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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>> NILS BERGLUND: All right, good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us for this open forum and global dialogue on WSIS+20 and development goals hosted by the European Commission. I'm Nils Berglund, research associate at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, where I focus on the future of the Internet. We are at a critical milestone for the governance community, the 20‑year review of the World Summit Information Society, WSIS+20. As any important milestone, it is an opportunity to assess the progress we've made so far. Of course, look forward, as a global community, to where we go from here.
So in this session we are trying to reflect a bit on how digital technologies can support sustainable development goals and explore whether we are integrating or translating this into concrete policy or progress towards these goals. We will also try to hopefully identify practical strategies and partnerships that can accelerate this alignment as we approach WSIS+20.
Before we get to this I want to give you a little context. When the goals were adopted in 2015, a tool was created in conjunction with the review called the WSIS+20 matrix. This mapped out the action lines of the world summit information society. Goals like access to information, capacity‑building, cyber security, e‑environment, e‑governance and tried to show the linkages each had with the 17 sustainable development goals. Of same applies for vice versa showing SDG produced quality, quality education and clean water, in align with WSIS action lines. This effectively indicates technologies could accelerate every goal, from eradicating poverty, hunger, gender equality, resilience and climate action.
So it kind of frames this as a universal accelerator and enabler and makes quite a good argument for why and how these goals and respective policy frameworks could and should be aligned. In recent years there's been research support. From UNDP they estimate these benefit 70% of targets. Another study that analyzed (?) Between the developmental and SDG index has found a strong correlation between digitalisation and SDG progress and stronger correlation on economic development.
If you zoom in on specific indicators and goals, there's a lot of good examples of this. For example, on SDG 1, no poverty, you see broadband expansion directly correlates with lower poverty. Or for SDG 3 on good health and well‑being we see universal health coverage is strongly correlated or with education, with SDG 4, where we see literacy and enrolment rates show high trend on the index, of course.
We also know that the alignment between these goals, policies and outcomes is far from perfect. This picture becomes a lot more nuanced when you look at certain other goals. In case of climate action, consumption and production, for example, we have seen some persistent challenges like CO2 emissions and e‑waste that come with digital transformation.
Other case indicators are hard to measure and different levels produce different outcomes and Internet shutdowns can undermine that development. Clearly there are areas we need to better understand how we can leverage digital technologies for specific SDG targets; but then there are other areas we know this alignment needs to be strengthened.
That brings us to these sort of overarching questions I would like to pose to our lovely panelists, but also you in the room. First and foremost, reflecting on past experiences WSIS+ matrix and where we see opportunities for alignment and strategies to leverage digital technologies for advancing SDG. And thirdly, how can diverse stakeholders work together towards meaningful progress on the SDGs.
So we've got a full panel, a great set of seven speakers with us. We have the Kenyan Ambassador to the Kingdon of Belgium. Thibault Kleiner. Director Sook-Jung Dorfel, Director General. Mr. Kurtis Lindqvist, President and Chief Executive Officer at ICANN. Juan Carlos Lara, Executive Director for Derechos Digitales. Dr. Joanna Kulesza, Assistant Professor of International Law and Director of Lodz Cyber Hub. And Opeyemi Ogundeji for the SDG Youth Network.
I will go order you are seated so start with you, Ambassador. You have personally spearheaded digital development projects over the course of many years. I wonder if you could share your reflections and what you see as critical opportunities for deeper alignment between digitalisation and the SDGs.
>> EKITELA LOKAALE: Thank you, how many minutes?
>> NILS BERGLUND: I will give you five minutes.
>> EKITELA LOKAALE: Before I became Ambassador, I used to be the Minister of Communication and basically studied from zero. We started with infrastructure then started making Internet environment available to universities, to citizens. Capacity‑building, digital literacy programmes. I think this should have been done using a systems approach. Where when we went for the infrastructure we should have thought about how would (?) Use it. Of course we did universities, because it was much easier to deal with.
Data has been very critical element. The time we opened up and Kenya, a lot of innovations came out of it. Again, outcome, I'm thinking, if we were to repeat it again, is use this systems approach. Especially now, as AI is coming, that could effectively, in Africa, deal with issues of SDG 1 poverty by simply leveraging AI to teach farmers to know the predictability of rainfall, to give them data on their soils, give them information on what grows where and everything. But it is only techies talking about AI. (?) Providing or talking about regulating AI and missing the opportunity.
Looking back, a lot of productivity improvement has come along with the developments that we did. Especially using this. But it follows after. It is not done currently as I would have liked. Going forward from now, I hope we could deal with this. We had a lot of problems when we were developing our contribution towards the SDGs in New York. Some of the policymakers thought that data is only ‑‑ can be provided by government. But now we have seen, we can get data from various places. If we can begin to think system wide and say we are going to do this, going for it.
Now we are discussing the risks of AI. The voices I think we should be hearing is, what are the benefits. What is it going to benefit the citizens. How can they use it to make certain things. Then others can be thinking about regulation. I'm saying this because one of the most disruptive things we did in Kenya was to allow mobile money. Lot of people refused, but we said we don't have the regulations but let's move forward and see what happens.
It has become one of the most inclusive innovation ever because of the risks we took and brought it forward without regulatory authority ‑‑ let me stop here, smiling.
>> NILS BERGLUND: That is per fantastic. We can come back to these points but in the meantime, I will move to director Kleiner. Comprehensive strategies like the global Gateway when comes to integrating digital policy and SDGs, what do you think has worked well and opportunities to strengthen that alignment.
>> THIBAULT KLEINER: Thank you. I think the SDGs are critical and we see benefits from digital technologies for not only development but for basically everything we do in economy and society these days. We have this also inside the E.U. We are developing our capabilities. But now our message is very much we wanted this E.U. tech offer to be given internationally to our partners.
And in that context we have dedicated a lot of efforts also through our programme, which is called the Global Gateway, to actually promote investments globally. We have done something like 250 projects with the Global Gateway in this area. They are very concrete benefits. The focuses, for instance, connectivity. Secular connectivity we believe is the bedrock of everything digital. We have a lot of capabilities in the E.U., so we want to do more. We have done a lot of projects not only around 4G, 5G, but also data centres focus of attention. A striking number, Africa has as many data centres as Switzerland. There is potential in Africa. In the E.U. we have technology to build data centres, leading companies. We want to do more in this area. In fact, we are contemplating the possibility of having super computers invested in some African countries and also Latin America, very concrete projects there.
I would also say, to be short, that some elements we are bringing as part of this E.U. tech offer, also leaning towards the general framework. Because one of the lessons, looking at the SDGs, you need a holistic approach and regulatory framework and markets are competitive. If you build a network where there is a monopoly, means too expensive to buy connectivity. We have concrete examples in some African countries. We helped build the networks but people are not using it, too expensive. That is why you need also to have this approach where regulation investments and investing in people is brought together.
That is very much our message from the E.U. We work in partnership. What we do is we try to build local capabilities. We want to invest into skills locally so that actually the countries that work with Europe, they can also acquire the technology we provide. It is very much Open Source. That is through Open Source software and solutions and digital public infrastructures that we operate. This is for the right formula. We intend to do more in the coming period.
>> NILS BERGLUND: Thank you. This point about the holistic approach echos the investor comments and wonder if we can reflect on how to integrate that WSIS+20 process. Mindful of gender balance. I want to move to Director Dofel from GIZ. Maybe you can share what you see on digital transformation with sustainable development with a view towards WSIS+20.
>> SOOK-JUNG DOFEL: Thank you. When we talk about WSIS, I thought we don't ask what have you said because what have you shifted. The impact is not measured in declarations but moments. Yesterday Doreen Martin says a farmer receives a flat by SMS and midwife learns to diagnose complications via WhatsApp or a mental health app for others. These moments exist and we should acknowledge it and celebrate. For instance, tonight is music night. Tomorrow we get up and continue working because we also know that one in three people globally remain offline. We know in SubSaharan Africa 34% of women don't use Internet. We see a clear decline in Official Development Assistance. What does that tell us? That tells us principles have not become practice at scale. We are not a tech company but a German‑owned development agency. From there we stand on the ground in 120 countries.
