IGF 2024 NRIs Coordination Session

Summary

This discussion focused on the evolution and future of National, Regional, and Youth Internet Governance Forums (NRIs) in the context of the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and the upcoming 20-year review of the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS+20). Participants from various NRIs shared their experiences, challenges, and strategies for engaging stakeholders and influencing policy. Many highlighted the importance of involving government officials, parliamentarians, and youth in their processes. Several NRIs reported success in gaining credibility and having input into national policies.

Key challenges discussed included raising awareness about Internet governance, securing funding, and measuring outcomes. Participants emphasized the need for capacity building, especially for newcomers and government stakeholders. The importance of documentation and follow-up between events was stressed to maintain momentum. Several speakers noted the value of collaboration between NRIs, particularly on regional issues.

Looking ahead to WSIS+20, participants discussed how NRIs could contribute to shaping the future mandate of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). There were calls to use upcoming NRI events to gather input on what the next 20 years of the IGF should look like. The discussion concluded with a suggestion to advocate for a working group to be established after WSIS+20 to draft a new charter for the IGF, building on input from NRIs worldwide.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Evolution and growth of national, regional and youth IGFs over the past 10-20 years

– Role of IGFs in implementing the Global Digital Compact and WSIS+20 review process

– Importance of engaging governments, parliamentarians and other stakeholders in IGF processes

– Need for concrete outputs, recommendations and impact assessment from IGF events

– Suggestions for the future mandate and structure of the IGF system

Overall purpose:

The purpose of this discussion was for representatives of various national, regional and youth Internet Governance Forums (IGFs) to share updates on their activities, discuss challenges and opportunities, and explore how IGFs can contribute to major global internet governance processes like the Global Digital Compact and WSIS+20 review.

Tone:

The overall tone was collaborative, forward-looking and action-oriented. Participants were eager to share their experiences and learn from each other. There was a sense of pride in the growth of the IGF ecosystem, but also recognition of ongoing challenges. The tone became more focused and strategic towards the end as participants discussed concrete ways IGFs could contribute to global processes and shape the future of internet governance.

Speakers

– Anja Gengo – IGF Secretariat, focal point for national, regional, sub-regional and youth IGFs

– Canada NRI – Dana Kramer from Youth IGF Canada

– Caribbean IGF – Nigel Casimir from Caribbean Telecommunications Union, coordinator of Caribbean IGF

– Myanmar IGF – Pyo from Myanmar IGF

– North African IGF – Ahmed Farag, Chair of North African IGF

– LACA IGF – Lilian from LACA IGF and Colombian IGF

– Chad Youth IGF – Dr. Kouzeifi Saka, coordinator of Chad Youth IGF

– Italian Youth IGF – Daniela Tura from Italian Youth IGF

– Benin IGF – Kossi, from Ministry of Economy and Finance in Benin, member of Benin IGF

– Jennifer Chung – Part of Secretariat for APR IGF (Asia-Pacific Regional IGF)

– Sandra Hoferichter – From EuroDIG

– Mary Uduma – From Nigerian IGF and West African IGF

– Benin Youth IGF – Yao Susu, coordinator of IGF Youth Benin

– Gambia IGF – Mariam Job, youth coordinator for The Gambia IGF and Africa Youth IGF

– Jacques Beglinger – Co-chair of Swiss IGF, board member of European IGF

– Bolivia IGF – Roberto Zambrana, facilitator of Bolivia IGF process

– Czech IGF – Natalia from Czech IGF

– Tanzania IGF – Nazar from Tanzania IGF

– Maldives IGF – Aisha from Maldives IGF

– Japan IGF – Masanobu Kato from IGF Japan

– Iraq IGF – As, coordinator of Iraq IGF

– Zambia Youth IGF – Levi Sianseke from Zambia Youth IGF

– Liberia IGF – Peter King, Liberia IGF coordinator

– West Africa IGF – Osei Keja from Ghana, from West Africa IGF and Ghana IGF

– Hong Kong Youth IGF – Jasmine Eman from Hong Kong Youth IGF

– Bertrand de La Chapelle – Executive director of Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network

Additional speakers:

– Dr. Eliamani Lal Taika – Judge from High Court of Tanzania

Evolution and Impact of National, Regional, and Youth Internet Governance Forums (NRIs)

This discussion brought together representatives from numerous National, Regional, and Youth Internet Governance Forums (NRIs) to share updates on their activities, discuss challenges and opportunities, and explore how NRIs can contribute to major global internet governance processes like the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and the World Summit on Information Society 20-year review (WSIS+20).

Growth and Development of NRIs

Anja Gengo from the IGF Secretariat noted that NRIs have grown significantly in both quantity and quality since 2011, with recent additions including Saudi Arabia and Ireland. The Caribbean IGF, represented by Nigel Casimir, highlighted its role as the first regional IGF, having started in 2005. This growth has led to a diverse ecosystem of NRIs addressing various local and regional internet governance issues.

Many NRIs reported on their efforts to engage stakeholders and influence policy:

1. The Myanmar IGF provides a platform to discuss internet issues despite challenges such as internet shutdowns and online harassment.

2. The North African IGF focused on the Global Digital Compact in its recent meeting.

3. The Colombian IGF, part of LACA IGF, engages the government in monthly meetings.

4. The Chad Youth IGF promotes multi-stakeholder collaboration.

5. The Asia-Pacific Regional IGF (APR IGF) creates a synthesis document with stakeholder calls to action.

6. The Nigerian IGF engages youth and parliamentarians.

7. The Gambia IGF and Liberia IGF have gained credibility with government involvement over time.

8. The Swiss IGF issues consensus messages after each meeting.

9. The Bolivia IGF relaunched with regulator engagement.

10. The Tanzania IGF engages judges in the process and plans to organize a national WSIS+20 workshop.

11. The Japan IGF holds regular information exchange meetings and plans study sessions on specific topics.

12. The Iraq IGF, recently established, is addressing internet shutdown and privacy issues.

Challenges and Strategies

Several NRIs reported facing challenges in their work:

1. The Italian Youth IGF faces difficulties with a government-nominated committee.

2. The Czech IGF struggles with awareness but collaborates regionally.

3. The Maldives IGF focuses on inclusivity and raising awareness, seeking to collaborate with other Small Island Developing States (SIDS) on the GDC.

4. The Zambia Youth IGF is working on media engagement to amplify their message.

A common theme among many NRIs was the importance of engaging government officials, parliamentarians, and youth in their processes. The Benin Youth IGF, for instance, supports other African youth NRIs, while the Hong Kong Youth IGF has restarted after a hiatus.

Engagement with Global Processes

Many NRIs are actively engaging with the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and WSIS+20 processes:

1. The Canada Youth IGF focused on WSIS+20 and GDC in recent discussions.

2. The Caribbean IGF used its network to disseminate GDC information.

3. The APR IGF held town halls on GDC and WSIS+20.

Jennifer Chung from the APR IGF suggested that NRIs should create input for the WSIS+20 process, emphasising the importance of concrete written contributions.

Measuring Impact and Outcomes

An unexpected point of consensus emerged around the need to evaluate and measure the outcomes of IGF events. Yao Susu from the Benin Youth IGF mentioned their efforts to evaluate recommendations made each year, while Osei Keja from the West Africa IGF raised questions about measuring outcomes. This focus on assessment and accountability was echoed by Mariam Job from the Gambia IGF, who called for a community-wide evaluation of the impacts made by national IGFs since their establishment.

Future Directions and Strategic Considerations

Towards the end of the discussion, several thought-provoking comments shifted the focus towards more strategic considerations:

1. Levi Sianseke from the Zambia Youth IGF suggested leveraging media partnerships to advance IGF goals and make the internet more accessible. This highlighted the importance of engaging media to amplify NRI messages and increase public awareness.

