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.
***
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Good morning, everyone, online and here in the room. You need to put a headset to be able to follow us. Please, everyone, could you use the headset. Otherwise, you won't be able to hear us.
Those in the room, you should select Channel Number 5.
Apologies to the colleagues online. We'll wait for the audience here to put on their headset. Okay. So it's Channel Number 5.
Thank you for joining us early online and here in the room. We're pleased to host you on this session of ROAM‑X: Driving WSIS Implementation and Digital Cooperation. We'll go ahead and tell you more about what ROAM‑X stands for and its role in measuring the WSIS implementation, the access lines, ahead of the WSIS+20 review.
I'm pleased to introduce speakers here with me today.
Everything okay?
Okay. Sorry.
We're joined today in the panel by Dr. Tawfik Jelassi, Assistant Director‑General for Communication and Information, UNESCO, who will deliver opening remark, the keynote.
And I think, without further ado, I will give the floor to Dr. Jelassi, and we'll go into the discussion, and I will introduce my panel.
Thank you so much for being here. We very much look forward to your keynote remarks.
Thank you.
>> TAWFIK JELASSI: Thank you very much. Panellists, participants, friends and colleagues, I'm very pleased to join you on this session, ROAM‑X: Driving WSIS Implementation and Digital Cooperation.
I would like to thank IGF for their support to UNESCO and for supporting the support for us to have an exchange on this topic.
I'm also grateful to our speakers, Fabio and Anriette, Dorcas, and Chris, who will be introduced by the moderator. Their contribution has been instrumental in advancing the UNESCO work on Internet universality.
As things are under way, we're reminded that digital technologies are evolving faster than the frameworks that are designed to govern them. And, yet, 2.6 billion people remain offline, as of today. Most of them in the least‑developed regions.
In low‑income countries, only 27% of the population uses the Internet compared to 93% in high‑income countries.
The cost of access, the lack of infrastructure, the entrenched inequalities, including gender gaps continue with the exclusion.
UNESCO ‑‑ rights‑based and inclusion for the digital age. This framework gives emphasis to openness, accessibility, multistakeholder governance, and capacity building.
To ensure that this vision is not only aspirational and actionable, we need the right tools to identify gaps, guide reforms, and measure progress.
This is where the ROAM‑X comes in. Since its initial launch back in 2018 and with the second‑generation indicators which were released last year, ROAM‑X has become a strategic enabler for national digital assessments that supports evidence‑based policymaking by helping countries address things through the ROAM‑X principles.
Those who are not familiar with it, let me briefly remind you that the elements stand for human rights, openness, accessibility, and M for multistakeholder participation, and the X refers to cross‑cutting issues like sustainability, gender equality ‑‑
AI governance, environmental impact, privacy, and meaningful connectivity, aligning the framework with the global milestones such as the ‑‑ plus 10 and the Global Digital Compact.
Since then, more than ‑‑ countries have applied the ROAM‑X framework.
In Argentina, the national digital assessment informed to implement the laws.
This aggregated digital data was gathered.
The workshop took place this year involving national stakeholders.
The ‑‑ these are not isolated.
This is critical for the digital age. However, the digital divide continues to persist, especially for women and girls who remain underrepresented online and in digital policymaking.
The revised ROAM‑X indicators maintain a strong emphasis on gender inclusion, digital literacy, affordability, norms, and safety concerns.
This brings me to our call to action.
We urge governments, regulators, civil society, and all stakeholders to embrace the ROAM‑X as a strategic tool to drive digital transformation.
It offers a robust, adaptable, and forward‑looking methodology to monitor WSIS implementation aligned with SDG targets and ensure digital development that is transparent, equitable, and accountable.
As the historian Melvin ‑‑ reminded us, technology is never good, nor bad, nor is it neutral. End of quote.
The impact of technology is shaped by human intent, by the choices we make, the values that we want to protect, and the systems we design. Let's develop, use, and govern technology in ways that promote shared progress. Let's put people's rights and equity at the centre of our digital future.
We believe that with the ROAM‑X, we have the means to achieve that.
Thank you for your attention.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you so much for setting the stage and giving a comprehensive overview of what ROAM‑X stands for and for giving a few examples of how we demonstrated its value and power.
And now I will go ‑‑ and thank you so much again for being here. I know you won't be able to stay until the end, but we very much appreciate and value your presence.
