IGF 2022 DC-SIG Role of Schools of IG in sustaining efforts to support SDGs

DC-SIG 2022 IGF session

This year’s session, hybrid in nature, was also a combination of a regular yearly DC SIG review of schools, the yearly activities and planning for the next year, but with an issue based focus: on Schools and their contributions toward the achievement of SDGs. the meeting agenda was divided into discrete sections. 

1. Self-introductions: at the start of the session there were 30 participants in the room and 15 joining remotely. While a specific count was not taken, the room had a good gender balance.
    
2. Report from New Schools
   1. Zimbabwe IGF and Zimbabwe ISOC have been organising their SIG for 3 years now. First as a consultative moment, second as a remote session, and lastly as a physical school.
   2. ISOC Comoros organised its SIG in the year 2020, sponsored by PRIDA. They want to have a consultative moment for everyone to know their roles in the ecosystem.
   3. Cote D’Ivore IGF organised their SIG in 2019 and 2020. Got funding from PRIDA but because of Covid, they did not organise any SIG this year.  They need support for speakers and to organise the Western School on Internet Governance and Western IGF this year. It should be noted that as we wid not have translation services, this was done by a bilingual participant. IGF would be well served if translation services were to be provided to all sessions.
       
3. Details on new things existing Schools have done:
   1. AFRISIG: it is a leadership development school and it is for people already playing a role in the ecosystem.  What was done differently at this year’s SIG was they brought very experienced people from the Cyber Security Authorities across Africa for them to have discussions and have a working paper on Cyber Security.  This was presented in New York and the Africa Union also used it.  The important thing about this effort is that the schools are learning places for negotiation processes.
   2. APSIG: they created a separate programme for people with disabilities.
   3. SouthSIG: the new thing is they did 2 months of online learning and then one-week hybrid learning. Then the last stage was a collaboration with a university and those who got to this stage got a fellowship and a diploma from the university in internet governance. Everything was done for free.
   4. EuroSSIG: this year’s practicum was the most relevant since it contributed to the Global Digital Compact discussion and it is on the website of the UN.  They made recommendations for other schools to make contributions towards the compact and make contributions towards other global discussions.
   5. GhanaSIG: the new initiative is using their fellows as expert speakers to make proposals for events at local and global events. 
   6. InSIG: they reserved seats for people with disability.
   7. RussiaSIG (Illona): they are now using their SIG to research on internet fragmentation issues. 
   8. Chad (tdSIG): they intend to close the gender gap in this year’s SIG.
   9. VSIG: they intend to bring in GDPR for citizens that match various countries’ needs.
   10. North America (Andre):  they intend to make the NASIG process multilingual in future events.
   11. Bangladesh-SIG: hands-on learning on the time-demand learning process.  They also intend to do the SIG in local languages.  They requested to be added to the DC-SIG since they have done 6 schools already.
        
4. Discussions on SIGs and SDG:
   1. What has been done and what could be done:

While this section of the session was intended to allow discussion of SIG contributions in several areas including SDG 5 on Gender, SDG 7 on Energy, and SDG 13 on Climate Change, the meeting only managed to have a single extended discussion on SIGs and SDG 5. Further sessions, yet to be scheduled, are planned for the 2023 to cover the other SDGs.

Regarding SIGs and SDG 5, the following points were discussed.

1. Increase gender inclusion: this was done by the Russia SIG.  They keep getting more applications from ladies.  
2. AFRISIG: they have questions on what applicants think on gender equality and they include sensitive issues such as the LGBTQ in their application process.  They encouraged all schools to include the practicum session in their SIGs.
3. EuroSIG: they get a vast majority of females as their applications, but rather not more male applicants.
4. BrazilSIG was done which includes a legal school dedicated to lawyers and judges, which has been a very good experience. 
5. RSIG: SIGs must keep promoting gender balance, especially promoting STEM and ICT careers and education among young students.
6. ZimbabweSIG: they get more female applicants, however, female engagements is less in the actual participation.  Anriettte’s responded that AFRISIG does not have such experience, hence, the ZimbabweSIG must look at what works for them, and also include people in the moderation process in order to make it inclusive. Design the school in order for the fellows to know that they have an expertise that will be acknowledged.
7. Chad Youth IGF coordinator: how can schools engage in discussions when they were being subjected to  internet shut downs (Khouzefi).
8. Joshua (GhanaSIG fellow), be deliberate and keep pushing female fellows to participate in the fellowship process.
9. Liana (online): more than 90% are females in the Armenia SIG.
10. Sarata (online): we are making conscious efforts to include females in the community. 
11. RRSIG (online): according to Illona they select everyone with clear interest in their SIG.

Because the session was running out of time, there are plans for continuing the discussion at some point during 2023..

5. AOB:  
   1. The chair encouraged all SIGs to come together and have a global faculty, and global fellows.  
   2. There are no schools in Japan and they would want to have one. 
   3. There will be a networking session for all fellows of all SIGS in next year’s IGF.
   4. Given the number of issues that those attending wished to discuss, consideration will be given by the DC SIG to a Day 0 event at IGF2023 and/or an intersessional event during 2023.
       
6. At the end of the session, we had 45 participants in the room and 24 people remotely.