2. Bertrand de La Chapelle, Executive Director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network, proposed that all NRIs contribute to shaping the next mandate for the IGF by discussing “What are the next 20 years?” in their respective forums. This suggestion emphasized the critical role NRIs can play in defining the future of global internet governance.

3. Jasmine Eman from the Hong Kong Youth IGF emphasised the importance of documentation to capture learning and enable year-on-year progress.

These comments broadened the discussion to consider new strategies for outreach, long-term planning for the IGF’s future, and the critical role of documentation in tracking progress and identifying gaps in IGF initiatives over time.

Support and Collaboration

The discussion also highlighted the support provided by the Internet Society Foundation for NRIs, as mentioned by Roberto from Bolivia and acknowledged by Anja Gengo. This support has been crucial for many NRIs in organizing their events and activities.

Additionally, the establishment of new regional initiatives like the MRE IGF (Mano River Union IGF), mentioned by the Liberia IGF representative, demonstrates the ongoing expansion and collaboration within the NRI ecosystem.

Conclusion

The discussion highlighted the growth and diversity of the NRI ecosystem, with many forums actively contributing to national and regional internet governance dialogues. While challenges remain, particularly in engaging stakeholders and measuring outcomes, there is a clear commitment to addressing these issues and enhancing the impact of NRIs.

Looking ahead to WSIS+20, participants discussed how NRIs could contribute to shaping the future mandate of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The conversation concluded with a call for NRIs to use their upcoming events to gather input on what the next 20 years of the IGF should look like, potentially advocating for a working group to be established after WSIS+20 to draft a new charter for the IGF based on input from NRIs worldwide. This approach underscores the vital role of NRIs in shaping the future of global internet governance and ensuring that diverse perspectives are incorporated into the IGF’s long-term vision.

Anja Gengo: Once again greetings to everyone, good morning to everyone here in Riyadh, good afternoon or good evening depending where our colleagues in zoom are joining us from. My name is Anja Gengo from the IGF Secretariat in my role as the focal point for national, regional, sub-regional and youth IGFs and it’s a it’s a great pleasure to see so many dear colleagues finally in person. We do see each other from time to time on some of the regional or national IGFs but unfortunately we only have I think once in a year opportunity for the majority of the NRIs to meet in person at the annual IGF meeting. Last year this type of traditional NRIs coordination session was hosted in Kyoto at the 18th annual IGF meeting and now we’re meeting more than one year after here in in Riyadh in this really impressive setup. So it’s a pleasure to see you. Let me see just to introduce quickly the agenda while we’re still waiting for zoom to be set up. So the NRIs coordination session as you know is a traditional annual meeting of all the NRIs with the global community. We take stock in terms of what’s been done so far and we primarily focus on what we want to achieve in the time to come and because we are in a very important momentum in terms of the processes that are around us impacting us and I think representing potentially a good opportunity. In a bottom-up consultative manner the NRIs decided that this session will address the matters related to the implementation of global digital compact and the preparatory process for the 20 years review of the World Summit on Information Society in terms of the implications of the NRIs. What the NRIs could do for the GDC and WSIS plus 20 and vice versa. What these processes could do for the NRIs, how can they support better these already very successful platforms. Looking now by the faces in this room I think we have the majority of the NRIs represented be it through the regional, national or youth IGFs and we did agree. So we’re going to start very quickly by the Secretariat just introducing them the records on the NRIs, how many have been recognized so far. We’re going to focus on the evolution of the NRIs. We’re going to hear a little bit about how do you see the NRIs as an ecosystem has changed in the past couple of years. I know that there are some NRIs, the sub-regional IGFs that even predate the annual IGF meeting which is the Caribbean IGF. But I think the official recognition of the NRIs started in 2011 when the NRIs entrusted the Secretariat to run the recognition based on the agreed procedures and principles. And since then the NRIs have been growing both in quality and quantity and it would be good to hear from the first hand from you how do you see this in terms of what has changed and especially where are the challenges now. Then we’re going to move primarily on speaking about the role of the NRIs in the context of Swiss Plus 20 and the GDC. How is Swiss Plus 20 and GDC impacting the NRIs? What is the role of the NRIs in the IGF Plus 20 mandate review? What are the relationships with stakeholders in your countries within this context especially with the member states? Because let us not forget the GDC although informed by multi-stakeholder consultations was agreed through a process of the member states and therefore multi-stakeholder input can be channeled through the NRIs to the member states so that the decision making is informed in that way, which I think in so many cases was really, thanks to you, successfully done in the past two years. And then finally, we’re going to speak about the overall implications of the World Summit on Information Society. What do you see the WSIS resolution that is expected to be adopted in the last quarter of the next year should look like? How the action line should change with respect to the NRI? So those are some of the questions that are on the table. And without further ado, I understand we have the Zoom. Soon it will be on the screen. Let me maybe not go into sharing the slides. I’m going to just confirm to you, we have now 175 officially recognized NRIs. Among the latest NRIs we recognized is the National IGF of Saudi Arabia and also of Ireland. So indeed, it deserves an applause, and I join it. I will remind that one of the objectives that the NRIs set in their work plan at the beginning of the year was to support the community of the 2024 host country to establish a national IGF as a long-term form of engagement in the IGF processes of this respective community. And therefore, I think a portion of congratulation and that applause goes to all of you because you really called for it, and you put yourself at the disposal to colleagues who are organizing it. I hope that soon we will probably, maybe even in this week, hear about recognition of the national IGF in Singapore. And that I’m also very happy because Singapore as a community has been very active in the digital sphere, and I’m happy that we reached the stage where they have the national IGF as well. So these are the records, what the Secretariat can share now with you. I’m not sure if we have colleagues from Bhutan in this room. We have been working with colleagues, community from Bhutan for more than a year now, and I’m hoping that soon the national IGF will be established there. With that, I would like to open the floor. I think it’s important that we go into the open discussion. I’ll just, before you raise your hand, and before I repeat the question that’s at your disposal, you will raise your hand, and I will help to bring you the microphone. We have, I think, three or four microphones, so we will manage to do that. You have to keep your headset on. When you speak, I suggest that you take off your headset so you don’t hear yourself twice. So with that, the question for you is, how do you see the evolution of your NRI looking back into the past 20 years? What’s the biggest achievement? How do you see the Global Digital Compact implementation and the WSIS Plus 20 supporting your NRI, but also how do you think your NRI can support these processes? It would be good to be action-oriented. We are aiming to have an action-oriented output document from this session that will inform the WSIS Plus 20 preparatory process, as well as the GDC implementation. So with that question on the table, I invite you, please, to sign up and speak. I still don’t see the Zoom, yes, even on my laptop, but I hope that soon colleagues will be joining us. In the meantime, you can raise your hand to speak, and I will approach you to give you the microphone.

Canada NRI: Hello, Dana Kramer from Youth IGF Canada, for the record. I want to speak on behalf of Canada’s NRI, both the Canadian IGF, as well as the Canada Youth IGF. So one thing that we’ve been doing in Canada quite extensively, and I need to say a big thank you to the Secretariat for the Canada Youth IGF, being the Canadian Internet Registration Authority, is leading on significant WSIS Plus 20 talks. And at our Canadian IGF, we did have a large focus on WSIS Plus 20 and the GDC. And so I think that when there are NRIs to really specify that and ensure that these spaces do have that consideration at the national level. On the youth level, we’ve been having quite a bit of discussions on the Global Digital Compact as well, and so trying to bring in a national focus on these two key pieces of documents. So I just wanted to make that intervention on behalf of my country. Thank you. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Dana, and. Congratulations to you for an excellent job done with the U.S.-Canadian IGF and good cooperation with the national IGF. Yes, we have here the Caribbean IGF. Let’s go to Nigel, and then we’re going to go to Guinea.

