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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>> PAULA OTEGUY: Hello everyone. We're about to start.
Hello everyone. I'm going to start in English and switch to Spanish.
Welcome to the IGF LAC space. To start, I would like to let everyone know that we are having English and Spanish interpretation and this session will be conducted mainly in Spanish, but you are free to speak the language of your preference.
Now I'm going to switch to Spanish. One important detail to have access to the English interpretation reconnect to the session.
(Spanish spoken through translator)
When the WSIS class created, at that point in time was a very young organization. It was quite natural for us to get involved in those processes and to be inserted in this model and I felt natural but it was not easy because at that point in time, there were very strong discussions and extreme discussions and it was difficult to have consensus.
LAC stakeholder had a very important role at that point in time. Raul was leading topic on behalf of LAC, but we are example of organization that is living with the creation of agreements with collaboration. LAC rises from the community, the community of operators and different entities of different countries with different characteristics remote decoration organization to offer services for the region. We continue collaborating and articulating with different stakeholders trying to build new or articulation and discussion mechanisms on topics that are relevant for the region. Like IGF as an example not a good example. Example tool we created defend for a long time, which have our own challenges. Need updates.
Current times are different and topics and the priorities also different now. These are the things that we need to take into account. We need to see how these favorable wonderful instrument that we have. This is the monthly stakeholder dialogue that we have here. How this can help us to create consensus and new dialogues on internet governance because these are current topics and dynamics. So the challenge that we ahead is to see how we, as society as a whole, create new dialogue and develop points of agreement so we can sustain internet development for the benefit of human beings.
Interest from that perspective I guess that it is way forward. We need to identify the things we need to improve and we need to see how dialects can be more balanced to how we can strengthen the participation of stakeholders because this is win‑win process.
And we need to avoid miscommunication. That is the challenge that we have ahead. We need to redefine, if you will, and rework and revitalize modest state dialogue and search for consensus.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you so much. Now, policy coordinator in ABC.
>> Hello can you hear me. I will invite my colleague and I am not going to hear myself, so I will remove my headphone. I work at APC. Institution civil society organization. We are network of organizations of activists work human rights, justice, technology, and agenda.
APC actively works on internet governance processing, global level and at the regional level close collaboration with our members organizations in the Global South.
Comes to the question of panel, the Governance discussions in Latin America have certain particularities of region. For example, some historical inequalities cultural inequalities and of course digital gap that we have in the countries, outside countries? Countries, outside countries, different areas, skill gaps. Other countries, many cases we have public policies or legal frameworks that do not take into account human‑related issues. We work with Paloma Digital Rights in legislation not related to cyber cybersecurity and cybercrime. And since this regulations have big provisions impact taking human rights. Some important aspects in the region to take into account.
And the first milestone that we have is one in 2014. We had this revelation. Event given possibility of government in the region to participate in international discussions, and bring in new topics to the agenda organized by the Brazilian government.
We had new internet governance principles, open internet inclusive internet, transparent processes, allowing significant participation with low barriers to access and sometimes difficult for civil society to participate in certain discussions. There is a stronger movement on discussions in different spaces, but it is sometimes difficult for the Civil Society to participate and engage actively.
2024 update of the principles with Sao Paulo Pipelines and plus 10. We see idea of monthly stakeholder should take into power trees, different stakeholders know difference it's from other stockholders and way that power stockholders have that the internet governance processing should be guided by international principles, social, cultural, rights and those rights are key for most of the world, we are doing. And for many other organizations working on internet or governance space. Civil Society is taking these principles into account and working on them.
And another thing that I would like to mention, today with CDH road, human rights protection framework internet governance related to other rights as milestone I would like to mention.
First audience hearing at the CDH and there were many organizations working and bringing topics to this commission. These words by the carpenter. Work freedom of speech and work dealing with speech in digital spaces, and published some guidelines for free and open internet highlights role of the monthly stakeholder model.
Due to lack of time, I will stop here. I want to highlight those items. Relationship with, internet governance, and human rights. Thank you.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you Veronica. And with this first round, I would like to give floor to Nigel to finish.
