Day 0 Event #271 NRIs Coordination Session: exchanging good practices

Summary

This discussion was the annual coordination session for National, Regional, and Youth Internet Governance Forums (NRIs), bringing together representatives from 177 initiatives worldwide to share experiences and challenges. Anja Gengo from the IGF Secretariat facilitated the session, emphasizing the critical importance of NRI work during this pivotal year for internet governance, particularly with the WSIS Plus 20 review and the renewal of the IGF mandate.

Representatives from various regions shared common challenges, with funding sustainability emerging as a primary concern across all initiatives. Many NRIs struggle to secure consistent financial support, relying heavily on volunteers and facing difficulties engaging private sector sponsors. The compressed timeline for 2024, with the global IGF held earlier than usual, created additional pressure for NRIs to organize their meetings within shortened preparation periods.

Several success stories highlighted effective strategies for maintaining engagement and impact. The Caribbean IGF emphasized measuring and communicating concrete policy impacts to attract continued participation and funding. West Africa IGF successfully engaged parliamentarians, leading to increased government support and budget allocations. Colombia IGF demonstrated sustainability through monthly meetings approaching their 100th session, while Mauritius IGF showed how government engagement can lead to policy adoption, particularly regarding artificial intelligence initiatives.

Youth IGF representatives discussed unique challenges including leadership transitions and the need for legal registration to access funding. Many emphasized the importance of partnerships and advocacy work to influence national policy consultations. The session concluded with calls for better collaboration mechanisms, improved private sector engagement strategies, and continued focus on demonstrating measurable impact to ensure the long-term sustainability of these grassroots internet governance initiatives.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Compressed timeline challenges for 2024**: Multiple NRIs struggled with shortened preparation time due to the IGF being held in June rather than later in the year, creating significant logistical difficulties for volunteer-run organizations

– **Funding sustainability concerns**: Persistent challenges in securing sustainable funding from diverse sources, with particular difficulty engaging private sector sponsors and concerns about funding continuity if the global IGF mandate isn’t renewed

– **WSIS+20 review process impact**: The World Summit on Information Society 20-year review created both opportunities and confusion for NRIs, requiring them to address multiple interconnected UN processes (WSIS+20, Global Digital Compact, IGF renewal) simultaneously

– **Maintaining volunteer engagement and measuring impact**: Ongoing struggles to keep volunteers motivated in unpaid roles, with successful NRIs emphasizing the importance of demonstrating concrete policy impact and involving diverse stakeholders including parliamentarians and government officials

– **Multi-stakeholder model implementation**: Efforts to strengthen the multi-stakeholder approach by better engaging all sectors (particularly private sector and government), with several NRIs reporting success in gaining parliamentary and ministerial support

## Overall Purpose:

This was the annual coordination session for National, Regional, and Youth Internet Governance Forums (NRIs) – a network of 177+ initiatives. The session aimed to facilitate experience sharing, identify common challenges, exchange best practices, and coordinate collective action, particularly in the context of the IGF mandate renewal and WSIS+20 review process.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a collaborative and constructive tone throughout, characterized by mutual support and knowledge sharing. While participants openly discussed significant challenges (funding, volunteer retention, timeline pressures), the atmosphere remained solution-oriented and encouraging. There was a strong sense of community resilience, with established NRIs offering practical advice to newer initiatives and celebrating collective achievements despite resource constraints.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Anja Gengo** – Works at the IGF Secretariat, facilitates coordination for 177 national, sub-regional, and regional and youth IGFs

– **Jennifer Chung** – Speaking on behalf of the Secretariat of the Asia-Pacific Regional IGF

– **Nazar Nicholas Kirama** – Dr. from Tanzania IGF, sits in the East Africa IGF, member of the Africa Internet Governance Forum

– **Carlos Vera** – From IGF Ecuador

– **Agustina Giaccio** – Coordinator of the IGF Argentina

– **Nigel Cassimire** – From the Caribbean IGF, works with the Caribbean Telecommunications Union (intergovernmental organization)

– **Mahindranath Basgupul** – From Mauritius IGF, also working within the Indian Ocean Islands

– **Mary Uduma** – Coordinates the West Africa Internet Governance Forum

– **Masanobu Kato** – From IGF Japan

– **Julian Casasbuenas** – Coordinator of the Colombian IGF

– **Kasun Vikramasuri** – Representing Sri Lanka IGF

– **Participant 1** – Kossi, from Benin IGF

– **Lilian Chamorro** – Coordinator of the Secretariat of the Latin American and Caribbean LACIGF Forum

– **Audience** – Multiple unidentified speakers including:

– Iheetal Gangavarapu (Indian Youth IGF representative)

– Yao (Youth IGF Benin)

– Pio (Myanmar Youth IGF)

– Tijani Benjamin (North African representative)

– Declan (Coordinator for Ireland IGF)

– Saray Falopote-Evita (Pacific IGF, Pacific Islands Chapter)

– Abdel Jalil Basharbong (Coordinating national IGF of Chad)

**Additional speakers:**

– **Iheetal Gangavarapu** – Representing the Indian Youth IGF

– **Yao** – From the Youth IGF Benin

– **Pio** – From Myanmar Youth IGF

– **Tijani Benjamin** – From North African region, speaking on own behalf

– **Declan** – Coordinator for the Ireland IGF

– **Saray Falopote-Evita** – From the Pacific IGF, Pacific Islands Chapter, technical background

– **Abdel Jalil Basharbong** – Coordinating the national IGF of Chad

# Annual Coordination Session for National, Regional, and Youth Internet Governance Forums (NRIs): Comprehensive Discussion Report

## Executive Summary

The annual coordination session for National, Regional, and Youth Internet Governance Forums (NRIs) brought together representatives from multiple initiatives worldwide to address critical challenges and share experiences during a pivotal year for internet governance. Facilitated by Anja Gengo from the IGF Secretariat, the session emphasized the crucial importance of NRI work in the context of the WSIS Plus 20 review and the renewal of the IGF mandate. The discussion revealed widespread consensus on fundamental operational challenges while highlighting innovative solutions and collaborative approaches developed across diverse regional contexts.

