Networking Session #132 Cyberpolicy Dialogues:Connecting research/policy communities

Summary

This discussion focused on cross-community interaction in cyber policy dialogues, organized by Virtual Roots and the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI). The session aimed to connect different communities, including research, practice, technical, and policy sectors, to foster dialogue on responsible cyber behavior.

James Shires and Louise Marie Hurel introduced the session, highlighting the importance of bridging divides between various stakeholders in cyber policy. Corinne Casha from Malta’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs emphasized the need for inclusive cyber policy development, incorporating perspectives from government, industry, academia, and civil society.

The Global Partnership for Responsible Cyber Behaviour was discussed as an initiative to identify researchers working on cyber behavior topics worldwide. Louise Marie Hurel highlighted the limitations of current UN processes in cyber discussions, noting their government-centric nature and the need for more diverse voices, especially from developing countries.

Participants engaged in an interactive session, identifying obstacles to cross-community interaction. Key challenges included language barriers, funding issues, geopolitical tensions affecting accreditation processes, and the tendency for governments to dominate policy-making without sufficient input from other sectors.

The discussion emphasized the importance of funding and sponsorship to enable participation from less-represented groups, particularly from developing countries. Participants also stressed the need for organizations to improve diversity and regional representation within their own structures.

The session concluded by highlighting the importance of building bridges not just between different stakeholder groups, but also within each sector to ensure more inclusive and representative cyber policy dialogues.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The importance of cross-community interaction and dialogue in cyber policy

– Obstacles to greater cross-community engagement, including language barriers, funding/resources, and limited access to key forums

– The need for more inclusive and representative participation, especially from developing countries and diverse stakeholders

– Challenges in bridging divides between government, academia, industry, and civil society perspectives

– Ways to overcome obstacles and improve cross-community collaboration

The overall purpose of the discussion was to explore how to foster greater interaction and dialogue between different communities involved in cyber policy, including government, academia, industry, and civil society. The goal was to identify obstacles to cross-community engagement and brainstorm potential solutions.

The tone of the discussion was collaborative and solution-oriented. It began in a more formal, presentation-style format but shifted to become more interactive and participatory as attendees were asked to contribute their perspectives. The organizers emphasized that they wanted to hear from participants rather than just talk at them. The tone remained constructive throughout, with a focus on identifying challenges but also proposing ways to overcome them.

Speakers

– James Shires, Co-director of Virtual Roots

Expertise: Cybersecurity and internet governance

– Louise Marie Hurel, Researcher at the cybersecurity program at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI)

Expertise: Cybersecurity policy challenges

– Corrine Casha, Deputy Director for Global Affairs at the Malta Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Expertise: Cyber policy, government perspective

– AUDIENCE

Role: Various participants from different sectors

Additional speakers:

– Yasmine Azzouzi, International Telecommunications Union, Intergovernmental, WEOG

Role: Co-host

– Erik Kursetgjerde, NATO/CCDCOE, Intergovernmental, WEOG

Role: Co-host

– Anni Adamson, European Cyber Conflict Research Initiative (ECCRI), Civil Society, WEOG

Role: Facilitator (likely for online participants)

Cross-Community Interaction in Cyber Policy Dialogues: A Comprehensive Summary

Introduction

This discussion, organised by Virtual Roots and the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), focused on fostering cross-community interaction in cyber policy dialogues. The session aimed to connect diverse stakeholders from research, practice, technical, and policy sectors to promote dialogue on responsible cyber behaviour. Key speakers included James Shires, co-director of Virtual Roots; Louise Marie Hurel, researcher at RUSI’s cybersecurity programme; and Corinne Casha, Deputy Director for Global Affairs at the Malta Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Overview of the Global Partnership for Responsible Cyber Behaviour

Louise Marie Hurel introduced the Global Partnership for Responsible Cyber Behaviour initiative, which aims to identify researchers working on cyber behaviour topics worldwide. This project seeks to create a comprehensive database of experts and their work, facilitating connections and collaborations across different communities involved in cyber policy discussions.

