IGF 2019 – Day 3 – Convention Hall II – Governance Challenges in the Digital Age: Finding New Tools for Policy-Making

>> DAVID KELLY: Good afternoon, everybody.  Thank you for joining us this afternoon.  I know it's the afternoon, we might be a little bit slower.  I want to start by thanking the organizers, Ben Alice and Marie who brought us together.  Some of you may have heard that Under‑Secretary‑General Fabrizio is going to be moderating this panel.  He's been called away.  I beg your sympathy as I take over the moderator's chair.  My name is David Kelly.  I'm providing advice on technology governance, which I think is probably appropriate for our conversation today.

The first thing I want to start is to say that, you know, the way we set policy op Frontier technologies in the 21st century is going to have to be different from the 20th century.  Where it was issues like atomic energy or space, which were principally driven or organized by the state, 21st century technologies like artificial intelligence are typically driven by private sector.  As he said in his opening, the tree process that takes five to ten years for certification, and then radical negotiation is simply not going to be able to keep pace with the development and technology changes in the 21st century.

So, that's why our panel is here today.  We're here to talk about new ways, multidisciplinary ways to look at policy making.

So, part one, I'll bring you through an overview.  Part one is going to look at how that multidisciplinary process takes place.  We're four distinguished colleagues on stage.  Thank you for joining us and taking time and lending your expertise.  Part 2 is going to be examples around how that interdisciplinary policy making workings and doesn't make and we're going to work for both.

Let me start by introducing the distinguished panels we have at the top.  Molly Lesher.  Thank you, for joining.  Molly's experience is with supporting governmental policy but her background in and of itself is with policy making.  Thanks for joining.

Sophie Peresson.  Thank you for joining.  She's also the director of ICC basis and the ICC basis program, which is a terrific program facilitates business input and communications technology and her background is incredibly diverse.  Also multidisciplinary.  It's a trend.  Not only do we have multistakeholders but the individuals themselves are multidisciplinary.  It's really impressive.  Sophie's background is in law, international relations and medicine and technology.  Terrific to have you.

Sheetal Kumar from global partners digital, a partner there.  She tells partners in areas of cybercrime and civil society engagement so we're honored to have you.

At the end, my far left is the honorable Safari Nishuti.  He was in the far left in the area of Congo.  Safari's area is in parliament, mostly in gender, prior to serving in parliament and again, multidisciplinary served for gender in the province which is east.

So, thank you forerunner it.  The way we'll have is a series of comments from our general members, I'll ask one follow‑up question and then we'll go to the audience from L. we'll hope to take three or four in the first section and the same in the second session.  So, the first session and I'll start obviously with Molly here.  What we're looking at is, what should truly multidisciplinary policy making processes look like.  I know it's a complex word salad to a certain degree.  We're hoping you can distill it for us.  From the OECD perspective, how does that look?  I know you're going to take the podium to slow a slide to us so thanks for that.

>> MOLLY LESHER: Thanks so much.  It's a real pleasure to be here.  He realizing the opportunities and addressing the challenges for digital automation is important and I think it's important we all acknowledge that.  People, government, stakeholders really all need to be involved in shaping a digital future that makes the most of the immense opportunities we know that digital transformation holds to improve the lives of all people.

Now, at the EOCD, we've been working on the OECD going digital project which brought together over 20 different policy communities in a two and a half year process that's basically everyone apart from national security to develop a strategy to make digital transformation positive and inclusive, and the resulting effort is the digital ongoing policy framework that you see up there on the slide.  We also have a companion online going digital toolkit and it has seven policy dimensions.

The first one is enhancing access to communications, infrastructure, services and data.  The second is increasing effective use of technology and data.  The third is unleashing data and digital innovation.  The fourth is about ensuring good jobs for all, and the key there is good.  The fifth is about promoting social prosperity and inclusion, and the sixth is about multiple environments.

Each of these dimensions brings together multiple policy domains that require effective coordination and this approach really underscores that all seven are needed to make digital transformation work for growth and well‑being.

You can have the very best broadband infrastructure and the very best services, but if people don't trust the internet, they're not going to use it.

If people don't have the skills to use digital technologies effectively, the promises of digital transform taking diminish.

So, these seven dimensions really highlight the complex and interrelated nature of digital transformation, and I think they also help put into relief some of the tradeoffs between public policy objectives that we know must be made.  The

Now, all of this is in the book that's at the table there if you're interested if you want to learn a little bit more about the framework.

Now, many countries have a digital economy strategy or an equivalent policy in place, but really only a few promote the whole of government approach as outlined in this framework.  Key elements of such an approach include, clear priorities, objectives, and measurable targets.  Well defined responsibilities, ensuring coherence between a digital transformation strategy and other domestic and international objectives, for example, the SDGs.  Sufficient budget that's allocated to the existing Ministry or body, and here, we're talking about line items.  And also, thorough monitoring and evaluation.

Now, we all know that coordination and cooperation across Ministries and bodies and different levels of government is hard.  We also know it must involve all stakeholders, but how to do that practically will really vary, what we've seen, based on the existing institutions, how the government if is structured, and cultural factors.

But, what is clear is that digital technologies can help improve this process.  I've seen some experiments of public consultations using social media to get direct citizen input on potential policy changes.

So, the innovations are happening, not just at the technological level, but within the policy making process itself and this is really something that should be embraced.

Now, at the bottom of a slide, you see a URL to our online Going Digital toolkit which helps governments in developing and successfully implementing an effective strategy.

And it provides key resources including indicators and policy guidance and I'm absolutely delighted to say that last week, we won a gold star award at an international competition on interactive data visualization, so I won't feel bad if you pick up your mobile phone and check it out.

Please do.  Please let us know what you think.  Now, some of the guidance that is on the toolkit is in the form of soft law, principles and best practices.

For instance, in May, the OECD adopted a recommendation on artificial intelligence, the first intergovernmental standard in this area and other soft law instruments are also included.  For example, we have the guidelines for children online, the OECD privacy guidelines and we're working on enhancements on access and protecting data.

Now, all of those are compared to the seven instruments up there and can be found online.  So, please do check it out and please check it out as we elaborate the toolkit going forward.  Thanks very much

(applause)

>> DAVID KELLY: Thanks, Molly.  That's terrific and congratulations on that award.  I'm going to pick up a little bit on that just for a very quick follow‑up question.  You talked a little bit about the AI principles and it's a huge achievement for your organization.  And you've achieved something that I think nobody else has done yet which is intergovernmental agreement on the principles that are now be adopted everywhere and elsewhere and I think a big part of the G20 statement was reflective of the help you had.  You talked about tradeoff and consultations.  How, maybe, did that impact the work you did on the AI principles.

Was there tradeoff or how did you do the consultation process?

>> MOLLY LESHER: So, the consultation process was a true multistakeholder initiative.  There was a lot of discussion, arguments about defining what AI is and how it should be is sort of implemented in a trustworthy way.  I think ultimately the principles are pretty high level.  And they were high enough level to get this agreement.

The devil is a little bit in the details and that's where we are right now.

I have colleagues, some of them may be in the audience right now, who are working on practical guidance for implementing these.  This is a process that's going through our committee right now and the ultimate result of that will be an online AI policy observatory that will launch in February that will have a little bit more details on how to practically implement.

You're never going to have one size fits all for all countries but this will at least help give some sort of broad context.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you, that was an incredibly detailed answer to a question you didn't know in advance.  Very impressive.  Sophie, maybe you can give us a few minutes as well from the podium there.  Thank you.

>> SOPHIE PERESSON: Thank you very much.  I first wanted to thank the organizers for inviting us this afternoon.  We're delighted to be here.  My name is Sophie Peresson, I'm working for the international Chamber of Commerce.  We represent 30 million businesses throughout the world and over a hundred countries with 90 national committees.  We turn 100 years old this year.  I hope it doesn't show too much.  And we work on a variety of issues in terms of advocacy making, standard setting, and we work very much in a multidisciplinary, multistakeholder approach and I'm looking forward to talking to you more about that.

So, since the beginning of the IGF, this week, I have to say, I've been quite struck by how much I've heard of the 3.9 billion people who are online connected, et cetera.  But, of course, that begs the question of all of those that are not.

And this is a challenge that governments alone cannot meet.  And that's why the business sector very much works with governments, Civil Society, the tech strategy and of course businesses to keep that in mind.

It's with that in mind I want to talk to you a little bit more about our vision of what we mean by the multistakeholder approach.  We are committed and convinced that a culture of cooperation should be encouraged across the entire digital and ICT ecosystem at all levels of decision making.

And the subnational to the global levels.  This leads to opportunities for mutual learning and assisting one another.  Fit for purpose decisions, flexible and adaptable policies, reciprocated respect for stakeholder interest.  In practice, this requires a conscious and continuous effort to adopt, implement, integrate, monitor, and improve a multistakeholder approach to policy and regulatory decision making as well as a holistic consideration of policy issues as they relate to ICT across the entire ICT ecosystem, and at all levels of decision making.

In this respect, we guide our work with the 3Is.  Implement, integrate, and improve.

So, what do we mean by implement?  Well, it's about opening up the traditional policy making processes to the input of all stakeholders.  That can be done through a number of ways, whether it's through public consultation or targeted outreach to organizations across the policy spectrum.  Because we believe this will help valuable and complementary input from those that are involved in or affected by the decisions made.

