IGF2025-DAY 1 - Studio N - [Parliamentary session 4] From dialogue to action Advancing digital cooperation across regions and stakeholder groups

>> Jennifer Chung: Hello, everyone. Welcome to the session, From dialogue to action: Advancing digital cooperation across regions and stakeholder groups. So building on the outputs of the 2024 Parliamentarian track and the discussions in this room for the past two days, this is the open dialogue session where we have multistakeholder representation and consultations to bring together the Members of Parliament and key digital players to reflect on how to operationalize, how to concrete tangible, inclusive and collaborative policymaking efforts you are doing in your home jurisdictions.

All Groups are invited to propose collaborative and cooperative approaches to building Digital Governance and identify practical steps for sustaining cooperation beyond the IGF. I'm your Moderator, my name is Jennifer Chung, I'm from DotAsia. And also the 2025 MAG this year. A little bit of housekeeping rules.

So this session is scheduled for the next 90 minutes, sorry about that. And interpreted into English, Spanish, and French. It is an open dialogue, as I mentioned, with no panelists. There are support staff around the room holding the mics. If you would like to take the floor, raise your hand.

A brief reminder, the previous sessions that you have had included many different experts from the technical community, from the private Sector, Civil Society and Intergovernmental organisations. Members of Parliament, you know you have been waiting for an open dialogue as well. You have a lot to contribute to this session as well and discussing emerging trends on freedom of expression, information integrity and other online harms.

We have invited, of course, I see in the rows here, different Representatives from the stakeholder Groups from Private Sector. A see representation from Open AI, from ally, from Google, Meta. From technical community, ISOC, APNIC Foundation, ICANN, RIPE ICC and centre for democracy and technology. From Civil Society and Academia, we have the Oversight Board, AFRISIG and the whole Government, the executive legislative and judicial branch members to speak here. And from Intergovernmental organisations we have the African Union, GISED, un‑NDP, UNESCO, UNICEF and parliamentary organisations and associations.

Before I open the floor, there are brief guiding questions, I think we start to get your creative juices flowing and thinking about things to share. After yesterday and today parliamentary track sessions, how can we operationalize concrete inclusive and collaborative policymaking efforts?  Are there any proposals for a cooperative approach to building strong and efficient effective Digital Governance?  And also, finally, any practical steps for sustaining cooperation with Members of Parliament and other valuable and superintendent stakeholders beyond the IGF.

So now without further ado, I will open the floor. I am seeing in the front row, there are already Representatives that might want to start us off.

From ISOC.

>> ATTENDEE: Shall I turn around or stand up. I'm principal at the Internet Society. That means a lot. And it means not that much.

But at the Internet Society, we have been basically trying to operationalize this interaction with policymakers for I would say the duration of our existence.

One of the ways we do that, numerous ways is through the funding and enabling and training of National and Regional IGF.

That is a way where you can take the ideas that come out of the Global IGF, back to the National level, and vice versa. I see this as a flying wheel. Ideas and new norms are being discussed, things that work are being sorted out at the National level. And of course, technology most of the technology that we use today is Global. Software is being developed Global. The Internet itself is a Global infrastructure. A network of networks. But at the local level, we have perhaps different norms than in other places in the world. And we have different approaches to how we organize our societies. Things that work at one place might be an inspiration for other places. I strongly believe that the National IGFs are sort of the collection points of norming, forming, storming about solutions. And operationalizing the solutions and bringing them back in the Regional and Global level where people can discuss them and bring them back as examples of how to collaborate. And actually operationalize the things that you are dealing with, within your local and National jurisdictions.

I don't want to go on too long. I think this is ‑‑ I'll be happy to answer any questions you have.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you, Olaf from Internet Society. Raoul from Private Sector.

>> ATTENDEE: Good afternoon, everybody. Thank you for the invitation to participate in this session. My name is Raoul, I'm the Executive Director of the Latin America Internet association. It is a Private Sector association in Latin America.

We have in our DNA the idea of cooperating with policymakers and we're trying to find avenues of participation and collaboration with policymakers.

It is as Olaf said before, we have in the Regional IGF and we have also National IGF in many countries of Latin America. The participation of Governments and Parliamentarians is not very high in the Regional and local IGF.

This is something that I hope we can change based on this experience of the Parliamentarian track in IGF and that allow many people to have an idea, more concrete idea of what the IGF is and what the Regional IGFs are. In addition to that, we are trying to promote other possibilities of cooperation and working opportunities to work together. We recently organized a meeting in Mexico that were attended by 30 Parliamentarians in the Region. Colleagues from Uruguay joined us in that meeting. We're hopeful in this, in that this is something that we are the it building, something under construction that will progress in the future with bigger participation. But there are other initiatives ongoing, I think that is ‑‑ if we take all of the initiatives together, there are reasons to be in having a more cooperative work in the Region.

One thing we learned from all of the years in working in IGF and Internet Governance field, is the wisdom and expertise is highly distributed. And only in with the participation of everybody, we can develop not only the best policies we need, but also the right time. Timing is not a minor thing. This is a reason to encourage people to work together. On those of us in this are working on the opportunities, we work hard until we realize that we achieve the best possible consensus. To maximize the consensus, based on the majorities. That is the rule of democracy. Bring those two cultures close together, understand each other and try to produce the best results we can. Thank you.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you Raoul for the good collaborative proposals and suggestions. I have on my list Abel DeSilva.

