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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>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Hi, everyone. We'll just open the event, and then I'll hand over to Tatevik. My name is Anriette Esterhuysen. Can you hear me? I'm from the So, for Progressive Communications, but I'm the convener of the African School of Internet Governance, and I have had the privilege of collaborating with UNESCO and CETyS in the Internet Universality Indicators. So, I should be sitting in the middle.
So, as you probably all will know... As you probably all know that this Dynamic Coalition session is being co organized by two Dynamic Coalitions.
Sorry, you know what has happened here, why I have a weird expression on my face, is that my channel switched to another workshop. Let me take this off.
So, the background to this session is that two Dynamic Coalitions are co organizing it. The Internet Universality Dynamic Coalition, which was established in 2021, I think, launched at the Poland IGF, which is made up of a community of stakeholders from countries that have applied or would like to apply the UNESCO Internet Universality Indicators, which is a self organized, bottom up framework for assessing the state of Internet universality at a national level that was launched by UNESCO in 2018.
And then, the other Dynamic Coalition that is organizing this session together is the Dynamic Coalition on Schools of Internet Governance. And on this note, I'm actually going to hand over to Olga and James. And James is the co facilitator with Tatevik, and they will tell you more about this session and what to expect. So, over to the SIG side of the DC.
>> OLGA CAVALLI: Okay. Thank you very much, Anriette. And thank you very much for allowing us to do this co hosted workshop of these two Dynamic Coalitions. I think they perfectly match. (No audio) .
Starting with 1 euro SIG led by (?) that was the first one almost 20 years so far, yes, Sandra? Yes? And then, we started in Latin America with the South School on Internet Governance. We will organize our 17th. But after that, there are many other initiatives the African School of Internet Governance that has been organized, ten years? 11 years? And then, many other national initiatives, like the Brazil Internet Governance. I saw our colleague from Brazil over there. Hola. And some other. I'll hand over to James to speak more. Especially in Africa, there are several national initiatives.
I was invited to speak at the Afghanistan School on Internet Governance two weeks ago. I woke up at 2:00 a.m. in my home, Buenos Aires, to participate. I was really very honoured to be invited to share our experiences.
What is the purpose of the schools is to train about all aspects related to Internet governance, and fundamentally, open the door to people who are not so much included in this community; explain which are the policy issues, the technical concepts that they must have, and which are the spaces where they can participate so they can bring home in relation with their own interests what is important to have in mind at the national or regional level.
And also, what we have learned, and I think other colleagues from other SIGs should know is the fantastic network that is created in between the Fellows, Fellows and experts. And I will hand over to James. Maybe he can share with us some comments.
>> JAMES OLORUNDARE: All right. Thank you very much, Olga. And I think it's a pleasure to be here on this session. And I'm so much excited about the School on Internet Governance.
One thing that I'm so much happy about the school is the fact that we are able to do capacity, you know, development. And that has been one of the pedestals through which we are able to reach out to other stakeholders, especially when it comes to the issue of Internet governance. And in Africa, a lot of schools have sprung up. A very good example is, of course, the School on Internet Governance. We had the 15th session this year and we have been consistent with that. Apart from that, I know other schools abounds in Africa. The other is the Ghanaian School on Internet Governance. I know about the Kenyan School on Internet Governance. That is from the eastern part of Africa.
And yesterday, I think my colleague from Niger was also in the meeting and he shared this experience that is the Nigerian School on Internet Governance. As a matter of fact, I see a link between by the way, I'm from the Internet Society. I'm the President of Internet Society Nigeria, so I see a link between Internet Society, to a large extent, and the school, because we observe that that is a very good initiative for us to push, you know, capacity building, and that has been working.
I'll give you an example. Take, for example, last year. After the school in Nigeria, what we do is we tell the Fellows, look, it is not just about acquiring the knowledge. What do you do with the knowledge? You need to start to engage within the ecosystem. And I think that is very important. That should be one of the takeaways for each and every one of us, after the school. Just let's let the fellows loose. Let them start to engage within the ecosystem. That is one of the things we know. In fact, I'm thinking now that probably we are going to make it like a model in our curriculum to see how we can, you know, showcase some of those, you know, niche some of those ecosystem where they can start to engage within the bigger Internet space. And I think that helped us last year.
Because the feedback I'm getting and as a matter of fact sorry, I'm jumping as a matter of fact, I now observe that that may be a very good indicator for us to have feedback. Okay, how much engagement have you had, even within the last one year after you've been a Fellow, after you've come out of the School on Internet Governance.
So, last year, I was at a some of our fellows to advise, you need to engage, not just a matter of acquiring certificate, no! It's about using that knowledge within the ecosystem. I observed that some of them have started engaging within their ecosystem and were getting a very good report, you know, from their performances.
And even this year, I think this year we had a session in, yeah, October, yeah. And after that, okay, this is December October, November, December after that, we started getting, you know, information about the kind of engagement they've been involved in, and some of them have been organizing events on, you see cybersecurity, talking about, you know, child online safety, human rights issues and so on and so forth.
How I got to know is based on the fact that in most of those events, they do, you know, send invitations, say, oh, can you please come and attend the event? Although I may not be able to attend all the events, but that's a feedback mechanism. I shouldn't, look, I believe the school is working.
And this is probably one of the things we need to take away from this session, that okay, even after this school, the Fellows we call them Fellows in NSIG I know that parlance is used in other jurisdictions the Fellows should engage in the industry, within the ecosystem.
And even in the IGF space, I believe that some of them should be around here, so have conversations on some of those hot topics, which I think is going to be a way of, you know, advancing this same conversation all about Internet governance.
