Open Forum #11 CTO Open Forum on Digital Cooperation in the Arab Region

Summary

This discussion focused on digital cooperation in the Arab region, exploring the intersection of various global initiatives and their impact on regional development. The conversation centered around three main processes: the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and the Global Digital Compact (GDC).

Participants emphasized the importance of the Arab Digital Agenda as a framework for regional digital development, aligning with global initiatives while addressing specific regional needs. They discussed the evolution of digital cooperation from WSIS to the current GDC, highlighting how emerging technologies like AI and data governance have become central concerns.

The role of the Arab IGF was examined as a platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue and its potential to influence global discussions. Speakers stressed the need for harmonization of legal structures and positions on international treaties within the Arab region to attract investment and address technological gaps.

A key point of discussion was the complementarity between existing processes like WSIS and IGF with the newer GDC. Participants advocated for strengthening existing mechanisms rather than creating entirely new ones, emphasizing the importance of inclusive multi-stakeholder approaches.

The discussion also touched on the challenges of coordinating multiple governance processes and the need for developing countries to have sufficient capacity to participate effectively. Speakers called for breaking down the perceived dichotomy between multilateralism and multi-stakeholderism in the region.

Overall, the conversation highlighted the complex landscape of digital cooperation and the importance of regional coordination and representation in global digital governance discussions.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– The World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) process and its ongoing review

– The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and Arab IGF initiatives

– The Global Digital Compact (GDC) and its objectives

– How to integrate and create synergies between WSIS, IGF, and GDC processes

– The Arab Digital Agenda and regional digital cooperation efforts

Overall purpose:

The goal of this discussion was to review the various global and regional digital cooperation processes (WSIS, IGF, GDC) and explore how they can be integrated and strengthened to advance digital development in the Arab region.

Tone:

The tone was largely collaborative and constructive. Participants shared insights on the evolution of these processes and offered suggestions for improving coordination. There was a sense of optimism about the potential for greater regional cooperation, balanced with pragmatic acknowledgment of challenges. The tone became more focused and solution-oriented towards the end as participants discussed concrete ways to create synergies between the different initiatives.

Speakers

– Khaled Waly: Director of the Communication and Information Technology Development Department of the League of Arab States

– Charles Sha’ban: Represents business sector and technical organizations, President of the Multi-Stakeholder Program Advisory Committee of Arab Internet Governance Forum

– Qusai AlShatt: Member of the Internet Council, first president of the Multistakeholder Advisory Committee from 2012 to 2014

– Christine Arida: International expert and strategic advisor to the Executive President of the National Telecom Regulatory Authority of Egypt

– Nermine El Saadany: Regional vice president of the Middle East Internet Society

– Chafic Chaya: Regional manager for public policy and infrastructure, champion of the Arab Internet Governance Forum, current president of the Lebanese IGF

– Hussein Badran: Key member of the committee of Arab Mag and Arab Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Committee

– Ayman El-Sherbiny: Moderator

Additional speakers:

– Suha: Expert in the Communication and Information Technology Development Department of the League of Arab States

– Mohammad Rashid: Representative of young business entrepreneurs and leaders

– Dr. Nermin Salim: Secretary General of Creators Union of Arab

– Maher Melhem: From Microsoft

Digital Cooperation in the Arab Region: Integrating Global Initiatives for Regional Development

This discussion explored digital cooperation in the Arab region, focusing on the intersection of global initiatives and their impact on regional development. The conversation centered around three main processes: the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS), the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), and the Global Digital Compact (GDC).

Arab Digital Agenda and WSIS

The Arab Digital Agenda emerged as a central framework for regional digital development, aligning with global initiatives while addressing specific regional needs. Ayman El-Sherbiny highlighted that the agenda addresses digital divides and emerging technologies, featuring a unique measurement system and implementation framework. He emphasized, “This is the only one in the world, except for Europe,” noting its distinctive approach with 170 indicators across seven pillars and 21 objectives.

Suha from the Arab League discussed the increased engagement of Arab countries in WSIS processes and initiatives. She highlighted the importance of the WSIS process in promoting digital development and cooperation in the region. Qusai Al-Shatti pointed out that the digital divide remains a challenge, particularly in internet access and cost. Chafic Chaya emphasized the need for stronger partnerships and collaborations aligned with WSIS principles.

Arab Internet Governance Forum (IGF)

The role of the Arab IGF was examined as a platform for multi-stakeholder dialogue and its potential to influence global discussions. Ayman El-Sherbiny noted that the Arab IGF started in 2012 and has held several iterations across the region. Charles Sha’ban explained that Arab IGF themes consider both regional needs and global IGF themes, advocating for the renewal of the IGF mandate for another decade. He also mentioned that political tensions and military conflicts have sometimes affected the timing of the Arab IGF.

Christine Arida stressed the need for the Arab IGF to be more inclusive of grassroots organizations and youth, suggesting that more effort should be made to engage these groups in the dialogue process. The upcoming Arab IGF 7 in Amman was mentioned as an opportunity to address these concerns and further regional digital cooperation.

Global Digital Compact (GDC)

Qusai Al-Shatti outlined the five main objectives of the GDC, covering digital divides, digital economy, digital space, data governance, and AI. Nermine El Saadany noted that the GDC faced initial challenges in negotiating between multilateral and multi-stakeholder approaches. She suggested that the IGF could serve as a vehicle for implementing the GDC.

Mohammad Rashid highlighted the importance of data sharing and transport for startups and global scaling. Dr. Nermin Salim emphasized the significance of intellectual property rights in the digital context.

Complementarity between WSIS, IGF, and GDC

A key point of discussion was the complementarity between existing processes like WSIS and IGF with the newer GDC. Chafic Chaya advocated for strengthening existing mechanisms rather than creating entirely new ones. Charles Sha’ban stressed the importance of giving stakeholders their respective roles while collaborating.

Ayman El-Sherbiny highlighted the UN’s role as custodian of both multilateral and multi-stakeholder processes. Christine Arida cautioned against the duplication of governance processes and called for breaking down the perceived dichotomy between multilateralism and multi-stakeholderism in the region.

Nermine El Saadany emphasized the need for more consultation with regional groups to understand challenges and opportunities, promoting cross-regional collaboration and alignment in addressing digital challenges. She also noted the importance of streamlining various digital cooperation processes to address capacity constraints in developing countries.

Maher Melhem from Microsoft emphasized the need for harmonized legal structures and treaties in the Arab region to attract investment and foster digital innovation.

In conclusion, the discussion highlighted the complex landscape of digital cooperation and the importance of regional coordination and representation in global digital governance discussions. The conversation demonstrated a shared vision for digital development in the Arab region, with a focus on leveraging existing mechanisms, promoting multi-stakeholder approaches, and addressing the unique challenges faced by developing countries in the digital sphere. The upcoming Arab IGF 7 in Amman was identified as a key opportunity to advance these goals and further refine the region’s approach to digital cooperation.