This should include organizations from both the demand and the supply side of technology.

It is vital toll see partnerships and share information with stakeholders and organizations regionally and globally in an effort to address common issues, reduce complexity, and avoid duplication.

The second I that I talk to you is about integrating, and that's what this eye-catching graph is all about.  I recently dubbed it the virtuous circle and I'm going to walk you through it to just, because we conceptualize what we mean by this multistakeholder approach.  It was designed by the international chamber's commission on the digital economy to help consider a holistic and multistakeholder approach to policy making.

At the center, you will find the infrastructure.  Applications and services, and user engagement layers that make up the ICT ecosystem.  These highlight the foundational role of ICT and how the different ICT functions are built on top of each other to deliver value to users.

The multilayered ring represents the different policy issues, be they economic, technical, social, cultural, or governance issues that arise through the use and development of ICT.

These policy issues can be overlapping and need to be, sorry, and need the experience and expertise of relevant stakeholders, for example, business, Civil Society, technical community and government, basically all of you in the room, if they are to be addressed effectively.

Moving along, the ring around the policy issues represents the stakeholders that I've just mentioned and finally, what is bringing us all together, the SDGs.

These layers mutually build and support one another and their proper functioning depends on effective cooperation across and between each actors.  Just as Molly, I'm going to refer you to a publication that we issued a few years ago, if you want to know a bit more about our work.  It's the ICT's policy statement on ICT, policy and sustainable economic development.  For those of you who are not familiar with the publication, I invite you to have a look.

The last I that I want to refer back to is about improving, because it's great to establish these frameworks and everybody is happy with the establishment of them but they do need to be reviewed.

In order to remain effective and responsive, processes should be continually monitored and evaluated.  Work on improving multistakeholder participation should involve inputs from multiple stakeholders.  A shared understanding of the issues and desire to collaborate to address the issues, the existence of trust amongst stakeholders.

Our conclusion is one that you know very well.  Is that there is no one size fits all to achieve cooperation on digital issues.  Different issues in different parts of the world will require multiple and diverse considerations.

So, you might be asking me, great, you've got this wonderful, eye catching diagram here.  And you're telling me about how you work but I thought I'd tell you about an initiative that we recently launched that our Secretary‑General launched on day zero, that feels like a while ago, of the IGF, which is called, making technology work for all.  This is a new initiative of our innovation hub at the ICC.

Where we're putting into practice this multistakeholder approach.  We're committing through this initiative and working with members and partners to ensure that access to internet and digital technologies work upon all three layers of the digital ecosystem, meaning infrastructure, applications, and skills.  We also want to work with policy makers.  I've actually been struck by the number of times I've heard about the skill gap among policy makers to bring them on board and to engage with them in an informed way.

So, also about co‑creating incentives for investment and innovation, and co‑design of frameworks that enable connectivity based on light touch ICT policy and regulations.

And finally, another way that we would like to implement this multistakeholder approach is also be mobilizing the very broad network that we have within the International Chamber of Commerce, which is, as I mentioned, 35 million businesses, and that's 12,000 chambers and over 90 national committees.

We've been able do this in another area that is very high on the agenda of the international community, which is climate change.  We launched a coalition in September, right before the UNGA, and my understanding is that we have over 1,200 chambers that are mobilized.

So, I think, you know, we can do better than that community so please join us in this multistakeholder adventure.  Thank you for your attention.

(applause)

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you so much.  Integrate, implement, and improve.  3Is.  Maybe I could provide a fourth and see if you provide feedback.  The idea would be around intersection.  We're talking about multidisciplinary approaches.  When you think about the implementation, integration and improvement, or do you find you need to have the multistakeholder engagement.  Maybe it's the improvement or implementation, where do you need that really multidisciplinary approach?

>> SOPHIE PERESSON: I would say that we need it throughout because if we don't have a multidisciplinary approach from the outside, we could just be shaping the agenda in a skewed way.  I think it's really absolutely critical that we get all the right players from the outset, get the critical questions on the agenda and make sure that we have the right tools and that we're held to account.

In terms of improving as well, because that, that's gone, but that wonderful diagram that's there, I think it's a very useful framework but it needs to be continuously adapted and challenges.

I think that's the most important thing.  We live in a challenging condition text for multiple reasons and I think we need to be very constructive in the way that we find solutions.

I don't think that one single community can find a solution on its own.

>> DAVID KELLY: That makes sense.  That's helpful.  Innovation and investigation of your own processes, maybe six Is.  Okay. Thank you.  Sheetal, Kumar, please, from the global partners digital.

>> SHEETAL KUMAR: Thank you so much, David.  It's always so, so great to be at the IGF where I think there is an explicit acceptance and understanding of the value of a multidisciplinary approach.  I think it's really at the beating heart of the IGF and its mission to recognize the importance of having all perspectives considered.  And that's why we're all here.  So, it makes a lot of sense, this panel.  So, thank you very much for inviting me to speak.  And also, to the panel organizers.

So, global partners digital is a champion of the multistakeholder approach.  And we believe in the importance of an open inclusive and transparent approach.  And what we've done is develop a framework which we've tried and tested based on our experience of working with a variety of stakeholders on internet policy issues and also drawing on the experience of others in the field and also in other fields.

The way we understand it, there are three main aspects to a policy process.  There's the scoping, policy formation and then there's the drafting.  And then there are four characters that should underpin each of these aspects of the policy making process.  Openness and inclusivity, open accessibility, inclusivity, a consensus based approach and transparency and flexibility.  So, I'm just going to go into those very briefly before I go into some of the challenges that can be faced as well and how those challenges can be overcome in a multidisciplinary policy making process.  So, in openness and accessibility, what does that actually mean?  Well, it means, are there opportunities for relative stakeholder engagement communicated in a timely manner?  This could be considering, are all people of all backgrounds and abilities considered and any barriers to their participation considered from the outset.  Those barriers might be financial.  They might be geographical, they might be language barriers but those need to be considered so that our process is truly accessible and open.

Is a process inclusive?  This means, are all relevant stakeholders given the opportunity to contribute?  Are different views taken into consideration?  Are inputs published?  Are they made public?  Are the deliberations informed and evidence‑based?  And thirdly, consensus driven.  This is really important.  Are dissenting views taken into account and documented.

And then finally, but very important as well, as I'm sure we'll all agree.  Is transparency, transparency is absolutely essential to a multidisciplinary policy that is effective and some of the factors we think should be considered in this are disclosure of stakeholder interest and affiliations, clarity, effectiveness of internal lines of accountability, mechanisms for ensuring discussions are documented, decisions are explained.

One thing we often hear a lot of when asked, who needs to be considered?  Who should be invited to the table?

So, the question is, how do you identify relevant stakeholders?  So, our response to that is relevant stakeholders are those with a direct interest and expertise in the issue at hand but it's really important to recognize that while that shouldn't be restrictive in any way.  And certainly when it comes to Civil Society, I think sometimes there's a tendency to pigeon hole Civil Society stakeholders but Civil Society represents a very broad range of actors and there's so much depth of expertise, breadth of expertise that Civil Society stakeholders can bring to the table, whether it's devising policy solutions, technical solutions to policy challenges, community building, collecting and evidence‑based and doing research so there's really a wide range of had expertise there.  And that needs to be considered when identifying relevant stakeholders.

Just quickly on the challenges P. really, I think on challenges of implementing multidisciplinary policy approaches, it depends on the context and on the issue at mand.  One area we've been working a lot on is on cybersecurity, policy processes and there's often this perception that because it's a security issue, there's open a select number of stakeholders that should be invited to the table, but, actually, cybersecurity is our shared responsibility.  And so, processes like that need to be more open.

There's also this idea that doing multidisciplinary or multidisciplinary approaches is expensive, time consuming, resource intensive.  And I think that's where also, we would conversation actually, further down the line, if you involve everyone at the outset, it's less expensive.  It's less time consuming in the long run because you get the buy in of the relevant stakeholders who need to implement the policy and like I just said, you have a breadth of expertise and that can also be cost saving in the long run.

And then in some context, trust is an issue.  There isn't always trust between different stakeholders.  Again, transparency is essential to building trust.

Finally, what are the underlying conditions for creating and continuously supporting this environment?

Well, the first is, there needs to be genuine commitment from those who are leading the process.  And this obviously often tends to be government.  It can't be a tick box exercise.  It needs to be, there needs to be genuine commitment from government for the multidisciplinary approach.  And indeed, from all stakeholders.

That's really important.

And some things that we found that are really useful for that is institutionalizing commitments between government, within government Ministries and agencies, having actors within government and other stakeholders champion the approach and even at an international level, champion it.

And then another thing, and this is my final point, is that it's really important to consider ongoing engagement, which is something that you mention had had, Sophie.  And that's the need to engage stakeholders throughout the process, from the beginning to the end and then to implementation.

Because piecemeal stakeholders are not accepted.  If stakeholders are only involved at the drafting stage or implementation stage, it undermines the approach.  So, all of these things are connected.  I think that would be my final point.  Open processes lead to more informed dialogue.  More transparency leads to trust and stakeholders who trust together can collaborate better.  And in the end, you have a better outcome.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you, Sheetal.  You talked about transparency as being essential.  And you touched on it a few times but what I want to really dig into is, how do you ensure that transparency is maintained both internally in the process across internal stakeholders and then externally in the broader public view.  I think looking at the 21st century model of policy making as opposed to maybe the 20th century, the need for transparency is paramount.