>> ATTENDEE: Thank you, I'm Abel DeSilva. Former Chair of the Committee in the international Parliament. I would like to give a perspective from Developing Countries. I think to add on to what is mentioned by the two previous speakers, I would like to propose three main points here. First is how to improve multistakeholder collaboration. Because we come from so many different backgrounds. You have Google and big tech with different interests, academics, Governments and NGOs. And we have sometimes conflicting interests. We need a real mechanism for us to sit together and discuss the issues we have here. We need, perhaps specific ‑‑ how to say, specific Group on AI, the privacy, misinformation, disinformation, something like that, so that will increase our capacity to work together. The second issue and point I would like to promote is how to harmonize Regional and Global regulatory framework. Because if you try to engage with different countries, from western hemisphere, they have more advanced capacity to develop their own legal frameworks. But if you are speaking like from my background, in Istanbul, we have a limited capacity. So this kind of mechanism will help us to develop ourself and then to plan and develop our capacity.

The last point I would like to suggest is how to promote a more transparent application of intelligence. Yesterday, we versus the Parliament of Norway they introduced something really important and really interesting. Which is more accountable AI machine? At the moment we fear AI because it has been treated as a black box. We don't know how it reaches its conclusions. That makes us very ‑‑ how to say, suspicious of the machine. If we can develop a technology with a transparent mechanism. Then we don't need to fear the Mission anymore. It is in how it reaches its conclusion.

That is it really important effort here. The last one for the above three proposals, we really need to actually increase effort to enhance parliamentary capacity for digital policymaking process. I think speaking from my background, I think not only Timor‑Leste, but others are in need of the capacity. That's it for me. Thank you so much.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much. You brought up good points. Even in a multistakeholder model, if there are competing or conflicting interests, you can have open and frank dialogue, it is good. Building capacity is important. And transparent and accountable development of emerging technology like AI. I will next go to Raj from APNIC Foundation.

>> ATTENDEE: I'm CEO at APNIC Foundation. Our claim to fame is over the past 30 years we helped build most of the Internet in the Asia‑Pacific Region. As you are aware, the Asia‑Pacific is a diverse Region. We have some of the most advanced economies in the world and some of the least developed in the world as well upon President Region itself is shows how to do things. I was listening to the colleague from Timor‑Leste. Couple of things to say. As policymakers you have a responsibility to reach or create outcomes for your citizens. But when you go down that path, you know, I would urge you to consider that there are a range of technical experts around the world who are there ready to help you with those decisions.

Oftentimes, we see around the world, not just in Asia‑Pacific but around the world, there are decisions made at the policy level that don't take into account the technical operations of the Internet. The interoperability that makes the AI work and what makes all of that work is the Internet. Once you fiddle at the basic structure of the Internet, you create problems you may not realize.

I see a lot of colleagues here from the technical community. All of us are here to help you better understand the implications of the policy decisions you make. I know there are challenges at the higher layers of the Internet. The applications we use, the services we use. But when you are working at those layers and trying to control things and change things. Ensure the decisions you make at the higher level don't affect the basic infrastructure, if we lose the basic infrastructure, all of the other stuff won't be in dialogue.

It is important to realize that.

Another quick point, some of the previous colleagues spoke about IGF and local IGF and Regional IGF. APNIC has been supporting that as well since inception.

Other Groups to engage with are the cooperative Groups, Groups from Private Sector and academy and other Sectors that run what we are using. Most compete, but they come together at the meetings to solve technical problems.

Again, in most communities you will have network operated Groups. You will be a resource to understand the technicalities and how policy integrations can impact. I will stop there. I will offer you my card, from Tim ‑‑ Timor‑Leste, we can talk.

>> Jennifer Chung: It is important to take into account the technical underpinnings of the critical infrastructure of the Internet. Don't break the Internet, is what we like to say. Next is a Parliamentarian in the back.

>> ATTENDEE: I'm Anna, I'm from Parliament in Germany. I thinking about a comment that an esteemed colleague made yesterday in the bigger session, the bigger room. It was a strong plea for IGF to provide a Forum to actually support us as National Parliamentarians and the power dynamics that exist in the Internet at the moment. Which is the extra power in the Internet currently resides with the big tech companies that have in their respective field Kouassi monopolies in many areas. We as Parliamentarians as National Governments and the UN system as a whole doesn't have power in this system. I think that is the fundamental problem that we should address here as Parliamentarian and how to look at working to address this issue to make sure that that we are citizens that voice and get power over big tech companies that are playing with us as National Governments as National will Parliaments as they want. Threatening to leave, threatening to not have a service, threatening not to pay this. Threatening to use other tactics. I think that is something we need to work on and use this Forum also to address this, particularly when it comes to hate crimes and to issues we were talking about digital colonialism, that is a key concern for many colleagues here from the African continent.

I want to talk about that as Parliamentarians and while preserving the Internet, the technology behind it.

As well, providing a space for freedom of speech. It needs to be safeguarded. I don't want National or international Governments to prevent free speak. We should have a case where everyone feels encouraged and don't suppress themselves, regardless of the religion or organisation or country. I'm here to work on that.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you, you brought up an important point. Addressing the power imbalances. Having a multistakeholder process and to dialogue in a way to talk to each other at the IGF, that is important.

I don't know. I'm looking at IGF Secretariat, maybe in the future Parliamentarians can be more where you we don't have to come to you or you come to us. It is together we have a dialogue. That is important.

Next on the luxury is Rodrigo from Uruguay?  Am.

>> Uruguay: Can I speak in Spanish?  Given what we know about the challenges that we need to face, I think that the Parliaments do need to centre this in their Agendas and incorporate into their activity. All of the issues that we are seeing here need to be dealt with, within the Parliaments. And for this we need to overcome mistrust that may exist. We need to change the paradigm that exists within parliaments today. We don't need to be reactive, we should not try to control everything, everything that has to do with AI Internet. We need to find a space within Parliament that allows us the challenge to overcome all of the challenges.