Ayman El-Sherbiny: So we did it like that. Good morning, Dr. Ayman. Record? Record on? Record on? Your voice is clear, Dr. Ayman. Hello, sir. Record on. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to this session, the 11th Open Forum on Digital Cooperation in the Arab Region. The Arab region’s view of digital cooperation has a methodological background, and has several processes that make up the concept of digital cooperation. Is the audio okay? It’s okay, doctor. We can hear you. Can you hear us? If there are other mics, please shut down the other mics. We’ll just leave the mics with the panelists here. Again, the title of this session, the 11th Open Forum, is in the 10th floor, titled Digital Cooperation in the Arab Region. The concept of digital cooperation is based on the title that was before us, which is related to the process of the World Summit on Information Society, and is also related to all international networks, and the latest one is the Global Digital Compact. Therefore, the founding title is that we are doing a round of consultations, after we did the first round in Dubai, this is the second edition of the Arab Consultative Conference on the WSIS Plus 20 review and the Global Digital Compact process. We’ll talk about the Pact of the Future, Global Digital Compact with Declaration of Future Generations, as it is, the context of this dialogue. At the same time, we’ll try to answer some of the main points in these dialogues. We’ll give time, God willing, on the floor and remotely through Zoom. First of all, I’d like to introduce our guests. We have with us remotely the panelists from the main partner between ESCOA and the Arab Region. We have a direct relationship with all Arab countries, but it is also strengthened through the Arab League. We are supposed to have with us Mr. Khaled Wali, Director of the Communication and Information Technology Development Department of the League of Arab States. In this meeting, Mr. Belqasem and Ms. Suha will represent the medical team. Mr. Belqasem is the Director of the Communication and Information Technology Development Department of the League of Arab States. Ms. Suha is an expert in the Communication and Information Technology Development Department. They will be with us virtually via Zoom. On the right, we have Mr. Charlie Chaaban, who has several hats. He usually represents the stakeholder component related to the business sector in general, as well as the technical organizations specialized in technical academia. He also plays an important role in the multi-stakeholder arrangement in the Arab Internet Governance Forum. He is the President of the Multi-Stakeholder Program Advisory Committee. Mr. Charlie Chaaban is here with us. We also have with us remotely one of the important partners in digital cooperation, Ms. Christine Arida. She was supposed to be with us in a difficult situation, but God willing, things will get better. She preferred to be with us virtually. Her role is essential, and we will explain it during the discussion. She is an international expert and strategic advisor to the Executive President of the National Telecom Regulatory Authority of the Arab Republic of Egypt. She also played an important role for a long time in managing the Artistic Trust Team of the Arab IGF Secretariat. On the left, we have Mr. Qusai Al-Shabti, who is a physically a member of the Internet Council. He was the first president of the Multistakeholder Advisory Committee from 2012 to 2014, which is the founding phase of the Arab IGF. On the right, we have Mr. Shafiq Shaikh, who is the chief RIR in the region and in Europe. He is the regional manager for public policy and infrastructure, one of the champions of the Arab Internet Governance Forum, and the current president of the Lebanese IGF. On the left, we have Mr. Nermin Al-Saadani, who is the regional vice president of the Middle East Internet Society, in addition to her previous roles with the Egyptian administration. We also have Ms. Myrna Barber from the Esquire team in the Digital Cooperation and Development team. She is with us remotely. She will be with us during this session and its broadcasts, as well as the remote inquiries. We also have Ms. Rita Wahby from the Esquire team, and the research support. She will be with us to answer the questions and present the summary at the end of the session. Without further ado, let me quickly tell you how our story will go today. Simply, this hour and a half should be a journey. We will walk together and discuss. and we take opinions about the journey we all embarked on in the Arab region in comparison to the world, starting from 2002, 2003, 2005 and it has a certain significance and it has not ended yet then we point to certain things that appeared in 2006 and continue to this day then new things, other paths, appeared in 2019 and continue to this day so we found that the chronological discourse is the best way to move in the path of what is happening and because all these things are still vibrant and still a place of renewal and development so we will try to divide the questions in a way that is exposed to the older processes then the newer, then the newer, then the newer simply, we will start from the basics and you have heard a lot, for those who are new to this matter that we have 10 months left for the second renewal of the Information Society where it started in 2003, in its first phase in January 2005 in Tunisia and the Tunisian Agenda was issued but it also issued a recognition of major problems that were the biggest and greatest in the area of finance and this is an endless topic, but in the subject of internet governance so in 2003, which started in 1998 in Minneapolis people and stakeholders through the Plenipotentiary in Minneapolis in 1998 decided that it is necessary to enter the ICT world to the world of development and the world of international cooperation and therefore they set a goal to have a global summit and of course I am proud to mention these issues because I have kept all these things live in my career and profession from days before the United Nations when I was still in the industry so 1998 was a moment of a team, not only in WSIS, but also in the formation of ICANN and in the formation of many things around the world so the issues… These matters are still ongoing. The WSIS has been reviewed by the WSIS Plus 5 and the WSIS Plus 10. I would like to mention that Mr. Nermin, in the Egyptian administration at the time, was globally responsible for the WSIS Plus 10 review in 2015. At that time, he looked back 10 years and found that the most important thing was to continue the WSIS to 25. Today, in 2024, in a few days, we will see if we will renew the global WSIS in its form, content, and structure, or if we will change these things. Or if we will cancel it. No one knows, but it will be discussed. This is the process. Today, the WSIS Plus 20 has reached the second stage of renewal. We participated in the first round of this session in Dubai on May 22, and we did the first consultations. We will build on it today because there have been changes from May to today. That is, 7 months of a simple thing in the age of the internet, and also a quick thing in the age of policymaking, which is good news. This is the first context we will talk about. Then, we will talk about the path that resulted from the issue of internet governance. An agenda emerged in Tunisia in the form of an invitation to establish the International Forum on Internet Governance. We will attend the 19th round, and the second time in the Arab region, where the first time was in Sharm El Sheikh in 2009. So, we will ask the second question today about the International IGF, as well as the Arab one that we established in the region in 2011, and its activities began in 2012, based on the initiative of the ISCO in 2009 in Sharm El Sheikh, where the International IGF was present in the region. and arrange our affairs in a year or two, we will have an Arab forum. This will be the second question for the panelists and for you. So, today, we will ask what will happen now. What will happen now is not only a renewal of the WSIS within 10 months, but a renewal of the IGF as well. Will the IGF remain in its form and structure, or will we take opinions and contribute to a new formation? So, the second question is about the process that was born in 2006, and is now being renewed in 2015-2025. So, we are a team at the moment. The third thing is completely different. It’s not a Tunisian agenda, but it was the vision of the UN Secretary General in 2018-2019. The concept of our title is Digital Cooperation. He came up with a new title, because he found that from 2006 to 2018, there are still two camps operating at the same time. The multi-stakeholder camp is operating, and it produces dialogues and messages, but it’s not connected to the multilateral in any way. The multilateral camp, which was expecting more from the Tunisian agenda, was taking a side and fighting important issues, especially the issues of sovereignty and the role of governments. So, when the UN Secretary General read the 2018 agenda under the title of Digital Cooperation, which is not included in the report of the High-Level Panel, he was talking about a very large approach from all the camps, an approach between multilateralism and multi-stakeholderism, which resulted in, three months ago, in the context of the Summit of the Future, the Global Digital Compact and other things. So, this is our third question. It hasn’t been completed for two or three months. Even our colleagues and I are discussing and arranging it. There is nothing new, but this morning Filippo, as you saw in the workshop number 7, said what I was going to say. He said, by the way, we are working. We are quiet, but we are working. I think that was good news for everyone. So, what are we going to discuss? What we will discuss there, we will start discussing with you, which is the stage of implementation, the implementation of global digital content. And finally, not finally, we will talk about how all this puzzle fits together. So, let’s start with the first question, which is about WSIS. Let me just go back a few seconds. The first question will be for the Arab League. But there is a part of the story that I forgot to say, or I deliberately left it for the Arab League, because the first intervention is the one that most people can delve into, but the door is open to all colleagues. Mr. Bilqasem, Ms. Suha, and Mr. Khaled Wali, the Arab League, recently, we have joined many companies, including the Arab Internet Authority, the WSIS 2030 Agenda, the Digital Cooperation and Development Forum, which includes all these concepts. I mentioned the other one in Amman. But more importantly, we have put together the Arab Digital Agenda. It is similar to the Global Digital Compact, but for the Arab region. We have been working on it since 2019, and it was an honor for us to propose it here, near the Ritz-Carlton in 2019, at the Arab Council of Ministers meeting of the 23rd round. And we said that we must do something for the region, like Europe, which has a European Digital Agenda. So, we will organize ourselves and work on the Arab Digital Agenda. We decided in 2019 to put a vision, and ESPO put a vision in 2020. We worked with all the countries, all the international organizations, and the Arab League and other organizations. and we produced it, and today the Arab Digital Agenda is based on the level of the Arab Ministry of Finance, the Arab Economic and Social Establishment, and most importantly, on the level of the leaders and kings of the Arab countries. The Arab Digital Agenda is its presenter, and I think the question now is about WSIS, because this is the first thing we are going to talk about, and the Arab Digital Agenda is directed to the colleagues of the Arab National Security Team, and they are the Secretary-General and a partner in the Arab Digital Agenda and the Arab WSIS forum. We have Sayed Belkasem with us. Zoom, if you can hear us.