So, without wasting time, I think this afternoon we're going to be, you know, having conversations about the school, and of course, we want to see how we can now synergize between the school coalition and the IUI, you know. And for me, I think we should start to think about how we can integrate some of the IUIs, you know, as part of the model that can be taught in the school.
As a matter of fact, when we were having a discussion yesterday, you remember I made mention of the fact that, okay, we should be looking at, okay, how you have been a model as part of the school. However, since we are trying to look at, okay, there are national schools, there are regional schools, you know. We are thinking there should be some form of handshake, right. So, maybe we have like primary models, right, so that what I'm not too sure of now is this IUI model that I'm proposing, I don't know probably if it should be part of the primary model or probably maybe something that we need to take a look at, okay, this should be around this. So, I think that's some of the things we need to have conversations on.
So, let me open the floor, right?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think Tatevik is next.
>> AVRI DORIA: If I may jump in. This is Avri. Yes, just very glad that the two groups came together. As far as the agenda goes, just to let people know, having done these quick introductions, the first thing was to get a quick introduction to IUI, which Tatevik will go. And then, there were basically two discussions planned on the agenda. The first one is to talk about existing teaching experience. So, this is something, for example, Anriette has done Esterhuysen, if I pronounce it correctly, has done. And then a roundtable of anyone who is there online who has been teaching it or has been looking at it. And then going into looking at curricula and IUI and how we fit that in, and Olga will lead off that discussion with Anriette leading off the one before. And then, again, going to a roundtable.
So, at this point, I'd really like to pass it off to Tatevik, and thank you all for the introductions. Thank you all for having come to this joint. I'm really quite excited that it was able to come together. Thank you.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you very much, Anriette and James and Olga for the conversation and Avri for the clarification. My name is Tatevik Grigoryan and I work for UNESCO, leading UNESCO's activities on ROAM X, IUI. IUI is one less I'm coordinating the Dynamic Coalition on the Internet Universality Indicators.
I'm very happy that we could come, these two Dynamic Coalitions could come together to discuss what I see as a further cooperation, or we already are cooperating with working with some schools, including Africa School on Internet Governance. But I wanted to give a quick introduction on the ROAM X, very quick, because our Dynamic Coalition is basically based on Internet universality of ROAM X indicators.
We basically provide, including through this Dynamic Coalition, provide this tool for analysis on Internet development, as well as we use it as a method sort of to foster multistakeholder cooperation and discussions and contributions.
Very quickly, why we're using why do we have this tool? It was following UNESCO's governing body decision enforcement of Internet universality and its four principles, which state that the Internet should be based on rights, should be open and accessible to all, and nurtured and governed by multistakeholder participation.
And following the endorsement of these principles, we then created this framework. But then, we thought that in addition to these principles, an important issue is the cross cutting issues that we should consider, such as gender equality, safety and security online. And so, we did that and added the X category, which stands for cross cutting issues.
So, this framework, what is this framework? This framework is a set of indicators based on these principles and thematic areas in each principle, which help the stakeholders that use the framework to assess the development of their Internet development at the national level, without doing any ranking or any comparison to see where the gaps are, where (audio distorted)
(No audio)
in the country at the national level. And all of this is happening under not under together with the Multistakeholder Advisory Board, which is set up at the initial stage of the assessment that brings together diverse stakeholder groups government, private sector, civil society organizations, academia to contribute to the research, and then at a later stage to validate it.
So, this is how the final product looks like following the completion of the assessment. I must say that IUIs have been conducted in over 40 countries, and you can see the distribution for region and countries. Countries, I think the leading region is Africa. So far, 17 African countries have done the assessment with support from UNESCO, and Kenya being one of the first countries to do a follow up second assessment to see and monitor the progress.
So, we have had this framework since 2018. And as we reach the five pillar mark and as it was already envisaged, UNESCO started the revision process to make sure the indicators remain relevant to incorporate the lessons learned from all these countries, to ensure that both the relevance and more faster implementation of the IUI's implementation and publication, and to see and incorporate these new thematic areas.
So, we initiated the work, and we worked together with CETIC (?) and we worked together with UNESCO for the process. We had Anya, which was essential. She was managing the project when we initially were creating the IUIs, and also, she's been in the Steering Committee for the revision, and of course, she's been doing lots of other things to support and promote both the revision and the framework.
So, after wide consultations, public consultations, and also targeted interviews, I'm very happy to say that last year not last year, sorry on Sunday, we launched the enhanced indicators. And you can see, unfortunately, or fortunately, the indicators were really popular, so we ran out of copies, but I'm more than happy to share the link with you.
I am cautious of time, but just to give you a look of some key figures here. We maintained the ROAM X principles and indicators as the basis because they remain relevant, they remain essential, but we reduced the number of indicators and the questions.
Here you can see (no audio)
share with you. And on this slide, I'm just demonstrating the creation of two new topics: Advanced digital technologies, mainly focusing on AI, and also (audio difficulties)
(No audio in Zoom)
And of course, my contact number. I'm happy to liaise and give more information. I think my presentation of the IUIs end here, but I continue with the conversation, and I'd like to give the floor now to Anriette. I gave a very brief introduction to Anriette, but in addition to what I've mentioned already, Anriette, we've also been working with Anriette. She's the convener of the African School on Internet Governance, and I think it's been the second year, Anriette. No? No, since you talk about since we have IUI. No? At least it's the second year for me.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Just ask me the question.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Okay.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I'll answer that question, but ask me the question in the agenda.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: I think you have the question. I just basically wanted to speak. We had the IUIs in the I'm just trying to stop my presentation, stop sharing.
