IGF 2016 First Open Consultations and MAG Meeting April 4

The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the First Open Consultations and Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) Meeting for IGF 2016 in Geneva, Switzerland, from 4 to 6 April 2016. 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 to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

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4 April 2016

Geneva, Switzerland 

 

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.  Welcome to the first open consultations and MAG meetings for the 2016 IGF.  I'd like to welcome you all, and just before we start, I'll just make a few points.

 If you want to make an intervention, could you please either raise your hand or your nameplate and then we'll write your name down on a piece of paper and the chair will call your name when your turn comes.

 When your name is called, can you please just state your full name slowly, for the scribes, and your organization, and then you can state your intervention.

 We're also going to have some remote participation, so it's very important for them as well because they cannot see you.

 Okay.  With that, I would like to introduce our chair, Ms. Lynn St. Amour.

 [ Applause ]

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you.  As Chengetai just said, my name is Lynn St. Amour.  I'm chair of the 2016 IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group, and I'd like to give a warm welcome to everybody here.  I just had a volume -- is everybody -- can everybody hear me?

 Okay.  Thank you.

 So this is the first meeting in a series of preparatory sessions for IGF 2016, and I think as has already been stated quite a number of times in the list, we're in a slightly compressed timetable due to the events late last year.

 I'd like to move forward at this point with an adoption of today's agenda.  

 So I know there have been a number of comments on the mailing list.  The secretariat actually informs me that those comments have been taken into account.  I think I'd like to make one additional point, and that was that Virat had kindly suggested that we should move the introductions of the MAG members from tomorrow to today and that that would facilitate discussions.

 I have to say that my concern with doing that is it never takes less than an hour to introduce all the incoming and outgoing MAGs, and from my perspective, that takes away from the open consultation.  

 As it is, we have six hours and a very, very full agenda, so I think with everybody's forbearance, what I'd like to do, perhaps, is just in two ways ask the incoming MAG members to stand up for a moment, so that everybody can sort of get a sense of who's here and where they are around the room, and then I'll ask the current MAG members to do the same, and then we will hold the fuller introductions to tomorrow.

 So I do hope that's okay with the MAG and certainly with Virat who introduced it.

 Again, my goal is simply to maximize the open community consultation time.

 So if that's okay, could I ask the incoming MAG members to just stand up for a moment?

 Okay.  Excellent.  And obviously, welcome.  We'll have a much fuller welcome tomorrow.

 And could I ask the current or returning MAG members.

 Okay.  Thank you.

 And I also have to recognize that this, of course, leaves out those MAG members who are participating through our online mechanisms, so I would like to thank them.  That's not the easiest way to participate in these sorts of meetings, but certainly putting the time and effort into it is much appreciated and I really hope they do feel that they can contribute fully, and we will do our best to continue to recognize them and encourage that.

 So I'll just describe the agenda briefly and then we'll move to approve it.

 So we'll start out this morning with a number of comments from the honorary co-chairs, both outgoing from last year's IGF and incoming, and I'll do those introductions in a moment.

 We then move, for the bulk of the morning, to the taking stock of IGF 2015, and the intent there is to look at the achievements, the challenges, and to do that with a view to how that impacts and what implications it might have for IGF 2016.

 I'd like to conclude that by lunch, although we may need to continue it for a short period of time in the afternoon session.  

 We'll come back at 3:00, and at that point we're actually going to have a presentation and open discussion on the outcomes of the December 2015 high-level meeting of the General Assembly on the overall review of the implementation of the outcomes of WSIS, including, of course, which was the IGF mandate, a very kind of momentous point, I think, in Internet governance world.

 So with that, I'd like to put forward the question of endorsing the agenda, and I will look for any comments or questions.  

 Seeing none, I will take our agenda -- 

 Sorry.

 >> Thank you.  Good morning to all and congratulations to you.  Yeah, working here.  

 Just wanted to have the password for the WiFi.  Thank you.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Chengetai?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: What's the password?

 >> It's W4C16.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: So with that, I will take the agenda for today's open consultation as approved.  

 Now, on the panel here this morning, I will just do now a very brief introduction and we'll have a fuller introduction and certainly many thanks over the course of the morning.

 We actually have Wai-Min Kwok, who is the representative from UNDESA, and he will address us shortly.  

 We have Ambassador Benedicto Fonseca, who, as you all know, is the honorary outgoing chair.  He was honorary co-chair of IGF 2016 and he's an Ambassador of Brazil with the Ministry of External Relations.

 And then immediately here to my left, we have the honorary co-chair for the IGF 2016 Mexico, Mr. Victor Lagunes, who is the Chief Information Officer for the Head of the Unit for Innovation and Technology Strategy, Office of the President, Republic of Mexico.

 And I'd like to obviously warmly welcome all of them.  

 And you all know Chengetai, but it doesn't feel right not to do some sort of introduction.  Chengetai from the secretariat.

 So if I'm not mistaken, at this point we move directly to comments from Wai-Min.

 >>WAI-MIN KWOK: Thank you.  Chair.  Good morning, everyone.  I'm pleased to read this statement on behalf of Mr. Wu Hongbo, Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.  

 I quote.  

 "On this occasion of the first open consultations and Multistakeholder Advisory Group meeting of the 2016 Internet Governance Forum, I would like to extend on behalf of the United Nations Secretary-General our warm welcome and greetings to the chairperson and membership of the MAG.

 I also would want to thank the government of Mexico for hosting the 2016 IGF.  

 Our thanks also go to all MAG members and multistakeholders for their past work that has had a profound effect on Internet governance today.

 I also thank Ambassador Janis Karklins for his leadership as the MAG chair over the past two years.

 Most of all, I would like to express my deep appreciation to all of you as stakeholders representing the wider global community.  It is your presence that reminds us of the diverse perspective on the Internet and the importance of facilitating an ongoing deliberation involving all stakeholders on complex issues affecting the Internet ecosystem.

 The year 2015 marked an historic turning point for the United Nations and its member states.  In September 2015, world leaders adopted the (indiscernible) agenda for sustainable development anchored in 17 universal, interconnected, and integrated substantive development goals and 169 targets, many of which are relating in one way or another to the Internet and the information and communication technologies.

 Last December, the General Assembly also endorsed the remarkable progress of the Internet and ICT at the overall review of the outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society.  

 As part of the outcome of WSIS+10, the General Assembly acknowledged the role of the IGF as the multistakeholder platform for discussion of Internet governance issues and decided to extend for another 10 years the existing mandate of the IGF as set up in Paragraphs 72 through 78 of the Tunis Agenda.

 Member states further recognized that during that period the forum should continue to show progress on working modalities and the participation of relevant stakeholders from developing countries.  We've asked here today the 2016 MAG membership, appointed by the secretary-general, to advise and assess him on the program of the 2016 IGF in Mexico through its two MAG members and you, out of a total of 55 members representing 46 countries from diverse stakeholder groups, a step toward the broader representation of MAG membership compared to previous years.

 Let me reiterate that the United Nations attaches great importance to the open and inclusive process of the IGF and the multistakeholder policy dialogue on Internet governance.

 Together with you, we strive to do more to ensure that the value of multistakeholder participation continues to be embraced and broadened to include those who are not yet privileged to participate in this important journey.  Together with you and the Internet broader stakeholders, we hope to continue improving the working modalities of the IGF and the participation of stakeholders from developing countries.

 The 2016 MAG and the IGF community have important tasks ahead.  Collectively, we need to work harder to bring about greater roles of the IGF and the Internet in driving and empowering sustainable development to ensure that no one is left behind.  Let us fulfill this vision.  

 I wish you a productive and successful meeting ahead.

 End of quote."

 Thank you.  

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Wai-Min.  And please pass our regards and thank you to the Under Secretary-General.

 So at this point in the agenda, it calls for a welcome by the MAG Chair.  I think it's particularly important to recognize all the contributions of the outgoing MAG members.  There was a tremendous amount of work last year.  In addition to preparing the program for IGF 2015, there were also an awful lot of other activities associated with the WSIS+10 review that was running in parallel.  So that was an additional set of activities which many of the MAG members supported.  And I think the success of that work is clear in that the IGF mandate was renewed and not only for a five-year period but, in fact, for an extended period of ten years.

 So I'd like to very much recognize and thank all the outgoing MAG members for their contributions and at the same time welcome the incoming MAG members of which I say this year's task is no less daunting because of the expectations that I believe are so high given the ten-year renewal.  It's a significant roadway ahead of us.  It means we should have, I think, high aspirations and big goals to make a difference here.  And at the same time, we are working within a slightly compressed time schedule for this year's IGF.  But we'll touch on more of those points over the course of the day.

 I am very honored to be here as the IGF MAG Chair.  Congratulations are obviously due to many for getting us so far.  The IGF and certainly every Internet governance effort I can think of is best served when it's done in a global multistakeholder effort and certainly in a teamwork, collaborative environment.

 Those congratulations extend obviously far beyond the MAG to many individuals, organizations, institutions, community groups that have all supported Internet governance activities and certainly all the intersessional activities that were a part of this greater Internet governance ecosystem.  The ones that come to mind of course are the best practice forums to the IGF, the dynamic coalitions to the IGF, and also the national and regional IGF initiatives.  But there are so many other forums out there whether it's the Wuzhen Summit in China or the NETmundial Initiative that have all contributed and for the appreciation of matters and what they mean.

 I think at this point, I would like to thank UN-DESA and the U.N. Secretary-General for the confidence that I believe they showed in the multistakeholder processes by appointing for the first time a chair that doesn't come from a government background.  And I think it's a very good recognition of all that we've achieved together and as well as what multistakeholder processes can accomplish.  It's not a surprise to a lot of us that have worked in these environments for a very, very long time.  And particularly when we look at what it took to get the Internet here after so many decades, it's a very common way of working in some communities but not in all communities.  So, again, I really appreciate the recognition from the U.N. Secretary-General and UN-DESA to those processes.

 I'd also like to specifically thank Chengetai and the IGF secretariat for all the work they do day in, day out.  They do a great job with, I have to say, surprisingly few resources.  And I'm sure they can count on all of us to do what we can to help their efforts as well.  This is going to just as big a lift for them as it is for us with the reduced time frame.

 Before we pass on to the next agenda item, though, there are a couple of other people I'd like to recognize.  We'll come to the hosts of the IGF 2015 and IGF 2016 in a moment.  So this isn't passing them by.  Perhaps we can think of it more of as sort of warming up the crowd.

 But specifically I'd like to thank Ambassador Karklins, not only for his very capable chairmanship of the IGF MAG over the last few years but for all he's done since the very, very earliest days of WSIS.

 I first met him when he became engaged as the WSIS-2 Prepcom chair in 2004.  And he showed great leadership through that process.  And he's been at all of the key events in Internet governance since that time.  He's participated in roles across many of the Internet community organizations, certainly within ICANN and the GAC.  And I know his attention to other entities and other communities in this Internet governance ecosystem has been much, much appreciated.

 Personally, I and the tech community owe Ambassador Karklins a lot just as frankly we owe Nitin Desai and Markus Kummer a lot because when we started engaging in these processes, in fact, there were three communities that were recognized within the U.N. system.  And the Internet technical community, those organizations that are responsible for the management of a lot of the critical infrastructure were not necessarily a natural home in those other communities.  And they found ways to include us, to ensure we had a voice.  And the result of those discussions and those processes is, in fact, what gave us the fourth stakeholder community, if you will, in this IGF system.

 So, Janis, Nitin, and Markus as well as far as that goes, they found a way for all voices to be heard.  They did that by being open to new ideas, new people, new organizations.  They were inclusive, and they were thoughtful about the processes which, by the way, were not particularly well-defined and were in many instances being made up as we were -- as we were moving forward.

 It didn't mean in those processes that everyone got their way but at least -- I'm speaking for myself -- I always felt like I had a voice.  I felt that I was heard.  They took pains to make sure that we understood their decisions and, to the best we could, were satisfied with them, that we were supported.  At a minimum, the rationale was always known.

 So, by and large, I think that worked well and has been a key piece of the Internet governance activities since then.  I hope we can keep a lot of those principles up as we go forward.  And with that, I would just like to thank and recognize Ambassador Karklins for all his activities to Internet governance over the years.

 [ Applause ]

 He has been very supportive of me in this role.  I have worked with him for a very, very long time.  He has said he would make himself available as needed to support me, and I greatly appreciate that.  And he will be joining us tonight at the cocktail reception which follows immediately after this.  So everybody will have the opportunity to thank him in person.

 So with that, excitingly, now with the renewal of the IGF for ten years, let's move on to the work of IGF 2016.  So I'd like to introduce Ambassador Fonseca.  He's going to make a few comments on IGF 2015.  I would also like to thank Ambassador Fonseca for going, I think, far and beyond what's perhaps normally seen in an honorary co-chair for an IGF event.  And, again, that was because of the WSIS+10 events.  

 Benedicto went out of his way, I think, to ensure that the IGF was present in many key events and forums over the course of the year as part of the WSIS+10 review, actively supported the WSIS+10, having a session at the IGF in 2015 in Joao Pessoa.  And certainly supported those similar activities back in New York as well, which was incredibly important.  So I would just like to recognize that at the same time as we recognize what a tremendous, tremendous event IGF 2015 was.  So with that, Ambassador Fonseca.

 >>BENEDICTO FONSECA:  Good morning to everyone.  And thank you, Lynn, for those very kind words.  I welcome the opportunity to address the plenary at this moment in time.  And personally it's a great pleasure to meet all of you colleagues we have been working with in the last few years and also incoming MAG members.

 We are very honored and proud to have hosted IGF 2015 in Joao Pessoa last November.  And with your indulgence, Madam Chair, I would like to turn to the MAG members from Brazil.  We have two MAG members:  Flavio, Professor Flavio representing technical community, and also Jandyr Santos who represents Brazil as former host country.

 Let me also acknowledge the participation, the presence here of Professor Hartmut Glaser.  Many of you know him very well.  He's the executive secretary of the Brazilian steering committee.  We are very honored that he could join us here together with other members of the Brazilian steering committee, Carlos Alfonso and Thiago Tavares.

 I think this is also a witness -- this also witnesses our commitment to this process.  I'm very honored with your very kind words in regard to my participation in those processes in the last few years.  But it is just something we do in alignment with what we have been doing in Brazil in that regard.

 One thing we used to say is that even ten years before the WSIS outcome documents which endorsed the notion that Internet governance should be multistakeholder and involve all stakeholders in their roles and responsibilities, ten years before that, we have been doing this in Brazil with the Brazilian steering committee.  So we are very comfortable in working in this environment and doing -- in an international environment, something we have been trying to address in Brazil.

 Just before then turning to the MAG members for their statement, let me just assure Victor Lagunes in the Mexican government that we will be more than pleased to work and support everything in our capacity to make sure we have a very successful meeting in Mexico this year.

 Thank you.

 >>VICTOR LAGUNES:  Thank you, Ambassador, Madam Chair.  On behalf of the host country of the 2015 IGF, let me reiterate the satisfaction of the government of Brazil for having hosted this memorable event.  The tenth IGF took place during an important time for the future of Internet governance.

 It happened amidst several key processes.  The WSIS+10 process in which IGF's own extension was decided, the IANA transition seen by many as an important test for the multistakeholder model as a whole, and in the wake of the adoption of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

 As you know, more than 2,400 registered participants from over 116 countries attended the meeting with thousands participating on line.

 The overarching theme for the IGF 2015, evolution of the Internet governance, empowering sustainable development, was chosen mainly because of the United Nations General Assembly at the time had just adopted the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.  It's important to remember that.

 Output-oriented debates and discussions during the four-day meeting addressed both opportunities and challenges under different subthemes.  The meeting hosted more than 150 sessions throughout the week and provided the broader IGF community an opportunity to contribute on a variety of significant outcomes.  Among the main highlights, Madam Chair, let me name just a few.

 IGF 2015 was planned in consultation with the Brazilian government in accordance with the guidance provided by the MAG.  Let me recall that in Brazil, the preparatory work, both in terms of logistics and substance, was carried out by the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, as mentioned by Ambassador Fonseca.  

 In line with the CSTD working group recommendations, the IGF demonstrated its capacity to produce tangible outcomes with the multistakeholder collaboration frameworks.  

 Let me mention just one of them.  The policy options for connecting the next billion process produced a tangible and community-driven bottom-up IGF output.  The compilation output document and the comprehensive collection of inputs and contributions to the process was forwarded to the other related processes, with a request to further disseminate this information as widely as possible to make public officials aware of the work.

 Another point, co-facilitators of the WSIS+10 high-level review, Ambassador Janis Mazeiks, permanent representative of Republic of Latvia and Ambassador Lana Nusseibeh, permanent representative of the United Arab Emirates, attended the 10th IGF.

 The report from the consultations held at the IGF on the WSIS+10 review was duly forwarded by the co-facilitators of the process and informed the outcomes of the WSIS+10 meeting.

 Our understanding was that this report was instrumental to the final outcome of the WSIS+10 meeting as well as to the extensions of the IGF mandate.

 Let me mention as well the youth program.  Youth participation was particularly strong during the 10th IGF.  A program called "Youth at IGF" empowered the next generation of leaders and increased the on-site participation of approximately 70 young leaders from Latin America and the Caribbean in the days throughout the IGF.

 Let me acknowledge at this point the work done by Mr. Thiago Tavares from the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee on coordinating this program.

 The entire 2015 IGF was Webcast and interactive online participation enriched sessions throughout the week, allowing many participants from the developing world to engage with those present in Joao Pessoa.  

 As you know, real-time transcription was also available to augment the overall participatory experience for delegates in the meeting rooms and following around the globe.  50 remote hubs connected participants all over the world.

 And last, but not least, let me take this opportunity as the representative from the host country of the IGF 2015 to once again thank the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee -- in particular, Mr. Hartmut Glaser -- as well as all ICG board members for their dedication and professionalism in helping organize this memorable event.  Thank you very much.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you.  And thank you, Ambassador Fonseca, and the Government of Brazil, the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, CGI.BR, and certainly Hartmut Glaser.  I know what a tremendous job that was.  

 And Nitin Desai used to say there are only two types of U.N. meetings, successful and remember successful.  I do hope I actually got that right.  I would say that IGF 2015 was a very successful meeting, and I'm sure we will all have our support and put our support towards Mexico to ensure that we have -- the meeting will have to expand its categories.  A very, very successful meeting in Mexico.  Thank you.

 So with that, we do move to the honorary co-chair for IGF 2016.  Mr. Victor Lagunes will share some remarks.  Thank you.

 >>VICTOR LAGUNAS: Thank you, Madam Chair.  Thank you, Chengetai, for your support and for having visited us a couple of times to ensure that Mexico is ready and Mexico's commitment towards IGF is valued and it's as real as our hopes and our work towards hosting this event.  Thank you, Ambassador Benedicto, for having hosted the 2015 IGF.  I know it was a tremendous success and I can only hope to follow in those -- in those footsteps as part of my Mexican delegation, as part of the Mexican organizing committee.

 I know you're leaving behind a heritage throughout the multistakeholder ecosystem and I will make an effort throughout my team in Mexico just to build upon that.  And thank you to all of you to receive us.  

 Today, really I have the opportunity to represent the federal government, the Mexican federal government, to host the next Internet Governance Forum meeting.  I would like to raise our appreciation to UNDESA and the IGF secretariat and the multistakeholder Internet community for all their support and involvement in the preparation process.

 The Internet has become an extremely powerful tool to democratize access to information, enable public and private digital services, and enable human rights to promote freedom of expression.  In short, to create a more equal society through the achievement of sustainable development goals and the WSIS action items.  

 During the WSIS+10 process, Mexico, along with the international community, agreed to a new IGF mandate for another 10 years.  This is a pure sign of confidence on the strength of the multistakeholder cooperation.  At the same time, the renewal of the mandate is an opportunity to reinforce the IGF and better reflect all the amazing work of the multistakeholder community.

 Mexico is truly committed to (indiscernible) principles and values and has proven this within the national and international fora.

 We have a presentation that we were working towards tomorrow's agenda.  We actually believe that we should share it with you today.  Mind that we are still working on it.  Really this is in an effort to have an open discussion and your feedback towards making this the first of a conversation around the lines of strengthening the IGF 2016 in Mexico.

 Please go ahead, Yolanda.

 Yeah.  So our goal really is to host the best IGF that we can host, and this is -- and this is really to build upon the last 10 iterations.  We can only, as I said, hope to strengthen what happened in Brazil, in Joao Pessoa, and the reality is that Mexico is quite thrilled, quite excited.  The community and the ecosystem in Mexico is ready.  We hosted the regional IGF last year.  Tremendous success.  As well as the ALAC forum.  

 We have a lot of inertia and a lot of conversations happening not around the technical lines, but also around the human rights issues that are -- that have been making inroads more and more into the Internet ecosystem.

 Mexico is the third largest I.T. services exporter.  According to our national chamber of ITC, 4.1 of our GDP comes from the ITC sector itself, and this is only growing.  The investment into ICT, it's only growing and it's actually -- and we're actually capitalizing that for our younger generations.

 Second largest recipient of software projects within Latin America, following our good peer, Brazil.

 As I said, the commitment of Mexico to host -- to not only host these events but actually take an active participation and share the true investment in initiatives towards a true transparent and robust ecosystem is the reason why we want to host the IGF.

 We launched our national digital strategy within the national federal government which worked towards not only interoperability frameworks but also connectivity and open standards.  Really, it works to bridge our digital divide faster and insert Mexico into the information society.

 We live and breathe our national digital strategy and I know it may be new to you.  This matrix is how we work and how we live our daily lives within government, but also in cooperation with civil society, industry, and the academic sector.

 As government officials, we can only respond to social asks, and we do so through our national digital strategy.  We work around government transformation, which is really improving the discussions or the conversation with our own citizens.  Or we as citizens.  Improve the digital economy, transform education using new platforms, improve eHealth, and also engage better in civic participation and civic innovation through different engagement models.

 Go ahead, Yolanda, please.

 So this is where we stand.  

 Last year, we hosted the Latin American IGF.  We had the pleasure of having in Mexico -- having Chengetai and some of his team in Mexico, and also some of you are also familiar faces helping us through the event.

 We were active -- we had an active participation to the renewal of the IGF mandate last December, and we've already had a couple of visitations from Chengetai's team to Mexico to ensure that the venue itself is ready, and the last one was actually just last week.

 The -- the reason why we wanted to share this with you is because we -- as Madam Chair mentioned, we have -- we're in a very short time frame.

 For the first time -- and I say this in a very sensitive way -- we have only some months to plan the event itself, which is different than having a couple years only, or at least a year and a half, to select the venue and also plan for a very strong and very open participation forum.

 We are really looking for your feedback and your open thoughts to strengthen the agenda itself, to strengthen the main -- the main rooms, and also the bilateral and the -- and the workshops.

 We are presenting this proposal to host the next MAG meeting in Mexico City.  Of course we're taking advantage of the fact that we're hosting the IGF.  So hopeful this can be evaluated.

 And also receive you for the next planning session, Chengetai.

 We are -- the IGF is proposed to be -- to happen on the second week of December, starting on the 4th-5th of December, and it will be hosted Guadalajara City in the State of Jalisco in Mexico.

 For those of you who haven't been there, it's beautiful.  Can you --

 I'm going to present you a short video on Mexico.  

 No sound?  Yes, sound.  You will forgive for technical difficulties.  We were not prepared to do this today.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Let this -- the titles are quite explanatory as well.  Certainly the volume would have been nice, but we very much appreciate, Victor, you pushing forward with the presentation today from tomorrow.  Still no...

 >>VICTOR LAGUNAS: Thank you, Madam Chair.  Yolanda, can you help me go into the next slide?

 We also selected Guadalajara really because it is the land of mariachi and tequila.  It's a beautiful place for you who haven't been here.  It really represents the core of what Mexico is in terms of food, in terms of cultural heritage, and also it's one of the largest ICT hubs in Mexico today.  It has the largest investments with global companies and also innovation and entrepreneurial initiatives.

 The place that we -- we're fortunate enough to have been granted is called the Instituto de Cabanas.  It was declared a global heritage by UNESCO.  We were there last -- just last week.  And just walking through it, it is a big museum.  We will have active exhibitions at the same time as the IGF is happening.  So there will be bilateral meetings actually happening inside a museum, which is, basically, based -- dated from the colonial area of Mexico.

 We already met and got support from the different federal and state-level agencies, everything from logistics all the way into security response and health response units.

 We are happy to share with you that we will be taking over control of the whole museum, which is a big feat.  We had to move the meeting to start on the first week of December, second week of December based on the different international events that were happening in the month of November.  I do hope this doesn't go into your December holiday planned vacation.

 We just are sharing with you a couple of photographs of the venue itself.  We will have some open spaces as well as some closed ones for engaging and active participation.

 So Guadalajara has an international airport, 300 daily flights.  It was one of our concerns also because, you know, we know an additional hub to get into our destination could bring us some challenges.  It does have many flights from the U.S.  So we don't believe it's going to raise that much problem.

 The venue itself is very close by.  Also, there is -- there are plenty of hotels nearby, walking distance, and also some that are just, like, around five minutes or ten-minute cab rides.

 As I said last week, we walked actually the neighborhood so there's hotels ranging from the two stars all the way into the five-star ranges.  We are working with the foreign affairs ministry to ensure that we can plan to have a very complete quorum.  We know that the event itself will have delegations from most countries, so we will plan in advance towards making that happen and having -- and not have a challenge in the days closer to the event.

 We are planning to have the Web site ready for tomorrow.  We already have the domain selected, but we are actually planning to present -- or launch it tomorrow.

 While -- Guadalajara itself has hosted many different international meetings and forums for this size already, so we feel confident that this will not present an issue for the forum and the venue itself.