Speaker: Good morning. Good morning. I can’t hear you, Belkasem. No, I’m Suha. Suha. Good morning. Can you hear me? I can’t hear you. Good morning, everyone. Can you hear me, Dr. Ayman? Suha, go ahead. I can’t hear you. Can you hear me? Good morning. Can you hear me? Yes, I can hear you. Good morning, Dr. Ayman, colleagues. Good morning, Dr. Christine Areda, my dear colleague. Good morning, Dr. Ayman. how all the processes happen, and the prep-comms, and… At that time, there was no big response from the Arab countries, and there was still a gap, and we were working in an isolated world. But with time, with progress, now there is a lot of activity. The university has participated in many things in the last year. We cooperated with ESCO, as you mentioned, focusing on many initiatives, like the Arab Digital Content Initiative. We started to look at WSIS more broadly. We created the Arab Digital Agenda, which is very important for all the issues related to infrastructure, cyber security, and digital governance. It encouraged us to innovate. There was also a contribution to the development of the international digital platform, in which we participated. Recently, we started from scratch, and we participated with ESCO in many steps. Also, the issue of digital economy emerged very strongly. We didn’t have it in 2005, as all the Arab countries, I’m not talking individually. After that, there was a big development, and the result is that two years ago, there was a digital Arab indicator for the digital economy, for the first time, and this is of course a breakthrough. The Arab Internet Governance Forum, which you mentioned, Dr. Ayman, Of course, the widest field that we have now is the cyber security initiatives, because many countries were exposed to cyber threats, and the response was fast, and it will appear this month at the first Arab summit for cyber security. A cyber security council will be established. We cooperated with ESCO. There was also a big development in the subject of infrastructure, and we were fighting it in WSIS 2005, I think it was the T3, one of the action lines. There was no issue, and we were not interested in it in all sectors. Also, new things emerged, the smart cities, and the improvement of civil affairs and sustainable development. Things started to look good within the framework of WSIS, and this reflects that the countries are very committed to many initiatives. As for the WSIS plus 20 reviews, we made an evaluation of the progress of WSIS since 2005-2003, especially in the field of ICT, and then… The sound is gone. The sound is gone. Did anyone hear it? The sound is gone. Thank you very much, Ms. Suha.

Ayman El-Sherbiny: By the way, I forgot to say that we all want to try to make interventions for two to three minutes. But until we get back to the field and the microphone to the Arab League, we will move on to Mr. Qosay Al-Shatty, especially since he is one of the people who attended the WSIS topics. So, I would like you to give us a glimpse of your vision for the WSIS topic. Let’s not get into GDC right now. The WSIS mainly and the Arab Digital Agenda, because it is based on the WSIS action lines.

Qusai AlShatt: Thank you, Mr. Ayman, and thank you for organizing this workshop. You’re welcome. Is speaking in Arabic appropriate? Okay. We have compared it to the global level of information society. There is a big similarity, especially when it comes to access, or the implementation of internet services, and to the digital infrastructure, and its application to concepts such as data for continents, and the governance of these data, as well as issues related to cyber security, in addition to issues related to the governance of the Arab world. But… Thank you. However, the Arab agenda is more focused on breaking the gap between the Arab countries in these issues. And this is a set of challenges. For example, if we take today the issue of the internet, and despite spending more than 25 years on the Global Summit for the Internet Society, the gap between the Arab countries in the implementation of the internet is huge, in terms of cost, quality, and bandwidth. The issue of wide bandwidth, or… The wide bandwidth is still a big challenge in the Arab region. The existence of exchange points, IXPs, within the Arab world and between some Arab countries or regional countries is a big challenge. ISOC did a good project in the African continent to establish IXPs between the African countries. But at the national level, in order to reduce the Internet, to establish a local IXP between employers or regionals, this is still a big challenge. Therefore, the importance of the digital agenda is that there are no clear projects between the Arab countries, but there are national initiatives that reduce the gap, strengthen the network, solve challenges jointly, and create partnerships between the private sector, civil society and governments to face these challenges jointly, or through investment to solve these challenges, and not relying on public resources only as a means. Therefore, in our view, the digital agenda is an ambitious agenda. We hope that there are indicators to measure it and implement it, and to solve the challenges we are facing today. We still have Arab countries where the Internet usage is less than 50%. There are still Arab countries where Internet usage is costly compared to the income of the citizens. On the other hand, there are Arab countries where the Internet usage is not 100%, but 99%. For example, we are in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia today, and the cost is less. Today, we have entered the international equation. The internet is cheaper and more efficient. We used to say that in the southern countries, the internet efficiency is lower, but the cost is higher. Today, the Arab countries face the same situation. The countries that are technologically advanced or advanced in infrastructure, the cost of the internet is lower. Whereas, the countries that have a simple or weak access, the cost of the internet is higher than those in our advanced countries. Therefore, these are all challenges that the Arabic digital agenda faces, and we hope to solve them.

Ayman El-Sherbiny: Thank you. Thank you very much. Actually, the next intervention is for Mr. Shafiq Shaya. Before the intervention, I would like to comment on the point of the Arabic digital agenda. Indeed, the Arabic digital agenda, when we put it in place, it still faces major problems. It may cause problems in the latest digital divide, whether in the policy divide or in the content, or in issues related to AI. But the beauty of the Arabic digital agenda is that it was built on a system based on measurement. This is the only one in the world, except for Europe. In Europe, we have an intrinsic system of measurement within the concept of the Arabic digital agenda, which is a compass, where we have been and where we want to be for ten years, divided into three stages of time, four years, then three years, and then three years. We have not only a baseline, but we have negotiated targets for each goal. We have 35 goals, divided into five large groups. These 35 goals cover issues related to politics in general, implementation, basic infrastructure, legislative infrastructure, cyber security, as well as issues related to the digital economy, and issues related to companies. emerging technologies, AI, and even cryptocurrencies. I mean, all the issues related to the digital economy, including the use of ICT sectors, which we still have, to create job opportunities and export them. You can also go to the Digital Transformation Department and see our website in the countries and how we improve our international intermediaries related to e-health, e-education, and the future of work, and so on. There is also a chapter on culture and media that deals with social media, conversions, and other issues. But the good news is that we don’t have anyone who thinks they have reached perfection. So, before we finish the first chapter, we agreed to update it within two years. So, during this period, we are also adding new goals and adjusting some things to cover the topics of climate, the planet, agriculture, water, even the peaceful use of outer space, and AI. Last week, we held a big meeting on AI, its technologies, industries, and the rule of AI four or five days ago. Dr. Hussein Badran is with us. I would like to welcome him and his colleagues. It is a living framework of work. It is also nice that, with our love for the GDC, we are still building an implementation framework. But in the Arab Digital Agenda, the implementation framework is built before it is implemented. So, it includes an implementation framework to support implementation, measurement, and implementation and sustainability. So, I am glad to hear that. I would like to go back to the topic of action lines and their intersection with the 2030 Agenda. Mr. Shafiq would like to tell us about his opinion on the important initiatives and actions, especially regarding the extension of WSIS and the role of the different stakeholders related to the Arab Digital Agenda in the coming period. Saeed Shafee, Shaeed Fadl. Thank you, Ayman.

Chafic Chaya: First, thank you for the invitation and thank you for being with us today. These discussions are really very important to share insights from the different stakeholder groups. So, directly to your question, Ayman, I believe that from the technical community and namely from RIPE NCC, to have an inclusive multi-stakeholder and impactful action lines, we need to have strong partnerships and collaborations. These partnerships and collaborations should be in accordance with the WSIS principles and objectives. Let me highlight three main pillars where our activities as RIPE NCC and let’s say technical community intersect with the WSIS action line and GDCs. So, direct to the point, I will go first to the first action line, which is the Internet Infrastructure Resilience, which is action line number two. When we talk about Internet Infrastructure Resilience, we talk about connectivity, we talk about security, we talk about how we can connect people to the Internet in a meaningful way. So, to do this, we had partnerships, we had collaboration with multiple governments and regulators. I believe we achieved a lot during the last two years where we can see now the region is championing in IPv6 and routing security. Another point that I would like to tackle in the infrastructure, from infrastructure perspective, is the IXPs. IXPs are very international. So this is one of the advantages of the Internet Exchange Point, which is very important to keep our data secure. The other advantage of the Internet Exchange Point, these are very important hubs to host local contacts, because one of the challenges is to have our content hosted outside our region. Another advantage of the Internet Exchange Point is to have traffic and we can’t do without them. So this is one of the advantages of the Internet Exchange Point. So I will go to the second pillar, which is the WSIS Action Line No. 4, capacity building and knowledge sharing. This is very important point. Without capacity building, without knowledge, we can do nothing. What we saw in the last years working in this region, we are not able to build a network, we can’t build a network, we can’t build a network. We need to have the knowledge, we need to have the tools. And once again, technical community and RIPE NCC are there to offer these tools, to support members, to support governments with the necessary expertise in infrastructure. So this is very important point. We need to take it into consideration. And the last pillar that I see an important point, which is the collaborative Internet Governance. And this is a good example, we are here today to collaborate. Without collaboration, as we said, we need all the expertise from all the stakeholders to have an impactful actions and to achieve our goals nationally and regionally. And here, last point is, it’s not about only collaboration between IKEA, RIPE, and the EU, it’s collaboration between What are some examples, perhaps insights too, whether any of the the technical community, the UN organization, the Arab state, all the organization regionally and nationally, plus the collaboration between NRIs that we discussed yesterday. We need to have this collaboration at the national and regional level to have these impactful achievements. Thank you Ayman. Thank you Shafi, very interesting and you brought to the table something that

