IGF Open Consultations
23 February 2011
Geneva, Switzerland
10:00 a.m.
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The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Open Consultations of the IGF, in Geneva. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>>VINCENZO AQUARO: Good morning, my name is Vincenzo Aquaro from DESA, and Excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is a pleasure for me to welcome all of you today for this Internet Governance Forum open consultation, and the purpose of this meeting is to discuss the overall theme, subthemes, agenda, and program of the sixth IGF meeting to be held in Nairobi, Kenya, later on this year.
The dates for the sixth meeting are under consideration by UNDESA and the planning committee of the government of Kenya. A decision is expected soon.
The offer by Kenya to host the sixth meeting is greatly appreciate by the Secretary-General. And we look forward to holding this sixth meeting which is the first meeting in this new cycle in Nairobi in 2011.
The expected outcome of our meeting today and tomorrow is to receive inputs from stakeholders expressing their views and idea, and to recommend an agenda and themes to the Secretary-General, especially the overall theme of the Nairobi meeting, all based on these inputs and decisions.
Our discussion should focus on matters directly related to preparation for the Nairobi meetings.
It has been the practice of the MAG and these open consultations to consider improvement to the program and structure of the annual IGF meeting.
Many good ideas have been presented already in advance of today's meeting, and incorporated in the synthesis paper prepared by the IGF Secretariat, and we'll be discussing these ideas over the next two days.
Discussion of possible improvement to the IGF as a whole is now with the intergovernmental bodies and especially to CSTD working group which is charged with preparing a report for ECOSOC and the General Assembly.
Our remit is to make recommendation for the sixth meeting of the IGF. Discussion of longer term issues, including the organization and modalities of the IGF are the remit of the CSTD working group and are beyond the scope of this meeting.
The working group of CSTD on improvement of the IGF is seeking and reviewing inputs from all stakeholders on such issues.
The working group will hold its first meeting in Montreal from 25-26 February, right after our meetings.
The question of the special advisor for Internet governance is with the Secretary-General for consideration.
You may recall that the position of special advisor was created by the Secretary-General to assist him during the WSIS and the special advisor was asked to chair the advisory group and the preparatory meeting of the IGF.
Appointment of a new special advisor for Internet governance is his prerogative, as is the case for all senior officials of the United Nations.
During the first five years of the IGF, Mr. Nitin Desai served as chair of the open consultation and MAG meetings in his capacity as special advisor of the Secretary-General for Internet governance. Today, I will be the facilitator of this meeting in absence of a special advisor, together with ms. Alice Munyua who leads the planning committee for the government of Kenya. We are very, very fortunate to have Ms. Munyua here today as a moderator.
Finally, most of you already know my colleague and friend Mr. Chengetai Masango who has been performing with a lot of success many of the essential function of the IGF Secretariat since Markus Kummer retired as Executive Coordinator on 31st January.
I now give the floor to Chengetai to explain the procedure to be followed over the course of the day.
(Scribe lost audio)
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: -- for the remote participation, the Webcast links are on the page of the IGF Web site and over here. We have Marilia Maciel from the remote participation working group who has been helping us the past IGFs. And we are grateful to have her and she will be moderating the remote participation.
There is live transcription which is being done by Teri, Laura and Jen from Quicktext. I'm sure you remember them. They are on the West Coast of the USA, so it is quite late for them.
(Dropped audio.)
You can follow it with a hash tag IG11. We would also ask you when you speak, raise your hand, please speak to comments that are related to the topic at hand. There will be time for the topics and we also hope to make it rather tight so that we would be able to discuss everything during today. Thank you. I will give it back to you.
>>VINCENZO AGUARO: Thank you, Chengetai. I give the floor now to Alice as moderator. Please, Alice, you have the floor.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much. And good morning, everybody. Good morning, everybody. First, I would like to thank the IGF.
(Dropped audio).
Not to mention, it is very important for us to focus on the agenda and on the (dropped audio) program for the Nairobi meeting, being the first in Subsaharan Africa. So we are very keen to make sure that by the time we leave tomorrow at least we have a draft of the program for the meeting. And very pleased to be hosting you in Nairobi very soon, before the end of the year.
I think I will hand on over to Chengetai now to take us through the agenda very quickly.
(Dropped audio).
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: First of all, there is going to be a brief overview of the synthesis paper which I will give straight off by reading through the main topics. Then we are going to open the floor to general comments on the structure and program. So we hope to keep this within 30 minutes. If you have interventions to make in this section, please note that don't say everything you want to say on all the topics that will be discussed because we would like to keep it within the subject areas because the next topic is the broad themes of the Nairobi meeting where we are going to discuss the overall theme, cross-cutting theme and the main sessions and also the themes for the workshops.
And then discussion on the structure and program of the Nairobi meeting, which we are going into the workshops, types and formats of the workshops, the number of workshops and also timing. I know there were some comments on what the length of the workshops should be and also how each session is, you know -- feeder workshops, should we have feeder workshops. Those are the types of topics that fall under Agenda Item 4.
In Agenda Item 5, we will start discussing the remote participation because this is always a difficult topic for us, the integration of remote participants into the meeting and when they can make interventions, et cetera. And also remote moderators, which was something that we brought in together with the remote participation working group last year and would like to strengthen that this year because people found it very useful with the comments.
And then Agenda Item 6 is the next steps for the preparatory process, calendar dates, when things need to be submitted, et cetera.
Also, remember today we are gathering all the input and then tomorrow in the informal MAG meeting we will get this input, refine it more and put it into the draft program paper which will go forward as a recommendation to the United Nations Secretary-General for his consideration for the program.
I'll just quickly go through a brief overview of the synthesis paper, if that's okay. We received 11 contributions by the deadline, and all are posted on our Web site. The program -- and just please remember it is a work in progress.
So if you have any comments to make now or after, you can always send it to the IGF mailbox and we will post it. And I will also take this opportunity to ask you not to read out statements, but this is supposed to be a discussion-oriented event. If you have statements that you want to read out, you can kindly e-mail them to us and we will post them on our Web site and they will be integrated in the next iteration of the program paper.
The synthesis paper has got five main sections, which was the general comments on the Vilnius meeting. These were generally discussed -- I mean, this is just a carryover from the last stock-taking meeting that we had in November. And people were mainly expressing gratitude to the host, our Lithuanian host, and also the success for the Vilnius meeting. And various general practical recommendations were made to be passed on to the next host, Kenya.
And then we had general comments on the IGF, each of these following the three main topics of the agenda that we have here, which are comments read to the IGF themes, suggested topics and themes of Nairobi and comments on the program and logistics of the meeting.
If you have made these inputs and they are in the synthesis paper, they are a matter of record. So I'm sorry I keep on repeating this, but please don't feel that you have to repeat what you have submitted because they are already a matter of record and are under consideration.
So this session is mainly for discussion on new ideas or those people who did not have a chance to submit their comments before the deadline because I know it is the beginning of the year and people are very busy at the beginning of the year. So this is their chance to add to the discussion.
Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Chengetai. Now, I would like to open the floor for general comments on the structure and program. So, please, if you have contributions to the general structure and programs, thank you.
Kenya? Kenya, please. Ken.
>> KENYA: Thank you, Madam Moderator. Good morning, everybody. I'm Mike Katundu. I come from Kenya. I would like to take this opportunity as the host for the sixth IGF to thank the international community for the support so far given to us. And I would also like to convey to you the appreciation by the Kenya government for this opportunity for us to host the sixth IGF.
I would like also to mention to you that we have gone out of our way and set up an initial organizing committee with the various aspects of the IGF, including security, hospitalities and so forth, to be coordinated so that we have one of the most successful IGF forums in Kenya.
We also are planning to host an East Africa meeting sometime later this year, around August. And Kenya as a (inaudible), the East African IGF has been in discussion with Rwanda. And the government of Rwanda has taken this opportunity and they have offered to host this East African IGF.
And one of the main themes of that East African IGF will be youth, ICTs, innovation and entrepreneurship. And an important note to note is that during the IGF forum, we plan to have an IGF event which is going to have two days focusing on youth, ICTs, innovation and entrepreneurship which will have been carried forward from the East African IGF.
We are also going to have a high-level ministerial meeting which is looking at building capacity at the policymakers' level so that the ICT decisions in terms of legislation and so forth can be made by informed policymakers.
With those few remarks, I thank you. And I look forward to a successful IGF consultation meeting. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Any other? Please, India.
>> I.T. FOR CHANGE: I'm Parminder Jeet Singh. I speak not for India but for my NGO, I.T. for Change. Looking at the agenda, I was wondering whether there would be space to comment on the structure of the main sessions as well because it seemed not to figure -- I think somewhere between three and four, three speaks about the themes and four only about the workshop structures. So a lot of people here have comments to talk about how the main sessions would -- should be. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Parminder, discussion on the broad themes would be looking at main sessions, yes, certainly.
If there are no other comments or general comments -- Okay. Sorry. Brazil. Sorry.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Ms. Chairperson. Brazil would like to thank the government of Lithuania for hosting the successful fifth edition of IGF. As well, we thank all the participants involved in the MAG meeting, main sessions, workshops and remote participation. In particular, we would like to express our gratitude for the hard work and wise guidance provided by the former members of the Secretariat, Mr. Desai and Mr. Kummer, in the last five years.
In Vilnius, among the high-level discussions, in many workshops and main sessions of IGF, we would like to highlight the outputs from the session about Internet governance for development. In articulating important concepts, the panelists and the audience managed to stress that the perspective of development through the peoples center and information society must be the basis for any discussion regarding global Internet governance.
Recalling the spirit of WSIS and the clear guidelines of Tunis Agenda, it must be a permanent exercise to evaluate and to each extent the goals of human development and inclusiveness, figured as priorities in the main changes that have been occurring in the Internet.
If the Internet inspires the highest dreams regarding people's coexistence and welfare, the only way to turn this dream into reality is sharing the responsibility and the compromise in driving together Internet governance.
Brazil congratulates Kenya for hosting the sixth edition of IGF. It is a very positive sign in the fact that a developing country will co-organize the first event of what we could consider a new cycle of IGF since its mandate was renewed last year.
We believe this is opportunity to innovation once more. In this sense, we would like to present in a very brief mode at the moment three suggestions. First, we would like to invite all stakeholders to consider the idea that the agenda of the next IGF, starting with Nairobi, could focus on discussions about drafting general operating principles of Internet governance without prejudice of keeping the dynamics and diversity of issues addressed in the many workshops we annually experience in IGF meetings.
I recall the discussions in last year's Latin American-Caribbean preparation process for IGF when many speakers stressed the need for aligning the discussions in IGF with more concrete results. In this line, it is considered that IGF (inaudible) and should continue like this.