 So with that -- and we know we only have some months to go, we're going to have active participation on the different forums working towards our own hosted IGF.  If you do have some feedback, some comments in the ways of ensuring that we really strengthen the Mexico 2016 IGF, they are more than welcome.  We will receive them gladly and incorporate them into the agenda.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Victor.

 Let's turn to Chengetai for a moment just to see if there's anything else he wants to add from the secretariat with respect to the dates or the venue?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  No, I think Victor covered it most.  We saw the venue.  It's a historic UNESCO World Heritage Site.  So it's going to be a very interesting venue.  And we look forward to it.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Let me open the floor.  Hartmut?

 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  For us Brazilians it will be a -- (off microphone).

 So the question is will Mexico offer free -- (off microphone).

 >>VICTOR LAGUNES:  We have raised the topic with our foreign affairs ministry.  Usually for international events, they do not waive the fee for the visas.  What they do is they expedite the process so they will help along the lines.  We're still working towards that.  

 The first response that our foreign affairs ministry gave us was that they're invested into ensuring that the process is expedited.  But as of today, the fee itself is not waived.

 >> YOLANDA MANCILLA:  Just to add to that comment many countries -- the list of the countries will be on the Web site available tomorrow do not require a visa.  Or in many other countries, we do have arrangements for visa waivers.  We are going to make sure that we have available the entire list of countries that have agreements with Mexico, and we're going to keep working with our foreign affairs office to make sure that we have we have an expedite process on those countries that require a visa.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Thank you for the excellent presentation.  Hartmut said it took about two MAG meetings to get us to pronounce Joao Pessoa.  I am going to request you to pronounce the destination for us so we can pronounce it well.  He started in December --

 [ Laughter ]

 He succeeded in May.  But we will try and do it.  If you can pronounce it slowly for us so we can get hold of it.

 >>VICTOR LAGUNES:  I will try my best.  It's Guadalajara.

 So say it with me.

 [ Laughter ]

 It's Gua-da-la-har-a.

 Hartmut knows.

 [ Applause ]

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  I think German is in the queue next.  I would like to remind everybody to please state their name and, if they could, which stakeholder group they are from.  That will help with the relationships.

 >> GERMAN VALDEZ:  German Valdez from the numbers organization.  Thank you, Madam Chair.  Thank you, Victor, for the information.  I know the place, is a really beautiful place.  I'm really looking forward to go to Guadalajara and be part of the IGF in 2016.  

 My question I think it was partially answered by Yolanda.  

 Maybe you can have confirmation when we will have all the information about visas and hotels in the local IGF Web site, when we can expect to have that information.

 >>VICTOR LAGUNES:  So tomorrow we're launching the Web site.  You will have most information there.  We're working -- we're not -- we haven't stopped working since we started really working with Chengetai's team.  So we're going to be uploading and, of course, improving the information as we go.  But we hope we will have enough information tomorrow to start giving us feedback, I guess.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Omar is next.  And before I go to him, I want to remind everybody that this is, in fact, the open community consultation.  So everybody is very warmly invited to speak.  This is not just the forum for the MAG members.  And, in fact, when we move into the later sessions, we will prioritize non-MAG members' participation ahead.  Again, it is the open community so everybody should feel free to comment.

 Omar?

 >>OMAR MANSOOR ANSARI:  Hi.  I'm Omar Ansari, a newcomer at the IGF MAG.  You proposed the second MAG to be held at Mexico City, and the event is Guadalajara.  I suggest it would be better if the MAG meeting is also in Guadalajara so the members can see the venue and arrangements.  

 The second issue is with the visa, especially for the developing countries.  Mexico does not have embassies in all countries.  It gets really difficult for individuals to go to other countries for visa purposes.

 Are there any special arrangements for the countries -- participants from the countries where there's no Mexican mission?

 >>VICTOR LAGUNAS:  As I mentioned, we have full support of our foreign affairs ministry.  We have around 120 embassies and consulates.  Of course, most of them are located within the U.S.  Yet, we do have a global presence.  

 You're right, we don't have consulates and embassies in all countries.  We do have the process to expedite that.  There's many things that can be done remotely or online.  But then, again, to receive the visa, it's -- it has to be face-to-face within the closest consulate.  Our investment there is to ensure that happens in a fast way or an expedited process.

 We take your comment around the MAG being hosted in Guadalajara at face value.  We can here decide if that's a point we can actually pursue whether it's best to host it in Mexico City or in Guadalajara.  But thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  Segun.

 >>SEGUN OLUGBILE:  Please, can you hear me, please?  Okay.  First and foremost, I want to apologize for coming late.  It's not my intention.

 Secondly, I want to appeal that we find it difficult to hear at the back, so if effort can be made to increase the volume.

 Number three, I want to support the notion that -- sorry, my name.  I'm sorry.  I'm Segun Olugbile.  I'm from Nigeria, the CEO of Continent Project Affairs Associates, an (indiscernible) of AfICTA.  

 I want to support the notion that the second MAG consultation should be in Mexico because it would allow us to see -- to evaluate and see the preparation that the host country has been making, just to lend my voice to that.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Segun.  Thank you for the comment on volume.  I think it has given quite a number of people some problems.  Hopefully that can be addressed here.

 The next speaker is Mourad.  Please, you have the floor.

 >>MOURAD BOUKADOUM:  Thank you, Chair.  I would like to congratulate Mexico as the host country for the next IGF.  And I have no doubt that the procedure for Guadalajaran and the Mexican government will lead us with their reputation as an organizer of world-class events.

 This is not just a compliment but a personal experience because I have been in Guadalajara in 2010 attending the ITU PP.

 Having said that, I wish the Mexican government would take into consideration the comments made about some logistical aspects of previous IGF sessions in order to improve things.  Thanks very much.

 >>VICTOR LAGUNAS:  Of course.  Thank you for your comments.  We have been reviewing the feedback recently from the 2015 IGF, and we believe it's a learning experience.  We're going to take that intervention as well as your contributions towards making the 2016 IGF the best one possible.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Marilyn Cade, you have the floor.

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you.  My name is Marilyn Cade.  I want to also join with others to thank Mexico for the very, I think, inspiring invitation for us.  I confess to having been to Guadalajara a couple of times before for the World Congress on I.T. which was very successful.  And for those who are not familiar with Jalisco and Guadalajara, there are a very significant number of high-tech companies that have a strong presence there.  And perhaps we can look ahead at how to encourage both SMEs and also more expansion of the business and industry sector in participating.

 But I took the microphone to make a comment.  I welcome the idea of holding one of what I think will probably need to be two more face-to-face working sessions of the MAG in Mexico.  But I would suggest that we may want to consider the implications of travel time and of whether the visa issues could be addressed by the June time frame.  And we may want to think about returning to Geneva because I suspect we're going to have a maybe even a four-day working session coming up ahead of us given our compressed time cycle.

 Let me just make one other comment about -- I want to take this opportunity to mention to new MAG members and to other members of the community the debt of appreciation that I believe we owe Mexico for actually stepping forward even when there was already a host in Brazil who had graciously offered to host.  Mexico stepped forward and offered to host in 2016 when we did not yet know that we had the extension of the IGF.  And I think that we all owe you a vote of great appreciation for doing that.

 [ Applause ]

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Marilyn.  That was well recalled.  And if I'm not mistaken, actually, in March of last year, Mexico was the government that put forward the proposal in the WSIS+10 process for an extension of the IGF mandate as well, so I forgot to mention that earlier in my comments but that was much appreciated.

 Next I think we have Mark in the queue.

 >>MARK CARVELL: Yes.  Thank you, Lynn.  

 Good morning, everybody.  Thank -- appreciation, first of all, for your taking over the chair of the MAG.  Congratulations to you for that.

 Thank you very much, Mr. Lagunes, for your presentation and for demonstrating Mexico's commitment to the multistakeholder model and the IGF in particular, and I just very much endorse Marilyn's comments.  Mexico has been a very strong voice and it's been much appreciated.  U.K. government is very supportive of the IGF and we welcome very much Mexico offering to hosting IGF 11 this year and we will -- we look forward to participating actively in Guadalajara.  Hopefully I've got that right.

 My question is with regard to the week's schedule.  In particular, what's now the convention of having day zero events, which would be on the 5th of December, and in particular whether you can say anything more about the likelihood of a host country forum for government ministers and high-level officials and also VIPs from the industry, as to whether this would be a multistakeholder forum which we can then alert to our ministers and stakeholders in the U.K. and in Europe and elsewhere, of course.

 Is there anything further you can say about the likely schedule for the 5th?  

 Thank you very much.

 >>VICTOR LAGUNES: Thank you for your comment.

 What we can share today, in summary, is:  Yes, we would very much like to have a high-level ministerial meeting.  Taking the comments from the 2015 IGF, I understand that there's -- there was some feedback around having the day zero moved into either mid-IGF or the latter part of the IGF to ensure that there are ministerial delegations taking advantage already on the lessons learned or already the summaries provided by the IGF workshops themselves.  Really, I think it's open discussion today, and we'll be welcoming your feedback as to ensure whether we do want to host it as a day zero, meaning before the inaugural day, or whether we are -- we push the high-level meeting some days after the inaugural speech.

 As to the industry VIPs and so on, we're very much considering this as well.  

 We do also have a strong presence, of course, in Mexico for global companies that are very much invested and taking advantage of what the Internet provides, and we do believe we can actually have a very big forum of industry VIPs coming -- or industry champions or leaders coming to Mexico to share with us and collaborate with us in the discussions.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Victor.

 I think at this point, Ambassador Fonseca would like to say a few words and then the last question was probably a good segue to the next session.

 The next session would actually look at IGF 2015, take stock, and again, that is supposed to inform our discussions for 2015 [sic].  

 Day zero is a specific item under there, and I think just one point that we need to recognize, that the day zero certainly has had a high-level ministerial event in the last four or five IGFs, I believe, but there are other events that take place in day zero as well, so I think when we're talking about the day zero events, we need to be sort of quite specific about which set of events we're talking about, because they do start to impact -- particularly the high-level ministerial meeting starts to impact the discussions around the opening ceremony as well.

 So if we can just make sure and pull those apart, I think our conversations would be well-served, but Ambassador Fonseca?

 >>BENEDICTO FONSECA: Thank you, Madam Chair, and just very briefly to go back to what Marilyn has initially stated, and yourself as well, I think it's very important to acknowledge the very important impact that the announcement made by Mexico early last year on its intention to host the IGF this year in the context of the WSIS+10 negotiations.  

 We followed very closely those negotiations in New York and I -- personally I followed the last months of negotiations and I can assure you it was very important to have on the table the Mexican offer because it indicated a very clear, concrete interest on the part of members, delegations supported by others, to pursue the IGF beyond the existing 10 at the time that the 10-year mandate that was before us.  And of course the intent and the indication that the 10-year extension would be our, let's say, realistic goal I would say in the context of the negotiation, I think this was also very important.

 Other proposals were on the table.  Just to recall that my own delegation, we could support even to make IGF a standing body, a permanent body, because we are convinced it fulfills a unique role in the context of Internet governance discussions, but I think 10 years was the realistic goal we successfully could achieve.

 And we fully concur and we are enthusiastic about the goal you have set to make Guadalajara the best-ever IGF.  

 We think IGF meetings should be incremental in their gains.  One of the messages that also emerged from the WSIS+10 outcome documents is that we should continuously improve our working methods and the processes that lead to outputs of those IGF meetings.

 So we are -- we hope this will, indeed, make place in Guadalajara that we can build on what has been done before and certainly, again, we want to contribute to that, to the extent of our possibilities.  Thank you.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Those were very important points and worthy of reiterating some of the earlier ones as well.

 So I think we have Lee in the queue, and then we'll move to the next agenda item.

 >>LEE HIBBARD: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.  For the record, Lee Hibbard from the Council of Europe.  I'm the Internet governance coordinator of the Council of Europe, an international governmental organization in Strasbourg with 47 member states and observer states, including Mexico, I would point out, and Mexico has a status with the organization and comes to the meetings, many of the meetings in Strasbourg, and has signed several of the treaties of the Council of Europe and is very committed to its human rights, rule of law, and democracy.

 Welcome, chair.  Great to have you.  Thank you.  I echo your thanks to Janis Karklins, a really excellent chair and it really was a pleasure to work with him.  

 Thank you, of course, to our Brazilian friends and colleagues, the authorities.  Personally speaking, it was a very efficient and dynamic and very friendly IGF -- very friendly IGF, I would say too, because it was really a pleasure.  Everybody was smiling.  I think it was a very good atmosphere.  I think it was very good for dialogue.  

 Thank you to the IGF secretariat, of course, Chengetai and colleagues, to always being open and accessible.  

 The Council of Europe has been very supportive since the start of the Internet Governance Forum way back when in 2006 and has been there ever since.  Last June, the 47 member states adopted a declaration en bloc in support of Swiss+10, and proposed and agreed upon proposing a 10-year extension of the IGF, so it's really great that we were able to feed that into the WSIS+10 process last year.

 I hope that helped those of you who were in New York, in the process running up, to have that 47 bloc countries support the Internet Governance Fora.  It was really important for the Council of Europe back in Strasbourg.

 The U.N. General Assembly resolution, of course, is very important because from a Council of Europe perspective it gives legitimacy to the whole process.  When you talk to ambassadors, when you talk to member states, one should not underestimate the importance of the legitimacy of having this acknowledged at your level, at the U.N. level, so that's very important.

 Also with regard to human rights, rule of law, and democracy.  Sort of -- you know, as organizations, we're very mutually reinforcing, I would say.

 On that basis, last week, the member states adopted a new Council of Europe strategy on Internet governance for four years supporting dialogue, supporting IGF, supporting the EuroDIG, supporting national and regional forums on Internet governance.  I have colleagues going to the (indiscernible) European dialogue on Internet governance soon.  Some are going to the Russian IGF this week in Moscow.  You know, we have a new mandate to support you in the work of the IGF at national and regional levels, so that's important so that's why it's mutually reinforcing to have this work build on our work and vice versa.

 Now, just a few points on feedback for Agenda Item 2.

 Again, it was a great pleasure to see so many stakeholders, as you mentioned, Madam Chair.  Especially youth.  Of course we can only welcome that and encourage that.

 We noticed that still there needs to be more -- perhaps more participation of state authorities, government officials, judges, prosecutors, law enforcement.  Were they really there?  You know, was there enough there to discuss these issues, whether it be mass surveillance or cybersecurity?  I really think we should try to push that a little bit more.  

 A good range of topics, which helped us because when you're covering not one topic but many topics ranging from literacy to crime, you know, it's very important to have a range of topics so you can go and take part because if the mandate is narrow, it's very difficult to justify traveling to a place for four or five days.

 And I would underline the access to VIPs, such as the U.N. special rapporteurs, David Kaye, Joe Cannatacithe, et cetera.  Very important because it's very important that, you know, we can talk to these people on the side of meetings and also have them in meetings.  Very important to have their, you know -- to get VIPs, our own VIPs there, to talk and to network, et cetera.

 We had a couple of open forums, one which was a joint open forum with the U.N. HCHR -- sorry, the OHCHR, which were -- could have had better participation.  I think there's a problem of sign posting, of perhaps needing -- I think I would seek help from you from you, from the secretariat, to know how to better communicate these forums, which are generic, just so that we can get more participation.

 I would say one of the meeting rooms was so noisy we had to put our headphones on to speak.

 But still, it was -- it was still very good.

 Perhaps too many panelists sometimes still in different events.  The opening ceremony, the length and style, you know, does it fit with the spirit of Internet governance dialogue?  And workshop planning was sometimes last-minute, but that's -- planning is also, you've said, very important.

 And finally, I would say that -- what you said, Chair, which is that things like the policy options work, the work in which we have written things down and analyzed issues is very important.  

 More analysis is, of course, very welcome, very much needed.  It helps us to disseminate in our own networks and show the gravitas of the work that's being done.  

 It's very easy to scratch the surface on issues and to go around and around and around, but effectively I think it's very important to go down and drill down more, and if we can demonstrate that over the next years, that we can really do in-depth analysis, I think we're on the right track.  Thank you.

 >> (Off microphone.)

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: That's exactly what my announcement is about.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: We've actually been informed that the norm for this room is that you need to wear your headsets in order to hear properly.  That is the way the sound system is actually managed.

 So they're doing what they can to get the volume to a level, but if you're not hearing properly, please wear your headsets.

 There is translation.  I mean, it's unfortunate we only have translation in two of the six U.N. languages, and it's French and English.  I'm assuming it's 0 and 1, since English is on 0, but please do wear your headsets if you're having difficulty with any of the sound.

 And again, we're going to go to the remote participation in a moment.  I'll just remind everybody again that this is an open consultation so we really look forward to hearing from everybody in the room, and with preference from non-MAG members, and certainly we will then encourage MAG members to enter into the discussion and engage, but we really do want to hear from non-MAG members.

 And now I think, Anja, I think we're going to a remote participant?

 >>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Avri Doria.  Avri, I'm going to unmute you now so you can speak.

 >> (Off microphone.)

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Victor?  Yolanda?  Any --

 >>VICTOR LAGUNES: I think Yolanda can take -- can you take this answer because I couldn't barely hear.

 >>YOLANDA MANCILLA: We're going to make sure that all the requests regarding visa recommendations and inquiries from the attendants in these open consultations are going to be taken forward to our foreign affairs minister.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Avri, for coming into -- in the background of another meeting.

 Okay.  Well, let me -- we have Constance, but let me just make -- because we sort of did a gentle segue, I think.

 Right now, we're in the taking stock section of the agenda where we are looking for comments, talking about the achievements, the challenges of IGF 2015, looking forward to any possible implications or recommendations for IGF 2016.

 This is where we'd like to -- we should come back in a moment to the secretariat's summary.  Chengetai will have a short summary and then we will open the floor up more fully.

 But again, this is where we should talk about the program, the logistics, intersessional activities, day zero, suggestions for improvement broadly.

 So let me go to Constance and then I'll turn to Chengetai to do a summary to kick off more formally that portion of the agenda.

 >>CONSTANCE BOMMELAER: Thank you very much and good morning, everyone, and congratulations to the new chair.  I think we're very lucky to have Lynn St. Amour in this role.

 With regards to IGF 2015, ISOC, the Internet Society, submitted a written contribution listing the positive aspects, of course, and there were many positive aspects for IGF 2015.

 I will just go through a few of them, a few of the highlights.

 First of all, the logistical arrangements were very good.  In addition to that, I think the work that resulted in IGF outputs, whether the best practices or the policy options for connecting the next billion, again showed that the IGF was able to evolve and make some progress towards useful outcomes.

 I think Vint Cerf actually concluded the main session on IGF intersessional activities saying it was the most useful thing the IGF had done in 10 years, so I think it's useful thinking about 2016, about ways how to continue and improve these IGF intersessional activities.

 One of our colleagues mentioned it, but IGF, the youth -- the youth initiative worked very well, and I'm happy to say that the Internet Society has already committed to supporting again this -- this important initiative in 2016.  

 And the last highlight, I think, would be the contribution of IGF 2015 to WSIS+10.

 That contribution was very important and well-noted.

 In terms of possible improvements, very quickly it seemed that although the past years we were able to focus the discussion and (indiscernible), we had perhaps main less sessions and less workshops.  In 2015 again, the number inflated and we heard several participants saying that it could be useful to try to focus further discussion, have less main sessions, less workshops, in general.

 And finally, I think it's worth noting this idea that it's important to continue improving the IGF working modalities, and specifically with regards to intersessional activities.  Thank you very much.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: So with that, I think we'll move to formally introduce this agenda item, have Chengetai go through a short summary, and then we'll come back to the queue.  

 We have Virat and Cheryl in the queue at the moment.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Chair.  

 So I'm just going to summarize the summary, the synthesis paper that the secretariat did from the total of 28 contributions that we received when we made a call for the stock-taking session.

 The purpose of the synthesis paper, as well, and my summary is so that we don't repeat, because many of the papers said more or less the same things, so we just want to shorten the amount of time that we have to discuss this.

 So to start off with, most of the contributions expressed their deep appreciation to the Brazilian hosts for their hospitality during the tenth IGF, as well as for providing an excellent venue and supporting team on the ground in Joao Pessoa.

 I think none of us can dispute that.  This was one of the best organized IGFs that we've had.

 It was also emphasized that the IGF 2015 was very easy to navigate and the simplified naming of the rooms was very much appreciated.

 Also, the selection of food offered for all tastes and/or dietary needs.  And staff of the conference center were outstanding.  So thank you to Brazil for that.

 Many contributions also thanked UN-DESA, the IGF secretariat and the Multistakeholder Advisory Group for their efforts in planning the IGF event and developing its program and also the MAG Chair, Janis Karklins, for his guidance and leadership throughout the preparation process.

 I'll skip those.  I think those are fine.

 As Constance has said already, many lauded the enhanced participation from the youth and also the special programs that were made for youth participation.

 A number of efforts noted an appreciation their efforts to continually improve the workshops.  Some particularly noted that the 2015 work to help the community submit workshop proposals by clarifying the proposal criteria and developing guidelines that were translated into several languages to help by community volunteers.  This simple step helped a lot for the quality of the workshops that were submitted, especially from developing countries.  

 Other contributions, however, noted there were too many workshops at the IGF and some workshops were duplicative in content and had limited speakers.  Some said that it was better to combine them.  And just a comment from me, we always have this "shall we merge workshops," and it's an ongoing discussion, the value of merging these workshops together.

 Having fewer workshops with clearer criteria for accepting workshop proposals.  Many contributions appreciated the 2015 intersessional work program which resulted in community-driven production of helpful resources on Internet policy issues for the benefit of any stakeholder interested in the various topics that they addressed.

 Representatives from many IGF dynamic coalitions also expressed their appreciation for the establishment of a main session for dynamic coalitions at the 2015 IGF and said this significant and timely step helped towards creating a more formal link between these self-organizing thematic groups and the IGF as a larger process.

 There was some comments say that the main sessions would have benefited from a more interactive communication from moderators as sessions often devolved into roundtables or speeches.  Moderated question-and-answer sessions within panels in addition to audience question-and-answer sessions should be encouraged.

 Other contributions suggested that better criteria should be set for main sessions and there should be fewer speakers to promote a more interactive session.  Some say the IGF should push for more fact-based sessions and promote non-ideological discussions on different issues.  

 In some cases, there were examples of the zero rating and net neutrality.  

 Where it has been agreed that more research is needed to be done, the sessions should focus more on the research and tangible results rather than ideologies and perceived results.

 And then going on to suggestions and recommendations looking forward to IGF in -- the 11th IGF, the MAG should address the process of main session organization and the process of which main session topics are determined and the session program developed.

 On the -- on intersessional work, that the intersessional work should be included in the annual IGF meeting foreword and it should be consistent with the IGF principles.  This means providing enhanced guidelines on intersessional work and also monitoring from the IGF that it takes place throughout the year.

 Certain rules and policies, procedures should be made about such work and should be universally known as a prerequisite.

 Many inputs also noted the growing interest and activity in the national and regional IGF initiatives and recognize the efforts that have been made to bring the ideas from these initiatives into the global IGF, especially with the intersessional work.  And it was stressed that connecting different conversations at different levels of the IGF ecosystem should continue in order to enrich the global dialogue and contribute to ongoing Internet governance discussions at the domestic and regional levels.

 Some contributions suggested that the workshop and main session proposals and report forms should be reassessed.  It was stated that workshops and main sessions should do three things:  Enlighten the audience through informed discussions, address related challenges and/or identify opportunities, and, three, bring the discussion to a point where ways forward might be agreed upon.

 Some inputs recommended to reduce the number of main sessions to four or five maximum and suggested to avoid holding them in conjunction with other sessions.

 Best practice forums and other stakeholders involved in the day-to-day best practice forum work recommended that each best practice forum have the ability to decide its own methods and approaches, and this was deemed to be very valuable and contributed to the success of the best practice forums.  Best practice forum work should continue for the 2016 IGF as well.

 Regarding thematic elements of the IGF program, some inputs noted that the MAG process has matured to allow a more progressive and deeper conversation about particular topics as well as accommodate timely hot-button topics.  Both types of conversations are valuable attributes to the IGF.  And it was said in this regard, one thing that the MAG to consider is to begin the process towards IGF Mexico in how better to reflect bottom-up community input into the subtheme development process.

 Another side comment from me, I think we have done this -- we have started doing this at the moment from the input from the regional and national IGFs into the themes and subthemes.

 One suggestion was that the subthemes of the 2016 should be determined based upon subject areas of workshop proposals as submitted by community rather than designed in advance by the MAG.  So a bottom-up process that we receive the workshops, the workshops first and then come about defining the themes and subthemes from those submissions.

 One input suggested that consideration for the theme -- okay.  These are just themes for the 2016.  I will just skip that.  We'll just leave that for the discussions.

 And then we had general comments about visa processing varied from country to country but reinforce importance of the location and dates of the IGF being communicated sufficiently in advance of the conference so to help with participants getting the visas.

 And also that the -- more information should be made available in the IGF Web site and also the host country Web sites to allow people to plan ahead.

 Many contributions stress that the efforts to improve the working methods of the MAG should continue into 2016 in line with the recommendations made by the Commission on Science and Technology for Development Working Group on Improvements of Internet governance and in light of the General Assembly's recent call for accelerated implementation of these recommendations.

 There was also an input that commented on day zero and that it now seemed to be an integral part of the IGF, and there was need for a discussion on the MAG role in day zero event selection and also transparency on the events.

 For dynamic coalitions, representatives from many of the IGF dynamic coalitions proposed an idea for a dynamic coalition coordination group to be created, made up of members which will be selected from each of the individual dynamic coalitions.  And this group could communicate and coordinate between the DCs and the IGF secretariat and between the DCs and the MAG.

