for the MAG to consider is whether there shouldn't be an IGF MAG 2020 response to the roadmap. I think that's something for you to consider. I don't see any reason why it might not be helpful for the MAG to draft such a response.
And then I think just the second thing I would caution about is, you know, digital cooperation and the architecture of what will become the architecture of digital cooperation is not just the IGF. And I think we -- it's the IGF Plus, but IGF Plus starts with the IGF. So I think that we need to respond, absolutely. And there are really important opportunities for us to respond to, but I don't think that we should feel that as the IGF, we need to undertake the entire burden of what is required to have an effective digital cooperation architecture, but at the same time I completely support your points, Maria Paz and Sylvia, about we do need to try and make an intervention to prevent -- how can I say it? In allocation of energy and resources that is not cost effective, that is not actually going to add value to -- incrementally to work that has been done in the past and to what exists.
But I would ask you, this is a question from me to you as the MAG, would you like to develop a response?
I hear no voices. I see no hands.
Rudolf and Hana, are you willing to share some reflections at this point?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: There are some comments in the chat, so...
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Okay. Can you read them for us? Although I would really appreciate it if MAG members could take the floor.
>>RUDOLF GRIDL: Can you hear me?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yes.
>>RUDOLF GRIDL: Rudolf?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, we can hear you, Rudolf. Go ahead, please.
>>RUDOLF GRIDL: Thank you very much.
I think -- I think we have to -- as I said yesterday, we have to be aware of the fact that we are at the beginning and the middle or at the beginning of a long-term process. And there are some, I would say, major questions that will be addressed during this process, and one of the, in my view, most major questions will be multistakeholderism versus multilateralism or combination of both in the common architecture of the future.
And I think there are tendencies within the membership of the United Nations to go more towards multilateralism than in the past, and there are arguments for that. At the same time, I think we must not lose the advantages and the good functioning system of multistakeholderism. And this is why I think the MAG could play a role or could -- could make a difference when responding -- I mean, I wouldn't call it formally a response, but I think the MAG should continuously stay engaged in this endeavor of shaping the Internet governance structures of the future. So -- And at the same time, Anriette, I completely agree with you, we should not ourselves be un-inefficient and do double work in taking the whole roadmap, every aspect of it and adding to it. I think that will also be too huge of a task for us. So this is why I think we should concentrate on perhaps the structure questions, and then -- and perhaps one other question like -- I don't know, whatever. Inclusion or connectivity. I don't know. So one more structural and one more question on the substance, and have some ideas. I wouldn't call it a formal response, but to feed in the ideas of the MAG into the process, not only because they are very good ideas and very valuable contributions but also to make the voice of the multistakeholder system continuously be heard in this process. I think that's of some critical importance that goes beyond the content of what is going to be said.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much for that, Rudolf.
Ben, you have the floor.
>>BEN WALLIS: Thank you. Good morning. I'm -- I'll keep it short because I'm just warming up.
I think what I'm going to say tallies with what Rudolf ended with just there, but I'm not sure -- I think the important thing would be for the -- for the MAG to find space during the annual meeting for the -- for the community to discuss the roadmap and particularly how it relates to the IGF and it being enhanced and transitioned to an IGF Plus.
So I think that should be the main contribution of the MAG. I'm not particularly -- I don't think it's particularly important for the MAG itself to try and come to a view; rather, for us to facilitate discussion within the IGF community as a kind of contribution to that. Bringing in the multistakeholder views on how to move to an IGF Plus.
Thanks.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Ben. Before I give the floor to Ananda, I think I do see in the chat there are some responses for -- some support for a MAG response. So I don't think that we should look at these as mutually exclusive. Absolutely agree with you. We have to facilitate discussion of this as part of the IGF 2020 program, but I think that, yes, maybe a response on structural factors, as Rudolf suggested, is also a good idea. I don't think we should see them as two mutually exclusive options. And I'm sure you didn't intend that. But you can come back to that later.
Ananda, and then we have Susan and then we have Paul.
And I'm afraid I am going to close the queue after Paul.
>>ANANDA RAJ KHANAL: Thank you, Madam Chair. This is Ananda Raj Khanal, government stakeholder from Nepal.
When we are talking about IGF Plus, it's very unfortunate, very sad to share with you that in the context of Nepal, IGF has not been in the agenda of the government.
Now, so far, IGF is in the agenda of civil society alone. Whatever they do is -- the activities pertaining to IGF, the government almost is unaware of the existence of IGF and the topics that we discuss here, and probably -- so the discussion on IGF Plus I think -- countries like Nepal -- I don't know about other countries in the Global South, but most of the countries, to my view, is, you know, not aware of the existence of IGF itself.
So how can we make these countries on board so that IGF activities become the agenda of the government and the huge repository of knowledge that we have created during the whole IGF processes can be better utilized in making Internet-related policies.
It's a very serious thought that the United Nations should consider.
Thank you very much.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that, Ananda. And I think that's a very valid point.
And just -- I see our speakers' queue is continuing, but I'm going to have to close the queue after -- okay. Well, if you're all very brief, then we'll let everyone speak, including Alain, who's an observer. But please be brief. We're going to run out of time.
Go ahead. Susan, you are next.
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Hi. My apologies, Anriette. Can you hear me now?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, we can.
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Okay. Great.
Hello, everybody. This is Susan Chalmers, MAG member, from the National Telecommunications and Information Administration at the U.S. Department of Commerce.
I will be brief. I just -- I do have some concerns about the -- the prospect of the MAG as a whole drafting a response and coming to a consensus-based decision in response to the IGF Plus proposal.
And I think maybe we can enunciate -- or I'd be happy to enunciate those concerns when we have more time. But I think that -- I do like Ben's idea of having a session to discuss this within the IGF program this year.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Susan.
Remember, a response can be made up of questions. A response does not have to necessarily be a consensus view. It could just be commonly agreed relevant questions.
Paul, you have the floor.
>>PAUL CHARLTON: Yes. Hello. Can you hear me?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: We can hear you and see you.
>>PAUL CHARLTON: Okay. Great.
I just wanted to support the views that were just expressed by Susan and Ben as well.
And I think Rudolf, to some extent.
I think with the roadmap, obviously, we're all very interested in it. And there's a lot at stake from the MAG and the IGF point of view. But some of us, and I think myself, coming from the government of Canada and maybe not just government representatives, are still coming to grips with the roadmap and formulating our own views on it. So I think it might be difficult, then, to engage in some kind of -- of a negotiation and to try to reach an agreed-upon MAG view. So, therefore, I would be more supportive of -- I think what Ben was suggesting. Certainly, we should be a platform for discussing the roadmap, and we should feed into it. And I think, Anriette, perhaps yours is a good suggestion as well, that we could formulate questions. Perhaps that's a good compromise. But I just wanted to sort of join others in sounding a note of caution about having a kind of negotiated MAG opinion.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Paul. Absolutely. That's very important.
Danko, you have the floor.
Danko, we cannot hear you. Are you unmuted?
>>DANKO JEVTOVIC: Can you hear me now?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Now we can hear you.
>>DANKO JEVTOVIC: Okay. Sorry about that.
So two brief points.
One, Serbia, the country that I'm coming from, is in Europe, but -- it's not a Global South in geographical sense, but we are a developing country. And we also have a challenge that I, as a member of technical community, I'm in the MAG, but our government talks about digital transformation all the time, but it doesn't actually recognize the existence of the Internet or the process that we are discussing here. So it's a global challenge.
And the second point about reading through the roadmap, point 67, I see recognition of the high complexity of the digital cooperation architecture today and trying to find a simplified way.
And in a way, I believe this is something that we should be very careful about, because when I read the organization that participated in creating the roadmap, I don't see much of the technical community represented.
And I would say that Internet is complex, but it works, in part because it's complex and because it's so decentralized and delegated, and that we really need to be careful to observe the multistakeholder model and to include also the technical community not to try to make simplified models that will actually break the Internet.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks. Thanks, Danko.
Timea, you have the floor.
>>TIMEA SUTO: Thank you. And I hope you can hear me. Can you hear me now?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: We can hear you. And just a reminder -- my apologies, I should have reminded everyone earlier -- just introduce yourself for the record when you take the floor.
>>TIMEA SUTO: Thank you, Anriette.
My name is Timea Suto. I work for the International Chamber of Commerce, and I'm a third-year MAG member for the business community.
I just wanted to add my voice really quickly, because I see we are running out of time, wanted to add my voice to what was expressed earlier by Paul and Susan and Ben, and also by Rudolf. I wanted to really say that I'm sure that all of us are very, very interested in the report or in the roadmap, and we are looking forward to seeing how different stakeholders are mobilizing around it. But I also wanted to highlight that there is a process in place still that a lot of work is going into that our colleagues Hana and Rudolf are leading. And if we are thinking of any sort of response, we probably want to wait for that and to see how that complements what the Secretary-General has outlined for the IGF Plus and anything else.
But I also wanted to caution on a way, if possible, from a negotiated MAG response per se and rather to put us into a more active mode, if possible, and as Ben said, to have a session and also to think about how we can bring it into -- once the community has had a chance to discuss it, once the options paper is also out, and for us to think about how can we bring those recommendations into the processes of the IGF going forward.
But I'm not sure providing a written response is the way. I think we should rather take it into reflection for us, discuss with the community, and see how we can build on that for ourselves.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Timea.
Alain, do you have a brief response?
I don't hear our observer taking the floor, so -- so let's close on this.
I think what I take away from this discussion is that we definitely do not -- oh, Alain, are you able to speak?
We cannot hear you.
Alain, we cannot hear you. I suggest that you type your comment in the chat, and then we can read it or see it.
So, to close this discussion, there's obviously a lot more discussion to come, there's definitely a consensus that we need to facilitate further discussion of the roadmap as we build IGF 2020's program. And there's also, I think, agreement that we do not want to submit a negotiated position or consensus position of any kind as the MAG or from the MAG. But I think there's still an opening here for possibly the MAG responding with some questions. And I will leave that to you to take further.