Brazil presented as a contribution in Vilnius the ten principles for the use and governance of Internet. The idea that we could discuss the base principles instead of general topics were presented as a basis for discussions, and we are glad for receiving positive feedback since Vilnius. Maybe Nairobi could be a good opportunity to exercise this approach.
The second suggestion is that additionally to today's open consultations, the regional IGF process should also have a clear role in educating subthemes of the agenda as well as providing subsidies for discussions along the year and during the IGF meeting in Nairobi.
And, finally, as a third general suggestion, Brazil believed that we must continue to develop remote participation not only during the meetings but also during the whole year in order to advance the results in the field of inclusiveness and transparency in the substantive dialogue of each subthemes of IGF. Thank you very much, Ms. Chairperson.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Anriette, APC.
>>APC: Thank you, Anriette Esterhuysen, Association for Progressive Communication. Just one comment or question on the agenda. Do you propose that input on regional and national IGFs be covered under Item 6? And perhaps if that could just be made explicit. It is always very useful to hear at the open consultation what people's plans are for regional or national IGFs. And I will save my next comments for later in the agenda.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Anriette, I think that's a good idea. If we could have agreement we could have that added as an agenda item, regional and national IGFs. Thank you.
Thank you very much for the comments we have received so far. So we can move onto the next Agenda Item, Number 3, discussion on the broad themes. And the first one is on overall themes. I would like to open the floor for comments on that. Overall themes, please. Thank you.
Of course, there is a mention of what an overall theme could be...(dropped audio)...synthesis paper, development being one of the issues, I would like to hear comments.
I don't want to take advantage of my position here but coming from Kenya, development is also one of our main concerns. So I think if we could hear comments on what would be the overall theme, please, thank you. Anriette.
>>APC: Thank you, Alice. Also thank you to the Secretariat for the synthesis paper. It would be good to hear more. I would say APC's proposal, as we put into our input, is that development should definitely be an overall theme.
I think we are still evolving how we treat development in the IGF and learning how to do it effectively. It does include participation of developing country stakeholders in Internet governance processes. But I also think it requires more substantive consideration of how Internet policy and regulation can either enable or disable development. And I think there are some specific suggestions in the synthesis paper which fall into this such as looking at digital migration and what happens with digital migration, how that impacts on access and spectrum allocation more broadly.
So I think as a very broad overall theme, I would feel that Internet's role in development should be one.
I think the other thing that we would still feel is important, and is in this synthesis paper, is accountability, transparency and inclusiveness in Internet governance. I think it has been a topic at workshops. I don't think it has been a main theme ever. But we have a lot of learning that could be reflected on usefully at the Internet Governance Forum with a view of looking how do we move forward.
In a third theme, we would propose, which is new -- and I think it's been brought to light by recent developments -- is Internet and democratization. What role can Internet play in building more participative, inclusive and stronger democratic governance.
I think it would be a real oversight on us and the IGF community if we do not reflect on that at the upcoming IGF in light of recent and current events.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: IGC, Izumi.
>>IGC: Thank you, Madam Chair. While I am the co-chair of the, IGC, Internet Governance Caucus Society, this is rather sort of a -- some of the people here of the IGC making not the position of the IGC as official. But just following what Anriette said, we'd like to really congratulate the recent citizens' movement starting in Tunisia and Egypt, achieving the new formal democracies with their creative use of the Internet and mobile communications.
We really take note that Tunisia hosted the WSIS in 2005 and Egypt hosted the IGF in 2009, both demonstrate a great potential of the innovative use of Internet for democracy.
So while we are very much encouraged that these movements are now expanding into other parts of the world, Middle East and Africa in particular, we are also very concerned that some governments are not listening to the real voices of people and, instead, trying to suppress them by the use of brutal forces, including censorship and control of Internet traffic.
We express our sincere condolences for those who lost their lives -- precious lives and their families.
So in this note, we hope that people here supporting the IGF will take special consideration to these new developments and consider the role of the Internet and its governance for democracy.
So we would like to, therefore, propose that Internet for democracy be one of the themes of the main sessions. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Izumi. Yes, the role of Internet democracy is an important one we should discuss. Thank you.
Call upon Khaled Fattal, please.
>>KHALED FATTAL: Thank you, Ms. Chairman. I don't have a prepared script to what I'm going to talk about, but I feel that many of us who have been involved in this process for more than five years dating back to the World Summit on Information Society will recall where we started, where we ended up. Many years ago, the concept of a multilingual Internet was still strange to many. Today everybody's believing in it.
I want to draw on the comment by my colleague who spoke before me and add more to it. I think if we're looking at how to serve the global community, how to serve Internet governance and feel that we are doing our part, let's first ask ourselves where we started and what have we achieved so far.
By all means, yes, we have moved forward as we are all becoming superb diplomats. But could we have done better?
The winds of change have actually engulfed not only the Middle East but the whole world, and I think I will draw upon your attention that there is going to be a change in world politics as well.
We need to factor Internet governance from the perspective of serving people power, not traditional mechanisms of special interests. If we can do that and not labeling it in terms of just democracy -- there are a lot of people who understand that democracy is a Western concept, whereas the people who have been shouting and screaming on the streets of Cairo, Tunisia and Tripoli and Benghazi are asking for their own democracy localized.
If we step back and look at a theme that actually addresses people power, serving the communities, not just through democracies but how to enable them... (dropped audio)...is up to the challenge they wish to aspire for.
Otherwise, five years from now we will be looking at the same thing, looking at marginal improvements in what we have come up with and finding ourselves still short of what we could achieve.
In conclusion, I draw to your attention the final comment. We need to start moving away from a traditional way of thinking when it comes to politics. We all here are involved in Internet governance, but we all know that there are tremendous powers of politics involved. So let's step back and think about people power and push for that. And if we can do this, I think we will be all very, very successful and serve everybody's interests. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Khaled. ICC/BASIS.
>> ICC/BASIS: Thank you. I wanted to pick up on some of the points that Michael Katundu made about Kenya is thinking in terms of the IGF and say one I think one way to approach emphasizing development would be to focus on approaches and messages to policymakers as what can be done to really both directly advance the deployment and infrastructure, building of the Internet as well as the uses of Internet for development and maybe think about focusing on it from almost an external audience. How do we develop some real clear decisions for policymakers? That could be a something that could be a more tangible set of solutions that could be really targeted to policymakers as the audience. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Nominet?
>> NOMINET: Thank you very much. My name is Martin Boyle. I'm with Nominet. And we are also actively involved in the U.K. IGF. My intervention was very much along the same lines as that from ICC/BASIS and honing in on the development theme and, in particular, I thought very interesting intervention from Kenya about the focus on skills, youth, innovation and enterprise.
I focus in on that because certainly I'm aware in East Africa, you do have a very, very large population -- percentage of a population under 30 years old. I think the issue is very much wider, that as we become increasingly dependent on the Internet, I think that we do need to start looking very carefully at making sure that future generations are properly trained and equipped to contribute to the growth and development of wealth in their countries.
So certainly I think my question back to Kenya would be about whether you think that you would be ready in the IGF meeting to lead the development agenda item with this skills and innovation and enterprise theme that you would be working through the East Africa IGF or whether you think that this is likely to be more for the ministerial in front or as site events during the week?
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Nominet. Would Kenya like to respond to that or should we come to you later? First go to Raul, then? Raul, you have the floor. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Nominet. Would Kenya like to respond to that or should we come to you later?
First go to Raul, then.
Raul, you have the floor. Thank you.
>>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Thank you very much.
I'd like to make some comments on the agenda for this next meeting for IGF. Before that, I would like to -- also to add my voice to the congratulations and thank you to the organizers of the last IGF meeting in Vilnius. That was very successful.
I would like also to congratulate the Kenya for being enough courageous for taking the responsibility of organizing the next IGF for this very good move forward to be in Nairobi for this meeting.
I think since my position in the IGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group in the last five years, I have been promoting the idea that all the topics related with human rights should have more importance in the IGF agenda. Of course, I was not alone in that -- in that attitude. Many people has been aligned in the same position.
As one of the topics that have emerged with more emphasis in the last years has been the issue of freedom of expression. That seemed to be one of the most important points related with developments of the Internet. I think that the recent events have shown how this topic is very important.
I think the freedom of expression and the Internet continuity or Internet access rights should be center topics for the next IGF meeting in Nairobi.
Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Raul.
Kenya.
>>KENYA: Thank you, moderator. The answer is yes, if we are given a mandate by this forum, we are willing to lead this agenda from -- we can get input from the pre-IGF event. Again, collect the issues which will be collated during the pre-IGF event to the main IGF event as a development agenda.
And I think it is high time we focus on this that we can create critical mass at the youth level and at the policymakers, because one of the gaps which have been identified in this area of Internet governance is that there are quite a number of (inaudible) expressed in this area, but we have gaps at (dropped audio) level or the once yearning for the democracy through the various tools of the Internet, among them the Twitter, Facebook and so forth.
So if we can view capacity at that level, the policy mechanism of the youth as well, then we know going forward we can really count on the successes of the IGF.
Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Johan.
>>DIPLO:
>>VLADIMIR RADUNOVIC: Good day to everyone. I am Vladimir from Diplo.
I wanted to return back to one issue, which is discussing the real impact of the IGF as such in the circumstances that we have now with the framework of the CSTD and the involvement of governments and so on. And one of the suggestions I just heard previously, on bringing more direct messages from the IGF to the policymakers.
Some kind of condensed messages, the policymakers could build in their policies is something that should come out as a result of the next IGFs.
We tried at the EuroDIG with the European dialogue and it seemed quite useful.
Now, I wanted to link the fact -- the idea of the messages that would come out and would be very concise as a kind of archived messages, archived discussions and key points from the IGF discussions that the policymakers could use.
That's one side of the gain.
The other side is making the policymakers that are not involved in the IGF process to be able to unzip, de-archive these messages and take out what they need and understand what it is. And there I am back to the issue of capacity building for the policymakers. And basically building capacities for institutions.
Thus far, in the previous years, we have done a lot to bring -- to build capacities of mostly individuals and somewhat institutions to participate in the IGF. But we have to be aware that the IGF, there is a big world out of the IGF. There is a number of institutions that don't really know what IGF is. We need to target them somehow.
The best way is from the messages and from raising the initiatives and capacity building of various policymakers around the world to use the potentials of the IGF and potential messages.
So this should be one of the key topics as well, discussing the capacity building for policymakers out of the IGF and the extended possible impact of IGF if really want IGF to have more serious impact on the global level.
Let me just use this opportunity also to remind all the European colleagues that the preparation meeting for the EuroDIG, which is taking place end of May in Belgrade, will be held tomorrow, 2:00 p.m., somewhere in the rooms around, so we will let you know so you can approach Lee or someone from the EuroDIG team to let you know more, but plan the meeting tomorrow, 2:00 p.m.
Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you.
Our next, Mr. Fouad, and then Khaled, and Bertrand. So Fouad first, please.