 One input invited the MAG to consider if and how the Global Internet Policy Observatory, GIPO, and other such programs and mapping initiatives could help in the MAG work and in further supporting the IGF process.

 It was also suggested that the main outcome documents produced by the IGF should be translated into all OF the U.N. official languages to ensure broader outreach.  

 And I think, yes, I think that's all for the summary.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Chengetai.  And thank you to everybody who took the time to submit comments last year.  It's obviously very helpful.

 We have four speakers in the queue.  I note that most of them are MAG members.  So, again, we want to hear from other members as well.  So, please, do feel free to jump in.  

 So at this point in time, Cheryl -- I would like to recognize Cheryl Miller.

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  Sorry, I'm just getting used to these microphones.

 For those who don't know me, my name is Cheryl Miller.  And I'm with the business community.  I look forward to meeting those who I haven't met yet and look forward to working with all of you.  Very warm welcome to all the new MAG members, and warm welcome to the new Chair.  And thank you to all of those outgoing members.

 I wanted to make a couple of comments on the 2015 meeting.  Actually, I think it was Lee that mentioned the friendliness of the meeting last year.  And I couldn't agree more.  And I think in part what contributed to that was sort of the construction of the IGF village.  The actual layout of it really allowed for conversations to sort of flow and for different groups to come together.  And so I thought that was a very good addition last year.

 Last year also it's been said many times the youth program I thought was a great addition.  I definitely think that's very valuable and worth continuing, and I want to make sure we continue to seek diversity within that program as well.

 I do think that last year the main sessions could have been more dynamic.  One of the things that differed between Brazil and Istanbul, I think in Istanbul we actually had fewer main sessions.  But those main sessions from my recollection had a higher level of attendance as compared to Brazil.  But we had more main sessions in Brazil.  So that's something to think about as we move forward and sort of balance out workshops, main sessions, and how we divide the time over the days.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.

 Virat?

 >>VIRAT BHATIA:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  My name is Virat Bhatia.  I also represent the business community.  I couldn't travel to Joao Pessoa for personal reasons but watched the sessions very carefully remotely.  So that was a good experience in trying to assess how the remote piece works and also get an objective view of being slightly far away.

 Amongst the things that worked exceedingly well, as many have said, I think that absolute top thing was free food.  I want the host to record, and the new host to record, that nothing pleases people and delegates than free food and fully available.  So we can go back to Baku, Bali wherever you want to go, that really works well.  So think about it.  

 I just wanted to place that one comment that came to people who traveled back.  And good food and easily availability, accessible, so that was one thing that nobody was running for coupons and stuff like that.

 The other thing that worked exceedingly well, which is also very visible, was youth.  Very, very visible on the screens.  Lots of mostly, I think, Latin American young people but lots of them in many sessions queuing up and speaking.  So that sort of seemed really well.

 The energy was very positive.  The staff very friendly.  Lots of help available, et cetera.  So that worked really well.

 A couple of things that's not so much a host issue but actually it's a MAG issue -- and I think we need to sort of look at that carefully, sort of the main sessions and the workshops, which becomes the mainstay -- apart from the intersessional work which is year-round, the mainstay of the four-day conference is the main sessions and the workshops.

 We had excellent recommendations for workshops that came out last year based on some very outstanding work done by Susan Chalmers, who is here today with us, and Fiona who is not.  Outstanding guidelines, evaluation, et cetera.  All of that worked really well.

 In the end, however, I think we went to a little bit more than we should have taken.  So we were -- I'm not sure, but I think we were about 110 workshops.  We could have sort of cut off at 90, 95.  We just need to know that figure so once you -- because it's four days, it works like a grid.  So the moment you go beyond that point, then it becomes difficult to fit things in and it becomes very tight.  So we could do with a little less.

 I also want to commend the work that was done by the working group of workshops because thanks to them, the developing country workshops were up 200% from Istanbul and first-timers were up 150%.  

 And they had set themselves three objectives:  Increase developing country participation, increase first-timers, and have more roundtables than panels.  And even there was a significantly high number even for the roundtables.  With panels, though, I think did some people masquerade panels (audio cut out) and showed up and you were seeing them.  

 But did exceedingly well on the first two.  Something we should really be proud of.

 And the selection procedure worked.  So I urge that we look at that -- those criteria that have been given and try and work on that and improve if we can, but we have something available.

 The other one was on the main sessions.  On the main sessions, likewise, we got a very fine set of recommendations from the working group led by Professor Subi Chaturvedi, who was a member last year, and my colleague Flavio.  I posted some of this before this meeting.  Excellent sort of guidelines for picking main sessions, et cetera.

 But this is where I think I have to admit we went off the mark.  We started with nearly 11 main sessions in the end.  I was sort of asked to put together a working group to discuss this.  And had my very distinguished colleague Cheryl not withdraw her very important main session on IGF at ten and then sort of bring it together in some other main session, it would have been virtually impossible to fit in.  

 I think even in the end we had nine main sessions plus opening and closing.  I'd urge that we look at that very differently.  And for the new MAG members, just think of the four days as a grid.  It's three hours before lunch, three hours after lunch.  There is an opening, and there's a closing, and there's an orientation.  So actually what you are left with is six three-hour sessions for main sessions.  And I would urge that we very carefully look at no more than four or five main sessions with some breathing spaces.  

 Our former chair very famously quoted that the program should be like Swiss cheese and enough holes should be left in them so that they can be filled in later.

 And I think those are the two big learnings, one place where we did exceedingly well and another where I think we can really improve in terms of numbers.  We should try and fix those themes early, agree early.  

 And this year we have very little time to -- last year I think is the most time we've had between MAG meetings and a session.  We started in December, and we had almost a year to go before the MAG.  This year we have six months flat -- maybe -- now with December, probably 7 1/2 months.  So we have slightly more, but we still need to be very careful about our planning.  And that's the other thing that I wanted to leave with you.

 The last piece was about the main session room.  I had made a request last year -- I wasn't there, but -- the main session -- on an average day, there are 1,500 people in the IGF.  That's the average for the last few years.

 To have a main session room that has a thousand seats makes the main session look as if no one's attending.  Even with 150 people, which is three times the number of people here, it would look as if it's virtually empty.

 So our request to the host is to consider a 4- or 500-seater room, unless you expect a very large local population, because otherwise they look empty and that sort of gives a feeling of sort of it isn't going well and that shouldn't be the case.

 But if you had a 400 or a 5- -- like Istanbul, for example, did that really well.  They had a 400-member room and it was almost always full.  Almost all of the six main sessions were always full.  

 So this is a small feedback based on what I was seeing visually, some of the mistakes we made going in, this time for correction.

 I would request one last request for the new MAG members, especially.  Please do have a look at the recommendations made by the two working groups last year.  I think if you want to improve on them, we should talk about that shortly, but if we can adopt them for this year, I think we'll be on our way, because last year the working group started work in December and by March they had those recommendations ready.

 This year we don't have that luxury.  Thank you.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Virat.  I particularly appreciate the comments as seen from an online view because we're obviously doing everything we can to try and encourage more online participation as well.

 Next in the queue I think we have remote and then Mike Nelson.  Remote?

 >>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Thank you, Chair.  We have one comment from Virginia Paque that I will read.

 There was also input that online participation must be built into the session organization so that online participation is taken into account not only in infrastructure preparations but also by session organizers, moderators, and participants.

 And we have a second intervention from Michael.  He would like to speak, if you allow.

 So Michael, I'm going to unmute you now.

 >> (Off microphone.)

 >>REMOTE INTERVENTION: And one more intervention from Siva Subramanian from the national IGF.  I will unmute you now, Siva.

 >> (Off microphone.)

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you to Ginger, Michael, and Siva as well.  Again appreciate your staying with us and your comments.  

 Mike Nelson is next in the queue.

 >>MICHAEL NELSON: Chairman, I'm Michael Nelson.  It's my third year on the MAG.  I handle global public policy for CloudFlare.  And that's F-l-a-r-e.

 I also teach Internet studies at Georgetown and I'm very active in my Washington, D.C. chapter of the Internet Society.  I just wanted to chime in on a couple things.

 First to say that I agreed with almost everything that Chengetai reported from the summary except I strongly urge us not to think about having main sessions by themselves without any parallel sessions.

 I think we really, in a way, create a misimpression by calling them main sessions.  They're not keynote sessions.  They're not main sessions.  They're really thematic sessions.  

 They're very broad.  They cover a lot of territory.  They often cover territory we don't cover anywhere else.  But they're not really that different from the other sessions.  

 And so I would urge us to continue to do some thematic sessions, but I also agree with Virat that we don't need as many and we don't need to have them in all the time slots.

 The other thing I would urge us to do, as was done in Joao Pessoa, is to involve students.  There are a number of large universities in Guadalajara, and I found it very useful during the breaks to be able to talk to people who were not thinking about Internet governance and Internet technology 100% of the time but instead were on the receiving end of the technologies that we were building and deploying.

 I also would like to say that as Ginger said and Virat emphasized, that the virtual component of this meeting is going to be even more important than normal.

 As somebody who attended my first seven IGFs virtually, I've seen a lot of improvement in this area, but we can do better.  And particularly, we can do better in enabling people who are part of the online experience to interact with each other and with the people in the room.

 The reason it's more important this year than most is that Guadalajara is going to be ideally situated to reach people in the U.S. and Europe, so you've got a lot of potential viewers who can tune in.

 And then the last -- and following that also, I think we can also do a much better job of advertising ahead of schedule where the Webcasts will be available, how people can be part of that discussion.  In many years past, people didn't learn about the ability to be part of the online experience until after the fact and then they were able to watch the videos, but that wasn't quite the same.

 And then one more point.

 One of my few criticisms of last year's IGF was that the location was far away from the hotels and it took quite a bit of time for us to get there.  I'm glad to see that the venue in Guadalajara is more centrally located.

 One thing you might think about doing, though, for this year is to take an Internet approach to registration.

 What happened in Joao Pessoa is we all had to show up at the conference site the day before, which was a half-hour -- was an hour-long commute, or we had to wait in line to get our registration.

 So maybe there's a way to set up registration points at the hotels the day before, in several of them, so that people can be already registered and ready to go and not have to wait.  That's a very small point, but it would save a lot of time and effort.

 Thank you very much.  And again, thank you to Mexico and to Brazil for being willing to host a very important meeting.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Michael.  

 Izumi, you have the floor.

 >>IZUMI OKUTANI: Good morning, everyone.  Thank you, Madam Chair.  My name is Izumi Okutani, I'm a policy liaison from JPNIC coming from the Asia-Pacific region and the technical community.  

 I would like to first express a warm welcome to Lynn as the new chair of the MAG, as well as the new MAG members.

 I would like to make observations on three broad areas.

 First, about the local arrangement of the meeting.  Second, about the basic framework of planning the meeting.  And third, to lightly touch on the content.

 So first on the local arrangement, I really echo Cheryl's comment about the friendliness of the meeting and I -- I think it -- it -- there may be two reasons, or one of the two -- there may be two reasons.  They may not be the only ones behind it.  

 One is that the volunteers were very friendly.  I think they were enthusiastic to be a part of this, like, international event, and I think this -- their enthusiasm actually reflected to the atmosphere of the venue.

 So I support Mike's comment about having more students helping out in the venue.

 Second is that we had a common place for lunch.  We had a big venue for lunch.  And I understand it may be quite challenging to provide free lunch at every meeting.  I think Brazil was, I know, being extremely generous, but I think even if free lunch is not provided, having a big common place for lunch helps the participants to have dialogue between meetings, so I found that really helpful.

 I also found the IGF Web site, it was -- the local Web site was easy to find and search sessions, which topic is relevant, who are the speakers, so I hope that we can continue this style of Web site in the coming year as well.

 So to move on to the basic framework of the meeting, I support Virat's comment about having better planning and strategy about the main session, not just keep on adding themes one after the other, but then having an integrated comprehensive discussion about what should be the theme and then based on that, think about what the theme should be, and I think it's worth considering the recommendations made in the CSTD, as some of the MAG colleagues has expressed on the mailing list.

 So lastly, to touch on the -- on the content, I echo Constance's observation about success in producing concrete outputs this year and intersessional work certainly contributed a great deal on this.

 And I quite like this style of combination of dialogue and written documents for two reasons.

 One is actually helped in diversity, in that the people who are not so comfortable in verbally expressing themselves at a microphone and non- -- people, like, coming from Asia, they're not, like, so vocal, so having a document really helped them make contributions.

 It also helped people who are not physically able to participate at the meeting make effective and substantial contribution.

 So I hope that we can consider and continue this style of discussion this year as well.

 And then on national and regional IGF, I think it's -- having a common theme like last year was good.  And just to add, one suggestion for improvement is that I think the secretariat was being helpful in reaching out to each of the regional and maybe some national IGFs on line, but to be truly effective, you need people to explain what the context is and then what the whole idea behind it is.  And I was involved in the APR IGF, the regional IGF for the Asia-Pacific region, so I attended their meetings, explained why, and then I actually tried to coordinate to have the discussions at the APR IGF so that they can actually feed into the main session.

 So I think the MAG members can actually help -- coming from diverse regions can help out in the regional and possibly national IGFs to explain and help make contributions if we are going to continue with a similar approach of having a common theme and to help encourage participation from these IGFs.  Thank you.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Izumi.  Cristina?

 >>CHRISTINE ARIDA: 

 >CRISTINA MONTI: Thank you, madam chair.  And congratulations for your recent appointment.

 My name is Cristina Monti.  I work at the European Commission in the Directorate General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology.

 First of all, I'm very glad to be here today.  I have to say usually it only takes one hour to get here from Brussels, but this time due to the recent events that took place in Brussels it was slightly more difficult to be here with you today.  And you might also remember that the last IGF also finished with the terrible news of the attacks in Paris.

 So unfortunately these are some of the difficulties we have to face when we have to travel in our interconnected world, but here we are.  And I just wanted to say a few remarks concerning this agenda item, taking stock of IGF 2015.

 We provided a written contribution which is well-reflected in the synthesis paper kindly provided by the secretariat, so I will not go into much detail.  I just would like to reaffirm our overall positive assessment of last year's IGF.  It really raised the bar for future meetings, and so the MAG will now need to respond to even increased expectations from the global community and will have to continue to build on previous achievements and improvements.  Especially now that we have a longer mandate of 10 years ahead of us.  And I think -- I hope that this will also stimulate the MAG into thinking longer term, in a broader context, and not just considering one IGF meeting at a time.

 In general, as has been said, the IGF has run really smoothly with a positive and constructive mood.  It took place in a year that was particularly intense for Internet governance discussions, and the IGF really managed to connect to the other processes and also to inform such processes like the WSIS+10 review and the importance of linking to ICT and post-2015 sustainable development goals.

 Also, new formats and ideas were tested and implemented with a view to produce nonbinding outputs and recommendations for voluntary adoption on a number of topical issues.

 So our assessment, again, it was very positive.  There was a significant and constructive European presence, as well, which is a direct manifestation of the strong youth support for the multistakeholder approach of Internet governance which is embodied by the IGF.

 In terms of participation, we had the vice president of the European Commission present, but also nine members of the European Parliament, as well as significant participation of private sector and civil society representatives.

 And on this, maybe a suggestion from the logistical point of view.

 For European delegates, in addition to the official program, it is also very important the bilateral and informal meetings that take place on the margins of the IGF.

 And we see that with time, these kind of meetings, even though they are informal and unofficial, they tend to become bigger and bigger, so sometimes also the facilities for bilateral meetings also need to be taken into account.

 And finally, my last remark, Chengetai, you also mentioned our suggestion to invite the MAG to consider how the Global Internet Policy Observatory or other mapping initiatives and Internet governance observatory tools can be put to use to develop the program or in other ways that the MAG considers useful to carry out their tasks.

 I was planning maybe to say a few words on the global -- on GIPO, on the Global Internet Policy Observatory, maybe in the afternoon when we will discussing about Internet governance developments.  Thank you very much.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Cristina, and look forward to hearing about that at the end of the day today.

 Next in the queue is Nigel.

 >>NIGEL HICKSON: Yes.  Thank you very much, Madam Chair.  Nigel Hickson from ICANN, a non-MAG member.  

 First of all -- I better put my glasses on.  

 First of all, congratulations on your appointment.  I think it's absolutely splendid that you're Chair and actually splendid that the U.N. has chosen a non-government stakeholder for the first time.  Really, really positive.

 I will try and be brief, as I always am.

 [ Laughter ]

 First of all -- thank you.  Looking back to 2015, I don't think I need to say much because it has all been said.  It was clearly an excellent meeting on many different levels, I think.  

 In terms of substance for me and I think for many of us, the dialogue we had on the WSIS+10 review -- and I know that Marilyn has mentioned this, and she personally contributed an awful lot to it -- was very important indeed.  

 The dialogue in terms of process and substance.  In substance in that we were able to interact with the co-facilitators on a wide range of WSIS issues and on process in that the co-facilitators saw the energy, the enthusiasm, the commitment of all the different stakeholders from across the page, if you'd like; co-facilitators that were used to working in an U.N. environment.  The Second Committee and other committees in New York were exposed to this sort of vibrant energy that came from the different stakeholders, including the excellent participation we had from the young people.

 And I think clearly that enthusiasm really did help in terms of the output that was achieved in New York in December.

 I think the intersessional work that preceded the IGF was clearly important.  The best practice forums clearly came forward with a number of initiatives, a number of discussions which really did light up the room in many different areas.  And I think they have an additional importance because as we've seen, several of these initiatives -- and many were taken forward by ISOC and others -- involve people that never come to IGF meetings, involve people that get involved perhaps because they know about national IGFs, they know about regional IGFs, but they can't come to the main IGF but they want to be involved in this dialogue.  And this is what's just so important because this is the energy, this is the real enthusiasm that we need for the future.  

 The remote participation, again, that we had at the meeting, I think, was first class.

 And, finally, on the 2015 meeting, as Cheryl and others have said, the practical arrangements -- I mean, when people ask me, you know, did you have a good meeting?  And someone says, Well, the lunch was good, I always think, Well, how trivial.  Why do we need to talk about lunches?  But, in fact, what happened in Brazil was so important in that everyone gathered together.  There was this tremendous energy, and really it was an excellent venue.  And sometimes these practical arrangements really do sort of combine to make things a success.  

 And personally I love the site.  I like that it was remote from the hotels.  I love the buses as well.  And it was really enjoyable.

 So 2016, I'll say very little.  Clearly a lot of work to do, and we're lucky we've got such a committed MAG.  Congratulations on all the new MAG appointees.  It's really fantastic to see such a diverse and exciting MAG take shape.

 I'm sure we're going to have a success.  I love the enthusiasm that Mexico came forward with.  The arrangements seem ideal.

 It is going to be an important meeting.  It's the first in the mandate.  And because 2016 is a different year to 2015 -- in 2015, there was so much pressure because of the WSIS and other events.  This is the main event for 2016, the main event.  And, therefore, the eyes are upon us, as they say.  And so I really do think it's important.

 To finish off, just wanted to say how important I think the national and regional IGFs are, and we've all been involved in some of these.  They continue to sort of spread and it's fantastic to see in many different continents.

 And we need to be able to capture some of those ideas.  We need to be able to capture the energy, not to dictate what they do, not to structure anything, but just capture what comes out of those for the good of us all at the IGF and at the open consultation.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Nigel.  And you certainly did live up to your commitment to be positive.

 Sandra, you are next in the queue.

 >> SANDRA HOFERICHTER:  Thank you very much, Mrs. Chair.  And welcome in this environment, and congratulations to your appointment.

 I want to make two comments, one looking back to the IGF and Joao Pessoa in 2015 and another comment on the current process of program drafting for the IGF 2017.  

 But, first of all, I would like to express our pleasance about the extension of the IGF for ten years.  We understand EuroDIG, the European Dialogue on Internet Governance, which is the European IGF is one of the -- is the European section to contribute to this global process.  And also for us, it makes it much more easier now to have planning security how to move forward for the next ten years.  So we are very much looking forward to this ongoing collaboration.

 To my first point, I would like to highlight the IGF village and the way it was set up during the Joao Pessoa meeting.  We usually have to -- we usually set up a booth during the IGF.  And for us it's always a great effort to bring all the material there, to rent a screen, and do all the logistics.

 And I must say, last year's IGF village was of such a great value in terms of providing a space for communication, reaching out to new participants, serving as a meeting point, it was really, truly the center of the conference.  And we had so great opportunities to interact, to get together, to have a meeting there, to have in-depth discussions that I would wish that a similar space could be available for the IGF in 2016.  So thank you again for the Brazilian host team for giving so much effort into this village.

 My second point -- my second point, I would like to share some experiences we recently made at EuroDIG in our program drafting process.  Time-wise, we are always a little bit ahead of the global IGF because the meeting takes place in June.  So we are already in the stage of shaping the program and forming org teams.

 And other than at the IGF, we are at EuroDIG not calling for session proposals or workshops or plenary proposals but we call very generally for themes and issues to be discussed on the next EuroDIG.

 We are, so to say, not accepting or disregarding proposals.  We try to merge all incoming submissions and try to accommodate them all in the program.  This has been always a challenging step in the program-planning process over the years.  But we could realize we had improvement this year which was really -- which really made a difference, and I would like to share this with you.  Maybe the IGF MAG can take elements from this process and incorporate this in the processes.

 I know that also when submitting a proposal through the IGF Web site that there are certain categories where you have to submit your proposal under to.  And this year, we incorporated subject matter experts for each category.  This made it much more easier to merge proposals, to identify similar proposals.  In the past, it was always the secretariat dealing with these proposals.  I guess at the IGF it is more the MAG dealing with these proposals.

 This year we concentrated on each category, assigned a subject matter expert, and those experts were reviewing which proposal can go along with another proposal.  And they really created meaningful subcategories.  Afterwards, it was decided which category might go into a plenary and which proposal might go into a workshop.

 We made the experience that other than in the years before we had way less interventions when opening the draft program with the assigned proposal so each proposal was incorporated in the program.  They all got an ID.  They could see, Okay, I'm in this basket.  I'm in this basket.  

 In the past, it was always quite a lot of communication in terms of "Oh, I didn't feel well," "I was misunderstood", My proposal was different."  But this year with the inclusion of subject matter experts which went through this beforehand, before a draft program was created, we had way less interventions in terms of changing the categories, changing the sessions.  And this did speed up our process very much and made it for us at the end very clear, so to say, to have a mandate to go forward with this draft proposal.  And we could almost incorporate all proposals.  There were just a few exemptions which were then offered a flash session or a side event or a pre-event.  But really -- and we had 150 proposals or -- it was a joint call with SEEDIG and EuroDIG.  For EuroDIG, we had 117 proposals.  And I can really say we could accommodate all of them.  

 This is really thanks to the subject matter experts.  One of them is next to me.  I think it's Olivier Crepin-LeBlond.  I think there are more in the room.  

 This might be something we would like to share our experiences with the global IGF and be as much help as possible in terms of if you want to learn more about these processes.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Sandra.  That's very interesting, and we certainly look forward to any suggestions or advice on how we might move forward in the program this year.  Not only is it in a compressed cycle, in fact, it's going to take place over summertime in the northern hemisphere which does add an extra complication to the overall timetable.  So really appreciate the input.  Thank you.

 Susan, you have the floor.

 >>SUSAN CHALMERS:  Thank you very much, Chair.  Congratulations on your appointment.  

 My name is Susan Chalmers, and I have recently joined the National Telecommunications and Information Administration within the U.S. Department of Commerce.  I'm offering my observations, however, as an observer and a former MAG member, a representative of the technical community.

 I would like to thank Virat for his kind words regarding our work on the workshop evaluation and selection process but more importantly to echo his comments in terms of being conservative to changes within the process given our compressed time line.

 I think that if one area of focus could be isolated, it would be the in-person selection meeting of the MAG for the workshops.  

 And I would like to again support Virat's idea for having a grid or a set number of workshops and clarifying the process before going into this meeting.  It's a very important meeting.  But it would be good to have clarity on that beforehand.  And this should help alleviate the problem of having too many workshops.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Susan.

 Mourad, you have the floor.

 >> MOURAD BOUKADOUM:  Thank you very much.  Unfortunately, I didn't attend the Joao Pessoa meeting due to professional obligations.  However, I have some comments to make.  

 I have questions to the Brazilian delegation.  How many ministers attended the high-level meeting last year?  And the same issue is raised with the industrial leaders.  

 I'm asking this question because it's related the visibility of the IGF meeting of the decision makers both at the government and industrial levels.

 Would like also to know the perspective of Mexico regarding this issue in the context of the next IGF.

 I remember last year during the preparatory process, concerns -- many concerns were raised regarding the necessity of improving governments' participation.  Again turning back to the Brazilian delegation, do you have data, some figures regarding the government participation in the last edition of IGF?

 I think also we need to -- as a MAG group, we need also to have more participation from the academic community so maybe we need to more engage with this community in the future.  That's all.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Mourad.

 Brazil?

 >>BENEDICTO FONSECA:  Thank you for the question.  And I think this is a very important topic of discussion, how to further engage government participation.  

 As I have said before, having participated in those WSIS+10 discussions, one thing we noticed was that for many colleagues, even from our governments that are in New York, there's not a lot of familiarity with IGF.  And that also is the case in other areas of government.  In regard to -- and there's an ongoing effort in that regard, one that we want to strengthen.

 But in regard to the figures for last IGF, I would like to turn to my colleague, I think, who probably will have some additions in that regard.  Thank you.

 >> JANDYR SANTOS:  Thank you.  Thank you, Ambassador.  I'll gladly report back to you with a detailed list of the high-level participation and ministerial participation as well and not only -- and as well as the government participation.  