What I suggest is that those of you who feel that it is worthwhile for the MAG to respond in some form, that you make a proposal of what that -- what shape that would take and what that would cover, taking into account the fact that we cannot present a negotiated position as the MAG, and we have many institutional and governmental representatives as well. So I'll leave that to you as MAG members to take further, with the sensitivity of the context of the MAG to be taken into account.
So I'm sorry I have to cut this short. We are running a little bit late.
So at this point, no one should go offline, because we are now going to join our informal just catching up with one another. And you can discuss this or anything else freely as we break out into our -- what did we call them? -- our check-in breakout groups.
So see some of you in breakout groups.
Luis, you can put us into our groups.
>>LUIS BOBO: Just to confirm, 15 minutes?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, I think we can stick to 15 minutes. We're running a little bit late.
And I encourage people to switch out their mics and their cameras when they are in the breakout groups.
[ Breakout sessions ]
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Welcome back, everyone. Welcome back from your break, I hope people had a good discussion. I was lucky to be with some very nice people and we had a very nice discussion.
So we are now back to MAG plenary, and this is really where we begin the substance of the work of the MAG. And I know you MAG members have been building up to this and have done a lot of preparatory work, even more than you would normally have done, for the second MAG meeting.
So we will now -- I'll just give an overview of the purpose of this session.
The purpose of this session is for us to get the recommendations from the workshop evaluation groups. So those MAG members that have looked at workshop proposals clustered into the four themes, four thematic tracks, and they've been evaluating them, making recommendations, decisions for mergers, what to keep, what not to keep, the red basket, the yellow basket and the green basket, but also other recommendations that might have emerged, plus beginning to break these themes into subthemes, and the purpose of those subthemes being that they can help us understand what is the scope of the thematic track and what should we try and aim for in terms of topical coverage in a thematic track.
So I won't go any -- on any longer at this point. I'd like to hand over to the facilitators, and thanks very much for all your hard work, of these workshop evaluation groups.
I also want to thank the Workshop Process Working Group for all the work that they've done to try and synthesize a way for us to have common working methods in the different groups.
So I'm glad to take the groups in reverse alphabetical order. So I want to start with trust. Can we start with the feedback from the trust workshop evaluation group.
Bawl Ben Wallis thanks, Anriette, for keeping us on our toes there. It was me, thinking we would start with a D.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Just introduce yourself again for the record, please.
>>BEN WALLIS: Sorry. Yes, good point. I am Ben Wallis with Microsoft, for the record.
So I'm going to, on behalf of both me and Sylvia, who led the trust evaluation group, I'm going to run through our recommendations.
And we've got on the screen the Word document that I submitted, or was it PDF, of our recommendations, but I did also provide a single slide that put everything in one page. So if the secretariat is able to put that up as well -- or instead, that would be great.
So the slide that's going to be put up shows the workshops that we propose within the structure that we propose for the trust track.
The yellow, when we get there, highlights -- they denote the workshops that we propose be lifted from the yellow basket, and all the rest are from the green basket.
So I'm going to run through our recommendations via an explanation of the three-stage process we undertook.
In the first stage, we allocated our 98 proposals to three baskets based on their score and their ranking, and that put about 30% of the proposals, all of which scored above 4, into the green basket. And then the bulk of this first stage was about analyzing the green basket to look at two things. First, to look at the structure of the track. In February, the Trust Working Group developed a subthematic structure to help us think about the narrative and to organize the illustrative policy question. So looking at the green basket proposals, we found that that structure pretty much stood up, but we did make a few small revisions. That included deleting an identity subtheme, which was one of the proposals in the green basket, and also simplifying the titles of the remaining five subthemes.
And then the second part of that first stage was to do a gap analysis. So we looked at the diversity data for the speakers in the green basket workshop proposals, and we identified that speakers from the Africa and GRULAC regions were particularly underrepresented compared to other regions, and that all stakeholder groups except the civil society were underrepresented.
So the aim of stage two was for evaluation group members to suggest workshops in the yellow basket that could help to mitigate these gaps, these underrepresentations, and they could suggest either lifting a workshop up from yellow to the green basket or identifying workshops which could be merged. And as per the guidance from the Working Group on Workshop Process, we did not consider for mergers any of the top 10% of proposals in our track.
And the aim of stage three was then to discuss the suggestions from stage two and make final decisions. And this resulted in the recommendations I submitted on Friday, and they can be summarized as 30 workshops in the green basket. These are ranked by the score they received, except for one adjustment that we made. We discovered that there was one workshop proposal that had been submitted twice. It was pretty much a duplicate.
Now, as it turned out, you might remember the trust group was so big that we -- we were divided into two, so half of the trust track looked at the first 49 proposals and the other half looked at the other 49. As it happened, these duplicates were in both halves of our evaluation group, so we just combined the score. That changed the rank from 22nd in the track to 29th. We adjusted the ranking there.
We proposed lifting six workshops to the top of the yellow basket for inclusion in the program if space provides. We also explained the gaps that these proposals helped to address, and we provided some recommendations for how the proposers could improve their workshop.
And finally, we proposed one merger, and we made suggestions of how the merger could be achieved. But of course given that one of the workshops we're proposing be merged was in the green basket, we note that this is only a recommended merger and that workshop number 341 is not required to merge but is invited to merge with this workshop number 74 that otherwise wouldn't be taken forward.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much for that, Ben.
Any questions for Ben or any additions from other members of this group?
Susan, is that you wanting to add?
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Hello?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Now we can hear you.
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Okay. No. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to raise my hand. I apologize.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: No, you don't need to apologize.
Just one question from me. So, Ben, these -- what we see on the screen in front of us, those are the subthemes you are proposing: cybersecurity; infrastructure; misinformation, media and democracy; digital sovereignty and Internet fragmentation; and digital safety.
Could you perhaps say a little bit more about those subthemes, how you see them, and how you came to agree on them.
>>BEN WALLIS: Yes. So actually these were pretty much subthemes that were developed back in February when the Trust Working Group was developing the narrative. And so obviously we had the narrative text, which is fairly high level but does, in its two paragraphs, make an effort at highlighting all of the different elements of what we think can go into the trust track. And so this was -- And the proposals which ended up in our green basket pretty much reflected what we thought would be a logical and comprehensive structure back in February. But as I said, we removed one of the subthemes which didn't seem to attract any good proposals from the community. But otherwise, there's a fairly good balance in terms of numbers between them. I think it shows that misinformation is clearly a big topic this year. I think, and just going back to the start of my time with the MAG two, three years ago, cybersecurity might have been the biggest basket. And it's interesting to note, and it reflects our times, I think, that misinformation is such a big concern for the community, and there are a lot of ideas about how to tackle it and the balance that needs to be struck between freedom of expression and protecting society from misinformation and disinformation.
But I don't know if that helps as an explanation.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks a lot, Ben.
If I remember correctly, your green basket is 36? Am I right? Is that how many proposals you have in your green basket?
>>BEN WALLIS: We -- it depends how you want to describe the baskets, but we put 30 in the green basket and another six that we've lifted right to the top of the yellow basket. So we are proposing that those 36 be approved. You can say we've moved them into the green basket or you can say the other ones from the other basket, we'd like added. I'm not sure exactly how you describe it, but 36 is the number, yes.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Okay. I'm just taking note of that.
Paul, you have the floor.
>>PAUL ROWNEY: Thank you. Paul Rowney.
I just wanted to get some clarity, and I guess this will pull through when we do our presentation for inclusion. I know that we hadn't determined the number of workshops that would be selected per theme, but I wasn't under the impression that it would be so high a number per track.
So is this 36 based on a suggestion that all of these are accepted or is this like a short list, and out of that, whatever number would be selected?
Yeah, just wondering, because it does have a bit of impact on our selections.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Ben, can you respond?
>>SYLVIA CADENA: Can I respond to that?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, go ahead, Sylvia.
>>SYLVIA CADENA: Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Just unmute yourself when you take the mic.
>>SYLVIA CADENA: Yes. This is Sylvia Cadena, MAG member, technical community. I did this work with Ben as co-facilitators and with the support of proposal to trust one and two -- trust two working group to come up with these decisions -- or recommendations.
So to answer your question, Paul, yes, this is our recommendation. The trust track received 98 proposals, so the initial discussion on the working group for workshop evaluation was to allocate the number of proposals based on percentages. And we referred to those maximum numbers, and these recommendations are within that scope.
So basically it was around the top 20, 30% of each one of the tracks if you look at the (indiscernible) calculations that Roberto included on the workshop evaluation guidelines, the annex. So we worked based on that, and the proposals that you see on the screen, the ones that are not marked in yellow, they all are the higher score, from 4 up. So they're all in between the -- they're put in the excellent proposals.
And we know that there is no decision in terms of numbers, but we agreed, in principle, on -- with the Working Group on Evaluation that was going to be representative of the number of proposals received per track.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Sylvia.
>>BEN WALLIS: And just to add, we've left our list in a ranked order, which reflects the scores that they received from their collective evaluation. So that allows, you know, depending on the final number of workshops that there is for the IGF as a whole in this virtual setting and the way that it's -- we end up deciding to balance it between the tracks, then you have a kind of numerical order which to take forward from our track anyway.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: We actually have a proposal about numbers that the secretariat and I prepared, but we'll come back to that.
Let's hear all the groups, and then before you do your next round of breakouts, we can come to a decision on how to approach numbers.
Jutta, next question. Over to you.
>>JUTTA CROLL: Yes, thank you for giving me the floor I wanted to give an answer, not a question, to reflect on what you said about subthemes and asked about subthemes.
I just wanted to add that you can see from the subthemes that we have in the group of trust, it mirrors more or less that last year this track was called safety, stability, security and resilience. So I do think it's a very large variety of different issues that have to be dealt with under the track of trust, and that is mirrored by these diverse subthemes that we have in the -- among these workshop proposals. And it's also mirrored, somehow, by that high number of 98 workshops that have been sent into the track of trust. So -- And we ended up with these subthemes, more or less. We started in February with them, and it was very much mirrored by the workshop proposals that were sent in for that track.
Just as an explanation.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Jutta. My reaction to the subthemes is that I suppose maybe it will make sense. I'd like to see them in a narrative. You know, just for example, you have, under infrastructure, you have attributing attacks, but many people would see that as a cybersecurity topic. And I think -- we don't have to do that now, but I think for the participant in the IGF, understanding how you see these subthemes will become important.
