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Summary

This discussion focused on building resilient cybersecurity governance frameworks that balance digital sovereignty, security, and human rights in an era of rapidly evolving frontier technologies like AI and quantum computing. The panel, moderated by Enes Mafuta from Zambia’s Standardization Technical Committee, brought together cybersecurity experts, policy specialists, and researchers from Africa, Asia, and other regions to explore collaborative approaches to digital governance.

The panelists emphasized that existing cybersecurity frameworks don’t need complete reinvention but require better implementation and adaptation to emerging threats. Atsen Bako highlighted the importance of leveraging established standards like NIST frameworks while addressing the challenge that cybercriminals operate “at the speed of light” while law enforcement moves “at the speed of law.” Several speakers stressed the critical need for human-centric policy design, with Lily Botsyoe using a spider web analogy to illustrate how solutions imposed without stakeholder consultation often fail.

The discussion revealed consensus around several key principles: zero-trust architecture for AI systems, mandatory threat modeling and red teaming for critical infrastructure, and the urgent need for post-quantum cryptography. Participants advocated for policy sandboxing, sunset clauses, and machine-readable policies to ensure frameworks remain adaptable. The role of regional cooperation was emphasized as essential for preventing internet fragmentation while maintaining digital sovereignty.

Civil society’s role in ensuring accountability and transparency was highlighted, with speakers noting that “security without human rights is brittle.” The panelists concluded that building digital trust requires proactive, inclusive governance that puts human dignity at the center while fostering international cooperation to address shared challenges like deepfakes and misinformation.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Cybersecurity Framework Design and Implementation**: The need to optimize cybersecurity governance frameworks to balance resilience, sovereignty, and global interoperability, with emphasis on leveraging existing standards (like NIST) rather than reinventing frameworks, while addressing challenges in adoption across different countries and organizations.

– **Digital Sovereignty vs. Global Cooperation**: The tension between maintaining national digital sovereignty and ensuring international cooperation, particularly regarding data localization, trusted infrastructure, and regional approaches to cybersecurity that avoid fragmentation while respecting cultural and regulatory differences.

– **Human-Centric Policy Development**: The critical importance of involving stakeholders (especially citizens) in cybersecurity policy design from the beginning, emphasizing transparency, digital literacy, and community-based research approaches rather than treating human engagement as an afterthought.

– **Emerging Technology Threats and Preparedness**: Discussion of frontier technologies like AI-driven cyber attacks, quantum computing threats to encryption, and deepfake misinformation, with emphasis on proactive measures like zero-trust architecture, post-quantum cryptography, and continuous threat modeling.

– **Trust Building Through Accountability and Transparency**: The fundamental role of trust as the foundation of digital security, requiring genuine action behind promises (avoiding “privacy washing”), transparent governance, and multi-stakeholder collaboration including civil society, government, and private sector engagement.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to explore collaborative approaches for establishing robust cybersecurity governance frameworks that balance security, digital sovereignty, and human rights in the face of emerging technological threats, with particular focus on how different stakeholders can work together to build trust and resilience in digital ecosystems.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a consistently collaborative and constructive tone throughout. Speakers demonstrated mutual respect and built upon each other’s points rather than contradicting them. The tone was professional yet accessible, with participants sharing both technical expertise and practical examples. There was an underlying sense of urgency about emerging threats, but this was balanced with optimism about collaborative solutions. The conversation remained inclusive and forward-looking, emphasizing partnership and shared responsibility rather than blame or pessimism.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Samaila Atsen Bako** – Security evangelist representing the African region group, from Code for Africa

– **Lily Edinam Botsyoe** – PhD candidate in Information Technology at the University of Cincinnati, from Ghana

– **Enes Mafuta** – Moderator, from the Zambia Standardization Technical Committee

– **Boutife Adisa** – Information Security expert, MPOC Communication Chair at ICANN

– **Audience** – Eirik, works for various IT companies with security in Norway

– **Kozefi Duban** – Dr., African Internet Governance MAG member, sits on advisory panel on AI, co-founded the Global Youth AI Advisory Body, coordinates AI and cyber diplomacy department, coordinates Chad Youth IGF, from Chad

– **Monojit Das** – Dr., Cyber Governance and National Security Researcher at the C-Joint Tri-Service Think Tank under the Ministry of Defense of the Government of India

– **Ihita Gangavarapu** – Cyber Security Engineer and Program Manager at CloudSec Initiative, from India

– **Osei Keija** – Public Technology Interest Specialist, from the Ghana Youth IGF

**Additional speakers:**

– **Gabriel Kassan** – Online moderator (mentioned but did not speak in the transcript)

– **Tracy Huckshaw** – Asked question online (mentioned as asking a question but did not speak directly)

# Discussion Report: Building Resilient Cybersecurity Governance Frameworks

## Executive Summary

This panel discussion, moderated by Enes Mafuta from Zambia’s Standardisation Technical Committee, brought together cybersecurity experts and policy specialists to explore collaborative approaches to digital governance. The session featured structured 5-minute presentations from each panelist followed by Q&A from both in-person and online participants, including contributions from online moderator Gabriel Kassan.

The discussion centered on whether new cybersecurity frameworks are needed or if existing ones require better implementation, with participants exploring human-centric policy design, digital sovereignty, trust-building, and international cooperation. Key themes included the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement, proactive rather than reactive security approaches, and balancing security with human rights.

## Key Participants

**Samaila Atsen Bako** from Code for Africa’s African region group; **Lily Edinam Botsyoe**, PhD candidate from Ghana studying at University of Cincinnati; **Boutife Adisa**, Information Security expert and ICANN MPOC Communication Chair; **Dr Kozefi Duban** from Chad, African Internet Governance MAG member; **Dr Monojit Das**, cyber governance researcher with India’s Ministry of Defence; **Ihita Gangavarapu**, Cyber Security Engineer from India’s CloudSec Initiative; and **Osei Keija** from Ghana Youth IGF.

## Major Discussion Themes

### Framework Design: New vs. Existing

**Samaila Atsen Bako** opened by arguing against creating new frameworks: “I personally believe there’s no real need to reinvent the wheel in terms of design… What I think the biggest issue in terms of what we’re talking about is maybe the differences in how it’s been adopted or implemented by different organisations or even countries.” He emphasized leveraging existing standards like NIST cybersecurity framework and OWASP IoT project.

**Boutife Adisa** took a different approach, advocating for specific new requirements including zero trust by design for AI systems, mandatory AI threat modeling for critical infrastructure, and post-quantum cryptography implementation. He also proposed “sandboxing innovation like UK and Singapore to test AI systems in controlled environments.”

This represented one of the key tensions in the discussion – whether to focus on better implementation of existing frameworks or develop new regulatory requirements for emerging technologies.

### Human-Centric Policy Development

**Lily Edinam Botsyoe** introduced a compelling analogy from a previous session: “The spider story – where a researcher tried to repair a broken cobweb with thread, but when the spider returned, it destroyed the entire web because it wasn’t consulted about the repair process.” She emphasized that “policies must involve humans proactively rather than reactively through stakeholder engagement.”

Botsyoe also reframed the relationship between trust and policy: “Trust is not a byproduct of strong policy. It is a foundation of it. Let’s build with Trust and Mind and not think of it as an afterthought.”

**Samaila Atsen Bako** challenged traditional views of humans in cybersecurity: “An eligible person is your first line of defence and when you equip them with the right tools, then they become literal human shields for you,” moving away from seeing humans as the weakest link.

### Digital Sovereignty and Regional Cooperation

**Ihita Gangavarapu** highlighted the global “shift from free flow of data to regional control and localisation across all government types” while arguing that “regional cooperation enables trusted data flows, shared security principles, and joint R&D on resilient infrastructure.” She cited examples including India’s trusted telecom center and Kenya’s digital ID consultations.

**Dr Monojit Das** brought a national security perspective, noting that “cyberspace is no more just a tool of communication it’s a frontier of warfare after air, space, land, water, cyber is a frontier of warfare.” He advocated for a “whole-of-nation approach involving all stakeholders beyond just government in democratic setups.”

### Trust Building and Transparency

Multiple speakers emphasized trust as fundamental to effective cybersecurity governance. **Boutife Adisa** argued that “security and trust go hand in hand – secure platforms enable greater user trust.” An audience member reinforced this by noting that “trust requires actual security provision and border control to create genuine trust.”

**Osei Keija** provided a memorable framework: “Security without rights is brittle. Security without human rights is brittle.” He also challenged traditional stakeholder definitions: “the definition of civil society should not be a preserve of a certain group… We are all involved… We cannot clap with one hand.”

### Emerging Technology Challenges

The discussion addressed AI-driven cyber attacks, quantum computing threats, and deepfake misinformation. **Boutife Adisa** proposed technical solutions including continuous threat modeling and “policy APIs for machine-readable policies that can spot violations automatically.”

**Dr Kozefi Duban** emphasized “multilateral AI treaties embedding human rights safeguards and intercontinental threat intelligence sharing” and promoted an “AI for Humanity Code of Conduct emphasising AI for peace, security, and freedom of expression.”

**Lily Edinam Botsyoe** raised concerns about “Q-Day” – when quantum computing could potentially break encryption-based protections, highlighting the urgency of post-quantum cryptography development.

## Q&A Session Highlights

**Tracy Huckshaw** asked whether universal cybersecurity standards could work across all countries or if regional approaches were preferable. Responses varied, with some speakers favoring regional cooperation building toward global standards, while others emphasized starting with common challenges like misinformation.

**Eirik** raised questions about balancing trust and privacy, prompting detailed responses about the need for demonstrable security measures rather than “privacy washing with empty banners.”

**Dr Monojit Das** suggested starting “with common challenges like fake news where all nations agree, then build broader cooperation” and proposed “a collaborative portal for tackling fake news similar to Wikipedia’s model.”

## Key Challenges Identified

**Samaila Atsen Bako** highlighted the fundamental timing challenge: “there’s this popular saying in the industry that cybercriminals operate at the speed of light, while law enforcement or The Good Guys operates at the speed of the law.”

**Dr Monojit Das** noted the urgent need for “defining thresholds for cyber warfare and appropriate response mechanisms” and expressed concern about the “shrinking relevance of UN and other international bodies” in cyber governance.

Participants identified the persistent challenge of balancing privacy and security, the need for effective international governance mechanisms, and questions about whether universal standards can work across diverse national contexts.

## Recommendations

The discussion generated several concrete recommendations:

**Technical measures:** Implement zero-trust architecture, establish sandboxing environments for AI testing, mandate threat modeling for critical infrastructure, and accelerate post-quantum cryptography adoption.

**Governance approaches:** Develop multilateral AI treaties with human rights safeguards, implement whole-of-nation stakeholder engagement, and create policy APIs for automated compliance monitoring.

**Capacity building:** Invest in civic digital literacy programs, establish intercontinental threat intelligence sharing, and start international cooperation with common challenges like misinformation.

**Policy design:** Include sunset clauses for regular policy review, embed multi-stakeholder processes in AI governance, and prioritize human-centric design from the outset.

## Conclusion

The discussion revealed both convergence and divergence in approaches to cybersecurity governance. While participants agreed on the importance of multi-stakeholder engagement, human-centric design, and proactive security measures, they differed on whether to focus on implementing existing frameworks or developing new regulatory requirements.

**Enes Mafuta** concluded that “cybersecurity governance is a long journey requiring collaborative effort across all sectors.” The session demonstrated the complexity of balancing security, privacy, sovereignty, and international cooperation while highlighting practical approaches for moving forward through regional cooperation and focusing on areas of common concern.

The emphasis on trust-building, stakeholder engagement, and human rights suggests a maturing field that recognizes cybersecurity governance must serve human needs rather than treating humans as obstacles to security.

Enes Mafuta: Good morning, good afternoon, good evening. In a digital age where trust is the currency and sovereignty the fortress, the challenge lies in building resilient, interoperable systems that uphold both security and individual rights. Recent breakthroughs in frontier technologies, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, innovative encryption methods are transforming digital ecosystems and redefining the cybersecurity landscape. They are shifting the power dynamics between states, private entities and users, exposing vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure such as the recent typhoon, espionage operation and fueling challenges like deepfake misinformation and automated ransomware. Today’s discussions will explore how policymakers, technical communities, governments, civil societies and private sector can collaboratively establish robust governance frameworks, principles rooted in security by design, resilience and digital sovereignty to ensure global interoperability and trust. So allow me to introduce my speakers. First, my name is Enes Mafuta from the Zambia Standardization Technical Committee. I’ll be your moderator. To introduce our online panelist, we have Atsen Boko who is from Code for Africa, who is a security evangelist representing the African region group. And we have also Lily Edinam Botsyoe from Ghana, who is a PhD candidate in Information Technology at the University of Cincinnati. And we have our online moderator as well, Gabriel Kassan, I’m sure he’s online. To come to the room, we have Dr. Khouzeifi Douban, who is our African Internet Governance MAG member, and he also sits as an advisory panel on AI. Then we have Bolutife Adisa, who is an Information Security. I’ve just seen him walking. Please, you can join us. And he’s also an MPOC Communication Chair at ICANN. Then we have our special lady here, Ihita, from India, who is a Cyber Security Engineer and Program Manager at CloudSec Initiative. I’ll go now to Osei Kega, who is our Public Technology Interest Specialist, and from the Ghana Youth IGF. Last but not least, we have Dr. Monojit, who is a Cyber Governance and National Security Researcher at the C-Joint Tri-Service Think Tank under the Ministry of Defense of the Government of India. Ladies, gentlemen, we’re going to have five minutes each to respond to the questions, and from there we’re going to have interventions from the room, and we’re going to also have some questions from the online speakers. So, without wasting much of your time, I’ll start with Mr. Atsen Samaila Boko, who is also online. Now, Atsen, given the rapid evolution of digital infrastructure, and Fortier Technologies. How can the design of cybersecurity governance frameworks be optimized to strengthen both resilience and sovereignty while maintaining global interoperability? Specifically, how can policy evolve to address the operational strategic challenges posed by AI-driven cyber threat and quantum encryption? Atsen, five minutes.

Samaila Atsen Bako: Thank you so much. I hope you can hear me clearly. Yes, we do. We can hear you. Oh, awesome. That’s a bit of a loaded question, but I’ll try to answer it as best I can. I think the beauty of frameworks in our times today is that we’re, I would say, at a stable point. Over the years, they’ve been worked on, they’ve been refined, they’ve been improved. So I personally believe there’s no real need to reinvent the wheel in terms of design. I also think that we don’t need to have too many frameworks per topic, per item, because I think at some point, it’ll just be like a repetition of the same thing, a remixing of what has been done before. What I think the biggest issue in terms of what we’re talking about is maybe the differences in how it’s been adopted or implemented by different organizations or even countries, which obviously we all know will be impacted by things like political will or even the level of development in the country or the budgets they assign to things like this. If I give an example using the cybersecurity industry where I mainly work, there’s a popular NIST cybersecurity framework, which by the way, just got a new version, now it’s in 2.0, that emphasizes the governance aspect of security. However, if organizations do not take their own steps to get familiar with this new version or to adopt it, and others, and upgrade their security practices, then they will naturally be left behind due to the pace of things in tech-related spaces, as you have rightly pointed out. And so when talking about frontier technologies or emerging technologies, a critical approach would be to leverage standards, because standards are widely adopted and trusted if they are solid enough that’s created by people with the right expertise and endorsed by the right bodies. So an example, for instance, if you look at another frontier tech like Internet of Things, the security of them, there’s an organization called the Open Web Application Security Project, OWASP, that released this IoT project to, and I quote, to help manufacturers, developers, and consumers better understand security issues associated with Internet of Things and to enable users in any context to make better security decisions when building, deploying, or assessing IoT technologies. This means that both the manufacturers and users have a guide, and even regulators can choose the guide as a foundation or template for what the baseline security will look like when it comes to IoT devices, and then when that is enforced by a regulator, then you’ve raised the security bar in IoT devices globally, because standards are recognized globally. And I’d also like to add that there are other challenges. I think one of the key things is the general state of development, digital access, in some scenarios, even scarce subject matter experts or skilled workers, and lastly, the speed of law. And by speed of law, I’m talking about the process it takes for lawmakers to agree on the need for and decide to develop or even review and update laws, because they can become obsolete quite frequently. So there’s this popular saying in the industry that cybercriminals operate at the speed of light, while law enforcement. or The Good Guys operates at the speed of the law, and this implies that it will always be a game of catch-up for us, you know, and we are at the mercy of the interests, knowledge, and priorities of lawmakers and regulators. So, in other words, for policy to evolve and meet the challenges of the day, regulators and lawmakers have to be knowledgeable or hire the right people and appreciate the need to prioritize policy around the development and use of emerging technologies. Only an intentional approach involving the experts, users, manufacturers, and other stakeholders can yield the desired results. I realize that if some of the people in the room or joining us online are in certain countries, then this may be a scary statement I’ve just given a spell out to. I think I’ve physically exhausted my five minutes. I’ll pause there. Thanks, Ernest.

Enes Mafuta: Thank you very much, Axen, and considering that you’ve talked about standards, I come from the standardization side, and one of the things that we have been struggling with is to find a proper mechanism or adoptions of security by design standards and also, yeah, and security systems. Now, I’ll now go to Iheeta. You know, Iheeta, you’ve been part of various regional organizations. One of them is the ITU, and I think you’ve participated in the standardization making process, and also you coming from the Asia-Pacific, so how do you see these countries balance the need of a strong security systems with the preservation of digital sovereignty, especially when deploying security by design within critical infrastructure like telecoms? So, in your view, how can these regional corporates help safeguard sovereignty without creating fragmentation?

Ihita Gangavarapu: Thank you so much, Ernest. Hi, everyone, those joining us in person and remotely. I’m Iheeta Gangavarapu. First of all, I would like to say that the session title is very apt because we use the term odyssey, so it’s been a long and a very long time since I’ve been in a place where I’ve been able to talk about security. So, I would like to start by saying that I’m a big fan of the term odyssey. So, I’m a big fan of the term odyssey, , and the global internet. So this is a meaningful journey in the digital realm and especially towards digital sovereignty. So if you look at from a decade ago, the global internet was held as something very secret. And we used to believe in free flow of data, technology, services. And when we are moving, you’re seeing a shift towards regional control or localization now. And we’re seeing a shift towards localization. And we’re seeing a shift towards localization and localization across countries of all types of governments. Could be democracies or authoritarian regimes, right? And they’re placing serious bets on embedding sovereignty into their digital infrastructure. And I think much of this change that you see is because of the rapid digitalization. From India, since you mentioned it back. Because we’re looking at any kind of especially when you’re looking at critical sectors, like the telecom. It’s not just about stronger encryption or monitoring, it’s about designing systems where, you know, what we’re looking at as countries getting strategy control over data, technology, and access. In India, for example, the government has come up with a trusted telecom center, where a procurement of different telecom equipments to ensure that there is integrity and resiliency in what we incorporate in our infrastructure. And at CloudSec, we have seen firsthand, so we conduct threat intelligence research, and we have noticed that supply chain attacks and different vulnerabilities have been tied to shifting geopolitical dynamics as well. So these insights, you know, show that security by design should go beyond compliance. It is something that you anticipate, you’re anticipating risk at a very systematic level. And I’ll also bring in an enterprise perspective because sovereignty is not just about governments Enterprises are equally invested on one hand, you know, they must comply with national regulations in every jurisdiction They operate in but on the other they must also offer some the customers trust And assurance that the data is secure private and not subject to foreign laws And you’re seeing enterprises today also incorporating enterprise digital sovereignty where they are Demonstrate that you know, they comply with local laws and resist foreign access requests which could affect the trust that customers have on them So given that there are so many dimensions to this that’s where I think regional cooperation comes in to ensure there’s no fragmentation So it the answer lies in Pragmatic alignment where I mean that you need regional cooperation to enable trusted data flows Shared security principles mutual recognition of vendors trusted vendors and even joint R&D on certain Resilient infrastructure and far from fragmenting the internet. It can actually strengthen the whole process And just to add one last dimension to it I’d like to talk about content and cultural sovereignty because digital frameworks from certain like from the countries allow countries to Manage content moderation in ways that reflect their cultural and linguistic norms And in the absence of this kind of a regional cooperation and alignment global platforms may overlook and ignore local sensibilities You know that many may call cultural or linguistic colonialism, so Yeah, I just wanted to highlight over this and I look forward to your next set of questions

Enes Mafuta: Thank you for that, you know in the telecom or in the cyberspace we say trust is a very expensive word Thank you so much for joining us today, and I’m so glad that you’re here with us today. And the way you’ve highlighted it, it’s something that we’ve been talking and talking. But so I’ll go now to Lily, who is online with regard to trust and safety. Lily, I just want you to highlight how these policies and public interest driven approaches can help to reinforce sovereignty without eroding the same trust. Especially when new frontiers like threats like AI or quantum attacks are at play. Lily?

Lily Edinam Botsyoe: Hi, everyone, and good morning, good afternoon or good evening, depending on where in the world you are joining from. I usually will say that I’m so thankful for the gift of the Internet. And today I’ll say I’m thankful for the gift of time zone also, because it allows me to join online before work and also allows me to do this from miles away. So I’m joining you at 315 from Cincinnati, Ohio, and excited to join this conversation. And so I met I met a little bit of what I was describing, but I’m just going to dive into the conversation. Use examples from what we are seeing in research. See just center humans like make this whole process human centric and drive home the points I have in mind. So so thankful for for the audience we have in person and those who also have online. And so one of the questions I mean, the question that is this post has humans at the center. If you look at it critically and like you said, usually trust is so expensive because how exactly do you measure trust? So in this question that he asks right now, we have a very complex variable, which is a human being. And if those are humans, you know, humans would react to things differently based on how it appeals to them. Sometimes using emotions, sometimes using what if what they perceive as safety, sometimes even using what it is that favors them at one point. And then I. I currently do research with users when it comes to the privacy aspect, and which pretty much is language security. So I’m going to go through that aspect to break down what it is that would help us to be able to make sure that humans are actually at the forefront of all that we are talking about when it comes to digital sovereignty in a way that it drives a process to make sure that it works for them, and also to be people who accelerate this process. So one of the things that I’ll start with is just a scenario. I was in a session where somebody spoke about community-based research, and the person she was requesting said something along the lines of, somebody had seen a cobweb. We all know what cobwebs are. So spiders weave cobwebs, right? And when they weave cobwebs, usually it’s so pretty, it can stay for a couple of days, and it can get broken down, or it can stay for as long as, I mean, it’s protected. Now, somebody has seen that a part of the cobweb was broken, right? And a person had seen before the spider weaving a cobweb, and a person went in to try to use thread and a special material to try to complete the cobweb because it was broken. And the next day, the spider came, and this person was a researcher sat at the side waiting to see what the spider would do. And here is where the shocker happened. So the spider came in, and in your mind, you probably think maybe the spider will be happy and say, well, it was broken, so you held me, right? The spider came and destroyed the whole thing. Now, the person threw the question to us and asked, why did a spider behave that way? And the conversation went on, and we came to understand that pretty much the spider wasn’t contacted, wasn’t interviewed, wasn’t asked if they wanted that to happen, or wasn’t asked their view on the process being done the way it was done, and they felt that it was unnatural. So that is what happens in this space of cybersecurity and this space of digital sovereignty. And I’ll break it down as to the reason why. So usually, when we talk about cybersecurity and tech, we usually… I would like to say that things like policies trail behind technology because technology is fast evolving, and then you build so much without usually thinking about the policies that reinforce and make this robust. And sometimes we find that it’s trailing, and we do the catch-up game to try to make sure that all the systems are within a citizen-confined, that it’s protecting humans. At the center of cybersecurity and technology is that key factor, which is the human factor. If humans are not involved, if human views are not sought, usually we see that the adaption or the way that humans usually react to things that we see when it comes to laws, policies, and all of that will be limited. And in essence, there’s so much that will be happening where people will be saying, hey, let’s go back and probably do what they call stakeholder meetings or stakeholder engagement. And sometimes it is more reactive rather than proactive. So answering the question about how trust and safety for digital ecosystems can be pretty much heralded by humans in general, it brings up the whole question of even how government, if it were issues of, say, cybersecurity or not, without involving humans, usually the buy-in is very little. So I’ll give you a past example, aside from what we see with the spider story that I mentioned where even the spiders think that they should have been contacted, and that is the idea of community-based research. And in that context, we say that’s in the context of what we call multi- or multi-stakeholder engagement. When we involve more people from different backgrounds, it is legitimate and it becomes accepted. So in my view, societal confidence influences the success of national security because humans are those that would work with it, that those who buy in to make sure that whatever policies, whatever thing you’re building, it’s really robust and they make sure that it’s functioning. So you can do all the fancy policies, if you don’t involve the humans, they don’t understand it, it’s all going to come crumbling. So for how it can, in essence, breach whatever encryption we know because of how fast and strong it is, right? And they’re talking about Q-Day in this article, and they’re saying, okay, Q-Day is probably looming around, and what Q-Day looks like is a day where everything that is encryption-based or encryption-protected could fail. And me thinking as a user, well, what could that day look like? Is it bound to happen? Because we’ve seen threats from places like CrowdStrike where even airports were shut down completely. And you’re thinking about even a more powerful threat like Q-Day. And even for somebody like me in research, if that got me to panic, imagine my mom who just really uses technology and thinking, what does that mean to us? Some of these threats stifle our use of technology, and it calls on us within this ecosystem to make sure that everybody’s responsibility is pretty much taken into consideration. Government is playing its part. Businesses are playing their part without fail. For example, there have been many instances where users have pretty much lost trust in the system because of things like the concept of, in quotes, privacy washing. So you go into a website, and a company will write this nice label and banner telling you how to protect your privacy. But the actions that follow really is different from what they’re saying. And you’re wondering exactly what it is they’re saying and what it is they’re offering. So in the past, those things that happen even with privacy washing, cybersecurity washing, it’s like promises that do not really stand. And so it doesn’t give the trust to humans to be able to believe in this system. For us in the global South, it’s even well because we are playing a bit of catch-up when it comes to digital sovereignty. We are not in total control of the data, where it sits, how it’s processed, because we are in constant battle with big tech, and our systems and infrastructure are still developing. So if there is something we have to do, we have to do it. We have to do it. We have to do it. We have to do it. We have to do it. , and the other is what do we do to make sure there is this confidence and trust. I will put it in three buckets. The first one is embedding transparency and participation in policy design. We say it feels like a cliche, but like I said, you have to put people from different backgrounds from the different stakeholder groups in one room together. We have a lot of people from Africa and Kenya. They set strong examples with open digital ID consultations. If we can follow the lead globally, that would be amazing. Aside from this, embedding transparency and participation in policy design, I would also think about investing in civic digital literacy. Even the steps to do this is not in the complexity of what it looks like, but it is one of the big things. Like I said, if people don’t understand the risks and the tools at play, whether it is AI, quantum or encryption, they can’t trust or protect themselves. Aside from embedding transparency, let’s also push towards civic digital literacy. I will end with one thing about building cross-border trust. We cannot do it alone. The effort should not be in silos. Some of these frontiers and the innovation we are seeing is not within the national borders. Our response shouldn’t also be standalone and thinking only about national. We should look at how to coordinate a global approach in a way that in our emerging regions.

Enes Mafuta: Lili, your five minutes is up.

Lily Edinam Botsyoe: Thank you. I think I just landed on those three. Thank you so much.

Enes Mafuta: I like the fact that you’ve talked about policy design. There’s something that we’ve always said, that to have a nice policy should be forward-looking and future-proof. Okay, so in terms of trust, we need policies that are forward-looking and future-proof. So now, when it comes to also policy, I have somebody here, Bolutife Adisa. You’ve been in the policy engagements, like you write policy for ICANN in your constituency, NPOC constituency, and you’re a cyber security expert. So I just want you to talk a bit about these policy measures that are needed to enhance trust and security in terms of digital infrastructure and also against just these emerging frontiers threats like AI-driven attacks and quantum vulnerabilities. And also, how can we make them adaptable to future challenges while maintaining stakeholder confidence? Five minutes.

Boutife Adisa: I’m Bolutife Adisa, for the record, and it’s a pleasure to be here today. Okay, thank you very much. Hello, everyone. very limited time, I will just go straight into it. Thank you, Ernest. When we talk about trust and security, I would like to first say that these are not just technical challenges. They are more of social contracts that we need to really consider because to reinforce trust and security, especially when it comes to AI and new digital technologies, I would say we need three foundational policy pillars. So I’m adopting this from a position of operating a critical infrastructure because when we talk critical infrastructure, we don’t just talk protection. We talk resilience. So in order to ensure resilience, first, we need to ensure zero trust by design for AI systems. What is zero trust by design? Zero trust is quite a common buzzword but basically what it means is that we never trust and we always verify so this is sort of a model that should be adopted because it’s mandatory to have multi-factor authentication on some of the systems and to ensure that we don’t have sort of a breakdown that eventually we end up regretting it’s also important to vet the systems not just the systems but the models as well as the data that feeds into the systems and this also should not be a one-off thing it’s a continuous process and then it should be done more regularly and that’s zero trust by design another one is that policy needs to mandate AI threat modeling as well as red teaming for these AI systems so in the critical infrastructure space it’s regulatory requirement actually that you conduct red teaming continuously to check on the resilience of your systems and this is very important because like the earlier speaker said the attackers are moving at the speed of light so it’s important that we constantly test the resilience even when you’re not being attacked you need to ensure that this is in place and then lastly someone talked about quantum computing which is also quite important because right now it’s a race against time the current encryption we have in place how does it stand against quantum computing or quantum power computers and this also now brings the recommendation that we need to think more post quantum cryptography to protect systems especially like AI and other powerful systems that could be exploited and also as good as they are for humanity we can also see the downside of it so very quickly the other part which is How do we ensure that the policy remains multi-stakeholder, remains efficient? I think first of all, we need to look at the UK and Singapore, what they have done in terms of sandboxing innovation. So you put innovators in a controlled environment to really test out and test the resilience of these AI systems. This is very important. It’s also a way to ensure engagement of the required people. Second would be to have sunset clauses and policy APIs. So sunset clauses basically means that policy does not go forever. It gets to a point where it expires and then you can do a review and see if these policies are still adaptable in this context. And also policy API is an important technology development, which we have machine readable policies, such that these systems can spot violations by themselves. And this is also quite important. And lastly, you know, like the IGF, we have the multi-stakeholder process. I think it’s important that this is also still embedded in what we call AI governance or digital technology governance. I think my time is up, so I’d like to give the floor back to you. Thank you very much.

Enes Mafuta: Thank you very much, Bolutife, for that. And I like the fact that you’ve talked about the multi-stakeholder approach in this. And also talking about that, I would also frame it in the context of international cooperation. As you are aware that as new technologies evolve on the market, threats are also evolving. So there is need for international cooperation to ensure that we are in good standing and we are running at the same pace. So I’m going to give the floor to Dr. Kozefi Duban. You are into multiple organizations. One of them is an intergovernmental organization. Dr Kouzeifi, I just wanted to give you a perspective on how international cooperation can ensure that AI and cyber security respect sovereignty and human rights. And also I just wanted to talk about what safeguards are needed to prevent fragmentation and also to build trust and align with these global standards while balancing national interests and collective security. Five minutes.

Kozefi Duban: Thank you, moderator. Good morning to everyone. I’m very honored to speak here today and I would like to thank the predecessors of this very interesting table. Yes, my name is Dr Kouzeifi from Chad. I co-founded the Global Youth AI Advisory Body, coordinating also the AI and cyber diplomacy department and then coordinating also the Chad Youth IGF and Africa IGF MAG member. In the face of emerging threats such as driven AI cyber attacks, deepfake disinformation and quantum-enabled espionage, international cooperation must be grounded in mutual respect for sovereignty while aligning with universal values of human rights and digital trust. As youth advisors, we have co-developed an AI for Humanity Code of Conduct, emphasizing AI for peace and security, freedom of expression and responsible enforcement of international law. So this ethical framework can help guide cyber security cooperation globally, ensuring AI systems are not weaponized by states or corporations in ways that suppress civil liberties. and where state capacity and youth vulnerability are key issues. So we recommend regional capacity building initiatives that link local realities to global frameworks such as the Global Digital Compact through open consultation and public-private partnerships, academic as well. So in conclusion, to prevent fragmentation and foster interoperability, we need multilateral AI treaties, embedding human rights safeguards by design, also intercontinental threat intelligence sharing rooted in trust and inclusivity, and we need also to harmonize cyber norms that balance national digital sovereignty with collective global security. So finally, trust is built not only through technical protocols but also throughout youth inclusion, cultural contextualizations and transparent AI governance. Africa in general is not just a beneficiary, it is a co-architect of secure digital future. So let’s commit to decentralized governance models that reflect these diverse voices and realities. Thank you, Moderator.

Enes Mafuta: Thank you very much, Dr. Khouzeifi, for that. I’ll now go to Dr. Monojit. Dr. Monojit, you’ve done quite a number of research in cyber governance and national security area, most recently in geopolitics. You have expertise in these things. So my question to you would be, how should government prioritize cybersecurity policies to save their national interest in this competitive environment? What strategies should they adopt to balance immediate security needs with long-term digital resilience, especially considering the geopolitical tension around digital sovereignty and the enforcement of critical security measures? You have the floor.

Monojit Das: Thank you, Moderator. First of all, it becomes a bit challenging when you have your predecessors already speaking everything, and you’re coming inside and you have to add on something new. Let me add my bit. So firstly, a disclaimer that although I’m associated with the think tank of the Ministry of Defense, but the views are bi-personal. And regarding to the views that you mentioned about prioritizing the policies, I’ll give you a very recent example of what the government has initiated in India. We have come up with an approach of a whole-of-nation approach. So here, what we have tried is that we have introduced a future warfare course. And this is very much in the open. It’s not classified. And what we have tried to involve is not just from the tri-services, but also the other stakeholders. Because you see, today’s time, infrastructure is not solely residing with the government. In a democratic setup like India, undoubtedly the world’s largest democracy, so we have to take care of the whole-of-nation approach as a first and foremost priority to address these type of issues. So what we have done is that we have brought in all the stakeholders. And this is one such kind we are starting to go off. But my query, or rather I would submit here that the basic understanding here we have all, we are giving our opinion. Largely, it remains same, if not contrasting, but sometimes contradicting as well. But we all remain united to the fact that there should be a central institution, or at least the platform UN, that we are currently sitting and discussing. But with the given passage of time, we see somehow the relevance of the United Nations or the international body at large is shrinking. So we need to have a good discussion between government to government at a larger level should come up beforehand because you see space, cyberspace is no more just a tool of communication it’s a frontier of warfare after air, space, land, water, cyber is a frontier of warfare, domain of warfare rather. So before you know the current scenario what happens every country is in the verge of making the first or the first. So you know there is no threshold in terms of a cyber war or a cyberspace. So what happens there are accepted definitions by some countries that mentions you know if at all a large-scale cyber attack is waged so it can be retaliated with a full-scale war. So what is the threshold? So you know before a country decides its threshold and wages a full-time war or a full-fledged war it is for us to decide and for this I believe we will still need a further discussion at the apex level and the centralized format under the UN which I feel and in addition to this let me also take that since the convergence are more within the UN and the member countries so it should always start off with something like which is a problem to everyone like for example tackling the fake news you know. So these are the common goals which every nation whether they have a diverging views within the UN setup but they do agree to the point that fake news is a challenge. So with this I believe that you know that if at all we can start off with this convergence slowly and steadily we can find out some more areas for collaboration and cooperation that can always help us to form some effective policy that can ultimately pave the way. because otherwise every government has a different interest. For us, it may be different and for countries which may be belligerent to us or which are neutral to us, we’ll have a different strategy and in cyber you cannot trust anyone because always, the cyber actors, we often trace it back to having a state-sponsored support mechanism in some way or the other. And since, as my previous speaker has rightly mentioned, the lack of international law that governs is still because we need someone or some architectural body that can actually oversee because you see the existing mechanism and if you see the International Court of Justice or many such cases, International Criminal Court, but many countries do not recognize that, if you see. So, there should be some form of mechanism. So, with this, I believe my time is close to end. So, I end the word. Thank you.

Enes Mafuta: Thank you, Dr. Monijith. You’ve highlighted quite a number of very important things and one of them that I stood out is about how these fake news, deep fakes, are emerging. And I think governments are finding it so challenging to combat these deep fakes and everything. And it’s creating a different perception in the minds of users and most of these deep fakes, when they are thrown out there, is that there is what we call reputation damage and everything. So, it’s a challenge. So, I agree with you. We really need to move in that step now. I want to bring it to the civil society perspective because we know that civil society plays a key role in shaping accountable and transparent cyber security policies. So, I’m going to invite Keija. I’ll say, from your perspective, you’ve been in the civic space and you’re also a public technology interest specialist. So, how do you see civil society organizations influencing the development of cyber security framework and to ensure that they uphold human rights and social inclusion? Robert and Christine analyzes the issue. Minister of the France will give a signal how to contribute providing the country with several security measures. Emergency de bölging Forward is . Something very long.

Osei Keija: And for the record, my name is Osei Keija and I would like to welcome everyone to this conversation. It is a long journey. Do you believe that the future of cyber security lies in civil society? Just shoot your hand up if you do believe. Awesome. It seems everything is being shelved to us, pushed to us. Oh, civil society, do this. Civil society, do this. And look at the topic. Very long expedition. And for the reason, present for some people. I do acknowledge that civil society organizations play a very crucial role. They serve as the bulwark and indispensable counterweights in cyber security governance. But who should? The question is who are the people there? Is it me and you? Or the tech? Everyone is involved. So I, the term civil society organization should not be there present for everyone. I do believe everyone should be involved. That’s my first argument. Then let’s go into it. What have you been doing in terms of all this conversation? It’s a lot, honestly. Maybe my five minutes may elapse from education to responsibility. I think that a lot of people should be engaged in that. But I don’t think that I am. I think we should be engaged in the conversation about the issues we have to discuss. I think that I agree with the people who are involved in this conversation. And then I Transparency, and all that. But as I mentioned, how many civil society organizations are there in certain marginalized even communities, or even that has access to there? So in that regard, in that nuance, we need to activate something there. We all, I do acknowledge, we all can be activists. We all can be pushing, be at the forefront of things. But how can you and I contribute in a little way in demanding accountability, policy accountability? Lily mentioned about human-centric approach. We will come to that. Bolu mentioned about sunset clauses and all that. You are a lawyer here. In your individual capacity, what can you do to demand accountability? Have you written a letter to your Ministry of Communications demanding about surveillance? And with regard to the balance, which are legitimate powers and illegitimate powers, we need to activate something. How do we energize the base? So secondly, co-creating right-centric standards, something civil society have been doing. And it’s quite seen the case of the EU, I mean, most countries, where there’s co-creation of impact assessment for critical infrastructure. And it’s seen in most African countries to some African countries, where there I say security without rights is brittle. Security without human rights is brittle. It’s at the center of it all, the conversation we are having. And we need to push for an inclusive, equitable human rights for the long-term health of society. Lastly, I would like to talk about another strategy in civil society, it’s forging unlikely alliances. We saw in the case of Brazil when they had issues with WhatsApp and civil society served as a trilateral dialogue where they brought the government inside and also big tech inside trying to just make sure end-to-end encryption protocols were preserved. They serve as a dialogue. I know my five minutes may elapse, but I would like to end here that the definition of civil society should not be a preserve of a certain group. Public interest technology should not be a preserve of a certain group. We are all involved. Yes, we know we cannot be front-runners, but in our own small way, in education, creating awareness, we can cultivate. We can make things happen. So we must continue, what I’ll quote one of my favorite people, is that we must continue with all our intellectual, spiritual, and spiritual energy to campaign for the emancipation of the productive forces. And there’s one African proverb I do love very much. It says we cannot clap with one hand. So let’s try if you can clap with one hand. It doesn’t work. Collaboration. So let’s collaborate. Thank you

Enes Mafuta: Thank you very much Keija. Yeah, we can all be activists considering that We are all affected in one way or another. So let us be activists. Let’s not leave it to civil society alone I know technical communities. Let’s also come together Governments everything. Yeah, all see all sectors. So now I’ll now open the floor to the room We’re gonna have some questions from the room We’re gonna have about maybe 10 minutes for questions from the room anyone who want to take up some questions Or comments Yeah, there’s a mic there No one Okay, Kassan, do we have some questions online? There’s a hand here.

Audience: Question regarding this. My name is Eirik. I work for Various, I’ve been working for various IT companies with security in Norway for many years My question is when you talk about trust, how can you expect trust if you don’t have people making sure they have privacy? How do you make sure that How can you believe that the border control can be creating trust? Because you need to make sure that what is actually provided is secure So it’s providing the secure service would be providing the trust How do you think about this?