Caribbean IGF: Yes, Nigel Casimir from the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, and I coordinate the Caribbean IGF, which we are always happy to point out was the first regional IGF. We started in 2005. In terms of recent achievements, I think we’ve also started a Caribbean Youth IGF. We had the third session this year, and we had our 20th Caribbean IGF also this year. I think we were maybe first as well to create what we call a policy framework around Internet Governance as an output of our IGF process. Having the job to coordinate 20 member countries around the Caribbean and try to build capacity in Internet Governance in particular, we found that the CIGF was a very good tool in terms of building capacity around the Caribbean. What we do is we try to move the venue of the event around to the different islands so that in each event, we can engage with the local community in particular. That has been a strategy of ours in the past, and going forward, I think that’s what we’ll do as well. Specifically related to the GDC and WSIS Plus 20 upcoming, for the GDC, we’ve used our network to mostly disseminate information about and… and solicit comments on as well. So the event that we had in August, our 20th CIGF, had some specific focus on the GDC. And going forward, we’ll use our network and our events as well to continue to engage the Caribbean input and actions coming out of the GDC. So I’ll stop there, thanks.

Anja Gengo: The Secretariat will be in touch with you and explain the process. I hope that you were able to hear me. So yes, we will definitely connect with you. The question for those that maybe did not catch everything was about the National IGF in Guinea and the way it can join the network. And I really commend our dear colleague for being here. That’s already a huge step. So we look forward to working with you. Thank you very much. Anyone else? We would like to hear about how do you see the NRI’s work has evolved in the past 20 years? Is there anything more that can be done, including from this side of the Secretariat or of the global community? And especially in the context of the Global Digital Compact and WSIS Plus 20 as our maybe key opportunity we should really use to leverage the work of the NRIs and to elevate the real year it was

Myanmar IGF: For a country like Myanmar, it’s quite far away from, you know, global level, but IGF has become like a platform for us to discuss about what is happening there and also how we can contribute and how we can feed the import at the global level as well. That is what we observed during these three years. It has been the three years we try to organize the forum and hopefully we can do the next year as well. As you may notice that Myanmar is a very chaotic situation right now and even there are lots of cases are happening in our internet ecosystem and infrastructure. Sometimes we cannot even identify who are the actors behind the scenes of the internet shutdown and the online harassment event, the failures of the different kinds of pillars is also challenging for us to figure out what is happening in certain regions, but having the IGF like a youth one or the national one, it was kind of like a chance for us to discuss more about the internet related issues. On one hand, I feel like multi-stakeholder model is a kind of a guideline for us how to bring the young people from the different stakeholders. Unfortunately, in this stage, it is difficult to identify for us to, for us like a government, who is a government of Myanmar, that was always questioning whatever we are trying to organize the forum, but so far we try our best to be the neutral way to raise the issue from the ground level, like western part of the Myanmar, eastern part of the Myanmar. We try our best to engage with the young people from the different part of Myanmar and to raise So, in conclusion, I might say that IGF is a good way to express ourselves and give information to the global and also regional level, initiatives related to the Internet issue, and also to think about how we should bring more opportunity and also engage with the young people who are from the Vanderbilt community. So that’s all from my area. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Pyo. It always reminds us that the realities around the world are different. I think colleagues from Afghanistan are still in their session, but we spoke about the position of women and girls in Afghanistan and what the National IGF can do for them, which is, I think, a very important topic. I want to give the floor to Ahmed, please.

North African IGF: Thank you, Anya. Ahmed Farag, Chair of the North African IGF. Actually, we hosted the 8th North African IGF meeting last October, and we focused on one of our sessions focused on the GDC to give a better understanding to the process that happened during the past months. Also, we believe in the collaboration efforts the North African IGF has organized a joint webinar with Arab IGF and Lebanese IGF to give a better understanding to the GDC and WSIS plus 20 process through our community in the Arab world. We want to ensure that the multistakeholder perspective is still improvement. We are focusing on how to engage how to bring new people to engage in the IGF process, new players to join, how to enhance the main parties already in the process. This is the main point that we want to focus on the Arab region. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you. Thank you so much Ahmed. You know all regions are important but in the Arab region presently probably is at the center of global attention. I’m happy that there are developments to hold the Arab sub-regional IGF very soon which complements well the North African IGF to cover that important part of the world and I hope that we can all kind of unite to support these two sub-regional IGFs further. Any other comments? I especially am also curious I have to say to understand a little bit more about how do you see, because we’re on time, how do you see we can use this time to prepare better for the World Summit on Information Society when the member states will be discussing the WSIS outcomes including the IGF, everything that’s been done in the past 20 years and especially when our future in terms of everything that we are doing, the vision we are sharing, jobs we are working on, will be also part of those discussions. How do you see the role of the NRIs in that sense? Are lessons learned from the GDC consultations as we expect that the WSIS also will be informed through multi-stakeholder consultations? Some of you recall the WSIS plus 10 for example, so very similar approach. Lilian please.

LACA IGF: Hello, can you hear me? Well I’m Lilian from LACA IGF, Latin American Forum and also from the Colombian IGF. We especially, I’m going to speak about Colombian IGF because we have meetings every month with many people from different sectors. Some people from the government, from the ICT ministry, and the communication, and other organizations from the government, and what we are trying to do right now is to ask to the government officially that we, as part of the multi-stakeholder committee in Colombia, want to be part of the discussion, sort of the delegation for discussing the GDC, and just like not only send our comments as we have been until now, but also being part of the delegation. I think at least we can try that the government, that each government invite us as multi-stakeholder committees to be part of the discussions and to comment, but also maybe participate in some of the meetings, participate as audience, I don’t know, but then maybe this is an opportunity. And for LACAJF, we are trying to, the next year we are trying to make some webinars or some discussions maybe, where we can talk also about how to participate, not only as countries, but also like region.

Anja Gengo: Thank you so much Lilian, Kouzeifi, and then we’re going to go to Daniel.

Chad Youth IGF: Thank you Anja, good morning, my name is Dr. Kouzeifi Saka, I come from Chad, I coordinate the Chad Youth IGF, thank you once again Anja and the IGF Secretariat for your support to bring youth voices here. I think it’s important now to promote multi-stakeholder approach to promote a very sustainable internet governance. I think we just adopted in New York during the General Assembly the Declaration on Future Generations, the Pact for the Future and the Global Digital Compact. So I think to make a very effective achievement we need to promote, I mean, multi-stakeholder collaboration, how they can promote like a very sustainable cooperation between developing countries and least developed countries, create the program of capacity building to make sure that skills are transferred into countries where people needed more in terms of internet accessibility, internet governance, in terms of digitalization, etc. So it’s quite important today to reflect our realities that, I mean, are in Africa for instance and we need also to provide more resources to support, I mean, academic institutions where people can go and learn about digitalizations and especially the rural communities where it is essential today with digital literacy we can also promote, I mean, local languages through this kind of programs. So thank you once again for coming here and I think it’s important to resolve these issues together.

Italian Youth IGF: Good morning. Can you hear me? This is Daniela Tura from Italian Youth IGF. So we had the Italian IGF last week and unfortunately the OASIS and the GDC didn’t really step into the discussion. We have currently a unique situation in Europe, that is a committee that is 100% nominated from the government, and this in a sense requires a different approach. We need to, I believe, find different connections, especially as a youth IGF Italian community, and one thing that we noticed in terms of actual potential steps to bring forward is capacity building, education, and cooperation. This, we believe, will be a key point, especially to make parliamentarians and members of the actual committee to understand the role that Internet governance has worldwide, and not just focus on digital matters, but also on other critical resources of the Internet. This is something that is not really discussed, but right now what I’m trying to say is that we need more community, and this can be done through an active collaboration between the youth and this committee that, again, it was not really multi-stakeholder. So yeah, local initiatives, and one last thing I would like to highlight is the importance of coordination with other national and regional initiatives that possibly share the same issues, that is key decision-makers not fully understanding how the Internet governance ecosystem works. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Now we have a queue. We have here Kossi, Jennifer, then Mary, then Sandra, then we’re gonna come to this side with Miriam. So let’s go to Kossi.

