WS #153 Internet Governance and the Global Majority: What’s Next

Summary

This discussion focused on strategies for improving global majority representation and participation in internet governance forums. Panelists from Nepal, Peru, and Uganda shared insights on challenges and opportunities for meaningful engagement. Key issues highlighted included the need for better access to internet infrastructure in developing regions, capacity building for diverse stakeholders, and more inclusive funding mechanisms to enable participation in global forums.

The panelists emphasized the importance of a bottom-up, multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance. They advocated for engaging youth, parliamentarians, and other underrepresented groups through targeted outreach and education. Successful examples were shared, such as youth-led national Internet Governance Forums and capacity-building programs for legislators.

Challenges discussed included power asymmetries, fragmented efforts among civil society groups, and difficulties in translating global discussions to local contexts. The panelists stressed the need for harmonized agendas, collaborative research, and leveraging existing networks to amplify global majority voices. They also highlighted the importance of localizing narratives and ensuring meaningful representation beyond token participation.

Recommendations for global partners included providing more inclusive funding opportunities, aligning existing resources more effectively, and ensuring global majority representatives have “seats at the table” in key discussions. The panelists concluded that while progress has been made, continued efforts are needed to create a truly inclusive and representative system of global internet governance.

Keypoints

Major discussion points:

– Challenges in achieving meaningful participation from global majority stakeholders in internet governance forums, including funding limitations, capacity gaps, and power imbalances

– The importance of localizing global internet governance issues and narratives to make them relevant at national/regional levels

– Strategies for engaging policymakers and parliamentarians on internet governance topics, such as targeted capacity building programs

– The need for better coordination and alignment of efforts among different stakeholders and initiatives

– Ways to improve multi-stakeholder collaboration, especially bringing in private sector and government voices

The overall purpose of the discussion was to explore how to maximize the impact and representation of global majority voices in key internet governance forums and processes, with a focus on practical strategies and lessons learned.

The tone of the discussion was constructive and solution-oriented. Panelists spoke candidly about challenges but maintained an optimistic outlook, offering concrete examples of successful approaches. The conversation had a collaborative feel, with panelists building on each other’s points. There was a sense of shared purpose in working to improve global internet governance processes.

Speakers

– Amara Shaker-Brown: Moderator

– Ananda Gautam: Youth leader focused on democratizing human rights in the digital age, advocate for inclusive technology policies, co-founder of Open Internet of Paul

– Paola Galvez: Tech policy consultant, founding director of IDON AI Lab, UNESCO’s lead AI national expert in Peru, team leader for the Center of AI and Digital Policy

– Peace Oliver Amuge: Africa Regional Strategy Lead with the Association for Comprehensive Communications, member of the UN Multistakeholder Advisory Group with the Internet Governance Forum

Additional speakers:

– Audience member: Academic researcher from Australia interested in youth IGF initiatives

Revised Summary of Internet Governance Forum Discussion on Global Majority Participation

This discussion focused on strategies for improving global majority representation and participation in internet governance forums, with particular emphasis on the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), the WSIS+20 process, and the Global Digital Compact. Panellists from Nepal, Peru, and Uganda shared insights on challenges and opportunities for meaningful engagement, emphasising the need for a bottom-up, multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance.

Speakers:

– Ananda Gautam: Youth activist and organizer from Nepal

– Paola Galvez: Digital rights advocate from Peru

– Peace Oliver Amuge: Technology policy expert from Uganda

Key Challenges:

1. Internet Access and Infrastructure

Peace Oliver Amuge highlighted the lack of internet access in many regions, particularly in Africa, as a fundamental challenge. This issue was seen as a prerequisite to addressing other governance concerns.

2. Capacity Building and Funding Limitations

All panellists agreed on the critical need for capacity building among diverse stakeholders, including civil society, policymakers, and parliamentarians. Funding challenges were identified as a significant barrier to participation in global forums and capacity-building efforts.

3. Power Asymmetries

Paola Galvez drew attention to the power imbalances present in global forums, which can hinder meaningful participation from global majority representatives.

4. Fragmented Efforts

Peace Oliver Amuge pointed out the lack of a harmonised agenda among civil society groups, leading to fragmented efforts that dilute the impact of global majority voices in governance discussions.

5. Inclusive Timing and Venues

The importance of considering timing and venue accessibility for global forums was emphasized to ensure broader participation from diverse regions.

Strategies for Improvement:

1. Multi-stakeholder Engagement

The panellists unanimously supported a multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance:

– Peace Oliver Amuge advocated for a bottom-up approach starting from the grassroots level.

– Ananda Gautam emphasised the importance of engaging government and private sector support.

– Paola Galvez focused on leveraging existing networks and alliances.

2. Localisation of Global Issues

Speakers stressed the importance of translating global discussions to local contexts, making abstract global discussions relevant to national and local realities.

3. Targeted Outreach and Education

Successful examples were shared of engaging underrepresented groups:

– Ananda Gautam highlighted the Youth IGF Nepal initiative.

– Peace Oliver Amuge mentioned APC’s African School on Internet Governance.

4. Improving Funding Mechanisms

Panellists agreed on the need for more inclusive and creative funding opportunities to ensure meaningful participation from the global majority.

5. Leveraging Existing Structures

Peace Oliver Amuge suggested utilising existing structures like national and regional IGFs to foster multi-stakeholder dialogue and build capacity.

6. Ensuring Meaningful Representation

Paola Galvez emphasised the importance of direct representation from the Global South in governance discussions.

7. Research and Stakeholder Mapping

The need for comprehensive research and mapping of stakeholders and resources was highlighted as crucial for effective engagement.

8. Youth Initiatives

The role of youth-led initiatives in internet governance was emphasized, with examples of successful youth engagement shared by the panellists.

Conclusion:

The discussion revealed a high level of consensus among speakers on the key challenges and potential solutions for improving global internet governance. While progress has been made, continued efforts are needed to create a truly inclusive and representative system. The panellists maintained an optimistic outlook, offering concrete examples of successful approaches and emphasising the shared purpose of working towards more equitable and effective internet governance processes.