Ayman El-Sherbiny: comes also in the real time to mention it. Part of the Arab digital agenda is what you exactly mentioned, the collaboration and partnership framework and the platform for this collaboration partnership framework and we have with Rita here now some brochures for the collaboration partnership framework. Initiatives as such is not just an idea to be put there in the collaboration partnership framework, sorry Shafi, but it was elevated in the beginning and was put inside the ADA. These are called the key initiatives, not only projects. So this IXP project and the routing project are one of 10 main, let us say fundamental initiatives that were put also under the adoption of the manuscript of the 1.0 edition of the Arab digital agenda. So we have these ideas deeply earmarked and as well put into this CPF, collaboration partnership framework, but we need all your initiatives, we need all your programs and projects so that we combine them together and create regional programs to support the implementation and also to drive funding and investments to the region. Ten seconds, just I forgot that RIPE NCC is a partner with Esquire and the government of state in the ADA. We are working together with them in two areas which is the IPv6 to ensure that we have the good connectivity and on the routing security to ensure we have a secure routing path for our data. Exactly. And the good news, it is part of Action Line 2 of WSIS and part of Cluster 2 of ADA. So, infrastructure is fundamental and we discussed infrastructure of AI last week as well.

Chafic Chaya: So, I know that Nermeen is the best also to talk about the WSIS, but I will save her input to more the relations, the GDC, the IGF and others.

Nermine El Saadany: Unless you want to give a quick comment on the extension of the WSIS before move to the IGF and then the GDC. Thank you so much Ayman. I just want to build quickly on the introduction that you have made and of course the deliberation of my colleagues and highlight. How can we make the Arab voice more impactful when it comes to the review process of the WSIS plus 20 and of course the IGF and the GDC and so on. And my comments will be very very quickly in three main pillars that in my opinion would shape how the Arab in that regard. The first is that we should have an Arab digital agenda and this we are lucky to have the ADA and it was very much promising to have the ADA modality when the ASPA was starting to shape it up as a multi-stakeholder model. So they seek input from all stakeholders to contribute to the document or to the agenda itself. However, we have a slight challenge, how are we going to implement this and this is something maybe we can discuss later, but it’s very very important that we don’t only stop at the drafting of the agenda itself, but rather to look at the modality of how are we going to implement because this will be very impactful that the Arab goes through the process of the review when they have one voice and one solid vision about the different aspects. issues and the different tracks of the WSIS, the GDC, and the IGF even. The other very important component is, sorry, is to be open to consult with regional groups. Yes, we do this, but it’s not very solid in the way we do business. So we need to do more consultation of the regional groups, all groups, so African groups, and so on, and understand the challenges they face and the opportunities that they see, and share with them as well what we see as challenges to our region, and exchange these kinds of views so that we go together aligned. So we don’t go in different boats, but we go aligned in the same boat, more or less. And the final thing is to embrace more thoroughly in our beliefs and in the way we think about multi-stakeholderism as a concept, and I’m not referring here to the normal multi-stakeholderism with the, you know, to be open to the technical community, academia, civil society, and the like, but also actually to include stakeholders from the Arab countries. So for instance, we always discuss, for instance, digital skills gap, okay, and we suggest, for instance, that we need to add curriculum, new curriculum in universities. While we don’t have one single university sitting in the room, listening to our deliberations, and thinking how they can take this and start to implement them in their own arena. So we need to include our own stakeholders, whether they are private sector, whether they are academia, and NGOs, and so on, so that we can embrace the multi-stakeholderism bottom-up from our own communities, as well as to be open, of course, to multi-stakeholder approach or organizations from, you know, the rest of the world. Thank you so much, Ayme. Thank you so much, Nermeen, and now we continue the story. As we go with the story, what started

Ayman El-Sherbiny: in 2003-2005 will continue, because it’s still alive, but we’ll add now the new aspect of newborn IGF end of 2005, and it really took shape in 2006. In Athens, we met, most of us, in the first year of IGF. I remember me and Posey were skeptical but he always told me the process will grow let us see in 2007 and let us see afterwards and the process took shape and now we are in the 15th edition so I said this before but I would like to now mention a little bit the Arab IGF the Arab IGF started as I said with an idea in 2009 and the first edition was in 2012 in Kuwait with the support of the Kuwaiti government and kids and especially our champion Mr. Posey. We had established the AMAG or the MAG of the Arab IGF in the beginning of 2012. We did a open consultation with all stakeholders, RIPE was there at that time, many others like ICANN, like ISOC and operators and so on and so forth so it started there we did several iterations in Algeria. I have Algerian colleagues today with us and then in Lebanon in Egypt we passed by Tunis by Morocco we did many junctions in the way and now the Arab IGF7 will be taking place in Amman as part of the digital cooperation development forum during 23 to 26th of February and we have also a brochure on that which is the orange brochure on the event but while we distribute it I will ask Christine because Christine is not only now going to talk about Arab IGF but she will talk about Arab IGF and how can it influence the global IGF which was part of the idea that we are not doing that to be like elves but we want to make a difference in the world and the question is how can this processes Christine like Arab IGF in which you play the head of the secretariat. representing the NTRA for many years, and I have Faraghi with us who played a substantial role. So Christine, tell us your views now on the second segment of the questions on the IGF, Arab IGF, the relationship, and a little bit on how this moment in history of digital cooperation can help bridge the gap between multilateral and multi-stakeholder. Christine, the floor is yours.

Christine Arida: Hello Ayman, can you hear me? Yes. And can you see me? I can see you, but I don’t know if you can see me or not. Let me check. I can see you, I can see you. So I want to start by thanking ESCO for organizing this discussion. I think it’s timely, important, and well-needed at this stage. I’m also really happy to see this gathering happening in Riyadh, which I think is a milestone in itself. So without further thanks, I think there are many people around the room to thank, but I think what is important at this stage is to look at the role of the Arab IGF among the bigger picture of the IGF role as a whole. And I’ve been listening into discussions and participating in the discussions through Day Zero and until today, and there is so much talk about the importance of the IGF at this stage with the GDC implementation just barely starting and with the WSIS plus 20 coming up very quickly. And I think the Arab IGF, pretty much like the IGF, has done a great job in opening up topics and issues and shaping up discussions. looking through the journey since it started until the last session that we had just a week ago to discuss with the Lebanese IGF and the North African IGF. We’ve been really opening up topics and discussing very important issues to the Arab region. We also had outputs, we had messages coming out, we had partnerships that happened. So I think if we’re going to gauge what we’ve done, we’ve done a good job. But the problem that is at hand is how do we link that to everything that is happening? How do we link the work of the Arab IGF to the other, to discussions among the Arab group in ITU, to discussions among Arab member states in New York? So basically, drawing linkages is, in my view, one of the biggest challenges that we are facing at this stage. And in order to be impactful, we need to remember why we have the Arab IGF, why we have the IGF itself. It’s to have a bottom-up, multi-stakeholder dialogue, and to come out with best practices, ideas, possibly even policy recommendations that was all very broad within the mandate and the Arab IGF was not alien to that. But we really have to take a serious step back and look at the future of the Arab IGF and see how do we want to proceed in that direction? And how do we want to be impactful with other NRIs during the coming year and shaping up also the follow up of the GDC? I will stop here and I hope that I addressed some of your questioning. Okay, sure, Christine. Thank you and stay tuned. We’ll ask you about the other processes as well. And now we move to Mr. Charles Chaban, who is also one of the key players in the Arab IGF role. He was a member of the Global MAG of IGF for some time, Christine as well, and he then joined the machinery of the Arab IGF and he became the head of the multi-stakeholder program advisory committee. So the AMPAC, A-M-P-A-X-T, Arab Multi-Stakeholder Program Advisory Committee, how do you consider the Global IGF themes? And how did we take it into consideration while we were planning the Arab IGF themes for next February, inshallah? And if you would like to shed light on your thoughts on the extension of the Global IGF