## Opening Context and Global Landscape

Anja Gengo opened the session by highlighting the critical timing, noting it had been “six months since we met in Riyadh” and emphasizing the importance of NRI work during this pivotal period. She specifically mentioned the expansion of support mechanisms, noting that “GIZ, the German Development Fund, is expanding their support beyond Africa to Southeastern Europe and Central Asia,” alongside continued support from the Internet Society Foundation and IGF Support Association.

The session addressed the convergence of multiple UN processes, including WSIS+20, the Global Digital Compact, and IGF mandate renewal, creating both opportunities and coordination challenges for NRIs worldwide.

## Key Structural Challenges

### Compressed Timeline Pressures

The 2024 IGF timeline emerged as a significant operational challenge affecting NRIs globally. Jennifer Chung from the Asia-Pacific Regional IGF identified this as a fundamental issue, explaining that “because we’re here in Norway in June, a lot of NRIs really tried to shorten their preparation time, which actually is quite a heavy lift, a heavy ask from a lot of NRIs who mainly, we’re volunteers.”

This sentiment was echoed by Dr. Nazar Nicholas Kirama from Tanzania IGF, who noted that time limitations made it difficult to meet deadlines for global IGF coordination. The compressed timeline particularly affected volunteer-run organizations that typically require longer preparation periods.

### Mandate Renewal Uncertainty

The uncertainty surrounding the IGF mandate renewal created what Jennifer Chung termed “the existential question” affecting all NRIs. This uncertainty extended beyond philosophical concerns to practical funding implications, as she explained the impact on donor confidence when there are question marks about the global mandate’s future.

### Integration of Multiple UN Processes

The convergence of WSIS+20, Global Digital Compact, and IGF renewal processes created complexity for NRIs. Dr. Kirama noted the challenge of understanding how to integrate these interconnected processes, while several speakers acknowledged the need for NRIs to address multiple UN processes simultaneously while maintaining their core internet governance mission.

## Funding Sustainability: Universal Challenge, Diverse Solutions

### Common Funding Challenges

Sustainable funding emerged as the most universally acknowledged challenge across all NRIs. Carlos Vera from IGF Ecuador captured the volunteer nature of the work, stating: “More of us are volunteers. So we need the support to maintain our local IGF, our regional IGF, our presence here.”

### Innovative Funding Strategies

Despite common challenges, NRIs developed diverse approaches to funding sustainability. Abdel Jalil Basharbong from Chad proposed seeking in-kind contributions rather than direct funding from the private sector, suggesting partnerships involving “food, printing, media coverage” in exchange for logo placement and session participation.

Mary Uduma from West Africa IGF demonstrated a particularly successful approach through parliamentary engagement: “we’ve gotten the attention of the parliamentarians to be part of the West African internal governance process… And the parliamentarians are those that decide the budgets for the country. So in doing that, they were able to push the ministers to be able to fund, you know, put in budgets for the IGF.” She also noted the strategic importance of parliamentarians voting for IGF mandate renewal.

### Private Sector Engagement Approaches

The discussion revealed different philosophies regarding private sector engagement. Representatives from Benin IGF emphasized the need for more private sector participation beyond occasional session attendance, while the Chad representative advocated for seeking in-kind contributions rather than direct funding from private sector partners.

## Impact Measurement and Stakeholder Engagement

### Demonstrable Impact as Sustainability Strategy

Nigel Cassimire from Caribbean IGF provided insight into volunteer retention and stakeholder engagement: “if people can see that they’re having impact, they would continue, and that would draw others in as well.” The Caribbean IGF created “this document we call the Caribbean Internet Governance Policy Framework, which we’ve updated as time has gone on… So what comes out of the CIGF, we could put into government policy spaces.”

### Government and Parliamentary Engagement

Several NRIs reported success in engaging government officials and parliamentarians. Mahindranath Basgupul from Mauritius IGF noted government policy influence through IGF recommendations, particularly regarding artificial intelligence initiatives. He also mentioned that “the President of Mauritius attended our IGF,” demonstrating high-level government engagement.

The West Africa IGF’s parliamentary engagement strategy proved particularly effective, with parliamentarians’ involvement leading to ministerial support and budget allocations.

### Multi-stakeholder Model Implementation

The discussion revealed strong consensus on the effectiveness of the multi-stakeholder model. Carlos Vera from IGF Ecuador noted the effectiveness of the NRI model’s multi-stakeholder approach, while Julian Casasbuenas from Colombian IGF emphasized that the multi-stakeholder model needs reinforcement rather than uniform application.

## Regional Variations and Success Stories

### Sustained Engagement Models

The Colombian IGF demonstrated remarkable sustainability through consistent monthly meetings, with Julian Casasbuenas noting they were “approaching their 100th session.” This model of regular engagement with rotating moderation distributed workload while maintaining stakeholder involvement between annual meetings.

Japan IGF, represented by Masanobu Kato, implemented monthly study discussions on digital policy issues to maintain ongoing engagement, though they acknowledged ongoing struggles to draw general public attention and explain IGF importance.

### Innovative Outreach Strategies

Several NRIs developed creative approaches to reaching broader audiences. Kasun Vikramasuri from Sri Lanka IGF described using preliminary sessions tied to specific events to help reach grassroots communities, while Saray Falopote-Evita from Pacific IGF emphasized the importance of collaborative work between technical and policy communities.

### Regional Collaboration Benefits

Mary Uduma noted that regional collaboration strengthens individual national initiatives, while Lilian Chamorro from LACIGF emphasized that intersessional work and regional collaboration need strengthening.

## Youth IGF Specific Challenges and Innovations

### Leadership Transition and Institutional Memory

Youth IGF representatives identified unique challenges related to leadership transitions. Yao from Benin Youth IGF asked: “How do we make sure that we maintain all the good practices, good work that has been accomplished by the volunteers, so that even though the leadership changes, the work progress still remains?”