Moving forward, the key areas for focus include improving internet access and infrastructure, enhancing capacity building efforts, developing more inclusive funding mechanisms, and ensuring meaningful representation from diverse regions in governance discussions. By addressing these issues and leveraging initiatives like the Global Digital Compact and WSIS+20 process, stakeholders can work towards a more inclusive and effective global internet governance framework that truly represents the needs and perspectives of the global majority.

Amara Shaker-Brown: International Media Assistance, and the Center for International Private Enterprise have been running the Open Internet for Democracy Initiative, a program to build a network of open internet advocates who champion the democratic values and principles to guide the future development of the internet and how it works. Our Open Internet Leaders Program, two of which are with us, along with their mentor today, have been a key part of our work. Our leaders are emerging experts in digital rights and open internet issues from the global majority, representing civil society, the media, and the local private sector. So I will quickly introduce our panelists, and then we can jump right in. So we’ll start with Ananda. Ananda Gautam is a passionate youth leader focused on democratizing human rights in the digital age, advocating for inclusive technology policies since 2018. His commitments include leading global initiatives like the Internet Society Youth Standing Group and co-founding Open Internet of Paul, while also promoting digital freedom and cybersecurity. Through research, advocacy, and capacity building initiatives, he strives to empower young people in shaping the future of internet governance. And he was one of our leaders. Paola Galva Calergos is a tech policy consultant dedicated to advancing ethical AI and human-centric digital regulation globally. She holds a master’s of public policy from the University of Oxford, congratulations, recently, and serves as the founding director of IDON AI Lab, UNESCO’s lead AI national expert in Peru, and as a team leader for the Center of AI and Digital Policy. And Peace Amuge is the Africa Regional Strategy Lead with the Association for Comprehensive Communications, where she works on the intersection of technology, human rights, and gender. She’s a member of the UN Multistakeholder… Stakeholder Advisory Group with the Internet Governance Forum. So she has been very busy. And she is also a member of the advisor group for our Open Internet for Democracy Initiative. So thank you, all three of you, for taking the time and for coming for this. And we will hop right in with, you know, just an easy, simple question on Internet governance. So, Peace, I guess we’ll start with you and move across. How can global majority advocates maximize the impact of key themes emerging from these 2024 fora, such as NetMundial, G20, WSIS, to advance a free, open and interoperable Internet in their regions? So taking some of these global themes and applying or advocating for them at a regional level.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Thank you very much, Amara and everyone else who has joined us in this room. I’m privileged to be part of this panel and have these very key discussions. I think to me, what would be important is to, first of all, unpack what we mean by free, open, you know, Internet, you know, what does that mean to us? What does that mean to the different stakeholder groups that we have, to the different communities that we are talking about, the different context? I think when we access, when we unpack that, then we will know what we exactly want, because we need to have some clarity when we talk about the open, free Internet that we want to advance. And so then when we have this clarity, then we will know, set our priorities and know if we’re talking about affordable access, if we’re talking about local content, you know, I think it would be important when we have that clarity or unpack, know what we mean. And then we start to have more details. and create these priorities that I’ve just mentioned, and then have our agenda set. And then we go into having our very harmonized strategy for us to benefit or leverage from all these processes that are happening. And I think then more and more we need to establish and we need to engage and embrace collaborations and synergies across the different stakeholders and embrace the multi-stakeholder approach. And also when we still talk about internet, for me as someone that comes from the African region, I think a very important, crucial aspect of the internet to talk about is the access. We cannot talk about any other things, any other issues if we are not connected, meaningful connectivity, having communities, local communities connected, because we still have very many people who are not connected. So I think for me, that is something that I would want to say as we start this conversation, setting our priorities. And for me, as someone that comes from the African, I think access is so important.

Paola Galvez: Thank you. Paula. Thank you, Maira. Hello, everyone. Thank you for joining us. Let me give you a perspective from someone that is from Latin America, I’m from Peru. It’s a developing country that had participated actively in these discussions, but it’s not well, okay. Can you hear me well now? Yes, thank you. So let me provide my perspective as someone that comes from Peru, a developing country that has participated in this process that are very well aware of what’s happening. but at the same time that has critical challenges happening on the ground. I can say political crisis that sometimes make that these very critical digital topics get overlooked. I do believe that we need to maximize the impact of all these fora to look ahead what’s happening after 2025. And for that I have three ideas I would like to share. On one hand, a strategic alignment. I believe we are several actors and we need to work as a community with coalition building to bring the voices to the ones that are making the decision. They are on the table. Second, try to bring localized narratives. It can feel abstract sometimes when we think about these global discussions, right? But they are absolutely important for our national and local realities. So how can we localize these topics? By thinking local examples, right? How to provide them to our national context. This is very important. And third but not least, I believe monitoring implementation is very, very important. Advocating for clear mechanisms that track commitments made during these fora. This is usually the government implementing them. But there are mechanisms in place. So civil society, media, and also the private sector can play a vital role in this. I’m going to be brief so we can discuss among others. So I’ll keep it there.

Amara Shaker-Brown: Go ahead, Ananda.

Ananda Gautam: Thank you. So I think as peace started the context of Africa, I come from a global south as well. certain issues that are still like if we Do the global context we have more than I think about 35 percent people still not connected to the internet and then There is another issue the people who are recently connected to the internet Doesn’t have the enough capacity to have the full leverage of this Platform or the opportunities that are unwinded with access to the internet So in my context the two major issues will be the access and empowerment. I call it So first thing is people should be access regardless of any barrier and the barrier could be either access to infrastructure or like there might be other barriers like language and then like Affordability and other accessibility issues like how Person with disabilities can have access to internet and we can call it on a broad topic How we can ensure the meaningful access to the internet another thing is after having the access We will be discussing about the human rights in digital perspective. Are we our human rights? protected when we are being Online or we are leveraging different technologies now We are talking about AI governance and we are also now talking about AI gap along with the digital divide AI divide is also a very concerning topic today, so How do we ensure that? These policies are this kind of forums. We have like national forums regional forums and we are just Ahead of the which is plus 20 review process. We just passed the global digital compact and which has very Positive message, but we are yet to see the which is plus 20 process. So One of the major challenges this kind of forums are not binding, it doesn’t have a kind of ripple effect, you know, people are not bound, people are like any stakeholder is not bound to implement the takeaways, but if we have any mechanism that we could, that governments could uphold the values that are taken away from this forum is very important. And me actually focusing on the perspective of the young people, I believe young people have a very big stake because they are, I believe they are the biggest stakeholder of the internet and they are the future internet governance leaders who need to be equipped with enough capacity, enough knowledge so that they can decide what is the future of the internet they want. So we, the three things I want to take away from this first round of our sharing is that we need to complement access with empowerment and we should not forget meaningful access. We need capacity building of young people and marginalized communities so that they can leverage and then they can actually make their voices heard in the global forums and then like the deliberations of this forum should be somehow taken back to the communities so that we uphold the human rights. I will break here and go into another round of discussion. Thank you.