Enes Mafuta: Anyone want to go first? Sure, I think I’d like We’ve had a comment on trust from Lily. I’m not sure if she’s still here in the corner. Yeah. Yes Yeah, I think I’ll prefer this thing, but I just want to say I think trust

Lily Edinam Botsyoe: I don’t know if you can see me, I’m trying to get my video on, but I’ll just start by answering. I mean, in essence, craft justice, if you look at it, it’s multifaceted. When I say multifaceted, it requires many things to happen for it to really be achieved. And I give an example, like I said, there’s been the context of what is called privacy washing. Like, you go onto a platform, you see a banner, it has a title that says, hey, we preserve your privacy, or we do whatever, we don’t collect data, we don’t share with people, we don’t sell your data. In the end, it comes a week later, and then you’re getting all of these emails from people wondering how exactly they got your details to be able to even reach out to you. The concept of privacy washing has become so much out there that people do not even trust what it is that they see online, and the action that follows. So what he described is actually true. There is an offering that has to come from whoever is a provider for trust to really be actualized. It is in the doing, the action that you do to back the promise you’ve given to a user, that would ensure that the user trusts in you. Many times, we’ve seen that trust has been trashed in the face of users, and so users do not really trust that the system would even work. So for it to work, we usually would say, do the advocacy, but it’s also ways that people demand this. People are asking that, look, even online, for what it is that you put on there, we want to be able to understand, and then the concept of privacy margin comes in. What you’re putting out there, is this only to promise me, or you really are doing what you say you’ll do? Is there a place I can see how long my data is held for what purpose? Is there a place I can see even who it goes to or who you share it with? So they’re looking for a way to even actualize what is known as situational awareness online, so that people can perceive. whatever it is they see online by way of maybe pop-ups, all these banners, they can comprehend what they’re saying and they can also anticipate any future consequences. So, I would say that what you said is true. There is a need for action to follow for people to trust it. Without the action and the service level agreement being fulfilled, usually users wouldn’t feel the trust. And like I said, users will feel trust for different reasons. It can be that I accept that, yes, I’ve been treated fairly because my data wasn’t shared, or I don’t accept because I later on found that you were holding my data for whatever purpose. If what you said you do, you are doing, it also just bolsters the trust of people, and people also can feel safe using your technology or using your platform. So, that is what I’ll say about it, and I hope that it’s really helpful for you in the context that you were thinking.

Enes Mafuta: Thank you very much, Lily. I don’t know. You want to go? Yeah, I think Lily has covered it all. Okay, anyone wants to? Okay, Adisa.

Boutife Adisa: Yeah, so, Bullet Defe Adisa for the record. In my opinion, I think in addition to what Lily has already said, I think security also goes side by side with trust. So, if you have a secure platform, people are able to trust in what you’re offering and they’re able to use it more effectively, basically. So, the trust also goes both ways. I think you mentioned rightly that whoever is the border control needs to ensure that whatever they provide is trustworthy, and I think that’s extremely important, and it’s also in line with what a lot of the speakers already mentioned. So, yeah, I think ensuring that the platforms are transparent as well as secure is the major recipe for trust, especially for end users, yeah.

Enes Mafuta: Thank you, Adisa. Josefi?

Kozefi Duban: Yeah, I would like just to add two words. I think before to talk about. We need to make sure that we have contained control and regulation. Whatever the language we use, users have to be sure that if they are online, they are, first of all, safe. What they use is also safe and controlled. And for that, we need national mechanisms that will allow us to control this process. It is very important.

Enes Mafuta: Thank you very much, Khouzeifi. Anyone else want to go? Okay, so we have another question from online. I think we take this first before we come back to the room again. The question is from Tracy Huckshaw. It says, do you think there can be a one-size-fits-all set of universal cybersecurity standards that will work across all countries? Or should there be another regional or even economical status focused approach? Okay.

Osei Keija: Thank you very much, Tracy. Very insightful question. There’s nothing like one-size-fits-all, like a silver bullet when it comes to security or, say, cybersecurity issues. But I will say that, as I mentioned, security without human rights is brittle. Whatever we are designing, it must take into account the people. It must take into account the people. They are at the center of it. What are we designing for them good? Are their rights respected? That should be the answer. Policy harmonization may come in. It’s effective. It’s very good. But the core of it all must be the human-centric approach. And co-creation, it being inclusive, not designed for someone and being an afterthought. Why stakeholder consultation? We trade there. No, it doesn’t work that way. Thank you.

Enes Mafuta: Thank you very much. Anyone wants to take that?

Ihita Gangavarapu: Yeah, I think that’s okay with you. It’s actually… Thanks, Tracy, for your question. So the thing about… Although we say standards are something that should be applicable across… Maybe it could be a…

Osei Keija: Thank you very much. It’s been very, very insightful discussion and I hope and my belief and my desire, aspiration that we will live here fortified, energized to work for the common good of all humans, to make sure that our security is the core of whatever we are doing, there’s trust, there’s privacy, and most importantly, humans are the center of everything. And let’s all, in our own individual capacity, our minds, everything, contribute to this cause. Just like the topic says, cyber security or DSA, it’s not a short journey, it’s a very, very long journey. So let’s journey together. Life, they say, is better in company. So let’s all co-pilot. Thank you.

Enes Mafuta: Okay, Ihita?

Ihita Gangavarapu: Yeah. So I thought it was from here. All right, so thank you so much, actually, for this opportunity today. What I understand at Digital Sovereignty is this as a concept, it cannot work in silos, and you need to have a very layered approach. And, you know, we spoke about how regional and national and even actually global cooperation is required in this realm. Then that’s something we’ve been discussing even during WSIS and the GDC discussions as to how, you know, you need these kinds of policies and structures in place. And overall, when you look at the work that’s been done in the cyber security space, could be policy regulation standards, or any kind of activism that’s also done, it has to be flexible, scalable, adaptable, adoptable by countries, organizations, and us as individuals. So I think I’ll leave it to that.

Enes Mafuta: Yeah, thank you. Before I go to Dr. Monajit, Lily, any final closing remarks? Then I’d say no follow.

Lily Edinam Botsyoe: I think I tend to talk a lot. So I’ll just end by saying this. Past isn’t a byproduct of strong policy. It is a foundation of it. Let’s build. with Trust and Mind and not think of it as an afterthought. Thank you.

Enes Mafuta: Thank you, Lily. Atsen?

Samaila Atsen Bako: Yeah, Ernest. I just want to buttress that, you know, we’ve spoken about a lot of things, like multiple interventions that are pushing things in the right direction. You know, things like, you know, AI for Good or AI Ethics or Defense in Depth, Zero Trust, Separation of Duties, Principle of Disprivilege, you know, and while I admit that some of them are technical in nature and not the responsibility of the maybe average person or average internet user, it’s worth noting that our IT and security teams have some support, you know, and so that I do not sound like a prophet of doom or fearmonger, I think I would like to end on positive, sorry, end with positive thoughts. So, the good news is that, you know, policy is just one side of the security triangle, you know, we have technology and people to help as well. So, when dealing with the risk, you know, frontier tech, things like generative AI or quantum computing that can break, you know, encryption algorithms, we should not forget, you know, to enlighten the people and also adopt tools that can mitigate the risks we are concerned about. So, remember that an eligible person is your first line of defense and when you equip them with the right tools, then they become literal human shields for you. So, I prefer this kind of statement than saying, you know, the human is the weakest link in the security chain. So, regardless of your role or capacity, you know, aim to learn more, understand how policies and regulations can be beneficial to you or your organization and you will definitely be playing your part. Thank you so much.

Enes Mafuta: Thank you very much, Adsen. Dr. Monajith, you can go next. Yeah. So, when you talk about the term security, you know, the biggest dilemma is that whether we will be building 10 schools or we will be buying a few helicopters or ammunition, you know, this is the standard dilemma that a country faces every time. And in terms of cyberspace, so it’s either we are going to give the privacy or get the security because privacy and security sometimes we find it don’t come together. So with this I’d like to mention that since my esteemed panelists are already working in multiple fields, you know So let us do something, you know, that can really pave the way for future collaboration like for example In terms of tackling of the fake news, which is I’ll reiterate that it’s a challenge for every country that faces So, you know at least developing some portal and like how you see Wikipedia came up, you know a few years back You know, it was really not so supportive. I’ll not use any other word But you know of late you see it has developed but it’s somehow you’ll find some interesting or some valuable information So at least if at all we can have it something generated from our side, you know There can be one point of contact Then we send in something and then it verifies that whether it is right at least it can start off in a single stem and probably Like how five-year plan used to be there by all government and other agencies So if at all we can plan of something in that way It’s like a five-year plan for tackling fake news So in this way, we can have something a convergence that can really pave the way for otherwise, you know

Monojit Das: Diverging views will lead up to diverging thoughts and you know, we may not converge in some time. Okay. Thank you.

Enes Mafuta: Thank you. Dr. Monaghan, Dr. Koza if you can go next

Kozefi Duban: First of all, I’d like to say thanks to the participant for being here to listen to us. There is no good or bad idea It’s always about discussions. I would like also to say thanks to my collaborators and friends here panelist and also to you moderator for creating this I wouldn’t Forget about Kazan also who is online coordinating the the platform. Thank you also Kazan in conclusion Let me highlight this securing our digital future in the age of frontier technologies demands more than just reactive policies It calls for proactive inclusive and ethically grounded cooperation from in Jemena to Nairobi from Olso to Jakarta. We must build a cybersecurity ecosystem rooted in trust, guided by human rights and resilient by design. As youth, we are not just participants, we are co-creators of the digital compact. So let’s together ensure that the AI service humanities respect sovereignty and protect the dignity of all. Thank you very much.

Boutife Adisa: Thank you very much everyone for listening to us today. I think the panelists have really spoken well. For me, at the end of the day, I think trust and security are essential tools in building the digital backbone for our next century. So when we think security, when we think trust, I would like us to think more in terms of resilience, because it’s important that we don’t wait until things go bad before we look for solutions. So in the security sense, it’s important to always test, always discuss beforehand, always see if your system fails, see if AI probably would not work in certain aspects, so that we will not fall into a situation where humanity suffers from the product of innovation that we see today. So it’s important that we test the resilience of this. And we keep talking, we keep pushing it, pushing the policies, pushing the necessary frameworks that are required to ensure that this system works for our good and not for doom, like some people might think. But thank you very much. I would like to submit on this note. Thank you.

Enes Mafuta: Thank you very much everyone. So my final… Thank you all for your active participation and thoughtful contributions. So let’s continue this vital journey together of building bridges of trust and resilience across our regions. Thank you very much.

Agreement points

Multi-stakeholder approach is essential for cybersecurity governance

Speakers

– Boutife Adisa
– Lily Edinam Botsyoe
– Kozefi Duban
– Osei Keija
– Enes Mafuta

Arguments

Multi-stakeholder process like IGF should be embedded in AI governance and digital technology governance

Embedding transparency and participation in policy design with multi-stakeholder groups

Youth are not just participants but co-creators of digital compact and AI governance

Civil society definition should not be preserve of certain groups – everyone can be activists

Cybersecurity governance is a long journey requiring collaborative effort across all sectors

Summary

All speakers emphasized the critical importance of inclusive, multi-stakeholder approaches in cybersecurity governance, with each advocating for broader participation beyond traditional government and technical communities to include civil society, youth, and diverse stakeholders.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Development

Human-centric approach must be at the center of cybersecurity policy design

Speakers

– Lily Edinam Botsyoe
– Osei Keija
– Ihita Gangavarapu

Arguments

Policies must involve humans proactively rather than reactively through stakeholder engagement

Security without human rights is brittle – human rights must be at the center of cybersecurity

Digital sovereignty requires layered approach with flexible, scalable, adaptable policies

Summary

Speakers consistently emphasized that cybersecurity policies must prioritize human needs, rights, and participation from the design phase rather than treating humans as an afterthought or the weakest link in security chains.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity

Trust requires concrete actions and transparency, not just promises

Speakers

– Lily Edinam Botsyoe
– Boutife Adisa
– Audience

Arguments

Trust requires action backing promises, not just privacy washing with empty banners

Security and trust go hand in hand – secure platforms enable greater user trust

Trust requires actual security provision and border control to create genuine trust

Summary

There was strong consensus that trust cannot be built through marketing promises alone but requires demonstrable security measures, transparency, and actual protection of user data and privacy.

Topics

Privacy and data protection | Cybersecurity | Human rights

Need for proactive rather than reactive cybersecurity approaches

Speakers

– Samaila Atsen Bako
– Boutife Adisa
– Ihita Gangavarapu

Arguments

Speed of law versus speed of cybercriminals creates perpetual catch-up game for regulators

Think in terms of resilience rather than reactive security – test systems before they fail

Security by design should go beyond compliance to anticipate systematic risks

Summary

Speakers agreed that the current reactive approach to cybersecurity is insufficient and that policies and systems must be designed proactively to anticipate and prevent threats rather than responding after attacks occur.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized leveraging existing, proven cybersecurity frameworks and standards rather than creating new ones, with focus on zero trust architectures and continuous security practices.

Speakers

– Samaila Atsen Bako
– Boutife Adisa

Arguments

Leverage widely adopted and trusted standards like NIST cybersecurity framework 2.0 and OWASP IoT project

Zero trust by design for AI systems with mandatory multi-factor authentication and continuous vetting

Topics

Cybersecurity | Infrastructure

Both speakers recognized the trend toward digital sovereignty and the need for comprehensive national approaches that involve multiple stakeholders beyond just government entities.

Speakers

– Ihita Gangavarapu
– Monojit Das

Arguments

Shift from free flow of data to regional control and localization across all government types

Whole-of-nation approach involving all stakeholders beyond just government in democratic setups

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Digital sovereignty

Both emphasized the importance of educating and protecting users through both literacy programs and regulatory mechanisms to ensure people can safely navigate digital environments.

Speakers

– Lily Edinam Botsyoe
– Kozefi Duban

Arguments

Investing in civic digital literacy so people understand risks and tools like AI and quantum encryption

Need national mechanisms for control and regulation to ensure user safety online

Topics

Development | Cybersecurity | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected consensus

Civil society role should be universal rather than limited to specific organizations

Speakers

– Osei Keija
– Kozefi Duban
– Lily Edinam Botsyoe

Arguments

Civil society definition should not be preserve of certain groups – everyone can be activists

Youth are not just participants but co-creators of digital compact and AI governance

Policies must involve humans proactively rather than reactively through stakeholder engagement

Explanation

Unexpectedly, there was strong consensus that traditional boundaries between civil society, government, and other stakeholders should be dissolved, with everyone being viewed as potential activists and co-creators rather than passive recipients of policy.

Topics

Human rights | Development | Legal and regulatory

Regional cooperation strengthens rather than fragments global internet governance

Speakers

– Ihita Gangavarapu
– Kozefi Duban

Arguments

Regional cooperation enables trusted data flows, shared security principles, and joint R&D on resilient infrastructure

Need multilateral AI treaties embedding human rights safeguards and intercontinental threat intelligence sharing

Explanation

Despite concerns about digital sovereignty leading to fragmentation, speakers unexpectedly agreed that regional cooperation and localization can actually strengthen global governance by building trust and enabling better coordination.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure | Human rights

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion revealed remarkable consensus on fundamental principles: the necessity of multi-stakeholder governance, human-centric policy design, proactive security approaches, and the requirement for concrete actions to build trust. Speakers consistently emphasized moving beyond traditional silos and reactive approaches toward inclusive, forward-looking governance models.

Consensus level

High level of consensus on core principles with strong implications for cybersecurity governance. The agreement suggests a mature understanding among diverse stakeholders that effective cybersecurity requires collaborative, human-centered, and proactive approaches rather than technical solutions alone. This consensus provides a solid foundation for developing comprehensive cybersecurity policies that balance security, sovereignty, and human rights.

Different viewpoints

Framework development approach – reinvention vs. new frameworks

Speakers

– Samaila Atsen Bako
– Boutife Adisa

Arguments

No need to reinvent frameworks, focus on adoption and implementation differences across organizations and countries

Zero trust by design for AI systems with mandatory multi-factor authentication and continuous vetting

Summary

Bako argues against creating new frameworks and emphasizes leveraging existing ones like NIST, while Adisa proposes specific new policy requirements like mandatory AI threat modeling and red teaming that would require new regulatory frameworks

Topics

Cybersecurity | Legal and regulatory

Civil society role definition and scope

Speakers

– Osei Keija
– Kozefi Duban

Arguments

Civil society definition should not be preserve of certain groups – everyone can be activists

Youth are not just participants but co-creators of digital compact and AI governance

Summary

Keija argues for a broad, inclusive definition where everyone can be activists and civil society shouldn’t be limited to specific groups, while Duban focuses specifically on youth as a distinct group with special co-creator status in digital governance

Topics

Human rights | Development

Sovereignty approach – regional vs. national focus

Speakers

– Ihita Gangavarapu
– Monojit Das

Arguments

Regional cooperation enables trusted data flows, shared security principles, and joint R&D on resilient infrastructure

Whole-of-nation approach involving all stakeholders beyond just government in democratic setups

Summary

Gangavarapu emphasizes regional cooperation and cross-border collaboration as key to digital sovereignty, while Das focuses on national approaches and whole-of-nation strategies, with less emphasis on regional coordination

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure

Unexpected differences

Trust building foundation vs. outcome

Speakers

– Lily Edinam Botsyoe
– Boutife Adisa

Arguments

Trust is foundation of strong policy, not byproduct – build with trust in mind

Security and trust go hand in hand – secure platforms enable greater user trust

Explanation

This represents an unexpected philosophical disagreement about whether trust is a prerequisite for good policy (Botsyoe) or an outcome of secure systems (Adisa). Both are cybersecurity experts but have fundamentally different views on the causal relationship between trust, security, and policy

Topics

Cybersecurity | Human rights

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed relatively low levels of direct disagreement, with most conflicts being subtle differences in emphasis and approach rather than fundamental opposition. Main disagreements centered on framework development approaches, the scope of civil society participation, and whether to prioritize regional vs. national sovereignty strategies

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. The speakers largely shared common goals around human-centric cybersecurity, multi-stakeholder governance, and the need for robust security frameworks. Disagreements were primarily about implementation methods and emphasis rather than fundamental principles. This suggests a mature field where core principles are established but implementation strategies are still being debated, which is healthy for policy development and indicates room for complementary approaches rather than conflicting paradigms

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized leveraging existing, proven cybersecurity frameworks and standards rather than creating new ones, with focus on zero trust architectures and continuous security practices.

Speakers

– Samaila Atsen Bako
– Boutife Adisa

Arguments

Leverage widely adopted and trusted standards like NIST cybersecurity framework 2.0 and OWASP IoT project

Zero trust by design for AI systems with mandatory multi-factor authentication and continuous vetting

Topics

Cybersecurity | Infrastructure

Both speakers recognized the trend toward digital sovereignty and the need for comprehensive national approaches that involve multiple stakeholders beyond just government entities.

Speakers

– Ihita Gangavarapu
– Monojit Das

Arguments

Shift from free flow of data to regional control and localization across all government types

Whole-of-nation approach involving all stakeholders beyond just government in democratic setups

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Digital sovereignty

Both emphasized the importance of educating and protecting users through both literacy programs and regulatory mechanisms to ensure people can safely navigate digital environments.

Speakers

– Lily Edinam Botsyoe
– Kozefi Duban

Arguments

Investing in civic digital literacy so people understand risks and tools like AI and quantum encryption

Need national mechanisms for control and regulation to ensure user safety online

Topics

Development | Cybersecurity | Legal and regulatory

Key takeaways

Cybersecurity governance should focus on implementing existing frameworks rather than creating new ones, with emphasis on standards like NIST 2.0 and OWASP

Digital sovereignty requires balancing regional control with global interoperability through trusted data flows and shared security principles

Human-centric policy design is essential, requiring proactive stakeholder engagement and transparency rather than reactive approaches

Trust must be built through concrete actions backing promises, not empty privacy statements or ‘privacy washing’

International cooperation should start with common challenges like fake news where all nations agree, then expand to broader cybersecurity issues

Zero trust architecture and post-quantum cryptography are critical for protecting against AI-driven attacks and quantum threats

Civil society participation should be inclusive of all individuals as potential activists, not limited to formal organizations

Security and human rights must be integrated – ‘security without human rights is brittle’

Policy adaptability requires mechanisms like sunset clauses, sandboxing innovation, and machine-readable policies

Resilience-focused thinking is preferable to reactive security measures – test systems before they fail

Resolutions and action items

Develop multilateral AI treaties embedding human rights safeguards by design

Implement intercontinental threat intelligence sharing rooted in trust and inclusivity

Create sandboxing environments for testing AI systems in controlled settings (following UK and Singapore models)

Establish policy APIs for machine-readable policies that can automatically spot violations

Mandate AI threat modeling and red teaming for critical infrastructure systems

Invest in civic digital literacy programs to help people understand AI and quantum encryption risks

Develop a collaborative portal for tackling fake news similar to Wikipedia’s model

Create five-year plans for addressing fake news through convergent approaches

Implement whole-of-nation approaches involving all stakeholders beyond government

Establish sunset clauses in policies to ensure regular review and updates

Unresolved issues

How to balance privacy and security when they sometimes conflict

Defining thresholds for cyber warfare and appropriate response mechanisms

Addressing the speed gap between cybercriminal activities and legal/regulatory responses

Determining whether universal cybersecurity standards can work across all countries or if regional approaches are better

Establishing effective international governance mechanisms when UN relevance appears to be shrinking

Managing the dilemma between investing in social services versus security infrastructure

Ensuring adequate subject matter experts and skilled workers in developing regions

Creating effective mechanisms for individual accountability and citizen engagement in cybersecurity policy

Suggested compromises

Start international cooperation with universally agreed challenges like fake news, then gradually expand to more contentious cybersecurity areas

Adopt regional cooperation frameworks that enable sovereignty while maintaining global interoperability

Use multi-stakeholder approaches that balance government, private sector, civil society, and individual interests

Implement flexible, scalable, and adaptable policies that can work across different national contexts while maintaining core human rights principles

Balance immediate security needs with long-term digital resilience through phased implementation approaches

Create hybrid governance models that respect national digital sovereignty while enabling collective global security

Develop pragmatic alignment mechanisms for trusted data flows and mutual recognition of vendors across regions

I personally believe there’s no real need to reinvent the wheel in terms of design… What I think the biggest issue in terms of what we’re talking about is maybe the differences in how it’s been adopted or implemented by different organizations or even countries… there’s this popular saying in the industry that cybercriminals operate at the speed of light, while law enforcement or The Good Guys operates at the speed of the law

Speaker

Samaila Atsen Bako

Reason

This comment reframes the entire discussion by suggesting that the problem isn’t lack of frameworks but implementation gaps and regulatory speed. The metaphor about speed differences between criminals and law enforcement crystallizes a fundamental challenge in cybersecurity governance.

Impact

This set the tone for the entire discussion by shifting focus from creating new policies to improving implementation and adaptation speed. It influenced subsequent speakers to address practical implementation challenges rather than theoretical frameworks.

The spider story – where a researcher tried to repair a broken cobweb with thread, but when the spider returned, it destroyed the entire web because it wasn’t consulted about the repair process

Speaker

Lily Edinam Botsyoe

Reason

This powerful metaphor illustrates how well-intentioned cybersecurity policies can fail when stakeholders (especially end users) aren’t involved in the design process. It makes the abstract concept of stakeholder engagement tangible and memorable.

Impact

This story became a recurring theme throughout the discussion, with multiple speakers referencing human-centric approaches and the importance of involving affected communities in policy design. It fundamentally shifted the conversation toward inclusive governance.

Security without rights is brittle. Security without human rights is brittle… The definition of civil society should not be a preserve of a certain group… We are all involved… We cannot clap with one hand

Speaker

Osei Keija

Reason

This comment challenges the traditional boundaries between different stakeholder groups and democratizes the concept of cybersecurity governance. The phrase ‘security without rights is brittle’ provides a memorable framework for evaluating cybersecurity policies.

Impact

This redefined the role of civil society from a separate stakeholder group to an inclusive concept where everyone can be an activist. It influenced the closing remarks of several speakers who emphasized collective responsibility and collaboration.

We have come up with a whole-of-nation approach… cyberspace is no more just a tool of communication it’s a frontier of warfare after air, space, land, water, cyber is a frontier of warfare… So what is the threshold? So you know before a country decides its threshold and wages a full-time war or a full-fledged war it is for us to decide

Speaker

Monojit Das

Reason

This comment introduces the critical concept of cyber warfare thresholds and escalation, moving beyond defensive cybersecurity to offensive considerations. It highlights the urgent need for international agreements on cyber warfare rules of engagement.

Impact

This elevated the discussion from technical cybersecurity measures to geopolitical and military considerations, prompting other speakers to address international cooperation and the need for global governance mechanisms.

Trust is not a byproduct of strong policy. It is a foundation of it. Let’s build with Trust and Mind and not think of it as an afterthought

Speaker

Lily Edinam Botsyoe

Reason

This comment fundamentally reframes the relationship between trust and policy, suggesting that trust should be the starting point rather than the end goal of cybersecurity governance. It challenges conventional policy-making approaches.

Impact

This provided a conceptual framework that influenced the closing remarks of multiple speakers and reinforced the human-centric approach that became central to the discussion’s conclusion.

An eligible person is your first line of defense and when you equip them with the right tools, then they become literal human shields for you… I prefer this kind of statement than saying, you know, the human is the weakest link in the security chain

Speaker

Samaila Atsen Bako

Reason

This comment challenges a fundamental assumption in cybersecurity discourse by reframing humans from being the ‘weakest link’ to being ‘human shields’ when properly equipped. It’s a paradigm shift that empowers rather than blames users.

Impact

This positive reframing influenced the overall tone of the discussion’s conclusion, with speakers emphasizing empowerment and education rather than restriction and control as cybersecurity strategies.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by shifting it from a technical policy-focused conversation to a human-centric, collaborative approach to cybersecurity governance. The spider story metaphor and the ‘security without rights is brittle’ framework became recurring themes that influenced how subsequent speakers framed their contributions. The discussion evolved from addressing ‘what policies do we need’ to ‘how do we build inclusive, trust-based governance that empowers rather than restricts people.’ The military/warfare perspective introduced urgency around international cooperation, while the reframing of humans as assets rather than liabilities provided a more optimistic and empowering conclusion. Overall, these comments transformed what could have been a dry policy discussion into a nuanced exploration of the human dimensions of cybersecurity governance.

How can we find proper mechanisms for adoption of security by design standards and security systems?

Speaker

Enes Mafuta

Explanation

This was identified as an ongoing struggle in standardization work that needs resolution for effective implementation

What does Q-Day look like and is it bound to happen?

Speaker

Lily Edinam Botsyoe

Explanation

She referenced concerns about a potential day when quantum computing could break all encryption-based protections, requiring further investigation into timeline and preparedness

What is the threshold for cyber warfare and when does a cyber attack warrant full-scale war retaliation?

Speaker

Monojit Das

Explanation

He highlighted the lack of accepted international definitions and thresholds for cyber warfare escalation, which poses significant security risks

How can we develop a centralized portal for tackling fake news, similar to how Wikipedia evolved?

Speaker

Monojit Das

Explanation

He proposed creating a collaborative verification system as fake news is a common challenge across all countries

How can we create a five-year plan approach for tackling fake news with convergent international cooperation?

Speaker

Monojit Das

Explanation

He suggested structured long-term planning similar to government five-year plans to address misinformation systematically

How can we energize and activate marginalized communities to participate in cybersecurity governance?

Speaker

Osei Keija

Explanation

He questioned how to ensure broader participation beyond traditional civil society organizations, especially in communities with limited access

What specific actions can individuals take to demand policy accountability from their governments regarding surveillance and cybersecurity?

Speaker

Osei Keija

Explanation

He challenged participants to consider concrete individual actions like writing to ministries to demand transparency and accountability

How can we ensure post-quantum cryptography implementation to protect against quantum computing threats?

Speaker

Boutife Adisa

Explanation

He identified this as a race against time requiring immediate research and implementation before quantum computers become capable of breaking current encryption

How can we establish effective international mechanisms for cyber governance given the declining relevance of traditional international bodies?

Speaker

Monojit Das

Explanation

He noted the shrinking relevance of UN and other international bodies in cyber governance, requiring new approaches to international cooperation

Summary

This discussion was the AU Open Forum for the African Internet Governance Forum (IGF), where representatives from the African Union Commission, UN Economic Commission for Africa, and various stakeholders shared updates on digital transformation initiatives across Africa. The forum served as a platform for African organizations to report on their accomplishments and for participants to share experiences and challenges from their respective countries.

Dr. Maktar Sek from UNECA outlined four key challenges facing the continent: policy harmonization, connectivity issues, digital inclusion gaps, and cybersecurity threats. He reported that African internet connectivity had only increased by 1% in 2024, reaching just 38% coverage, which he deemed unacceptable. UNECA has developed various tools to address these challenges, including a tax calculator for ICT sectors, an AI innovation platform showcasing 2,400 continental innovations, and support for digital ID systems across multiple countries.

The African Union Commission representative discussed ongoing initiatives including the digital transformation strategy implementation, PRIDA phase two launch, and development of continental AI and cybersecurity strategies. A significant focus was placed on the low ratification rate of the Malabo Convention on cybersecurity, with only 17 countries having ratified it despite its importance for continental cyber governance.

The Permanent Secretary of Tanzania provided a comprehensive overview of the 14th African IGF held in Dar es Salaam, which attracted 1,097 participants from 67 countries. The forum produced the Dar es Salaam Declaration, identifying nine key challenges including infrastructure gaps, digital inclusion barriers, and cybersecurity vulnerabilities, along with corresponding commitments for addressing these issues.

Several participants raised concerns about implementation of IGF recommendations, noting that while excellent outputs are produced annually, there is insufficient follow-up and monitoring of actual implementation. The discussion concluded with calls for stronger institutional support for the African IGF Secretariat and better coordination among various organizations working on digital policy harmonization across the continent.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Digital Infrastructure and Connectivity Challenges**: Extensive discussion about Africa’s low internet connectivity (only 38% by end of 2024), affordability issues, infrastructure gaps, and the need for policy harmonization across the continent to create a digital single market.

– **Implementation and Governance of Digital Policies**: Focus on the slow ratification of the Malabo Convention on cybersecurity (only 17 countries have ratified), the need for stronger institutional frameworks, and challenges with internet resource management through AFRINIC.

– **Capacity Building and Skills Development**: Emphasis on digital literacy programs, youth empowerment, the African School on Internet Governance (AFRICIG), and the need to build local expertise rather than relying solely on external support.

– **Sustainable Funding and Resource Mobilization**: Discussion about reduced international cooperation budgets, the need for African countries to step up with domestic funding, greater private sector involvement, and potential GDP levy mechanisms for development funding.

– **Moving from Discussion to Action**: Concerns raised about the gap between IGF declarations/recommendations and actual implementation, with calls for stronger monitoring frameworks and the need to transform IGF from a discussion platform into one that produces actionable resolutions.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion served as the AU Open Forum for the African Internet Governance Forum (IGF), aimed at sharing progress reports from key organizations (AU Commission and UN Economic Commission for Africa), presenting outcomes from the 2025 Tanzania African IGF, and facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue on Africa’s digital transformation challenges and opportunities.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a collaborative and constructive tone throughout, characterized by professional engagement and shared commitment to African digital development. While participants acknowledged significant challenges (low connectivity, funding constraints, slow policy implementation), the tone remained optimistic and solution-oriented. There was a strong spirit of pan-African cooperation, with frequent expressions of gratitude for partnerships and mutual support, though some frustration was evident regarding the slow pace of policy ratification and implementation gaps.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Adil Suleimana**: Moderator/Chair of the AU Open Forum, representing African Union organization

– **Maktar Sek**: Chief Digital Officer, United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA)

– **Participant**: Permanent Secretary of Tanzania, host of the African IGF 2025

– **Amenta Ramalan**: Representative of Africa Youth IGF, from Nigeria

– **Henriette Esterhuisen**: Organizer of the African School on Internet Governance, works with AU Research ICT Africa and Association for Progressive Communications

– **Jacqueline Jijide**: Ambassador for Pan-African Youth Internet Governance, Digital Inclusion Practitioner, member of Malawi Youth IGF, from Malawi

– **Michel Kenmo**: West Africa Advisor for Communication and Information, UNESCO

– **Tobias Thiel**: Resident Director of GIZ for the African Union, based in Addis Ababa

– **Audience**: Multiple unidentified speakers from the audience making various interventions and questions

**Additional speakers:**

– **Dr. Amina Miyada**: EVC, CEO of Nigeria Communication Commission (acknowledged but did not speak)

– **Honorable Minister from Chad**: (acknowledged but specific remarks not transcribed)

– **Honorable Minister from Gambia**: (acknowledged but specific remarks not transcribed)

– **Honorable Minister from Zambia**: (acknowledged but did not speak)

– **Sorine**: Instrumental in African IGF organization over the last two years, works on African IGF Secretariat

# AU Open Forum for African Internet Governance: Discussion Report

## Executive Summary

The AU Open Forum for the African Internet Governance Forum convened as a platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue on Africa’s digital transformation progress and challenges. The forum brought together representatives from the African Union Commission, UN Economic Commission for Africa, government officials including ministers from Gambia and Chad, civil society organisations, and youth representatives to share updates, discuss implementation gaps, and coordinate future actions.

Key discussions centered on Africa’s persistent connectivity challenges—with internet penetration reaching only 38% by 2024—alongside efforts to establish comprehensive policy frameworks for cybersecurity, digital inclusion, and economic transformation. Participants engaged in frank discussions about the gap between policy declarations and actual implementation, coordination challenges among multiple organisations working on similar initiatives, and the need for sustainable funding mechanisms for Africa’s digital agenda.

## Opening Remarks and Context Setting

Adil Suleimana from the African Union Commission opened the forum by outlining the AU’s ongoing digital transformation initiatives, including implementation of the continental digital transformation strategy and the launch of PRIDA phase two. He highlighted the development of comprehensive continental strategies for artificial intelligence and cybersecurity as foundational elements for Africa’s digital future.

A significant concern raised was the limited ratification of the Malabo Convention on cybersecurity and personal data protection. Despite being in force since 2023, only 14-17 countries have ratified this critical framework, with major economies including South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Ethiopia yet to adopt the convention. The Commission proposed establishing a dedicated committee to examine barriers to ratification and develop model laws to facilitate broader adoption.

## Continental Digital Landscape Assessment

### UNECA’s Digital Transformation Analysis

Dr. Maktar Sek, Chief Digital Officer at UNECA, presented a comprehensive assessment of Africa’s digital challenges. He reported that African internet connectivity reached only 38% by the end of 2024, representing minimal annual progress that he characterized as “unacceptable.” This stagnation stems from multiple factors including affordability barriers, inadequate infrastructure, limited digital literacy, and fragmented policy frameworks.

Sek emphasized that “Africa needs policy harmonisation to create a digital single market for implementing the African free trade area,” highlighting how the continent’s fragmented regulatory landscape hinders cross-border digital commerce and creates barriers to seamless digital services.

UNECA has developed several tools to address these challenges, including a tax calculator for ICT sectors that enables governments to optimize taxation policies. Sek argued that “when we optimise, we have seen our old tax collection revenue will be increased because the impact of ICT sector in other sector, health, education, finance service.” The organization has also launched an AI innovation platform showcasing continental innovations and provides support for digital ID systems across multiple countries.

### Infrastructure and Energy Challenges

The discussion highlighted fundamental infrastructure constraints, with approximately 700 million Africans lacking access to electricity—a prerequisite for meaningful digital participation. This energy deficit compounds connectivity challenges and limits the effectiveness of digital inclusion initiatives.

## African IGF 2025 Outcomes from Tanzania

Leo Magomba, Tanzania’s Permanent Secretary, reported on the successful 14th African IGF held in Dar es Salaam, which attracted 1,097 participants from 67 countries. The forum produced the Dar es Salaam Declaration, identifying nine key challenges: infrastructure gaps, digital inclusion barriers, cybersecurity vulnerabilities, limited digital literacy, regulatory fragmentation, insufficient funding, weak institutional frameworks, limited local content in African languages, and inadequate monitoring mechanisms.

Corresponding to these challenges, the forum produced nine specific commitments including accelerating infrastructure development through public-private partnerships, implementing targeted digital inclusion programmes, strengthening cybersecurity frameworks, expanding digital literacy initiatives, harmonising regulatory approaches, mobilising sustainable funding mechanisms, building robust institutional frameworks, promoting local content development, and establishing comprehensive monitoring systems.

## Youth Perspectives and Capacity Building

### Africa Youth IGF Contributions

Amenta Ramalan from Nigeria reported on the Africa Youth IGF 2025, which attracted over 200 participants for discussions on digital identity interoperability, content moderation approaches, and AI readiness across African countries. The youth forum emphasized the importance of intergenerational dialogue, particularly between youth and parliamentarians, as crucial for reviewing the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) mandate and charting future directions.

### African School on Internet Governance

Henriette Esterhuizen, representing the African School on Internet Governance (AfriCIG), highlighted the programme’s success in developing local expertise. However, she raised a critical concern about the tendency to constantly generate new proposals at the expense of implementing existing recommendations: “we have such a spirit of collaboration in Africa and we produce good outputs. Every African IGF has produced excellent outputs, but we don’t go back to them and see if we are actually implementing.”

## Critical Implementation and Coordination Challenges

### AFRINIC Governance Crisis

A significant portion of discussion focused on challenges facing the African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC). An audience member clarified that contrary to initial characterizations of financial instability, AFRINIC maintains substantial reserves. The real challenges are governance-related, representing what the speaker termed “a failure of the multi-stakeholder approach” due to low participation rates and attempts at institutional capture.

This situation highlights vulnerabilities in multi-stakeholder governance models and serves as a cautionary example for other continental digital governance initiatives. A follow-up meeting was scheduled to address these concerns.

### Policy Harmonisation Coordination

Multiple speakers raised concerns about coordination failures among various organisations working on digital policy harmonisation. An audience member identified a meta-problem: “Different organisations work with different policy approaches and policy framework, and if we do not harmonise the work we are doing, then what is going to happen is that neighbouring countries may have different policy frameworks that do not speak to each other.”

This observation revealed how well-intentioned efforts by multiple organisations—including the African Union Commission, UNECA, Digital Impact Alliance, and Smart Africa—could inadvertently create the very fragmentation they aim to resolve.

## Funding and Resource Mobilisation

### Declining International Support

Tobias Thiel, GIZ Resident Director for the African Union, raised critical questions about funding sustainability given reduced international cooperation budgets. This challenge reflects broader shifts in development cooperation, with traditional donor countries reducing commitments while African countries face competing priorities for limited domestic resources.

### Domestic Resource Mobilisation

In response to funding challenges, Suleimana emphasized that “African countries need to step up in providing funds and mobilising private sector participation, as private sector plays a major role in developed nations’ digital space.” The discussion explored various mechanisms including the proposed 0.02% GDP levy for development purposes, though insufficient countries have adopted this approach.

## Sectoral Focus Areas

### Information Integrity and Content Governance

Michel Kenmo, UNESCO’s West Africa Advisor, outlined efforts to promote coherent approaches to information integrity policy and digital platform governance across West Africa. UNESCO is developing model policy frameworks that countries can adapt while maintaining regional coherence, addressing growing concerns about misinformation and the need for culturally appropriate content moderation.

### Digital Identity and Payment Interoperability

Despite having over 130 digital payment systems across Africa, more than 100 cannot communicate with each other, creating barriers to cross-border commerce and financial inclusion. This fragmentation reflects broader interoperability challenges extending beyond payments to digital identity, data sharing, and service integration.

## Rural and Community-Centred Approaches

Jacqueline Jijide from Malawi emphasized the need to rethink digital inclusion approaches in rural communities, arguing for making “digital inclusion more accessible and practical” through community-centred approaches that address specific local needs rather than imposing standardised solutions. This perspective challenges infrastructure-first approaches, suggesting instead that connectivity should be embedded within solutions to specific community problems.

## Education and Technology Production

A particularly challenging intervention came from an audience member who observed: “Africa is not on the supply side. We can clap about every small gain, but we are not significant suppliers of anything on the internet.” The speaker argued that addressing this requires focusing on “science education, and also in particular, the sciences that are creating these technologies, which is really computer science.”