Interactive Session and Word Cloud

The discussion included an interactive element where participants were asked to contribute words they associated with responsible cyber behaviour. This activity resulted in a word cloud that highlighted key themes and concepts, providing a visual representation of the group’s collective understanding of the topic.

Breakout Discussions

Attendees were divided into smaller groups for breakout discussions, focusing on specific aspects of cross-community interaction in cyber policy. These sessions allowed for more in-depth exploration of challenges and potential solutions, with key points later shared with the larger group.

Key Challenges and Obstacles

Several barriers to inclusive participation in cyber policy dialogues were identified:

1. Language Barriers: Highlighted by James Shires and demonstrated by a participant from Chad who greeted the group in Arabic, underscoring the challenges faced by non-English speakers.

2. Lack of Resources and Funding: Corinne Casha noted that insufficient resources often prevent some stakeholders from participating fully in policy discussions.

3. Government-Centric Decision Making: Casha acknowledged that governments often dominate policy development without adequately incorporating perspectives from other sectors.

4. Geopolitical Tensions: Audience members pointed out how international political dynamics can affect participation in multilateral forums, including issues with accreditation.

5. Limited Diversity Within Stakeholder Groups: Louise Marie Hurel emphasised the need for improved diversity and regional representation within stakeholder organisations themselves.

6. Limitations of UN Processes: Hurel highlighted the government-centric nature of UN cyber discussions, which often marginalise voices from developing countries.

Proposed Solutions and Initiatives

To address these challenges, several initiatives and suggestions were proposed:

1. Sponsorship Programmes: Corinne Casha discussed Malta’s efforts to sponsor fellows for participation in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).

2. Government Funding: Casha emphasised the importance of government funding to support participation from developing countries in international cyber policy forums.

3. Leveraging Existing Structures: Hurel suggested utilising existing UN system structures to facilitate more inclusive dialogue.

4. Improving Internal Diversity: Hurel stressed the importance of enhancing diversity within stakeholder organisations to ensure better representation of different perspectives.

5. Global Partnership Database: The ongoing development of a comprehensive database of cyber behaviour researchers to facilitate connections and collaborations.

Conclusion

The discussion highlighted the complex challenges in achieving truly inclusive and representative cyber policy processes. It emphasised the need for continued efforts to fund and sponsor participation of developing countries and underrepresented groups in cyber policy forums. The speakers and participants agreed that leveraging existing UN system structures, examining internal diversity within organisations, and addressing language barriers are crucial steps forward. As cyber policy continues to evolve, addressing these challenges will be essential for developing comprehensive and effective strategies that reflect the diverse needs and perspectives of the global community.

James Shires: and this is focused on cyber policy dialogues. The idea here is that we will be connecting different communities between research and practice, between technical and policy communities, and trying to do a little bit of interactive networking. So although you see four people up here on the stage, this is not going to be us talking to you very much. It’s going to be you talking to us and talking to each other, and ideally everyone online also talking to each other as well. So welcome and thank you for joining this session. I’ll talk a little bit about just the overall outline and then we can get started. So this is being organized by Virtual Roots. My name is James Shires. I’m co-director of Virtual Roots. We’re an NGO that focuses on research, education, and public engagement in cybersecurity and internet governance. I’ll hand over now to introduce my co-organizer, Louise Marie Harrell.

Louise Marie Hurel: Hello everyone, can you hear me okay? Yes, great, good. I’m Louise Marie Harrell. I am a researcher here at the cybersecurity program at the Royal United Services Institute, which is basically a very fancy name for a think-tank based in London working on a range of different security and defense issues, and obviously one of them is cybersecurity. And we conduct research and we also convene different sectors to discuss some of the domestic but also international policy challenges on cybersecurity. So it’s lovely to be here, even if online this time, but it’s great to see some familiar faces as well.