Amara Shaker-Brown: Thank you all. Yeah, I think we have all heard sort of the issues around accessibility being the, you know, the first barrier before you can even get into how the internet works. So IGF is a key multi-stakeholder forum and there have been a couple other ones this year and we, you know, multi-stakeholder is the key word of the year. But what in your view are the key challenges and opportunities for effectively implementing a multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance, especially ensuring, and I think this is the key word, meaningful representation, not just having people in the room as a standard bearer for the global majority or for their country, but having meaningful representation in for a, like the IGF, WSIS, or like the past summit of the future. And I guess we can go the other direction. So Ananda, we’ll start with you and then Paula, then peace, unless someone has a burning desire to start.

Ananda Gautam: Okay, then I think this is a very kind of challenging question, but my point of view being engaged with national regional initiatives for a while, and then the biggest asset that internet governance has, is it’s, I think 270 plus national regional initiatives. Being said, we are the United Nations backed initiatives. I see that the United Nations should also have some form of cooperations with national governments and other international agencies that they adhere with these initiatives that, so that we can implement the multistakeholder discussions, not only at the global level, but also at the regional and local level. We have many challenges. I also chair the USIGF Nepal, and then like many UN agencies themselves doesn’t know about internet governance forum still, so there is a huge gap. They are leading many digital initiatives, but like they are not aware that these deliberations are happening, and these are led by the internet governance forum. So I see it kind of like structural coordination, what do you call, gap. And if this coordination. could be made, the United Nations is one of the major institutions that is a global actor that can foster partnership and that can develop coordination mechanism with all stakeholders including governments. If these deliberations are done like we do have many, I think this year IGF has spent many funds in bringing in the parliamentarians and if we can make those parliamentarians take these initiatives back to their countries and support the national and regional initiatives, I see by some time, not by tomorrow but like by in a couple of years, if we can make them realize and we need to make those kind of mechanisms, I see those mechanisms lacking. In global level, we come here, it is so good. We go to regional IGF, it is a bit less, private sector are not very interested, government participation is always minimal, it is overcrowded by civil society. So it should be when we call equal footing on multistakeholder bodies, there should be equal participation as well. So we need to ensure or like IGF needs to have initiatives and coordination mechanism with all UN specialized agencies and all the projects or the initiatives that are being done either it be on eliminating digital divide or it could be on digital safety or it could be on AI, whichever UN agency is working on, if they align their efforts, aligned with a global digital compact and the deliberation of Internet Governance Forum, I think this is the best way we can get this thing done from bottom-up approach. Thank you.

Paola Galvez: So I’ll continue as you said Amara, I’m just taking this off to not overhear me, but you let me know if you guys cannot hear me well, thank you. I see different challenges. First of all, sometimes these four vital discussions are happening in places that are far and it requires lots of resources. First of all monetary, so funding is one good barrier that we have and then let me go for the opportunity. That’s why sometimes we need to look out for funding support or organizations that are able to support civil society, media, to come and join academics as well. All the stakeholders, because small organizations cannot join on their own. I remember if I was able to come into an idea for the first time in 2019, it was thanks to Internet Society and a fellowship called the ISO Youth Ambassadors. So these are great opportunities that we can look out for to come and have meaningful representation. This is one thing. Second, and that goes tied to another challenge, I’d say for this, for developing countries as we come from, is the lack of knowledge and experience. And sometimes it sounds the UN Internet Governance Forum, like NetMundial, these big events where only experts come, right? And that’s far from the truth. If we can really understand about this process, actually what we want is people that are really passionate and want to have a stake in the future of the Internet, right? But it takes, and this is the opportunity, to bring more information, make it accessible for everyone. And I think the three of us that are in the table, we try to make this in our localities, like informing what is an Internet Governance Forum. Internet Governance Forum, right, at a local level, at a regional level, to try to motivate other organizations to come and join. That’s why the newcomer sessions are very important, because it can be a monster. If you see the app shed, there are so many sessions happening at the same time, so having also mentors and somebody that can pair you, pair and follow you during the IDF, that could be great, and I think that’s a great use case of best practice. I remember my first time it was somebody from ISOC that joined me and guided me a bit on how to make the most out of this forum. One third challenge, I’d say power asymmetries, because even when we are here in the same table, let’s say, we are all here, then we will have, I think, an open Q&A, so everyone can comment and make a question. There are still power asymmetries that, you know, in this global forum, we can reflect agendas shaped by wealthier nations, more developed countries, richer or bigger corporations that can hold bilateral meetings that sometimes a small CSO don’t know is happening or don’t know could happen, right? And for the opportunity, I could say creating more inclusive mechanisms to push for everybody to be really at the exact same power in the conversation so that we can all have a meaningful participation and that our opinions can get heard as it should be. Thank you.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Thanks, Paul and Amanda, and I totally agree with what you said, and so I will just add on to a few things, and one challenge that I see and I want to repeat it is the capacity building. And I think the lack of capacity that exists among the different stakeholders. But I think something that we must agree is that we have had over time, at least there are some steps that have been made in regards to civil society. You know, lots of initiatives have been going on to build the capacity of civil society organizations or participants. And not to say that they are already there, no. But at least I want to acknowledge that there are some steps, you know, there are some strides that have been made. But where we need to also put our focus is the judiciary, the parliament, the law enforcers, you know, the government, you know, the private sector. We need to look at these other stakeholder groups to build their capacity. Because if I look at Africa, at the region, we’ve had organizations like Equality Now, APC, ICT for Change, Kiktenet, you know, NDI, a couple of organizations that have been really trying to have capacity built. So I think we need to again kind of map out, you know, and look at where are the gaps, who are the people that we need to focus on in terms of capacity building. And I want to also say that yes, I really agree on the funding opportunity because this will also facilitate the capacity building, you know, bridging the skills gap, you know, that I am mentioning. And also ensuring that, you know, we have meaningful participation from these stakeholder groups when we talk about, you know, when we are at the IGF, when we talk about the different conversations that are happening at WSIS+, the GDC that just ended. And then one challenge that is there, that we see is limited, harmonized agenda. As civil society, do we have an agenda, you know, from a national, at a national level, going to the sub-regional, pushing forward to the regional, and coming. at the global level, you know, when we all see it, like Paula was saying that we will all have different agendas, so I think we need to have a kind of harmonized agenda or strategy, and also there is still a problem of fragmented efforts. We are doing so much, you know, even when we talk about the capacity that I just stepped away from, it is very fragmented. We need to harmonize our efforts as we talk about these challenges that we see. I think also we need to look at, be very inclusive when we make programs. We need to be very flexible and acknowledge and be aware of the different contexts, and look at our participants as people that have different challenges and abilities. You know, looking at the women, looking at the persons with disability, and looking at the timing when these conversations are happening. I think you all remember when the GDC consultations were happening online. It was not very inclusive, you know, for other people. I think Amanda, like you, it was happening when it was very late for you. It was happening in my afternoons. And also, let’s look at the IGF now. It’s happening around Christmas time when some people are already off work, you know. Some people are working until 15th and taking their break. So I think this kind of timing should be very inclusive, and we need to look at them as well. And the challenge of also venues. If these conversations are happening in Geneva, happening in New York, it’s not inclusive. You talk about, even when you have maybe funding to travel there, you might be limited in terms of visa. You will not get visas. So I think these are some of the little things that might be ignored, but they are a big challenge to our participations and engagement, and for us to have the impact that we desire. So, and again, to say what Amanda mentioned, that having these other stakeholders in the room, having a multi-stakeholder conversation, and not having more of maybe civil society, but having. everybody in the room is one of the challenge that we still continue to have. Thank you.

