The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> MODERATOR: As you can see, we're very proud, thanks to the support of other stakeholders, in four years, we have the indicators embraced by 44 countries across five continents. You can see Africa is the leading continent, having many indicators.
>> Our remote participation is fine now. Thanks to the Internet.
(Overlapping audio).
>> MODERATOR: We are seeking to scale up the assessment which not only assessing their digital ecosystem but also helping with developing the national digital strategy and improve the digital policies. The impact is apparent. Most of the countries is beginning of launching the assessment is building on the political consensus with high‑level officials, actors in the country. In many countries (overlapping audio) and on the completion of the assessment in many countries. ‑‑ has been engaged with the national policymakers to strike the actions to take for implementing those recommendations. And many other countries, you can see already the principle as being part of the national strategy and also some concrete actions, projects have been designed to improve for example, enhance the statistic agency in Senegal to come up with a policy and neutrality in Thailand, et cetera.
This slide is talking about how to implement, what resource you need. I was asked by many stakeholders that are interested in doing an assessment in their country to ask how much cost, how long it can take. I mean, how do you manage 44 countries. I would like to give you an average. It is a costly project, because essentially, you are supposed to answer 109 core questions to collect the data evidence to do the research to come up with the report. The average budget is between 20 thousand to 50,000 USD. The determination is also determining the capacity of the national research team (overlapping audio).
I would like to underline, it is better not go over the 18 months, because the digital ecosystem changes so fast. If you are doing the setting so slowly, the data you collect at the beginning have already got obsolete. Do it quick, crisp, and come up with actions, that is our recommendations. And UNESCO, we're providing all the technical support, training, orientation, sharing practice, lesson learned among countries. Also building the original help desk such as in Latin America we have (indiscernible) all of the Latin America assessment. (Overlapping audio) and also having many other original help desk to provide the direct assistance. And on the HQ level, we are also creating a new interactive map to monitor all the countries in their process. (Indiscernible) and welcome you here to join us. This is interactive map I just mention that is a new initiative, because it is such an increasing demand to moon tor and track the different process. (Overlapping audio).
As you can see, kind of out of the countries, they're having the ROAM indicator whether they are just launched or ongoing or completed. (Indiscernible) the country name, you can come up with a country page to show all the progress, information, impact, results from this country and the liaison person to help on a human level.
I would like to remote this year we are provide of initiatives that have enhanced the systematic training. There is an increasing need to trend or run nationally, the teams or stakeholders that approach this process. You can see in Africa to organize a number of webinars to train the researchers and policymakers who have WSIS Forum and the training capacity and (overlapping audio).
Tomorrow, we're organizing two expert meetings at a venue of UNESCO to discuss how we're going to develop a training module, maybe some physical training scheduled to further this training initiative. And we will have another expert meeting to discuss after five years of indicators being developed, we see a need to capture the new challenges to the indicator itself. If any of you are interested (overlapping audio).
That's all from our end and our presentation. Now I would like to move to our exciting national presentation from the colleagues. I would like to start with the Asia. The four countries from Asia‑Pacific. Since we're already lagging behind, I call ‑‑ I count on the national researchers to stick to the five‑minute limit to allow everybody some time to present. So the first speaker I like to introduce is Sadaf Khan, the co‑founder for Media Matters for Democracy in Pakistan. The leading author for assessment in Pakistan. Sadaf Khan are you able to connect in.
>> Sadaf Khan: Am I audible? Hi, can you hear me?
>> Yes, we can hear you.
>> Sadaf Khan: Using five mentals to share the major challenge, but I'll try my best.
(Overlapping audio).
>> It seems she's talking on the Zoom, but if she could project her presentation on the screen, please.
>> Sadaf Khan: I don't have a presentation.
>> MODERATOR: We couldn't hear her.
(Overlapping audio).
>> MODERATOR: Considering the time zone, I hope we can proceed with them.
>> Sadaf Khan: I'm not sure, if I am not audible in the room, for the participants ‑‑
(Overlapping audio)
(Overlapping audio)
>> MODERATOR: Hello, Sadaf Khan, can you hear me? I can see you but cannot hear you for the moment.
Can you please start over. We didn't hear anything before this moment. Thank you. It is so nice to see you on the screen. You look great.
>> Sadaf Khan: Thank you, I'm sorry I don't have a presentation, because it was only five minutes. But I'll try very quickly to share with you the major findings and recommendations of my national assessment. The good thing that was indicated in Pakistan shows that policies concerning the Internet have steadily improved over time in Pakistan. We implemented ‑‑ especially those related to meaningful communities, lower socioeconomic groups, persons with disabilities. More specifically people without formal literacy, literacy, the indicators were the most complicated and complex.
(Overlapping audio).
>> It is very disturbing, can someone do something about it.
>> It is getting very disturbing. Please help us. Please provide technical support.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, if I understand you correctly, it means that our remote participants they are really hearing another session.
(Overlapping conversations)
>> Sadaf Khan: There are two or three other voices as I try to speak. They are lowered a bit. I will try to quickly move on.
(Overlapping conversations).
>> MODERATOR: Sorry, Sadaf Khan we cannot hear you anymore. May I ask technical support how we can improve?
If we cannot solve this immediately, can we try the next speaker? No, it cannot work for all of the four speakers from the remote participation?
>> Very complicated and distractive.
>> MODERATOR: Please stay online, we might be able to hear you after four speakers from Africa. That okay? Okay. Yeah.
>> Santosh Sigdel: We are implementing the UNESCO project in Nepal so we have support from UNESCO. So I'm representing our experience implementing the project at the same time, some key findings, the UNESCO Director said earlier, the process is also very important, not only the outcome. So we are also focusing briefly on the process. Next slide, please.
So the overall ‑‑ yeah.
(Overlapping conversations)
Come up with a recommendation for the further policies and the institutional arrangement.
(Overlapping conversations) so it is carried out in coordination with the Advisory Board, and it consists of private sector, tech communities, regulator, and the Government. We have the development research team at the same time with the multistakeholder Forum, we have completed the data gathering. They provide in person the developing of the research plan. Oh, and the research methodology includes the desk review, key informant interviews and public survey. Regarding the public survey as said earlier, we review the national legislation and other reports, developed by the NGOs and other sector and international reports. On this report, or the other reports, developed by UNCTAD and others. The Board also provided support in the identification of the participants at the same time defining the question, we have identified the major stakeholder that improves the different Government and Civil Society organization and Private Sector.
(Overlapping conversations)
Nepal has three different geographic Regions, we have the same time we also cover all other identified by the IGF multistakeholder mechanism. And data was collected using the tool. And we have been organizing the activities and the KII. There is hardcore indicator. We have developed portion which around 24 questions were recovered from the answer to the next review. And 24 questions answered through the KII and 62 for the public survey. For the public survey, we have developed question ‑‑ 60 questions provided by the indicators. I think there is some technical glitch. It is going back and forth.
So now, coming to the key findings. This is the major part. As I said earlier, we're now in the data analysis space, but based on the initial reading of the findings from the KII and survey, the major finding includes no explicit regarding the access ‑‑
(Overlapping conversations) I think we should change this. So there is a legal provision which allow the Government institution to use it to control information or block site or the access to information. There are provisions like that. There is no data protection mechanism. Despite the constitutional guarantee of online privacy, it is not perfected. We need more legal framework to protect the privacy. It is based on the content regulation is provided by the current act of section 247. Misinformation and disinformation is used. There is a fake news argument to control access to the information or media. That is a key finding. Another is no disaggregated data. So as we said earlier, there is qualitative and quantitative data. On the part of quantitative data, we have very few, that is not disaggregated. So we can't analyze that on the gender basis. There is an absence of laws to protect consumers online. There is e‑commerce in the disk, but there is no law to protect consumers online. Citizens in the law making policymakers are not recognized by the law. It is not ensured by the law. The program to assess the talents of the people with disabilities.