 I just would like to remind that this meeting, the ministerial meeting, was organized by the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Brazil.  And it was organizing with the support of a wide range of embassies around the globe and was very instrumental to have people in the embassies promoting the event and getting in touch with local governments and having the confirmation of participation in advance.

 I won't be able to give you the detail numbers right now today, but I will report back with a detailed list as soon as possible.  Thank you.

 >>BENEDICTO FONSECA:  If I can just add we decided to designate not as ministerial meeting but as high-level meeting because we wanted to make sure that the right message was given that were aiming at having not only high-level participants from governments but high-level participants from all stakeholders, just for clarity.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.

 Hossam, you have the floor.

 >>HOSSAM ELGAMAL:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  And congratulations one more time.  My name is Hossam Elgamal.  I'm coming from Egypt representing private sector, related to AfICTA and also contributing to ICC-BASIS.

 First of all, I would like to thank Brazil for last year's event.  There's a lot of hard work done.  Very welcoming staff, very welcoming contribution from everyone.  There was a good participation from high-level people as well during last year.

 I have just a few comments regarding moving forward, if possible.  I agree with Virat on the fact that fewer sessions -- fewer thematic sessions would be a good thing to do.  And I go back to my contribution last year in the MAG saying that, if possible, if we can have the workshop serving the thematic main sessions, this would be good.  

 It's like today workshops would serve tomorrow main sessions.  If we are able to do something like that, this would be very good in order to really integrate the work to be done and conclude within the main sessions.

 Second thing is, if possible, and being around the Internet, if we are able to start -- help starting a strong social media promotion campaign in order to really be able to have more inclusiveness, especially for different developing countries, especially the ones that do not have currently national or regional IGF, this would certainly make an impact.  And if we are able also to promote or announce about any possibility of funding for people from LDCs, this would be as well a good thing to be done.

 One thing that might be of interest, subject for the MAG to discuss, is the idea of not looking at this year's IGF on its own but as part of the ten years' plan.

 Now we have a ten years' mandate, and also we have parallel to that the SDGs.  So if we are able to look in a more wider view for the ten years or at least for five years' approach and then go back and see what we can do this year as part of a five years' approach, this might be of value as well.

 Finally, maybe, again, the idea of remembering to integrate further sectorial -- different sectors, especially if we're going to again align our work with SDGs, so environment, employment, use, health, finance, et cetera, and getting more and more from different sectors.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Hossam.

 Elizabeth, you have the floor.

 >>ELIZABETH THOMAS-RAYNAUD:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  Elizabeth Thomas-Raynaud.  I come from both Canada and France, and I'm speaking from the private sector perspective.  

 For those of you who don't know me, I'm a policy executive at the International Chamber of Commerce based in Paris.  I'm also the director of the ICC-BASIS initiative, that's Business Action to Support the Information Society.

 Since this is the first time I'm taking the mic, I'd like to say thank you to UN-DESA and to the IGF secretariat for their efforts between December and now to get this 2016 MAG established and to convene today's meeting for us.

 I'd also like to congratulate again and welcome our new Chair.  I am extremely delighted to be joining this first MAG of the new IGF mandate.  And I believe this is going to prove a new frontier, an era for us as we have just been given this road ahead and concur with the comments made just by Hossam in looking at this not just as a one-year exercise but really what are we building towards.

 I also wanted to recognize the very thoughtful and worthwhile tribute made by the Chair to our past MAG Chair and the recognition of how significant Ambassador Karklins' contributions have been made to both the IGF but also to the multistakeholder cooperation for Internet governance across all of the WSIS communities and activities.  

 And, of course, I'd like to thank the government of Mexico for the proposal for the 2016 meeting.  We look forward to working collaboratively with you on this effort.  

 And I would like to commend you for the efforts you already started working with other stakeholders in your community.  I understand from our friends at ICC Mexico and other colleagues and other stakeholder groups that are working on a team with you, and I commend you for doing what we always say which is to think global and then start acting locally.  So actually integrating that is great fun for us.

 On the topic of this taking stock section, I would also like to express our appreciation to the host country of Brazil for the 2015 IGF effort.  I know there was a huge team in planning and executing that.  We saw on the ground an extremely motivated and energized community of Brazilian ambassadors of all sizes and shapes who were really, really welcoming in our sessions.  And that was most enjoyable and echoed by all who participated.

 ICC-BASIS has actually contributed a very detailed submission towards this discussion.  Chengetai raised many of the points that we made in that summary so I'm not going to reiterate all of them.  I just want to highlight a couple of additional points and perhaps reiterate some of the more important ones.

 On the substance side, I would like to note that the intersessional work that was done was a significant effort.  And it's important that we recognize the IGF secretariat and congratulate them for that extra effort because it did add an additional burden on already shortened resources.  And so I would like us to consider that as we move forward, the resources we have at the IGF secretariat.  And if we're going to load more intersessional work in a shorter period of time, that we consider the impact of that and how that can be managed and addressed.

 I would also like -- I think it's important to note that the achievement of the work on connecting the next billion was also very significantly helped by the drive and determination of Constance Bommelaer at ISOC, who really, I think, put a special personal commitment into successfully completing that, and so I'd like to thank her as well for those efforts.

 Regarding the main sessions, I would again reiterate, looking back at the past experiences both I've had at the IGFs but also the reports and, you know, fortunately in my previous (indiscernible), ICC/BASIS was a very, very good reporter and grabbed all of the information, cataloged it each year, so looking back on that, I think some of the most positive experiences that we've had have come where there are fewer but more focused and substantively strong main sessions supported by workshops, as our colleagues have said, again respecting the guidelines process while choosing and containing the numbers of these so that the substance is strong and people are able to participate.

 I will echo, as well, that the sessions in between are extremely important parts of IGF.

 This year was extremely -- an extremely good example.  The village was mentioned.  The lunches were mentioned.

 Having rooms for bilateral meetings that are large enough for delegations is -- was a little bit of a challenge this year and is an important factor for the meetings, so I would suggest that to our hosts for consideration.

 I will also say that not very long ago, Nespresso introduced a promotional coffee from Mexico that was absolutely gorgeous and they have taken it off the market again, unfortunately, so we're all going to have to come to you, and my request is that we will have this kind of delicious coffee accessible around the clock because some of us are die-hard addicts and like to sneak out of the sessions every once in a while and have coffee in close proximity.

 Finally, I would like to mention that I think one of the big successes that happened last year came from this strong link that the MAG built in the program with the wider global sustainable development agenda context.  I think that we value -- we valued this and benefitted from this because it contextualized our work in the minds of others who are outside the Internet governance community, and that doing so also allows us to stay very close to the raison d'etre, as we would say, of this work.  And so I would encourage us, as we look forward to programs and themes ahead, to consider that.

 There is a proposal for intersessional work consideration in our ICC/BASIS document.  I will share that with people on the MAG again and raise it in more detail later on.

 So I look forward to working with all of you towards a very successful IGF, working collectively, and bringing in new perspectives and talents that are going to contribute to this new phase of our journey and the goals that we set for it.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Elizabeth.  

 Christine, you have the floor.

 >>CHRISTINE ARIDA: Thank you.  Thank you, Madam Chair.  My name is Christine Arida.  I work for the government of Egypt and I represent Egypt on the MAG as the previous host for the IGF.

 Allow me first to thank UNDESA and to congratulate you on your appointment.  I really look forward to working with you and with incoming and returning MAG members.  

 I also take the community to thank Ambassador Karklins for guiding and leading the work of the MAG last year.

 I would also like to congratulate Brazil for the Joao Pessoa meeting, an extremely successful IGF meeting at an important time for Internet governance.  And I thank Mexico for their proposal of hosting us this year in Guadalajara and for their presentation earlier.  Looking forward to a great meeting this year.

 At first, I wish to express our pleasure for the extension of the IGF mandate for a new 10 years.  We look forward to working with everyone towards further strengthening the IGF as a multistakeholder platform and multistakeholder process, and enabling the global dialogue on Internet governance during this renewed period.

 I appreciate many of the comments that were put forward by previous speakers in taking stock of last year and looking forward to the next IGF.  I'm not going to reiterate them here, but I would just like to stress on one specific point.  That is the issue of further engaging stakeholders from developing countries, as was outlined by the resolution of the General Assembly.  And in that respect, I would like to acknowledge and commend the intersessional work that was done last year by the MAG and the secretariat, especially in reaching out to national and regional IGF initiatives.

 I believe this practice should continue and be further strengthened this year.  We need to bring in voices that are not commonly there at the IGFs, as Nigel mentioned, especially on subjects that are of common interest and on themes where the opinion coming out -- coming in from different parts is a real addition to the dialogue.

 I also would like to commend the secretariat for the support that they have been providing to the group of national and regional IGF coordinators.  I believe the group has gained enthusiasm and momentum that has proved quite important in engaging stakeholders from all corners of the world.  I hope, as we go forward, that we can provide this group and through them the national and regional initiatives with the support that is well needed to grow further organically.  Thank you very much.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Christine.

 (saying name), you have the floor.

 >> Bonjour, madam.  Merci.  Good morning.  Thank you, madam.  Thank you for giving the floor.  My name is (saying name).  I'm speaking on behalf of African civil society for WSIS.

 First off, I would like to congratulate you on your recent nomination and wish you every success in your endeavors to help the Internet community.  Here and now, I would also like to congratulate Brazil for its IGF.  It was very successful.  That was the point of view of many observers, in any case.

 I would also like to congratulate Mexico for agreeing to host the next IGF conference.

 Many thanks to the entire team for organizing all of this.  Thousands of participants, hundreds of topics, or tens of topics, dozens of topics for workshops is an incredible amount of work.

 Let me also draw your attention to one thing, to a number of points that have already been put forth by my predecessors.

 First, for us to have good topics, very successful topics, at least in terms of Africa, I would like to say that it's necessary for the national processes to develop to the level -- global level, especially in the African continent where there are very few Internet Governance Forum conferences, so it's necessary to have high-level meetings there.  And based on those meetings, I think that we will have some good feedback.  I think that some of the most important and most interesting feedback will come from countries where they're not been any IGFs.

 It's important also to provide the private sector and other actors at the state level and other levels, and let's try to ensure that we have lots of national IGFs.

 I've said this before but I just want to say this again, that it's so important to have IGFs in order to consolidate some of what we've achieved in certain countries.

 Let me draw your attention as well to the fact that in Africa the majority of our national conferences or regional conferences were possible thanks to the participation of several society, and indeed, they were often the initiators of these conferences, so let me make an appeal here for African civil society and for your support, so that it can play fully its role that it will be able to -- so that it will be able to make a significant conference to this incredible effort, which is the IGC, and let us ensure that the WSIS is a success.  We know that the future is fairly uncertain in the field of human rights and in the field of privacy, and we know that the private sector really does have a lot of influence in terms of Internet governance, so we really do have to think about how our lives will unfold with the Internet tomorrow.  And I can say this:  That African civil society is one of the greatest contributors to this reflection, so I wanted to want again draw your attention to this fact and appeal to your support so that the African civil society will be (indiscernible) in Mexico and beyond Mexico.  I'm here as a representative of civil society because I'm here in Geneva, but other people would want -- would have liked to have come as well.  This is so important.  It's so important from the point of experience and the experiences and ideas that they will bring forward, and I think it's the same case not only in Africa but in Asia and other continents as well.  

 And the other thing I wanted to say is to -- I want to endorse the colleagues, speakers before me, and say how important that sustainable development is as a topic for the conferences in the coming years, because this is really key, I think, Madam.  Thank you.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you.  Mark, you have the floor.

 >>MARK CARVELL: Thank you, Madam Chair.  It's Mark Carvell, United Kingdom government, former MAG member.

 U.K. government has submitted detailed comments in the consultation held earlier this year so I won't recount those, but suffice to say we endorse very much the positive comments that have been made this morning and elsewhere in the other comments about the successful IGF in Joao Pessoa and we greatly appreciate all the hard work by the Brazilian CGI team in constructing and hosting the event, which was indeed very enjoyable and a very productive IGF.  One of the best that's ever been held.

 I do want to highlight one note of concern that we expressed in our comments, and it follows on from the last set of comments from African civil society, in that we felt that the numbers of participants from Africa and Asia were lower than we would have hoped, given the overarching theme of sustainable development and one of the key outputs was access for the next billion.

 So I think the experience from Joao Pessoa highlights the importance of outreach to stakeholder communities in -- throughout the world but in particular from developing countries and small island developing states in particular, and we very much hope that the national and regional IGFs in those regions will help with the outreach and bring up the level of participation for Guadalajara.

 So the relationship-building with the national and regional IGFs I think has a vital role to play in that.  The IGF has to demonstrate, consistent with the CSTD's recommendations, full outreach and participation from -- by stakeholder communities in developing countries.

 I'm pleased to report in this respect that the Commonwealth IGF is being relaunched, with the help of the commonwealth telecommunications organization.  The commonwealth membership includes 53 states, many of which are in Africa and Asia, as well as in the Caribbean.

 So look out for that.  The Commonwealth IGF Web site will relaunch and that provides a vehicle for promoting the opportunities for engagement, for contributing to the IGF in Guadalajara, both in person and of course as remote participants.

 So hope very much that the attendees or people listening in to this open consultation session who are from the commonwealth will use that opportunity afforded by the commonwealth telecommunications organization.

 So that is my main point, really, the criticality of outreach to developing countries and as a commonwealth member, the U.K. will assist with that process.

 Thank you very much.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Mark.

 Next one?  Segun, you have the chair -- the floor.  You're not in the -- okay.  Not in the queue?  

 Then Slobodan, you have the floor.

 >>SLOBODAN MARKOVIC: Thank you, Madam Chair.  

 My name is Slobodan Markovic.  I work on ICT policy and Internet community relations at Serbian ccTLD registry, which is a part of the technical community and a major supporter of Internet governance initiatives in the region of southeast Europe.

 For example, towards the end of this month, we will host in Belgrade the second regional dialogue on Internet governance, the SEEDIG.

 I speak as a MAG member and a member of MAG working group on the remote participation and will make a couple of remarks regarding online but also on-site participation following up on earlier comments by Ginger Paque.

 At IGF in Brazil, I supported the online participation in the main room, and my impression was that most sessions were -- that most sessions there looked more like panels, with very few of them involving the audience, both on line and in the room, in any significant way.

 Some of the notable exceptions were main sessions on cybersecurity and zero rating.

 IGF is a really huge gathering and a rare opportunity for actual dialogue.  We're wasting this opportunity, I think, if we perceive the audience just as those people who ask questions or make remarks at the end of the session if time permits, so we should seek to make main sessions more interactive and inclusive this year, and not just push questions and comments towards the end of the session.

 I would like to congratulate the Brazilian hosts for their efforts in providing excellent facilities and thank again all volunteers who supported the event in general and online participation in particular.

 This year's IGF should raise the standards in online participation and enabling effective participation of people with disabilities attending both on site and on line.

 I look forward to working towards this goal with my fellow MAG members and our Mexican hosts.  Thank you.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Slobodan.

 We have three more speakers, a remote speaker which I'll go to in a moment, and then Virat and Cheryl, because you've had the floor.

 Just want to point out that we're actually coming up to the end of this particular session so we'll make a determination when to sort of cut the queue here and move any of the remaining speakers to the next session, if necessary.

 So remote participant?  

 And I hate calling them remote participants, as well, but I -- you know, I have no visibility into who's actually waiting to speak on the line, so count on Anja to introduce them.

 >>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Thank you.  

 We have two interventions.  The first one is from (saying name) from Asia-Pacific regional IGF.  IGF platform and national and regional IGFs have huge gaps.  It needs to be reduced with efforts.  I would like to suggest the MAG to use the committee to be used during IGF to raise awareness for regional and national IGFs.

 The second comment -- the second is from (saying name) from Afghanistan.

 The past and in-conflict countries have minimum representation so more relevant stakeholders in the IGF 2015.  Governments play a crucial role in the Internet governance in these countries.  Surveillance, content filtering, more Internet infrastructure management, et cetera.  Civil society efforts are not taken into consideration by the local governments, hence making it very difficult for true representation of civil society at the national level and also at the IGF and other relevant platforms.

 So if I may suggest that IGF 2016 have some data collected on each country's and each stakeholder's involvement in the process so that proper representation of all stakeholders.  

 That's the end of the sentence.

 And we also have certain complaints that the time zones are a bit challenging for participating on line, as there are differences between times.  Thank you.

 >>LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Anja, and thank you to all the online participants, as well, from whatever time zone you might be participating in.

 Virat, you have the floor.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Madam Chair.  

 I'll make three quick points in response to some of the stuff that has been said, because we will get very deep into this area tomorrow when we actually set up our criteria of selection, et cetera.

 So taking forward the point that was made by Susan, the -- one of the things that we spend a lot of time is to finally select -- finalize the criteria and then finally select workshops.

 As she said, there's an outstanding set of criteria that is already available.  I said that and she kind of agreed to that.  That was actually her contribution, along with Fiona's.

 The one thing that happened when we were getting to select this -- and this is a reflection -- was that in spite of having a very detailed sort of guidelines on what to apply for, when we got into the room to pick our sessions we added two more to it, which was new ideas and sessions with government speakers.

 And my colleague, Mike and I, had a long discussion on that and how to go and pick those, but I think it was an important point.  

 My only point would be that please look at what has been circulated.  In fact, look at what Liesyl has circulated, which is even a more comprehensive set of documents from the workshop selection tips, et cetera.

 Let's add to that, if you want to, anything now so that we don't have left -- things left in the end, and it will also be for a more transparent process, because if new ideas is important for the MAG this year, we should say it up front.  If government speakers is an important thing, then the panelists should -- those workshop submitters should know that up front.

 So in addition to the two objectives that we had last year -- three, actually -- developing countries, first timers, and roundtables and not panels but my colleague here just talked about not everything that seemed like a roundtable was a roundtable, so we need to sort of find a way to fix that and then add anything new as soon as we can now, so that at the end we don't have to go through -- 

 We've started picking proposals at 60 for the last 10 years, out of a hundred.  My urge -- I would urge the MAG that we should do it in a way that we start at 75 or 80, so that we have corrective measures now, rather than later.  That's just an improvement.  Because we need to show improvement over the last year.  So that is one point.  Of course open to discussion.

 On the other, very quickly points that were made on the remote and then Mourad made this point and it was also made by (indiscernible) participation.  I have some numbers that I will just quickly run through for the benefit of the MAG.  As I said, everybody has said this is an outstanding, one of the best IGFs that has happened.  Here are some hard facts, numbers, from two sources, from the secretariat.  One is the 2014 IGF -- (audio cut out ) -- 2014 Chair summary and then 2015 attendance statistics of the IGF which are on the Web site.  

 I will just quickly give you some of those numbers.  Actually civil society, the gentleman who spoke about it, did exceedingly well.  They were up 11% over 2014.  Governments were down 2% in terms of participation.  Intergovernmental organizations were exactly the same.  Private sector was down 12%.  Actually the highest drop experienced between two IGFs was the private sector, vis-a-vis -- I'm talking about Istanbul vis-a-vis Joao Pessoa.

 The technical community was down 1%, so almost the same.  The media was up 3%.  

 Onsite participation was down 11% vis-a-vis the numbers registered at Istanbul.

 Remote participation was really up.  So thanks to Ginger, 35% higher remote participation or online participation.  Outstanding result there.

 Overall in terms of number of countries, that question was also asked.  We went down from 144 to 112.  So reduction of about 22%.

 In terms of regions, very quickly, Africa down 3%.  Asia-Pacific down 3%.  Latin America, as expected, was up.  Host country up 18%.  That was the big youth contingent.  So excellent move there.  Eastern Europe down 2%.  Latin America was up 3%.  Western Europe and others, minus 6%.  Onsite participation said minus 11%.  Overall numbers.

 That is -- one of the things I want to say, one of -- the outreach piece that I think was spoken about by the distinguished colleague from the U.K. government but also I think the cost.  

 On average, the cost increment between getting to Sao Paulo or one of the large cities in Brazil vis-a-vis Joao Pessoa was about 600 to $800 for Asia, about $400 extra for Europe.  

 I just did some numbers on the net.  The cost of actually getting to -- I want to say this -- Guadalajara is almost the same as getting to Mexico City.  So I think that will certainly -- in terms of cost, you're not putting an extra burden if were in a large city.  I've seen lots of direct flights get into this so it's probably in terms of choice.  So apart from that, I think this is one thing that we've already sort of gotten over because that might have been a factor for some of it.

 Though, civil society really much higher in terms of participation.  So I just wanted to leave those numbers.

 Last point, a point was made by developing country participation.  I just wanted to say that, as I said, 200% hike in the number of developing country participation from workshops.  We can do better.  I'm sure there is a niche to it.  

 And it also goes to the core of the improvements document of March 2012, the resolution of the UNGA of December 2015, and today.  

 Hossam's statement in the morning, he talked about developing countries.  And I think you would see an ICC-BASIS intersessional work proposal for increasing developing country participation as a concentrated effort throughout 2016.  The MAG can discuss when we go to that stage.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Virat.  And thank you for reminding us of those statistics from the secretariat as well.

 And perhaps I'd even suggest next time in the summary of the IGF, maybe we include those right up front because I think it's actually a really good helpful sort of reminder and scene setter.  Maybe we can just do that next time as part of the secretariat's summary.

 Cheryl, you have the floor.

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Madam Chair.

 I actually was also going to respond to Mark's comment because I do think that he hit the nail right on the head.  It's really key that we increase our outreach to developing nations.  

 And in part Virat already answered.  I think part of what I heard last year in conversations with folks, it was both the cost.  There were also some travel complications that folks faced.  The flights were a little bit longer.  I think in talking to people, Istanbul was more centrally located from a number of different places so they could get there pretty easily.

 But there are other things that, you know, host countries think of up front that are really important.  For example, providing lunch in Brazil, that was incredible -- that really helps a lot to cover all those meals for people who are coming who may have a hard time paying for the meeting.  And so it's important to think of all of these things, hotels that are centrally located, affordable, et cetera, on the front end in terms of upping participation.

 And then on the comment with respect to making the sessions more interactive, I think that's exactly right.  No one really wants to sit in a room and feel as though they're just being talked at.  And I think that will also help with participation as well.  People feel they can come and they can really be a part of it.  I think we should definitely work to keep including as many new voices as possible and keep including as many new speakers as possible to kind of share the wealth of information, so to speak.

 And then just very quickly on the comments on the workshops, I think what we did last year with respect to kind of helping along new proposals and highlighting new proposals really helped to increase the number of new proposers who came through.  I think it's always important at the front end to offer guidance in whatever way we can.

 If I remember correctly last year, we put them on the Web site.  I think that kind of helps for someone new who had never submitted a proposal to go and see kind of what we're looking for, what should be included, all of those things are really helpful for someone who's walking up to it and doesn't have this sort of insider knowledge on what makes a good proposal, so to speak.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Cheryl.

 Hartmut.

 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  After so many comments, I would like to thank Mark, my good friend, that you learn to spell Joao Pessoa.  

 And then, Virat, I think there's hope that you will learn to speak Guadalajara.  No problem.

 [ Laughter ]

 But let's go to my main concern.  About the youth participation, we need to avoid, let's say, a competition that everyone now likes to take over this program.  Constance already mentioned that ISOC is willing to support the program.  And myself, CGI, we have an agreement with ISOC that we would like to maintain this coordination, will be an effort.  And it's very, very, very important to mention that this project is not only ISOC or only CGI.  We receive support from Google, we receive support from Verizon, and we receive support from Intel, and others are joining.  

 So if we like to see more than 70 or 80 people, young people, attending in Guadalajara, we are inviting you, companies, to help us to put some money together.  In Brazil, we have Webinars in preparation for all the young people.  They were not only selected because they have a nice face or nice -- I don't know -- country.  So they need to work hard before we select them.

 We have more than 120 requests.  They need to attend (indiscernible) Webinars.  Then we select the 70, so on, 75.  We paid the hotel.  We paid everything for them from Mexico to Argentina to be part of the event in Joao Pessoa.

 So, again, ISOC and CGI together, we would like to support the program.  And we invite others.  And already I have information that some sponsors already are ready to put money again for Guadalajara.

 I have a discussion with Yolanda and with Victor that Mexico also will be, let's say, part of the program.  So let's do it together.

 My understanding is there can be a parallel effort that we can coordinate in the same way that we do it this year or last year in Joao Pessoa.  I don't like to see that everyone now starts to run his own program.  My idea is to have a joint effort, to put this under one umbrella and that we avoid energy.  And together we can do it in a very similar way that we do it in Brazil.

 Only to finish, this last week we have an event in Washington, D.C.  I don't remember exactly.  I think eight or nine of the young people that we invite in Joao Pessoa participate at this event in Washington, D.C. about cybersecurity.  

 So if we have time and money and energy to train young people, they will be following us and they will work together with us.  And we are preparing the next generation to be on our side.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Hartmut.  It's a very critical, very critical program.

 That actually brings us to the end of the time.  We have Sala who in the queue.  We will pick up with you when we come back at 3:00 right after the break, if that's okay.

 If we need more time on the taking stock and the IGF -- looking forward to the IGF 2016, we will do that.  So I will have one more call for further interventions.  

 And then, again, just a quick reminder, the agenda this afternoon will focus on the outcomes from the high-level meetings in December and other initiatives, other Internet governance initiatives.

 So with that, I want to thank everybody for, I think, a very productive morning session.  

 I don't know if, Chengetai, the secretariat has any kind of announcements, public service announcements?

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  No.  We'll just meet back here at 3:00.  Thank you.

 [ Lunch break ]

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Hello?  Take your seats, please.  We're about to start.

 All right.  Thank you, ladies and gentlemen.  We're going to start the afternoon session of the open consultations.

 I'll hand it over to Lynn.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Welcome.  Thank you for coming back so timely.  I know there was an awful lot everybody had to catch up on the first lunch break, but we do have an awful lot to get through.