Amara Shaker-Brown: Thank you. Yeah, building off that a little bit, have you seen in your work in the past year, or do you have ideas in sort of the future of more effective ways that civil society, media, and the private sector can collaborate to engage with these multilateral processes or even civil society can sort of help bridge that gap and pull other stakeholders in? I know some of those divides are hard to bridge, but if there’s any work that you have seen either at the local level or at the global level of ways to really bring those non-governmental stakeholders together, especially trying to sort of engage the private sector.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Thank you. Amara, so Paula was pointing at me that you, yes. Okay, yes. So yeah, I think one thing that I would suggest is definitely the bottom-up approach, you know. When we come here, we meet with, usually it’s a very habit that probably many people experience. We meet here, our governments, we meet here, our members of parliament. But when we go back to our different countries or regions, we then don’t have any conversations happening. And I think we should leverage on structures like the IGF that is very, starts from the grassroots. I think we need to embrace and leverage on it for us to have meaningful conversations and have everybody participating and harmonize our efforts and avoid fragmented efforts, put together our agenda. But one thing that I need, that I also want to mention is research, you know, we need to have research done. We need to map the stakeholders that are doing different, putting different efforts in place. We need to map the existing knowledge. We need to map the resources that we have and at all levels really, starting from national, from grassroots and building all through, coming to the global level and putting a funding mechanism in place is a very key thing that we need to focus on as well and have then after doing that, the research, all this mapping that we have and then we need to also leverage on the power of the collective, you know, the collaborations, the synergies that we are building, we need to leverage on this, the synergies that we build and then come up with this strategy all together because I think we really need to emphasize collaborations and synergy and a multi-stakeholder approach. I think that’s what I want to say now, thank you.

Paola Galvez: Okay, let me just build on what Bice just said. The power of networks and alliances is huge, literally. I can name two examples and for the presence of Latin America, for instance, in the Global Summit for the Future, I see Al Sur, the coalition of several digital rights NGOs in Latin America happen, and they all went to New York, participated. I see this as a… fantastic example of how Latin American organizations can come as a unified voice, right? Another example. For instance, IGF, this is my fifth IGF and most of the time this is the space where I see Ananda every year, for instance, if there is another meeting we will not meet, but the immense potential of bringing new people to the conversation, new organizations probably, or somebody that is working on a specific topic, it doesn’t have to be an expert on the Internet, but if you’re talking about children or financial services, it’s good to have their opinion too, right? And they don’t know about IGF, but for instance, I built on the Center for AI and Digital Policy Community to work on a proposal, this is an example, but algorithmic transparency, and getting to know to the community what is going to happen in December, the IGF, and many people reach out asking, what is the IGF, right? So this is a good example, and there are newcomers participating in this IGF, and they will provide expertise and evidence for new regulation and the future of AI, this is an example once again. But I do think good practices are happening. So we need to, if you’re thinking about civil society and media, we need to be very creative, right? Because most of us know about the UN call for travel support that exists, but unfortunately resources are limited, right? They cannot fund everyone that applies, so let’s be creative and try to find other governments that can have funding, or universities. So good practices for academics are very good allies that they want us to continue our research and make reports on the discussions that are happening. So I think this is a good example. can be use cases and maybe people that are joining online and have some other ideas would be great to share on the chat or here in the room because we need to act as a community to start changing it, bringing the voice of the global majority to this discussion and that it to be very meaningful.