And how do you ensure that in these kind of processes?

>> SHEETAL KUMAR: Yeah, that's an absolutely essential question.  I think there are lots of different ways.  Some of those I mentioned just now.  For ensuring transparency and it's really important from the outset to be clear about what the objectives of a process is.  Why stakeholders are being invited.  What kind of inputs they're expected to bring.  Publishing the elements of a discussion that is had between stakeholders and making sure that's easily accessible, again.  I think these are all interlinked elements.

Is really important and like I said, that builds trust further down the line and we now have so many tools that are disposable ‑‑ at our disposal for transparency for ensuring everyone has the information they need to make meaningful contributions to a process, is able to follow them and then able to support the implementation of a policy.  P

>> DAVID KELLY: It's a good point.  The excuses aren't there anymore.  There are so many platforms to make things certainly and transparent T. makes you worry when it's not.  I think that's a really good point.  Thank you, Sheetal.  Our final speaker of the first session, the honorable Safari Nishuti is obviously the lone politician.  You've come without notes just based on your own charisma so please, I'll give you the floor.  Ayobangira Safari.  I wasn't planning to speak.  But,

>> My ladies all came here so I had to speak also and have the chance to speak on the same mic that the others speak.  This comes once in a lifetime so I cannot skip that one.  But, my concern on this point, when it comes to policy making and digital area, something changed.  Because in the previous time, when we were making policy, people were thinking that policy is just a business, is something from the business, from the law, from the state.  They are just waiting to get informed about the policy and the policy implemented and see how they will abide to that policy.

But, now, with the a digital age, now internet is not just something that belonged to the government.  It's something that belonged, first of all, to the citizen.  They own the internet.  So, when we want to make a policy, that will affect internet.  We have to think, we have to have all the view from all the stakeholders.

And the stakeholders on internet is not only the countries, it's all humanity.

And the humanity is made by values, stakeholders values, a social group that have different point of view.

Before I came here, I just take a lunch.  After lunch, I went to the rest room and there, I saw something.  Something that very small but with great meaning.  I just saw a gravity on the door.  My thinking was, this guy who has made that graffiti.  Is it normal?  Is it serious?  How can a normal guy put such dirty, nonsense things on the clean, white door.

And then I noticed that I'm no longer young as I was thinking because, when I was young, also, I could see that graffiti as art.  But, now I'm seeing as a crime.

That's when, when you see on the age aspect, young people think differently than old people.  And I know that some of you can think that I'm still young, but, I'm enough old because at the time the Berlin wall was broken, I was already there.  I was not in Berlin, but I saw it on the TV.  I was already in primary school.  So, don't just see my face, I'm old enough.

And on that aspect of policy making, we have to think about all the part of the stakeholders.  Not only on the cultural say, but, who have evolved in the internet business, who have the citizens where they're looking at the social society.  They look at how human rights can be protected on internet.  How internet can help to get that human rights protected.  How can internet help us to have more democracy, more freedom.  How internet can make it free.  But, we have also the business, society, business community who have made internet.  They need to also still have the capability to bring more innovation.  To bring more goods, platform, and good stuff on internet, if on that, they need also some specific policy.

We have to have view from input, from all those guys who make internet.

But, also, we need to also have input for those ones who think internet, they are not their priority.  I came from a country in the Congo where we have other priority.  We have a priority of peace.  We have priority of, we have a problem of war.  So, when we go back in my country and try to convince our parliament to speak about Internet Governance, they will say, you guys, you are joking.  People are dying in the east and you came just with Internet Governance.

I think we should also think about those people who, on their point of view, internet is not their priority.  Because once the policy will be implemented, they will be affected in one way or another.

So, we also need to have tools that we'll be able to get input from those people from those social groups, from those countries, who doesn't put internet on their priority because the time it will be implemented, they will be also affected.

And I think on the one time will come, we have to speak or so on that one.  How can you also make sure that those who are not with us today, they are also, their view, we will be able to catch up their view.

I don't know if they will have some people from South Sudan and Djibouti.  NG, o, the refugee, the Red Cross, but the real are refugee.  What they think about artificial intelligence.  What they think about blockchain.  What they think about a digital identity.

Because now it's being applied on their life, but I don't know if they, before applying it, they have also provided their input.

That's what I want us also to bring on this panel how to think about, how to get view and make sure I will have view, input from those ones who are not present with us.  Thank you very much

(applause)

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you, Safari.  We talked about you will multidisciplinary but I think you highlighted a piece I want to focus on, which is youth.  I know you're quite young.  You talk about the youth.  I think it's a terrific complement to that.  The flight is three hours and we have a lot of parliamentarians that have to fly long distances to legislate on behalf of the people in your community.

How is it you're able to include youth voices in the conversations that you're having in the capital, legislation that affects them like digital ID.  Legislation like artificial intelligence?  How are you able to integrate the thoughts of the youth into your legislative processes?

>> SAFARI NISHUTI: In our country, we have an issue, really, with after election, somehow we found that we are disconnected, they just elected us, but, after that, we don't keep in touch with them.  We don't know really the work we are doing there.  That's because of the distance, we have about more, three hours from Kinshasa to Goma and we go there twice a year only, and it is not all the parameter that go back to provide our feedback.

But, at least, we have a good tool now with internet that help to reduce the distance, we keep in touch with those ones who can at least have it, have access to the information.

It's not only people that have, like, the WhatsApp.  The WhatsApp is a very useful tool that keep people together and exchange on time, on life.  But, we still have, like, in our country, in those remote areas, I was very surprised during the campaign, when I was doing the campaign, I go in the remote area where they just live the civil war every day.

But, after each meeting, there was about two or three people that called me aside and said, no, I'm the one who was speaking with you on Facebook.  And I found it here on this village, it was Facebook.

And that's a good thing.  So, I think that that a tool, an internet tool, can help us to make democracy more, go deeper, even, in our village, and overcome the challenge we have on the infrastructure.

On the transport issue.  On other infrastructure we have.  We use that tool, and but, it's done on case by case.  But, what it should be, it should have been like done by the primary to make sure that all the primaries use those tools as much as possible to keep in touch with the electors because after that, after five years, that was happening in our country, most of people think in our country are not too Democratic, but I can say it's really Democratic.

Maybe, the one who are elected, and the people were not a Democratic, but, at least the election has been met and after five years, we found that most 80 percent of the government of the department is renewed.  People would vote other people because of what they say, we didn't make something for us.

And on my side, I find, also, it's a problem for those people because you vote for someone and you don't make even the follow‑up to make sure that they are doing what they are supposed to do for you.

And that's an issue.  And I hope that with good internet, it will help us to make more like the democracy.

>> DAVID KELLY: That's brilliant.  That's an excellent example of a positive impact the internet can have especially on the Democratic processes worldwide.

That's our first session.  We're now going to open it Q&A for about ten minutes, I think I'll probably be able to take about three questions.  So, if we can just open up the floor.  One, two, and the first two there.  Oh, we get three here so let's start here on the left, gentlemen.  Just make sure you let us know who you are and which organization you're from.  Thank you.

>> Hello, my name is Damian.  I'm from the London school of economics.  I'm here at the behalf of the UK government but I'm speaking in a personal capacity.  I'm just wondering if I can put a proposition to the panel and the proposition is that we are in fact entering a new phase in multistakeholderism and many of the assumptions that this process can be led by business, as was suggested by the Chair, or can be limited to a limited range of stakeholders, as was suggested by one of the panelists, those assumptions no longer hold.

I think Safari's suggestion that really persists is a stakeholders, really has some quite deep roots and they are something that we should acknowledge.  What has changed?  The concerns about democracy are existential.  So, fake news and deliberate misinformation change the game, fundamentally.  So, new kinds of policy solutions, fake news laws, new forms of accountability, are on the table now being discussed.

And secondly, national security.  So, instances of disinformation are not only viewed within a domestic lens.  They are concerns about sovereignty, and external interference with the workings of democracies.  So, in that environment, with a much wider set of policy solutions being discussed, particularly, at the national level, is it not the case that a new form of multistakeholderism might need to be relevant and how, given that there are new kinds of policy solutions on the table, will it be possible to make those solutions legitimate, given that we're dealing with control of speech, and control of processes of opinion formation and the division between the control of platforms over speech and governments in the law.  Thank you.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you very much.  I'm going to take two more questions and then I'll open it up to the panelists for response.  Thank you very much for those insights.  The second gentleman here on the left.

>> Thank you.  I'm with Net Choice.  I'd like to know whether the panelists have evaluated the measurement question.  That is, how do we measure whether the means that you're prescribing actually make a difference.

Safari, for instance, could go home to the Congo and implement a transparent, youth‑driven, multidisciplinary implementation.  Toolkit and the virtuous circle, but, how do we know if that is necessary and sufficient to make a difference in people's lives?  Will individuals, businesses, and orgs actually be able to do free enterprise and free expression?  Will they be able to expand their supply chain in a digital way and reach markets?  How do you measure whether any of this works?  Thank you.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you, Steve.  That's well received.  Gentleman there at the back.  Yes.  We're going to have time for one more as well after this.  Thank you for keeping your questions brief.  Thank you, Steve.

