Policy Network on Meaningful Access: Meaningful access to include and connect | IGF 2023

Martin Schaaper

Data and statistics are crucial for meaningful access to the internet and the development of policies in this area. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), in partnership with the UN Office of the Tech Envoy, has set targets for universal and meaningful connectivity by 2030. These targets focus on people using the internet, the quality of internet connection, the cost of internet packages, and the necessary skills required. The aim is to provide internet access to all individuals, businesses, schools, and communities in a meaningful way. The ITU has introduced the Universal and Meaningful Connectivity (UMC) dashboard to monitor progress towards these targets.

However, there are data gaps when it comes to understanding data center usage and mobile connectivity in Africa. There is ongoing discussion and development of indicators for middle-bar connectivity. Currently, indicators exist for bandwidth, but not for how data is channeled into data centers or how it reaches the end user. Developing solid indicators in these areas is necessary to gain a comprehensive understanding of data center usage and mobile connectivity in Africa.

Surveys are the best source of data on internet users and their behavior. However, they tend to be expensive and are mostly limited to high-income countries. Policymakers are encouraged to fund statistical offices to conduct surveys, especially in low-income countries, in order to bridge the data gap and gain insights into internet access and connectivity.

A coalition is working with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) to enhance internet access for women and promote gender equality. The coalition engages in various initiatives and brings technical knowledge and expertise to address the needs of women in accessing the internet. They are conducting an assessment to understand the barriers women face and develop strategies to overcome them.

Internet access, particularly domain names in local scripts, can benefit African universities. Efforts are being made to understand their specific needs and provide support, leveraging technical expertise to enhance connectivity and communication.

It is important to note that ICANN does not address the issue of domain name invisibility due to mobile phone apps. Their focus lies elsewhere in internet access and infrastructure.

In conclusion, reliable data and effective coordination are essential for addressing data gaps and achieving universal and meaningful internet connectivity. Upholding ITU’s targets and collaborating with various stakeholders can bridge the digital divide and ensure inclusive access to the internet. Policymakers, statistical offices, and the private sector play a vital role in collecting accurate data, conducting surveys, and funding initiatives. By leveraging data and statistics effectively, societies can unlock the internet’s potential and promote inclusive development.

Audience

Libraries play a crucial role in providing digital access to communities by offering a range of digital services and knowledge. They serve as multipurpose infrastructure and are essential for community development. The importance of libraries in this context is supported by various initiatives and projects. For example, the Digital Skills at Your Local Library project in Uganda equipped libraries with digital facilities and trained librarians to disseminate digital skills. This project promotes digital inclusion and addresses the digital divide.

In addition to providing digital access, libraries are also unique aggregators of ICT resources in a community. The Gigabit Libraries Network initiative aims to expand internet inclusion using emerging telecom technology. It includes providing low-cost internet connectivity to places suffering from disastrous weather, reducing inequalities in internet access. The initiative has introduced low-earth orbit satellite connectivity kits in Nigeria, further expanding internet access.

Libraries can also serve as community hubs for disaster resilience and climate change mitigation. Bill McKibben, a climate activist, supports the idea of libraries being used as community access hubs for resilience. By making libraries resilient against outages and equipping them with resources to support communities during disasters, they can play a vital role in mitigating the effects of climate change.

The policy of access rights is crucial for improving library services and ensuring equitable access to information. This policy ensures that everyone has the right to access information and knowledge, which is essential for personal and community development. Advocating for the UN’s policy framework can be effective in promoting these access rights and enhancing library services.

However, challenges remain in ensuring meaningful internet access in certain regions. For example, in Uganda, unstable broadband infrastructure, high data costs, and the lack of relevant local audiovisual content hinder internet accessibility. The prevalence of unstable broadband infrastructure leads to issues such as unexplained bandwidth throttling, disrupting signal reliability. The high cost of data prevents people from enjoying more internet content, and the lack of relevant local audiovisual content limits the availability of culturally significant material.

Enabling a conducive economic climate is crucial for promoting the audiovisual industry and fostering meaningful internet access. Local production companies, such as Savannah Moon in Uganda, are championing the creation and consumption of local content. By focusing on producing films that reflect everyday experiences of local people, including those faced by women and the neurodiverse, these companies contribute to a more inclusive and representative digital landscape.

Concerns also exist regarding internet accessibility and data storage in Africa. There is a growing belief that data collected in Africa should be stored within the continent, taking into account factors such as data sovereignty and access. Moreover, internet accessibility in Africa is hindered by challenges such as bandwidth costs and concerns about data collected in Africa being stored outside the region. These issues highlight the need for improved internet infrastructure and data management practices within Africa.

Language diversity is another barrier to internet accessibility. Communities with diverse languages face challenges in accessing online content available primarily in dominant languages. Addressing this barrier requires efforts to provide internet access in diverse languages, ensuring inclusivity for all.

Additionally, there is a need for voice and audiovisual content to cater to the needs of older populations. As internet usage becomes more prevalent, it is important to consider how technology can be more accessible to older adults through voice command technology and audiovisual content.

Technology and internet outreach for low-literate people are vital as well. In India, for instance, there are approximately a billion low-literate individuals who could benefit from technology and internet outreach programs. Ensuring inclusivity for all language levels is crucial in bridging the digital divide.

The internet should also strive to be more inclusive for non-text people. Efforts should be made to ensure that individuals who rely on non-text alternatives, such as audio and visual interfaces, can fully access and engage with online content.

Moreover, the internet should continue to evolve in terms of standards and technology. This evolution should aim to address issues such as internet connectivity gaps and the need for more user-friendly interfaces. Speakers also advocate for a decentralized web, where the internet becomes more peer-to-peer and less reliant on centralized control.

Overall, addressing the digital divide and ensuring meaningful internet access and use require a multi-stakeholder approach and collaboration at both local and global levels. Various organizations, including ITU and ICANN, are working towards identifying gaps and finding solutions. Partnerships and innovative financing approaches are also crucial for building networks, including country-code top-level domains (CCTLDs) and data centres.

Laurent Ferrali

The Coalition for Digital Africa plays a crucial role in supporting African country code top-level domain (CCTLD) registries by providing them with technical capacity-building support. This coalition was launched during the last Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Addis Ababa, in collaboration with the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and other partners.

By offering technical capacity-building support, the coalition aims to enhance the overall infrastructure in Africa. However, it recognizes that improving infrastructure requires a more holistic approach, going beyond technical expertise and capacity building alone. The coalition acknowledges that African countries need diverse support to ensure sustainable and effective infrastructure improvement.

One important focus for the coalition is the issue of Universal Acceptance of International Domain Names. It is working to ensure that people have access to international domain names, eliminating any barriers that may exist. By addressing this issue, the coalition promotes inclusivity and ensures individuals in African countries can access and benefit from the global digital space.

Furthermore, the coalition is dedicated to enhancing the quality of service and cybersecurity of CCTLDs in Africa. As part of their efforts, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is deploying managed server facilities in Africa. This initiative aims to provide reliable and secure infrastructure for CCTLDs, ultimately strengthening their operations and protecting them from cyber threats.

In summary, the Coalition for Digital Africa diligently supports African CCTLD registries. By providing technical capacity-building support, adopting a holistic approach to infrastructure improvement, addressing the issue of Universal Acceptance, and focusing on quality of service and cybersecurity, the coalition contributes significantly to Africa’s digital landscape. Through their efforts, they facilitate an enabling environment that allows African countries to unlock the full potential of the digital economy and achieve sustainable development.

Onica Nonhlanhla Makwakwa

The analysis emphasises the importance of meaningful internet access, which encompasses various factors such as adequate speed, daily internet access, possession of a smartphone, and unlimited data. This comprehensive definition of meaningful connectivity is crucial in ensuring that individuals are truly connected and able to fully utilise the internet for various purposes, such as job hunting, education, and accessing health information. However, it is noted that current definitions of access need to be re-evaluated and recalibrated in order to truly capture the concept of meaningful connectivity.

One major obstacle in achieving meaningful internet access is the affordability of devices, particularly in low and middle-income countries. The cost of entry-level smartphones, for example, can amount to 20-25% of the average household income, rendering them unaffordable for many individuals. This issue of device affordability underscores the need for addressing the digital divide and reducing inequalities in access to technology.

To enhance connectivity and address existing market inequalities, there is a call to adopt different digital technologies and financial models. The current economic system is believed to be extractive, and there is a growing discussion about the region’s capability to retain its own data. It is argued that alternative approaches and models should be explored and adopted to foster better connectivity and correct existing market disparities.

Africa’s role in digital transformation is also highlighted. Due to its significant contribution to the supply chain of smartphone manufacturing, Africa should aim to participate in the digital transformation equally and actively. However, the high costs incurred by Africa, which spends up to 40% of its budget on obtaining the cheapest available smartphone, further underlines the importance of Africa playing a more prominent role in digital transformation.

Furthermore, it is deemed essential for Africa to focus on nurturing innovators rather than solely being consumers of digital content. This shift in focus will enable Africa to leverage the digital transformation and foster economic growth and development.