Four things we have learned from aligning risk SDGs. First, capacity and code. Infrastructure matters but digital access without capacity creates dependency, not empowerment. Second, from global talk to local impact, because global debates often miss complexity. We discuss data governance, for instance. The issue in some countries is how do we protect people's data when there is no data protection authority? We need better translation between the norms and realities.
Third, measure what matters and design what delivers. We need a strong linkage between the SDGs and the digital transformation. In particular with smart indicators and mutual accountability ‑‑ of course we have to design solutions that also achieve or help us achieve the SDGs.
Fourth, last but not least, mobilize investments for digital public good. Because the SDI for SDG road maps (?) But certifying mechanisms that combine development fund, private capital and local budget. And as for now a digital public goods are still underfunded and (?). Development cooperation plays role in improving SDGs by strengthening local capacities or supporting the local ecosystems and of course translating local frameworks into context‑sensitive solutions.
If we are serious about turning this vision into practice, we also need strong and inclusive platforms and coordination. I know there are different views on the digital governance questions, with ideas ranging across spectrum from strengthening the IGF to a governance council and strength in the system. Let me advise what we say is fundamental and crucial to us. Global Internet, global rules. No one governs the Internet alone. We also think that governance has to mirror the Internet's architecture, so decentralized by design.
We think complex problems need collective power, collective diverse perspectives. And collective diverse perspectives create innovation and innovative solutions celebrate the access of SDGs. Level the playing field, empowerment growth from inclusion, driving sustainability. Leave nothing one behind also means leaving no one offline. So in short, as Kurtis noted in his opening speeches today, the model works. We need to resource it, we need to trust it and use it.
I think that WSIS offered a promise to build a people‑centred inclusive and development‑oriented society. The SDGs give us a deadline. The people we serve, be it the farmer in Colombia, the midwife in rural Ethiopia or youth organisation in Nepal and many, many more remind us digital transformation is about lives changed, thank you.
>> NILS BERGLUND: Thank you for these structured comments, I appreciate it. You harken back to another comment we heard from WSIS this morning, WSIS project belongs to all of us. I pass the floor to Mr. Kurtis Lindqvist, what you see as priorities to see digital transformation can meaningfully advance the SDGs.
>>KURTIS LINDQVIST: I think there is one more first important thing to do. If we often talk about what we haven't done but we should talk about what we have done, as my fellow panelists Alluded to do. Obviously, we need to look where we can do better. We have a remarkable success story. As we go to the approach to WSIS+20 review and progress on the SDGs comes into focus in that as well, as well as the action lines.
I think we have achieved this. And, as from yesterday, the model does work. And I think it is important to recognise that and delivery of these. And WSIS+20 review and reflection is a reflection on model we have had this global coordination not centralization. The multistakeholder has to fulfil the SDGs and we have seen a lot. We have seen a phenomenal, remarkable growth this these areas. The Internet has contributed to it quite remarkable economic growth. That doesn't mean everyone has seen the growth. We have more to do. We are not done.
I also think we don't say we haven't achieved anything. We have a deadline and have delivered phenomenal growth. If you look at somebody with respect to agri-community and RSBs in Africa, the glue that makes this work. We have seen the ‑‑ the first ten years double and the last two years, an explosion in Africa, helping bring down costs, increase resilience, robustness of network, built at a phenomenal speed in Africa, trying to raise remaining (?) To build on. So I think how we achieved 100% of coverage, no, but we have delivered a lot. A loft SDGs focus on that. Lot of goals has helped us measure and focus on that.
But I also think that meaningful access is more than just connectivity but trust and resilience and there are other goals. Having just a physical infrastructure isn't going to make it accessible. We heard examples of what does it mean, the midwives and deliverable payments in Kenya. To deliver on this, we also need to have a resilient working infrastructure.
Again, we have seen the number of DNS root services from a component go from a handful to over 2,000 globally today, many on earth have these. Short of redundance and resilience. We have seen work done in the Internet, universal actions to make websites and accessible manuscripts and languages, another very fundamental part we often forget about. My native language is in English and native script is kind of Latin but not completely. We forget. We need to make it accessible. Farmers we heard about getting the (?) DNI, they should have accessibility to this. More than the concept, right. I think that is something we need to do a lot more work on. That wasn't one of the examples but one of the things made accessible.
I think there is a lot of work to be done, a lot more to be done. The technical community has a very important role to play to deliver, the promise to ensure the standardization, the technical aspects of this delivers on the promise of the Internet to be served.
>> NILS BERGLUND: Thank you so much. Moving down the line, I want to pass to Juan Carlos Lara from Derechos Digitales. You are actively commuting to this and priorities to strengthen the alignment between digital transformation and SDGs and includes the rights respecting in a way that promotes transparency and accountability?
>> JUAN CARLOS LARA: Yes, thank you very much. Thank you for the institution very well. I come from (?) Civil Society, human rights and digital technologies and several technologies that have gone to work on WSIS+20 process, the digital rights forum, WSIS alliances. All this is important as considering perspective as Global South and Latin American organisations in which we understand the SDGs are not something that can be helped by technologies but commonly are, but the questions we have to ask ourselves, the tasks we have to go into is how to make that so‑called digital transformation align in ways that are inclusive, accountable, enforceable. Effective, in essence.
Many of the things we are concerned with today have been part of the discussion on WSIS during this IGF, especially picking up on the language we have seen from several consultations and also from the elements paper we have seen on WSIS and many of the discussions we are having these days, this week.
But I want to highlight five key aspects as we see as highly relevant for this question, in how we make sure these approaches for WSIS can also be inclusive, transparent, accountable and promote those values. Many of these can be seen in the action that has been requested by Civil Society globally from the WSIS process. One has to do with embedding rights and obligations at centre of SDG‑related strategies. Much of the current WSIS discussion and language in the elements paper tends to reaffirm soft principles and not necessarily clear obligations or clear reference to human rights instruments, in ways that are sometimes baffling in how they might be interpreted towards the future, when we require that basis, that common knowledge and that common basis of international human rights law as the basis of any developmental process.
As we see it, digital cooperation must uphold like those in human rights law, explicitly aligned, including UNDP but cultural and social rights including clear obligations for state action, RL corporate due diligence as well, access to remedy and transparency standards.
Second, it is, importantly, to integrate into the national SDG frameworks. This happens here and there. It is not something that happens at every level. One of the issues we have found in many countries, including Latin America, is the fact that if there is not enough reorientation in this process towards co‑creation and see more top‑down diagnostics, those processes can become not as inclusive as they should.
Third, it is relevant to recognise that inclusive governance requires some degree of joint capacity to make decisions, to redistribute power. Much of the WSIS discussion has recognized the multi stakeholder approach for decision making and the value of the idea. It is highly important that for any kind of future process, not just on agreeing on language, but implementing and taking things forward at the national level as well as the global level, we need to have stronger participation. That requires permanent representation and national digital councils and independent oversight bodies, real capacity to influence the shaping of policy and approve frameworks for implementation and funding and more. This is something at least in Latin America highlighted in general with public making processes. We need to pick that up for this process that's embedded here with relation to WSIS.
Fourth, it is key to have mandates on transparency and accountability mechanisms as a baseline, not something that is common to every country. Digital development plans must include public indicators, accessible audits, participatory review, with I can apply to state's incorporation and avoid vague corporate language but instead move toward culture global accountability.
Fifth, this has been part of demands from global subcommittee, address the fiscal justice dimension of these issues. Much of this work requires funding, sustainable cooperation, public investments and ad hoc funding may not do that, or provide that in a sustainable way. So to link the final thing for development process, to acknowledge cross‑border fiscal measures is also relevant here, including equitable taxation of digital services and other ways to generate resources with digital infrastructure, to provide for that sustainability in the services we value in the space.
So as we have said in many cases, digital justice requires fiscal justice, especially from cross‑national services and transnational corporations especially for regions where underinvestment tracks historical inequities as well. So these are opportunities we see as more than (?). We have an opportunity to influence some international language and commitments but wish to see those commitments then also happen at the national level. Therefore, one of the most important opportunities we have is not just influence at the global level but engage in discussions that allow us to bring these discussions back home and influence at the local level too, thank you.
>> NILS BERGLUND: Thank you, Juan Carlos Lara. I think in your overview, your point to some ideas for addressing the gap between global norms and implementation Director Dofel mentioned and issues you raised which segues nicely to Dr. Joanna Kulesza. You have published research on the Internet and sustainable development and worked a lot on international law. Wonder if you could reflect on this research in context of this alignment we are discussing and discuss a bit maybe what we have learned about aligning secure rights Internet governance with these processes, particularly looking to WSIS+20 if you have time.