### Legal Registration and Funding Access

Pio from Myanmar Youth IGF highlighted the challenge of legal registration barriers, noting the need for organizations that can support youth initiatives and NRIs running without legal registration barriers.

### Volunteer Retention Strategies

Responding to Agustina’s question about volunteer retention, several speakers provided insights. Iheetal Gangavarapu from Indian Youth IGF described their focus on intergenerational conversations and fellowship programs for youth development, while others emphasized the importance of showing concrete impact to maintain volunteer engagement.

## Collaborative Solutions and Network Coordination

### Cross-Regional Learning

The session facilitated significant cross-regional learning, with established NRIs offering practical advice to newer initiatives. Declan from Ireland IGF emphasized the importance of diverse organizing teams with stakeholder connections to leverage existing relationships.

### Capacity Building Initiatives

Several NRIs reported successful capacity building programs. Mauritius IGF expanded regional capacity through their School on Internet Governance, while various youth IGFs developed fellowship and mentorship programs.

## Assessment and Continuous Improvement

### Performance Evaluation Needs

Tijani Trusun from North Africa introduced a perspective on the coordination session itself, proposing that part of the session be dedicated to assessing performance from the past year: “How was our performance? How was the content that our speakers gave? How was the moderation we did?”

### Implementation Gap Challenges

Kasun Vikramasuri raised a fundamental question about the implementation gap: “How do we execute the decision that we have taken at the Internet Governance Forum?” This challenge of translating IGF discussions into actual policy implementation remained a key concern, though some NRIs had developed frameworks for policy influence.

## Unresolved Issues and Future Challenges

### Public Engagement and Awareness

Despite various outreach strategies, many NRIs continued to struggle with engaging the general public and explaining the importance of IGF participation to broader audiences. This challenge persisted across different regional contexts and organizational approaches.

### Sustainable Private Sector Engagement

Despite various approaches to private sector engagement, securing substantial and sustainable private sector funding remained challenging across all NRIs. The discussion revealed different strategies but no definitive solutions to this persistent challenge.

### Resource Constraints and Volunteer Dependency

The heavy reliance on volunteer labor created sustainability challenges that required creative solutions, demonstrating both the dedication of the global NRI community and the need for more systematic support mechanisms.

## Conclusions and Forward-Looking Perspectives

The annual coordination session revealed a collaborative network of NRIs working toward shared goals despite significant resource constraints and operational challenges. The discussion progressed from problem identification through solution sharing, demonstrating the maturity of the NRI network’s collective analysis.

The session’s collaborative tone, characterized by mutual support and knowledge sharing, reflected the resilience of the NRI community. Success stories shared during the session—from West Africa’s parliamentary engagement to Colombia’s sustained monthly meetings to Caribbean’s policy framework development—provided practical examples that other NRIs could adapt to their contexts.

Anja concluded the session by promoting the Global Youth Summit session at Studio N, emphasizing continued opportunities for engagement and collaboration within the broader IGF framework.

Looking forward, the NRI network faces the challenge of maintaining collaborative momentum while addressing systemic issues including sustainable funding, public engagement, and impact measurement. The integration of WSIS+20, Global Digital Compact, and IGF renewal processes provides both opportunities for expanded influence and challenges for resource-constrained volunteer organizations.

The fundamental questions about sustainable funding, public engagement, and implementation of IGF outcomes remain areas requiring ongoing attention and collaborative problem-solving across the global NRI network.

Anja Gengo: Can you hear me now? I can hear myself. Okay, good. Good afternoon here from beautiful Lillestrom. This is the traditional annual coordination session co-organized by now 177 national, sub-regional, and regional and youth IGFs. For the record, my name is Anja Gengo, I work at the IGF Secretariat, and I believe the majority here is aware that the Secretariat has been entrusted by now this very large, robust network of NRIs to facilitate the coordination and to take care of the sustainability of the NRIs collectively as a network, but of course to also recognize the NRIs at an individual level, work with colleagues who, of course, have their autonomy to ensure that their processes long-term are successful and as such sustainable. Every year, annually, we take stock of what we have been doing the past couple of months, and particularly we focus collectively on what we want to do in the months ahead. to come and in the years to come. Of course, the last time we met in person and online on this occasion was just a few months ago, around six months ago, at the IGF in Riyadh. But I think in the six-month period, we managed to, as a network, produce a lot. And as a result, the NRIs as a network will have a very nice representation here at the 20th annual IGF meeting. And in addition to that, given the very important year for internet governance or digital governance, I, of course, refer to the 20th review of the World Summit on the Information Society, with that, the review of the IGF mandate by the General Assembly in December this year. The work of the NRIs has never been more important, and the NRIs are aware of that. So there is, as a network, there is also a collective position that is now captured in a document on the NRIs in relation to Business Plus 20, and how the network sees the processes of the World Summit on Information Society evolving over the past two decades, and especially what could be the objective for the years to come for digital governance beyond 2025. We will be speaking about this quite a lot. Of course, this topic will be cross-cutting the three NRI collaborative sessions that are hosted throughout this week, and the NRIs main session, which will specifically look at multi-stakeholder approach to digital governance going beyond 2025. So that will be a very interesting opportunity to hear how the world thinks about where we are now with these processes, and especially the way forward. This is an open dialogue. That is the format. We would like to understand what, in the past couple of months, the NRIs have seen as the most important in terms of their work. What were the challenges? The point is always to exchange practices and to learn from each other to become better. So I can certainly start from the Secretariat. I’ve already said quite a lot. But my question to you would be in the thinking since Riyadh IGF, when we last time met, and this is, of course, a question to not just you in the room here in Lillestrom, but also a number of NRI colleagues that are with us online through Zoom. What did you see as the biggest challenge with respect to your processes? Were there changes, especially from the global level, that impacted you at the local level and your multi-stakeholder processes with the national or regional or youth IGFs? This is something that the Secretariat would like to learn more about, just to understand whether that can inform the course of our action, especially as we are moving toward the WSIS Plus 20. So that is the question. For the Secretariat, where is the change? The change certainly is this framework of WSIS Plus 20. Very much we’re focused on our future and what we need to do here and now for that future to be informed and to be directed in the direction we want, which is the internet that is unique, robust, sustainable, accessible, affordable, safe, secure, resilient, and such. Last year we spent quite a lot of time, of course, focusing on the fact and the realization that the UN informed officially that, for example, as a system, the world is behind on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. In addition to being very much focused, attentive, and contributing to the adoption and then implementation of the Global Digital Compact. But I think this year we have an even bigger agenda with the WSIS Plus 20, and so I put the question then for all NRI colleagues. From your experiences so far, what do you see as the biggest change and as the biggest challenge so far? I know that many of you have hosted your meetings already, some for the very first time, and it would be really wonderful to hear what are the lessons learned. Is there something that where we can help each other? And precisely if you have a suggestion what the Secretariat could do, or the IGF as a structure, together with the MAG, together with the leadership panel, I think it would be a good opportunity to hear that, and then we will convey to the relevant authorities to see if it’s possible to go into the implementation of that possible objective. So that’s the question. Happy to repeat it if possible, but it’s a warm exchange of the experiences so far, and whoever wishes to start first, I’m going to ask you maybe to raise your hand here in the room or in Zoom. I am following if we have any hands raised, and then you will be given the floor to speak. Jennifer, please, you have the floor.