As you gave the overview of the ROAM‑X, just to also mention that in addition to demonstrating the value of ROAM‑X and showcasing a few examples, including how it has now been introduced in Brazil and Pakistan, the revised indicators, the sessions will also focus on the development of ROAM‑X in the framework on assessing the progress on WSIS commitments and the SDGs.
And I will go forward and introduce my speakers in the speaking order but not the sitting order.
Fabio Senne, who has been involved in, of course, the initial framework development. Brazil was the one that initiated and piloted the first assessment and the first one to pilot the new revised indicators which we launched in 2024, last year at the IGF.
I have Anriette Esterhuysen, a human rights defender and computer networking pioneer. Everyone knows her in Internet and communication technologies. She's a former chair of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group.
She used to be the director of the Association for communications and continues work with APC and with many other entities, including with UNESCO, and she's been instrumental in both development of the initial indicators, and the revision of the workshop in Fiji.
And we have a specialist computer software company that was established in Kenya, when she was only 24 years old.
Finally, I have Chris, to my right, who is an independent consultant, analyst, in Internet governance policy space.
He's a current MAG member and has many other roles, which I will not read out. I am joined, also, online by two of my colleagues, Davide Storti, UNESCO, a programme specialist for digital policy and transformation. Davide is coordinating our activities related to WSIS.
And I'm also joined by my colleague, Camila Gonzalez, who works on ROAM‑X initiatives.
So thank you again.
I would like to start by giving the floor to my colleague, Davide Storti, who will just give a little bit of more of an overview of this interaction of ROAM‑X and WSIS and how the idea came about using the ROAM‑X to measure the WSIS implementation.
Please, Davide.
>> DAVIDE STORTI: Good morning. Thank you. Yes, as Tawfik Jelassi mentioned, the technology goes super fast. UNESCO has highlighted a number of occasions of shifts that happened in technology in the civil society.
When considering WSIS in the action lines that are laying down the foundational aspiration of the WSIS process, like access, inclusion, rights, the ROAM‑X indicators translated these ideals into outcomes. That's one of these tools.
The connection between the different challenges brought up by the shifts are to the lenses of the indicators, the possibility of measuring the advancement of these technologies, like artificial intelligence, the impact and status of indicators like gender equality or rights online of population, and also a measurement of data protection and trust in the media and the misinformation, for example.
So this framework may actually help support measuring how the WSIS framework, which is based on principles, how this evolves, how this is anchored to the reality, by allowing to categorise some evidence‑based results and also corroboration of the stakeholders.
It provides a common language of stakeholders, country‑to‑country reporting analysis, a way to compare and highlight the different position of evolution, as was mentioned. A lot of population is not online yet, so there are different aspects to be taken into account and also give inputs to dialogues, like the IGF, to a national and regional analysis of the progress and give a diagnostic for guiding investment from countries or different need assessments and needs, in terms of policies and regulations, et cetera.
So in different action lines of the WSIS, the ROAM‑X provides grounds for tracking participatory and transparent digital policymaking, for example, or how to examine the connectivity and how affordability comes through and how digital skills come through or given ways for protection and cybersecurity, et cetera.
So there is an opportunity to have a framework which has already some measurement, which has already been applied in different countries, and the new revision also helps us to be more precise in these kinds of measurements.
So if used properly ‑‑ and I think the panel today will give the different points of view on this matter. I think the enabling of additional level evidence of the ROAM‑X applied to different countries may give a better view of what is the global impact of the WSIS framework overall and also guide through the review and the findings of indicators of different countries that provide grounds for the future of the WSIS, as the review will come up with that.
Yeah, so I think I will look forward for this discussion, and I invite all the IGF stakeholders to consider the IUI framework as one of the significant basis for the process of the WSIS as it comes forward.
Thank you.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you so much, Davide, for your excellent intervention and for your need to call to adopt ROAM‑X under this lens.
I think before I give the floor to Fabio, who will now talk and focus on the application of ROAM‑X and give a few examples and show us the first impressive actually findings of the implementation of the revised indicators, which looks like this.
Fabio, indeed, you had such already progress since the launch of the indicators.
I wanted to talk about the presence of Guy Berger, the father of the original ROAM‑X indicators. Thank you, Guy, for being here. I hope we can hear from you afterwards.
But now, Fabio, please tell us a little bit more about the ROAM‑X in Brazil and the new application and how do you think it was effective, the new revised indicators and how they were perhaps different from the first experience.