>>SYLVIA CADENA: If I can respond to that, Anriette. We did that work when we developed the narrative for the trust team at the beginning of the year, although that information was not all published on the website. The trust team did policy questions for each one of those subthemes, and the narrative that was put together was kind of based on all the different bits and pieces. So it would be quite -- not easy, let's say, but it would be very natural to come up with a solution for what you are proposing because that's in the spirit of how the narrative was structured in January.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yes. And we have much more time to look at this as well. So -- But thanks very much. And I see, Susan, okay, you'll be the last person to speak on this, and then we'll move on.
In the meantime, next will be inclusion, so, inclusion, you can get ready to report.
Susan, you have the floor.
>>SUSAN CHALMERS: Apologies. I have to double unmute.
Thank you, Anriette.
Just very briefly, one idea for a narrative from -- that Paul and I used last year in the inclusion track, which I thought was quite useful and informative, was to kind of trust the (indiscernible).
We started out with (indiscernible) layer one, and we're talking about the importance of infrastructure in developing (indiscernible) infrastructure and then that was translated up through this stack, and so we were able to associate different topics with the different layers, which I thought was kind of -- kind of a neat way to -- for those attendees at the IGF who are -- who are, per se, familiar with the more infrastructural aspects of the Internet, the layers, I thought that was interesting. Certain folks found it interesting as well to learn about it and to think about Internet topics in that way.
So I just wanted to (indiscernible).
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that, Susan.
And please, everyone, Anja has typed this in the chat, if you are not speaking, please mute your mic.
Thanks very much to the trust group for your report. If there are no more questions, and I don't see any, can we please move on to inclusion to give us their report.
>>PAUL ROWNEY: Yes. Hi. Paul Rowney here. I'll report on inclusion.
I don't know if we can pull up our report.
But our understanding on the numbers was slightly different. For inclusion, we had 70 proposals. And we thought we had 18 of the slots. And that's what we've worked our proposal based on. Obviously, we would like to have more. If the ratios are different and we can get more, obviously, we would like to have more for the inclusion group.
On the narrative, we did make a minor tweak. And this really was just to bring in the issue of COVID-19 that wasn't part of the initial narrative and is, like, a footnote or final sentence. Quite a lot of the workshops was not directly talking about COVID. They raised issues that are aligned with COVID, that are aligned with inclusion, et cetera. So perhaps we thought it quite important to just bring that into the narrative.
When we look at the subthemes, we built from the initial subthemes that we identified when we went for the call for workshops. And we amended those slightly based on the workshop topics that the workshop proposers identified their workshops against. And that's led us to six subthemes, which you can see there, which is local content, language diversity, availability, affordability, access of infrastructure, design and policy for social inclusion and environmental sustainability, digital literacy and capacity-building, digital economy, and emerging technologies, and governments and policy.
The main themes that really emerged is the environmental sustainability, which came out of our face to face, really, and the emerging technologies. So those are sort of new tweaks away from the subthemes of last year.
We have listed the topics that the workshops identified themselves against, and we've tried to align those with the different subthemes.
That brought us basically -- if we can go to the next page -- a listing of the -- a number of those 70 workshops that were aligned to each subtheme. And this we found quite interesting.
So, Luis, can you go to the next page.
If we look at some of the traditional topics, we've sort of moved away from some of the traditional topics, and the main focus of the workshop proposals that were submitted were around the policy -- design and policy for social inclusion, environmental sustainability, the digital economy, and emerging technologies. That accounted for 50% of the workshops that were submitted.
So we're moving away from, you know, the traditional access and affordability issues.
When we looked at the workshops that we categorized into the green basket, you'll see we actually put a threshold of the green at the top 14 workshops. There's others in the green agreed. But based on the 18, we decided that at least 80% of those should be represented based on the top scores. Other top scorers, the top 14, two of those were aligned to local content and language diversity, none on availability, affordability, and access, four for design, social inclusion, three for digital literacy, and three for digital economy and two for governance and policy.
So this led us to the balancing. And out of the balancing, we then lifted up some workshops with -- based on the interest of the stakeholders, we didn't give the same number of workshops per subtheme. We basically balanced it based on the number or the interest across all of the workshops. So that led us, basically, to assigning two of the 18 workshops to local content, three to availability, affordability, four to design and policy, three to digital literacy, capacity-building, four to digital economy, and two to governance.
So this really was to balance the workshop based on the presenters' interest.
So when we balanced it up, you'll see that -- if you scroll down to the next page, you'll see that we brought in four workshops from the yellow basket. And that's given us our top 18.
When it comes to mergers, we did evaluate the workshops. We didn't identify any mergers that would improve the quality or the diversity of those workshops.
When we move into workshop diversity, it mirrors a little bit the overall diversity. You'll see that civil society accounts for 50%. We did see if it -- if there was a possibility to balance that, in particular, trying to raise government and private sector. But when we looked at that, changing workshops didn't really change the balance much away from where it was there, and is in align with the overall diversity on stakeholder.
Regional, I think we've got good balance on the regional. It's a little low on the LAC. We would have liked to have approved LAC participation a little bit. And on gender, it was fifty-fifty.
So on the last, we have a -- Sorry. My kids are in the back -- we have broken it down into a flow of how we see the program flows.
I'm going to end here and open the floor to other working group members to add anything that they might have missed.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that, Paul. Arsene is writing in the chat that the kids seem really happy. I admire your perseverance.
Just anyone else want to add? I have some questions, but let's give the opportunity first to others in this group to contribute.
>>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: Yes. May I jump in?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, Roberto. Just introduce yourself.
>>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: Thank you very much, I am Roberto Zambrana. I am from Bolivia, actually in my own capacity, and MAG member, and a part also of this group with Paul and Mary and some other colleagues.
And, well, Paul mentioned everything pretty much clear. Actually, I wanted to clarify the numbers that we have just as general information.
We, indeed, had 26 slots assigned for trust. We had 18 slots assigned for inclusion, 12 for data, and five for environment.
And in our case, we tried to get inside that number. Actually, I think we have 18. We need to revise that. But we considered that many more of those proposals are really good and should be considered. But something that we were waiting, as we all know, is the top number that we could use in order to allocate (indiscernible) the slots. I think that's something that we're going to discuss later, because that will give us the final numbers, maybe keeping the proportions, if every group agrees that we could keep that original numbers.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, thanks, Roberto.
Jutta, I see your hand. Do you want to ask a question or is that an old hand?
>>JUTTA CROLL: Sorry. That's an old hand. I used the queue.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Jutta.
So my question, if I understand correctly, is that your subthemes -- I have two questions at this point. The subtheme for -- subtheme 3, design and policy for social inclusion and environmental sustainability, I just want to understand how that relates to our environment track.
And then my other question was, how did you deal with, for example, gender or race or -- or issues of inclusion about -- you know, that relate to specific groups of people and users? Which subtheme -- or do you have workshops that deal with gender issues? And which subtheme would you have clustered those under?
>>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: First of all, sorry, Madam Chair, I think I -- I didn't express very well myself.
What I was -- the numbers I mentioned are the numbers that we included in the general guidelines. And I just wanted to clarify which were the numbers allocated for each thematic track. Those were the numbers I was saying before. Those were not the numbers in our group in order to select the subthemes.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: That's fine. I'm not talking about numbers. We'll come back about numbers later on. I'm just curious about your subthemes and how you see the subtheme 3, if I understand correctly, subtheme 3 of inclusion, which has environmental sustainability in it, how does that relate to our track for environment?
And then I'm just curious about how you dealt with gender.
>>PAUL ROWNEY: I can respond to that.
If we -- Luis can scroll up a little bit and look at the topics, we've actually highlighted the topic the same color as the subtheme. And we felt that gender falls under the design and policy for social inclusion.
With regards to environmental sustainability, this was one of our subthemes that we actually put in at the beginning. But we could probably remove it, because there wasn't any workshop submitted under inclusion, actually, that addressed -- well, there is one, there's one on environmental impact. Yeah. But it was an inclusion workshop that was looking into the environment. But it was not -- it wouldn't fit into the environmental track. And that's why we sort of bundled it with the design and policy for social inclusion, because it didn't really fit anywhere else.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: And is that -- is that workshop in your green basket?
>>PAUL ROWNEY: Which workshop?
>>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: The one related to environment? I think it's not. It's not in the green basket.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Okay. It's not in your green basket.
I'm just asking, because we have -- as you'll see when we have the report from environment, they had relatively few workshops. So I think if there's -- you know, if there's any workshop that might belong -- I know you've discussed this already. But we can still, if necessary, consider shifting the workshop to another track.
Any questions --
>>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: Sorry, sorry. Madam Chair, you had a second question about -- I think we didn't respond to that.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: No. I think Paul did. He did respond.
>>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: Okay.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: His response was that gender you clustered under design and policy for social inclusion.
>>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: Exactly.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Just remember, again, that from a user's perspective, conference attendee, you'd want to make that explicit. You don't want people to look at the IGF program and feel that gender is not, you know, considered a serious topic. So that's -- but the narrative track can play that role.
Any questions for this group?
Okay. I see no questions for clarification.
Thanks very much, Roberto and Paul and everyone else.
Next, we have environment. Environment, are you ready?
>>TIMEA SUTO: Yes, I am. Yes, we are.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Please go ahead. Just introduce yourself for the record again.
>>TIMEA SUTO: So while Luis is pulling up our document, this is Timea Suto, business community, MAG member, in my third year. And I am one of the coordinators for the environment track, together with my colleagues June and Karim, whom I want to thank for their help. And I also want to thank the group for their contributions.
While Luis is pulling up the document, I want to give a really quick overview on our methodology.
There it is.
So we followed roughly the same method that the other groups who presented so far followed. And I also want to thank all the other coordinators from the different tracks for their coordination and the discussion that we had, and for Roberto and the team on producing the guidelines. I think that was really, really helpful for us to sort of go down the same path and have a more cohesive approach to the work that we've been doing.
So what we've done here in the environment track, we had a total of 19 proposals. So when we compare it with 90 from other tracks, there is a difference. But that also allowed us to really go deep and discuss each proposal very carefully.