>> Sure.  Yeah, I'm actually from the DRC and I'm a member of the MAG.  So, I'd like to echo somehow what Mr. Safari just said about the complexity of the contexts, you know, within which the country is.  I lead a nonprofit that deals with human rights and access to the ICTs and the issue of us engaging with MPs and parliamentarians, whereas, I live in Ghana.  The main issue is for our inputs to bring into the policy process.  Which is an issue because you need to travel and it takes like three hours on a plane to be in Kinshasa so the use of the internet has been helpful for us because you don't necessarily need to travel to Kinshasa to be able to bring your input to the MPs so they can be considered during their policy making processes.

But the other issue is not all the MPs use the internet, right?  So, you may be able to send emails to all of them, but not all of them are using their emails so making it hard for all of them to be able to receive the inputs that you are having.

So, this digital age, I think it's instrumental and it's very useful and important for everyone to be able to start using technology so they can keep in touch, you know, with the rest of the people and specifically the case for MPs, you know, not to stay in touch with the people on the ground.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you for that, that's a clever intervention.  I just want to make sure we get.  Okay. Gentleman in the front here.

>> Thank you, David.  Alejandro Pisante from the national government of Mexico, former p member of the Working Group, board member of ISOC and a couple other things a few years ago.

A few things.  First, I don't think it's wise to use the word multistakeholderism, because it suggests a religion and ideology, I believe.  It's much more important to think blue print multistakeholder governments, and where it is actually appropriate.  There's a lot of presidents in the governments of environment, sports, climate, local finance, global, many reasons.  For the ICC's intervention, I would ask that if you think of that as a practical thing, what's missing is getting shaped to the exact mechanisms that you need for each case.

In some cases, you need really complex structures with mechanisms for redressal of bad decisions and accountability.  In other cases like the IGF, you need an open forum and much more open rules.  The things that you're trying to impose or construct government for are less and less the internet it sex and more and more conduct that's made by humans or their agents like people, governments, companies or software.  And we know how to govern those, or we don't know how to govern those equally on or offline.

Like, these information campaigns, like fake news, it's the new name.  But, it's run from the 1996 by the line of the book.  And we should look more and more at what the underlying content is instead of putting it all together as Internet Governance.  Thank you.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you, Alejandro.  So, we have about two minutes remaining.  ‑‑ ten minutes remaining.  Enough for about two minutes from each of our panelists.  We heard about new multistakeholderism to increase the legitimacy.  We heard about p problems with how we measure progress.  We talked about accountability, keeping parliament accountable and decision makers accountable and we talked about transparency and how we can ensure that's at the very much at the forefront of our thoughts so maybe, Molly, I'll start with you and we'll go down the line.  Thank you.

>> MOLLY LESHER: So, thanks a lot with all of those questions.  With respect to whether we're in a new phase of multistakeholder governance, I don't know if we're in a new phase or if we just need to use different tools to make it work.  So, as I was mentioning before, I have seen experiments using Facebook to try to get direct citizen input on possible new legislation.

And it wasn't a one‑off thing.  It was over several months saying, if we do this, we would have to decrease support for this.  Do you agree with that?  And I think that was a really interesting way to get more people involved in the process.

I coordinate the Going Digital project, which is really, really complicated.  I have over 20 committees.  I may only have 36 countries, but they aren't always unified with one position.

I've had to balance the perspectives of so many people.  The more that you have, the harder it is, but, I think ultimately, I hope, anyway, the book and the analysis is richer for it.

Measurement is one of my absolute favorite topics.  I hope you absolutely look at our Going Digital toolkit.

We spent an awful long time working with national statistics agencies, trying to map core indicators to each of the seven different dimensions of the framework I mentioned to show countries where they stand, what their state of digital development is.  And then, how to develop policies in response.

Now, what you're talking about is impacts.

And impacts is a lot harder to measure.  It's something that we are going to be working on at the OECD.  Right now, we are using microdata to think about diffusion of technology and what some of those impacts are.  That's really hard, getting cross‑country microcomparable data.  But diagnosis something we're working on.

It's also something that's part of our going digital measurement roadmap which is a companion publication to this book in a I have here.

And I think making sure that all countries, IOs, other bodies are moving the measurement agenda, sort of pushing the boat forward in the same direction is absolutely important.

If you don't know where you stand, if you don't know what the impacts are going to be, how do you develop an appropriate policy response.  I think that's absolutely critical.

>> DAVID KELLY: That sounds great.  Thanks.  I like the idea of new tools to help implement new tools.

>> SOPHIE PERESSON: At the risk of repeating what Molly has just mentioned.  Indeed, are we entering a new phase?  I wouldn't know.  The diagram that I used this afternoon should not be seen in any way as a straightjacket.  It's really a starting point and it's put on the table in order to initiate a conversation.  It really does need to be questioned at every single initiative that we take.  The list was not meant to be exhaustive either but I think it's proven useful to us in our work.

But, again, it's, I don't think that we have a rigid approach.  And in some circumstances, it really is useful to have that, to be able to prompt the interlocators that we're working with that we have this commitment to be working in an inclusive and transparent way.

I wasn't able for lack of time to talk about our commitment, also, to accountability and inclusiveness.  But, it has been at the core of the work that we're doing at the ICC and will continue to be because otherwise I think we'll just be completely irrelevant tomorrow.

As for measurement, I also completely agree.  I think it's at the core of the third of my Is in terms of improvement.  I don't see how we can improve and we can learn and we can also justify what we've done if we don't measure.  I think it's also looking at a more sustainable initiative.

We would need to measure what we've done to understand how we continue and how we can help stakeholders continue in that role.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you.  That sounds great, Sophie.  Sheetal.

>> SHEETAL KUMAR: Yes.  Thank you.  On the question of whether multistakeholderism needs to change, Alejandro wouldn't be happy with me using that term.  But, whatever we call it.  The multistakeholder approach, or the multidisciplinary approach, an open, inclusive, b and transparent approach, whether that's changing.  I think what is changing is the complexity of the issues and what shouldn't change and what mustn't change is the need to abide by those ideals of inclusivity.  How we do that.  The means will be technical.  Some of them will be doing what is quite low tech stuff that is not currently being done in certain areas and that needs to be done.

So, I think there are some easy lifts and then there are some challenges which will require a multistakeholder approach to address and to build those technical solutions as well.  Informant and on that point, Damian, that you made, B who is a relevant stakeholder.  I completely agree that in today's day in age, the digital age, everyone is a relevant stakeholder, actually.  Everyone is being impacted, even if you're not connected to the internet, you are impacted by the decisions related to the internet and to the internet's governance, the governance of digital technology.

So, the, if we think of it, you know, as a puzzle that needs to be solved, some of these issues, the pieces of the puzzle are scattered everywhere and they all need to be brought together and I think that's really essential is how we address that challenge.

But, we need to keep in mind the need to underpin the approach with the principles that I spoke about.

On the need for monitoring and evaluation, absolutely.  That's really essential and that goes back to my point about the need to include all stakeholders from the get‑go.  And including in the monitoring and evaluation process.  One thing I would say about developing solutions to the challenges that we're facing in a multistakeholder approach, in a way, is that it's ‑‑ in a multidisciplinary way, is that it's essential not only because we need the policy solutions to reflect the perspectives of everyone, but, actually, the people that you engage shape the outcomes.  And the outcomes reflect the values and perspectives of the people you engage.

And it's essential that whatever solutions we come up with reflect the values and perspectives of everyone.  I think I'm missing one of the questions.

Okay. So, I'll leave it there for now.

>> DAVID KELLY: Yeah, thank you, Sheetal.  Safari, to wrap up or first one.

>> SAFARI NISHUTI: I will just speak about the last one.  How we can make sure that things are being implemented.  What it has been decided once we are back there, those things are being implemented really.

The first thing is to know that implementation will, at the end, will come from the government's responsibility to implement those policies.

But, when you are working on the policy, when you are making on those ones, we find that people who are putting much input either from the civil society because once people are seeing in a civil society, it's like a patient.  It wants those things to be, to happen.  You put the input, make those things happen.  The other part is also the business.  Because when they say, money.  Money to, money there.  They will make sure that those things, they will to happen.

But, it's not, the business will implement the policy.  It will come from the government and government have also, other priorities.  Have many priorities.  Not to focus on that one.  Only and make sure that it is implemented.  So, we need a follow‑up.  And that follow‑up should come from those ones who have patience of that.  Of patience.  We should put also, when we put, when we are making a policy, we should also make, put in place, some kind of control to make sure a follow‑up on that one.  And everything should be also, I don't remember the meaning, the acronym of SMART objective.  I don't remember, but I know they say, measurable, achievable, realistic and something like that.  We have to put some objectives that are really clear and on the field, have people that are part of the big team to make the follow‑up.

And when we find that we are maybe, we are getting out of time because of the timing, the delay.  And that's the job of many of the members here who belong to the Civil Society.  Because then, they are with person.  They act with passion.  And that's passion that makes things happen.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you, Safari.  So, we had questions on ensure legitimacy.  How do we measure process?  How do we make sure it's transparent.  Brilliant process.  We need to use new tools to tackle the complex issues.  Need to use them flexibly, and ultimately hold those responsible to account and do all of those with passion.  I hope you'll join me with a round of applause for our first panel, please.

