Day 0 Event #98 Discussing multistakeholder models in the Digital Society IWW

Summary

This discussion focused on the multi-stakeholder model in internet governance, exploring its applicability, challenges, and future prospects. The panelists examined how the multi-stakeholder approach varies across different policy areas and contexts. They emphasized that while there is no one-size-fits-all model, the core principles of inclusivity, transparency, and accountability should be maintained.

The conversation highlighted the need for careful design of multi-stakeholder processes to address specific issues effectively. Panelists discussed the concept of “multi-stakeholder disguise” or tokenism, where processes claim to be multi-stakeholder but lack meaningful engagement or impact. They stressed the importance of not just soliciting input, but also demonstrating how that input influences decisions and outcomes.

The maturity of multi-stakeholder models was explored, with Avri Doria presenting a framework for evaluating the depth of stakeholder involvement, from basic consultation to full implementation and oversight. Participants noted that the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder approaches can vary depending on the issue at hand and the context in which they are applied.

Looking to the future, the panelists agreed that the multi-stakeholder model remains crucial for addressing complex internet governance issues. However, they emphasized the need for continued refinement and analysis of these models to ensure they genuinely serve their intended purpose. The discussion concluded with a call for more research into the effectiveness of various multi-stakeholder approaches and the importance of maintaining good faith participation from all involved parties.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The applicability and implementation of multi-stakeholder models varies across different policy areas and contexts

– There is a need to evaluate and analyze multi-stakeholder processes to ensure they are meaningful and not just “tokenism”

– The maturity and effectiveness of multi-stakeholder approaches depends on factors like participant selection, roles/responsibilities, and accountability

– Multi-stakeholder models are still evolving and need further development, but are seen as important for inclusive policymaking

Overall purpose:

The goal of this discussion was to examine the current state and future of multi-stakeholder governance models in internet policy, exploring how they can be effectively implemented across diverse issues and contexts.

Tone:

The tone was largely analytical and constructive, with speakers critically examining multi-stakeholder approaches while still affirming their overall value. There was general agreement on the need to further develop and refine these models. The tone became slightly more cautionary near the end when discussing challenges like bad faith participation, but remained overall optimistic about the future potential of multi-stakeholder governance.

Speakers

– KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Moderator, from Center for International Economic Cooperation on Internet Governance

– AVRI DORIA: Expert on multi-stakeholder models and evaluation frameworks

– AMRITA CHOUDHURY: Expert from India

– LILLIAN NALWOGA: Expert from Uganda/Africa

– JIM PRENDERGAST: Galway Strategy Group

Additional speakers:

– Audience member from Japan

– Audience member (unnamed) who commented on stakeholder roles

Multi-stakeholder Models in Internet Governance: Applicability, Challenges, and Future Prospects

This discussion, moderated by Keisuke Kamimura from the Center for International Economic Cooperation on Internet Governance, explored the current state and future of multi-stakeholder governance models in internet policy. The session was organized by a research group studying the applicability of multi-stakeholder models to various policy areas, providing important context for the dialogue.

Applicability and Implementation

The panel examined the diversity and applicability of multi-stakeholder models across different policy areas. Contrary to the initial summary, Kamimura expressed skepticism about whether these models could be equally applied to all policy areas, suggesting that multiple different models might be needed for various issues.

Avri Doria, an expert on multi-stakeholder models, emphasized that there is no one-size-fits-all approach, highlighting the adaptability of these models to different contexts. Amrita Choudhury, an expert from India, provided a concrete example of this adaptability, noting that multi-stakeholder models have proven applicable to digital economy issues, contrary to initial doubts.

Lillian Nalwoga, an expert from Uganda, introduced the concept of deploying multi-stakeholder approaches at different levels depending on maturity. She also highlighted the challenges of implementing these models in developing countries, where resources and expertise may be limited.

Evaluation and Maturity of Multi-stakeholder Processes

Avri Doria presented a detailed framework for assessing multi-stakeholder processes based on orientation, participants, and roles/responsibilities. She outlined maturity levels ranging from consultation to implementation and oversight, providing a structured approach to understanding the depth of stakeholder involvement. This framework included:

1. Consultative level: Stakeholders are consulted but have limited influence.

2. Cooperative level: Stakeholders work together but don’t make final decisions.

3. Collaborative level: Stakeholders are involved in decision-making processes.

4. Implementation level: Stakeholders participate in implementing decisions.

5. Oversight level: Stakeholders are involved in monitoring and evaluation.

The speakers emphasized the crucial role of transparency and accountability in ensuring meaningful multi-stakeholder engagement. Jim Prendergast from the Galway Strategy Group stressed that meaningful multi-stakeholderism requires feedback on how input was used, highlighting the importance of demonstrating the impact of stakeholder contributions.

Challenges and Improvements

The discussion addressed several challenges in implementing multi-stakeholder governance. Kamimura raised concerns about “multi-stakeholder disguise” or tokenism, where processes claim to be multi-stakeholder but lack genuine engagement or impact.

Amrita Choudhury stressed the importance of inclusivity and consideration of diverse stakeholders for effective multi-stakeholder processes. An audience member emphasized the need for clearly defined roles and responsibilities for each stakeholder, particularly in decision-making processes.

The panel also discussed the Sao Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines, which were referenced multiple times as a potential framework for improving multi-stakeholder processes.

Future Prospects and Global Digital Compact

Looking to the future, the panelists discussed the relevance of multi-stakeholder models to the Global Digital Compact (GDC), a UN initiative aimed at outlining shared principles for an open, free, and secure digital future. The speakers agreed on the continued importance of multi-stakeholder models in addressing complex internet governance issues, while acknowledging the need for ongoing development and refinement.

Avri Doria called for deeper analysis of these models and raised an important challenge: protecting multi-stakeholder processes against bad faith actors. Lillian Nalwoga outlined key focus areas for future multi-stakeholder processes, including transparency, inclusion, and accountability, particularly in the context of developing countries.

Conclusion

The discussion concluded with a nuanced view of multi-stakeholder models in internet governance, recognizing both their potential value and the challenges in their implementation. Key takeaways included the need for adaptability of these models to various contexts, the importance of transparency and accountability, and the necessity for ongoing development and protection against misuse.