(Overlapping conversations)
And audio has evolved where the political parties themselves have opened up the cyber wing within the political parties which has developed a sensitive subject. And regulation trampled the opinion and specific right to privacy. These are the key findings based on our research survey. And the review of the secondary data. Hopefully this will help also for person with disability. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. It seems that your clicker doesn't work. You couldn't move on?
>> Maybe the little screen.
>> MODERATOR: Okay. Then we can ask ‑‑
(overlapping conversations)
>> MODERATOR: Maybe we can help technical support for the clicker that doesn't work as well. May I ask if our remote speaker can talk now? Can we try that again?
(Overlapping conversations)
You are still hearing noise from other sessions? I'm so sorry. That must be annoying. Sadaf Khan can you try to speak?
>> Sadaf Khan: Should I start over or continue from there.
>> MODERATOR: Yeah, the volume needs to be increased. Please.
(Overlapping conversations).
>> MODERATOR: Yes, go on. No? It cannot?
>> Sadaf Khan: I will continue where I left off. I was the talking about in the openness category is that there was a difference in the level of performance of the regulators, while the litigation authority has been assessed as very proactive regulator, with the environment.
(Overlapping conversations)
It appears that there is a lot of coordination ‑‑ (overlapping conversations) there is a complete lack of focus ‑‑ there is engagement lacking. And the engagement initiated.
(Overlapping conversations)
(Overlapping conversations).
>> Sadaf Khan: Because there are no audio options, for example. Do we even understand what that policy is about? This is one of the core recommendations that I mention. I do want to mention a couple of very interesting ‑‑
(overlapping conversations)
(Overlapping conversations)
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Although we didn't hear you, thank you for the excellent work. Given the time delay and really we couldn't hear the remote speakers talk very clearly, I basically barely heard from you. We will proceed with speakers in the room first. We will see if the issues will be solved by technical support. We are informed that actually we have a member of African Parliament in the room with us. It is really very useful session in being a key actor of policymaker here. I look forward to our excellent presentation from the national speakers. So the next one, I like to introduce from Africa continent, Mr. Asrat Mulatu, the leading researcher of the ROAM‑X assessment project in Ethiopia. Are you there? Please, yes. Do you have a PowerPoint? Can you please project the PPT from Ethiopia?
(Feedback).
Please stick to the five minutes, we are terribly lagging behind. Thank you.
(Overlapping conversations).
>> MODERATOR: UNESCO is having interactive map for the assessments. All of the results will be available on the website for your later following up. Thank you. So can we have the PPT now?
To inform our speakers, I will start with Asrat Mulatu from Ethiopia and follow with Professor Alain Kiyindou representing five countries' assessment. And then we have Grace Githaiga. Are you here with us? Okay. Excellent. Then after Grace Githaiga, we have Nashilongo Gervasius Nakale. We will keep that one. Sorry. We have three speakers from Africa in the room. Please go ahead. Thank you. (Feedback).
>> Asrat Mulatu: Hello. Thank you. I'm Asrat Mulatu, I am a Professor at the University and I am the lead researcher of the ROAM‑X assessment project in Ethiopia. So I am going to present in the email communication, note the findings and recommendations but rather the reflections in sharing our experiences in the process. As my friend from Nepal said, it is very important that not only the outcome but the process, which is usually undermined. That is what we are here for. So next, please.
(Overlapping conversations)
This is the presentation outline, I will reflect on basically our experience and finally future efforts on how we will improve the process. Next? This is the summary of the ROAM‑X indicators. As you can see there are 109 core indicators that we have used. There are some indicators we find important to identify the gaps in our country. Then there are also international sources, which are very important for us. So basically, we found the framework to be, you know, very well blocked because it is well organized. Well framed to help us find out the gaps of the national Internet development. This is the simplified step we have followed. We have an established team, divide the tasks according to the activities in the team. We have defined questionnaires because those in the ROAM‑X framework, we cannot use them. We will have prepared interview questions. Questionnaires requirements and other specific questions for specific stakeholders, officers, and offices. And then we have, you know, identified a team structure with sub teams and the members. And data collection through different means, like, you know, dissemination so some offices requested data. Especially Government organizations.
(Overlapping conversations) Took too much time in that aspect. After this, we will come back again. We went to write up, based on whatever we have got, due to the time and the nature. So we have that one. Then we come up with a draft report, in which shared locally, nationally, and international. And then we have learned in the process so many things. It is very key to start early. And you know, progress consistently, which is very important. We have seen that due to various problems, we have lacked consistency and the reason to continue as we have started. The core team should be, you know, ICT aware and technically competent. That would be very essential to progress in the same Region. As a whole, things work independently. And come to discussion. Then we have to share responsibility and the importance that we find out, even though you are not looking at Government offices, again, formally, politely, whatever it means, not open. Informally they can be able to find data and information and then we will start and develop some kind of content from whatever we have obtained
We have then regulations and Focus Group discussions among some stakeholders. Then we have some issues in the terms of deciding the financial background, because the organization I'm working with is Government based and it follows, you know, Government rules and regulations, you know, for the financial adaptation, which sometimes become another indicator for us to work with. Project management is very important. We'll have so many opportunities and challenges that we have faced. As discussed the framework is very well developed. That would be very easy for us to understand and start as early as possible. And the core team due to lack of background, it is important. There is the AI that is included in the results and findings and recommendations. And a strong national context in understanding from the core team members we have established. It is important because of the educational background and work experience. And we have identified some national opportunities and challenges to incorporate, which are already developed a couple of proposals from these outcomes and submitted to relevant organizations. There are many challenges. In the projects, we have in the process of establishing new Government not to be tough for us to find data from Government offices due to various reasons as indicated.
We have Internet conflicts, unfortunately. That is another problem to come up with. In the questionnaire response is tough due to various reasons which I will explain later. And lack of organization of national data. We don't have the standard. It is senseless that it is conducting, you know, regular.
There are lots of misunderstandings of the indicators.
>> MODERATOR: Can you please wrap up?
>> Asrat Mulatu: All right. Some of the processes should be contextualized to the fact on the ground. That is what I find out. The members could be collaboratively updated with the researchers. The methodology of when established, but there are some issues that we have find out. These are the issues we find out. And some questions, okay, as indicated here. Some of the respondent say so many questions in one indicator. So many measurements in one. This is one question in the right indicator. Of the C2, that is what we coordinate. There are so many things in it. There are four core indicators within them. There are so many, you know, issues to raise. So they complained how can we respond to all at the same time or from one organization. This is the main information to complain. Okay?
One of the respondents. We have followed this general approach, which is already in the TOR. And the work process plus writing the report. So in the future, impact assessment should be done and then we have to devise a strategy, which is very important. So fighting the implementation could be important and already key stakeholder have verified the poor as mentions and mechanisms should find out how to be successful in this endeavor. The other question that is interesting is why don't we do it beyond the national assessment? Which is very interesting.
For example ‑‑
(Overlapping conversations).
>> MODERATOR: Please stick to five minutes. But if you want to share you can. And now we invite Professor Alain Kiyindou from Benin, Niger, Cote d'Ivoire and RDC. It seems you have mission impossible to present five countries in five minutes. How about eight minutes? Let's go straight to the key findings and key recommendations if you can share your PowerPoint with the participants later. We can have everybody can do that later. Thank you. Please take the floor.