>> NIGEL: Thank you. Thank you. For invitation. I will speak in English.
>> Carribean telecommunications UN giving you background about our historical growth in internet governance in the Caribbean. First governs September 2005. Galvanize positions final in WSIS in Tunis. November 2005. We met annually ever since. In fact UN started own internet governance for 2006 and we've kept in step with that since then. Our intention at the outset was and is to harmonize Carribean views and policies with respect to internet governance. Each time forum met, sought to record the agreements that might have been forged at our meetings and recorded them it in a document Carribean internet governance policy framework. This particular document has in fact gone through four different editions since 2025. Actually think the first edition was it 2009? I do think 2013. 2016 and 2024.
And as we meet, we would update the policies associated with it. Back in the original days, our focus tended to be more on internet infrastructure, and more technical. Because there was a lot of infrastructure developed on that still needed to take place. We were talking some cases of electricity supply in various countries.
Nowadays, infrastructure is still spoken about, but it's a lot less it has a lot less focus on the agenda now. Focus is now on things like A.I. and rights and all of that good stuff.
So this year, we proposed to have our 21 Caribbean internet governance forum. It would be in Cuba this year and Vardaro, Cuba from August 20 to the 22. And the agenda still under development. Last Friday closed the core of topics essentially which would help us to finalize the contents of the agenda.
Within the next I would say probably couple of weeks, time, we would be putting out our agenda for the 21 intergovernment governance forum.
Policy framework that I talked about has been used as guide for policy development in the Caribbean territories. It has been used as a guide for CTU's own work in supporting our CTU's member states to develop national policies and one thing we very concerned about is getting appropriate impact from our forum. And we realized that to notwithstanding we had a regional forum. There needed to be impact at the national level so we sought to create encourage development of national, internet governance for each of our member countries.
To date, we have about four of them that have to operating or have operated. And we continue to move the Carribean internet governance around to various member states. So that each one we land in, we could try to make an impact on that local community. To develop its own multistakeholder group and its own national IGF.
When we get succeeded in increasing the number of Caribbean persons involved in fora for like this with national IGFs helped to spawn, also presents strengthening implementation of appropriate internet governance policies throughout the Caribbean.
I probably could stop there. That means a lot. More I could say had a fair amount of success in the work we've done. Helped to spawn internet exchange points. I can stop at this point. Thanks.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you. The panelists of this first round for their interventions.
We see different achievement throughout 20 years. Strengthened the monthly stakeholder model in our region. And these achievements allowed to us emphasize constructive and positive dialogue. However, challenges are ahead as our panelists have highlighted. That is why we are now going to reflect upon the future on this second round. I would like to give the floor to my colleague who continue with the moderation of the panel.
>> ROCIO de la FUENTE: Thanks to the panelists in the first block for giving us the background for our next discussion.
Panelist in this second session will make the contribution. Part of this second panel, our three great questions where related to the future of internet Governance. Challenges needs to dress from all sectors to the monthly model may continue to be alive and may continue to work actively and why do you think that, with WSIS+20 review process is relevant for our regional community. Let me give the Paula Oteguy Ph.D. internet governance professor. The floor is yours. Professor at Uruguay.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Good afternoon. Thank you so much. Pity not to be there with you during this week. I am participating remotely. Let me first say something already said before we have learned, a lot throughout all of this time through this 20 years in the internet governance and different monthly stakeholders approaches. Thinking about monthly stakeholder model, we're thinking about governance, we monthly stakeholder model ahead, this requires certain review, we need to think why we need to have monthly stakeholder governance available and need some other mechanisms had to be associated with other processing promoting, include extensive center oriented internet and this is part of the agreement of the WSIS+20 review because what we have seen is these 20‑year process had different consequences positive impact but at the same time, we need to deep dive on those positive impacts and those impacts are governance level are quite fragile if you will as it was said before.
We need in a world, where the project of unified and globalized world has changed. So we need to revise things. How can we create a better skills better capacities to collaborate? We can promote collaboration not different stakeholders. I would like to strengthen the message that we have in our region.