Okay. So, the panelists, part 2, I'll ask the colleagues to help move the chairs and our second stage panelists to come up to the stage please.

What we're going to be looking at in part 2 is specific examples around how, multidisciplinary policy making can succeed.  Where I have examples as well.  I hope you'll help me in welcoming our four panelists.  Kenneth Adu‑Amanfoh, Olaf Kolkman and Lisa Dyer.  Please come up.  And Zoe Darme.

Olaf is getting his own chair.  I like that.  Thank you all for joining.  We'll begin with Kenneth.  Kenneth is the Executive Director of cybersecurity rights and digital organization.  That's a very long acronym but Kenneth was instrumental in developing Africa's cybersecurity program.  Next to him is Olaf Kolkman.  Thank you for joining.  Olaf is the chief internet technology officer of ISOC.  Something you should all be familiar with.  He's worked for 20 years, the intersection of internet technology, policy and society, he contributed to the DNSSCC ‑‑ well, it's one of the few rooms in the entire world where I don't have to explain that acronym.  Thank you for joining us, Olaf.  Beside Olaf is Lisa Dyer.  The director of policy, Partnership on AI.  Collaborating with multiple stakeholders around artificial intelligence.

Lisa, again, we talked about multidisciplinary engagement, multidisciplinary people up on stage before working at Partnership at AI, Lisa was also at the Department of State and in the U.S. Air Force.

Welcome, Lisa.  Thank you for joining, at the far right is Zoe Darme.  She is the managing governance of Facebook.  On oversight board, previously a colleague of mine at the United Nations in the Department of Peacekeeping Affairs and prior to that at the Department of Justice.  Thanks, Zoe.

In section 2, we're going to begin, if you can take us through the ACDRO perspective, how you've seen this play out.

You can use the microphone if you're comfortable, it's right there in front of you.  It should be on.  Is it?  Just want to double check

>> KENNETH ADU‑AMANFOH: Thank you, David.  Good afternoon to you.  After all the wonderful presentations from our previous panels, I think it is obvious that the new change shift in policy is actually shifting from doing it for, into doing it with, it has to be developed for us, implement it more, specifically when this comes to internet governance.  It's important that all stakeholders are part of this.  So, I've had opportunities to be part of policy development in cybersecurity and also in the area of national IGFs, so I'm just going to give my perspectives and examples, particular examples on that.  I think that in developing, having a multidisciplinary or multistakeholder approach, the first step that we need to do is actually define the policy problem.  And define the policy problem to the level of all stakeholders so to the understanding of all stakeholders.  If you are bringing the youth, the youth needs to understand what an issue is.  Not on the high level that they don't even understand, and they just come to.  So, defining the key problem, that drives the policy, has to be key, the first point that we need to do.  And secondly, we need to define the stakeholder group.  We have different stakeholders but we need to define actually the group.  All of us, cannot be part of the group, of the policy development team.

So, you need to actually define groups, for instance.  You have the business community, you have the Civil Society, you have the technical community, so, you need to define the stakeholders group and this has to be based on what the issue is and what kind of.  We talk about having every representation from every group.  But, if the issue has to do with spectrum, why would you go get somebody who has no idea on spectrum and can even contribute to spectrum.

So, we are talking about selection of the stakeholders group is very key.  After selecting the group, it's also important to select the representation, representative from each stakeholders group.

Most often than not, we have stakeholder, the person who represents Civil Society group has no idea on whatever is going on.  So, we need to make sure that we have people who have the knowledge and awareness of the different stakeholder that we bring in.  Most often, know from experience, you realize that if you don't have a well established stakeholder group, it becomes difficult to identify a representative.

So, you get somebody from the business community to be a member of the group.

He comes, sits, participates in the decision making and then he goes out and communicating to none of the members within the group.  So, he comes and he's part of the process, right from design implementation to monitoring evaluation, but, none of the other members within the Civil Society or business group or the group in which he's coming from is aware of what is going on.

So, at the end of the day, we say, oh, we have a multistakeholder or multidisciplinary, but it's actually one institution or one so these are some of the issues.

And one of the main challenges in identifying the stakeholder groups is awareness creation lack of expertise.  You realize they don't have the expertise.  They have no idea that awareness is not there and we just call them and they sit into the meeting so what we have tried to do in the policies that I've been part in developing is to first of all try to build capacity, create awareness and build capacity.  For example, if we want to get Civil Society awareness to be part of policy, internal governance, part of policy making.  Try to create workshops and build the awareness and whet the appetites and once that is done, that will be able to come.  I see you want to stop me, right?

>> DAVID KELLY: Very subtly because I want to pick up on one point that you're making and then follow up.  We talk a lot this week about breaking down silos but what you just explained to us is that silos are incredibly useful because silos is where the expertise is stored and when you dig into these silos, you dig into the expertise so it's not just grab anybody.  Let's bring the real experts.  But, experts within those silos are able to better network.  I think that's the key.  If we can get networks between silos, expertise and structures then we'll be much better positioned to answer what I think was your first question and I want to follow up with you on how do you define the problem.  How do you decide to define the problem when various stakeholder groups have a different definition of what it is they want to solve.

How do you solve that problem in a multidisciplinary way?

>> KENNETH ADU‑AMANFOH: So, I think one of the effective way of defining the problem is a use of a public forum.  Because, if you take the internet, for instance, Internet Governance, almost everybody, even the most ill lit retail person in the rural areas.  As I heard somebody saying, you talked about somebody using Facebook in the village.

So, the internet is for all of us so get everybody on board in a public consultation formula ideas, put the issues out and let's tease it out and at the end of the okay we'll all come to a conclusion or clear definition of what the issue is.

>> DAVID KELLY: That's exactly picking up on what our first panel said about using new tools to solve new problems.  That makes complete sense.  Thank you for that, Kenneth.  I'm now going to pass to Olaf Kolkman of ISOC.  Olaf.

>> OLAF KOLKMAN: A concrete example.  That is what I want to bring to the table.  I'm a little bit surprised, this week, I've heard a lot about AI governance and so on and so forth.  A few years back, maybe even last year, IoT was the thing going on all the way.  And IoT security is a complex topic in which harmonization is needed across policy, across the world, but, also, it's still a very agile space in which we don't know exactly how to address these issues with, in national legislation and so on and so forth.

When think about processes that usually are effective it, I usually think about bottom up processes.  And one of the things that I've witnessed recently is the IoT multistakeholder platform on IoT security.

This was an event that sort of addressed all those qualities that you mentioned, Sheetal, on the addressing the topic.

It was initiated by six different organizations.  The innovation science economic development Canada.  It's a Ministry in Canada.  Internet Society.  Our organization.  CPAC, a public interest technology law clinic.  SIRA, the top level domain registry, and Canary, which is the academic network group in Canada.  Some.  They set out, they ask themselves the question, what sort of recommendation can we give industry, the other stakeholders responsible for implementing pieces of IoT security or making a difference with IoT security, what kind of recommendations can we give and what can we do ourselves to make and how to make that happen.  What was done was a process set up by these industries that was open and inclusive.

It was set up by workshops across these communities by Canada.  Canada is a huge country.  East, west, also with two different languages, anglofrom, francofrom so it was carefully designed to meet in all those places and have a careful, intersessional work on mainly listen, so on and so forth, so the use of tools here is important.

All the work was tracked on the website.  IoTsecurity2018. ca and you can see all the meetings, all the papers that were presented there and discussed.

First thing that the community did was come together in the workshop to discuss among each other what the rules of engagement were.  Simple things like, let's say, let's don't say, no, but.  But, yes, and.  And the group made that contract with itself, and worked according to that contract in its work.

There were a couple of learnings and a long report.  Forty‑four pages with recommendations across different stakeholders groups, consumer authorities, but, also, technical arena.

And there is actual follow‑up of this work in the different stakeholder groups.

And I see you're a little bit impatient.

>> KENNETH ADU‑AMANFOH: And I think, ‑‑

>> DAVID KELLY: And I think, just like Kenneth, you've touched on a point that I think challenges a lot of us in the multidisciplinary space.  You talked about bottom up.  You talked about wide consultations, meetings and lots of papers.

My question is, how do we ensure that those large, complex processes across geographies, east, west, north, south, across the stakeholders, get to the decision makers.

In many cases, there's a diffusion of ideas and it doesn't seem to always get up to the top in the same way.  How do we ensure that?

>> OLAF KOLKMAN: So, in this particular case, the Ministry of Canada, the responsible Ministry was involved.  But, this didn't happen in isolation.  A similar process has been going on in France.  A similar process is going on in Senegal.  In the Netherlands, work was done with public consultations on IoT.

And not coincidently, there is now an IoT platform for these countries where they meet and exchange their experiences.

That is the same as we do here.  We come together with aroids, we are norm entrepreneurs.

>> DAVID KELLY: That's good.  Norm entrepreneurs.

>> OLAF KOLKMAN: Norm entrepreneurs and this is the regime in which we form and share the network ideas.