Thank you.
>> FABIO SENNE: Thank you to the speakers and panellists. It's a pleasure to be here.
Nic.Br, et cetera, is in the creation of the framework and the implementation. As you said, Brazil was the first country to pilot this framework back in 2018.
Now we have accepted the challenge that Mr. Jelassi presented us back in December, in the past IGF, to renew the data collection in Brazil in the second generation of indicators. And we accepted this challenge and concluded the data collection phase of this project. I will bring here some initial results, but, of course, it goes through a multistakeholder validation, and we don't have the full report yet, but I will bring to you a few results.
Just to mention, as I said, Brazil was involved in the discussion of the framework, along with lots of consultations on the multistakeholder community.
Back in 2019, we launched the first assessment report of the country in the IGF, 2019, in Berlin.
Along this process, we also supported other countries, especially Latin America countries, to also implement this methodology.
So we had lots of exchange during this period.
From 2023 to 2024, we supported UNESCO in the revision of the indicators, the five‑year revision that was expected to be concluded by UNESCO, and now we are implementing the next version.
Here, just to premier a few highlights, this is important to say that in our case, cetic.br, nic.br, it's important to deal with the technical team that are collecting all the indicators from multiple sources, but we have a multistakeholder Advisory Committee with the cgi.br that advises the whole process. We have a whole committee that validated the start of the process. Now, after the data collection, we have validation from the CGI.
But if you can say a few advancements and challenges that we have so far, in the past years, Brazil has public institutional debate on platform regulation and information integrity, as Davide mentioned. It's also a WSIS+20 topic.
And driven by the growing impact of this information, hate speech, and how it's affected the democratic processes, the discussion has focused on the responsibility of digital platforms in moderating harmful content and protecting user rights, especially in the light of judicial interventions that took place in the countries, especially the electoral bodies.
There's debate that's still fragmented in different political interests. While there's a legal framework ‑‑ the Internet and the local GDPR, the enforcement of this process is still uneven, and are still critical gaps persistent.
You take the openness dimension, it's very interesting because over this five years, we have huge advances in the advancement of digital public services and also with this dimension of DPIs.
So, we have gov.br, in Brazil, nowadays, it offers 4,500 services online with more than 160 million users. This initiative is supported at the administrative processes and information in a more participatory government.
There's significant inequalities to this digital online services, especially among populations with low digital literacy, limited connectivity, or disabilities. So usability challenges in compliance with many of the governmental platforms, and the benefit of the digital transformation are reinforcing digital inequalities.
In terms of access, we can see huge increases in the connectivity and the spending has basic connectivity. You have 80% of households now connected to the Internet and significant investments in bridging coverage gaps in the country.
And, also, the concept of universal and meaningful connectivity has entered in the national policy conversation and debate and being addressed with several plans in discussion.
There's a growing recognition that we have challenges. So connectivity remains unevenly distributed with lower access with low‑income classes facing these disadvantages.
Gender and racial disparities are also relevant. We show in this report that Black women represents lower level of meaningful connectivities over time, and those are exacerbated by digital skill gaps and mobile‑only access to this part of the population.
So there's a need to inequity‑driven strategies that are addressed. These overlaps are mentioned.
There's a solid foundation for multistakeholder participation through the Internet and the role of cgi.br that affects democratic and transparency governance. This model is internationally recognised and has supported inclusive dialogue, such as the Brazilian IGF that's coordinated by cgi.br.
However, if you take broader digital policies, multistakeholder participation remains inconsistent in many ministries and regulatory environments. The inclusion of the stakeholders are still fragmented, in terms of participation.
Finally, to conclude, if you take the cross‑cutting issues, one of the new things included in framework is the AI development in governance. You can say Brazil advanced in AI governance in the past few years with the launch of the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy and the National AI plan.
However, there's still progress with the national law in discussion in the Congress.
Aspects such as transparency, risk assessment, and rights‑based safeguards are still unsolved and also multistakeholder engagement when it comes to AI.
And if you take one new AI indicator, the environmental issues, this is one that we saw largely overlooked in digital policy so far. So there's issues such as energy consumption, e‑waste, and emissions are not well‑integrated into the governance framework. So this is a challenge that we identified by having this new indicator proposal.