We have resilience. We have experience. Nigel was talking about the first IGF Caribbean IGF that was held before, even before any other IGF in the world. We had the experience of the work of different stakeholders. We have a platform and this is, I mean, concept that we need to take into account. We don't have to think of a platform as platforms of digital companies. We have ELAC, we have platforms that are collaboration of space, where we can deep dive into different aspects of such as specific corporation. When I say corporation not referring only to dialogue. Could be LAC IGF which is key but I believe we need to work on, start working on cooperation projects, participation of different stakeholders, so that we can develop region infrastructure.
In the context of artificial intelligence, we need to have our own spaces, regions and space have to be more consolidated the. We need to have different skills. And what was said before and what was said in Santiago in December, capacity‑building is key.
We need to develop technical capacities and literacy, but at the same time, we need to continue promoting other skills related to regional governance and national global governance in the context that I said before, we need to take into account that we cannot still work along the same lines because the world has changed, internet changed. We're still advocating open level inclusive internet. My first remarks. Thank you.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you for your comment. Give the floor to Brenda, coordinator of GZBVR and thank you so much. Renata for being with us. The floor is yours.
>> Thank you. Thanks for the invitation to being the being here. I will like to share with you some of the challenges that consider key for internet governance in our region.
First topic I would like to highlight is that the changes promoted by internet allowed appearance of new technologies different impact in our society. For long time, governance spaces stopped dealing with these and now covering everything. I believe that as we spoke about in Sao Pablo some time ago, believe we need to open up our views, spread our vision on internet governance and take into account digital policy process in our region. There is urgency of strengthening articulation of different stockholders, other regional levels based on common aspects. We may highlight challenges related to policy, promotion of policies to guarantee significant connectivity in our countries. The impacts of A.I., human rights protection, reduction of region gaps, development of public infrastructure, as well as the need to have coordinated responses in order to have information integrity, among other topics that are key for digital ecosystem. These are key topics and we need to created not only for articulation, for discussion, but we also need to create collaboration among other governments on this particular topic.
Additionally, this articulation should be expanded at regional level in line with the NetModal+10 guidelines. Veronica mentioned some principles that we discussed in the NetModal+10 guidelines. These guideline should be our reference for other processing. WSIS process and GDC process. It is also essential it reinforce advocacy of governance with active participation. We need to create coordinated pacing to avoid duplication.
New space, discussion spaces come up, that are agency, agendas that are being duplicated because they state protection, artificial intelligence, cybercrime, increasingly difficult to guarantee participation of countries that the Global South, small countries from Civil Society and also difficult to guarantee participation of the private sector because they are not so powerful economically speak. Difficult to participate in so many process. That is why unifying coordinating spaces is key.
I would like to also to reinforce that we believe it is key to integrate Global Digital Compact into the WSIS structure and its review, to contemplate different responsibilities that are shared with different organizations. We need to reinforce participation nonstate, stockholders in governmental process and in the development of government processing, for them to be included in different decision‑making processing as key stockholders. Some of the topics that we have been discussing and seeing in the net NetModal+10 discussions.
Just to finish my intervention, I would like to highlight that monthly stakeholder guidelines were agreed to Sao Paolo should serve as key reference to move forward to digital governance, not only internet governance, it has to be internet governance, and governance of digital process in a more inclusive matter.
We need to work and contribute to have more participation and to have more relevance in spaces like the LAC IGF. We all participate in many other processing and we need to guarantee stronger internet governance in our region. Thank you.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: To close this panel, I would like to give the floor to Paloma Lara, director of public policy and digital rights. The floor is yours
>> PALOMA LARA: I am representing here digital rights, Derechos Digitales. Actively participate in the region global and local level. One of the topics that we usually highlight as key aspects for us is need to consider the different impacts global problems have on the different levels.
Discussing substantial topics, but also we discuss topics in the ones, for example, we see in this panel. We have shared challenges, trying times, difficult situations, structural inequalities, new ways of exclusion, but at the same time, we need to understand that impacts are not the same in all regions of countries. So focused knowledge that comes from communities or from all that comes from level communities or communities affected by certain policies and I'm going to speak Spanish at some point in time. Spanglish.