Addressing the digital gender gap is another crucial aspect raised in the analysis. It is noted that excluding women from the digital economy has significant economic implications. Therefore, efforts should be made to bridge this gap by promoting gender equality and ensuring equal access and opportunities for women in the digital realm. The importance of addressing this digital gender gap is further reinforced by the need for qualitative research and ethnographic studies to understand the impact and experiences of women in the digital economy.

In conclusion, the analysis highlights the need for meaningful internet access, addresses the challenges of device affordability, suggests adopting different digital technologies and financial models, emphasises Africa’s role in digital transformation, advocates for building innovators rather than just content consumers, and underscores the significance of addressing the digital gender gap. These findings offer valuable insights into the current state of digital connectivity and provide recommendations for creating a more inclusive and equitable digital landscape.

Keisuke Kamimura

The initial barrier to internet access in Japan was the inability of computers and applications to process Japanese characters effectively. This resulted in issues such as broken email messages during transmission and Japanese web pages being rendered as gibberish. These technical limitations posed a significant challenge for Japanese internet users as they were unable to access and communicate information in their native language.

However, before internet access became widely available to the public, the technical issues related to the Japanese language on the internet were successfully resolved. Various commercial and non-commercial entities developed computers and applications capable of processing Japanese characters effectively. Moreover, Japanese language support was effectively incorporated into internet applications, ensuring that the wider population gaining internet access could do so without facing language-related hindrances.

On the other hand, the usage of internationalised domain names (IDN) in Japanese characters did not gain widespread acceptance within Japan. Major local websites chose not to identify themselves with IDNs and only used them for protective or defensive purposes. This indicates that while there may be some recognition of the value of using IDNs, the practical inconvenience associated with their usage prevails.

Several reasons were cited for the inconvenience of using IDNs in Japanese characters. These include the need to switch between different scripts (Japanese characters, the Latin alphabet, and other symbols) while using the internet, which is often seen as tedious and inconvenient. Additionally, there is a higher level of comfort in using Japanese characters for search strings rather than for URLs or identifiers.

The lower adoption rates of IDNs in Japan further highlight the local population’s reluctance to fully embrace this technology. The convenience of identifying URLs in the Latin alphabet within Japanese articles, coupled with the cumbersome nature of using IDNs, contributes to this lower adoption.

In conclusion, while the initial technical issues related to the Japanese language on the internet have been resolved, the usage of internationalised domain names in Japanese characters faces challenges in gaining acceptance within Japan. The convenience and familiarity of the Latin alphabet for identifying URLs, combined with the inconvenience of switching between different scripts, likely contribute to this reluctance.

Roberto Zambrana

The analysis highlights the importance of ensuring persistence and quality in universal connectivity, particularly in the context of digital inclusion and remote communities. It points out that many digital inclusion programs fail to ensure continuous connectivity, suggesting that merely connecting schools and remote communities to the internet is not sufficient; they must also maintain a connection. This argument is supported by the observation that connected schools and remote communities need reliable and uninterrupted access to the internet to fully benefit from the opportunities offered by digital inclusion.

Furthermore, the analysis emphasizes the need to increase production of local audio and video content, as it plays a critical role in enhancing meaningful connectivity. By creating content that is relevant and relatable to local languages and cultural perspectives, it becomes possible to bridge the digital divide and foster inclusive communication. In particular, the case of Papua New Guinea is highlighted as a country that recognises the importance of this intervention and is taking note of it. By focussing on producing content in over 800 languages and cultures, Papua New Guinea aims to improve connectivity and ensure that even marginalised communities can participate in the digital world.

Overall, the analysis underscores the significance of continuous and quality connectivity in digital inclusion and remote communities. It emphasises the need for digital inclusion programmes to prioritise the sustainability of connectivity, ensuring that schools and remote communities not only gain access to the internet but also maintain it. Additionally, the analysis highlights the value of increasing local audio and video content production to strengthen meaningful connectivity, especially in culturally diverse contexts. By implementing these strategies, it is anticipated that digital inclusion efforts can be more effective in promoting equitable access to resources and empowering communities worldwide.

Vint Cerf

The analysis highlights the crucial role of economics in ensuring the accessibility of systems. It argues that affordable systems are important for internet accessibility and suggests subsidising individuals with inadequate income as a potential solution to make systems more affordable. By providing subsidies, accessibility to the internet and its associated benefits can be extended, addressing issues of inequality and reducing barriers to access.

Additionally, the analysis underscores the significance of understanding causality in the context of artificial intelligence (AI). It asserts that meaningful access to AI requires a deep comprehension of how machine learning models operate. Without a causal model, one is left with only correlation and probability, which are distinct from causality. Therefore, understanding the cause-and-effect relationships within AI systems is essential for drawing accurate conclusions and making informed decisions.

The study strongly supports the idea of driving costs out of accessible systems, including making them less expensive and providing subsidies. It emphasizes the importance of affordability in promoting accessibility and advocates for various approaches to achieve this. These actions are believed to contribute to reducing inequalities and eradicating poverty.

Furthermore, the analysis references Judah Pearl’s work on causality, highlighting the significance of understanding causality when using machine learning outputs for drawing conclusions. This reference amplifies the importance of incorporating causality into AI understanding and decision-making processes.

Overall, the analysis provides valuable insights into the role of economics in ensuring the accessibility of systems. By addressing affordability and understanding causality in AI, it suggests ways to enhance inclusivity and ensure that individuals, regardless of income, have access to technology and its benefits.

Steven Matainaho

Papua New Guinea is currently undergoing a significant digital transformation, shifting from a traditional connectivity model to a service-driven approach. This transition aims to improve the delivery of government services and enhance the overall experience for citizens. The government introduced the Digital Government Act in 2022, followed by plans for a Digital Government Plan from 2023 to 2027, with the goal of providing fast, simple, and clear digital services to the people. The focus is on making services more convenient and effective for citizens, and the government aims to lead in delivering these services.

An analysis of internet usage in Papua New Guinea over a ten-year period revealed that the most visited websites were related to banking, sports, and social media. This insight led the government to understand the need for valuable online services that enhance productivity and quality of life. By offering a range of online services, the government aims to further improve the lives of citizens and meet their evolving needs.

Steven Matainaho, an advocate for digital transformation, emphasises the importance of prioritising the delivery of valuable online services. This aligns with the government’s commitment to putting citizens first and ensuring accessible and efficient services. The government plans to introduce a variety of digital services, starting in 2023, to fulfill this commitment.

Papua New Guinea has experienced significant growth in connectivity, with a high mobile network coverage that reaches around 76% of the population. The country has skipped the fixed-line era and instead adopted a mobile network infrastructure that includes 2G, 3G, and 4G technologies. This approach has resulted in faster and more widespread connectivity across the country.

The affordability of devices is crucial for telecommunications development in Papua New Guinea. Data from operators indicates that the cheapest affordable smartphone is priced at around $60 USD. This affordable price point has led to a notable increase in purchasing power among the population. Ensuring affordability is essential in enabling more people to access and benefit from digital services.

To further decrease the cost of devices, the government plans to introduce tax reduction incentives for importing devices from 2023 to 2025. This initiative aims to make devices more affordable and accessible to a wider population. By reducing inequalities in access to technology, Papua New Guinea aims to bridge the digital divide and promote inclusivity in the digital era.

In conclusion, Papua New Guinea is undergoing a digital transformation, transitioning from a traditional connectivity model to a service-driven approach. The government’s introduction of the Digital Government Act and plans for a Digital Government Plan underscore their commitment to providing efficient and valuable digital services to citizens. This transformation takes into account the country’s internet usage patterns, focusing on online banking, sports, and social media. Steven Matainaho advocates for prioritising the delivery of these valuable online services, aligned with the government’s citizen-centric approach. Additionally, the country’s high mobile network coverage and the affordability of devices play significant roles in facilitating telecommunications development. The government’s plans to introduce tax reduction incentives aim to further decrease device costs and bridge the digital divide within the population. Papua New Guinea’s digital transformation reflects its commitment to leveraging technology to improve citizens’ lives and foster inclusive growth.

Maria de Brasdefer

Libraries serve as vital gateways to meaningful information and must adapt to technological advancements in order to effectively meet the needs of their local communities. They have evolved from traditional spaces focused solely on books and archives to dynamic spaces that cater to the diverse needs of their users. By embracing technology, libraries can bridge the digital divide and provide essential access to information for those who need it most.

An example of this is seen in Uganda, where a project was implemented to enhance the infrastructure of public and community libraries across the country. The project aimed to equip these libraries with computers, internet connectivity, and other necessary facilities. In addition, a training of trainers strategy was employed, enabling local librarians to tailor educational programs to the specific needs of their communities. Trained librarians also conducted outreach campaigns, with a particular focus on supporting individuals interested in improving their businesses and accessing educational opportunities. As a result, approximately 14,000 individuals in Uganda benefitted from this project, with many starting small and medium enterprises and gaining access to higher education opportunities in other locations.

Accurate data disaggregation is crucial, not just in terms of sex but also concerning gender and other minority groups. Currently, there is insufficient data available on these populations. By collecting and analyzing disaggregated data, we can gain a better understanding of the unique challenges faced by different groups and create targeted solutions to address inequality and promote inclusivity.