Ananda Gautam: Thank you Paola and Peace, being the last speaker I have the privilege to opt in for both of their voices and then like challenges to bring on something new. So my perspective is like it is a collaborative approach, as I mentioned before we have challenges but like I gave the invitation from IGF to my minister of IT but he didn’t care because he doesn’t know the value of this kind of meetings and that is why we don’t have much support in many countries. If we could establish importance of this conference or this kind of events, multi-stakeholder forums and the government start taking it seriously this will create another kind of environment, they want to send their young people attending these events, maybe they can secure funding from government as well. That is one of the options we need more of the government support which is very very lacking and then if government starts supporting this kind of initiatives, another collaborative approach is we need equal collaboration of civil society and private sector. The private sector works in their business activities and which are very much related to the governance of their, if they are a tech company the governance of technology is going to affect their business as well. So they need the help of civil society to make responsible use of the technologies and to make awareness and capacity building of this kind of issues. I think private sector can help civil society with some kind of we can say CSR. It is like a kind of corporate social responsibility so that they help civil society to represent this kind of issues in this kind of forums. They can have like tech companies like Meta, TikTok or whatever tech companies are there. They can help civil society to send their representative to these forums. They can help them to create the capacity building initiatives, to create awareness programs, to make responsible use of technology. That is kind of collaboration that is required and this kind of forum should force the environment for those collaborations. It should force the environment to bring government in the board so that they actually take this thing seriously. If they think they take this thing seriously, private sector would also definitely look these things at more responsible way and this is what we ideally believe as the multi-stakeholder collaboration. So I call for this kind of multi-stakeholder collaboration. Another part that I have believed is I started Youth IGF Nepal back in I think 2022 and within three years of establishment we have been able to make an impact that there is a Youth IGF in Nepal. We need to hear them. So our ministries often call us for the consultation meetings and our minister was so happy that I delivered him the letter from the IGF. Although he didn’t come, this is an impact. By his third year he might come. We never know. People are conscious that there is Internet Governance Forum, there is Youth Internet Governance Forum in Nepal. We should hear them. They are young voices. We should include them. So I’ve been taking part in different consultations, and our community is growing. For the first year, we trained 100 people. And coming to the third year, we have trained more than 300 people. And few people are part of now Internet Society Youth Ambassadors Program. Few people are going to APR IGF. Few people are going to regional IGF. And they will take this deliberation back to their community. So another thing is, while we come and join this kind of forum, we get the opportunity, we should give something back to the community so that this community thrives and create an environment that will impact. It is not an overnight change, but we need to make our efforts. And UN IGF should make a lot of effort, because this time, as Paula mentioned, only 10 people got this travel support. All of the fund was actually invested in the parliamentarians. So if government could have sent their parliamentarians with their funding, and those funds could have been utilized to bring more stakeholders, it could have been wonderful. Or even, there’s so much of other opportunities that UN can pull in to support in bringing more young people. And one of the best examples I can give is from Brazil. There is a CGI that supports more than 15 people every year bringing to the IGF and other regional events. That’s why you might be seeing many Brazilian young people in this IGF. That’s because there is a support mechanism that has been intact. So we need those kind of support mechanisms. I think that’s it from my side. Thank you so much.

Amara Shaker-Brown: Great. Thank you all. We are now going. to open it up to questions either in the room or online. Please feel free to put your question in the chat or to raise your hand. I see we have a question in the room. Yes, we have someone in the room and she will take the mic.

Audience: Thank you. It’s great to hear about the youth IGF. I’m really interested to know more about it. I know I’m from Australia and I see that IGF is there in Australia. I’m an academic in the research space as well, so I’m really interested to know more about that. Thank you.

Ananda Gautam: Okay, so in regards to youth IGF Australia, I don’t know. I was just having this thought. I was having a conversation with Jordan from AUDA who established Australian IGF. I was about to ask him why don’t you guys start a youth IGF, but unfortunately I couldn’t. So, it is a good way when there is a national IGF you also initiate youth initiative. It will help bring more young people. At least they will start looking for what IGF is and then like most of the people contact me when they get fellowships. They go to the global forum and regional forum and then realize there is a national forum in their own country. So, this is a good one. They are having awareness and a few people want to go to the IGF and they contact me how we can go to the IGF even some people from ministry this time contacted me we want to go to the IGF what is there any funding available and then like I said we don’t have any funding available so there are very basic principles UN IGF Secretariat has created a toolkit to establish a youth IGF if you want support we from youth coalition on internet governance and like in the society youth standing group helped to establish a lot of youth initiatives we also helps to funding few initiatives what I’m not sure how much would it be for Australian people but for in the developing nations we are supporting thousand dollar each for each youth initiative and they’re starting their I think we jump started five youth initiatives supporting them from the international society youth standing group we have a very limited budget but like I want in my tenure I want to jump start few more youth initiatives so we can help you out maybe if you know Jordan already we can sit with Jordan as well because ODA is the entity that has been that was a worst for Asia-Pacific regional IGF and then like they have started Australian IGF and if you find someone from Australian IGF we can sit together and then discuss how this is and help how you guys can start your own youth initiative I think that is it

Amara Shaker-Brown: thank you great thank you thank you for your question any other questions in the room okay I have one from Priyal online question is what are some strategies that you have seen that are successful for civil society advocates to engage with their local or national policymakers So parliamentarians, judiciary, anything like that on these issues because we know sort of getting the multi-stakeholder voice into the multilateral system can be difficult. So any past success there.

Ananda Gautam: Can you put the question in text? Maybe it was so long, you know.

Paola Galvez: I can start while then, Ananda, you can jump in. Actually I have a good example because as you said, Amara, it’s hard to bring the government into multi-stakeholder discussions. But a while ago in Peru, we started with capacity building program for congressmen talking about digital economy. And that was a multi-stakeholder effort because NGO Hiperderecho participated, COMEX, which is a chamber of reuniting private sector in Peru that has a committee on the digital economy and groups, different big technology companies. We developed this. And I remember it was under the context of a period when the Peruvian government, the Peruvian congress, sorry, wanted to regulate the sharing economy and these platforms like Uber, Cabify, et cetera. So we started with these sessions so that they can understand a bit about the technology, the telecom, et cetera. It was a couple of weeks before Peru IGF and we said it would be a great opportunity so that we can all have a discussion and you can listen to what civil society, media, academics and other stakeholders have to say on this and other topics related to the internet governance. And they were interested, a bit sceptic at the moment, but we had some participants from the parliament. This is one thing. On the other… And sometimes this happens, because I was working on public consultation in Peru as part of the UNESCO AA Readiness Assessment methodology that I conducted in Peru, and we had to do this. And public, sorry, congressmen went there, but some others did not go and only sent their advisors. This is a very personal opinion, but I would say let’s not take it as a wrong way. Having their advisors is also good, because they are the ones speaking to their ears and actually they are the ones writing the bills, so that’s good too. As long as there is a commitment from the congressmen to send their team, there is a good step. So I can tell you these good examples that I have, and I hope it can be replicated, but showing them that it will benefit their work is a good way to speak to them so that they are interested in joining these discussions. Thank you.