>> Alain Kiyindou: (No English translation).
>> MODERATOR: Hello. Please project Professor Alain Kiyindou PowerPoint on the screen. Thank you.
>> Alain Kiyindou: (No English translation).
>> MODERATOR: The translation? Oh, excellent. So please, this is good news. There is translation for this event.
>> (Off mic).
>> MODERATOR: I understand it is not.
(Overlapping conversations).
>> Alain Kiyindou: (No English translation).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for completing five countries in more or less seven minutes. And now we have Grace Githaiga from Kenya. They realized kind of a tracking of the assessment.
(Overlapping conversations) and the policy improvement. Grace, can you please take the floor?
>> Grace Githaiga: I will be very brief so you can recover the minutes because what I have to say is very brief. So Kenya, we said we already did the first assessment, which we launched in 2020 and then we proposed to look into ‑‑ into what has happened in the last two years. So we ‑‑
(Overlapping conversations) have been assessing what took place. For example, COVID changed the way people conduct themselves, there are more users online but there are now more abusers that are conducting online. You know, incidents of cybercrime. So in the second assessment we considered several things in light of COVID‑19 dynamics and areas that we have updated include in all the sections, what has the impact of COVID been in terms of accessibility, openness, laws produced during COVID. So we are assessing was their participation by stakeholders in participating in coming up with ‑‑
(Overlapping conversations) this is in terms of users of Internet, users of mobile phone broadband adoption of broadband, et cetera. So we also have been looking into the laws that have been updated. The policies, and regulations that have been amended, done away with and the new ones that are coming up and have been put in place.
In addition we are looking at what are the current developments and implementation aspects? Because one of the things we have found out is that we have in Kenya, we have many laws, many progressive laws, many supportive laws, however, implementation is an issue. Because there is slowness in implementing that. As the speed is not very high, we have more people coming up with new laws. We're looking into that.
Of course, the aim is to show progress of the last two years, what happened between 2020 and 2022 as well as what has changed, what has been implemented and what is the progress made, what are the new indicators to look into for example, issues of artificial intelligence and the gaps that hinder development and ultimately, you know, as we finalize the report, will be providing recommendations to these.
So again, Internet in Kenya considers this important because the publication is going to be yet another milestone that, you know, that brings all of this information in one, you know ‑‑ at one stop where you can find different indicators.
And so we think it is also going to be very useful in terms of contributing to the development of sound policy, legal, regulatory, and technical approaches and responses that shall ultimately promote the development, continue to promote the development of ICT sector in Kenya. One of the things we realized and noted is every time we have the Kenya and global IGF, we realize the themes are actually informed by the indicators that we continue to review. So we are glad, because I'm sure we might be among the first countries that are doing a review. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Grace for your wonderful and brief presentation. Actually we have finished the speakers on‑site from the African panel. And we have Nashilongo Gervasius Nakale from Namibia, I hope we finish with those in the room, and perhaps the technicalities will be solved by the end. Thank you for your patience.
I'm happy to introduce a strong panel from Latin America. We have three excellent presentations from Argentina, newly completed, congratulations. And then we have the first assessment done in this project from Brazil. And also have the Paraguay project also present here to show the results.
So Fernanda Martinez is with CETYS. You can ask the technical support to move you forward.
>> Fernanda Martinez: We don't have a clicker. It doesn't work. Hello, colleagues, I thought about that joke for a week, my name is Gonzalez Martinez. I had the opportunity to read this team of researchers. I had a different Director for different dimensions to cure the best report in each case. I will be fast because I have the time ticker sitting right next to me. And it was a challenge, it is integrated with still running and integrated by 17 members of all sectors, three plenary meetings and different entries. I will pass it fast, you can look them up on Google. We have the branches, that is important. We say the state is the Government. We have the legislative and judicial branch as well. We had 22 interviews, 11 with members and 11 key informants in the community with Argentina and a discussion group especially focused on access with six members. The evaluation methodology was to use what our recommendation about the bible. I had the bible ‑‑ I call it bible. For like one year in my desk. And now it is responsible. Thank you very much. So great. You have a lot of options. We chose this one. I will go fast through this traffic light is quite subjective, of course, but it can give you a sense of urgency, if you want to address and make policymakers take an interest in what you are doing, you have to do these kinds of things. So we level all 25 teams of five dimensions and saw the situation in each case. Of course the predominant trend is yellow, some are up, some down, some stagnated. And some are well handled, that is why they're green. Some issues are quite critical. And this could be the two things I would like to say about the report, the trend is like ... continuation trend ‑‑ sorry, a discontinuity trend with an innovation trend. That is the policymakers innovative, the first country in the regulation with a cert for enter with incidents, and first country that is antiquated in data protection. We were last in the ecosystem. We see the trends. It is familiar to all the region of Latin America.
The other thing was based on this. The three critical issues are right to privacy. Where we don't have adequate law to this moment. We integrate law. It was in year 2000, imagine it is incorporated into that law. I will spoil the finish line of the representation. Since we finished the report, it took us 11 months, we finish it in April. Since that moment, that authority obligation presented a new bill. I don't know if it is because of this report. But many countries got inside on this report. The other things are Cybersecurity that is still critical in Argentina. There was a change in authority obligation. We will see where it goes. And equitable access that is key to get what was already mentioned. Meaningful activity. This is a block in the development in Argentina. We made 63 recommendations. Where is my time? I have 35 seconds. We made 63 recommendations for all the team it is involved. And we identify 10 objectives as critical.
I want to show the update in the data. For sure. Intelligence is not included in the law. We have a lot to do in privacy, not only data protection, in Argentina. Not only that, we made recommendations throughout the Internet access and organization. It can ensure this when anyone of course, we're happy to share it. Some challenges faced during the process. What was the most difficult task? Especially disaggregated data. This is difficult. The research with the most involvement. Where we should focus. Involving new stakeholder and more stakeholder and socialize the resource and making them understand the process opinion or focusing on the research. And at the beginning it was difficult to understand that both were interlinked. We have a polarized political environment in Argentina. We managed to do it. One was one side and one was the other. They took turns.
Finally, elaboration of specific and situated recommendations. There are situated and nuance recommendations. That is what I mentioned before. What happened since we finished the report? Data protection coming into place. That's it. Thank you so much. Thank you everyone. (Off mic)
109. That is why I put it in five minutes.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much for sharing. It is the third time to hear your presentation. Every time I learn something new. He said, you know, that traffic light innovation has been adopted by the research team in Mongolia, you have done a good practice to be shared. Thank you so much. We're in the pipeline to publish the Argentina report in ourselves series as an example of excellence in the first coming months, so you will be able to download the full version of the report and the same with the Ethiopia report.
I would like to introduce a project in Paraguay. Mr. Eduardo Carillo representing the association of technology education, development, research communicate TEDIC, can you please take the floor.
>> EDUARDO CARILLO: I will not have the powers of Gonzalo to summarize that fastly. I will stick to the script I worked on.
I am Eduardo Carillo I am from Paraguay, I am from TEDIC, who did the indicators in partnership with the Ministry of ICT. This partnership was instrumental ‑‑ oops, I don't know what happened there. This partnership was quite instrumental in terms of ... conducting the research and collecting the data from different sources. Much like all the different presentations that precede me, we did research for the requests and those through the partnership with the ICT.
Is important to point out it was conducted between April and October of 2019. Going to Xianhong Hu's point, things evolve and change fastly in the technological environment.
I argue at the same time, perhaps the revelation of the technology doesn't change that fastly. Regardless of the fact that the research we did is from 2019, much of the regulatory framework has not changed. This is good in terms of the relevance of the report and not so good in terms of how regulation evolves according to technology evolution as well.