We -- firstly, the three coordinators, we looked through the proposals and the MAG's rankings and produced some very rough guidelines for the group. We proposed that we put in the green basket proposals with a score of 4 and above. That resulted in about 20% of the workshops proposed. And we also noted that we should put in the red basket the proposals that scored below 3.5. And that was about 25% of the workshops that we put into that red basket.
As -- If we go down one more page, Luis, please.
We also proposed to look in the yellow basket to try and fill up certain gaps that might have been identified in the green basket. And the main areas that we've seen there was gender diversity or regional diversity.
So as a second stage, the group really accepted these proposals from the coordinators, and then we had a very nice hour in which we really managed to go through the proposals in the yellow basket with the people who managed to dial in. So thanks, Lianna and Titti and Lucien, and everybody else in the group for your contributions into that discussion.
And what resulted there is really, just to give the highlights, an agreement that we should follow the general ranking of the workshops as the MAG created it. So we didn't want to change the order. But what we did is, we marked some of the sessions in that yellow basket -- and those are ten sessions altogether -- that did a bit less well than the others, or if they had any major significant gaps in diversity or if they lacked in any other way. And those are the ones that we marked not yellow and not red, but orange.
So if you scroll down to the couple of next pages, Luis, colleagues will be able to see that we have a couple of orange-marked workshops as well.
And that's basically -- our recommendation would be to keep the green ones as they are in the top four -- the top four-scored workshops, and then the next ten would be our yellow basket. And depending on how much space we have, we recommend having those ten included. There is also a suggestion for merger, and there's also, as I said, the suggestion with (indiscernible) orange that we can revisit if we need to reduce space.
We also agree in the group that those that we put in the red basket can be advised to try again next year with a more fleshed-out proposal.
So here in the slide that Luis is sharing now is our thinking around the subthemes and how the session would flow.
There were around ten or 11 subthemes marked by the community for the workshops that they proposed. We narrowed those down into four categories. And the first would be digital infrastructure and smart cities. That would focus more on the angles of connectivity, sustainable connectivity, energy, sustainable data centers, issues like that.
The second group is called digital technology applications for sustainability. And this is more on the application of smart technology to make anything more green, more environmentally friendly, more sustainable. And this is the applications of emerging tech, data governance considerations, or just innovative technology to do smart and green approaches.
The third workshop goes slightly more into the negatives or the externalities of digital technologies. I have to say that all workshops that were proposed -- most of the workshops really looked at the issue from both pro and con. So they were pretty balanced in that, but there are a few that focused more on the positives of tech and some that focused more on the negatives of tech, and this third basket is approaching that angle. Also looking at methods of counter balancing some of those negative approaches and promoting responsible consumption in a circular economy for ICT and ICT applications.
And then the fourth basket is a very interesting basket as well that goes into not necessarily the applications of technology but content online as it relates to climate change and environmental issues. And that is climate change, misinformation, or sharing knowledge or building partnerships online to learn from one another about environmental change.
So those are our four themes. And you can see there, we slotted not only the workshops that are in green our yellow baskets but we put all of them, just for colleagues to see, what we eliminate, how -- and also it is color coded. So as we would eliminate workshops, how the track would look like and how the subthemes would look like.
In terms of diversity, we proposed a couple of scenarios, so those are the last four slides here. Basically looking at -- if you only look at the green groups that are the first four workshops, this is what diversity looks like. You can see there that gender is pretty unbalanced. It's only one-third female versus two-thirds male. Civil society proposals or speakers were a bit overrepresented. And so did the WEOG group was a bit more represented than others.
But as we go down, for example, if you look at the green and the bright yellow proposals in the next slide, you see that that already pretty much balances out in terms of gender and the regional diversity; while WEOG is still very much leading, starts to break up as well. And the stakeholder group is getting more balanced. And then if you look at the next one, with that one merger we suggested, I think this is already a very -- very well balanced in terms of the diversity considerations and also on all of the -- all of the subthemes that -- that the community has suggested are already included.
And then the last slide would be basically our ideal scenario, if possible, that with -- that would include all of the workshops that the group deemed that did well. That counterbalances on the other -- to the other side a little bit the gender diversity, but we're hoping that that's not a bad thing, especially considering the whole of the speakers. And it also balances out very well the regional and the stakeholder diversity.
One thing that we want to mention in general about the workshops in environment track, considering all 19 proposals, there was only one speaker that was listed as a government speaker. So we would definitely want to make a recommendation to any one workshop proposal in this track to try and consider promoting their workshop to their government sector so that they can have those participants also well represented.
So that's a not-so-quick overview of what we did. I'm here to respond to any of your questions if you have them.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, Timea.
And does anyone have anything to add or any questions for Timea?
Sylvia, you have the floor.
>>SYLVIA CADENA: Thank you, Anriette.
Now that Timea mentioned the issue with the speaker on the government -- the low participate of government, let's say, one of the things that we detected during the analysis for the trust proposals is that a lot of speakers didn't really selected properly. There's the (indiscernible) group in the regional groupings as well. So I think to be able to have proper statistics about the final program, we really need to get on the case of those organizers and speakers to actually have accurate information.
On the list of the 14 proposals that I assessed, I think around half of those had speakers from technical community listed as civil society, because a lot of people from universities. Universities are registered as not-for-profit organizations in their countries, so they placed that as a civil society organization when, actually, academia is part of technical community.
And there were quite a few cases in which New Zealand, Australia, and some other Asian countries that are part of the WEOG region were also listed as APAC instead of WEOG.
One other irregularity that I found with those profiles was quite strange that I caught a couple of U.S. Government representatives that are listed as U.S. Department of State, and they picked intergovernmental organization. So I think there are some -- and that was kind of consistent across, so my gut tells me that the civil society pie that we are seeing is actually not that big. So maybe there is something there that the secretariat could do to help us run some sort of campaign to get people to update properly their community profiles and -- or some other way of getting that information. So if they mark the country where they are, then the countries to the regional group or something like that so it is actually more accurate. I don't think we have -- I added all of those comments into my comments to the proposals that I checked, so those organizers will receive those comments, but it will be really good to -- to see why that happened. And I will -- I could tell you exactly which proposals are they, but I'm worried that that is something that might be common in other tracks, and just people may not have the time to actually click on the name of each one of the speakers to check.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: This is good. It means that we -- we would want to verify at some point, and certainly for next year, to try and find a way of getting better data.
Thanks very much, Timea, and everyone.
You know, what strikes me here is that, you know, we took a very un-U.N. type of definition of environment, and I wonder if we use the classical definition of sustainability and sustainable development which includes environmental impact and human development -- in other words, if we used a more holistic way of defining this theme, I wonder if we would have had bigger numbers. It's really interesting. And for those of you who heard the head of UNEP, the United Nations Environmental Program, speaking at the roadmap launch, she was really adamant and she challenged Fabrizio to say that, in fact, environment should not be an add-on to the roadmap; that environmental sustainability is at the core of human existence and survival.
So I think -- And when I look at the subthemes, which I think are really great. I've looked at -- you know, they make a lot of sense.
I think in your narrative, what would be important would be to show the human dimension of those subthemes, to show how, for example -- which one? So carbon -- the circular economy, actually, how that impacts on people. How smart cities have ways of including and excluding people.
So I think in your narrative take a broad approach when you describe these subthemes. But they make good sense to me, and I think you have done a great job.
Lianna, you wanted to ask something. Please go ahead.
>>LIANNA GALSTYAN: Thank you, Anriette, for giving me the floor. It's Lianna Galstyan speaking.
Since we are talking about some concerns, I wanted to raise another one that I found in our basket in our workshop that we had. One of the workshop proposers said that we have also invited a member of Open Culture Foundation in Taiwan to speak in a session; however, the IGF does not allow participation from citizens of Taiwan.
So I wanted to make sure that this issue is raised up to the secretariat, and we would reach out to this proposer to say that the IGF is inclusive, it has the inclusive nature, everyone is welcome there. It's not like anyone is not allowing any other speaker from any particular country. Whatever is there. So maybe it's a misunderstanding but I wanted to make sure that we reach out to this proposer and say that it's not the case with the IGF. We welcome everyone.
I will send the number to the secretariat so that they would have this contact.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks. Thanks, Lianna. And I wonder if perhaps with a remote IGF there might be more -- more opportunity here. But I won't raise that now.
I think, secretariat, let's note this. It is an important point to consider.
Okay. I think -- I mean, I think you've really done very well-prepared work.
So mergers at this point. I just want to keep track. How many proposals for mergers do we have at the moment?
We had none from -- from trust. Am I right?
>>BEN WALLIS: Actually, we had one from trust.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: One from trust.
>>BEN WALLIS: It's not a required merger because one of them was --
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: It wasn't a green --
>>BEN WALLIS: -- the green basket.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yeah, that's right.
>>BEN WALLIS: Proposed merger, yeah.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Inclusion, did you have a merger proposal?
>>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: No, we don't, Madam Chair. I --
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: And -- Go ahead, Roberto.
>>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: Yeah, I just had -- of the recent presentation, I just want to have a quick recommendation or suggestion, if I may.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yes. Go ahead.
>>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: It's related to the numbers they applied. When they used the percentage that was calculated based on the overall number of proposals, they, indeed, get the number four. But when we developed the guidelines, you will see that in the annex, we actually increased that number in order to provide a little bit of more balance. So that's why in our -- in the general guidelines, the number is five for the -- for the slots that the environment group could allocate.
So my suggestion is that if they consider it possible, perhaps, to increase one of those proposals to the green basket.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Good. And we'll come back to the discussion of nurse.
So thanks very much to inclusion.
Data. We're running a little bit late but not badly.
So, data, you have the floor now.
>>MARIA PAZ CANALES: Okay. Thank you very much. I'm trying to --
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: I can hear you, Maria Paz.
>>MARIA PAZ CANALES: Yeah, yeah. I'm looking for the presentation, because I Luis to control my presentation. It will make it easier for me.
So can you see it now?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yes. We can see you and we can see your presentation.
>>MARIA PAZ CANALES: Perfect.