In order to assess the extent of internet connectivity and meaningful access to information within libraries, comprehensive data and indicators are needed. Understanding the current status of library connectivity and access will enable policymakers and stakeholders to develop strategies and allocate resources more effectively.

Despite their significance, libraries often remain overlooked at a higher policy level. It is essential to recognize the role that libraries play in society and allocate adequate resources to support their development. This is particularly crucial within the context of development communities in the Americas, where access to libraries should be prioritized.

Digital inclusion and capacity building initiatives at the local level require skilled staff. Training programs are necessary to equip library staff with the knowledge and skills needed to facilitate digital inclusion and promote capacity building within their communities.

In conclusion, libraries are indispensable in providing meaningful access to information and must adapt to technological advancements to meet the evolving needs of their local communities. The case of Uganda highlights the positive impact that well-equipped libraries and trained librarians can have on education and small business development. Disaggregated data is necessary to address inequalities faced by different groups, while better data and indicators are required to assess library connectivity and access to information. Libraries deserve recognition and support at a higher policy level, and staff skilling is critical for the success of digital inclusion and capacity building initiatives.

Paolo Lanteri

The World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) actively promotes and ensures meaningful access to relevant content. WIPO leads various initiatives, including the Accessible Books Consortium (ABC), which aims to increase the availability of books in accessible formats for distribution worldwide. This initiative plays a significant role in supporting SDG 4, which focuses on quality education.

WIPO collaborates with Wikimedia to enhance accessibility and open access. They facilitate the exchange of good practices among International Governmental Organisations (IGOs) and release their content on the global platform, making it more widely accessible.

WIPO is engaged in digitalisation projects related to traditional knowledge and cultural expressions. They support practical initiatives such as digitisation projects, fellowships, and hackathons, contributing to the preservation and dissemination of global heritage.

Furthermore, WIPO supports the creative industries through its development agenda. They are relaunching the audiovisual market of Latin American production and have launched specific tools for small publishers in least developed countries (LDCs) and training programs for animation professionals in developing countries. This support helps nurture creativity, innovation, and economic growth in the creative industries.

In summary, WIPO’s contributions to meaningful access to content are significant. Through initiatives like the ABC, collaborations with Wikimedia, and engagement in digitalisation projects, WIPO promotes accessibility, inclusivity, and sustainability in the creation and distribution of content. Additionally, their support for the creative industries through the development agenda further demonstrates their commitment to fostering a vibrant cultural landscape.

Giacomo Mazzone

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) discussed the concept of meaningful access, which has been defined in various ways over the years. The topic of access, including issues like affordability, artificial intelligence (AI), and accessibility, was addressed in several sessions and workshops at the IGF. Vint Cerf, a member of the Panel for a New Multilingualism in the Americas (PNMA), highlighted the importance of these topics in a video message, emphasizing the affordability of devices and the impact of AI on meaningful accessibility.

Giacomo Mazzone, the co-chair of the PNMA, recognized the complexity and significance of the topic, stressing the need for diverse perspectives on the issue of access and meaningful access. Moreover, Mazzone expressed an interest in understanding how island states handle technical solutions for infrastructure, particularly in relation to the potential use of satellites.

The inclusion of rights of access in the United Nations’ policy framework is deemed vital for addressing climate adaptation. In fact, the UN has made substantial commitments, pledging billions of dollars to address climate adaptation, including connectivity.

Statistics and data analysis are important tools for making appropriate policies, and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) is actively working on indicators for meaningful access. Mazzone acknowledges the need to develop robust indicators for how data is channeled into data centres and the “last mile” in the coming years.

Increasing production of local audio and video content is seen as crucial for achieving meaningful connectivity. This is particularly important in places like Papua New Guinea, which has over 800 languages and cultures. Local content can play a significant role in promoting cultural diversity and fostering connectivity.

The meeting also highlighted the importance of collaboration and participation. Giacomo Mazzone expressed appreciation for everyone’s contribution. Special thanks were extended to participants, speakers, organisers, and volunteers, including individuals like Roberto and Daphne, who devoted their efforts to the event.

In conclusion, the discussions at the IGF emphasised the multifaceted nature of the issue of access and meaningful access. Various topics such as affordability, AI, accessibility, data connectivity, infrastructure, and local content production were addressed in relation to meaningful access. The importance of diverse perspectives, solid indicators, UN policy framework, and collaboration was underscored as crucial elements for achieving meaningful connectivity.

Giacomo Mazzone:
If you can take your seat, we are just starting the next session. I’m Giacomo Mazzone, I’m the co-chair of the PNMA, that means Policy Network for Meaningful Access, with Nima Lugangira, that unfortunately she cannot be with us because of the concomitant engagement in Morocco, so she cannot be at two places at the same time yet. Thank you for being with us. The topic, as you can imagine, is complex and we will have multiple voices to go through it. Just to resume in a few words what we’ll be about. The concept of meaningful access has been defined in various ways, let’s say during the years, but we have some consolidated, the last speaker arrives, we have a consolidated literature about that and I’ve seen with pleasure that has been treated in many other workshops and discussions across all the IGF, so what we will try to do is to try to bring into the discussion of this afternoon the richness of the debate that has been going around at the IGF and of course across the globe. This is why we have a distinguished list of panelists with us that will try to represent the richness of the debate. I start from the extreme right, not politically meaningful, that is Roberto Zambrana with us, that is the remote moderation, and I thank him for having accepted to be with us. Then after him there is our friend Keisuke Kamimura, I hope I’m not pronouncing too bad, it’s okay, good, from the Daito Bunko University representing the Japanese IGF. Then we have Paolo Lanteri from WIPO. Then from the ITU we have Martin Schaper that is in charge of the statistics and he will explain to us how important are the statistics for the debate. Then we have Onika Nonlala Makwawa, but you will say better than me later, from Global Digital Inclusion Partnership. We have Maria Bradefer from IFLA. So I would not waste so much time with the presentation, but I will go straight in the media stress, as the Latin said. We will start with a video contribution from Vint Cerf, that not only is the chair of the leadership panel, but he’s also one of the members of the group of PNMA. And last year, he was with us in presence at this same panel. This year, he cannot, but he was able to send a very short contribution. The contribution of Vint is linked to the points that we discussed last year with him. One was about the problem of the one of the reasons for the difficulty of access and meaningful access is the affordability of the devices. And the second question to be related to the main topic of this year, IGF, is if the arrival AI in a massive way could be improving and help to solving the problem of accessibility and meaningful accessibility. So if the control room can start the video, we can see Vint Cerf’s contribution.

Vint Cerf:
Accessible systems, we have to take into account economics. So affordable systems are important. If you can’t afford the devices, equipment, and service, it gives you access to a meaningful and useful internet, then you don’t get to use it. So we need to drive costs out by a number of ways. It could be making things less expensive. It could be subsidizing people whose incomes are inadequate, who deserve access to internet and all of its services. So here we have some creative thinking that is needed in order to make things affordable to the general population. Meaningful access to the artificial intelligence means understanding something about the way in which it works. As an example, one of my friends and colleagues, Judah Pearl at UCLA, has written books on causality and another book called The Book of Why, W-H-Y. This is about understanding how these large language models and large machine learning models actually work. And understanding that without a causal model, all you have is probability and correlation. The correlation and causality are not the same thing. So using these tools requires you to think about causality as you apply the output to conclusions.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Well, as a TV journalist, this confirming my doubts about shooting videos with iPhone is not the same than shooting with a professional camera, but at least these are the results. Prejudice? Could be. So I hope that you followed what Vint was saying through the subtitles. His contribution is quite interesting because linked to what we said last year. So this is the first contribution for our debate. But going back to the mainstream debate, we have now Onika that will start first and will talk about some experience that she is following and some interesting reports about meaningful access. Please.

Onica Nonhlanhla Makwakwa:
Great, thank you. I will just get to it. So one of the ways in which we actually define someone who has meaningful access is a person who has adequate speed to connect, a person who has a smart device like a smartphone as a minimum entry point, and has the ability to access the internet on a daily basis if that’s what they choose to, as well as has access to unlimited data. And the research that we’ve done actually shows that we need to recalibrate how we are defining access in general if we want to focus on meaningful access to make sure that people have the right device to be able to connect as well as the right speed and the unlimited access to data. The experience that we’ve seen is that the people who actually have meaningful connectivity. So, those users are more likely to be able to use their access for things that can truly help improve their lives, such as looking for a job, taking a course, looking at health and wellness information, as opposed to those who have just a basic access to connectivity. But one of the great challenges we need to address is the access to affordable devices amongst all the others, but access to affordable devices remains one of the greater challenges for people to be meaningfully connected. At the moment, especially in the low and middle-income countries, we are still seeing entry-level smartphones at 20 to 25 percent average household income, which is extremely unaffordable, especially for those on the lower-income quantiles in those countries. So I’ll just pause there for now and engage later on this, but just driving the issue of affordability to access as well as affordability to the devices. Yeah, that was exactly one of the points raised by Vint Cerf in his introduction.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you, Onika, and thank you for staying in the time. We are in Japan for the first time for the IGF, and Japan is one of the few countries that has hosted the IGF that has a language that is not Latin language. The previous one we had was Egypt in Arabic. So the question is, being in a country like this, is the fact that not to be Latin character language a barrier, and how this affects the access and the meaningful access for the Japanese citizens?