>> JOANNA KULESZA: Thank you, Nils. I think it is a 90‑minute lecture, but I will try to squeeze it into five minutes. I thank Nils and his team for this opportunity. I have had the pleasure of working with Nils and UI team on substantiating how we can use international law to support sustainable development, particularly in the digital era. As mentioned, there is a report, but for the purpose of time, allow me to make three points.
We have mentioned the work done in the E.U. Naturally with European Commission hosting the session, we have talked about international development. My job has been to try and identify multiple documents that support the thesis that international law requires sustainable development. One of the areas that Nils and his team have been working on is Declaration On Future of the Internet, I don't think we have mentioned that yet but that is a specific plan on how to weave sustainable development goals into national policies and beyond. We have looked at work done in the UN. Again, in this session. We have not yet mentioned the Global Digital Compact. I know during our week of meetings here the global digital compact will be on the agenda, but it has been a vital discussion to better understand why the multistakeholder model for Internet governance is so important for sustainable development.
ICANN pioneers, the Multistakeholder model, it champions the outcomes and policy matrix but need more. Hence the Global Compact would be one of the example. Nils requested examples, how do we do that, facilitate the end goods and paper, you will find a longer narrative around how the Global Digital Compact has been one of tools to help us convince the unconvinced, if there are, that sustainable development is indeed required.
Then I will move to more specific examples. One of the regions we've looked at in the report are the Small Island States, the colleagues, the co ‑panelists have mentioned developments in Africa, and that is a vital region. There is a lot of support also within European policies with the Global Gateway, facilitating development in that vital region. It seems as if equal input into the Pacific region and Small Island States would be needed. ICANN is doing a lot of work in terms of technical support and capacity‑building that. Is the example for the purpose of the reports.
Last but not least, I was pleased to hear the notion of connectivity. It is fundamental to ensure that connectivity increases, but it is also recommended for that connectivity to be informed and, once again, sustainable.
We would be looking at new Internet infrastructures. One of the areas we have explored would be satellite broadband. There is a project that's been kindly supported by the Internet Society Foundation and a lot of work the Internet Society has done on the infrastructures. Like AI, they are coming into new regions and haste sometimes precludes an informed policy‑making, so the recommendations you will find in the report would include the need for informed decision‑making, both with regards to policy but also with regards to Civil Society consultations, both researchers and NGOs, as my co RAW FILE
INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM 2025
BUILDING OUR MULTISTAKEHOLDER DIGITAL FUTURE
LILLESTROM, NORWAY
JUNE 26, 2025
NEW DATA GOVERNANCE MODELS FOR AFRICAN NLP ECOSYSTEMS
ROOM 1‑ #323
4:00‑5:00 P.M. LOCAL TIME
>> MARK IRURA: Good evening, good morning. Hi, everyone. Thank you for joining our session. My name is Mark Irura. I will be moderating this session. I think we will start with introductions. I will introduce the panel. We have three participants who are online and three on stage.
I will start with Deshni from Fair Forward, from South Africa, Artificial Intelligence for All. The secretary for Technology and Impact. She is especially proficient in skills of prototyping local language within the local community, scaling it to science. Hosts bootcamps conducted for women conducted across three African countries. She has co‑developed South Africa's AI Maturity Assessment Framework. She has especially worked on Language-Accessible Policy Hub for AI Policy Playbook with Global South policymakers. Desh describes herself as a bridge‑builder and co‑creator and advisory board member of the South African AI Association, co-founder of Africa-Asia AI Policymaker Network, working group members on AI strategy recommendations for South Africa and featured in “100 Brilliant Women in AI Ethics.”
Next I will introduce (?) on my left, Principle Researcher at Digital Uganda, Voice Technology for African languages and is AI and Open Data organisation on a mission to democratize access to information in African languages. Founded in 2018, the company builds large‑scale voice and text datasets and develops voice AI tools to bridge the language divide and preserve linguistic diversity. Spanning 17 African languages, they have recorded countless hours of speech samples for models for global impact. Grounded in the tradition of Uganda, community uplift through collective uplift, Digital Uganda unites community, developers, governments and NGOs to build open‑source language infrastructure by Africans for the world.
On the far right, on my far right I have Dr. Lilian Diana Awuor Wanzare, lecturer at department of computer science at Maseno University. Her such interests are artificial intelligence and machine learning. In particular, natural language processing. You will hear the term LLP a lot in this panel. Building text processing tools for resource languages. Served as principle investigator for several research projects funded by BMGF, the Lacuna Fund, Canadian Development Aid & NLP, which is a Kenyan language corpus for NLP and learning research, a project that looks at building datasets for training and NLP tools for underserved languages, particularly Kenya, with use cases geared towards agriculture, language and health, particularly sign language, particularly Kenyans, using virtual signing. She holds a PhD in Computational Linguistics and MSc in Language Science from Salem University in Germany.
Online, I will start with Dr. Melissa Omino. Melissa is director of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Law, CIPIC, leading the Policy Hub and Data Policy Centre. Her research direction is focused on utilizing an African lens and human rights lens. Part of the research conducted under her leadership involved mapping AI applications in Africa. As initial step in answering the question of what determines African AI and problems African AI should aim to solve. Dr. Melissa Omino is an Intellectual Property expert and served as advisory board member in several projects that intersect between AI and IP. This also includes driving a national strategy process and she's led an advisory for global entity funding AI research in Africa.
We also have Elikplim Sabblah. He is a technical advisor working for the Fair Forward Programme within the Digital Transformation Centre, DTC Ghana, and is a German technical corporation. In this role Elikplim focuses on AI policy, accessibility and capacity‑building to foster inclusive and sustainable AI development in Ghana. Elikplim's worked on the development of Ghana's National Strategy, collaborating with the Ministry of Communication, Digital Technology and Innovation through the commission. With a strong background in data science, monitoring, evaluation, project management and stakeholder engagement, Eli is working towards enhancing accessibility, local innovation responsible AI adoption in Ghana.
Last, but definitely not least, we have Ms. Viola Ochola, director of Access to Information. She's an advocate for the high court of Kenya and legal practitioner with administrative law, (?) human rights. Her experience spans over 15 years. And holds an MBA in strategic management and extensive experience in public and private sector. She is the immediate former ‑‑ Complex Investigations and Legal Services and Commission on Administrative Justice, Kenya. Viola is an Open Government Leadership Fellow and member of the technical committee on Open Government Partnership, the Kenya chapter, in her capacity as lead to access information commitment. She is passionate about open governance and empowerment of citizenry to access services and benefit from opportunities offered by government.
The reason I have gone through the elaborate introduction is for you to know who is talking to us in these topics this evening. And also for you to look up the panelists and reach out via LinkedIn and ask questions and connect and continue to engage on the topic.
Our topic today is Exploring New Data Governance Mechanisms for Language Day to Driving NLP Systems in Africa.
The issue of licensing of language has already come up in various workshops. Today we want to have a more practical discussion that looks at research that is currently going on in this topic. Language is culture and culture is identity. Yet the digital identity of Africa is skewed, manipulated, commercialized. The language data collection is characterized by a significant disparity between large‑scale publicly accessible resources and numerous small, isolated projects.
The Mozilla Foundation seeks to positively impact the way in which local language data is viewed, collected, scored and utilized. Currently Mozilla Common Voice is the most diverse multi ‑language open speech corpus, holding more than 30,000 hours in more than 180 languages and example of successful community initiative that is also a digital public good. It is a community platform, as well as lab for linguistic inclusion and for traversing data governance issues in NLP. But there has been an awakening and sentiment change among the language communities. This is what you will delve into today. Speaker who's have datasets and some issues including equitable investment, locally sensitive community control and the dynamics around power and building the technology.
So having set the background for the problem, we are going to highlight the unintended and intended effects of the CC0 Open Public Licence on communities and language data. And we want to look at governance and policy, how do they intersect and what are some solutions that are being worked on to try and resolve that, the problem.
I will go straight to you, Lilian. I will begin with a question on how can AI training data licences be adapted to protect cultural serenity and ensure equitable benefit, especially for those who have been marginalized.