I would like to share with you an experience that we have had in Uruguay. I know it has been replicated in other Parliaments. This is a Committee on futures. We have identified a model that puts into practice this multistakeholder point of view and also the participatory Governance. It is a model that allows us to overcome the dichotomy between right and left. So I would like to invite all Parliamentarians here in the room to consider using this model. I know some are already implementing it, it allows the other parts will the allies, the Internet associations, the Private Sector, Academia, it allows them to be integrated within the spaces in a permanent manner. Not as an invited guest for one day. Not as an invited guest at a different level, but it offers the space within the Parliament which is the democratic space that we have and the best space to define and deal and address the issues, but with a different paradigm. It allows us to express the issues but we want to if over it, because we realize that multistakeholder input is important. We see how the model is incentivized and we want more innovative and participatory Governance. As I said it is being applied in some Parliaments, we're seeing good results, thank you very much.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you, Uruguay. The multistakeholder model will help us overcome geopolitical tensioned and help us talk about thorny difficult subjects.

The next on the list is the senator from Pakistan. Please.

>> Pakistan: I want to appreciate the joint effort by the UN and IGF to put together a multistakeholder Forum. Because this is what was missing from the IGF to have Parliamentarians and build out a guided policy framework and have everybody on board. And your launching ceremony today where we could see the UN the political leadership all coming together, it opened new opportunity for solving the issues that we have been debating for years.

Impacts on the Senate of Pakistan is the first Senate that I know of has launched the AI generated, they will use the technology for transparency and following of information for administrative purposes. The initiative for the Senate, it is a unique model that would be taken forward. You would see Pakistan leading in technology in terms of the Parliament.

For me, one more important point is we consider Internet as a public good and appreciating it is too kilometers above the ground still makes it the bounds and boundaries of the sovereign countries who have the right to legislate.

Now, we are fighting over what is being legislated, what is being violated. What we are legislating in our own area is being infringed by companies, platforms that are far from us. What we are trying to advocate is please respect the law of the land you we found a blanket answer that we're not responsible for the content that goes on the platform. This is the basic flow is providing intermediary protection to the social media platforms. Absorbing them on the content. And eventually the responsibility of the company that handles it.

I would say the Parliamentarians sitting here, go back and review the legislation and see that we did put more owner on the social media with respect to the content. It is going to become very ugly. I see the temperature of the Parliamentarians going up fast. The citizens are demanding the online rights to be the same as the offline rights. The countries are failing to give the guarantee of the online rights to citizens, in the same way they could ownership become accountable for the offline rights.

I would say that the countries are now or have crossed the point where they are continually sending the request to the platforms. Sitting on the questions waiting for them to take action. There is a review required by the social media countries, I request IGF to put some sense into their heads and make them realize before the water is above their heads, it is important to review the whole landscape in which we are working.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you, senator from Pakistan. Very important points, especially with Internet is the public good looking at learning from the unique platform that Pakistan will establish.

Next person I have on is on the list is Nazzar. Go ahead upon.

>> MODERATOR:.

>> ATTENDEE: Thank you, Jennifer and Celine for putting this together. My name is Nicholas from Tanzania IGF. I serve as the President of the Internet Society Tanzania chapter.

Mine is just a simple proposal in terms of actually actualizing programming of the capacity building.

My idea is that everything should now be upside down. They should ‑‑ they start from the Parliament.

National Assemblies have organisations for the things like infrastructure. We do the capacity building within the Parliament. So when the Parliamentarians come to a space like this, instead of getting lectures from stakeholders, they start actually lecturing from the point of what they are achieving in terms of Internet Governance from the Parliament.

The idea is to have everything anchored and Programmed within the permanent Committees of the per limit in Tanzania we have a permanent Committee on infrastructure.

It we anchor this and make it hope for the Internet Governance in Parliament, we will be able to achieve a lot.

I say this because if you think about 10 years ago when UNDESA, you know make the Internet Governance Secretariat a home for it. We have achieved a lot my proposal, let us institutionalize the programming and programming of the Internet Governance, things I might say within the parliament, things I would say they are legislations from the lens of the Internet Governance.

>> Jennifer Chung: Approximate thank you for sharing from Tanzania. You echo a lot of things from Raj from AP nick, from our Representative from Germany and Timor‑Leste.

>> ATTENDEE: My name is Johanies. Happy to have to have you here. Excited about the overview going from talk to action.

We mentioned a couple of actions, and I'm interested to hear your affliction afterward. In Norway we have a multistakeholder Group trying to generate increased trust in digital communications. It is National Expert Group against digital fraud consisting of police, banks, and others. We are trying to do operational measures. We through them put up a little shield so to speak. Making it would almost impossible to spoof Norwegian numbers. For six months. We blocked 61 million numbers.

So the why, why I say this is the whole notion of action, one of you explained it, you need to do it together with industry. So we have tried to expand this on a billable level so we have together with industry, with something called one consortium. Giraffe, Global, ... it is a long way for it phone from Colombia, the U.S., Brazil. There is more of the Asia footprint, please contact me. The Global is a Global Best Practices on enhancing digital trust.

I will give you four elements that have come up to be used in the National or internationally for best perhaps. Regulate upon you can regulate misuse against fraud and you can regulate age limits.

Know your customer. You should at least know your customer. Trace back, you should have obligation to trace back fraudulent traffic. And transparency and clarity. We're in a pathway where we should maintain freedom of speech, but we should not have freedom of thought. We should put up operational side bars so the good guys know where to go. We can build a reputation on those that want to follow the good and Best Practices. We will every there a perfect world. You can practice, and that is why we are in collaboration with UNODC, trying to get them to endorse the best practice. It is a two‑year project we're going to hurry. We will try.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you for calls you go to Norway. A call to action for apex colleagues to find the regulator.

The next one is Becky Burr from ICANN.