Keisuke Kamimura:
Hi, my name is Keisuke Kamimura. Thank you very much for inviting me on this panel. I am Professor of Linguistics and Japanese at Taito Bunkai University in Tokyo. So I… have a somewhat linguistic perspective on this issue. So let me share my personal reflection and observation with you. I’m a bit concerned whether what I am going to talk about fits this panel well, but let me try. So as Giacomo mentioned, we use a combination of scripts in writing Japanese. And how did this affect the access to the internet in Japan? Maybe there are two aspects to this issue. One is technical, and the other is social and cultural. But let me focus on the first one here, technical aspect. We once had technical problems in enabling with Japanese characters on computer systems and internet applications. I remember computer systems and my computers and applications did not process the Japanese language in the way it should when I was a student, particularly. And even if your computer is ready for dealing with the characters, your application programs, like word processing software or whatever, may not handle the language effectively. So you can’t write papers. So you can’t use spelling, spell checkers, or other correction functionalities for Japanese if the language is not supported. And I also remember email messages in Japanese were often broken on the way of transmission. And web pages in Japanese were often rendered to what we called gibberish, or mochibake in Japanese. So we surely had many troubles in dealing with Japanese characters at the technical level, at an early stage of the personal computer and the internet. internet, but many of these technical problems were eventually sorted out by the efforts of various commercial and non-commercial developers. But that was done before the internet became available to the wider population. So I wouldn’t say we had no problems, but they did not remain too long. So the trouble with characters and languages was quite annoying, but it was not prohibitive to the extent that it blocked out the Japanese from accessing the internet effectively. But if you look at things differently, ordinary users in Japan were confident enough to use their language on the internet, because technical issues had been resolved before they turned to the use of the internet. So if we had not had the Japanese capability in computer and the applications of internet, many of us in Japan may have been hesitant to use the internet as we use it now. So we did have problems, but we sorted out well before the internet came. But if you are facing the trouble now, it’s going to be a very big issue. Thank you very much.

Giacomo Mazzone:
That’s a very real witness of what can happen in these countries. But I’m glad to understand that it is the context that is also important, because the fact that you are in a country where you are affluent, you have the tools, you can afford the right devices and the right software, this diminish the impact of the risk of being excluded, of course. This is not the case in other countries where the same conditions are not gathered. OK, so if we are lucky now, we have a remote participant with us. And he’s a representative of the government. This is Steven Maitai-Nahao, that is secretary for the Papua New Guinea Department of Information and Communication Technology. He’s connected on remote. And he will explain us some experience that they are doing with the assistance of some experts, Judith is with us in the room, that are trying to help Papua New Guinea to go ahead and try to minimize the exclusion of the citizen from the internet revolution. Please, Mr. Maitai-Nahao, you have the floor.

Steven Matainaho:
Thank you, Chair. Can you hear me? Yes, perfectly. Thank you. Good evening all the way from Papua New Guinea, Port Moresby. It’s great to be here online and to be participating in the IGF. I just have a few comments. And of course, my experience and professional experience and insights will generally be from the journey that Papua New Guinea is facing. For those not aware, Papua New Guinea is an island nation consisting of multiple islands and one mainland in the South Pacific, north of Australia and east of and sharing landmass with Indonesia. We’re roughly around 11.87 million people. Interestingly enough, Papua New Guinea holds about 12% of the world’s language, and that’s roughly around 846 languages actively spoken. And you would think that this would be a challenge in terms of inclusivity. But I’d like to just briefly speak on meaningful connectivity and what that means to Papua New Guinea. We’ve had connectivity as a government priority since early 2000, 2003, when our first state on mobile network operator was introduced, and later through the introduction of competition, which was in 2009. And something interesting is that since 2009 and within that 10-year span, an interesting insight indicated was that the most searched and accessed sites in Papua New Guinea from that 10-year period commencing 2009 were three websites. The first website is bsp.com. And for those around the world not aware, BSP is one of our main banks in Papua New Guinea, Bank of South Pacific. The second most accessed website was NRL.com. NRL is the National Rugby League in Australia, and Papua New Guineans are very avid fans of rugby. And the third most popular website was Facebook. Now, this was consistent for over 10 years, and it tells you a lot of things, but one of the things that the government took out of this was that, you know, why are we not accessing, you know, there’s a lot of information out there on the Internet, there’s a lot of services that can add value to the people’s productivity, that can add value to the livelihood of our people. Why are they not accessing it? What is government not doing to provide those, make it easy or inform our people, or better yet, provide services that would be made online? And out of that, you know, our meaning of meaningful connectivity is about having connectivity with a purpose, you know, citizens that can have access and add value to their livelihood, add value to the productivity of the country. And this is where in 2009 we started to look at how can we shift, how can government shift from a connectivity sort of traditional, I’ll use the word traditional connectivity model where we were focused on expanding our infrastructure. How can we shift that so that it’s about being service-driven and purpose-driven? And so we introduced the digital transformation policy in 2020. We started working on that, and this followed by a digital government act in 2022 and followed by a digital government plan 2023 to 2027. What we essentially did was we shifted and we said, okay, let’s not talk about connectivity, let’s talk about bringing, let government be the leader in bringing meaningful services, digital government services to the people, putting citizens first, making services fast, simple and clear and driving that demand to connect. So we shifted that and this is where we are. We’re working in 2023 onwards to roll out a wide range of digital services. And I think that’s from my perspective and Papua New Guinea’s perspective that we’ve shifted from connectivity to sort of what we’re saying, demand-driven and service-driven. And for us, that’s our approach towards meaningful connectivity. Now, there’s so much to touch on in terms of our culture and diversity and how we are addressing all those issues, but I will stop there. Thank you very much.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you very much for your contribution. I see that you put the rugby as one of the fundamental rights of the citizen and for Italy, that is not a rugby nation, but I can understand. for us would be football eventually. Thank you very much. I hope that you can stay with us because we have other questions for you in the second round, but now I would give the floor to a specific section of this debate, that is the section dedicated to international organizations, because we believe that the international organizations are playing a special role in creating or supporting best practices, nurturing them and making available in other countries. We will start from IFLA, that is the Association of Librarians, Maria Bradefer is with us, and I leave the floor to her for explaining some of these best practices cases. Thank you.

Maria de Brasdefer:
Thank you, and also thank you for the invitation to this panel. I think first of all, before discussing the case of libraries, it is also important to talk about what meaningful access means in the context of libraries, and so in this sense I would really like to say that I think it is very important to take into account that libraries have been and are still in constant development, so I think in 2023 they really shouldn’t be seen as spaces for books or archives, but more as spaces that have really adapted to the technological developments of today, and also as spaces that have an ultimate purpose of serving their local communities. So also for this, I think it is also important to notice that libraries can be a door of access for those who need it most, for those who need most to access meaningful information, but also for those who are most affected by the digital device, so I guess in a way you could also say that libraries could be seen as a multipurpose infrastructure that serves to access and provide needs to local communities, but also that has a lot to offer in terms of meaningful access, and so for now I would like to discuss two cases with you briefly, so one of those cases is the case of the GLN, so the Gigabit Libraries Network, and this is a case that is going to be introduced by my colleague Don Means who is at the audience and who is also the founder of this initiative, and the second case is the case of digital skills at your local library project that was a case that was an initiative implemented in Uganda, so it was an initiative that was originally funded by the Uganda Communications Commission, but also it was expanded in 2021 via the Enable Development Agency, so in the sense this strategy started, it had an objective of giving extra infrastructure to public and community libraries and to also equip them across the country with computers, with internet connection, but also with other facilities for community use, so that was the first phase of the project, and then the second phase of that initiative was training of trainers, so a strategy for a training of trainers for local librarians was implemented, and this was a very important phase of the project actually, because it really allowed to localize the training and also to adapt it. to the local needs of the community, because even though the needs were similar across the country, of course, every community has particular needs. And then shortly after that, there was an outreach campaign that was done. And it also started in 2014. And this was actually an outreach campaign that was launched by the librarians who had been trained by the training of trainers. And that outreach campaign was done to reach the community in general, but also a lot of people who wanted to access skills to improve their businesses, and also to access education. And so right after that outreach campaign start, a lot of people were trained. So so far, in terms of results, about 14,000 people have been trained across Uganda. And a lot of them have reported that they have started initiatives with small and medium enterprises. At least 200 people of those 14,000 have reported good results after they received the digital skills training. And a lot of people have also used the training they received to access higher education in other places. So I think in the sense that gives a lot of context about why libraries are important in terms of meaningful connectivity. And I would also like to talk a little bit about the GLN initiative. So for this, I would like to give the floor to my colleague, Don Means, who is at the audience.