 We left just before lunch, we were on the second agenda item, taking stock of IGF 2015 while setting expectations for IGF 2016, and at that point we had one person left in the queue, and that's Sala, and she's going to speak in a moment, and we have another one as well, Jovan.  Maybe just put -- I'm not going to recognize everybody now.  Put your flags up and Chengetai will note.

 And we can give a little bit more time to this, but I think quite quickly we should start really ensuring that we're moving forward looking to IGF 2016, and then of course we still have two other fairly substantive agenda items this afternoon.

 So with that, we'll move to Sala.  

 Sala, you have the floor.

 >>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO: Thank you, Chair.  This is Sala, also known as Salanieta Tamanikaiwaimaro.

 So I'd like to make a few comments, and the first one being on the importance of taking into account the global context, as context shapes meaning.

 Notably, 2015 represented a critical juncture in which various frameworks were finalized, some of which were being reviewed for the past 10 years last year, such as the post-2016 SDGs, the Sendai framework for disaster risk reduction, the Addis Ababa action agenda, and the Paris agreement, given that the Addis Ababa action agenda cemented the political will within the global community to create enabling environment through frameworks, policies, and initiatives that would help meet sustainable development goals and critical to this is aspects of Internet governance.

 If we were to retrospectively examine the context back from when the IGF first started -- I know we're looking at 2015 IGF, but I think it's critical in terms of initiating or beginning the conversation on the 2016 IGF is to also look at the decade and how the -- in terms of global trends have sort of impacted what were prevalent issues back then and how some of these issues have taken a back burner and emergence of many issues that affect today's landscape of Internet governance.  

 Some of these were mentioned today by our colleague from Belgium, who mentioned that there were increasing acts of terrorism in Belgium, and our sincere condolences.  But this literally impacts on things like cyber wars and cybersecurity and how this affects limitation on rights.  And also the things like climate change that literally impacts the increasing incidences of natural disasters which, in turn, literally impacts our global infrastructure.

 For instance, Fiji recently recovered -- we're trying to recover -- from Tropical Cyclone Winston, and even as we speak now, they're going through flooding back home.

 And so globally, there have been millions of displaced persons, homeless people, and so forth.

 Now, what does all this have to do with 2016 IGF?

 I think -- and this is what I wanted to get to.  

 Bottom line is, the 2016 IGF presents an unprecedented opportunity for the Internet governance stakeholders to build on conversations around fulfilling sustainable development goals in creative, innovative ways that latch on and harness, pivot on, and catalyze on the rich relationships within the multistakeholder community that we have.  

 And particularly noting that there has been work that's been done already in terms of the linkages between the Addis Ababa agenda and the SDGs and how we don't have to reinvent the wheel as the MAG, but how we can build on that and pivot on that to encourage the conversation on access.  

 Which brings me to my last point, which is slightly related to modalities, that we should consider in 2016, at the 2016 IGF, to use the dynamic coalition, the DCAD's accessibility guidelines that was developed in Brazil.  

 Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Sala.  

 Jovan, you were next, and I don't think you were here this morning, Jovan, but we're asking people to introduce themselves and say what organization or stakeholder community they're from.

 >>JOVAN KURBALIJA: Sure.  Yes.  I have been absent for quite a few years from IGF.  Therefore, I need to reintroduce myself.  I am Jovan Kurbalija, director of DiploFoundation and head of Geneva Internet Platform here in Geneva.  

 It's great to see you, Lynn, as the chair, and congratulations on this point.

 I was alerted to reflect on one important development from the last IGF, which is related to reporting from the IGF and to see what ideas we can take for the next IGF.  

 In preparation for Brazil IGF 2015, we asked our alumni and community what were their major obstacles in actively participating in the IGF, and there were three key points.

 One is that they missed the sort of the bird's-eye view.  When you are immersed into IGF, you get lost after the first day, because there are so many parallel activities.

 Secondly is that there is some sort of a question of a consciousness that if you go to one event, you will miss another parallel event.

 And third point is that our colleagues wanted to have the follow-up about specific issues of their direct interests.  Let's say cybersecurity, small island states, data protection.  You name it and you have it.

 Based on that insight, in partnership with Internet Society, we prepared the reporting from the IGF focusing on three elements.  

 Reporting immediately after the session.  Therefore, two hours after the session.  Reporting what we called a morning coffee report done during the night.  And we were lucky that our team was in Europe.  Therefore, we have the time difference working for us.  

 Therefore, the IGFers had the report from the previous day next morning after the -- what happened during the previous day.  

 And third feature, which we also noticed especially from government representatives, they needed overall report Monday after the conclusion -- first Monday after the conclusion of the IGF for very practical reasons.  They are back in their capitals or their organizations and they need to report what they did during the IGF.

 Now, that was the approach which was apparently, based on the feedback from the IG community, highly appreciated, both by IGFers, if I can call -- use this term, but also broader IG community.

 It was done in a very -- in a capacity development approach.  We had 20 rapporteurs who were trained in Joao Pessoa how to do reporting from the events.  ISOC ambassadors, Diplo's alumni, and other colleagues.  Therefore, there was capacity development aspect.

 In addition, reporting was done by combining traditional reporting by rapporteurs and data mining from the text transcripts.

 I would say that quietly, it was one important innovation that increased the global footprint of the IGF.  Therefore, more people were in position to follow it in the high-quality way.  And it also provided some sort of compass for the people who were in the -- who were at the IGF to see what's going on, because this bird's-eye view, as you know, is very often missing when you're at the meeting itself.

 And the third point, it linked to the mapping exercise that Digital Watch has been doing in cooperation with the Internet Society, mapping of the IG issues.  Therefore, nowadays you can see -- you can follow all discussion at the IGF on, let's say, data protection and privacy, but on the deeper level, not on the level of the overall transcript but also on the deeper level reading the transcript.

 I think that we should put joint efforts -- IGF community, organizations which are involved -- in order to build on this exercise, which is also walk the talk.  We speak about innovation, we speak about Internet, smart meetings, and this is the way how we can make IGF even smarter.  There are quite a few innovations that we have been introducing over the last 10 years.

 This is just a quick reflection about what's happened in 2015 and what could be the basis for 2016.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Jovan.

 Olivier, you have the floor.

 >>OLIVIER CREPIN-LEBLOND: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.  Olivier Crepin-LeBlond.  I'm the chair of ISOC UK England but I'm also the chair of the dynamic coalition on core Internet values.  

 First and foremost, I'd like to congratulate you on your new appointment as chair of this committee.  It's great to see some redress of the lack of gender balance on the head table, and it's great to see that things are moving in the right direction for this.  I note that there is a pretty good gender balance in the room so that's a good thing.

 Now on to my substantive comments on the IGF.  I'm going to be pretty short.

 One thing which hasn't been mentioned is the work of the dynamic coalitions.  For the first time in Joao Pessoa -- which, by the way, was a fantastic meeting and which we all enjoyed, so thanks to the Brazilian government on this.

 For the first time in Joao Pessoa, the dynamic coalitions had two main sessions, with all of the dynamic coalitions being able to present the amount of work that they've done for the past X number of years since they were created.

 One of the great things is that it also -- it also enabled the different dynamic coalition leads to be able to talk to each other, and I think that's one of the really important things in this community.  For people to talk to each other for collaboration across the different stakeholder groups and collaboration across all of the people that take part in those meetings.

 I'd like to call upon the MAG to really look at the statements that the dynamic coalitions have filed for the stock-taking and hoping that there will be additional -- for next year, or this year, should we say, that there will be also main sessions for the dynamic coalitions.  

 Just to let you also know that there is also at the moment a coordination group that is being -- I wouldn't say created because the terms are being drafted at the moment and that will be presented to the MAG pretty soon.  

 And, finally, just to ask anybody who is interested in the dynamic coalitions to actually take part in the work here.  A bit like -- it's intersessional work, and it's ongoing, and it's really, really worth taking part in that.  So thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Olivier.  That's encouraging to hear that news, too.

 Chengetai has asked for the floor.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Yes.  Sorry, I forgot to say this right at the beginning.  The staff at WIPO have asked me to say that -- to kindly remind you that there should be no food brought in to this -- food and drink brought in and also that there's going to be a reception -- an ISOC reception.  And it's going to be where?  Just outside.  Okay.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  And I think someone from the U.S. delegation had asked for the floor?  No?

 Then we move on to Liyun.  You have the floor, Liyun.

 >>LIYUN HAN:  Many thanks to our new MAG Chair.  My name is Liyun Han.  I'm doing IG research in the Institute of Internet Governance Research, IGR.  It is a IG-related think tank attached to CNNIC.  I'm glad to be here to join this active discussion, and I would like to make some contribution to our IGF.  Today I would like to share some emotional comments and suggestions for you, for all of you.

 Firstly, the first keyword is congratulations to our renewed mandate of next ten years' IGF.  It means we can do more deep thinking and consideration for the future IG, a good governance for the future Internet.

 And the second one is appreciation.  The appreciation I would like to express sincere appreciation for the last IGF in Joao Pessoa.  And thanks for the MAG members for the well-designed formats and innovation of IGF -- IGF formats because last year I saw many changes of the formats and contents of the issues and topics.  And many thanks to host country because it was an excellent event and made much more profession design.

 The third one is expectation.  Because -- that's why we acquired so many success and deliverables.  That's -- it benefits from the multistakeholder collaborations.  So here I would like to call for everybody to make more contribution to this successful governance IG models and devote ourselves to this process.

 Next I would like to share two suggestions for the next IGF.

 The first one is I noticed -- I noticed there is some change in the renewed WSIS+ document because there's -- much more emphasis was paid -- much more attention was paid on bridging the digital divide.  But how to make these things happen, that's what we should -- what we should deep think.

 And as I know during the different regions and areas, there are many capacity-building programs and IG schools.  But due to the different culture reasons, it is difficult to adopt a universal method to do the same things.  So I think in this year's IGF, maybe we can -- maybe we should set up a main session or a best forum to share more experience of the different successful experience of the capacity-building programs, although it is not universal; but we can inspire from more different things.  That's the first suggestion.

 Oh, I mentioned -- I noticed in the morning session, Mr. Hartmut mentioned the use development.  That's the keywords to the future development because the use is the prosperity of the future.  So we should pay more attention on this process.

 The second suggestion is the workshops selection because last year, I attended remotely the MAG meeting and open consultation.  During the evaluation of the workshops, there are so many duplication of the workshops and it's hard to decide which one is (indiscernible) and which one should be chosen.  

 Maybe this year, is it possible to set up a mechanism when a workshop goes into the first round evaluation of MAG, maybe the MAG members can categorize the duplication workshops' proposals and the proposals go back to the proposer and ask them to do the combination by themselves.

 Maybe doing this, firstly, it can boost the collaborations between the different proposers.  And the second benefit is to boost the more active resources.  That's the second suggestion.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  

 Jim, I'm sorry.  I think we missed you before.  You are immediately behind Virat, and I only just now -- Chengetai as well saw your flag.  

 I will come to you in a moment.  And then I think it's time to move on to the second agenda item.  I think the last intervention was a really natural segue to talk about the WSIS outcome document and begin applying some of those directional comments, if you will.  

 I intervene at this point simply to say we will kick off that session with some comments, some remarks by Wai-Min Kwok in just a few minutes.  Again, he is a representative from UN-DESA.

 Jim, we will go --

 >>JIM PRENDERGAST:  Virat has both a physical and a personal towering presence.  My name is Jim Prendergast, speaking on behalf of myself and my company The Galway Strategy Group.  

 But to follow on to some of the comments that Virat and others have raised earlier, applaud all the hard work that went into the development of the workshop criteria last year.  

 I think the emphasis on highly interactive sessions, the movement away from panels is something to be applauded.  Nothing breaks my IGF spirit more than going from a highly interactive session to one where there's six PowerPoints and six speeches and no interaction.

 What I would ask the incoming MAG to consider is when you spend the time, energy, and effort to develop these criteria, stick to it.  Put them in place.  Grade against what you have put in place.

 Unfortunately, I did some analysis of the workshops that were approved last year.  Nearly 30 of them listed ten or more panelists/speakers.  Those were the ones that were approved.  In fact, six of them had between 15 and 20 participants.  So I think that runs sort of counter to what the laudable goals are for the criteria that are put in place.  

 I would ask that going forward, keep that in mind.  Keep it highly entertaining and interactive.  Get the audience involved.  We've all heard from each other several times.  A lot of the same people have spoken on panels.  I think everybody is familiar with that situation.  Let's just try to put it into practice a little more.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jim.

 So now we're moving into Item Number 3 on the agenda, which is to focus on the outcomes of the 2015 high-level meeting and the General Assembly.  It is, of course, that process which culminated in December which did give us renewal of the IGF mandate.  With that, I would like to invite Wai-Min to make a few comments.  And then we'll have an open session.

 >>WAI-MIN KWOK:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  

 As we heard from quite a few of you this morning, 2015 was quite a significant milestone for ICT, for development, and the Internet.  

 I believe most, if not all, of you have witnessed -- have contributed and witnessed to this overall review of implementation of the outcomes of the WSIS through a six-month intensive preparatory process.

 The U.N. received diverse inputs from government, the private sector, civil society, international organizations, the technical and academic communities and all other relevant stakeholder groups taking stock of the progress of the implementation of WSIS and, of course, including the IGF.

 At the high-level meeting and negotiations, including both multilateral and bilateral negotiations at the U.N., which eventually led to the adoption of the outcome document, delegates have expressed the need for close alignment between the WSIS process and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

 This highlights the ICT cross-cutting contributions to the SDG and poverty eradication.  Not only does the G.A. highlight the remarkable process of ICT achievements in past decades, it also acknowledges just the challenges, the continuing digital divide between and within countries, between women and men, the importance of protecting human rights online, and the need of addressing cybersecurity.

 As we all know, the mandate of IGF has been appointed for another ten years.

 But also highlighting the outcome document, we need to make progress on working modalities of the forum and participation of relevant stakeholders from developing countries.  What is important, perhaps not mentioned now, is that -- as of now, the next review of the implementation of WSIS outcome will be held in 2025, which is also in line with the end of mandate of this IGF.  It may be a little far, but I think it's not too early for us to take note that the WSIS outcome, including the IGF outcomes, will also be an input to the review of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.

 With that, I would just like to highlight two major events which take place in the U.N.  First is the multistakeholder forum on science, technology, and innovation for the sustainable development goals.  In short known as the STI forum.  This will be on the 6th to 7th of June at the U.N. headquarters, ECOSOC chamber.

 This STI forum is mandated by both the Addis Ababa action agenda and the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.  And the main task is actually how to develop and operationalize the technology facilitation mechanism on (indiscernible) platform, among other tasks, which again are called for by the SDG.

 It would be worth considering to see how the IGF could contribute to this STI forum, possibly including some of you as MAG members or the MAG Chair to be there to participate even as some speaking roles, that we could explore the option.

 The second event is the high-level political forum which will be held on the 11th to 20th of July in New York.  HLPF, this is the central platform in the U.N. for the follow-up and review of the 2030 agenda for the sustainable developments adopted last year.  In particular, the 2016 theme this year is ensuring that no one is left behind.  I think that this is also very important and timely theme which the U.N. member states were putting a lot of efforts and consideration and I must say that both of these, there is a multistakeholder approach to both of these two events, including both online and offline, which I think is -- some of which is learning from the experience of the IGF.

 That's all I have.  Thank you, Madam Chair.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you.  So we're now still in the open consultation.  Again, our preference is to hear from non-MAG members, in that this is the day for your contributions, so I will open the floor to any questions, comments, or topics that might come to mind as a result of that agenda item.

 Do we want to pursue perhaps some discussion how some of the IGF work might, in fact, tie to the SDGs to try and get some topic here in the room --

 Oh, I see -- I can't quite see.  Only a hand in the back.  So you have the floor.

 >>XIAOYA YANG: Thank you, Madam.  This is Xiaoya Yang from ITU.

 I'm here speaking on behalf of the Dynamic Coalition of Accessibility and Disability.

 I am sorry that we were not able to catch the early part of the agenda, but I would like just to mention that the synthesis paper, the Dynamic Coalition on Accessibility and Disability are not happy that we are -- we regret we couldn't agree that that paper closed on a positive note of the accessibility arrangements for IGF 2015 and I was asked by the DCAD, as its secretary, to make this point here that we really hope that the DCAD guideline on accessibility should be used and make use of in the preparation of IGFs, and after this 10 years of IGFs, and this is the point and the -- there is a confliction of the meeting which the chairman of DCAD couldn't attend today, and she will attend it tomorrow and the day after tomorrow.  I'm talking about Madam Andrea Saks.  Thank you.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you for those comments.  We do attach great importance to the guidelines for disability, and also with our host country agreement we attach those guidelines to the agreement, and throughout discussions with Mexico, for instance, last week those were attached and we did touch upon them.

 As for 2015, we did try our best but I would also like and encourage you to come and we can talk about it and have -- and discuss ways and issues on how we can improve.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: We'll actually allow, with exception, I think a response since your hand has gone back up and then we'll move back to the queue.

 >>XIAOYA YANG: Thank you.  I appreciate the response from the secretariat and we do appreciate that there's always a case that the secretariat had tried their best to accommodate the request of accessibility.

 However, we just wish that this -- 

 We see this request being made by DCAD every year, repetitively in the past 10 years, and we hope that we could do better for the future.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: I think we're all in agreement on the hopes for doing better in the future.  Thank you.

 So we have a queue.  We have Virat, Peter, and Omar in the queue, and the woman back there.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA: Thank you, Madam Chair.  On the issue of linking SDGs to our work this year and in the future, I think if you would just take a quick note of the guidance that we are receiving both sort of directly in this room since morning and in the documents earlier, the WSIS outcome document, Section 63, specifically goes to -- and I quote, "We recognize that during the period, the forum should continue to show progress on the working modalities and the participation of stakeholders from developing countries."

 The working group on IGF improvements, which was chaired by Peter -- and I know that he's sort of going to speak soon after this -- Section 37 to 41 are almost entirely focused upon LDCs and the participation of LDCs in IGF.  So those are two specific guidances.

 This morning, the statement that has been read by DESA, the second statement that has been read about the two events and the invitation to participate, as well as a letter that was circulated by the former chair of the MAG last year towards, I think, September time period, where there was a very direct request from Mr. Hongbo to link the workings of the IGF to SDGs, so I think we have a host of material and so if we look at the guidance that we are receiving both by the community and the U.N., the governments who are involved in this, I think we should really commit ourselves as much as possible this year to try and do something which can be a part of the process, a longer 10-year process, that my colleague Hossam spoke about on the developing countries, and I think it will have many hues and shades, but the first thing is really to get them to start participating.  

 It is a little concerning that the number of countries dropped last year from 144 at Istanbul to 112.  So we need a wider participation, not fewer.  And in that extent, if we can -- and I think we all know that SDGs are now percolating very deeply into national policy documents of developing countries.  Governments are reporting on that.  They're regularly in those meetings.  I'm sure they'll be in the meetings in July.

 So to the extent we can -- I would suggest we could look at a major intersessional team this year which culminates into a main session which talks about developing country participation, both in physical, remote, on line, at the workshops, all levels.

 I just wanted to commend DESA for another number.  I'm not sure how many have done this analysis but 61% of the current MAG is actually developing countries.  45% are women.  Of the new participants who have come in, 71% are actually from developing countries.  Slightly fewer number of women but the overall women and -- so the gender balance is fantastically maintained.

 But also very strong emphasis on developing countries by DESA.  So lots of signals.  We just now have to get our act together this year.  

 And this, Madam Chair, if you will, can become a three-year program.  You know, we look at participation, then we look at specific SDGs, and then Marilyn is here and she could probably speak about the national/regional IGFs and how they are incorporating the work on SDGs, and if they could start bringing this work up starting this year, I think we could have a real -- real -- I mean, this year will be just the beginning, but perhaps with the new MAG members that have taken over, 22 of them, by the time they end their three-year tenure, you'd have some substantive documents come in and, you know, improvements in terms of both participation and positive inputs that can be done specifically from the point of view of developing countries linked to SDGs.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Virat.  And you mentioned a number of sort of key documents in our work.  We've all referenced, but I don't know that we've actually stated it directly, of course, that another key document is the CSTD working group on improvements to the IGF, and that's also another significant contributor to our work.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA: Actually, I did refer to Section 37 to 41.  They are dedicated to that.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Right.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA: Yeah.  That's fine.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Peter, you have the floor.  Thank you.

 >>PETER MAJOR: Thank you, Lynn.  I'm Peter Major from Hungary but this time I'm going to speak on behalf of the CSTD.  

 I'm the chair of the CSTD, and I really want to commend the work of UNDESA in coordinating the work of the WSIS+10 review and the really fantastic achievement which has been achieved during six months, which is -- needless to say, that with the involvement of all stakeholders, it was a real great result.

 Having said that, the outcome paper gave a lot of tasks to the CSTD itself.  As you may know, the CSTD is mandated to do the WSIS systemwide review and we are tasked to continue this.  We should identify and promote specific detailed actions to support the enabling environment for ICTs and development, and provide a demand-driven policy advice, technical assistance, and capacity building, as appropriate.

 Personally, I have been charged to establish the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation.  

 But the reason I took the floor now is the fourth task, which is to report on the implementation of the recommendations of the working group on the improvements to the IGF, so this is also something which I should be dealing with.  

 And I really want to commend also the secretariat of the IGF and personally Chengetai, who regularly reports to the CSTD and provides input.  However, probably it needs a broader involvement from the community, and specifically the MAG.

 So I really encourage the MAG to take this issue very seriously because probably this is something which will be, all the time during the 10-year period, on the table we should really report on.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Peter.  

 Omar, you have the floor.

 >>OMAR MANSOOR ANSARI: Thank you, Madam Chair.  

 Madam Chair, there are countries who have never participated in any of the IGFs, and I'd like to add to Virat that we need better ways to engage local communities, especially the countries that are least developed or countries that never participated in the IGF process.

 One of the issues is that the Web site for international and global IGF launches a bit late, which is very close to the event and there's no mechanism to reach out to different communities and engage them.  And I mean, the Web site we have needs some improvement because as I can see, it's a little difficult to navigate, it's old, and if we can improve that a little bit more to make it easier for people to navigate, find information on different topics, resolutions, and all, that would really help with access to information.

 I have a few proposals for engaging local communities.  

 Number one, making a list of countries who have not participated in the IGF and then reaching out to those countries, different communities, whether trade associations, technology groups, technical groups -- communities or the governments, and invite them to participate at the IGF.

 For that, we could possibly do some country workshops, as the WSIS forums does, or did in the past, and that would be like workshops proposed by different countries where they would share information on what's happening in their local communities, or if we could do like a workshop for LDCs or developing countries or the countries who are not participating at the IGF, so they could be invited to these specific workshops where they could share information about the status of policy and regulatory and other relevant information in their countries and how they could get involved at the IGF process, and they could be provided with some mentorship on how they could be active in the process.

 The other proposal is with the partnerships.  

 We all come to the meetings and then go back to our countries and there's no mechanism available for how the different individuals and institutions who are participating at the IGF can connect with each other to share experiences or partner with each other to share knowledge and experience and work on projects to improve the conditions in developing countries specifically.

 If there is a way -- and possibly Mexico can help with that -- to bring the different local communities closer, and that could be by creating a new portal, a match-making sort of a thing so that people know who is coming to IGF and what are they doing in their local communities, and they can share information on what they, the other countries, need, and how they could partner with each other on different issues.

 And also, for the engagement, if there is a separate portal -- like there's an interesting platform by the ICANN which is called MyICANN.org that allows individuals to create an account and access different information about the ICANN process.  If we could have something like myIGF or myIGFconnect or something like that which could share that sort of information.  And then if there is a way we could translate -- there is a system which could engage different communities to translate materials that are available in English and other languages into local languages so that people have a better way to access the information, that could help local startup communities.  

 I know the giants are already involved in the IGF and ICANN processes, but we really need to work very close with the startup communities so they can come up with new ideas, innovative ideas, on how we can make the Internet a better place for all of us.  

 And I really want to -- all of us to support the process that Hartmut started in Brazil with youth engagement.  We need to support him and the team involved, so that we can have a better participation not only from Mexico and other kind of developing countries as well.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Omar.  

 And Jutta?  I certainly hope I pronounced that correctly, but you have the floor.

 >>JUTTA CROLL: Thank you.  You pronounced it very well.  Thank you.

 Name is Jutta Croll.  I'm representing the German Center for Child Protection on the Internet and the Digital Opportunities Foundation from Germany, and also, I am a founding member of the dynamic coalition on child online safety nine years ago in Brazil, in Rio.

 As we know from the study that was presented at the last IGF, one in three of all Internet users worldwide is under the age of 18, and when it comes to developing countries, it's one in two Internet users.

 So that's why I'm raising my voice for their participation as well as their protection when being on line on the Internet.

 Children under the age of 18, as they are called in the United Nations Charter of the Rights of the Child, need to be protected from infringement of their rights that are laid down in the U.N. charter, so as in Article 12 and 13, but also 17, the Internet can play an important role to ensuring that the rights of the children are protected.  And also, children need to be protected from -- from harmful content from contact that they can have on the Internet.

 So when I had a look at the program for the last Internet Governance Forum as well as for the previous ones, it's quite difficult for youth organizations to justify why they should go to the Internet Governance Forum because not always the matters that are important to them are mentioned right away in the program.  

 So when we would like to encourage participation of young people, we also need to have their topics right in the program of the IGF, so in the workshop program but also to be mentioned in the main sessions.  That's my point.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  Thank you.

 Thanks.  Makane, you have the floor.