So just these few overall remarks, just to say that we are presenting here this preliminary results. We will enter into the phase of validation in the multistakeholder discussion and plan to, by September or October, launch the final report.
So that's it. You can later discuss more on the implications of this.
Thank you very much.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thanks so much, Fabio, for presenting the findings. It's very interesting to observe both the progress and the issues that persist, it's also interesting to see the newly introduced indicators. I look forward to reading the report.
I would like to give the floor to Anriette. Please focus on Fiji.
This year, for the first time ever, we introduced piloted a new intervention in the ROAM‑X framework. Following in assessment, we piloted this capacity to build a workshop to support the Multistakeholder Advisory Group and the stakeholders' wider input in Fiji to focus on digital policymaking and implementation capacity building and having ROAM‑X assessment as evidence for that.
Anriette, will you please focus on that?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Tatevik. It was a really interesting experience.
What we did is Fiji, a relatively small country, had recently approved a National Digital Strategy and completed a National Digital Assessment using the ROAM‑X framework. So we tried to bring these together.
And the first thing, the question you had in the script was, you know, what do you ‑‑ and I want to stress ‑‑ I'm glad you're not asking me all the questions because I prefer ad libbing, but you asked me one question that I think is important, which is: What should countries do when implementing digital strategies at a high level? What should they do?
And I really think the answer for us was clearly consultation, collaboration, and connections. And what was, I think, the most powerful learning of this workshop, which was a policy implementation workshop, how you can use the ROAM‑X framework to support the national implementation of the National Digital Strategy, even after about an eight‑month period of development, believing they consulted two‑thirds of the government departments ‑‑ and we must have had about eight different ministries that did not know about the National Digital Strategy.
So there was a disconnect between the people who developed the strategy, who were convinced things were perfect, and the people in the government departments that have to implement the strategy who have never heard of it.
I think that's one thing you can never underestimate the complexity of different parts of government. We're not even talking about multistakeholder collaboration here. We're talk about intergovernmental collaboration, about the complexity of them working together and understanding who is doing what and how they can make the connections between the different issues.
I think for us, as the team coming from UNESCO and people who have been involved in the Fiji national assessment, I think we had a powerful discovery, and that's that the ROAM‑X framework is not just suited to assessing a national Internet environment. It actually works extremely well in assessing a strategy before it's being implemented. It could work as well as a planning tool in assessing design of a strategy or design of implementation, and equally at the level of monitoring and evaluation.
What we found is the ROAM‑X framework is suited to ‑‑ design and implementation. I think people forget we talk about the indicators but the indicators are there to help you answer the primary modality of the framework which are questions.
I'm going to give you an example.
Regarding cultural rights, the R, the R of the ROAM‑X, the first question is: Does the digital strategy develop economic and cultural aspects of digital rights?
And then there are indicators. One of the indicators is evidence of inclusion. Now, you can apply this question as easily to a policy instrument as you can apply it to the national Internet context.
And I think that's what we found extremely useful. I think we also learned that, in spite of their best efforts to develop this National Digital Strategy, it tended to be very sort of supply‑driven that focused a lot on infrastructure, on planning, it did not focus on rights at all. It overlooked rights. It might have had an emphasis on data protection, but aside from that, there wasn't much.
It didn't explicitly address multistakeholder even though it used the term multistakeholder. Openness was treated in a very narrow way. And when it comes to gender, there was virtually no content on gender. Some emphasis on girls and capacity‑building for women and girls.
So I think that was the other learning that, even though people have developed these digital strategies are doing it to the best of their ability, and they try and be as inclusive as possible, they tend to overlook ROAM‑X. I think that's the other thing.
There was a complementality, a lens that was provided by the ROAM‑X framework that really filled the gaps and connected the dots.
You know, ROAM‑X actually started at a conference called "Connecting the Dots," and I think it plays the role between initiatives regarding building digital literacy and digital infrastructure.
And I think one thing I can share ‑‑ and we can come back to it. There's not much time left, but what we found is whereas the ROAM‑X and the principles, the endurability was not future‑proofed.
They may have Internet access but not meaningful Internet access or equal Internet access, but the concept of universality is difficult to relate to. But they did not find the principles of rights, openness, accessibility, multistakeholder, and the issues covered under cross‑cutting difficult to relate to.