>>FOUAD BAJWA: Thank you so much. First of all, I'd like to start by saying welcome, Alice. And second is, I would like to congratulate the Kenyan government and wish them all of our support for the upcoming IGF meeting.
In response to -- my comments are in response to the topic under discussion about Internet governance for development.
Having been one of the co-moderators of the working group from last year, which helped bring in the topic as a main session, and then furthermore in working out how to carry out the session, this working group constituted of more than 64 members in the multistakeholder composition, and from what we experienced in Vilnius, there was a great deal achieved by this working group in helping out lay out the IGF for this session.
I would like to extend once again the support of the working group, which is an open group, and everyone is invited to join the group, to the Kenyan government, and to further extend that if this working group should be taken forward, we would like to provide all the support possible for helping in getting out the development theme related components of the IGF in the upcoming meeting.
Thank you so much.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Fouad, for that.
May I please have Khaled again and then Bertrand. Thank you.
Okay. Bertrand, please.
>>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE: Good morning, my name is Bertrand De La Chapelle. I am a program director at the International Diplomatic Academy in Paris.
As an introduction, I would just briefly like to, like many other colleagues, pay tribute to the remarkable work that has been done by Nitin Desai and Markus Kummer in the last five years in establishing the foundation for what we are now continuing for another period of five years. And also give credit to all the hosts of the different IGFs. That includes the last one, of course, but that includes the previous one: India, Brazil, Greece, and Egypt.
That being said, I want to make just a quick comment on the question of the overall theme.
It's very difficult to choose one topic or one major expression, and we're struggling at this moment or will be struggling with the fact that we have to combine three objectives, I think, in trying to drive the Nairobi meeting.
The first objective is to include the dimension of development, because it would be absolutely unbelievable that the first meeting of the IGF that takes place in Africa and in a developing country doesn't give strong impetus on this. So there is a line that has to be done.
But there is a second thread which is that Internet governance by definition is about principles, norms, rules, and decision-making procedures. And it would be inconceivable as well to be holding an IGF after all the events that have happened in the last year related to Internet, the relation to democracy but also economic development and a lot of other things without having something that deals with that.
And the notion of principles is clearly emerging as something that is maybe not at the stage of trying to get groups to draft, to get a negotiating team or something. But I believe that the IGF this year will naturally evolve around trying to formulate common principles, common, customary understanding that are shared by the different actors.
And again, I should have insisted on the fact that it is called shared principles, norms, rules, and decision make being procedures.
And so principles, discussing about principles that are applicable on the different test cases in different countries that have happened in the last year will probably be useful.
And finally, the third thread that we should not forget is that even if it is not the responsibility of the IGF to find solutions and implement solutions and solve problems, there are a certain number of topics that the IGF has clearly labeled as being ripe for implementation. And unfortunately, have not necessarily led to actually catalyzing the work. I think about spam, for instance. We have all agreed that spam is almost not on our agenda anymore because we all agree it must be dealt with. However, I'm not absolutely sure that the progress has been going.
So development, principles, and actual monitoring of where things are going would probably be, for me, the best thrust to make the IGF very useful in Nairobi this year.
Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Please.
>>FINLAND: Thank you very much, and I would certainly like to thank Alice for your preparedness to moderate this meeting and also lend our support for our friends in Kenya to make another successful give event.
By the name, my name is Mervi Kultamaa. I am from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Finland.
In Finland, we support the overall main themes, while at the same time we should take into account that we really evolve the discussion inside them. And we build on what we have previously discussed.
This doesn't mean that we couldn't take any new ideas and suggestions into account.
We would like to have a very strong focus on development this time, especially when the meeting takes place in SubSaharan Africa. And we welcome all the ideas that come from our Kenyan hosts.
We are supportive to the idea of bringing skills and development in the front, especially from the perspective of the youth.
We would also like to discuss a bit more in detail, perhaps, than what we have previously done the access through mobile technology, and what mobiles can bring to the development.
And really to keep in mind that we pay attention to involving the youth already at the preparatory phase for this meeting.
Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Finland.
Portugal, please. Thank you.
>>PORTUGAL: Thank you very much. And I would like to congratulate for the new moderator and for the new chair. And I just would like, with this very short presentation, to underscore some of the main themes that we think that are important.
It's Portugal, Ana Neves.
So the main themes that we think it will be important to discuss in IGF in Nairobi are the following: Access to infrastructure and knowledge, the role of the intermediaries in the Internet, the role of the Internet for development, and to discuss on how to measure its impact on social, economic, and human development. This is one of the core themes that we should discuss in the IGF.
We started these discussions last year, but I think that we should see how to enhance, develop, how to improve this discussion because I think that this is really the main issue on the IGF.
And then, of course, youth, skills, and capacity building are very -- it's a pillar.
Open Internet and net neutrality, and to continue discussions of emerging issues as it is the case of the cloud computing.
Thank you very much.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Portugal.
United Kingdom.
>>UNITED KINGDOM: Thank you very much, chair, and good morning to everybody. We very much support the focus in main sessions in Nairobi on development, on the opportunities for young entrepreneurs to engage in the information economy, the digital economy, and the opportunities for stakeholders to come together with policymakers to look at how that process of engagement of young people, the new business entrepreneurs, through the technologies and opportunities that the Internet provides. So it's a very important theme. I very much support that.
With regard to other possible main themes, I think in terms of what was initiated in Vilnius, which is a very successful IGF. Our congratulations to the hosts for that event. What was initiated there in terms of the emerging technology issue that was the focus there, cloud computing, I think there's a lot more work to be done. So we would really look to the Nairobi IGF to take that forward. Again, that's a development angle to that, because cloud computing, if it's fully rolled out on a global scale, presents opportunities for developing countries to provide the kind of grid and cloud data services and compete in the market. So that, I think, is -- the Nairobi IGF does provide that opportunity.
And I'm very glad to hear that work is in hand in preparing for Nairobi. We very much wish them well with that, and the UK will continue to support.
Thanks.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you for that.
France.
France and then India.
>>FRANCE: (scribes not receiving english translation).
(speaking in French).
>>ALICE MUNYUA: We don't have translation. If you could hold on.
>>FRANCE: So I am going to make an exception for this time because, as you know, we have to speak in French.
So I am beginning from the start.
So in a quick verse, what we want to say is it is important to have a signature for each IGF. So this year, it's obvious that the human rights and right to access is an important topic with development.
We don't have to choose between those two because it's of use that they are linked.
The other topic we may have related to that is how do we manage the Internet as a common good? Because maybe, as you saw in Egypt, Egypt curbed the Internet, but this intervention could have curbed the Internet in another country, in another area of the world. And it is interesting to find solutions and to forge the management of this common space, because Internet is not only a national infrastructure as -- that we can get without prejudice to other ones.
So I think we have to have this perfection in the next IGF related to human rights and development.
Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, France. And thank you for speaking in English, and I apologize for the lack of translation.
Anyway, India next, please.
Thank you.
>>INDIA: Thank, Chair.
Good morning, everyone. This is Tulika Pandey from the government of India.
I would like to take this opportunity to raise an issue on the very structure, how the IGF meetings are done, which is a four-day.
I was only wondering if we can use the opportunity of this IGF that is being done in Kenya to sort of look at how we restructure the meeting itself. Maybe a little more focus on the workshops and best practice sessions being held in the first two days, such that everybody is able to participate in all of those, and then maybe hold two days off focused main session discussions which would then allow for many of us to fully take benefit of the IGF, per se.
This is how we do our technical Congress meetings which allows us to hold two days of tutorials for people to really be able to take more value, and then go on to the general discussions and how to proceed further.
And I was wondering if I could propose this for the Kenya meeting to be considered by all of us.
Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, India, for going to the session on the structure and program.
Now I will call upon the Internet Governance Caucus, Izumi.
>>IGC: Thank you, chair. Also I would like to say the same about the appreciation of the chair and the Secretariat. I should not forget about it.
On the theme of the Internet Governance Caucus of the civil society had a statement, and I put them up there in two pages. I will not read them in detail, but we prepared four main themes. The one is open Internet or network neutrality on wired and mobile networks. The second one is cross-border issues. And the third one, development agenda for Internet governance. And the fourth one, access to knowledge.
And while, as we discussed already, the development agenda could become the overarching theme, but as well, we would like to make it as one of the main session themes, just like what we did in Vilnius.
On the open Internet, or network neutrality, is sort of an ideal in which the openness of the Internet to the broadest possible range of commercial and noncommercial content, applications and services is maintained. And especially with the explosion of Internet usage in the developing countries where the main means of access is mobile or mobile network, it's very important to consider how these ideal of Internet be applied in the mobile space.
So in proposing these topics for the Nairobi IGF, we want to particularly ensure that it does not shy away from the areas of disagreement. We'd like to see real discussion and debate on the panel and other places.
On the cross-border issues which is a cross-cutting issue as well is one of the oldest issues for the Internet governance that concerns the cross-border effect of national laws, policies, enforcement practices, and the actions for intermediaries on those who have had no representation in the making of these laws, policies, et cetera.
The development agenda, we already said about that, but we really propose to have it on the main session.
And finally, the access to knowledge. That's a part of the great promise of the Internet as we all know, in aiding development, education, and culture both within and between the countries.
So this empowerment to fully benefit from today's ICTs is particularly important for people who struggle with poverty or otherwise marginalized in the society.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Izumi.
Wolfgang, please.
>>WOLFGANG KLEINWÄCHTER: Thank you very much. Thank you, Madam Chair, and congratulations for your -- Madam Moderator, and congratulations for your appointment.
My name is Wolfgang Kleinwächter. I am a professor at the University of Aarhus, and I want to speak briefly to two points.
The first thing is the lessons from the recent developments. I think, in my eyes, this is clear demonstration that two issues which has been discussed in the recent IGFs are very deep interlinked, and this is social and economic development, and human rights and democracy.
I think if you look into the details of what is happening there in the regions, then these are the two main issues. And this is in particular, and I can only underline what Nominet has said and others. The young generation is looking for new opportunities and the Internet offers new opportunities, and they want to use these new opportunities in a political environment which guarantee them the human rights, including the right to freedom of expression.
And so far, as you know, the forthcoming IGF reflects these tendencies and looks into the interlinkage between social-economic development on one hand and human rights and democracy on the other hand. These are extremely interlinked, and the Internet offers the tools to move forward in both directions, to stimulate social economic development and to broaden the enjoyment of individual and other human rights.
And my second point refers to the statement which was made by Brazil and also later by Bertrand and this is the issue of principles. If you start to discuss about principles, you enter slippery territory and you have to be very careful to explain in detail what you mean with principles. I think we have the Declaration of Principles from Geneva from the WSIS from 2003 which creates already a framework.
We have in the Internet governance part of the Tunis Agenda, we have already a long list of principles. But I fully agree we have to reconsider some of the principles from time to time, and probably also to rearrange it.