 >> MAKANE FAYE:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  Good afternoon, everybody.  My name is Makane Faye from the African IGF secretariat, which is hosted by the Economic Commission for Africa and the African Union.  Congratulations, again.  I'm just speaking now -- and thank you also for Mexico towards the next IGF.  Also would like to extend our congratulations and thanks to the secretariat, UN-DESA, especially Chengetai who has already been providing excellent support to the MAG members.

 African started its IGF from the Nairobi meeting.  And since then, we have been organizing annual conferences and participating regularly in the MAG meetings.  

 This year's global IGF was a success when we look at the track that was organized for the regional and national IGFs because we have been organizing every year meetings for national and regional IGFs.  But this year, really the format and the substance were (indiscernible).

 I would like to come to the SDGs, especially the SDG which deals with empowering the gender digital divide.  You can see in the outcome document on several occasions that the digital divide between women and men were linked to the gender divide to the (indiscernible) of the IGD5.  And the outcome document called for immediate measures for gender equality of Internet users by 2020, especially by significantly enhancing women's and girl's education and participation, information of communication technologies as users, content creators, employees, entrepreneurs, innovators, and leaders.

 I would like to link this statement from the outcome document to the African Union framework agenda 2063 towards creating a more inclusive continent which highlights importance of the participation, inclusion, and empowerment of women.

 In this connection, I would like to let you know that this year has been a celebration of the Women's Day was used by African Union to empower women and would like to make sure that the African IGF this year gives a very important role to women.  So we are discussing currently the various subthemes we would like to have.  And, presently, we have something like empowering women to lead the transformation in Africa, enhancing African countries' participation in IGF, building a gender balance and truly inclusive multistakeholder model, inclusive development in the (indiscernible) transformation in Africa.  

 So we are still thinking of these themes, but we believe that the trend we have now in the discussions is that we are going to really focus on empowering women to building the information and knowledge societies.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Makane.

 Marilyn, you have the floor.

 >>MARILYN CADE:  Thank you, Madam Chair.

 My name is Marilyn Cade.

 I'm going to follow up on a Virat Bhatia's comments and respond a little bit to some of the work that's been going on related to the national and regional IGFs.  So let me note that Anja Gengo who is the fellow who is supporting the ongoing work of the national and regional IGFs is also acting as remote moderator.  But I -- as I share briefly some information, there may be an opportunity for Anja to also post some information about our findings so far.

 During the -- the national and regional IGF coordinators have held a substantive session at each of the IGFs, and they have varied a great deal.  There's also been a survey -- a study that was done a couple of years ago.  And last year in preparation for Brazil, we did a rather substantive study with the help of the secretariat and published it.

 During the substantive session, the coordinators made concrete recommendations about improvements.  And those are available, and we can post those.  But I think many of you would find that your comments, when you call for more focus by the national and regional IGFs, when you look at the recommendations that the coordinators made from a real-life perspective, they are really explaining what help they need in order to fulfill their responsibilities and to increase the number of national IGFs.  

 Among the concrete recommendations that they endorsed is to double the number of national IGFs by 2018.  And that would go from about 35 to close to 70 national IGFs.  They didn't call for doubling the number of world regions as because there are a limited number of regions.  So I just want to point that out.

 We just did a survey with Anja's help asking for input about themes and issues.  And I will be doing this from memory, so it's going to be important for Anja to be able to post this.  But we ask, for instance, for responses, and we gave them six or seven choices and then free text.  And among the choices, we included connecting the next billions, phase 2.

 (background noise)

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Can we manage the mic differently, please?  Okay.

 >>MARILYN CADE:  We also included two topics that are related to the SDGs.

 I think I'm being invited for lunch tomorrow.

 [ Laughter ]

 (Background noise)

 Two of the topics we asked them about is how we were going to address the SDGs.  One of the things I think we're seeing is at the national and regional IGF level, they could use some help in how to translate the importance of the SDGs into the message that will resonate to their community.

 One of the things -- and you have heard this from Makane.  But each of the national IGFs is very, very different and the regionals are very, very different from each other, but they do have commonalities.  

 We found last year that by asking them, by inviting them, on a voluntary basis to submit comments on connecting the next billion, we had a very high turnout of comments that were submitted.  We asked them to consider holding a session on WSIS+10 review, and we had a very high incorporation of that.  But it was on an invitational basis.

 I think for us to help advance this, it would be good to give some thought to what would we suggest to a national and regional IGF about a session that they might hold about how the SDGs relate to Internet governance and explain what is in the outcome document.  

 Many of them are brand-new, and I'm looking at people in this room who are themselves thinking about launching an IGF yet this year.  And I think if we could think about a little bit of packaging, if I might call it that to support Omar's comments.  

 Finally, I'm going to wrap up by saying I really want to fully endorse what I think Virat was saying.  I, frankly, do not think it is a good use of the MAG members' time to do an evaluation on where we are in the improvements.  I think that's the secretariat's job.  

 I think a call to action where the MAG could really make a difference is to make a commitment, just as the national and regional coordinators, did to double the number of national IGFs.  Let's make a MAG commitment to significantly increase the focus of all stakeholders from developing countries in the IGF.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Marilyn.  Thank you for persevering through the mic.

 Cheryl, you have the floor.

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Madam -- thank you, Madam Chair.

 Just to follow up on the comment that Hossam made earlier with respect to looking at this as a ten-year block, I think that's extremely telling and valuable and why we should really be thinking about that.

 And Omar also made some comments with respect to how do we engage some of the countries that have never participated before, and he had some very good ideas.  And I wanted to build off of that a little bit.

 I think the point about the host country Web site coming out late actually is a really good one because we're already six or seven months away.  But how do you keep people interested and kind of build momentum?  

 So I don't know if there's a way perhaps -- if the Web site is not ready, perhaps we can find a way to maybe post a short monthly video or something along the lines of that where, you know, we will be giving some sort of information to the general public but we'll also be building that momentum and getting people excited.

 In addition, perhaps through the youth program, I think -- I've heard overwhelming support for the youth program.  We can prioritize and try to first support those countries where there's never been any participation to actually come to the IGF.

 Along those lines, we can also try to find a way to reach out and engage individuals within those countries to try to submit proposals and try to work with them to actually have some of their workshop proposals at this year's IGF.

 Along those lines as well, I just want to really highlight diversity in the youth program.  We really need to make sure that we maintain that in order for it to be successful long-term.

 And I think each individual stakeholder group can help with that in terms of the outreach and reaching out to, you know, their own stakeholders and building that sort of support and excitement for the event that will take place at the end of the year.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Cheryl.

 Cisse, you have the floor.

 >> CISSE KANE:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  Regarding SDGs and possible improvement, I first would like to congratulate UN-DESA for this review, which was very relevant.  What I see from that is that there is a lot to do regarding Africa, especially in terms of implementation of the WSIS outcomes.  

 And when I link it to SDGs, I see that one of the aspects that could be relevant is to organization information in the way that it is digested by population at a larger scale.  

 Here in this room we are all maybe specialists or very well-educated people.  But when it comes to taking the information to the grassroots, there will be a need to organize the information.  That's why I really applaud this initiative of Diplo of making people -- having access to this tremendous amount of information in a way -- because it is well-organized, because it is organized in a way that -- Sorry.

 (Background noise).

 Sorry.  So the information is organized, and it is very useful.  

 And, for example, in our Web site, we just tried something.  We tried to collect all the IGFs, national, regional, and global, in Africa for 2015 and we put them on the Web site.  So if you go there, you can see all the national IGFs.

 Is there a way to create sort of a database in this way?  Access is really to contribute -- to develop a comprehensive database for Africa.  And I think this is one of the ways we can improve the work of the MAG.  

 And also regarding WSIS, there is a problem of implementation and sharing information is one of the key elements.  And the best way to go through this information sharing and to have comprehensive data is -- as I said this morning, is to depart from national IGFs, to implement it, to advertise for it, and to look for potential partners at a grassroots level, to develop local and national IGFs.  And I support Marilyn in this way.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Cisse.  

 We were fortunate late last year that the secretariat was able to add a staff specifically in I.T. That is, in fact, Luis here on the end.  So the secretariat is taking note of some of the requests, including all the other requests that have come in with respect to kind of Web presence and Web site.  We're not going to respond to each one of them individually on the fly here, but they are noting them.

 So, Juan, you have the floor.

 >>JUAN FERNANDEZ:  Being the first time I take the floor, I will identify myself.  I'm Juan Fernandez.  I'm from the government of Cuba.  

 And so let me give my welcome to the new MAG members.  This is my second year and especially the welcome to our new Chair.  I'm looking forward to work with all of you for fulfilling our mandate.

 In this sense, I will take just a few minutes now, take advantage that the host country representative is here because some of the things I will go tomorrow when we are discussing the themes and all that.  

 But what I heard from previous speakers, especially Marilyn and the lady who spoke about child, I want to remind that this is not another Internet event.  There are many Internet events where they showcase best practice, and that happens all the time throughout the world.  As a matter of fact in Cuba, we have one each two years.  A few weeks ago there was one.

 If you remember the mandate of the IGF, this is a for-policy dialogue.  And we have to remember that because one of the key that could make people interested to participate is if that the issue that has been discussed -- for instance, I would put an example, if a child writes -- if they think that this will be discussed, of course, the idea will be to reach a consensus.  But, well, even if it does not reach, it is to hear the positions, approximate those positions.  So people that are interested in those issues, you know, with the hope to emerge a policy in some place that is not already agreed.  So that could interest people.  

 And I think that we as MAG, we have to guide this process.  We have to select which area -- tomorrow we will speak about that because there are ways that we can do it.  We can just leave it open and do the selection as when we select the workshops, or we can put the themes out and ask for that.  Tomorrow we will discuss that.

 The key thing of the IGF is to do this policy dialogue from the diversity of not only stakeholders but different regions.  As Marilyn said, each one has their own particularity but many countries.  And so that's why each IGF has to be different because it's in a different host country, in a different place.  

 And one of the things important to try to help with this policy dialogue is that we need concepts, and we need some guidance and in the region.  That's why I'm talking now to the host country, and I don't know if the secretariat as well.  

 We are lucky that we have the Economic Commission for Latin America/Caribbean, ECLAC, has done tremendous work in some of the key concepts of the contemporary economy.

 You remember in Joao Pessoa there was Raul Katz, one of the specialists of this area that has done work for ECLAC before.  And there's some others.  So I suggest that the host country for some of the events -- because I saw that this is one of the points of the agenda now of different initiatives or whatever to call to go, that to approach ECLAC, to have a stronger participation or guidance or maybe the secretariat -- I don't know.  I'm just making this suggestion -- to involve them in some of this planning of one of the sessions or whatever because it could be the base for any other dialogue in policy.

 And concerning the concrete way that us, MAG, has to work, I think tomorrow I've seen in the agenda for the themes, so I will come back to this point tomorrow.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Juan.  

 Jovan, you have the floor.

 >>JOVAN KURBALIJA: Thank you.  Jovan Kurbalija.  Just a few reflections on the overall discussion and then quite a few interesting ideas on linking IG discussion to sustainable development goals.

 Probably one of the major challenges will be sort of cross-silos approach, and this has been outlined in the SDG discussion that dealing with a specific issue -- let's say poverty, education and other SDGs -- within the silos provides suboptimal results.

 Now, Internet and ICT comes, as I always say, ghost SDGs.  It's not explicitly mentioned as a specific SDG.  It is an SDG that affects all SDGs and it will have the major challenge, even bigger than traditional SDGs, to overcome policy silos.

 Now, when it comes to practicalities, what Marilyn mentioned, Cisse, and other colleagues, it relates to explaining to policy communities on national, regional, and global level why Internet and ICT matters for their dealing with agriculture, health, poverty reduction, specific SDGs.

 Now, there are no sort of magic solution for it.  The key is the engagement, and the key is to find what we call at Diplo boundary-spanners.  And ideally, IGF members and MAG members should be boundary-spanners, going to the communities and explaining that when they discuss agriculture in their respective countries, they're also discussing certain ICT policy issues.  This is the real challenge.

 We have one simple experiment that could be -- could be used further and so far it's developing very well with Brazil and Indonesia and we are discussing with a few other countries.  

 It is the development of the national hubs that meet once a month, last Tuesday in the month, at 11:00 GMT.  They get together in their national hubs and discuss exactly these issues.  How to implement IG and how to develop links between different policy silos.

 You know, the "policy silos" is one of the most frequently used terms in Geneva, and probably very little -- you know, the theory, one of the golden rules, the more it's mentioned, the least it is addressed substantively.  And the -- probably the way how to address is to have -- to have the groundwork, door by door, community by community, simple issues addressing concrete -- concrete -- concrete issues.  

 On the question which I guess Omar mentioned, how many countries participated, we did statistics till IGF 2011.  We analyzed all transcripts from MAG and the main meeting.  There were 56 countries which participated.  Not only governments.  Civil society, business, from 56 countries.

 It improved -- we are finalizing research till the last IGF -- to approximately slightly more than 100 countries, representatives from those countries who made an intervention in meetings like this one or official IGF meetings.

 The main challenge is not necessarily to have more numbers.  The main challenge is to have substantive input which relates to the problems that should be addressed.  And here we come to the -- probably the key objective that we should add to capacity development.  It is institutional capacity development.

 I think ISOC, IGF, Summer School, we at Diplo did quite good work on developing individual capacity development, training people to participate in IG meetings, but there are very, very little efforts to have institutional capacity development, in order to have continuity of initiatives, to have strength within the ministries, within civil society organizations, the business sector.  And this could be probably the link between IG and SDG that we should develop more.  Institutional capacity development.

 Thank you, Chair.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Jovan.

 The next speaker is -- and I probably should apologize in advance for the pronunciation here -- Moediono?

 >>MOEDIONO SARDJOENI: Thank you.  

 First, I would like to congratulate you as the new MAG chair.  

 The second thing is I would like to -- thanks to Brazil as the host of the last IGF meeting.  And the third one is congratulations also to Mexico as the next IGF host meeting.  At this time, I would like to propose one thing for tomorrow's meeting.  I.e., for the selection of the topics, main topics or the topics of workshops.

 After we discuss the main topics, usually the -- we do the workshop topics and we have so many titles for the workshops.  I would like to propose that we can list two or more topics which is very close and then we talk to the country who proposed the topics and then we try to match one topic for the several topics, and then the next day, we have to choose from several MAG IGF meeting.  Okay.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you.  And Virat, you have the floor.

 >>VIRAT BHATIA: I just wanted to make a quick point.  

 I think firstly on the point which Juan made, the chair's summary from 2014 Istanbul does record 144 country nationalists participating at the IGF, so I think that is the record high that we've had.  This is across all sectors.  So there is much to celebrate, and if that is true, then that would mean that about 50-odd countries of the U.S. member states weren't at that meeting but they probably were at some other meeting.

 So -- and the numbers are quite encouraging.  144 is three-fourths of the entire U.N. member states.

 I was -- on the issue of SDGs and the way to bring it in, one of the -- one of the ways to draw in governments in the policy dialogue that was alluded to, to make it interesting, is to think about a WSIS+10-type consultation that Marilyn held very successfully at Brazil, which I watched on line.

 To -- if we can use the year or the six-month period to get a dialogue going with national and regional IGFs, countries, governments, stakeholders, to bring in presentations on how they think they are using Internet for delivering SDGs.  

 I think we have to make it really simple for them.

 I would argue that the Internet is actually the silo buster.  It is the one common medium that is at least relevant to, you know, many of the -- many of the 169 sub-SDGs that exist there.  

 And I did finally lay my hands on the letter that was sent out by -- on 27th of July where one of the directions that was given -- sort of a request that was made to the MAG by the under-secretary-general was that both the secretary-general and the member states have underscored the important role that Internet can play in advancing SDGs.  So I think there is a very clear approach that is on at national levels.  I think it would be really up to us to use the year to galvanize those efforts and bring them up and have them present with pride what they're doing.

 I don't think we should sort of give them policy prescriptions.  I think they have figured out how this thing is working.  A lot of youth are involved.  Governments are completely on board on this one.  We can, in the process, you know, have some engagement and discussion and capacity building, but I think we should also provide them a platform, if the MAG agrees as a major outcome toward -- in Mexico, to see if we can invite the sort of multistakeholder view of using Internet to deliver SDGs and what is happening at the local level.  It could be two-minute interventions of the kind that Marilyn provided.  If we can plan our session well, it can go over three hours.  But I think that would kind of give us, as a community, maybe 50 views, 70 views, 80 views of countries on what's going on right now and they're also then probably invited to submit a five-pager behind that which could then become a document that could bind together and be available for consultation and discussion across various stakeholders so we could sort of -- I'm just thinking of practical ways in which we can really take this down, using our platform, to invite them to listen to what they're doing, rather than telling them how to do this.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Yeah.  Thank you, Virat.

 And now we have an online participant.

 >>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Thank you, Madam Chair.  We have one comment that I will read, and after that, we're going to have one intervention.

 So from Shita Laksmi:  To add to the current discussion on how to engage regional and national IGFs, we can think of adding social media containing it, one designated Web site for the database of all regional and national IGFs and continuous conversations via social media.  It will be very helpful for people who access social media frequently, especially those who live in Southeast Asia.

 And after this, Chris Buckridge.  Chris, I'm going to unmute you now.

 >>CHRIS BUCKRIDGE: Thank you, Madam Chair.  This is Chris Buckridge from the RIPE NCC.  I'd like to start by congratulating all of the new members to the MAG.  We're very -- we're sure that you're all going to do a fine job and it's a very important job in this context.  

 One thing I wanted to note, though, is that the recent announcement of the new MAG prompted some discussion, particularly in the technical community, about the processes and -- of selection and nomination for these MAG members.  I think this is an issue that's going to be discussed in tomorrow's MAG discussion, but we wanted to note it here in the open consultation as well.  And the RIPE NCC particularly is quite concerned at the lack of transparency in this process.  It wasn't clear to us who nominated some of the representatives that were appointed to the MAG or how that selection process was conducted.  We understand this is a really complex process.  I know we were speaking earlier of the strength of developing country participation in the MAG this time around, and that's very positive, obviously, and obviously there's also a huge challenge for the U.N. in selecting appropriate representatives from a global stakeholder group.

 But all of these points, I think, highlight that transparency is really vital in ensuring that this process is fair and legitimate.  So thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you.  Izumi, you have the floor.

 >>IZUMI OKUTANI: Thank you, Madam Chair.

 Well, coming from the technical community, I really echo the issue that Chris has raised, but the reason that I raised my hand is for a separate topic.

 So while I am participating as a MAG member, I am also involved in the national IGF within Japan, Internet Governance Conference of Japan, IGCJ.

 So I really like the point that Virat has raised about encouraging participation from national IGF as a way to have more inputs from the LDCs.

 I also want to add that it's not just the LDC that has limited participation, but then from the countries that has a little bit of different culture of this kind of style of discussions.  For example, Japan is not LDC but I don't think we've really had substantial input in the IGF meeting from Japan, and this has been a challenge.

 So I want to make a -- consider how exactly we can improve this in a practical way or possibly start consideration from this year.

 And based on my experience and observation, it actually took me three years, starting from my time at the MAG, to get the Japanese community to be aware of the IGF itself, what relevance it has, and then this year they have finally started discussing.

 So how can we actually actively provide input?  

 So this is a really long-term process.  We can't just share about the meeting or agenda.  You have to take a step back, saying, "Hey, this is important in the wider context," and why it is important in each of the economies.  And I under -- I think each of the countries have different contexts on why this is important for them.

 So as a way forward, I really like the idea that was shared by Jovan about having like a monthly call by national IGFs or like each leader in the economy.

 So as a MAG, possibly maybe after each, like, MAG meeting or key decision is made, give an overall view of, "Okay, what were the key outcomes from IGF last year and what is at this stage and what kind of involvement and input would be useful?"

 And then encourage, invite leaders -- for example, people from the national -- the leaders from the national IGF or any other key organizations from different stakeholder groups -- to invite this kind of Webinar kind of meeting, and they can actually go back and think what is relevant from their perspective.  

 And I think if we can actually also consider the suggestion from Virat that based on those discussions in each economy, bring it back to the global IGF and have their contributions, I think that would actually provide a good segue for conversation both ways.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Izumi.

 The gentleman way in the back, you have the floor, and if you could introduce yourself.

 >>SEGUN OLUGBILE: Okay.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Segun, you can --

 >>SEGUN OLUGBILE: Can I go ahead?

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Yes.  Segun.  You were --

 >>SEGUN OLUGBILE: Thank you, Madam Chair.  I want to lend my voice to the discussion on the need to encourage a national initiative.  I would like to bring it to your notice that I am representing a business community.  I come from Nigeria, an affiliate of AfICTA, but I'm surprised that Nigerian government has been dropped from being a member of MAG.  And the reason why I'm quite surprised is that Nigeria is a regional leader in West African countries and they have the most vibrant Internet Governance Forum at the local level.  Not only that, they are continuously sponsoring regional Internet Governance Forum, the West African forum.  So if such country is not encouraged to be part of the MAG where they can share the experiences and all that, I'm surprised that, well, we are talking about facilitating and encouraging a regional or national initiative.

 Now, you have the one that has been working in the last four years, where even at the point of discussing the need on how Nigeria can host an IGF probably in 2018 and '19, but when the announcement came, the local initiative in Nigeria, they are not happy that even a representative of the government of Nigeria is not considered, in spite of the investment that the country has made in advocating and ensuring that the Internet governance framework is well established in West African region.

 So these are the issues I really want us to look at, because if you are not including a regional leader in MAG, then who are you going to include?  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Wai-Min, would you like to respond to that specific question?  Sure.

 >>WAI-MIN KWOK:  Let me just respond on this general concern I have heard.  In terms of the MAG selection process, it's not done in a different way from past years.  As you all know, UN-DESA -- the MAG members now, there are 55 members.  And the current process is to rotate out one-third.  

 So for 2016 MAG, eventually there was a vacancy of 22 slots.  And we did receive a total of 182 nominations, some of which are (inaudible).

 I think it's really a very challenging process to see exactly who should be -- who should take up this available vacancies.  One thing that is highlighted by some of you is that in terms of geographic representations, it is very important to look across all stakeholder groups.  Unlike a typical U.N. body, of course, the emphasis is placed on government but IGF is obviously unique, so is MAG.  

 So it's actually the balance across the different stakeholder groups.  But there's a certain attempt, not just this year but past years as well, to increase the number of developing countries, which I think some of you have shared the statistic.

 Secondly, it is also on gender and also on stakeholder groups.  The stakeholder groups is also quite an issue to understand exactly what constitutes stakeholder representations.  What does it mean by in the technical community versus civil society versus private sector?  And I think a lot of you are also taking on multiple heads, which is across sectors as well.  So these are some of the challenges.  But I can certainly say that on behalf of UN-DESA, we very much invite you to give your views or contributions.  

 We recognize that this is not a perfect system including like the MAG.  Any reason that we have 55 members now?  Should we increase the number?  Decrease the number?  The MAG -- the three years, should we reduce to two years so we can give more the possibility to participate?  Now the practice is to rotate out one-third.  Should we do more of that or less of that?  So this is the whole series of questions that we certainly invite you to give your views.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Wai-Min.  

 Chengetai has asked for the floor as well.

 >>CHENGETAI MASANGO:  Just to add a little bit more, for the MAG renewal -- I think we'll touch on this more tomorrow -- is that we do have what we termed a MAG scorecard where we just track very lightly the contribution of each MAG member, whether they attend the meetings, do the workshop grading, and things like that.  

 So you may find that some MAG members will only last one year in the MAG instead of the proposed maximum of three years because they didn't participate at all in any of the MAG activities.  But that's for tomorrow's discussion when we go through the responsibilities for MAG members.  Thanks.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  So we're going to go back to the queue in a moment.  But I think I would like to say that Wai-Min invited people to engage in a discussion.  I know there have been a lot of questions and comments and discussions on lists, not only with respect to the appointment of MAG members but also with respect to the appointment of the chair.  

 I think this is a good time as a community to engage with UN-DESA if we have questions, concerns.  I think we're all involved in processes that can be improved from day to day and year to year.  And this may actually be an appropriate time to start looking at some of those going forward.  

 I think my only caution -- and a few of the MAG members mentioned this earlier today -- is that we need to, of course, pay primary attention to the fact that we actually have a program to deliver in a relatively short period of time and some of these things probably are better served by thoughtful, inclusive discussions and maybe work that we do in the background to progress.

 But I just want to point out that Wai-Min was very open, and he did actually say he was willing to engage if there were questions.

 So with that, I'm going to go to the gentleman in the back.  If you would introduce yourself and then I think we have Laura in the back.  Thank you.

 >>JIVAN GJORGJINSKI:  Hello.  My name is Jivan from Macedonia.  Before I start, a joke comes to mind.  And in the U.S., they like to start with jokes.  The joke is of a drunken man.  He's walking around the street and he's looking for his keys.  Another person comes along and he's asking him, "What are you looking for?"  "My keys."  "Where did you lose them?"  "Somewhere over there."  "Why are you looking for them over here?" "The light is here, the streetlight is here."  

 What is true for a drunken man looking for his keys might be true for people also maybe walking around on a dark street.  They will get around the light to discuss whatever they have to discuss.  And I think that is something that the IGF needs to do well and has been doing it for the past ten years.  And they should do it for the next ten years, to know exactly what to throw a light on, to know exactly what kind of policy dialogues and discussions to engage in and what to throw a focus on.

 And I hear -- always hear very good contributions that we should increase participation.  Of course, this is a very important part that we need to do.  But at the same time, there's a limit to how much information we can gather.  I think that's both in the document that I shared via email a few days ago and has mentioned here as well.