Benin IGF: Hello, good morning. Do you hear me? I’m Kossi, I’m a senior from Benin. I’m from the Ministry of Economy and Finance in Benin, also a member of Benin IGF. The IGF process we have now is very good because we have understood the point of view of each stakeholder. The next step now is to know how it’s possible to evaluate the recommendation we make each year. It’s important for us now to evaluate. How can we do it?

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Kossi. That’s actually a very good point we could maybe feed into our work plan. Jennifer, please. Thank you, Anya.

Jennifer Chung: My name is Jennifer Chung, so I’m part of the Secretariat for the APR IGF, which is the Asia-Pacific Regional IGF. Just really briefly, looking back for the, I guess, 15 years, we’re a little younger than some of the IGFs, like Caribbean IGF, which predates the IGF, which is really great. But the evolution of good practices is really important. For APR IGF, in particular, the way we structure our multi-stakeholder steering group, it is open as long as you adhere to our code of conduct. And also, one of the key innovations is creating an output document, which is called a synthesis document, where we aggregate all the important topics and issues coming out of the APEC region to do with Internet governance, and now digital processes as well. That’s been 10 years that we’ve had this document. Particularly this year, we had innovation to actually have concrete calls to action for each stakeholder group. I’m just going to read the very first one for government, which is strengthen multi-stakeholder cooperation and collaboration, and consider input on all issues and policies that could affect the governance and development of the Internet and digital policy processes. I think that’s a really central question that a lot of us are grappling with right now. For the GDC and WSIS Plus 20, we had town hall sessions during our annual meeting to take in the input, not only to capacity-build, to actually take in substantive input from the voices we hear in the APEC region, and all of them are captured in our synthesis document. Another concrete suggestion and proposal I have for the NRI network is to leverage each and every one of our meetings, first to take up the capacity-building to understand what actually… the WSIS Plus 20 process looks like for non-governmental stakeholders, and then also create the tools, materials, opportunities for each of our meetings, each of our NRIs, to be able to consult with our communities and stakeholders. And then finally, as a global NRI network, I wish that we would be able to create an actual input opportunity, be it a paper, be it some kind of concrete written input that we can put into the WSIS Plus 20 process. I think this would be really good suggestions for us to be able to take up in the upcoming year. Even starting now, I think, would be really important for us to do. Thanks.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Jennifer. Sandra, would that microphone work? Can you try? And then Mary.

Sandra Hoferichter: Seems to work. Hello, everyone. I stand up so that you see me. Many of you mentioned already that your initiatives are trying to warrant and guarantee the multi-stakeholder model in your country. And we all know, also in Europe, that this is sometimes not really understood by all stakeholders, particularly looking at governments. And because we identified that issue, that basically also parliamentarians, governmental representatives, need to understand why the multi-stakeholder model for the internet is so important to continue, we, together with ISOC, made a brochure. It’s called 50 Years of Internet, How It Works, and How We Can Protect It. Don’t be afraid that this is a very European perspective. It’s about the global internet, of course. And it’s, so the main context comes from ISOC, from Internet Society. And in addition, we put together what the discussion have been on the European level. But maybe this brochure is also interesting and useful for your countries and for your initiatives to use. It’s rather short. It’s not a long book to read, but it may be something for your stakeholder to be aware of, so that they really, particular parliamentarians, governmenters, understand what it needs to know before making any legislation, before discussing what multi-stakeholder is about, so that they really understand it. The Honorable Winsor was willing to write a foreword for this brochure, so we are very happy. He’s not here, unfortunately, at the IGF, but he wrote the foreword. I don’t have many of the paper copies with me, but you find it on the Eurodic website, eurodic.org, and you also can find the QR code at the Eurodic booth. But if you would like to have paper copies, let me know, and I’m sure we can, we’ve printed like a small edition, and if there is a big need on this, we can possibly print many more. But let me know if you’re interested in this, but I think that is something that is useful for the entire global community.

Anja Gengo: Thank you. Thank you very much, Sandra. Mary, please.

Mary Uduma: Thank you. Let me stand as well. I don’t know where that Sorin is, yeah? Sorin, are you here? For Africa IGF, but let me start from my Nigerian IGF. Since 2009, we started the Nigerian IGF, 2012, sorry, 2012. It had been there, but we re-established it in 2012, and since 2013, we have had the youth, Nigerian youth IGF, and there’s none of the IGFs we hold in Nigeria that we don’t have the youth IGF. And one of the things that has come out from this, some of them are players, big players in the space, and one of the ones that rings bell is Joshua Joshua. He came from the Nigerian youth IGF and he has been doing well at the global level. So that’s one for us. Secondly is that with the parliamentarian track that started, we had to invite the parliamentarian into our multi-stakeholder advisory committee. Even when they’re doing policy or legislation or open consultation, we are contacted to make input into whatever program that is being done by the caucus, the parliamentarian ICT caucus. So when they are doing any of the piece of legislation, they want our opinion and then we’ll have to add that to them. And again, the School on Internet Governance cooperating with ISOC had been on, and so many youth had gone through the school. And some of them have found expression of their desired career through that meeting. Because when we are done, we give them little certificates and some of them use it for other things. And they are also playing right or great in this piece. And at the West African level, we started the GDC process since 2022. So during West Africa Internet Governance Forum, we had a full program of three hours talking about the GDC and our contribution. We made our contribution to the GDC. And the WSIS also, we are sensitizing our people to know that it is very important. And our ministers are being informed about it. And let me just talk about, again, the youth. I think they are here, some of them. Some of our youths are here. The West African Youth IGF, they have continued to make sure that it’s working very well. That’s her. So I’m proud of them. And they are making a lot of contribution, even at the global level. And some of them made contribution to the GDC. For the Africa, at the Africa level, we now have the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, supporting the process, the Africa IGF process. And the parliamentarians also are coming up strong. We started in 2002, and just like the Tanzanian group mentioned, we are seeing them stronger. And we are seeing them now aware and getting involved in what the IGF is all about. So my suggestion is that, at your multi-stakeholder level, please let the government be part. Let me to your legislators, let them be part of it. Because whatever we say, whatever policy brief we come up with, like in my country Nigeria, the agency that is in charge of ICT had to call us to prepare what we call white paper on IGF, and what it’s all about. So with that contribution, it would also strengthen the policy process, and also we see results coming out. So I want to share with you that we’re not only, I like what they are doing in, I think, is it in Afghanistan you do monthly? Somebody said they do monthly meeting, or is it, okay, all right. So I think we shouldn’t just do the, run our program and go sit back. We should follow up, whether we are collaborating with ISOC, or we’re collaborating with any of the stakeholders, make sure we hold them responsible, that they listened to our recommendations, and also they are doing something, coming up with policies that will involve, and they understand the multi-stakeholder process is important. When they buy in, today I have somebody represent, the PAMSEC of my nation, representing the minister is here, the senator, my senator is here, and somebody, okay, okay, okay, okay, thank you. All right. The senator is here. The agency, the National Information Development Agency, the director general is here. They are now interested, they want to know what we are, what the IGF is all about, and when they get back, I don’t think it will remain the same. because they had to understand what the multi-stakeholder issue is. For Africa, we have what we call WSIS Africa. I think some of you attended WSIS Africa, and Dr. Seck is very, very passionate about it, and we have our paper already. We have our contribution from Africa, so we have contributed, so if you can also organize that. So be strong with your government, the legislator, and the other stakeholders to be able to come out to contribute too. And, I mean, it legitimizes the IGF. When your NRI is strong, and you are making impact, you know, the government can’t go there and say, no, no, no, let’s close, no, no, IGF is not important. So our input into it, our participation, and getting them involved would strengthen what will happen at WSIS point two, I mean, point 20, WSIS plus 20, yes. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Ach, I’m gonna ask you to pass the microphone, I think, firstly, here on your left, and then we’re gonna go back, well, to Mariam, and then to Jacques. And then to Roberto, yes.