This perspective redirected attention from consumption and access issues to fundamental questions about technological capability and production capacity, suggesting that sustainable digital transformation requires building educational foundations for technological innovation and production.

## Implementation Mechanisms and Accountability

### Moving from Discussion to Action

A central theme was the challenge of translating forum discussions into concrete implementation. Maktar Sek observed that “IGF recommendations lack implementation mechanisms as it’s just a discussion platform without obligation to implement outcomes.” This limitation reflects broader challenges of multi-stakeholder governance processes that can generate consensus but lack implementation authority.

### Proposed Solutions

Participants proposed several accountability mechanisms including developing continental monitoring and evaluation frameworks with annual reports to African IGF, establishing formal communication mechanisms to share declarations with National and Regional IGFs, and strengthening the African IGF Secretariat with institutional rather than just forum support.

Additional proposals included submitting African IGF and WSIS declarations to the African Union Specialised Technical Committee meeting for ministerial adoption as official resolutions, thereby giving forum outcomes greater political weight and implementation authority.

## Conclusion and Next Steps

The forum revealed both the strengths and limitations of current approaches to African digital governance. While strong collaboration and consensus on challenge identification provide a solid foundation, persistent implementation gaps, funding constraints, and coordination challenges among multiple organisations threaten to undermine well-designed initiatives.

Key priorities identified include strengthening implementation mechanisms and accountability frameworks, improving coordination among organisations working on digital policy harmonisation, addressing governance challenges facing critical institutions like AFRINIC, developing sustainable funding mechanisms, and shifting focus from technology consumption to production through strategic investments in science education and innovation capacity.

The forum concluded with specific follow-up actions, including a scheduled meeting to address AFRINIC governance challenges and commitments to improve coordination among continental organisations working on digital transformation initiatives.

Adil Suleimana: Hello, good morning, everybody. Welcome. Welcome to the AU Open Forum this year. I think for those who are joining for the first time, you can see that this is like your home. And I think it’s the platform we share as an organization, African organization. We share what we are doing, what we have accomplished. And also it’s also an opportunity for you also to share with us what you have accomplished back home and the challenges that you are facing. So so I think without further ado, let me welcome you once again. Also, let me recognize that we have also some ministers with us. Honorable Minister, you are welcome. And also we have members of parliaments with us also. They are welcome. I think after we make the introduction and the briefing from the organization, if you are if you feel that you want to speak for the ministers, I will give you the floor so that you can at least greet everybody. And and somehow if you have something to share with us, please feel free to share without further ado. The agenda for today, we are going you are going to get briefing from the two main organization that are responsible for the African IGF and also from the activity, digital activity within Africa, namely the African Union Commission and the United Nations Commission for Africa. We just you’re going to hear. what we are doing so that you rest assured that a lot of things are being done in the continent. And the next session we are going to hear, get a briefing on the African IGF that was held in Tanzania. We hear from the youth representative, the MAC chair, and then we’re going to open the floor for Q&A. I can see that we have the Honorable Minister of Zambia. Welcome. It’s an honor, Gambia. Welcome. It’s an honor to have you with us today. And also we have the Permanent Secretary of Tanzania, the host of the African IGF 2025. Without further ado, let’s start the program. And let’s hear from Dr. Maktar Sek, Chief Digital Officer within the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. Maktar, the floor is yours.

Maktar Sek: Thank you, Adil. And good morning to everyone. Good morning, P.S. Honorable Minister, distinguished delegate, let me going to start by thanking you for attending this open forum to listen what are we doing for you. And also we need to get a view from you. It’s very important because we are here to serve the member states of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa. And this support should be based on your needs. And for this year, 2024, 2025, lots of things have been happening at the continental level, driven by ECA. And this activity or key project are based on the needs of the continent. And where we are focused during this period under review, as you know, our continent is facing several challenges. Let me just focus on four. One, it is on policy harmonization. We have a lot of fragmentation of our policy and one of our role, it is to work with AUC on how to harmonize all this policy because our objective is to come with a digital single market in the implementation of the African free trade area. Second, connectivity is a big issue across the continent. You have seen in end of 2023, the connectivity was 37% for African country and end of 2004, we have 38%. Means we have only 1% progress for one year. It’s something not acceptable. Why? Because we have an issue of affordability. Issue of infrastructure, of issue of literacy and policy also and also involvement of the private sector. Why we have several activity? To try to put more involvement of the private sector by supporting African country to develop as a rule and regulation involving this private sector. Also to develop also this access to the service and device. Why we have developed one platform, tax calculator, to review the taxation in the ICT sector. I think we can share the link at the screen and this taxation has been conducted in 54 member state. We’ve all data following the salary payment, the tax of VAT, excess debt, everything regarding tax in the ICT sector. And we have shown to the Minister of Finance in this conference last year that. Optimizing ITC tax can increase not only the GDP, but we have seen an increase according to our statistic of the broadband connectivity as well as the job creation. What does it mean? ICT sector, it is not an area where government think they can get more money. Generally, all our government will focus on the ICT sector on the taxation. We have to optimize. When we optimize, we have seen our old tax collection revenue will be increased because the impact of ICT sector in other sector, health, education, finance service. It is a one platform, one you have at your disposal and we invite Minister of Finance and Minister of ICT to go through to this tool and to discuss how they can optimize the taxation in your respective country. It is a very comprehensive tool. You can play one percent, two percent, four percent until you get the amount necessary for the development of the country. Another point, we talk about a lot on AI, artificial intelligence, but the big problem is we don’t know exactly what’s happened in the continent. I don’t know if I’m Rwanda, what’s happened in innovation on artificial intelligence in Kenya or in Senegal or in Mauritania or in Tanzania. We have developed a web-based platform to show all innovation on AI in the continent. And we select, we have found around 2,400 innovation across the continent. And we have selected, given the impact, 343 innovation in around, I think, 28 sector. And we have the platform, you can visit the website. And this innovation, this platform will show you what is the impact of this innovation, how to contact also people who led this innovation across the continent, and we’ll create a knowledge sharing as a partner. partnership, collaborative technical transfer digital skills between Africa. It is the second project. The other one, on data governance, we thank GIZ, we work with GIZ to support four African countries to harmonize or to develop their national framework on data governance and to build their capacity in line with the African Union data governance framework. Namely, we are supporting DRC, Burundi, and Tanzania, as well as Mozambique. We are making good progress in DRC and Burundi, and we started last week the process, two weeks ago, the process in Tanzania and in Mozambique. And by the end of this year, we are going to have the four strategies ready and build the capacity of these four African countries through the support provided by GIZ. Digital ID, very important as a continent if you want to develop the continent. As you know, we are 500 million of our population without any legal form of identity. When you talk about 38% connectivity, you forget the 500 million. It is something we need to overcome in the continent, and why we have a big component project activity on digital ID, and we support a lot of African countries to develop their national digital ID. Ethiopia, we are supporting them now, and we have now more than 10 million people registration in the digital ID database, and we organized a successful digital ID for Africa meeting in May in Ethiopia. Another issue on policy, the issue of cyber security. We talk about the Malabo Coalition is there since, I don’t know, more than 10 years, 12 years. We have only 14 countries who ratify, and when we ask countries, they told, yeah, you have to adapt. But we are working with the African Union to adapt, to update this framework to respond to the need of African countries. Digital single market also, we are working on this. And also, we work with African Nenda and World Bank on the digital payment system, how we make this cross-border digital transaction happening in the continent. As you know, we have around 130 digital payment system in the continent, and more than 100, they don’t speak each other. Because issue of interoperability, issue of regulation, and we work of this African country to make sure we have an interoperability system across the continent in order to make this digital payment happening in all African continent. Because we need to develop this digital trade between African country, not in a country alone. It is what we do in cross-border digital payment this year. Another point where we are, it is a capacity building. We need to build the capacity of policy maker, of youth, of also private sector. Why we have several program on capacity building targeting this women entrepreneurship on digital trade, on finance technology, policy maker on how to use this emerging technology, how to develop the law and regulation, as well as capacity building for the parliamentarian. We have also a program of capacity building for the youth on innovation. And we organize this STI forum, SEAS technology innovation forum, for African country. And we have a very good component for youth, how this youth can utilize, can use this digital technology to solve the African problem. And we call it this concept, the origin concept. The origin concept is become, find local solution for problem, African problem. And it is this work, this concept work very well in Kenya, in other three, four country, Morocco, and Zambia, and in Senegal also, we have this project, this original project. Another point, it is on the collaboration, international collaboration. How African country should amplify its voice at the international level. We are the focal point for Wishes for Africa, World Summit Information Society. We organize several gatherings, several meetings. And this year, we organized Wishes Plus 20 in Kotonou in May. And almost all African country were represented at the government level, private sector, civil society. And we come up with a declaration on the Wishes Plus 20. What are the view for Africa since the implementation of the Wishes in 2025? What we need for Africa? Also, what are our key priority? We did the same thing also in Tanzania with the African Internet Governance Forum. And thank you also for the government of Benin and the government of Tanzania for their support in organizing Wishes Plus 20 and the African Internet Governance Forum. And for these two events, because they are linkage between Wishes and IGF, because IGF is part of the Wishes, it is one key outcome of Wishes, we agree. Africa, priority of Africa, it is on policy, harmonizing policy. We need to harmonize our policy. We need to bridge the digital divide between rural, urban, and between country, because we have several digital divide between the country and Africa. Also, between the men, women, and youth, we need to bridge the digital divide. priority for Africa, it is a digital literacy. We need to build our capacity of our policy maker, of our youth generation, because Africa, the aspiration for Africa is to be leader in this digital technology by 2050. And we have more than a lot of you across the continent who are making a lot of progress, innovation. I give you an example. During the COVID period, Africa has registered around five innovations on AI, of focus on medical issue, health care, and other. It is one priority for Africa. Another priority, it is this collaboration. We need this kind of collaboration, knowledge sharing, discuss between us what happened in Rwanda, what happened in Tanzania, what happened in Nigeria, and to share knowledge. We have to start this collaboration in Africa first. Yesterday, during the session, we have several initiatives shared by the Minister of Chad. I think it is something very important. We have to learn about it and to see how we can collaborate it. Also, I’m going to finish quickly because we have too many things. Another area where we need to focus in Africa, it is energy. We talk about a lot of time on digital technology, but we forget the energy side. As you know, 700 million of our population doesn’t have access to electricity. And when we want to build this digital future, this internet society, this digital economy, we need also to take into consideration energy. And last but not least, it is security, very important. Cyber security, it is a big challenge for the continent if we want to use this digital information, this service. Also, we talk about disinformation, misinformation. It is something we have because it’s coming with this knowledge society. We need to find a way. There is a good example presented yesterday by Gambia. I think it is something we can build to see how we can mitigate this cyber system, misinformation, disinformation across our country and across also our continent. And all this declaration, continue declaration, we have to do it in the Africa, we need to find a solution conclusion to find a solution for all of this challenges in Africa. We are as an IGF, to expand the mandate of the Internet governance forum to give it the aspect of this mandate, we have to make an alignment also with the global digital compact, we have adopted in September through five objectives, namely connectivity, inclusion, data governance, cyber security, and also artificial intelligence. We are going to stop there and thank you very much.

Adil Suleimana: Thank you. Thank you very much, Mokhtar. Thank you. Thank you. I promise you, you will be able to speak, because I think that’s the essence of the session, to have people on the floor to speak and share their experience. Let me also acknowledge the presence of the Honorable Minister from Chad, and also Dr. Amina Miyada, the EVC, CEO of Nigeria Communication Commission, I think Nigeria has been a strong ally of the African IGF, they hosted three or four times. So we are very thankful to Nigeria. Let me just run quickly through some of the activity within the African Union Commission. This is not like something, this is an ongoing activity, and most of this activity are going to be reported through the ministerial meeting that is going to take place by the end of the year. With regard to the digital transformation strategy for Africa, we are working with the World Bank to implement the digital transformation strategy for Africa, and we are working with the World Bank to implement this strategy. With regard to the digital transformation strategy for Africa, and in collaboration with World Bank, the following activities commence this year. connectivity for education and agricultural sector, digital implementation tracking tool, offline, online, data collection tool to track implementation of digital transformation across Africa, digital transformation strategy implementation monitoring and visualization dashboard, report on digital transformation implementation across the continent, and recommendation. Development of green digital infrastructure framework guidelines and standard as well as GHG calculation tool for Africa. Following the adoption of the interoperability framework for Africa digital ID, the AUC is now considering developing guidelines and minimum standard for interoperable digital ID across Africa. They also is pleased to share that PRIDA phase two will be formally launched as early as August of this year. PRIDA two will support AUC to accelerate the implementation of the digital transformation strategy for Africa, harmonization of policy and regulation to support the realization of the African digital single market, and strengthening the ability of African stakeholders to actively participate in the global Internet governance debate. On the implementation of the AU data policy framework, the Commission will prepare the following reports. Progress report on the implementation of data governance technical assistance program with the support of GIZ, data categorization and sharing framework, cross-border data flow framework and mechanism, continental open data strategy. On the implementation of the continental AI strategy, the Commission will impact on the development of the following. Plan plan and MNE framework for the continental AI strategy, study on the implication of AI on African economy, society, peace and security, democracy and development. Report on the AU participation in G20, including update of the AI. Africa initiative, African AI conference and G20 outcomes in relation to AU digital agenda. A draft continental cybersecurity strategy has been developed. The commission is conducting consultation and validation workshop involving various stakeholder groups on the continent. The final draft should be presented to the specialized technical committee meeting for approval by early November of this year. The AU commission also will be launching cybersecurity initiative in close collaboration with the World Bank, EU. Key areas under the two initiatives is domestication of Malawi Convention as mentioned by my colleague here, including developing model laws on Malawi Convention related to Malawi Convention and cybersecurity strategy and also development of child-friendly online portal and for Africa, for African children and also the digital ID. I stop here, let me give the floor to his excellency the permanent secretary of Tanzania, the host of this current African IGF.

Participant: Thank you so much, thank you so much. Honorable ministers, dear colleagues, good morning. As we all know that the 14th Africa IGF was held in Dar es Salaam from 29 to 31st May 2025 and this forum was represented from with various stakeholders including policemakers, parliamentarians, private sectors, technical committees, youth advocates, civil society organization, academia. We are all gathered in this forum and it also welcomed almost 1097 participants both in person and most of them were online from almost 67 countries including 49 from the African continent, 18 international partner countries and the forum both brought together a wide range of stakeholders across. the digital ecosystem. And on this forum, we came out with a declaration which due to limited time I’ll just go and talk about the key points what was discussed and what is inside the declaration. Inside this declaration, we identified the key challenges which were almost around the nine of them. I will go through one by one. And one of the key challenges that was discussed and which is in this declaration is the issue of infrastructure and connectivity. And this we are trying to address the large segments of our population remains excluded due to limited broadband coverage, high data cost and insufficient access to fixed broadband networks. And the second key challenge which was addressed in the Dar es Salaam declaration is the internet resource management. As we all know, the African Network Information Center, AFRINIC, faces serious operations and governance challenges including financial instability, leadership disputes, regulatory uncertainty, jeopardizing effect resources management. So those are most of the challenges that we are facing in the internet resource management on AFRINIC. And the third issue that is inside the Dar es Salaam declaration is the digital inclusion vulnerable and mechanized groups including persons with disabilities, refugees and stateless persons, women, rural youth, informal sector workers remain excluded from digital opportunities. And the fourth challenge which has been addressed in the Dar es Salaam declaration is regulatory readiness, fragmented digital And the fourth one, which has been addressed in the recent declaration, is capacity development, education systems, lack of integration of advanced digital skills, such as AI, artificial intelligence, big data security, cyber security, and furthermore, many other issues. And the fifth one, which has been addressed in the recent declaration, is capacity development, education systems, cyber security, and furthermore, many schools’ curricula do not integrate ICT education at the primary level, limiting early exposure to digital skills. And the sixth challenge is cyber security threats. We all know weak data protection regimes and limited cyber security capabilities leave countries vulnerable to cyber crime, data breaches, and attacks on critical infrastructure. The seventh key issue that was identified, the challenge, is stakeholder engagement and continental coordination. Here we are trying to address the inadequate framework exists for definition roles, responsibilities, and oversight mechanism among the key stakeholders, as well as the articulated and defined African common position on digital governance issues. And the eighth issue that has been declared in the recent declaration is localized content. Limited availability of digital content in local languages and cultural relevant formats undermines digital inclusion and cultural preservations. And the last key challenge that has been addressed is the energy infrastructure. Unreliable electricity supply continues to constrain ICT deployment and digital connectivity. So my dear colleagues, thank you. These are the nine challenges that we discussed in Dar es Salaam forum, and they are all well explained in the Dar es Salaam declaration. So what we did is we came up with commitments to addressing the above challenges through following actions. One is to do investment in secure and resilient infrastructure. Here we are trying to address, to promote investment in the development and expansion in critical internet infrastructure to ensure equitable and secure access to digital resources across Africa, including domain names, IP address, and root servers. The second commitment is accelerating and the adoption of digital public infrastructure, DPI, to foster public-private civil society partnership, to scale up DPI as a means to improve service delivery, governance, and digital innovation. The third one is enhancing energy infrastructure and connectivity. Here we are trying to address the support to support the modernization and digitalization of power systems while integrating renewable energy solutions to expand broadband access in remote areas. And the fourth one is ensuring effective governance to internet resources. Here we are trying to address that to strengthening the institutional and organization stability of AFRINIC, guided by transparency, accountability, and regional ownership. As we all know, we have a lot of challenges in AFRINIC. And the fifth one is strengthening police and legal frameworks. Advanced regional harmonization of digital governing policies, legislation with focus on AI regulations, data protection, and inclusive digital innovation. We are conducting, sort of, continuation of this evaluation using multistakeholder governance sandboxes. And the sixth one is advancing cyber security. We were trying to harmonize national and regional frameworks to achieve inclusion and skills development. We were trying to implement inclusive digital literacy programs that address gender, stability, and geographical disparities, and integrate advanced technology modules into national curricula, including AI, Internet of Things, quantum computing, and AI technologies. And the eighth is establishment of regional centers for colleges, universities, community science and institutions. And the ninth one to support African-led digital transformation. The ninth one is advancing content development that supports the production and development of African-languages and knowledge system. We also looked at empowering African youth. Here we are committed to empower African youth to lead, innovate and thrive in the digital future by investing in their potential, fostering digital skills, and providing the necessary support to unlock the benefits of digital transformation for the continent. The next one is empowering African parliamentarians. And the last is the parliament. the role as key drivers of digital governance, shaping policies that promote sustainable development, foster innovation, and ensure equitable access to digital opportunity across the continent. The next one is encouraging African countries to ratify the Malabo Conversion by establishing a dedicated committee to examine the underlying reason for the low ratification rate and to propose necessary reforms or actions to facilitate broader adoption. And the last one is developing African Internet Governance Index. Here we are trying to come into and find specific targets, indicators, and metrics for the progress and development of internet governance in Africa. Dear colleagues, these are the commitments that are mentioned in the RISLAM declaration that took place on 29th to 31st May of this year. To conclude, we also came up with additional commitments and the strategic imperatives. One is to do is strengthening monitoring, evaluation, and the oversight frameworks. Here we are trying to come up to develop a continental mechanism for monitoring and evaluation progress by annual report to the African IGF to ensure transparency and evidence-based decision-making. We also came up with advancing gender equality and intergenerational digital justice to close the gender-digital divide, promote women leadership in internet governance, and empower African youth to co-create digital policies and solutions. We also came up with promoting multilingualism and the protection of legal knowledge systems. Here we are trying to enable promoting… and develop digital services in indigenous African language to preserve traditional knowledge through inclusive digital platforms. The additional one is integrating environmental sustainability and climate smart digital transformation. Here we adopt a green ICT policy, invest in low carbon digital infrastructure and promote circular economy approach including e-waste management. We also came up with mobilizing partnership in international solidarity, call on international partners to support African led digital transformation through investment, technical assistance and equitable partnership in global governance processes. Safeguarding human rights and digital freedom and hold fundamental rights including freedom of expression, access to information, privacy and protection for discrimination in all digital policies and technologies. Strengthening national and sub-regional IGF support the development and sustainability of national and sub-regional internet governance forum NRI as inclusive platforms aligned with African IGF process. Elevating African digital influence, enhancing intra-Africa coordination to ensure effective and sustainable African engagement global is forum. To conclude with the declaration is that the present declaration reflects African collective commitment to reaffirm the pivotal role of the internet governance IGF as an essential platform for fostering inclusive, transparent and multistakeholder discussion on global internet governance as well as global spectrum of a digital policy and policy issues. Also to ensure that progress remains aligned with global priorities including the objective of the Global Digital Compact. We call for the continuous of ongoing process within the framework of the World Summit Information Society, OASIS, throughout the next decade. Furthermore, we look forward to the OASIS Plus 20 review formally establishing the Internet Governance Forum, IGF, mandate as a permanent United Nations entity with secure and sustainable funding, ensuring the continued impact and relevance in the evolving global governance of the Internet Digital Policy. Thank you so much.

Adil Suleimana: Thank you very much, permanent secretary. Thank you very much for the report. It was very enlightening. I am sure by now you guys are tired of this side of the meeting, so we are going to open the floor. I don’t see from far, so if there is a representative from youth, Afrinik, Afrisik, Apnik, and Mark, please, you can take the floor. But let me start also by understanding the minister. I think the permanent secretary is going to excuse himself. He has an engagement. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me start by giving the floor. I understand the minister from Gambia wants to address the meeting. Okay. Thank you very much. Let’s open the floor for intervention, Q&A, remarks, reports from the floor. I think, as I said, this is the essence of this meeting. It’s good that we have almost 35 minutes or 36 minutes. We start with, I think that there is a queue there. We start from.

Audience: Yeah, thank you very much, Chair. Ponsleit speaking for the record. I would like to know, you talked about this committee being set up to get more countries to adopt the Malabo Convention. If you look at it currently with the 15 countries that have adopted and rectified, it is really very embarrassing. You only have Egypt and Senegal as the big countries there. All the others are small countries, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, they have not adopted it. So I don’t know what, Ethiopia, who houses the African Union. I don’t know how you are going to do it with this committee because I believe that to go forward with, when you want to localize cyber security initiatives, our own GDPR, which is the Malabo Convention, at least the big countries should be a good example for that and it has taken time. So I don’t know how this committee will do it. Thank you very much.

Adil Suleimana: Henriette.

Henriette Esterhuisen: Thank you, thank you Adil. Henriette Esterhuisen, I am the organizer, one of the organizers of the African School on Internet Governance, which is an initiative of the AU Research ICT Africa and Association for Progressive Communications. And I just want to share that we had AFRICIG this year. It was the 13th AFRICIG in Tanzania. I cannot thank enough the Ministry of ICT, the Permanent Secretary, Mr. Leo Magomba, his team and everyone in Tanzania for doing an exceptional job in hosting us and for giving us so many of their staff to be part of the school and participate in the school. So just to thank everyone, the Nigerian Communications Commission who’s hosted, ECA, everyone who’s hosted. And that I do feel that over time AFRICIG. is really contributing to leadership development and internet governance in Africa. It’s a school, not for entry-level people, it’s for people that are practicing, professionals, leaders from all stakeholder groups and internet governance. It’s very intensive, but we really have results. And I think it also demonstrates that there is so much leadership and there is so much capacity. And the faculty of AFRICIG as well, and many of them are in the room, are people of exceptional quality. And I think the one thing that AFRICIG shows us is that we already have expertise. We have existing internet governance expertise in the continent. We need to galvanize it. And Adil, I’ll just share with you, I won’t name the donor, but there was a donor that we had a meeting with recently that referred to AFRICIG as the Ivy League among schools of internet governance. So I just want to thank everyone who’s always been part of that. Just how many people here have participated in AFRICIG over the years? Just put up your hands. So thanks very much to everyone. And then I think just in response to the call you put to us, I think that what we really just have to be cautious about, we have such a spirit of collaboration in Africa and we produce good outputs. Every African IGF has produced excellent outputs, but we don’t go back to them and see if we are actually implementing. I’m even thinking of AFRICIG in 2022, where we collaborated with the African Union to produce an input for the open-ended working group, which was a strategy on how to build multi-stakeholder cyber resilience. Very practical steps and recommendations. And I think we should really be very cautious about constantly making new proposals, coming up with new ideas. Often, I think that happens at the expense of actually fully implementing the ones we’ve already generated. Thanks very much.

Adil Suleimana: Thank you. Please introduce yourself.

Amenta Ramalan: Good morning, everyone. My name is Aamenta Ramalan, I’m from Nigeria I’m a representative of Africa youth, I will be giving a brief about the Africa youth 85, 2025. The forum was organized by the African youth IGF. It was a series of conversations that was aligned with the theme for the main Africa IGF. The forum had over 200 participants from across several African countries. This was actually one of our most attended Africa youth IGFs and hopefully it will be impactful and the recommendations will be implemented. We had a series of conversations around the importance of digital identity and how it can be implemented in Africa. We had a series of conversations around the importance of digital identity and how it can be implemented in Africa. One of our conversations around that was for cross-continental interoperability, so the digital identity is interoperable between nations. We also had conversations on collaborative approaches to social media content moderation, ensuring that different platforms are available to share the same content and to ensure that the content is accessible and easy to understand. We also had conversations on open source and open future, Africa’s youth on AI and frontier tech. We noted that UNESCO’s open AI readiness assessment is being implemented in 50 plus African countries, however, there is still a need for investment across the continent within the US, before releasing the results. And we’re afraid that the funding will be lost. Because without skilled youth and infrastructure funding alone will not succeed. We said, let me tell you, this has to be done and this is what we’re doing. We said, let’s go to Africa, and okay, let’s not take the data off because will not be effective in developing AI solutions. And lastly, we had an intergenerational dialogue between the youth and parliamentarians. Now, the key of this session was to bring together the architects of the early WSIS engagement and the leaders of today. We had conversations around the founding principles of the WSIS and engaged in dialogue on how we can chart our way forward as a region and what will be most important for us while the WSIS mandate is being reviewed. In conclusion, the Africa Youth IGF provided a platform for young leaders to engage in meaningful dialogue on the role of youth in shaping Africa’s digital transformation. Thank you.

Adil Suleimana: Thank you very much.

Audience: I think I have to adjust this. Thanks very much for organizing the forum. I’ve been away for a while and so I’m quite impressed with the activity I’m seeing. I thought I’ll try to redirect some things and then maybe also post my priorities just so that I’m also included. I like to do a check. There was a mention of domain names. So I like to find out how many of the people here have domain names from African ccTLDs or .Africa. Okay, you have some, but notice that it’s very small. So redirect to we believe in ourselves and owning the domain name system in Africa. The second thing is there was a mention about AFRINIC having financial problems. I think the evidence is that they even have reserves of about $9 million. I do not know many companies. in Africa that, apart from operating capital, have reserves of nine million. So that needs to be, the problem we see with AFRINIC, our resource management organization, is more about failure of the multi-stakeholder approach, where it’s not able to reach consensus, and there are attempts of capture. You know, when participation is low, this process we like so much can easily be captured, and that may be a good study for the researchers and academicians regarding the case of AFRINIC. Now, I just want to now throw my priorities. For me, I think the supply side is where we are not. Africa is not on the supply side. Even on the internet, Africa is not on the supply side. We can clap about every small gain, but we are not significant suppliers of anything on the internet. Not really, okay? So we have to kind of focus on what creates that supply side. In my opinion, it’s science education, and also in particular, the sciences that are creating these technologies, which is really computer science, okay? Applications of it is what we are seeing that we are enjoying. We’ve been doing AI since the 70s, okay? And we’ve been doing all these distributed systems since that time. So for me, the priorities in beefing up science education, it does not mean that the other humanities and social sciences are not significant, but you need a minimum composition of the sciences to be able to advance, in my opinion. The second message that I can give. give is we need to adopt the MS practices in our domestic environments, because it requires certain techniques, such as active participation, and you must be knowledgeable enough, and you must be constructive, and you need to have a moderator that will call consensus. So if you miss participation, it can be captured. If you don’t have a moderator that can call consensus, you are doomed. So I just leave it there. The last bit is we have to preserve and grow the capacities that we have by focusing on intergenerational mentorship and coaching. Currently, it looks like it’s disjointed. Everybody’s going their own way, peer to peer. We forget that you have to have a stream, especially in certain areas like cybersecurity, where you cannot afford to have any vacuum in the chain. So I thought I’ll give you these two ideas, and thank you very much for a good follow-up. Thank you.

Adil Suleimana: Thank you very much. Can you please be brief, because I think we need to give the floor for as many people as possible.

Tobias Thiel: Sure. Good morning. My name is Tobias Thiel, and I’m the resident director of GIZ for the African Union, based in Addis Ababa. Thank you so much for a comprehensive presentation. You outlined quite an extensive list on African-led initiatives in the digital sector, which I believe is a crucial prerequisite for the digital transformation of the continent. At the same time, we also know from experience that the commitment is also very much measured in terms of the resources that are being committed. So my question to you would be, given recent reductions… and international cooperation budgets. How do you realistically expect this wealth of initiatives to be funded, especially with a view to member state resources, but also private sector? Thank you so much.

Adil Suleimana: All right. So from this side.

Jacqueline Jijide: Good morning.

Adil Suleimana: Oh, you have also another side. Okay. So please go ahead.

Jacqueline Jijide: Okay. Thank you. So my name is Jacqueline Jijide, and I’m from Malawi. Actually, I’m Ambassador for Pan-African Youth Internet Governance, as well as the Digital Inclusion Practitioner, and also a member of Malawi Youth IGF. Thank you so much for the presentations that have been made, especially on the issues to do with digital inclusion. My question this morning will be directed more especially on the proposed solution to do with promoting digital inclusion as well as skills development. I always advocate for a digital divide, more especially for the remote areas. So my question is, in rural communities where digital infrastructure is weak, digital literacy is low, and participation in development programs is limited, how can we rethink our approach to make digital inclusion and skills training more accessible, practical, and embraced by people themselves? Thank you.

Michel Kenmo: Good morning. I am Michel Kenmo. I’m the West Africa Advisor for Communication and Information for UNESCO. Thank you for the presentation. My intervention here is to share with you an initiative that is ongoing in West Africa. and the region and related to information integrity. I’m happy to see the Honorable Minister from Gambia, who is one of our champions of that initiative. And the initiative is aimed at promoting a coherent and integrated approach to policy on information integrity, as well as enhancing digital platform governance. As you know, UNESCO has adopted a few years ago the guideline for digital platform governance and it’s been adopted by the African Union, and it’s been adopted by the African Union, and it’s been adopted by the African Union, and it’s been adopted by the African Union. So, through the initiative, it’s to come up with a policy framework, a model policy framework across the region on information integrity that will cover, among other, digital platform governance, access to information and data, in line with the model on access to information adopted by African Union. So, I think it’s very much a hunk of the treasure trove of digital platform governance and acceptance, and the media endorsements and views in Africa do fundamental elements of digital platform governance and accessibility for Africa. And this will be implemented from June until July due to a COVID19 outbreak, and it’s been implemented already will lead to information integrity for West Africa and Sy-Hale, and it’s expected the conference will lead to the conversation among UNNOC representatives. So, thank you for your attention.

Adil Suleimana: Thank you very much.

Audience: Thank you very much. I Landing particularly the comprehensive assessments of the Africa IGF that held in Tanzania. I’m particularly concerned about the implementation of some of the declarations that were mentioned, particularly one of the contributors here listed the nations that have adopted some of those declarations, and I tried to make consultations with my secretaries to find out if these declarations have been formally written in correspondences to the NRIs, and I got a negative response. So my presentation here is that when such events like the Africa IGF or even the West Africa IGF that we hosted, we should be able to reach out to all local and regional IGFs to formally write that these are the outcomes and these are the roles that you are supposed to play. And then thereafter, we all are aware that implementation of policies, adoptions and all that are usually difficult, so we should create a provision for following up and monitoring the execution of this so that to a great extent we will be able to achieve what we have set out to do. That’s my contribution. Thank you.

Adil Suleimana: Thank you very much. I think we stop here, maybe the second round after we go to the question. I think we have some of the interventions were not questioned, it was just reporting, but we will try to address the questions that were raised. Let me start before I give the floor to the rest of the colleagues here. There was a question about Malibu Convention, the first question I guess. It’s true that there was a small ratification, but Malibu Convention went into force in 2023. We needed 15 ratifications for the treaty to go into force, and we are now at 17. I agree it’s very low, the number of countries ratified, and that’s why we are taking a two-pronged approach. Number one, working with the government. ECA, we want to have this committee, first of all, to do some kind of research, why country are not ratifying, what are the reasons, what are the challenges, so that we can address those challenges and then go to the country and give them answers. Second approach is to develop model law to explain, because as you mentioned, correctly mentioned that the Malabo is a very old treaty, it has to be updated. So I think we also did a review report of the Malabo Convention, we suggested some amendments, but unfortunately the countries, they are supposed to champion those amendments, but they have not, so far they have not come forward. But the model laws are, the intent of the model law is to be able to explain and to add more content, because as I said 2014 is a long time ago in this space, so we are doing model law so that the countries can feel more comfortable after explaining, like data protection, cybercrime and all that. So after explaining that in the model law, so the countries are going to be more inclined to ratify. So this is with regard to the question. There was a question from the GIZ director about, I will leave some of the question to my colleagues, but I will try to see the direct question, that’s what the rest was. There was a question about these initiatives, there are too many initiatives and with all the politics, geopolitics that is happening now, what are we going to do, especially with the international partners, being a little bit now, they are going through a very tough time. It’s true, I think the country they have to step up, the African countries, I think it’s good that we have ministers with us, they have to step up, not only actually in providing funds, in mobilizing funds and getting the private sector, I think it’s important for the private sector to be part of this. in developed nation, private sector is playing a major role on the digital space. So I think we look forward to the countries to step up in terms of playing a leadership role, not only in providing funds, but also in mobilizing funds through the private sector. I think it’s very important that we get the private sector into this equation. There is also, within the African Union Commission, there is also a move to take a levy from the GDP. It’s like 0.02% levy from GDP so that it can go into development. We’re still not getting enough number of country to adopt this approach. But I think if it’s adopted, then I think maybe it’s going to provide a little bit of improvement. But I totally agree that there is a challenge, a huge challenge, actually not only Africa is facing. Even developing countries now, they are facing this challenge. Let me stop here and then pass the mic to my colleague, Maktar, and also the representative from Tanzania.

Maktar Sek: Thank you, Adil. Thank you all for your pertinent question and contribution. Let me start first by Ariat about the implementation of the IGF recommendation. As you know, IGF, it is just an outcome of the wishes. It’s just a platform for discussion. Everything happening in IGF, you don’t have any obligation to implement it. It is why, in the new reform of IGF, we need to look at this implementation side. Because we discuss every year since 19 years on IGF, and nothing has happened about the recommendation. So, I would like to conclude by saying that we need to have a resolution. We need to have a resolution. When you come to the global IGF, there is no recommendation. Just a report and the summary of the discussion. In Africa, we try to adopt this declaration, but you don’t make confusion between declaration and resolution. The declaration, it is just commitment. We have the key challenge and we think we are going to do this, but we need to have a resolution. We need to have a resolution and we need to have a resolution to IGF for sustainable development. How IGF can contribute to the digital divide in the continent and other continents also. And this discussion, this ongoing discussion on the expansion of IGF, also how to align IGF with this global digital compact and we need to have a resolution. So, I would like to conclude by saying that this monitoring framework and IGF, it is something also we have to take into consideration. I fully agree IGF provide a platform of discussion where a lot of great ideas are coming, but the lack, it is an implementation side, but it is a spirit of IGF, it’s a little bit different to WSIS, where we have some target and some resolution and this is something we try to sort it out. So, it’s the very first time I am here and it’s my first time here in Munich. And I really thank the IGF. Thank you. So we need some resolutions to see our voices innovate in order to see how we can go together to support them. It’s very important for the future. digital skills, we need to involve you in the discussion. When we talk about entrepreneurship, job creation, we need to involve you in this discussion. It’s very important. And sometimes it is something we forget in several discussions. You don’t have a youth, and we need to have this youth to be fully part of the discussion across the continent. It’s not only ICT sector. When you talk about agriculture, climate change, we need to involve you. Industrial development, we need to involve you. Me, fully agree with you, we discussed a lot on this. But for the AFRINIC, I will not respond now. Because tomorrow, we are going to have a discussion, a meeting, on AFRINIC. We have several issues about AFRINIC on CCTLD and the domain name in the continent. And to Wisdom, tomorrow, the meeting is at 10, I think. What time is it? Wisdom, is it in the room? No, we have a meeting. Sorry, what time is the meeting? OK, 11. We invite tomorrow, 11.30, to attend this meeting. Very important for the continent. We have a special discussion among the agenda on AFRINIC. Supply side, yeah, it’s where we have to go. I think we talk about 20 years, but more than 20 years. The same 30 years, we talk about development technology across the continent. And we are still not progressing very well. It is the reason why, at ECA, we have this Search Technology Innovation Forum. Also, we already established the African Center of Artificial Intelligence in Congo. And also, we are going to establish soon the STEAM Center in Rwanda, and also the Cyber Security Center in Togo, to push and to promote innovation across the continent. And without the supply side, we can’t use. We can’t be a key actor in this technology revolution. The other question is, GIZ, thank you, Dr. Tobias, also for the support we receive from GIZ, we have France, we have Kaku, all is here, we work closely with you and we appreciate this collaboration and we are fully right, given this freeze, what we have to do. You know, we have several organization, even at UN, we have several organization doing same thing, sometime. Now, it is a reflection under the UN80, we talk about UN80, and to see how we can be more efficient working together. First, with the UN agency, with our partner, and also with member states. We have seen, where we have a duplication, we have to avoid, it is the policy now. If you have two agency doing the same thing, we are going to merge them, it’s clear. With our several partner at the continental level, we are going to look at the comparative advantage of each organization, and each organization who has this comparative advantage should lead any project related to each sector. And we have to change approach of our member state. We need to give them, member state doesn’t have a lot of issue on funding. We need to give more advisory service to the member state. There’s some countries, you go there, they told you, we don’t need money, yes, we need advisory service. What’s happen in other continent or other country, how can I adapt my need to be more efficient? When you talk about digital ID, we can look at the case we develop in, what call it, in Ethiopia. When you look at digital agriculture, look at what we have done in Botswana, to see how we can replicate it in this country. And also, we have to involve our member state in the all development support we are doing is something very important and will become more and more efficient. I think this freeze is very important and also it comes at the right time now for people to think about the new way to support member states and the new way also to work together and inside also to develop our own expertise in-house. I think it is something we are doing now. We have several working groups at the UN, UNAT, and by the end of June we are going to have a first proposal for all UN agencies and after we go to member states before we are going to the General Assembly. And also Malawi, how to promote digital inclusion in the rural area. You know we have several ways to develop this digital inclusion. First the big issue it is a usage gap in the continent. You have the network but you don’t have connectivity. People didn’t connect, why? Because they don’t have money to pay. Because there is an issue of affordability on the data and also on the device. For data it is easy. We can just look at our taxation policy and have a good regulation of the sector to reduce the data. We have one tool developed by ECA on the taxation of the ICT sector. This will improve the connectivity across all the continent in the rural area, urban area. As a device we need to have an industry in Africa. How we can work together to develop the device in the continent. And data also, why also this support from GIZ is very important. It is the way to harmonize data, to make data accessible in the continent at a low cost also. And this one can help the rural area to be more connected. And also technology. Technology side, I think Poncele was there. They have a lot of technology adapted to the rural area. Why you put 5G in place where you don’t need it? You have several applications, satellite, constellation, Wi-Fi. You can use other technology alternative for this rural area. And also there are Another point, it is a universal access fund. In several countries they have a universal access fund to connect what is called an inter-service area, real area included, but sometimes this innovation, this universal fund is not going to support the real area. It is a political issue. Unfortunately, we have to think about if you want to put a universal fund for ICT, this universal fund should respond to the need of this sector. It is where we can develop also this, promote this inclusion in the real area. Another one, it is UNESCO, we fully agree with you, I think it is a good project. Also in the Internet Governance Forum, we have this declaration, the declaration is posted in the website. Now we are going to make it very official, there is an STC to be organised by the African Union by the end of October, beginning of November, and we are going to submit this declaration, the WSIS declaration and the IGF declaration to the Minister of ICT for adoption. Now when they adopt it, it becomes a resolution for African travellers, their common position on WSIS plus 20 and IGF also, and now at the national level we are going to see how we can implement and we can report on this next year. Thank you.