They even found a forum difficult to understand. We tried to propose a National IGF to build around the National Digital Strategy, but when they hear Internet Governance Forum, it doesn't convey to them that it's a forum that actually involves all aspects of digital ‑‑ to me, that was a revelation. It's very useful. I think, personally, we have adaptability in the ROAM‑X framework and the principles that we are just beginning to discover.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you, Anriette, for these insights. Actually, I know we're behind the time.
I know you need to leave early, so I hope Chris will forgive me. Speaking of adaptability and looking ahead to WSIS+20 and the GDC, could you elaborate on how ROAM‑X can address how the next phase is more inclusive and grounded in human rights and equity, especially in the Global South.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think, in a way, I've answered that already. We need a frame not only to do the national assessments. It's powerful. It works well in a country like Brazil where you do have an institution, like nic.br and the Brazil Internet Steering Group because you can come back and reflect and fill gaps, but I think it also works well as a planning tool and assessing strategies and the implementation of those strategies.
I think it can also be used at a monitoring and evaluation level and not just necessarily at a national level.
I think that's the other thing.
Sometimes you might find, in a context, that there is a lot of investment, for example, in digital equality and inclusion, in your educational sector.
You may have a very active Department of Education, you have collaboration with the private sector, with the civil society, working with learning and maybe not just on lifelong learning, you know, not just at school level.
And I think you can very easily, then, use the framework in that particular sector. You don't necessarily need the resources to conduct a fully fledged national assessment.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thanks so much, Anriette, if those thoughts.
I will now turn to our next speaker, who is online, Dr. Dorcas Muthoni. I would like to ask you to speak a little bit about your experience has you head impact on digital transformation in Africa, through your work.
Will you please highlight some of the biggest implementation challenges that you had in turning these policies and strategies, since we've also been talking about turning the strategies into results on the ground.
>> DORCAS MUTHONI: Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much for that question and also the opportunity to just contribute to this panel.
I just want to speak around specifically the mission across gender spaces, all the gender digital divide, as well as the small business sectors and because it's something I've worked on a lot in the recent past.
And let me just say that one of the areas that we have found very, very challenging is, for example, coming to gender. We want to assess and find out, you know, is there any segregated data to do the analysis, in terms of understanding how is the penetration, access, social norms, how is that affecting adoption and inclusivity, in terms of digital transformation.
And what are the transparencies? And the truth of the matter is there's hardly any data. This is very challenging because it means that this is one area where we're not really proactive in assessing. I think this can really impact national strategies.
When you go to small businesses, there's a lot of uptake of technology, especially more by driven access, which tends to have a very strong socio aspect, but we want to assess productive use of this Internet to impact these businesses. And what you find is that you then struggle to find, you know, data that you can rely on.
And so what I find really outstanding about this ROAM‑X framework is that I think if we encourage a lot more national assessments but also, apart from national assessment, sometimes take time because you need to convince policymakers because there may not be a government department that's ‑‑. It's based on research. Encourage others to help us access data that can allow us to have some baselines, you know, some points of reflection and also encourage people to use that to take on sudden actions that begin to change the trajectory.
I know we are all very excited about many emerging technologies, but what you find is that there's a lot of people who only hear, but they cannot really be part of the productive elements of how these technologies help.
I think, particularly, when it comes to the gender digital divide, one of the things we found very challenging is how do we get women in leadership? Because we want women to come in as users. We want them to embrace technologies. But once they're in the technology areas, how do we promote them all the way up into leadership roles, into policy and position‑making roles, and how do we support the reference data again? How do we support at that level because then they form their own models that will inspire other younger generations.
For some reason, you find people who succeed and then want to go back and do something because they have career longevity.
That's what we found, data that allows us to assess from these kind of perspectives is really one of the biggest gaps.
Then, when we think about ROAM‑X, we're working on something in one of my organisations called ‑‑ where we support women going into the technology field and pursuing their careers, and we're really interested in gender equality, and we want to see the women take these opportunities.
And so I found that the ROAM‑X framework is really a good element I would love to hear more about non‑government implementations of assessments or processes because this is very, very interesting to my organisation, in the sense that we are working on some, you know, M, monitoring, and framework on women in leadership programmes. We want to find out how we can use these frameworks who have been worked on and provided from different parts of the world with a lot of research into it. And we see how this can inform the initiatives that we take.
And the other thing that is important ‑‑ again, there's been a very big growth, in terms of, you know, interested in ‑‑ start‑ups all over the country and a lot of developers going into this space, a lot of interesting ‑‑ from the university who want to get into this space.