Benin Youth IGF: Hello, can you, okay, you can hear me, right? Thank you very much. I am Yao Susu from the IGF Youth Benin, coordinator of the IGF Youth Benin. I think we are very young in the process, we are only on our second edition of the IGF Youth in Benin, and I want to take this opportunity to commend the work and support we got from Dr. Kossi in this process in Benin, and this is something we personally are also continuing the African regional space, supporting other NRI, youth NRI initiative in Africa, mainly supporting the Burundi Youth IGF who is going to take place on the 21st of December. I think Dr. Kossi mentioned something that I want to mention already is we have data available already on key issues we address during our different NRI events and we have recommendations from those events. I think now it’s time to make a kind of repertoire, if I can say, a collection of those recommendations and build upon those a clear guideline on how we assess the impact of the recommendations and one of the KPI could be how many parliamentarians are engaged in the process, how many government officials are ready to support youth initiatives, are ready to support the national IJF initiatives and how many policy implementations are really actually coming out of our recommendation during our different IJF processes. And one of going also pragmatically, I will also say we have currently a toolkit available on the NRI processes. Why not updating the toolkit and including specifically the five objectives of the GDC and at the national and even the youth NRI events, we need to ask the coordinator of the events to highlight which of the objectives the national IJF is going to tackle so that we have clear contribution to those objectives and in the end give a clear calendar of when we want to contribute. to consolidate all the recommendations regarding these key issues. Thank you very much.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much. Let’s hear from Mariam, then we’ll go back to Jacques, Roberto, and then we have a couple more. All right.

Gambia IGF: Thank you. Can everyone hear me? Good? All right. Good morning. My name is Mariam Job, and I am from The Gambia. I serve as the youth coordinator for The Gambia IGF and the youth coordinator for The Africa IGF as well. Africa Youth IGF, sorry. And my contribution really is to answer to Anja’s question about what can we do ahead of the recess. And it is along the lines of what Dr. Kosi, Jennifer, and Yao here mentioned. I think it’s high time we go back to the community, we go back to the multi-stakeholder approach, and go back to the people who have been involved in the IGF since the establishment of the national IGFs, and assess and evaluate what are the impacts that have been made. Because I believe that at the end of every IGF, there are recommendations, policy recommendations, or actionable steps that are often recommended to happen moving forward. And it’s time to reassess what has been done, what went right, what went wrong, what sometimes organizations or youth make position papers that are often presented to governments or international development agencies on certain issues, say, for instance, on data protection or so. So I’m going to share some of the recommendations from those position papers that have actually been taken into action, and what worked and what didn’t work ahead of the recess. Because this is next year, and a year goes by really fast. So I think my recommendation from this conversation that’s been happening would be for each of the NRIs to kind of go back to the community in their individual countries and reassess with them what went right, what went wrong. And because in the recess, we will need to defend the IGF. We need to provide concrete evidence in order to defend it. And I think it’s very important that we’re able to… provide concrete evidence and able to provide this is why the IGF must stay.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much Mariam. Jacques please you have the floor.

Jacques Beglinger: Hello, can you hear me? Yes, hello everybody my name is Jacques Beglinger. I’m from Switzerland. I serve on the board of the European IGF, but I’m speaking now in the capacity of the co-chair of the Swiss IGF and what I would like to share with you, besides that I am very happy to be among so many friends from all over the world here, what we discovered in our IGF is that to have most impact did we have something to distribute afterwards, distribute to government, to associations, to just other stakeholder groups as in the Asian Pacific area. We always issue, we call it messages, after each IGF and there’s some rough consensus in it. We just approve it on the spot and this has a huge impact. Something else I’d like to share with you, what we achieved over the past years in Switzerland was the buy-in also of business and recognizing that large, small, medium enterprises are also corporate citizens and are usually affected by whatever happens to the Internet. We also found their engagement and will now also use this to leverage the impact of the GDC. Thank you.

Bolivia IGF: Thank you. Hello everyone. It’s great to be here with so many friends and so new friends as well that are joining this great community. I wanted to comment on two things. One, some of us mentioned before about government participations in this process in our countries. In the case of Bolivia, actually we had a very extended relationship with the government. From our first IGF, we are young as well, our first IGF was in 2017, and from the beginning the government was always actively involved. This last time, actually after two years, because we also need to talk about bad things and in our case we had to stop the IGF for two years. The last one we did was in 2021. Actually we managed to relaunch the IGF in Bolivia this year, but with a full engagement from the regulator’s office. Actually he was supposed to come here to Riyadh, but he couldn’t make it because of different agenda issues. But what I want to say regarding this is we need to keep trying to involve, because when we talk about multistakeholderism, usually most of the stakeholders participate in our processes, but the government usually takes more time or sometimes it’s very difficult to involve them. But I think it’s important from the people that are supporting the processes in each of our countries to keep trying, to keep inviting them, and hopefully to finally make them part of the process. Because finally at the end, the ones that can provide the public policy are the governments, the parliamentarians, of course with the inputs that we can provide from the different actors. That’s about my capacity as facilitator of the process in Bolivia. But I also want to comment in my capacity of Internet Society Foundation member. I am working the training and e-learning team, and the experience that we have last year is that we were requested by many chapters around the world. In our case in LAC, we had three countries, three ISOC chapters that asked support from us to provide training in Internet governance, and also from many countries in Africa. So what I meant to mention about is that this is, I think, a very good point. This is an important contribution to prepare the newcomers in our countries in order to make them active in this process. So I also want to offer this support. You can reach us directly or through our chapters. You know that we have working many chapters in all of the world, so we will be happy to support this kind of process to you. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Alberto. Indeed, these type of processes are valuable, but they do come with a cost, and budgets are important, and I know funding has been an issue ongoing, but things have changed to a good extent. I think over the past couple of years we have now entities who established the grants process for the NRI, so Roberto actually reminded me of a very important point, and I’m glad to see Brian here from ISOC Foundation. ISOC has been a great champion and supporter of the NRIs, including through a grants program. Indeed, it deserves applause, such as the IGF Support Association as well. I’m not sure if Amrita is here, but Jennifer is here as a secretariat. The IGF secretariat was also this year giving a limited number of grants to the developing country NRIs, and with that in mind, I know we have here a couple of requests for the If you agree, it would be good to hear later from Brian a few words about the ISOC Foundation plans for supporting the NRIs long term. I would like to give the floor now to Lillian, chair of the African IGF. She is with us online, then we’re going to go to Umut, and we’re going to come back to the room. Lillian, you have the floor. Technicians will unmute you. Umut, maybe it’s on Lillian’s side, and then we’re going to go back to Lillian. Can we try this one? Am I speaking? I’m having some technical issues with channeling the audio back in the room, but I know that our online participants can hear us. Colleagues from the technical team are working on it to fix. I think it’s just an output issue. But while you’re working on it, I would like us to come back to the room. I know there was a request for the floor. I think somewhere here. And then from the side. Thank you.