>> ICANN: Thank you for welcoming us to Norway. It is a beautiful country. We're seeing what is important about the Internet Governance. ICANN is about coordination not control. We work hard to ensure that all of the policymaking that Parliamentarians are entitled to do in their country. That all of the work is inform Andrew Brzezinski Andrew has technical access you need to provide policies that are coordinated and consensus based. So they're coherent policies. Working in a little like IGP.

Veteran informed about who everybody else is doing, how the Internet works and how to make sure it stays globally interoperable and resilient. We think that it is wonderful to have an IGF track. You are making a not fragment said Internet. Another speaker said the technical community is will be to participate. And when you think about the regulation law making, take advantage of the technical resources available in your country, you're Region and globally.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you, Becky, very important points. You the coordination of critical Internet resources. It is good to hear another aspect and view from technical community. Next, I'm going to go to Kenneth. Senator in Chile.

>> Chile: I'm senator in Chile in South America. It is important to be here because maybe we have same problem in different ways. In the country I build a Digital Transformation Agenda. The problem, it was not a political issue. Nobody Marches for the digital agenda. No votes.  My colleagues say you are wasting your time. I'm working for the next generation. This should be a cause. When we speak digitally, we need to secure the environment. Cybersecurity it is a really broader definition from data to protection to protection of critical infrastructure. Protecting the environment. Granting all the rights of the people taking control of this information. With digital efforts. We add all the elements together. In our experience and what I want to share with you is our last seven years. We dedicated a month to these vents. If you know North America, you can call it whatever you want.

A month to update information. And also forced to have exercises, digital exercises to prevent, you have to face earthquake, tsunamis, and check it every year. Companies make check boxes but don't rely on what they did. We create a Forum. A Forum is special because we can have everybody. If we want a Global Governance, we have to first govern our countries and get together a stakeholder and the meaningful stakeholders. Sometimes there are different levels. The example of knowledge. Weekly Foundation with Wikipedia, the fifth most used website in the world. Try to get funds from everywhere.

If we want a system like Internet and knowledge, we need to invest in this. We have to give them time in order to ask the legislators to work.

Having a Forum with a platform. You have to have a physical connection and platform working, you can get the feedback for the public policy. We need a plan to use the University model and capabilities of Oxford University. And planning to 15 years. 12 is good enough. Why 12?  It is the time from agreed 1 to 12. It is more political view rather than five or 10 years where you cannot really achieve it.

What we're working on is to create a Coalition of parliament members. We have the Region, in Spain, we have three from Spain, Portugal Brazil and Latin American countries. We are one billion people altogether. The artificial intelligence, which is now trained with machine learning I hope for good, with models from Anglo‑Saxon countries and data from them, they're not resolving our problem. We're investing in our own models. Yesterday, we had a new solution. It is Norwegian, we will try to understand it. Now we will invest in creating models that can solve our problems. So we need to have this as part of our National strategy, build it, then make the Coalition, we would like to work with all the Parliamentarians with the digital Agenda they focus with knowledge on this and have this bench at the higher level. Global level is much more difficult. We are leaving for United Nations. It is important to see what is working and what is not working.

In Chile, the colleagues call me the senior senator. I hope many of you will be in the same public policy wave.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you Representative from Chile. We have a member of Parliament from Romania, please.

>> ROMANIA: Hello, thank you for having us here. My name is Heather I'm a member of the ‑‑ Parliament. I am the mother of a 16‑year‑old daughter and 20‑year‑old son and they are using all the gadget, and everything you prepare here or in your countries.

I want to tell you something, I'm the President, I'm the Chairperson of the Committee on investigation of abuses, corruptions and petitions.

And it is where the voice of the citizens arrive where the voices of the institutions close. I think here, we are all together because of the values and I want to remember you, these kind of values, the freedom to have the right to bring here our culture, our problems our worries. Use this platform to promote this. If we have it online we can keep it also offline. It is important to have critical thinks, to have education for critical thinking. And altogether, we have the algorithm for the people and not the people for the algorithm.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you Romania. It is a good reminder to use it for peace. Again, quoting from somebody I know, the Internet is the reflection of the society. The next person on the list is justice from Egypt. Justice?

>> Egypt: I hear the issues. The hate speech, respect of human rights, freedom of speech, and this issue on strengthen cooperation.

I will ask you as a panel and as a stakeholder, parliamentary Representatives. We have a legal framework, which is organizing everything. We have many Resolutions for the Assembly to implement. We ask States to strengthen cooperation between them. And ask developed countries to assist the Developing Countries in the issue of capacity building because you can't engage international cooperation unless you have capacity for this.

Last December the UN adopted the United Nations Convention against cybercrimes.

One of the goals of the Convention is to strengthen the operation between States to combat cybercrimes, committed by means of Delegations and technologies.

As I mentioned before, it is repeat and repeat please. So while I'm attending the Forum I didn't hear about the legal framework. The UN legal framework, it is the obligation of the States to sign the Treaty or conventions.

Why we don't use this legal framework as a base for our work?  For our cooperation. I am putting this comment as a question to everybody. Thank you.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you. It is important to remember we have Treaties and legal frameworks, especially the ones that would strengthen cooperation between States, especially regarding cybercrime. Very important.

The next person on the list, right in the front there.

>> ATTENDEE: Thank you. I'm here with the UN Parliament. There is very good mention about the Committees of the future. We also have Committee of the future, so we do collaborate with the stakeholders on a weekly basis. Raising all the issues, all the questions. However, I'm also heading a Committee for suicide and violence prevention. I just want to talk about the dual standards. Legislation is already put in, but there is a dual standard regarding what social networks can do and can't do.

Because every single time, when we're on the open Parliament session on YouTube, when we start our session, we name the name of the Committee, and they block us, because it is suicide. So it is out of the range.

Then of course, they reinstall. But there are so many harmful YouTube's that are not stopped. And again, we have quite a lot of accidents and just very recently, we have two lives lost because of the harmful TikTok challenges in Lithuania. It is important with the critical thinks. The critical thinking, this is the part of the Programme which is already fully integrated in our schools.