Audience:
Please, Don, come to the mic over there. Thank you, Maria. The point made about the role of libraries as aggregators of ICT resources in a community is extremely relevant when we’re talking about meaningful access, because it’s unique in that regard. Our group, the Gigabit Libraries Network, is an open consortium of innovating libraries. libraries using emerging telecom technology to expand internet inclusion as well as to increase community resilience against disasters and outages. We’ve begun deploying low earth orbit satellite connectivity kits in libraries in Africa starting in Nigeria. Our position is that every community should have at least a single point of no fee, low fee internet access like a library and it should be resilient against outages. The point is made by esteemed climate activist Bill McKibben. I think connecting, he says, I think connecting libraries as a community access hubs for resilience is a good idea and highly relevant. These communities may not be contributing huge amounts of carbon, but they’re the places where it’s growing fastest and more to the point, they’re where people are suffering most the effects. We seek advice and guidance on this implementation and this exploration. A single LEO unit needing only about a light bulb worth of energy can be operated for around $50 to $100 a month in developing markets, this whole area, these whole systems are just arriving and developing themselves. A single unit can provide impervious 100 megabit connection to places suffering from disastrous weather which would otherwise be entirely cut off from outside information and communities. We work through national libraries in each country to implement these plans. We are not agents of any company or enterprise. We wish only to help people in the highest risk with the least resources to cope with the terrible challenges of climate driven disasters. Perhaps a useful policy environment to support this can be found within the UN COP 28 declaration on adaptation. This is the point that, yes, mitigation is critical, but it’s really late. It’s too late to reverse the changes that we’re experiencing today and will continue to experience. So the strategy of adapting to these changes is commonsensical. And having this kind of a resource in every community is doable. It’s entirely affordable. And the benefit, besides increasing just the normal services that people can have through the internet, to this resilience factor we think is really worth exploring. Thank you.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you, Don. A question for you, because this project is one of the oldest, trying to improve the characteristics of the librarians in the field of meaningful access. Which kind of policies would be needed in order to strengthen, to make more effective what are you doing? Because we, as policy network, we are looking for policies that could be the most effective in making happen this everywhere.

Audience:
Well, certainly the policy of the rights of access are key to this. The policy framework that I mentioned within the context of the UN’s allocation or pledge of tens of billions of dollars to address climate adaptation would cover a lot of connectivity. And so advocating on behalf of that approach, I think, would be a very direct way to go about this.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you very much. So we have seen the IFLA contribution, and now we go to another more structured, more official agency of the United Nations, that is the ITU. But the ITU, I asked them, bring us some best practice cases, and they say, no. We can do better for you. And they send me Martin Sharpe. Why? Because the explanation was that for them, and I agree with them, the statistics. statistics are an important tool. If you want to make appropriate policies, you need proper statistics and data. Martin is exactly what he’s doing, and ITU is working already since a couple of years on indicators about meaningful access. Can you explain a little bit about that?

Martin Schaaper:
Yes, indeed I can. Thank you very much. Coming from the ITU data and analytics division, I think it’s quite obvious that I think it’s very important, the role of data and statistics for meaningful access. You may have seen the latest internet use data that we released about a month, a month and a half ago, that says that 5.4 billion people are online, but about 2.6 billion are still offline. That means that 67% of the world population is connected to the internet, yet 95% has access to some kind of mobile broadband signal. So this already is a clear indication about missing people, that there is a big usage gap. But even among the people that are connected, not all of them are in a meaningful way connected. There may be issues with quality of the infrastructure, with the cost, they maybe don’t have enough data to go online as often as they want, and so on and so on. It was already raised in the first intervention as well. So two years ago we launched a set of targets together with the UN Office of the Tech Envoy, a set of targets on what we call universal and meaningful connectivity. This was in the framework of the digital cooperation roadmap of the UN Secretary General. It has now become a project with the EU, with funding from the EU, so we have a set of targets that we’re now going to put into practice and try to disseminate among policy makers in the world. So basically what we’re doing is we’re coupling the data and the statistics to the policy perspective. Now, in our set of targets, it’s a set of targets on people using the Internet, but also the quality of the Internet connection, we have a set of targets on the cost of an Internet package, of the skills needed, and so on. And this is important, because if our goal is to achieve universal and meaningful connectivity by the year 2030, which is very ambitious, and we know that, you need to know where you are. And from there on, you can go on a path into reaching targets so you know where you need to go. But how to get there, you need to know where you are, and you need to also see that the actions you’re taking are actually leading you to where you want to go. So you need to constantly monitor, as well, your policy actions. So these targets, they go into two directions. We have a set of targets on universal access, which means that we want everyone to use the Internet, and everyone means all people, but also businesses, schools, communities, and we want to do it in a meaningful way. And for that, we have five enablers, infrastructure, affordability, skills, device, and safety and security. And on almost all of these aspects, we have indicators and targets. We already have created a dashboard, the UMC dashboard, which you can find online on the IT website. And in the dashboard, you can take any target that we have, and you can see for that target where are all the countries, where’s my country, but where’s my country in respect to all the other countries, as well. Or you can take a country of your interest, and you can see, okay, this is my country, these are the targets, and on some targets, we’ve achieved universal connectivity, but on others, we’re actually far away from it. even at the start, or for some indicators, we don’t even have the data. And that’s all information that needs to channel into the policy perspective. Another very important point of the data is that you can break down the data by socioeconomic groups. So you can have a look at the digital divides. So we all know that there’s a gender digital divide. So more men are using the Internet than women. But how big is the divide in my country? And how does this change if you move along the globe into other countries? We know that younger people are more avid users of the Internet than older people. But how bad is it in my country? Do we need to have special policy objectives to connect our senior citizens to the Internet? There’s also a difference between urban and rural areas. Now, is that because the infrastructure is not good enough in rural areas, or is it for other reasons? And the data can tell you to a large extent how that is, where that is, and especially where the gaps are, where we need to do the policies, where we have to set policies, and then over time monitor and see if our actions actually are leading to an improvement or not. So that is the project we’re having. That’s the good news. There’s also bad news. But I’ll keep that for maybe my next intervention.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you very much. That’s very interesting. There are other points that we need to dig with you. I think that this could be a very interesting source of information for everybody that wants to deal with this kind of information. Laurent, it’s now your turn, as I can, and especially your project Digital Africa, I guess. What are you doing in the field of making better conditions for meaningful access? And by the way, you use the data of ITU? Not yet. So what we want to do here is to increase the exchange in order not to repeat the same problems. Yes.

Laurent Ferrali:
And you may know that ITU is part of this Coalition for Digital Africa, so it will be part of that. Thank you very much. make things easier, I think. So thank you very much, Giacomo, for the invitation. Yeah, I will report about what we did for the last 10 months with this Coalition for Digital Africa. I mean, we launched this coalition during the last IGF in Addis Ababa with ITU, the Association of African Universities, the Association of African CCTLDs, and among others. Now we have something like 11 partners. We have currently seven flagship projects. And of course, all of this project, I mean, the aim of all of this project is to develop meaningful connectivity, meaningful access in Africa. The first one, I mean, not the first one, one which is very important for me is the support we are providing to African country code top-level domain registries. Because we had this week a lot of discussion about infrastructure in different workshop sessions. But I mean, I think that there is a missing part in the discussion, which is the CCTLDs. And I don’t know an example of a successful country in terms of eager services and national digital economy which is not able to rely on a good CCTLD registry. It’s a very important part of the national infrastructure and a missing part of the discussion we are used to have about infrastructure in Africa. So we are providing this report with different partners. to help to provide a kind of, I mean, I can’t do that for many years, but just from a technical perspective, so we are providing technical capacity building support to different CCLDs, but it was clear for us that we need to have a more holistic approach and work with different partners in order to be able to provide more than technical expertise and technical capacity building support. And so we are helping 10 CCLDs, that’s one project. Another one is access to local content. I mean, of course, ICANN is not dealing with content, but you may know that we have international domain names and we have an issue with the use of these IDNs. This is the universal acceptance issue. We need to be sure that people will be able to have access to these international domain names. Another project which is important for me as well is what we are doing in terms of quality of service and cybersecurity. We have two projects. We are deploying some ICANN managed server facilities in Africa, and we are helping CCLDs in Africa to better protect their infrastructure, their infrastructure, and other things as well. Keep something for the next round. Keep something for the next. If you tell us everything now, then what do you say later? Yeah, so I can stop now and go to the internet.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you. Now, you mentioned contents. That is not your specialization, but access to contents is important, and this gives me the right angle to bring the discussion to WIPO, because WIPO is dealing exactly with contents. Can you tell us? What are you doing in this field, Paolo?