Jennifer Chung: Thank you, Anja. My name is Jennifer Chung. I’m now speaking on behalf of the Secretariat of the Asia-Pacific Regional IGF, always happy to start us off, our colleagues, you know, gather thoughts as well. I think there are three main things, especially when you’re thinking about it from a regional IGF point of view. So the first thing is I remember at the end of last year in Riyadh, all the NRIs came together in a main session looking at the evolving role that we all play in the multi-stakeholder process and models and dialogue as well, and since then, the six months, there’s a lot more clarity about what we’re going to do, because back then we were, it’s a little bit of an existential question that we were asking, hey, you know, the IGF mandates, the global IGF mandate, it will be renewed. Will it be renewed? Perhaps that is it, but then for the NRIs, all the 170 plus NRIs that we are, you know, we are very organically arranged, organically created, and it really speaks a lot to the work that we do at local levels, national levels, sub-regional levels. all of that, and the youth initiatives too. So that’s the first thing, the existential question. The second point that was a very big impact was a lot of NRIs, of course, don’t have their meetings so early on in the year. Actually throughout the entire year, there’s a, you know, huge calendar of different NRIs, and usually it informs as well, you know, both ways, both the the NRI agenda and also the global IGF agenda. This year, because we’re here in Norway in June, a lot of NRIs really tried to shorten their preparation time, which actually is quite a heavy lift, a heavy ask from a lot of NRIs who mainly, we’re volunteers, we’re not paid people to be able to put on something that’s actually quite resource-consuming. So that’s one thing as well. And the second thing is the topics that we pick as well, right? We are very much influenced now because we’re in the WSIS plus 20 review year. So many, many NRIs who’ve already had their their meetings, including, I think, Eurodig had a very good consultation on that too, as well as others in other regions, really tries to get input from the NRI communities around the world to actually opine on what they want to see as WSIS plus 20. Now, we have a lot of clarity because the Elements paper came out just on Friday. So I think going forward for NRIs who will have their meetings after the global IGF, that also will inform us, you know, we have some clarity on the the consultation dates, for example. I think this gives us a really good opportunity to be able to galvanize our NRI communities to be able to input further into the WSIS plus 20 review, which is extremely central to a lot of our our, you know, our meetings. And the last thing I want to touch on a little bit more is, again, it is a sustainable funding issue for all of us. I think when we look, and we talked a little bit about it this morning during the IGF support association session, how can we look at sustainable funding, not just obviously, very obviously, for the global IGF, but how do we look for sustainable funding and the sustainability, longevity of our own NRIs? And I think it puts a very big question mark over our head because not only, you know, a lot of CCTLDs, so the country code top level domains, they support very much the local and the national meetings, but that is not enough sometimes. We need to look into other donors, for example, maybe private sector, maybe big tech, other things, local donors. And if they have a question mark over the head regarding if they don’t understand, if the global mandate doesn’t renew, for example, if they don’t quite understand, then they would ask the question, what is the value for us to keep on giving you this, you know, money to continue your meeting? So just three things I wanted to stop here to see how other colleagues also react to this, but I guess from the Asia Pacific point of view. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you. Thank you very much, Jennifer, and to the APR IGF. Any other interventions anyone would like to come in? I am also inviting our Zoom colleagues. So one of the challenges, yes, wonderful. Yes, let’s go to Nazar, please, and then Carlos.

Nazar Nicholas Kirama: Thank you so much, Anya, and thank you so much for everybody who is attending this session. And my name is Dr. Nazar Nicholas Kirama from Tanzania IGF, and I also sit in the East Africa IGF. And this year I was also appointed or selected as a member of the Africa Internet Governance Forum, and we happen to host the Africa IGF this year in Tanzania. And on the side of the challenge that we have had as a national IGF and East Africa IGF, for example, this year the calendar was too short in terms of preparations. We were squeezed between the national IGF. So, I’m going to give you a brief overview of what we’ve been doing in the past year. So, we’ve been working with the regional IGF, which is the East Africa IGF and Africa IGF. So, the time limitation was so much because in the previous years, we used to have a very good framework in terms of organizing national, regional, and other sub-regional IGFs. We are very glad to be able to pull off these things because the time was so tight in terms of making sure we meet the deadlines for the global IGF. That is number one. Number two, this year, as you may well recall, we have had three points that we need to connect. The IGF plus 20, the WSIS plus 20, and the global digital compact. So, the digital global compact and WSIS processes, all these, most people were not very aware in terms of how they bring this together because the challenge is how do we proceed going forward? Do we merge it and make it a one single United Nations agency for these three, or how do we proceed with that? So, that has been a challenge, but just like my colleague Jennifer said about the WSIS elements, that has been very helpful for our colleagues back home and in the region where we can see now the pathway for how we can make our contribution until the meeting for the… So, I would like to ask you to give us a little bit of background on what is happening in Tanzania. What is happening in Tanzania, and what is happening at the national level, or at the regional level, is left behind. For example, in Tanzania, we’re going to have the national review for the WSIS plus 20 on the third and fourth to discuss how, as a nation, and stakeholders from Tanzania, what happens there. And then, in Japan, we’re going to have the final circle review where the decisions will be made, of the WSIS plus 20, and digital compact, how do we establish a common position as a nation going forward. That would be my $0.50 contribution for now.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much Nazar. And congratulations on all the activities you indeed managed to put within a very compressed timeline. Lets go now to Carlos from Ecuador IDF. And then, we’re going to take other interventions.