Czech IGF: Can you hear me well? Thank you. This is Natalia from the Czech IGF. We were established very recently and earlier this year we had our first meeting. And I just wanted to share how it went. Because it is quite challenging in our country to even spread the awareness why the Internet governance is even important and why we should talk about it. And we wanted to make this first event more in the traditional fashion to bring various stakeholders, bring members from the civil society, from academia, from high schools. But we struggled with even… And yeah. Is it? Okay. Excuse me. We understand that their voice can really matter and they can take part in the conversation. So we had to change the approach and start by forming like a roundtable with people who are already interested to share, okay, how we can actually mobilize the people more, what we know about these issues, what worked well in the past, what can be probably made better. Because we still struggle also with regard to the ministry and government to really make a point that the multi-stakeholder model is very needed. And it should not just happen behind closed doors. and we should provide this platform when we know it can be done. So, going back to even sharing the knowledge, sharing the awareness was found to be crucial in our nation. Very briefly, I would like to highlight also something that Daniela Tura already said, that we should try and help each other out. When we start forming and arise from our countries, is to work together for the GDC consultations. I feel like I’m cracking. Okay, I will soon finish. Hopefully, it will be fine. So, as for the GDC consultations, we joined forces with also the German Youth IGF. We had a representative, Paolo Glovacki, and we formed a statement together with Czech Republic and youth representatives from Germany. And then we submitted and talked at the GDC consultations, and we found that this approach was also very valuable, and we managed to deliver something more elaborate when we joined forces. So, I would also like to highlight this approach, in case anyone feels like their voice is not as loud as they maybe need at the beginning, to not be afraid and just reach out to others and arise, that already are more in the system and they know their way around, as it was very effective in our case. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Natalia. Can I ask you to pass on the microphone to Nazar in front of you, Natalia? And then we’re going to go back to Brian. You just reminded me, I don’t think our colleagues from the National IGF of Greece are here yet, but I recently met them at the Southeastern European IGF. Last year they changed the name of the IGF into World Digital Summit or Digital Forum. I mean, it has a background, of course. But what they reported is that it was just easier, easier to communicate, to pass on the information, to translate into their national language. And perhaps what you’re saying now is something that could be considered to at least elaborate a little bit more about the concept of the internet governance being basically inclusive of everything that’s digital. So Nazar, please.

Tanzania IGF: Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Anya. And for now, I have two interventions. Number one, just one minute, we have a judge from Tanzania. So that if you want to speak, you just have to say hi. I know the IGF now in session in terms of bringing the chairing space. Hello? Can you hear me now? Oh, sorry. Sorry. I said I have two interventions. Number one, I wanted to yield just one minute to the Honorable Dr. Lal Taika from the High Court of Tanzania just to say hi. Because what we are doing is just to make sure that we drag as many judges to the IGF space as we can possibly do. Welcome, judge. Thank you very much, Nazar. This is a big surprise. I didn’t expect this. But hi, everyone. My name is Eliamani Lal Taika. I think I saw some of you in Kyoto last year. I can remember a few faces. And I really am. I want to congratulate each one of you, you are doing a great job, you are building the future. Since I came to this room, I’ve heard the word future at least 20 times. So if you find individuals like you, passionate about global issues and thinking about the future, you cannot be in a better place. Thank you very much. God bless you. Thank you. Thank you because he won’t, I didn’t know if he would speak but I wanted to make sure that he speaks, even say hi. Number two, number two is that in Tanzania, because if you look at the fundamental principles of the GDC and what the IGF is and also the WSIS, you can conclude simply that these are just triplets. And what we are doing in Tanzania next year, I think for the first time, is to organize a national workshop on WSIS plus 20 before the WSIS forum in Geneva. So we are using this opportunity as a national IGF to organize the WSIS plus 20 national forum so that we can begin to do the input in terms of reviewing the actions, the WSIS action lines and what it has been able to achieve for the last 20 years. So I just wanted to inform you guys that the IGF is at the grassroots in Tanzania doing just that and we will send out the Zoom link for everyone to be able to participate. Thank you so much.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much Nazar. I’ll use a little bit of my discretion to jump the queue because colleagues are still trying to fix the technical issues so we can hear from Lilian, Umut and any other colleague online. There are some NRIs who have joined us not that long ago and they have done amazing work. I’ve seen it in person as well. So I want to give floor firstly to Aisha from the Maldives IGF.

Maldives IGF: Hello everyone and it’s great to be here and great to connect with the community here. As Anja mentioned, we recently joined the IGF and we started our second IGF this year, the forum. I would say the first one was more like creating awareness among people that internet belongs to them. It’s not only the voice of the technical people because when you talk about internet governance it comes in a way that only technical people can talk about it. So our first job was that. And secondly this year our focus was mostly on inclusivity because there are some communities who don’t have access to these platforms to communicate about internet. And then of course bringing in the legislators. We had a new parliament election this year and then we had new parliamentarians coming in. So that means like internet governance and these discussions become completely new thing for them. And this process is difficult. And I wish we had something like IGF 101 for parliamentarians. Some sort of book or tutorial that we can share with them. But going forward what we see is that we are yet trying to find out what Maldives is trying to do for the GDC and being part of a SIDS country I think for mentioning about the challenges that we have within the SIDS countries and how like IGF have supported empowering people and talking about these platforms will be a good point. to come as a statement as joined SIDS countries and those are some of the things that I would like to see in it and I haven’t met anybody like from the SIDS countries but I would love to collaborate and communicate and see how we can do this together. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you so much Aisha. Can we try with Lillian online? And then maybe you can remind me of the hands we have Anu here. I want to ask Brian to speak at the end because all this vision comes with the budget and you be addressing that. Yes and then we’re gonna come here Kato-san. Okay good. Can we try with Lillian online? Lillian. Okay Lillian left. Is Umut here? Yes. No Lillian is here. Now welcome. You can unmute. Lillian can you try to speak? I think you are unmuted now. He still cannot hear Lillian. Lillian apologies maybe you and Umut can type your comment in the chat. I’m gonna go to Kato-san and then I’m gonna come back to this side.

Japan IGF: Thank you Anja and nice to see you all here. Masanobu Kato from IGF Japan. After we hosted IGF last year in October we are continuing our activities and becoming more active. For instance we are having every almost three weeks of kind of information exchange meetings where we are inviting government private sector. civil society and so on and in addition to that we are now planning to have a kind of study you know sessions many IGF every month or so to pick up some interesting topics for general public instead of the really IGF you know groups but something like well probably SNS and election or but you know more you know specifically we are probably you know doing something on digital public goods as a first session in addition to those activities we are trying to recruit more youth and using some of the published you know documents reporting Kyoto IGF we are having a series of webinars inviting you know young students at the universities and so on that’s a short report from Japan. Thank you

Iraq IGF: from Iraq we are recently from September that should become IGF in Iraq as a coordinator and okay okay and yeah it’s like we hadn’t and like three meetings from September until now and we are planning for the first IGF this will be in Iraq we find a lot of things issues in Iraq especially for example internet shut down the government they stop internet in any like if there is exams if there is demonstration if there is anything that they just turn it off the internet shut down and there is also for the privacy about telecom company We did a research recently, we found it like their score according to the RDR criteria research. We found that they scored everything like zero. So we have a lot of issues, we need to work on it. And also we would love to learn from you. Because you have the experience, that you work on the idea for the last few years. So I’m open to discuss with anyone from you. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, As. So let me just finish this queue and then I’m gonna come here. It was Levi here.