James Shires: Thank you, Louise. And what we’ll do is the following. Louise will say a little bit about Rootsie’s main program in this space, which is a global partnership on responsible cyber behavior. We will then turn to our key speaker. We are very pleased to have Corinne Kasher here from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Malta to give her personal perspective on crossing different communities. I will then ask you all to interact with us to fill out a few questions that we have online. So you can either use a QR code if you’re here in person, or you can access a link to the quiz. And then we will break out into different rooms to try and unpack these questions in a little bit more detail. So those of you online will go into smaller groups, and those of you in the room will do so as well. You will be assisted very ably in this task by two of our co-hosts, Yasmin and Eric here, who will be going around and answering any questions, stimulating discussion based on their own extensive knowledge of this area. So Yasmin and Eric, thank you very much for helping out here. I will now stop here and hand the floor to Corinne for some opening remarks. I will also move my video so those online people can see her in person.

Corrine Casha: Thanks James, and thank you everyone for being here. It’s a real pleasure to be among you. My name is Corinne, I am Deputy Director for Global Affairs at the Malta Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the reason I’m here at the IGF Forum is precisely because of the fact that our government is currently sponsoring fellows to participate here in this IGF Forum. And the reason why we are sponsoring fellows to participate in this IGF Forum is because we are firm believers in the fact that cyber policy should not be restricted solely to governments, but that cyber policy should also incorporate different facets. It should incorporate industry, it should incorporate academia, it should incorporate civil society, and also it should incorporate researchers. So one of the main, let’s say, tasks that we are currently conducting is to bridge the divides and also have the cyber researchers and cyber government officials interact more with each other. And from my personal experience this is a very important task because when it comes to, for example, drafting national cyber strategies, it’s important to have different ideas, not only restricted to what cyber policy is by government, but it’s important to also factor in the research, the academia, the government, let’s say, perspectives coupled with other partners. So I’m very pleased to be here today because this is exactly the culmination of what we wanted to be, a networking event where we discuss ideas, we discuss knowledge, where we impart information together and hopefully build up better cyber resilience as well amongst ourselves. I also wanted to outline that being a European Union member, Malta is also obliged by the regulation, the European Parliament and the Council to actually incorporate these different factors together. So we are actually obliged to also include, so there’s this policy of inclusiveness as well, and to include different communities. So it’s also a part of our, let’s say, EU membership or of our EU obligations to have these different perspectives come together. So that’s what I wanted to say from my perspective and I now hand over to you, James, again. Thanks.

James Shires: Thank you very much Corinne and we’ll go straight to Louise to talk a little bit about the Global Partnership.