So in the case of the data track, we tried to follow, as much as possible, the procedure that was well designated by the process working group, always having in mind, as Sylvia mentioned before in the chat, that the main goal of the selection of workshop or the proposition that we will be presenting is to taking care of the highest quality of the workshop proposal, as the other group also did, and try to reflect as much as possible the diversity from the community that will be proposing or participating as speakers in the proposal, but also the diversity of the topics that were identified at the beginning of the year as the project ones for being part of this track according to the information that we gathered in the calls for information that we put outside for understanding what the community wants to see as part of the program this year.
So taking into consideration the guidelines that the working group in process did, we considered as an initial number of assessment the number of 12 workshop for the data track, bearing in mind that this number could be modified later according to the number of workshop that we decide for this year.
So we started with an initial signalizing of the belonging of the -- in the green basket of the 12 highest scored workshop in our track. So from there, we take it to review what kind of gaps were existent in terms of topics, the different subthemes initially identified, and also looking into how those green basket proposal, initial green basket proposal may be had elements that were duplicated or could be considered that will be a good fit for mergers or there was some elements missing in terms of the topic, the subtopics that were identified or subthemes that were identified, as well for the track.
So according to the analysis that we did, we started to make some correction in this allocation of the initial 12 highest scored proposal. We -- Different from the other groups, we approach with a little bit more flexibility to the goal of not proposing mergers for the 10% highest score because the different elements that I just mentioned, the different -- how the different rules provided for the procedure play, make, for us, relevant to give preference to the idea of high-quality session and also representative of the whole topics that were part of the track and different regions and interests from different communities.
So because of that, we propose some mergers. None of these proposals are mandatory, of course. Our suggestion, initial suggestion. And we, for example, propose to merge the first -- the highest scored workshop proposal in our green basket with the highest scored proposal in the general basket because the two represent a topic that it was the same, very close. And in that particular case, what's pointed out by the member of the group, that one of these proposals features speakers and representatives of two regions of the world, and the other one, the other two regions. So the idea of combining them, it precisely allows us to achieve a diversity in the discussion that was not present in each one of those sessions, although the two session were very high scored. One was the high scored of the whole track and the other one was pretty good, was the first one in the yellow basket.
Then we move to the proposal that we had in the number 4 of the track in the green basket that we thought, collectively, that it was a very good proposal for moving to a main session because the relevance of the topic, particularly in the current circumstances of the impact of the pandemic in the use of digital technologies. So we thought it would be a good candidate for moving to a main session, and this is the one that is in orange in the screen.
We continue keeping all the others that were in the first -- in the top of the 12 session for the track, and in the case of the number 7 that you can see here, we also propose a merger with the session in the number 9, which also belonged to the green basket because, again, this was precisely the same topic but it was addressing the issue of data privacy in the context of COVID-19. There was a good complementarity again between the speaker coming from different groups and representative. The proposition of the merger will strengthen the diversity of this conversation that is a very relevant one in the current circumstance.
And finally, the last merger that we are propose, we are proposing three eventual mergers, it's the one that link the session number 10 in the list of the highest scored proposal to one that was in the -- I'm sorry. It was number 2 here? Yeah. But it's later. It's there with -- I'm sorry. I lost my track with this, but this was a merger with the one that it's here. In the -- I'm sorry.
Okay. I'm looking for that information now.
Yeah, so the one that I was presenting, it was the one regarding the availability of data for monitoring the SDGs, as I explained here. I lost track in the table for finding it. But here it is explained.
And there was two proposals that were occurring, the issue of monitoring the SDG, but the difference between the two is one proposed to monitor in a more broader way during data regarding the different SDGs. And the other one was more devoted to particularly the SDGs and the information about information communication technology relevant for the (indiscernible) of the SDGs. So at the beginning, there was not agreement in the group, there were some members of the group who were not sure about merging these two topics. But, finally, in the last round of consultation, we decided to put forward the recommendation for merger, particularly having into consideration to free some space for filling some gaps regarding the thematic areas that were not covered by the high-score proposal at that.
So with that, there was -- with these proposal mergers and the freed space by the MAG session that we did, there was some space freed for the inclusion of some of the proposals in the yellow basket. And there, the main criteria for moving some of the proposals in the yellow basket to the green basket was to try to fill the gaps in the thematic areas that we find relevant. And we proposed to move the proposal from the general basket regarding the issue of work-from-home Internet and (indiscernible) COVID, because we felt, again, that it wasn't relevant, thematic, to cover particularly in this context.
The one regarding data flows, trade, and international cooperation, there were a number -- a relevant number of proposals in this topic in the overall set of proposals, but this was the highest scored from all of them, so we took that one for representing the theme, we still feel that's very relevant to discuss in the track.
Then we selected also from the yellow basket one proposal regarding the children's right of participation in data governance in order to also cover some diversity in the perspective of the issue that it was not well represented in the original 12 highest scored proposals. And the same for open data for women and persons with disabilities that we saw also was relevant to consider the issue of vulnerable groups in the track with a workshop proposal that particularly addressed these issues like this one.
And also in this case, it was very relevant that this was a proposal that was put forward by African representatives. And they were the ones that were less well represented in the overall of the initial green basket. So we thought that a way to compensate that deficit was precisely to pick one of the yellow basket proposals that addressed that issue with the specific recommendation to them to add to this conversation other geographical representation and make it more global and not only regional for Africa.
So I think that with that, I will move to the identification of how we covered the subtheme proposal, with this correction from the -- moving some of the yellow basket to the green basket.
We covered the thematic lines that we defined originally for the tracks in the following way: So we have for governance dimensions for data-driven technologies, two -- three proposals, sorry, digital identity, we have two, data-driven, emerging technology, we have three. For data-driven business model, two. For data access quality, interoperability, competition, innovation, two. And for the final one, on the impact of the digital sovereignty and Internet fragmentation on trust, we have one.
That way, we felt that we achieved a pretty balanced and diverse selection of the proposals that were all high scoring, because even the ones that made it originally in the green basket and belonged to the yellow basket, they were very close in scoring to the green ones. So, in general, we are very comfortable that this proposal represents a very balanced approach to the thematic areas and the different geographic and sectors and other diversity in representation.
We are aware of the issue of the merger, that the group -- we are proposing more mergers than the other and we are aware that we were against the role of the 10% highest score that were of that was proposed by the working group of Brussels. But we believe that that would need to be that need to be (indiscernible) against the other issues of quality, diversity, and subtheme covering that are also very relevant.
And a final word, we didn't consider the lowest 30% proposal scoring, which are the ones that belong to the red basket. Although there were very good proposals there and the scoring between the yellow and the red one, it was very close, it was pointed out -- I received some questions regarding some specific proposals that were considered of high quality and they didn't make it to the final round for the yellow basket. And it's because the scoring was just too close. So we followed in that case the rule of not including them in the yellow basket because they were 30% lowest scoring. But none of them fulfilled the rule of less than 2 points of scoring. All of them were about that point.
So I will leave it there, and I will take any question. And also, I forgot to mention at the beginning that I really appreciate all the work that all the members of the group did reviewing the positions that we put forward with Chenai Chair, my co-facilitator in the track, and all the time that they devoted to these very complex analysis of all the rules that we need to apply but that at the end was very useful for arriving to these results.
So thank you very much to the working group in Brussels also for providing those guidelines and everyone that provided further recommendation in the way in which we could move forward with this process.
I will leave it there. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, Maria Paz.
Can you just go back to your subthemes just so we see those on screen.
Any questions or additions to the data tracks report?
And I see you are all busily chatting in the chat. Please, I find it very hard to follow the chat and listen to the speaker at the same time. So I really urge people to take the floor.
Jutta, did you want to add?
>>JUTTA CROLL: I would like to follow up something that was addressed in the chat. And I'm a bit wondering how those proposals that were suggested for merger in the data track ended up ranking on the first place in the data track when they failed to address diversity. So I understood the reason to merge them was not enough diversity. And I was wondering how it could come that they ended up ranking on first and third place if they failed diversity. That's my question to Maria Paz.
>>MARIA PAZ CANALES: So you know that the approach that we have for diversity this year, we say that there was a number of criteria for addressing diversity. One of them was geographic diversity. So at the end, they addressed the other type of diversity in the proposal. That result in the high scoring of the proposal. But then the geographic balance was not very well achieved and there were recommendations of improving that. But still the quality, the overall quality of the proposal was very good. So I cannot provide further explanation about that, because that was the result of the collective assessment of the group.
But that's what I can say about it. And also because in many of these workshops, I don't recall exactly if this was the case or not, when there were some issues, one of the (indiscernible) of the scoring was that they were, like, putting a plan for improving the diversity should that they have. So in some of these, there was some announcement that they would be revisiting the issues about diversity and implementing that.
So overall, I think that especially because of the current circumstances that we are living, there will be -- I will expect that it will be much more open from the workshop organizer to review and take some of the suggestions that we as the MAG members could look together regarding how to strengthen the diversity in the participation.
I don't think that made it different to what happened in other kind of situation, and particularly in-person events, it will be so dramatic to have them make revision and see how they fit with other workshop proposals that were not accepted and how to take those speakers and improve the participation of the accepted workshop. I think that there is a role that will we as a MAG could play in that. But, of course, this is a personal view. This doesn't even represent the data track view. It's my personal vision of that. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: And Sylvia, you have the floor.
I cannot see the speakers' queue right now. So, Luis, if you can put that on screen, please.
Sylvia.
>>SYLVIA CADENA: Thank you. Thank you, Anriette.
Sylvia Cadena, technical community, for the record.
Well, besides the discussion that is going on on the chat about to merge or not to merge from the top ten, which I already expressed my opinion on that, I just wanted to remind us all that for this year, we actually agreed to make a change on how the diversity was scored, and that not all aspects of diversity were to be addressed by all the session organizers. So what we said -- and Luis can correct me around the language -- but it was up to three; right? So we listed a lot of options: Geographic diversity, gender, stakeholder group, difference of perspective, and a bunch of other diversity, people with disabilities, and et cetera. But they didn't have to fill all of them. If they were fulfilling three, then they could get a 4 or a 5 on their score if they were expressed correctly.