Paolo Lanteri:
Absolutely. Thanks a lot. It’s definitely a pleasure to jump in the discussion from a very different perspective here. I’m very happy to bring to the floor the perspective of the World Intellectual Property Organization that has seen this discussion on meaningful access as intrinsically linked to actually the creation and the distribution of meaningful content. of different nature, educational, news reporting, or pure entertainment like music, video games, and audiovisual. Content is meaningful if it’s relevant, for instance in terms of cultural identity, accessible, for instance because you can read the language, and inclusive. WIPO participated and contributed to this debate for many years, providing an assessment as to why any policy that has as objective providing meaningful access should also keep an eye on what is behind that, making sure the compelling content we all want to enjoy is continued to be created and distributed in a sustainable way, at the same time also providing certain flexibilities. This is a key aspect because without the content we want, I think it’s very hard to conceive any meaningful access. Following the instruction from our facilitators, I’ll skip all that part about the incentives provided by IP to creation of content and the flexibilities it provides to facilitate, for instance, certain fair uses, open access, and many, many things that are enriching our lives. I’ll focus only on projects, successful examples that we have in place, and particularly on those that have already been reported in this frame. So, I’m going to talk a little bit about what we do in the space, and what we do in the framework as facilitating meaningful access. So, we lead really many cross-cutting initiatives in this space. So, it’s very hard to cluster them in clear-cut categories. For ease of presenting them, I divided in two big, broad, rough groups. One are initiatives directly relevant to inclusion. The other is the accessible books consortium. The accessible books consortium, ABC, is a public-private partnership led by WIPO, and counting with the participation of many partners, including IFLA, of course, and organisations representing the blind community, the World Blind Union. The ABC goal is only one, to increase the number of books in accessible formats, such as digital braille, e-pub, and to distribute them to the people that they need around the globe. We do that through a variety of lines of work, including capacity-building, of course, advocacy for inclusive publishing, but the most impactful activity we do is the ABC global book service, which offers an online catalogue of books in accessible formats available at no cost to authorise entities serving the blind around the world. The service has nowadays more than 800,000 books. The ABC global book service is the largest book service in the world, with over 100,000 titles, in 80 languages, available for cross-border exchange without the need for clearance, any formalities related to copyright. Of the 127 authorised entities that have joined the consortium, 70 are located in developing and least-developed countries, andcatapult.ca are an important part of the cooperation to enhance the technology-related capabilities for those individuals around the globe It’s a beautiful story to tell about open access. We, WIPO, lead a working group formed by over 100 individuals from over 25 international organizations, many of them represented in this room. The membership is constantly growing. What do we do? We facilitate the debate and exchange of good practices among IGOs on how to make our content accessible and moving open access. WIPO and few other IGOs now went ahead and launched new collaboration with Wikimedia, for instance. We have in-house Wikimedia, basically releasing all we produce through their global platform, boosting accessibility, of course, but also the possibility for any third parties to translate the content to local languages and to adapt it to any need they may have at the local level. That’s one part of the story. The other part of the story, very important, is what do we do to assure that we promote production and distribution of local meaningful content? Traditional knowledge and traditional cultural expressions are a big part of our work. WIPO’s work in this field is growing stronger than ever. On top of the policy and norm-setting activity, we lead and support practical initiatives, such as digitization projects of traditional knowledge and cultural mentoring, fellowships, awards, hackathons, all sorts of stuff. And then we have more hardcore creative industries initiatives in the context of the development agenda. For instance, we are about to relaunch doubling the funding of the AV market, audiovisual market, of Latin American production. We also recently launched specific tools for sectors like digital publishing for small publishers in LDCs. Or, like we heard these days with the manga creators, a training tool for animation professionals in developing countries. So while the details of all these stop report project will be submitted in writing, basically we can say that the progress on all these initiatives is steady and positive. And more importantly, the appetite of our constituency both governments and stakeholders is either strong or very strong.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you very much, Paolo. Very useful and interesting. And you mentioned that there are funding for audiovisual in Latin America, but unfortunately the next experience we are talking is in Africa. Do you have funding for Africa? experience? Not yet, but we can work on it. So this could be one of the recommendations we will take out from the conversation of today. Do we have online Meme and Nana Kaga McPherson? No? Ah, connection issues, access problem. Bertrand, then can you explain to us what is this experience from Uganda that you recommended us?

Audience:
I’m Bertrand Moulier. I feel a bit desolate that Meme and Nana are not there to explain what they do. They would do so with far more charisma and passion than I’d be able to muster, but I’ll do my best. So Meme and Nana Kaga are two recovering civil engineers who have decided to change career a few years ago and became audiovisual producers in Kampala, in Uganda. And they’ve been trying to run a company which is entirely female-led, so they’re the two directors and the entire staff is female, and making local content for local audiences in culturally relevant languages, including Uganda, which is spoken by 5.6 million people locally as primary language, and another 5.4 are fully conversant with it. And their contention, and ours as well, is that the ability for companies like theirs, which is, by the way, called Savannah Moon, to actually survive and thrive in the audiovisual marketplace is an essential component of meaningful access. Once you’ve accessed the broadband infrastructure, you need meaningful content that reflects your lives, your preoccupations, your cultural themes, and by making fiction drama, either through feature, unitary feature films or through television series, they’re doing just that. They have found that although their market has increased a little bit in the last few years, they are hobbled sometimes by a few factors. One of them is that the broadband infrastructure where they live is still tentative. At times, they find there’s unexplained bandwidth throttling for technical reasons, so you’re losing signals, which makes it uncomfortable to take in relevant audiovisual content. And there’s also, from their perspective, they wanted me to reflect this, a pricing issue. If you’re buying eight Gs worth of data, by the time you’ve run through two episodes of a television series on the mobile telephony network, which is the way most people locally take in their content, you will find that you’ve almost run out of capacity, so you need to purchase some more. there is not necessarily an adequation between local spending power and the ability to enjoy and access the content. More, I think, strategically, in order for these companies to fulfill their social utility function, in this case, as two women who are very, very committed to dramatizing, reflecting issues experienced by women in their country and their region, there needs to be an enabling economic climate to make sure that these SMEs are able to use their position at the forefront of cultural developments to reflect and dramatize those. And so they believe that there is no meaningful access without a meaningful, local, audiovisual production capability, which actually not only is incidental to what internet content can deliver in general, but is actually central to it. And therefore, the question of economic sustainability of their activities, the ability to offer people career tracks, these women have left potentially lucrative careers as engineers to devote themselves to audiovisual content. That needs to be factored into the ecosystemic equation when looking at the accessibility and, certainly, the meaningful access component. And by giving two examples of films that they recently made, one is called Mpabi. It’s the story of a young boy who, after a difficult birth in a village in Uganda, develops a condition, a neurological condition. And he becomes neurodivergent. And the family hits against local incomprehension, perhaps a deficit in knowledge about this type of conditions. And it’s the story of how they try to address these issues and educate themselves and protect their sons and afford him a good childhood. Another one is about the story of a young woman who rebels against the notion that, having lost her husband in an accident, she, by tradition, is meant to marry the man’s brother and wants a different kind of outcome for her life and to empower herself. So these are films that are really trying to dramatize things that people are living out every day, and they are utterly relevant to the meaningful access agenda that is being highlighted here.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Perfect. Thank you very much, Bertrand. This brings us finally to the content side that we have neglected until now a little bit.

Roberto Zambrana:
Roberto, you are monitoring, with the help of artificial intelligence, all the universe of the internet. So what are the questions that come from the world? Everything together, yes. I think we have Carlos Alfonso online, so if we need his intervention, he will be ready to. Did he ask for the floor? Not yet. Not yet, okay. Maybe for the section that we have for exchange, we can do that.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Okay, and any question in the chat? Not any. Okay, so we can go to the question in the room. I see already one volunteer. Please introduce yourself and tell us straight the question. Thank you.

Audience:
Okay, I’m Kosi. I’m a senior from Benin. I’m from Ministry of Economy and Finance in Benin. I have two question. Please. We are talking about access. Meaningful access. Yeah, Bert. When we are talking about access, for me, we have two challenge. The first one is internet. Is it available or not for us in our region in Africa? Sometime, we see the signal, but we don’t get anything. What that mean? We are talking about video, film. They make some good thing in Kampala. What is the data? The data we collect there, what is it? In Africa? In which data center in Africa? We need to have our data in Africa. Everything we collect in Africa is supposed to be in Africa to be used for African people and for others. But when we collect it in Africa and put it in data center outside Africa and call African people to pay for internet bandwidth to collect that information after again, it’s two ways. We pay for the information we have is not normal. We support to make things very clearly, very open for everyone in the world. Thank you.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you. Onika, I think that this question is straight for you.

Onica Nonhlanhla Makwakwa:
So, well, thanks for raising that. I think I won’t respond specifically to the question, but I think what you are bringing is the fact that we have to also look at the financial model of how we are connecting everyone. We seem to have continued in an economy system that has essentially been very extractive without using this new opportunity of the internet to begin to correct some of those embedded inequalities that come with the existing market structure. So, I think as we look at developing access more, we have to be open and willing to look at different digital technologies, but also be open to look at different fiscal financial models. that will ensure that we are actually developing and innovating in the continent where we are building innovators and not just content consumers online. And I think what you are talking about is a discussion that’s been going on within the region around the region being able to keep its own data. And I think if we go back to the intervention I made on affordability of phones, the reality is that the minerals that are used to develop these smartphones actually come from the continent. Yet Africa, at the moment, is spending as much as 40% for the cheapest smartphone that’s available. So fixing the economy, I think, goes hand in hand with us being able to participate equally in this digital transformation.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you. Who else want to add something on that? Martin, you have statistics about data in Africa, how much the data center exists, this kind of information will be available in your database?

Martin Schaaper:
Well, that’s actually part of my second intervention, which is data gaps. I don’t want to make a spoiler. Yeah, no. We have recently been discussing middle-bar connectivity and middle-bar connectivity indicators. And we’re just developing a work program around it. So we don’t have the indicators yet. We have indicators on bandwidth, which is part of the issue here. But how the data is channeled into data centers and how it comes to the last mile, that is part of the indicators that we are going to develop in the coming years. But we don’t have not a lot of good, solid indicators on that yet.