>> LILIAN DIANA AWUOR WANZARE: Thank you so much, Mark ,for introduction. When comes to AI, data is core; and when comes to (?), language and language. As Mark as mentioned here, is really more than just, you know, group of one. It embodies aspirations of community and culture of different communities. If you look at that and think about this data, how can it be licensed in a way that still promotes the cultural values from where they come from, okay. I think about it as one community sentence. How do we go about collecting the data from the community themselves, okay? How do we manage the use of this data along the journey it's been used in NLP systems.
In community centre there are a lot of things that go into it. One is constant. As they are going to provide the data, as they properly informed. This is a continuous process. An understanding of the journey of the data as goes around, being developed and moves across, as being used for different systems, okay. Now how do we balance the issue within the licensing, the issues of open sharing vis‑a‑vis benefit sharing, okay? Those things should not be mutually exclusive. We can still have open sharing and benefit to share. How can this be embodied within existing licencing to have both? In such a way that here is, we still do open sharing to facilitate development of tools, development of, you know, systems that promote the language.
But still, from where the data comes from. It is no longer (?) Have benefit of tools are going to be developed from them. How does this move not just from this community but the larger language community. Those are tools in themselves but the larger community holds the particular words, languages. Think about it in the last bit as I close, in this licensing ecosystem, another different ways to look about licensing and licensing in general, in this ecosystem how transparent is it to different views on different come nations that support requirements be able to really pull things together that are aligned to your values.
And there is no one‑size‑fits all. There can be different ways that still supports the community centre, the communities, but still allows for open sharing and development (?) That would be my opening remark.
>> MARK IRURA: Thank you so much, Lilian. I will come to you, Melissa. Lilian has mentioned something to do with the different needs and different requirements over the entire, let me call it, language or AI language life cycle. She's talked about values. And to it I want to throw in the benefit.ly not just make it economic but when we think about benefit. I would like you to help us unpack that in view of the question, like how do we think about sovereignty. But also enable these things, this kind of walk you are currently undertaking.
>> MELISSA OMINO: Thank you so much, Mark. Hope you can hear me.
>> MARK IRURA: Yes.
>> MELISSA OMINO: Excellent. When we think about the benefit, I don't think we here should be discussing the benefit without referencing the language community. Because that is where the benefits should flow. So in part of the work CIPIC is doing with University of Victoria is reaching out to language communities, and I'm being specific and this term, language community, because there is also a data community that exists and is African data developers who actually collate into the sets for natural language processing.
We think that community, the language community, should be able to speak for itself and say what type of benefit that they would require for the particular use of that language dataset. Has already been mentioned by Dr. Lilian the different types of uses might require different types of benefits or might actually require a different thought as to what a benefit would mean. A lot of resistance towards having these language communities speak about quote unquote benefit is it is automatically assumed to be a monetary thing or a royalty‑based thing. But essentially ,we are saying it should be given up to the community to decide what that should be. Most my discussions with various communities, including the (?) Via the (?) University, wants something sustainable and community‑based, everyone can interact and benefit from. A monetary or royalty benefit doesn't quite meet that mark.
So essentially, we need to think about the harmful dynamic created with the current use of language data sets and fact these being commodified in AI systems primarily serves dominant languages and wealthy corporations, while marginalized communities receive no benefits, no matter how you define it, and often leave their cultural protocols, values, practices violated. So a benefit could be the respect of the cultural knowledge the language carries or even a shared or access to this AI tool that's been built using the language data.
So can a licensing framework deliver this? I think it can. That is what the new dual licence of (?) digital licence is supposed to do, provide avenue where this conversation about what type of benefit would flow to a community would start from. We are sort of trying to fit it into what currently governs the language data set regime, which is copyright licensing. So we came up with an alternative licence with elements of copyright but also elements of recognition of cultural knowledge and giving a voice to the community to negotiate about what they would want as a benefit.
Here I would have to signal the Creative Commons community, where I am a board member, who just yesterday released publicly their work on preference signaling that would work hand‑in‑hand with Creative Commons licences, giving data stewards of sets used by AI to be able to say what they would prefer that data set to be used for or as. So this is actually signaling that this act of benefit recognition, benefit‑sharing is something worked on and needs to be worked on. And maybe it is not for us to determine, because it would just be us imposing our thoughts on these language communities, but bringing language communities to the forefront so they can speak for themselves as to what they would like, thank you.
>> MARK IRURA: Thanks, Melissa. I appreciate specifically your comments and would benefit obviously one of the things that is a point in the continent is the issue of avoiding, you know, the colonisation through language and through AI. I think this is an important question to ask. I will come to you and ask you about policy.
When we think about policy and think about policy framework, what are good principles we can incorporate to think about, you know, equity and anti‑extractiveness, so there is mutual benefit. We do not stifle innovation, as Lilian is saying, but grow in advance. We still need a Commons to be able to move forward.
>> MELISSA OMINO: Thanks, Mark. I think in other view equity, we are required to think about communities as having ownership and not just a group that would provide consent. Ownership and consent are two completely different things. The traditional data sharing regime treats this as sources rather than partners. This extracts value while leaving these communities with just the risks and harms. So there has to be a shift where there is community data sovereignty and I think (?) Has alluded to this and you alluded to that, Mark, where we legally recognise communities as collective data stewards with inherent rights to govern data about their members, territories and cultural knowledge, which is where language would fall into.
Individual consent is not enough when data affects an entire community. We need graduated consent that requires community consultation before individual agreements. The community gets to weigh in on whether that serves collective interest and get to voice what collective interests are. This includes verification rather than one‑time permission and complete transparency about who is benefitting and how and also deferring community veto power over harmful applications.
If someone profits from community data, the community must benefit too. This means a mandatory benefit‑sharing requirement where communities might get a percentage of profits, if that is what they want, or might get capacity‑building investments in infrastructure, education and priority access to products developed using their community data. This is not coming from me, this is from consultations I have had with specific community members.
So in order to prevent exploitation or to make this shift to these new ‑‑ utopia I'm speaking about, we need strong anti ‑extractive safeguards so data should not be shared without going back to the community for permission. Communities should be able to reclaim their data and take it elsewhere if they figure like, which requires regular audits shared publicly within months to have accountable. All should have penalties for violating community agreements. I must admit here my bias as a lawyer. I'm really thinking about legal frameworks and structures, so that is why I'm talking about accountability enforcement mechanisms.
I think that works currently in language data‑sharing regime because they are using agreements being copyright licences to govern sharing of this data. So the conversation ‑‑ rather what I'm trying to highlight here is it is automatically about power and not just viewing data as a tool and a data governance regime, so not just about privacy. It is really about where is the wealth and power concentrated and how can we then distribute this in an equitable manner. So legal frameworks would be one of the policy considerations that I would think of, but I also think that governments, when coming up with their AI strategies and policies, which a plethora of those have happened on the African continent. They need to centre culture as one of the main pillars of their strategy. I know the Kenyan strategy does that. It does mention culture is an important factor. It does mention responsible and ethical AI, which this would be a pillar this conversation would fall under. It also talks about model development for problem‑solving on the continent. You cannot talk about model development for problem‑solving if you do not think about language datasets.
So I think that this is essentially how we can get to a balance. It is not about closing off the data; it is about ensuring it is an equitable exchange between those who want to collect and use the data and the communities that have preserved and curated. Again, I say there are two communities that exist: Language community, suffered historically in procuring the language particularly in context of Africa; then data community, who put in effort, who views their skills and knowledge in creating these data sets and who have an interaction with those who fund these activities.
So there needs to be a balance for ‑‑ let's talk about these three parties in this context. Those who would like to use the dataset, those who have curated the languages and preserved them and those who have created the dataset.
>> MARK IRURA: Thanks, Melissa. I'm looking at you. Melissa has taken us to utopia, to (?) But coming back to what exists now we could latch onto. Even us as Deshni gives her remarks, I will ask you to ‑‑ ask you, Viola, to be on standby to give us a different perspective, if there is anything Deshni have missed out on, so over to you, Deshni.