In terms of the multistakeholder Advisory Board, which was a Board that was formed to advise the researchers, it was multistakeholder by nature, had representatives from the state, Civil Society and Academia. And some also from the technical community from affiliated to technical spaces. They were instrumental in giving feedback to all the information that was collected and the relevance or not.
In terms of times or due to time constraints, I will only define the main findings in the rights and cross‑cutting issue section. In terms of rights, as you can see, Paraguay has robust regulatory framework, public expression, access to public information and others. What stood out the most to us is the fact that there is an existing harmonization to the public international rights norms and human rights and national constitution. There is no explicit normative that equates online to offline rights, both the judiciary and to some extent the executive power extends and acts accordingly to the understanding that the online rights are the same as the one on the offline environment.
In terms of recommendations for this section, the one that particularly stands out is the fact that Paraguay still needs a local data protection. And in the case of Argentina who is in the process of reviewing the law we don't have a comprehensive data law and there is essential confusion with an existing law credit related data that is not sufficient to protect people's rights.
The recommendation in the report is the law must be in line with more protective and robust legislation. Since last year, this is outside of the data that was collected in 2019. There is a build project that has been collaboratively worked between Civil Society, private sector, and Public Sector. It is an interesting personal data regulation that is in discussion in Congress. So we are urgently in need of the bill to be discussed. I think it is also a good opportunity to say that we need a new report of Paraguay in order to indicate there are new laws in discussion that could potentially give more information for the report.
In terms of cross‑cutting indicators, there is a particular difficulty that was suffered, I would say, across all the research. I think it is heard in other interventions. It is the fact that there isn't ‑‑ there is an absence of disaggregated data that is needed to build a more evidence‑based policy in our context.
From this perspective and the cross‑cutting sections ‑‑ I didn't move that ‑‑ data and online abuse and harassments are insufficient to sort of like understand the landscape. There is a lack of accountability from public to stop the online gender‑based violence especially related to women and children.
With regard to children, in particular, there is a proper lack of collection of disaggregated by responsible institutions who perhaps have the will to do the collections but have at this point to understand and have data that is related to children and Internet and ICTs.
Much like in the issue of gender and disaggregated, in regards to Sustainable Development and the ethical and legal aspects, there is a lack of proper monitoring mechanisms for projects related to the use of Internet and ICT that are led by the state. That could be linked to the evolution and completion of the SDGs, in the country. In the end, it is the issue of the state not having the capacity of measuring the effectiveness of the policies in general.
So in terms of lessons learned, which is more of a general reflection, I would say, the relationship of the development of the ROAM‑X technology, it has proven useful for our robust data evaluation in our research. But at the same time, it was very difficult for the researchers to commit to let's say a steady and stable commitment with these Ad Hoc bodies because they're by nature Ad Hoc. It is something to be taken into account for future editions of the research in Paraguay.
Also I would like to point out, in a context like ours where the development of research is quite difficult, it is important to highlight the willingness of the Government in this case to produce evidence related to ICTs and Internet and particularly with the rights‑based approach that ROAM‑X brings to table.
Those are the main lessons, I hope I didn't pass the five minutes.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. I'm so intrigued by your presentation. I didn't look at my watch. I trust it is okay. Now I invite Alexandre Barbosa from CETIC to present the project in Brazil and share your insight and vision because that is a god father of the indicators. Study was under his leadership to support the entire consultation to also conduct the pilot assessment to eventually be the first assessment indicator. Your assessments are most valuable. Please relax and finish your presentation.
>> Alexandre Barbosa: Thank you for your kind words. Good afternoon everyone. I won't use the slides for the sake of time. You will have access to the content of the slides. I will brief give a message. This is a unique category that is covering Latin American countries and some in Africa. We have been working closely with UNESCO. We are linked to the Brazilian center.
I would like to start by saying this whole concept of Internet universality was born thanks to CETIC BR, with the first that was written and evolved to this concept of ROAM‑X indicators. There is no need to highlight more the relevance of this framework for the Internet development because we know that measuring its development in a broader approach that goes beyond infrastructure and access is really amazing.
So this framework is really very important from, I would say all countries, but in particular, in Latin America where we have a lot of disparities. In the case of Brazil, after UNESCO has approved the ROAM‑X framework in the general confidence in 2015, we conducted two regional consultations and then piloted this framework in 2018 and conducted the real data collection in 2019 and publish the first ROAM‑X country report. But apart from that we have also peer‑reviewed Argentina's report, and Paraguay and Hawaii remote and provided to Germany, Peru and Namibia and Tunisia. It is important work that those countries that already conducted the assessment can provide support and create a community of Xers that is important. Let me finish by saying, we have a new challenge to incorporate in the framework.
I would highlight two important issues. Especially in the case of Brazil, we have a very solid legal framework on Internet Governance, data protection, infrastructure. Well developed. But we still have the challenge of deploying the 5G network in not only the capital cities that we have already 5G implemented and the whole country. And IoT. We have closer of the productivity of the companies by using new emerging technology and also AI. There is initiative in the country related to privacy and data protection. In 2014, our general data protection law was not approved yet. And we just launched the full report on privacy and personal data protection. I recommend that this dimension would be included in the ROAM‑X indicators and new, emerging technologies such as AI.
In this particular regard, Brazil has approved the national strategy for AI. And NIC.BR is in charge of establishing the national observatory for AI. Using AI indicators. There was a few indicates on the usage of AI in enterprises, Government, education, and health. Today, we have published the first series of indicators on the usage of AI. It will be included in the national observatory of AI. To finish, Xianhong Hu, I would say our challenge in the framework is to include new dimension that was said and you mentioned meaningful technology and data governance including private and personal data protection. The information on this misinformation and disinformation, and with that I will finish. Thank you, Xianhong Hu. And congratulations for this important achievement. Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I think there is a question now. Please go ahead.
>> Thank you. This is for all of those who have been involved in this work. It has been fascinating listening to you. I was thinking how many millions of dollars have been spent, whether the EU, ECA, ADB, European Development Bank, Asia Development Bank. We have had so much investment in this sector. As you speak, there is no reference to the impact this funding has made.
What are we to conclude? If we just take your traffic light. Very basic things are still in red. Comment? I'm confused listening to this. It is UNDP, World Bank itself, all of the Development Banks in Latin America huge investment. What happened? Has it just been on infrastructure and only ROAM‑X which is now reminding us that this is a broader societal imp occasion.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Dorothy for the sharp question. Anyone want to react immediately? Otherwise, I would like to try with our technical support.
Sure. Sit here.
>> Apologies I'm late. This is not a response to Dorothy's very challenging Meta question. It is an existential question, Dorothy.
In response to Alexandre Barbosa's input, one of the feedbacks is the indicators are too many, too long, too complex.
If we are going to add new ones, have you or others that applied the indicators found some we can remove? Is it a case of adding to address contemporary issues, or do you think there is also an opportunity to actually condense or maybe collapse or merge some of the indicators to make sure it is a manageable tool?
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Alexandre Barbosa, please.
>> Alexandre Barbosa: Yes, Anriette, you are right. Our mission is to mission the adoption and impact of ICT, so we did participate actively, but we believe that we have too many indicators. And I think that ‑‑ we need to include new ones post COVID‑19. We should exclude and consolidate some indicators. It is too many.
I believe the beauty of this framework and all of you were a part of this beautiful result is we're talking about new issues that go beyond access and connectivity. It is not about eliminating dimensions, but eliminations indicators.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Alexandre Barbosa, Simon, please.