Louise Marie Hurel: Wonderful. Again, thank you very much. You know, just a year ago, some of us were together in Kyoto for the regional launch of the Global Partnership for Responsible Cyber Behaviour, which is an initiative that we have established since 2022, actually, here at RUCI, with a purpose of bringing together the research community, studying and engaging in topics related to responsible cyber behaviour. And I think to be back at the IGF just really shows the importance of this space for us to be able to connect not only with other researchers, but most importantly, to make the most out of this multi-stakeholder community that the IGF has been nesting for decades now. And I just like to kind of echo a lot of what Corinne just said. The objective of the partnership is really to bridge part of that conversation, but most importantly, is to identify who’s researching topics related to responsible cyber behaviour. And I say responsible cyber behaviour because it’s not just about state responsibility in cyberspace, but it’s really recognising that we will only be able to have a proper conversation, and we will only be able to develop a critical mass and critical thinking if we’re able to identify those researchers that are based in different regions, right? And that has been our arduous task to identify researchers working in these topics from the different parts of the world. So we launched that. But I think the background for the conversation that we’re having today, and I think it’s a perfect, you know, match between what we’re doing over here at RUCI with a global partnership and what Virtual Routes is doing as well in terms of connecting also different communities. Because at this moment, as I think many of you are very familiar, it’s been decades that the UN processes have been discussing the rules of the road for responsible state behaviour, right? And while it is an important space that has developed norms and, you know, the recognition of how international law applies to cyberspace, even though only 32, 33 government entities, and I say government entities, because 30, 31 of them are actual member states, and two of them are regional bodies have, you know, published their views on how international law applies to cyberspace. And that’s all good. And that’s important in terms of thinking about peace and stability in cyberspace. But these UN processes, they revolve very much around a particular modus operandi. And that includes the fact that it’s very government centric, even though there’s some participation of stakeholders, even though quite contested since the start of this latest process of the open ended working group. And even though we see 193 countries represented there, it’s still very much in the room, a challenge of balancing two different poles. So US Western democracies on one side, and obviously, you know, Russia, China, and a couple of others, right. And I think the debate here is to bring those different bits and pieces and these different countries, especially developing countries to have a little bit more voice in those processes. And sometimes that is obfuscated by these broader strategic competition. I think another thing is that it’s really focused on international peace and security and much less so on other areas of thinking about like responsible cyber behaviour such as development and how it enables a lot of the conversation of states being able to be accountable as well as other stakeholders. Of course, there’s some conversation around due diligence, but then it’s still very limited to the language of this particular space. And I think, you know, it also means limiting who can be in those rooms, right? Even though there’s some accredited organisations that can attend the, let’s say, open-ended working group on cyber security, we still see that there’s a certain privilege to be in this room. You need to be accredited, you need to have the resources. So the whole point of this conversation and it has emerged as part of this dialogue between us and virtual routes, really, to think about how can we actually look at other spaces within the UN system that actually already has that structure for us to facilitate a dialogue where we can bring these communities together, where we can leverage the knowledge and the research that others have been conducting in this field. How can we identify researchers within, let’s say now, like within other regions? How can we understand other views of responsible cyber behaviour beyond, let’s say, just a very state-centric or just very related to these two poles, right? Or just to like governments. And how can we think about responsibility as something that is encoded at the international level in these discussions, but at the regional level, the domestic level and the operational level, thinking about how countries, how states and how different actors justify kind of developing cyber capabilities, right? So I just wanted to really set, like just really give a little bit of a glimpse at the background of where we are coming from as RUSI and our commitment to foster networking sessions such as these, but also our collaboration with Virtual Routes, which is also a member and a partner of the GPRCB. So I just wanted to welcome you all to the session, to thank the opportunity, and again, really gutted to not be able to be there, but very excited to what we’re going to learn from each other and also from the conversation that we’ll have here online. So thank you very much, and sorry if I spoke a little bit too much, but looking forward to connecting with you.

James Shires: Thank you, Louise, and that context was super important, so we’re really glad that you could share that with us. What we’re going to do now is we’re going to move from the bit where we talk at you to the bit where you engage in a little bit of a Q&A to start with. So as you will all be able to see in person, there is now a Slido with three short questions on. So indulge us, please do fill out these three short questions to get a sense of who we have in the room and what you think the main challenges are. Annie, I believe, is going to share the link to this same Slido online for those participating in hybrid form, and I can see people are already filling it out, so maybe the online people are super quick, they’ve got their laptops already open, and we’ve broken this down into a few different communities. You could slice a pie in as many ways as you want, but this is how we’ve decided to look at civil society, academia, IGOs, government, industry, or other, of course. So very pleasingly, it looks like we have quite a similar mix of different attendees, so that’s good if there’s everyone from one community, that might be a lesson in itself. So we are now changing results, and we can see that actually IGOs are representing the majority of people in the room, and Eric and Yasmin haven’t even filled out the poll themselves. So technical community is unfortunately not listed, no, because we believe that technical people do come from industry, they come from government, and they come from civil society. So yes, technical community is an identity, but they also have affiliations in these different areas as well. So if you identify as technical, then also please list your organizational affiliation as well. So I will now go to the second question we asked you, which was how often do you engage with people outside your main community? So we know there’s a lot of IGO people in the room, there’s some civil society, some industry, and how often do you talk to people from other communities? I like that this is going often is the main response, we’re seeing no one’s first time in engaging other communities is good, but you know we would be welcoming that as well. Okay, so occasionally some responses, some people are doing this all the time, but it looks like most people are doing this often, regularly, but not sort of day-to-day in their normal jobs. Maybe what we would expect in a multi-stakeholder internet governance environment. So that’s question two. That gives us, but also you, a sense of who else is in the room and how they see their sort of community interaction. So now we’re going to go to kind of the most important question. This is the one that is going to frame your breakout sessions. So it’s not a ranking, this is more of a word cloud. So what do you think are the main obstacles to greater cross-community interaction? Louise mentioned a few already, things like accreditation to key events, things like resources and participation, others coming out as well. So please fill in as many words as you would like to here as well. Don’t feel you have to come up with additional words, you can also double click or double down on the ones that are already there as well. I will give you a few more minutes to think about this, it’s a little bit more of a challenging question than the first two. And some really thought-provoking answers coming out already. So Wow So I can still see a couple of people typing, so I want to give people the space to make sure we capture as many views as possible in terms of these obstacles. So just to take a quick poll of everyone in the room, does everyone in the room feel that you’ve filled out to your comfort, right? You’ve put as much as you want into the word cloud. I’m going to take that as a yes and same for people online as well. Thank you very much for putting this through. Just a few, I already have a lot of responses thinking already, but I’m going to hold them back because I don’t want to talk any more to you. I want you all to discuss this word cloud between yourselves, right? This is a networking session, not a presentation session. And so what we will do is break into different groups here, small groups in the room. We will go into breakout rooms online. For people online, Annie will be assigning you to breakout rooms. We’re looking at about three or four people per group. And then what we will do is spend 15 minutes just talking about these key points. You can pick one of them and really drill into that, say, what is the issue here? Why is this such an issue? So what are the reasons for that issue? And then most importantly, how can we overcome the obstacle? I really want everyone to get towards that solution part of the conversation in your groups as well. So I can already see three clear groups here, one on the left for me, one on the right, and one in the middle. If you feel free to move around, feel free to make sure you want to have different communities involved in that group. And online, I hope you are also being assigned roughly equally as well. So that’s it from me. I’ll break now and we’ll come back in 15 minutes to hear your thoughts on these obstacles and how to overcome them, and in a way we’ll reflect with our participants as well. So thank you very much, and we’ll see you in 15 minutes.