>> DESHNI GOVENDER: So I think it is important to point out when we mention the concept of extractive practices, it is not always foreign versus local context. So cross‑border issue because I think these practices often happen within countries in the continent under the guise of open collaboration concept. Do I think policy protections that cover digital work should also actually take their foundational basis from existing protections that afforded to cultural and indigenous communities which exist in a civil context. So assuming those foundational building blocks exist, then policy protection can almost come into play in two ways. Sorry. Policy protection can come into play in two ways, which is as a source for human rights, because that is really important protecting labour rights and gig worker who's often do the un‑sexy work of labeling data, of training algorithms, but also coming as a counter‑leverage point in context of open source and digital public goods. We have heard the speakers mention the concept of quid pro quo, if you take something, give something back.ly just run through very quickly a few points. So fair sharing is one way.
Then my co-panelist Melissa mentioned the Noodle licence but the Incuba licence developed. Another way is if a commercial actor has to cross‑subsidize public maintenance in an open source ‑‑ for Open Source AI resources, what would that look like? Does it come with conditions? But the use of open grounds or language‑term partnerships that actually benefit the community. One example was a grant Google did, had given to Ghana NLP with few conditions that the community could use as they saw fit. I think the other one for that AI policy could include, which doesn't often happen and should, is having where there are foreign investors or foreign partners, including local partners equal collaborators. Oftentimes local partners come in as just consultants. When you have equal collaborator you have co‑owner of Kopura (?), often done by MOUs or just general contracts.
I think policies should make AI developers accountable and could look like impact reports or independent audits. I will mention quickly something I came across, before I hand over to Viola. In my research something that is called the Nagoya Protocol. This actually exists in the biodiversity space, requiring fair and equitable sharing of benefits in the use of Genetic Resources, like plants, animals, microorganisms, et cetera. I feel if we want to learn we could learn if parallels like this. Establishing something like the linguistic protocol for use of African languages in AI could be a great policy tool for regional principle, codes of conduct. I guess another could be the AI policy playbook launched at the UNESCO conference a few weeks ago. I will stop here.
>> MARK IRURA: Over to you, Viola.
>> VIOLA OCHOLA: Thank you, Mark. After speaking after Melissa and Deshni, most have taken out, most of policy requirement, but I would still emphasize the data sovereignty and equal data‑sharing that both Melissa and Deshni talked about. The local African community should be able to control their data from the point of collection and up to the point of usage of those AI technologies so that they are able to be part of the process.
So the whole process has to be inclusive. They should not just be there at the point of information give us or data give us but should be involved in the whole process. And Melissa mentioned she is a lawyer so would be biassed around the legal framework. I will also speak ‑‑ I'm also a lawyer. The legal framework around collection of this data has to be very stringent, has to be very robust so local communities are protected from possible exploitation, from the external, big tech, so to speak. So even at the point of using the benefits, whatever way they may define these benefits, they are able to benefit from that so that it is not an issue that they feel are being exploited.
Quickly, the aspect of community ownership should not just be something that is entrenched in the law but should be actually mechanisms operationalized within the ecosystem, within the African countries so these local communities can be reached. Because sometimes you'll realise some of these communities that are in very remote areas in the African continent, and sometimes even in terms of their digital infrastructure, they cannot even access some of these benefits or some of these ‑‑ what the external parties want to develop.
So it will be important for the governments, at least African governments, to ensure the infrastructure is available so that these communities can be able to reach out to these quote/unquote investors who might want to develop this AI technologies using the languages.
With that, like I said, the engagements have to be very meaningful. It shouldn't just be like one of my co‑panelists said, something that you are just called to give information or to give data. You have to be aware and understand what exactly you are giving out and the possible repercussions of that. And finally I will speak to another policy perspective. That one of building the capacity and skills development of the African nations. Because you realise sometimes the issue is the lack of skills and the lack of the capacity to do this within the continent.
So it is important for the various policy frameworks to be able to put in place possible training solutions or skills development strategies so that some of these technologies are home‑grown and home‑owned also so that you then now even develop a framework from which you can transfer the knowledge locally, beyond just waiting for the external parties to come in.
And this is not necessary to be done within the country. You can also collaborate with the big tech to be able to develop the skills within the continent. Their skills will be developed from there. So I think I'll stop there, thank you.
>> MARK IRURA: Thanks, Viola. Also thank you for, like, such a broad response. You covered infrastructure, you covered capacity‑building and this speaks to an equal system approach. Like you can't just develop infrastructure only. You can't just build capacity. You can't just develop policy.
So I will look at you, Sam, now. When we are coming up with national AI strategies, the goal is think about where you want to go and what do you want to achieve. I will also ask you, Eli, to share experiences from Ghana, since you have gone through this cycle. I will start with you some. It is an abstract question but also a simple question. Very simple. Can governments support community‑led governance? Could government partner ‑‑ it is always top‑down, it is always, this is what you need to do. What do you think about these strategies to help support the growth of the AI-unique system coming up.
>> SAMUEL RUTUNDA: Thank you, mark. I think the AI strategies or AI policies, they help within these three categories. First they raise awareness. Usually once something becomes a strategy or a policy, it makes people to know about it. So AI, once it is implemented, people are looking at all the components of AI, which currently the major one is the language component. Second, it creates a working framework that governments and other entities can use as a guideline or as a framework to follow. Then it also adds some accountability because they have to explain something. This helps us. Where in the absence of that policy, this could not have been.
Then in terms of what it create, it starts creating a discussion. I mean now when you go to them, you can have a base of how you can discuss, some place from where to start the discussion and they can look and say oh, we have a plan, policy or a strategy and this is what it says. Then the thing about languages cross‑cutting, and touches many aspects of everyday life and starts creating synergies. So for example, someone in health can say oh, actually we are thinking of using this tool. But they don't know how to do it. Given there is a policy, they have where to ask. It is that even as a community start saying how about we work within the health. For example, medicinal plans. Is it something we can capture within or languages.
So it creates synergies and collaborations. Then ultimately, the goal is to raise resources. With these discussions and with these collaborations how as a country we start streamlining how we raise resources, because there is a need to raise the resources. Yeah, I think that is what I will say.
>> MARK IRURA: Thank you, Sam. I will invite you, Eli, to also contribute to that point. Bearing also we have a global audience and we have also ways that we are trying to see and build this ecosystem in a way that others could learn from us.
>> ELIKPLIM SABBLAH: Right, thank you very much, Mark. I continue to say governments should definitely support our communities to take ownership or lead data governance so far as language data sets is concerned. Government should actually empower local communities. By thinking about the idea of national strategies, the AI policies and AI strategies. Then looking at the way that the (?) Has been drafted it includes which ‑‑ includes local communities and major stakeholders. So just by that definition through stakeholder consultations and ecosystem analysis and research, SWOT Analysis, all that process should already include communities that are existing in the space. If that is the case, then in the first step and we put in the communities take ownership of whatever comes out of data ‑‑ what data governance is concerned in a particular country.
Now what I have learned in Ghana is currently we have our draft national AI strategy and undergoing review. Throughout the review processes, we reach out to various groups, trying to understand their specific needs and what they would like to see in the review document. It has been consistently spoken of how they need to see representation in there or how they have to ‑‑ or they would like to be empowered to be able to given datasets governed within same space.
In the draft, there is a pillar that actually speaks to this. Pillar 5 which says strategy seeks to provide data collectors with guidelines and principles for collecting data, storing and sharing it. I think this creates an avenue for government to empower local communities to take the lead or ownership as far as governance is concerned. If the government ‑‑ if their strategy would actually pinpoint specific principles and guidelines that these communities need to take. That would eventually influence how ‑‑ the level of ownership they be able to take of data governance system in the country.
So I think a lot has been said already. We also need to take a look at adopting alternative licences and models. Noodle has been mentioned by Dr. Melissa on the call, in this session. And this position work out well for all the communities involved.
>> MARK IRURA: Thanks, Eli. I think this is ‑‑ this is something also that all this comes up with me. And this morning in a session I had it. So I want to put an open question to the panel. So we've talked about rule, regulations and not talked about money. Some from this panel asked the difficult question about money. A lot of the challenges even that came up earlier was the procurement systems. Is there ‑‑ because procurement provides an opportunity for these communities, develop communities that Melissa mentioned. Even talked about like people who are in remote areas, they cannot benefit because there is no infrastructure, no connectivity. So to this panel and anyone who might have a thought on it, the issue about public procurement and ability to procure innovation. That conversation with government. Not just in Africa but globally, because I think that is also an issue.
