IGF 2022 Launch / Award Event #33 Towards an internet governance for gender and environmental justice

The session provided continuity to the process we started in 2021 to imagine the future of internet governance and pointed to provide regional perspectives in relation to the future of the internet as a contribution to the Global Digital Compact initiative, with a particular focus on two of the issues that are part of the thematic areas of the GDC: gender and environmental sustainability. This session was co-organized by APC in partnership with ALAI, APNIC, Derechos Digitales, Dot.Asia, Kictanet and Pollicy.

1. Initial remarks provided by two speakers on the two issues of focus: environmental and gender justice.
2. A multistakeholder panel of reactions to the provocations with representatives from Kictanet, Derechos Digitales, Pollicy, and DotAsia.
3. A final 10 minutes expert view consolidating the conversation in ideas about what the Global Digital Compact should consider to respond to the different stakeholders on the two issues of of focus of the session.

Gayatri Khandhadai, head of technology and human rights from the Business and Human Rights Resource Center, touched on issues with the environment sustainability debate and with tech companies. Key ideas:
- Accountability from the tech sector have been hard.  It has been a difficult journey in terms of pushing tech companies to realize that they have responsibilities to respect human rights.
- The priority is to get understand the harm and cost across the whole life cycle of tech companies. At the infrastructure level, the amount of land and metals in the structure, the damage caused to many lives, and the ocean in the process of the speed at which we are trying to connect. At the hardware stage, there is little that needs to be said in terms of precious metals, the intensive need for precious metals, especially with electronic vehicles and the technology that goes into electronic vehicles; as well as the physical environmental damage in terms of the extraction of water, oil, among others.
- The tech industries obsession with optimization, with the profitization and posturing until the last minute move fast and brake quick approach that the tech industry has is causing us to connect more, to interact more, to do more.  
- The focus has to move from consumers to tech companies and governments and their responsibility around energy use and environmental impact.
- Expertise is needed to delve into the larger systemic issues as well as to establish the linkages betweeen environmental rights and digital rights issues. Opportunities for it have to be created both at the side of the traditional human rights spaces and at the digital rights spaces.  
- When it has to do with the conversation in the business and human rights platforms and spaces, the focus has to be on tech companies beyond the traditional industries like mining, oil, health, among others. Digital rights groups have to become active in spaces in which the conversation about business and human rights takes place.  
- The technology angle has to be strengthened in spaces and conversation related to sustainable development.  
- The EU digital directive on managing human rights and due diligence has to be strengthened, especially in the application to the tech sector. The directive that is being developed in the EU, like all other ICT regulations will have an impact on other jurisdictions.
- As regulation is concerned on environment, due diligence and tech industries, it is important to have a clear thinking around what is going to be our ask, how the regulations should look like and how tech companies will embrace these regulations and what should be the consequences for the tech companies if they don't.  How the due diligence should look like within tech companies?  
- Requiring companies to do an analysis before the harm is done is essential, so there is no harm to be mitigated.  The problem really has been in terms of getting tech companies to know and then also show they understand the harms that their operations are likely to cause.
- One of the key challenges with the regulations around human rights and environmental due diligence is the fact that the value chain for tech companies is different from the value chain of traditional sectors. It is not only the supply chain that matters, actually the downstream aspects of the tech companies in terms of how they move the products, move their services, dispose of the products and the waste they generate, is extremely critical.

Smita V, APC's Women's Rights Programme, referred to what does it mean to consider a gender focus when imagining a digital future, what does a gendered internet look like.  Key ideas:

- For women and persons of divergent identities and marginalized locations, the Internet is becoming a difficult space due to }current social political positions and authoritarian spaces.Censorship and other forms of online gender-based violence target women and queer people that work online, especially if they work against the ruling Government in a country or against dominant, religious norms in the country.
- The IGF spaces (global, regional and national) are still not accessible enough for women and LGBTQ persons.
- Policies need to be fluid if they understand and recognize that people are fluid. People are multiple things at the same time and policies should acknowledge and respond to all the rights people have in their multiple identities.  
- Internet shutdowns disproportinate impact women.
- Internet governance is ultimately about the people. It can not be neutral.  

Multistakeholder panel on regional perspectives

Juan Carlos Lara, Derechos Digitales, LACIGF convenor. Key ideas:

- The digital future requires addressing gender gaps intersectionally, including digital gender gaps in relation to access to connectivity, in relation to how licenses and spectrum are allocated, how universal service funds are allocated with gender and diversity perspective, etc.
- From the LAC IGF two big problematic areas were mentioned throughout the sessions. One has to do with gender-based violence as real violence and concrete impacts on survivors. And the handling of sensitive data, including the genderidentity of people impacted by the violence where there is insufficient sensitivity by the state agents and state systems that should be reacting to this violence which is criminal in many cases.  Secondly, gender disinformation was also part of the discussion as a problem that requires attention acknowledging that gender disinformation can be seen as a subset or at least a phenomenon with a huge overlap with gender-based violence as a tech facilitated phenomenon with real impacts.
- On the environmental justice, the cost of the digital development worldwide is basically paid and burdened by the Global South countries. Extractivism and exploitation of natural resources happens throughout the LAC (lithium and copper reserves are in South America), energy demands from the connectivity is not sufficiently covered by the cleaner energies and disposable devices that are not recycled or repurposed, becoming sources of pollution. Environmental cost burdened by our countries that is not proportional to the benefits that are obtained by the digital economy.

Jennifer Chung, Director of Corporate Knowledge at dot Asia, AprIGF convenor. Key ideas:

- A special emphasis at the regional IGF to address persons with disabilities.  
- A shift of paradigm of thinking is eeded to address online harassment. Law enforcement, in particular, when addressing the cases of online violence need to have expertise in online gender-based violence to be able to correctly address all of perpetrators and not have it turn into some form of victim blaming.    
- Online misogyny and violence has risen during the pandemic. I needs to be addressed in a holistic manner.
- Another challenge is the shrinking of civil spaces to be able to speak and advocate for different priorities online.  
- With the rise of people online and the amount of time spent online, does the carbon footprint of the Internet affect the overall percentage of the carbon output of the countries? The Internet itself is relatively clean piece of technology, but it does depend on the power grids that are in each jurisdiction.  It depends on which ISPs, the power grids and electricity they use, if it is connected to renewable source or nonrenewable source.

Barrack Otieno, Kictanet Network, Africa. Key ideas:

- Connectivity – bring the power of connectivity to the community level.
- Reinforce capacities for communities to develop an internet that responds to their needs. Communities should be able to design and build infrastructure that suits their needs and that addresses their issues at local level.
- Bottom-up process are needed for ensuring that communities are involved in Internet governance processes.
- For Africa, it is important to promote digital literacy as a basic right.  This is the first point that will ensure that there is inclusion from the ground up.
- Promoting community-centered design in addition to human-centered design in tech development.  We can only be able to come up with solutions that are suitable for the community by involving the community from the beginning.
- There is need to focus on championing for enabling legal and regulatory frameworks for community solutions to access.  
- Promoting open infrastructure and accessible infrastructure is key. 

With insights from the session, the organisers will put together a written contribution to be submitted to the GDC.