National and Regional IGF Initiatives (N/RIs):
Planning the IGF 2016 Activities
Virtual Meeting I: 21 January 2016
About
1. The first virtual planning meeting for developing a work plan of the national and regional initiatives for 2016, taking into account 2015 activities, took place on 21 January 2016 at 14:00 p.m. UTC. It was hosted and moderated by the IGF Secretariat. The agenda is attached to this document as Appendix A1, and a list of meeting participants as Appendix A2. Appendix A3 contains relevant supporting documents as the report from the IGF 2015 substantive session and the survey results.
2. Participants were given an opportunity to introduce themselves identifying their role in a National or Regional Initiative, or attending as an observer.
Summary Report
3. The Host opened the call describing the purpose of this first of the year meeting of the National and Regional Initiative Coordinators, which is to review the 2015 activities of the Initiatives and identify suggestions for strengthening both the work of the Initiatives, but also to identify additional support from the Secretariat. This meeting built on the results of the 2015 Survey conducted and presented during the Substantive Session, and on the recommendations for 2016 made by participants in the Substantive Session held during IGF 2015. [Meeting Report and Survey results posted to Coordinators list earlier. See Appendix 3]. Further discussion took place on this initial call of the N/R I Coordinators, and as noted in the Next Steps, the Coordinators committed to ongoing calls and face to face engagement, supported by the IGF Secretariat.
Several suggestions /recommendations for creating the N/RIs Coordinators 2016 work agenda were offered. Recognizing that not all Coordinators were on the call, this list is provided in Next Steps as DRAFT, so that Coordinators can contribute via email to the Coordinators list.
4. The Coordinators were reminded again that the past MAG Chair had proposed that the N/R Initiatives contribute to a key theme and topic for the IGF 2016. During the Substantive Session, the Coordinator asked for and received support for this, with participants noting that support from the Secretariat to seek this input would be useful, and also noting challenges of timing. During the call, it was proposed and endorsed that a Survey Monkey approach with proposed potential topics, suggested from the Coordinators would be used, and implemented by the Secretariat in the next few days, so that the next Coordinators call could approve topics for a Survey Monkey sent to all Coordinators, with the goal of a survey by early February. This will enable review and input by the Coordinators for the upcoming IGF MAG /Open Consultation expected to occur in March.
Due to the agenda, additional discussion was dedicated to enabling how new incoming Initiatives ask questions to more experienced coordinators. The Coordinators agree that this informal and useful discussion needs enhancement and enablement. Some ideas were discussed during the Substantive Session, such as the creation of an Observatory.
5. According to the above, the agenda was created and adopted unanimously. It is attached to this document as Appendix A1.
Final outcomes from the Meeting
6. The below content summarizes the proposed suggestions for the 2016 work of the initiatives.
- It was emphasized by several participants that the relevant sessions for national and regional initiatives should be more output oriented. An example offered was the one used during the engagement in ‘Connecting the Next Billion (CNB)’ methodology. In line with this, it was noted that many of the N/RIs contributed significantly to IGF 2015, both in the Substantive Session but also in the sessions about intersessional activity [ for example, 12 Regional and 10 National Initiatives submitted their contributions to the CNB, as showed at the IGF website, here].
- The participants supported the suggestions that more outreach by both Secretariat and by N/RIs Coordinators, should be undertaken to contribute to attracting more participants. As a potential goal to be achieved during 2016 and 2017, doubling the number of IGF national and regional initiatives was suggested and approved by the majority of the participants with a recommendation that a logistical planning has to start as soon as possible.
- On the potential list of 2016 goals, a creation of the ‘Outreach Communication Plan’ was suggested to be included. The participants agreed that relevant information on the work of Initiatives should be gathered as an input (from the existing initiatives), and consolidated in a sort of ‘info-manual’ that would be published it on the IGF website. The purpose of this informal ‘info-manual’ is to help new coming initiatives having all relevant information on one place. The ‘info-manual” will contain the experiences of the existing initiatives on their challenges that they were facing during the formation and organization of the event and would serve as a set of guidelines for forming and running an initiative. Examples of shared information might be: how to fund raise locally; how to recruit from business locally; how to engage with civil society; engaging youth in your national IGF; what to include in a registration process – name, affiliation, gender, youth; how to create support for your report [e.g. recruitment and training of rapporteurs]. By publishing it on the IGF website, the relevant information will be more exposed to new Initiatives and strengthened by the experiences of existing Initiative Coordinators.