Communities that lack certain policies. This creates situations and sometimes this situation are not translated into needs of communities.
There was space like IGF are key not only for request, give space for dialogue, monthly stakeholder dialogue, where we have different stockholders engaging. This is also key element to understand local needs and be able to create strategies with different perspectives that satisfied local needs or to address local urgencies.
Even though the world has many asymmetries we say digital, we need to take into account that within this con‑con assessment digital gaps many other gaps to take into account where we have gaps region and local level.
Having upholding this sort of spaces is key and upholdings participation of civil society is key.
Different challenge ahead. Monopolies of companies that are affecting countries in the Global South. We have some drawbacks in terms of legislation, democracy, opening up or guaranteeing the participation of civil society is key element for governance, also urgent demand in order to avoid the creation of new gaps because we need to recognize structure gaps and address those gaps and, therefore, the WSIS review is key now.
What we see now, read the element paper, document that is going to be discussed, we need it take into account that there are some commitments that are not being repeated in the document and that been agreed or in the past. So we are working on basis that has been reduced and that creates new insufficiencies and new problems.
I know that I am running out of time. Let me conclude my intervention by saying that Civil Society key in participation because it helps to visualize situations but at the same time, it's also sort of human rights for participation, significant participation because it can address concrete situations. And the WSIS process and those countries committed to the multistakeholder model. We need to work towards the protection of the commitment.
WSIS is not only updating agenda. WSIS has to deal with recognized structures of problems and new gaps being created due to the new global challenges ahead many related to the technology advancement, but also due to the lack of public policies and the application of human rights.
This is a complicated moment. Crucial time for the civil society and from the different states to safeguard all things we have done so far. Also good time to start looking ahead and understanding that if we are not addressing situations in a different manner, we will lose focus on our communities and our countries and our realities. Thank you.
>> MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you to all the panelists.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Two panelists spoke fast and I wanted to have this 20 minutes for the Q&A. We would like to invite other representatives of the regional community to share with us their thoughts with you representatives from the civil society and technical communities. We would like to invite you all to engage in this discussion and to react to the ideas that have been shared today and of course, panelists have already taken the floor may also engage in the discussion. I see Olga and Eric. Please go ahead.
>> OLGA: (Spanish spoken through translator) Thank you very much for these an enlightening session. We have little time so I will speak about two topics. One of them has to do with my role ask you already know, I am Dean in the ministry of defense and due to specific request of the minister we have created new courses. The first one Latin American Spanish delivered remotely. This is degree in cyber defense. We have many students now started in April. We have other courses, also vehicle courses, happy with that being added to the courses that we are offering.
And the school, 17th edition of the School of Governance of the south already organized. We have 400 participants face‑to‑face and remote participants. We discuss different topics: Artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, how to think about the future, taking into account all the possibilities like technologies offering as today.
And thank you for this opportunity and congratulations on this space.
Eric, I will give the floor now to you. Please introduce yourself. I am Eric. From Peru.
>> ERIC: I am Eric from Peru. I will be very brief.
We have been evangelizing ourselves so good that we believe our own story. And we did it so good, that we were able to keep it for a long time. When I speak about topics such as taxes, and even though we are defending position based on industry, it is another industry, ones that were before, started to work and to make their own promotions in their public spaces and recreation of legislation.
Started to discuss about use of platforms, freedom, defied against violence against women. Regulations or the ways of regulations of communities working with these communities were different in the past and started to create different legislations. Not want to before the pandemic, we could, for example, reach out to makers and stop process or propose new legislation. Nowadays, this is almost impossible despite strength of our boys because we are just one stakeholder in the equation because the whole society digital society. It is not digital topic or digital aspect of our digital topic. The question is how are we going for evangelize other people to join us in the discussion.
For example, discuss cybersecurity, I mean we need to think about the whole industry because some people interested in the making business. So how we are going to discuss with those that are working with robotics not interested in cybersecurity, not going to come to this forum and not going to come to these spaces?
Reflection goes inside because we have been, for many years, I include myself, discussing and convincing ourselves about things that are different regulations and policies and sometimes we are going back in certain regulations, but that are private stakeholders that are doing this. We are not acting against private sectors or civil society.