Unfortunately, there is still a rise of addiction because younger children can access restricted links. And there are bad statistics regarding the effect on the children. Unfortunately ‑‑ I very much knowledge in the believe and the responsibility of the believe.

However, nowadays, I see there is definitely a lack of mechanism that is really working the longer we look at the balance, the harsher the response. We look at how the taxation of the platforms or total responsibility on the content. So we definitely need to make it clearer and make it now and more globally. National is not enough. We need it Regional and we need it Global. Thank you.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much. There is a balance to strike. It is important for the Parliamentarians to look at this and figure it out. The balance between protection and no harms and enabling and enriching the environment (audio skipping) to have the technology and use the networks for good.

Next on the list is a Representative from AFRISIG. Is it peace?  Peace, please.

>> ATTENDEE: Thanks very much for the mic. My name is Peace. I work with the research in Africa and African Union brings together African School of Internet Governance. I will say this is an important project that I worked all my life. I'm very proud to share how impactful it is.

We work in collaboration with the parliamentary tract and GI Zed, ISOC, ICANN. PRI, identical Governance. And all those when Parliament is happening.

In the parliamentary track, for three years, we had over 40 Members of Parliament come to AFRISIG. Yeah. It is something great. In this room, we have many alumni members of the Parliament that are in this space. At Global IGF and Africa IGF, sub‑Regional IGF and National IGF. I think this is a great way to build capacity of Members of Parliament and ensure they can meaningfully engage with IGF and make a meaningful difference in the Parliament. We don't have only Parliament, other stakeholder Groups come.

Some of the approves we have, the approves that we have are resourceful tools, difference for policy. 2022, 2023, we had a recommendation for the open‑ended Working Group for Cybersecurity and giving our African perspective. In 2023 we made a recommendation of multistakeholder recommendation for the implementation of the African Union data policy framework. In 2024, our output looked at the African Union data framework under the African continent of free trade area digital protocol. You look at the two Documents. This year, we're finalizing our output.  That is giving recommendation there on the CST data Governance. This is something that can be replicated in other Regions.

I want to call out anyone who is students with disabilities to support such initiatives and we're very grateful to the parliamentary track and committed to do this and have Members of Parliament join the school and interact and engage with the different stakeholders that joined the school. Thank you.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you, Peace, you brought together the point of capacity building been the School of Internet Governance. And know there is a school that does a lot of work for Parliamentarians and others as well. Next on the list is Bahrain.

>> Bahrain: I'm from Bahrain Kingdom. From the environment of Bahrain. I have notes to share with you. We recognize that we share the space, when we're the Government, the Private Sector, Civil Society and Academia must work together. The more we build a bridge between these Sectors, the greater the capacity will be to promote and will be inclusive growth and address common challenges. Based on our legislative and our experience we can focus on three areas. Enable legal frameworks by developing flexible and supportive legislation that promote exchanging of data and Best Practices. Ensuring privacy and respect the (?)

Number two, invest in human capacity. Expanding skills and capacity to bridge the knowledge gap across Regions and the stakeholders Groups.

Number three, establish sustainable coordination mechanism by creating a platform for dialogues and between countries and organisation to ensure country and measurable progress. Allow me also to highlight what Kingdom Bahrain is doing in this field. Bahrain has made significant progress in creating inclusive detailed ecosystem that support innovation.

And collaboration. Our strategies, such as the 2030 Agenda, and the National plan have accelerate Digital Transformation across all Sectors. Furthermore, Bahrain was one of the first countries in the Region that introduce Cloud first policy to Public Sector service.

Braving the way we create openness and cross‑borders partner.

Initially, Bahrain has invested heavily in the capacity building through initiatives like Bahrain institute of finance and Programmes.

Which support youth and acquiring advanced digital skills. These efforts have strengthened cooperation between Public and Private Sector.

And enhance Regional partnership and supporting startup ecosystem to integrate into international network.

It some practical recommendations I would like to comment, supporting across border detail partnership between public, private and Civil Society Sectors.

Sharing successful initiatives across Regions to scale up solutions that work.

The fund and partnership to support innovation and local detail. Especially in the (?) Committee.

In closing, the Region and stakeholder Group is not only shared responsibility it is real opportunity to achieve sustainable inclusive detail development. And then I have a question.

If you allow me. How we can leverage our experience to encourage deeper Region collaboration and ensure the country across the gulf and Middle East can equally benefit from this achievement?  Thank you.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you very much from Bahrain. The call for deeper collaboration. I will take that initiative to call for deeper international cooperation as well.

I have eight more on my list so far. But before I go to the next eight speakers, I'm just wondering if we have anybody from Open AI in the room? Not seeing hand it is. I want to go to UNESCO.

>> UNESCO: I'm the policy Director at UNESCO. I was for may be years with the Committee for journalists, connecting the worlds. I want to comment to the action part of the title. We have a joint agreement with the inter‑Parliamentarian Union, for the view of the world to apply to the discussions we have today. There is good news there.

Last year we launch the passive course with the Union and 3,000 Parliamentarians did the course from 180 countries. The good news is as you can see here, there is lots of interest. Second part, the staff. The staff remain, and they need capacity building. They're interested in that. In the countries, there are schools and official institutes that we need to engage them in these conversations. All of those things were part of this initiative with the IPU. Which also IPU, offering technical support for Parliaments that are drafting legislation about the issues. With the aim of guaranteeing that the draft legislation is aligned with the international law. The second thing, cross fertilization across the different duty bearers. It was mentioned by Egypt the importance of this, the training of the judges and prosecutors on the issues and putting them in touch with the Parliamentarians. And a Programme for regulators and UNDP and the senatorial session. It is too complex to solve alone.