Do you have any reflections on it? We have presentations from government but will not put her on the spot but tell you anyone who has a view. Like what could we do in this regard. So that even as we talk about governance, procurement becomes an issue, thinking about procuring this. Any thoughts?
>> SAMUEL RUTUNDA: Let me start. Usually, I don't know, I was talking to someone and say government is run by accountants. Accountants, they want facts. They want what is this going to do. Then still in the early stage of language technology, but particularly within our domain, especially for low resource languages so it is difficult to show the facts. It is something to say oh, I will take a chance and then I will see. Yeah, but I think there is a need to take a chance. For example, when we worked the beginning with Common Voice for Rwanda, there was no policy, no AI ecosystem, there was nothing. Then there was a leap forward to say, okay. Let's take a chance.
Now six years, I think, 30,000 hours have been collected, I think. There is at least, last time I checked, one in ten African languages that were done. So there is a need to take those chance. But then that requires us to talk to people and to convince and change mentalities to say okay. This is what happened. Then another thing, currently I'm also looking, although we are talking about language, we should look at the settings. For these technologies to be used, there is maybe access to the Internet or the digital literacy and others, so I will have to look globally, but there is a changing of mind sets to deploy some use cases and learn from it before having first having proofs so you can deploy.
>> MARK IRURA: Thanks. Anyone else with a view?
>> DESHNI GOVENDER: I think I would come in for, one of the things we know about African language or NLP from indigenous languages, a lot of time it is oral. Particularly for African languages but for other cultures. The problem with having culture or language that is intended for oral knowledge, it means it is also shaped by tone, shaped by cadence, by who is telling the story and the meaning attached to it and also communal use. The problem is it creates a little bit of an NLP design flaw. For example, a design challenge in how do you actually codify knowledge that is not as easy as taking something that is, you know, a book then making it digital.
So the point I'm trying to make is when we talk about procurement and what it is we need to do, we need to understand what asset we are actually working with. It is kind of hard to understand the asset you are working with if you are not even sure how to put it into create an asset value or ‑‑ you know it is an asset but don't foe how to make this tangible and in a form that somebody says oh that, is actually interesting, I'm willing to invest in it or willing to do this or that. It is the difficult part of trying to actually unpack that and then unpack it properly and in a way that you actually same and preserve and protect the cultures and nuances that come with trying to take this raw material that is an asset to the people but then make it a tangible and international value that you can say cool as a country we have this and this and now how to use this as a tool to come in for infrastructure development, knowledge sharing but still protect the people.
>> MARK IRURA: Thanks, Deshni. Melissa.
>> MELISSA OMINO: I'm going to ask you a very lawyerly question, when you talk about procurement, are you talking about funding? When you think about procurement, I think of funding. In the local context, I really think the challenges on government, to move away from looking to other people to save us. I'm stealing that from Dr. Albert, the keynote at COSA. He said no one will save us. We need to think of ways we can locally invest in natural language processing so we can then call the shots or really have the terms, put down the terms of how the language data would be used. I think this is something that government is very much aware of.
A lot of conversation around the Kenyan AI strategy is how will it be implemented. The Kenyan government made decision to keep the implementation plan away from public purview but there is a plan there. There are key performance indicators there and there are key partners identified to help with that AI implementation strategy.
Essentially the conversation we are having, we are at the beginning cycle of natural language processing and the next person in room can say that. We need to talk about collection when we talk about language data and building models that will utilize this language data. That is why we are up in arms about having that open and free‑for‑all, because it will minimise the ability for local companies to invest in that language data and build models, because the market will thoroughly thrash them. If you are talking about market economics, demand, supply, et cetera, which also as a lawyer I might not be very good at. That is the end of my disclaimers.
So I think when we talk about procurement, we need to talk about funding and also stop looking outside. We need to think about locally on the African continent how can we fund. At the key AI Summit this year there was a conversation about infrastructure, about having data centres, which is very integral to how do we control who can access and use the data. There was a conversation about starting to have particular data centres in particular regions. The question was, will it be accessible to African developers or creating centres for others to use on the continent in order to be compliant with data governance regimes.
So I would say for public procurement to make sense we need to first think about funding. To think about funding we must challenge local investors to put their money where their mouth is and invest locally. Not just in data collection but in the development of models. Because, as far as know, nobody outside is actually funding the development of models in a path to truly have African AI, thank you.
>> MARK IRURA: Thank you, Melissa. I will come to you Viola. If you are online and have a question you'd like to pose, please put it in the chat. Over to you, Viola.
>> VIOLA OCHOLA: Thank you, mark. Mine will be quick. Melissa has talked about funding because, you can't talk about procurement without the funding bit. There is the other aspect of procurement, the process. I believe that is where the challenge you are speaking on was. The question is, does even the procurement officer understand what it is.
In government, where I am, there is always a process. In Kenya there is the Public Procurement Act that outlines the process. Part of the process is you need to give specifications and you say this is the end product. Sometimes the procurement person is not aware of AI, let alone even, you know, any other thing. So it will be difficult for such a person to even appreciate where you are coming from if you are to procure this.
So maybe as a way forward, and I know Kenya has developed this strategy. It is very fresh. It was launched in March, at least I will tell you. We need to perhaps just build the capacity of some of these key offices. For example, the procurement of government so they are able to appreciate this may not necessarily be tangible item we are looking at but could be something else. So that is number one. Number two, because the laws as we have them now do not appreciate such thing, we need to review the laws so that they capture these angles. This law should not only be reviewed by lawyers.
Melissa knows, you need to have the technical capacity to be able to put it in the laws in a way that it will inform what you want to get at the end of the tunnel. So I think I will stop there with respect to procurement, thank you.
>> MARK IRURA: There is a friend of mine who says for government procuring a bucket of milk and procuring (?) It is not supposed to be like that. I will come to you, Eli. I will ask a question. Let me start with you, Lilian, because you work with communities. What sort of skills would communities need to build in order to govern their own language technologies effectively. Like so yes, we are saying government ‑‑ these are issues, right. Before they come to ‑‑ they did a number of skills, so we can even talk about the governance of the language. What do we need?
>> VIOLA OCHOLA: Thank you so much, Mark. It is interesting because as we walk through this community ‑‑ we have this Mozilla Project that we go to the community and understand what exactly they want in terms of language to be used in AI. When you pose this to them they like, it is just my language. Not exactly something bigger.
Actually, there is a lack of exposure or lack of knowledge in terms of what can be used. But if you start unpacking the possibilities, then they say ah‑ha, lot of interest to work with and seeing how their children and future can benefit from it and seeing less aspect of capacity‑building. One, they need base‑line knowledge. From people collecting the data, as Melissa said the system. The people collecting the data, as they collect it, are they aware how do we package it and fit objective X, AI model there. Not just how we packet the collection. Then in terms of people who are going to develop the particular models, okay, do they understand how the data comes in or used or just sit down and hope data centre because we find students are looking for data but have no idea how data is collected. They have to be able to think about based on this problem, how is the whole pipeline and wanting the government come into play and think about if you want to govern this system, what really. For them, they really not have a governance framework.
If somebody wants to use all that, how do they come in? If I want to share my data, how do they come in. If media wants to share the data, how do they come in. All these data generated, how do they come, the benefit structure. You can see then they really don't know what comes together to develop these models. There is a disjointedness in terms of how this comes in vis‑a‑vis model. Somebody once asked ,I want a model to help me in chemistry and read some of what you are seeing. First of all, do you have chemical (?) before we test? To start, the utopia of this thing is magical but no understanding of how do we get there and how do all stakeholders come into play to make us get there, maybe that needs to be put into it, thank you.
>> MARK IRURA: Thanks. Eli, I will ask you -- maybe almost to wrap it up or talk a little bit about anything to do with community work, right. Since we are at this place where we are thinking about governance, of products developed for and by these communities and probably in collaboration with them.
>> ELIKPLIM SABBLAH: Thank you, Mark. For the past responses from other panelists, one theme is connecting all of it. You can hear a lot about maybe outreach and community sensitization and all that. I think you have to understand that ‑‑ some definite skills have to be built. We need people who in communities understand digital rights, who understand the importance of data and who understand linguistics or skills in linguistics to be able to maximize the opportunity that this technology brings to their communities.