The thing is that not everyone understands what we are defending. So we speak about multistakeholderism, it is term that only we understand, but this not the case for everyone. We see situations in similar situations in other spaces. Why? Because there are other stakeholders coming up and they are not usual stockholders that we see.
This is something important to take into account because in the future, we will have regulation that we are not going to, off the top, regardless of the fact that we can go and talk to other stockholders. This is because we have different stockholders with different impacts on the economy. More power and different relationship. This is what we lost when we are not bringing people making decisions to this forum.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you. Thank you for your comments. I see two participants. Introduce yourself and you have two minutes for your intervention.
>> Okay. Gracias. (Spanish spoken through translator)
>> Thank you. Uiri Apo Rosa. There is a topic that I heard today. I would like to bring it to the table for the monthly stakeholder model to continue, and one key driver is the Civil Society organizations, Civil Society. Lately, these organizations have suffered critical situation in terms of stability. This is basically due to funding, but at the same time that many other pressures that have to do about other governance models that are state‑centered, these discussions should be taken here. This is discussion that we had in other spaces with different organizations in Latin America, Africa, and Asia. It caught my attention that today, in this discussion, we are not talking about what the community can do, particularly Latin America Civil Society organizations, to try to protect the ecosystem in these particular time.
Thank you.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Lilian? Please introduce yourself. Have two minutes.
>> LILIAN TAMORA: I don't know if you can hear me. Sorry. I am not, was not able to hear you. Can you hear me? Yes. We can hear you please go ahead.
Thank you everyone for this panel. It really enlightening to listen to you. I am Lilian Tamora from the LAC secretariat. While I was listening to the community and learning community and learning about the community wants from this space because this is space for all of us. We at secretariat would like to read for fact that our action is to facilitate the process, but this is your space. That is not our space. This is your space and you participate, and through different committees, those of you been involved in this space for many years, clearly know that this is a huge challenge. This was said in the welcome ceremony. Because the monthly stakeholder process is very relevant, but at the same time, it poses a challenge because we cannot take it for granted. Requires work of all of us. Reiterate this invitation to you all so we can all build up this space together.
We key challenges provide digital to the process and result and provide ability to work in other spaces at international level, that regional level, local level, WSIS+20, and GDC. We need to recognize that we have had some achievements.
LAC IGF is in its 17th edition and so we have come a long way and we have many stakeholders that can contribute to the discussion. However, we do know that this is not enough. We need more participation from the Civil Society, from the governments. We need more engagement by the technical community and on many cases. This is not taking place because knowledge is being limited. Thank you for the work of IGF foundation providing training and allow new people, newcomers to come to us.
So those spaces need to be strengthened as well. At the same time, we also need to look for other communication mechanisms to reach out to other stakeholders for them to clearly understand what we do with this and would like to achieve.
Another challenge have ahead is strengthening of intercessional processing, one of the IGF create intercessional working groups. Something we're working on but, we also receive your inputs your contribution and work to see how we can materialize the idea.
Spaces we can discuss and bring some agreements create definitions or recommendations may go beyond and come up with coordinated space where all the different stakeholders are connected through longer period of time, not only throughout the IGF.
Thank you.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you Lilian. I would like to give the floor to gentleman there. We have Raul Gabrielle and perhaps we have room for someone else. Please stick to the time. Okay. Please be brief. You have one minute and 40 seconds.
>> CHRISTIAN: Good afternoon. I am Christian from Panama civil rights working in Latin America. We saw Panama different administrations social protest different reasons. Reform of retirement process and we also see different situations, violent situation. Government declared urgent session and some Constitutional rights were suspended.
Government of Panama decided to suspend mobile telephone internet services for some days due to this demonstrations from IPANDETEC, supported measures proposes violation to the freedom of speech and freedom to access information, but it also violates fundamental rights.