Yes.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: So, the question is... Well, I'll answer the question. The question is how, you know, what have we learned from this, in the case of the African context? And I think we'll have the same question going to Brazil. From having this kind of collaboration between the IUIs and the school.
And I think, Tatevik, something that didn't occur to me until right this minute is that, in fact, the collaboration goes back to before the IUIs existed. And I think in that sense, we are fairly privileged in that way, because when the ROAM X so, UNESCO, as Tatevik explained, the indicators are based on these principles of Internet universality, which actually emerged from the IGF. And I think that's something that UNESCO brought to the Internet Governance Forum in 2013 initially. That was the first public exposure of the idea of rights, openness, accessibility, and multistakeholder, being core principles for Internet universality.
The Internet governance community liked the idea, and UNESCO then worked with it, and they convened this big, huge event in Paris in 2015, where people from all over the world could participate, a little bit like NETMundial in 2014. They could submit textual inputs and they could also participate in the event, to take these principles and work with them as a framework for actually collaborative assessment of where are we going with the Internet, and are we moving towards more Internet universality or less, but at a national level.
And because the African School I think it was in 2015 that UNESCO first used the African School as a platform for sharing (no audio) with schools of IG, a useful platform for UNESCO in this case, but I think it applies to other people as well. And it's a platform where you get a cross section. As James was saying, it's a cross section of people from different stakeholder groups. They are intergenerational. Some are professionals. I see James there. We have a senior government official from Zimbabwe who is an alumni of AFRISIG, and we have people starting their careers as well. So, it gives you that opportunity.
And because it's smaller than a whole IGF, you're able to have, I think, more focused discussion. I think then one of the things that emerged is rights and openness and multistakeholder are not enough. X, the cross cutting issues, there are so many and they're so important. Gender equality, children's rights, security and safety and stability.
I think now we're looking at, Fabio, we're looking at artificial intelligence and emerging technologies, climate change. So, the number of and the range of cross cutting issues also are growing. And there, again, I think the school on Internet governance gives UNESCO an opportunity to get feedback on whether the way you're thinking about this.
And then, I think the big learning really is that, I think we've learned in the Schools of Internet Governance that convening a multistakeholder event is not easy. You need to do it with care, with thought. We use devices. Some of us used the idea of the practicum, where you have role play or negotiated output from the different stakeholders. Some Schools of Internet Governance use small group discussions. But I believe they are extremely powerful in breaking through the kind of the gloss, the veneer, the surface, the kind of kumbaya surface of the wonderful multistakeholder process.
I think in Schools of Internet Governance, where people are in a safe, small, more intimate space, you get a much better understanding of the tensions that are between stakeholder groups, the different interests, the different understandings.
And because the indicators are so deeply committed to strengthening the multistakeholder process, I think that's also very useful for the multistakeholder process. For the indicators, sorry.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you very much, Anriette. I think, yes, you made references, but you talked about how SIGs are an excellent platform for the IUIs, which we acknowledge and appreciate a lot. How about you reflect on the other way around?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: The schools for the IUIs, for UNESCO.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: The IUIs for schools.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: The IUIs have been useful for schools and I think that responds maybe a little bit to the second question, which is how can we use the Internet Universality Indicators as we think and plan and evolve our curriculum?
I think one of the challenges I can speak for AfriSIG, a little bit for EuroSIG, because I'm faculty, sometimes, the north African School as well. I think in the schools, we have to respond to a change in context. The Internet governance environment isn't static, and the challenges that we face and that we try to address with Internet governance evolve as well.
I'm not sure how many schools of IG are dealing with climate change. In AfriSIG, we've started for the last few years adding a module on Internet governance and environmental sustainability, for example.
I think that the ROAM X principles gives us a framework to look at how we balance that fairly technical baseline curriculum that we need to keep doing well, how the internet works, how Internet governance takes place, where and by whom, what kind of decisions (audio fading in and out) and how to participate with more of the social implications, the social, environmental (?) challenges that digitalization and the Internet addresses.
And I think for us in AfriSIG, we've always had a very strong focus on digital inclusion and (?) but I think that rights, openness, multistakeholder, accessibility, it's a useful checklist.
And for example, if you look at openness, openness involves competition. Competition is trade. This year at AfriSIG, we focused on the African Union's, African Continental Trade Digital Protocol, which is supposed to make it much easier for African businesses to trade across borders, deal with data flows across borders, but in ways that do not violate national sovereignty or security or personal data protection. And I think it's that sort of broad overview openness, accessibility, and multistakeholder, plus the cross cutting, that for us has been quite a useful frame of reference. Even if we don't use it always consciously, I think it creates a useful framework for reference for assessing within your school's curriculum, succeeding in balancing and combining both the more traditional IG topics and the emerging IG topics. But it also allows you to localize them, to approach your curriculum in a way that is not imported from somewhere else but that is relevant to your region and to the people in your school.
So, for us, that, I think, has been quite useful, and the partnership with UNESCO has been useful in that respect. Just having the UNESCO staff in the room is useful as well.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you very much, Anriette. And it's very delightful to be in the same room with all these wonderful people from diverse backgrounds. And actually, now, thank you for that comprehensive remarks.
I wanted to we talked about the multistakeholderism. I wanted to talk to Avri on Zoom, who is joining us online. She not only led the IUI assessment in Mongolia, but I wanted her to bring the viewpoint from the NGO.
She's working on Adena Equal Opportunity NGO. And I just wanted to ask you to give your experience in an NGO led effort to promote digital inclusion and right based approaches. And I wanted you to reflect, please, on why do you think the promotion of this, the school on Internet governance could be important for NGOs.