Charles Sha’ban: and let us say the also evolution of the Arab IGF. But the floor is yours, you can order as you like. Thank you Ayman, but we have two to three minutes so I will not cover everything, I’ll try to cover whatever I can. Well thanks everyone for that. In fact, important question and how we, I think we can go back to the start when Qusay, my friend, was the head of the Arab MAG, and today it was mentioned IXPs for example. So when we started even we used to know what our region needs and based on that we used to select the subjects we want to present for everyone in the Arab IGF. At the same time, the connection with the Global IGF, we used to always take their themes in consideration, we used to think for example this theme is important for us too so we keep it to be in harmonization with the Global IGF too. But the main issue I think I should stress on is we were always putting our region in specific as the priority and what we need here more. Going to the next one in Amman, based on the Global IGF and the local even, what we need, as I mentioned. We agreed that we will talk about three main themes this February, hope to see everyone in Amman. We will have one first theme about artificial intelligence, ethics and legislation. The second one will be about the trust, especially data privacy and data governance. And the third theme, my colleagues and I, of course, we agreed on one, internet and digital sovereignty. This will cover, by the way, what some people are discussing globally to about internet fragmentation. So these are the main three themes we will consider around. You asked me again about how we see the global IGF even in general evolving. I think we should push even as Arab IGF that we should maybe renew it for another decade. Even, I know you will discuss GDC later, but I think even the GDC seems they were somehow moving towards this and that they know that the IGF was an important body and an important event that everyone is participating on and interested in. So I think I’ll stop here for now to leave time for my friends, thank you. Okay, thank you so much. Now, if we don’t have other interventions on the IGF or Arab IGF, we will move to the GDC. But before that, I would like to give a chance for the floor inside and outside, if they want to ask one or two questions. Now on Oasis, we finished the Oasis and the IGF segment,

Ayman El-Sherbiny: we will move to the GDC, which is another paradigm, and then the linkages between the two paradigms. So if we don’t have any hands raised, I will, okay, Dr. Hussain Sadran, one of the key members of the committee of Arab Mag

Hussein Badran : and later the Arab Multi-Stakeholder Advisory Committee. Thank you, thanks so much, Ahmed. It’s a pleasure to be here. It’s an honor actually to participate in this. Thank you for Saudi Arabia. for hosting us, very much appreciated. Regarding the wishes and contribution of the Arab states, I think having a common agenda for the Arab states is approach number one, and I’m very happy to see that we have the other and we’re looking into refining it. I believe it’s also very valuable that on the national level the community can engage with its own delegate, with its government, to enrich the discussion, to raise the priorities. As we know, ultimately it will be a multilateral negotiation, and every government will have a vote, will have a voice in these negotiations to prepare the government’s representatives with the priorities from a multi-stakeholder perspective, what is important to society, what’s important to the private sector, the businesses, the academia, so that when their representatives go to New York and negotiate, they are armed with this information. Some countries are doing this already, but I hope that in the Arab region we can approach our own governments and make them, and arm them with this kind of information.

Ayman El-Sherbiny: Thank you. Okay, but before you leave, I will not leave you, I’m coming, approaching to you, to ask something that people think it doesn’t relate to WSIS, and they think it doesn’t relate to IGF, but it, from my point of view, does. Do you think that the AI is alien to the WSIS? A WSIS cannot cover the AI with the action lines of Essex infrastructure, cultural media, and all these things, because when we go to the GDC, I would like also to hear your views as we are renewing the WSIS.

Hussein Badran : Yeah, I think technology, particularly emerging technologies have a role to play in all these discussions, in terms of, not only in terms of development and infrastructure, but also in capacity building and businesses. They have an impact on business, they have an impact on the economy, and they have an impact on knowledge. So they have a role to play, and being aware of these concepts and how they impact us and having our voice raised is very critical. They have a role to play, for sure. Very good, thank you so much. So I will leave another version of the replies to every one of the panelists, whenever they want. and to tell us how can the West’s action lines cover emerging technologies. And I’m with the approach of Shafi to snatch the mic. Go ahead. No, because you know that I need to leave in two minutes. So, just to comment on the GDC. I believe the strategic location of the Middle East region and the advancement, the technology advancement that we are witnessing now, plus the openness of the region could be really a leverage for our strength and to show our cases at the global level at the GDC. So, what we need to do is to take success stories, is to take our collaboration that achieved a lot of progress and achievements and to share it at the global level during these global processes like GDC and others. So, I will stop here and I would like to invite you at 1pm workshop, room number seven, we’ll have the Lebanese and the Canadian IGF workshop to show how a developing country as Lebanon and a developed country as Canada, both of them, they are leveraging their own multi-stakeholder approach for IGF.

Ayman El-Sherbiny: Thank you, Eman, for the invitation again and good luck for the end of this workshop. Thank you. Thank you. And once we finish here, we’ll go to this workshop because Esko is also participating in, our colleague Mirna Barba. So, we will go, which room you said, seven? Seven, okay. So, now I’ll move to the GDC and Mr. Qusaysh Shati is one of the international experts who digged deep and made a lot of dives while we were negotiating the GDC, REV1, REV3 and so on, and now the GDC. And can you just tell us what are the five objectives, just to give the audience a glimpse of these five objectives quickly? Until you are ready, I will just give the history of the GDC. The GDC started as an idea… during the report on digital cooperation in 2019, also the idea of tech envoy office, OSET, and then in Esquire we did contribute to regional consultations on this digital cooperation since 2019 in Berlin when we were IJF, and then during the COVID, and then we took it further in 2021 in the first edition of the Arab International Digital Cooperation Development Forum. In our views, we thought this is the way we can be in advance before even it is negotiated, and before it went to the summit of the future and came up. So I asked Kossai on the main objectives of GDC, but let me explain the context. The summit of the future, the pact, had chapter three, some articles related to science, technology, innovation, digital technology, and so on, but the main annex was the global digital compact negotiated text, another annex on the future generations, but the objectives are the core of the core. So Kossai, what are the five objectives of the GDC?

Qusai AlShatt: Thank you, dear Ayman, but let me start from the previous topic, which is can WSIS and IJF accommodate emerging technologies? Okay, go ahead. And that will be the bridge. Paragraph 72 of the Tunis agenda, which said the mandate, the Internet Governance Forum stated that part of the role of the IJF is to accommodate emerging technologies. Emerging technologies 2005, that is AI today, that is the blockchain today, that has been today, this is just an example. So AI can be accommodated based on the fact that emerging technology was always part of the main agenda of the IJF, since it is launched and part of the WSIS too. So moving from there to the GDC. The Global Compact is a positive, proactive evolution of the WSIS Outputs, which is the Geneva Declaration of Principles and the Tunis Agenda. These two documents have been produced in 2005. For more than 10 years, you need to be more current, you need to update the concerns and the objectives of the global community. So the first one, closing all digital divides and accelerating progress across the Sustainable Development Goals. It links the digital divide with the Sustainable Development Goals, and yet it puts the access actually issues under the digital divide. So today, connectivity, digital literacy, skills and capacities, and digital public goods, and digital public infrastructure became part of the digital divide objective within the global. This is not a contradictory, this is an evolution. So we consider the digital divide is not only the human skill, but also the infrastructure and services that are available to him to improve his skills and use it as part of his daily life. The other objective was getting the benefit of the digital economy and making the digital economy inclusive to all. So we need to get all as individuals, as stakeholders, as communities, as countries, as regions, and the global world to get the benefit of the digital economy and making the digital economy inclusive to all. This is to promote entrepreneurship. This is to promote inclusion. This is to promote inclusion. is to promote innovation. This is to make the digital world more linked to our needs and requirements. Three, fostering an inclusive, open, safe, and secure digital space. There is a fact that with the explosion of social networks, social platforms, the daily interaction between us through the digital space created a new issue. So under this objective, human rights as a personal individual right in the digital space, internet governance became part of this objective. The digital trust and safety where I need to have verified, authenticated, validated information available to me as an individual, or as a business, or as a government, or as a public information. And of course, information integrity, referencing information, and having always a differentiation between information that is baseless and baseful information. Objective four, advanced, responsible, equitable, and interoperable data governance approaches. Of course, this is a major issue today where we are talking about data privacy, security, including cybersecurity and security of individual, and what is called the data exchanges and standards. I have a good discussion with my colleague, Mohammad Rashidi, regarding exchanging data and standards in that regards. It is important today with technologies like fintech and the blockchains, for example, to have such standards available and widely adopted. And of course, utilizing data for sustainable development goals and cross-border data flows and interoperable data governance. So moving to transport. their data and governance of data. And the last objective, of course, enhancing international governance of artificial intelligence for the benefit of humanity. So the fact is, AI to serve humanity, not the other way around. This is the global team. I’ll stop here because I took time.