Adil Suleimana: Thank you. Thank you very much. I think we have time for one intervention, and basically I think before, just let me compliment a little bit before I give you the floor. I think this is why now IGF plus is very important, because I see a lot of questions about the recommendation, what happened, implementation and all that, so IGF plus is very important and contribution from people like you I think is very important so that it can be enhanced. It can be strengthening the IGF. And on the inclusion question, I think we need to think more about not connectivity, but solutions. I think we need to think about also community, provide solution to the communities. Like if there is an issue with education, we provide education, but embedded in the solution is connectivity everything. So we need to change the mindset from providing connectivity and it’s not used to solutions. Meaning like if you have issues, local issues, community issues, you need to address them through provision of solution, and then the solution is going to be an integrated solution. Let me give the floor to our colleague here, Koko.

Audience: Thank you very much, Adil. So yesterday in our session, the point of harmonizing our data policies was made strongly. But what we usually do not talk about is also something that Matar just mentioned, which is to get the organizations to work together. So I think one area we need to look at is the harmonization of the efforts of the several organizations on the continent that are working on data policies. So you have AUC leading the effort, UNECA is supporting member state, Digital Impact Alliance, Smart Africa. There are several organizations and I think we need to harmonize this effort because the challenge I see is this, different organizations work with different policy approaches and policy. the policy framework, and if we do not harmonize the work we are doing, then what is going to happen is that neighboring countries may have different policy frameworks that do not speak to each other, and this will make harmonization extremely difficult. So this is also an area that I think we should look at going forward. Thank you.

Adil Suleimana: Thank you very much. I think we are going to be not doing a disservice if we don’t give the floor to Sorine. Sorine has been very instrumental in the African IGF organization, so let’s give the floor for her to say a few words, but I think let’s give her a round of applause for the job well done with the organization of the African IGF over the last two years. Thank you very much, Sorine.

Audience: Thank you, Adil. Thank you, everyone, for coming to this open forum. I just want to start from the declaration, especially on the last line, that we are calling for the permanent structure of the IGF. When we are calling for the global IGF to be a permanent structure, we ask ourselves in the African region, how do we make sure that the African IGF Secretariat, which is the brain of the African IGF, is the one that is going to be the executive branch, the one that is going to be the foundation or the machine behind what happens in the African IGF forum. I just want to take you back two years. When the African community had an engagement meeting in Kyoto, we decided to have a task force to make sure that we need to the African school of Internet Governance. We have been working with the African school of Internet Governance, which is a program that was already adopted last year in November in Addis Ababa, which today you see Anne Rait, which is the program director of the African school of Internet Governance, talk very happily about the organization and the support she got from the host country, because this year we made sure that the African school of Internet Governance and the host country, which is the host country, has been working with us before the forum to happen, working cohesively. Not only even the African IGF, even the global IGF has been working with us seamlessly. But I just want to also go back what the director said. Our commitment is how much resource we put in place to strengthen the African school of Internet Governance, and how much we support the African school of Internet Governance. We have been working for a long time to make sure that the Secretariat institution is strong enough, so that’s why this year we can really see the success of African IGF. So going forward, we need to create stability for the Secretariat, and I want to thank the GIZ which is our greatest supporter, and we need to make sure that the Secretariat is strong enough to support institutions that are not institutional support, instead of forum support, because all the conversations we have, the Malabo Convention, the WISIS Review, the NRIs, for them to play the Secretariat has to be as strong as possible, which will require institutional support. With that, I will close. Thank you so much for always being supportive.

Adil Suleimana: Thank you, very much, Serene. With that, we thank you very much. We’ve come to the conclusion of this meeting. Thank you for coming, and have a wonderful day. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Agreement points

Digital Infrastructure and Connectivity Challenges

Speakers

– Maktar Sek
– Participant
– Jacqueline Jijide

Arguments

Africa has only 38% connectivity with just 1% progress in one year, facing issues of affordability, infrastructure, literacy and policy

Large segments of population remain excluded due to limited broadband coverage, high data costs and insufficient access to fixed broadband networks

In rural communities where digital infrastructure is weak and digital literacy is low, we need to rethink approaches to make digital inclusion more accessible and practical

Summary

All speakers acknowledge that Africa faces severe connectivity challenges with low penetration rates, high costs, and inadequate infrastructure, particularly affecting rural communities and requiring comprehensive solutions beyond just technical fixes

Topics

Development | Infrastructure

Need for Policy Harmonization

Speakers

– Maktar Sek
– Participant
– Audience

Arguments

Africa needs policy harmonization to create a digital single market for implementing the African free trade area

Fragmented digital policies and regulatory frameworks hinder progress across the continent

Different organizations work with different policy approaches, and neighboring countries may have incompatible policy frameworks if efforts aren’t harmonized

Summary

There is strong consensus that fragmented policies across African countries are a major barrier to digital development and that harmonization is essential for creating an integrated digital market and effective regional cooperation

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Economic

Implementation and Monitoring Gaps

Speakers

– Maktar Sek
– Participant
– Audience
– Henriette Esterhuizen

Arguments

IGF recommendations lack implementation mechanisms as it’s just a discussion platform without obligation to implement outcomes

Need to develop continental mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation with annual reports to African IGF for transparency and evidence-based decision-making

There’s need for formal communication of IGF declarations to National and Regional IGFs with follow-up and monitoring mechanisms

There’s tendency to constantly make new proposals at the expense of implementing already generated recommendations from previous forums

Summary

Multiple speakers identified the critical gap between policy discussions/declarations and actual implementation, emphasizing the need for systematic monitoring, evaluation, and follow-up mechanisms to ensure commitments translate into concrete actions

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Capacity Building and Skills Development Priorities

Speakers

– Maktar Sek
– Participant
– Audience
– Henriette Esterhuizen

Arguments

Africa needs to build capacity of policymakers, youth, and private sector through various programs targeting women entrepreneurship, digital trade, and innovation

Education systems lack integration of advanced digital skills like AI, big data security, and many schools don’t integrate ICT education at primary level

Africa needs to focus on supply side development through science education, particularly computer science, to become significant suppliers of internet technology

The African School on Internet Governance (AfriCIG) demonstrates existing expertise and contributes to leadership development, showing Africa already has internet governance capacity that needs galvanizing

Summary

There is broad agreement that Africa needs comprehensive capacity building across all stakeholder groups, from basic digital literacy to advanced technical skills, while also recognizing and leveraging existing expertise and leadership capabilities

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize that Africa must address fundamental infrastructure challenges (energy) and take greater ownership of its digital transformation through increased domestic resource mobilization and private sector engagement

Speakers

– Maktar Sek
– Adil Suleimana

Arguments

Unreliable electricity supply constrains ICT deployment and digital connectivity, with 700 million Africans lacking access to electricity

African countries need to step up in providing funds and mobilizing private sector participation, as private sector plays a major role in developed nations’ digital space

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Economic

Both speakers advocate for meaningful youth participation in policy discussions across all sectors, not just technology-specific areas, and emphasize the importance of connecting different generations of leaders

Speakers

– Maktar Sek
– Amenta Ramalan

Arguments

Youth need to be fully involved in discussions about entrepreneurship, job creation, agriculture, climate change, and industrial development, not just ICT

Intergenerational dialogue between youth and parliamentarians is crucial for charting the way forward while reviewing WSIS mandate

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Both speakers recognize the need for stronger institutional frameworks and mechanisms to support regional digital governance initiatives, whether through improving treaty ratification processes or strengthening coordinating bodies

Speakers

– Adil Suleimana
– Audience

Arguments

The Malabo Convention has low ratification rates with only 17 countries ratified, requiring research into barriers and development of model laws

The African IGF Secretariat needs institutional support and stability to effectively coordinate regional internet governance efforts

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity

Unexpected consensus

AFRINIC Governance Challenges

Speakers

– Participant
– Audience

Arguments

AFRINIC faces operational and governance challenges including leadership disputes and regulatory uncertainty, representing failure of multi-stakeholder approach due to low participation and capture attempts

Explanation

There was unexpected consensus that AFRINIC’s problems are primarily governance-related rather than financial, with speakers agreeing that this represents a broader challenge with multi-stakeholder processes when participation is low and vulnerable to capture

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Energy Infrastructure as Digital Prerequisite

Speakers

– Maktar Sek

Arguments

Unreliable electricity supply constrains ICT deployment and digital connectivity, with 700 million Africans lacking access to electricity

Explanation

The explicit recognition that energy infrastructure is a fundamental prerequisite for digital transformation was notable, as this connection is often overlooked in digital policy discussions despite its critical importance

Topics

Development | Infrastructure

Supply-Side Technology Development

Speakers

– Audience

Arguments

Africa needs to focus on supply side development through science education, particularly computer science, to become significant suppliers of internet technology

Explanation

The emphasis on moving from technology consumption to technology production through science education represented an unexpected shift from typical discussions about digital access and inclusion to fundamental technological capability building

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion revealed strong consensus on fundamental challenges facing Africa’s digital transformation: inadequate connectivity infrastructure, fragmented policies, weak implementation mechanisms, and capacity building needs. There was also agreement on the need for greater African ownership of digital initiatives and better coordination among stakeholders.

Consensus level

High level of consensus on problem identification and broad solution directions, with speakers consistently identifying similar barriers and emphasizing the need for harmonized, well-funded, and properly implemented approaches. The consensus suggests a mature understanding of digital governance challenges and readiness for coordinated action, though implementation remains the key challenge.

Different viewpoints

Nature of AFRINIC’s problems – financial vs governance

Speakers

– Participant
– Audience

Arguments

AFRINIC faces operational and governance challenges including leadership disputes and regulatory uncertainty, representing failure of multi-stakeholder approach due to low participation and capture attempts

African Network Information Center, AFRINIC, faces serious operations and governance challenges including financial instability, leadership disputes, regulatory uncertainty, jeopardizing effect resources management

Summary

The Participant characterized AFRINIC’s problems as including financial instability, while an Audience member strongly disagreed, arguing AFRINIC has $9 million in reserves and the real issue is governance failure due to low participation and capture attempts in multi-stakeholder processes

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Focus on new initiatives vs implementing existing recommendations

Speakers

– Henriette Esterhuisen
– Maktar Sek
– Participant

Arguments

There’s tendency to constantly make new proposals at the expense of implementing already generated recommendations from previous forums

IGF recommendations lack implementation mechanisms as it’s just a discussion platform without obligation to implement outcomes

Need to develop continental mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation with annual reports to African IGF for transparency and evidence-based decision-making

Summary

Henriette cautioned against creating new proposals without implementing existing ones, while Maktar argued the problem is IGF’s lack of binding implementation mechanisms, and the Participant proposed new monitoring frameworks – representing different approaches to the implementation challenge

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Unexpected differences

Characterization of AFRINIC’s financial status

Speakers

– Participant
– Audience

Arguments

African Network Information Center, AFRINIC, faces serious operations and governance challenges including financial instability, leadership disputes, regulatory uncertainty, jeopardizing effect resources management

AFRINIC faces operational and governance challenges including leadership disputes and regulatory uncertainty, representing failure of multi-stakeholder approach due to low participation and capture attempts

Explanation

This disagreement was unexpected because it involved a direct factual contradiction about AFRINIC’s financial status, with the Audience member providing specific evidence ($9 million reserves) to counter claims of financial instability, suggesting different stakeholders have different information or interpretations of the same organization’s status

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion showed relatively low levels of direct disagreement, with most conflicts centered around implementation approaches rather than fundamental goals. Key areas of disagreement included the nature of AFRINIC’s challenges and whether to focus on new initiatives versus implementing existing ones.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. Most speakers shared common goals around digital transformation, policy harmonization, and capacity building, but differed on implementation strategies and problem diagnosis. The disagreements suggest healthy debate about methods rather than fundamental conflicts about objectives, which could facilitate collaborative solutions if properly managed.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize that Africa must address fundamental infrastructure challenges (energy) and take greater ownership of its digital transformation through increased domestic resource mobilization and private sector engagement

Speakers

– Maktar Sek
– Adil Suleimana

Arguments

Unreliable electricity supply constrains ICT deployment and digital connectivity, with 700 million Africans lacking access to electricity

African countries need to step up in providing funds and mobilizing private sector participation, as private sector plays a major role in developed nations’ digital space

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Economic

Both speakers advocate for meaningful youth participation in policy discussions across all sectors, not just technology-specific areas, and emphasize the importance of connecting different generations of leaders

Speakers

– Maktar Sek
– Amenta Ramalan

Arguments

Youth need to be fully involved in discussions about entrepreneurship, job creation, agriculture, climate change, and industrial development, not just ICT

Intergenerational dialogue between youth and parliamentarians is crucial for charting the way forward while reviewing WSIS mandate

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Both speakers recognize the need for stronger institutional frameworks and mechanisms to support regional digital governance initiatives, whether through improving treaty ratification processes or strengthening coordinating bodies

Speakers

– Adil Suleimana
– Audience

Arguments

The Malabo Convention has low ratification rates with only 17 countries ratified, requiring research into barriers and development of model laws

The African IGF Secretariat needs institutional support and stability to effectively coordinate regional internet governance efforts

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Cybersecurity

Key takeaways

Africa faces significant digital connectivity challenges with only 38% connectivity and minimal progress, requiring urgent action on affordability, infrastructure, and policy harmonization

The Malabo Convention on cybersecurity has critically low ratification rates (only 17 countries) despite being in force since 2023, necessitating research into barriers and development of model laws

Policy fragmentation across Africa hinders the creation of a digital single market, requiring harmonized approaches among different organizations working on similar initiatives

Internet governance forums like African IGF produce excellent declarations and recommendations but lack effective implementation mechanisms and follow-up processes

Africa needs to shift focus from just providing connectivity to delivering integrated solutions that address specific community problems while embedding digital access

Capacity building and youth engagement are critical, with successful programs like the African School on Internet Governance demonstrating existing expertise that needs to be galvanized

Funding challenges due to reduced international cooperation budgets require African countries and private sector to step up with increased investment and leadership

Resolutions and action items

Establish a dedicated committee to examine reasons for low Malabo Convention ratification rates and propose reforms to facilitate broader adoption

Submit African IGF and WSIS declarations to the African Union Specialized Technical Committee meeting in October/November 2024 for ministerial adoption as official resolutions

Develop model laws related to the Malabo Convention to help countries understand and implement cybersecurity frameworks

Create formal communication mechanisms to share IGF declarations with National and Regional IGFs, including follow-up and monitoring frameworks

Strengthen the African IGF Secretariat with institutional support rather than just forum support to ensure sustainability

Develop continental mechanisms for monitoring and evaluation with annual reports to African IGF for transparency and evidence-based decision-making

Schedule a special meeting on AFRINIC challenges at 11:30 the following day to address internet resource management issues

Harmonize efforts among multiple organizations (AUC, UNECA, Digital Impact Alliance, Smart Africa) working on data policies to avoid conflicting frameworks

Unresolved issues

How to realistically fund the extensive list of African-led digital initiatives given reduced international cooperation budgets and limited member state resources

AFRINIC’s operational and governance challenges including leadership disputes and regulatory uncertainty that threaten internet resource management

The fundamental tension between IGF’s role as a discussion platform versus the need for binding implementation mechanisms for recommendations

How to effectively bridge the digital divide in rural communities with weak infrastructure, low digital literacy, and limited participation in development programs

The challenge of making 130+ digital payment systems across Africa interoperable when over 100 don’t communicate with each other

How to address the 500 million Africans without legal identity while pursuing digital transformation initiatives

The need to involve private sector more effectively in African digital development, following models from developed nations

Suggested compromises

Adopt a two-pronged approach to Malabo Convention ratification: research barriers while developing explanatory model laws to address outdated content

Focus on comparative advantages of different organizations to avoid duplication, with each leading projects in their areas of expertise

Shift from providing direct funding to member states toward offering more advisory services and knowledge sharing between countries

Use alternative technologies (satellite, Wi-Fi) adapted to rural areas instead of expensive solutions like 5G where not needed

Implement solution-based approaches that address specific community problems while embedding connectivity, rather than focusing solely on infrastructure provision

Optimize ICT taxation rather than viewing the sector primarily as a revenue source, as this can increase overall GDP and job creation

Strengthen intergenerational mentorship and coaching to preserve and grow existing capacities rather than having disconnected peer-to-peer approaches

ICT sector, it is not an area where government think they can get more money. Generally, all our government will focus on the ICT sector on the taxation. We have to optimize. When we optimize, we have seen our old tax collection revenue will be increased because the impact of ICT sector in other sector, health, education, finance service.

Speaker

Maktar Sek

Reason

This comment challenges the conventional government approach to ICT taxation by presenting a counterintuitive economic argument – that reducing ICT taxes can actually increase overall government revenue through multiplier effects across other sectors. It reframes ICT from a revenue source to an economic catalyst.

Impact

This insight shifted the discussion from viewing connectivity as purely an infrastructure challenge to understanding it as an economic policy issue. It provided concrete evidence (the tax calculator platform) that governments could use to make data-driven decisions about ICT taxation, influencing how participants might approach policy advocacy in their own countries.

Africa is not on the supply side. We can clap about every small gain, but we are not significant suppliers of anything on the internet… So we have to kind of focus on what creates that supply side. In my opinion, it’s science education, and also in particular, the sciences that are creating these technologies, which is really computer science.

Speaker

Audience member (unnamed)

Reason

This comment provided a brutally honest assessment of Africa’s position in the global digital economy, challenging the celebratory tone often found in such forums. It redirected focus from consumption and access to production and creation, identifying education as the fundamental bottleneck.

Impact

This intervention created a sobering moment that reframed the entire discussion from incremental improvements to fundamental structural changes needed. It challenged participants to think beyond policy harmonization and connectivity to address the root causes of Africa’s digital dependency, elevating the conversation to strategic rather than tactical levels.

We have such a spirit of collaboration in Africa and we produce good outputs. Every African IGF has produced excellent outputs, but we don’t go back to them and see if we are actually implementing… we should really be very cautious about constantly making new proposals, coming up with new ideas. Often, I think that happens at the expense of actually fully implementing the ones we’ve already generated.

Speaker

Henriette Esterhuisen

Reason

This comment exposed a critical flaw in the forum’s approach – the tendency to generate endless recommendations without accountability for implementation. It challenged the very premise of continuously creating new initiatives while existing ones remain unimplemented.

Impact

This observation sparked multiple follow-up discussions about implementation mechanisms and monitoring frameworks. It led to concrete suggestions about creating formal correspondence with National and Regional IGFs (NRIs) and establishing follow-up mechanisms. The comment fundamentally shifted the conversation from content generation to accountability and execution.

You only have Egypt and Senegal as the big countries there. All the others are small countries, South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, they have not adopted it… I don’t know how you are going to do it with this committee because I believe that to go forward with… our own GDPR, which is the Malabo Convention, at least the big countries should be a good example.

Speaker

Ponsleit (audience member)

Reason

This comment highlighted a fundamental credibility problem with continental initiatives – when major economies don’t participate, it undermines the legitimacy and effectiveness of pan-African frameworks. It questioned the viability of the proposed solution (a committee) given the political reality.

Impact

This intervention forced organizers to acknowledge the political challenges honestly and led to a more nuanced discussion about implementation strategies. It prompted Adil Suleimana to outline a two-pronged approach involving research into barriers and development of model laws, showing how direct challenges can lead to more sophisticated policy responses.

Different organizations work with different policy approaches and policy framework, and if we do not harmonize the work we are doing, then what is going to happen is that neighboring countries may have different policy frameworks that do not speak to each other, and this will make harmonization extremely difficult.

Speaker

Koko (audience member)

Reason

This comment identified a meta-problem – that the organizations trying to solve fragmentation were themselves creating fragmentation through uncoordinated approaches. It revealed how well-intentioned efforts could inadvertently worsen the problems they aim to solve.

Impact

This insight added a new dimension to the discussion about organizational coordination and effectiveness. It complemented earlier comments about implementation gaps by showing how organizational silos could undermine even well-implemented individual initiatives, leading to calls for better inter-organizational coordination.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally transformed what could have been a routine progress report into a critical examination of African digital governance approaches. The interventions created a progression from celebrating achievements to questioning fundamental assumptions about strategy, implementation, and coordination. The comments introduced three critical themes that shaped the entire discussion: the need to shift from consumption to production mindset, the imperative to focus on implementation over ideation, and the recognition that fragmented approaches by multiple organizations could undermine continental harmonization goals. Together, these insights elevated the conversation from operational updates to strategic reflection, forcing participants to confront uncomfortable truths about the gap between aspirations and reality in African digital transformation efforts.

Why are major African countries like South Africa, Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and Ethiopia not ratifying the Malabo Convention despite its importance for cybersecurity?

Speaker

Ponsleit

Explanation

Understanding the barriers to ratification is crucial for developing strategies to increase adoption of Africa’s own cybersecurity framework

How will the proposed committee effectively address the low ratification rate of the Malabo Convention when previous efforts have failed?

Speaker

Ponsleit

Explanation

The effectiveness of the new committee approach needs to be evaluated given the historical challenges in getting major countries to adopt the convention

How can digital inclusion and skills training be made more accessible and practical in rural communities with weak infrastructure and low digital literacy?

Speaker

Jacqueline Jijide

Explanation

Addressing the digital divide in remote areas requires innovative approaches that account for infrastructure limitations and community engagement challenges

How will the extensive list of African-led digital initiatives be funded given recent reductions in international cooperation budgets?

Speaker

Tobias Thiel (GIZ)

Explanation

Sustainable funding mechanisms are critical for implementing the ambitious digital transformation agenda across Africa

How can IGF recommendations and declarations be effectively implemented rather than remaining as discussion outcomes?

Speaker

Multiple participants including Maktar Sek and audience member

Explanation

There’s a need to move from discussion platforms to actionable implementation frameworks with monitoring and follow-up mechanisms

How can the multi-stakeholder governance model be improved to prevent capture when participation is low, as seen in the AFRINIC case?

Speaker

Audience member (unnamed)

Explanation

The AFRINIC governance challenges highlight vulnerabilities in multi-stakeholder processes that need to be addressed

How can African countries move from being consumers to suppliers in the digital technology space?

Speaker

Audience member (unnamed)

Explanation

Africa’s limited presence on the supply side of digital technologies needs to be addressed through strategic investments in science education and innovation

How can the efforts of multiple organizations working on data policies across Africa be harmonized to avoid conflicting frameworks?

Speaker

Koko

Explanation

Coordination between AUC, UNECA, Digital Impact Alliance, Smart Africa and other organizations is needed to ensure coherent policy development

How can formal communication and follow-up mechanisms be established to ensure IGF declarations reach National and Regional IGFs for implementation?

Speaker

Audience member (unnamed)

Explanation

There’s a gap in formal communication channels between continental IGF outcomes and local/regional implementation bodies

What institutional support structure is needed to strengthen the African IGF Secretariat for long-term sustainability?

Speaker

Sorine

Explanation

Moving from forum-based support to institutional support is crucial for the African IGF’s continued effectiveness and impact

Summary

This discussion focused on sustainable models for community-based connectivity and strategies to bridge the digital divide, particularly in rural and underserved areas. The session was hosted by Peace Oliver Amuge from the Association for Progressive Communications and featured panelists from various regions discussing policy frameworks, funding mechanisms, and collaborative approaches to expand internet access.

Shafiq Shaya from RIPE NCC emphasized that connectivity is a fundamental right rather than a luxury, sharing a success story from Lebanon where a mobile bus initiative helped a young woman become an entrepreneur by providing digital access and literacy. He stressed the importance of all stakeholders becoming active partners rather than passive supporters in government initiatives. Lillian Chamorro from Colombia highlighted the need for diverse connectivity models that complement traditional operators, advocating for reduced regulatory requirements and access to universal access funds for community networks.

Julius Zube presented Lithuania’s successful “Window to the Future” initiative, demonstrating how collaboration between telecommunications companies, banks, and government created Europe’s largest public internet network in libraries. Henry Wang discussed emerging technologies like blockchain protocols and mesh networks that could revolutionize community connectivity through decentralized physical infrastructure networks (D-PIN). Claude Dorion addressed financing challenges, proposing blended funding strategies that combine grants, loans, and social economy principles to support community initiatives.

Aicha Jerid emphasized that community networks involve empowerment beyond mere connectivity, advocating for inclusive digital education policies and reduced dependency on large ISPs. Participants from the audience and online contributors shared experiences from Bangladesh, Bolivia, and Africa, highlighting common challenges including technical expertise gaps, device affordability, and the need for sustainable funding models. The discussion concluded with recognition that building community networks requires ongoing processes involving multiple stakeholders, diverse funding approaches, and policies aligned with local community needs and ownership models.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Community-driven connectivity as a fundamental right**: The discussion emphasized that internet access should be viewed as a human right rather than a luxury, with community networks serving as bottom-up solutions to bridge the digital divide in rural, indigenous, and underserved areas.

– **Multi-stakeholder partnerships and active collaboration**: Speakers stressed the importance of moving beyond traditional support roles to become active partners, with governments, civil society, private sector, and technical communities working together rather than operating in silos.

– **Policy and regulatory framework adaptations**: The need for flexible regulations that recognize the diversity of community network models, including reduced fees, simplified reporting requirements, access to universal funds, and alternative economic models that differ from traditional commercial approaches.

– **Sustainable financing mechanisms and mixed funding models**: Discussion of innovative financing approaches including social economy principles, blended financing strategies, and examples like Lithuania’s public-private partnerships that leverage multiple stakeholder resources for long-term sustainability.

– **Capacity building and digital literacy integration**: Recognition that community networks encompass more than just connectivity infrastructure, requiring comprehensive digital skills training, local governance development, and empowerment of communities to manage their own networks.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to explore sustainable models for community-based connectivity, focusing on how different stakeholders can collaborate to close the digital divide through locally-driven network solutions. The session sought to identify challenges, share successful experiences, and discuss policy frameworks that support community networks as alternatives to traditional commercial internet service provision.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a collaborative and solution-oriented tone throughout. Speakers were enthusiastic about sharing practical experiences and success stories from their respective regions (Lebanon, Colombia, Lithuania, Singapore, North Africa, Bolivia). The tone was constructive and forward-looking, with participants building on each other’s ideas rather than presenting conflicting viewpoints. There was a sense of urgency about addressing connectivity gaps, but also optimism about community-driven solutions and emerging technologies like decentralized networks and satellite connectivity.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Peace Oliver Amuge** – Host/Moderator, works for the Association for Progressive Communications

– **Shafiq Shaya** – Regional manager for public policy and government efforts for RIPE NCC, member at the IGF Lebanon, ex-chair of the IGF MAG in Lebanon

– **Lillian Chamorro** – Part of Colnodo team (NGO based in Colombia), part of the IGF from Colombia, secretariat of the Latin American and Caribbean IGF

– **Julius Zube** – Representative of NRD companies (private sector from Lithuania), member of the Lithuanian government

– **Henry Wang** – From Singapore IGF, co-founder for the World Web 3 Alliance

– **Claude Dorion** – Economist, general manager of MCA Conseil (non-profit consultancy specialized in financial and development strategy for collective projects)

– **Aicha Jerid** – Director of community network, representing the North African part of the continent

– **Roberto Zambana** – Working in Bolivia NRI, also working with Internet Society Foundation

– **Judith Hellerstein** – Online moderator

– **Kweku Entry** – From the African Community Network Program

– **Audience** – Member of the Internet Governance Forum (from Bangladesh)

**Additional speakers:**

– **Zaina** – From Lebanon (online participant who submitted a question)

# Discussion Report: Sustainable Models for Community-Based Connectivity

## Introduction and Session Context

This NRI’s collaborative session, hosted by Peace Oliver Amuge from the Association for Progressive Communications, brought together diverse stakeholders to examine sustainable models for community-based connectivity. The discussion featured participants from multiple regions including Lebanon, Colombia, Lithuania, Singapore, North Africa, Bolivia, and Bangladesh, with both in-person panelists and online participants facilitated by online moderator Judith Hellerstein.

The session explored how different stakeholder groups can collaborate to close the digital divide through locally-driven network solutions, with participants sharing experiences across different geographical and socioeconomic contexts.

## Fundamental Principles: Internet Access as a Human Right

The discussion established internet connectivity as a fundamental human right rather than a luxury. Shafiq Shaya from RIPE NCC emphasized this principle while sharing a success story from Lebanon, where a mobile bus initiative helped a young woman access digital literacy training and become an entrepreneur in handicrafts.

Shaya argued that connectivity problems are primarily policy failures rather than technology issues, stating: “We need to stop talking about that the stakeholders group like civil society, technical community, academics, are just supporter partners. No. We need to be active partners. So government cannot solve and cannot bridge everything alone.”

Roberto Zambana, participating online from Bolivia, noted that over 30% of Bolivia’s population lacks internet access, illustrating the persistent scale of the digital divide. A participant from Bangladesh highlighted that despite decades of attention, “20 years ago we were talking about digital divide. After 20 years we are same talking about the digital divide… When community projects end, network is end.”

## Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration and Active Partnerships

A central theme emerged around transforming traditional stakeholder relationships from passive support to active partnership. Julius Zube from NRD companies in Lithuania provided a concrete example through the “Window to the Future” initiative, which he described as creating the “largest public network of internet points in all of the Europe” in public libraries through collaboration between telecommunications companies, banks, and government entities.

Aicha Jerid from North Africa reinforced this collaborative approach, emphasizing that “policies are not only for governments – civil society organisations have responsibility to participate.” She advocated for National and Regional Internet Governance Initiatives (NRIs) to take initiative in reaching out to governments rather than waiting for government-led initiatives.

Lillian Chamorro from Colombia supported this perspective, highlighting how NRIs can bring different viewpoints to strengthen the community networks ecosystem, emphasizing that building community networks requires multiple actors working together.

## Community Empowerment and Ownership Models

Aicha Jerid introduced a broader conceptualization of community networks beyond technical infrastructure: “Community network is not only about connectivity and infrastructure. It is also more about empowerment, empowerment of the less privileged ones… So I think that the community network plays a vital role in ensuring that these communities are not only passive users of Internet, but also active in connecting the other communities.”

Kweku Entry from the African Community Network Program posed critical questions about community ownership: “Are we talking about community networks as we’re going in to implement community networks for them or with them whilst they own this?” He advocated for community ownership and investment models where communities have shares and can invest in their own network infrastructure.

Roberto Zambana supported this community-centered approach by describing community network readiness assessment courses that enable communities to work on their own connectivity solutions from the beginning.

## Policy and Regulatory Framework Needs

Participants identified the need for different regulatory approaches for community networks compared to traditional commercial internet service providers. Lillian Chamorro advocated for reduced regulatory requirements, simplified reporting procedures, and access to universal access funds for community networks serving vulnerable communities.

She emphasized that community networks should be based on principles of openness, sharing, and community ownership rather than commercial models. Aicha Jerid complemented this by advocating for policies that invest in inclusive digital education and training, including programs specifically designed for people with disabilities through Schools of Internet Governance.

The discussion highlighted challenges posed by monopolistic practices of large ISPs that prevent community network development, particularly in regions like North Africa.

## Financing Mechanisms and Sustainability Models

Claude Dorion, economist and general manager of MCA Conseil, introduced social economy principles as alternatives to traditional commercial or charity-based models. He described social economy enterprises as “collectively owned enterprises who have social mission managed through a collective democratic governance representing the community that they serve.”

Dorion proposed mixed financing strategies where “grants finance impact, loan finances assets and specialized financing feed working capital.” However, this approach generated some discussion with Kweku Entry, who questioned reliance on external funding and advocated for genuine community ownership models that promote self-reliance.

Lillian Chamorro suggested that community networks should have access to universal access funds specifically for vulnerable communities, while Julius Zube’s Lithuanian example demonstrated successful public-private partnership models.

## Technology Solutions and Innovation

Henry Wang from Singapore introduced emerging technological approaches including decentralized physical infrastructure networks using blockchain protocols and mesh networks. He also discussed space-ground integration networks using low-Earth orbit satellites as potential solutions for connecting remote areas.

While these technological innovations generated interest, they represented a different paradigm from the grassroots community-driven approaches emphasized by other speakers.

## Capacity Building and Digital Literacy

Participants consistently emphasized that digital literacy and capacity building must be integral components of community networks. Aicha Jerid argued that digital skills training should be embedded within community network development from the beginning, not treated as separate add-on services.

The Bangladesh participant highlighted practical challenges including technical knowledge gaps, brain drain from rural to urban areas, expensive technical devices, and lack of technical expertise in rural areas. Roberto Zambana addressed these through community network readiness assessment courses that build local capacity for network management and maintenance.

## Role of Technical Organizations and NRIs

Shafiq Shaya described how RIPE NCC supports communities through expertise, resources, and funding for grassroots engagement, offering concrete assistance beyond policy discussions. He explained that technical platforms like Network Operator Groups complement NRI policy discussions by providing practical technical support.

An online participant from Lebanon, Zaina, specifically asked about roles NRIs can play in fostering community networks, highlighting interest in practical guidance for regional initiatives.

## Regional Perspectives and Challenges

The discussion benefited from diverse regional experiences. Lillian Chamorro shared Colombian experiences with community networks that complement traditional operators, while Aicha Jerid provided North African perspectives on challenges posed by ISP monopolies.

Julius Zube’s Lithuanian success story demonstrated how developed countries can benefit from innovative multi-stakeholder approaches, showing that community network principles apply across different economic contexts.

## Audience Participation and Questions

The session included active participation from online attendees, with questions about specific roles for NRIs and technical organizations in fostering community networks. Peace Oliver Amuge facilitated discussion around practical next steps and mentioned connections to AFRICYC and other regional initiatives.

## Key Challenges and Next Steps

Several unresolved challenges emerged, including the high cost of technical devices, lack of technical expertise in rural areas, and the need for sustainable financing models that balance external support with community ownership.

Practical action items included encouraging NRIs to take initiative in policy engagement, connecting communities with technical organizations like RIPE NCC for support, and creating digital inclusion councils or skill ambassadors at local levels.

## Conclusion

The discussion demonstrated significant alignment among diverse stakeholders on fundamental principles while revealing different approaches to implementation. The emphasis on transforming stakeholder relationships from passive support to active partnership, combined with community empowerment and appropriate policy frameworks, provides a foundation for advancing community-based connectivity solutions.

The conversation highlighted that successful community networks require ongoing processes with continuous support rather than one-time interventions, emphasizing the need for sustained collaboration among all stakeholders to ensure internet access becomes a reality for all communities.

Peace Oliver Amuge: important role in the next. OK, you ready? Really? OK. Hello, everyone. Can you hear me? OK, thank you. You’re most welcome to this session. It’s NRA’s collaborative session on sustainable models for community-based connectivity. And I am very privileged to be your host today. My name is Peace Oliver Muge, and I work for the Association for Progressive Communications. And we are on channel 5 for your information. And I will right away go to just give you a brief introduction on the session. We have distinguished panelists that I’ll give a moment shortly to introduce themselves. And this session is really talking about local connectivity or community networks. As we’re all aware that even if we know that access to internet is a fundamental human right, we still know and we’ve witnessed in different spaces where we work or live that there are still very many people that are not connected to the internet. People in rural communities, urban areas, indigenous communities are still not connected. And so it is very pivotal for us to have this kind of engagement and discuss alternative ways that we can have or close this gap. And so you should look forward to our engagement. We will be looking out for some of the challenges. We will share our experiences in the different communities, different projects or initiatives that we have done towards closing this gap. And we will also talk about some of the existing policy frameworks or challenges that we have witnessed. So without wasting any time, I will already invite you, Shafiq, to start off already this discussion. And my question to you is, how can and inclusive policy and strong regulations framework close the digital divide, lower Internet costs. Can you hear me? I cannot hear myself at all. It feels like I’m speaking to myself. Thank you. So, Shafiq, I’m coming to you. Before you answer these questions, would you just introduce yourself briefly? Thank you.

Shafiq Shaya: Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Shafiq Shaya. I am the regional manager for public policy and government efforts for RIPE NCC, and I am a member at the IGF Lebanon, ex-chair of the IGF MAG in Lebanon. So it’s a pleasure to be here with you today, and thanks for the invitation. Just to answer your question, so addressing this question in today’s context is not about improving infrastructure or updating regulation. It’s about recognizing that accessibility and connectivity to the Internet is a right and not a luxury. So when we talk about connectivity, about rolling the cost of the Internet, about policy and regulation, we are really talking about the people, people who are in rural areas, remote areas, in refugee camps that they don’t have the chance to connect. They cannot get online. So I just have one question here for the audience. How many of you come from a country where the connectivity in rural or remote areas is still a challenge? So, yes, and you are not alone. In many parts of my region, the Middle East and beyond, there is a problem with the Internet, and This is a challenge, but this challenge is not about technology, it’s not about we don’t have the connectivity, and it’s about a policy failure. Let’s put it in this dimension. So just I want to share with you a very simple but powerful story about this community initiatives and community network and how it works. In one of the small mountain villages in Lebanon, we had a young woman, she had skills and she was selling handicrafts, crochet, that means covers for tables and for chairs, but she hadn’t the way to reach customers. So one of our initiatives was led by the municipalities, some academics and civil society, is to have a bus, a mobile bus, where we visit this village twice a week. So we met this young lady and now this young lady, after she got the online, after she got the digital literacy, now she’s a young entrepreneur and she offers a job to other young ladies and she’s selling her handicrafts and her products online. So the main message here is we do not or we don’t need to wait for government development plans to go to these rural areas. When community work together, we can get the connectivity and this connectivity can give the opportunity to these people like this young lady. To the second part of your question about the strategic alliances and how we can do this together, first thing that I want to say here, I believe we need to stop talking about that the stakeholders group like civil society, technical community, academics, are just supporter partners. No. We need to be active partners. So government cannot solve and cannot bridge everything alone. We need to work with governments. So my message here is for all my colleagues, please, when you talk to government, don’t just sit down and talk and listen to them. You need to be a partner. You need to collaborate. Because inclusive policies, based on my experience, I have been working for the last 20 years with governments, it is not written in the ministries or at the regulator authorities. These inclusive policies should be involved with the stakeholders, with communities, and should be based on trust and locally and reality on the ground. So we need to have these policies as needed, not theoretically just to write it on a piece of paper. So community has an important role to play in connecting people in partnership with governments. Thank you.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Thank you very much, Shafiq, for really pulling out and bringing out some of these things, especially that we should all be active partners, not pointing fingers to the other stakeholders, but we should all be active partners, and also the pivotal role that the community itself plays. And right away, I will come to you, Lillian. Before you speak, just briefly introduce yourself to the audience. Lillian, how should national regulations be adopted to support the legal establishment and operations of community networks? Thank you.

Lillian Chamorro: Thank you, Peace, and all of my partners. I’m Lillian Chamorro, I’m part of Colnodo team, that is an NGO based in Colombia that also is part of the IGF from Colombia, and we are also the secretariat of the Latin American and Caribbean IGF. We in Colnodo have experienced accompanying communities in the creation and maintenance of community networks. We think that it’s necessary to recognize that The diversity of connection possibilities should be recognized because the actual connection, the actual enterprises no respond to the needs of the communities because the communities don’t have the enough income, don’t have the enough people, then the communities no respond to the needs of the large operators. Therefore other connectivity models are needed, diversified models that complement the work of traditional operators oriented by principle of openness, sharing, and community. These community models cannot have the same requirements as traditional models. They must have a reduce of exempted fees and reporting requirements must be simplified and adapted to the conditions of these networks. On other hand, these models should have access to the resources of universal access funds. In Colombia we have the FUTIC, that is the universal fund, which is intended to bring connectivity to vulnerable communities that are usually in remote areas and do not have the possibility of accessing this type of resources. Although in Colombia community networks initiatives are financed by universities or by international funds, such as ISOC or also the LogNet program from APC, but there are not public resources oriented to the implementation and support of community networks. In addition, it should be allowed to implement models of alternative economies or economías propias, as we said in Spanish, in the operation and maintenance of the networks different of the commercial models. So, I think it’s very important for us to make sure that the access to the community networks and other resources such as spectrum and backhaul networks should be facilitated, which due to the legislation and high cost do not allow communities to access, facilitate the access to backhaul, which means a diminution of the possibility to access to backhaul, means a diminution of cost for the network maintenance and more than 10% of the network maintenance.

Peace Oliver Amuge: So, I think that’s a very important thing, and I do agree with, you know, exploring the different models that exist, openness, you know, addressing the needs of the community, and when you bring that with what Shafiq started us on talking about, the different stakeholders, I want to bring in Julius now, and Julius, my question to you is that what strategic alliances between government, civil society, academy and private sector can be used to ensure that the digital transformation is sustainable, and what are the key pillars for ensuring that digital transformation is sustainable?