Can you hear us?
>> AVRI DORIA: Is she unmuted? I see that she is online, but I see that her microphone is still muted, as is her camera.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Ari, can you unmute your camera to speak, please? Okay, I think, perhaps, in the interest of time, we could move to the next speaker while she would try, perhaps, to solve the issue? Yes? Last call
>> ARIUNZUL: Sorry, I was unmuted, and now I think it's working.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Did you hear me?
>> ARIUNZUL: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can you hear me? So, hello, all. I'm very happy to be a part of this event. And again, congratulations for the UNESCO team and also the other steering committee to launching the updated IUI. And as I led the National Assessment Team to conduct IUI in Mongolia for first time in 2021, I advised that NGOs and civil society organizations grow to implement and enforce the IUI. Findings are crucial, because the NGOs and civil society organizations have a better understanding about their community needs what works in the field and what doesn't work in a grassroots level compared to the government, right?
So, in the Mongolian case, IUI was led and conducted by the NGO. Therefore, I believe we included more voices from the target groups, such as the schools who work with human rights, schools who work with the blind community, with the deaf community, NGOs and others who collaborate with the community as well as we include the Kazakh community, whose first language is not Mongolian.
And findings of Mongolia National Assessment of IUIs suggested that there were many rooms to improve, in all ROAM X pillars, of course. So, we have been promoting the findings throughout our work.
For example, together with the currently, our team is creating a website where secondary school of teachers can learn about how to work with the children with disabilities. Including children with visual impairment, children with hearing impairment, children with speech impairment, children with autism or children with ADHD and so on.
So, we also assume among the teachers who use our website, they might have also certain impairment which can also restrict their access to use our website. So, we co designed our website with the IT guys and also teachers, and teachers with old age and also teachers with low digital literacy as well as persons with disability.
And then, because the Mongolian IUI report displayed that websites were not really accessible for everyone, especially for persons with disabilities and older, senior citizens, I would say, we want to show, we want to make our website a good example for the government agencies and public school principals and teachers.
Because back in 2021, we even couldn't find the single website which is accessible for everyone. So, with this, our current initiative, we really want to show the best example, and also the marker for the government officials, especially for the secondary schools, especially during this time, they were using a lot of, you know, the digital training module, and the digital training modules, which is not yet accessible for everyone. We changed their mindset and we changed their attitude and we changed their way to work on it.
So, the website will be launched we hope it will be we will launch it in mid January 2025, and then that website will be also used nationwide for all of the secondary school teachers who work with the children with disabilities and also school principals. I hope they will learn from our initiative and the practices to produce and create their open, you know, the online learning platform to be more accessible to everyone.
Because if the school, you know, the resource material is not accessible and not user friendly for its users, then it's, what's the meaning, right? So, that's what we want to promote in Mongolia at the moment. And I'm aware that there is very less time, so that's it from my side. If there is any question, I'm happy to answer it. Over to you, Tatevik.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you very much, Ari. I forgot to mention, in addition to her role and work on the IUIs, she also contributed greatly to the revision of the IUIs. She was a member of the Steering Committee for the revision. And thank you, Ariunzul, for your great contributions to the revision and the new enhanced indicators.
I think I will not ask you the follow up question, as I am a little cautious of time. I will now hand over. Thank you so much.
>> AVRI DORIA: Just Avri jumping in again. I'm not sure we're that short on time. Correct me, but this is a 90 minute session, I believe? And so, there is some time. Everybody keeps worrying about time, but I just want to make sure that we're okay on time and we're only about halfway through at this point.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: According we were supposed to finish at 1:45. IUI is supposed to finish at 1:45, so.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think everyone is anxious for the IGF to end because it is the last end and we are exhausted.
>> AVRI DORIA: All right, fine. If it's self generated. Just wanted to make sure we're not limited by the schedule.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: I'll hand over okay, what?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: There's a question.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: There is a question. Please.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. (?) from the European Summer School on Internet Governance. Is there a time to ask question or was there a plan at the end of the session? It's always the right time. Thank you very much.
I think it comes very timely, because Tatevik just described the revision of the indicators, and I have two questions, and they are fairly related but go in the same direction.
I've heard from several governments, even those who did the first assessment of the ROAM indicators, that this is a lengthy process and takes so much time that for some governments or some nations, it will be hard to do it for the first time, and those who did it already will possibly not have the resources to do it for a second time.
But I understand, on the other hand, that the benefit of those indicators are only developed or only being seen when you are doing it several times, so that you see how your country is developing. So, my question here and that's the first would be in the revision or later on, is this on your radar that this process should be streamlined a little bit more so that it is not so exhaustive and that it can be done by several governments that at the moment struggle with resources?
And a little bit related to that, at the moment, it's not existing. And we had the ROAM Indicators at the summer school not this year but last year, but it was merely a presentation of that it exists. Since the practicum is regarded very useful element in all the schools, is there a way? Or can we maybe start thinking about how we do a mini assessment, provided by and facilitated by UNESCO in those schools so that, basically, when we are doing the practicum, this ROAM assessment could be the practicum, but of course, that needs to be a very kind of try, or just to show how it works. And then, the multipliers that are attending the SIGs could then maybe lobby to include it in several countries. So, these were the two questions. Thank you.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you very much, Sandra, for these questions. I think Anriette really wants to answer the second question, and Anriette really wants Fabio to answer the first question. So, Fabio, please, do you want to take the first question? Or do you want to start with the second one?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Fabio, did you hear the question? Were you listening? Good. Now you can answer.