Kamimura mentioned an upcoming dialogue on multi-stakeholder measurement, indicating continued efforts to refine and evaluate these models. As the internet governance landscape continues to evolve, the effective implementation and continuous improvement of multi-stakeholder approaches remain crucial for addressing complex global challenges in the digital realm.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: as follows. Does the multi-stakeholder model equally fit each of these policy areas? Or are we going to have somewhat multiple different models in dealing with the range of policy issues? And if we have multiple multi-stakeholder models, how can we make multi-stakeholder governance work across the broad range of policy issues? So that’s the basic outline of this session. But let me give you some brief overview of the project behind. As I mentioned, our session is based on the discussion or analysis conducted by the research group under the Center for International Economic Cooperation on Internet Governance. So let me give you some introduction of the project. The research group is a multi-stakeholder group of experts and academics on internet governance research and practice based in Japan. We have members from the government and the private sector, technical community and academia. So we are discussing, the group has discussed this issue for a while since last September, October. And we looked at the changes of the internet governance landscape over the last 20 plus years. Japan hosted IGF last year, so we produced an official report on IGF 2023. Actually later this week, we have a lightning talk session featuring the report booklet on IGF 2023. So if you are on site, please jump in and see what the report looks like. And we also did a comment contribution to WSIS Plus 20 review. And we also examined GDC draft texts and considered its impact on internet governance and its future forecast. We also conducted a session in APR IGF 2024 in Taipei. Our session was titled multi-stakeholderism in the post-GDC era. So during this activity, we came to some kind of, some sense of understanding or conclusion that applicability of multi-stakeholder models may vary depending on the policy areas in question, and needs to be evaluated on a set of criteria so that we can see how effectively multi-stakeholder models work or work or not. So that was the brief overview of the project behind this session. And I talked about the multi-stakeholder concept is referred in a diverse context. Let me give you, let me take GDC as an example. In the GDC, there are a number of references made to the term multi-stakeholder. One example is multi-stakeholder, our cooperation will be multi-stakeholder in paragraph A, K. Or in paragraph 17A, we are going to develop, disseminate, and maintain through multi-stakeholder cooperation. In terms of the digital divide, we have another reference to multi-stakeholder, the term multi-stakeholder in paragraph 27, internet governance. And so the references go on like this. And multi-stakeholder initiatives are also mentioned in paragraph 31A, digital trust and safety. So multi-stakeholder, and there are a number of other references to multi-stakeholder in other policy areas, interoperable data governance, artificial intelligence, and follow-up and review. So we, the term multi-stakeholder is one, but the contexts where the term is referred to are quite diverse. So that’s one point we came to realize. I also mentioned that we have a broad range of policy areas being discussed in the DDC, or broader internet governance context now. In the DDC text, we have connectivity, digital literacy, skills and capacities, digital public goods, and digital public infrastructure. And the list goes to interoperable data governance and artificial intelligence. So we refer to multi-stakeholder models or multi- stakeholder approach in this quite a broad range of policy areas. So even if we say, even if we agreed on the term multi-stakeholder, the actual implementations or adaptability may be quite different. So let me summarize our outcomes of the research group on internet governance. One is expanding scope. So we consider we need multi-stakeholder model because we have fast-changing policy areas. And those policy areas directly affect the life and behavior of people. But with expanding scope, multi-stakeholder model may work better for some issues and not for others. That’s one of our concerns. Another concern is multi-stakeholder disguise. Multi-stakeholder models may take various forms. In idealistic form, multi-stakeholder model may mean multi- stakeholder participation, multi-stakeholder decision-making, and multi-stakeholder implementation. But in some cases, multi-stakeholder may just stop at consultation. So we have to take care of what we call multi-stakeholder disguise. Expanding participation is another concern we considered. For multi-stakeholder models to be fully effective, we have engagement of smaller voices or the voices of the influenced. But how far does participation engagement go? How far should they go? So that’s another concern we have. And if we have multiple multi-stakeholder models, we better have core principles, principles such as inclusion and bottom-up structure. These principles should always be in place while other principles may not. So we may have core principles for multi-stakeholder models, but we also have non-core principles. And finally, long-term goals. What do we want multi-stakeholder models for? from the summary of the discussion we had in the research group on Internet Governance. So we have to evaluate multi-stakeholder models in some way or the other. One way is to look at it from a process point of view. NetMundial plus ten multi-stakeholder statement is one of the guidelines that we can use for evaluating multi-stakeholder readiness of a policy process. For maturity levels, which is presented by Avery Doria, one of today’s speakers, we can look at the multi-stakeholderness of a process from this perspective. There are other researchers presenting evaluation framework for multi-stakeholder models, Palladino and Santanielo, or Pandey, Muller, and Vardy. We realize that people are becoming aware of the necessity to evaluate across different multi-stakeholder models. This is one of the issues we want to discuss further today, but we are also concerned that there should be other elements in evaluating multi-stakeholder models. The works I just mentioned look more of the multi-stakeholder model from a process point of view, but we thought there should be other elements we need to consider in evaluating multi-stakeholder models applicability. One such element is the characteristics of a policy issue in question. Take digital literacy for example, it is very likely that we need multi-stakeholder model, but there are some areas where multi-stakeholder model may not work effectively or efficiently. Digital trust and safety are seemingly less likely that multi-stakeholder model is fully applied and digital economy, I honestly don’t know how MSM, multi-stakeholder model, works. So, even if we are agreed on that we need multi-stakeholder models, there are quite different implementations or applicabilities out there. This is what we want to discuss today. This is the key question. This is the brief overview of the session. I would like to invite Avery Doria, who has done a series of works on the evaluation or maturity level of the multi-stakeholder models. So Avery, you have the floor.

AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I need to share my slides. I think you need to see, yeah, okay, no. Let me see. Okay. And share. Okay. I’m going to talk a little bit about multi-stakeholders. I’m doing a little bit more than just the model because I need to sort of work my way to the model and what it consists of. First, I want to say thank you very much for inviting me to talk about this. Thank you very much for the introduction. And while I may quibble with you about some of the things that you’ve said in the introduction, I very much appreciate it. For example, I tend to believe that a form of the multi-stakeholder model can be used just about anywhere a group of people need to make decisions together. I tend to think that we’re never in a situation of all or nothing in terms of the model. So let me move on to my first slide. Okay. So part of what brought me to this discussion and the context in which I started looking at it was this sort of tussle, this dichotomy. Are we working in multilateral? Are we working in multi-stakeholder? Are there issues that can only be dealt with in a multilateral method? Can multi-stakeholder be used? Do multilateral and multi-stakeholder methodologies, modalities ever work together? Or are they completely incompatible? And basically, this is also part of the question that the Sao Paolo multi-stakeholder guidelines look at it. And sort of sometimes you hear people talk about, well, there really being, you know, continuums in discussions. But you would also hear people that were quite angrily when a multilateral group tried to do a little bit of, you know, stakeholder discussion or stakeholder opening, you know, people would say, no, no, no, that’s not multi-stakeholder because it’s only comments. It’s only, you know, and that sort of rang a bell with me and sort of said, no, if a multilateral process manages to reach out and to stakeholders and start including them, that’s something we need to encourage. We need to understand it. We need to understand its limitations. So anyhow, the two methods are, you know, rather different. The multilateral is sort of the very formal negotiations, whether they’re bilateral, trilateral, multilateral. They work on a basis of full consensus. There’s ratification. Whereas within a multi-stakeholder approach, and that seems to be a word that’s being used a lot, you find that each group that does them, while they’re working on similar principles, tends to develop a different set of modalities, a different set of ways of doing it, diverse decision-making procedures. And this way of doing things has, sometimes we spend almost as much time, I think, talking about the difference between multilateral processes and multi-stakeholder processes as we do actually talking about the specific issues. But anyhow, we have, you know, ICANN, the IGF is a multi-stakeholder body, the IETF, the Internet Engineering Task Force, and the Regional Internet Registry is the RIR. They all have very rich multi-stakeholder models, and yet they’re all somewhat different. And so when you start looking at how do I build something with a multi-stakeholder model or how do I apply multi-stakeholder modalities to the multilateral model, there’s a lot of issues to look at. That’s one of the places where the San Paolo multi-stakeholder guidelines also comes in useful, because they look at modalities, they encourage the notion of application of some multi-stakeholder modalities within a multilateral environment. So it becomes something that has a set of guidelines for how these two very different and constantly tussling models can actually work together. So just a brief slide on this. I will not go into these in deadlines. You know, the NetMundial in 2014 laid out a set of principles, multi-stakeholder, open, participatory, consensus-driven, et cetera. And these have really held through. You know, nobody looks at this list of attributes and sort of says, well, no, that’s not what multi-stakeholder is about. That’s not what Internet governance is about. But what they did put together is a set of guidelines and process steps for how these two very different and constantly tussling models can actually work together. to do it. And I really recommend reading it. And it’s section 3.2 of Netmundial plus 10, which for several pages goes through and gives a set of recommendations. I’ve also really gotten into word art today. I actually took section 3.2 and did that little piece of word art with it. And just, you know, I kind of like the whole idea of a rainbow bridging But anyhow, moving on. So then, so we have people that said, I’m doing something multistakeholder. You’re not doing something multistakeholder. So how do then we deal with it? And that’s where I go back to sort of a definition of multistakeholderism, where it’s the study and practice of various models, approaches, forms of participatory, open and accessible, as human centered efforts. And it is something where many models, there isn’t one model, there isn’t the notion of one model that fits all. As long as you are delivering on these principles, then the model matters less than the fact that you are using some set of techniques to achieve that. So basically, there’s a large set of models and modalities. But when you start then comparing them and looking into them, it’s sort of taking the multistakeholder model. And what we often do is hand wave about it. We sort of say, yes, it’s multistakeholder because, well, because the stakeholders are there and they’re participating. Whereas, taking down to the next level of analysis is start looking at various aspects. I picked three aspects here for an example, but other aspects are quite possible, you know, and like methods of selecting participants, funding methods, geographical, cultural. But the three I’m focusing on at the beginning are orientation. Is your model a bottom-up model, a top-down model, one of those start in the middle and then, you know, do a little bit of up and a little bit of down? Any of those can be used to build a multistakeholder model. They don’t all need to be bottom-up. However, each one of them is going to give you a slightly different model. So being aware of the orientation of the model you look at becomes critical. The next part is participants, the stakeholders, you know, and by the way, we call them stakeholders. There are people that love that term. There are people that hate that term. Basically, this whole notion of calling it multistakeholder is really something that came about during WSIS time. But people have been experimenting, you know, with various forms of this model all the way through the 20th century, and it wasn’t just in internet. You find various usages of the model in different, or the approach in different topics. But when we look at stakeholders, even in our own area, you know, we have the Tunis Agenda, GDC, et cetera, way of bringing in stakeholders and identifying them, you know, there are three, there are four, et cetera. There’s affinity groupings where people of a similar interest gather together to work on a problem, but they have different, you know, whether it’s the plumbers and the electricians, they have different affinities, they look at the world differently, and therefore they bring different approaches. And you have some that organize organizations, and only organizations are members, and others, individuals in the engineering task force. I very much see it as a multistakeholder organization with this umbrella definition, and it’s individuals. It’s not organizations. It’s not memberships and such. So, looking at that, and any time you’re creating a new organization with a multistakeholder model, you have to look at your stakeholders. You have to look at your participants and think about how you organize them, because that will give you a different looking model. And then finally, in this three aspect, there’s the roles and responsibilities. Can you contribute? In other words, can you contribute text? Can you contribute ideas? And are they accepted and used? These all, or are you part of the decision-making processes? Just make recommendations, advice, and you look at any project, you’ll find at different phases of a project, the stakeholders may have different roles. They may have different responsibilities. You can’t look at a large model and say, in total, those are the deciders, and those are, because at different phases of the model, that may come out differently. Finally, getting myself to the maturity models. So, let’s say you’ve done many of these aspect studies, and you start to have an idea of the structure and the understanding. So, then I started looking at, since I didn’t want to exclude someone from multistakeholder modalities, simply because all they did was solicit comments, and then actually consider them. Because soliciting comments and ignoring them, I tend to leave out, and we have seen some examples of that lately. So, that may be a concern. But comments that are really solicited and are considered is really one of the bases on which almost any multistakeholder model and maturity has to be built. But then you move up, and are there standing charter advisory groups who have roles and responsibilities, who give advice, who do analysis, who propose solutions, etc.? Is that something that’s in the norm, that’s in the fixed structure of the organization, the model you’re looking at? Then you get to decision making. Who makes the decision? What role does a stakeholder group have in decision making? And it isn’t just who is the final decider, but decision making is a larger process. And there may be other parts where people contribute to the decision making process, even if they are not voting on it at the very end. But then it goes beyond that. Once you’ve made a decision, and you’ve gone that, and then some group or other goes to implement it, goes to deploy it, goes to take it out into the world and sort of do something, is it being done consistently? Is the decision that was made by one group of people being followed through? Does it work? Does it not work? Does it need to be changed? And then finally, another piece in the maturity is you’ve put all this together. You’ve got comments, you’ve got committees, you’ve got decision making, and you’ve even got implementation reviews. Who has responsibility for oversight of reviewing your model, your approach, and making sure that it works, that makes sure that it makes sense? Is it a bottom-up oversight where the stakeholders themselves are the ones that are doing that? Or is there some sort of deus ex machia, some superior, some UN General Assembly that’s doing the oversight of review and such? So when I’m starting to look at that, and then I start to look at how the various aspects in the previous slide sort of feed into these maturity levels is the way I’ve started looking. So we’re not in a situation that says I’m multi-stakeholder, you’re not. But we start looking at our various levels of maturity within these models and how we can sort of move to a greater maturity in multi-stakeholder models. And I think that’s it. So thank you for letting me go through that rather quickly. These are slides I could spend hours on or just a few minutes I’ve spent/

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you, Avery. So I would like to draw the reflections of the panel. Amrita, would you take, give you some comments on my tone setting or comments by Avery?

AMRITA CHOUDHURY: Yeah, I hope I’m audible now. So yes, I completely agree with what Avery said, and I think she said most of what we would want to say, as in there is no, the multi-stakeholder model has different forms. It can be used in different ways and there is no one size that fits all. And it is practiced in different ways, in different levels. It could be at the consultative phases. It could also be at decision making or even implementation. what needs to be seen is are the right stakeholders there. It doesn’t mean everyone has to be there but the people who are relevant needs to be there. One of the comments which you made initially is, is it applicable to digital economy? Yes it is. For example, if you’re looking at payments which is an integral part of the digital economy, how it is even at the grassroots level the payments are working, whether people are literate and I come from India where digital payments are used, even illiterate people are using. Are they able to use it safely, securely or easily in their own languages that matters. If you don’t take the feedback from them, even if you design it the best of solutions, it’s not going to work. It cannot just be multilateral and I presume it is not applicable in all spheres because we need to go back and see why different stakeholders or participants are necessary because internet today affects each and every one in different ways. So till the time you do not have different people coming and speaking, it’s difficult. For example in AI, there may be software technologists sitting and planning it but if you want the rights perspectives, the privacy by design, the human rights aspect to be built into those systems, you need those kind of people in the room. You also need to have other people, for example the sustainability of people who are looking at energy consumption etc in the room. Obviously you need government, you need social activists or civil society else how would you build a model which is impacting us in a huge way to take care of those things because if you don’t take care of the risks earlier, you will not be able to take care of it later. Similarly when you’re talking about trust and safety, yes security experts can do it, law enforcement can use it but even if at the individual user level you don’t understand what the issues are, you will not be able to take care. Simple example, you have online gaming, children are playing it. You may want to regulate them but do you know what actual issues are or where they are playing it. For example if people who are actually playing games are not there when these discussions happen on digital trust and safety, just governments or regulators taking the decisions may not give the results which you would actually want and obviously you know there was a question I don’t know on the maturity markets. It again depends. There are developing countries who have leapfrogged into technology. For them coming into the conversation, it may take a more longer time to make it more inclusive. For example if I take an example in India, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has consultations on all their aspects. They have consultations, they put it up transparently on the website and then finally take you know they give their directions or recommendations. But again if we look at some discussions like we had for a data privacy regulation, we had a consultative phase. However how it was used was never known. So I would say even in South Asia it depends upon the maturity of the country or market because they’re still grappling with other issues so it may take time. But I think the Sao Paulo guiding principles are essential. It also gives a checklist to multilateral organizations on what they need to look at if they want to make it more inclusive and they also have it on how the multi-stakeholder processes, what checklist they need to have and they have the process steps also like scoping the issue better, identifying who the relevant stakeholder for that discussion is, engaging them, sharing information because not everyone may be at the same level or even facilitating a dialogue after discussing, sharing it with people. So I think it has 12 such process steps which could be a good, I would say reference point for everyone to look. But yes it cannot be a one-size-fits-all for everything but it is definitely necessary in today’s digital economy.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you, Emerita. Now we have Lilian. Do you have your views on this? Can you