Ayman El-Sherbiny: But very important, like setting the scene for the GDC discussion, as you have seen, divides still the main concern. The digital economy became a more obvious concern. It was not very clear in the WSIS, as well as the inclusion and human rights centricity. And the last two objectives were focusing on the data governance and the AI governance. So anyways, it’s a very important addition. They still can live together with the WSIS and GDC. But now I’d like to ask Nermeen on her views on how can both processes, the one we just closed, the IGF and its renewal, and the GDC during its setting the pace for implementation, how can they synergize with each other? Thank you so much, Ayman. You hear me? Yes.

Nermine El Saadany: Okay. And thank you so much, Kosai, for setting the scene. I was just thinking, shall I start with the explaining the objectives of the GDC? So thank you. And allow me as well to just play a little bit of a devil advocate and say that the GDC has, maybe at the beginning, at its beginning, I mean, faced some challenges in the modality that they were working and the way that they will be negotiating the text, multilateral versus multistakeholderism and so on. And this took us back in ages when we were starting the process of the WSIS and there were this kind of, you know, like heat or cloud over our heads. how should we look at the WSIS and now how should we look at the GDC. The GDC had successfully completed its discussion and I think the lessons that we can learn from this and how can we link it with the IGF and WSIS review process is that we will not, definitely we will agree that we will not want to go back in ages and repeat the same mistakes and we believe as well that the community again with the process of the GDC and the challenges that it faced this by itself emphasized the importance of multi-stakeholderism as a way to communicate and discuss such issues and that there are very much synergies and similarities between the GDC objectives and the WSIS action lines and that takes me actually to how can we integrate all this together and in our opinion at the International Society we believe that the Internet Governance Forum could actually be a kind of a vehicle for the implementation of the GDC so that we don’t repeat or compete with existing models but rather to strengthen what we actually have and extend the mandate as Kossai has rightly mentioned and made us all remember paragraph 72 of the Tunis agenda it encompassed, I mean the mandate of the IGF encompasses emerging technologies so easily with the system and the modality of the MAG and so on we can always incorporate new technologies within the discussions of the IGF and maybe include as well how can we implement the output of the GDC and therefore we integrate the processes together instead of having more than verticals than we can actually accommodate as international community at large. Thank you so much.

Ayman El-Sherbiny: Thanks a lot Nermine. and we are like approaching seamlessly the force by this input and I don’t want to spend a lot of time on the GDC I think the complementarity is very important we are now know the GDC we know the WSIS we started to get a component of this say IGF can be compatible I see that the action lines of the WSIS are all compatible so the complementarity is there and because we have only 20 or less 20 minutes or less to go I’d like to move to this last segment and see how can these all fit together for example first question the object at the what and the mechanism the how the what are the targets the goals and the concerns of the WSIS of the GDC are areas of improvements aspirations and so on they fit together a plus b there is no contradiction a a a plus b or b b b 1 b 2 and so on so there is concatenation super set between more aspirations together so the what is not a problem the the how the modalities we have WSIS forum we have IGF forum we have preparatory process for the IOSIS preparatory process for the forum IGF but not only that but we have STI forum and we have interagency task team in New York for the STI and we have also RCM I see many mechanisms for the STI which is part of the GDC but all of that they have the CSTD and there is a part an article in the section on GDC follow-up mechanisms relates to the CSTD and CSTD is there in the GDC a new suggested modalities which are also worthwhile a scientific committee for on the AI international dialogue of organization on AI. There is also things related to the data governance and so on. But as Mr. Hassan explained it very smoothly, easily a few days ago in our AGM on AI, the scientific community of new nature is invited to play a new role. As the science of AI differs from the science from critical resources that we debated 20 years ago. There is this new mechanisms and existing mechanisms. How can we take from you some wisdom and give it to the kitchen that Filippo talked about in the morning, which I’m proud to be part of it, shaping the modality of implementation of GDC at the UN global level. What would you give me as intake that I can bring to the design phase as Isabella has explained in the morning? I felt you raised hand, but he got the hand first. It’s good to get the hands of the floor. Mohammad Rashid is a good friend and one of the representatives of the young business entrepreneurs and leaders.

Mohammad Rashid: Assalamu alaikum. I would like to emphasize more on brother Qusai objectives that he mentioned under the Global Digital Compact about data sharing and transporting data. How this is impacting the community of the startups. I’m coming from the knowledge economy. We are building startups and supporting startups, especially in deep tech. And this is a very important aspect that will impact three major stakeholders. The first stakeholder is the entrepreneur themselves, the founders, the startups. They would like to optimize, so optimizing their operation by remote workers working on these data, if there is no accessibility to these data to be shared, they cannot utilize the external talents. Building on top of the existing incubators of the clouds that are available anywhere globally with certain skill sets and certain technologies, to access this as an entrepreneur, I cannot have the affordability to have it on-prem or within my jurisdicts. I can via this data sharing and transport of data, I can benefit out of that. Also, I’m going to benefit out from the multilateral partnerships that can be cross-governments or private in a global scale, not within the country. The second aspect, which is very important, is about the investors. Investors today, as an entrepreneur or a startup, I’m always looking for scaling up. And investors are looking for a company that works on a global scale, not only on a local scale. So accessing other markets, if the data accessibility is not there, I cannot branch, I cannot transport, I cannot scale. So today we are working in a global village. This internet is a global village, and it’s a one market, one digital market. And data has become now a bit borderless with the open flow of data, and it became a shared resource, global public good as well. Exactly. So the privacy is going to be only on the credentials. So those credentials, if it’s tokenized and mapped, and this data is going to be available, you can personalize, you can do everything. Then later you can map it to the token to disclose the identity based on a request that is being given ahead to that customer profile to disclose.

Ayman El-Sherbiny: OK, thank you so much. It’s very clear. And he picked on this data governance objective, which is four. It resonates with digital economy objective two. It resonates with AI and many other things. So again, how can the mechanisms work together, Sai? And there is a lady over there. And if there is someone from the remote floor and here also. Fadal, Sai. Shafiq, sorry, Shafiq was before you.

Chafic Chaya: Can we give him the floor and come back to you? We need to focus on the process that is complementary and remove the redundancy. For example, we know for all that the IGF is the most inclusive platform from all these platforms, where all stakeholders on equal footing are coming to an independent platform, talking about all issues, including emerging technologies. So I need to complement the IGF, which is all inclusive, but non-binding, non-output platform with other activities, like the CSTD, like the internet-related governance organization, like the WSIS-related bodies, which is intergovernmental. If we complement each other with a clear process, that will be the positive outcome for all. OK, so if I rephrase what you said, it’s like strengthening some nodes and links in this existing ecosystem, existing network, to make it more ready for the new aspirations. Make it the most inclusive platform. The most inclusive platform exists and operates. OK, so what is operating? What is ticking? Don’t break it, just fix it and make it more stronger. And what is missing? Add it. So that is logical thinking of engineers, of course. that can be brought in a clear message as an outcome. Shafiq? Sorry, Charles. Two Hs. Yeah, thank you. Well, in fact, I’m glad. There are four Shins. Charles, Shaban, Shafiq, Shaya. I have my excuse. Don’t worry, of course. In fact, I’m glad I gave the opportunity to speak before me because I wanted to start that and continue on one other thing. So I can continue what you started, which is mainly, if we go back as I went back to the WSIS, the original definition of the Internet Governance, if you remember, of course, I mean, you were from the beginning, when they defined what is Internet Governance, they said to give each one its own role. I don’t remember the same sentence. In the respective role. So my addition, as I mentioned, is mainly to give each stakeholder and each stakeholder to work on his role more in collaboration with everyone. I think Shafiq, since you mentioned Shafiq when he was here, he said that this is important to collaborate. So we strengthen the idea of multi-stakeholderism while each stakeholder is entrusted the respective role. Exactly. This is exactly what I wanted to say.