>> FABIO: Thank you, Anriette. No, I'm Fabio (?) from Brazil, and I can talk about the Brazilian experience. I cannot talk for all the countries.
But I agree with you that, yes, the first assessment was really time consuming. We had to, first, because you had to mobilise the stakeholders that are needed for the process, and then you have to understand what are the sources that are available or not available in your country. So, I agree that there is a process that is more time consuming.
But behind the revision of the IUI take this into consideration. So, we had a reduced number of questions and indicators in the second version, which is, I think it's more accessible to our group of different countries.
The second thing is when you are doing the second assessment, you can take into account what you did in the first one. So, first, legal aspects that don't change, like each year or each five years, you can use the same material to rely on, and you can just update the more quantitative, in the aspect there are more dynamically into it. So, I don't think that a group of countries can do the second version in a more easy way.
And finally, just to mention that this framework has proven to be very effective in very different contexts. So, if you take G20, large countries as Germany, Brazil, and Argentina, did the process, as well as small islands in the Pacific region. So, it's very flexible to be adaptable to the context of different countries. I do think this is a good contribution.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I also wanted to point out that we do have Poncelet online with his hand up, so please fit him into your queue.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Should we take his question before we respond, Avri? Maybe we should.
>> AVRI DORIA: Yeah, I think we should. His hand's been up for a while, so thank you.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Poncelet, let's hear you. Except now we have to go because I think our tech support don't really follow the
>> PONCELET ILELEJI: Yes, thank you very much. I wish to thank all the speakers. I would first like to state, first, as the lead researcher for the recently completed IUI for the Gambia, that one thing that was good for the success of that, the IUI for the Gambia, was the ability that we had an advisory board that comprised of all stakeholders from various institutions and organizations who have been part of international Internet Governance Forum initiative, so that was the success.
But it was also difficult sometimes getting data from our Ministry of Finance to improve some certain data governments were not able to do it. So, I would like to hear advice from UNESCO, how do you go about that when governments take their time in releasing such data for the IUI?
And I want to commend Anriette for what she's been doing with the African School on Internet Governance, but to get our governments more involved, are there possibilities, like example, at the recently concluded school in Addis Ababa, to say, okay, we are having it in this region this year, we want governments to nominate based on gender equity, young professionals from their various Ministry of Digital Economy to attend from that region? If it is not Africa, next time, not African countries we nominate. So, we have governments also being involved in this school, their young professionals. Thank you. I'm sorry for taking your time.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Can I respond? Thanks very much, Poncelet. Actually, we had a fantastic young woman from the Gambian government who was nominated by the Gambian government this year. And I think we also had we had Cameroon, we had Zambia. We had about five governments this year. And then, we had about seven parliamentarians, including a senator from Nigeria, who's here. So, we do do that, Poncelet. And we always have government participation.
I think the response from governments many of the governments that we invite to nominate don't always respond. But the ones that do remain partners for life, so it's really good. And I think you're absolutely right. I don't think you can have an effective multistakeholder leadership development event if you don't have government in the room.
I just want to respond to Sandra's. I think it's a fantastic idea, Sandra. And I think a national school could do it at a national level. And if the school like I know I think James, you said the Nigerian School is three days. Some schools are not as long as AfriSIG or EuroSIG. I'm not sure how long the South School is. But you could then have your practicum be that advisory committee. Because as Poncelet said, that's not easy, but it's very important.
And as Fabio also mentioned, the IUI methodology is that you establish a Multistakeholder Advisory Board. So, your role play or your practicum exercise at the school could be either to have maybe an imaginary country and you assess that imaginary country. That could be really quite fun! And the people in the school have to be national statistical agencies, Internet service providers associations, researchers, teachers, child rights activists, feminist activists, you know, whatever! You can really play with that idea.
If it's a kind of imaginary country. But if it's a real country, you can actually make it focused on how do you convene the MAB? How do you identify data sources? So, Sandra, I really love that idea. I think I'd be very happy to do that, actually. I think it would be good for the IUIs, because the IUIs will also learn from that. UNESCO will learn from that as well. Plus, it will be a great exercise for the school, particularly because I think it will make the technical people, it will force them to think a little bit about what are the social impact, what are the gender equity components of a universal interoperability Internet? And likewise, it will make the social people, the human rights people, or the content people, think a little bit more about the infrastructure, its security, you know, how stable it is, and so on. So, I really love that idea.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thanks very much for the questions and answers. I think I'll hand over now to James and Olga to move forward with the rest of the agenda.
>> JAMES OLORUNDARE: All right. Tatevik, thank you very much. And everyone, thank you for those brilliant ideas. All right. Before we advance, I just want to quickly add something, because I now realize that if you really want to do a very good assessment of IUI, right, I think you need a very good time. It's not something that you can say, okay, you want to do in three days, right?
Take, for example, like in Nigerian school on Internet Governance, like I explained to you, what would money do? Apart from the intensive classes that we do in three days, we do have, like, a virtual session. And even this year, we had it for like five weeks, right? And I realized that that has helped a lot. Why? Because we're able to organize something like we call it colloquium, right? You can call it symposium. You can call it anything. But we will call it colloquium, like Anriette was saying. As she was talking about it, I was just figuring out what we did in line with that. So, we call it colloquium, right?
So, we created four groups, okay. And in each group, we have to have people that we add roles, okay? And I think this is going to be a very good model if we want to do this IUI thing, and the preferences would be a need of data. And data is not something that you can just get at the snap of a finger, especially when you are talking about the government, you know, the bureaucracy and all of that.