LILLIAN NALWOGA: I have a bit of some true thoughts on your presentation and probably in agreement with what Avri just presented, especially relating to say Africa or Uganda. But just a reflection is I think in one of your, in one of the questions that you raised, one of the points that you mentioned that the multi-stakeholder model works for some issues and not others. I’m a bit, I think also Emerita’s mentioned that. I think I’m slightly in disagreement because if we are looking at the digital space there are quite different issues that come into play. So especially the one that you raised on digital economy and I think Emerita has mentioned some bits of that. So I think depending on the maturity level or the different pockets that Avri has mentioned, I think it should be able to work but the context kind of differs. The other thing that I wanted to point on is the multi-stakeholder disguise. Kind of interesting how you framed it and I like the question, I mean you put the disguise in quotes and this we kind of see it happen a lot where to some it is more of if there’s a consultation then with the multi-stakeholder you know model you know has been affected and this is something that I really find a bit disturbing. But looking at the presentations from Avri on the maturity levels, who starts the process you know is it top, bottom or you know starts you know in the middle, where do we draw the line to say to conclude that this indeed has been a multi-stakeholder kind of you know approach that has been you know taken. So in Africa and in many countries in Africa we have the issue of the multi-stakeholder disguise where you have a few you know kind of a entities or groups for instance let’s say there’s an issue or developing a kind of you know a policy kind of document you’ll find that the policymaker will invite probably to let’s for instance say it is around say cyber security you’ll find that you may have just two entities represented in the initial you know drafting process of say this document. You find the government, you find maybe the private sector, someone in the banking sector and representative from maybe academia and then this will be consultative and fast-forward the policy to be kind of you know adopted. So again when we look at the broader multi-stakeholder model and we say that this is you know the multi-stakeholder you know this is was really a very well conclusive approach. So I think we are seeing lots of this multi-stakeholder disguise and I think if we go back to what Avri may have listed then we may need to rethink on who constitutes to be on the table for us to say that you know multi-stakeholderism has been applied. Reacting also to the other the very first I think in your presentation that you know the selective yes I think I’ve mentioned that. Yes there’s a bit of selectiveness especially if the initial the issue at hand is may consider you know may may bring some tension you know within the within the different actors. So you’ll find like you said digital economy may not may not be needed for you know Mr. Calder approach. So this kind of you know whoever is leading this process that kind of you know looking at it policy issue you know we select this to leave that. But I think that is really something that needs to be put into consideration. It’s a wrong approach, and we are seeing this happening in most of the African countries, even my country where I come from, Uganda. Last but not least, I would like to say that from what captured my mind was in the presentation I’ve mentioned, the different processes and where do we put this all together. The multilateral kind of processes where you see the ITU being active versus those that are pushing for multistakeholder governance model, the ICANNs, the IJF, and all that. The participation we see of certain actors tends to go much in the treaty kind of processes. In most cases, these are kind of selective. They are addressing certain issues. For instance, if you see now the way ITU, maybe we’re seeing so many of our countries in Africa being more present, more active in ITU processes than in these other kind of say WSIS, IJF, ICANN, there’s little of that kind of how do you draw the line. So where is that mix? I think there was some kind of an infinity symbol, how do we put this all together and constitute not to just addressing policy issues one by one. So I have a feeling that this is something we are from where, from Uganda or from Africa, we still are at the point of consultative kind of model maturity. Yes, we have a few consultations. We have a few representatives present. And then we conclude that this is a multistakeholder kind of model approach has taken place. But again, this is really – it is not that inclusive if we are to look at the MSM as has been presented by the previous speakers, mainly on the maturity in implementation tracking – it is still not clear who is doing what. The oversight of the review also, we still – there are issues of how do you track who is doing what, who is responsible. In many cases, if it is a policy deployment, it is very hard to track the review and what informs another review if it is needed. So I would say I think I am in agreement, but also a bit in context on the issue of maybe that we need to leave some issues – some issues may not require the approach. I think the multistakeholder model approach needs to be deployed at different levels depending on where you are in the maturity process. But I think at least consultative and implementation, there has to be some bit of representation from the different actors. Thank you. Thank you, Lillian. It is a pity that you cannot make it online to the IGF, but you cannot make it on-site. So I know you are in a difficult situation. So I hope your luggage will come to you in the end. Okay. Thank you.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you very much for your comment. I mentioned the multistakeholder disguise. I am not sure if it is the right word to use, but I am a bit concerned that diversity of issues – we have diverse issues so that we have different types of multistakeholder models, but if so, we have to carefully design the multistakeholder process to deal with the issue in the right way. So Amrita just pointed out that any policy item has some kind of multistakeholder elements in it. So even digital economy has some multistakeholder elements in it. But how we can evaluate whether the issue is dealt with in a proper way? Do you have any thoughts on that?