 A very important thing that we need to do is the packaging of the things that are coming out of the IGF as outcomes, the dissemination of that data in all of our communities, and then getting from those communities what are the problems that they're facing, and then to see what are the proper institutions that can solve them and delivering the discussions that are coming in the IGFs as discussions, as possibilities, as debates.  And that is what the IGF can do well.

 And I think there has been a lot of worry over the years that the IGF doesn't become a body that duplicates the work of any other communities that have done their work so well over the years.

 And I would bet even though that has been a worry and perhaps a worry that has been concentrated on governments, I would bet that in this room, including the government representatives, there's no one who wants to duplicate the work of other organizations that are doing their job so well.

 But there is a role that IGF can play in routing information and focusing and packaging.  And I think that now is a good time just as we're starting to think about Mexico to start thinking about the next ten years.  And I would really encourage us to devote at least 20% of our time, 15% of our time, not just to keeping the aim of Mexico but really on the long-term focus of what the IGF can be and how we can improve.  And I think that would be a worthwhile effort.  Thanks.

 Oh, by the way, sorry.  I couldn't come this morning.  I jumped in.  So could someone give me the WiFi code?

 [ Laughter ]

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Jivan.

 Laura, you have the floor.

 >>LAURA HUTCHINSON:  Is that better?  Sorry.  I thought I turned it on.  My name is Laura Hutchinson.  I'm from Nominet.  I'm a new MAG member on behalf of the technical community.  I'm very pleased to have been appointed.  Thank you very much.

 I wanted to talk about engagement with regional and national IGFs.  

 As we have kind of spoken about the MAG appointment process, I just want to make a comment on that.  I just found as someone who has recently been in the process, I just found some of the communication lacking in terms of time scales and processes.  And I actually heard about my appointment on a news article before I was told.  But I was very pleased to have been appointed.

 Coming back to the topic of regional, national engagement, I recognize that a lot of steps have already been made in this direction.  I wanted to highlight the work that Marilyn's mentioned, that's been coordinated by Anja on the surveys of the regional, nationals, to suggest topics.  I think that's kind of a key way to make sure that topics are feeding from the regional and national areas up into the global IGF.

 I also had a practical suggestion.  Several years ago when we made a submission on behalf of the U.K. IGF for workshop speakers, we were suggesting topics that we had covered on an U.K -- in the U.K. arena such as, I don't know, say cybersecurity.  When we came to meeting the requirements for a workshop in terms of global representation, that was where we struggled in terms of how do I know who is an expert on cybersecurity from Asia or Africa.  

 So maybe having to build on the resource facilities on the IGF Web site already, whether there could be some linkages with the regional and national in terms of topic area and subject experts.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Laura.

 Anja, we will go to an online participant.

 >>REMOTE INVERVENTION:  We have two comments.  Ginger Paque, civil society and for the civil society coordination group, that we must address MAG selection processes and transparency and ask that we ensure time to discuss this tomorrow.

 Second comment is from Sivasubramanian.  I have in the course of the past three years observed there might be a possibility that the collective opinion that the mergers and workshop proposals occasionally reflect an orchestrated opinion or even an unseen prejudice on certain topics or IDS.  

 This is possibly a perception that it is wrong.  But attention to such a likelihood and a clear and transparent review process and workshop decisions could ensure that there are no prejudices.

 Renata would like to speak, so I'm going to unmute her now.

 >>RENATA AQUINO RIBEIRO:   Renata Aquino Ribeiro from Brazil, new MAG member representing civil society, NETmundial Initiative SDG.

 I am grateful to speak to this audience.  I would also like to congratulate the new Chair and new MAG members.  And I would add of all those involved in the WSIS process of New York and the next meeting in May in Geneva, if we could address more the WSIS section and engage them with the IGF process.  The way I see it, this is all a continuum.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Renata.  

 Next, Cheryl, you have the floor.

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I just wanted to go back briefly to, I think it was, Virat's proposal with respect to linking closer to the SDGs.  Along those lines, I think another important component -- and I'm not sure how we could go about gathering this information.  But to be able to somehow gain a better understanding about what the countries participating, what they care about most, what are the issues that they're most concerned with.  

 I think also as I just have the Web site pulled up in front of us, we all are such -- I don't want to use the word "insider," but we live and breathe this every day.  And I try to sometimes go to the site and imagine myself as a person who didn't know what the IGF was.  And pulling up that page, what would my value proposition be?  Why would I exert the time, the money, and the energy to go?

 It's obvious to all of us, but I think in terms of our marketing, we can have some maybe -- I don't know if "simple" is the best word but a different way of (audio cut out) it to just (audio cut out) not Internet experts, not just regular doctors, teachers, you know, EMT, whoever the case may be, just to think of it, how would we package it to just the average citizen globally.

 And then, finally, I think with respect to the governments, if we can start to brainstorm about different incentives for getting them in the room, I think there's a whole range of ministers that we're not reaching.  So, for example, the finance ministers, the health ministers, et cetera, to try to create a value proposition for them.  I mean, maybe we incorporate something into the day zero events that kind of brings them all together with respect to dialogue.

 Maybe we have something on looking at the investment aspect of some of the connectivity issues that they care about.  Just a couple of ideas that I thought I would just throw out there.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Cristine has the floor.

 >>CRISTINA MONTI:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  Cristina Monti from the European Commission.  I thought I would share with you some remarks concerning the outcomes on the World Summit -- WSIS+10 review and the outcome of last year from the perspective of the European Commission.  

 But, in general, I think in addition also echoing what some of the previous speakers have said, the final text is considered positively by the majority of stakeholders.  And it provides a good base for our work and also for Internet governance discussions for the next ten years.  So we are aware that the text recognizes the importance of the digital economy, the respective roles of private and public sector in its development, and, of course, it connects ICTs to sustainable development goals.  And we are talking a lot about this and how to transform this vision in reality, how to implement this.  So capacity-building and development are for sure very important.

 At the same time, also, let's consider the digital economy aspect.  This year there was the World Economic Forum at Davos which was devoted to the topic of the fourth industrial revolution.  The World Bank issued a report in January that addressed the digital economy.  Also, the G7 will have a ministerial on ICT, and as well the G20 in China will have a session on the digital economy.

 So my point is really this could be a way also to connect more to other sectors and other sectors, meaning sectors of the economy as well, like health or agriculture.  It could be all the sectors that are impacted by new technologies for which we should somehow connect maybe strongly the work of the IGF to also those initiatives and those discussions that are happening at the global level and which also touch on the Internet and on the Internet governance.

 And it is just a manifestation of the fact that technologies are now pervasive and touching all aspects of our lives and our economies and of our everyday lives.

 Also, the European Dialogue on Internet governance which will take place in Brussels in June has chosen as a topic embracing the digital revolution, also to highlight these changes that are now happening and that will have an impact.  So this is just my contribution.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Cristina.  

 Sala, you have the floor.

 >>SALANIETA TAMANIKAIWAIMARO:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  Sala for the record.  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I would just like to add to the discussion by sort of echoing some of the things or some of the sentiments that are coming out particularly in terms of the linkages between the national IGFs and the regional IGFs.  I think Marilyn pointed it out this morning.

 I would also like to mention that before coming to Geneva, I took the liberty to sort of launch a SurveyMonkey within the Asia-Pacific and sort of send several questions to various mailing lists, particularly those within the Internet governance ecosystem.  

 And because of the short span of time, we had 25 respondents.  But, interestingly, a lot of them -- this is what they sort of had to say.

 And, again, this is not exhaustive but it is sort of like a barometer.  36% said that they've attended an IGF meeting.  64% said they hadn't.  In terms of whether they had attended an Asia-Pacific regional IGF, 33.3 said yes, 58.3 said no.  20.83 said, "I've never heard of an Asia-Pacific regional Internet IGF."  60.67 said "I'm aware of the Asia-Pacific regional IGF but it's too expensive to attend."

 In terms of questions on do you think the issues that concern the Pacific are tabled within the Asia-Pacific regional IGF?  35% yes, 60% said no.  And do you think issues that concern Asia discussed within the Asia-Pacific regional IGF, 72.2% said yes.  33.33% said no.  

 Because of the brevity of time, I'll just post a link on the MAG mailing list so that you can have a look at the figures yourself.

 But it does -- it does sort of point to the -- in essence, what the community within the Asia-Pacific, at least the respondents who responded, sort of said.  "Look, we recognize the importance of the IGF.  We want to have the IGF.  But it's just that we're having difficulties."  

 And there's a lot of room, particular for the regional IGFs, to take the ownership of the outreach particularly within their region.  

 And the other thing I'd also like to add is in terms of -- in terms of what's been discussed so far, one of the things that we can sort of consider is there's a need to strengthen existing dynamic coalitions and use the dynamic coalitions to diversify and build -- they are already doing it, but to build on thematic knowledge hubs that are linked with the SDGs.  

 And particularly in terms of the cross-flows, bottom-up -- I shouldn't even say "bottom-up" because it's fluid.  It's not vertical.  It's something -- it's an ecosystem.

 And the other thing also related to that is standardizing dynamic coalition reports and outcomes and linking their works with local and national IGFs and regional IGFs.

 And I'd just like to ride on Jovan's comment in terms of when he mentioned institutionalizing capacity-building.  From personal experience, in 2014 -- and this is in the Pacific where I'm from -- we had the Pacific platform.  And the Pacific platform within the disaster response or disaster mitigation space along with other regions in the world, they were doing the Asia platform, the African platform, which was moving towards the Sendai Framework that was passed last year.  Believe it or not, I had a difficult time, even though there were many people who actually involved in ICT but a lot more in the climatic change, a lot more disaster response-based, I had a severely difficult time getting ICT into the outcomes document because their perception of ICT -- I know I'm using "ICT," but you can include Internet governance.  Their perception of ICT as far as my region was concerned in terms of that particular niche was that ICT is just, you know, oh, it's desk support.  Or, oh, it's promotional and marketing and that sort of thing.

 So in terms of Jovan's suggestion about the cross-silo -- cross-silo strategy, I think that's certainly something that we should consider, particularly in terms of looking at ways to get the -- to get fluidity within the discussions, and that's all I'd like to say, Chair.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Sala.  

 We have six more people in the queue, and you know who you are because your flags are up.  Seven.  And then I'm actually going to -- eight -- online participation, and then we're going to move to the final agenda item.

 We have some people that have actually asked for interventions from other organizations and we want to make sure we have enough time to both feature those and engage in discussions, if appropriate.

 So Markus, you have the floor.

 >>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you, Lynn.  Markus Kummer speaking.  I'm taking the floor in my capacity as secretary of the IGF Support Association.  As many speakers have mentioned the importance of national and regional IGF initiatives, I thought I'd come in at this stage.

 The IGF Support Association also is -- part of its rationale behind its existence is that we are here to support national and regional IGF initiatives.

 Last year, we supported 15 national IGF initiatives with a small contribution and seven regional and subregional ones as well.

 The contributions are modest, but the aim is to allow them to invite speakers, and most of them invited speakers from within their regions, and participants, and we make very limited conditionalities, essentially aiming to link them closer to the main IGF through the IGF secretariat.  It's very much in line with what Marilyn referred to with the coordination efforts and the call the IGF secretariat is supporting, so that we have a minimum coherence among them that they all adhere to some basic principles, that they are open, inclusive, and bottom-up, and we would hope that this contributes to more flow of information between the national and regional IGF initiatives and the global IGF, and we would hope that the themes bubble up from the bottom and enrich the themes of the global IGF, not the other way around, that the global IGF dictates the themes for the national and regional IGFs.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Markus.  

 Izumi, you have the floor.

 >>IZUMI OKUTANI: Thank you, Madam Chair.

 I would like to touch on the MAG selection process, and I find it very helpful that there has been immediate clarification from UNDESA about this year's process, so thank you very much.

 And I think transparency is the key here.  It's not just for the selection of the MAG members itself but also for the future of the IGF, including IGF modalities, location of the secretariat, or any other key decisions around the organization of the IGF.  

 And I think the meeting, the IGF -- the physical meeting itself is based on transparent discussions.  Also the MAG meeting is transparent.  And this actually adds to credibility of our discussions.

 So it is important to have transparency on any other elements that will actually build up to the organization of the IGF, so -- and I also think that these issues gets discussed in open consultation where non-MAG members can also participate in discussions versus the MAG meeting itself.  

 And I think to just quickly touch on the comment that has been made that there has been no changes in the process for this year compared to the past, this is noted and understood.

 At the same time, I observe that there has been some questions about people who are interested in applying for the MAG this year, "Hey, what is exactly the process of application?"  I have received these questions individually.  So I think having more clarity does help, and I'm looking forward to further discussions about how we can actually implement the improvements for the discussions for tomorrow.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Izumi.  Elizabeth, you have the floor.

 >>ELIZABETH THOMAS RAYNAUD: Thank you, Madam Chair.  Elizabeth Thomas Raynaud, speaking on behalf of the private sector.

 I actually am grateful, Izumi.  Your comments touch exactly on one of the points that I wanted to make.

 One of them was actually a clarification of the agenda discussion.  I wasn't very clear whether -- 

 Well, I welcomed the invitation from our colleague from UNDESA to share feedback and reflections on this process.  I wasn't clear whether this was something we were going to tackle in our agenda this afternoon or whether we would be trying to fit it in in another occasion.

 I do think it is worth some reflection and some exchange on, but share the same concerns raised by the MAG chair that we don't lose time when we're in a very delicate situation.

 So I would be keen to find the right spot in the agenda.

 I would also support the remarks that Izumi made on the need for transparency and clarity of expectations.  I think that this is -- this is just really important for us to constantly reinforce in the work that we do together.

 What I have noted in looking through experiences of colleagues from the past is that it seems with the IGF MAG processes, there -- it's almost been like a -- an English legal system where it's creating informal processes that are, over time, creating sort of a body of precedent and norms, and so if that is where -- what we're doing and where we are, I think it's great to have those clearly articulated.  If they're evolving and changing or we want them to evolve and change, I very much welcome an open discussion about that.

 I would echo the point Izumi made that I think that open discussion would be better in today's schedule, where we have the full community of people who are interested and not just a self-determination among MAG members.

 I think that -- I think that that open discussion would be -- would be more valuable with other people participating.

 Our own experience -- as I convene a lot of the private sector through the ICC/BASIS initiative, our own experience has been that where we receive explicit guidance in terms of where the gaps are in private sector representation, be it around gender or expertise or geography, for other processes that we have participated in, the extent to which that can be extremely clear in advance of our calling possible candidates and going through our nomination process, that's been very helpful.

 We've had a recent experience with the CSTD working group, and the chair was quite explicit on what those were and that helped us a lot in our call for candidates.

 So I would -- I would encourage future processes, and UNDESA explicitly, to share that feedback with us in advance.

 I think also cultivating people with the knowledge and understanding of the IGF well before the month that we are asked for candidates is something that we all need to do as different communities, but to help us do that, I think the more information that we have about where the gaps are, that would be helpful.

 And then on a separate point, I just wanted to support what our colleague from the European Union made, the point she made about the importance of the relationship between the activities that are going on to foster and promote digital economic development and the sustainable development goals.

 We had a very, I think, positive experience at the IGF in Brazil with the main session on the Internet economy and sustainable development then leading to cooperation between ICC/BASIS and the African Union where we were able to do a similar side event in -- alongside the WSIS event, and that has also encouraged future events to be proposed.

 So I think this is exactly the kind of thing that shows there's meaningful connections to what we do in the IGF and other venues and that we can -- we can feed each other with valuable substance.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Elizabeth.  

 I think to your question on the agenda, I mean, this is the open consultation and there have been a couple of comments, at least, on some of the processes and the need to discuss them further.

 There is some time on the agenda tomorrow.  We'll have to take a look at the agenda and I think the feedback we got today to understand that, but this is the appropriate time for members of the community to --

 So we have another five or so people in the queue and then we'll move on to the fourth item, having said that.

 The next in the queue is a gentleman from the ITU.

 >>VLADIMIR STANKOVIC: Yes.  Thank you, Madam Chairman.  I wanted to pick the proper agenda item, but I see that the statements from the floor are pretty mixed up so there is not a wrong agenda item, at the end.

 My name is Vladimir Stankovic and I have the pleasure to address you on behalf of International Telecommunications Union, and I would like to share with you details of the upcoming WSIS Forum 2016.  

 It will be held from 2nd to 6th of May, and we expect more than 1,500 stakeholders from over 140 countries, including more than a hundred ministers, ambassadors, heads of agencies, CEOs, and high-level representatives from the private sector, civil society, and academia.  

 We invite you all to block these days on the calendar and visit the dedicated Web site for additional information.

 The forum builds upon the outcomes of the U.N. General Assembly overall review of the implementation of the WSIS outcomes which recognized the necessity of holding this forum on an annual basis and called for a close alignment between WSIS and the sustainable development goals processes.  

 The WSIS forum will, therefore, serve as a key forum for discussing the role of ICTs as a means of implementation on the sustainable development goals and targets, with due regard to the global mechanism for follow-up and review of the implementation of the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.  

 The secretary-general of the ITU had several consultations with member states, and upon that, Mr. Daniel Sepulveda, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and the U.S. Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, United States of America, has been designated as the chairman of the WSIS Forum 2016.  The chairman designate will be officially appointed on the 3rd of May during the opening ceremony.

 Highlighting real projects from the ground that are implementing the potential of ICTS for sustainable development on the 3rd of May, the annual WSIS prize ceremony will be held where winners will be rewarded for the excellence in the implementation of WSIS outcomes.

 Appreciating the activities of the stakeholders, this year we will also be recognizing 70 champions who were the five best voted in the online voting phase in each action line category.

 For the first time, WSIS forum is introducing TEDx talks together with TEDxGeneva, and this will bridge WSIS process to the new vibrant community of a hundred plus million online followers and will address cutting-edge topics related to developing new technology.

 While exploring the new horizons, which is the title of these talks towards sustainable development, it's our common interest to leave no one behind.  This event will take place on the 3rd of May in CICG starting 6:00 p.m.  

 The agenda of the WSIS Forum 2016 is available online, as you're aware, and the agenda is built from the submissions received from the stakeholders during the open consultation process.  

 We are proud to share with you that the innovative and content-rich agenda of the WSIS Forum 2016 builds upon more than 150 submissions.  This is indeed actually collaborative activity where the WSIS stakeholders build the agenda together and bring forth the most pressing issues in each action line for multistakeholder discussions and dialogues.  Thank you for your attention.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you.  Mike Nelson has the floor but it looks as though he's stepped out for a moment, so we'll put him to the back of the queue.  

 Mark Carvell, you have the floor.

 >>MARK CARVELL: Thank you, Chair.  

 Mark Carvell, United Kingdom government.  I just wanted to make three quick points, as I know time is short.

 Firstly, on youth participation, one of the messages that came out strongly from Joao Pessoa was that young people needed to be integrated into the IGF program as much as possible, and I hope the new MAG will be able to send a clear message to main session and also workshop organizers that they consider the involvement of a young person as a participant on a panel, or whatever the session mechanism is, in terms of active participation.

 Second point, online child protection, the U.K. government feels this is a very important issue for the IGF.  We hope very much that the MAG will ensure that online child protection has a prominent place in the IGF program for Guadalajara, bearing in mind that it is a bottom-up process but I hope the MAG will be able to ensure that that important global issue does have some profile in the program for Guadalajara.

 My third point is with regard to the G7 ICT ministerial conference.  I'm the lead U.K. official in preparation for that.  

 The ministerial conference itself is a closed session but there will be a multistakeholder conference on the first day, which is the 29th of April at the end of this month.  This multistakeholder conference is co-organized by the Japanese Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications and the Keidanren, the Japan business federation, and that is the opportunity, I think, for the IGF to be given some profile, and it may help with the problem raised by Izumi in terms of increasing awareness in Japan, in particular, of the importance of the IGF.  

 My minister has a speaking slot in that and I will try and get reference to the IGF in his speech at the multistakeholder conference in Japan.  It's in Takamatsu on the 29th of April.  Hope that's helpful.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Mark.  Klaus, you have the floor.

 >>KLAUS STOLL: Thank you very much, Madam Chairman, and as many before, congratulations to your recent appointment.

 I would like to follow up on some of the remarks here and it's about -- it sounds like a platitude, but it's true.  Everybody is affected by ICTs.  But everybody is affected by ICTs.  Everybody is equally affected by Internet governance.  And as we have a lot of problems about Internet -- about Internet literacy, we should really have as part of the IGF a conscious outreach program on Internet governance literacy, and this should really -- as started so brilliantly in Brazil with students and young people, this should approach businesses, this should approach governments, this should approach basically every Internet user.  And for example, why does it have to be the IGF all the time themself?  Why can't we ask students to reach out to students?  Why can't we reach out [sic] business to reach out to business?  Why can't we ask governments to reach out to governments?

 So my plea and my proposal is quite simply:  Let's think seriously about Internet governance outreach.  

 And just because I always do things the other -- the wrong way around, it's civil society Global Knowledge Partnership Foundation and also NPOC and ICANN.  

 And as a last remark on this one, I think this program or initiatives like that would be also important just simply to support the multistakeholder process.

 Grass-root engagement, bottom-up engagement needs participation.  Otherwise it's dead.  Otherwise we use just platitudes.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Klaus.  

 Online participation, Anja?

 >>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Thank you, Madam Chair.  

 I'm going to read three comments, and then Jac would like to intervene.

 From Deidre Williams:  We spend lots of energy on Internet as a place.  Perhaps we need to balance this with Internet as a tool because we need policy for use of the tool as well as policy for behavior in the place.

 Second comment, Michael Oghia, Istanbul, past ISOC ambassador to IGF 10.  

 I submitted input collected from my fellow ISOC ambassadors to the secretariat, on their behalf, and many of them echoed my concerns as well as many other individuals' concerns about the amount of time dedicated to open forum discussions.

 The amount of time allocated in Joao Pessoa was clearly not enough, and I encourage the MAG to expand the crucial space for expression and discussion at IGF 11.

 From Peter Dengate Thrush:  I agree with Elizabeth that input from the wider community -- for example, here today -- is important and useful as the MAG discusses MAG chair appointment processes.  It's not clear to me whether -- sorry, where on the MAG agenda this item is to be discussed.

 And now Jac would like to make an intervention.  

 Jac, I'm going to unmute you now.

 >>JAC sm KEE: Hello.  Can you hear me?  Just checking.

 >>REMOTE INTERVENTION: Yes, we can.

 >>JAC sm KEE: Hello, can you hear me?  Just checking.

 >> ANJA GENGO:  Yes, we can.

 >>JAC sm KEE:  Thank you very much.  I would just like to raise, I guess, three comments.  One is to support the interventions earlier around discussing process and transparency around -- I guess not just around the next selection but the overall working processes of the IGF.  I think it's a really good opportunity for us here given the renewed IGF mandate.  

 So, for example, also thinking through how intersessional work links to IGF in a sustained way and deepening the institutional work that IGF plays within the U.N. and with other policy processes.  So, for example, we could also be using some of the outputs at the IGF to inform other processes like the HRC.

 Secondly, I would like to really recommend the continued strengthening of the intersessional work.  It's been a very useful process to continue the conversation beyond the IGF event in itself and that it's produced quite solid work and outcome.  And to really support human rights-related thematic issues to be a consistent topic for this and also for the IGF because -- especially given the human rights, we encompass such a diverse area.  It is very relevant to Internet policy discussion.  

 And the IGF is a unique space to foster multistakeholder conversations within this thematic area and to increase links with the U.N. processes as well.

 And the -- and then I would like to recommend the continued development and strengthening of the dynamic coalition work as one of the primary platforms for intersessional work for the IGF.  The thought needs to be given to how the work of the DCs is shared and that there is broader engaged with the broader IGF community and the MAG and secretariat should play a continued role with this process.

 So, for example, two concrete areas of work from the gender dynamic coalition, which I'm a part of, is to develop a sexual harassment policy for the IGF.  I think it is particularly timely given some of the discussions that have come up from the ICANN meeting as well.  And secondly is the gender report card that the gender dynamic coalition has been working on.  Last year is the fourth year in which the report card has been done, but it remains somehow outside of the good monitoring and statistical work that the secretariat does to keep track of diverse publications.  

 But maybe some steps and discussion needs to be taken on how to integrate this in terms of the work of the DC and the other pieces of the puzzle that drives the work of the IGF.

 And, finally, I think that it's quite -- I think maybe we should discuss an opportunity for processes to present their concern during the IGF given the experience last year where peaceful and violent protesters were actually removed on the first day.  This is against the freedom of expression, but also it's not the first time that this has happened.  Clearly, the IGF is a space that is important for people to come and present their concerns.  And I think we need to think about a space that allows for this to happen in the way that is respectful of human rights.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.  Thank you, Jac, and all the other online participants.  That was the end.

 Aida, you have the floor.

 >>AIDA MAHMUTOVIC:  Thank you very much.  For the record, Aida Mahmutovic from Bosnia and Herzegovina representing civil society, second-time MAG member.  And also a member of organizing committee for the first Bosnian and Herzegovinian IGF which took place in October -- first of October 2015.  We had 109 participants from all stakeholder groups with almost 50/50 gender balance among all speakers, moderators, organizing committee, and participants.  And this was organized in only three months, so you can imagine what hard work that was.  

 And they were, we believe, two key facts for the successful event.  First one was the outreach, which really meant a really simple explanation among the different stakeholders within the country on what Internet governance is and why is it important for them to join the process.

 The second one was really the key one, and it was the support from international organizations such as APC, ICANN, Council of Europe, OEC representative of media, RIPE NCC, DiploFoundation and, of course, IGF secretariat and IGF, as they gave us huge support.  

 So this was the key because at that point was when the government representatives, private sector, and others really considered the importance of joining the process once they heard that we had this support from the international organizations.