The final issue as a suggestion for action we work with women Parliamentarians. And they're targeted with this technology. Gender‑based violence and so on. Lessons learned from other constituencies. The women journalists are attacked and there are different tools available that can be shared among those different Groups. So from UNESCO, always ready to help. Thank you.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you, UNESCO. Very important in looking at staff and aids and schools. Especially women Parliamentarians. The next is right in the middle of the room here. Yes?

>> ATTENDEE: Hi, I'm Sara, Director of Governance at UNDP. It is a good segue from my dear colleague at UNESCO. I will add to what he said in terms of what the UN system is doing to move from dialogue to action. UNDP supports Parliaments in many of the issues we talk about today in the digital AI transformation. We coordinator support with other international actors such as UNESCO, IPU, commonwealth and others. We work with knowledge training, capacity building, peer expert networking, and practical tools for oversight and public engagement on the issues.

UNDP and IPU co‑host and Expert Group on parliamentary and digital policy to support this work. I wanted to bring that to the attention of those in the room. It serves as a Global Platform for Parliamentarians and staff and others to exchange information on these issues, share good practices and work together jointly.

We're joined in the Expert Group with other Representatives from other organisations, CPA, IGF and Parliaments and others. We are planning with CPA and ITU a role of shaping responsible AI to be held at the end of November in Malaysia.

So we are expected to bring together Parliamentarians across Regions and staff to further that conversation on Parliamentarians and AI.

I'm participating in another session tomorrow ‑‑ this is a PR slot ‑‑ at 2:45 we will talk about that engagement.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you for the work you do with IPU. The call to action there is to go to this Conference that is shaping the responsibility of AI in Kuala Lumpur.

Next is from Shawn Ely in the middle of the room.

>> ATTENDEE: Thank you, Jennifer and Celine for inviting EY to be here. I'm Shawn Mar, the Global Vice‑Chair for public policy for EY. A large Global professional services organisation.

I'm not a Parliamentarians, or a former Parliamentarians. I have worked with form are Parliamentarians in the Federal Government and for a former President. And one of our finest but least known former Parliamentarians was a gentleman named Morris Udall from Arizona. He was known for his patience. He would often be among the last speakers in a very long meeting of his fellow Parliamentarians, he would stand up and say everything has been said and not everybody has said it and he would proceed to make his statement touching on the comments of the various colleagues.

In this spirit, Jennifer, you have challenged us to think about practical steps to take to advance digital cooperation. We at EY have thought and think a lot about that issue. I would make a couple of high‑level observations. One is trust is the Foundation of digital cooperation. And trust has two ingredients, one is communication. And Forums like this play an important role in advancing communication and understanding among all stakeholders in the digital ecosystem.

The other is verification. And I don't know if we have anyone in the room who speaks Russian, but I want to apologize because I'm about to butcher your wonderful language. But the saying that comes to mind is (No English translation) ... trust but verify. That goes to the challenge we all face, regardless of whether we're in the Public Sector, Private Sector, non‑Governmental space. How do we verify that the AI and other technology systems that we're developing, we're deploying, we're using every day, how do we verify that the systems are as we say they are or believe them to be that they're safe, effective and reliable. That is a critical issue that requires the work of all of us, across the society.

We spend a lot of time thinking about this. We believe there are practical steps that are being taken today that can continue to be taken in an expanded way to build trust in the technologies that are playing an increasing role in all of our lives.

The Foundation of our organisation is audit. Auditing companies, auditing Governments. This is a foundational principle. So the technology that we see today does not have to be in a black box. It doesn't have to be something that is not comprehensible to us. We have the ability to understand it, to make sure it is properly governed. To make sure it complies with any applicable rules and regulations and to make sure it is effective for the purposes that it is created.

We would welcome an opportunity to talk with you more about some of the work we're doing in this area. But again, my thanks to all of you for everything you are doing here at the IGF in your home countries and around the world.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you, Shawn, reminding us trust is the part of the corporation. Next I have a Representative from Nigeria.

>> Nigeria: Thank you. My name is Selada, from Nigeria. I Chair the Nigerian Senate on Cybersecurity and the Chairman of the West African Parliamentarians network on Internet Governance.

I would like to speak on three issues quickly. First is in the session and the second is a statement and the third is a statement. I would like to appreciate the Secretariats, especially for this year Parliamentarians track. You can see how engaged Parliamentarians are because the issues that we're discussing are important to us. You can see that Parliamentarians from the Global North and Global South, everybody is interested in the issues. The subject is relevant. And most time the IGF for this. We must thank the Secretariat for bringing other stakeholders, the UNDP, the UNESCO and others to the table. Now, moving to observation. I discover that almost all the issues are the same. Particularly in the Global South from Malaysia to Pakistan to Mauritius. In Nigeria, the issue is the same, the challenges of making laws, the laws that are more often than not trailing behind the development and also trying to hold the social media accountable.

But that as it may, how can it be if you have a U.S. Senator, a congressman sitting with us, listen to us as we express frustrations, as Romania and Philippines experience frustration with the big tech companies that are likely U.S. companies are doing in terms of not respecting National laws, National values and helping us to address the issues of misinformation and disinformation.

I think it would be nice by the next IGF for the IGF Secretariat, the same way we have senators from all over the world to also have Parliamentarians from the UN, and have them here to ensure that the big tech companies, the same accountability and algorithm they have in the home country, they extend it when they come to other parts of the world.

Lastly the request, I have listen to somewhat innovative and creative means from different parts of the world that I have adopted.