AMRITA CHOUDHURY: Thank you. So the first thing is, for decision-makers or even governments who have not taken that approach completely, and it is a multistakeholderism in disguise, which I would call as tokenism. We’ve seen processes like GDC also saying multistakeholder. Personally, I do not believe it was multistakeholder. It was not at all transparent or accountable. So I think the first thing when people, as in governments have a right to decide upon their sovereign interests, it’s absolutely okay. But they need to understand something that, will it be helpful? Are they getting all the issues and all the concerns? Objections doesn’t mean someone is raising an objection for the heck of it. They are raising it because there is a genuine reason also. If you take it into consideration, act on that or don’t act on that, at least take it into consideration, there is a more buy-in from the different, I would say, actors in that ecosystem. So I think if they understand that having a more open approach to get the actual issues, even at a consultative phase, and even after a policy is formed, for example. Many times governments fail is because they took in information only from few select people and during the implementation time, they falter because the buy-in is not there from everyone. And that is where the issue happens. If you had taken a more consultative approach, it would have been much better. And so if they understand the value of it, that is the time they will use it more. Now there was a statement which Lillian made and I do agree with it. Developing countries don’t look at internet governance with that much of priority because connectivity is an issue, health is an issue, getting people jobs is an issue, feeding people is an issue. So will they not look at those issues first and then look at internet governance? For them that is priority. And they will go and talk in those forums where that is priority. So we also have to understand the maturity and these countries have limited resources. So they cannot put in so much of resource. So you have to know how to balance it out. And internet actually provides that leveler thing. So if they can use those things to get more views rather than be restrictive, and I have seen it in my country also at times. People feel worried of what kind of comments they will get. Once people start commenting, people also mature in the way they give comments. So I think these guidelines which Sao Paulo gives, unfortunately all governments have not endorsed it probably because it has not been spread so much. If they go out more naturally, people will not be defensive because each country actually wants to leapfrog, grow and serve their people better. So I think if we can explain it, no it’s not a fancy term, it will help you in the long run to get the results you want. And these are the guidelines which you can work on. You don’t have to create them. And cherry pick whichever you want. I think that would help.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you, Marita. I have one question for Avri. And then we would like to open the floor to the audience. Thank you, Avri. As I mentioned, I am interested in the topic or issue-oriented differences in applying multi-stakeholder models. In your explanation, how topic-by-topic differences are considered. Do you have any thoughts on this?

AVRI DORIA: Yeah, thanks for the question. I think that that is actually a parallel set of issues. I think that it’s one that comes out, for example, when you’re selecting your participants, selecting your stakeholders, that that’s one of the places where the subject matter becomes a big concern, because what kind of specialists do you need? What are the groups? Who is it that’s participating in this? So from one aspect, I say, anytime you want to make a decision in a democratic manner, and you want to make it in a participatory democratic manner, where all the people that have some part of their life involved in this decision get a say, get to participate, then when you’re putting it together, you basically have to look at, well, if we’re going to be behaving in a multi-stakeholder manner on this topic, who do we need? You know, if we’re discussing how to control fire threats within a city, you know, it’s still very much a multi-stakeholder issue, because it concerns the citizens, it concerns the fire department, it concerns emergency services, the government, the volunteers, you know, the people that come through and rescue the burn victims. So you have a great number of people that are all sort of contributing to an event. You want the planning for these things, the understanding, the preparation for these disasters to be done in a way that makes sense to all those that are involved in the doing of it, that have responsibilities for it, that provide the funding for it, that provide the technology for it, that provide the workers that make it happen. So understanding who is involved in dealing with this particular issue allows you to build that participant group, that stakeholder group. Again, depending on the topic, when you’re looking at advice recommendations, do you have scientists that give advice at a purely scientific level, but really don’t care about the rest of it? So how do you design their advice section in? It’s nice that I put these here as simple words, but each one of these has a level that you have to deepen. What does it mean to contribute to a subject in different fields? Is it writing a paragraph? Is it building something? Is it coming up with some sort of template? So each of these things gets looked at, and if you looked at the other parts that I included at the bottom, the other aspects, the funding methods, geographical indicators that makes a difference, where you’re doing this is obviously going to change. If you’re doing it in Africa or you’re doing it in Asia or you’re doing it in Europe, it’s going to have different aspects because people look at the issues differently, so you’ll structure it differently. The cultural aspects of when people talk, how people talk, how they interact, is this being done more locally or is this a regional issue or is this an international issue, is going to sort of direct the kind of structure, the kind of analysis you have to look at in doing it. You know, I didn’t get into it all, the intersectional measures and the diversity elements and all of that, which are different. We have a different set of diversity elements depending on where we’re doing it and what kind of population, you know, the scope of interest. So there are many different aspects. I was really, you know, just trying to keep it sort of at a simple level, but to understand what we’re doing, we got to keep breaking it down into what are the important aspects of the model. And then within each of those aspects for any subject, there’s going to be another set of considerations. So that’s why I come down to it and say, I cannot envision a subject where there isn’t a set of stakeholders, participants, concerned citizens, et cetera. Any number of words, I’m not really hung up on the words, but there’s basically a group of stakeholders that have a concern and whose concerns need to be listened to, need to be understood, needed to be included in the decision making, et cetera. So as far as I’m concerned, it’s a model that can be used in any number of situations, but you got to do a lot of thinking about it to make it work. Hope that answers it.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you. Thank you very much. Now, we would like to open the floor to the audience. If you have any comment or question, please come to the microphone or, yes, just take the mic. Otherwise, Zoom participants will not be able to hear your voice.

JIM PRENDERGAST: Is that? Okay. That’s on. Hi. Jim Prendergast with the Galway Strategy Group. Thanks for the session. Picking up a little bit on what Avri said, I think, and Amrita said, we just need to be cautious about mislabeling processes as multi-stakeholder when they’re not. You pointed out the GDC. All those who are familiar with the model knew right away, this doesn’t feel right. It’s not sitting right. So I think we use that as a teaching opportunity, as an opportunity to educate people about the model, because not everybody’s familiar with it, and particularly in the multilateral space, it’s very new to them. We should encourage them to continue to try and adopt it, but using things like the Sao Paulo principles as a guide, not necessarily as, you know, you have to use all of the principles, but use that as inspiration to better improve the processes, I think is something that we as the community can do to make them better going forward.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you for your comment. Just for your information, I referred to the GDC because I wanted to show the diversity of issues being discussed in the frame of Internet governance. So I don’t think GDC is completely multi-stakeholder model, or I’m a bit skeptical about it. So just don’t get me wrong. Can I jump in with a response also?

JIM PRENDERGAST: And I agree. I think one of the distinctions that I’ve made in looking at the GDC processes is meaningful multi-stakeholderism. You know, asking for input and not reflecting back to the community how the input was used, what portions were rejected, which were accepted, how did you change the direction of the policy? That’s meaningful. You know, giving that feedback to stakeholders, that’s meaningful. Asking for a bunch of comments and then either doing nothing with them or not telling us how you’ve done something with them, that’s not meaningful and that, you know, people are only going to get tired of that after a while and not want to participate. But my point is, it happened, we can learn from it, let’s teach people how to do better going forward so that it is meaningful and it is productive and everybody sees value in it.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you. Adri?

AVRI DORIA: Thank you. Jim just said much of what I was going to add in there. But yes, and in fact, that’s why I had written on that bottom ring, not only consulting, but paying attention to it. And I like your notion of the multi-stakeholder disguise because, a term I had not thought of before, because it does cover that where you can act like you’re doing something that is multi-stakeholder without the follow-through, without it being a meaningful action. So I think that is something to be very careful of. I personally think that if there is a good consultative, and it is paid attention to, and there’s feedback, and is that, even if you don’t go beyond it to what I’m calling the other levels of maturity, then you could still say, yeah, you’ve dipped your toes into the multi-stakeholder, you have had some multi-stakeholder modalities, but the actions that you take have to be genuine. Thanks.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you, Avery. And Amrita, please.

