IGF 2023 Day 0 Event #149 Scoping Civil Society engagement in Digital Cooperation

The United Nations (UN) Global Digital Compact (GDC) is one of the most relevant current discussions regarding the digital space and human rights online, and for the potential it has for possibly revolutionising the Internet Governance ecosystem. Despite the relevant participation possibilities facilitated in this process with the Deep Dives and Consultations, the recent publication of the UN SG policy brief highlights that there's still the need to further discuss relevant aspects such as: Strengthening the Human rights and international law aspects, reinforcing the relevance of the internet governance Forum as well as avoiding the risk of duplication of existing forums and fragmentation. Based on the GDC process most recent developments such as the thematic Deep dives and the UN SG Policy Brief, this session aims to gather input from Civil Society members in order to better scope our stakeholder engagement. During this opportunity, we also plan to discuss what are the better paths of engagement in moments such as the beginning of negotiations at the Ministerial meeting that will be initiated after the Issues Paper, as well as the Summit of the Future. In order to enable a fair and open discussion around scoping civil society organisation and participation in future phases of the GDC process, the session moderator will frame the discussion with brief introductory remarks, after that, the proposed session will be divided into three parts of speakers interventions followed by a Q&A in order to allow audience to bring their views and inputs. Another important factor to encourage interaction was the selected session format - gathering. Although this session has pre-defined panellists, we want to ensure every single attendee that wishes to contribute can join the conversation and bring their inputs

We aim to promote hybrid participation by: (i) alternating questions between online and on-site audience; (ii) using a jamboard with a group of questions to the participants online and onsite and in order to gather inputs; (iii) invite some people interested in the thematic to participate online; (iv) giving an active role for the online moderator, who will also be a part of presenting the speakers and commenting on presentations.