Julius Zube: Thank you very much. So, maybe just to briefly introduce, my name is Julius Zube. I represent NRD companies, which is a private sector representative from Lithuania, which closely cooperates both with the Lithuanian government sharing our last 30 years of digital transformation experience, including in the field of digital transformation, and I’m also a member of the Lithuanian government. So, when we became first independent in the 1990s, we had a unique situation where we had to, as any country, to breach the rural and urban gap in terms of digital divide, and one thing that was proposed, actually, for Lithuanian government by the academia was, first of all, to establish what we called a rural area Internet networks, by acronym RAIN, which basically the government was trying to establish a network, which is basically a network that is open to private Internet service provider to do the last mile connectivity to sort of make it financially viable for these private companies to then provide that. can stimulate private sector provision in underserved areas. And then one thing, when you refer to collaboration between different stakeholders, the next actually very interesting initiative was called Window to the Future, which started in 2000s and actually was initiated by telecommunication companies and private banks, because they noticed, there was a, who started a dedicated NGO, which with the objective to establish centers in rural areas where people can get wifi access, digital skills, and everything that they need to use the connectivity that they would be provided. The idea was here that telecommunications wanted more people using digital services, or overall, you know, digital connectivity, so that improves their consumer base. The banks wanted more people using digital banking services, so then that simplifies their own processes, you know, they don’t need to serve as many people in their offices, and in terms, then the government actually jumped in and said, this is a great idea, let’s do that. What came out of it is actually the largest public network of internet points in all of the Europe, which is provided to public libraries. And we believe that this is a great collaboration between a critical service points in any community, which in Lithuanian case is a public library, and funding provided by the private sector and the government sort of providing the, you know, the mandate that you need to initiate these things. And we believe that this model is really adaptable to other contexts. For example, my company, we recently had a project in Kenya where a similar model was considered, but instead of public libraries, we were working with the Postal Corporation of Kenya and proposing a model how the already existing infrastructure of the postal networks could be brought to a second life to also provide similar networks. Thank you.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Thank you. Thank you, Julius, and that’s a good example of how when all stakeholders come together, it’s stronger with this example of the window to the future. So thank you for sharing that. I would like to announce that we have online participants and Judith is our… a moderator, so we will ensure that when we open the floor, we give you opportunity to engage. I will come to you, Henry, and please introduce yourself briefly, and then my question to you is how can rural, indigenous and Afro-descent communities effectively participate? I’m sorry, yeah, I was asked to moderate the session last minute, so I am not aware. This is my Julia, so excuse me for that, yeah. So my question to you is that, Henry, I mean, how can rural, indigenous and Afro-descent communities effectively participate in connectivity, policymaking, and what strategies are needed to build their capacity to manage and sustain their own network infrastructure and services? Thank you.

Henry Wang: Okay, very good questions. Hello, everyone, and my name is Henry Wang. I’m from the Singapore IGF. I’m also the co-founder for the World Web 3 Alliance. So today’s topic is a community driving network, and it’s very important, and it aligns with IGF. So IGF is the bottom-up, and the community network is also bottom-up, but when we talk about a community network, sometimes we don’t have enough or enabled tools to build a community network, but now time is shifting, and this empowered blockchain protocol can actually help the community to build their own network based on mesh network, which is a peer-to-peer connections. So with peer-to-peer connections, people can build a village network, but with one of the node we call the mesh box. You can connect it to the low-Earth orbit. orbital satellites. Then you can immediately form a space ground integration network. So this kind of a decentralized infrastructure network, we call it decentralized physical infrastructure network, called D-PIN. So this D-PIN is going to revolutionize our infrastructure within the next one decade, 10 years. So within 10 years, I believe the whole humanity can be connected with this space ground integration network. Because it’s bottom up, so everyone can participate. So there’s a protocol to guarantee the contributors, and the users, and validators to organize a fair network for everyone. So we call it people’s network. And I invested into one of the company in Chicago who are building the outdoor meshbox with solar panel and also with a battery. So they can even work without power. So in those remote areas, rural areas, like mentioned by several of our panelists, in those areas, we can immediately build a network for people. So the low Earth orbital satellites is not only starting. There are so many constellations under construction. So within three to five years, all of them will put into operation. So space ground integration network will be the future of our community network. So therefore, we are talking about the policies in every country, especially emerging countries, how to encourage people to build a network together. It’s not centralized. It’s not been decided by the centralized carriers where to build network, but the community themselves can decide, can work together to organize a community-based network. So it’s cost effective and also with the broadband and, you know, bandwidth, it can help people to actually, you know, earn their breakfast, earn their educations. So this is the underground layer of the infrastructure. And upon this layer, we’ll have the Web 3.0, which actually decentralizes the data ownership, which means for emerging countries, they don’t have to turn over their data. They can preserve their data, their language, and their cultures. So with the community network and the Web 3.0 layer, like Lingo AI is doing for all the diversity of languages and cultures, I believe the emerging countries can become gradually become wealthy and gradually own their own data and protect their culture and languages. Thanks.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Thank you very much, Henry, for mentioning, you know, the bottom-up approach, the decentralization of the networks and the cost effectiveness. And since you brought that up, I will come to you now, Claude, to talk about the funding mechanism and incentives that can support sustainable community networks. Please introduce yourself briefly. Yes.

Claude Dorion: Hello. My name is Claude Dorian. I’m an economist, general manager of MCA Conseil, which is a non-profit consultancy specialized in financial and development strategy for collective projects. Financing connectivity is a complex question, so I’m trying to offer a four-minute… answer is kind of countercultural for a guy who’s paid by the hour usually. Connectivity is different things depending on who you are asking. For some people it’s a market, for other people it’s a right. We may argue that in between it’s a social, essential social service supplied by an economic activity with a technical solution. But this right has to be supplied and financed from private sector, public sector or social civil society. With the limited resources that the public sector has and the important wave of diminishing resources coming from international corporation, it seems that we are condemned at finding some blended strategy to supply financial solutions to a large scale. I mainly bring the experience of social economy to this debate. Social economy is constituted of collectively owned enterprises who have social mission managed through a collective democratic governance representing the community that they serve. It is a way of undertaking collectively for the common good. Social economy has developed a culture of mixed financing where grants finance impact, loan finances assets and specialized financing feed working capital through long-term flexible loans without guarantee or supported by external or public guarantee scheme. We believe that this is a constructive path to use philanthropy as leverage. and with the aim of multiplying its impact for community connectivity. And because I’m an economist, I kind of have the tendency to see things as a supply and demand situation. On the supply side, we have to build a network of a few complementary financial actors that will work together with mutually supportive products in the same projects in order to share analysis, share risk, and insight in order to raise the financial supply and lower its cost. On the demand side, I also believe that connectivity initiatives may need management and technical support services in order to identify the best solution and to deliver the kind of business case because we are in fact social businesses, business plans that will be closer in content and in format to what social financial actors may expect or wish for. It is really a dialogue between digital divide and financial divide, and I believe this dialogue can be constructive, leading to a fair financing solution to collective projects, bringing positive social impact and economic impact. As fair trade brought higher selling price for growers, fair financing could bring lower prices for users of connectivity emerging from community-based projects. Thank you.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Thank you very much, Claude, for those elaborate points, and I think these are really good strategies that we need to take if we want to ensure that the financing mechanism works for our goal to ensure that we close the gap and we have many people connected as we are in this room connected. I will come to Ayesha, we’re about to come to the floor, so don’t feel impatient. there? And I think all of us have the same meaning for what we’re doing. So moving on, so we’ve talked about these topics and all that, how do the common economico-cultural practices rivivalize?

Aicha Jerid: Just AV project I anticipate you would be Nikita about taking over all of us and also all of the other people in the room. So I’m Nikita, I’m the director of the community network, I’m here to represent the North African part of the continent. Maybe it is very relevant in this context to say that community network is not only about connectivity and infrastructure. It is also more about empowerment, empowerment of the less privileged ones and also empowerment of the people who have access to the Internet. So I think that the community network plays a vital role in ensuring that these communities are not only the global community, are not only passive users of Internet, but also active in connecting the other communities and also in shaping the realities of the disconnected. So talking about the digital skills, I think that the first policy that we should have is that we should have a policy that we can invest in inclusive or more inclusive digital education and training. This is by creating a policy, government should create policies that ensure that everyone has access to digital literacy, either in schools or in adults, adult literacy. Second, we should have a policy that ensures that all people have access to information in all areas and include rural areas as well as urban areas in digital skills. And the third policy should support training in rural areas. This is in cooperation with civil society. And maybe it’s important in this context related to the digital skills especially to mention the efforts done by the school of Internet governance and the regional initiatives of Internet governance, whether it’s north, south, west, and their initiative or their schools and the trainings they do on a yearly basis, and the students, women, and people with disabilities, because last year, for instance, in our school of Internet governance in North Africa, we have included a great number of people with disability. We’ve trained them. We’ve had them participate in our school and certify. So these initiatives can help also enable these people to get the technical skills and why not build their own local communities. The second area that policies can encourage digital skills is to enable local community to design and manage its own infrastructure. This is also by reducing the dependencies on large cooperation, ISP cooperation, because we know, for instance, in North Africa, we don’t have community-based networks. We don’t have it because of the monopoly of the giant ISPs, and we cannot build that. So it is maybe it’s time to, it’s a call for community, for people who have been trained, for people who are skilled to gather and think about creating community networks in Africa and North Africa especially. So the third area that policies can promote access to affordable Internet. So this is by reducing the taxes on digital devices, it’s also by supporting more and more use of public Internet access, such as in schools and libraries, and we are talking about both rural and more rural areas and also urban areas. Communities can also recognize local communities and recognize the efforts of local communities by offering them small grants, by encouraging them, offering them very, very small grants or even loans with low interests that can help them create their own community network. And finally, it is the most important one because it includes more than one stakeholder because all stakeholders should participate to create policy. Policy is not the creation of government only, it’s a collective effort because civil society, for instance, in terms of skills and capacity building, have more experience in that regard. So I invite more participation of civil society initiatives to gather with the government, also the private sector, to foster partnership with these local community networks. Finally, why not create digital inclusion council or digital skill ambassadors who will promote the idea of community-based networks and work with multi-stakeholders to improve connectivity in rural areas. This is all from my side. Thank you for not cutting my word.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Thank you. And you know why I didn’t cut you? Because you talked about the school of Internet governance. I coordinate AFRICYC, so definitely I was agreeing to what you were saying. And so we’re going to open up in a bit. I think we will use the mics there. So yes, I think you can take the floor. But before, as you take, you go on the queue, we have Roberto who is online. Is he? Yes. Yes. If you could, if we can have Roberto Zambana question. Okay, Roberto, I think you can go and we’ll have AV people unlock your mic and video.

Roberto Zambana: Thank you very much, Judith. Peace. It’s a great honor to be part of this session as well. This time I want to share very quickly how we were working in Bolivia, in our NRI in Bolivia. I will say five years ago, and key element is the way that we had the coordination with the government, not only the head of the sector, the telecommunications vice minister, but also the regulators office. And from last year, and I will say even the last two years, we started to work with enabling capacities in communities because the community network, we understand that is a fantastic solution for bridging the gap we have regarding all the people. I will say most, more than 30% of Bolivian population that don’t have access to internet. And another important fact that I would like to share, because I’m also working with Internet Society Foundation, is from this organization we work with capacity building, especially in a course that we have, which is the community network readiness assessment. And this course enables the communities themselves to work in their connectivity solutions from the beginning. It’s very important because And usually this kind of projects, this kind of initiatives comes directly bringing the solutions without even in some cases consulting the communities, consulting the beneficiaries. And the correct approach I will say it’s to build the concept from the beginning, understanding the nature of the needs and working together with them again from the beginning to define what kind of solutions will actually fit their particular needs in terms of connectivity and of course the solutions that we called community based are one of the best examples of working together with the communities from the beginning and thinking about the specific solutions that are related with technology, with approaches, with how the leaders of the communities can embrace this kind of solution and of course working together with the rest to have not only a successful community network but especially a community network that is going to be sustainable in the future because that’s the other aspect that we need to think from the beginning and to define the different strategies to work with that goal. So that’s what I wanted to very quickly contribute and once again thank you for the opportunity to do it. Thank you very much Judith and Pius.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Thank you very much Roberta and we have a hand there. We also have a question online. So we take, yes, you can go.

Kweku Entry: Thank you so much. My name is Kweku Entry, I’m from the African Community Network Program and I just like the contributions from, I think it was from the financier as well as, is it the, is it Malaysian? Singapore. Singapore. Singapore. Singapore. Yeah. So all I see is collaboration, collaboration, collaboration as a theme going up. and the base of community network is community-based. In terms of financing, I think one of the issues that we have is about the buying of those we are trying to provide a solution for. What am I talking about? I come from Africa, and in Africa, it’s very different. When we’re talking about community networks for the people who are in the roots and the grassroots, are we talking about community networks as we’re going in to implement community networks for them or with them whilst they own this? In our program on the African Community Network, which actually evolved from projects in Costa Rica and in Africa, you see that the community people are involved and they are buying, whether it’s the data or they are involved in the ownership. How do we transcend the funding into community ownership where they see that they have the shares in which they are able to invest? Because most of the communities we are talking about, most times, do not have the funds. And for the last speaker who was online about the sustainability, I think we are at a point here where we need to be able to have some of these funding things. Some of us are doing this, and we know the challenges. I’m just asking so that we can be able to join ourselves and see how we’re able to solve these things and move the community networks. Because without community networks, all these gaps we are talking about is never going to be achieved. Connecting everybody is not going to be top down. It’s going to be bottom up, and it’s going to be more meaningful and impactful. Thank you.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Thank you very much. And Judy, we can take the online question or comment, and then we can go with the hand that we have.

Judith Hellerstein: Yes, so we have a question from Zaina from Lebanon. And her question is to all the speakers is, in their opinion, what roles can NRIs play?

Peace Oliver Amuge: important anyway can inspire, can inspire people to do to see discourse to hopefully make developer wise play in fostering community networks. We can start with you. Your mic, is it on?

Audience: Thank you very much for inviting me to be a part of this forum. I’m a member of the Internet Governance Forum. I have some observation. 20 years ago we were talking about digital divide. After 20 years we are same talking about the digital divide. Problem is the community network. Community network is facilitated only for rural area. It is not facilitated in the community. It is not facilitated in the community. They are not facilitated in the community supported in fund. If we are starting the community project, community project is okay. Network is okay. When community projects end, network is end. When we are starting community projects, community projects are not facilitated in the rural area. Rural area, because they are thinking about if I am technical person, I’m going to rural urban area because they have better job. I’m not living in the rural area. Another problem is the technical device. Device is very much higher price. If rural area one technical device is not available, they have to go to the rural area, they have to go to the rural area, they have to go to the rural area. So here is a challenge is the affordable and another challenge is the technical knowledge. This is my observation from Bangladesh concept. Thank you very much.

Peace Oliver Amuge: We have, yes, do we have someone on line? No, but I don’t think the question was answered. She asked a question about how can Still, not so much that we do together, not to put the lives at risk but rather some partnership that for example, we’re playable and fostering community networks. So we’ve taken that note, the list of other former questions. we can pass around and you can answer. If the government put attention, we can have some news for creating the community network we were trying to do, we can meet somewhere and we have seen that the need to specify, these are a sort of civic issues. another component that I think we are leaving out and that’s to do with the rural network, we need to make sure that we have a network that is able to locate a buyer. Because when you have a rural farmer who has his produce and they want to look for market for this produce, this farmer needs a network to be able to locate a buyer. So if we want to build this rural network, we need to have a network that can locate a buyer. And I think that’s where we have to align the need. A rural dweller would like to request for a passport. They have to travel to the city before they can get the passport. So if you attach the need to it, we are solving the problem. Thank you. possibilities of entry and entry into other countries and in different countries.

Shafiq Shaya: So thank you very much for take our time this afternoon. If you encourage too much, otherwise we won’t have the opportunity to gather all the attendees in front of you to talk to you during this talk. Thank you very much. Thank you. network and network numbers for communities. So, from a RAP-NCC perspective… What we do is we support very closely and we engage with the NRIs and with all multi-stakeholder platforms like NOGs, Network Operator Groups. These NOGs or these platforms are technical platforms that can complement the NRIs’ discussion, which are the policy platforms. So giving the community, giving the end users the expertise needed, giving them the resources, not only the expertise, sometimes we go there and we fund this engagement on the ground. So doing this, we engage with the end users, with the individuals, with the communities to build their own community, because part of our engagement is building communities. So happy, my colleague Bahan is there, I’m here, happy to help you, to answer a few questions how we can support you in building your own community. Thank you, peace.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Thank you, Shafiq, and anybody else? Aisha, you want to?

Aicha Jerid: Just, yeah, thank you, peace. Just to emphasize and to add to what Mr. Shafiq said, as just an example from the North African IGF, so for instance, we represent the North African NRI, and we, during the last year, we have reached out to the Ministry, Mauritanian Ministry of ICT, we had a meeting with the Minister and suggested a couple of regular online and on-site capacity building sessions, especially for women, and in rural, and in workshop, for instance. So we are in, we had the initiative, we took the initiative to go to the Ministry of ICT, and we were welcomed, we were much welcomed. So the lesson here, or the message I want to convey is that policies are not only for governments, and government may not have all the information or all the capabilities to be everywhere and to respond to all the people’s needs. So civil society organizations, NRI more specifically, schools or people who are working in And I think it’s very important to understand that the Internet Governance is not only about the Internet Governance, it’s also about the responsibility to reach out to ISPs as well as to governments and participate in shaping policies. Another point I wanted to react to is the comment said by a fellow from Bangladesh who underlined that community network is not only connectivity, and this is how I started my intervention. It’s not only about the Internet Governance, it’s also about the need to have a digital network because it means that giving the necessary skills to those people in rural areas or not even in rural areas. I spoke about people with disabilities which we do not mention much here. So they can be people living in urban areas, but they do not have the necessary skills to be connected. So I think it’s important to understand that the Internet Governance is not only about the Internet Governance, it’s also about the need to have a digital network that encompasses many steps. First of all, it starts with connectivity, and second of all, with capacity building. Capacity building includes digital literacy and also digital marketing for women entrepreneurs who are in the rural areas and who do not, first of all, know how to use their smart phone or mobile phone. So it’s not only about the Internet Governance, it’s also about the need to have a digital network that encompasses many steps. So I think, if I’m not mistaken, 40% in the global South Africa do not have smart phones because of the price of the smart phones and because of the connectivity and other issues. So just to cut the story short, digital literacy skills is part and parcel of the community-based networks. Thank you.

Lillian Chamorro: Thank you. Thank you. I would like to say that it’s important to recognize that building and maintaining a community network is a process. beginning and a finish. It’s all a process and we need public policy aligned with sustainability. That means funds, that means diversity of models, that means training, local governance, accompanying the communities, access to the spectrum, access to the backhaul, and create a strong ecosystem where multiple actors are involved. Then that is the importance also of the role of the NRIs because we don’t need only civil society or only governments. We need to discuss and bring different viewpoints about how to strengthen the community networks ecosystem.

Claude Dorion: Yes, we just conducted a survey with the Association for Progressive Communication where we had information from roughly 80 collectivity-centered connectivity initiatives. The basic conclusion was the really large diversity of those projects. They all share the fact that they emerge from a local initiative where the group of future users get together and build a network connected to another or totally autonomous. They differ by their revenue scale, their size, the number of users. They may be rural, they may be urban in poorer neighborhoods of large cities. The cases are really multiple and what we try to do is to have strategies where we bring external resources at the lowest cost possible in order to help complement the internal resources of those communities and materialize, implement their project. So, it’s all in total respect of the local initiative and it’s at the service of those communities that a financial ecosystem has to be built and adapted for each different project because the challenges are different from one project to the other. And I think that when we see the example of Ecuador with its 1% tax, I could say, on the profit of the private sector or the example that Julius presented about how the private sector is working with the public sector in order to bring some accessibility to communities. There are all example of mixing a public decision, some private resources with local regulation and local initiative in order to attract what we need as human resources, technical resources and financial resources in order to increase the number of people having access and lower the price that they have to support in order to pay for it. Thank you.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Thank you very much, Claude. And I don’t know if we can just know. It is a big no. Okay, I just want to thank you all for your time, for coming to this session, for your thoughts and a big thank you to the panellists for sharing the different engagements and the projects, initiatives that you have been doing on this. Thank you. .

Agreement points

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential for addressing connectivity challenges

Speakers

– Shafiq Shaya
– Julius Zube
– Peace Oliver Amuge
– Lillian Chamorro
– Aicha Jerid

Arguments

Stakeholders must be active partners, not just supporters, working collaboratively with governments

Strategic alliances between government, civil society, academia, and private sector are essential for sustainable digital transformation

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential, with all parties being active partners rather than pointing fingers

NRIs should bring different viewpoints to strengthen the community networks ecosystem

NRIs should take initiative to reach out to governments and participate in shaping policies

Summary

All speakers strongly agree that successful community connectivity requires active collaboration between government, civil society, academia, and private sector, with each stakeholder group playing an active rather than passive role

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory | Sociocultural

Internet access is a fundamental human right with persistent digital divides

Speakers

– Shafiq Shaya
– Peace Oliver Amuge
– Roberto Zambana

Arguments

Internet access is a fundamental human right, not a luxury, yet many rural, urban, and indigenous communities remain unconnected

Internet access is a fundamental human right, yet many people in rural, urban, and indigenous communities remain unconnected

Over 30% of Bolivia’s population lacks internet access, highlighting the scale of the digital divide

Summary

Speakers unanimously recognize internet access as a fundamental human right while acknowledging the persistent reality that many communities, particularly rural and indigenous ones, remain unconnected

Topics

Development | Human rights | Infrastructure

Community networks require different regulatory approaches than traditional commercial operators

Speakers

– Lillian Chamorro
– Aicha Jerid
– Claude Dorion

Arguments

Community networks need reduced or exempted fees and simplified reporting requirements compared to traditional operators

Policies should invest in inclusive digital education and training for all communities

Social economy enterprises with collective ownership and democratic governance can provide sustainable solutions

Summary

Speakers agree that community networks cannot operate under the same regulatory framework as commercial operators and need adapted policies that reduce bureaucratic burden and support alternative economic models

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Economic

Community ownership and empowerment are central to sustainable connectivity solutions

Speakers

– Aicha Jerid
– Kweku Entry
– Peace Oliver Amuge
– Roberto Zambana

Arguments

Community networks represent empowerment of less privileged communities, not just connectivity infrastructure

Community ownership and investment models are needed where communities have shares and can invest

The pivotal role of communities themselves in connectivity solutions should be recognized and supported

Community network readiness assessment courses enable communities to work on their own connectivity solutions from the beginning

Summary

Speakers consistently emphasize that effective community networks must be owned and driven by communities themselves, moving beyond external solutions imposed on communities to genuine community empowerment and participation

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Economic

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers advocate for alternative economic models that differ from traditional commercial approaches, emphasizing the need for diverse financing mechanisms that can support community-based initiatives through blended funding strategies

Speakers

– Lillian Chamorro
– Claude Dorion

Arguments

Alternative economic models should be allowed for network operation and maintenance

Mixed financing strategies combining grants, loans, and specialized financing can leverage philanthropy for greater impact

Topics

Economic | Development | Legal and regulatory

Both speakers present innovative technological and collaborative approaches to connectivity, with Henry focusing on decentralized technical solutions and Julius demonstrating successful multi-stakeholder partnerships

Speakers

– Henry Wang
– Julius Zube

Arguments

Decentralized physical infrastructure networks (D-PIN) using blockchain and mesh networks can revolutionize connectivity

The ‘Window to the Future’ initiative in Lithuania demonstrates successful collaboration between telecommunications companies, banks, and government

Topics

Infrastructure | Development | Economic

Both speakers emphasize that capacity building and digital skills training are not separate from connectivity infrastructure but integral components of successful community network implementation

Speakers

– Aicha Jerid
– Roberto Zambana

Arguments

Digital literacy and skills training are integral parts of community-based networks, not separate issues

Community network readiness assessment courses enable communities to work on their own connectivity solutions from the beginning

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Economic

Unexpected consensus

Policy development should not be left solely to governments

Speakers

– Shafiq Shaya
– Aicha Jerid
– Lillian Chamorro

Arguments

Stakeholders must be active partners, not just supporters, working collaboratively with governments

Policies are not only for governments – civil society organizations have responsibility to participate

NRIs should bring different viewpoints to strengthen the community networks ecosystem

Explanation

There was unexpected consensus that civil society and other stakeholders should not wait for government initiative but should proactively engage in policy development. This represents a shift from traditional views where civil society responds to government policies to one where they actively shape them

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Sociocultural

Community networks are fundamentally about empowerment, not just technical connectivity

Speakers

– Aicha Jerid
– Shafiq Shaya
– Kweku Entry

Arguments

Community networks represent empowerment of less privileged communities, not just connectivity infrastructure

Internet access is a fundamental human right, not a luxury, yet many rural, urban, and indigenous communities remain unconnected

Community ownership and investment models are needed where communities have shares and can invest

Explanation

Speakers unexpectedly converged on viewing community networks as tools for social and economic empowerment rather than merely technical infrastructure solutions. This broader conceptualization suggests a more holistic approach to addressing digital divides

Topics

Development | Human rights | Sociocultural

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrated remarkably high consensus across multiple dimensions: the fundamental right to internet access, the necessity of multi-stakeholder collaboration, the need for alternative regulatory frameworks for community networks, and the centrality of community ownership and empowerment. There was also strong agreement on the importance of capacity building and the role of NRIs in policy development.

Consensus level

Very high consensus with significant implications for community network development. The alignment suggests a mature understanding of community connectivity challenges and solutions among practitioners. This consensus provides a strong foundation for coordinated action across different regions and stakeholder groups, indicating that the community network movement has developed shared principles and approaches that transcend geographical and sectoral boundaries.

Different viewpoints

Technology approach for community networks

Speakers

– Henry Wang
– Other speakers

Arguments

Decentralized physical infrastructure networks (D-PIN) using blockchain and mesh networks can revolutionize connectivity

Space-ground integration networks using low-Earth orbit satellites can connect remote areas cost-effectively

Summary

Henry Wang advocates for cutting-edge blockchain and satellite technology solutions, while other speakers focus on more traditional community-based approaches using existing infrastructure and regulatory frameworks

Topics

Infrastructure | Development | Economic

Primary cause of connectivity problems

Speakers

– Shafiq Shaya
– Audience member from Bangladesh

Arguments

The connectivity problem is primarily a policy failure rather than a technology issue

Technical devices are expensive and technical expertise is lacking in rural areas

Summary

Shafiq frames the issue as primarily a policy failure, while the Bangladesh speaker emphasizes practical challenges like high device costs and lack of technical expertise in rural areas

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Economic

Unexpected differences

Role of external versus internal resources

Speakers

– Claude Dorion
– Kweku Entry

Arguments

External resources should complement internal community resources at the lowest possible cost

Community ownership and investment models are needed where communities have shares and can invest

Explanation

While both support community-centered approaches, Claude emphasizes bringing external resources to complement community efforts, while Kweku questions whether communities should rely on external funding at all, advocating instead for community ownership models. This represents a fundamental disagreement about dependency versus self-reliance

Topics

Economic | Development | Sociocultural

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion shows remarkable consensus on core principles (internet as a right, need for community networks, multi-stakeholder collaboration) but reveals significant disagreements on implementation approaches, particularly regarding technology solutions, financing mechanisms, and the balance between external support and community self-reliance

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. While speakers agree on fundamental goals, they propose different pathways to achieve them. The disagreements are constructive and complementary rather than conflicting, suggesting that multiple approaches could work in different contexts. The main implication is that community network solutions need to be flexible and context-specific rather than following a single model.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers advocate for alternative economic models that differ from traditional commercial approaches, emphasizing the need for diverse financing mechanisms that can support community-based initiatives through blended funding strategies

Speakers

– Lillian Chamorro
– Claude Dorion

Arguments

Alternative economic models should be allowed for network operation and maintenance

Mixed financing strategies combining grants, loans, and specialized financing can leverage philanthropy for greater impact

Topics

Economic | Development | Legal and regulatory

Both speakers present innovative technological and collaborative approaches to connectivity, with Henry focusing on decentralized technical solutions and Julius demonstrating successful multi-stakeholder partnerships

Speakers

– Henry Wang
– Julius Zube

Arguments

Decentralized physical infrastructure networks (D-PIN) using blockchain and mesh networks can revolutionize connectivity

The ‘Window to the Future’ initiative in Lithuania demonstrates successful collaboration between telecommunications companies, banks, and government

Topics

Infrastructure | Development | Economic

Both speakers emphasize that capacity building and digital skills training are not separate from connectivity infrastructure but integral components of successful community network implementation

Speakers

– Aicha Jerid
– Roberto Zambana

Arguments

Digital literacy and skills training are integral parts of community-based networks, not separate issues

Community network readiness assessment courses enable communities to work on their own connectivity solutions from the beginning

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Economic

Key takeaways

Internet connectivity is a fundamental human right, not a luxury, and the digital divide is primarily a policy failure rather than a technology issue

Community networks must be built with communities, not for them, emphasizing community ownership and participation from the beginning

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is essential – all stakeholders (government, civil society, academia, private sector) must be active partners, not just supporters

Community networks require different regulatory frameworks than traditional ISPs, including reduced fees, simplified requirements, and access to universal funds

Mixed financing strategies combining grants, loans, and specialized financing can leverage resources more effectively for community connectivity projects

Digital literacy and capacity building are integral components of community networks, not separate issues

Decentralized infrastructure models using blockchain, mesh networks, and satellite connectivity offer promising solutions for remote areas

Building and maintaining community networks is an ongoing process requiring continuous support and strong multi-actor ecosystems

NRIs and technical organizations play crucial roles in fostering community networks through policy engagement and providing expertise and resources

Resolutions and action items

NRIs should take initiative to reach out to governments and ISPs to participate in shaping connectivity policies

RIPE NCC offered to support communities with expertise, resources, and funding for grassroots engagement

Participants encouraged to connect with technical organizations like RIPE NCC for building community networks

Need to create digital inclusion councils or digital skill ambassadors to promote community-based networks

Establish networks of complementary financial actors to work together on community connectivity projects

Unresolved issues

How to address the high cost of technical devices and lack of technical expertise in rural areas

How to prevent brain drain of technical personnel from rural to urban areas

Specific mechanisms for ensuring community ownership and investment in network infrastructure

How to scale successful models like Lithuania’s ‘Window to the Future’ to different contexts and countries

Addressing the monopoly of giant ISPs that prevent community network development in regions like North Africa

How to align community network development with practical needs like connecting farmers to markets and accessing government services

Suggested compromises

Blended financing strategies that combine public, private, and philanthropic resources to make community networks financially viable

Allowing alternative economic models for community networks while maintaining some regulatory oversight

Creating simplified regulatory frameworks for community networks that are less burdensome than traditional ISP requirements but still ensure basic standards

Using existing infrastructure like postal networks and public libraries as connectivity points to reduce costs and leverage existing resources

Implementing mixed financing where grants finance social impact while loans finance assets, sharing risks among multiple actors

We need to stop talking about that the stakeholders group like civil society, technical community, academics, are just supporter partners. No. We need to be active partners. So government cannot solve and cannot bridge everything alone.

Speaker

Shafiq Shaya

Reason

This comment fundamentally reframes the relationship between stakeholders from a hierarchical support model to an equal partnership model. It challenges the traditional view where government leads and others follow, advocating instead for shared responsibility and active collaboration.

Impact

This comment set the collaborative tone for the entire discussion. Multiple subsequent speakers referenced this partnership theme, with Julius describing successful multi-stakeholder initiatives in Lithuania, and Aicha emphasizing that ‘policies are not only for governments.’ It shifted the conversation from discussing what governments should do to what all stakeholders can do together.

Community network is not only about connectivity and infrastructure. It is also more about empowerment, empowerment of the less privileged ones… So I think that the community network plays a vital role in ensuring that these communities are not only passive users of Internet, but also active in connecting the other communities.

Speaker

Aicha Jerid

Reason

This comment elevates the discussion beyond technical solutions to address the deeper social transformation aspect of community networks. It introduces the critical distinction between passive consumption and active participation, highlighting empowerment as a core objective.

Impact

This insight broadened the scope of the discussion significantly. It led other speakers to address capacity building, digital literacy, and community ownership. The Bangladesh participant later reinforced this by noting that technical knowledge and sustainability are ongoing challenges, not just initial setup issues.

In terms of financing… are we talking about community networks as we’re going in to implement community networks for them or with them whilst they own this?… How do we transcend the funding into community ownership where they see that they have the shares in which they are able to invest?

Speaker

Kweku Entry

Reason

This comment exposes a fundamental tension in development approaches – the difference between doing ‘for’ communities versus ‘with’ communities. It challenges the sustainability of external funding models and pushes for genuine community ownership and investment.

Impact

This intervention shifted the discussion toward more nuanced considerations of sustainability and ownership. It prompted Claude to elaborate on the diversity of community-led initiatives and the need for financial ecosystems that respect local initiative. It also reinforced the bottom-up approach that Henry had mentioned earlier with blockchain and mesh networks.

20 years ago we were talking about digital divide. After 20 years we are same talking about the digital divide… When community projects end, network is end.

Speaker

Bangladesh participant

Reason

This comment provides a sobering reality check on the persistence of the digital divide despite decades of efforts. It highlights the critical issue of project sustainability and the brain drain from rural to urban areas, challenging the effectiveness of current approaches.

Impact

This observation grounded the discussion in practical realities and highlighted systemic challenges. It prompted speakers to address sustainability more directly, with Lillian emphasizing that community networks are ongoing processes requiring sustained policy support, and Claude discussing the need for diverse, adaptable financial strategies.

Social economy is constituted of collectively owned enterprises who have social mission managed through a collective democratic governance representing the community that they serve… Social economy has developed a culture of mixed financing where grants finance impact, loan finances assets and specialized financing feed working capital.

Speaker

Claude Dorion

Reason

This comment introduces a sophisticated alternative economic model that bridges the gap between pure market solutions and charity-based approaches. It offers a concrete framework for sustainable community ownership while addressing the financing challenges raised by other speakers.

Impact

This contribution provided a practical framework that other speakers could reference. It influenced the discussion by offering specific mechanisms for the community ownership that Kweku had called for, and supported the collaborative approach that Shafiq had advocated. It helped move the conversation from identifying problems to proposing systemic solutions.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by elevating it from a technical problem-solving session to a comprehensive examination of power dynamics, sustainability models, and community empowerment. Shafiq’s call for active partnerships established a collaborative framework that influenced all subsequent contributions. Aicha’s emphasis on empowerment over mere connectivity broadened the scope to include social transformation. Kweku’s challenge about ownership versus charity forced a deeper examination of sustainability models, while the Bangladesh participant’s reality check grounded the discussion in practical challenges. Claude’s introduction of social economy models provided concrete alternatives. Together, these comments transformed what could have been a surface-level discussion about internet access into a nuanced exploration of community-driven development, sustainable financing, and genuine empowerment. The discussion evolved from identifying the digital divide to proposing systemic approaches for community-owned, sustainable connectivity solutions.

How many of you come from a country where the connectivity in rural or remote areas is still a challenge?

Speaker

Shafiq Shaya

Explanation

This was posed to gauge the scope of connectivity challenges across different regions and understand the commonality of rural connectivity issues among participants

What roles can NRIs play in fostering community networks?

Speaker

Zaina from Lebanon (online participant)

Explanation

This question seeks to understand the specific contributions National and Regional Internet Governance Initiatives can make to support community network development

How do we transcend the funding into community ownership where they see that they have the shares in which they are able to invest?

Speaker

Kweku Entry

Explanation

This addresses the critical issue of moving from external funding models to sustainable community-owned financing structures for network infrastructure

Are we talking about community networks as we’re going in to implement community networks for them or with them whilst they own this?

Speaker

Kweku Entry

Explanation

This question highlights the need to clarify whether community networks should be implemented as external solutions or as truly community-driven initiatives with local ownership

How can rural, indigenous and Afro-descent communities effectively participate in connectivity policymaking?

Speaker

Peace Oliver Amuge

Explanation

This question was posed but not fully addressed, requiring further exploration of inclusive participation mechanisms for marginalized communities

What strategies are needed to build capacity of communities to manage and sustain their own network infrastructure and services?

Speaker

Peace Oliver Amuge

Explanation

This addresses the sustainability challenge of ensuring communities can independently maintain their networks long-term

How to solve the technical knowledge gap and device affordability challenges in rural areas?

Speaker

Participant from Bangladesh

Explanation

This highlights two critical barriers: lack of technical expertise in rural areas and high costs of technical devices needed for community networks

How can community networks be designed to address specific local needs like connecting farmers to buyers or enabling access to government services?

Speaker

Unnamed participant

Explanation

This suggests research into aligning community network development with concrete local economic and social needs rather than just providing connectivity

Summary

Lisa Hayes and Kushal Prakash from TikTok presented an overview of how their platform operates differently from traditional social media and creates new economic opportunities for creators and small businesses. Unlike conventional social media platforms that show content based on who users follow, TikTok uses an interest-based algorithm that connects people with similar passions, allowing unknown creators to achieve success without needing existing fame or brand recognition. This discovery-based approach levels the playing field by rewarding good content rather than just celebrity status, enabling small businesses and entrepreneurs to reach new audiences they previously couldn’t access.

The speakers emphasized that TikTok’s success relies heavily on maintaining user safety through strict policies across all verticals, including TikTok Shop and TikTok Live. For TikTok Shop, many legal products are prohibited to ensure consumer safety, while TikTok Live requires users to be 18 or older with additional age verification processes. Beyond traditional advertising models, TikTok has expanded monetization opportunities through live streaming, virtual gifting, and donation stickers, with the live community contributing over $1 million through these features in 2024.

The platform combines discovery with commerce, allowing accounts to become digital storefronts without requiring paid advertising or separate websites. They shared examples including Rights Guy in the UK, who built a successful business reviewing products, and Thai fruit farmers who sell directly to consumers during harvest season. The speakers concluded that TikTok is facilitating a rebalancing of the digital economy by creating new monetization pathways, implementing safety by design, and empowering diverse voices through discovery-based content distribution.

Keypoints

**Major Discussion Points:**

– **TikTok’s Interest-Based Discovery Model**: Unlike traditional social media that relies on following friends and celebrities, TikTok uses an interest-based algorithm that connects users with content based on shared passions, allowing unknown creators to achieve success without existing fame or brand recognition.

– **Safety and Content Moderation**: TikTok implements strict safety policies across all verticals, including age restrictions (18+ for TikTok Live and TikTok Shop), prohibited products on TikTok Shop (diet drugs, firearms, certain baby products), and additional age verification processes to protect younger users.

– **New Monetization Opportunities Beyond Traditional Advertising**: The platform offers creators multiple revenue streams including live streaming tips (“digital busking”), virtual gifts from fans, donation stickers for charitable causes, and direct commerce integration, moving away from the traditional ad-supported social media model.

– **TikTok Shop and Commerce Integration**: The platform combines discovery with commerce, allowing accounts to become digital storefronts where creators can sell products directly, reducing customer acquisition costs for small businesses and enabling real-time interactive shopping experiences through live streaming.

– **Economic Empowerment and the “Hallow Effect”**: TikTok enables small businesses and creators to achieve significant economic success, with examples ranging from individual creators affording personal expenses like IVF treatment to businesses generating millions in revenue and expanding from digital-only to physical retail presence.

**Overall Purpose:**

The discussion serves as a presentation/pitch by TikTok executives to explain how their platform differs from traditional social media by focusing on discovery-based content delivery, and how this model creates new economic opportunities for creators, small businesses, and entrepreneurs while maintaining safety standards.

**Overall Tone:**

The tone is consistently promotional and optimistic throughout the conversation. The speakers maintain a professional, confident presentation style, using success stories and specific examples to illustrate their points. There’s no notable shift in tone – it remains upbeat and business-focused from start to finish, with the executives positioning TikTok as an innovative platform that democratizes opportunity and empowers underrepresented voices in the digital economy.

Speakers

– **Lisa Hayes**: Head of safety, public policy and senior counsel for TikTok in North and South America

– **Kushal Prakash**: Leads engagement with global institutions, including the UN bodies (at TikTok)

Additional speakers:

None identified in the transcript.