AUDIENCE: for example in other multilateral forums such as the Open End Working Group, it also depends a lot on geopolitical tensions, so for example I work at the German Council on Foreign Relations, a think tank based in Berlin, and what we see is that sometimes the accreditation process can be rather difficult or it can depend on vetoes from other countries and that sometimes is kind of arbitrary in the sense that some similar organizations in Germany don’t have the chance to participate because xyz so yeah that sometimes we find ourselves in a privileged position when we are able to give our statements there but that not everyone has the same chances and that’s kind of sad because I think that for example also at the OEWG it’s great to see the involvement of different stakeholders because sometimes we are the ones doing the research and providing yeah I would say impactful research on those conversations so if you want to add something other members of the group please feel free to do so now right yeah

James Shires: thank you very much that is very much appreciated before we turn to Corinne and Louise I just want to highlight one group one issue that was discussed in this group that I was fortunate to be part of which is language barriers right we had one attendee here from Chad who speaks French and Arabic and not English and was nonetheless seeking to participate in what is here unfortunately an English language only forum so I would like to invite her to say a little bit in another language on your reflections that you had throughout the group

AUDIENCE: As-salamu alaykum

James Shires: so of course just to say a little bit about those challenges facing a country where not only is a language a barrier to participation you have visa applications you have aware popular awareness of things like cyber security measures and also ultimately uh government resources and money to contribute right so um and the unfortunately the language barriers themselves have been demonstrated in this session so in the last five minutes of the session i would like to thank you all for your participation turn to corinne and louise to give a few concluding reflections on the thoughts