Peace Oliver Amuge: So I want to just give also an example of what we have been doing to engage the legislators or members of parliament. We have APC convinced the African School on Internet Governance Forum, and from last year, we were able to have about 16 members of parliament coming from different African countries. And to have these members of parliament in the room with the other stakeholders like civil society, technical community, as fellows or participants of the school was very important and very key. For them to really learn, understand these issues that we talk about, because when we go back usually we want to engage them, but they do not understand these issues that we talk about. Even the reports that we publish, they don’t consume these reports, because they are long reports, they do not have the time. and the rest. So we need to pull them and bring them to this conversation that we always have. So I think having the members of Parliament, you know, join the school was really key. And again, I want to give an example still with APC, because APC is a network of other civil society organisations. And still across Africa, APC works with other civil society organisations, for instance, Kiktenet, for instance, WUGNET, that is based in Uganda. And I remember in 2022, WUGNET was able to support members of Parliament and someone from the judiciary to attend the IGF. And they did not just stop at supporting their participation at the forum. They continue to engage them back home. What next? You know, having the other stakeholders in the room and saying, OK, we were together at the global forum. What next for us? You know, what are some of the things that we need to talk about at the national level? So I think this kind of very strategised engagement needs to happen. And it should not stop by them coming once to the conversation, them coming to the meeting once. We need to continuously engage them, you know, to have their buying, to have their understanding, and also to ensure that we have people in the, on the floor of Parliament that understand the issues that we talk about. So I thought I should just share that strategy that we use. And again, even this year, we had over six members of Parliament join. And while I’m at the forum here, I’ve seen some of them again joined a parliamentary track. So you can be sure that continuous engagement of these members of Parliament, you know, will bring some change, you know, when we go and knock the doors to talk about the policies, you know, the gaps that we see, share with them the policy briefs that we come up with from our different countries or regions, they will be able to understand the issues that we are talking about. Thank you.

Ananda Gautam: Thank you, Peace, for taking this about the learnings of parliamentarians. When UN IGF Secretariat started the parliamentary track, I had proposed that they bring parliamentarians and young people together in a setting that they would contribute afterwards to getting back to their local community with the young people. So that it could be something takeaways, but it never happened. I think there is one parliamentarian track youth leaders dialogue today, but I’m not sure it is mentioned on that way or not. Another example is we have a digital freedom coalition in Nepal, and we have been working with parliamentarians on different bills that have been proposed in Nepal. So at least we have to start at some point. Being said that, everything we advocate for might not be reflected in the development, but they will start listening to it. And I have reflected that many parliamentarians are very keen to learn about these new issues and build their understanding on the emerging issues at least. So this will help in a longer run. The immediate effect might not be there, but if we advocate for it persistently and continuously, they will start listening to it. And when they feel the importance of it, they are the ones who are writing the bills. They are the ones who will be making the laws if we make them understand this is doable. That is it from my side. Thank you.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Amanda, let me just add something that I remembered just yesterday. We were having a conversation with one of APC’s member called Rudi International that comes from Congo, and he was very happy that… that from Congo, DRC Congo, they have brought, I think, five members of parliament. I might, I think maybe I forgot the number. But again, I liked what he was talking about, that okay, yes, they have come. He’s very happy that they have come, but he was thinking about what kind of sessions, guiding them, because coming to the IGF is one thing, like I just mentioned, but afterwards, are we just going to come and move around and that’s it? Laying a strategy for what engagements that they should be part of, who are the people that they should meet, and trying to organize some people to, again, give them some insights. So I think these are some of the things that we need to do as civil society, as different stakeholders, if we have these opportunities to have members of parliament or policy makers in the room, let’s go an extra step and have agenda set and have strategies laid well, so that we can have some impact. Thank you.

Amara Shaker-Brown: Thank you. We have time for one more question. If anyone on the line has a question, otherwise I have one final one that I can put. All right. So we are trying to get right global majority to meaningfully be involved. And as your global minority partners, partners from the global North, either funders or other civil society, are there specific things other than promoting, as things you’ve said, funding, more funding opportunities, more inclusive timing and location, other things that we can be carrying forward if we are in the room and you are not, other than advocating for you to be in the room. But are there any specific actions that your global North partners can be taking or supporting to help? sort of bring your messages into the conversation?

Paola Galvez: I can start. First, I think, and that reminds me to one invitation I received, but it was first day, because I’m based in Paris, but I’m Peruvian, and they were thinking I was in Paris, they invited me to a global forum, let’s say. And I mentioned I was in Lima doing this project with UNESCO. And they said, ah, then you can join online, because we don’t have much funds. And, you know, at the moment, it was a tough decision. But I was very sure of what I believe. And I said, I’m really sorry, but I don’t think it’s the same engagement when you join online and you deliver your speech as much as I’m very passionate when I when I speak, I said it will not be the same. So let’s please look for someone else who may be in Europe and that can come. In the end, they made the effort and they found the funds. So this is one thing to say. I appreciate when the Global North want to help us. But there is I don’t think there’s a replacement of Global North representative speaking for us. So I would like to reiterate the importance of being more creative and getting the funds to bring the voices of Global South representative, because there’s nothing more important than having them. We all know that the main sessions are important. But what really, really matters are the discussions that we have during the coffee breaks, or if we can have lunch and the space when we can really mention our needs, our pains, what are the challenges that we’re living. So, yeah, advocating for having more funds and because we may have the funds and then we may not have the seat on the table. And trying to look further, because if we are in a conversation where we’re discussing education in rural areas, it’s nice to see experts on education, but we must have teachers that are suffering or living the challenges of digital technology impact on education, right? I, myself, found it challenging looking for these real actors that meaningfully engage for this public consultation that I mentioned, but I know my faults, right? So I asked for help to an organization, do you know of people or communities of teachers that can come? And then an awahoon, which is a community from Peru, came all the way to Lima and participated. That’s meaningful. It’s a lot of work, but we need to do it if we want discussions to be valuable and to really have the impact on the Internet we want.