# TikTok’s Platform Innovation and Economic Empowerment: A Comprehensive Discussion Summary

## Overview

This discussion featured Lisa Hayes, Head of Safety, Public Policy and Senior Counsel for TikTok in North and South America, and Kushal Prakash, who leads engagement with global institutions including UN bodies at TikTok. Hayes opened by explaining TikTok’s evolution beyond being perceived as just a “dance app” to a platform whose mission is “to inspire creativity and bring joy.” The conversation explored TikTok’s distinctive platform features and their impact on digital commerce and creator economics.

## TikTok’s Distinctive Platform Architecture

### Interest-Based Discovery Model

The foundation of TikTok’s differentiation lies in its algorithmic approach to content distribution. As Lisa Hayes explained, “TikTok is an interest-based graph, meaning we show you content that we think people who liked similar content were likely to enjoy. This means your feed can be made up of people you’ve never met in real life, and you never will meet them in real life, but they share your passion for gardening, for books, for music.” This fundamental departure from traditional social media platforms, which rely primarily on social connections and follower relationships, represents a paradigm shift in how content reaches audiences.

Hayes emphasized that this discovery-based system levels the playing field by rewarding content quality rather than existing fame or brand recognition. The algorithm’s focus on shared interests rather than social networks creates opportunities for all creators, regardless of their existing resources or social connections.

### Global Success Stories

The platform’s discovery mechanism has enabled remarkable success stories worldwide. Prakash highlighted young dancers from Kampala, Uganda, who went viral on TikTok and were subsequently invited to “Brit Talks,” demonstrating how the platform can transform lives across geographical boundaries. This example illustrates how TikTok’s interest-based algorithm can elevate creators from any location to global recognition.

## Three Key Observations on Platform Impact

Kushal Prakash presented three key observations about TikTok’s transformative effects:

### 1. Discovery Leads to Empowerment

The discovery-driven model promotes diverse voices and democratizes economic opportunities. Unlike conventional social media that favors established influencers and celebrities, TikTok’s interest-based algorithm allows previously unknown creators to achieve significant success. This approach challenges traditional gatekeeping mechanisms in media and entertainment, providing pathways for creators who cannot afford traditional advertising or marketing campaigns.

### 2. Safety Complements Discovery

Both speakers demonstrated alignment on the fundamental importance of safety measures across all platform verticals. Hayes outlined TikTok’s strict policies, noting that many legal products are prohibited on TikTok Shop to prioritize community safety. Specific prohibited items include “diet drugs, firearms… certain baby products.” The platform also maintains age restrictions, with TikTok Live requiring users to be 18 or older, supported by additional age verification processes.

Prakash articulated the philosophy behind these measures: “Safety by design is not a choice anymore. In a discovery economy, it’s also not a contradiction. If you want to promote creativity, you have to rely on making it a safe experience for everyone. It’s not a competition. It goes hand-in-hand.”

### 3. Discovery Plus Commerce Creates New Opportunities

The combination of TikTok’s discovery algorithm with integrated commerce features creates unprecedented opportunities for creators and small businesses to reach audiences and generate revenue.

## Revolutionary Monetization Opportunities

### Digital Busking and Alternative Revenue Streams

The discussion revealed TikTok’s significant departure from conventional ad-supported social media models. Hayes introduced the concept of “digital busking,” describing how creators can earn income through live streaming and direct fan support. She shared a personal anecdote about a friend’s daughter, a recent college graduate aspiring to become a country star, who “rather than waitressing during the day to pay her rent, she’s actually going on TikTok and live streaming… I call it digital busking, for lack of a better phrase.”

The platform offers multiple revenue streams including live streaming tips, virtual gifts from fans, and donation stickers for charitable causes. Prakash noted that the TikTok Live community contributed over 1 million US dollars through donation features in 2024, demonstrating the substantial economic impact of these alternative monetization methods.

### Direct Creator-Fan Financial Relationships

TikTok’s monetization features enable direct financial relationships between creators and their audiences, bypassing traditional intermediaries. This model creates sustainable income streams for various types of content creators, including artists, educators, and nonprofit organizations. Virtual gifts and donation stickers provide alternative revenue pathways that don’t rely on traditional advertising or sponsorship arrangements.

## TikTok Shop and Integrated Commerce

### Digital Storefronts and Live Commerce

TikTok Shop represents a significant evolution in e-commerce integration, allowing accounts to become digital storefronts without requiring separate websites or paid advertising campaigns. Prakash explained how this feature transforms traditional e-commerce by reducing barriers to entry and enabling direct seller-consumer relationships.

The platform combines discovery with commerce, creating immersive shopping experiences with real-time interaction between sellers and buyers. In countries like Thailand, “we have more than 90% of small businesses and sellers on TikTok shops selling through features like live and shop,” demonstrating the widespread adoption of these integrated commerce tools.

### Success Stories and Market Impact

The platform has generated significant economic impact for businesses of various sizes. Prakash shared the example of “made by Michel,” which “generated more than two million worth of revenue in less than two weeks.” Another example featured Rights Guy in the UK, who built a successful business reviewing products, with vegetable choppers seeing “a 400% growth in sales to thousand percent growth in sales for air coolers.”

### The “Hallow Effect” Phenomenon

Prakash introduced the concept of the “hallow effect,” describing how successful digital businesses can transition to physical retail presence. He explained, “We are seeing something called the hallow effect where you’re able to jump right from being a digital storefront to a physical business very quickly because you have built a very strong community of users.”

This phenomenon represents a reversal of traditional business development patterns, where digital-first businesses gain sufficient traction to move into physical spaces. Examples range from individual creators building review-based businesses to agricultural producers like Thai fruit farmers who sell directly to consumers during harvest season, eliminating traditional supply chain intermediaries.

## Economic Empowerment and Global Impact

### Small Business Transformation

The speakers emphasized TikTok’s role in empowering small businesses and entrepreneurs who previously lacked access to broad markets. The platform’s discovery mechanism reduces customer acquisition costs and provides pathways for businesses that cannot afford traditional marketing approaches. Direct selling capabilities eliminate intermediaries, allowing producers to reach consumers more efficiently and profitably.

### Global Market Access

The discussion positioned TikTok as enabling direct market access for producers worldwide. The Thai fruit farmers example illustrated how the platform enables agricultural producers to bypass traditional distribution networks and increase profit margins. This direct-to-consumer model has implications for global trade patterns and economic development in rural and underserved communities.

The platform’s global reach combined with its discovery-based algorithm creates opportunities for cross-border commerce and cultural exchange, providing new pathways for economic participation that were previously unavailable.

## Safety Framework and Community Protection

### Comprehensive Safety Measures

TikTok maintains strict safety policies that extend beyond regulatory compliance to proactive community protection. Hayes emphasized that the platform prohibits many legal products on TikTok Shop, prioritizing community safety over potential profit. Age verification processes support restrictions like the 18+ requirement for TikTok Live.

### Safety as Business Strategy

The speakers presented safety measures as essential for platform growth and user trust. They argued that safety and creativity work as mutually reinforcing elements rather than competing priorities. This perspective positions safety as an enabler of creativity rather than a limitation, creating an environment where users feel secure enough to engage with diverse content and creators.

## Platform Innovation and Future Implications

### Systemic Changes in Digital Commerce

The combination of interest-based discovery, integrated commerce, and alternative monetization models creates what the speakers described as a new economic ecosystem. This transformation challenges traditional gatekeeping mechanisms in media, retail, and finance, with implications for established industries and economic structures.

### Democratization of Opportunity

The platform’s design reduces barriers to entry for content creation and commerce, enabling creators to build substantial followings and businesses based purely on content quality and audience engagement. This democratization extends to small businesses and entrepreneurs who previously lacked access to broad audiences or affordable marketing solutions.

## Conclusion

This discussion revealed TikTok’s positioning as a transformative platform in digital commerce and creator economics. The speakers presented how interest-based discovery, integrated commerce, and alternative monetization models can democratize economic opportunities while maintaining robust safety standards.

Through specific examples ranging from Ugandan dancers achieving global recognition to Thai farmers selling directly to consumers, the conversation illustrated how platform design choices have profound implications for economic participation and social empowerment. The concept of “digital busking” and the “hallow effect” demonstrate how TikTok is creating new categories of economic activity and business development pathways.

The emphasis on safety as an enabler rather than constraint offers insights into how platform governance can support innovation and economic empowerment while protecting community welfare. The discussion highlighted TikTok’s role in creating new opportunities for creators, small businesses, and underserved communities through its distinctive approach to content discovery and commerce integration.

Lisa Hayes: Good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for joining us here on Wednesday, kicking off the day. My name is Lisa Hayes. I’m the head of safety, public policy and senior counsel for TikTok in North and South America. Kushal Prakash?

Kushal Prakash: Hi, everyone. Great to meet you all. My name is Kushal Prakash. I lead our engagement with global institutions, including the UN bodies. Great to see you all here.

Lisa Hayes: So most people are familiar with TikTok these days and think of it as an app. Some think of it as a dance app. Our mission is to inspire creativity and bring joy. And we have moved way beyond our origins as a dance app, and that’s what we want to talk about with folks today. Can you click us to the next slide, Kushal Prakash? So one thing to understand about TikTok, in case you yourself don’t use the platform, is that a traditional social media feed comes to you based on who you know. You choose, you follow your friends, you follow celebrities you like. Instead, TikTok is an interest-based graph, meaning we show you content that we think people who liked similar content were likely to enjoy. This means your feed can be made up of people you’ve never met in real life, and you never will meet them in real life, but they share your passion for gardening, for books, for music. And that is, I think, the secret sauce of TikTok, is that it allows people who do not already have a brand, who do not already have a reputation, to come onto TikTok and be very successful as creators, because we reward the good content, as well as having a big name. That’s not to say that Beyonce did not do well when she launched her latest record on TikTok. Celebrities do do well on TikTok, but you don’t need to be Beyonce, and in fact, most of our top creators are people that did not have any name recognition or brand or sort of social media success and fame before they came to our platform. And as a result, we are able to help small businesses, we are able to help entrepreneurs, and all sorts of creators who are able to make a living on TikTok, who would not see that same success on other platforms unless people were choosing to follow them voluntarily.

Kushal Prakash: Yeah, thank you. In fact, the three key observations, as Lisa mentioned, TikTok is a discovery platform when we empower discovery, we level the playing field, we are providing new ways for people to monetize their content, and when we combine discovery with commerce, we are turning trust into economic opportunities. So we talked about how discovery leads to empowerment. Now what does this empowerment mean? This empowerment means that creators can now find audiences not necessarily based on how many people follow them, but based on the relevance of their content. Consumers can find products they love, and brands and sellers and small businesses can reach out to new audiences they have had no access to in the past. And we also, especially when it comes to TikTok, because the content is so locally relevant, we see new voices find opportunities. And we want to showcase one of the examples of this group of young dancers from Kampala, Uganda. They were a group of amazing dancers, they were expressing themselves culturally through dancing. They went viral on TikTok, and they were from a disadvantaged community in the city. And the videos got them to be endorsed by celebrities. They were invited to Brit Talks, and they found their way to empowerment. Discovery led them to empowerment. And this is one of the things that we also wanted to highlight. But this discovery cannot happen in isolation. We believe that discovery should be complemented with safety, and that’s why Lisa, who heads our safety, is here with us to talk about some of the ways we safeguard and protect our communities.

Lisa Hayes: Yeah, no, thanks, Kushal Prakash. None of this works if at the end of the day, the consumer doesn’t feel safe using the platform, whether you’re a creator or somebody simply surfing on TikTok. So we have very strict policies that go across all of our verticals. In particular, I’d like to talk about two verticals that you may not know as well. The first is TikTok Shop, where people are able to sell and buy goods. And so for TikTok Shop, we have a whole host of goods that are legal and that you can buy at many stores, but that are prohibited on our platform because we’re not confident yet in our ability to sell them safely. Diet drugs, firearms, a whole host, which are all publicly available on our website if you want to go look at them, certain baby products, things that are absolutely legal but that are prohibited on TikTok Shop because the safety of our community comes first, and we don’t want somebody to buy something that could pose a risk because that loses trust with the consumer. Secondly, I do want to touch on TikTok Live, which is our live streaming capacity. First, you need to be an account registered to 18 years of age or older to go live. And this is important because we actually will put you through an additional age verification process to make sure that teenagers or people who are not ready yet to go live on the TikTok platform are unable to access that feature. And in addition, since a lot of our sellers are now using live streaming to sell their products to engage with their community, we’re also making sure that they go through additional age gating in order to use TikTok Shop. If you want to buy a product on TikTok Shop, if you want to sell a product on TikTok Shop, you must be at least 18 years of age.

Kushal Prakash: And given we have talked about discovery, we have talked about safety, we want to build it up on how discovery and safety creates new opportunities. And there’s this specific observation that we have, that when we expand monetization opportunities beyond just ads, and when we open and broaden monetization opportunities, we see community voices and small businesses, they get socio-economic empowerment. They are able to benefit from new ways of monetizing their content. Live streaming, which Lisa talked about, is one of the ways, like when people live stream their content, they get rewarded by their viewers. It unlocks new revenue opportunities for educators, performers, charities, musicians, small businesses, and fans could go and reward them directly. So this is something new that we are seeing.

Lisa Hayes: Kushal Prakash, can I just add in on that for one second? I actually think this is really important for this conference in particular. When we think about social media companies, traditionally we think about an ad-supported ecosystem and model. That’s not what’s happening on TikTok. TikTok is seeing enormous growth in the TikTok Shop and in the live stream, as Kushal Prakash is saying. I have a dear friend whose daughter just graduated from college, and she wants to make it as a country star. She’s moved to Nashville, Tennessee in the United States, and rather than waitressing during the day to pay her rent, she’s actually going on TikTok and live streaming. She sings and she performs, and her fans will tip her. I call it digital busking, for lack of a better phrase, but it’s giving artists and creators a new way to engage with their community and the community, and a way to honor them and reward them and to tip them the same way you would if she was playing on a street corner or if you had the opportunity to go hear her in a club. Sorry, Kushal Prakash.

Kushal Prakash: Yeah, and when we launched live stream back in five years ago, it was a very small industry. People generally know of live streaming as broadcasting. When you broadcast content, that’s live streaming for them, but we have been able to unlock new ways of interaction on live stream, and it has quickly become a place where very interesting things happen. We’ll come to some of the case studies, but interaction plays a very significant role in it. There are two key features that we’ll highlight. There are many, but there are two specific features that we want to highlight. One is live gifting, so fans and followers who are watching live content can send you virtual gifts, which gives content creators new ways to monetize their content. content in the sense that when when we reward creators we account these virtual gifts in their payments as as well and it’s widely beneficial to again educators, musicians, performers, artisans, small businesses who could rely on this new pathway of virtual gifts from their fans and followers to be able to you know have more revenues, have more money. The second feature is something called donation stickers. These are interactive stickers which people can put on their live streams or videos. Fans and followers can click on these stickers and they can make a donation. Now in 2024, TikTok Live, the live TikTok community, they were able to contribute more than 1 million US dollars through features like digital stickers, donation stickers and and gifts. So we are seeing a lot of use cases of it and and verified nonprofits and and charitable organizations are able to benefit from this a lot. Now the third observation that we have is when you combine discovery with commerce you see something magical. You see that accounts become digital storefronts. They don’t need to buy paid media, they don’t need to make a website, they can start selling as long as they adhere to our safety standards and community guidelines. Now a majority of these consumers who are looking at these handles, they’re able to trust recommendations from people they already know or follow. What this does is, this brings down the customer acquisition cost, CAC as we all know, for small businesses. They don’t need to run big campaigns or advertisements and and they can directly connect with their customers. The third thing that we are seeing is when you combine live with commerce, the power of discovery and live with commerce, it provides an immersive and experiential journey for you. It’s like me going to a market, browsing a storefront, if I have questions I can ask the owner of the storefront like, oh how much does this cost? Oh do you have it in this color? If I like it, I buy it straight right then and there. If I want to move on to a different store, I can go next, I can go to a different store, do that same interaction. It’s changing the game. Live chat and real-time interactions, changing the game for commerce, driving sales. That’s an observation and aligned with that observation, we have a product as Lisa said called TikTok Shop. It brings together all the ecosystem players ranging from sellers to creators to buyers. It’s quickly becoming a launchpad for businesses and again we provide a safe and trusted shopping experience to everyone. There are a few case studies on this as well. We talked about how accounts are becoming digital storefronts. We want to talk about it from the perspective of a small creator, Rights Guy in the UK. He started reviewing in a very genuine way products sold by small businesses and shortly he started seeing that whenever he reviews products like the sales of those products are skyrocketing. You know like ranging from vegetable choppers that would see like a 400% growth in sales to thousand percent growth in sales for air coolers. He saw that there’s an opportunity for him to promote genuine brands and products. So he went ahead and collaborated with a lot of brands. It was a win-win situation where brands could advertise their products, small businesses could advertise their products and he could monetize on TikTok. He earned livelihood through that and he also there is also a personal aspect to it where he was able to afford the IVF treatment for his family. He was covered by Channel 4 in the UK and he also generated a lot of awareness on IVF. So a lot of these community members, people like you and me, they’re able to use opportunities, the newer monetization opportunities and make the most out of it. Similarly we talked about low barriers to entry and we want to talk about it from the perspective of small businesses. We are seeing something called the hallow effect where you’re able to jump right from being a digital storefront to a physical business very quickly because you have built a very strong community of users and you are known very well. There are many case studies, for example, made by Michel. They were started by makeup artist Michel and he managed to generate more than two million worth of revenue in less than two weeks, which was a successful case study. Byline, they managed to expand to Sephora, Mallows, they ended up in Boots, Superdrugs. There’s a lot of such examples where brands are launching on TikTok and then through this effect called the hallow effect, they are managing to jump to the other side and be present on physical stores. Lastly, we talked about that immersive experience where I can just go on TikTok shop, I can browse products, I can interact with users. We wanted to talk about it from the perspective of sellers, small sellers. In Thailand, what’s happening is local fruit farmers are able to sell their produce during the harvest season on TikTok live and TikTok shop and they’re directly selling their products. Most of them are verified sellers. They’re directly selling their products, eliminating all the intermediaries. In fact, in countries like Thailand, we have more than 90% of small businesses and sellers on TikTok shops selling through features like live and shop. So where does all of it land us? We are seeing a quite ongoing rebalancing of digital economy where there are three things happening. Number one, the new monetization pathways that are giving opportunities to small sellers, artisans, creators, you know, people who would not traditionally be able to afford advertisements, afford paid media. They are able to find a pathway to empowerment. The second thing that we are seeing is that safety by design is not a choice anymore. In a discovery economy, it’s also not a contradiction. If you want to promote creativity, you have to rely on making it a safe experience for everyone. It’s not a competition. It goes hand-in-hand. And the third thing we are seeing is discovery leads to empowerment. It brings diverse voices to the fore. It levels the playing field and it empowers everyone. Yeah, and with that, we conclude. Happy to answer questions.

Lisa Hayes: Okay, happy to continue the conversation also. So please find us. We will be here. Yeah. Thanks, Kushal Prakash.

Agreement points

Safety is fundamental to platform success and user trust

Speakers

– Lisa Hayes
– Kushal Prakash

Arguments

Strict policies prohibit certain legal products on TikTok Shop to prioritize community safety over profit

Age verification requirements restrict TikTok Live to users 18+ with additional verification processes

Safety by design is essential and complementary to creativity, not contradictory to it

Summary

Both speakers emphasize that safety measures are not optional but essential for platform functionality. They agree that safety and creativity work hand-in-hand rather than competing with each other, and that consumer trust depends on robust safety policies.

Topics

Human rights | Legal and regulatory | Sociocultural

TikTok’s discovery-based algorithm democratizes content creation and business opportunities

Speakers

– Lisa Hayes
– Kushal Prakash

Arguments

TikTok uses interest-based algorithm rather than social connections, showing content based on similar user preferences

Platform enables unknown creators to succeed without existing brand recognition or celebrity status

Discovery-based system levels the playing field and empowers new voices to find audiences

Summary

Both speakers agree that TikTok’s interest-based algorithm, rather than follower-based systems, creates equal opportunities for all creators regardless of their existing fame or social connections. This system rewards content quality over celebrity status.

Topics

Economic | Sociocultural | Development

Alternative monetization models beyond traditional advertising create new economic opportunities

Speakers

– Lisa Hayes
– Kushal Prakash

Arguments

Live streaming enables direct fan tipping, creating “digital busking” opportunities for artists and creators

Virtual gifts and donation stickers provide alternative revenue streams for creators, educators, and nonprofits

TikTok Live community contributed over $1 million through donation features in 2024

Summary

Both speakers highlight how TikTok’s monetization features go beyond traditional ad-supported models, enabling direct creator-fan financial relationships through tipping, virtual gifts, and donations. This creates sustainable income streams for various types of content creators.

Topics

Economic | Development

Similar viewpoints

TikTok’s platform architecture inherently supports economic democratization by providing equal access to audiences regardless of existing resources, fame, or financial capacity for traditional marketing

Speakers

– Lisa Hayes
– Kushal Prakash

Arguments

Platform enables unknown creators to succeed without existing brand recognition or celebrity status

Discovery-driven model promotes diverse voices and democratizes economic opportunities

Platform provides pathways for small businesses and creators who cannot afford traditional advertising

Topics

Economic | Development | Sociocultural

TikTok Shop transforms traditional e-commerce by reducing barriers to entry and enabling direct seller-consumer relationships without intermediaries or significant upfront investments

Speakers

– Lisa Hayes
– Kushal Prakash

Arguments

Accounts can become digital storefronts without needing websites or paid advertising

Live commerce creates immersive shopping experiences with real-time interaction between sellers and buyers

Direct selling eliminates intermediaries, as demonstrated by Thai fruit farmers reaching consumers directly

Topics

Economic | Development | Infrastructure

Unexpected consensus

Safety restrictions as business strategy rather than regulatory compliance

Speakers

– Lisa Hayes
– Kushal Prakash

Arguments

Strict policies prohibit certain legal products on TikTok Shop to prioritize community safety over profit

Safety by design is essential and complementary to creativity, not contradictory to it

Explanation

It’s unexpected that both speakers frame safety restrictions as a proactive business strategy that enhances rather than limits platform growth. They present safety measures not as regulatory burdens but as competitive advantages that build consumer trust and enable sustainable business models.

Topics

Economic | Human rights | Legal and regulatory

Traditional advertising model displacement as positive development

Speakers

– Lisa Hayes
– Kushal Prakash

Arguments

Live streaming enables direct fan tipping, creating “digital busking” opportunities for artists and creators

Platform provides pathways for small businesses and creators who cannot afford traditional advertising

Accounts can become digital storefronts without needing websites or paid advertising

Explanation

Both speakers unexpectedly celebrate the displacement of traditional advertising models, presenting it as democratizing rather than disruptive. They frame the move away from ad-supported ecosystems as empowering for creators and small businesses rather than challenging for the platform’s revenue model.

Topics

Economic | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers demonstrate complete alignment on TikTok’s core value propositions: democratized content discovery, alternative monetization models, integrated commerce solutions, and safety-first design principles. Their arguments consistently reinforce each other across all major discussion points.

Consensus level

Extremely high consensus with no apparent disagreements or tensions. This unified presentation suggests a coordinated corporate messaging strategy focused on positioning TikTok as an economically empowering and socially responsible platform that challenges traditional social media and e-commerce paradigms through innovation rather than disruption.

Different viewpoints

Unexpected differences

Overall assessment

Summary

No disagreements identified between speakers

Disagreement level

Zero disagreement level – This transcript represents a coordinated presentation by two TikTok representatives (Lisa Hayes and Kushal Prakash) rather than a debate or discussion with opposing viewpoints. Both speakers consistently supported and reinforced each other’s points about TikTok’s platform features, safety measures, and economic opportunities. The collaborative nature of their presentation means there are no policy implications arising from disagreement, but rather a unified corporate message about TikTok’s benefits and safety measures. This format limits critical examination of potential drawbacks or alternative approaches to platform governance and digital economy participation.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

TikTok’s platform architecture inherently supports economic democratization by providing equal access to audiences regardless of existing resources, fame, or financial capacity for traditional marketing

Speakers

– Lisa Hayes
– Kushal Prakash

Arguments

Platform enables unknown creators to succeed without existing brand recognition or celebrity status

Discovery-driven model promotes diverse voices and democratizes economic opportunities

Platform provides pathways for small businesses and creators who cannot afford traditional advertising

Topics

Economic | Development | Sociocultural

TikTok Shop transforms traditional e-commerce by reducing barriers to entry and enabling direct seller-consumer relationships without intermediaries or significant upfront investments

Speakers

– Lisa Hayes
– Kushal Prakash

Arguments

Accounts can become digital storefronts without needing websites or paid advertising

Live commerce creates immersive shopping experiences with real-time interaction between sellers and buyers

Direct selling eliminates intermediaries, as demonstrated by Thai fruit farmers reaching consumers directly

Topics

Economic | Development | Infrastructure

Key takeaways

TikTok’s interest-based algorithm democratizes content creation by enabling unknown creators to succeed without existing fame or social connections

The platform is transforming from traditional ad-supported social media to a discovery-driven commerce ecosystem with multiple monetization pathways

Safety and creativity are complementary rather than contradictory – strict safety policies are essential for maintaining user trust and platform success

New monetization opportunities like live streaming, virtual gifts, and donation stickers are creating alternative revenue streams for creators, artists, educators, and nonprofits

TikTok Shop is enabling small businesses to become digital storefronts without traditional barriers like websites or paid advertising

The ‘hallow effect’ allows successful digital businesses to transition to physical retail presence

Direct commerce features are eliminating intermediaries and reducing customer acquisition costs for small businesses

The platform is driving a rebalancing of the digital economy by providing pathways for traditionally underserved creators and small businesses

Resolutions and action items

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Unresolved issues

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Suggested compromises

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TikTok is an interest-based graph, meaning we show you content that we think people who liked similar content were likely to enjoy. This means your feed can be made up of people you’ve never met in real life, and you never will meet them in real life, but they share your passion for gardening, for books, for music.

Speaker

Lisa Hayes

Reason

This comment is insightful because it fundamentally reframes how we think about social media connections – moving from relationship-based to interest-based communities. It challenges the traditional social media paradigm and introduces the concept of algorithmic curation creating meaningful connections between strangers based on shared interests rather than existing social networks.

Impact

This comment established the foundational framework for the entire discussion. It shifted the conversation from viewing TikTok as just another social media platform to understanding it as a discovery engine that democratizes content creation. This concept became the thread that connected all subsequent points about empowerment, small business opportunities, and economic transformation.

I have a dear friend whose daughter just graduated from college, and she wants to make it as a country star… rather than waitressing during the day to pay her rent, she’s actually going on TikTok and live streaming… I call it digital busking, for lack of a better phrase

Speaker

Lisa Hayes

Reason

This personal anecdote is thought-provoking because it introduces the concept of ‘digital busking’ – a completely new economic model that parallels traditional street performance but in digital space. It demonstrates how technology is creating entirely new categories of work and income generation that didn’t exist before.

Impact

This comment humanized the abstract concepts being discussed and provided a concrete, relatable example that made the economic transformation tangible. It shifted the discussion from theoretical business models to real human stories, making the implications more compelling and understandable.

When we expand monetization opportunities beyond just ads, and when we open and broaden monetization opportunities, we see community voices and small businesses, they get socio-economic empowerment.

Speaker

Kushal Prakash

Reason

This comment is insightful because it challenges the dominant ad-supported model of digital platforms and suggests that diversified monetization can lead to more equitable economic outcomes. It connects platform design choices directly to social justice and economic empowerment outcomes.

Impact

This observation elevated the discussion from a product presentation to a broader conversation about economic justice and platform responsibility. It introduced the idea that platform design decisions have profound socio-economic implications, setting up the framework for discussing systemic change in the digital economy.

We are seeing something called the hallow effect where you’re able to jump right from being a digital storefront to a physical business very quickly because you have built a very strong community of users

Speaker

Kushal Prakash

Reason

This concept is thought-provoking because it describes a reversal of traditional business development – instead of physical businesses going digital, digital-first businesses are gaining enough traction to move into physical spaces. This challenges conventional wisdom about business development and market entry.

Impact

This comment introduced a new business phenomenon that hadn’t been discussed before, expanding the conversation beyond just digital commerce to hybrid business models. It demonstrated how platform success can translate into traditional business success, adding another layer to the empowerment narrative.

Safety by design is not a choice anymore. In a discovery economy, it’s also not a contradiction. If you want to promote creativity, you have to rely on making it a safe experience for everyone. It’s not a competition. It goes hand-in-hand.

Speaker

Kushal Prakash

Reason

This comment is insightful because it reframes the traditional tension between platform openness and safety controls. Instead of viewing safety and creativity as competing priorities, it presents them as mutually reinforcing elements essential for a functioning discovery-based economy.

Impact

This comment provided a philosophical framework that resolved apparent contradictions in their platform approach. It shifted the discussion from defensive explanations of safety measures to a proactive vision of how safety enables rather than restricts creative and economic opportunities.

Overall assessment

These key comments collectively transformed what could have been a standard corporate presentation into a deeper exploration of how algorithmic discovery is reshaping economic opportunities and social connections. The discussion evolved from explaining TikTok’s features to articulating a vision of systemic change in the digital economy. The most impactful comments introduced new concepts (interest-based graphs, digital busking, hallow effect) and reframed existing tensions (safety vs. creativity), creating a narrative about democratization of opportunity through technology. The personal anecdotes and concrete examples grounded abstract concepts in human experience, while the broader observations about economic empowerment elevated the discussion to questions of social justice and platform responsibility. Together, these comments shaped a conversation that positioned TikTok not just as an entertainment platform, but as a catalyst for economic and social transformation.

Summary

This discussion focused on strategies for closing the digital divide through universal access and acceptance, exploring how to expand high-quality internet infrastructure to underserved communities while fostering linguistic diversity online. The session was moderated by Fabio Senne from CETIC.br and featured panelists from Canada, Kenya, and Pakistan discussing both technical and social barriers to digital inclusion.

The conversation emphasized that digital divides extend far beyond infrastructure coverage to encompass affordability, digital literacy, language barriers, and meaningful connectivity. Fabio Senne noted that while 90% of Brazil’s population has some internet connection, only 22% have meaningful connectivity that enables them to fully benefit from digital technologies. Andrew Lewela from Kenya highlighted that universal acceptance and trust cannot exist without meaningful internet access, pointing to affordability of devices and data plans as primary barriers, along with cybersecurity concerns and limited digital literacy.

Universal acceptance emerged as a critical technical issue, with Allison O’Beirne from the Canadian government explaining that many systems still fail to support non-Latin scripts or newer domain extensions, creating barriers for linguistic minorities. Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko emphasized the importance of Indigenous data sovereignty and the need for Indigenous-owned networks, while Roonjha Qaisar from Pakistan demonstrated how AI tools in local languages can democratize access to advanced technologies.

The discussion revealed that solutions require multi-stakeholder collaboration addressing supply-side technical standards and demand-side accessibility issues. Panelists agreed that meaningful digital inclusion must incorporate language justice, community-driven initiatives, and sustainable funding models that prioritize the most marginalized populations rather than treating connectivity as merely a technical challenge.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Multi-layered nature of digital divides**: The discussion emphasized that digital divides extend far beyond infrastructure coverage to include affordability, digital literacy, language barriers, trust and safety concerns, and meaningful connectivity rather than just basic access.

– **Universal Acceptance (UA) as a technical and social justice issue**: Panelists explored how universal acceptance – ensuring all domain names and email addresses work across internet systems regardless of language or script – represents both a technical challenge and a matter of language justice and inclusion.

– **Indigenous rights and data sovereignty**: Significant focus on Indigenous peoples’ rights as inherent stakeholders (not just consultees) in digital infrastructure decisions, emphasizing free, prior and informed consent, Indigenous-owned networks, spectrum access rights, and Indigenous data sovereignty.

– **Government and institutional roles in bridging divides**: Discussion of how governments can lead by example through their own IT systems, procurement policies, funding mechanisms (like universal service funds), and partnerships with community organizations to create sustainable solutions.

– **Community-driven and localized solutions**: Emphasis on bottom-up approaches, community networks, digital navigators/champions, and the importance of developing technology in local languages and contexts rather than English-first approaches.

## Overall Purpose:

The session aimed to explore comprehensive strategies for closing digital divides through universal access and acceptance, moving beyond traditional infrastructure-focused approaches to address the intersection of technical, social, economic, and cultural barriers that prevent meaningful internet connectivity for underserved communities globally.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a collaborative and constructive tone throughout, with panelists building on each other’s insights rather than debating. The tone was realistic about challenges while remaining optimistic about solutions. There was a notable shift from technical discussions early on to more nuanced conversations about social justice, Indigenous rights, and community empowerment as the session progressed. The atmosphere was respectful and inclusive, with speakers from different regions and backgrounds sharing complementary perspectives on similar challenges.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Fabio Senne** – General Research Coordinator at CETIC.br (department for NIC.br), Session Moderator

– **Allison O’Beirne** – Director of the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development of the Government of Canada

– **Andrew Mwanyota Lewela** – CEO of the Kenya Network Information Centre (KENIC)

– **Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil** – Director of Indigenous and External Relations for the Indigenous Connectivity Institute, Member of Onii-Chikswapowin or Saddle Lake Cree Nation

– **Roonjha Qaisar** – Co-founder of Urdu AI

– **Sabrina Wilkinson** – Internet Governance Manager from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA)

– **Ellen Taylor** – Policy Analyst from the Government of Canada, Virtual Moderator

– **Edmon Chong** – Representative from DotAsia (audience participant who asked questions)

**Additional speakers:**

– **Emmanuel Oroka** – DCAD Fellow (mentioned as asking a question via chat, but did not speak directly)

# Summary Report: Strategies for Closing the Digital Divide Through Universal Access and Acceptance

## Executive Summary

This hybrid session was moderated by Fabio Senne from CETIC.br, with Ellen Taylor serving as virtual moderator from the Government of Canada. The discussion brought together panelists from Canada, Kenya, and Pakistan, alongside representatives from Indigenous communities and civil society organizations, to examine strategies for bridging digital divides through universal access and acceptance.

The conversation explored how digital divides extend beyond infrastructure coverage to encompass affordability, digital literacy, language barriers, and meaningful connectivity. Speakers emphasized the need for community-driven solutions, multilingual support, and the importance of trust and safety in digital inclusion efforts.

## Key Discussion Points

### The Multi-Layered Nature of Digital Divides

Fabio Senne opened the discussion by providing context about Brazil’s connectivity challenges, noting that while 90% of Brazil’s population has some internet connection, only 22% have meaningful connectivity that enables them to fully benefit from digital technologies. He emphasized that “supply side infrastructure is necessary but insufficient; barriers come from intersection of inequalities including territory, gender, ethnicity, and language.”

Andrew Mwanyota Lewela from Kenya reinforced this perspective, stating that “there can be no UA or trust without a meaningful Internet. We cannot have universal acceptance and trust without a meaningful Internet.” He highlighted that 30% of the global population remains offline, while those who are connected face barriers including affordability of network plans and devices, limited trust due to cybersecurity threats, infrastructure gaps, and lack of technical expertise.

Roonjha Qaisar from Pakistan added that “digital divide is layered with geography, gender, and governance failures; rural girls without Internet access are locked out of the future,” highlighting how digital exclusion compounds existing inequalities.

### Universal Acceptance as Technical and Social Challenge

Allison O’Beirne from the Canadian government explained that “universal acceptance means all domain names and email addresses should work across every internet-enabled application regardless of language, script, or length.” She shared a personal example about having an apostrophe in her name and how many systems “absolutely freak out,” illustrating the practical impact of UA issues.

However, O’Beirne acknowledged implementation challenges, noting that government systems still struggle with basic character support like apostrophes and accents, and that the Canadian government lacks a concrete roadmap for making all government systems universal acceptance ready.

Edmon Chong from DotAsia introduced the concept of “language justice,” arguing that “it is a matter of language justice to make sure that systems support the different native languages that people speak in order for the access to be meaningful.” He advocated for moving away from “an English-first approach to developing systems and infrastructure.”

### Indigenous Rights and Data Sovereignty

Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko, Director of Indigenous and External Relations for the Indigenous Connectivity Institute, emphasized that Indigenous communities face “structural and regulatory barriers, particularly with spectrum access, and need sustainable funding rather than competitive models.”

He stressed the importance of “respecting Indigenous data sovereignty,” noting that this applies “not just on the mapping model, but that’s in terms of digital data and digital data flows through the cables and the airwaves that kind of constitute the internet.” He positioned Indigenous peoples as “inherent right holders” rather than merely stakeholders in digital infrastructure decisions.

Steinhauer-Mozejko also highlighted how “Universal acceptance can be a tool for protecting, promoting, and revitalizing Indigenous languages, many of which are endangered,” connecting technical standards to cultural preservation.

### Community-Driven Solutions

Several speakers emphasized community-based approaches. Steinhauer-Mozejko advocated for “digital navigators and connectivity champions” who could “serve as trusted guides to help multi-generational citizens learn basic internet skills.”

Sabrina Wilkinson from CIRA described the Communify project, which “created free community Wi-Fi network serving neighbourhoods with highest social inequity, connecting 2,000 unique devices in six months.” This initiative, developed in partnership with National Capital Freenet, Ottawa Community Housing, and Hydro Ottawa, demonstrated targeted community interventions for urban digital equity.

Qaisar described her work “training women artisans to digitise their work whilst their daughters learn AI and digital marketing,” creating “sustainable mother-daughter partnerships” that bridge generational and skills gaps. Her work bringing AI to local languages like Urdu has reached 32 million people monthly.

### Language Barriers and Cultural Inclusion

Language emerged as a significant barrier to digital inclusion. Qaisar identified “language as the biggest barrier,” noting that “AI transformation benefits urban settings and developed countries but marginalised communities are left behind.”

Andrew Lewela emphasized that “Internet language cannot and should not be only English; need to make it accessible in Zulu, Swahili, Norwegian and other languages.” This theme was reinforced by multiple speakers who stressed the need for multilingual support in digital systems.

### Government and Institutional Roles

The discussion revealed different perspectives on government roles. O’Beirne positioned governments as “conveners, educators, and enablers who can fund awareness campaigns and invest in training for IT professionals,” noting that “governments set standards for internet technologies and operate massive IT infrastructures that interact with millions of citizens daily.”

Lewela suggested that “regulators can use universal service funds from ISP profits to bridge gaps for underserved areas through competitive providers including community networks,” emphasizing market-based solutions with regulatory oversight.

However, Steinhauer-Mozejko argued that competitive funding models systematically exclude Indigenous communities, who require sustainable, non-competitive funding mechanisms instead.

### Trust and Safety

Trust was identified as foundational for meaningful digital inclusion. Lewela emphasized that the “Internet must be safe and secure, especially for children, with no harassment or exploitation as cornerstone values.”

Qaisar provided a powerful perspective, arguing that “trust is foundation of digital development; internet shutdowns during crises break this trust and tell marginalised communities they don’t matter.”

Wilkinson noted that “CIRA contributes firewall technology to community networks to protect users from phishing, malware, and other threats,” demonstrating how technical solutions can be integrated into community initiatives.

## Audience Engagement

The session included questions from both in-person and online audiences. Emmanuel Oroka asked about developing frameworks for special internet packages for persons with different abilities. Andrew responded by highlighting Kenya’s use of universal service funds as a framework solution, noting that these funds can be used to support underserved populations through competitive provider models.

## Key Themes

Several important themes emerged from the discussion:

– **Meaningful Connectivity**: Moving beyond basic access to ensure users can fully benefit from digital technologies

– **Language Justice**: The need to support multilingual approaches and move away from English-dominance in digital systems

– **Community-Driven Approaches**: Bottom-up solutions that position communities as active participants rather than passive recipients

– **Cultural Preservation**: Using technical standards like Universal Acceptance to support endangered languages and cultural sustainability

– **Trust as Foundation**: The requirement for safety and security as prerequisites for meaningful digital adoption

## Conclusion

The session demonstrated that closing digital divides requires comprehensive approaches addressing technical, social, economic, and cultural barriers simultaneously. Speakers emphasized the importance of meaningful connectivity over basic access, the need for multilingual support, and the value of community-driven solutions.

The discussion highlighted different approaches to funding and implementation, particularly regarding competitive versus sustainable funding models for underserved communities. While speakers agreed on fundamental principles like the importance of trust, safety, and community involvement, they offered different perspectives on the most effective implementation strategies.

The integration of Universal Acceptance with broader social justice concerns, particularly around language rights and Indigenous data sovereignty, emerged as an important framework for future digital inclusion efforts.