I was recently appointed by the Council of Europe to chair a working group on cross-border Internet and the mandate of this cross-border working group -- Internet governance working group is to draft a Declaration of Principles for the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe is an intergovernmental organization of 47 member states, and the ministerial meeting in Reykjavik recently came to the conclusion that they want to have an instrument to have better guidance for their member states.
And after one year of work in this group, we came to an interesting conclusion, and I want to share this here with you, that because the Internet is a multistakeholder undertaking, if we move towards the definition of principles, we have to be aware that we have to go beyond our traditional understanding of the declarations and recommendations and principles as primarily intergovernmental principles.
Our aim in the group is now to offer some principles which can be supported both by governments, by the private sector, by civil society, the technical community. We will not call this document a Declaration of Principles but a framework of commitments where governments together with the other stakeholders can support a set of principles which could be a guideline for further developments and also put some criteria where you can then have a reference point if something goes wrong.
If a country cuts Internet access to people, this is certainly a violation of one of the basic principles. And so far, I offer all the work which has been done in the Council of Europe for consideration in the forthcoming Nairobi meeting. The CDMC, this is a ministerial committee of the Council of Europe, will consider the draft in June. So this is an ideal time to discuss the results of this group of 47 member states in Nairobi. And the aim is, indeed, to have a new type of international law, an innovative approach to the elaboration of principles which go beyond traditional intergovernmental negotiations, and to include in the elaboration of an instrument, also private sector, civil society, and technical community on an equal footing.
Thank you very much.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Wolfgang. I have on the same topic, overall theme, Greece, remote participant, ICC/BASIS and GLOCOM. Yeah, and Al-Shatti. And I would like to close that discussion on that topic so we can move on. We have still got to deal with cross-cutting themes and main session themes and themes for workshops. If you don't mind, Al-Shatti will be the last speaker on the overall themes and then we can move on.
Greece, please.
>>GREECE: Thank you, Chair. It is good to see you in the Chair. And believe me as a previous organizer of an IGF, you have a formidable task ahead of you. And I would like to pledge the support of my delgation in achieving success in Nairobi.
I would like to support the cause for a more dynamic agenda, an agenda that relates more to current events and debates. In that respect, I would support the comments made by France, which happens to, of course, be a member of the G8 and also chairing the G20 at this moment and others who, in a way, have talked about the right to connect.
I do share the view that the Internet is universal and people cannot be arbitrarily cut off from that particular area and development, of course, as also a main issue which needs to be defined a little more. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Greece.
Remote participant, thank you.
>> MARILIA MACIEL: Hello. It's not from remote participant. I will make a comment on my own behalf. My name is Marilia. I'm from the Center for Technology and Society in Brazil. I would like to stress the importance of having a development agenda for Internet governance as an overreaching theme. And its importance, it is not only because the next meeting is going to take place in Kenya but because, I believe, that we can take some very concrete outcomes after the IGF regarding a development agenda that would put forward some kind of principles that Internet governance should take into account to promote development. I believe that this discussion is really important in the context of the CSTD working group. The discussions in CSTD have helped to shed some light on the connections that exist between the system that has been created inside the U.N. to pursue the WSIS objectives and follow up in the new development goals. And very little has been discussed in the IGF, in my opinion, on this regard.
To be honest, I never really saw or understood the connection between the IGF goals and the goals of other organizations in the U.N. family that are trying to follow up WSIS and implement its main goals. And I started in the IGF in 2007, so I can say that I am like a daughter of the IGF and I have been really involved with it ever since.
So I believe if I haven't seen this theme much around, my ignorance comes also from the fact that it has not been mainstreamed enough in the IGF. So we would like to see a development agenda for Internet governance as an overreaching theme.
And we believe that it should really give the tone to main sessions and workshops. Sometimes we have an overreaching theme that is not so much reflected into the main sessions and into the workshops that are actually chosen to be part of the IGF structure. So we would like to see more correlation between this overreaching theme and the other sessions.
Regarding the main session, very briefly, I would like to stress the importance to give more space to access to knowledge, the debate in the IGF. Last year, it was debated under the umbrella of security, openness and privacy that encompasses a lot of issues. So there was almost no space to discuss access to knowledge.
I believe that access to knowledge cannot be discussed as a theoretical issue, but we should discuss the very concrete policy impacts that access to knowledge has had regarding policies that have been advanced in several countries such as policies that regulate network neutrality and graduate response, for instance.
There is a clear interconnection between graduate response, network neutrality and access to knowledge. And it hasn't been advanced enough.
We believe it is important that policymakers from developed and developing countries consider this careful balance between these policies and access to knowledge.
And we would like to suggest that the main sessions are framed as questions or as issues and not are framed like broadly titled such as "access" or "privacy." We believe that we have discussed access and privacy now in an general way enough, and we should move on to more concrete problems or issues that we would like to see addressed in the IGF.
And we really much agree what has been said before by ICC and other stakeholders that there should be something that policymakers could take away from the discussions. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much. ICC/BASIS?
>>ICC-BASIS: Thank you, Madam Moderator. I would like to join others in congratulating you and Kenya and getting the preparation started and ICC/BASIS. And the global business community looks forward to contributing along the way through the weeks and months ahead to make this another successful IGF.
I wanted to address -- first of all, my name is Ayesha Hassan speaking on behalf of ICC/BASIS.
In listening to the various issues that have been put forward as overarching themes or umbrella topics that need to be addressed, I wanted to put forward a suggested idea for how to encompass all of those topics which we also support as being very important at this year's IGF.
Maybe the idea of an overarching theme of "Internet-driver of change" with subtitles, "development, freedom, access," could potentially help to encompass all the different themes that are emerging as priorities in the discussions. For instance, "Internet driver of change," subtitle, "development, freedom, access," would cover the development issues, the human rights, freedom of expression democratization, access to knowledge, infrastructure, et cetera, the cross-border issues. So it really could be a nice way to -- a starting point for discussion for how to encompass all the various -- the range of social and economic priorities that have come out in this discussion. Thanks.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much for that suggestion.
Adam?
>> GLOCOM: Adam Peake from Glocom, a research institute in Tokyo. I wanted to just quickly comment and really ask a question about the notion of principles that have been mentioned.
I think Brazil mentioned development of general principles for Internet governance and others have followed on with similar suggestions. The question is really to Brazil, I think. I think you said that we should work towards developing these principles over the course of the IGF. And so the question is: Are you suggesting that -- is the proposal that it would be to develop such principles for this year's IGF? Or is it a longer term goal, that this is something that we should aim to achieve over the course of this new five-year mandate for the IGF?
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. Brazil, do you want to respond?
>>BRAZIL: Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. We believe that this is a long-term goal. I listened to many interesting ideas. Our focus should be sharing principles, reaching -- focusing on reaching our similarities and possible divergences about some issues but the idea is restructuring the way of debating.
We are not aiming at doing any exhaustive list in a short moment. It is just a long-term goal, a long-term effort, another way to refresh and drive our discussions.
We had experienced that in Brazil, as a multistakeholder approach. The principles that we developed there, it took at least two or three years to develop. It was a multistakeholder effort. But it helped us to drive our discussions, and we believe it could serve -- a similar approach could be useful to the Internet participants of IGF. Thank you.
>> QUSAI AL-SHATTI: Thank you, Alice. First I would like to congratulate you on chairing the open consultation and wish you all the success on that job. Qusai Al-Shatti, the deputy chairman of Kuwait Information Technology Society. And my intervention here is in my personal capacity.
Since the last IGF open consultations, which were held at the end of November of last year, 2010, dramatic changes took place in our part of the world. They have been by the youth and the Internet.
The Internet became an effective tool of change for the people who use it effectively to express and organize themselves.
On the contrary, during last months and up to the current date, we have witnessed how authorities have manipulated access to the Internet and openness to digital information with measures that are extreme.
Authorities made the Internet and digital information as the target and the cause of the problem rather than understanding that the Internet is just a tool in addressing the real social and economical issues that triggered the event.
During the first five years of the IGF, we have talked about how to reach the next billion users of the Internet. But what happened recently indicates how fragile this access to the Internet in terms of authorities being less or more restrictive to access to the Internet and digital information based on national circumstances.
What is worse than not accessing the Internet is to deprive someone from accessing the Internet or -- and access that is of no use. This would be called digital oppression, in my opinion. The sequence of events reflected the lack of understanding within the authorities of what is the Internet is about.
I would liken this regard to paragraph 4 of the Geneva Declaration of Principles, which lent this issue to Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. And here I'm quoting the Geneva Declaration of Principles, that everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; that this right includes the freedom to hold opinions without interference; and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.
Communication is a fundamental social process, a basic human need, and the foundation of all social organization. It is central to the information society. Everyone everywhere should have the opportunity to participate, and no one should be secluded from the benefits the information society offers.
Therefore, during the sixth IGF meeting, we would seek to include the following issues to be discussed within the theme of access. We balance the right of individuals to an acceptable, equal, free access to the Internet and the sovereign right of a nation to regulate it; building a common understanding that the manipulation of the access to the Internet is a sign of weakness; overcome the incapability of authorities in dealing with issues related to the Internet; orienting all stakeholders that the Internet is a tool of outreaching, building consensus, improving participation, listening to others and understanding people, needs and addressing them.
We would like further to see a theme that discusses establishing Internet governance of principles on national and regional levels and linking these issues -- this issue to the role of governments with an enhanced cooperation as it is mentioned in the Tunis Agenda.
Finally, I would like to express our deep respect and admiration to the youth and people of Tunisia and Egypt, who by their use of Internet have led change in their countries. Wishing them all prosperity, stability and ever-better future.
We wish also to express our thanks to the Kenyan government for hosting and organizing the sixth IGF meeting in Nairobi. Wishing it all the success. Thank you, Chair.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much. I know we've got a number of other speakers, but I'm hoping that we can move on to discuss the cross-cutting themes, main sessions and themes for workshops. I don't know whether we would want to have a lunch break because we have still got to deal with the structure and program and remote participation. And lunch is at 1:00.
May I hear any opinion? Can we forego the coffee break and just deal with the other -- with the entire agenda item until lunch? I see nodding. Is that okay for everyone? Okay, great.
So we can move on to discussing cross-cutting themes, main sessions. Already -- some speakers have already mentioned or given ideas -- already are discussing workshop themes and main session themes. But I think I would like to hear from others.
And on the list I have United Kingdom, please. Thank you.
>> UNITED KINGDOM: Thank you, Chair. Mark Carvell from the United Kingdom government. I wanted to come in quickly, first of all, to support the suggestion made earlier that the headings for sessions be framed as questions. I think that's a very useful process. It enhances the discussion both at the workshop level. Is the workshop discussion really hitting on that question, finding the answers, solutions and so on in the main session.