Giacomo Mazzone:
OK, thank you. I would like to get back to the minister, if possible, so that we can free him. He’s still online with us. If he’s online with us, the question for him is now, he said that they are doing a lot of interesting things, including rugby. But the problem is about infrastructure. So, I would like to know more about the technical solution of the infrastructure, I guess. For island states, the problem of the infrastructure is a very big problem. Are they using satellite? I would be curious to know more about the technical solution. Thank you.

Steven Matainaho:
Thank you. Please confirm again if you can hear me. Yes, we can hear you loud and clear. Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much. In Papua New Guinea, our connectivity, I would like to first say that since the advent of mobile network coverage, we have sort of skipped the fixed line era. We have been using the internet for a long time. We have been using the internet for a long time. We have been using the internet for a long time. Our current population coverage is around 76% of population coverage, but it’s a mixed range between 2G, 3G, and 4G. Most of our growth rate is contributed to competition. And so, there are two major interventions that we’ve made to make sure that our telecommunication retail and wholesale space were guided by an open market policy. And so, we first had to introduce as much competition as possible into the retail space to increase those numbers. The other aspect of connectivity which I wanted, actually, I wanted to highlight if I may because there were some comments on affordability of devices. And I’m sorry, I’m directing to something slightly different. But I also want to flag that in Papua New Guinea, what we’ve noticed is the threshold for affordable is around an 8% to 10% threshold. And so, that’s a big difference in terms of affordability of devices. And so, that’s a big difference in terms of affordability of devices. And these are mainly data coming from operators. The cheapest affordable smartphone that we’ve been able to get out there is ranging around 60 US dollars. And this is like stripped down smartphones that have the basic smart capabilities. And we found that at $60 and downwards, there’s a huge increase in purchasing power. And I think that a combination of infrastructure access plus affordable devices are factors that should be attributed in developing countries. You mentioned affordability of the devices. There is any policy in place in your country to support the accessibility and the affordability? We are currently looking at next phase after introduction of our digital services. The next phase would be starting to look at how we can provide tax reduction incentives for devices, importing of devices. And I think that would be the next phase, 2023, 2024, 2025. That would be the next phase as we’re going back to meaningful connectivity. As we provide content and services, the next step would be to bring the cost of the devices further down. Thank you very much.

Giacomo Mazzone:
And I give you a good news. Vint Cerf, I asked him if he will be available to give suggestion and advice. So if you want to ask Vint something about affordability, we will bring the question to him. And we will give you back the answer. Thank you for being with us. We know that you are busy. If you have to leave, we will apologize to you. Don’t worry. OK, we have another question from the room. Please introduce yourself.

Audience:
Hi, my name is Dinesh. We have community networks near Bangalore in India, and I have kind of three questions. One is to the minister from Papua New Guinea. You said you have so many languages, and I’m fascinated by hearing that. And you said you have ideas on how to deal with bringing Internet to these many languages. I want to hear about it in great detail, because that’s the first time I hear that there is somebody working on languages, which is probably not literal, there is no text for it, I’m just guessing. How are you dealing with it? Number two is to the Japanese minister. You have Japanese and English, you’re dealing nicely. What are you doing with the others who are older, who need voice, who need content in audiovisuals, mostly audio, and the third one is based on the African comment. We have community networks. We have in India about a billion low literate people, and it includes that, but what are we doing about technology, Internet, reaching to these people? That’s the meaningful accessibility for us.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you. And it’s important to remember that you have one of the cases in the report that is providing some solutions, so I suggest people to go to the report and to have a look at it. You want to make advertising for it, for 30 seconds? I’m sorry? Shall I? Advertise for your project? Yeah.

Audience:
Okay. 30 seconds? No, thank you. So you’re ready. So I think Internet, firstly as a web, is all about hyperlinks. Hypertext, it starts, and it’s, you know, and Internet has not gone further as standards and technology to reach non-text people, okay? How do you give, I mean, I can talk about it a lot, but we have to, as technology people, push this forward. And we are trying, but it can be like in a small thing, like, it has to come together. And how do you do hyperlinks when you have media as a thing? And what is the Internet in the small, like, if you are in a community network, how do you bring this within the community as a first-class protocol-based Internet, like a decentralized web is what I’m thinking, to say it in one word.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you. I think that you can get some answers from the second round from the panel. Roberto, any sign of life from the universe? Yes.

Roberto Zambrana:
We have a comment from Carlos Afonso. He says a major challenge in universalizing connectivity, which many digital inclusion programs forget, once a person is connected, he, she should stay connected. Many universal connectivity programs do not make sure persistence of connectivity together with quality is fundamental. A connected school or remote community ought to be connected and stay connected. Thank you, Carlos, for these remarks.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Perfect. That’s, we have the perfect example of Uganda. They were connected at the beginning of the session, and when it was their turn, they were not connected anymore. Okay. Before to make the second round, I remember that Martin want to bring in the discussion a point that is important just for memory, that is the IDN question. Can you take the floor, Martin? I remember to the audience that last year, also with Roberto, we mentioned this as one of the point on which we need to improve. So, which are the last news from the front?

Audience:
My name is Maarten Botteman. Yes, on IDNs, indeed, an important aspect is of course that they will be able to be used by people who don’t use the Latin script, as we call it, the letters we see above. And that may not be useful worldwide, but in particular, more and more, we see the internet also serves local communities and maybe solutions can be found where they do resolve in local communities, maybe even faster before they resolve anywhere. It requires a lot of collaboration because the internet is a mess of a lot of different applications. Now, what we do with ICANN is work on the IDN tables to make sure that addresses can be found. But the addresses also need to be found in the web browsers, in email addresses, in applications that support. So, it requires quite an effort, and we’re very happy to facilitate that effort by also supporting the Universal Acceptance Steering Group, which in its work goes well beyond ICANN as such. But if you allow me, I’d like to make another point here. Other aspects of meaningful accessibility are also in power. Is there enough power? You see that’s different in different parts of the world, and is in affordability, as you rightly said. I must say, India is in the good position that at least mobile access is amazingly affordable compared to some other parts in the world. For instance, in Africa, if you have this mobile phone, it’s very expensive to use it. So, it’s also not thinking only in terms of electricity there, is bandwidth there, but also is access affordable. Next to the IDN point, if you allow me. Please, thank you.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you very much. So Martin, do we can expect that for the next round of GTLDs, there will be a push from ICANN about IDN, TLDs?

Audience:
My expectation, and of course it’s the market who will come with proposals, but we believe that this is an opportunity for, in particular, the next billion to be reached, and that next billion will need to have access to the non-Latin characters, and we do what we can to support that.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Inshallah, they say, another part of the world. Okay, thank you. This brings exactly to the point with our Japanese colleague. You see that the problem is seen in different ways in different parts of the world. Can you add something?

Keisuke Kamimura:
Yes, IDN. Well, remember IDN is just a piece of the bigger problem, so I guess we should take care of other issues other than IDN, but the problem we have with IDN in Japan is like this. Internationalised domain names in Japanese characters are not well accepted locally, so many of us do not, or most of us do not use internationalised domain names in Japanese characters. I don’t quite remember any of the major local websites identify themselves with IDN. I believe these websites have their names registered in IDN for protective or defensive reasons, but that’s about it. For me, I don’t know if this is true to others, but for me, it is comfortable to use Japanese characters for search strings rather than for URLs or identifiers. So, when you write Japanese, you have to use a combination of the alphabet and symbols and the Japanese characters. So, if you want to use IDNs, you have to produce a combination of these scripts anyway. So, I mean, you have to use the Latin alphabet in any way. So, you have to switch back and forth between Japanese characters, the Latin alphabet, and other symbols. So, it’s very cumbersome to use IDN in Japanese. So, that’s one issue. In addition, you can easily identify a URL in the Latin alphabet in an article written in Japanese, because it just stands out the rest of the text. So, it’s easier for you to locate a URL from written Japanese. So, and if the URL is written in IDN, you maybe find it difficult to find out where the URL is. So, that’s another issue from a practical point of view. And well, actually, when you write Japanese, you often switch from one script to another to emphasize a word or phrase in the middle of a sentence, when you write Japanese texts. So, we are used to switch from the Latin alphabet to Japanese characters and to kanji. So, we are quite used to using the Latin alphabet. So, that’s another issue. the alphabet for any purposes. So that may relate to the low take-up of the IDN in Japanese, this is my personal observation.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you, Professor, but the time is tiring, we need to give the floor to the others. May I add a little bit to that? Yes.

Audience:
I really appreciate your experience, and Japan is a case where well-educated people have good access to computers and manage to do what you say right now. When I think, and when Giacomo asked about the longer term, I’m thinking indeed of the longer term where we see part of the world where the mobile is the device, where it’s more difficult to switch, and also a world in which we see that increasingly voice commands will be taking over, et cetera. So I think for the longer term, we may not be, I remember I was used to put my telephone on a modem, and that worked, but I’m glad I don’t have to do that anymore. So I think you give an excellent example, but for the longer term, I think we can’t avoid, people will earlier be able to learn an adapted internet and that everybody will be able to use the same characters. I think that we will have to come back to you for what we will write in the report.