Corrine Casha: yes and just a few remarks i think i don’t have a lot more to add than what the participants actually stated i thought i was very pleased to hear what they what they said and they were all very very valid points and and they are really food for thought also for me coming from a perspective of government i think for me i see two things um one is the fact that um coming from uh government i see that very often decision making at the highest level for example at the un is really sort of the privilege of governments and i don’t only say that in the realm of cyber i’ve seen it in the negotiations for example on oceans um and and therefore this is not just um something that is restricted to cyber policy so also in other in other policy areas and also at the let’s say national level so going from the multilateral but also to the national level what i see is that the government sort of there’s this culture where government thinks that it owns policy and so when whenever we are coming up with a strategy for example not enough research not enough evidence by academia or by industry is is fed into the the sort of strategy um document for example so what i see is that when we were coming up with a policy position very often it’s taken by government but it’s not does not include the the the different perspectives of of the other players and i think it’s really important um to bring everybody on board and this is what we are trying to do and just not to take up a lot of time because i know louise is also wanting to to say some remarks but on the issue of funding um we’re very very well aware of that and one of the things that my government has been doing is we are funding for example when it comes to negotiations at the un level we fund countries we fund um also governments to we sponsor uh let’s say least developed countries um delegates who cannot travel who cannot participate and and we fund them so that they are also included in the process apart from funding also fellows academia and and researchers because we believe it’s very important that we continue to fund um we continue to fund the these different um let’s say stakeholders so that their their ideas and their knowledge is fed into the process i think it’s very important so that’s all i can say from my end but um i think louise has a little bit more to say as well from her end

James Shires: thank you and louise we have already had a sign saying please wrap up so uh if you could summarize in one minute um that would be much appreciated

Louise Marie Hurel: absolutely and i mean not gonna take time uh and corinne definitely uh said a lot of what i was gonna say i just wanted to thank you all for for the contributions and the thought provoking kind of like discussions the one thing that i would stress though is this point on uh usually in these conversations be it at the igf even at the un we’re talking about how to ensure that cross-stakeholder representation is um is more effective right but i think the lesson that i’m taking from this this dialogue today is within our respective stakeholder groups how can we make it more um representative how can we build those bridges within our respective sectors right and that is something that akati and our group mentioned within like civil society you need to you can always pressure and do advocacy to make other spaces more representative but are you as an organization actually walking the talk of making your staff more diverse of ensuring that you have equity and ensuring that you are sensitive to the different let’s say regional representation within your team so i think that is the the key takeaway for me from our conversation here today and thank you again and thanks james for you know holding the fort and for the wonderful session so yeah thanks all for the contributions

James Shires: thank you louise thank you corinne uh thank you annie eric and jasmine for facilitating uh with us thank you everyone online and in person shock and jazzyland and uh have a great rest of your day

Agreement Points

Importance of diverse perspectives in cyber policy

Corrine Casha

Louise Marie Hurel

Importance of including diverse perspectives

Identifying researchers globally working on responsible cyber behavior

Both speakers emphasize the need to incorporate various perspectives, including industry, academia, civil society, and researchers, in cyber policy discussions and development.

Challenges in cross-community engagement

Corrine Casha

Louise Marie Hurel

AUDIENCE

Government-centric decision making in policy development

Challenges of balancing different stakeholder voices in UN processes

Accreditation difficulties for participating in multilateral forums

Speakers agree on the existence of obstacles to cross-community engagement, particularly in government-dominated policy-making processes and multilateral forums.

Need for initiatives to improve cross-community engagement

Corrine Casha

Louise Marie Hurel

Sponsoring fellows to participate in IGF Forum

Government funding for participation of developing countries

Global Partnership for Responsible Cyber Behaviour initiative

Leveraging existing UN system structures for dialogue

Both speakers highlight various initiatives aimed at improving cross-community engagement in cyber policy discussions, including funding participation and creating platforms for dialogue.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the importance of connecting researchers with government officials and identifying global expertise in responsible cyber behavior.

Corrine Casha

Louise Marie Hurel

Bridging divides between researchers and government officials

Identifying researchers globally working on responsible cyber behavior

The speakers agree on the existence of various barriers to participation in cyber policy discussions, including resource constraints, accreditation challenges, and geopolitical factors.

Corrine Casha

Louise Marie Hurel

AUDIENCE

Lack of resources and funding for some stakeholders

Accreditation difficulties for participating in multilateral forums

Geopolitical tensions affecting participation

Unexpected Consensus

Internal diversity within stakeholder groups

Louise Marie Hurel

Need for more diverse representation within stakeholder groups

While most discussions focus on cross-community engagement, Hurel unexpectedly emphasizes the importance of improving diversity and representation within stakeholder groups themselves.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The speakers generally agree on the importance of diverse perspectives in cyber policy, the challenges in cross-community engagement, and the need for initiatives to improve participation. There is a strong consensus on the need to bridge divides between different stakeholders and address barriers to participation.