And then at the end of the IGF, at the kind of summing-up session, there is then the opportunity to assess how did the discussions answer those questions. To what extent did the -- did we achieve progress here? And in terms of communication, I think that's a very valuable thing to have, some kind of sense as well.
We've found -- identified these solutions. We talked about this common practice. We hit on actually new questions.
So the discussions in the IGF on a particular issue take on that kind of dynamic of moving forward and that is something where we feel the IGF has tended not to consistently do. A lot of issues seem to come back and, again, and, again. And really the IGF has to be much more forward-moving on some of these issues.
Secondly, just to come in on the issue of principles, I think -- that does worry me. We would, I think, inevitably embark on a kind of negotiating process to determine what is the principle we're trying to establish here. So in terms of the ability of the IGF to do this, I have concerns about that. It would be a distraction from the substance and dealing with, as I say, questions and moving forward on those questions. Those are the outputs that we really want to look to the IGF to deliver and be able to communicate. Thanks.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Mark.
I have COE as the next speaker, thank you.
>> COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to add to the chorus of voices to thank the Lithuanian authorities for the last IGF and welcome to the Kenyan authorities and to you, Madam Chair, and also to thank the work of Nitin Desai and Markus Kummer. My name is Lee Hibbard from the Council of Europe. And as you know, the Council of Europe has been very involved and very engaged in contributing and participating in Internet governance discussions, also the level of Europe regarding the EuroDIG, the European IGF.
I don't know whether my comments are cross-cutting or whether they are more general, broad. I just want to stress as a matter of fact, the Council of Europe is very busy mainstreaming, developing Internet governance into all of its work across the organization. That means in standard setting work, that means in monitoring, that means in cooperation work. That means in the perspective of human rights, the rule of law and democracy, many of the things which have been discussed and touched upon today.
And some of you in the room have already mentioned the Council of Europe is looking at things as Internet governance principles. Wolfgang mentioned that. Bertrand mentioned that. It's true, protecting the free flow of access to information, cross-border Internet is something very, very important. I think that needs to be raised this year in the Internet Governance Forum.
New media and democracy, new media freedoms and responsibilities, Internet services which are media based, questions by WikiLeaks is a good example or vector of discussion we should address.
Also, I don't think anyone has mentioned the importance of modernizing data protection standards. That's what we are looking at, too, with regards to things such as privacy by design, by default.
So, overall, I would like to concur with France and others about the importance of human rights in general and access. I would like to stress the importance that it is about people, that more and more people are becoming more and more dependent on the Internet for our everyday lives as we connect more.
The numbers of the Internet penetration figures are increasing, et cetera. But that means with that dependence, there is a need -- a corresponding need for us to step up the protection of values, the reflection of freedom and justice and democracy for the Internet. We can't just push it on one level and not ramp it up at the same level in parallel.
That means a people's Internet is still, for me, the overall underlying theme of any Internet forum discussion. And for 2011, I think the only value has to be about raising awareness on what other principles for the Internet, for the uses had to enable and empower users what rights and freedoms do they have online.
The IGF still needs to be dynamic and forward-looking. So marking new territory in fields that haven't been discussed is still part of the raison d'etre of the IGF for me, I.T.for sustainable development, I.T. for human rights defenders, I.T. for democracy, for example. And that ultimately means, Madam Chair, there is a great value in connecting different actors to important problems. Thank you very much.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much. May I have SIUG and then Bertrand and then Fouad. Thank you.
>> This is Norbert Bollow for the Swiss Internet User Group. I would like to react to much of the good things that have been said already by suggesting as a cross-cutting theme making a specific goal to move from broad statements about the very many aspects of Internet governance to specific, concrete outputs that can reasonably be expected to have a good positive impact on Internet users, especially, of course, when we are talking about the development situation to those struggling with poverty.
So, one of the outputs could -- or some topic be perhaps some new type of multistakeholder kind of Internet agreement like Wolfgang Kleinwächter suggested which would be less than typically intergovernmental negotiated text but more of multistakeholder process of reaching some kind of agreement.
On other topics, it would be more like some concrete actions that would be taken by perhaps a small number of stakeholders uniquely able to take action in that area.
But overall, I would suggest that we need to -- among this very broad number of things that has somehow brought up and is somehow important get to a small number of points which are particularly important and that are actually going to be taken as a focus for taking action.
And this, I think, would be a very good overall theme for the Nairobi IGF to develop this kind of process in the various topics that will be dealt with at the IGF. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Swiss Internet Users Group.
Bertrand, please?
>>INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC ACADEMY: Bertrand de La Chapelle, International Diplomatic Academy. The exercise we're making about the themes is a little bit like creating tag cloud. What I mean is that we are using different words, and the aggregation of those words give weight to the main element that move to the top of the pile.
In the different interventions that I've heard so far, there are a few words that I think I would like to add weight to, to make them move a little bit higher on the pile.
The notion of mobile is very important, particularly because in developing countries, it is the main connectivity tool. And so I would suggest a question somewhere which is: Is the mobile Internet different? So that would be in terms of policy, in terms of infrastructure, in terms of implications, applications and so on.
Another thing that I've heard that I really support is this notion of cross-border. I think we are understanding more and more something that was present in the underlying trend of our discussions in the past that has become more visible now, is the situation that because the Internet is a global network, what happens in one country has a negative impact potentially in other countries. And that includes government decisions.
And so one of the key challenges that we will be facing and that we should address is at the same time as we highlight naturally the responsibility of states in terms of their sovereignty, the term "responsibility" also as a dimension which is the responsibility of states toward other states and to not impact on the sovereignty of other states.
And I would like, in this respect, to give a very short illustration of what I was alluding to in terms of principles because I want to show understanding for the concerns that the U.K. has raised, the risk of getting into negotiations.
One example of the things we could discuss in Nairobi is the following: When a major country in the Arab region took a radical decision of interrupting access for its citizens, it purposefully did not take any measure that had an impact on the cables that were going through this country, measures that would have had an incredible consequence for all the countries on the eastern coast of Africa.
I see here in the traditional parlance of customary law -- customary international law a de facto understanding that there is a principle still unformulated that there should be no blocking or filtering of transit traffic.
Discussing the very existence or not of this principle, not negotiated, is a very valid contribution. And the fact that we would be in Kenya where these cables is coming is appropriate.
And, finally, regarding the benefit of framing the issues -- sorry. Last point to what Marilia was saying, access to knowledge is a very important topic. And there is one orphan issue that has not been addressed anywhere I know in the IGF since the WSIS, which is access to scientific information.
Access to scientific information and access to scientific data, which are two complementary topics, are very present in the Tunis Agenda and in the action plan of Geneva. It has not really been addressed, and it has a strong connection with development.
And so I would support fully what our colleague from France was saying in showing the connection between human rights or access and development. This is the link that the IGF in Nairobi will be able to make.
And, finally, in terms of process, Mark Carvell from the U.K. has rightly said that putting titles of sessions or workshops in questions would facilitate reporting on progress. One way to encourage this progress during the IGF meeting is to add between the workshops and the main sessions what we call roundtables or wrapup workshops that would actually be preparatory sessions for the main session to sort out what has been discussed in the different feeder workshops.
We need this channeling, and I would suggest that in the further discussion, the structure of the meeting could incorporate this sort of three-stage progression. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Bertrand. Fouad, please.
>> FOUAD BAJWA: Thank you, Chair. Fouad Bajwa from Pakistan. I would like to bring more light into the issue about principles, principles which are not actually policies which may be consulted as reference for policy making. I treat beliefs as sort -- principles as fundamental beliefs. The fundamental belief that I should in Pakistan be able to access the Internet so that my -- me as a citizen of Pakistan can have access to sociopolitical and economic benefits that the Internet has to offer.
It is a belief to continue and to accept the fact that I have human rights and that the rights of others are also respected with regards to the Internet.
The quality of access is what is going to help me and others in my nation be able to participate in the knowledge economy; the capacity, and that capacity being available in local languages, for Pakistan, a country with more than 50 languages spoken throughout its four provinces. A decentralized architecture brings us back to a question: Will one country's intervention actually disrupt the global operations? Will Egypt stopping the Internet for a certain period of time, what was it that it actually caused for the rest of the world? A sustainable aspect of the Internet, me and various other human beings that are connecting to the Internet want it to be sustainable. We want it to be there for the future generations.
The technical standards would somehow fall into the shadow, free and Open Source software. A foundational tool or a set of tools actually enabling access to knowledge in Africa and in nations of developing countries.
The factor of trust itself is a principle. Trust cannot be enforced by policy making. Trust cannot be enforced by just one stakeholder trying to forward a certain set of rules.
Trust has to be built. It has to be shared amongst all the users of the Internet, amongst all the human beings to carry out business, to carry out sharing, to carry out exchange of files and exchange of packets over the Internet.
To us, broader issues. Why? Because not one institution today exists in just one country. They are spread across the world. There is information sharing going on throughout parts -- various parts of the world. And what happens when that information sharing is cut down in just one country or one region?
Finally, I would say that it's -- that we should also come back to certain issues which have been lost or have gone under subthemes, that we should actually pick up access to knowledge and free and Open Source software as an important theme within the upcoming IGF. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much. Anriette, APC.
>>APC: Thank you, Madam Chair. And I think it is the first time we say "Madam Chair" in an open consultation.
[Applause]
Just to -- I think we are getting a wealth of input. And possibly by the time we get to themes of workshops, we wouldn't really need to discuss it because I think it will emerge.
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On overall themes, I think if we adopt the proposal made by ICC/BASIS and others, or some variation of it, that the overall theme is about the Internet and development, access, democratization, freedom, and we let the MAG sort out the language.
Then I think everything else can flow from that. I think we have already had concrete suggestions on main sessions. Access to knowledge for one. And I would propose that our cross-cutting themes can then quite simply be, and I like the idea proposed by the United Kingdom to phrase them as questions. One theme that focuses on capacity building, what are the capacities that need to be developed. Whom, by whom, among whom? So already looking at the capacity building interventions that are needed at the different levels for the Internet to be able to play this enabling role.
And then as a second theme, I think there is really room for compromise here between some of the suggestions, to look at the -- or the question of the second theme could be what are the issues and challenges and for instance that policymakers should consider in their work to make policy and implement policy and regulation that can enable the Internet to play this role.
So I recognize that principles can be contentious, but I think it is useful, as Brazil has proposed, for policymakers to begin to think or at least discuss principles. Not necessarily to achieve consensus on them, but to explore those principles.
So I think that's my proposal as a cross-cutting theme.
I just want to also endorse the suggestion made by India earlier to structure the program in such a way that we have progression. And Tulika can elaborate on that when we get to structure and program. And comments also made by Diplo in how we can be more effective in capturing outcomes. But I think we will get to that later.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Anriette. We seem to have covered quite a number of themes for workshops and main theme sessions. I thank you for beginning to speak about overall cross-cutting themes.