Giacomo Mazzone:
So we will need your help for finalizing the report on this point. Thank you very much. So Martin, please, we are very late, so if we can be short as much as possible, just to mention something that you have no time to mention, I will do for you. There is a pilot experience that ITU is doing with UNESCO in the Pacific area where we are combining data from your database and the UNESCO ROAM indicators. That is a very interesting combination of contents and access from the technical viewpoint. But please complete your presentation about the statistics.

Martin Schaaper:
Yes, thank you. Short as possible. I’ll try to be short. I mentioned the good news. We have a lot of data on universal and meaningful access and universal and meaningful connectivity, as we call it. This includes. a lot of data on prices, prices of Internet packages, mobile packages, et cetera. There was a comment before, I just want to say that we have a very rich data set on that. But the bad news is there’s also a lot of data gaps, and that’s partly because the data aren’t there, partly because the data are there but we are not coordinated, we don’t have access to the data, we don’t get the data from the source or we don’t have a partnership with the source, and that’s something that we’re working very hard on. For example, anything to do with speed measurement, actual speed measurements, MLAB, Ookla, those kind of places, we need to continue working with them. Handset devices is an area we are not yet working on but we’ve had a lot of contact with the World Bank, with what used to be A4AI before, and that’s certainly work that needs to continue. We’re working on big data, the power of big data to also be able to get a more granular view of what’s happening in a country, within a country, within a community even. We’re working very hard on that. But very importantly I mentioned digital device, and digital device is about people, you need to know who the people are who are using the Internet and what they’re using it for and who is not using, and still the best source for that is surveys. Surveys of people often run by a statistical office and for that we have very good data from all the high-income countries and not a lot of good data from low-income countries, simply because surveys are expensive. So policymakers who see the importance of data for achieving universally meaningful connectivity should also add funding statistical offices in their programme.

Giacomo Mazzone:
That’s fundamental. Onika, how you can complement this experience? You can compete with the ITU in providing the collecting data?

Onica Nonhlanhla Makwakwa:
I will just add one thing. So, how do I handle this? My question I would like to also take your perspective, Armand, on the issue of dense segregated data, if we extend the chance of closing the digital gender gap. So, I would like to ask you, Armand, to take a look at what we are doing in the digital economy, what we are doing in the cost of exclusion, looking to calculate the economic impact of excluding women from the digital economy, but also humanizing that experience by looking at qualitative research and ethnographic studies to really be able to

Giacomo Mazzone:
paint a picture and tell a story about what we are losing in our digital economy, in the context of the pandemic, and to build the files material with another women. If you sent to her, then she will ask Martin to look more from the inside. Are you scare about what our Japanese government is doing to make it easier for women to have access to the internet?

Martin Schaaper:
I mean, we know, I mean, it’s like, you know, using mobile phone now with apps, make, I mean, domain names invisible. But this is not up to ICANN to say that. To make a comment on that, I mean, we have, in the context of the coalition, we are working with ICANN to make it easier for women to have access to the internet. For them, I mean, it makes a lot of sense. So, I mean, if Africa, I mean, have some interest for IDN, for us, I mean, we will try to help them to develop, you know, extensions in the continent, et cetera. So, again, it’s not up to ICANN to say that, yeah, we don’t need any more domain names or whatever. with partners, we are trying to have a, we are very humble in our approach. We are asking people what they need, and then we are trying to help them to bring them what they need, the support they need. It’s what we are doing with all the tracks, all the initiatives of this coalition. I mean, again, we are coming with technical knowledge, expertise, and we are used to go through an assessment phase to better understand what they need, and in the end, I mean, the different organizations, different countries, it’s up to them to decide where they want to go. We can just bring some expertise to them, so I think that for these people, I mean, to come back to your question, I think for some universities in Africa, it makes a lot of sense to have access to domain names in local scripts, so let’s say that it’s still important.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you. Thank you. Maria. Yes, thank you.

Maria de Brasdefer:
Well, I think in terms of data, I would only have to add to what Onika said. I think it is important to have disaggregated data, not just in terms of sex, but also in terms of gender, because there’s also other minorities, for example, that are invisible to this, and there’s not enough data on that. But also, I’m talking about the context of libraries. We also need better and more data in regard to what is the amount of libraries, for example, that are currently connected to the internet, and from that amount of libraries, also maybe better indicators to assess inside which of those facilities there’s a meaningful access to information. So I think that is something that I could also add in that sense, and maybe also adding a bit to what my colleague Don mentioned before in terms of policies. So the question is, in addition to discussing traditional reciprocates, also considering libraries and what is important to give these resources and to give these access base in the American development communities. So far we have been using library as a resource and we have been using libraries as a resource. So the question is, how do we make libraries invisible at a higher policy level? So this is also something to take into account. And also finally, just to add, it is also important to notice that the public access infrastructure development initiatives should also really include a skilling of staff to run and also to facilitate digital inclusion and capacity building initiatives at a local level.

Giacomo Mazzone:
So this is something that we have been working on for a long time and it is important to have some patience, because we asked three people in the room, three distinguished friends of us, to listen carefully to what has been said and to tell us the feedback about what they retain as the most interesting points that we can include in the report. So can we start with Jane, that I see is the first question. And then I will turn it over to the panel. So I will start with Jane.

Audience:
I will be very brief. One, solving the connectivity gap will take a multi-stakeholder approach, much like the PNMA itself and our panelists here today and the great speakers we have heard. Problems are being solved through coalitions, to regulatory and policy-making from Papua New Guinea to Benin to the United States, and to the rest of the world. We need to work together to identify gaps, ITU, ICANN, and others are doing this, to help us look at better solutions to identify what those gaps are. Partnerships are key, and innovative financing approaches need to be made to support and build networks, including CCTLDs and data centres. Thank you.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you very much, Jane. This was about connectivity and

Audience:
about digital inclusion. Carlos Rey Moreno. Thank you very much. I will start with you, Carlos. Thank you very much for the introduction. The first part of the talk has been about digital inclusion, and many topics have been touched upon, the universal acceptance and everything that has to do about people being able to communicate with scripts that are other than Latin, should be able to do it online, and it’s not only about IDNs, but many other hardware and software elements. I think it’s very important for us to understand the importance of having a sustainable content production as well as the distribution of relevant content, e-governance services such as in the case of Papua New Guinea and cultural services elsewhere, a lot of discussions in relation to that about incentives, funding that you may go and talk to Paolo about, as well as sustainability of those content producers, as well as an outreach campaign to the digital economy, as well as the importance of having a strong national CCTLDs to develop the digital economy and include people that might be related to using country-level domains, in the importance of cyber security, although it hasn’t been pointed out, there is a lot of elements around digital inclusion that have to be with cyber security in the context of, for instance, technology-facilitated gender-based violence, and all the work and all the policies that are required in that front. There is a lot of discussions around making books available for blind people, and some discussions also around fostering innovation at the local level. I mean, we heard Dinesh, but we’ve been hearing all the importance about how local people can actually come up with their own decisions and this conversation about meaningful access and meaningful connectivity should then be an only top-down one. Thank you very much.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you, Carlos, very useful, and very bright and appropriate comments. So, now, about capacity development, Margaret will give us her hints.

Audience:
Thank you, Chair. Highlight on capacity building, that technical skills are needed to understand emerging technologies, and make them address and offer solutions. Training of trainers on digital skills is critical, and with this localisation of this training to address local needs. Technical capacity support for internet registries is already happening through the project Digital Africa. Digital skills are needed to ensure quality of services and access. address cybersecurity challenges. We need a holistic approach on capacity building to ensure that we are addressing the needs that are needed. Statistics are needed to determine skills needed for meaningful access and use. I know I’ve repeated myself there. Then there was discussions around hyperlinks and how they can be used to address issues of language and Japanese characters, and a study has been detailed that is part of the report. Again, it was said that internet is a mess of a lot of applications, and diverse digital skills are needed. And that is about it. Thanks.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you very much, Margaret. Very useful. Please, if you can send us your notes, will be very useful because we have to produce very quickly a first report, and what you say are perfectly making the picture. Roberto, there is life in the universe, or they already went to sleep?

Roberto Zambrana:
Actually, there is one more comment from Steven, but he wants us to read it. And it says, great interventions from other participants on the need to increase production on local audio and video content. This is a key intervention Papua New Guinea is taking note of and should take to improve meaningful connectivity across more than 800 languages and cultures. Thank you.

Giacomo Mazzone:
Thank you very much. OK, so on my Swiss passport, I have to say that I have not been good because I’m two minutes over. But on my Italian passport, having only two minutes delay, I am a lot better than the usual performance. I want to thank all the participants. I would like to thank all of the speakers, and I would like to thank all of the panelists here, all the speakers, and especially Daphne, can you stand up, please, Daphne? Thank you. And Roberto that volunteered the last moment, as usual, to support us, and all the speakers and all the participants. Thank you very much. And I would like, by all means, to thank all of the organizers. The invitation for the presentation finished, and the meeting is now closed so your session, please send me the conclusion, and we will include in the report. Sorry, the hyper link will be put there. What you said in the session today is important and relevant for us.