So I think it's -- I think -- I understand the assessment of the data group in the effort of trying to merge to accommodate that number of 18 workshops. But I think it would be best not to merge proposals on the top ten and to be also mindful that we were the ones that said that that was the definition for diversity for this year and that we are not expecting workshop organizers to address everything under the sun, because that is impossible. Right?
We did agree on that.
So if we are going to modify that definition to be able to say which part of diversity is more important or which one is mandatory and the others ones are additional, then that was not on the call for proposals and I think it would be very hard to assess proposals based on our very different views about what is more important than others, and we should only refer to what we agreed on the call for proposals.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, Sylvia.
And Chenai, you asked for the floor as well.
>>CHENAI CHAIR: Hi, Anriette. I'm sorry. I'm just turning on my camera.
Hi, everyone. Chenai Chair, MAG representative, civil society, calling in from a very cold Johannesburg.
So I do understand the -- so I just want to second Maria Paz's position, because this is -- has also come up from an argument when we are looking at the data track. I do understand the full process that went in terms of diversity and I understand that it's always a point of whether sessions get merged or we don't. And I have also been contributing to the chat.
So what I actually wanted to say is, I think fair enough that the process has been decided and this is what diversity looks like. But I am quite concerned that the data track -- and I don't know if this was picked up in the other sessions -- that the data track ended up looking very Western Europe-orientated. So that is, I guess, one of the reasons why we were very much looking at merging these sessions and creating space, because I think now also because we're -- at that time we were thinking about that it's going to be in the physical space in Poland, and at the end of the day, we were really trying to make sure that can we have a session that just does not -- you know, a track that is just not really representative of one complete region.
So I think going forward, and I guess this is also pertaining to the announcement that you will tell us, Anriette, I guess it's something that when we go into the breakout sessions, we would know how many sessions are actually going to go through going forward. And secondly, I think it's something that is meant to be taken into account that, yes, we have said diversity, if you can't address everything underneath the sun, but we cannot -- I strongly believe we cannot have a data track that is representative of one region alone.
And if then that means that perhaps more analysis should be done in terms of, like, where some of these sessions are coming from and where they end up -- because the two sessions that we did propose as well that were in the yellow basket but were not as strong did respond to gender and I think --
>>MARIA PAZ CANALES: Children, and future of work and children.
>>CHENAI CHAIR: Yeah, and children as well.
Because I think it's really important to have a track that's more reflective of what's going on in society and would also be able to address the diversity issue.
So I look forward to the breakout room discussion and the comments that are going to come from the chair in terms of how many sessions are going to be put forward. But I do think that as we're thinking about these rules and for the future work, that this is noted as a point of analysis, that if we're going to have checks and representatives of one region in our current society, I think maybe then we do need to continuously work on this understanding of diversity. And I do understand the MAG's job is not to cover everything underneath the sun.
So that is my intervention. And I look forward to the breakout rooms.
>>MARIA PAZ CANALES: Madam Chair, I know that we are over the time, but I just want to respond very shortly to some of the comments on this chat.
I totally believe, as a lawyer by training, that the rules need to be honored. So there was a rule regarding not recommending mergers of the ten highest percent scoring. I am aware of that. I mentioned it in my intervention. All the group was aware of that. We -- Chenai and I, we requested everyone to read the rules that was provided by the working group on process. But as a lawyer, as I mentioned, I know that the rules need to be honored to be balanced and to achieve the intended result.
As Chenai has brilliantly pointed out just now, there was a particular consideration in this track that I believe that for some reason happened here, and not in the other groups, I don't know why, if we are failing in some way in the scoring process or if it was something that was just related to the type of proposals that were received. But the reality is that we confront a stack of workshop proposals that had this characteristic. And the other issue very relevant is that we had very high-scored proposals that repeated the very same topics. So we couldn't have four proposals regarding the privacy consideration of the COVID-19. There were at least four in the highest-scoring proposal that had that topic covered. And I think that the understanding of the mergers, also it could be maybe a different one in this case. We could consider that the one that is effective is the highest scored of the two that we are proposing a merger. And just to mention to the other organizers of the other one that we are proposing to merge with, mentioning that their proposal was not as effective, but they could be invited as a speaker in another session covering the same topic that it has been accepted.
I don't know if the right word for addressing the issues is "mergers." Maybe it's not "mergers," but more like picking the highest scored and leaving that established that they (indiscernible) the session. (Indiscernible) by from your proposal, additional speakers to fulfill the (indiscernible) proposal. That could be another option that I think that could be possible. And maybe the MAG would feel more comfortable with that because it will not be properly a merger, but a different approach.
I will leave it there. Thanks.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Sorry. I'm just getting pen and paper here to make notes.
Thanks for that. And thanks for the responses.
We have Timea and Jennifer, and then we'll move on to a general discussion.
So, Timea, you are next.
>>TIMEA SUTO: Thanks, Anriette. I'll try to be brief. And thank you to Maria Paz and to Chenai for all the explanations and the hard work. I think you definitely have your best -- everybody's best interest in mind and you're trying to find the best solutions for this. So I do understand how hard it is, especially when you have so many good proposals to choose from. So I really -- I don't want to be in your shoes right now for sure.
But what I would like to perhaps offer as a compromise solution for the group to consider -- and I am part also of the data track and the environment track. So I'll try to split myself into two and try and work with you guys as well this afternoon.
But what Chenai said, I think it's very important that we need to make sure that we don't let any one group to overthink the others. And I completely understand that.
I also understand what you are saying, that -- well, what you are trying to do is consider the rules flexible and trying to make sure that the overarching purpose is observed and the rules don't stand in the way of that. And I can also understand why you're saying that.
But I think that there's -- this doesn't really have to exclude one or the other. The fact that we agreed to have a rule that we have the top ten percent, so not even the top ten workshops, the top ten percent, that doesn't have to be -- that means five workshops for the data track not to be considered for mergers. That leaves, I think, enough space to try and correct any sort of gaps that those sessions bring from the rest of the workshops. And this is what all the other tracks are trying to do. And I do understand that while three tracks out of the four are following the same process, perhaps stands out a little bit too much that this track is taking another approach. I understand that some people are confused about that.
So maybe you want to try and look back, what are the actual gaps that are there and how can we make sure that we overcome those gaps when we are looking at the track, and while also we are observing the process.
And as you said, they are -- the rules are there to be reconsidered and changed and make them work for us and for our purposes. But there is also a time and place to do that. And I am not sure that we should be changing rules in the middle of the process, or maybe we can think about it for next year. We didn't say we should have mergers at all. We just said to find compromise solutions, don't have mergers in the very, very top of the track. And I think that is still a rule that can be observed and through that, we can achieve the goals that Chenai and Maria Paz stated.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Timea. Jennifer, first --
>> Only to respond to --
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Jennifer first.
>> Oh, sorry.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Jennifer, are you ready?
>>JENNIFER CHUNG: Yes, I am ready. Thank you, Anriette. I have a problem starting my camera, and I apologize for that. It seems I am not able to this time for some reason, but I can go ahead.
I just wanted to -- to put on record what I was also putting in chat. Thank you, Anriette, for the reminder. My name is Jennifer Chung, I'm a third year MAG member and I am part of the private sector.
I think there's two main things that we need to keep in consideration here. And I think many colleagues have mentioned it on chat, but maybe not on voice, that we created the set of guidelines and rules in order for us to make sure we take any kind of conflicts of interest, any personal bias out of the equation when we do our evaluations. And as MAG members, when we do our evaluations, it's actually very important that we uphold this process, because if we are undermining our own scoring, that makes the entire -- entire mechanism suffers from it. It is actually not a good look from us.
That being said, I think the second thing is even though in past years, as MAG member and also as an observer, I've noted that every time mergers are discussed and considered, it is an extremely difficult task.
I think one of the past MAG members have mentioned that, you know, there was a hope that mergers weren't being seen as being a penalty, and this is not what I'm trying to get at here either, but I am saying that when we are looking at very highly scored proposals, we do have a set of tools, as MAG members, that we can use to address any perceived lack on these proposals without jumping straight to the most difficult one to achieve, which would be the mergers.
I think that's also another reason why the other tracks are very cautious about suggesting mergers, because also given experience, it is quite difficult to achieve that. You know, to merge a proposal that has scored very highly and is very considered with a proposal that is completely different is always very difficult.
So I think I wanted to highlight these two points.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks. Thanks for that.
We are running out of time, and we have to discuss numbers, but, Maria Paz, you wanted to respond. And I think you said there was only one workshop, but --
>>MARIA PAZ CANALES: Yeah.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: -- please go ahead and respond.
>>MARIA PAZ CANALES: Yeah, only to respond the question made by Timea. We did the analysis about what of the proposal would be affected by the 10% rule as you mentioned. That means from the top five workshop, there shouldn't be any merger proposal. So that leaves a very easy solution. The easy solution is just leave it that the highest workshop in the green basket, the number one, as it is, not proposing the merger with the first one in the yellow basket, and just to work with them to improve the diversity, the geographic diversity. And it's very easy. And it's the only proposal that will be affected by that rule if all of the group is very concerned with following the procedures. But the very easy fix, because the other one that is proposed to do something special in the group of the top five is the one we're proposing as a main session, not as a merger. And if that proposition is not accepted, also will stay there and will not be affected in any form. So it is not a dramatic change in our evaluation if the group believe that that rule should be followed in this case. It's an easy fix.
Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Maria Paz. And my personal view -- in fact, I don't want to go against the process, because I know that we agreed on the Workshop Evaluation Working Group's suggestion. Personally, I actually, and from my own experience, I think if handled with sensitivity, even high scoring workshops can benefit from -- from a voluntary merger. Not a compelled merger. So -- But I do -- I think I take the point, and I think this is a decision that was discussed earlier, and there was agreement on how to handle mergers.
I also just want to remind everyone that -- if I remember correctly, the survey that was done last year by the Workshop Process Working Group, the response from 2019 session organizers was actually quite positive. People weren't negative about being asked to merge.
So I think we should -- we shouldn't feel so incredibly reluctant to ask people to merge. I just think we need to do it with sensitivity and care, and it has to be voluntary. You can't compel. I think particularly, you know, if it is a high scoring workshop, even if it's not a very high scoring workshop, but if it's a workshop that did a good proposal, we do need to be careful about that.