I would like to now call on Maria Häll, Sweden. You have the floor, Marie.
>>SWEDEN: Okay, very good, thank you very much.
This is Maria Häll from Sweden. I'm sorry, I thought I was after the ICC, but anyway, I can go forward.
Thank you.
Anyway, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman and Alice for moderating this meeting. And of course I would like to start by congratulating Kenya for hosting the next upcoming meeting in Kenya, and I am happy to have the opportunity to actually express our views about the upcoming meeting in Kenya.
And of course I have been participating in most of the IGF meetings, and of course I am very happy to see that the meetings have evolved very much during the years. And this is the way it's going to be in the future, I hope.
Anyway, for the Nairobi meeting, Sweden would like to maintain the introductory session setting the scene, the same format as in the IGF meeting in Vilnius. And we would like to maintain the practice of holding the main sessions and the workshop with clear links between them, the so-called feeder workshops.
Sweden thinks that the workshops also should give more room for discussions and exchange of views in order to be able to raise different questions and relevant ideas in an open, interactive dialogue with all stakeholders. For us, the nonbinding approach without negotiated outcomes is also very important for the meetings. However, summaries and outlines from the sessions made by moderators for the sessions is a useful practice, for example as being done at the European IGF called the EuroDIG. A best practice site on the IGF Web page is also a good idea.
The number of workshops could be more focused, we think, in line with selection and emerging process with requirements determined on a multistakeholder organizational basis. This purpose, for the planning process of the Nairobi meeting, this open consultation is a very important meeting. And also for the MAG, the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, that is also important with a balance of representatives on equal footing that could ensure that different people from different communities, countries, and continents could also feed into the planning of the meeting.
And we also support, of course, the latest decisions of having these open MAG meetings for observers.
We also think that cooperation with other stakeholders and organizations, like, for instance, ICANN, the RIRs, ISOC, IETF, the Council of Europe and many others, could feed into the upcoming meeting with a good result.
Sweden supports also the main sessions, but we especially think that the still interesting and relevant subject for the Nairobi meetings are the critical Internet resources, access, diversity, openness and security, and net neutrality.
A thematic area which could be further explored during the main sessions is the Internet in its function as a democratic arena where human rights, including freedom of expression and freedom of information, are important principles.
As you all know, this issue has become especially relevant today.
It's also important we think to stimulate more remote participation and the use of mobile technology, as Finland also mentioned, and we would like to stimulate more place to participate. For instance, encourage participation from national parliaments and from the youth sector.
Thank you very much.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Maria.
ICC/BASIS, please.
>>ICC/BASIS: Thank you, Jeff Brueggeman with AT&T. I want to make a few comments about the discussion of principles.
First, I think a lot depends on the process that we're talking about. If the IGF is a forum for sharing ideas and information and perspectives, then obviously principles is an important part of that. And as Wolfgang and Bertrand and others have noted, as well as Brazil, there are a lot of different discussions of principles that are already occurring around the globe in various contexts. And I think those are appropriate to bring to the IGF.
However, if we believe that the IGF is not a negotiating body, then I share the concern that negotiating principles is a step toward something that we do not want to be pursuing, because that is going to lead in a fundamental change to what we are engaging in at the IGF.
Also, I find principles to be much more relevant in a specific context. And I do think we have had some very thought provoking discussion this morning about principles as it relates to cross-border information and the global nature of the Internet. There is certainly a relevance to talking about those issues.
I find that to be more -- perhaps more relevant than a very high-level general discussion of principles, and I think -- So to me, having principles be the type of thing that comes up in the context of specific topics and issues within the IGF is something that I think already has occurred and can continue to happen and should be encouraged that way.
Sometimes that's in the context of human rights, sometimes that's in the context of privacy, and sometimes it's emerging new issues that we're just starting to wrestle with such as the flow of information through countries and other things.
So I think these are important, but I would encourage us to do that in the specific context of those issues.
And I would like to pass the mic to Ayesha.
>>ICC/BASIS: Thank you, Jeff. Ayesha Hassan for ICC/BASIS as well. I just want to go over some of the ideas put forward for cross-cutting themes at this year's IGF. From our perspective, we were very pleased that the bottom-up process of preparations put an IG for development session on the agenda for last year.
This year we feel that the IG for development issues should not be part of a main session but should really be focused through every single session.
We're hearing there is a development angle of every single topic that's been brought up. So in our view, maybe there would be a positive way of ensuring that the development issues get addressed and brought to the table and discussed with vigor by making sure that in every single main session and every subtopic, you have the question posed, as has been a wonderful suggestion brought out by the group here, what are the development issues? What are the policy challenges? What are the policy options? Are there relevant initiatives, forums, and organizations addressing these issues? What are best practices that exist on the topic? And if there is a desire to have a follow-up discussion on raising awareness about Internet governance and its relation to the development agenda more broadly, that could really be a very good substantive workshop to pick up on some of the issues that those who would like to may feel should be picked up from last year's main session.
Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, ICC.
United States.
>>UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Thank you.
I would like to direct the group to the United States' position on human rights and Internet freedom.
Last week, Secretary of State Clinton gave us a speech, her second one, on precisely this issue. So using the Internet, I would just direct you to -- if you haven't already seen it, that you can view the speech online.
Regarding the upcoming meeting in Kenya, the U.S. has a simple proposition. We support expanding the number of people who have access to the Internet globally.
Over the next decade, more than (dropped audio) the greatest number of new users will be from the developing world. We believe Kenya provides an excellent venue, and the IGF as a multistakeholder forum is uniquely positioned to discuss these Internet development issues.
One last comment. We also believe that, yes, the IGF serves a role to share principles on Internet governance, but we also would be concerned if we try to have a negotiated statement of principles, this may fundamentally change the role of the IGF.
Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much.
There was a remote participant. May we hear from that. Yeah.
>>REMOTER PARTICIPATION: Actually, there are three remote participants that have forwarded questions. First. Yuliya Morenets from NGO TAC, Together Against Cybercrime. She would suggest that the theme of the role of youth and their role in the process should be one of the main themes for workshops. Especially vulnerable youth. They believe youth voice in the field of Internet governance will be for further development and entrepreneurship.
And second, Janna Anderson would like to see more about the role of Internet intermediaries, and she believes the importance of discussing the role of Internet intermediaries is something that has shown up from time to time at the IGF but has not been addressed really by the general public.
And lastly, (saying name) from Burundi would like to see the development agenda as a main topic and he would like to support as well human rights and democracy as important and mainstream topics at the IGF.
Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much.
Parminder.
>>PARMINDER SINGH: Thank you Madam Chair. I will take from a couple of points that have come up from various speakers. And there has been a lot of convergence, much more than I would have expected, and I wonder whether it is because of the tensions that the parallel process of IGF improvement is out there .
And I think these are welcome tension. Things arrange themselves better if there are parallel processes, and I sure hope that process itself would take note of so many things which have come up here today.
As I listened to speakers, I think one of the central things which have emerged today, and there's a lot of consensus on it, is that the issues should be framed as questions in the main sessions. And if we start doing it, a lot of IGF improvements can actually arrange around this small change, if we really, sincerely do that.
And once we start doing that, we clearly -- and a lot of people asked for that, a lot of different stakeholders who often may not agree on many things.
So once you do that, I would, for the sake -- for the format, would like to continue with the feeder workshops which are already there which contribute to elaborating different aspects of the main theme question. And in between the feeder workshops and the main sessions, I agree with Bertrand's proposal which there needs to be another format which closes the gap from the feeder workshop to that two- or three-hour main session which is a roundtable kind of thing which closes things sufficiently that when you go to the main session there is a purposeful discussion there.
So I also agree with India's proposal that probably holding workshops before, in two days and holding the main sessions after that will also help this particular process of getting more focused.
I also support Brazil's contention that we should look at general principles, and we should be trying to -- try to see whether we can agree on a certain set of principles which are broad. There was a lot of consensus again, to reuse that word, at the closing session in Vilnius that those Brazilian principles were very good. A lot of people, almost everybody seemed to be agreeing on them. And there's no reason we try to push that to a global platform.
And as for what ICC said, that these principles are more proper for specific areas, and I agree that that, too should be attempted. I understand the Brazilians were not looking necessarily for a particular set of principles, but to look at trying to arrive at principles as one of the main ways we get together and work at the IGF in different areas. And if possible, also overall principles, the work which COE (saying name) and Wolfgang's working group are doing is a very good area and they can bring their principles. I read them. They are really good. I would really like to see them worked also at the global level.
So I think principles are possible in different areas, they are possible at an overall area, and itself is a general principle of working rather than necessarily looking at something out there and negotiated document.
About the overall theme, there was discussions amongst civil society participants in these consultations, and we came up with two possibilities. One is Internet governance for development, and another was Internet governance for democracy.
And I heard the speakers from COE talk about the people's Internet, and I wonder whether that looks much more well rounded and less contentious to talk about a people's Internet which covers the development and the democratic part without probably raising too many hackles.
So the suggestion is we can talk about a people's Internet as an overall theme.
As for main session themes, network neutrality again is something which has been expressed very commonly here, and the Internet Governance Caucus has been trying to get this theme in for the last couple of years. And I think the whole world is discussing network neutrality as a key Internet governance theme. And if we at the IGF do not discuss it, we are probably leaving a lot of people's perspectives out, and that should be a key main session thing. Cross-border Internet is obvious from what we heard here. Development agenda should carry on. A lot of people have said that. And access to knowledge is another emerging theme.
On development gender for Internet, and whether it should run through all the sessions or it should be a standalone, I think it's not either/or. And this learning comes from agenda mainstreaming. You ask gender, and she will say no. Just because gender is not part of everything does not mean there should not be specific things on gender issues because if you spread it out too thin it just vaporizes, and therefore it should be in a separate theme. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: India, Nominet and then Senegal, and then after that I think I would like to move to us discussions on the structure and program, and then remote participation if you don't mind.
India, please.
>>INDIA: Thank you, Madam Chair. Taking on from Parminder, I think he has covered most of the issues I wanted to raise, but two points that I did want to sort of underline here. The cross-body sharing is a very important cross-cutting theme that the developing countries would like to look at. And it is different from principles of sharing. These two have their own important positions, and we should not sort of stay covering one from the other would be possible. So that would be a cross-cutting theme for all sessions, information sharing, access.
We did have a little focus on Internet exchange points in a few workshops, and there have been similar other aspects that have been taken up. But I think it needs to be taken up a little more in the main session. So that's one point.
And the other is the principles of sharing. I think somewhere, it does not always imply negotiations on the table, but it would actually help many people to understand the basic principles of critical Internet resources and their allocation of principles. And I suppose bringing that on to a session would demystify a lot and so we should consider having a main session on principles of sharing in general.