>> Simon Ellis: There are two techniques, there are many indicators which are duplicated listed in several categories. One of the things I see in the report is a need to cross reference. The things that should be described once and referred to where needed. Secondly, there should be indicators and not a direct measure of everything concerned but an indicator that captured the key dimension. I think that is what you were saying Alexandre Barbosa, by reducing the essentials in some areas. Because clearly we need something about access, especially in Africa.
And also, one of the things that emerges in all countries is the sense of in every country, there is that remote area or disadvantaged community and think of the disabled. And access and application on the other, but clearly still need to be addressed and is critical. So there is a governance and way of reducing, which needs to be worked.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Anyone else want to intervene on this question from Dorothy? We are having a strategic discussion in half an hour. I suppose we can continue discussion on this as well. Meanwhile, tomorrow we have an expert meeting and will focus on updating the indicators. May I try again with our online speakers? Sir, may I try with maybe Matthias Ketteman from Germany, are you there? I never failed to connect him in, in my past years with you. Hi, Matthias Ketteman, I see you clearly, would you take the floor?
>> Matthias Ketteman: Hello, bonjour. Glad to be here.
>> MODERATOR: You sound fantastic. Please go on.
>> Matthias Ketteman: Fantastic. Lovely hearing that. That is something I love to hear. Should we try sharing my screen or is that too risky.
>> MODERATOR: Please if the technical people can increase the volume.
>> Matthias Ketteman: I can speak loudly, too.
>> MODERATOR: We see your screen and can hear you clearly. Please continue.
>> Matthias Ketteman: All right. You are still seeing the second slide? Okay. Lovely.
Are you seeing the progress of my slides? I'm not sure about that?
(Silence)
Hello? Any issues?
>> MODERATOR: Can you try for the first screen?
>> Matthias Ketteman: I will make it easy. I will stop the presentation and I will talk like that. Okay? Does that sound like a plan? Great. Matthias Ketteman I'm here for the HBI. And we had the honor to do the assessment of the ROAM‑X indicators for Germany. What we found out, first Best Practices then results. Best Practices, it is really important to set up, if possible within your national surroundings, with people in your ministries and people in different stakeholder groups in order to get the data you need to find out what's happening on the Internet in your country. Early on we set up an Advisory Committee, a sounding Board, that was a Board with representatives from all major stakeholder groups that were instrumental in helping us come to good conclusions.
Now, what are those conclusions? First of all, we found out that even in a country like Germany, which has a rather high Internet penetration rate, there is still about 10% of people who do not use the Internet regularly. And even within the groups that we surveyed, there were vast differences in terms of literacy and active use of the Internet. Differences in terms of gender and geography. Though are things the Government has to look at, of course.
We were able to trace the Internet, the topic has arrived at the center of political fields, digitalization is a force that shapes politics and also digitalization needs to be shaped by politics.
We found out one of the challenges of implement Germany is the multilevel rules that apply, with the national, European, international rules all working together and sometimes making it more difficult in terms of who is competent. We also highlighted that we needed more data on digital violence, agenda and strong commitments to the diversity mainstreaming including the whole life cycle of digital politics. Especially important with the view to the increasingly important role of AI and AI training data, which needs to be carefully vetted.
On that, I can recommend to everybody to have a look at the UNESCO AI ethics recommendation, which is a tremendously useful tool to be able to shape national politics better with a view to ensuring ethics in AI policy. We highlighted the importance of teaching digital skills to schoolchildren but also other people in different digital literacy is extremely important in schools and outside of formal education.
We were able to get a number of ‑‑ we were able to design our output in a very nice way, we were able to have the work site, Internet 2020 and there is a document that was how is the Internet going. It is useful to determine results. It was important to do that.
A number of recommendations made their way into the coalition Treaty. Happy for that. And featured on Germany's main television station the day we produced the report. It was a big effort. It was worth it. We are convinced it brought forward the debate on a more sustainable construction of the Internet, development of better Internet policies Germany and wouldn't have been able without the strong guidelines provided by the indicators. Thank you very much for your attention. Happy to answer questions now or in email.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for this breaking through remote participation from Matthias Ketteman. May I try another online speaker from Lucien Castex.
>> Lucien Castex: I am Lucien Castex I will speak for the French team. I am the Secretary‑General for Internet Society force. It is a great pleasure to be speaking, even if it is remotely in this IGF 2022.
Just a little history, the French process was slowed down and restarted this year. So first, France, how did we do? The starting point of our reflection is that Internet is a public good and the backbone for digitalization and digital transformation of society.
As I was mentioning the project started and then paused, the first steps were in 2020. We had the project with (No English translation) and then we started a first review of the criteria.
Then the project paused for almost two years as a result of COVID‑19 pandemic. We were kept busy with the pandemic and the logistics as well. As our grant processed was paused opinion then we started. First we consolidated a multistakeholder Advisory Board, which is composed of 10 people to bring the expertise of actors from the different stakeholder groups and to be able to access more data from difference sources. To that, members include Internet Society France, the French regulator, and numeric. (No English translation) representing startups of the industry as well as researchers and experts.
Second, the research phase in late 2021 after the lockdown, we consolidated the research team and started finally the process to hire a consultant. To enable us to be an interdisciplinary team with legal scholars and ICT researchers. The framework is the Internet Governance and regulation research group co‑led by (No English translation) at CNRS. We hired a consultant and started drafting in September 2022.
France preliminary results. I will try to be short. France has a digital ecosystem with a number of policies in place, we started by stating the French legal framework in the context of the European Union and a number of policies are harmonized in urban Union‑wide. France is a member of the Europe and the human rights framework. We had the legislation in place. General human rights framework, freedom of the press, et cetera, in the implementation. We look as well to remedies available in France, but also independent administrative authorities and the national institution for human rights.
And we're building trends identified by the research team. Another topic is on freedom of speech with issues related to regulation and civil security, both at the national and European levels. France in the presidency of the European Union in this question of the DSA and DMA and NRS directive.
There is a number of national legislation inviting this information in 2018 online, and in 2021 as well as a new ‑‑ question of a new authority. The regulatory authority ‑‑
>> MODERATOR: Sorry. You are muting. I cannot hear you. Still cannot.
>> Lucien Castex: I am not muted here. It was maybe a glitch. Because I am not muted. Thank you. I was talking about the new authority as a regulatory authority for audio visual and digital communication created in 2021. And also the law introduces a new regulatory framework to fight online including streaming and mirror websites.
We found that France is committed to a strong approach as a member of the U.N. Security Council and as a multistakeholder approach from IGF to ICANN and other agencies.
A key point is that France is showing different structures or trend, the school for trust and security, which are ensuring international civil space authority and a church call led by New Zealand and France to stream content online. Both initiatives aim at bringing stakeholders together. It is ongoing for national assessment. I will stop there. Maybe a last word.
I would like that during the process, the indicators actually force us to look at the Internet in a holistic way, which is quite important, I think. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Now I introduce Anelia Dimova to take the floor.
>> Thank you, I will try to share my screen. Just a moment, please.
Can you hear me? Can you put it on the screen that I sent you two days ago.
>> MODERATOR: It is difficult for time being. Is it possible to talk without presentation? Also we are really short on time.
>> I can talk on my presentation without you seeing it? Sorry it was not foreseen that you could not share the screen.
>> MODERATOR: We cannot hear you, you are muted.
>> Now?
>> MODERATOR: Now it is okay. Please continue. Thank you.
>> I will present the progress of my ministry in terms of UNESCO project. Of the framework for Internet policy. Ed Bulgarian conducted national assessment of the development of the Internet in the indicators in the context of the national plan in the transparency. It is up to 2024.