- It was recommended to quickly create a mini survey to support input to suggesting at least one of the themes and topics that should be reflected by the annual global IGF activities. A survey will be distributed to all the Initiates using the mailing list that is under the Secretariat’s administration. The proposed time framework is early February 2016, where more details on the concrete deadlines during this month will be negotiated trough the N/RIs mailing list.
- Reactivation of the regular meetings of the N/R initiatives, suggested during the 2015 Substantive Session and again endorsed during this Meeting, will be shared again with the whole mailing list. It was proposed that these should be scheduled and committed for meetings of coordinators during the open Consultations/Multistakeholder Advisory group Meeting(s), with also commitment to the IGF annual events. While observers may attend, the priority will continue to be Coordinators and their designees. The Coordinators will discuss any changes or enhancements to their purpose and to the virtual meetings. The main purpose of this will be a constant review of the progress with the priority of the engagement of the Coordinators, or any designees.
- It was suggested to establish ‘one sponsorship per national IGF’ for the coordinators from the developing countries for the purpose of funding their costs to attend the global IGF’s annual meeting. It was indicated that the potential funding sources should be discussed.
New in-coming Initiatives were welcomed:
7. The newly formed national initiatives of Belarus, Sri Lanka and Democratic Republic of the Congo joined the call.
8. The representative of the South Eastern European Dialogue on Internet Governance (SEEDIG), shared the experience of forming the initiative and organizing the meeting. It was emphasized that funding and human resource’s related issues are the biggest challenges for their Initiative,.
9. The Belarus IGF coordinator shared some of their Initiative’s concern related to the financial costs , attracting sponsors and questions on how to reduce the costs.
10. From the IGF of the Democratic Republic of the Congo it was pointed out that their IGF organizational team would appreciate the support of more experienced Initiatives in terms of bringing together different stakeholder groups to the meeting.
11. The representative of the Sri Lanka national IGF welcomed the proposed suggestions indicating that this Initiative is in its developing phase where the suggestions of all IG related individuals and communities are very useful.
12. Due to the lack of time, it was agreed upon that all Initiatives should address these and related questions to the mailing list of all national and regional initiates: [email protected].
Next steps
13. The Secretariat will make a summary of all proposed suggestions and recommendations. The document will be shared through the national and regional Initiatives’ mailing list: [email protected].
14. All interested parties should send any potential suggestions, recommendations, updates, edits and questions to the Secretariat via the above mentioned mailing list or if they prefer, they can send it off the list, to the Secretariat at [email protected].
15. Next meeting: The next meeting will take place in two weeks’ time. The Secretariat will send out details for indicating preferences for the next meeting slot using a Doodle poll.
16. The meeting summary will be distributed in the next three days.
APPENDIX A1:
Agenda: National and Regional IGF Initiatives (N/RIs): Planning the IGF 2016 Activities , 21 January 2016
- Overview of the 2015 activities: what worked well and what didn’t?
- Contribution to the development of the topics and themes for the IGF 2016
- Reactivating the regular meetings of the N/R initiates coordinators
- Recommendations for improvements for 2016 work
- New initiatives: ask the coordinators
- AOB
APPENDIX A2:
MEETING PARTICIPANTS
- Amine Hacha
- Arsene Tungali
- Ashwini Sathnur
- Anja Gengo
- Brian Gutterman
- Charlotte Simões
- Cisse Kane
- Chengetai Masango
- Eleonora Mazzucchi
- Fotjon Kosta
- Imran Ahmed Shah
- Jevgenija Voronko
- Judy Okite
- Julián Casasbuenas G.
- Laura Hutchison
- Lianna Galstyan
- Luis Bobo
- Maheeshwara Kirindigoda
- Marilyn Cade
- Mark Buell
- Mary Uduma
- Miguel Ignacio Estrada
APPENDIX A3:
The supporting documents that were used during Meeting:
- Report from the substantive session at the IGF 2015 available at the IGF website here: http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/documents/igf-meeting/igf-2015-joao-pessoa/igf2015-reports/641-igf2015inter-dialogue-session/file
- Results of the survey presented at the IGF 2015 available at the IGF website here: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/16YODlTq7Io_WZjF-NYi_UKUZtKrHo2pwWDQy-RbIBYY/edit?disco=AAAAAiX79Gc