Now one of the things I have come to understand is that sometimes there is community fatigue regarding contributing today that collection schemes. So the sensitization would make them understand and immediate benefits in terms of monetary terms or whatever in the immediate sense or ‑‑ but it goes along with contributing to something bigger that can actually benefit them immediately and also the nation as a whole. So I think it is important for us to understand the need for outreach programmes, to reach out to people in communities to let them understand artificial intelligence ‑‑ we did research trying to understand how women (?) are using AI and LP tools to interact with their customers and partners and all that. We came to them, and most of them are probably using tools that have AI algorithms working but they don't even know. Also some express a level of fatigue, as I already mentioned, that tired of contributing to data collection schemes and stuff like that. But we actually need people with indigenous knowledge and indigenous experience to exhibit to these things.
One other thing I wanted to also point out is the need for us to let these models we are developing on the African continent to represent African culture. One culture is shared ownership of resources. When you talk about African culture and oral condition, proverbs and expressions and stories don't have proprietary ownership; it belongs to the community that. Should be reflected in models in data collection activities so the data and models are open access to all. I think I mashed up a lot of things but basically that is what I wanted to end with, thank you.
>> MARK IRURA: Thanks, Eli. So I will ‑‑ a question has come. We have just run out of time. Lillian, in one circle, how to bridge between building capacity for local communities in AI beyond collection and increasing usage of AI models within those same communities. 30 seconds, please.
>> LILIAN DIANA AWUOR WANZARE: It is about partnership and collaboration. We have local ecosystem, funders, internal players, how do we come to the collaborative view to make this possible. Cannot be distracted, that is the whole effort within the whole ecosystem.
>> MARK IRURA: Thank you, thank you. I don't want to recap what has been said. I began with an elaborate introduction of everyone. Maybe I didn't introduce myself properly, I'm Mark Irura, I work with the Mozilla Foundation. You can follow us online. Each one of us, you can press subscribe button and like ‑‑ no, subscribe to LinkedIn and feel free to ask about the work and this work and about what they are doing. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Thank you for being part of this panel, we really appreciate it, thank you.
(Session conclusion 5:01)
‑panelists have indicated to provide to make sure that whatever policy decisions are being made, they are rooted in international law. They reflect the multistakeholder model for policy development and decision‑making and do ensure sustainable development.
One last component I would like to mention within the 30 seconds remaining, I would focus on metrics. You will find this in the report as well. If we want to make sure that we are achieving the goals, I believe this was mentioned by the director Dofel also, we need to measure the proffers we are making. My experience with ICANN, metrics are always high on the agenda and something we can carry forward. I will stop and thank you for inviting me to join you.
>> NILS BERGLUND: Thank you, Joanna. You can find this report on the website but you can speak to me after the event. I will make sure you have a copy. Last but not least, Opeyemi Ogundeji. I know the organisation is working on a voluntary review of the sustainable development goals in Nigeria but thought you could reflect on your local context, what you see as the critical opportunities for aligning and leveraging digital technologies for advancing the SDGs.
>> OPEYEMI OGUNDEJI: All right, thank you, Nils,for the UI, for inviting me.
This sustainable initiative in Nigeria, basically advocating for youth engagement in programmes and policies, enable to lead and try. For the past eight years we will actually be working at a grassroots level ensuring young people are meaningfully engaged and also contributing to advancing the SDGs. In relating to the question is asked me, I will be speaking on three points. Actually, as the opportunities we believe that can be leveraged on. The first one I will speak about is decentralizing policy processing and using digital platforms. We have actually been able to identify these in one of our project, which will actually work done, Civil Society, to be stronger communities in Nigeria, especially in advancing the Nigeria climate policy, the national plan and national determining contribution. What we noticed is when most policies are being made, the top‑to‑down approach actually being made use of. People at local level could actually take actions or actually advance these policies to ensure we have more resident communities that are really informed. And relevant, making use of the top‑to‑down approach, why not make use of bottom‑to‑top approach, work with decentralize climate policies to enable people at the grassroots level what could actually take actions to get to know more about these policies and also receive up positive dialogues, dialogues using these resources. To gather what community base needs for adaptation for them to basically develop their own local adaptation Plan of Action for each of the states.
Also, the next point I also want to make mention of is approving affordability and accessibility. True needs‑based services, subsidization. In Nigeria the authorities were increased and for a country where most of the people actually, you know, want the (?) What to need. Basically daily needs of foods, getting shorter. Increasing that data does not in any way as well help them to have access to digital services and digitals we are looking for to expand and enrich SDGs.
Why young people at this level actually understand accessing digital resources or being on ‑‑ being accessible to digital technologies could help them gain more global opportunities and access. More better opportunities to improve livelihoods and actually go for, you know, meeting their basic needs rather than, you know, subscribing to data or looking for Internet connectivity, so access a lot of this opportunity. Get access to quality education. In that sense what it means is, why don't you make use of, you know, digital needs‑based association whereby people who really need this, needs for this should be given access, be enabled to afford these resources in order to advance the SDGs. By doing so what we are saying is we are contributing to the SDGs that talks about reducing inequalities, quality education and innovation as well.
Last but not least, the last point I was going to talk about also is digital capacity‑building across sectors. You know, most times the private sectors work in such a way that, you know, even when you want to get (?) The first point is most time they ask you, do you know how to use MS, KS digital services but it is not most times seen in public sector, whereby the workforce at times will want to engage.
As a youth organisation, I'm speaking from the point of view of youth organisation, when we reach out, partnership for growth, we have to go through several steps and processes, which could basically limit all processes by engaging digitally, but the issue is the workforce, a limited number actually have access or know how to make use of these digital resources. In that sense, we access physical letters, means physically as opposed to counterparts where you can exchange email, get quick responses and move ahead when it comes to, you know, partnering for good and advancing the SDGs.
What this means is while the private sector is advancing and improving capacity of its workforce, I have been asked to digital services, which should look at the public sector as well. The workforce, you know, speaking Of the schoolteachers, we are speaking of people working in the (?) sector, let them have access to quality digital which could improve their work and advance SDGs.
Citing personal experience, as a young person in Nigeria, I would rather go to the private ‑‑ to go for private health care because I know I'm not going to have a need to follow a long queue, which I experienced and had to be carried around. But in private sector, they can take care of data and digital use of (?) And you have quick access to health care. It is not that evident in most of the public, health care services.
What does this say? Basically, this is an opportunity for us to ensure while private sector is growing, we need to look at public sector as well, so there is this capacity‑building across the sectors and where every sector is actually receiving the quality attention it needs to get.
So in summary, and I will be concluding by saying that advancing the SDGs in Nigeria, true digital technologies requires a focus on inclusive access, decentralized participation and cross‑sector capacity‑building. If we are truly committed to living (?) Digital inclusion was included not as luxury but as foundational enabler for achieving the SDGs.
>> NILS BERGLUND: Thank you, Opeyemi, for this concrete example. I will open the floor. If anyone is interested in making a question or comment, you can line up here on the side. You can also flag or indicate your willingness to speak online, where we have an online moderator that will communicate that. Meanwhile Opeyemi I will ask you a follow‑up question, just briefly. Your organisation works with I think it is over a thousand volunteers, you told me yesterday. What do you see the role of youth in strengthening the outcomes of digital technologies?
>> OPEYEMI OGUNDEJI: Thank you very much. We work with young people. We actually have a large community. You can check us out online. While working with youth we know young people, particularly young Nigerians are excited about the SDGs. From time to time you seeing young change‑makers saying SDG 4 or 6 because they are enthusiastic about making things work and building the community they desire to see and actually have their children take over from.
So for young people in Nigeria, I'm speaking for young people in Nigeria, what we are looking for is our voices are actually heard and listened to and actually given accurate support in terms of technical assistance. We make use of more in our work. We work with young people that are very enthusiastic about work in local community, using the training, where we actually empower them. Then go into local communities to empower so many other persons. That is more like a multiplier effect.
So young people are interested, but then we need the actually create room to sit in decision making processes and the conversation that is actually meant for them so they can actually make their voices heard. And also when they do it, when they are raising their voices, and that is why ‑‑ the issue of rights comes in, because most time will say, this is not working, this has not been done. Before you know it, the voices are saying oh you don't know what you are saying, so we need to give them that room. When we do this, (?) because these people are enthusiastic and eager to make something work.