How does the project relate to the values of the good governance initiative? The project is related to the principles through transparency, risk participation, accountability, and technical renewal.
What is the public problem that needs to be solved. In Bulgaria there is no regulation of Internet and no autopsy to date information environment. It is very useful to use the UNESCO indicators to gain a different understanding of our digital environment. And contribution to improving Bulgarian ranking in European ranking, that is most important for us.
How will the implementation of the project contribute to solving the problem? Through transparency, awareness in Government, Civil Society, Academia, technical community, journalistic community et cetera for a secure and reliable Internet.
With the indicators, we think that ‑‑ we believe that the Internet should operate in a way that is human rights based, open, accessible to all, with multistakeholder participation. How are ROAM indicators assessed at the international level? There are eight steps we did at the time being, the first step establishing the Advisory Board by an order of the Ministry of The governance. The Board consists of representatives from the national commission of UNESCO, the Bulgarian national association, active consumers, national statistical institute, the ministry effect on our economy and industry representative of the development and the Council and cybersecurity laboratory.
On the second step, we almost finished the procedure on establishing the consortium as well as passing the procurement procedure. We think that soon we will have a consortium contract with the ministry. And in the beginning of next year, we can start the essential activities. Meaning the gathering data, analyzing data, and so on. Next year.
We have the project dissemination, presenting the project through a conference on the topic communication and media in 21st Century, educational and professional challenges in the University. Second presentation was during the international conference 21st Century. The EU digital decade is on the horizon. And in my presentation, there is a good picture of this topic.
The years can be measured in terms of the policy program and to update. I would like only to attract your attention on this new policy.
>> MODERATOR: Anelia, excuse me, can you speed up a bit?
>> One minute more, please. We have been talking a long time with the Internet community with the UNESCO indicators and now trying to expand audience and participation in the events, engage the community to be involved and to use them in the process of getting data sources and getting feedback. It is time to succeed in this and create partnerships in the digital decade towards the Global Digital Compact for the successful Digital Transformation. Thank you very much. And sorry. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much Anelia for your understanding and collaboration.
We are really at the sharp time to start the following discussion on strategic discussion. Also I want to open the floor for quick questions. Maybe one minute, anyone has some burning questions you want to address for those national presentations before I move to the next strategic discussion and signal to me now? Okay. Yes, please? Introduce yourself.
>> Hi, Katherine Townsend Director of policy at the Web Foundation. Thank you to everyone that presented. I look forward to reading more on your presentation. I couldn't follow all of the French. When you look at the work you're doing nationally, what methods or organizations or pathways do you use to share and understand the work that is happening in other countries? Are there platforms that have been helpful so that we can expand this kind of learning or the processes and methodologies that you use? Do you have good partnerships and relations that have been particularly beneficial? Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Any other quick comments? Please introduce yourself. Thank you.
Use your neighbors. Okay. Good afternoon, everybody. Hello. Good afternoon everyone. I am from the Kingdom of ... I want to thank you for the presentations I enjoyed so much. Honorable, member of the Parliament. And I am also a member of Parliament in pan‑African Parliament a legislative organization of AU.
My question is at what level has UNESCO worked with AU on ROAM‑X? Has UNESCO considered the AU agenda 2063? And how ROAM‑X fit into it? Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
>> My question is the multistakeholder Advisory Board is important. The Government is the sole authority forming this multistakeholder Advisory Board and many of the recommendations are targeted towards the Government. And that provides lights on the law, regulation practices. So how far in the countries where this report has been adapted, what is the recipients of the Government, how open the Government is towards those recommendation? What is the experience of UNESCO regarding that? Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Any more? I try to address each question by one sentence before we move to the next session. I thank you so much for those valid points received. The first question, yes, we do. We have the website and also launching a new monitoring ‑‑ interactive map of all the national projects, which allow for useful database sharing of different country's projects. If that interest you, you can contact me after this meeting, I will share with you more information. Regarding the distinguished Delegate from the African Union and Parliament, the question is what level the collaboration of the African Union, since the beginning, in five years when we develop the indicator, with the African Union which is part of the process, and the one deploying the indicators if Africa, having kept the collaboration with African Union. That 2063 is one of the indicators. That is why we have so many African countries on board. We need near systematic collaboration AU to have both on both sides. We have a collaboration after this meeting to discussion our future collaboration on the AU. Particularly have ambition to dot assessment in all of the African countries as a scale up in the first coming years, last one on the question of the multistakeholder role. That is a tricky question.
Basically many Governments are not used to the multistakeholder. That means they're sharing decision making power with other stakeholders. So it is a kind of culture change and also political reform in many countries and also worth the try to getting the Government on board. We have succeeded in many countries. Like in Brazil and many other countries. But for UNESCO, that is why we're following every step of the national assessment when you are triggering the discussion of policy recommendation on the validation workshop, we have the UNESCO colleagues, the national advisor to be present to deliver the national standard and universal practice to help all the stakeholders to really respect this game. To really take input from every stakeholder. I trust this can be a topic to discuss more on tomorrow's expert meeting as well.
I hope I answered some of your question. If allow me ...
>> Someone earlier, I don't know who indicated that the ministries who are present on the map just watered down the report, then you end up with a report that won't have the input you are looking for. We have a lot of techniques in how to write something without being critical.
And I think that this is something that we can explore in terms of how to frame what you are saying. So you don't say the Government has not made progress in data legislation.
You say the Government has been exploring data legislation possibilities and is in the process. These are some of the issues which will have to be addressed as it moves forward in that direction. That is off the cuff. But this is really important.
Sometimes we focus on the technical, which is what we are about. But a lot of times in building consensus, it is language, you know, how we frame things. So I think this is something that we have to pay more attention to as we move forward. And then there are techniques, for example, as the member of Parliament was speaking I can see me, but it would not work in every country. I know many of my Members of Parliament, I will discreetly leak and they will be discussing and then the people in the ministry can't possibly say that that wasn't in the report. You know, so depending on your country context as to what techniques you can use that will work.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Dorothy for this useful sharing. Now we face another impossible meeting. In next 25 minutes I raise two big questions and ask for five experts to share their view and also like to have some intervention from the floor. So the first big question, I mean strategic discussion depending on what you have heard today. And what have you on your mind today. And what you think that we should update as ROAM‑X indicators and the implementation strategy after five years of the fast Digital Transformation happening worldwide.
Second question, how do you think the ROAM project framework assessment can contribute to the operationalizing the Roadmap February collaboration. That is two big questions. I invite five experts here. You are free to pick one, focus on ‑‑ or shed light on two, but stick to three minutes.
So first speaker is Dorothy Gordon. Chair of the UNESCO program. Take the floor and share your view. Thank you.
>> Dorothy Gordon: I'm Dorothy Gordon, the Chair of the UNESCO informational for all programs. We are looking at how to build inclusive societies. ROAM‑X is one of the fundamental pillars that can help us to do this. And listening to everybody today, what I see, let me give you a few of the things that we can explore further.
First of all, I get the impression we are giving too much ‑‑ giving too much weight to ministries of information or ministries of communication. Because in the past, we thought of Digital Transformation in a siloed way, focusing much on infrastructure.
But if you look at ROAM‑X, it emphasizes the nature of Digital Transformation and we have to have a more ‑‑ wider involvement of Government. Wider involvement of Government. I see people wondering. There is a lot to do with what we have got so far.
Even though we don't want comparative studies, we can look at where we have observed the data gaps consistent. ‑‑ why is it still that we cannot find data on women? It is ridiculous in the 21st Century. So that has to happen.