And making a request on the IGF Secretariat. Can we have a portal or platform where we can go and have a claim about this? I am about to lead an effort for a cybercrime act in Nigeria. Is there anything that has done something similar to share views and materials with me?  Or oh, we're looking at amend being the data protection act, is that something new that we need to incorporate from the recently adopted UN conventions?  I think beyond the conversation we have here, something that can go on a regular basis. Peer review, share information, put inside there and have the conversations, not just within the period of the IGF alone, but on a long‑term basis if we return to our bureaus. I want to thank the IGF Secretariat for this opportunity. I bring you the best wishes and good will of the Government and people of Nigeria.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you senator from Nigeria. I think IGF Secretariat here hears you loud and clear, probably try to take that proposal forward as well.

Next I have Egypt.

>> Egypt: Thank you. I am a member of Parliament from Egypt. It brings to my mind the important dialogue, several tips. In Egypt we have a kind of grant or loan, I'm very keen to scrutinize on the topic of exchanging experiences. Because sometimes we have the experts coming from the UNDP, or whatever UN Agency. They consult but the amount of knowledge and experience that needs to be transmitted doesn't happen unless there is a certain track to submit this with National experience inside Egypt.

Another experience is the experience at APNIC. The African parliamentary network on Internet Governance. It is to add a lot in terms of digital cooperation see what can work in another. Is it to put it on the table or scrutinize the Government or hold them accountable for whatever topic connected to Internet connectivity, AI, any related topic, the experience exchange is extremely important, especially for legislation. I introduce the first draft to the Egypt Ian Parliament, I learned from it the space and the act and contributions from diversified and different Parliamentarians from Africa and other parts of the world.

I suggest we meet one year to another from IGF. All year I wait for the African Group, or another Group, the parliamentary track have sessions that talk to UN agencies and experts and bring the stakeholders together and have room for exchange of experiences along with others. It is about the knowledge gap and how much those are inspiring others to move and act. I think this can cross the divide in one way or another.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you for the learnings. That is important to tie closer not just the Global IGF, the Regional schools, IGF and National IGFs. I think I have a quick response from the IPU to the senator from Nigeria. IPU, a quick response? 

>> IPU: Yes. Thank you taking good note from observation and request from the member of Parliament from Nigeria for ongoing exchange of information. One from the IPU initiatives is to publish a monthly summary of parliamentary actions on AI policy. So we try to observe what Parliaments are taking different actions, whether it is inquiries, reports, and different Parliaments can see what peers are doing to make contact and learn from each other as we do in this Forum, but also in other ways. There are 37 listed but many Parliaments are considering frameworks and others are setting up institutes. Sometimes the education Committee carrying out an inquiry or health Committee. There are many types of actions, it is our job to help share that information or connect to each other.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you, IPU. And from IPU next going to European Parliament. Brandon. European Parliament, please.

>> European Parliament:

>> ATTENDEE: Thank you for this opportunity. This topic is relevant. We see from the different interventions. I would like to underline that we are now, in this moment, as European Union trying to do some very special process in the sense in the involvement of the stakeholder Groups, but also across Regions. Which is the work based on the AI Act, which I was the lead negotiator for the European Parliament, which is the code of practice. Which has been developed with multistakeholder discussion with also academically from other parts of the world, not from EU at all that are contributing to ‑‑ in fact, we're in the final phase on these for how to operationalize the obligations for the AI Act for the most powerful models.

The one we define as bears systemic risks because of their versatility and unpredictability.

So we are in fact the first case of rules that are the fruit of the process regarding the specific very high‑level of the AI.

The one that is in fact the engine of everything today. This also stops ‑‑ I say this size a legislator. The factors that are regulated. The truth is the institutions have difficulty in checking that we actually can apply these rules on such complex entities. Like very powerful big‑tech companies that are behind the powerful models. So on one hand, we need to avoid this process is determined by these very powerful actors. Because the objective of the regulating is to put more transparency and more obligations to reduce risks on the very powerful subjects.

On the other send we need their cooperation, to make this operational and avoid a situation of extreme confrontation but rather cooperation in the way we implement the rules we need this dialogue. In fact, there are active involvement there in the development of the code or practice. This brought to different results. I can say as a Parliamentarian who Chairs the implementation Working Group of the AI Act, that there are stronger and in our view, I know I can speak on this in the name of the Working Group. We have a clear position. It is better in our view, result in terms of defending fundamental it rights, reducing risks on fundamental rights, including damage to democracy. Through the very powerful models. While we could say that on copyright protection and downstream transparency. From the providers to the employers under the original providers until we reach the affected user upon, on this part of transparency some say they could get more. That will be real at the beginning of August. It will become an interesting element to discuss how we regulate the most powerful models. I conclude and this is the reason for the intervention. The way we did it. It is a co‑legislative, multistakeholder, in fact, involving people from outside Europe in this work. That is very unique. It is will be effective. That is why I splinter. The difficulty we need to reflect on, on containing and controlling in a way that is effective. Powerful actors that are exercising estate‑like powers, even though they are not. Institutions, sometimes they need to find a way so they can be brought into a process and more transparently checked. Thank you.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you, European Parliament. Noting our time is coming to an end soon. I have four last speakers on the list. I will tell you so you are ready for the mic. Next is Ripe NCC in the front. After that African Union. After that I will come to CIPESA. I think that is Lillian. Our last speaker will come from UNECA.

>> Ripe: I'm a ripe Working Group co‑Chair. Ripe NCC provides the Secretariat for the ripe technical community. I am pleased see the big room and introduce ripe as a technical coordination body. Whose work plays an important and essential role in maintaining the resilient and robust Internet. We do that with registering IP addresses and other key resources and doing the registration of these through Europe, Middle East and Central Asia.

The work of NCC contributes directly to the digital goals as well as the WSIS, by connecting the unconnected.

We work with stakeholders including Governments and Parliamentarians to help them realize and build capacity building for this that we run then carries what we were talking, the quantum computing and all of the implications of platforms.

With our capacity building efforts, we're not just doing the capacity building by involving other stakeholders, but in upskilling Engineers in these Regions.