We need to find out how this is actually impacting the group of technologies that are locally responsive on our continent. I think this is one of the things that would need to be assessed. If we had a baseline, this would be an adequate tool to help take initiatives to support the reduction of the digital divide, whether it's gender or generally, the participation of high level, in terms of software development, whether it's communities or otherwise.
High‑scaling start‑ups, this could actually help inform governments who maybe take the initiative to take on these kind of assessments but also researchers who just want to establish what is going on from different parts of the continent.
Because, again, we are a very diverse continent, very different countries and different levels. The only thing we cannot deny is we all want to be completely digital economies. The question is where does everybody stand, and what should you be focusing on to increase access, to increase inclusivity, to encourage a lot of stakeholders to participate and also have a bit more lens that is less control‑based and more catalysing. There's no bias where fear is a big component of how technology impacts our economy.
We want to see the support of communities that have really been on the periphery. And the education systems, we need to change how we prepare students for future careers and to be players in ways that literally they look at how do we ‑‑ based on which aspect of the industries they sit.
(Audio is partially distorted)
>> DORCAS MUTHONI: The framework is a really good way to assess that.
I know we have a national strategy. We've had that for a while now, where I live. But I know that it will be very beneficial if we have a chance to interrogate these parameters, in terms of what progress are we making and how many steps did we move forward versus how many steps did we move backward every time we're faced with the advancements of technology.
Those are the comments I'm able to share at this point. I'm happy to stay and take any questions that come through it.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thanks so much for your valuable input, Dorcas. You mentioned data gaps, which is a measured issue across all the countries where we've implemented the ROAM‑X. What we tend to do is turn these gaps into policy recommendations and, indeed, encourage the data gathering and its availability.
I'm very actually pleased that Kenya was one of the first countries, along with Brazil as well, to implement the ROAM‑X indicators and also to do the first follow‑up assessment to measure the progress made.
Now I would like to give the floor to Chris and ask Chris to please speak. You have a really long‑standing engagement with the Internet Governance Forum processes with your experience.
Can you elaborate on the follow‑up of WSIS commitments?
>> Chris: Thank you for having me here. My colleagues have been more involved in the ROAM‑X. My own experience of it has been a little more piecemeal, watching and observing the development of this and dipping in on occasions such as this.
Most recently, that was an event at the EuroDIG. That's one of the regional spaces.
It's very fitting in that this first session of the IGF 2025, even though there's a few less people in the room, it's a good opportunity and time for us to consider the ROAM‑X principles, consider this project, and how it fits into the broader Internet governance space. I think it's a really important and practical development here.
I'm going back to some comments ‑‑ or a phrase that Mr. Jelassi used in his comments at the beginning, data‑driven, inclusive governance.
This year, as we're headed into the WSIS+20, we're very focused on how Internet governance, how digital governance is evolving. That idea of data‑driven, inclusive governance is really important because those two concepts are very mutually supporting of each other.
Data‑driven cannot be comprehensive unless it's inclusive, unless it's during all aspects of the community.
But, at the same time, inclusive governance can't be effective, can't be practical unless it is data‑driven, unless it's grounded in the kind of practical knowledge and awareness that a ROAM‑X assessment can provide.
So I think ROAM‑X principles, as we look to the evolution of Internet governance, as we look to making, you know, practical output‑focused implementations of Internet governance, this is an example that can be developed and utilised by the whole community.
I think, in that sense, what I would sort of see as an important discussion in the context of the Internet Governance Forum and the context of its wired network of NRIs, National and Regional IGF Initiatives, is how that can all work together and be complementary.
I think the examples Fabio spoke of in Brazil are really important, the utilisation of nic.br, cgi.br is an example of the process.
The ROAM‑X assessment process always includes that Multistakeholder Advisory Committee, and many countries won't have that situation that Brazil very well had the institution that can serve that function.
I think that in itself is a good opportunity. We can see there's two possibilities here. There's a possibility of a ROAM‑X assessment being initiated and actually using or working closely with an existing national or regional initiative to provide and foster that multistakeholder input.
But, on the other hand, if there is not a pre‑existing national or regional initiative, a ROAM‑X assessment and its Multistakeholder Advisory Committee can be a catalyst for developing a sustainable multistakeholder engagement by the community.