And we have to figure out ‑‑ we have to do a better explanation of how the gaps we're seeing are actually affect the policy gaps we're seeing are actually affecting development. So yes, we can have the traffic lights, but when you have the red, what does that mean in terms of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals? What does it mean in terms of the consistency of the Secretary‑General Roadmap or global map. We have to make those links clear so Government can understand.
Clearly many countries are not addressing the vulnerable. And this has to be brought up. Why is it that we are disregarding people with disabilities consistently? Why is it that we are still not paying attention to people speaking different languages? So critical Government information is not reaching the population.
So that has to come out. We need to address it together. Then I say there is room for us. I see too much focus on certain areas and not enough on the broad Digital Transformation. This is the main thing I want to say.
So I want to encourage ‑‑ this is for everyone that has already done the reports. Let's do a little bit of drill‑down. Everything you discovered, what does that mean for a child of 10? Who is going to school in your country today? How are those gaps affecting their ability to get a quality education? How are those affecting people that are using e‑Government services which are increasingly dependent on the use of AI? Do they have a knowledge of where their data is going? How their data is being used? We can drill down and do some of the cases.
Of course, sorry with education I forgot OER and very important for climate change. In my country, Ghana, we have an energy Commission. I would say UNESCO writes to the energy Commission in Ghana and ask them have they done any analysis of the impacts on energy consumption that increased use of the Internet is creating?
Let's involve other partners, we don't have to do all the work. We just have to alert them to what's going to happen. And so my ‑‑ one of my main things ‑‑ I think that Katherine also said it ‑‑ involve other partners with the conclusions that have come from the reports. Make it available to other partners so they start using it.
Then let me quickly end by saying, we ‑‑ one thing that comes out very clearly is the awareness level within Government generally has to be improved. Too much focus, as I said, in the beginning, on ministries of communication. Even there, the transversal nature of the ‑‑ the multidisciplinary, it doesn't come through, we have to do something about that.
Then I think we don't want to do the comparisons, but we can have a small set of indicates as somebody I think from Ethiopia, Ethiopia said look at the Horn of Africa. We don't want 303 indicators for the Horn of Africa. We can say what are a few indicators to agree on together they will look at? We will not dictate.
You can get a regional approach. I will leave it there. I think we are sitting on a wealth of information.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for sharing the rich information in those three minutes. If you don't mind, I will continue to move to next speaker. Actually the representative of the international library federation and institutions. May I request if you can just finish just three minutes inputs without the PowerPoint because I'm afraid we don't have time for that. I'm sorry. If you can understand this. Thank you.
>> Sara: I have a short slide, if you can allow that, within three minutes, I will be done. Next slide, please. Next slide, please.
>> MODERATOR: We will introduce the closing remarks. Then we have a few minutes to continue. Please continue your remarks. Thank you.
(Off mic)
>> Sara: Has the Chair indicated, I'm representing the IFLA. I'm sure not so many of us may have an idea of what IFLA is I will briefly walk you through what IFLA is there for. Mainly three important areas. Threefold important areas to look at. IFLA is about inspiring, engaging, enabling, and connecting the library field. Two ensuring everyone can benefit from excellent library services. Three, ensuring libraries have the resources and support to provide those library services.
We have three reflections, one is less important once there is wider personal access. Two, the pandemic as underlined, alone can stand in the way of Internet universality, as we heard from the colleague from Kenya. And then libraries bring the potential to the spaces, not just for digital skills but also for digital citizenship.
From listening to the introduction of this session, from the Chair, she posed two big questions on updating and this is the response. One, we need to update and broaden the approach to what counts as meaningful connectivity, including public access. And two, we need to explore the possibilities to work with and through libraries that broaden the stakeholder base. As I did mention, not so many of us think about libraries as a priority, yet this actually has all of us ‑‑ it actually solves all of us. We interact with the information and it would respond to the ROAM‑X reviews.
Thirdly, to draw on the ROAM‑X principles, to offer a potential framework for measuring the success of work around the global digital compact. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much for signalling the library and the digital impact. Next speaker is Maria, the Executive Director of progress communication. Are you here with us? She left? She maybe has another commitment. Now I will introduce my colleague, Mr. Elvis Michael. A UNESCO regional advisor in Dakar.
>> I will highlight that when we look into all the indicators and the things covered by the IUI, we can see a direct link between these teams and the key actions of the SD, Roadmap for digital cooperation. I believe it is through IUI assessment we inform stakeholders in what they are doing in the key action area.
By informing them we can use IUI report as advocacy for countries to actually work toward achieving the key actions outlined in the SD Roadmap for digital cooperation. I will stop here. Then we can continue discussion tomorrow. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. That is really brave. Now I am introducing David Souter as a leading author of the ROAM‑X indicators to share your review. Thank you David for making it.
>> David: I am working with the Secretariat this week so I had other duties. It is useful to share about the reports I have seen and the indicators how they might evolve. Firstly, I think more countries have taken this opportunity up than I had expected. I think that is very positive. It also indicates that there is perhaps a deficit that needed to be filled here that UNESCO has moved into. And other deficits. Here I'm following from Dorothy.
The purpose was never to demonstrate how good a country is. How ‑‑ it is much more valuable to do the areas of potential improvement. I like the notion of being cumulative rather than comparative, I think country on country. Thirdly, the most useful reports I have seen here are those that treated the IUI as a starting point as an analysis for the international environment. It is something that is in the media indicators. The least effective have been those that have seen it as a checklist. Just going through the various indicators and saying this is what is happening. I think perhaps we need to emphasize more in the discussions between UNESCO and multistakeholder that is the approach that is most positive. In terms of use of indicators, the range was intended to be large so that countries could make a determination from the evidence available within the countries. That is clearly never going to include everything. However no country has chosen to go beyond the core indicators.
We need to reflect on whether there are elements in the other indicators that should be brought into the core indicators and a smaller list developed? Fifthly and finally, the digital environment is constantly changing. Anything in this, four or five years old should be updated. There are issues regarding AI and responses regarding online fraud. That might be incorporated. There are additional indicators that exist and international standards with regard to number 25, the children's rights convention, which is a model assessment of the digital and existing human rights regime can work together, that can be incorporated in the IUI. Everything needs regular updating and it would be clear to do in the Global Digital Compact.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for this wonderful sharing. We have some minutes to open the floor to share some views from our audience on this strategic topic, what do you think can be updated and how can it connect to the UNESCO digital compact? If you have comments please take the floor, we have three to five minutes to hear from you.
>> No current has conducted the whole assessment. This is an indicator we should reduce the number of indicators. It is not the matter of reducing the ROAM‑X dimensions but including some new subdimensions like the X dimensions like climate change, artificial intelligence, privacy, data protection. I was saying ‑‑ you were not here in the room, David, in Brazil when we first conducted the assessment, we identified some gaps, Brazil has a very developed legal framework in terms of Internet Governance and digital technologies. But data protection at that time, in 2018, we still didn't have the data protection law approved.
It was approved the national agencies for data protection was established. This year, last year, we concluded an assessment on data and personal data privacy and personal data assessment in cooperation with the Government to make that analysis of how companies, the Government or critical social areas like education, health are adapting the legal framework for data protection. I think that those dimensions should be considered in this new post COVID area in terms of the ROAM‑X assessment. We have a space to reduce dramatically some dimensions that today we have in total more than 300 indicators. This is my message. I think that ROAM‑X is an extremely useful framework in several dimensions in terms of not only Internet but artificial intelligence and other ICT emerging digital technologies that has great impact in society and human rights.
So we need to make it even more well adopted by countries. But in a revised version, probably. So those are my main ideas. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Thank you for sharing your message. Any quick ‑‑ maybe ‑‑ thank you.