>> DAVID KELLY: That's terrific of.  So, we engage the structure of the decision makers early in the process which may set some sites on pads of IGF moving forward.  Greater p integration in the decision making processes and the norm that happens here every year.  Thank you, Olaf.  I'm going to pass to r Lisa Dyer now.  Thank you.

>> LISA DYER: Sure.  Thank you for having me.  For me who don't know, the Partnership of AI, 60 are nonprofit organizations and the other 40 are evenly split between industry partners, including Facebook, as well as academic and research institutions.

Our work is primarily done through the multistakeholder process.  We bring partners together to address issue that's range across the spectrum.  And when I say range across the spectrum, up say that because artificial intelligence has a set of technologies that are still appropriately in the research stage.

They are the academic institutions are really digging into it.  It also has a set of technologies that are out on the market.  And some of those technologies may have been rushed to the market.

So, we are trying to address AI in all of its different stages, in all of its different areas.

And that results in different types of convenings we pull together.

We are, for instance, working on something about responsible publication norms.  For the academic community, there's been this purely very focused open research.  Bill Gates, in fact, just talked about the importance that open technology is what's going to succeed.

But, there are some that are really concerned about the work that artificial intelligence will bring forth in the research stage and how do we responsibly publish that information?

We also talk about things like media and misinformation, which is here now and we say, trying to save democracy in the process of our work.

But we're doing that with a range of stakeholders, including news information, and our industry partners, and others that are thug about this very, very deeply in the academic stages.

And then we also attack issues that are actually very politically contentious, emotionally contentious and get you in the gut like facial recognition technologies.

So, to do this, we think very carefully about how we design our multistakeholder processes.  We think about, who is in the room.  The agenda design.  How do you build trust?  How do you convince people to come forward with humility.  To be willing to agree in a room where they've made mistakes or where they could have thought through things differently and to have people listen and not to condemn but to understand, say, why where you came to that decision in the first play and let's try to define novel approaches to coming up with answers to these questions.

I say novel approaches because there's been a lot of very thoughtful and interesting work done on artificial intelligence whether at a specific application level or in a theoretical sense or in a government sense.

So, we want to bring something new to the forefront and try to then work on implementation.  More and more reports that sit on a table somewhere are great, but how do you then actually take it to the implementation level?

And that's where we work through our various partners who also have incredible contacts and conversations with policy makers to try to talk to them about what we've come up with, why it's novel and why we think it's important for people to listen so I'll stop there.

>> DAVID KELLY: No, that's terrific and I very much appreciate it.  I know many of the UN bodies are members of PAI so it's a terrific initiative.  My question goes back to one of your very first points which is bringing together stakeholders with different motivations.  You have stakeholders that are humanitarian, you have stakeholders that are for‑profit entities.  How is it that you can reconcile right from the get‑go or maybe it takes longer, you talked about the need to build trust.  I want to dig deeper and say, how do you do that?  How do partners for AI go about building the trust among partner stakeholders that have different motivations.

>> LISA DYER: That's a great question.  What I've seen work successfully is to set ground rules for how the conversations are going to take place.  I think when we have modified Chathamhouse rules kind of conversations.  When we talk about that we're going to treat this very carefully.  When we intervene when things start getting contentious.  Those sorts of activities that show that we're here to move the conversation forward and not dig into each other, I think, are very important lesson that's we've learned along the way.

Sometimes it comes down, as well, to the shape of the room.  We had a convening just a few weeks ago where we were in this incredible space in new work city where we had a table that was in a circle so everybody could take a look at each other.  It's different than the classroom style.  It's different than a respect angular shaped table.

But, that gave people a chance to actually look at each other, learn, listen, and actively listen to each other.  Something is just as small and simple as that.  But one of the questions I wanted to turn back to you with, David, and one I think is really outstanding in my mind.  You opened up this conversation about the importance of time.  That technology is moving at speeds that we didn't have in the atomic age or space age.  When we do these type of multistakeholder convenings, they take time.  They take time to let people have their ability to contribute, to design, to you sympathize, to come together and to come up with ‑‑ synthesize, to work together and come up with a solutions.  How do you reconcile that need for innovation and the need to act and the need to so appropriately include the many voices that are out there that deserve to be heard and need to be ebb heard to make thoughtful, informed recommendations to policy makers.

>> DAVID KELLY: Putting a question back to the moderator.  Okay. Fair enough.

>> LISA DYER: Yeah, mixing it up a bit.

>> DAVID KELLY: It's a lot easier tore throwing them that way than receiving them.  I think I'll come back with one personality trait that I think we absolutely need to inherit from the previous generation, and that is humility.  When the diplomats sat to negotiate space treaty, they were diplomats, not astrophysicists.  They were policy makers that went and talked to the community, came back to the table well read, very thoughtful and gave very serious and enlightened opinions.

And I sometimes wonder if we struggle a bit with that.  People walk into eatable or negotiating space or a meeting at the partnership with AI without really having investigated the details behind it so I think if we can enhit and this is when we see whether it's at the security council, whether it's in peace keeping missions in eastern Congo, when we see that there is humility at the table, I think things go much better so I think that's something when he need to inherit and bring down from previous generations but thank you for that curve ball.  Zoe.

>> ZOE DARME: Thanks.  I'll actually respond to your response, but I'm going to wing it.  I appreciate you referring to the golden age of diplomacy but I'll remind you that everyone there was white and old and male so I think it's time to change the way we do computations so I'll just pause for a moment and say that.

What I'm actually here to talk about is the Facebook Oversight Board.  How many of you here haved heard of the Facebook Oversight Board in some fashion?  So, quite a few people.  I won't go over the basics.  Generally, the Facebook Oversight Board is going to have two functions.  One function is it's going to review our content decisions and overturn them or uphold them.  Those decisions will be binding and no one at Facebook, not me, not Mark Zuckerberg will be able to overrule those decisions in that regard.

The second thinking the Board will be able to do is issue policy recommendations back to us.  And this is really what we've been talking about today, multistakeholderism to policy decisions.  So, the Board will be able to say to us, Facebook, you need to make an adjustment, you need to make a change, you need to make a wholesale overhaul of your policies, our policies that govern 2.7 billion people and they will issue those recommendations publicly.  We will also have to make a public response.

So, that's really what the Facebook oversight is supposed do.

But, what I really should talk to you is the process of how we've gotten here because it's been a journey, it's taken over a year at this point.  I'm looking at a lot of familiar faces from that consultation period.  And when I took this job at Facebook, they said, Zoe, you worked at the UN, you have a lot of experience, probably consulting governments, consulting Civil Society, consulting a range of stakeholders.  Will you run our global consultation process?

And I said to my boss at the time.  I said, yes, I have worked on a lot of consultations and with all due respect in the international community, a lot of times what you do is you have back room negotiations and a document that you know isn't going to change but you Marshall all of the political will outside of the room and then you get into the room and you hold a consultation for show.

I said, if that's what you want us to do, then I'm not going to sign up for that.  So, our consultation was anything from a fate accompli.  We came with a draft charter that said, basically, this is our plan.  We know we don't have all the answers.

So, we've made a lot of changes based on what Bertand has told us and what Maria Paz has told us and what Arsen has told us.

And what those people around the room generally said was, if this doesn't have lasting influence over your policies, Facebook, then why invest the time, money, and resources into doing it.

So, originally, the Board really only had that one function.  The content decision function, overruling us on individual cases and due to that feedback, we actually changed, made a radical change and added in the policy influence piece as the second major oversight board.

Another key thing was that everyone around the world said, Facebook, how can this Board truly be independent?  If you're paying, if you're picking the first group of members, this is nothing but a PR stunt.  It's for show and it will always be tainted by Facebook's influence.

Fair point, we said.  So, A, we established an independent trust.  The Board will be funded by us, but we will make a multiyear commitment and irrevocable grant of money to the trust.  And that trust will house an LLC that will hold the employment relationship with the Board members and their staff.

None of whom will be Facebook employees.  The second thing we did was, we took back the feedback to say, Okay. Facebook, you really shouldn't choose the first group of members.  Fair point.  Now, we're choosing three co‑chairs.  Those co‑Chairs are choosing up to 20 members together with us.  After that, we take a step back, and the Board itself will take the hand in choosing members going up to 40 and then refilling the Board as vacancies arrive.

So, those are some concrete examples of how we actually consulted and actually took on feedback but I'm happy to take any more questions on the Board or on our consultation process.

>> DAVID KELLY: No, that's terribly helpful.  Thank you.  And it seems like it's a very multistakeholder and multidisciplinary approach.

One of the things that we hoven see happen is, you can set up the best processes in place, and this applies, not just to Facebook, but across the board.  Private industry and governments.  You can set the right policies.  You can have the right communities engage and give feedback and give recommendations.

And I guess the challenge that we have, ultimately, is if there's recommendations made and those recommendations aren't followed, the final element of that is consequences.  And I guess my question is, with regards to the oversight board, which sounds like you're very advanced in working on, so, congratulations on that.

How do you ensure that there are consequences if if the recommendations of the Board aren't taken on or if afterwards, they're discovered to have been different from how they were implemented?

>> ZOE DARME: So, I'll say again there are two things.  One, we'll have seven days to implement the Board's decision on content infringements.  Those are binding and then we will be very public about how we implement that.  On the policy advisory statements that the Board will issue, those are advisory in nature.  They are not binding, and so, people have asked us this question.  Isn't the Board really just going to be tooth less if you aren't held to it?