Peace Oliver Amuge: Okay, thank you. I want to add on the funding mechanism. I think we need to also acknowledge the different context, you know, content and embrace local content. But like I mentioned at the beginning, for instance, in the African region, really the issue of access is very, very important. And so then we need to look at mechanisms or that work when we look at, for instance, the access, just picking on access, the mechanism that can work like community networks, you know. So I think sometimes we are using the same approach everywhere, but we need to tailor our approaches to fit the context of our targets. So I think as we work on our different strategy, we need to ensure that we are aware of the different context and what can work. And like Paula said, that someone else cannot come and speak for us. for the local community. So I want to just emphasize that we need to always acknowledge that. And in general, we need to have gender-responsive approaches and embrace multistakeholderism. Thank you.

Ananda Gautam: Thank you, Paula and Peace. So complimenting them, my major kind of reflection is it is not about finding new funding. I think it is alignment of the existing funding. Are we giving the funds to who needed the most, or are we just distributing it? The alignment of the available funds is very important. We have so many UN agencies, and how the efforts of all the specialized agencies in line with the, now we can say, will they be aligned with the Global Digital Compact, or what WSIS Plus 20 will deliver it? And another thing is collaboration. Have we sought out for the collaborative approach from all the stakeholders? I think these two things need to be addressed so that we can have the kind of multistakeholder engagement that we are seeking. Thank you.

Amara Shaker-Brown: Great. Thank you all. And thank you all for joining us. I think we can, sorry, excuse me, wrap it up. Thank you to our panelists. Thank you for sharing your expertise, your experiences, and for giving us some ideas of what we can be doing in this next year to ensure full, meaningful participation of all stakeholders. And with that, I will say have a lovely evening to those in the room, and have a lovely day for the rest of you. Thanks so much, everyone. Thanks so much. Thank you. Thank you.

Agreement Points

Importance of capacity building and education

speakers

Peace Oliver Amuge

Ananda Gautam

Paola Galvez

arguments

Lack of capacity that exists among the different stakeholders

Need for capacity building among stakeholders

Lack of knowledge and experience

summary

All speakers emphasized the need for capacity building and education among various stakeholders to improve participation in internet governance processes.

Funding challenges for participation in global forums

speakers

Peace Oliver Amuge

Ananda Gautam

Paola Galvez

arguments

Funding opportunity because this will also facilitate the capacity building

Better alignment of existing funding

Providing more funding opportunities for participation

summary

All speakers highlighted the importance of addressing funding challenges to ensure meaningful participation from diverse stakeholders in global internet governance forums.

Need for multi-stakeholder collaboration

speakers

Peace Oliver Amuge

Ananda Gautam

Paola Galvez

arguments

Bottom-up approach starting from grassroots level

Engaging government and private sector support

Leveraging networks and alliances

summary

All speakers agreed on the importance of multi-stakeholder collaboration and engagement in internet governance processes, emphasizing the need for inclusive participation from various sectors.

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of ongoing, meaningful engagement with policymakers and ensuring in-person participation from Global South representatives in internet governance forums.

speakers

Peace Oliver Amuge

Paola Galvez

arguments

Continuous engagement with policymakers

Ensuring meaningful in-person participation

Both speakers highlighted the challenges of internet access and capacity building in developing regions, particularly in Africa and Nepal.

speakers

Peace Oliver Amuge

Ananda Gautam

arguments

Lack of internet access in many regions

Need for capacity building among stakeholders

Unexpected Consensus

Importance of local context and representation

speakers

Peace Oliver Amuge

Paola Galvez

Ananda Gautam

arguments

Fragmented efforts and lack of harmonized agenda

Ensuring meaningful in-person participation

Engaging government and private sector support

explanation

All speakers unexpectedly agreed on the critical importance of considering local context and ensuring genuine representation from diverse regions in internet governance processes, despite their different geographical backgrounds and areas of expertise.

Overall Assessment

Summary

The speakers showed strong agreement on the need for capacity building, improved funding mechanisms, multi-stakeholder collaboration, and meaningful representation from diverse regions in internet governance processes.

Consensus level

High level of consensus among the speakers, implying a shared understanding of key challenges and potential solutions in improving global internet governance. This consensus suggests that these areas could be focal points for future initiatives and policy development in the field of internet governance.

Different Viewpoints

Prioritization of internet access vs. other governance issues

speakers

Peace Oliver Amuge

Ananda Gautam

arguments

Lack of internet access in many regions

Need for capacity building among stakeholders

summary

Peace emphasizes the primary importance of internet access, particularly in Africa, before addressing other governance issues. Ananda, while acknowledging access, places equal emphasis on capacity building for effective participation in governance.

Unexpected Differences

Overall Assessment

summary

The main areas of disagreement revolve around prioritization of issues (access vs. capacity building) and strategies for funding and stakeholder engagement in internet governance.

difference_level

The level of disagreement among the speakers is relatively low. Their perspectives are largely complementary, focusing on different aspects of the same overarching goals. These minor differences in approach could actually lead to a more comprehensive strategy for improving internet governance and accessibility in the Global South if integrated effectively.