Carlos Vera: Hello, good afternoon, everybody. I’m Carlos Vera from IGF Ecuador. I think one of the best example of good practice we can share is the NRI model itself. We work globally, we work regionally, we work locally. And we have this kind of meeting, I’m very happy that I have the opportunity to participate there, and I’d like to incorporate also this question of the cabinet order. I heard several people in the room from several ministers today saying that they are going to reinforce a the multi-stakeholder model. And that’s what we need now. And we need also to have working the financial model, funding from, for example, the Internet Society Foundation is essential for us to be here. More of us are volunteers. So we need the support to maintain our local IGF, our regional IGF, our presence here. So in the multi-stakeholder model, maybe in the IGF, maybe in the digital compact, I don’t know, the next model, we strongly support the multi-stakeholder model for work in the way we are doing. Thank you very much, Anja, also for your great job. You need more help now.

Anja Gengo: As the numbers are growing, I do feel it, yes. But thank you very much for really excellent work. I think the NRIs have proven their values and it’s been like that for years now. But I like, Carlos, what you mentioned before we go to Agustina about funding, building on what Jennifer also said. From the perspective of the Secretariat, as you know, we have cooperation with different stakeholders who are interested and see it as necessary, really, to support the NRIs in kind or financially as well. And the past couple of years, there are very few, unfortunately still, but extremely valuable stakeholders who have established the processes of grants so that the NRIs can apply, actually, through a formal process for a financial grant. One of them is, as you mentioned, Carlos, is the Internet Society Foundation. Of course, the IGF Support Association, and Jennifer is with us from the Secretariat there. But I have to say what I’ve noticed, especially last year, is the increased effort from the German Development Fund, the GIZ, in supporting the NRIs. NRIs. We’ve seen that for the past couple of years and we had wonderful collaboration with colleagues supporting the NRIs in the African region. And now that is expanding. So that’s an update from this year. We’re now working with colleagues who are interested into cooperating more, including supporting the NRIs in specific regions. So for this year, the focus is the Southeastern Europe as well as the Central Asia. And for us, that’s a very important step. And I just wanted to put this on the record in case there will be also other stakeholders with means to maybe follow these really good practices, because investing in NRIs really means investing in people, bringing back to people as these are people-centered and people-led processes first and foremost. So with that, I want to give floor to Agustina from the Argentina IGF.

Agustina Giaccio: Hi. Thank you, Ania. Well, first thing is the news. We relaunched the IGF Argentina this year. I’m the coordinator of the IGF Argentina. And one of the challenges that we faced was first getting the government involved. It was a little bit hard for us to get people from the national government involved. We have two members of parliament who are part of the IGF. Like one month ago, we got the executive branch involved, but it was quite challenging for us. And the other thing that I want to share with you, we also had some challenges, some challenges on having the private sector involved, especially with funding or, I don’t know, sharing their experience and be part of the IGF. Like civil society and academia, we were all in, but it was really hard. And one thing that I’m seeing is that, so for you to know, we are 20 members, half, so 10 members, half of the IDF committee, it’s, I call them like the old ones, because are the ones that have been in the IDF like for several years. But then we brought new people with new discussions, like Bitcoin, we have a person who is leading an initiative on Bitcoin for women. We also wanted to, because people usually in these fields, at least in Argentina, the ones that were leading the conversation were not that young. So we have 30% of the committee member is youth. And one thing that I wanna address, and I wanna ask you maybe for some, I don’t know, advice, is I saw at the beginning, everyone was like, yeah, yeah, we should do it, we relaunch it, we are all in power, we are like, yeah. And now, you know, it’s decreasing. So how do you keep people involved and working, knowing that it’s not their primary work and they do not get paid, so everything is volunteer. How do you do that? Like I see several initiative here that have been for several years now. And in Argentina, they had one four years before the pandemic, before COVID, but then it kept on breaking, kept like not going. So how do you do that? Like get people involved working without being paid? And how do you get funds? I know Ania just mentioned, but also we cannot depend always on donors. So how do you manage that? Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Agustina. I think we have here Nigel from the Caribbean IGF, and then we’re gonna go to Mahindranath. And then to Kato-san, Nigel, please. And then to Mary, yes. I think the microphone doesn’t work. Can you hear, Nigel?

Nigel Cassimire: Are you hearing? Yes. Yes, I was saying thank you, Anya, for calling on me, because I will try to answer Agostina’s question in terms of what I am going to say, because we are trying to exchange good practices here. And one of the things that we at the Caribbean IGF always sought to do is to have some impact, some positive impact. And I would say, very short answer, Agostina, is if people can see that they’re having impact, they would continue, and that would draw others in as well. In our case, in the Caribbean, from the outset, we decided that, you know, rather than just, say, talk about the issues and so on, we would try to record what were some of the agreements that came out of our meetings in terms of ways forward. So we created this document we call the Caribbean Internet Governance Policy Framework, which we’ve updated as time has gone on. We had, like, four editions. Now they last in 2024. So, and what we found is that as people realize that maybe there’s something going on here or something growing here, we’ve been able to get some sponsorship from the technical community, from the IGF, from ISOC, and so on, to continue what we’re doing. So the impact we want to have is on ICT policies in the Caribbean. My group, the Caribbean Telecommunications Union, is an intergovernmental organization. So we do have a link into the governments. So what comes out of the CIGF, we could put into government policy spaces. So that’s not the case for all of us. But still, I think what we should do is try to measure the impact that we’re having. And when you get something positive happening, you make it known. And that tends to attract others that are coming in as well. We realize that we have a shortcoming in terms of measurement. We could point anecdotally to things that we’ve done. But we are now, again, getting into better practices of establishing some measurement systems that we will keep current in terms measuring the progress we are making on various things. So that’s what I would suggest for now. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you. Thank you very much, Nigel, for sharing this concrete practice coming from the Caribbean IGF. Let’s please hear from the Mauritius IGF. Mahindranath, you have the floor.