I will say, this is where Civil Society comes in and this is where public accountability comes in.  Those recommendations from the Board will be public.  It will be highly noticeable if we make a habit and practice of not implementing those recommendations.

So, what the plan is for us is to take those recommendations back, consider them, see if they're technically feasible, see if they're operationally feasible, make sure that they don't have unintended consequences, and then we will put that policy recommendation through our policy development process, which may include, for example, our product policy forum, the minutes of which are public.

And then we'll also release a public explanation of how we've taken action on those policy recommendations so, really, the hook here is public accountability.

>> DAVID KELLY: It's a two‑.7 billion person constituency so they will be keeping a close eye and I think being transparent is a great way to lead down that road.  Thank you to our second panel for your incredible consultations.

We are now going to move to a Q&A period.

We're going to be looking at questions from the floor.  I can probably take about three questions from the floor.  A bit of diversity here in the question askers.  Especially if we have a bit of gender diversity in the question askers.  You don't need to put your hands down.  I think that's good that they're up.  But.  Okay. We'll start here in the front.

>> Hello.  I'm a researcher from Brazil.  My name is Fernando and my question goes in the sense to question how in the last few years, refugees, migrants, and a lot of minority groups have been articulating politically throughout social media platforms and having such impact on international community and their international communities, one such example is on the DDRC with a political group that is organized throughout WhatsApp and Facebook.

My question goes both for Mr. Safari and Ms. Zoe Darme, so, how can Facebook and national governments work together to regulate these kinds of political groups since there's a lot of controversy to my country on how you can organize a party digitally.

And well, it's a really big challenge from both the public sector and social media platforms, I imagine.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you.  We're going to take at least two more.  Gentleman there.  Yeah.  Microphone should be on.

>> My I'm a researcher at the p center for human rights at Harvard University.

I have a fear, and maybe it's unfounded, but I worry that the term multistakeholder is overly used.  It presents an illusion of progress, an illusion of community, and it fails to really address the core issue which is the power asymmetries that exist between the stakeholders and the different computing interests.  So how do we deal with those power asymmetries?  As a follow‑up, I can point to the Facebook, for example.  The panelist mentioned, we still have public accountability which will give teeth to the recommendation Board.  But I worry that many users of Facebook, for example, are in the African content, but they lack the economic and political power to signal their interests.  So, how can they, how are the platforms truly, how will they be responsible to the public.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you.  We're going to take a final question here.  Yes, the gentleman with his hand up there.

>> Yes.  Thank you very much.  I'm presenting election Board.  I have two questions.  Regarding one, the possible monopolization oligopoly about political campaign and political advertisement through social media.  In the 2020 U.S. election next year, it's foreseen that probably 50 percent of the campaign spending in the media is done through the social media space and they know about the way this money might be spent.

The other question is transparency.  Transparency in many areas.  Transparency in elections might not be that good if you know how a user or consumer is voting.  So, my question to the panelist is how to ensure that social media companies or platforms are not already aware what's the result of an election before election day.  Thank you.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you for that.  And Repas, I'm going to come to you, do we have anybody online that's dialing in with a question, lease?

>> Yeah.  I'm Maria Pasconales, the remote moderator.  I'm going to go to a panel question from Jean‑Phillip.  He will be interested in knowing the multidisciplinary section.  Panel regarding the internet addition disorder, and if you're not familiar with the content, he provided a description, this is a syndrome that includes changing mood, preoccupation with the internet and the digital media and the inability to control the amount of time spent interfacing with digital technology.

So, in general, that's the description.  I think that it's clear and from a multidisciplinary perspective, how do you think that the different work that you engage with technology and policy could deal with this kind of aspects that are more health issues than the usual policy goal that we touch on.  Thank you.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you, Maria for bringing that in.  Okay.

>> I'm sorry to interject, but it would be really helpful if in main sections people ask questions that are directly related to the topic of the panel.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you for that intervention.  We're going to start, we've had questions on regulators of elections, we've had questions on power asymmetries in multistakeholder elections, we've had questions on oligopolies and their impact on elections and internet addictions.  Multistakeholder elections, Zoe, we're going to start with the questions your way.  The then we'll come down, we're going to have about two or three minutes per panelist if that's all right.

>> ZOE DARME: Thank you, Bertrant.  I probably won't answer all of the questions because some of them aren't quite related to what I do but I will take as many as possible that relate specifically to the oversight board or are tangential on it.

First on elections, one thing I want to clarify in addition to our ads transparency work, the oversight board will have patterns, we are working on the tools that will allow ads to be appealed up to the Board so it may not be available on January 2020 but it's something we are working hard and fully envision in the Board's governing documents to include as part of its scope.

The second thing that I will address is how can Facebook and national governments work together?  So, I've worked with the Congolese government before in my previous capacity and now how important it is that governments and Civil Society and business all have a seat at the table.  I will say, for the oversight board, we actually are not going to have government officials on the board.

We heard that this was a really key part of the Board's independence and legitimacy and its ability to make decisions independent of Facebook.

Independent of other third parties who might want to influence the Board's decision.  So, I will say that's sort of a nonanswer.  Sorry.

And then on power asymmetries and specifically the African continent, one thing I'd really like to talk to you about afterward, is we know that not all regions avail themselves of formal mechanisms like appeals equally.  In some countries, that's fairly natural to do.  Yes.  I want to appeal this decision.  I don't mind submitting my case.  In some countries, people feel less comfortable doing that.  They feel somehow if might get reported to the government.  It might get reported elsewhere.  That their privacy might not be protected.  Open though that's not the case and that's not what we're building with the oversight board, we know that sentiment is there and it reduces the access, equal access across all regions.

So, that's something we're really thinking about.  We're also thinking about ways that when users submit their requests maybe in the future, we don't just submit written submissions, maybe they can give their side of the story orally.  Again, that's not something that we may have available exactly on January 2020, but it's something that we're thinking through really carefully.

>> DAVID KELLY: And that picks up on a couple of themes from the panel discussion.  Transparency and using new tools to increase that transparency.  That might not address power asymmetries but it can be a start toward that process so we really encourage increased transparency and follow on that way.  Thank you, Zoe.

>> ZOE DARME: Thank you.

>> DAVID KELLY: Lisa.

>> LISA DYER: I thought I would also try to address the question about power asymmetries and using multistakeholder process as illusions.  I actually do think that the multistakeholder process we are running is an indication of progress.  We are focused on bringing in partners who are experienced experts.  They are not artificial intelligence experts but they come from backgrounds that should inform the future development of technology.  And like Zoe, I have seen those back room conversations and the illusion that diplomacy was a consultative process but in fact it was made by just a few very special people.  Absolutely would not want to belong to an organization that does that kind of work now.

And I can tell you that we do not at PAI

A.We bring in people from unions, which in a European union, that may sound surprising but in the United States, the unions aren't quite as strong as they used to be.

We bring in people who were formerly incarcerated.  We bring in people who do not have driver's licenses as we're thinking about autonomous vehicles.  We bring in people who have experiences that we just do not replicate within Silicon Valley or within the highly technical community that we work with.

So, to me, that is absolutely a sign of progress.

On the power asymmetry side of it, we recognize the power that many of these industry organizations hold.

And our theory of change rotates around those people who hold that power.  Our theory of change is that the multistakeholder work we do informs these decisions that informs the heads of research, heads of engineering or product owners within companies take, the decisions they make in developing the technology, building the technology as well as operating the technology.

And that they will accept with humility, the information that's coming from people from across different parts of society, from across the world.

In making those decisions.  So.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you.  That makes complete sense with what everyone else is saying on the panel and that sounds like a great initiative.  Thanks, Lisa.  Olaf.

>> OLAF KOLKMAN: I think to fill on that, the power asymmetries always exist.  Somebody has the money.  Somebody does the work.  Somebody has the information.  Et cetera, et cetera.

So, if you really commit to multistakeholder or multidisciplinary process, of to be transparent about the power you hold and your ability to put in regard to your power.

.  As far as multidisciplinary process go, I think the question about addictive disorder is a good thing.  I have no qualities and understanding of that, so, I'm not going to answer that question.  And I think that's very important.  However, you said something during the introduction about spectrum.  People who don't know anything about spectrum should not be in the discussion when you talk about spectrum.

However, in another part of the Internet Society, we work on community networks and the availability of spectrum is very important to make sure that the underserved also get access to internet.

And so, there's always, I think the responsibility is also to make sure to rise the discussion to the appropriate level of the policy question that is being answered and then say, what is the role of the specialist here?  The specialist will, you know, do the spectrum, then the analysis, and what have you.

But, it is in the end, what is the requirement from the public policy perspective, and what are the stakeholders in that process that need to be involved?

And I think that is the joint responsibility that you have in this multidisciplinary process, is to make sure that you get the right input from the right specialist at the right time with the right person.

>> DAVID KELLY: Digging down into the silos, making sure they're accounted for.  That makes complete sense.  Thanks a lot.  Kenneth?

>> KENNETH ADU‑AMANFOH: Yes.  Thank you.  So, with the spectrum example that I gave, so, what I think is that in the multistakeholder process, in identifying representatives from each stakeholder group, the group is the group's responsibility to make sure that their representative, that they nominate to represent them on the committee has to have the expertise or background.