Fabio Senne: So, hello. We are going to begin the session. For those who are online and in person, please turn on your headphones on the channel one for following us. I hope you can hear well. So, it’s an honor to join this today to reflect on how to close digital divide by universal access and acceptance. This session aims to explore strategies for expanding high-quality Internet infrastructure and underserved communities through multi-stakeholder partnerships. It will also address opportunities and challenges of universal acceptance to foster linguistic diversity online, aiming at discussing actionable solutions for regional implementation. So, I’m Fabio Senni. I’m General Research Coordinator at CETIC.br, which is a department for NIC.br. And I will be moderating the session. CETIC is a think tank linked to the Brazilian multi-stakeholder Internet governance model and represented by NIC.br and CGI.br. And we are also a UNESCO Category 2 center that supports Latin American countries and Portuguese-speaking countries in better developing international and comparable indicators on access and use of the Internet. And I would like to introduce Ellen Taylor, who is Policy Analyst from the Government of Canada and will be our virtual moderator. So, I would like to remind that this session is in a hybrid format. And after a short intervention from the panel, we will open the floor for questions and comments from you here in the event or online. So, just to begin, I would like to mention that digital divides are increasingly relevant topic today. We can say for sure that it affects directly the citizenship. in the way people can participate in economy and in societies. And it also makes vulnerable population less resilient to online risks. So we can say about frauds and misinformation, disinformation. And especially in a moment where there is AI and much of the models on AI are training user data. Digital divider are key to not creating biases. And traditionally connectivity and digital divide has been discussed under the layer of infrastructure only. So what’s the coverage of broadband and how internet connections are offered to individuals and organizations. But however, we know that two decades of research in the field, we know that the supply side is necessary also to keep in mind, but it’s not sufficient. So we need to understand the barriers for digital inclusion that comes from the intersection of different inequalities, territory, gender, ethnicity, language and others. And we also know that the solution needs to take into consideration the other layers of the internet governance, including the logical layer, the transport layer and the application layer. So that’s why we are engaged in this discussion today. And just to mention that among the most relevant conceptual shifts that we have in this recent period, is the idea that we also need to take care of meaningful connectivity, not just basic connectivity, but what is a meaningful connectivity, meaning that what is the quality, the frequency of use, the conditions of use that really enable users to fully benefit from digital technologies. And in Brazil, just to mention briefly one single research that we developed in Brazil, although we know that almost 90% of the population, has some connections with the internet and use in a sense only 22% according to our estimates have a meaningful connectivity which means that we really need to push this discussion forward. So the idea is to discuss really strategies and actionable solutions to this topic and we will start by listening our speakers and then open the floor to you for the discussion. I will start with Allison O’Beirne which is a director of the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development of the Government of Canada.

Allison O’Beirne: So Allison, please you have the floor for your first intervention. Thank you very much. Thanks so much Fabio, much appreciated. It’s a great pleasure to be here with you all today and to get the opportunity to speak a little bit about a topic that I know has been close to our heart in Canada for a little while and which is universal acceptance and it’s an issue that I think is really fundamental to building a truly inclusive digital future of the kind that you were just speaking about. As we all know of course since we’re at the IGF the internet is the backbone of modern life and of our economic growth but despite the global reach of internet technologies access and usability are really still not universal and one of the major barriers that we’ve seen is the failure of many systems to support all valid domain names and email addresses especially those that are in non-latin scripts or newer top-level domains. So this is the issue that universal acceptance really tries to tackle. It’s the idea that all domain names and email addresses should work across every internet enabled application device platform regardless of the language, the script or the length. I know it sounds like a very simple issue and in 2025 it maybe should be but we still have quite a long way to go on now on universal acceptance. I want to start off by acknowledging that there is incredible work being done by the technical community that has been done and that continues to be done to reduce the technical barriers to access to the internet but I think what we want to talk a little bit today about is the role that governments have to play in ensuring that the internet remains open, secure, and interoperable, and particularly in leveraging their power at the international level to help ensure the wide-scale adoption of standards like universal acceptance. So what is the government’s role in universal acceptance? There are basically two sort of aspects to it. The first is that governments, of course, help set standards for internet technologies. We operate massive IT infrastructures. We’ve got websites, we’ve got portals, we’ve got e-services, and they interact with millions of citizens every day. And ensuring a linguistically diverse and inclusive online environment to ensure that the interests of our citizens are met, governments really have to work together at both the national and the international levels to help promote and advocate for the advancement of technical work like work on UA standards. Second, of course, governments are also conveners and educators and enablers. They can fund awareness campaigns, they can invest in training for IT professionals, they can participate and collaborate with wonderful international partners like the Universal Acceptance Steering Group or ICANN. And these efforts really help to ensure that there is an awareness and an understanding among developers, administrators, and decision makers about the importance of UA and how to implement it. We have a long way to go, but I think we’re pretty optimistic about it. And I know for Canada, we face particular challenges in being able to implement UA ourselves. We have a huge geographic region with a whole lot of layers of government. We could talk about whether it’s too many, but that’s for a different panel. And so getting everybody to kind of be on board with consistent technical standards can be a challenge. And of course, like many countries, we have an enormous amount of linguistic diversity. Canada has two official languages, English and French, but there are 200 other languages, including 70 more indigenous languages that are spoken in Canada. ICANN is the lead technical organization on universal acceptance, of course, and is actively doing work in this space. And we are really seeking to engage with them, trying to engage with them consistently to support the work that ICANN is doing to really advance the work around universal acceptance, including the current policy development. development process on Latin script diacritics, which when I started in my job, I had to have explained to me maybe four or five times to understand, but it’s basically the principle that you can have different languages supported in the same way, for example, that one diacritic and non-diacritic version of the same domain can still exist, like in our case for .quebec and .quebec, one of which has an accent and one of which doesn’t, and that those can both exist alongside each other. I think we recognize that there’s lots more to do in this space, that the multi-stakeholder community is really one that has this kind of adaptability and change and innovation as part of its DNA. And since we’re working together towards this common goal, I am confident that we’ll be able to make change in this space. Thanks very much, everyone. I’m looking forward to the discussion.

Fabio Senne: Thank you. Thank you very much, Allison. Very insightful introduction and how something that is apparently simple can be very changing in the way people can access to the Internet. And now I’ll give the floor to Andrew Leuela, the CEO of the Kenya Network Information Centre, KENIC. Andrew, you have five minutes for your first interventions and you have the floor.

Andrew Mwanyota Lewela: Thank you. Thank you very much. Let me start at the very onset by throwing some cold water to the discussion. And I’ll do this from a Kenyan perspective, a country at the heart of East Africa, in the global south. There can be no UA or trust without a meaningful Internet. I’ll repeat that. We cannot have trust without a meaningful Internet. We cannot have universal acceptance and trust without a meaningful Internet. This morning, Doreen from the ITU mentioned that we still have 30 percent of of our population globally, who are offline. In Kenya, this number is 1.4 million. Underserved or unserved citizens. Now, in other metrics in Kenya, we have high coverage by the providers, we have high subscription, but very low usage. And why usage is important? Because only when our citizens use the internet in a meaningful way can we then move on to domains, emails, and ensuring that that reflects our languages and our diversity. And in Kenya, and most of Africa, the local language is Swahili. So how do we bring the elderly, the youth, into this ecosystem? I’ll throw a few barriers and potential remedies that we see that together, we can truly bridge the digital divide. At the top of that list, actually, is still affordability. Affordability of network plans or internet plans, affordability of devices, and the requisite policies that come with that affordability. I think, secondly, we still have limited trust by citizens based on what they hear as part of the internet threats. So cyber security threats are still up there. And the whole issue of digital trust. Last month alone in Kenya, the regulators mentioned a 7x growth in DDoS attacks, and a lot of those are AI-generated now. So citizens are concerned about that. Secondly, I’ve mentioned the issue of infrastructure and access, but do the regulators and the policymakers, are they doing enough in terms of streamlining policy to assure citizens of affordability and infrastructure? There’s more that can be done there. And finally, on some of the barriers we see is technical expertise around governance and emerging technology. I’m happy that some of our regulators were here and legislators, we need to carry them along in terms of enabling environment. Now, in conclusion, where do we go from here to ensure UA and trust, at least from a Kenya perspective? I wish to propose that this is what a meaningful internet looks like, ladies and gentlemen. And this is a conversation I think that we have to not only capture, but to associate myself with the minister last evening. We have to be bold in terms of the actions we take as a community. One, we don’t only have to have a reliable access, but it has to be affordable. I think we agree on that. We also have to ensure that there’s sufficient speed and quality. I’m not sure how many of us have enjoyed the internet at the event. I have a bit of issues with the quality. We need to also ensure that we carry along our citizens in terms of digital literacy, because the language of the internet cannot be and should not be only English. How do you make it Zulu? How do you make it Swahili? Norwegian and so on. And it has to be relevant content and services that citizens can really participate in. Number six, it has to be safe and secure, especially for our children. At KENIC, child online safety is a cornerstone of how we take the internet to the youth. It has to be no harassment, no exploitation. These have to be front and center to ensure that the value can be sustainable. And finally, on this big question of enabling environment, it has to be regulatory, issues of data privacy, innovation, freedom of expression, and finally, the rights. The rights offline have to be the rights online. Ladies and gentlemen, this is what we see from a Kenya and East African perspective in terms of potential barriers, but hopefully together we can surmount these challenges. Thank you, Chair.

Fabio Senne: Thank you very much, Andrew. It was very insightful that you presented in the African perspective, but taking all the main categories from meaningful connectivity that we are considering also in Brazil and other parts of the world, including affordability is a key issue because it’s not sufficient to have the service available or coverage if you don’t have real affordability and people can use, of course. Language is another key issue that I think the next panelist invited to the session will take care of this topic. I’ll also call online if Phil Stenhouwer-Mojeco. Phil, are you connected? Can you hear us? I’m here. Thanks for that good pronunciation, eh? That was pretty good. I’ve studied, I’ve studied a lot to do, to try to do. Sorry if I misspell your name. But Phil is Director in External Affairs at the Indigenous Connectivity Institute and Phil, you have your five minutes for your initial thoughts. Thank you.

Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil: Thank you. I’m gonna try not to get distracted by seeing my face plastered on the screen here. I apologize I can’t be there with you all in person. Very grateful for the opportunity. I’m wearing my orange shirt in honour of Indigenous Peoples Day, which just happened in Canada on June 21st, on the eve of the summer solstice. And we don’t want to be relegated to a single day or month. But my name is Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko. Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko Nitsiigason. I’m a member of Onii-Chikswapowin or Saddle Lake Cree Nation and Treaty 6 Territory. So my name is Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko. I’m from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada and Treaty 6 Territory. And I’m Director of Indigenous and External Relations for the Indigenous Connectivity Institute. And we’re an organization that seeks to advance digital equity for First Nation, Inuit, Métis, Alaska Native, American Indian, Native Hawaiian people on Turtle Island and the Inuit Nunangat. And I’m really thankful to be here. I’m building literacy and understanding in the area of universal acceptance. And so I really want to thank the Government of Canada and I said, and my colleagues there for inviting us to participate here and to learn. I’m keen to learn and hear actually from the rest of the people on the panel. I think I have a limited slice of what I can provide here in terms of an intervention. So what does digital equity mean for First Nation, Inuit and Métis in a Canadian context? And I think a big part of it, I’ll lead off with this, given it was just Indigenous people. People’s Day in Canada. And we’re in a intergovernmental or we’re an international UN. I think familiarizing with the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. And we’re starting there as a kind of a framework and talking about free, prior and informed consent for Native people, not just in Turtle Island, but across the world. And that means that there is robust engagement and recognition and acknowledging that Native people are inherent right holders. We’re not just stakeholders in this matter. And we need to be not just consulted with, there’s a duty to consult from the government. But there needs to be understanding that we are inherent right holders here. And we have existed on this land forever. And we will continue to. But our organization, the Indigenous Connectivity Institute, really seeks to enhance digital equity by promoting Indigenous owned and operated networks. And that means that Indigenous nations must be kind of at the center of infrastructure decisions in Canada, the United States, with governments in the global north, colonial governments in the global north. And we need to have policies that kind of really work in lockstep with some of the priorities and initiatives that the great array and diversity of nations in Canada have. And that’s challenging. But that means a lot of kind of bilateral, intergovernmental meetings and a lot of time and effort into relationship building. I really like that idea of meaningful connectivity. And this is something that I would like to revisit. And what does that mean? Speaking for myself from a Nehiyawak or a Plains Cree and a First Nation perspective, what does meaningful connectivity mean for our people who are overwhelmingly in rural and remote areas who still have a lack of… Thank you. I think that there’s a lot of access to Internet connectivity, let alone broadband, and it’s still prohibitively expensive. And the maps that some of the governments use, although not all, are still kind of lacking quality data in terms of served or unserved areas. So there’s also needing to consider fixing of structural and kind of regulatory barriers. That’s particularly with respect to spectrum access, given that many of our communities are in rural and remote areas, and the Indigenous Connectivity Institute, we’ve really been promoting this idea around access and rights to spectrum. One minute left. And we need to ensure that there is ongoing sustainable funding for Indigenous projects in Canada, the U.S., New Zealand, everywhere. And I think competitive funding models kind of leave communities behind sometimes. And so credit to the government of Canada, who has been working, I think, diligently and upping their relational approach, working with Indigenous communities in Canada, recently opening the Indigenous priority window for spectrum access and potentially having some set-asides for quality bands of spectrum. And lastly, I will say, is respecting Indigenous data sovereignty. And that’s not just on the mapping model, but that’s in terms of digital data and digital data flows through the cables and the airwaves that kind of constitute the internet. And so thinking about Indigenous data sovereignty with respect to online presence is a key thing. Others have mentioned on it safety, security, and honouring and respecting cultural traditions online. So I’m going to leave it at that. I really appreciate the time. It’s an honor to be here. And thanks to everyone for having us. And I’ll pass it on to the next guest. Ayi, hayi, exe. Thank you.

Fabio Senne: Thank you very much, Phil. You brought very interesting points to the discussion, especially one that is very key to my work, that is having statistics and measurements on what’s happening is key, because otherwise you cannot do policy without knowing where are the gaps. And this for indigenous population is key. So I’ll now pass the floor to another online participant, which is Roonjha Qaisar, the co-founder of the Urdu AI. Qaisar, please, I hope you can hear us well. And you have the floor for five minutes.

Roonjha Qaisar: Thank you so much. I really appreciate being here on this screen. It’s wonderful to see a lot of exciting people here. Assalamu alaikum, good morning and good afternoon, wherever you are watching from. I’m Roonjha Qaisar. I’m the co-founder of Urdu AI. And I come from a place where the Internet doesn’t just buffer slowly. It often disappears when it is needed the most. I come from rural Pakistan, where the digital divide is layered with geography, gender, and sometimes governance failures. The digital divide is not just about fibre optics or smartphone penetration. It’s about who is included, who is heard and who is invisible. A rural girl without access to Internet or AI tools is not just offline, she’s being locked out of a future. A woman in a conservative village without digital literacy is a nightmare. just excluded, is denied from economic freedom. And when the internet is turned off without digital, during the digital turmoil, as it often in my country, entire communities lose connection to opportunity and hope. This is the digital divide I believe we must talk about. At Urdu AI, we bring artificial intelligence down to earth, translated into Urdu, simplified for all, like for everyone without their educational experience background, and simplifying it a very, very down to earth level, a very low level so everyone can understand. And that has been a very successful practice so far. For now, we have reached our 32 million people every month with our numbers that we see on our platforms, rural youth, housewives, micro entrepreneurs, young people in small towns who now see AI not as it typically was, as a trait, but as a personal tool. At Wang Lab of Innovation, which we built with the support of Internet Society, is Pakistan’s first rural innovation lab. We train women artisans to digitize their work using tools that we have trained on them. Their women, their younger girls, we have provided them digital tools. So women come to stitch local traditional products, and their girls, who we are training on AI and digital marketing, help them to sell the product into online world. So kind of creating a mother and daughter due to create a sustainable impact. I think with what we do at a very small level, this is what we see as a universal acceptance look like. It’s not just whether. We have a question from the audience, which is, why is it that the tech exists but whether it welcomes everyone and how we are incorporating voices into that. But how do we build trust in this digital promise when in my country, for example, and many others I know, when the Internet is switched off during every crisis, how do we tell young people in rural areas, especially girls, the technology is their future Digital access is a right, not a privilege. And when it is denied, especially to these already marginalized, it deepens the divide. It tells young people, rural communities, and women, you don’t matter in the digital age. I think trust is foundation of digital development and it shut downs, it breaks the trust. We believe it has what we must commit to do, digitalizing localization, technology in our own language shaped by our realities. We see AI is transforming a lot of things, but we don’t see much of the content coming in in other languages, as one of our fellow speakers was talking about. How do we ensure that it doesn’t just change the lives of many in urban settings or big developed countries, but how do we make sure the most marginalized are benefiting from AI, especially when language is the biggest barrier. I think we need to focus on rural centric innovation, let villages become hubs of digital creativity, not just a recipient. We see the transformation is going to a lot of places, and I think ensuring the gender focus inclusion, putting women and girls at the center of the digital policy and programming would change that. And internet infrastructure, as I said, protected from political shutdowns, accessible to all, especially during crisis. We must change that and we must enable that. I believe digital… Equity isn’t charity. It’s power waiting to be unlocked. When a young person in Pakistan speaks to the newly-emerged AI tools in their own dialect, in their own language, we don’t just close the divide. We build a new world of opportunities. I have been training hundreds of people through Urdu AI, and I see when people understand something that they could utilize. So it’s clearing out a huge barrier for people who did not have access to Ivy League universities or very high-quality schools. But AI is a shape of a highly intelligent model, a tool in their pocket could educate them on a lot of tools that they never thought they could learn. So I think there is an opportunity. And I believe we let us govern the internet as a shared language of empowerment, not as a tool of control. It’s spoken in every dialect, protected in every strong and felt in every village and community across the world by every woman and child and young person and every person who is from marginalized community. That’s my opening remarks for the session. I’m very excited to continue the conversation.

Fabio Senne: Thank you very much, Qaisar. It was a very insightful introduction. And I think you brought AI to the discussion. I think this is something that you might want to comment later. But now, last but not least, I’ll pass the floor to Sabrina Wilkinson, which is Internet Governance Manager from the Canadian Internet Registration Authority. Sabrina, please, you have the floor.

Sabrina Wilkinson: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. It’s a real pleasure to be with you here today, both virtually as well as in person. And it’s been really terrific to hear a little bit more about how digital divides manifest across regions. of course have real and tangible impacts on how people live their lives. Today I’m going to be zooming in a little bit to talk about one particular initiative that CIRA has been working on for the last little while that’s looking to tackle one very local digital divide in Ottawa, Canada, where many of us at CIRA are working and living. So at CIRA, of course, we’re best known for managing the .ca domain, but our mission extends far beyond that. As a non-for-profit, we invest a portion of our revenue each year to help build a safer, more accessible, and more trusted internet for all Canadians. A big part of that is our grants program. Launched in 2014, our net good grants program provides funds annually to support projects that improve digital infrastructure, promote online safety, and advance internet policy. While much of our funding on the infrastructure side has and continues to focus on rural and remote regions, we’ve also recognized the rising need for investment in urban digital equity. In Canadian cities, the challenge is often less about infrastructure and more about affordability, access to devices, and digital literacy. These barriers can be especially acute for low-income households, even when broadband is technically available. So to mark the 10th anniversary of this program, we launched a new urban-focused initiative in Ottawa called Communify. This two-year pilot project involved a partnership between CIRA as well as several local organizations, National Capital Freenet, which is a community internet service provider, Ottawa Community Housing, as well as Hydro Ottawa. So together, we’ve created a free community Wi-Fi network serving neighborhoods in Ottawa with some of the highest levels of social inequity. The first phase of this project launched in December 2023, and it brought fixed wireless access to two community housing buildings in the city. In just six months, about 2,000 unique devices connected to the network, underscoring the need for this type of work for low-barrier, no-cost connectivity. But Communify, as we’ve learned or heard about, of course, today, it’s about a lot more than bandwidth. With this network in place, we are seeing a real impact or change in the ways in which residents of these two buildings live their lives. Folks are gathering in shared spaces where the Wi-Fi is available to stream videos, connect with friends, colleagues, access health services, e-education, tax clinics, all of the things that, of course, are readily available via an internet connection. For people with mobility or income constraints, that access, and more broadly, but that access, of course, makes a meaningful difference in day-to-day life. CIRA also contributes its firewall technology to this network, which helps protect users from phishing, malware, and other threats as well, which adds a vital layer of trust and safety, particularly for vulnerable populations. Our goal here is to demonstrate a replicable model or pilot, one that can be scaled across the city or adapted by other communities across Canada or maybe beyond. Communify embodies what this program was built to do, to support promising community-led ideas with potential for real measurable impact. Recognizing, of course, this is one small example of the You know, that against all of what we talked about today, there’s much more work to be done, but we hope that there are some learnings that can be had both in Canada and elsewhere. And of course, this project illustrates how digital divides are not just about infrastructure gaps. As Andrew and others have noted, they’re also about affordability, trust, access to devices, and the ability to meaningfully connect and use the Internet in daily life. Thank you.

Fabio Senne: Thank you very much, Sabrina, for your insightful thoughts. I think from the panel, we see that the issue is multidimensional. Of course, we still need to think about infrastructure when it comes to remote areas, and the filmation spectrum, and some issues that we still can discuss, but it’s insufficient to solve the problem. So, we have multiple layers of areas that we can make solutions happen. So, we have time now for discussions and questions. I’ll check first with Ellen if there’s someone online having any comments or questions. Please, Ellen.

Ellen Taylor: Thanks very much, Flavio, and thank you to our lovely panelists. Just to note, there’s been a great discussion online with some reactions and reflections to panelists’ comments as they’ve come in, particularly concerning really community-driven initiatives for universal acceptance and the multi-stakeholder collaboration that’s needed, particularly with governments needing to make it a priority as civil society is really championing these initiatives with the technical community. So, there is a question here in the chat, and it came up during a webinar. Andrew, during your remarks, but I think it could be if anyone on the panel would like to reflect on it. So the question is from Emmanuel Oroka, DCAD Fellow. Is there a possibility of developing a framework that offers a special internet package policy for all network operators and ISPs to adopt and implement to ensure persons with different abilities have access to the internet to close the digital divide in the global south? So that is the question there and I’ll hand it back to the panel for any reactions and thoughts. Thank you, Ellen. I don’t know if someone

Fabio Senne: from the audience in person want to add some other question or comment. If not, I can pass the floor to the panelists. I don’t know, Andrew, if you want to start because it’s what’s directed to you, but any other panelists can also comment on the issue. Thank you, Emmanuel, for the question.

Andrew Mwanyota Lewela: So I’ll give the framework that Kenya uses just for consideration. So it’s very hard for profit-driven entities like ISPs, telcos, to buy into this kind of framework. Unfortunately, they have different set of shareholders, but we see a role a regulator can play. So for example, in Kenya, the communications authority that regulates our space, using the universal service fund, some of the profits from the ISPs are used by the government to bridge this gap for the underserved or unserved areas. So this is one framework that I believe Emmanuel could work in your jurisdiction. So where it is not profitable for ISPs to reach, for example, the government will then use some of this money procure from competitive providers, including community networks, for example, so the smaller guys, to take this infrastructure and to keep the product price competitive or at least useful in terms of allowing usage. So this will be one framework. Thank you.

Fabio Senne: Thank you, Andrew. Let’s check if our colleagues online want to comment on something on this. Raise your hand if you, Phil and Qaisar. I think Phil is up to comment on that. Please, Phil,

Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil: you have the floor. I don’t know if this answers the question. However, having some experience working in the United States with their Digital Equity Act, pardon me to take it away from the Canadian context, but there are a lot of shared kind of experiences and it’s relevant on both sides of the border. Similar things are happening. But with the Digital Equity Act, there has been increased funding for, and I believe Canada may be doing similar things, coming down the pipe for digital navigation, which I think here at the IGF is probably very familiar with some people here. But from what I have seen working in community in Canada and the U.S., identifying and funding, well, basically identifying those connectivity champions and people who are, you could say, digitally literate or technically versed, at least at a kind of a level one or a level two kind of capability of troubleshooting using devices, computers, and accessing or using the Internet. But I’ve seen firsthand in community how these digital navigators can be really excellent guides as they are navigators who can help multi-generational citizens of the nation actually learn how to send or receive an email. or set up an email address or how to connect to Wi-Fi or the differences between cellular and Wi-Fi and these sorts of things. But even more base in terms of using a browser and getting online. So there’s an aspect of internet adoption and you have a connection formed to the internet through a human, a trusted person. This has been an ongoing theme of trust. And so governments working with communities to kind of identify people, individuals who can be your trusted kind of technology and digital stewards and guides and community as a bridge to online inclusion.

Fabio Senne: Thank you. Thank you very much, Phil. I don’t know if Allison and Sabrina want to comment, please.

Allison O’Beirne: Sure, just maybe super, super quickly to respond. Thanks, Phil. Very helpful illustrative example. I know in the government of Canada, there’s been some work and some efforts in the general direction of sort of digital literacy and ensuring digital skills development. And it’s a multi-layered approach, both from the perspective of having, you know, the federal government with responsibility for skills development and likewise provincial governments with responsibilities for education. And so working together as two different layers of government and other layers of government as well to ensure that there are programs in place. And from the federal perspective, particularly, again, there’s multiple layers to it as you have digital skills development to try and kind of advance business adoption of emerging technologies versus skills development of, as you say, trying to teach people how to use a browser so that they can get online. And all of those things have to be captured within the programs. So lots of different programs that are underway in Canada in that regard. Likewise, in the federal government level, I think a huge commitment to ensuring that our own IT meets international standards for accessibility so that the content that we provide as the government of Canada is accessible, is available to everyone in a consistent way and can be accessed by folks with different. abilities. But the idea of having kind of digital champions or digital navigators is one that’s new to me. So I kind of love this. I’m going to bring this back from IGF and start talking to people about it in our department. I think that’s a really clever way to get the community involved.

Fabio Senne: Thank you, Allison. I think there is someone from the floor. Please go ahead.

Edmon Chong: Edmund Chong here from DotAsia. For those of you who know me, this is a topic that I’m very passionate about, especially working on internationalized domain names and universal access and acceptance for a very long time. I really like the way that it’s framed, that it is not just about the technicalities of universal acceptance, but also about digital inclusion. It’s also about meaningful access and multilingual Internet, because I think that is the right way to really frame this issue, because it’s not only technical. I’m also really excited to hear from Andrew and Phil that touched on one thing that I think is very important. And I call it, well, not me that call it, but I include this as part of universal acceptance, which is language justice. It is a matter of language justice to make sure that systems support the different native languages that people speak in order for the access to be meaningful. And I think this is one of the things that’s important is we need to move away from an English-first approach to developing systems and infrastructure. And when we deploy infrastructure into places where there isn’t the Internet, then we need to go with an UA by design approach so that it’s not an English-first approach. But I did have one particular, I guess, a question for especially for Allison and maybe for Sabrina as well. We know that the challenges are difficult and we know that this issue of universal acceptance is a little bit of a long-tail issue as well. Does the Government of Canada have a roadmap to become fully, for your systems, you mentioned many systems I understand, do you have a roadmap to make all the government systems universal acceptance ready? And also, you know, I guess, are the procurements, you know, contracts and tenders and those kind of things, have they started to include universal acceptance requirements? Even not immediate requirements, but at least the providers or the system integrators that provide services to the Government of Canada have to have a roadmap in place for UA readiness. And sort of the same question to CIRA and DOTCA.

Allison O’Beirne: Yeah, perfect, perfectly reasonable question. I want so badly to say, yes, of course, we have a roadmap and I will now tell you it’s 12 points, but I can’t do that. Like many other governments, we’re still in the very early phases of trying to figure out how to integrate UA by design into the process that we have. I will say something very glib as a white lady up here, but I have an apostrophe in my name and the number of government and non-government systems that just absolutely freak out when I have an apostrophe in my name. And then I give thought to my Francophone colleagues who have accents in their name, Indigenous colleagues who have different types of letters in their names. The extent of the work that needs to be done is huge. And I think the focus that we have on the Canadian side currently is working with the international community to establish the kind of standards and to establish the roadmaps and enabling factors that will then allow us at the domestic level to implement. I think that’s really where at least my team’s focus is for the time being. But you’re right. As we’ve, I think, made leaps and bounds in the last little while in making Government of Canada content particularly compliant with international standards related to accessibility, UA is kind of the next frontier of that, of making sure that then not only are you able to access it from a screen reader, but also that you’re able to access it in the language of your preference and even in the script of your preference. So yeah, not a roadmap yet, but I promise we’ll continue to work on it.

Fabio Senne: Thank you, Alice. Sabrina, do you want to comment?

Sabrina Wilkinson: Thanks, Edmund. Maybe not a roadmap specifically per se, but CIRA, of course, offers domains. For 10 years, CIRA has offered domains to French-language speakers as well. Recognize that, of course, in Canada, there are many, many other languages spoken too. At this stage, we’re a part of the dialogue within the CCNSO community. So we recently joined the Universal Acceptance Committee, where we’re glad to engage with our colleagues on this issue and stay abreast of monitor developments as well. Thank you. Thank you, Sabrina. I don’t know if anyone from the floor wants to make any other comment or any online. Yes, Ellen, please. Thanks very much. There’s actually lots of chatter online. There are three questions. So I might just ask, I might combine and ask two now and hopefully we’ll have time to get to the third, but also give the opportunity to those on the floor. So I think the first question is a great one and it could be answered by anyone on the panel. This person is asking, has the issue of acceptance been addressed? What is the meaning of it in the view of the panelists? So in terms of the definition of universal acceptance, particularly that acceptance part. And then the second question, which I will give to our panelists at the end, is just question number three. So, this question, fundamentally, it is coders and developers who underpin implementation of UA, UTF-8, and all linguistic technologies. There is not enough effort being carried out to involve these stakeholders. How to advance this question, being the involvement of stakeholders and also offering warm regards to all UA friends on the floor and remotely? Thanks.

Fabio Senne: Thank you very much. Since our time is ending, I’ll suggest that we do a round with all speakers so that you can react on the questions and probably just do your final remarks. Can we start maybe in the same order? Allison, if you want to…

Allison O’Beirne: Always happy to. That sounds good. I’ll maybe focus on the first part of the question related to the kind of definition of acceptance with the caveat that I’m a year into my job of learning about the internet alone. So, universal acceptance is maybe… I’m not the expert in it, but I’m happy to speak a little bit about my sort of understanding of it and how it’s arisen in our team’s work. I think one of the frameworks in which I think about, especially the title of our panel today of universal acceptance and universal accessibility is in the kind of supply side versus demand side, which is to say that universal acceptance is really focused on the supply side. How do we ensure that different languages and that different scripts and different diacritics are able to be accepted by the technical systems as people wish to use them? And then there’s a universal access or a universal accessibility perspective that is more on the demand side, which is how do we ensure that folks from a host of different communities and from a host of different regions have the skills and the capacity and the interest and the affordable means to be able to engage with digital systems? I think when we’re talking about… you know, having the technical means to be able to accept different types of scripts if we are talking about communities then that don’t have affordable access to broadband. It’s not super helpful for them to know that if they have an email address with a non-English diacritic that it’ll be accepted. That’s not maybe the most pressing issue for them at that point. So I think that there’s two kinds of sides to it, and the acceptance piece is really on that supply side, but the accessibility piece is critical as well.

Edmon Chong: Thank you, Allison. Andrew, if you can, one minute comment so that we can close.

Andrew Mwanyota Lewela: So I want to associate myself fully on that question with Allison’s view, so that I don’t have to get into the technicalities based on the maturity model that Canada has been through. My parting shot, I’ll go to my opening. My opening hypothesis, and I’ll read it again. There can be no UA and digital rights without a meaningful internet. However, I want to end with some positivity and pragmatism. Based on all the opening comments we had this morning, we have made progress, ladies and gentlemen. A lot remains to be done. We have to stay vigilant to ensure we leave no one behind. As long as we stay collaborative and keep this multi-stakeholder model bottom up, we shall prevail. Why do I say this? While my parents were alive, they used the very old telephone. You had one piece here and one piece here. I can now send my mom a WhatsApp. This is progress. And they are very elderly. It can only get better. I thank you.

Fabio Senne: If you are one minute, comment Phil, can you take the floor?

Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil: Bottom up is right and we’re thinking about truly grassroots influences and input into the design and architecture of these systems that underpin the internet. And so in terms of UA, I have a little note I wanted to make here was just that like UA can be, or universal acceptance, it can be a tool and one piece of the puzzle in protecting, promoting, revitalizing, or reclaiming Indigenous languages, many of which are endangered, not just in Canada, but all over. And so if you’re thinking about universal acceptance, you can even go beyond that and talk about keyboards, spell checkers, and voice assistants, and many Indigenous languages promote oral tradition and still do so. And how can we think about that in having and ensuring that our voices can be used to navigate the internet and use and apply digital technology? And there was a question in the chat about the coders who kind of build this stuff. And I had, I attended a meeting not too long ago with computer, like a year ago with computer scientists who were talking about digital inclusion with First Nations in Canada. And there was this, it’s like, you guys are the builders of the internet and the architects of the internet. And it’s almost like, is there a Hippocratic oath in place to ensure that you’re building tools that really reflect and embody the values of these different heterogeneous genius communities across the world over, not just Native? people but all of us. So if we want this to be a really kind of diverse and multicultural so to speak tool, then we really need to work hard to make sure that we’re all included in making it

Fabio Senne: and making it a bottom-up tool. Thank you. Thank you very much Phil. Qaisar, over to you.

Roonjha Qaisar: Yeah, I won’t take much of your time. I believe universal access is not just the technical structural promises but how do we ensure that the language is not a barrier, gender inequalities are not there and governance failures do not stop people from accessing internet. So ensuring that it’s equal and accessible for everyone in their own language. I think AI is a wonderful opportunity if we see from that perspective that could solve a lot of problems that otherwise would have taken

Fabio Senne: years to do. Thank you. Thank you. And Sabrina, over to you. Sure, I think I’ll just refer to

Sabrina Wilkinson: a term that you used at the beginning, Fabio, which is meaningful connectivity. So I think just to tie it back, those are something that resonates. Thanks.

Fabio Senne: Okay, thank you very much. I think it was a very insightful discussion and it’s interesting to see that by your contributions that I started talking about the different layers that sometimes we discuss in the internet governance but then Alison bring the thing of supply and demand so you can think in all the complexity. And of course there are technical issues, there are social demographic issues, we talk about gender, we talk about ethnicity, age. Age is a key topic for elderly versus children, so how to deal with that. Of course the economic barriers and being from the global south is very… relevant to talk about affordability and I think it’s a key discussion for especially when we are trying to connect the most vulnerable part of the population which is now still disconnected, is for instance the debate that we face for instance in the poverty discussion, so should we provide a minimum connectivity or minimal types of device so that people can connect, so this is a discussion that society needs to face. Of course digital literacy was also mentioned, this is key, it’s impossible to talk just about devices and connectivity without this dimension of digital literacy and I would change by finally, I think lots of people mentioned trust and safety, so this is another key issue and especially when it comes to now with AI and datafication of several aspects of our lives, how trust can be built in this environment is another thing that I think is key for us. So I hope this is useful for you in the audience online and here and thank you very much for being here with us today. Thank you. Hey.

Agreement points

Infrastructure alone is insufficient for digital inclusion

Speakers

– Fabio Senne
– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Sabrina Wilkinson

Arguments

Supply side infrastructure is necessary but insufficient; barriers come from intersection of inequalities including territory, gender, ethnicity, and language

Cannot have universal acceptance and trust without meaningful Internet; 30% of global population remains offline

Digital divides are not just about infrastructure gaps but also about affordability, trust, access to devices, and ability to meaningfully connect

Summary

All three speakers agree that while infrastructure is necessary, it is not sufficient to address digital divides. Multiple barriers including affordability, trust, digital literacy, and social inequalities must be addressed comprehensively.

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Human rights

Language barriers are fundamental obstacles to digital inclusion

Speakers

– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Roonjha Qaisar
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil
– Edmon Chong

Arguments

Internet language cannot and should not be only English; need to make it accessible in Zulu, Swahili, Norwegian and other languages

Language is the biggest barrier; AI transformation benefits urban settings and developed countries but marginalized communities are left behind

Universal acceptance can be a tool for protecting, promoting, and revitalizing Indigenous languages, many of which are endangered

Need to move away from English-first approach to developing systems and adopt UA by design approach when deploying infrastructure

Summary

Speakers unanimously agree that English-dominance in digital systems creates significant barriers for non-English speakers and that multilingual support is essential for true digital inclusion.

Topics

Multilingualism | Sociocultural | Human rights

Trust and safety are foundational to meaningful internet access

Speakers

– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Roonjha Qaisar
– Sabrina Wilkinson

Arguments

Internet must be safe and secure, especially for children, with no harassment or exploitation as cornerstone values

Trust is foundation of digital development; internet shutdowns during crises break this trust and tell marginalized communities they don’t matter

CIRA contributes firewall technology to community networks to protect users from phishing, malware, and other threats

Summary

All speakers emphasize that trust and safety are prerequisites for meaningful internet adoption, particularly for vulnerable populations including children and marginalized communities.

Topics

Cybersecurity | Human rights | Development

Government role is essential but must be collaborative

Speakers

– Allison O’Beirne
– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Ellen Taylor

Arguments

Governments are conveners, educators, and enablers who can fund awareness campaigns and invest in training for IT professionals

Regulators can use universal service funds from ISP profits to bridge gaps for underserved areas through competitive providers including community networks

Multi-stakeholder collaboration is needed with governments making universal acceptance a priority while civil society champions these initiatives with the technical community

Summary

Speakers agree that governments have crucial roles in digital inclusion through policy, funding, and facilitation, but must work collaboratively with other stakeholders rather than acting unilaterally.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development | Digital standards

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the concept of ‘meaningful connectivity’ as going beyond basic access to include quality, effective use, and real benefit from digital technologies.

Speakers

– Fabio Senne
– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela

Arguments

Meaningful connectivity requires quality, frequency of use, and conditions that enable users to fully benefit from digital technologies

Cannot have universal acceptance and trust without meaningful Internet; 30% of global population remains offline

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Human rights

Both speakers advocate for community-driven approaches that position local communities as active creators and innovators rather than passive recipients of technology solutions.

Speakers

– Roonjha Qaisar
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil

Arguments

Rural-centric innovation should make villages hubs of digital creativity, not just recipients of technology

Digital navigators and connectivity champions can serve as trusted guides to help multi-generational citizens learn basic internet skills

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Capacity development

Both speakers highlight how marginalized communities face intersecting barriers including geographic isolation, systemic discrimination, and inadequate government policies that compound digital exclusion.

Speakers

– Roonjha Qaisar
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil

Arguments

Digital divide is layered with geography, gender, and governance failures; rural girls without Internet access are locked out of the future

Indigenous communities face structural and regulatory barriers, particularly with spectrum access, and need sustainable funding rather than competitive models

Topics

Human rights | Development | Legal and regulatory

Unexpected consensus

Technical implementation challenges in government systems

Speakers

– Allison O’Beirne
– Edmon Chong

Arguments

Government systems still struggle with basic character support like apostrophes and accents, showing the extent of work needed

Need to move away from English-first approach to developing systems and adopt UA by design approach when deploying infrastructure

Explanation

It’s unexpected that a government representative would openly acknowledge such basic technical failures in government systems, showing remarkable transparency about implementation challenges and aligning with civil society calls for systemic change.

Topics

Infrastructure | Digital standards | Legal and regulatory

Community-based solutions over top-down approaches

Speakers

– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Roonjha Qaisar
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil
– Sabrina Wilkinson

Arguments

Regulators can use universal service funds from ISP profits to bridge gaps for underserved areas through competitive providers including community networks

Rural-centric innovation should make villages hubs of digital creativity, not just recipients of technology

Digital navigators and connectivity champions can serve as trusted guides to help multi-generational citizens learn basic internet skills

Communify project created free community Wi-Fi network serving neighborhoods with highest social inequity, connecting 2,000 unique devices in six months

Explanation

There’s unexpected consensus across speakers from different sectors (government agency, civil society, indigenous rights, private sector) that community-driven, bottom-up solutions are more effective than traditional top-down technology deployment.