Zambia Youth IGF: Greetings everyone. Levi Sianseke from Zambia Youth IGF. And also part of the organizing committee for the National IGF. But I mainly also represent the Internet Society Zambia chapter. With regard to the way forward, I think from an observation. We rely on the media so much for election updates, campaigns and so on and so forth. Which for me the media then becomes critical in being a kingmaker. How about focusing on these workshop efforts. In terms of the GDC, the WSIS. Working with the media to help amplify the agenda. In terms of making the Internet more accessible for many people. The reason for this in my view is. If the media can be powerful to influence policy and who wins the elections. How about using the media to also inform and influence. How then the Internet is adopted by our people. But also pushing government to be more accountable. Ensuring that the Internet is open and more inclusive and accessible to our own people. I think this is some of the things that I think we’ve been thinking about. For this year in Zambia we decided not to have the Youth IGF. Mainly because we observed most people are only active when there is an event. And afterwards they sit back. So we did an approach where we are raising more awareness on why youth should be involved in the IGF. So that after each event or main activity, you have more stakeholders actively engaged improving internet access in our community and more, for lack of a better term, keeping their government and other stakeholders accountable. Unlike just having an event and then everyone goes quiet and then we meet again at the next event. So there’s been more engagement and training for media personnels on how they can actively report on internet governance related issues. That way we feel it’s more impactful unlike always having to wait for an event, gather after the event, then we sit quiet and still wait for the next event. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Levi. Let’s Peter.

Liberia IGF: Good day to everyone. My name is Peter King, I’m from Liberia. I’m the Liberia IGF coordinator. And then I’m happy to say that for the past five years since 2020, thanks so much to the ISOF Foundation, RIME, and for supporting Liberia IGF at the time. We believe that this is a process and we’ve been visible enough that the government of the day now invites us to policy issues and make sure that we contribute towards it from the multistakeholder dimension. And we have been able to build a solid community where we have all the structures that is in the system contributing towards the event. And this year, we’re happy to see that the new minister was even involved in our process that shows that we’ve gained a level of credibility and stability in the system and working together with ISOC, Chapter Liberia, and all the LTA regulator who have made way to Saudi Arabia means that we are crossing the message over to the level of involvement of the multistakeholder in our system as well. So we also are working very well to get parliamentarians in Liberia to be part of the process because some of the policies that are being stuck on the table of legislation, we need to enhance their understanding. For example, we do not have a cyber security strategy in Liberia. We do not have a data protection policy in Liberia. All these things are key instruments that we believe that when proper education through our platform and through collaboration with the ministries and other line agencies will help to enhance it. And then, in recent times, we’ve been able to initiate the newly sub-sub-regional IGF, which is the MRE IGF, and we’re happy to say that we’ve made tremendous progress to bring together, not in the name of fragmentation, but in the name of inclusiveness, because we believe that the Internet issues on Internet governance needs to go across the whole country and across other countries in Africa, especially in West Africa. We’ve been able to bring Sierra Leone, Liberia, Guinea, and Ivory Coast together to have an NRI that speaks to issues that are the larger level of the West Africa IGF. We believe that these are all contributions that can fit into it and, as well, transcend to the Africa level. So we’re so happy to say that we’re very, very happy to appreciate the work that IGFSA and Internet Society, Internet Foundation, has continually do to help to host this event at this level, and it’s making a lot of impact, because for the MRE IGF, we go to a regional consultative forum that looks at going to key countries and collecting issues that we can fit into the main agenda and select a particular country that we host. We are happy to say that we are in negotiation with Guinea, which has been very, very much on the level side, to be able to come into the system to help to host for the 2025 edition. Thank you so much, and we believe that there will be more work to be done.

West Africa IGF: Hello. My name is Osei Keja from Ghana, from West Africa UFIGF and the Ghana UFIGF. So quick question. It’s very refreshing listening to the various strategies put in place by the various NRIs, but my question is, how are we retooling in terms of measured outcomes from the various discussions that we have periodically? Thank you.

Anja Gengo: I put this very good question on the floor. Somebody hopefully will respond. I think you… waiting for a long time so I want to give floor here and then we’re going to go back.

Hong Kong Youth IGF: Thank you very much. Hi, this is Jasmine Eman from Hong Kong Youth IGF. So we’ve been stopped having Hong Kong YIGF for some years due to COVID and due to political unrest, etc. But this year we successfully started the HKYIGF and there have been challenges for organizing it, resources, etc. But then unfortunately we do not have a dedicated session for WSIS plus 20 or GDC but we have close relationship with the NetMission plus network that the youth from Asia Pacific group have been actively engaged in during the GDC consultations. When there’s opportunities for inputting comments we do and actively engage on it. And actually from national to regional level, the way we participate is we have a fellowship for the Hong Kong youth, so people who have passions and commitments to follow up what have been written on. We have our own Hong Kong youth IGF statements and we move forward and we go to the regional APYL IGF, Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum, and we send some youth from Hong Kong there. And then we also take part in the synthesis document process and the town hall. So if you’re interested, please go to the APYLIGF.asia website to look into the documentation process that we’ve been into. I want to emphasize that documentation is very important because this is how we capture our learning and weight forward. And because having this kind of process that enables us to progress year by year, to see what have we done in the past few years, and so that what is the gap and how can we move forward. So, I think that’s something that I would love to share, but yeah, thank you very much for having me. Thank you very much.

Anja Gengo: And I invite you to share also your records through the authorized mailing list.

Bertrand de La Chapelle: Hello, everyone. My name is Bertrand Lachapelle, I’m the executive director of the Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network. I just want to take the opportunity to say the following. We have here the occasion to have the representatives of a lot of national and regional IGFs. Next year, there’s the whole WSIS plus 20 process, there was the GDC. In the WSIS plus 20 process, there will be a lot of issues, but there is one that is clearly of interest for everybody, which is the future of the IGF. I do not expect, with all due respect to the governments, that the discussions in the UN, even the agenda of the UN in general and the state of the world, will be focused extensively on what the future of the IGF is going to be. It will be 20 years since the first IGF, and I probably here bring back the bag from the 2006 IGF, which is a nice memory. There’s one thing that we could all contribute as national and regional IGFs, which is to have a discussion in all of them on the one question, which is, what is going to be the next mandate for the IGF? What are the next 20 years? Is the mandate of Tunis sufficient? Are the institutions of WSIS and what we’ve built since then sufficient, or do we need a constitutional moment for the IGF, a moment where we establish a charter for the IGF with the appropriate funding for the Secretariat and all the resources that it needs? If all the national and regional IGFs could dedicate one session at one moment, either the global IGF in Norway or afterwards to feed into the UN discussion, that would be amazing if we could bring that together. I believe, to finish, that we will not set the result by the end of 2025. What we need, I suppose, is the equivalent of what was the Working Group on Internet Governance in 2004, i.e. something that after the UN General Assembly in 2025 is established to draft the Charter of the IGF for the next 20 years. And so the only thing that we need is one paragraph in the United Nations Resolution at the end of 2025 that says, we ask the Secretary General or whoever else to establish a Working Group to design…

Anja Gengo: Thank you for watching!

Agreement Points

Importance of multi-stakeholder engagement

speakers

Chad Youth IGF

Italian Youth IGF

Gambia IGF

Liberia IGF

arguments

Chad Youth IGF promotes multi-stakeholder collaboration

Italian Youth IGF faces challenges with government-nominated committee

Gambia IGF gained credibility with government involvement

Liberia IGF gained government credibility over time

summary

Multiple NRIs emphasized the importance of engaging various stakeholders, particularly government entities, in the IGF process to enhance credibility and impact.

Focus on youth engagement

speakers

Mary Uduma

Benin Youth IGF

Hong Kong Youth IGF

arguments

Nigerian IGF engages youth and parliamentarians

Benin Youth IGF supports other African youth NRIs

Hong Kong Youth IGF restarted after hiatus

summary

Several NRIs highlighted their efforts to engage youth in internet governance discussions and support youth-focused initiatives.