 As for including voices from national and regional levels, as far as I know, all enlisted initiatives need to submit IGF reports, which from the few I have read include really detailed information and challenges within those communities and regions.  And I know that it takes a lot of time for people who work on those reports.  So, therefore, I suggest that in the future, we should take a look into these reports and see how and what we can collect from that.

 And on the other note, I would just like to inform you that tomorrow I was kindly asked from LAC youth to present to you a letter of claim to MAG.  So this will be for tomorrow, just to let you know.  Thank you very much.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Aida.

 Michael, you were out of the room when we called you earlier.  So you now have the floor.

 >>MICHAEL NELSON:  Thank you very much, Lynn.  I apologize for having to step out briefly.

 I wanted to respond to something that was said and has been said a couple different times in a couple different ways.  And that is that we need to involve people from different disciplines, different sectors.  And I fully agree with those people who say we need to involve people from finance and healthcare and education in discussions about Internet governance.  

 I have a problem when we start going so broad that we're going to talk about those sectors and Internet because we can suddenly find ourselves really having no boundaries and ending up with a conference that will try to offer everything to everyone and in the end offer nothing to nobody.  

 Because in these sectors, like finance, they're having their own conferences and they're bringing Internet experts in to show them how to use the Internet to do banking better.  The thing they're not doing is having conversations about the critical Internet governance decisions that are going to affect the finance sector.

 Same thing for healthcare.  Same thing for eGovernment.  Same thing for education.  

 And so I hope that as we reach out to these groups we're not advertising ourself as the place to come and hear case studies about how the Internet is going to help them and instead we're reaching out to them and saying, "We need your help in making decisions about how the Internet itself will evolve so we can do it in a way that supports them."

 And those are two very different questions.  And the one that pertains to Internet governance is well-defined, much narrower, and I think would allow us to really have an impact on those decisions.  So just a warning and a call for -- a plea for focus and boundaries.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Michael.

 Ambassador Fonseca, you have the floor.

 >>BENEDICTO FONSECA:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  I think ICANN's flag was raised before mine, if you wish to give them the floor.

 I can speak now but I'd like to make a comment on what you're going to say.  So I reserve --

 [ Laughter ]

 But then maybe I can just start by saying that in regard to -- I have been hearing a few comments in regard to how to make sure we have more government participation.  And I think from our experience working things, NETmundial, and organizing IGF last year, we think it's very important to have some initiatives, government-to-government outreach besides anything we can do as IGF, as MAG in a multistakeholder forum towards government.

 We have both in preparation for NETmundial and for IGF organized briefings in Brasilia directed to the foreign missions.  We think it's important at this level to flag this to governments.  At least you'll get each embassy to prepare a report at their capitals, and this would be digested nationally.  And, also, there is also some interest in making some events government-to-government in places like New York or here in Geneva.

 I leave these as suggestions to the Mexican coordination and host country for this year because we were convinced that kind of government-to-government outreach had a significant impact in regard to attracting government participation.  

 We think it's very important to show to other governments the perception we have of the benefits in working in the multistakeholder format in discussing Internet governance-related aspects.

 It is very important for them to hear from government representatives, their assessment, and their positive views in that regard.  And I'm saying this, of course, does not in any way seek to limit or impair any multistakeholder approach.  But the government-to-government perspective outreach is very important.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Ambassador Fonseca.

 We actually had closed the queue for this session about eight speakers back when I went through the list.  We actually have a number of interventions that were actually scheduled for this last hour having to do with some sort of partnership and other Internet governance organizations.

 I'd like to pull those in.  If the three or four people that had their flags up now are certain they can, one, be brief and, two, it is to this current set of discussions, then I think we can do that.  But I do want to be respectful of the people that the secretariat had previously queued up for this time to make their interventions.

 And, Nigel, I'm not certain if you were on -- because you were on the other list as well.  So you're on the other list.  Okay.

 So with that, I'll give the floor to Liesyl, and then we will move to the Agenda Item 4.

 >>LIESYL FRANZ:  Thank you, Chair.  And thank you for your indulgence.  I promise to be brief.

 First of all, my name is Liesyl Franz from the U.S. Department of State.  And I'm happy to be joining not my first open consultation or MAG meeting but my first as a new MAG member.  So thank you for that.  

 And congratulations to you, Lynn, for your chairmanship.

 The only thing just listening to the conversation today, just spurred me to make a comment about perhaps building on Mike Nelson's comment about focus and boundaries, keeping in mind that we do now have a ten-year mandate.  So that gives us the opportunity of having an arc or a continuum of conversations.  And while we may not all be on the MAG, say, for the next ten years, we might well be involved in the community so we can think about -- as we think about the planning for the IGF or the improvements or the projects that we might be thinking about engaging in, in order to build participation from developing countries or capacity-building or outreach opportunities to national and regional IGFs, we have the opportunity now to think about that in an arc or continuum.  

 And I just wanted to put that out there for us to keep in mind.  So we don't have to boil the ocean in the next three days or even the next three months.  But maybe we can give ourselves a longer project plan.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Liesyl.

 I wanted to just address one comment from this last session.  Both Elizabeth and Peter had asked where on the agenda tomorrow was the additional discussion.  That was under the first agenda item, specifically I think C and D, which had a MAG orientation, discussion of roles and responsibilities, and discussion on MAG modalities.  

 I think one of the things we're going to have to be quite careful of tomorrow, though, is managing our time.  That is a very full day.  And I think perhaps with that subject and other subjects, we may actually move into working groups or some other discussions or maybe some of our virtual MAG calls or something.  But, in fact, that was where the discussion was intended to come, if it arose up in the open consultations here.

 So I will also take the point to go away with the secretariat and we'll do a scan of the agenda over the next two days and see if we think any other adjustments are needed and, if so, be in touch with the MAG on that.

 So with that, this last agenda item actually pulls from the IGF, the Tunis Agenda which makes it clear that these processes are supposed to facilitate discourse across Internet governance activities, organizations, and institutions.  So in that vein, there were a number of projects that either, I think, the secretariat thought or other organizations thought would be worthwhile to bring to the attention of this room.

 I know I have a few specific requests, and maybe I can start with one that's remote and then look to the other people that are in the room here to put their flag up.

 So one in specific, there was a request from the World Economic Forum.  They unfortunately couldn't be here today.  They are on a plane on their way to New York, but they did provide a short statement to the secretariat that somebody in the secretariat is going to read out.

 Thank you.  Brian?

 >>WORLD ECONOMIC FORUM:  Yes.  Thanks, Lynn.  I'll read this verbatim from World Economic Forum submitted by Alex Wong, who is coordinating, managing the future of the Internet initiative.  

 Here's the statement:  The World Economic Forum Future of the Internet Initiative has an objective to ensure that the Internet benefits all humankind for a better public/private collaboration.

 Given that one of the initiatives' focus areas is around access, adoption through the Internet for All project, and also given that the Future of the Internet initiative has already contributed to IGF's efforts in 2015 on the "Connecting the Next Billion" paper, the World Economic Forum would like to deepen its engagement with the MAG in this area.

 This could specifically be in the form of the Forum's commitment to continue to support (indiscernible) into any connecting the next billion activities that may be planned for the coming here; inviting the MAG to participate in the Future of the Internet initiative and all of their activities which will take place at the national, regional, and global levels throughout 2016.  And specifically anticipated regions of focus will be the Africa northern corridor, Latin America, and India.  And the engagement of national and regional IGFs in particular would be welcome.

 There's also an offer to possibly co-host an Internet for All connectivity-type session during the IGF day zero or whenever appropriate.

 And that was all.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Brian.  I think we can make this statement available to the MAG members as well and post it on the MAG list.

 Cristina, did you want to come back in on GIPO?

 >>CRISTINA MONTI:  Thank you, Madam Chair.  Thank you for the opportunities to say a few words on GIPO, the Global Internet Policy Observatory, and to also introduce this project to the new MAG members.

 The Global Internet Policy Observatory is a project which has been kick started by the European Commission last year.  And it aims at responding or at least contributing to responding to the needs that have been highlighted by many of you during this session.  It is the need of having access to an adequate level of information regarding Internet governance and Internet-related policies around the world.

 So the aim of this tool is precisely to provide this information in an automatic way.  So the tool looks at the most relevant information through selected sources which can be seen by all users.  It assigns scores to this content, and then it enriches this content with metadata.  All this is done automatically so that this information can be used in a variety of ways.

 So we could say that GIPO is a provider of predigested information on Internet governance and policy which can then be further curated, for instance, by other observatory tools which focus more on these kind of activities, but also directly to the stakeholder that needs to get access to this kind of information.

 Another possible use that has emerged while discussing with several stakeholders has been also how the tool could be used to facilitate processes like the IGF or regional and national IGFs, in the sense that the tool could classify content and provide a management tool to access this content.

 For the time being, there is a prototype available.  It's just a beta version which is accessible for everybody.  And the team that is working on the development of the tool arranges regular Webinars and physical events with interested stakeholders to develop the tool in a way that could be really useful to the final user.

 As I mentioned at the beginning, this project was kick-started -- is kick-started by the European Commission, so we put some money in it, but it is really thought as a tool for the global community, so we do not wish to necessarily be the sole owners of this tool.

 So I would invite MAG members to visit the Web site, giponet.org, and from there, you can access the tool which is still in beta version.  Additional functionalities will be developed throughout the year.  And so there -- this means that there is still scope to adapt the tool to specific needs, and therefore I would like to invite MAG members, but also the IGF secretariat, to consider how this tool could facilitate your tasks but also how it could facilitate cooperation and exchanges with other mapping initiatives and other observatories.

 I have to say that something remarkable that has happened is that in the last couple of years, there has been a sort of explosion of initiatives and we are in touch with more than 30 initiatives at different levels -- regional, national, or international -- all trying to provide answers and solutions to the complexity of Internet governance, and by the simple fact of being in touch, all these initiatives can exchange best practices and can really, together, advance and provide something useful.  So this is also an interesting aspect and a new development, I would say.

 So just for your information, on the 20th of April, there will be a Webinar on how GIPO will approach multilingualism.  The idea is that the tool will be multilingual, at least provide functionalities in the five official languages of the United Nations, so something interesting.

 And finally, also, there has been -- there is an advisory group that has been set up to provide independent advice for the different aspects of the development of the project, and this advisory group works really independently from the European Commission, and there are a few MAG members who are part of the advisory group, so I think that it would be really great if they could act as a sort of liaison and also facilitate exchanges and help us assess how the tool could be useful for MAG.

 Then if you allow me just two -- well, one point of information, I just wanted to share as we are talking about Internet governance-related initiatives just for your information, the European Commission is planning this year to focus some of its activities on jurisdiction on the Internet, and we are planning two workshops to take place in Brussels, one on jurisdiction in the cloud and one on Internet intermediaries, so this is just a point of information I wish to share.

 Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Cristina.

 Peter, you have the floor.

 >>PETER MAJOR: Thank you, Lynn.  In my previous intervention, I tried to outline some aspects of the work the Commission on Science and Technology for Development, which is a U.N. commission, has been doing, so I think probably I have to be a bit more detailed about the work.

 So the commission itself is a part of the economic and social council of the United Nations.  It's one of the specialized committees.  Commissions.

 It has two mandates.  One mandate is related to the science issues.  The other mandate is related to the World Summit on Information Society.  

 I don't really want to deal with the first mandate.  

 What is of relevance here is the task of the commission related to the WSIS.  The commission each year provides a report to the U.N. Secretary-General on the systemwide review.  It also drafts a resolution for the ECOSOC on the WSIS-related issues, and this is the basis for the United Nations General Assembly's resolution.

 And last, but not least, the commission has created two working groups.  

 One working group which has been already mentioned was the working group on the improvements to the IGF which has successfully completed its work.  The other working group was the Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation.  I don't really want to go into detail about what is enhanced cooperation and what is not enhanced cooperation.  I'll leave the pleasure to you.

 However, you may know that this working group has -- I have been requested to continue the work of the working group.  That is, to establish a new one.  And I would like to thank all of you who have participated, especially the focal points for the stakeholders who have participated, in helping me to establish this working group, which was, I think, quite an open process, I hope, and the results of which will be posted, I think, by the end of this week on the Web site of the Commission on Science and Technology for Development.

 So as I have mentioned earlier, the outcome document of the WSIS+10 encouraged the CSTD to continue the WSIS systemwide review.  It also asked us to report on the implementation of the outcomes of the recommendations of the working group on improvements and identify and promote specific detailed actions to support enabling environment for ICTs and development.

 So basically, this is the linkage to -- to my mind, to the SDGs.  

 And I think, coming back to the first mandate, we have also tasks related to other high-level events, including the establishment of a U.N.-wide science forum which will give us extra tasks.

 So basically that is in a nutshell, and I think there are a lot of linkages between the IGF and CSTD and I sincerely hope that we are going to continue in a very positive way.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Peter.

 Arnold, you have the floor.

 >>ARNOLD VAN RHIJN: Thank you, Madam Chair.  

 First of all, my congratulations to your appointment as new chair.

 My name is Arnold van Rhijn.  I'm from the Netherlands government, and I'm happy to join the MAG as a new member.  Previously I participated in this meeting as an observer, active observer.  And I also would like to congratulate all the other new MAG members and also say thanks to the outgoing members for their hard work.

 Let me share some information for you on a process which is related to the Internet governance work, and it has to do with the Global Forum on Cyber Expertise.  This Global Forum on Cyber Expertise has been launched during the Global Cyberspace Conference in the Hague in April last year, and this is a global platform for governments, international organizations, and private companies to exchange best practices and expertise on cyber capacity building.

 The aim is to identify successful policies, practices, and ideas, and multiply these on a global level.  

 Together with partners from NGOs, the technical community, and academia, GFC members develop practical initiatives to build capacity -- cyber capacity.  

 We had lately a call for nominations to an advisory board, and this is specifically dedicated for the NGOs, technical community, and academia.  About 22 members should be elected by now, and hopefully they can build on the knowledge and expertise which we are looking for.

 Today, there are 11 initiatives which are being selected, and these initiatives are now going to be implemented, and a lot of information can be found on the Web site of the GFC, but I'll name a few of them.

 First is an initiative which deals with progressing cyber security in Senegal and West Africa.

 Another initiative is dealing with CSIRT maturity.

 And a third one is dealing with vulnerable -- vulnerability disclosure initiatives.  That is, ethical hacking.

 So there are a lot of issues, cyber issues, which are being tackled in different regions of the world, and the process of implementing these 11 initiatives is going on, and if you want to, like, have more information about these initiatives, I please advise you to visit the Web site of the GFCE.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Arnold.

 There were two more individuals who were invited to speak here.  One is Nigel, I think, on the IANA transition.

 So Nigel, you have the floor.

 >>NIGEL HICKSON: Yes.  Thank you very much, Madam Chair.  I'll try and be brief.

 [ Laughter ]

 >>NIGEL HICKSON: So the IANA transition is just a small initiative.  No.  Sorry.  I'll try and be serious.

 So I just thought it would be worth just giving a very brief update on where the IANA stewardship transition is.

 As many of you know, it's been an initiative that although ICANN has been facilitating, really it's been an initiative of the global Internet community.

 It's certainly something that IANA -- sorry, that ICANN could not have taken forward without the active cooperation of a wide range of participants from a wide range of countries and from a wide range of backgrounds, and included in that are many people that are active in the IGF, many people that have been active in the MAG.

 It's been a true example of a multistakeholder process, and that might seem somewhat trite to say.  

 But I think what it's done -- and of course what NETmundial did in such splendid fashion two years ago, just after the IANA transition was initiated.  What NETmundial did was to show how you can debate and agree on serious issues through a multistakeholder process.

 The complaint has often been that you can get people in a room and generate a lot of heat but not much light and not make much -- many decisions.  Well, NETmundial showed that that was wrong, and the IANA stewardship transition has agreed to fundamental and very detailed documents spelling out new processes at ICANN and beyond which really are detailed and which really make some fundamental decisions.

 The IANA transition itself is a replacement for the role that the U.S. NTIA have in certain technical aspects of the Internet, the root of the Internet.

 For example, in approving new top-level domains into the root of the Internet.  And the transition arrangements which were finally agreed at the end of the last ICANN meeting in Marrakech on the 10th of March envisage a process where the NTIA role is, if you like, replaced by a fairly complex mechanism of IANA staff with the global community in various groups and in various advisory committees.

 Linked to that is an accountability process which is equally important, and this accountability process takes with it the premise that ICANN as a board and a staff, of course, has to be accountable to the global community it serves, and this accountability process puts in various checks and balances and allows the Internet community, under certain conditions, to take fairly important actions, including removal of the ICANN board.

 These processes are important to ICANN.  We believe they're important to Internet governance.  We believe they're important to the global appreciation of the Internet as we -- as we move forward and puts all governments on an equal footing.

 But, Madam Chair, equally important, as I mentioned at the beginning, it shows how the global Internet community can come together and make decisions, and that, I think, is relevant, and that, I think, is important in other areas in the global Internet ecosystem.

 As such, we'll be discussing the results of this IANA transition at the WSIS forum.  I think my colleague from ITU is gone, but it's a shame, because I was going to -- I will still pay him a compliment.  The WSIS forum hosted by the ITU we see as a very important occasion to outline key Internet governance developments, and certainly we'll be doing such there, with the help of the cross-community working group on Internet governance.

 So I think I'll stop there.  Just before that, though, just to mention that the -- in terms of the process, the papers are now with the U.S. government, the NTIA.  They will be doing a consideration within Washington and also a consideration of Congress as well, and hopefully there will be a response before the summer and that will then lead to a full implementation of the new measures by the end of September when the current contract between the NTIA and ICANN expires.

 Thank you very much, indeed.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR: Okay.  Thank you, Nigel.  

 And just for the record, the ITU was also asked for a submission, and I think that was their earlier contribution on the WSIS forum.

 I see Benedicto's flag is up for Brazil, and you're possibly responding to something in what Nigel said.  I'd also like to give my other friends in Brazil the opportunity to perhaps give the room an update on the NETmundial Initiative, since that was a significant feature here in a lot of our discussions last year and I think there's probably a short update that would be helpful.

 But first, Benedicto?

 >>BENEDICTO FONSECA: Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you for -- Nigel, for this briefing.

 I'd like just to say in regard to what has been said, I -- Nigel, that Brazil, as you know, is a country that is -- has been fully engaged in the multistakeholder initiatives and we fully embrace these concepts.

 Therefore, we have engaged very actively in the IANA transition process, in the preparation -- in the process leading to the preparation of the transition proposal.

 We have participated both in the ICG and also in the CCWG accountability working group.

 Therefore, from the perspective of governments -- however, from the perspective of governments, I have to express that we have a lot of concern in some provisions that made their way to the final proposal which, in our view, imposes very severe restrictions on the governments' capacity to participate.

 It is not accurate to say governments have equal participation.  I think there is a recognition that the issues addressed by ICANN -- names and numbers, critical resources, even when we look into the WSIS outcome documents, there is a very clear message that those areas are -- should not be led by governments and this is fully accepted not only by Brazil but by others.  

 And governments have been retaining an advisory role in the present regime, and they will maintain that advisory role in the post-transition phase.

 So we -- it is accepted by all of us governments to remain, let's say, in that advisory capacity.  However, there are a number of provisions that were included, and some of them at a very late stage in the negotiations, that, as I said -- and I'll not elaborate on these.  I think for those who are familiar, that we all received the consensus requirements for GAC advice to trigger consultation mechanisms with the secretariat and also what is called the carve-out mechanism.  I'll not elaborate on this.

 Our -- for those who are interested, our perception of these have been recorded in what we call the minority opinion that was attached to the proposal, and that minority opinion was supported not only by Brazil but by countries like France, Portugal, Argentina, and others.  And as you look into the list of countries who have that minority opinion, you clearly see that all those countries, or the immense huge majority of those countries, are very enthusiastic supporters of the multistakeholder model and of ICANN and the way it works, but however there was that very clear record of the position vis-a-vis some proposals that made it to the final piece that is now being considered by the U.S. government and Congress.

 So this is just for -- for the record to say that we are supportive of the process.  However, we are concerned with those provisions.  

 We think that the way the process unfolded has nothing to do with NETmundial.  I'm sorry.  I think NETmundial had its agenda and its process in operating a truly bottom-up approach that was not in the final stages interfered with by other participants.  I think the whole process was truly bottom-up and includes events.  Unfortunately, we have not seen that kind of approach in the process.

 And I think what is most concern of us -- because we have been participating in ICANN but also here, also in New York in the WSIS+10, in each and every context, we have consistently expressed our views, that we support the multistakeholder approach.  We support the full package that comes from the WSIS outcome documents; the multistakeholder approach, the notion that different stakeholders have different roles and responsibilities.  And this is the way we try to balance.

 We have a very hard time in the WSIS+10 -- I think it was a very balanced outcome but one that took us a lot of effort, not only on the part of my delegation, of course, but working together with other delegations to bring on board some delegations that had very serious concerns about the multistakeholder approach.

 As I said before, it was important that Mexico had already offered to host IGF 2016.  It was very important to have in the room during the WSIS+10 negotiations delegations that were very firmly committed to this notion because they had, let's say,a counterbalance effect with regard to other delegations that were not so much enthusiastic about this.

 So this leads me to the conclusion that the way the ICANN process unfolded makes us very concerned about those countries that were already reluctant to accept the multistakeholder format.  If they see this, as the ICANN representative has said, as a truly multistakeholder way of doing things, I think we are in a very bad shape to convince those countries to embrace the multistakeholder approach.  If they see that the multistakeholder approach is what took place in the ICANN process, I don't think that would be to the service of the multistakeholder effort as a whole.

 So we recognize what took place in ICANN as a very particular situation, in a very -- an organization that has a very clear focused mandate.  That has already -- even in the WSIS outcomes document recognition that it should work in very particular ways, so this is all respected.

 However, we think there were some unnecessary restrictions that were imposed on governments as a whole to the point that countries like Brazil, France, Portugal, Argentina, and others had to reject the final proposal.  So I don't think that was -- we hope and we expect the proposal to be fully implemented.  

 And I think the overall objective to move from the unilateral jurisdiction of the U.S. is something we can also support.  But I think those, let's say, elements that were added do not help us in these -- in the years ahead regarding to bring on board everyone including governments around multistakeholder processes.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you, Benedicto.  

 And I think we, again, certainly owe thanks to both Mexico and Brazil for all of their efforts to support the WSIS+10 process and the renewal.  And certainly your efforts in New York in the latter part of last year were critical to that effort.

 At the same time, I think your comments also pull out the notion that critical Internet resources have been a piece of the Internet governance debate and specifically IGF since the very earliest days of WSIS 1, in fact.  And it seems as though they will be with us for some time yet, which is maybe not a surprise.  But thank you for your very measured comments.

 I would like to come to -- I'm not sure if it's Hartmut or Flavio -- Hartmut for a quick update on the NETmundial Initiative.  Thank you.

 >>HARTMUT GLASER:  It's very clear for most of us that NETmundial was a one-time event.  And NETmundial Initiative was born later, was a joint agreement between WEF, ICANN, and CGI.  And now that ICANN and WEF don't stay in this effort together with CGI, that CGI needs to discuss and reset our initiative.  

 We are exactly at this moment discussing in Brazil internally at CGI how we will follow this platform.  Very, very, very clear NETmundial Initiative is not an event.  NETmundial Initiative is a platform that the idea is to offer to the world for best practices, for some good examples that we have worldwide.  

 But CGI needs to discuss because if we now are alone on this project, on this effort -- it's not a negative way to say "alone" -- we need to reconsider all the details, the coordination, the next steps.

 Until the end of June, the council, the Coordination Council, will be in place.  And we are just in the middle of the process to redesign and to discuss internally how it will be put in place after June 2016.  So please wait until we have our final, final proposal.  Thank you.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  Thank you.

 That was the list of speakers that we had from the secretariat of people who had sort of requested some time to point out a significant or specific partnership or relationship with the IGF.

 And given the -- in fact, we are fast approaching 6:00, I think I would like to stop the conversation there.  Sorry.  I was being waved to from the back.  If this is about announcing the reception out front, I will come to that in just a moment.  I'm there already.  I will stay there for a moment.

 There's a reception immediately out in front here that I believe is hosted by The Internet Society.  And everybody's welcome.

 And I think at the moment -- I'm not sure if Chengetai has any other administrative items or if there are any other closing remarks or comments from the others?  They're all set as well.

 Chengetai is looking thoughtful, so I will give him a minute.

 [ Laughter ]

 As I said, we will take a moment and revisit the agenda here in the light of the discussions we've actually had.  And if there's any significant changes drafted, Dennis will get something out to the MAG.  And then, of course, we start the meeting tomorrow with a discussion on the agenda and approval.

 Cheryl has asked for a short comment.

 >>CHERYL MILLER:  I just really quickly -- Thank you, Madam Chair -- really quickly wanted to say thank you.  I know that there are a few non-MAG members, observers, in the room.  And some of them it's their first time.  And we really appreciate their participation.  I know the (indiscernible) can sometimes be overwhelming.  But just really appreciate the fact that they took the time and are here with us today.

 >>CHAIR ST. AMOUR:  That's a very important comment.  I mean, an open community discussion or day is nothing if there's no community.  So certainly appreciate everybody who did spend time here.  Hope that you'll come back and spend the next two days as well.  

 I think I would also like to recognize and support all the individuals that have participated online.  These may seem like long days here in the room.  They are even longer when you are participating online either by yourself or in the background of other meetings.  But the contributions and participation is important.

 I think we also need to thank the interpreters for being here and certainly for the scribes for the excellent work.  I think there's been a really high quality of scribing, and that helps tremendously I think not only people in the room but for the record, hosts of the meeting, and for those participating online.

 And I think I would just like to thank the secretariat for their great work supporting us here and otherwise we're adjourned.  And we'll be back here tomorrow morning at 10:00.  Thank you.