And yes, I am not a feminist, and a feminist is not always a lady. It could be a guy. And I know that there are quite a few of them. But gender is a very important aspect along with the challenge, people who need to be brought onto the mainstream of Internet benefits. And somewhere, I think while we began this in the last two IGFs, it has watered down and we need to bring that up again in the next IGF that we are considering.
Thank you, madam.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Nominet.
>>NOMINET: (Speaking off microphone) Nominet.
Sorry, my light did just come on. I'll start again.
Martin Boyle from Nominet.
I would like to pick up on a couple of the comments that have been made around the table. In particular, Maria H�ll from Sweden flagged up the importance of engaging with parliamentarians. And this has been something that in the UK we have seen as particularly important, the approach of trying to engage and inform and help legislators identify the issues and possible responses to those issues. And I am also conscious that this is something that the countries of East Africa have put a lot of attention on. And I think that this is something that I would like to see being built into the program in some way or other, because I think legislators around the world, and certainly there were a large number in Vilnius, can learn from one another and can benefit from their discussions not only with one another but with the wider communities associated in Internet governance.
A remote participant raised the point on the involvement of young people. And certainly I am aware that the UK is likely to have eight teenage young people attending Nairobi. And that, I think, is something which perhaps could link quite well into the skills agenda, which is why I asked my question earlier. I think this is a very, very interesting area, very exciting area, but actually a very important area for the global community.
And I think both -- the involvement of both of these groups will benefit quite substantially from sessions where the title is framed as a question, because it will make it very much easier for them to prepare their own minds for responding to a question rather than going into something with near enough a blank sheet of paper on some of these issues where the issues are actually very, very wide.
ICC/BASIS suggested the idea of mainstreaming development, and see a lot of logic in doing this. But I, for one, I think would be a little bit reluctant to see the idea of mainstreaming, we lose the visibility and the importance of the development agenda for our agenda. And so if you were to mainstream, I do think you need to have a good deal of visibility of that intention to mainstream by the overall heading of the program and by making very clear reference to development in the way you frame the plenary sessions.
We've heard some comments about how to structure, and obviously we are going to come back to the structure in a later agenda item. I'm not too worried about exactly how you do that, but I am very clear in my own mind that the approach we followed in Vilnius of feeder workshops into the plenaries was particularly successful. I think it did help a lot of workshops think very carefully about what it was that they were doing. And certainly it helped me as a workshop organizer to be able to organize my workshops in a way that they would it dialogue sessions rather than talking head sessions.
And my last comment would be about agenda items for plenary that I do see as being quite important still. One of these is the security, openness, privacy theme which I think is underlying an awful lot of our work. The other one is access. Again, I think it is actually fundamental to all our work on Internet governance.
Thank you, Chair.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Still on the topic.
>>SENEGAL: Thank you. Hello. Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I want first to congratulate Kenya for hosting the next IGF meeting, and I'm happy that two years after our chairmanship meeting we come back to Africa. And I think it can help for to us raise the problem about the digital divide.
That's why I really want this -- the next IGF meeting to focus on access, especially when we talk about management of the critical Internet resources. We know we have depletion of IPv4, and we have to make the transition between IPv4 and IPv6 and I think most of our country are not ready so I think it can be the opportunity to talk about this and to focus more on this Internet critical access -- resource.
And I also would suggest to focus on the broadband access on Internet and specifically how to enhance social network inside Africa. Because I think inside the continent, we have some -- still have some problem of interconnection between our countries. And I think this can be the opportunity to talk about the cooperation inside the region, and to enhance how we can provide access and information, access to knowledge to our people.
And I fully support what Nominet said about position with the parliamentary. I think it's important to have more involvement of not only the government but also the parliamentary and the regional -- at the regional level.
Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much. I would like to move us to the next agenda item, the discussion on structure and program of the Nairobi meeting. And I have on the list I have Patrik Fältström, and then Greece.
>>PATRIK FÄLTSTRÖM: Thank you, Madam Chair.
Regarding -- I actually have something that talks a little bit more specifically about security, openness and privacy, where I think there can be some enhancements done.
The security, openness and privacy issues have been explored at both the main session and at various workshops, and I think we should move forward with some improvements, in specifically four different areas.
The first one has to do with Internet openness and network evolution. And we already heard some wording about Internet exchange points at these meetings just as one example. And to be able to communicate more, we of course need more investments, and we also need more broadband all over the world.
So -- And the next bullet which is connected to this had to do with human rights issues connected to openness and neutrality issues. And that is something that I also support. We need to talk more about that.
The third issue is that I think being one of the co-chairs of the main session on cloud at the last IGF meeting, I think what I heard quite strongly at that session was that one thing that we have not been talking about -- enough about has to do with various cross-border issues. And that is something that definitely has do with security and openness issues, and that is something that we can move forward and take the discussion to the next level.
And the last thing that also to some degree was discussed in the cloud session has to do with the privacy issues. And one thing I think we can specifically talk about is how to preserve privacy issues in a cross-border environment and still serve, for example, enforcement purposes . And there we can build upon work that both OECD, Council of Europe and others have already been doing.
So openness and network evolution, human rights issues regarding -- connected to openness and neutrality, cross-border issues and how to preserve privacy.
Thank you.
>>GREECE: Just a brief comment, Madam Chair, just to support what Martin Boyle said about the participation of parliamentarians. And in the past, I have urged -- and I'm going to repeat that -- the IGF Secretariat or you to pick up contact with the Interparliamentary Union. They are based here in Geneva. They are keen in cooperating with the U.N. They cooperate already with the Human Rights Council and so forth. And they know a lot about parliaments, parliamentarians and probably that type of cooperation would be very useful. Probably one of the issues, the Internet governance, I don't think it has figured on their agenda. So, as I said, I would encourage this cooperation to bring about more participation by parliamentarians. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: May I ask if we have remote participants and then Bertrand. I would really like to move to the discussion on the structure and program. If you are going to be discussing, I would first like to invite Chengetai to just give us a brief overview on the next item, if you don't mind. Chengetai first.
>>CHENGETAI MASANGO: I just wanted to say a word on the themes for the workshops because there has been discussion on feeder workshops. And so the question is, shall we keep feeder workshops? Shall we just limit all the workshops to be feeder workshops? Or should we allow workshops and other themes that do not feed into the main sessions? So that's broadening the topics that workshops can be on.
And we have gone through the supporting for the focus of development as a workshop focus, at every single one is a workshop focus. So my main question is about the feeder workshops and also limiting the themes of the workshops, if we could just touch on that one. Thanks.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Next I have Bill Drake and then remote participants.
>>BILL DRAKE: Thank you, Madam Chair. Actually I was going to talk about something else, but I can talk to this point, too. The question of how to make feeder workshops work is an interesting one. I did it last year at Vilnius. I have done, over the past four years, four workshops now on the notion of a development agenda and for the Vilnius meeting helped to facilitate the organization of the main session. And so the idea was that the workshop that I organized as well as a couple others that we selected on development aspects were going to feed directly at the IG4D session.
Frankly, I don't think it works that well. Part of the reason I think for that is that workshops by their nature tend to be fairly free-wheeling discussions. It's hard sometimes to really come away from them with very clear, kind of itemized take-away points which you can then insert into a main session discussion in a way that really helps to inform and structure things going forward.
And, you know, that's, to me, unfortunate because I've always been among the advocates -- and there are many here -- of having a closer linkage between main sessions and workshops. But the reality is that, you know, you establish these kind of loose structures but it doesn't actually, in my view, end up having that much value.
Personally, what I think is needed, if you want to try to build linkages that are more effective -- and if you want also to have a little bit more richer and less general or generic sorts of discussions in the main sessions would be to have something more elaborate based on what we did for planning the main sessions last time, instead of just doing the usual kind of MAG process of selecting leading stakeholders on a given topic, et cetera, and then letting them rip and see how it goes.
What we did was to have these kind of ad hoc groups that came together that worked on listservs, that tried to talk for a while about how to plan a main session. And the one that we did for development, I thought, was fairly effective in a way. I mean, we identified a structure, four main topical discussion points that we were then able to proceed through.
But it was just a listserv discussion. And it was kind of randomly organized, and we didn't really have much serious engagement from, government, particularly developing country governments, in the discussion about development. And we didn't have any way of sort of promoting broader engagement in the community so that people felt invested in this topic.
So when we showed up for the main session on development, I was quite disappointed to see that, like, 2/3 of the main plenary room was empty. And several people that I talked to as I was walking up to the podium said to me things like, "What the heck is IG4D?" "What is this about?" "What are the connections between development and Internet governance?" "This makes no sense."
And so it really struck me that we hadn't prepared the ground to make this a useful thing. So I would say that somehow we have to go beyond simply thinking that if we're going to put some workshops that are on topic and put them the day before, they are going to feed into the main sessions and that's going to make the main sessions richer, more dynamic and well-structured, I don't think it works that way. I think you need a more structured process of preparing the dialogues in the main sessions.
Personally, I would favor having working groups. I have always favored the idea of having working groups that can actually have outputs, recommendations, ideas that might be a little bit more meaty and taken forward. But something at least like we did last time perhaps with more support, I think, would be very useful. Thanks.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Bill. I have remote participants and then U.K. and then Bertrand. Sorry.
>> YULIYA MORENETS: The first remote participant is Yuliya Morenets from NGO, TaC-Together against cybercrime. She would like to talk about what Mr. Boyle has said about youth involvement. She would like to add and to share the information that they organize in France, Strasbourg, a kind of simulation meeting of IGF where the vulnerable youth will take the roles of IGF leaders and express their thoughts and ideas concerning the main IGF issues.
And they would like to bring their message to Nairobi and call to all stakeholders to join the initiative which has already a strong support of local authorities.
>>MARILIA MACIEL: Yuliya, we would like to hear your report as well. Please do send to us.
>>DIETER CARSTENSEN: Dieter Carstensen from the European NGO Alliance for Child Safety Online, and also an IGF veteran, would like to call attention to the need for capacity-building and youth leadership. This will be key for Internet rollouts and uptakes and proper usage. He would like to see this built into the discussions as well.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Bertrand?
>>INTERNATIONAL DIPLOMATIC ACADEMY: Bertrand de La Chapelle. Internet is evolving into a social space, and I think the people's Internet is maybe not the expression that's going to be kept. But what we're talking about is rules and norms within the global community that is connected through the Internet.
And because we're saying the word "social," I think there is a word we haven't really used so far which is "social media." It was clearly emerging from the previous IGFs before. They are playing a critical role, as we all know, in the current environment. I think it is positive that we have moved one step further to the notion of rights or principles.
But applicable norms or the governance of social media is clearly a thread in there. In this respect, the notion of having questions as titles, I fully support Parminder's remark that this is a very minor change that will change the discussion because it will force people in the discussions tomorrow, MAG extended, and later on as Bill Drake said, it will force people to formulate the topic as an issue of common concern or interest. And it is a very much more complex effort than we think, but it will force people to come together on the formulation of their common question.