AMRITA CHOUDHURY: Thank you. What I would like to add is, while GDC definitely was not a process which was completely multi-stakeholder, one thing we could look at is at least it tried to get people to respond. But again, one, it was not transparent, it was not open, how consultations were used, and it was not inclusive. A simple example, when you want comments from Global South at a time which is not friendly to them, and I speak from Asia-Pacific, most of the UN consultations were at very odd hours for people in Asia, you had to keep your video on, think of the countries where you do not have that much of internet bandwidth and keeping it on or you will be disconnected it’s not inclusive you will not get people you would not have found so many people from Asia in those calls because that ours were very bad also when people the other stakeholders were making comments the rooms were empty so it didn’t give a very good feeling to the others who were participating online that they were being heard they may have been heard we don’t know because we don’t know how the you know the feedback from everyone was used so I think it is a lesson as Jim said if we can learn it well we will do our business plus 20 negotiations much better

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: thank you very much and is there anyone who can okay there’s a gentleman at the table

AUDIENCE: who cattle can hear me from Japan and I thank you for a very interesting you know debates and and the presentations here so in listening to all of you I was wondering if we can have some global analysis jointly in some way with the people in this room for instance if some of the multi-stakeholder model you know work or not as everybody is you know talking about there are many different models and occasions even outside of a digital world and of course in a digital you know we studied the concept probably around the creation by can in 90s and then through wishes in a process we talked about you know much of this in a context of government but versus non-government and international government organizations dealing with internet issues or not and you know luckily enough I can survive it as it is and that’s a government is only a CAC advisory in a committee are not making a direct decision you know making that’s very important in a fact but IGF model is you know completely different it’s not a decision-making in a body it is just a discussion in a process but at the same time you know we have to look at the good aspect good the result of IGF in for instance people are gathering here listening to others what going on on the rule-making in individual countries and after we go back home and talk internally within the country we create some of the similar laws or even similar debates there that created a lot of opportunity for you know countries to have their own more harmonized you know system on the global basis and you know those are very small you know examples but if you look at the other areas then you know digital there must be some you know discuss discussions going on you know such as SDGs we had in New York in you know September that was more on SDG you know kind of you know debate and the digital was a part of that whether we could you know use multi-stakeholder model you know to other areas I think this is a time we really you know think and you know do a good analysis on a global basis and I think for that purpose everybody you know has to present some of the practices examples what’s going on and probably we should talk to our you know friends working on some other areas and you know if their model or their you know organizational processes are working well or not I think you know using everybody’s maturity model if we you know use more on the maturity and if we you know digest the benefit of those multi-stakeholder model I think you know we can be better off by having you know such example and find out some best practices here and probably at the next meeting we can you know get together and exchange some examples

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: thank you very much so we have some kind of international comparison of various models and various practices we may need to take consider the possibility of doing that kind of research forward thank you very much we have a parallel discussion going on in the chat so there’s a comment from Mark Nottingham it would be interesting to hear reactions to meet the Mueller’s characterization of multi-stakeholder as an empty label that does not describe a governance model and so Avery can you yeah

AVRI DORIA: yes, I’d love to answer it and I’d also like to I miss the gentleman whose name who had been speaking before his name but I’d like to make some comments on that too partly the answer that I put there is I very much agree that at the moment I said you know in effect I think I even said in my presentation we very much hand wave when we say multi-stakeholder because we haven’t done the the deeper diving into what we mean when we say it what are the aspects how do we put them together and such we’ve done a little bit of that kind of analysis but but by and large you know and whenever you see someone new coming into saying gee we’d like to do some multi-stakeholder whose model should we buy you know can can we do the the ICANN model can we do the IETF model and that never works for people because nobody fits anybody else’s shoes that well so so I believe that that what I’m putting forward here and other people are putting forward here is sort of the meat on what is in the model how do we define it how do we identify and to go on to the second gentleman’s and if I apologize for forgetting the name question is I think that’s the next step as we start to and it’s some of the stuff that I’m doing in the background too you know but but it’s just me doing it it’s it’s not a you know organized thing is sort of as these analyses of of what is in the various aspects and how one defines them then to take those and and use them to do analyses on some of our existing organizations some of our existing practices so that is indeed the intent thanks

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: thank you Avri in my understanding Milton’s point is that internet governance is about non-state actors deciding principles and implementing them so to me he he well actually Milton is going to have a dialogue on multi-stakeholder measurement right after this session as part of the giganet symposium so if you are interested please go to the session after after hours but so to me it seems like that Milton is looking at the topic by topic differences in terms of internet governance but maybe ask him later do you have any comments your face just popped up no okay oh okay nevermind sorry.

AMRITA CHOUDHURY: What he mentioned in terms of stakeholder wise accountability is also important because if you’re giving inputs whether you’re accountable for it later is also important and I think it comes with maturity of a model so I think certain things are important because and that whether you’re accountable for it would also come during the implementation part or even the follow-up part so I think looking at it in a broader scope the phase etc is important to actually do it but I think accountability of whoever is the stakeholder is also important

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: thank you very much do you have any other comment or question from the from the audience if not let me give you the final question for the for the speakers so Future, so what should we expect about multi-stakeholder model in the future? So what kind of principles should be shared across policy areas or geographic areas? So what do you see will become of the multi-stakeholder model in near future? Do we keep going on the same thing or do we need somewhat different action? What’s your thought? Amrita, please.

AMRITA CHOUDHURY: So I think whatever terminology you use, all participants who have vested interest or may have, should be there when discussions happen on policies, on issues where their lives are at stake or something is at stake. You call it multi-stakeholder, you call it whichever terminology, it is important. Because if anyone wants a particular policy process to work, you have to have the buy-in of the people. For example, now GDC has been ratified, it has to be implemented. If it has the buy-in of everyone, nation states, companies, technical community, civil society, etc., being a Herculean task, only then will it be able to achieve what it wants to achieve. So whatever terminology you use, you have to have relevant people interested or accountable in the room.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you. Lidian, can you give us your thoughts on the future of multi-stakeholderism? Thanks.

LILLIAN NALWOGA: So for me, just to add to what Amirita has mentioned, it is not just about participation and having people present by taking numbers, it should be more transparency, inclusion, taking stakeholders accountable. So it doesn’t matter if, for instance, if it is at the global level and you are considering the global majority voices and having a few countries represented, and then this is called that we had representation from this particular kind of people from the global majority. So there has to be what kind of contribution are they bringing in place. So right now, the future of the global multi-stakeholder model is really in suspense because it is not just so clear what we really want. Some people really want to continue with the multilateral, having a few people on the table at more of a high level, but I think there has to be inclusive participation, transparency and accountability in what is being discussed, and also the ease of being able to track the outcomes of whatever process or whatever decision that comes out of the consultations.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Avery, one last word, please.

AVRI DORIA: Thank you. First of all, pointing out that it is still, even if it did start in the last century, it still is a very young model. We’re still figuring out. I personally think it is an essential, critical model necessary in any sort of democratic movement we’re going to do. Representative democracy is wonderful, but it doesn’t get the people participating. It doesn’t get them heard. It doesn’t get them understood. So I think that this is a model that we need to keep developing. We need to go doing this deeper analysis. We need to go out and check the organizations that are and continuing to enrich and to make the model richer so that it can be done. And now, pretty much all the way through this, I’ve sort of been almost sounding sometimes like a cheerleader, like I think it’s all easy and it all works, and accountability, for example, is a big, difficult topic. The topic that worries me the most that I don’t even feel that I have a good grasp on and how to deal with it is, even if you’ve got a measure for accountability and you’ve got a measure for who gets to participate and all that, it’s the notion of everybody dealing with the process in good faith. And often, when I’ve seen situations where it looks like, gee, things are really laid out well for this part of a multi-stakeholder process to actually work and deliver something that does respond to the needs of the stakeholders, there are those with less than good faith that throw wrenches in, you know, we use words like disinformation these days. It used to be something else or that. And how the model protects itself against things like that, things like what you suggested, the sort of disguised or the imitation of the model without it being genuine. So that’s one of the places where I’m still very much, but I think going forward, what we’ve got to do is develop the analysis better and we’ve got to start applying that analysis against existing and future efforts. Thanks.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you, Avri. I quite agree with the last point that Avery made. We have to look into what’s below the multi-stakeholder tokenism or disguise or whatever you call it. There is quite a lot of research that will be necessary. So thank you very much. Thank you all. We have still a bit of time, but we better stop it here. Oh, there’s a gentleman raising a hand in the audience.