But, Maria Paz, I think that there's a strong -- my sense is there's a strong feeling in the MAG that they would like all the tracks to stick to the agreed procedure, but I think, you know, you've made a strong argument. And when you go back into your breakout group, I think take on board what you've heard from the MAG, but if you still feel strongly that you can make a very good case for making -- for asking for an exception to that, I think you should do that.
I just want to mention something else. We didn't talk a lot about subthemes. I wanted to get everyone's feedback on the subthemes before we go into the next breakout session. To me, they all look fine, and I think you've all done great work.
I think what would be good from a program point of view, though, is to have more similarity in how you articulate the subthemes. Some of you articulate them sort of more -- like the data track subthemes, for example, link back to data. Some of you -- so trust has different themes, like cybersecurity and so on.
I think for the program it, might be useful for us -- we don't have to do it during this meeting, but to find more of a common way in terms of the phrasing and the way in which we describe the subthemes.
So I think, before -- I mean, please take the queue if you want to say anything. I just want you to look now, because numbers and percentages clearly has been challenging. So to start us on this, the secretariat and I have prepared some very, very broad parameters.
For me, I think a very important point of departure, which I haven't heard anyone, actually, say yet, is that we really should not be rejecting good proposals. I think for us as -- as -- You know, I, as somebody who has been part of the IGF community for a long time, I think merging is a far better option than just being excluded. So I do think we shouldn't let numbers make us -- or percentages or allocations. You know, I think we should always be willing to find a way of giving really good proposals space in the IGF. I think that's an important point of departure. But I do understand that decisions have to be made and we have to have numbers.
So what we've done, as the secretariat, we've come up with some very rough numbers.
Luis, if you can just move up a little bit to the plenary section of the agenda.
So what we've done here is to come up with a proposal, which you should discuss. So what are the assumptions in this proposal?
So we started from two assumptions with the total number of workshops. We are proposing that by the end of today, we come up with -- or by the end of your breaking -- breakout groups, we come up with no more than 80 and no fewer than 70, more or less.
[ Coughing ]
Excuse me.
Why this number? This is because we had 65 last year, and I think 65 felt like a reasonable number.
This year, we'll have a virtual IGF. Now, what we have found out from colleagues, EuroDIG in particular, is that we are going to have a second round of vetting, because we are going to have to ask all the successful proposers to resubmit with a plan for how they are going to run their workshop virtually.
And I think we should assume that -- and I know this is more work for the MAG, but I don't think we can assume that we'll automatically accept everyone's proposals. I think we need to factor in for some sessions that we feel just do not submit a good enough proposal for the online version of their workshop.
So if 80 is too many, then let's make it 70, but we do need to factor that there will be some drop-off in numbers when we do the second round of vetting. But if you feel that that's too many, let's discuss that.
And then, secondly, in terms of number of sessions per track, we, at the secretariat, and myself, we feel that we shouldn't -- that balance is not that important. It's much more important that we find space for the good quality proposals. So we're just proposing, and this is open to you for input, a minimum of 10 per thematic track and a maximum of 25.
So any reactions to that? I see, Jutta, you've asked for the floor.
>>JUTTA CROLL: Yes. Thank you, Anriette. Thank you for giving me the floor. Jutta Croll, MAG member in my third year for civil society from Germany.
It's just a question whether I got that right. Do you suggest that all the workshop proposals that the MAG members will agree on to be in the green basket, that means above the threshold, that these go back to the workshop proposers and then they have to confirm that they have a concept to run the session that they had proposed at a virtual IGF? Is that correct?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: That's exactly what I'm proposing. And I've looked into this, you know, in quite a lot of depth and discussed it with Sandra and the EuroDIG team, because I think what we know is that -- and we know this from this MAG meeting. I mean, Anja and Chengetai and Luis and I have really worked hard to prepare this agenda and this process. Online sessions require more preparation than face-to-face sessions. And I think for us as the MAG, it's very important to ensure that we've done everything within our power to make sure that the workshops are well managed and well run.
So we might need other levels of technical support, but I think at this point what I'm referring to is to ask those successful proposers to submit a short outline of how they are going to run this as a virtual process.
And that could also be an opportunity to ask them to introduce other improvements that you might have noted in your evaluation of the sessions. So, yes, the answer is yes to you, Jutta.
Sylvia, you asked for the floor.
>>SYLVIA CADENA: Thank you, Anriette. I have a question. Well, I mentioned before that I think all the groups worked based on quality, and I think that we kind of hit that nail. Having the number of 80 proposals sounds really, you know, good. I was just wondering based on the documents that were already submitted with the recommendations that each group has, if there is any number from the secretariat in terms of how many we need to drop from different -- the different groups.
If --
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: I have --
(Multiple people speaking at once.)
>>SYLVIA CADENA: Knowing -- knowing that that is -- Sorry, Anriette. Knowing that in our case, in the trust group, that is the one that has more -- more proposals submitted and more proposals for the recommendations. I just want to make sure that when we look at the overall program, and look at the balance, and we look at all of that, that this scoring also reflects the quality of the proposals that we select.
So if we -- if we have some help from the secretariat to actually see those numbers, that might be very helpful for the discussion in case the trust group has to drop some, for example. So it will be really good. Because the trust group has put forward 35 proposals plus one for a merger. And according to that percentage, in that maximum of 25 we might need to drop 10, and I don't agree to that because all of those are over 4 score. So -- or almost.
So that's that -- If it is absolutely impossible to fit them in and -- et cetera, then fine. But if we go with the -- with the idea of putting quality over the numbers, then the quality is there, and I will do my best to protect those sessions to be included. So I would appreciate some guidelines from the secretariat in terms of the numbers for each track.
Thanks.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Sylvia.
Just -- Carlos, I know you've asked for the floor, but can we just do that quickly? I don't think -- secretariat, are you able to do that?
Can I just ask each group, I know that for trust you had 36. Correct? That you wanted to include.
>>SYLVIA CADENA: Yes, yes. But if you -- with your guideline of 25 means 11 --
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Just hang on. Hang on, Sylvia. Let's just go through each group.
Inclusion, what was your number?
>>PAUL ROWNEY: We short listed 18 based on the assumption that we would have 18 slots, but we easily have 25 or more very good workshops.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Okay.
>>PAUL ROWNEY: So if you move the threshold up, we can fill it easily.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Okay.
And then environment, you had 14? Or how many did you --
>> Exactly, yes.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: And data?
>>MARIA PAZ CANALES: Yeah, we selected 13. Our number was 12, and we added one more for the purpose of including some of the thematic gaps. So we have 13. But we can come back and find -- easily find the ones, additionals that could be required, yeah.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: So it does look here as if we are not very far off from that number of 80.
I think -- I mean, I'm not doing a very scientific count here, but if we apply the mergers, that probably brings us down to the desired number. And my sense is that environment and data, you are happy with your number. Inclusion, you would like to add more, if you could. And trust, you don't want any change or are there some you feel you can shed?
>>JUTTA CROLL: No, I do think the 36 (indiscernible) that we wanted to have included due to the scores that they have achieved. And I would also like to remind, if we go for quality, then trust made for the five best scoring proposals in the overall rank over all four tracks. So I don't think it's only quantity, like the 98 that went into the trust basket, but also the quality. Sorry for jumping in. I was just trying to answer your question.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: That's fine. Thanks.
I count that we've got 81 on the table at the moment. So I think, really -- which is a lot, but we still need to then add the mergers, and then we need to look at how to do the second round of vetting.
But, Carlos, let me give you the floor before we continue.
>>CARLOS AFONSO: Thank you.
We have to turn on the camera, right? Okay.
I have one comment and one question. The comment is if we remove the physical constraint component, which is the case because IGF will be virtual, and if we stretch the whole meeting to two weeks, I think we'll have more flexibility regarding the number of workshops. Am I right? And this is a comment and of course a question as well.
And the second is, if we go for a second round of vetting to check whether the online version of the approved workshops is acceptable, what are the criteria we are going to use to decide on these proposals? Because I don't think we have criteria for the online format yet, do we?
These are my comment and questions. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Carlos, we don't, and I don't think we've really had time to do that. But at the same time, I think we can get that together relatively easily. And I think -- I mean, as the workshop evaluation group has done so much work already, if you would like, then, the secretariat and myself can do the first attempt at that, and then give it to you for comment.
But, no, we don't have that yet. We do have to develop that.
Ben, you have the floor.
>>BEN WALLIS: Thanks. Yes, video started.
So thank you for giving us some guidance about aiming for 80. And I wonder whether -- and we are close, as you say.
To clarify that with trust, the merger isn't really an issue here because it's something which is not in our 36 we've proposed could be merged with one that's in our 36. So it wouldn't -- it doesn't take the number down from 36. It's a 37th workshop that would be incorporated if the other workshop agrees with the merger.
But my suggestion was going to be that one way to work out how many slots we should have is to look at the -- the proportion of proposals received per track. And so that would probably suggest that a few would be lost from trust, maybe going down to 33, and then a few would be added to inclusion, I think.
I didn't have enough time to do the math and to work out, but that could be one way of working out how to adjust the recommendations we have without too many changes at this point.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: I think, indeed, you can do that. I was going to suggest that, that when you go into your breakout, that trust, because you've got the highest number, that you do look at your list again to see if there are some that you feel you can do without.
And inclusion, that you go and look at your list and put some back that you felt really do deserve to be in.
I think with the other two tracks, we are dealing with small numbers. We don't really want to lose workshops there, not if you feel that you've got the quality that we are looking for.
And I also wonder if you would be willing in your breakout groups now -- because I don't think the number discussions is going to be so -- you know, so time consuming, because you've done all the preparation, but if you have time in your breakout groups to start coming up with some points that you feel we should include in the vetting process for online presentation. You know, that could be something.
If I look now -- if we look at the tasks -- and, Luis, if you can just scroll down a little bit -- for this breakout group, if you look there, we have what we felt should be the output of your breakout groups: List of approved workshops. You're very close to achieving that. Subthemes. You're very close to achieving that, although I would like a bit more discussion on that. But we can always come back to that. Proposals for mergers. You've done that. And I haven't heard any dissent around that except for the data track's proposal to ask high-scoring workshops to merge. And I think, Maria Paz, you've heard the sentiment there. So you and your group just need to take that on board.