For example, to cut down internet, and because it prevents people from connecting to the area, families, to or prevents people from accessing to basic services. Such as education or health care. We would like to call and ask other organizations to help us to give disability to this proportions action of by government of Panama and advocate for the resuming internet service from the province of Panama. Circulate statement and hope to have your support, endorsement. Thank you given the floor to Gabrielle from LAC IX.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: One minute and 30 seconds.
>> GABRIELLE: LAC IX is the internet exchange points of Latin America, Carribean. Internet exchange points contribute to improving internet quality for users and they try to minimize the cost of internet access.
I would like to reinforce something that Carolina should be for. She spoke about the collaboration of organizations. We believe this is key in 2018. We assigned collaboration agreement with LACNIC internet society and Carolina indicated we need to move to action, not just say the discussions because we need to make or to prove that use of internet.
I believe that this is my fifth IGF. The first IGF I participated was the first IGF organized in Athens, invited by Raul. Participated in plenary session. At that point in time, main the issue is connectivity costs in our region, Latin America how Latin America was connected to the world.
Nowadays, this is not an issue any more because we have fiberoptic connecting us to all the regions. We have undersea cable joining us or connecting us with Oceania for example. These help us to improve our connectivity and reduce costs. 20 years later, costs is no longer issue, infrastructure is no longer an issue, but there we see initiatives that have to do with regulations that may affect infrastructure and internet traffic.
This, of course, may lead us to go back to discussion on internet cost and quality of internet, something that we probably not achieved all these years.
I don't know if this the right space, at that point in time, discussion was okay, but we need to be aware and we need to be these topics and discussions because we see companies aware of these topics and discussions, see companies that may have an impact on topic.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you. Bring this session to an end. Give the floor to Raul and Ernesto. Can you take one minute, 40 seconds each. Go ahead.
>> RAUL: Let me express my solidarity with the colleagues of Panama for the situation there. This is ongoing, ongoing situation. Bad idea of the government.
Let me recognize the presence of many young people in the room, many of whom were participants of different training programs or courses and they are now in leadership positions. Speaks about us as a community. So congratulations on all the work you did. All of you who worked on training courses, Olga many other people training course, congratulations on the work you did.
We spoke about all the things we concur. I mentioned the success of monthly stakeholder, example of success. They are now celebrating their 20th anniversary. So let me congratulate my colleagues in Brazil. We said nothing is guaranteed. We are all proud of what the committee has done so far. Brazil with bad ideas, certain policies would imply going back all the work we have done. Policies impact the success that was achieved by the committee in Brazil.
Of course, always room for improvement, but we cannot go back in terms of all the things we have done. Our support to the committee in Brazil.
Let me end up by saying that participation of Latin America in recent years has been reduced. We have lost our impact capacity. If we compare ourselves with time of the internet governance working group or WSIS very beginning or the first IGF, I believe that our participation has been reduced. We somehow lost interest in the participation. Of course, there is exceptions. We have Garcia here participating in all the processing, but not all governments have the same level of participation. So I would like to call to action and lately, we have seen creation of different groups at the UN level and they could have better representation from the region, so we need to work to that end. This is a call to action so that we can join our efforts and improve participation. Thank you all.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: 40 seconds.
>> RAUL: I will take all the time that I need. I was joking.
Let me just highlight aspects. Firstly, let me reinforce the message of the role of the DVR. Have all received benefits of the work that we have done regardless of our relationship with LACNIC. We have been working for many years and all the work they have done really relevant. Seeing new initiatives that are being promoted is really something worrying us.
And secondly, when it comes to the step forward, Raul mentioned something. Adding new stockholders, training new generations, or training future generations that will have or take leadership positions in the future is key.
Some initiatives already mentioned in LACNIC. We have certain initiatives that we promote, so this is something that we need to work on to improve knowledge, information, and the understanding of all of this processes. Not only for the stakeholders that we see today, but also for the future stockholders and for all stockholders for them to understand how dialogue should be managed and in order to find necessary consensus for the future of the internet and for the future of the world.
So to wrap up, let me reinforce this message of keep on working on training and capacity‑building in a constructive manner.
>> PAULA OTEGUY: Thank you everyone. So this brings the session to an end. Pleasure to have so many voices here. So thank you so much and we see you in the next edition.
[applause]