>> NILS BERGLUND: All right, thank you so much. We have our first question. Please go ahead. Introduce yourself. Your name and organisation also, please.
>> Can you hear me now? Ad (?), Professor of Communications from University of Nigeria. I have two questions. The first is to His Excellency from Kenya. My question is, today is an important day in Kenya, so my question is around WSIS, SDG, how important it is in Kenya, because the government in Kenya, how do you reconcile the internal commitment to digital rights and inclusion, especially in inclusive governance N there isn't domestic response to civic movement especially in light of today being important day in Kenya, especially around concerns on digital access and policy accountability. Then the other is to the see of ICANN, positioning itself as cornerstone and accountability to not only single government and broader Internet community. Yet we sent edits to remove exclusivity and stands on single national administration and global‑agreed principle. At this time, WSIS+20 calls for inclusive development and SDG emphasizing leaving no one behind. How do you support these changes and prevent interference from global and inclusive corrector on Internet governance, thank you.
>> NILS BERGLUND: Let's take the second question, then we will move back.
>> Thank you very much. My name is Dimsonalufi (?), Consultant and Chair of Advisory Council Alliance of Nigeria. After the comment, two questions. Let me say great job you are doing, well‑done, appreciate what you are doing. And to comment perhaps we are looking at WSIS+20 and SDG, we may need to dig deeper at the grassroots. Out of WSIS, we have IGF, along action line. Maybe we can deepen discussion at the sub-national or local level. Maybe state level, look at domain‑level to bring in more people in the discussion. Then a question: Do we have anybody from SDG on the table? SDG office, as we call it? I know in some countries, they have SDG offices. We don't usually ‑‑ you know, we have realized them to be part of the discussion. So is it is a good thing to mobilize the SDG offices to part of the discussion? The question again, the last one, yes to ICANN President, yes, we have been talking about sustainable funding for IGF, which is part of WSIS, really. What is ICANN doing? We have this auction proceed fund. There is interest coming out every year. Is it not possible to have small part dedicate to IGF funding?
>> NILS BERGLUND: Thank you. So a handful of questions. Maybe we will take them in order. We will start with you, Ambassador.
>> EKITELA LOKAALE: If I understood the question correctly, the question is about the youth and access to Internet or youth and ‑‑
>> NILS BERGLUND: I think what Kenya is doing more generally on digitalisation and SDGs.
>> EKITELA LOKAALE: Oh, wonderful. Internet (?) Is high, about 80%. Because of it, a lot of people are doing online jobs and online things. Kenya is perhaps one of the countries in Africa that, in spite of the unrest by the youth, Internet remains open. Because of high unemployment, we have had a bit of challenges with the youth, but Internet in Kenya has never like gone down because of the unrest. The number of jobs in this space ‑‑ I see the idea Kenya has witnessed huge productivity improvement, just to use of ICT. A lot of resources are coming into Kenya because this is toward supporting start‑ups. Actually, Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria are leading. So I have no doubt that we would eventually find ways of settling the youth who are these most majority now, almost 70% is below 35. It is a huge challenge. That is why we grow subsidies, especially university kids to use. We provided P free Internet to the Kenyan network, subsidized laptops and other tools they needed, and we are continuing to do that to to see we clear the unemployment for the young people, thank you.
>> NILS BERGLUND: Thank you, Ambassador. Please, go ahead.
>> KURTIS LINDQVIST: I think two questions, the first reports about change in policy at ICANN. Unfortunately, with the report he isn't quite correct, sir. We have two pages, one related to employment at ICANN, a representation of employment practices across all jurisdictions where we have employees. As for any multi‑national corporation with multiple employees, we update these policies to reflect changes in employment law and employment structures. We have always had a commitment to equal employment opportunities and we are deeply committed to having a continuous. That hasn't changed, nothing has changed. There were some updated recommendations, employment legislation in the U.S. We reflected that in the page. That hasn't changed the policy. It has to do with the wording you use around this.
We reflect ed that change. That was all the website was. All community policies and commitments are the same. They haven't changed, haven't changed anything regarding this. They are developed by the community for and by the community and remain committed to this. So I think that is ‑‑ unfortunately, a bit of representation, but slightly taken out of context, but that is the answer to the first question.
The second question on what we do, ICANN is one of the largest donors to the IGF, so we do already contribute significantly to the IGF, to the donations to this. The auction proceeds are guided by a community‑developed policy of how we use these community proceeds. There are discussions in the community how these proceeds ‑‑ if this currently policy as set by the community is right or should be different. I know it has been raised with the IGF a few times that is a policy process inside ICANN to decide what we do with. This might well be the community has different opinions on how or when to use this, but at the time being, that is the goals we have for how that is being used. Again, we are very committed to ICANN ‑‑ ICANN too, to IGF. We are ‑‑ will continue the donations we do to see IGF be sustainable venue forward.
>> NILS BERGLUND: Thank you so much. We have one question from Thor, the EMI from IGF, how can WSIS support global self in developing digital strategies aligned with SDGs given disparities in digital infrastructure and governance capacity. We have only five minutes left. I want to give you all a chance for kind of a closing word, so maybe also put my own spin and add to it and ask you all to maybe highlight one priority action or recommendation that we take, looking forward to WSIS+20. Maybe I will start in the order, so I will give you one minute, if you can keep it at that, Ambassador, and pass to Director Kleiner.
>> EKITELA LOKAALE: Thank you. I think what we should do in Global South is for government to avoid taxation, which actually makes the cost of accessing the Internet too high. That we should begin to do that first before we look elsewhere.
Second, we have to subsidize university and other tools it require. This is the most consequential period ever with the match (?) That we can improvement in Africa, especially what I see with respect to AI. It we must take risks and people say we have to be careful but we must take risks and move wit, develop local LLMs. That is how we can begin to move forward, thank you.
>> THIBAULT KLEINER: I think as the discussion highlighted today, the SDGs are covering a lot of ground, so I think if we want to be impactful, we need also to have priorities, but we also need to make sure that it's not just about investment; it is also about the conditions for delivering them. To me, in the first minute, is really complete the connectivity and map where things are missing. This is what the E.U. is doing currently. We want to execute these projects of investment in telecommunications networks, submarine cables and combine these precisely with legal framework that would give access to everyone.
>> KURTIS LINDQVIST: The task is clear and depends on the technical coordination being stable, across borders, sectors and languages. I think someone at beginning said the current value of Internet is it is fragmented, is unique global reachable accessible ubiquitous network. This is really a foundational principle to enable everything else we talked about here today. Unless we safeguard and protect that in context of WSIS and going forward. Everything we talk about is understand foundational principles. That will deliver very much what we talked about today.
>> JOANNA KULESZA: We should take risks, but I argue for informed policy making. We researched decision‑making. Just because the new technology is there, doesn't mean it should be instantly allowed and used by the people that. Is what the SDGs are there for, to keep us safe from those who might wish to benefit from this. Concluded here, thank you again.
>> JUAN CARLOS LARA: In support, but at same time, participation. Aside from connectivity being supported and not just think of things as services to be provided but networks to be built, we also do need improved local participation. I will always say ‑‑ emphasize that. But for this process it is important to maintain and uphold sustainable communities P participation, from communities and meaningful remote participation for those who decide not to make the trouble. But that is highly important points to take notes.
>> SOOK‑JUNG DOFEL: To drive SDG impact, digital strategies and road maps must be embedded in local realities, shapes for inclusive partnerships and backed by long‑term eco‑system‑thinking globally and locally. That is why IGF, global regional level, met us more than ever. I have to say this as member.
>> OPEYEMI OGUNDEJI: All right. What I'm going to say is, as we look ahead, one thing we should look at is ensuring there is capacity‑building across sector. The public should be growing and every sector should be growing alongside and second part is we need to recognise youth voice is actually very, very key, very important and their voices should be amplified when comes to decision-making processes because they are basically the future. Lastly what I will say is people at the local level also need to be considered and where whatever intervention we are given, we should keep in mind and support them so receives adequate supports they need.
>> NILS BERGLUND: Thank you so much. So with that, I will close by just sharing on Friday 20 of June co‑facilitators of WSIS have shared a paper on areas, including ICT for development. You are able to submit through the 15th of July. If anyone is interested in contributing, I encourage you to do that. Help me give them all a round of applause.
(Applause)