Mahindranath Basgupul: Thank you, Anja. Yeah, I’m Mahindranath Basgupul from Mauritius IGF. And we’re also working within the Indian Ocean Islands as well. Thank you, Anja. When we hosted our Mauritius IGF in April, in the first week of April, I knew we had difficulties in looking for funding. But luckily, we had one or two corporate sectors who helped us in taking forward the Mauritius IGF. And the theme that we went for, it was artificial intelligence. And the good thing that I would like to share at this meeting is that after our AI meeting, the government of Mauritius decided that we need to go forward with AI. This is what the government is doing. And the other thing is that for this IGF 2025 meeting here, I have the pleasure that the President of the Republic of Mauritius is accompanying us. It is very positive, and I think that what Mauritius IGF is doing in Mauritius and within the Indian Ocean Islands is quite positive. I would like to thank Anja for the official opening ceremony. I think, Anja, when you talk at the opening ceremony, it was quite positive. Even the press, even everybody just talked about it, saying that the UN IGF from Geneva is hosting us and is together with us. And the other thing that I would like to add is that we are going forward for the School on Internet Governance in August, first week of August, for two weeks. So this is quite positive. Within the island, within the Indian Ocean Islands, we are taking forward the IGF agenda and everything that we can do. Thank you, Anja, for all your support and help.

Anja Gengo: With great pleasure, Mahindra, and thank you for the incredible work. In such a short time, Mauritius IGF became a really big process, not just a mere event. So we are always really grateful and honored to be part of it. With that, I’m going to stay on this side to hear from Mary, and then we’re going to go to this side. Mary, please.

Mary Uduma: Hello, thank you. Can you hear me?

Anja Gengo: We can, yes. All right.

Mary Uduma: In terms of experience sharing, I want to say that the West Africa – okay, my name is Mary. I coordinate the West Africa Internet Governance Forum for the records. One of the things that has happened in West Africa is that we’ve gotten the attention of the parliamentarians to be part of the West African internal governance process. So this year, they made a declaration and it’s on our website, declaration by the parliamentarians, the West African parliamentarian on IG. So they now know. So it’s not we talking to ourselves any longer. But the parliamentarians, we have gotten their buy-in. Secondly, we’re working with the government or the administration of West African states. That is the ECOWAS. And so most of the parliamentarians are here. And thanks to the funding that the GIZ has provided and the IGF Secretariat as well. Thank you. So we are increasingly seeing interest to host our meetings from one country to the other within the West African region. And most of our funding, the heavy lifting of our funding comes from the government of the administration or the country. That’s one. At the national level, we will also, because of the involvement of the parliamentarians, the parliamentarians that are in the IG network is pressing it on the ministers. The minister, OK, ministers, because we had ministers attend our meetings. And they have colleagues, parliamentarians. So Nigeria is hosting all the secretariat of the parliamentarians. And the parliamentarians are those that decide the budgets for the country. So in doing that, they were able to push the ministers to be able to fund, you know, put in budgets for the IGF. I mean, the national IGF and the regional IGF. So that’s increased funding we have seen. And they are also reaching out to other funding agencies to see that we are doing well. So I think if we involve them, if we involve our executives, executive arm of the government as well as the MPs, we will see an increase in the participation. And also, we specifically wanted them to be there to know about the, to go vote for the renewal of IGF mandate. And that was what was our aim, to make sure that we bring them there, get their buy-in, and so that when they get there in December, they’ll be able to vote. We have not had our national IGF, but we did a webinar. So we are going to do another webinar involving all the stakeholders so that we’ll continue to press on the fact that we need to renew the mandate of the IGF. And those are the things that we are doing in West Africa and in Nigeria. So you may want to take a cue from there. Thank you. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Mary. Let’s go maybe to Kato-san, to Japan IGF, and then we’re going to take all the speakers from here.

Masanobu Kato: Thank you, Anja. My name isMasanobu Kato from IGF Japan. If you ask one particular or biggest challenge for Japan, unfortunately, it is still the question how we can draw the attention or interest from general public to the IGF matters. How to explain the importance of participation to IGF. And we are still struggling on this. Probably you remember that we sponsored or hosted Kyoto IGF. a year and a half ago, and where we invited the prime minister, three ministers, and many executives from companies and so on. I thought IJF became very popular. Many newspapers put articles on this, but unfortunately some of the newspapers said that IJF was about AI governance. Anyway, after, you know, Kyoto, unfortunately we probably lost some of the general interest to the IJF activities. It is our fault, you know, we couldn’t explain continuously about the importance of participation to this kind of international, you know, event. But also we are trying to organize more formally about an IJF Japan which is still, you know, going on and took us more than one year and a half to have more formalized, I mean, the incorporation of the organization in Japan. And this is simply because, you know, currently Japan and IJF are, you know, hosted or supported by those who are all the people knowing the real issue here, but they still have their own issues and their agenda and so on. It’s very difficult to have one united, you know, group of people in Japan. So that’s where we are right now, and this is not just the negative side. I’d like to mention some of the things we are doing right now. One thing is several months ago we started to have a monthly study discussions where, you know, every month we pick up some of the issues surrounding digital policies and so on. Also last month we hosted the Japan IJF meeting as a preparatory meeting for the We will speak about the preparedness. As we said before, everybody should be prepared for some issues right now in Japan. There is one of the very first social-economic aspects in Japan right now, on SEGA. There is a lot of competition coming from outside of Japan. In Japan, in general, gambling is prohibited. So online gambling is not possible in Japan in general. But they can bet money to those online gambling sites outside of Japan. So this became a big public issue. So we put emphasis on the importance of this kind of awareness and awareness of the future of IGF in Japan. Also, in that session, we talked about the future of IGF and the kind of awareness and the learning process for the general public about what we are discussing at WSIS and the GDC and so on. Luckily, we invited speakers outside from Japan. Some of them are Japanese speakers and some of them are Brazilian speakers and Democrats. Voices from Japan have often been invited. They are coming from China, Ecuador. There is a Sweet Road in France. This is auss surface Jasmine. After the decline of 1. Yes.