And then here we have other recommendations: Workshop for becoming a main session. We've got one proposal so far. And I think what I would suggest is that we discuss that proposal tomorrow, when we look at main sessions.
And then here, I have optional, preferences, ideas for a virtual IGF.
So I think -- I mean, you could also start talking about the criteria for vetting. But it might be more useful to talk about general preferences. I'm going to leave that to the facilitators to put to your group. You can decide whether you want to discuss preferences for virtual IGF in terms of time and shape, or if you want to talk about vetting, about criteria that we want to use evaluate whether we believe this will be a successful online session. And if we get a bit of both, that's good. We can work with that.
I'm concerned about time. We've run over time. But I think we needed to, to run over time with this plenary. And I suspect that your breakout sessions probably won't be very long because you've done so much preparatory work.
So on this, do you feel -- Are there any more points on this? Are people comfortable with this approach to the breakout sessions? Are there questions for clarity or suggestions about how to approach these sessions?
I'm not watching the chat. I'm relying on you all to speak. So please say it out loud.
>>BEN WALLIS: It's Ben Wallis again, Anriette.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Go ahead.
>>BEN WALLIS: Just to mention something I did put in the chat, which you can't see. I took the -- So when the secretariat shared with us statistics about all of the workshops a few weeks ago, slide number 2 contained the breakdown per track. It was 41% for trust, 21% for data, 8% for environment, and 30% for inclusion.
So I took the number of 80 workshops and did the percentages for each. So that would mean trust would have to come down to 33; inclusion would go to 24; there would be 17 data; and six environment.
I know that's maybe a crude way of doing it, but that might be a target for us to move toward within evaluation groups.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: In environment, my suggestion would not to be to go down to six. I think this is a new track. We need time to work with is it. I think if we only have a program -- if we have a program with only six workshops in the environment track, that could, I think, reflect negatively on the kind of start that we want to give to this track.
So, I mean, I'm happy with the larger number that the group have come up with, provided they feel those are good proposals.
Jutta.
>>JUTTA CROLL: Yes, I have a question with regard to the numbers.
Do we expect to accommodate 80 workshops into the program? Or do you assume that out of these 80 that we accept now, some will drop out because they do not feel up to organize a workshop session.
So the question is we would need maybe 90 to then come down to 80 with the dropouts who do not feel up to the task? Or do we assume we suggest 80 and then we will have a dropout rate of ten and we end up with 70? That needs to be clarified.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: I'll try and clarify that.
And, Chengetai, please jump in here as well.
We felt that we don't really want more than 80, because 80 is a lot, and there is a concern about the IGF not being too big. Last year, we had 65. But that was for three tracks. So I thought a fourth track, a ceiling of 80 seems reasonable. I don't think we should go higher than that.
So I don't think we should decide on that number if we can't accommodate that, because there is still the possibility that all the workshop proposals will come up with strong plans for running it online. But I think we will probably lose some. But we don't want to lose too many.
So, Jutta, I hope that's clarified.
You know, we -- I think so what we're working with here is a target number, a final target of something between 80 and 70.
But, Chengetai, can you jump in here and add a little bit in terms of how we approached this when we prepared for the meeting?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Anriette.
That's really true. We do suppose that when you select the 80, there will, of course, be some droppage and it will come down to almost around 70. So that would be a good number to work with.
I don't think I have anything else to add, as such. But just to underscore what Anriette said about the environment track, that we do have to, as well, encourage that track. So I would give it a little bit more workshop space than it would ordinarily have received if we just go strictly by the tentative.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Chengetai.
Timea.
>>TIMEA SUTO: Thank you for that. I'll try to be brief. I just wanted to offer a possible solution to this, because try as we might, we can assume how many people will drop out, but we don't know.
If it is possible for each group to think about how many sessions they would have in terms of the numbers that we all agree on for their track and then identify maybe, I don't know, three, four, five more that we just keep in the back, you know, as people do with, I don't know, college applications, we put those on the wait list. And if somebody decides not to take their place or drop out from having that session that they were selected to have for whatever reason, then we lift up in their order the backup sessions. Perhaps that would be something that we can do. And we already have the green and yellow baskets to do that, so that might not be that difficult. But I'd rather keep the session numbers low first and then bring in if we need to, if somebody drops out, than have a large number of sessions and hope that somebody drops out so we have a manageable program.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: I have one more thing to say, if it's okay, Anriette.
Anriette?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yes. Sorry. I was unmuting. Of course, go ahead.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes. Timea just reminded me as well, so I think also we shouldn't just think about having the maximum number of workshops. We should also think about that stream. Do these workshops, you know, make a logical flow? And let's say you choose -- I mean, just picking a number, if you choose 20 workshops, do they make a logical stream or can you do it in 18 and will those two that you tack on disrupt that flow, then, of course, you can drop those. But if you need one or two extra more to make that stream, then, fine, yes.
So it shouldn't be thinking of absolute numbers as such, but, yes, please do try and stick to those guidelines of the numbers.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Chengetai.
Thanks, Timea.
Timea, I don't know your proposal is mutually exclusive with what we have come up with. I think that we -- you know, the total number we can accommodate is also going to be determined by the design of the event. And we just haven't had the time to decide that now.
So, you know -- and I don't want you to -- I want this work that you've done on the workshops, for you to complete it. You know, we might have to make adjustments at a later stage. But I think this target figure of no more than 80 at this point, with the kind of distribution that we've come up with, seems, I think, fair at this point.
I think if you want to keep a reserve list, as Timea has suggested, I think absolutely do that, if you feel there are workshops that are worthy of being on that reserve list.
So we now need to break out. I'm sure you need a break before you start your breakout groups.
The original plan was that we were supposed to start these breakout groups at -- an hour ago. So we've actually gone an hour over time. But I think we needed to do that.
We then allocated quite a lot of time for the breakout groups. And we were going to ask you all to come back to a plenary today just for us to identify next steps.
So what I'm proposing is that we cancel that, that we don't have a -- a plenary; that you now break out into all your groups, and then the facilitators can decide how long you want to go on, how long of a break you want to give one another before you start working or whether you want to jump in immediately.
And then we'll come back tomorrow and listen to your reports.
Is that clear? Does anyone have any questions about the process?
Just jump in. Don't worry about taking the floor.
Does anyone, all the facilitators, are you clear on what will happen now?
>>LUIS BOBO: Hello, Anriette.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Luis, go ahead.
>>LUIS BOBO: Just technical question.
So if we don't have the last session, we will still have the breakout, but they will not have the main session. Basically, we will put the main session open, put a maximum time of 90 minutes, and we will keep that time the session open. And then after 90 minutes, we will close the main session, meaning that there will be a maximum of 90 minutes for the meetings now.
Is that okay with the MAG?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: That's absolutely fine. You'll have 90 minutes. And you can decide how much of that you need.
I'll stay around, and I'll move from room to room in case you need to check in with me on anything. But it's -- you know, it's up to you how to organize your breakout groups at this point.
>>MARY UDUMA: Hello.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Hello. Go ahead, Mary.
>>MARY UDUMA: I missed some part of your explanation. And on the other hand, I wanted to know, are we going into the 90 minutes now?
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Yes.
>>MARY UDUMA: Already having Zoom fever, I'm already having Zoom fever. I don't know -- 90 minutes now and come back to the main room --
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Would you prefer for us to give you -- we can easily do that, we can give everyone a break before we open the rooms, as long as you all do come back.
Is there a preference for that? For us scheduling the break now instead of allowing the facilitators to schedule the break?
Can I hear the facilitators?
>>JUTTA CROLL: Should be done in the groups so the facilitators can decide with their members. It's easier to agree in a smaller group.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Okay. Good.
>> Agree.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: So, Mary, there will be breaks. But first go into your room. Then your facilitator will talk with you about how to give you a break.
And, absolutely, I agree with you, Zoom fatigue, I think people do need a group. But let's let the facilitators discuss that with their groups.
I don't see any other questions.
>>LUIS BOBO: First and last clarification. So the rooms will be open for 90 minutes. You can include your own breaks there. And then you are free at any time to leave the rooms, the breakout rooms or the main room. You can return to the main room, but there will be nothing. And then after 90 minutes, everything will be over.
So you can leave anything at any time.
Okay?
If you need any help, I will be in the main room. And you can also call me from the breakout rooms, so it's not a problem. During this 90 minutes.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, Luis.
Yes, Paul.
>>PAUL ROWNEY: Can I just ask a question? Are we able to share our own documents in the breakout groups?
>>LUIS BOBO: Yes.
>>PAUL ROWNEY: Okay. Thank you.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: You are. You can share screens in your breakout groups.
So thanks very much, everyone. I apologize for us continuing for longer than scheduled, but I think we needed to have this discussion. It was a complex -- a complex session. But we did need to have this discussion.
Thanks very much for the groups, for all your preparatory work. I think it's going to make the breakout session much faster.
And thanks to all our observers. Thanks to the captioner, who will now stop working. And thanks also to the secretariat.
And, please, everyone, you are going to be assigned by Luis to your workshop evaluation breakout group now.
Your facilitator will set a break with you and agree on your work modalities. You've all got rapporteurs. Thanks for all the volunteers who volunteered for this.
And we'll get back tomorrow at our meeting. Which starts at what time? When is our plenary tomorrow? I'm getting my other device out.
Secretariat, when do we start tomorrow?
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: 1:00 o'clock UTC.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: 1:00 o'clock. So 1:00 o'clock UTC.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, that is correct. Sorry. I have to unmute.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Chengetai.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: That is correct.
>>CHAIR ESTERHUYSEN: So thanks very much, everyone.
I'm closing this plenary. And I look forward to dropping in on the breakout rooms and to meeting you all again tomorrow.
>> Thank you, Anriette.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, thank you very much, Anriette.
>>ROBERTO ZAMBRANA: Thank you, Anriette.
>>JUTTA CROLL: Thank you, Anriette. See you all tomorrow.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, all.