So, by the time we start, if you start let's say maybe three weeks, right, even when we want to start, I think we will have even maybe make request of the kind of data that we need from the government so that by the time the data is coming in, it will fit into our programme.
I know quite well that, yeah, we may not have so much time to run, you know, the School of Internet Governance as in physical because of resources and so many other things, but in integrating these virtual classes into it as part of the preliminary process, right, I think will help a lot.
And in the beginning, when you're starting the virtual classes, we would have known that, okay, yeah, whatever we're going to do, if it's going to be a the IUI, if it's going to be the IIB, like we call it in Internet Society that is Impact Assessment Brief, right? We are going to start from the beginning. We have figured this out where we have a theme that we're working with. So, I think this may work in the case of IUI, too.
But what I may want us to also deliberate on is, if we really want to get a very good result from this, right, so that means we need to get all the stakeholders together, right. So, we need to involve the government even right from the beginning. Because for us to get a very good result, the government must be involved. So, if we want to contribute, so that's one perspective that I want you to join to this discussion, while I hand over to Olga.
(No audio)
>> OLGA CAVALLI: Is to think about new ideas to bring to the schools. But I think at the same time, that all the schools have been going through all these different concepts, like access multistakeholder environment, human rights, cross cutting things, and environment.
The experience in the South School of Internet Governance is that we could perfectly blend it into now we have three parts in the school. So, the school is not one week, it's like six months programme. We have a pretraining that is online and service tested. Perfectly could fit in there some videos and some important information. And thank you for inviting me to the meeting that you presented the indicators there. Thank you for that. I was present there. Anriette was there as well, in Brazil, in Sao Paulo.
And that could perfectly fit in this part of the training we do two months before the school. Then it's the five days hybrid training. And then, there is the research with the university. All this programme is also supervised by university and academia that we have partnered with. So, I think we can work in including it very deeply into the programme of the school.
We also ran the School of Internet Governance in Argentina, which is shorter. It's three days programme, more focused on the Argentina issues.
The relevance of multistakeholder. I think that the revision and bring into our memory the principles of NETMundial has been for all of us very, very important. Organizing a multistakeholder environment is not easy. It's much easier to do a multilateral one where all the governments sit together with their advisors and they talk among them and they do a paper, or whatever, which is perfectly important. Really doing a relevant multistakeholder space needs a lot of time in bringing the right stakeholders. And for the schools, it's also very interesting to build the group of Fellows that it's really multistakeholder itself, so, for having governmental representatives, as you were rightly mentioning, in Africa. In Argentina, we have the same important mission to bring them. And once they get engaged, as Anriette rightly mentioned, they always get engaged in the programme because they love the introduction with the Fellows from different stakeholders and from experts also from the different stakeholders.
But it takes time. It takes time to build the group of Fellows. It takes time to build the programme. So, that is part of the work of the schools and the beauty of one of the schools that we organize. And each one has its own particularities and its own focuses, but I think that with all the work UNESCO is doing with the indicators is perfectly good.
And now, Avri especially, she is leading various activities that will focus on (?) and other things that (audio breaking up) as a Dynamic Coalition, which is very important for all of the schools. So, I think it's the perfect moment. So, once I knew we were going to do this blended workshop, I think it's the start of a new initiative that will enhance the content of all our schools.
I will stop here and maybe I can add something in a moment.
>> AVRI DORIA: Hi, this is Avri. I'm jumping in now, as I don't see any hands, and while you're figuring out where to go next.
I think that some ideas that have been brought up here are great, especially the idea of, as the Dynamic Coalition, itself, starts to look at its curriculum, because we had talked about, you know, one of our ongoing activities is to have sort of sample curricula online, and we realize that we need to update them this year, or starting this year, is to actually bring this IUI element and how one would do it there into that particular document, which would then give a hand and a starting place to many of the schools that, you know, do look at that sample curriculum when they're starting up.
So, I think at this point, you know, we've got a bit of time left, and I think
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Sorry, Avri, sorry
>> AVRI DORIA: Go on with discussion. But please.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: We have a contribution from the room.
>> AVRI DORIA: Good! Sorry!
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much. Sorry, Avri. I am Aziz (?) and if I may just give an example from North Africa (audio distorted) where it has been SIG since 2018. Seven countries of Africa, and we thought it to have multistakeholder even within the three participants from each country.
So, last SIG we organized was in Mauritania, and each time we have meeting with the government, with all stakeholders, private sectors, and government, to speak about the problem of not Africa, but particularly in Mauritania, because you know, in North Africa, we have the Sahara. It is the biggest desert in the world. I think 30% from Africa and (?)
I have a question for the panel, is how (audio breaking up) to work with the group and improve connectivity in this area, like I said, because we have communities, these related, and lack of telecommunication infrastructure. Thank you.
>> JAMES OLORUNDARE: I think we have work to do here, because I think the question is directed to you. Yeah. And for you to just, you know, expand on that more.
I think we also need to talk about, okay, here we want to integrate IUI into the SIG model, right? Or curriculum. I beg your pardon. So, what do you think we should do? Because now, IUI is a new concept, right, which is just coming up. And it's been around, right? But it's new to the SIG. That's what I mean when I say new in the sense that we are just integrating it into SIG. I know that Anriette has worked with that before, maybe the first time, probably maybe she'll be doing for the second one now, right? But like, in some of the national schools, I'm sure we've not done that.
So, I'm telling you from Nigerian experience, but I'm not thinking, I mean, it's time for us to look at how we can integrate that into the national school, although we have agreed that, right, we should have like a cascaded model, okay, for the national. Then, going to the region, it should be more in comparison.