Anja Gengo: You are coming from a very unique perspective, I would say, in the recent time, but it would be very interesting to hear also from other colleagues who had experience of their government hosting the IGF. how it reflected on the national IGF. From our experience, especially in the past couple of years, it is precisely the national IGFs that are the drivers of processes for hosting, I would say. And they often have a very active role as a program committee or a steering committee within the overall host country process. And that’s been a new practice. But I think they’ve just been recognized by the host government as a great asset that can help to prepare a meeting. So with that, we’re going to hear from our colleague Julian from the Colombian IGF and the LAC IGF.

Julian Casasbuenas: Thank you, Anja. My name is Julian Casas Buenas. And I am the coordinator of the Colombian IGF. And now I would like to present some of the things that we are doing currently that has been evolved very much in the last years because of all this work that we have been doing. We try to meet every month. So we are about to reach our 100th meeting for the Colombian IGF. And the annual meeting this year will be the 11th version. So in this process, we have implemented mechanisms where every month we try to convene these meetings with different stakeholders to ask to moderate the sessions. So every time it’s not only those that are coordinating, but also different actors that can participate and get more linked to all the process. And also, we try to make sure that the multistakeholder model is not just a one-size-fits-all model, but that it reinforces the importance of the multistakeholder model. Also, we try to get Colombian IGF involved in different international calls and submit observations in Internet governance processes as well as other international forums, like the Internet Governance Forum, or even local activities. So support for the dissemination of the initiatives of the Colombian IGF such as the annual forum, events related to Internet governance by member stakeholders, as well as sharing the work for the local initiative in international spaces such here at the IGF, and also a possibility of foreign participation into the Internet Governance Forum, which is our final stage of the IGF in 2015. Every year we organize. We organize a lot of sessions on the of those themes, but also to continue in the work and this year we plan to organize our agenda based on these meetings that we are doing during the year. organizations, and also to include more actors, not only from the main cities in Colombia, but also in the rural areas. So this year we want to provide scholarships, but also to make at least one activity outside of the forum, of the annual forum. So I think that’s a challenge in a way that probably will work to convene people that are not yet linked to these processes. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you, thank you very much Julian. Yes, let’s go to Kasun and then to Kossip.

Kasun Vikramasuri: Okay, thank you Anja. Good evening all. So I’m Kasun Vikramasuri, representing Sri Lanka IGF. So we have initiated Sri Lanka IGF for the first time in 2016, after that we initiated in 2017. After seven years of silence, we have hosted it in last year 2024 IGF Sri Lanka. So for the IGF Sri Lanka, we are mainly focusing multi-stakeholderism as we discussed. For that one, we have used major key five segments we have discussed last year, for digital inclusion, technical IGF, that’s in focusing the universal acceptance, and also localization of internet, and the women’s side, and also we are focusing the digital inclusion side, focusing the citizens with disabilities and how they can utilize the internet. And also we have focused digital economic side too. And also following the multi-stakeholderism, we have used several key multi-stakeholder segments to conduct and moderate the specific sessions. Another challenge we have identified is, how we can go to the grassroots to make them aware, our peoples, about the internet governance, what internet governance is, and how they can involve with the internet governance process. So with that one, we have utilized so many strategies. So we have used, we have arranged preliminary session series prior to the internet governance main forum in Sri Lanka. So another strategy we have used is that preliminary session, we have bounded with some other key programs, such as we have organized preliminary sessions in line with Global Encryption Day celebration in Sri Lanka. And secondly, we have arranged the preliminary session bind with Universal Acceptance and Celebration in Sri Lanka. So those are the key things we have utilized to make our people aware about internet governance and go to the grassroot levels. Another challenge we have identified is how we can execute the decision that we have taken at the Internet Governance Forum. That’s one key challenge we have identified, other than that financial challenge. So those kind of things I think we have to collaboratively discuss and we can get the decisions how we can execute with the policy implementations by the government sector. And also the challenges we have with the other segments such as private sector and the technical sector participation. Those things I think we have to focus. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Kasson. Kossi, please, you have the floor.

Participant 1: Thank you. I’m Kossi, I’m a senior, I come from Benin, Benin IGF. It’s for me the occasion to recognize the support we receive from IGF Secretariat, technical support, financial support also. Also, IGFSA support also our process each year. It’s very important for us. We know IGF is not the space for decision maker, but we will not make decision there, but we have more idea to bring policy on table for our digital space. It’s important for us this time to have more private people on the table. We have government, we have civil society, we have some technical issue, we have academia, but private people are not more there. That is the challenge we have today to improve. We need more support on that. We need more collaboration. to build the good Internet ecosystem for our countries, locally. That is very important. Thank you again.

Anja Gengo: ≫ Thank you very much, Kosti. Lilian, please, you have the floor.