That's going back to what Anriette was saying, both a ROAM‑X assessment can be a one‑off or reoccurring tool. It can be a method for generating and Fostering sustainable multistakeholder engagement in these digital government processes, in these digital governance understanding and development.
I think the opportunities for complementarity between ROAM‑X and everything else that is developing and going on in the Internet governance space is really important, and I think it's one reason why it's so important to be talking about out here at the Internet Governance Forum.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you so much, Chris, and thank you for pointing to the national collaboration and working with National and Regional IGF Initiatives, and we ended the call on the National and Regional IGF Initiatives, and we stand to work with them to advance and roll out the assessments of ROAM‑X at their local context.
I think, mindful of time, I wanted to open the floor to the audience both online and in the room.
If you have any questions to the panellists, any reactions or feedback, I would be very interested to hear from Guy Berger, as the father of the ROAM‑X, as I mentioned. I would be delighted if you could start the interactions with the audience, please.
>> FLOOR: Hello? Thank you so much for the presentation, and wonderful to see this system evolving and the subject of a panel like this.
So it just struck me that for some people, in the dazzle of AI, they may think that the term Internet universality is quaint.
The important thing I think about this term, Internet universality, it allows people to produce content.
If we want to see much more content in local languages, then we have to put the impact on Internet universality because it's the foundation for everything else that's happening in the digital world.
So I think this tool, this ROAM‑X, it's a way for a country to take stock in where the gaps are, in terms of actually enabling their society as a whole to have opportunities to become producers and creators in the digital economy and to contribute to the global tech stack.
And, at the moment, we don't have that. We've got too many big dominant players and matched with too little participation affecting the ground‑up possibilities that society could have from these technologies.
So I command these indicators as a way to produce evidence‑based progress that can really unleash a lot more participation because we don't have universality of Internet. You know, all this other stuff is going to be a limited benefit.
Thank you.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you so much, Guy.
>> TAWFIK JELASSI: I would like to follow up on what Guy just said. Infrastructure and connectivity in order to create content and services. I would like to add the third pillar, which is the digital literacy, the capacity building and capacity development for people to leverage the digital infrastructure towards creating content and services, I think these are three critical success factors to ensure this Internet universality and meaningful connectivity.
And I want to refer to an international conference that UNESCO organised a couple of weeks ago, which is in the capacity building of AI and digital transformation for the public sector.
So the emphasis on the capacity building because the surveys show and studies show that in order to bridge the gap, we really need to have these wide capacity‑building digital literacy in this new digital age and AI era, otherwise people cannot have this inclusive society, the inclusivity that was mentioned earlier. So I think the skill of the capacity building is a third key pillar.
I wanted to add that to what Guy Berger said.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you.
Anriette, do you want to react?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: If there's other questions, I would like to take those before reacting.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Any questions in the audience? No? Any questions online?
Anriette, you can go.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think the concept of Internet universality, as I said, I think digital inclusion is a more meaningful concept for people. I think Internet universality is just harder for people to relate to.
So that's just a reflection. But I agree with everything else you said.
In addition to what Tawfik said about digital literacy, I think the capacity development is absolutely essential.
But I think the other ROAM‑X framework is actually quite useful to assist how digital literacy programmes are designed, developed, and implemented, because so many digital literacy programmes are vendor‑driven or actually just teach people how to use their devices.
They're not linked with rights education, civic education, as it's called. It's not really enabling people to fully understand the complexity of the social media environment.
I think even just using the ROAM‑X frameworks, diversity, gender issues, to assess a digital literacy programme is going to produce a digital literacy programme.
You're absolutely right, but we also have to be realistic that so many digital literacy programmes are, themselves, not connecting the dots.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thanks so much, Anriette. Are there any other questions, whether online or in the room?
I don't see any, so thank you so much.
I would like to give one minute to each panellists to give their final reflections.
Anything you wanted to say, we'll start with Fabio. Please, Fabio.
>> FABIO SENNE: Thank you, Tatevik.
Just to express a few more practical results that we can see in this process, I think one of them is the multistakeholder engagement is not good in terms of the process itself but also in terms of the quality of the data that you can gather.
So this is something very interesting that we saw in this last implementation of the model. Many sources of information coming from the Civil Society, from the private sector that are more or less hidden in documentation.
The second thing that I think was already mentioned is the need for data desegregation and to really understand the topic.