Consensus level

High level of consensus among speakers, with agreement on major issues. This suggests a shared understanding of the challenges and potential solutions in improving cross-community engagement in cyber policy. The implications are that collaborative efforts to address these challenges may be well-received across different stakeholder groups.

Different Viewpoints

Approach to inclusive policy-making

Corrine Casha

Louise Marie Hurel

Importance of including diverse perspectives

Need for more diverse representation within stakeholder groups

While both speakers emphasize the importance of inclusivity, Casha focuses on including diverse external perspectives in policy-making, while Hurel stresses the need for internal diversity within stakeholder groups.

Unexpected Differences

Focus on funding and resources

Corrine Casha

Louise Marie Hurel

Lack of resources and funding for some stakeholders

Identifying researchers globally working on responsible cyber behavior

While Casha emphasizes the importance of funding and resources for participation, Hurel unexpectedly does not address this issue directly, instead focusing on identifying and connecting researchers globally. This difference in focus might indicate varying priorities in addressing cross-community engagement challenges.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the specific approaches to achieving inclusive and diverse participation in cyber policy discussions. While speakers generally agree on the importance of cross-community engagement, they differ in their emphasis on internal vs. external diversity, funding priorities, and methods of facilitating dialogue.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low, with more emphasis on complementary perspectives rather than conflicting views. This suggests a generally aligned approach to improving cross-community engagement in cyber policy, which could lead to more comprehensive and inclusive policy-making processes if different strategies are combined effectively.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on the need for better cross-community engagement in cyber policy, but they differ in their approaches. Casha emphasizes direct interaction between researchers and government officials, while Hurel focuses on leveraging existing UN structures to facilitate dialogue.

Corrine Casha

Louise Marie Hurel

Bridging divides between researchers and government officials

Challenges of balancing different stakeholder voices in UN processes

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the importance of connecting researchers with government officials and identifying global expertise in responsible cyber behavior.

Corrine Casha

Louise Marie Hurel

Bridging divides between researchers and government officials

Identifying researchers globally working on responsible cyber behavior

The speakers agree on the existence of various barriers to participation in cyber policy discussions, including resource constraints, accreditation challenges, and geopolitical factors.

Corrine Casha

Louise Marie Hurel

AUDIENCE

Lack of resources and funding for some stakeholders

Accreditation difficulties for participating in multilateral forums

Geopolitical tensions affecting participation

Key Takeaways

Cross-community engagement is crucial for effective cyber policy development

There are significant obstacles to inclusive participation, including language barriers, lack of resources, and geopolitical tensions

Initiatives like sponsoring fellows and creating partnerships can help improve cross-community engagement

More diverse representation is needed both across and within stakeholder groups

Government-centric decision making in policy development limits inclusion of other perspectives

Resolutions and Action Items

Continue efforts to fund and sponsor participation of developing countries and underrepresented groups in cyber policy forums

Leverage existing UN system structures to facilitate more inclusive dialogue

Organizations should examine their own diversity and representation internally

Unresolved Issues

How to overcome language barriers in international cyber policy discussions

How to balance different stakeholder voices effectively in UN processes

How to ensure consistent inclusion of academic and industry perspectives in government policy-making

Suggested Compromises

Governments funding participation of diverse stakeholders in policy discussions to improve inclusivity while maintaining some control over the process

So one of the main, let’s say, tasks that we are currently conducting is to bridge the divides and also have the cyber researchers and cyber government officials interact more with each other. And from my personal experience this is a very important task because when it comes to, for example, drafting national cyber strategies, it’s important to have different ideas, not only restricted to what cyber policy is by government, but it’s important to also factor in the research, the academia, the government, let’s say, perspectives coupled with other partners.

speaker

Corrine Casha

reason

This comment highlights the importance of cross-sector collaboration in developing effective cyber policies, emphasizing the need to include diverse perspectives beyond just government.

impact

This set the tone for the discussion by emphasizing the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement in cyber policy development. It led to further exploration of challenges and opportunities in cross-community interaction.