Ayman El-Sherbiny: Thank you. I will not stop. And I’m happy that the role of the UN as a custodian of multilateralism has taken its respective role in being the, let us say, the custodian of the GDC, of the WSIS, of the multilateral and multi-stakeholder. So that is a strengthened role, by the way, that the Secretary General wanted to bring to the UN, starting his initiative in 2018. And now everyone knows that it’s not only the government, but the business sector, the civil society, technical community and academia, plus the international organization as equidistant with all the stakeholders as also the enabler and facilitator for them. As an example, in our region, you worked a wonderful role as Esquire with the League of Rural States. when you have the Arab and got everybody all the roles and just a small note since I still have you for one 10 seconds only the Arab IGF when we worked on the program next year since we we started working before to be honest but you know what happened in the region made us delay yes we were planning to do it in November but because of the political tensions and the military conflicts we chose to do it next year yeah and as all my colleagues are here already Christine online Hussein we asked everyone who worked on these themes I mentioned before to review it again based on the GDC outcome so this is I think we to be to make sure that we are having everything together thank you before I give the floor now to Christine there is a question from the gentleman here and the lady before can you just 20 seconds put your question and then the gentleman here then I will give the floor Christine and then we wrap up everyone I’m Dr. Nermin Salim the Secretary General of Creators Union of Arab this organization it concerns with the intellectual property rights and I think and I hope to add the intellectual property part in this mechanism because it’s became

Audience: an important assets in any business what is your first name again? Nermin Salim, Dr. Nermin Salim

Ayman El-Sherbiny: I’m an expert in IP. After the meeting, me, you and Charlotte will have a meeting. It’s my pleasure. And you do a workshop together in our upcoming Arab IGF. Thank you. And now the gentleman here a new workshop I entrusted to you. Hello hi everyone this is Maher, Maher Melhem from

Audience: Microsoft thanks for the informative session and giving us the opportunity a few points attracted my attention first of course the title about the great idea to bring all Arab countries after the umbrella of the IGF and Arab League. A few comments. One, we discussed the digital divide, importance of AI and data governance. And also Hussein mentioned a very important point about how we can introduce ourselves as members of the Arab League in front of international forums as one bloc. I think there is a clear lack of coordination under one legislative umbrella, more like treaties. Similar for what’s happening in Europe, like the GDPR treaty. International companies would love to invest in the region whenever there is a business case. But to be honest, there is a clear gap, divide between some countries in the region who have the resources and others who lack the resources. All of this can happen and attract encouraging international investors to come to the region and address the AI gap, data governance issues by having one treaty among the countries to share data.

Ayman El-Sherbiny: You are right. We have one of the objectives in cluster two of the Arab Digital Agenda pillar four is to harmonize the legal structures and to also harmonize the memberships and positions regarding the international treaties. So that is an important action. We are going to also announce during our event in Amman, what we call programmatic implementation support modalities for the ADA. And part of it will be programs on the infrastructures, programs on the legal harmonization and also digital economy on many other things. So please continue discussion with us. And now we’ll go back to the floor with Christine to give. on the complementarity between IGF WSIS on the one hand with the GDC as a newborn on the other hand and to add whatever she wants regarding the future of Arab IGF. Thank you Ayman.

Christine Arida: So, I think I know I will just mention two points. The first point is what we’ve what we’re seeing right now is inflation and duplication of governance processes and maybe it’s good that this is put on the table because it indicates that there is need. But what we need to do right now is to be aware that we as developing countries, our region is mostly developing countries, you might not have enough capacity to follow and participate in all those duplication of processes. And in that context, I think we need to be very vocal as a region about making synergies and avoiding duplications and you know, as Qusayi was saying, identifying roles, also Nermeen mentioned that, so that we can avoid having to participate in different venues and have just a process here and a process there and then get lost in the middle. In order to do that, we need to, the second point that I want to mention, as a region, we need to change our perception of this false dichotomy between multilateralism and multistakeholderism. We in the region, we tend to believe that there is a strong dichotomy between both. I personally, I don’t think this is the case. I think we just need to understand how processes such as the Arab IGF being multistakeholder, bottom up, how can they support multilateral decisions in different venues in the region and see this complementarily and empower it. And I see in the chat a question about how the Arab IGF, does it involve grassroots? Does it involve youth? I think we need more of that. We need that involvement. We need to be very inclusive. We need maybe to look at the Sao Paulo multi-stakeholder messages and see how multi-stakeholder our processes are and enforce that dimension in our proceeds. Thank you, Ayman.

Ayman El-Sherbiny: Thank you so much. And of course we are involving new stakeholders in the process. Also, it’s a good chance to remind Christine that our work on the parliamentarian session is taking more shape. So please let us give it more momentum together, Inshallah. Also work with youth. We’ll add the youth segment much more in our new activities. And I’d like to also thank my young team members who are working remotely from Beirut. Lara, Abbas, and Mohamed, plus Khadiga. Also, of course, thank Rami and Mirna. Mirna now is moving to the other session at 7. And if there is no final remarks from anyone from the panelists, I think we wrap up. It is exactly now around the clock. And I would like to thank Nibel for being with us today. I’m very happy if the remark and thank my nice young friend, Jamal, who came from Belgium to say hello and be part of this workshop. And everyone here, you want to say something? Final word, 10 seconds. It’s just a recommendation to have the answer from all of you. Localizing IGF in each and every country. Yes, sir. IGF. We are working on it, and we have good news that the Saudi IGF that we advocated last year with the government in Saudi Arabia has taken shape, and we have now in several countries national IGFs, and we are just like the custodian, and everyone has autonomy, but we work together. Inshallah, together we are strong, and I’m happy that you are here, I’m happy that this is our fourth or fifth event in the Arab IGF, in the IGF of Riyadh, and inshallah we’ll continue until the end of the week, but stay tuned, register in the Arab IGF 7, part of the DCDF, and that’s it, thanks, goodbye. Thank you very much, I took your card, and the colleague of my team, Rita, will contact you, and inshallah you will be with us in Amman. I don’t want to take his context, I have the mind of the context reader, but I’m going to take it because I’m sure he’s with me. Omar Sabha. Omar is my son. Really? Yes, really. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Need for comprehensive digital agenda in Arab region

speakers

Ayman El-Sherbiny

Speaker

Qusai AlShatt

arguments

Arab Digital Agenda addresses digital divide and emerging technologies

Arab countries now more engaged in WSIS processes and initiatives

Digital divide remains a challenge, especially in internet access and cost

summary

Speakers agree on the importance of a comprehensive digital agenda for the Arab region to address digital divides and emerging technologies, while acknowledging progress and remaining challenges.

Importance of multi-stakeholder approach in internet governance

speakers

Chafic Chaya

Charles Sha’ban

Christine Arida

arguments

Need for stronger partnerships and collaborations aligned with WSIS principles

Importance of giving stakeholders their respective roles while collaborating

Importance of bridging false dichotomy between multilateralism and multistakeholderism in the region

summary

Speakers emphasize the need for multi-stakeholder collaboration in internet governance, while recognizing the importance of defined roles and bridging perceived gaps between multilateralism and multi-stakeholderism.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the importance of leveraging and strengthening existing frameworks and mechanisms rather than creating new ones, to ensure effective implementation and measurement of digital initiatives.

speakers

Ayman El-Sherbiny

Chafic Chaya

arguments

Arab Digital Agenda includes measurement system and implementation framework

Need to strengthen existing mechanisms rather than create new ones

Both speakers suggest utilizing existing forums like the IGF to implement new initiatives like the GDC, avoiding duplication of processes and leveraging established platforms.

speakers

Nermine El Saadany

Christine Arida

arguments

IGF could be a vehicle for implementing GDC

Need to avoid duplication of governance processes

Unexpected Consensus

Integration of emerging technologies in existing frameworks

speakers

Ayman El-Sherbiny

Qusai AlShatt

Nermine El Saadany

arguments

Arab Digital Agenda addresses digital divide and emerging technologies

GDC has five main objectives covering digital divides, digital economy, digital space, data governance and AI

IGF could be a vehicle for implementing GDC

explanation

There was unexpected consensus on the ability to integrate emerging technologies like AI into existing frameworks such as WSIS and IGF, rather than creating entirely new structures. This suggests a more adaptive approach to digital governance than might have been anticipated.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The main areas of agreement include the need for a comprehensive digital agenda in the Arab region, the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches in internet governance, and the integration of emerging technologies into existing frameworks. There is also consensus on leveraging and strengthening existing mechanisms rather than creating new ones.