So, for instance, in gender gaps in Brazil, if we take just the main picture of access, basic access, you don't see huge gaps in terms of access. But when it goes to meaningful connectivity, you can see very huge gaps.
So breaking the data indicators and more desegregation, I think it's something that ROAM‑X indicators can do for really not just giving a ranking or who is better and which country is better but also to give a roadmap for action. I think this is the main characteristics of ROAM‑X indicators.
Thank you.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thanks so much, Fabio. Thank you for talking about the issue of reigning. I think what countries have been valuing a lot is ROAM‑X doesn't do any ranking or comparison. It's a fully voluntary assessment aimed at guiding and helping the country. This is something that's been pointed out that's been really appreciated by the stakeholders.
Chris, would you like to go next?
>> Chris: Sure, Tatevik. I know we're wrapping up. I will use my time to agree with Guy's point, the link, it's a very live discussion at the moment. We're looking at the Internet Governance Forum and, as Anriette said, an Internet Governance Forum doesn't necessarily capture, for many people, the full breadth of what our digital society now means.
But I think the ROAM‑X framework does a really good job of highlighting and reinforcing how interlinked and interreliant these are.
>> DORCAS MUTHONI: The data that allows us to pick up different perspectives, like gender equality across different areas or assessments will be really important because without that kind of information, then initiatives will tend to be a bit general, and that could encourage persistence, for example, in the digital gender divide, which, really, even as we were starting the forum, it was very clear that this seemed to be one of the areas that we persistently struggle with across the board.
I look at it from not just usage and adapting but a chance for women to participate in the production of technologies and be decision‑makers and policymakers. This, again, is one of the things we need to look at. It affects how we inspire the generations. We struggle, in terms of being the only woman in the room when it comes to these opportunities.
So that's very important.
The other thing is the sustainability, you know, when we get this moving, however we will sustain ‑‑ I think that's the purpose of having a regular assessment. It's very important. We know what we need to achieve. Are we keeping up? What is going on? We cannot move backwards. We are only going forwards. If we get to know what is happening today and the actions being taken, in terms of the policies and interventions, then we can see the effectiveness of policy.
That's my comment. Thank you.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you very much, Dorcas, thank you very much for pointing out the gender digital divide, which is one of the key issues we're trying to address and close this gap, of course, with support and collaboration for all actors.
Anriette?
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Tatevik.
I started off by saying effective implementation of National Digital Transformation Strategy needs consultation, collaboration, and connecting, or connections. I think, for me that's the strength of the framework. It gives us strength to govern data that we need, to gather data that includes the gender aggregated approach, but it gives us the framework to do analysis and apply critical thinking to how we design and implement and measure the impact of those digital transformation strategies. I think those are extremely important.
If we can think critically and analytically about what we do in digitalisation, we are going to have more impact, and it will be more inclusive.
I'm also very excited by the idea of the national and regional IGFs belonging to explore how they can begin to use the universality ROAM‑X framework.
>> TATEVIK GRIGORYAN: Thank you, Anriette.
Thank you to the panellists.
Before I give the floor to Tawfik Jelassi to close, I want to thank each one of you online, Dorcas and Camila and Fabio and Chris and Guy for your contribution. Every time we have a discussion around ROAM‑X, I'm really excited to see the report on Brazil.
Thank you for your long‑standing support to ROAM‑X, and thank you so much for all the wonderful ideas and calls which we will take forward and take into stock for consideration and action when we carry forward with the ROAM‑X implementation.
Thank you so much again.
Would you like to give concluding remarks to close the session?
>> TAWFIK JELASSI: Thank you.
I would like to thank the panellists and the participates who came to this room for the early morning session of the IGF. Clearly, you have shown commitment and interest in the subject matter we focused on during this session.
I would also like to thank the panellists for sharing with us their expert insights but also the practical country experiences that you referred to.
We have reports like the one I'm holding in my hand which gives full details about the ROAM‑X framework and the Internet universality indicators.
These are available on the UNESCO website, if you want to go through what we discussed today.
I think, ultimately, the discussion, including Guy Berger's remarks, we have an expression. Digital inclusion leaves no one behind.
It's part of the ROAM‑X framework. Anriette mentioned it. Digital connectivity, digital literacy skills, and digital services and content.
Stay tuned if you would like to take this discussion further, contact UNESCO or the panellists.
Enjoy IGF.
(Applause)