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Infrastructure

Overall assessment

Summary

Speakers demonstrated strong consensus on fundamental principles: infrastructure alone is insufficient, language barriers are critical obstacles, trust and safety are foundational, and government collaboration is essential. There was also unexpected agreement on community-driven approaches and acknowledgment of technical implementation challenges.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with significant implications for policy and practice. The agreement suggests a mature understanding of digital inclusion challenges that transcends traditional sectoral boundaries, pointing toward more holistic, community-centered approaches to bridging digital divides. This consensus could facilitate more effective multi-stakeholder collaboration and policy development.

Different viewpoints

Priority focus: Infrastructure vs. Higher-level issues

Speakers

– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Allison O’Beirne

Arguments

Cannot have universal acceptance and trust without meaningful Internet; 30% of global population remains offline

Universal acceptance means all domain names and email addresses should work across every internet-enabled application regardless of language, script, or length

Summary

Andrew emphasizes that basic meaningful internet access must be established first before addressing universal acceptance, while Allison focuses on the technical standards and government role in universal acceptance implementation. Andrew argues ‘there can be no UA and digital rights without a meaningful internet’ while Allison discusses UA as a current priority for government systems.

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Digital standards

Funding approach for underserved communities

Speakers

– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil

Arguments

Regulators can use universal service funds from ISP profits to bridge gaps for underserved areas through competitive providers including community networks

Indigenous communities face structural and regulatory barriers, particularly with spectrum access, and need sustainable funding rather than competitive models

Summary

Andrew advocates for competitive funding models using universal service funds where government procures services from competitive providers, while Phil argues that competitive funding models leave communities behind and Indigenous communities need sustainable, non-competitive funding approaches.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Infrastructure | Human rights

Unexpected differences

Role of competitive vs. sustainable funding models

Speakers

– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil

Arguments

Regulators can use universal service funds from ISP profits to bridge gaps for underserved areas through competitive providers including community networks

Indigenous communities face structural and regulatory barriers, particularly with spectrum access, and need sustainable funding rather than competitive models

Explanation

This disagreement is unexpected because both speakers advocate for underserved communities, but they have fundamentally different views on funding mechanisms. Andrew sees competitive models as effective for reaching underserved areas, while Phil argues these same competitive models systematically exclude Indigenous communities.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The main areas of disagreement center on prioritization (basic access vs. advanced features), funding approaches (competitive vs. sustainable models), and implementation strategies. However, disagreements are relatively minor compared to areas of consensus.

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. Speakers largely agree on fundamental goals of digital inclusion and universal acceptance but differ on sequencing, methods, and specific approaches for different communities. The disagreements reflect different regional contexts and community needs rather than fundamental philosophical differences, suggesting complementary rather than conflicting approaches.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the concept of ‘meaningful connectivity’ as going beyond basic access to include quality, effective use, and real benefit from digital technologies.

Speakers

– Fabio Senne
– Andrew Mwanyota Lewela

Arguments

Meaningful connectivity requires quality, frequency of use, and conditions that enable users to fully benefit from digital technologies

Cannot have universal acceptance and trust without meaningful Internet; 30% of global population remains offline

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Human rights

Both speakers advocate for community-driven approaches that position local communities as active creators and innovators rather than passive recipients of technology solutions.

Speakers

– Roonjha Qaisar
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil

Arguments

Rural-centric innovation should make villages hubs of digital creativity, not just recipients of technology

Digital navigators and connectivity champions can serve as trusted guides to help multi-generational citizens learn basic internet skills

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Capacity development

Both speakers highlight how marginalized communities face intersecting barriers including geographic isolation, systemic discrimination, and inadequate government policies that compound digital exclusion.

Speakers

– Roonjha Qaisar
– Steinhauer-Mozejko Phil

Arguments

Digital divide is layered with geography, gender, and governance failures; rural girls without Internet access are locked out of the future

Indigenous communities face structural and regulatory barriers, particularly with spectrum access, and need sustainable funding rather than competitive models

Topics

Human rights | Development | Legal and regulatory

Key takeaways

Digital divides are multidimensional, requiring solutions beyond just infrastructure to address affordability, digital literacy, language barriers, and trust issues

Meaningful connectivity is more important than basic connectivity – it requires quality, frequency of use, and conditions that enable users to fully benefit from digital technologies

Universal acceptance (UA) is critical for linguistic inclusion online, ensuring all domain names and email addresses work regardless of language, script, or length

Language justice is essential – systems must move away from English-first approaches to truly include marginalized communities

Government systems still struggle with basic character support (apostrophes, accents), indicating significant work remains for full UA implementation

Community-based solutions like digital navigators and local innovation hubs are effective for bridging digital divides

Indigenous communities require recognition as inherent right holders, not just stakeholders, with respect for data sovereignty and cultural traditions

AI presents opportunities to democratize access to information and tools when implemented in local languages and contexts

Trust is fundamental to digital development – internet shutdowns and security threats undermine confidence in digital systems

Multi-stakeholder collaboration with bottom-up approaches is essential for sustainable progress

Resolutions and action items

Government of Canada to explore digital navigator/champion programs based on successful examples shared

CIRA to continue engagement with Universal Acceptance Committee within CCNSO community

Continued international collaboration on establishing UA standards and roadmaps

Scaling of successful pilot projects like Communify to other communities

Integration of UA requirements into government procurement contracts and tenders

Development of frameworks for ISPs to provide special internet packages for persons with disabilities using universal service funds

Unresolved issues

Government of Canada lacks a concrete roadmap for making all government systems universal acceptance ready

How to effectively involve coders and developers in UA implementation efforts

Balancing profit-driven ISP models with universal access goals

Addressing internet shutdowns during political crises that break digital trust

Ensuring AI development doesn’t create new biases while training on user data

Protecting Indigenous data sovereignty while promoting digital inclusion

Scaling successful local initiatives to national and international levels

Addressing the gap between technical UA capabilities and actual user adoption

Suggested compromises

Using universal service funds from ISP profits to subsidize connectivity for underserved areas through competitive providers including community networks

Implementing UA by design approach for new infrastructure deployments rather than retrofitting existing systems

Focusing on supply-side (technical UA standards) and demand-side (accessibility and affordability) solutions simultaneously

Gradual integration of UA requirements in government procurement with roadmap expectations rather than immediate compliance

Supporting both infrastructure development for rural areas and urban digital equity initiatives for different types of digital divides

Combining mother-daughter partnerships in communities where women artisans work with daughters who learn digital skills

There can be no UA or trust without a meaningful Internet. I’ll repeat that. We cannot have trust without a meaningful Internet. We cannot have universal acceptance and trust without a meaningful Internet.

Speaker

Andrew Mwanyota Lewela

Reason

This comment fundamentally reframed the entire discussion by challenging the assumption that technical solutions like Universal Acceptance can be implemented without first addressing basic connectivity issues. It introduced a hierarchy of needs concept to digital inclusion, suggesting that meaningful internet access is a prerequisite for more advanced solutions.

Impact

This statement served as a pivotal moment that grounded the discussion in practical realities. It shifted the conversation from purely technical considerations to a more holistic view that acknowledged infrastructure gaps. Other panelists subsequently built upon this foundation, with the moderator later referencing ‘meaningful connectivity’ as a central theme throughout the session.

Digital access is a right, not a privilege. And when it is denied, especially to these already marginalized, it deepens the divide. It tells young people, rural communities, and women, you don’t matter in the digital age.

Speaker

Roonjha Qaisar

Reason

This comment elevated the discussion from technical and policy considerations to fundamental human rights, introducing a moral imperative to the conversation. It connected digital exclusion to broader social justice issues and highlighted how digital divides reinforce existing inequalities.

Impact

This rights-based framing added emotional weight and urgency to the discussion, moving beyond technical solutions to address systemic inequalities. It influenced subsequent speakers to consider the social justice implications of their work and helped establish that digital inclusion is not just about technology but about human dignity and empowerment.

We need to ensure that there is ongoing sustainable funding for Indigenous projects… And lastly, I will say, is respecting Indigenous data sovereignty. And that’s not just on the mapping model, but that’s in terms of digital data and digital data flows through the cables and the airwaves that kind of constitute the internet.

Speaker

Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko

Reason

This comment introduced the critical concept of Indigenous data sovereignty, expanding the discussion beyond access to include control and governance of data. It challenged conventional approaches to digital inclusion by emphasizing that Indigenous peoples are ‘inherent right holders’ rather than just stakeholders, fundamentally shifting the power dynamic in the conversation.

Impact

This intervention broadened the scope of the discussion to include data governance and sovereignty issues. It influenced other speakers to consider not just who has access to technology, but who controls it and how cultural values are embedded in digital systems. The moderator later emphasized the importance of having statistics and measurements, directly building on Phil’s point about data sovereignty.

I have an apostrophe in my name and the number of government and non-government systems that just absolutely freak out when I have an apostrophe in my name. And then I give thought to my Francophone colleagues who have accents in their name, Indigenous colleagues who have different types of letters in their names.

Speaker

Allison O’Beirne

Reason

This personal anecdote brilliantly illustrated the practical, everyday impact of Universal Acceptance issues in a way that made abstract technical concepts immediately relatable. It demonstrated how seemingly minor technical limitations can exclude people from digital participation.

Impact

This comment served as a powerful bridge between technical discussions and human experience, making the Universal Acceptance concept accessible to the broader audience. It prompted Edmund Chong to later emphasize ‘language justice’ and the need to move away from ‘English-first approaches,’ showing how personal examples can catalyze deeper policy discussions.

It is a matter of language justice to make sure that systems support the different native languages that people speak in order for the access to be meaningful… we need to move away from an English-first approach to developing systems and infrastructure.

Speaker

Edmon Chong

Reason

This comment introduced the powerful concept of ‘language justice’ to the discussion, reframing Universal Acceptance from a technical feature to a social justice issue. It challenged the fundamental assumptions about how digital systems are designed and deployed.

Impact

This intervention crystallized many of the themes discussed throughout the session into a coherent framework of ‘language justice.’ It influenced the final discussions about involving coders and developers, and reinforced the need for bottom-up, inclusive approaches to technology development that other speakers had advocated for.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally transformed what could have been a technical discussion about Universal Acceptance into a comprehensive examination of digital equity, human rights, and social justice. Andrew’s opening challenge about meaningful internet access set the foundation for a more holistic approach, while subsequent speakers built upon this to address issues of rights (Qaisar), sovereignty (Phil), practical exclusion (Allison), and systemic justice (Chong). Together, these interventions created a multi-layered conversation that moved from infrastructure to human dignity, from technical standards to cultural preservation, and from access to empowerment. The discussion evolved from addressing ‘how to implement UA’ to ‘why digital inclusion matters for human flourishing,’ demonstrating how powerful individual insights can elevate and redirect entire policy conversations.

How can governments develop a roadmap to make all government systems universal acceptance ready, including procurement requirements for system integrators?

Speaker

Edmon Chong

Explanation

This addresses the practical implementation challenges governments face in transitioning from English-first approaches to UA-by-design systems, which is critical for meaningful digital inclusion

Is there a possibility of developing a framework that offers special internet package policies for network operators and ISPs to ensure persons with different abilities have access to the internet in the global south?

Speaker

Emmanuel Oroka

Explanation

This explores policy mechanisms to address affordability and accessibility barriers for vulnerable populations, particularly focusing on disability inclusion in developing regions

How can we better involve coders and developers in implementing UA, UTF-8, and linguistic technologies, given that there is not enough effort being carried out to involve these stakeholders?

Speaker

Online participant (unnamed)

Explanation

This addresses the gap between policy intentions and technical implementation, highlighting the need for better engagement with the technical community who actually build these systems

What does meaningful connectivity look like in practice, and how can we measure it effectively across different populations and regions?

Speaker

Fabio Senne

Explanation

This builds on the statistic that while 90% of Brazil’s population has internet access, only 22% have meaningful connectivity, indicating a need for better metrics and understanding of quality access

How can we develop better data and mapping systems to accurately identify served versus unserved areas, particularly for Indigenous and rural communities?

Speaker

Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko

Explanation

This addresses the fundamental challenge that policy decisions cannot be made effectively without accurate data on connectivity gaps, especially for marginalized populations

How can universal acceptance serve as a tool for protecting, promoting, revitalizing, or reclaiming endangered Indigenous languages?

Speaker

Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko

Explanation

This explores the intersection of technical standards with cultural preservation and Indigenous rights, extending UA beyond basic functionality to cultural sustainability

Is there a need for a ‘Hippocratic oath’ for computer scientists and developers to ensure they build tools that reflect the values of diverse communities worldwide?

Speaker

Phil Steinhauer-Mozejko

Explanation

This raises fundamental questions about ethical responsibility in technology development and whether formal commitments are needed to ensure inclusive design practices

How can AI be leveraged to solve language barriers and accelerate digital inclusion, particularly for marginalized communities?

Speaker

Roonjha Qaisar

Explanation

This explores the potential of AI as a tool for bridging digital divides, particularly in making technology accessible in local languages and dialects

How can digital trust be maintained and built when internet shutdowns occur during crises, particularly in developing countries?

Speaker

Roonjha Qaisar

Explanation

This addresses the contradiction between promoting digital inclusion while simultaneously restricting access during political or social crises, which undermines trust in digital systems

What are effective models for scaling community-led digital inclusion initiatives like the Communify project to other cities and regions?

Speaker

Sabrina Wilkinson

Explanation

This seeks to understand how successful local pilots can be replicated and adapted for broader impact in addressing urban digital equity challenges

Summary

Alina Ustinova from the Center for Global IT Cooperation presented a discussion on AI applications in agriculture and food technology, addressing the global paradox where advanced agricultural systems feed billions while over 800 million people still face food insecurity. She explained that AI can help solve this problem by enabling real-time optimization of farming decisions, monitoring soil health, crop conditions, weather patterns, and pest outbreaks with unprecedented accuracy through sensors, drones, and machine learning models. The technology also provides predictive analytics for food security by forecasting crop yields, identifying supply chain risks, and simulating climate stress scenarios, while specialized software can calculate optimal crop sequences based on specific field conditions.

Ustinova emphasized that AI is particularly important for the Global South, where smallholder farmers produce 70% of food in low-income countries, noting that mobile-first tools must work offline and in local languages to ensure accessibility. She shared Russia’s transformation from facing food insecurity in the 1990s to becoming the world’s top wheat exporter, crediting technology adoption for this change. As a practical example, she highlighted the Russian Agriculture Bank’s ecosystem that supports agritech startups through accelerators, university labs, and pitch competitions, creating pathways for young entrepreneurs to innovate locally while expanding internationally to countries like Brazil, Nigeria, and India.

The bank’s Swayo ecosystem represents a comprehensive platform that gamifies farming life, making it more appealing to younger generations while providing practical tools for livestock management and local agricultural news. Ustinova concluded that while AI alone cannot solve food insecurity entirely, it can predict and prevent crises, making farming both sustainable and aspirational for future generations by connecting farmers, researchers, startups, and consumers in a resilient and equitable food system.

Keypoints

**Major Discussion Points:**

– **Global Food Paradox and AI Solutions**: The speaker highlights the contradiction between having advanced agricultural systems that feed billions while 800+ million people still face food insecurity, proposing AI and food technology as potential solutions for real-time optimization of farming decisions.

– **AI Applications in Agriculture**: Discussion of specific AI implementations including soil health monitoring, crop condition assessment, weather pattern analysis, pest outbreak detection through sensors and drones, plus predictive analytics for crop yields and supply chain risk management.

– **Empowering Small-Scale Farmers in Developing Countries**: Focus on how AI can particularly benefit smallholder farmers who produce 70% of food in low-income countries, emphasizing the need for mobile-first, offline-capable tools with local language support and intuitive interfaces.

– **Russian Agricultural Transformation Case Study**: Detailed example of how Russia transformed from food insecurity in the 1990s to becoming the top wheat exporter, highlighting the role of Russian Agriculture Bank’s ecosystem supporting agritech startups through accelerators, educational services, and international expansion.

– **Building Sustainable Innovation Ecosystems**: Recommendations for creating comprehensive support systems including industry-backed venture funding, policy frameworks, cross-border investment funds, and localized innovation hubs tailored to regional conditions and cultures.

**Overall Purpose:**

The discussion aims to explore how AI and technology can address global food insecurity by transforming agricultural practices, with a focus on supporting innovation ecosystems that connect farmers, startups, and technology to create more efficient, sustainable, and accessible farming solutions.

**Overall Tone:**

The tone is optimistic and educational throughout, with the speaker maintaining an encouraging perspective on technology’s potential to solve agricultural challenges. The speaker acknowledges being a substitute presenter but remains confident and informative. The tone becomes particularly enthusiastic when discussing the Russian case study and concludes on a realistic but hopeful note, acknowledging that while AI won’t completely solve food insecurity, it can significantly contribute to building a more resilient and equitable food system.

Speakers

– Alina Ustinova – Representative of the Center for Global IT Cooperation, speaking as a substitute for another speaker who couldn’t attend

Additional speakers:

None identified in the transcript.

# Discussion Report: AI Applications in Agriculture and Food Technology

## Introduction and Context

This discussion was presented by Alina Ustinova, a representative from the Center for Global IT Cooperation, who served as a substitute speaker. As she explained, “I’m just a substitute for the speaker who is supposed to be today” and was “trying to do my best to speak about this topic.” The presentation focused on the potential of artificial intelligence in addressing global food security challenges, with particular emphasis on agricultural applications and innovation ecosystems.

## Central Thesis and Global Food Paradox

Ustinova opened her presentation by highlighting a fundamental contradiction in the current global food system. She observed that “we live in a paradox, and we have like the very developed agricultural system that feeds a billion of people, but at the same time, we have over 800 million people that still face food insecurity and malnutrition on a daily basis.” This paradox serves as the foundation for her argument that AI and food technology can help bridge this gap through optimized real-time decision-making and enhanced crop maintenance capabilities.

## AI Applications in Agricultural Systems

### Monitoring and Predictive Capabilities

Ustinova detailed several specific applications of AI in agricultural settings, emphasizing the accuracy that modern technology can provide. She explained that AI systems enable farmers to monitor soil health, crop conditions, weather patterns, and pest outbreaks through sensors, drones, and machine learning models. These systems can also forecast crop yields, identify potential supply chain risks, and simulate various scenarios under climate stress conditions.

The speaker also mentioned specialized software capable of calculating optimal crop sequences for specific fields using agrochemical data, representing a significant advancement in farming decision-making processes.

## Focus on Global South and Smallholder Farmers

### Critical Role of Small-Scale Agriculture

A significant portion of the discussion focused on the importance of AI tools for farmers in developing countries. Ustinova emphasized that “smallholder farmers produce 70% of all food in low-income countries,” making AI tools crucial for transforming the lives of small farmers in the Global South.

### Accessibility and Design Considerations

The speaker addressed practical challenges in implementing AI solutions for farmers in low-income countries. She stressed that mobile-first tools must be designed to work offline and in local languages, with intuitive interfaces. As she noted, “lots of small farmers in the low-income countries don’t have access to the internet, so that’s why AI tools must also work offline and in local languages, and with intuitive interface.”

## Russian Agricultural Transformation Case Study

### Historical Context and Transformation

Ustinova provided a compelling example by discussing Russia’s agricultural transformation. She explained that Russia, now “top one crop and wheat export,” faced significant food insecurity in the 1990s. During this period, the country had limited crop fields and even received humanitarian aid from Western countries. The transformation from food insecurity to becoming a major food exporter was attributed to technology adoption, as “it changed also because of the technology.”

### Geographic and Seasonal Challenges

The speaker acknowledged Russia’s geographic limitations, noting that “most of the countries on the north and north is not a very agricultural place” and “seasons are shortened in Russia so you can only produce goods for a few months.” Despite these challenges, technology helped overcome many constraints.

### Russian Agriculture Bank Ecosystem

Ustinova detailed the role of the Russian Agriculture Bank in supporting agricultural innovation through a comprehensive ecosystem approach. This system includes agritech accelerators, university laboratories, and pitch competitions that promote startups both domestically and internationally. The bank’s approach extends beyond traditional financing to include mentorship, education, and international market access.

The speaker highlighted the bank’s international expansion, with Russian agricultural solutions now “working in Brazil, Nigeria, and even in India,” demonstrating how successful agricultural innovation can scale beyond national boundaries.

### Swayo Ecosystem and Gamification

As a specific example, Ustinova discussed the Swayo ecosystem, which provides a comprehensive application that gamifies farming life. The platform includes practical tools for livestock management and local agricultural news. She described how “you can put this cow in the app and name it and watch how it develops,” making farming more engaging, particularly for younger generations. The system also helps users choose housing and farms, combining utility with engagement.

## Innovation Ecosystem Development

### Comprehensive Support Systems

Ustinova argued for the development of comprehensive support systems for agricultural innovation, extending beyond simple funding mechanisms. She suggested that industry players, particularly agricultural banks, should provide venture funding and integrate successful startups into their teams rather than merely acquiring them.

### Policy and Youth Engagement

The speaker emphasized the need for supportive policy frameworks, cross-border investment funds, and localized innovation hubs tailored to regional climates and cultures. She stressed that “young agri-entrepreneurs need pathways to innovate locally while having access to global markets and international opportunities.”

## Limitations and Realistic Expectations

### Balanced Assessment of AI Potential

Despite presenting numerous benefits of AI in agriculture, Ustinova provided a balanced assessment of technology’s limitations. She stated that “AI definitely won’t fix food insecurity like at all. It can make our life better but it won’t fix the problem like the whole problem. It can predict and prevent crises and that’s how we can build an action plan.”

### Holistic Approach

The speaker concluded by advocating for a holistic approach to food system transformation. She argued that the goal should be “to create a food system that is resilient, equitable, and smart by connecting farmers, researchers, startups, and consumers.”

## Implications and Recommendations

The discussion suggests several key implications for agricultural development. First, AI tools must be designed with accessibility as a primary consideration, particularly for smallholder farmers in developing countries. Second, successful agricultural innovation requires comprehensive ecosystem support that extends beyond technology to include policy, financing, education, and market access.

The Russian case study demonstrates that substantial agricultural transformation is possible through coordinated technology adoption and supportive institutional frameworks. The emphasis on youth engagement suggests that sustainable agricultural development must address generational challenges and make farming attractive to future practitioners.

## Conclusion

Ustinova’s presentation provided a comprehensive overview of AI applications in agriculture, grounded in practical considerations and real-world examples. The discussion balanced technological possibilities with realistic assessments of limitations and challenges. By combining technical applications with case studies, accessibility considerations, and ecosystem development strategies, the presentation offered a practical perspective on how AI can contribute to addressing global food security challenges while acknowledging that technology alone cannot solve these complex problems.

Alina Ustinova: Hello, everyone. My name is Alina. I represent the Center for Global IT Cooperation, and today I want to discuss a very interesting topic which is called AI in Agrotech and Foodtech. So just to start, I want to say that I am just a substitute for the speaker who is supposed to be today. Unfortunately, they couldn’t make it, so I’m trying to do my best to speak about this topic. So what do we need to discuss? So probably that you all know that we live in a paradox, and we have like the very developed agricultural system that feeds a billion of people, but at the same time, we have over 800 million people that still face food insecurity and malnutrition on a daily basis. And how we can fix this? So probably we can do it with AI and with any other food technology, because it doesn’t just help us to grow more food, it also helps to optimize decisions in real time. It helps to maintain crops and etc. So what actual changes AI makes now in the agro-technology? First, it helps farmers to monitor soil health, crop conditions, weather patterns, and pest outbreaks with unprecedented accuracy. Also sensors and drones collect real-time data, while machine learning models optimize irrigation, pesticide use, and planting schedules. Also, at the same time, we have predictive analytics for food security, and AI models forecast crop yields, identify supply chain risks, and simulate scenarios under climate stress. Also, special software is able to independently calculate optimal crop sequences for each specific field, taking into account agrochemical data such as soil acidity, moisture content, and humus. So why this can help us with anything else, as I said, I will just go on to get practical examples later, just a few theory takes. So as I said, how it transforms the agriculture. Why is it so important? Because it’s not just a tool for the global scale, it’s also one of the tools that could help global South face also to fight with the food insecurity, because smallholder farmers produce 70% of all food in low-income countries, which is important because AI can help really develop and change the small farmers’ lives. Also that mobile-first tools ensure wide access. Of course, you need some mobile apps to make things happen, and most important thing is that lots of small farmers in the low-income countries don’t have access to the internet, so that’s why AI tools must also work offline and in local languages, and with intuitive interface. And what I want to tell. I personally come from Russia, and Russia is nowadays top one crop and wheat export, but it wasn’t always like that. In the 1990s, Russia faced a food insecurity, and people couldn’t believe right now, but we didn’t have much crop fields, and we even had humanitarian aid from many Western countries, but now it changed, and now we’re a big export country, and it changed also because of the technology. And I want to present you an example of Russian Agriculture Bank, which supports lots of local startups and tries to help local farmers to go to the larger market. So what they actually do. They have the system. First of all, it’s ecosystem of agritech startups. They have youth accelerators, university labs, and pitch competitions. Also smart marketplaces, job platforms, and educational services that help promote startups that started in universities or even in schools. It’s just not about funding them. It’s also about promoting them, not on the local basis, not on the country basis, but on the international basis as well. Some of the startups that made it from their systems are now working in Brazil, Nigeria, and even in India, helping other countries’ farmers to establish their own crops, et cetera. So what actually can also is Swayo ecosystem. It’s like the big system that presents everything in one app. It’s like a big app that has everything in it. So if you, for example, live in a countryside, this app can help you choose the house you want to live in, choose the farm you want to live in, if you can say that. It could also help you develop the farmer tools. For example, if you want to have a cow, you can put this cow in the app and name it and watch how it develops. It’s kind of on the game basis made. And also, in other words, so it’s just the app that helps you make your farming life not just easier, but also funnier in a way. What else we can learn from that platform? It also shows you news from the district that you live in and what happens around your district and with the farming tools as well. How they actually make this happen? They support startups from the very beginning. So if a child goes to school and he wants to become a farmer, which is not a very popular job as you know. Not every child wants to become a farmer and live in the countryside and grow cows to support the country with the meat crops and yields. So they just… trying to promote that farming life can be as fun as it can be an easy life for people. So they try to support not just the usual farmer that we expect to see like the maybe we can say an old guy living in the countryside that has few cows but they want young people to go to the to use AI tools for the agri-tech startups. So and that’s why they’re creating pathways for young agri-entrepreneurs to innovate locally. So you can see like in the presentation the path that they can use and their projects that are very inspiring they have investors that put them as I said not only in a local stage but also on the international stage and try to make them work in in the country of the global South. So what else we can do apart from that and what can we learn from that example that we should have a venture student funding not just from some kind of people but also from the people that work in the industry because as an example of Russian agriculture bank we can see that the startups are supported by the bank that is that knows how agriculture works so it should be an industry player first of all. Also some of the solution they take on inside them they take on their side and they try to promote them inside company just not just outside company and the just buy them and forget about people who made it but try to make people who made the startups part of their team which is also important I guess for many young people who want to find themselves in a big industry. And as I said it should connect innovators to business of course and global reach so that people who develop agricultural startups know that they cannot only develop locally but they also can go internationally and this is not the path that is close for them. So what else we can do we can also create policy frameworks, cross-border investment funds and transfer knowledge and also of course localized innovation hubs that is what is most importantly tailored to regional climates, crops and cultures because I talk you about the example of Russia. Russia is a very large country but at the same time it doesn’t have lots of fields that it can be used for agriculture because most of the countries on the north and north is not a very agricultural place but also at the same time the seasons are shortened in Russia so you can only produce goods for a few months not the whole year and in some countries you can produce goods for a whole year that means that had need to have different solutions for them. As I said also so what my main point is that it’s not a point just to feed people they need to be fitted better with the better products with the better production that we can make using AI tools and using agricultural startups with the new generation that can learn actually from many things that of course it’s my generation but I also may be losing something that even younger people can develop and also what I wanted to say in the end that AI definitely won’t fix food insecurity like at all. It can make our life better but it won’t fix the problem like the whole problem. It can predict and prevent crises and that’s how we can build an action plan and we can make farming not just sustainable but also aspirational for young people and for the future generations and we can do that by connecting farmers, researchers, startups and consumers and we can provide the food system to become resilient, equitable and smart. This is all I want to say. Thank you very much.

Agreement points

AI provides comprehensive technological solutions for agricultural monitoring and optimization

Speakers

– Alina Ustinova

Arguments

AI helps farmers monitor soil health, crop conditions, weather patterns, and pest outbreaks with unprecedented accuracy using sensors, drones, and machine learning models

Predictive analytics enable AI models to forecast crop yields, identify supply chain risks, and simulate scenarios under climate stress

Specialized software can independently calculate optimal crop sequences for specific fields using agrochemical data

Summary

There is agreement that AI technology offers multiple practical applications in agriculture, from real-time monitoring to predictive analytics and automated decision-making for crop management

Topics

Development | Economic

Technology can transform agricultural sectors and address food security challenges

Speakers

– Alina Ustinova

Arguments

AI and food technology can help optimize real-time decisions and maintain crops to address food security challenges

Russia transformed from facing food insecurity in the 1990s with humanitarian aid to becoming the top crop and wheat exporter through technology adoption

Summary

There is consensus that technology adoption can dramatically transform agricultural productivity and help address global food security issues

Topics

Development | Economic

Comprehensive support systems are needed for agricultural innovation

Speakers

– Alina Ustinova

Arguments

Russian Agriculture Bank supports local startups through an ecosystem of agritech accelerators, university labs, and pitch competitions that promote startups internationally

Industry players like agricultural banks should provide venture funding and integrate successful startups into their teams rather than just acquiring them

Policy frameworks, cross-border investment funds, and localized innovation hubs tailored to regional climates and cultures are essential for agricultural development

Summary

There is agreement that successful agricultural innovation requires comprehensive support systems including funding, mentorship, policy frameworks, and international collaboration

Topics

Development | Economic | Legal and regulatory

Similar viewpoints

Recognition that despite technological advancement, global food security remains a critical challenge, particularly for smallholder farmers in developing countries who play a crucial role in food production

Speakers

– Alina Ustinova

Arguments

The world faces a paradox where developed agricultural systems feed billions while over 800 million people still face food insecurity and malnutrition

Smallholder farmers produce 70% of all food in low-income countries, making AI tools crucial for developing small farmers’ lives in the Global South

Topics

Development | Human rights

Belief that making agriculture more attractive and accessible to young people through innovative approaches and global opportunities is essential for the future of farming

Speakers

– Alina Ustinova

Arguments

The Swayo ecosystem provides a comprehensive app that gamifies farming life, making it easier and more engaging for farmers

Young agri-entrepreneurs need pathways to innovate locally while having access to global markets and international opportunities

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Economic

Unexpected consensus

Realistic limitations of AI in solving food security

Speakers

– Alina Ustinova

Arguments

AI alone will not completely fix food insecurity but can predict and prevent crises while making farming sustainable and aspirational for young people

Explanation

Despite presenting numerous benefits of AI in agriculture throughout the presentation, there is an unexpected acknowledgment that AI is not a complete solution to food insecurity, showing a balanced and realistic perspective on technology’s limitations

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Holistic approach to food system transformation

Speakers

– Alina Ustinova

Arguments

The goal is to create a food system that is resilient, equitable, and smart by connecting farmers, researchers, startups, and consumers

Explanation

The consensus emphasizes that technological solutions must be part of a broader collaborative ecosystem involving multiple stakeholders, rather than focusing solely on technological advancement

Topics

Development | Economic

Overall assessment

Summary

Since this transcript features only one speaker (Alina Ustinova), the analysis reveals internal consistency in her arguments rather than consensus among multiple speakers. The main areas of agreement within her presentation include: the transformative potential of AI in agriculture, the need for comprehensive support systems for innovation, the importance of addressing global food security challenges, and the necessity of making agriculture attractive to young people.

Consensus level

The presentation demonstrates high internal coherence with a balanced perspective that acknowledges both the potential and limitations of AI in agriculture. The implications suggest that successful agricultural transformation requires a multi-faceted approach combining technology, policy support, international collaboration, and stakeholder engagement rather than relying solely on technological solutions.

Different viewpoints

Unexpected differences

Overall assessment

Summary

No disagreements identified as this transcript contains only one speaker (Alina Ustinova) presenting her perspective on AI in agriculture and food technology without any counterarguments or opposing viewpoints from other participants.

Disagreement level

No disagreement present – this appears to be a monologue or presentation rather than a debate or discussion with multiple viewpoints. The speaker presents a cohesive narrative about AI’s role in agriculture, using Russia’s transformation as a case study, without any challenges or alternative perspectives being offered.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Recognition that despite technological advancement, global food security remains a critical challenge, particularly for smallholder farmers in developing countries who play a crucial role in food production

Speakers

– Alina Ustinova

Arguments

The world faces a paradox where developed agricultural systems feed billions while over 800 million people still face food insecurity and malnutrition

Smallholder farmers produce 70% of all food in low-income countries, making AI tools crucial for developing small farmers’ lives in the Global South

Topics

Development | Human rights

Belief that making agriculture more attractive and accessible to young people through innovative approaches and global opportunities is essential for the future of farming

Speakers

– Alina Ustinova

Arguments

The Swayo ecosystem provides a comprehensive app that gamifies farming life, making it easier and more engaging for farmers

Young agri-entrepreneurs need pathways to innovate locally while having access to global markets and international opportunities

Topics

Development | Sociocultural | Economic

Key takeaways

AI in agriculture offers unprecedented accuracy in monitoring soil health, crop conditions, weather patterns, and pest outbreaks through sensors, drones, and machine learning models

The global food paradox exists where developed agricultural systems feed billions while over 800 million people still face food insecurity

Smallholder farmers in low-income countries produce 70% of all food, making AI tools crucial for Global South development

Russia’s transformation from food insecurity in the 1990s to becoming the top wheat exporter demonstrates technology’s potential impact on agricultural development

Mobile-first AI tools must work offline, in local languages, and with intuitive interfaces to ensure accessibility for farmers in low-income countries

Industry-backed venture funding and startup ecosystems are essential for agricultural innovation, as demonstrated by Russian Agriculture Bank’s model

Agricultural innovation requires localized solutions tailored to regional climates, crops, and cultures rather than one-size-fits-all approaches

AI alone will not completely solve food insecurity but can predict and prevent crises while making farming more sustainable and attractive to young people

The ultimate goal is creating a resilient, equitable, and smart food system by connecting farmers, researchers, startups, and consumers

Resolutions and action items

Create policy frameworks and cross-border investment funds to support agricultural innovation

Establish localized innovation hubs tailored to regional climates, crops, and cultures

Develop pathways for young agri-entrepreneurs to innovate locally while accessing global markets

Ensure AI tools work offline and in local languages with intuitive interfaces for widespread accessibility

Connect innovators to business opportunities with global reach potential

Build ecosystems that support startups from education level through international expansion

Unresolved issues

How to overcome internet access limitations for farmers in low-income countries who need AI tools

Specific implementation strategies for making farming aspirational to younger generations beyond gamification

Detailed mechanisms for knowledge transfer between developed and developing agricultural regions

How to balance local innovation needs with global scalability requirements

Addressing the shortened growing seasons and geographic limitations in countries like Russia when expanding solutions globally

Specific metrics for measuring success in reducing food insecurity through AI implementation

Suggested compromises

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We live in a paradox, and we have like the very developed agricultural system that feeds a billion of people, but at the same time, we have over 800 million people that still face food insecurity and malnutrition on a daily basis.

Speaker

Alina Ustinova

Reason

This opening statement effectively frames the entire discussion by highlighting the fundamental contradiction in our global food system. It’s insightful because it moves beyond simple technological solutions to acknowledge the complex reality that abundance and scarcity coexist, suggesting that the problem isn’t just about production capacity but distribution and access.

Impact

This paradox sets the foundational tension for the entire presentation, establishing that AI in agriculture isn’t just about efficiency gains but about addressing systemic inequalities. It shifts the conversation from purely technical to socio-economic considerations.

Smallholder farmers produce 70% of all food in low-income countries, which is important because AI can help really develop and change the small farmers’ lives. Also that mobile-first tools ensure wide access… lots of small farmers in the low-income countries don’t have access to the internet, so that’s why AI tools must also work offline and in local languages, and with intuitive interface.

Speaker

Alina Ustinova

Reason

This comment is particularly thought-provoking because it challenges the typical tech-centric approach to AI solutions. It recognizes the practical constraints faced by the very people who could benefit most from these technologies, emphasizing the need for inclusive design rather than assuming universal connectivity and digital literacy.

Impact

This observation fundamentally shifts the discussion from high-tech solutions to appropriate technology design. It introduces the critical consideration that AI tools must be adapted to real-world constraints rather than ideal conditions, making the conversation more grounded and practical.

I personally come from Russia, and Russia is nowadays top one crop and wheat export, but it wasn’t always like that. In the 1990s, Russia faced a food insecurity, and people couldn’t believe right now, but we didn’t have much crop fields, and we even had humanitarian aid from many Western countries, but now it changed, and now we’re a big export country, and it changed also because of the technology.

Speaker

Alina Ustinova

Reason

This personal and historical perspective is insightful because it provides concrete evidence that dramatic agricultural transformation is possible within a relatively short timeframe. It challenges assumptions about fixed agricultural capabilities and demonstrates that countries can transition from food insecurity to food exporters through technological adoption.

Impact

This real-world example transforms the discussion from theoretical possibilities to proven outcomes. It provides hope and a roadmap for other countries facing food insecurity, while also introducing the Russian agricultural model as a case study worth examining.

They try to support not just the usual farmer that we expect to see like the maybe we can say an old guy living in the countryside that has few cows but they want young people to go to the to use AI tools for the agri-tech startups… trying to promote that farming life can be as fun as it can be an easy life for people.

Speaker

Alina Ustinova

Reason

This comment is thought-provoking because it addresses a critical but often overlooked aspect of agricultural development: the generational challenge. It recognizes that sustainable agricultural transformation requires making farming attractive to young people, not just more efficient for existing farmers.

Impact

This shifts the conversation from purely technical solutions to cultural and social transformation. It introduces the concept that agricultural technology must also address the perception and attractiveness of farming as a career, adding a human resources dimension to the discussion.

AI definitely won’t fix food insecurity like at all. It can make our life better but it won’t fix the problem like the whole problem. It can predict and prevent crises and that’s how we can build an action plan.

Speaker

Alina Ustinova

Reason

This concluding statement is remarkably insightful because it provides a realistic assessment of AI’s limitations while still advocating for its use. It demonstrates intellectual honesty by acknowledging that technology alone cannot solve complex socio-economic problems, while still arguing for its strategic value.

Impact

This comment provides a balanced conclusion that tempers technological optimism with realism. It reframes AI as a tool for crisis management and planning rather than a panacea, which gives the entire discussion more credibility and practical grounding.

Overall assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by creating a comprehensive framework that moves beyond simple technological evangelism to address real-world complexities. Alina’s presentation evolved from identifying systemic paradoxes to providing concrete examples of transformation, while consistently acknowledging practical constraints and limitations. The discussion maintains a balance between optimism about AI’s potential and realism about its limitations, making it more credible and actionable. The personal and historical examples ground the theoretical concepts, while the focus on inclusive design and generational change adds depth to what could have been a purely technical presentation. Overall, these comments create a nuanced narrative that positions AI as a valuable but not sufficient tool for addressing global food security challenges.

How can AI tools be made to work offline and in local languages for farmers in low-income countries who don’t have internet access?

Speaker

Alina Ustinova

Explanation

This is crucial for ensuring AI agricultural tools can reach smallholder farmers in the Global South who produce 70% of food in low-income countries but lack reliable internet connectivity

How can different AI agricultural solutions be tailored to regional climates, crops, and cultures?

Speaker

Alina Ustinova

Explanation

Different regions have vastly different agricultural conditions – some can produce year-round while others have shortened seasons, requiring customized solutions rather than one-size-fits-all approaches

What specific mechanisms can make farming aspirational for young people beyond gamification?

Speaker

Alina Ustinova

Explanation

Since farming is not a popular career choice among youth, understanding how to make it more attractive through technology and innovation pathways is essential for future food security

How can cross-border investment funds and knowledge transfer be effectively structured for agricultural innovation?

Speaker

Alina Ustinova

Explanation

This is important for scaling successful agricultural innovations from developed countries to regions facing food insecurity, but the specific mechanisms need further exploration

What are the limitations of AI in addressing food insecurity and what complementary approaches are needed?

Speaker

Alina Ustinova

Explanation

The speaker acknowledged that AI won’t fix food insecurity entirely, indicating a need to research what other interventions are required alongside technological solutions