Partial Agreements

Both Paola and Ananda agree on the need for improved funding for participation in internet governance forums. However, Paola emphasizes creating new funding opportunities, while Ananda argues for better alignment of existing funds.

speakers

Paola Galvez

Ananda Gautam

arguments

Providing more funding opportunities for participation

Better alignment of existing funding

All speakers agree on the need for broader stakeholder engagement, but propose different strategies: Peace advocates for a bottom-up approach, Ananda emphasizes government and private sector involvement, and Paola focuses on leveraging existing networks and alliances.

speakers

Peace Oliver Amuge

Ananda Gautam

Paola Galvez

arguments

Bottom-up approach starting from grassroots level

Engaging government and private sector support

Leveraging networks and alliances

Similar Viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the importance of ongoing, meaningful engagement with policymakers and ensuring in-person participation from Global South representatives in internet governance forums.

speakers

Peace Oliver Amuge

Paola Galvez

arguments

Continuous engagement with policymakers

Ensuring meaningful in-person participation

Both speakers highlighted the challenges of internet access and capacity building in developing regions, particularly in Africa and Nepal.

speakers

Peace Oliver Amuge

Ananda Gautam

arguments

Lack of internet access in many regions

Need for capacity building among stakeholders

Key Takeaways

Internet accessibility remains a major challenge, especially in developing regions

Capacity building is needed across all stakeholder groups, not just civil society

Multi-stakeholder collaboration and a bottom-up approach are crucial for effective internet governance

More inclusive and creative funding mechanisms are needed to ensure meaningful participation from the global majority

Local context and tailored approaches are important when addressing internet governance issues

Resolutions and Action Items

Leverage existing structures like national and regional IGFs to foster multi-stakeholder dialogue

Create more inclusive mechanisms to equalize power dynamics in global forums

Develop strategies to engage parliamentarians and policymakers in internet governance discussions

Seek out and support youth initiatives in internet governance

Unresolved Issues

How to effectively engage private sector stakeholders in internet governance processes

Ways to ensure government support and participation in multi-stakeholder forums

Methods to harmonize fragmented efforts across different stakeholder groups

Strategies to address power asymmetries in global internet governance discussions

Suggested Compromises

Accepting advisor participation when parliamentarians cannot attend in person

Balancing online and in-person participation to increase inclusivity while recognizing the importance of face-to-face interactions

Reallocating existing funding rather than seeking new sources to support global majority participation

I think to me, what would be important is to, first of all, unpack what we mean by free, open, you know, Internet, you know, what does that mean to us? What does that mean to the different stakeholder groups that we have, to the different communities that we are talking about, the different context?

speaker

Peace Oliver Amuge

reason

This comment highlights the importance of clearly defining terms and considering different perspectives before diving into solutions. It sets the stage for a more nuanced discussion.

impact

This shifted the conversation to focus more on the specific needs and contexts of different regions and stakeholders throughout the rest of the discussion.

I believe we are several actors and we need to work as a community with coalition building to bring the voices to the ones that are making the decision. They are on the table. Second, try to bring localized narratives. It can feel abstract sometimes when we think about these global discussions, right? But they are absolutely important for our national and local realities.

speaker

Paola Galvez

reason

This comment provides concrete strategies for improving engagement and impact in global internet governance discussions. It emphasizes the importance of both coalition-building and localizing global issues.

impact

This comment sparked more discussion about specific ways to engage local stakeholders and translate global issues to local contexts throughout the rest of the conversation.

One of the major challenges this kind of forums are not binding, it doesn’t have a kind of ripple effect, you know, people are not bound, people are like any stakeholder is not bound to implement the takeaways, but if we have any mechanism that we could, that governments could uphold the values that are taken away from this forum is very important.

speaker

Ananda Gautam

reason

This comment identifies a key challenge in translating forum discussions into real-world impact. It raises important questions about accountability and implementation.

impact

This led to further discussion about ways to increase the impact and accountability of global internet governance forums.

I appreciate when the Global North want to help us. But there is I don’t think there’s a replacement of Global North representative speaking for us. So I would like to reiterate the importance of being more creative and getting the funds to bring the voices of Global South representative, because there’s nothing more important than having them.

speaker

Paola Galvez

reason

This comment directly addresses power dynamics in global discussions and emphasizes the importance of direct representation from the Global South.

impact

This comment shifted the discussion to focus more on specific ways to increase meaningful participation from Global South representatives, rather than just having others speak on their behalf.

Overall Assessment

These key comments shaped the discussion by consistently bringing the focus back to practical, actionable strategies for improving global internet governance. They emphasized the importance of clear definitions, local context, accountability, and direct representation from the Global South. This led to a rich discussion that balanced high-level principles with specific, on-the-ground realities and challenges.

How can we unpack and clarify what is meant by a free, open Internet in different contexts and for different stakeholder groups?

speaker

Peace Oliver Amuge

explanation

This is important to establish clear priorities and agendas for advancing Internet governance in different regions.

How can we improve access to meaningful connectivity, especially in regions like Africa where many are still unconnected?

speaker

Peace Oliver Amuge

explanation

This is crucial for ensuring equitable participation in Internet governance discussions and benefits.

What mechanisms can be developed to track and monitor implementation of commitments made during global Internet governance fora?

speaker

Paola Galvez

explanation

This would help ensure accountability and progress on agreed-upon goals.

How can we address the ‘AI divide’ alongside the digital divide?

speaker

Ananda Gautam

explanation

This is an emerging concern as AI becomes more prevalent in technology and governance.

What strategies can be employed to make global Internet governance discussions more binding or impactful at national levels?

speaker

Ananda Gautam

explanation

This would help translate global discussions into concrete actions and policies.

How can we improve coordination between UN agencies and national/regional Internet governance initiatives?

speaker

Ananda Gautam

explanation

Better coordination could lead to more effective implementation of Internet governance principles.

What are effective ways to build capacity among different stakeholder groups, including judiciary, parliament, and law enforcers?

speaker

Peace Oliver Amuge

explanation

This is necessary to ensure all relevant parties can meaningfully participate in Internet governance discussions.

How can we create more harmonized agendas and strategies across different levels (national, regional, global) of civil society engagement?

speaker

Peace Oliver Amuge

explanation

This would help create a more unified and impactful civil society voice in Internet governance.

What research is needed to map existing stakeholders, knowledge, and resources in Internet governance across different levels?

speaker

Peace Oliver Amuge

explanation

This would help identify gaps and opportunities for more effective collaboration and resource allocation.

How can we better align existing funding in Internet governance to ensure it reaches those who need it most?

speaker

Ananda Gautam

explanation

This could lead to more effective use of limited resources and better representation in Internet governance discussions.