>> Okay. Thank you very much. I fully endorse what Alexander say with regard to the need of simplification in order to have more information and about more countries and easier to compare and put together than to take conclusions. I agree very much with points too, that Dorothy brought to the discussion earlier today. One of the things that we need, I don't know if I agree with the expression we don't want to compare, but I think comparing at some point is not bad. But taking that as something that we can agree on, this is ‑‑ this is as you say, I agree with you that we need to have some conclusions and to show the conclusions to the Governments in order to encourage them to take actions.
The other thing that you pointed out, the complexity of bringing together leaders from different areas of the Government.
This is probably the key issue in this in all of this environment in IGF. And this is a problem.
In my daily job I have contacts everyday with representatives of the Government in different areas. They don't talk enough between them. And when we come, we come to international meetings like this one, the problems that the problem that representing the Government is not the same that we talk about on the daily basis. There is no translation of this kind of discussions to affect the actions. The policy processing, especially in the maturity world, as we say now, into the Global South, this is the standard. So in order to make really efficient the things we're doing here, there is a link between the discussions we're having here and the work that we're doing here, with the policymaking at the national level. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much. I would like to pay tribute to your early support at ISOC when we start to develop the ROAM‑X indicator. Thank you. And there is ‑‑ can you limit your ‑‑
>> I am only going to remind us of something that was said earlier. One of the presenters said that what they are seeing is that Governments do not have the resources to implement the policies that they have already agreed on.
This is very important for us to take into account. If with ROAM‑X we are trying to encourage new policy, better policy, and we already have policy and there is no money to implement the policy, I think we have not thought about it. Can ‑‑ was it you Alain Kiyindou that was saying it? They don't have the resource to apply the policy. This is a critical issue to take into account.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for the wonderful inputs. Now I am very happy to introduce the UNESCO Assistant Director General for communication information. Before you came, regardless of the technical difficulty, we allowed the presentation online, offline three countries and open the floor three times to have intervention from everyone and come up with a strategic discussion and have another interactive exchange. Exchange. Now the time is yours Mr. ADG, now, take the floor.
>> ADG: I'm pleased to be with you here on the important session on shaping global digital governance and achieving connectivity for all. I am pleased to see key stakeholders and the topic you have been discussing the ROAM‑X approach, the Internet universality indicators and the exchange that occurred between David, Alexander, Dorothy, I'm sure other experts that spoke earlier this afternoon had very sound recommendations.
The issues of are we comparing or not? In a way, maybe that is not really that important. What is important is what lessons have we learned from 44 countries having conducted a national assessment through ROAM and through the Internet universality indicators? What lessons have we learned? What conclusions? What findings? What recommendations you can translate into action going forward? UNESCO I was told when I joined 1.5 years ago, you were not in the business of comparing or ranking. At the time, the word "ranking" was used. There are other bodies, other entities, the World Economic Forum, or others that rank currents on the digital or Internet readiness index or whether it is on the innovation index, et cetera. Because you are approached by the bodies to say join us. And the response is we cannot join you because UNESCO is not in the ranking business. And we cannot be.
We have 193 Member States. We don't want some to say how come you put us at the bottom of this, at the top of that? Are you objective, neutral, biased, are you favoring one side or taking sides? This is why UNESCO has not or hasn't been in the ranking business. Comparison, I'm not sure that is the assessment. The lessons to learn, the conclusions to draw, the insights for paving the way, going forward and how to turn recommendation into action, based on what you have learned.
My colleagues heard me many times saying, we have the indications, from Brazil, the first country having done the ROAM‑X assessment and most recently Germany, one of the most recent. We have individual publications per country. Let's look across the publications, across the national assessment, we should be able to come up with a rich set of learnings of lessons that can inform the next countries going forward. But that could inform us. Here's the next point on simplifying updating the indicators.
Number one, what lessons have we done that can pave the roads for the next phase? Number two, how can we simplify the indicators. You are right, Alexander, to say at least no single country has used all 303 indicators. What is the subset that is most often used or most relevant? There must be a common set.
I don't think that 44 countries every time used a different subset. There must be an intersection from key indicators that are used from Latin America to Western Europe, Asia, Africa, and I'm glad you have 17 African countries among the 44 that have used Internet universality to conduct the national assessment. Simplifying, yes, maybe focusing more on a core set of indicators that have proven to be most useful, that is very important, the third point I heard is the updating and the word that was used was also David that eloquently mentioned this. The world around us is changing. Have we changed? If we say yes, have we changed enough in the face of the changes around us?
This is fundamental. Artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. The growing importance of data privacy is a second one. So on, so forth. You know better or as well as I do. I don't need to list what happened since ROAM was first introduced. The world around us is changing. We have to keep pace with that. You have to reflect those changes into the indicators. The approach is the same, human rights based, open, accessible, multistakeholder approach on cross‑cutting issues.
One of you mentioned climate change. For sure, when it comes to the indicators we have to reflect the changes that happened. I am glad that we not only have the session in day zero. Tomorrow we have a couple of sessions. Looking at notes, couple of sessions, expert meetings tomorrow to develop a training module and capacity building material for conducting the ROAM‑X national assessment on the Internet development. I think the two sessions of tomorrow are very important, going forward. Clearly I think this discussion on what has happened so far shows that UNESCO can contribute and be in the lead among others, but of course, this is a collaborative effort. This is truly inclusive multistakeholder. These are not empty words. They're often used but really carry a meaning. Academia resource institutions, Civil Society organizations, Member States, UNESCO Secretariat, private companies, technology players, truly a multistakeholder approach and have to make sure it is truly inclusive as well. I really invite all of us to do more in sharing Best Practices and sharing, as I said, lessons learned from national assessment and also to make sure we keep in mind how can we, through this, promote freedom of expression, human rights and how can we promote the data privacy. How can we promote gender equality as well? Digital inclusion and digital innovation. UNESCO, you know has a long track record in terms of freedom of expression, freedom of the press, safety of journalists.
We have been for third years organizing the world press freedom conference and UNESCO world press freedom prize. We are not coming from the blue to try to tackle this. We have quite a track record. The point is how can we leverage that? How can we inform the next phase of this work? Not only ROAM. ROAM is at the core of it, but there are other issues to be stressed. UNESCO has two global priorities.
Africa and gender equality. We are in Ethiopia, we are in Africa. Why only 17 African countries among 54? 17 out of 54? That is not even 1/3 who have so far used the Internet universality indicators. I know having been a Minister of Technology in Africa I know many countries are thirsty for using should indicators to be informed by such Roadmap. I think that is on the Africa global priority, on the gender one for sure and all show at best talk about 20% women involved in technology today and much smaller percentage in AI related work. We still have a long way to go through S.T.E.M. division and capacity building ready to improve the gender situation and bring in more women in our joint work with when it comes to digital and ICT technology related.
I know we are already five minutes over the schedule ending time of the session, I wanted to share with you some remarks not more than this. We hope that together we can further impact the world of digital and the future development of information systems and digital applications ROAM‑X is powerful. In my view it will be more powerful and impact going through. Thank you all.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you ADG, if I have a last minute I would like to thank the technical support. Thank you in helping this complex session. Well done. I would like to recognize the presence of the father of Internet. Thank you for your support. And thanks to everyone that is here with you.
>> Just as a last reminder to everyone. Don't forget our dynamic Coalition session on Friday. So please come and we're going to be exactly discussing how to take this way forward.
Xianhong Hu can you tell us time and confirm time and place for the dynamic Coalition meeting.
>> It is 9:30 to 11:00 on the morning of this Friday. Which is December 2. Our Chair session we'll await to see you there. Thank you. Bye.