AUDIENCE: Thank you. When we speak about multi-stakeholder model, we have to speak about the role of each stakeholder. Each stakeholder in his or her role. Suppose we are in a hospital and we have to decide whether to undertake a surgery for a patient or not. Shall the nurse, the administrative staff participate in this decision? No, they will be on the table, but not to decide if we have to make the surgery. For example, the financial people will say, no, he didn’t pay or he doesn’t have any guarantee to pay, so we cannot do it. The nurses can speak about other things related to this patient, but they cannot decide whether to have to undertake this surgery or not. So when we speak about stakeholders, we have to always say each in his or her role.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you. Thank you very much.

AVRI DORIA: Can I comment? Yes, please. I agree, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t have a voice around the table. They may not have the final decision, but certainly the ethicist who’s sitting at that table and looking at whether it is ethical to perform that particular operation on that patient at that point in time. Indeed, the funding may be part of it. If the surgery is not life-saving, but it’s going to put the person in debt for the next 30 years, is that a consideration that needs to be heard? I would actually argue that those people do need a voice. They may not be the final decision. The surgeon and the availability of the surgical team is certainly perhaps a bigger, but even a discussion at that, that looks cut and dry at the beginning, once you start analyzing what goes into making surgical decisions, you’ll find that there’s a lot of stakeholders that are involved in that. And so, I totally agree with you. You need to look at what the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder are at every phase of a surgery. process. But that doesn’t limit the number of stakeholders necessarily. Thanks.

AUDIENCE: Avri, you are repeating what I said. I exactly said that. I said that they have to be on the table because they have their aspects on the decision. But the medical decision is the role of the doctors. The other parts have their field of their part of the decision. Thank you.

KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you very much. There are many aspects where roles and responsibilities are concerned, so that shows we have a lot of work to be done in the future. Okay, let me conclude this session. Thank you very much. Thank you all for participating. Thank you, Avri, Lilian. Have a good day. Thank you all. Have a wonderful IGF. Thank you. Bye. Keep yourself safe. Very much. I’ve seen you on TV before. We are in the same hotel. We were having breakfast together and you were sitting next to me. I said, I’m in your care every month. He didn’t show his face. He just spoke. I interviewed him on JPNIC a long time ago. His video is still on YouTube. He’s from Tunisia. Oh, really? I don’t know where he’s from, but I’ve seen him a lot. Thank you. It’s really noisy around here. It’s a little dangerous. Is there a music event in the middle? There’s a stage in the middle. That’s interesting. How did you decide to have us there? I think we arranged it. I don’t know what’s going on. There’s a stage in the middle. I think there’s an event going on there. I wonder if the main hall is coming. It’s like this at the exhibition. I agree. It’s more important than the exhibition. But it’s not understood. It’s just a place where we’re interested in. I don’t care what kind of session it is. That’s right. The session we’re doing is like that. IJF is releasing a press release in Japanese. PR Times. Where is it? PR Times is like a release site. I don’t know if it’s the government or the industry. If someone doesn’t do it, it won’t come out. I thought it was because they wanted to promote it. I’m sure the people in Saudi Arabia understood what IJF was like in the past 20 years. But the AI international conference is like a newspaper. In Japan, people think of IJF as a conference. In Saudi Arabia, people think of it as an exhibition. I think it’s interesting that people can see that. That’s right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Thank you. Bye-bye.

Agreement Points

Multi-stakeholder models are adaptable to different contexts

speakers

AVRI DORIA

AMRITA CHOUDHURY

LILLIAN NALWOGA

arguments

There is no one-size-fits-all model; multi-stakeholder approaches can be adapted to different contexts

Multi-stakeholder models are applicable to digital economy issues, contrary to initial doubts

The multi-stakeholder approach should be deployed at different levels depending on maturity

summary

The speakers agree that multi-stakeholder models can be adapted to various policy areas and contexts, including the digital economy and developing countries, with implementation varying based on maturity and specific needs.

Transparency and accountability are crucial for effective multi-stakeholder processes

speakers

AMRITA CHOUDHURY

LILLIAN NALWOGA

JIM PRENDERGAST

arguments

Transparency and accountability are crucial for meaningful multi-stakeholder engagement

Future multi-stakeholder processes should focus on transparency, inclusion, and accountability

Meaningful multi-stakeholderism requires feedback on how input was used

summary

The speakers emphasize the importance of transparency, accountability, and providing feedback on how stakeholder input is used in decision-making processes for effective multi-stakeholder governance.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers express concerns about the integrity of multi-stakeholder processes, highlighting the need to address issues of tokenism, bad faith actors, and disinformation that can undermine genuine multi-stakeholder engagement.

speakers

KEISUKE KAMIMURA

AVRI DORIA

arguments

“Multi-stakeholder disguise” or tokenism is a concern in some processes

Protection against bad faith actors in multi-stakeholder processes is a challenge to address

Unexpected Consensus

Applicability of multi-stakeholder models to various policy areas

speakers

KEISUKE KAMIMURA

AVRI DORIA

AMRITA CHOUDHURY

arguments

Multi-stakeholder models can be applied to various policy areas with different implementations

There is no one-size-fits-all model; multi-stakeholder approaches can be adapted to different contexts

Multi-stakeholder models are applicable to digital economy issues, contrary to initial doubts

explanation

Despite initial doubts about the applicability of multi-stakeholder models to certain areas like the digital economy, there was unexpected consensus that these models can be adapted to various policy areas, including those previously thought to be less suitable for multi-stakeholder approaches.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement include the adaptability of multi-stakeholder models to different contexts, the importance of transparency and accountability in these processes, and the need for continued development and analysis of multi-stakeholder approaches.

Consensus level

There is a moderate to high level of consensus among the speakers on the core principles and challenges of multi-stakeholder governance. This consensus suggests a shared understanding of the potential and limitations of multi-stakeholder models in internet governance, which could facilitate more effective implementation and refinement of these approaches in various policy areas.

Different Viewpoints

Applicability of multi-stakeholder models to different policy areas

speakers

KEISUKE KAMIMURA

AVRI DORIA

AMRITA CHOUDHURY

arguments

Multi-stakeholder models can be applied to various policy areas with different implementations

There is no one-size-fits-all model; multi-stakeholder approaches can be adapted to different contexts

Multi-stakeholder models are applicable to digital economy issues, contrary to initial doubts

summary

While all speakers agree that multi-stakeholder models can be applied to various policy areas, they differ in their views on the extent and effectiveness of these applications. Kamimura suggests that the effectiveness may vary depending on the policy area, Doria emphasizes the adaptability of the models, and Choudhury argues for their applicability even in areas initially thought to be unsuitable, such as the digital economy.