So that is part of our contribution.

The other thing I would like to say, perhaps today when we look at Internet Governance Forum, which is the premier platform for Internet Governance discussion. It is important to recognize that it has this record and has achieved a record of inclusive dialogue. And I believe this is what we need to come here together with tools and trust, the colleague earlier said from EU and time to share our expertise together and to support this policymaking platform as we are working. Because of time I will stop here. Stop by and we will be happy to continue the conversation says with the UIP. The Europe Internet platform. These discussions are taken by to the European Union and likewise the Governmental Roundtables and southeastern Europe, Middle East and other parts of Asia. We appreciate the opportunity to talk to you.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you for all the good work ripe NCC is doing. I will come to the front to African Union to Adele.

>> African Union: Thank you very much. I'm going to speak is on behalf of the African Union and APNIC, the network that was established in 2022 we were really nervous. We want the network to survive. So we focus on two elements. We focused on making sure that it is a part of the African IGF, we have a fixed tract and we have capacity building. Just a couple of sessions on capacity building.

Will thanks ‑‑ by the way, thanks to the support we receive from UNDESA and GI ZED. We're responsible for the continental policy. We want to be part of this policy development, policy adoption, policy implication and policy he wanted to give all the room away with policy domestication. Today we rely on Member States to element candidates and we want Parliamentarians incorporated in the policy development cycle. This is important. It is a concrete proposal.

We also want our Parliamentarian to receive continuous training. I think it was mentioned all the time we need continuous training. We are trying to get GI Zed to participate. And thanks to the cooperation with EU, we have a new Programme called PRIDA, policy regulation in Africa. It is to work with youth and establish IGF and make sure we sustain capacity building. Because the environment is dynamic. It is important so they can be also part of the policy development.

And also, we are very limited in terms of resources. I want to make sure will during the UN being part of the negotiation, we have staff in New York, but we want them complemented by the Parliamentarians and it can provide guidance and advice.

And echo the comments from the Honorable Parliamentarian from Nigeria. It is important to have a platform. Where Parliamentarians from it all over the world come together and exchange knowledge, expertise, what works what doesn't work. Now we do through the African I've and European IGF. It is important to have the separate tract where the it Parliamentarians meet and then exchange expertise.

>> Jennifer Chung: We have final two speakers. Thank you, tech for indulging us, we are running over. We have Lillian from CIPSA. If you could be brief with your remarks. Thank you.

>> ATTENDEE: Thank you so much. I feel a lot of pressure I'm holding you between now and the next session. My name is Lillian, I'm based in Uganda. I work with the collaboration of the international ICT organisation. We're a non‑Governmental organisation and we work at inclusive digital policymaking in Africa. We have been working with Parliamentarians in Agenda and South Africa. I'm happy to hear APNIC being mentioned. One of the key recommendations from ap‑‑ APNIC and the members are very active. And this year, when we held the Internet Governance Forum, the Uganda Internet Forum was launched by the Parliament of Uganda and we had under the Minister that we are happy to launch this Forum.

The key message I can perhaps put out to Parliamentarians within this meeting is we listened to so much we have conversations, and we should concretize and take action this is what is happening in Africa.

In terms of collaboration, if we don't know what will happen to IGF after this, this process that is established need to be able to provide input

So if there is APNIC in Africa, maybe it should be EuroDIG or other, you know, processes.

So our work has mainly be around capacity building. And we support from GI Zed, we are working at other East Africa community level, pushing for the Africa Digital Governance strategy. And working, training, working with members much Parliament from the Assembly to understand policies. One thing is Members of Parliament are changing and this year we have elections. In Uganda we don't know if the same members will come. We target at institutional level, working directly with institutions that say the Uganda Parliament or the legislative Assembly. We know they will continue with it. That is the key message I wanted to share from what we're doing in East African. Thank you so much.

>> Jennifer Chung: Thank you, Lillian for all of the sharing. Really good work coming from the African Region. The final speaker, last word. We have UNECA. I believe this intervention will be done in French.

>> UNECA: I will speak in French if that is okay. The information Economic Commission for Africa, I will highlight some key activity by UNECA, I will do it in French.

Parliamentarians play an important role when it is about the collaboration of drawing of laws on the Internet in their countries. Internet communication as well. Not only Africa, but every country of the world. It is the work to vote to pass laws, to amend them, if necessary. So what is the specific issue in Africa?  Our parliamentaries are not well trained to use new tools, because change is extremely speedy. We talk about frontier technologies, AI, the Internet of objects, nano technologies, biotechnologies. We have other technologies, and so forth. So we have to keep up as a Parliamentarian, therefore, capacity building is of the essence for our African Parliamentarians. We have modules, training modules on these specific technologies, blockchain, AI, how to develop policy. We have guidelines for Parliamentarians to pass information technology and communication and we will have a cause on AI, same thing we replicated.

We of course cooperate with the Secretariat of the IGF at the level of the African Union.

It is highlighted, it is knowledge sharing. We are developing now a knowledge sharing platform. To share experience across the continent and across the Region. But it is the best regulation in term of technology. How country find solution for misinformation and disinformation? And now need a guideline for this information. It is a big challenge across the continent. We will work with African country to develop a platform for disinformation and misinformation to exchange all the information across this policy. It is what we are doing now at UNECA. Before I complete I want to thank Celine for the successful formulation of this Parliamentary track.

>> Jennifer Chung: Give yourselves a big round of applause. I hear trust is needed we need to address power imbalances. So many things. Conversation is here, it is here in the IGF, in the corridors. I hope you take advantage of this. I have been asked to do housekeeping as well. We will meet at half past for the final session of the day. There is coffee break now. The IGF Secretariat has been diligently gathering the information we heard during the session. They will distribute and circulate all of these resources to all of you. Thank you very much.