And I think the debate here is to bring those different bits and pieces and these different countries, especially developing countries to have a little bit more voice in those processes. And sometimes that is obfuscated by these broader strategic competition.

speaker

Louise Marie Hurel

reason

This comment brings attention to the power dynamics and representation issues in international cyber policy discussions, particularly highlighting the challenges faced by developing countries.

impact

It broadened the scope of the discussion to include global power dynamics and representation issues, leading to considerations of how to make international cyber policy processes more inclusive.

What we see is that sometimes the accreditation process can be rather difficult or it can depend on vetoes from other countries and that sometimes is kind of arbitrary in the sense that some similar organizations in Germany don’t have the chance to participate because xyz so yeah that sometimes we find ourselves in a privileged position when we are able to give our statements there but that not everyone has the same chances

speaker

Audience member

reason

This comment provides a concrete example of the challenges in participation and representation in international cyber policy forums, highlighting issues of access and arbitrary exclusion.

impact

It grounded the discussion in real-world examples and led to further exploration of barriers to participation in international cyber policy discussions.

As-salamu alaykum

speaker

Audience member from Chad

reason

While brief, this comment powerfully demonstrated the language barriers present in the discussion itself, making the abstract concept of language barriers concrete and immediate.

impact

It brought immediate attention to the language barriers in international discussions and led to reflection on how these barriers impact participation and representation, especially for non-English speaking countries.

What i see is that when we were coming up with a policy position very often it’s taken by government but it’s not does not include the the different perspectives of of the other players and i think it’s really important um to bring everybody on board and this is what we are trying to do

speaker

Corrine Casha

reason

This comment acknowledges the limitations of current government-centric policy-making processes and expresses a commitment to more inclusive approaches.

impact

It shifted the discussion towards practical steps for improving inclusivity in policy-making processes and led to sharing of initiatives aimed at increasing participation.

Usually in these conversations be it at the igf even at the un we’re talking about how to ensure that cross-stakeholder representation is um is more effective right but i think the lesson that i’m taking from this this dialogue today is within our respective stakeholder groups how can we make it more um representative how can we build those bridges within our respective sectors right

speaker

Louise Marie Hurel

reason

This comment shifts the focus from external representation to internal diversity and inclusivity within stakeholder groups, introducing a new dimension to the discussion.

impact

It prompted reflection on internal practices within organizations and sectors, encouraging participants to consider how they can improve representation and diversity within their own contexts.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by progressively broadening its scope from the initial focus on cross-sector collaboration to encompass global power dynamics, practical barriers to participation, language issues, and internal organizational practices. They helped to make the discussion more concrete by providing real-world examples and challenges, while also pushing participants to reflect on their own roles and responsibilities in improving representation and inclusivity in cyber policy discussions. The comments collectively highlighted the complexity of achieving truly inclusive and representative cyber policy processes, touching on issues of access, language, funding, and organizational culture.

How can we improve cross-community interaction in cyber policy dialogues?

speaker

James Shires

explanation

This was the central theme of the discussion and was posed as a question for participants to explore in breakout sessions.

How can we identify researchers working on responsible cyber behavior in different regions of the world?

speaker

Louise Marie Hurel

explanation

This was mentioned as an ongoing challenge for the Global Partnership for Responsible Cyber Behaviour initiative.

How can developing countries have a stronger voice in UN cybersecurity processes?

speaker

Louise Marie Hurel

explanation

Louise highlighted that developing countries’ voices are often obfuscated by broader strategic competition in UN processes.

How can we address language barriers in international cyber policy discussions?

speaker

James Shires (on behalf of an attendee from Chad)

explanation

This was identified as a significant obstacle to participation for non-English speakers in international forums.

How can governments better incorporate research and evidence from academia and industry into national cyber strategies?

speaker

Corrine Casha

explanation

Corrine noted that government policies often lack input from other stakeholders, suggesting a need for more inclusive policy-making processes.

How can organizations within each stakeholder group improve their own diversity and representativeness?

speaker

Louise Marie Hurel

explanation

Louise emphasized the importance of stakeholder groups ‘walking the talk’ by ensuring diversity and regional representation within their own organizations.