Consensus level

The level of consensus among speakers is relatively high, particularly on broad strategic approaches. This suggests a shared vision for digital development in the Arab region, which could facilitate more coordinated and effective implementation of digital initiatives. However, some differences remain in the specifics of implementation and the balance between regional and global approaches.

Different Viewpoints

Role of IGF in implementing GDC

speakers

Nermine El Saadany

Chafic Chaya

arguments

IGF could be a vehicle for implementing GDC

Need to strengthen existing mechanisms rather than create new ones

summary

While Nermine suggests using IGF to implement GDC, Chafic emphasizes strengthening existing mechanisms without specifically mentioning IGF for GDC implementation.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement were subtle and centered around the specific roles and implementation strategies for existing and new digital governance mechanisms.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among speakers was relatively low. Most speakers shared similar views on the importance of digital cooperation, the need to address the digital divide, and the value of multi-stakeholder approaches. The minor differences in opinion were primarily about implementation strategies and the specific roles of existing mechanisms. This low level of disagreement suggests a generally unified approach to digital cooperation in the Arab region, which could facilitate more effective implementation of digital agendas and cooperation frameworks.

Partial Agreements

Both speakers agree on avoiding duplication and leveraging existing mechanisms, but Christine focuses on the challenges for developing countries, while Chafic emphasizes complementing existing platforms.

speakers

Christine Arida

Chafic Chaya

arguments

Need to avoid duplication of governance processes

Need to strengthen existing mechanisms rather than create new ones

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasize the importance of leveraging and strengthening existing frameworks and mechanisms rather than creating new ones, to ensure effective implementation and measurement of digital initiatives.

speakers

Ayman El-Sherbiny

Chafic Chaya

arguments

Arab Digital Agenda includes measurement system and implementation framework

Need to strengthen existing mechanisms rather than create new ones

Both speakers suggest utilizing existing forums like the IGF to implement new initiatives like the GDC, avoiding duplication of processes and leveraging established platforms.

speakers

Nermine El Saadany

Christine Arida

arguments

IGF could be a vehicle for implementing GDC

Need to avoid duplication of governance processes

Key Takeaways

The Arab Digital Agenda addresses digital divides and emerging technologies, with a built-in measurement system and implementation framework

The Arab Internet Governance Forum (IGF) has evolved since 2012 and aims to balance regional needs with global themes

The Global Digital Compact (GDC) has five main objectives covering digital divides, economy, space, data governance and AI

There is a need for complementarity and synergy between WSIS, IGF and GDC processes to avoid duplication

The region needs to bridge the perceived dichotomy between multilateralism and multistakeholderism

Resolutions and Action Items

Organize the Arab IGF 7 in Amman as part of the Digital Cooperation and Development Forum

Review Arab IGF themes based on GDC outcomes

Work on localizing IGF in each Arab country

Announce programmatic implementation support modalities for the Arab Digital Agenda in Amman

Strengthen the parliamentarian session and youth segment in future Arab IGF activities

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively harmonize legal structures and treaties across the Arab region

Specific mechanisms for implementing the Global Digital Compact

How to ensure sufficient capacity in developing countries to participate in multiple governance processes

Concrete steps to make the Arab IGF more inclusive of grassroots and youth

Suggested Compromises

Use the Internet Governance Forum as a vehicle for implementing the Global Digital Compact

Strengthen existing mechanisms and nodes in the ecosystem rather than creating new ones

Balance stakeholder roles while promoting collaboration in internet governance processes

The Arab digital agenda, when we put it in place, it still faces major problems. It may cause problems in the latest digital divide, whether in the policy divide or in the content, or in issues related to AI. But the beauty of the Arabic digital agenda is that it was built on a system based on measurement. This is the only one in the world, except for Europe.

speaker

Ayman El-Sherbiny

reason

This comment introduces the unique approach of the Arab Digital Agenda, highlighting its measurement-based system and comparing it to global standards.

impact

It shifted the discussion towards a more detailed examination of the Arab Digital Agenda’s structure and goals, prompting further exploration of its implementation and potential impact.

We need to do more consultation of the regional groups, all groups, so African groups, and so on, and understand the challenges they face and the opportunities that they see, and share with them as well what we see as challenges to our region, and exchange these kinds of views so that we go together aligned.

speaker

Nermine El Saadany

reason

This comment emphasizes the importance of cross-regional collaboration and alignment in addressing digital challenges.

impact

It broadened the scope of the discussion from a purely Arab-centric view to a more inclusive, global perspective on digital cooperation.

The Global Compact is a positive, proactive evolution of the WSIS Outputs, which is the Geneva Declaration of Principles and the Tunis Agenda. These two documents have been produced in 2005. For more than 10 years, you need to be more current, you need to update the concerns and the objectives of the global community.

speaker

Qusai AlShatt

reason

This comment provides historical context and frames the Global Digital Compact as an evolution of previous initiatives.

impact

It helped participants understand the continuity and progress in global digital initiatives, leading to a discussion on how to integrate new objectives with existing frameworks.

We believe as well that the community again with the process of the GDC and the challenges that it faced this by itself emphasized the importance of multi-stakeholderism as a way to communicate and discuss such issues and that there are very much synergies and similarities between the GDC objectives and the WSIS action lines

speaker

Nermine El Saadany

reason

This comment highlights the importance of multi-stakeholder approaches and identifies synergies between different digital initiatives.

impact

It prompted a discussion on how to integrate various digital cooperation frameworks and processes, leading to ideas on strengthening existing platforms rather than creating new ones.

What we need to do right now is to be aware that we as developing countries, our region is mostly developing countries, you might not have enough capacity to follow and participate in all those duplication of processes. And in that context, I think we need to be very vocal as a region about making synergies and avoiding duplications

speaker

Christine Arida

reason

This comment raises an important practical concern about the capacity of developing countries to engage in multiple digital governance processes.

impact

It shifted the discussion towards finding ways to streamline and integrate various digital cooperation processes, considering the constraints faced by developing countries.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by moving it from a general overview of digital cooperation initiatives to a more nuanced examination of how these initiatives can be integrated, implemented, and made more inclusive. The discussion evolved to consider practical challenges, particularly for developing countries, and emphasized the need for alignment between global, regional, and national efforts. The comments also highlighted the importance of measurement, multi-stakeholder approaches, and cross-regional collaboration in advancing digital cooperation.

How to implement the Arab Digital Agenda?

speaker

Nermine El Saadany

explanation

Implementation of the Arab Digital Agenda is crucial for regional digital development and cooperation.

How to link the work of the Arab IGF to discussions among Arab groups in ITU and Arab member states in New York?

speaker

Christine Arida

explanation

Drawing linkages between different regional and global forums is important for coherent policy-making and representation.

How can the Internet Governance Forum serve as a vehicle for implementing the Global Digital Compact?

speaker

Nermine El Saadany

explanation

Integrating GDC implementation into existing forums could streamline processes and avoid duplication.

How to harmonize legal structures and memberships regarding international treaties among Arab countries?

speaker

Maher Melhem

explanation

Legal harmonization is important for attracting investment and addressing regional digital divides.

How to make the Arab IGF more inclusive, particularly involving grassroots organizations and youth?

speaker

Christine Arida

explanation

Greater inclusivity is needed to ensure the Arab IGF represents diverse regional perspectives.

How to integrate intellectual property rights into digital cooperation mechanisms?

speaker

Dr. Nermin Salim

explanation

IP rights are becoming increasingly important assets in the digital economy.

How to localize the Internet Governance Forum in each Arab country?

speaker

Audience member (unnamed)

explanation

National-level IGFs could increase engagement and address country-specific issues.