Engagement with GDC and WSIS+20

speakers

Caribbean IGF

North African IGF

Jennifer Chung

Canada NRI

Tanzania IGF

arguments

Caribbean IGF used network to disseminate GDC information

North African IGF focused on GDC in recent meeting

APR IGF held town halls on GDC and WSIS+20

Canadian IGF focused on WSIS+20 and GDC

Tanzania organizing national WSIS+20 workshop

summary

Many NRIs are actively engaging with the Global Digital Compact (GDC) and WSIS+20 processes, organizing discussions and disseminating information at national and regional levels.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the importance of producing concrete outputs from IGF meetings, such as consensus messages or synthesis documents, to increase the impact of discussions.

speakers

Jacques Beglinger

Jennifer Chung

arguments

Swiss IGF issues consensus messages after each meeting

APR IGF creates synthesis document with stakeholder calls to action

Both NRIs are addressing critical internet governance challenges in their respective countries, particularly focusing on issues related to internet shutdowns and online freedoms.

speakers

Myanmar IGF

Iraq IGF

arguments

Myanmar IGF provides platform to discuss internet issues despite challenges

Iraq IGF addressing internet shutdown and privacy issues

Unexpected Consensus

Need for evaluation and measurement of IGF outcomes

speakers

Benin IGF

West Africa IGF

arguments

Benin IGF seeks to evaluate recommendations made each year

West Africa IGF asks about measuring outcomes

explanation

Despite coming from different regions, both IGFs raised the important question of how to measure and evaluate the outcomes of IGF discussions, highlighting a shared concern for demonstrating impact.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement among NRIs include the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement, focus on youth participation, active involvement in GDC and WSIS+20 processes, and the need for concrete outputs from IGF meetings.

Consensus level

There is a moderate to high level of consensus among the speakers on these key issues. This consensus suggests a shared understanding of the challenges and priorities facing NRIs, which could lead to more coordinated efforts in addressing internet governance issues at national, regional, and global levels. However, the diversity of contexts and specific challenges faced by different NRIs indicates that implementation strategies may vary significantly across regions.

Different Viewpoints

Unexpected Differences

Evaluation of IGF outcomes

speakers

Benin IGF

West Africa IGF

arguments

Benin IGF seeks to evaluate recommendations made each year

West Africa IGF asks about measuring outcomes

explanation

While most IGFs focused on their activities and engagement, Benin and West Africa IGFs unexpectedly raised questions about evaluating the impact and outcomes of IGF discussions, highlighting a potential gap in the overall IGF process.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around approaches to government engagement, methods of raising awareness, and the focus on evaluating IGF outcomes.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among speakers is relatively low. Most differences stem from varying local contexts and stages of development rather than fundamental disagreements on principles. This suggests that while NRIs face diverse challenges, they generally align on the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement and the role of IGFs in addressing internet governance issues.

Partial Agreements

All three IGFs agree on the importance of raising awareness about internet governance issues, but they differ in their specific approaches and focus areas based on their local contexts.

speakers

Czech IGF

Maldives IGF

Iraq IGF

arguments

Czech IGF struggles with awareness but collaborates regionally

Maldives IGF focuses on inclusivity and awareness

Iraq IGF addressing internet shutdown and privacy issues

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the importance of producing concrete outputs from IGF meetings, such as consensus messages or synthesis documents, to increase the impact of discussions.

speakers

Jacques Beglinger

Jennifer Chung

arguments

Swiss IGF issues consensus messages after each meeting

APR IGF creates synthesis document with stakeholder calls to action

Both NRIs are addressing critical internet governance challenges in their respective countries, particularly focusing on issues related to internet shutdowns and online freedoms.

speakers

Myanmar IGF

Iraq IGF

arguments

Myanmar IGF provides platform to discuss internet issues despite challenges

Iraq IGF addressing internet shutdown and privacy issues

Key Takeaways

Resolutions and Action Items

Unresolved Issues

Suggested Compromises

I think it’s high time we go back to the community, we go back to the multi-stakeholder approach, and go back to the people who have been involved in the IGF since the establishment of the national IGFs, and assess and evaluate what are the impacts that have been made.

speaker

Mariam Job

reason

This comment highlights the importance of evaluating the real-world impact of IGF initiatives, rather than just continuing to hold discussions without assessing outcomes.

impact

It shifted the conversation towards considering concrete ways to measure the effectiveness of IGF recommendations and actions. Several subsequent speakers picked up on this theme of assessment and accountability.

How about focusing on these workshop efforts. In terms of the GDC, the WSIS. Working with the media to help amplify the agenda. In terms of making the Internet more accessible for many people.

speaker

Levi Sianseke

reason

This comment introduced a novel idea of leveraging media partnerships to advance IGF goals, recognizing the media’s power to shape public opinion and policy.

impact

It broadened the discussion to consider new strategies for outreach and influence beyond the usual IGF community. It highlighted the importance of public communication in achieving IGF objectives.

There’s one thing that we could all contribute as national and regional IGFs, which is to have a discussion in all of them on the one question, which is, what is going to be the next mandate for the IGF? What are the next 20 years?

speaker

Bertrand de La Chapelle

reason

This comment refocused the discussion on the long-term future of the IGF itself, proposing a coordinated effort across all NRIs to shape the IGF’s next mandate.

impact

It elevated the conversation from operational concerns to strategic planning for the IGF’s future. It proposed a concrete action item for all NRIs to contribute to this process.

We rely on the media so much for election updates, campaigns and so on and so forth. Which for me the media then becomes critical in being a kingmaker. How about focusing on these workshop efforts. In terms of the GDC, the WSIS. Working with the media to help amplify the agenda.

speaker

Levi Sianseke

reason

This comment introduced a novel perspective on leveraging media partnerships to advance IGF goals, recognizing the media’s power to shape public opinion and policy.

impact

It broadened the discussion to consider new strategies for outreach and influence beyond the usual IGF community. It highlighted the importance of public communication in achieving IGF objectives.

I want to emphasize that documentation is very important because this is how we capture our learning and weight forward. And because having this kind of process that enables us to progress year by year, to see what have we done in the past few years, and so that what is the gap and how can we move forward.

speaker

Jasmine Eman

reason

This comment emphasized the critical role of documentation in tracking progress and identifying gaps in IGF initiatives over time.

impact

It reinforced the earlier points about assessment and accountability, while also providing a practical suggestion for how to implement such evaluations through thorough documentation.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by shifting focus from general updates on NRI activities to more strategic considerations about the future of IGF. They introduced themes of impact assessment, media engagement, long-term planning, and documentation that were picked up by subsequent speakers. The discussion evolved from reporting on past activities to proposing concrete actions for improving IGF’s effectiveness and relevance in the coming years. There was a noticeable shift towards more action-oriented and forward-looking dialogue as a result of these interventions.

How can we evaluate the recommendations made each year at IGF events?

speaker

Kossi from Benin

explanation

This is important to assess the impact and effectiveness of IGF discussions and outputs.

How can NRIs create concrete written input for the WSIS+20 process?

speaker

Jennifer Chung from APR IGF

explanation

This would allow the NRI network to have a more formal and substantial contribution to the WSIS+20 review.

How can we create an ‘IGF 101’ resource for parliamentarians?

speaker

Aisha from Maldives IGF

explanation

This would help educate new legislators about internet governance and increase their engagement with IGF processes.

How can we better leverage media to amplify IGF, GDC, and WSIS agendas?

speaker

Levi Sianseke from Zambia Youth IGF

explanation

Using media more effectively could help increase public awareness and influence on internet governance issues.

How are we measuring outcomes from the various NRI discussions?

speaker

Osei Keja from West Africa IGF

explanation

This is crucial for assessing the impact and effectiveness of NRI activities.

What should be the next mandate for the IGF for the coming 20 years?

speaker

Bertrand de La Chapelle from Internet and Jurisdiction Policy Network

explanation

This is critical for shaping the future of the IGF and ensuring it remains relevant and effective.