As far as the intermediary format between workshops and main sessions, I like Parminder's expression about closing the gap and making a thread. I had the experience last year of doing a sort of workshop of that sort, a wrapup workshop on social media. It brought all the other organizers of the other workshops to prepare for input in main sessions. And it was very useful to just do a wrapup without presentations, just among the actors who have been participating in workshops.
However, there is a problem of timing because the idea of having the workshops in the first two days and then the main sessions in the end is attractive, but I'm not sure that it is going to work efficiently. And I understand that there are administrative constraints that will potentially have an impact on having translation and things available for the main session. So we probably need to keep them during the week.
One idea would be to have the main sessions maybe shortened a little bit and have this sort of wrapup preparatory segment in the same main hall but with the participation of people who have been involved in the workshops before.
I would support what Bill Drake was saying regarding the need to allow people to continue to work and maybe form some small teams to continue working on the preparation of the main sessions and the wrapup workshops so that there is a more continuous process.
And, finally, just to answer some of the concerns that have been raised regarding the notion of principles, the definition of Internet governance is the elaboration of principles, norms and rules. So we shouldn't be afraid of using the terms "principles, norms and rules."
However, it is absolutely true that the purpose of the IGF and the format of the IGF is not about drafting and negotiating principles. It is about exchanges, and it is about bringing awareness of all the actors of the existence of processes or the existence of principles that have been established in other spaces.
I think there is an agreement within this group of the fine line between exploring principles and sharing principles and discussing principles on a topic-by-topic basis and not getting into a single session probably that would be about drafting principles of any sort.
I think it is better if we try to clarify it. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Bertrand, I have just been informed that we will not -- we have only got about 15 minutes to go. We won't have transcription after that. So I would like -- and we have got six speakers. So I would like to request the next speakers, U.K., Patrick Fältström, IGC, Chris Disspain, Portugal and Nurani, if you could make quick issues or if the issues you will raise can spill on to the next session so we can come back and pick it up after lunch.
The next speaker is U.K.
>>UNITED KINGDOM: Thank you, Madam Chair. I will try and be as brief as possible. First of all, just to echo very much what Bertrand has done to sort of sum up the discussion on principles, and U.K.'s very sympathetic to his conclusion.
Secondly, responding to Chengetai's question about feeder workshops and, in particular, should workshops all be feeder workshops, which I think was one element of his question, we would argue no. We really do endorse the value of feeder workshops as long as they are rigorously managed and, as I said in my previous intervention, linked to a question and the handling of the work of the workshop is kept on track in relation to that question and then that feeds usefully through reporting into the main session. So feeder workshops, yes, very good.
We should allow for other workshops because they are the channel for stakeholders to table new issues, some issues perhaps that are not being addressed in other fora. So we should allow the possibility for workshops to be proposed, which are not related to main sessions. I think that's a very important thing to preserve, the openness of IGF to issues.
I would agree that -- thirdly, I would agree that the session in Vilnius on development fizzled out somewhere. It didn't match out expectations. But we have every confidence that with, as I say, tighter management of feeder workshops in the context of an African host with enhanced remote participation from developing countries, we will have a much more effective and productive discussion on development as a main session in Nairobi.
Fourthly, very briefly, coming back to a point on cloud computing that Patrick Fältström raised, we think the IGF is uniquely placed to consider some of the cross-border issues. We will see the widespread -- we hope to see the widespread use of cloud services, K-storing (phonetic) and processing of data in overseas countries. And that raises issues about jurisdictional issues, data protection, IPR issues if data is stored in other countries. So the IGF is uniquely placed, as I say, to take forward those discussions. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. Patrick Fältström.
>> Patrick Fältström: Madam Chair, my apologies for not being a good flag mover. So skip me, please.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Izumi.
>> IZUMI AIZU: Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you, Patrick. Well, some of the civil society members yesterday and today discussed, and following what Bill Drake said, that we would like to see IGF be not only in an annual event but rather a sort of -- more of a continuum process. It doesn't or shouldn't end at the last day of its meeting in Nairobi, period.
We'd like to see some creative innovation, just like the Secretary-General Kofi Annan said, that we need to be no less creative than those who invented it. So we would like to think that it could be more outcome-oriented while preserving its basic nature of forum for policy dialogue, not negotiation, not policy making per se.
How about making -- well, creating working groups for work after Nairobi, for a few weeks, a few months? To create some kind of output document. Some suggested that these young people don't really read papers. Create some videos, if we can. That would be nicer.
But, say, a 10-page document for each of the main themes and create some working group recognized by the MAG but the MAG themselves are not working group members. If they wish, some of them can.
And just major points of discussions taken in the four days or five days because it is very difficult within the main session to wrap up reasonably covering all points without any work. It just gives the burden to the secretariat to come up with a chair's summary in two hours. That's not really rationale.
How about making the so-called open consultation in February will -- not starting the open consultation process but wrapup after the IGF so that we'll have more rationale, engaged process. Maybe a draft can be presented with open for public comment. You can add things, divergent views. But still it could act as a product, so it is not a negotiated text again. But it has something more than the synthesis paper. That is sort of a provisional suggestion. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Chris Disspain, please.
>> CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Just some comments on structure, if I may. Accepting everything that Bill has said and Bertrand, looking at it from the aspect of running the critical Internet resources session in Vilnius, the feeder workshops were fantastic. We were able to get some really useful information into the main room from the feeder workshops that were held for that critical Internet resources session.
However, I do acknowledge that it is quite hard work. You have to make sure that the feeder workshops, you meet with the people after they have run the feeder workshops, the people have actually taken notes, and then you need to obviously integrate that into running the main session. But I certainly think that feeder workshops are very valuable.
I know that there are significant difficulties with trying to not have workshops clashing with main sessions. And I appreciate it's very hard to fix that. But, I think it's really important to note that the feedback on the critical Internet resources session -- some of the feedback on the critical Internet resources session was that there were -- there were not necessarily as many people in the room as would be expected, although the room was quite full, and that the discussion itself wasn't perhaps as dynamic as it normally is.
There are two reasons for that. One is because we have been discussing it at every IGF since Adam was a boy -- (laughter) -- so some of the heat has gone out of the debate.
But the second reason is that there were people who Jeanette and I, as running that session, would have wanted in the room who simply couldn't be there because they were on panels of separate workshops. And that does make it extremely hard to create a vibrant and dynamic debate.
>>PORTUGAL: Thank you. Portugal. Very briefly, I would just like to say that the ad hoc groups or working groups is a very good idea, as Bill Drake mentioned. And I think that it should be the way.
The workshops shall not be limited to feeding the plenaries because this should be used to explore other themes that are not ripe yet to be discussed in a plenary or because the scope is more appropriate to be discussed in a workshop format than in a plenary.
Well, having said that, it does not mean that some workshops cannot be organized to feed in some plenaries. That is a good idea as well. So I think a combination of different formats is the way out. Thank you.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: I think last, Nurani.
>> NETNOD: Thank you, Madam Chair. I will keep it short and just comment on the format of workshops and main sessions. I agree with previous speakers that the feeder workshops in the last year worked really well. I think it creates linkages to the main sessions. It did work better in some cases than others. But if done well -- and I realize a lot of work goes into that -- it does inform the discussions in the main sessions. So I do believe there is a lot of value in keeping the main -- the workshop themes in line with the main themes.
I also like the way the main sessions were formed last year through these rather dynamic working groups of volunteers and these open planning sessions. Again, I think the ones where people put in a lot of work informing those sessions worked better than others.
One of the main challenges is to focus and limit the number of workshops, and I think we need to get better at that. We need to make sure that the workshops actually follow the criteria we set because otherwise, there is no point in setting those criteria and maybe communicate a bit more actively with the workshop organizers. And that was a bit of a challenge last year or previous years, I think. By limiting the number of workshops, we also reduce the number of clashes. But it also means we can focus the workshops a little better and focus the good quality workshops will result in better input into the main sessions.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Brazil, I see Marilyn. We don't have much time, but Brazil first.
>>BRAZIL: Thank you, Madam Chair. Very briefly then, I would like to briefly refer to speakers regarding the importance of feeder workshops and the idea of no limitation about themes that the other workshops could deal with.
The second point, I'd like to support the idea of a more structured process in preparing the main sessions and also dealing with all the information that we had in the main sessions, as Bill Drake and others mentioned in previous -- during this morning.
Finally, now it is a suggestion. I would like to suggest the idea of merging the session of structuring the scene with the presentation by the regional IGFs. Maybe the regional IGFs could have a full morning in order to present their outputs and discuss their conclusions. I believe this could serve as setting the scene itself for the global IGF. Thank you very much.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Last speaker Marilyn Cade.
>> TECH AMERICA: Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Like a speaker earlier, I welcome the opportunity to say that. I'm going to make three comments. My name is Marilyn Cade, and I'm speaking on behalf of Tech America.
One comment that I would like to make is while I have been pleased to observe the benefit of the use of feeder workshops, we do believe that there must be the opportunity for independent workshops as well.
I would also know that we must factor into our thinking, if we propose to use feeder workshops, that there is substantial additional coordination and planning that is needed. And this is very important to understand because those who take on the function of organizing a workshop have the need to meet the needs of their participants but also to have a further layer of interaction and coordination.
My second comment -- and I would say more about this perhaps this afternoon -- is I would like to talk more about the participation of the regional and national IGFs. I am the chief catalyst of the IGF USA. I will say more about that this afternoon. But I think it would be helpful to think about the interactions coming to and going back from the global IGF into the national and regional IGFs.
Finally, a long-standing comment from Tech America that I will repeat, it's our view that there will be a lot of new people at the IGF in Kenya and that there will be a much deeper opportunity for participation for new participants. So as we plan the IGF workshops, I think we must keep in mind it is not the number of workshops that matters. In fact, it is are we meeting the needs of the breadth of our participants.
>>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Marilyn. I would like to thank everybody for the very rich discussions and the energy. Thank you for this morning's session. It seems like we already have overwhelming support for a development agenda, and I think one question I would like to leave with all of you as you go for lunch is exactly what do we mean by a "development agenda." What does "development" mean?
And to take it back to what Marilyn has said, where I come from, Internet governance and development really does -- I mean, we will have to link to our livelihood issues if we want to reach people at the various levels, if we want to reach that digital divide.
So I would want -- I mean, I would personally be looking at it from how does Internet governance really contribute to my livelihood or to the livelihood of the people of East Africa. And so I want to ask you during lunch to really consider what we mean when we talk about a development agenda.
Then I will come back -- I don't know -- We have run out of time. So I really don't have time to give a brief summary of all the discussions we've had. So that's the first thing I will do when we come after lunch at 3:00. Thank you very much and have a good lunch.
[ Applause ]
[ Lunch break ]