But then, you know that even if you want to carry out IUI, it is still going to be at the national level. So, I think at the national level, it should be involved in the sense that, okay, we need to let people be aware of what is going on. That is one. Then, if you want to do the assessment, I think somebody I think it was mentioned the fact that we need to do like a simulation, you know, even in the school, you know, so as to bring people up to speed with how IUI can be conducted. So I think we need to start looking at that.
And of course, the issue of, you know, for quality, talking about someone that is going to facilitate that. Of course, if you say I should go and facilitate something on IUI now, I have to start reading and reading, but for somebody like you, for already being part of the system, you know so much about it. So, what would be your advice in terms of getting faculty to facilitate that? Yeah.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: So, very sorry, did you want me to be very quick? I wanted to respond to sorry. So, just a quick response. First, that's a very good question, James. But just to Aziz. Aziz, I think your question is how do the IUIs actually help us deal with some of the basic problems, such as the lack of connectivity. And that's an IUI question, not necessarily a SIG question. But I think the idea of the IUIs is that once the national assessment has been made, that it comes up with recommendations and that there are actions that are identified to be addressed.
But it does then remain up to the country to decide how to do that. What we feel it does, though, is because you do the assessment in a collaborative, multistakeholder way, that creates a very good basis for which to collaborate on identify implementing and addressing identified priorities.
And James, just to respond to your question, I think it's a great question. I think Sandra made the brilliant suggestion that we can do simulations. I think you are pointing out that if we want to do them well, we need the people who can do them well. And maybe this is something that can come out of this recommendation, some form of guideline on how that can be done.
I think the one thing, though, I would caution is to separate simulation from real assessments. Assessments are also political. They are political at a national level. It's not always easy, as Poncelet also said, to get agreement, to get the data. So, I think one would have to be fairly cautious that if you are using the IUIs in SIGs, that you're sensitive to that. And that's why maybe having at a national school deciding how you do it would have to be careful and maybe having made up imaginary countries, might, in fact, sometimes work better. Still serve the same pedagogic purpose, but one would have to be careful that you don't intentionally undermine the opportunity to do an actual national assessment because you've used it in a school, and somehow, it has raised concerns. Sorry, that just occurred to me while you were talking.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: I just wanted to add about people who don't know about the IUIs and would be willing to do the IUIs. Just to let you know that this IUI framework contains a very detailed, step by step guidelines on how to implement the indicators.
But UNESCO's support doesn't stop by just providing the guidelines. UNESCO provides technical support at every step of the assessment. Since this inception, we do build the capacity. We know that it's not something taught at schools. It's a new idea for many countries.
And the way we work, we provide the technical support. We do capacity building for the research team that wants to carry out the assessment. We work with the multistakeholder advisory board, and we basically, we accompany the research team and the country at every step of the assessment. So, this is something that we've been doing, and we will continue to do, so, yes.
And in addition, also, to react on what you said about the national schools. I think, you know, as I mentioned, the Multistakeholder Advisory Board is an integral part of the assessment. And in some ways, if a country has not yet engaged or started the assessment in a way the AfriSIG, as a multistakeholder group, if we can call like that, could be the core of the Multistakeholder Advisory Board that can then steer and guide the assessment with support from UNESCO.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thanks. This is Avri, if I can jump in for a second. I wanted to add a comment that's in the chat. I know not everybody can read the chat, but it fits into this discussion. This is from Louis Martinez is it time to have specialized IG schools, meaning SIGs on single themes, such as human rights or conductivity? And I would add in the context that you are all talking about in terms of of the IUI. I think using an imaginary country instead of your own country is a excellent one, having designed many of these exercises at the time.
And there was an answer from Anriette, and then she can follow through on it. I think it is. AfriSG is already doing that. So, I'll put my hand down now, but I wanted to get the online comments in. Thank you.
>> OLGA CAVALLI: Thank you. I think, Avri, this is the perfect starting point to build guidelines from our coalition to all the schools. And then, each school has its own way of organizing the group of fellows, to call the experts to build a real multistakeholder programme. So, with these guidelines, perhaps not that as an assessment that could be a little bit more into the particularities of each region country, but to build from the Dynamic Coalition a group of guidelines so we can use the indicators within blended into the programme.
And responding to my dear friend, Rich Miguel, in our school, every year, we have a special point of focus on the programme. It's cybersecurity or developing goals or every year we find a focus, which is not the only thing that is included in the programme, but there is a special emphasis, and it changes every year depending. Last year was artificial intelligence and cybersecurity. It depends on what is happening in the Internet environment.
>> JAMES OLORUNDARE: Just to add one point off what Olga said. So, I think that's the right way to go, in terms of for every session of the school we are going to have, there should be a focal theme, a thematic area that you want to focus on. However, of course, we are still going to deal with other models that are relevant to the show, where there should be a focus, and the focus will be what you will be building your outputs document on, be it a policy brief, be it Internet assessment brief, be it the IUI, like based on what we're talking about. So, I think that is very important.
But for me, the issue of having specialized school on Internet governance who are, I think well, I don't know how that is going to work out. Why I'm saying that is because now we're talking about having something like a syllabus, right, something that can work for our school, which would be like okay, for us, there must be basic fundamental models that you need to take, right, before you talk about where you're focusing on, based on your environment or based on those hot topics that are coming up within your environment.
So, I think we should focus more on that for now, right, because that would help, you know, this coalition. Thank you very much. And I don't know if anybody wants to make okay, Avri.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: There was a question in the audience.