And the experience that we had and what we have done based on challenges that we have faced is that when we have to build a multistakeholder approach in any of these, we try to train the people.  Do some capacity.  Do at least some basic awareness, creation, and capacity, just to build their confidence, to be able to participate.  We don't just call them and say, hey, come.

So, that's one of the processes that we do.  So, I think with the multistakeholderism, over the power, if the Constitution at the stakeholder level is kind of balanced, I think, you know, that kind of power can reduce.

For instance, if you have a high level advisory committee or steering committee, and you can have, let's say, the minister from the government being the chairman, you could have a co‑chair from the Civil Society or from the private sector.

I've seen that work, and it's been, so, the minister doesn't have all the power to make that decision in order.

So, if we can have a right balance in every phase of the policy framework, right from design, implementation, monitoring, I think we'll be able to go there.  Thanks.

>> DAVID KELLY: I think that's the right balance that we're seeking.  Absolutely.  Safari.

>> SAFARI NISHUTI: They speak about the situation they see.  I think I have many occasions to speak about it during the forum on internet freedom and what.  I cannot come back to that one.  But, what I can say in short is if you see the social political situation of some country as DRC or other country it would be very difficult to say 100 percent, there will never be internet shut downs.

It's quite impossible because there's some local reality that make you know, like, internet is an amplifier.  It can amplify good things but it can also amplify bad things so when it amplifies bad things, it can impact life of many millions of people.

And we have been speaking about Facebook, using artificial intelligence, see how they can see to moderate to the head speech and what and what.

Those kind of things is like a small shut down.  Because you are putting down those bad things that came out from internet, but, our country don't have those kind of capabilities to regulate, and when you didn't have, you found that you have the only chance, just to shut down.

But, I think we'll not have that, we'll not have to go on that, up to that level, if we have the capability and really raise what you have really, that having that, leaving it open like that can affect the rights of other people.

We had an election in our country, but I can tell you, if internet was there on that time, maybe we not have that, the direction would not end like it ends in peace like that.

There may be civil war because, as I say, internet is an amplifier.  During the election, there is so much tension, if we cannot, if we are not able to manage it, it can end up on the bad side.  Not on the level of a free democracy and understanding.  Even in our people, we still have those things of tribe and things like that.

And that's why maybe Facebook can help us to manage it and avoid censorship and also avoid going in the shut down.

But, my concern was on the, when we speak about multistakeholder, on that point of shut down, there was a, one of the people in society was dealing with a complaint, dealing with a shut down.  I was thinking one of the complaints would be the Telecom because they are losing money or the mobile financial services because also they are losing money.  But the first one who can complain, it was those people with disability.

Because they were not losing money.  They was just losing life.  They was just losing life.  They cannot communicate.  They cannot exchange with the people.  It was like, they are out of the society because of lack of internet.  And that showed the necessity to have a multistakeholder when you are thinking about anything about internet.

The policy and other things, we have to have that one because internet impacts everyone.  Even those ones you think are not using internet.  Maybe they are using it more, not often than you, but more useful than us we use.

>> DAVID KELLY: And that touches on the necessity to understand the context.  There is no longer a digital and an analog world.  It is a digital world.  You know, maybe someone doesn't have a smartphone, but, the road that their bus takes, the time it arrives, is connected to a main server and that requires the internet.  Really important contribution.  Thank you, Safari.  Sheetal.

>> SHEETAL KUMAR: Yeah, thank you.  I'll be brief because I know we're running out of time.  And it would be great to hear from the audience again.  So, we've heard so many of the challenges and someone called them existential earlier, whether they're internet diction or AI or election interference and I think that the multidisciplinary approach is going to be absolutely essential to dealing with those so contrary to them being irrelevant.  I think they're some examples of the issues we have to deal with in an inclusive way.

Of course, whenever we talk about the multistakeholder approach, there's always, rightfully, I think, a concern raised that the approach is used as a smoke screen to legitimize particular stakeholder interests over others.

And that's something, I think, a lot of Civil Society groups are particularly sensitive to.

And building trust in a multistakeholder process is, as I said earlier, really determined by how much transparency there is.  We heard about some good examples, I think.  Contractor engagement, listening to concerns, incorporating those concerns as with the Facebook Oversight Board.  Coming up with technical solutions for some of the concerns and then I think also a commitment to ongoing listening is absolutely essential so that transparency piece is really important.

And yes, and I think, you know, I don't know if we're going to have time for a closing, but I would say that my understanding of the challenges at hand are that the solutions will be, not only technical or the technical solutions where and when they are appropriate will come from conversations like this.

The internet of tomorrow.  The digital age of tomorrow is our collective project.  And we all have a responsibility for that, and I think really listening, really taking into consideration the challenges and the lessons learned from implementing multistakeholder processes is going to be essential.  It's not perfect.  There's no perfect multistakeholder approach but there are certain key principles that we have that guide us.

And as long as we're committed to learning and improving those, improving our implementation of those, I think we'll be in a good way.

>> DAVID KELLY: Governance of the internet.  The IGF.  This is, for a lot of people, increasingly an existential issue.  Picks up on what Safari was saying.  Completely agree.  Sophie, thank you.

>> SOPHIE PERESSON: Thank you.  So, why does the International Chamber of Commerce get involved in a multistakeholder approach?  Because frankly, it's a good investment.  It makes sense.  If we don't get multistakeholder, we're going to have to start all over again, lose a lot of time and back to Lisa's curve ball, which I also liked very much.

I agree with you.  I don't think it's a waste of time.  I don't see a dike dichotomy between this relatively long and time consuming exercise.  I think it's an investment and absolutely worth doing that.

To Kenneth's points, yes, I think it's a huge capacity building question that needs to be put on the table but for all of the stakeholders around the table, I don't think we can just point the finger and say, well, actually, you don't have the skills because when you get involved in a multistakeholder approach you realize just the types of skills that you need and how you need to get involved in that and the requirements and actually, you can, I think, speaking for myself, anyway, I've picked up a lot of skills along the way and I think that's true of a lot of people.

Are there power asymmetries?  Yes, but I think they're evolving also in the multistakeholder approach.  You can realize an expert around the table may not be the person who you thought was going to be the pivotal person who you thought was going to make that multistakeholder process come to a fruitful conclusion.

And just wanted to echo the fact that yes, we also work with governments, we work with Civil Society, we work with everyone, so, and this is my full first IGF and I'm happy to be here but I have to say, I've learned a lot along this past week.  I'm amazed by the commitment, the long-term commitment of many people in the room.  The very diverse profiles that are here.

I think it's a very worthwhile investment as well to come here and to come to grips with the different issues that are evolving.

All of you mentioned, IoT was the big topic a few years ago.  Now it's AI.  So, I think this is a really good laboratory in order to make sure that we are involved in the right processes, that we have the right people around the table.  So, thank you for inviting me and taking part in this panel as well.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thank you, Sophie.  And you touched on passion and the commitment earlier.  And the fact that a lot of people here are so invested over a long period of time.  Who here was involved in the WSIS conversations?  Do we have?  Over a dozen people.  It's been a long time.  Thank you for your long-term commitment to this process.  Molly.

>> MOLLY LESHER: So, just a couple words about the power asymmetries, I mean, what we were talking about is a couple people kind of colluding behind back doors and one thing we do at the OECC, the going digital work is undertaken by 20 different committees and in each different committee, each different stakeholders on the committee that come from their individual silos that have their own perspectives so you can't really do that it in our context.

On the money side, which isn't trivial for Civil Society organizations.  We do try to support Civil Society to come to meetings, get their input.  We actually view that as really, really important.

I appreciated the online question about internet addiction disorder.  We started to look at some of the health impacts of the internet in our publications, cyberbullying is something that we're also worried about but then there's the flip side of that and all the benefits that telemedicine can bring to those in rural areas, to people who wouldn't be able to get medical advice if you didn't have it.

And something I haven't heard about a lot at this IGF is the impact of digital transformation on overall well‑being and it's really hard because you have both sides.

You have the risks.  You have the benefits.  How do you balance them?  It's something we started looking at in the first phase of the project from a measurement perspective, but you had to have a dichotomy, risk or benefit.  Something we look forward to and I think other people will, took is trying to suss out what the delicate balance is because well‑being, I think we can all agree is the ultimate objective.  Thanks so much.

>> DAVID KELLY: Thanks, Molly.  I love the idea of balance.  So, we have about one minute remaining and I want to thank everybody first of all for the terrific contributions ma made.

Maybe taking away some of the lessons here.  Policy making in a multidisciplinary framework will succeed if it is inclusive rather than exclusive.  That it has co‑chairs that work together, to Kenneth's point.  But, it's transparent, to pick up on what Zoe was talking about.  The idea that you can use new tools, 21st century tools, to be more transparent is only improve your process and increase the trust that, Sheetal, you were talking about.  Processes, multistakeholder, transparent and use more tools can lead to as you said, Molly, balanced outcomes, better informed decisions and more aware and informed outcomes.

So, a lot, certainly to take away from this panel.  I want to thank everybody for coming and joining this afternoon and thanks again to the panelists.  Thank you

(applause)