Unexpected Differences

Role of stakeholders in decision-making

speakers

AVRI DORIA

AUDIENCE

arguments

Multi-stakeholder processes can be evaluated based on orientation, participants, and roles/responsibilities

The roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder should be clearly defined

explanation

While Doria’s framework includes roles and responsibilities as a key aspect of multi-stakeholder processes, an audience member unexpectedly emphasized the need for clearly defined roles, particularly in decision-making. This highlights a potential tension between inclusive participation and the need for specialized expertise in certain decisions, which was not explicitly addressed by the main speakers.

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around the applicability of multi-stakeholder models to different policy areas, the criteria for evaluating these models, and the specific focus areas for improving multi-stakeholder processes.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is moderate. While there is general agreement on the importance and potential of multi-stakeholder models, speakers differ in their emphasis on various aspects of implementation and evaluation. These differences reflect the complexity of applying multi-stakeholder approaches across diverse contexts and policy areas. The implications of these disagreements suggest a need for further research and discussion to develop more nuanced and context-specific guidelines for implementing and evaluating multi-stakeholder models in internet governance.

Partial Agreements

All speakers agree on the importance of evaluating and improving multi-stakeholder processes, but they focus on different aspects. Doria proposes a framework based on orientation, participants, and roles/responsibilities, while Choudhury and Nalwoga emphasize transparency, accountability, and inclusion. They agree on the goal of enhancing multi-stakeholder processes but differ on the specific criteria to prioritize.

speakers

AVRI DORIA

AMRITA CHOUDHURY

LILLIAN NALWOGA

arguments

Multi-stakeholder processes can be evaluated based on orientation, participants, and roles/responsibilities

Transparency and accountability are crucial for meaningful multi-stakeholder engagement

Future multi-stakeholder processes should focus on transparency, inclusion, and accountability

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers express concerns about the integrity of multi-stakeholder processes, highlighting the need to address issues of tokenism, bad faith actors, and disinformation that can undermine genuine multi-stakeholder engagement.

speakers

KEISUKE KAMIMURA

AVRI DORIA

arguments

“Multi-stakeholder disguise” or tokenism is a concern in some processes

Protection against bad faith actors in multi-stakeholder processes is a challenge to address

Key Takeaways

Multi-stakeholder models can be applied to various policy areas but implementations may differ based on context

There is no one-size-fits-all multi-stakeholder model; approaches should be adapted to different situations

Multi-stakeholder processes can be evaluated based on factors like orientation, participants, roles/responsibilities, and maturity levels

Meaningful multi-stakeholder engagement requires transparency, accountability, and feedback on how input is used

The future of multi-stakeholder models in internet governance requires continued development, deeper analysis, and protection against bad faith actors

Resolutions and Action Items

Conduct more research and analysis on different multi-stakeholder models and practices

Develop better frameworks for evaluating the effectiveness and maturity of multi-stakeholder processes

Work on improving transparency and accountability in multi-stakeholder engagements

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively apply multi-stakeholder models to all policy areas, especially those like digital economy where applicability was initially questioned

How to address the issue of ‘multi-stakeholder disguise’ or tokenism in some processes

How to determine the appropriate roles and decision-making power for different stakeholders in various contexts

How to protect multi-stakeholder processes against bad faith actors and disinformation

Suggested Compromises

Adapt multi-stakeholder approaches based on the maturity level and context of each situation, rather than applying a single model universally

Balance inclusive participation with clearly defined roles and responsibilities for different stakeholders

Incorporate both consultative elements and decision-making power for stakeholders, depending on the specific policy area and phase of the process

I tend to believe that a form of the multi-stakeholder model can be used just about anywhere a group of people need to make decisions together. I tend to think that we’re never in a situation of all or nothing in terms of the model.

speaker

Avri Doria

reason

This challenges the notion that multi-stakeholder models are only applicable in certain contexts, suggesting a more universal applicability.

impact

This set the tone for a broader discussion about the flexibility and adaptability of multi-stakeholder models across various domains.

I think depending on the maturity level or the different pockets that Avri has mentioned, I think it should be able to work but the context kind of differs.

speaker

Lillian Nalwoga

reason

This introduces the idea that the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder models may depend on the maturity of the context in which they are applied.

impact

This led to a more nuanced discussion about how multi-stakeholder models might need to be adapted or evolved based on the specific context and maturity level of the stakeholders involved.

I think we are seeing lots of this multi-stakeholder disguise and I think if we go back to what Avri may have listed then we may need to rethink on who constitutes to be on the table for us to say that you know multi-stakeholderism has been applied.

speaker

Lillian Nalwoga

reason

This highlights the potential for misuse or misrepresentation of multi-stakeholder processes, introducing a critical perspective on implementation.

impact

This comment shifted the discussion towards the importance of genuine implementation and the need for clear criteria to evaluate multi-stakeholder processes.

Meaningful multi-stakeholderism. You know, asking for input and not reflecting back to the community how the input was used, what portions were rejected, which were accepted, how did you change the direction of the policy? That’s meaningful.

speaker

Jim Prendergast

reason

This comment provides a concrete definition of what makes multi-stakeholder processes meaningful, emphasizing transparency and feedback.

impact

This led to a deeper discussion about the quality and depth of stakeholder engagement, rather than just the presence of multiple stakeholders.

Representative democracy is wonderful, but it doesn’t get the people participating. It doesn’t get them heard. It doesn’t get them understood. So I think that this is a model that we need to keep developing.

speaker

Avri Doria

reason

This comment frames multi-stakeholder models as complementary to traditional democratic processes, highlighting their unique value.

impact

This broadened the conversation to consider the role of multi-stakeholder models in enhancing democratic participation and representation.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by moving it from a general consideration of multi-stakeholder models to a more nuanced exploration of their implementation, effectiveness, and evolution. The conversation progressed from discussing the broad applicability of these models to examining the challenges in their genuine implementation, the importance of context and maturity, and their potential role in enhancing democratic processes. This led to a richer, more critical analysis of multi-stakeholder approaches, highlighting both their potential and the need for careful consideration in their application and evaluation.

How can we evaluate whether a multi-stakeholder process is dealing with an issue in the right way?

speaker

Keisuke Kamimura

explanation

This question addresses the need for criteria to assess the effectiveness of multi-stakeholder models across different policy areas.

How can we conduct a global analysis of various multi-stakeholder models and practices?

speaker

Audience member (unnamed)

explanation

This suggests the need for a comprehensive study comparing different multi-stakeholder approaches across various sectors and regions.

How can the multi-stakeholder model protect itself against bad faith actors and disinformation?

speaker

Avri Doria

explanation

This highlights a critical challenge in implementing effective multi-stakeholder processes and maintaining their integrity.

How do we define and implement accountability for different stakeholders within multi-stakeholder models?

speaker

Amrita Choudhury

explanation

This addresses the need to ensure responsible participation from all actors involved in multi-stakeholder processes.

How can we better analyze and apply multi-stakeholder models to existing and future governance efforts?

speaker

Avri Doria

explanation

This suggests the need for ongoing research and practical application of multi-stakeholder principles in various contexts.