>> AUDIENCE: Good afternoon. My name is Dr. (?) from Chad. I coordinate the Chad IGF. In terms of collaboration, that is the commitment in this process, as I think CSOs play a very important role in creating awareness. So, I think it's quite important to employ civil society organizations to be able to address these issues together and contribute in the process. So, how does the State enablize to have a programme that will bring together all the six? And in countries that we have not yet conducting national assessment of, telling development to have a framework or let's say formal guidelines to work on together, in collaboration. Thank you.
>> JAMES OLORUNDARE: If I may just make a comment on that before, maybe if you want to make a comment on that? Yeah. So, let me use our model as an example. So, in Nigeria, we have the NIGF that is Nigeria Internet Governance Forum, the Multistakeholder Advisory Group. That group consists of civil society, of course, represented by Internet Society. By the way, I'm the President of ISOC in Nigeria. So, ISOC is a primary member of the NIGF .
MAG in Nigeria. However, we have other members, too, like we have the government agencies. Sorry, let me put that whole the relevant government agencies that are members of this same MAG I'm talking about. And you need to have as much of the information technology development agency because of its role within the IG space. We have the Nigerian Communications Commission as a member of the NIGF MAG, okay? There we have the NIRA, the Nigeria Internet Registration Association that is also a member. Then we have other members, too. Academia, yes. Academia is nominated into the IGF MAG. So, if we want to have even the school, what we normally do is we have to collaborate with the NIGF MAG. We carry them along, as a matter of fact.
Any time, it is going to start in a matter of weeks now, so the process starts all over again. So, why once we start the process, we have meetings. As we're having the meeting, was the NIGF, the INSIG, the Internet school On Internet Governance, to show, this is where we are, this is what we're doing, and this is where we want you to come in. So, it's more like a collaborative effort, to work together. So, that multistakeholderism has been established.
So, we already have a structure that we are working with. So, it's just, yeah, ISOC is the convener of this school, so we work with all these guys. And in fact, when we want to make a call for application, we let them know that we do want Fellows that want to participate in the school. That is the call for that to be from all those places, too.
In addition to that, of course, we make it like, okay, let everybody participate. That means it's thrown open, the youth and the aged both.
Interestingly, this year, for the school, we have one very old man in this school, and okay, well, yeah, of course, I want to know what's going on within this space. You know? Thank you very much. I rest my case.
>> AVRI DORIA: We don't seem to have any hands up on the online space. You know, with ten minutes left, perhaps people want to take a little chance to, you know, sum up and such.
I have been working, since we have to have almost already contributed our takeaways and our calls to action. I've been trying to pick those up as you all spoke. But please, you know, as I say, don't have any online requests to speak, but you've got a few minutes left to do any summing up and such as you would like.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you very much, Avri. I don't have much. I think just in terms of the comment from Chad, I think we should discuss that. I think, you know, you are raising good discussions, which also, I think we can use the Dynamic Coalition to have those kinds of discussions.
And I think these are fantastic ideas! You know, it just also makes me realize that and this is my takeaway is that I think most schools are operating on a fairly shoestring budget. The Dynamic Coalition (no audio)
Avri for doing that work. And I think if we do have more capacity as a community of SIGs, that will also make it easier for us to partner with other initiatives like the IUI one. And I don't think it will happen overnight, but I do think there is a need and a demand and a will to (no audio)
So, just thanks to everyone, to UNESCO, to Avri, to the SIGs and the IUIs and everyone for coming to this session. Over to you.
>> OLGA CAVALLI: This session will be recorded, and also will be available for the schools that were not participating today and aren't here on the IGF or online. So, it's a reference.
Just we, from our school, regional and national, we offer our help in sharing experiences. And I think that the Coalition is the perfect space to work together with the other coalitions and build upon all of the work that Avri is doing in framing all these indicators into our curricula and our activities. So, feel free to contact us. Even though if you were not in this room virtually or onsite, and if you look at this recording afterwards. And thank you all for and thank you, Avri, for being there.
What time is it is there, Avri? Is it very early for you or no?
>> AVRI DORIA: Oh, it's morning, you know? It's 6:30 in the morning. It's nothing compared to the 1:00 in the morning session I did earlier.
>> OLGA CAVALLI: Okay.
>> AVRI DORIA: I totally believe in living as flexible a schedule as I can and moving my schedule around to suit the place I am online participating in.
I really appreciate, you know, all the contributions and the talk that came in. I appreciate having received the points that I'm now trying to put and edit into the report. We'll be going out with a report on this. I'll be consulting you all. And thank you very much, and especially as this was the last of the regular sessions, or in the last of the regular session slots before the end. I understand how you're all eager to get yourself to the final sessions, the closing sessions. And thank you so much, and thanks for helping me do this from an online perspective.
So, I'll pass it back to see people onstage, to end it, to close it, but thank you very much.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you very much. I don't have much to add. I just need to say that I really enjoyed this discussion and the concrete suggestions that came out of this discussion. And we're willing and ready to continue the cooperation from UNESCO on the IUIs with the SIGs. Thank you very much, Avri, for coordinating this session. Thanks to Ariunzul online and Anriette Esterhuysen and the contributions online. Thank you very much, and I look forward to working with many of you. Thank you.
>> JAMES OLORUNDARE: All right. So, on behalf of the SIG Coalition, too, we want to thank you, Tatevik, for a job well done. We appreciate this. And I hope this is just going to be the beginning of the collaboration. So, we're just starting, and we want it to continue. So, please, be available any time we call. And of course, I'm sure any moment from now, you'll be receiving calls from even the national schools, especially with respect to the IUI.
All right! Ladies and gentlemen, I think we have come to the end of this session, and I think we should give ourselves a round of applause. Thank you.
(Applause)