Lilian Chamorro: ≫ Thank you. I’m Lilian Chamorro, I’m the coordinator of the Secretariat of the Latin American and Caribbean LACAJF Forum. We are right now preparing our LACAJF for this year. We have our last LACAJF at the end of the year in Santiago de Chile, and we are preparing the 18th edition of the forum. We made an open call to define topics, and we already have the topics defined, especially considering those that are so specific to the Latin American and Caribbean LACAJF Forum. For this objective, we coinied our research, based on our knowing the first Sustainable Development Government decisions that are political for our region as environment and sustainability and human rights. We renewed our workshop selection comité and made call for host organizations, inviting all the sectors and countries to postulate, and now we are defining the host organizations, and we are working on the first one, which is the internet governance, because we think many people maybe is not involved in the discussions because they don’t understand the scope. Then we are implementing mechanisms and practices to give more visibility to the discussions, and to bring in information for people to understand the interaction between institutional and governments. That is a sums update to the strategy. We intend to create more information for different actors and about the internet governance ecosystem in the region. Talking about challenges, additionally to the difficulty to find funds for doing an event that can receive more than 2,000 participants, I think we need to strengthen intersessional work and the original collaboration from different actors and from different NRIs in Latin America. We are trying to implement mechanisms to be more in contact and to have more information of the NRIs in our web page and in our diffusion mechanisms like news and things that we spread in our networks and that’s what I want to say now.

Anja Gengo: Thank you, thank you very much Lilian. Let’s take two more comments or maybe three and then for the conclusion, I’m always eager to hear from the NRIs that have hosted their meetings for the very first time this year. So Declan, I would like to give you a heads up for later, I think it would be good to hear how the Ireland IGF went because we went to an extent through the process together, you really kept us in the loop and I want to thank you for that. So I would like just to hear major takeaways at the end of this session if possible. In the meantime, let’s hear from Iheetal from the Indian Youth IGF, then we’re going to have Yao from the Benin Youth IGF and then we’re going to have Piyo from Myanmar Youth IGF.

Audience: Alright, hi everyone, I am representing the Indian Youth IGF, I’m Iheetal Gangavarapu. Since we’re exchanging a lot of best practices, I just wanted to tell as to what has been happening in India in the last seven years since we formulated YIGF in 2018. So what we focus on mainly, I think somebody had mentioned impact, we are really focusing on impact because I think that’s one way we’ll receive a lot more support. We run two critical things, one is of course the annual forum that brings together intergenerational conversations. We also have a fellowship program, so the idea is that young people who are already fairly mature in the space should also be given a platform to get even more mature and understand what are the different dialogues that are happening and help them not just work in silos but bridge that silos and those gaps. So what, you know, over the work that we’ve been doing, the impact aspect is how do we influence the current policy making that’s happening at the national level. So there are open consultations that the government of India opens up and we are ensuring that young people send out policy briefs or they give out their inputs. So we are advocating very strongly and are influencing these consultations that happen either in the regulation sector, in the standardization space or even in general from a capacity building standpoint that the government launches. In addition to this, I think the issues that we are facing in the last few years is of course sponsorship. It’s a very critical space and even though there is impact, we are trying to find ways and how this translates to let’s say a business value to the private sector or it would translate to something that the government would be even more interested in to support us. Because one variable that falls out here is the leadership of youth IGFs that keep changing year on year. That’s one. I think we’ve realized the challenges that not being able to incorporate a lot more diversity than we could because India has a lot of languages, economies, cultures, also being conducive to different types of genders that are out there. Then somebody also mentioned private partnerships. One thing I would say that has really helped us through all of these challenges is partnerships, but the private sector involvement is fairly low. Partnerships have really stood out, especially to reach out to sectors or regions in the country that have very low, let’s say internet penetration or have penetration but are not really using it to the optimum. are not aware of cyber hygiene. So we have run a lot of partnerships over the last two, three years to reach out to young girls who are using the internet, but are not understanding how safe they can actually make it to be. Then the other important thing that we are looking for is some kind of, I wouldn’t call it necessarily media coverage, but some kind of coverage of the type of work that we do. If any of the NRI initiatives have been able to get this kind of coverage done earlier, then I think their support will help us influence the type of work that we’re able to do in the country and maybe influence other stakeholders also. So there’s more impact and more partnerships that we are able to drive with sectors that are currently not involved in the space.

Anja Gengo: Yeah, thank you. Thank you very much, Yehita. Let’s hear from Yao.

Audience: Thank you very much. Thank you. Can you hear me? Yes, we can hear you. Thank you very much. So I’m Yao from the Youth IHF Benin. I thank everybody for their contribution regarding the action of good practices. I have one, I would say two questions. Questions I wanted to put to your considerations. One is in terms of good practice, how could we learn from all the NRI network how we better engage private sector in terms of getting them to actually long-term, like funding the initiative for partnering with different, involving them into sessions and having instead of contributing to the capacity building activities we are doing during our different initiatives, they join sometimes. But then when it comes to actually asking them to sponsor in terms of giving support for money or in-kind, it’s sometimes difficult for them. I don’t know maybe how we frame it to see the added value in giving funding to us. For those who have been successful in securing substantial funding from private sectors, how have you been doing this? So this is something that you finalisers need to learn from how to do it better when it comes to raising funds. Because we have different issues in our countries, and the strategy to raise funds might be different, but there might be some common ground in how we do it better. The next thing is related to the way that you finalisers are functioning in this cycle of changing leaderships. How do we make sure that we maintain all the good practices, good work that has been accomplished by the volunteers, so that even though the leadership changes, the work progress still remains and those who come after will do better in terms of contributing to the overall work and making sure that our contribution has been meaningful in terms of policy implication and so on. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Pio? Hello everyone, this is Pio from Myanmar YGF. I noticed that lots of colleagues from the UNRWA have shared their challenges and experience, but also from the perspective of the Independent Youth Initiative from Myanmar, we would like to share some examples that we have done for like four years, you know, continuing as an Independent Youth Initiative, as a volunteer organizing committee member. The first thing that we have done after the first year is that we raised co-funding by ourselves for the next year. Of course, it wasn’t a very big amount, but we co-facilitate the volunteer setting. foreign, at least for the second year foreign, and then after that we’re trying to reach out to the potential organization which can support us for the third year foreign. Because as an independent initiator, we have a challenge of legal registration, and you know, as you may know, it’s very difficult to apply the funding without having any legal registration, so I think from our perspective, there should be the organization which can support the youth initiative and NRI who are running, who are trying to support and facilitate the foreign as an independent initiative, or they should not have a barrier to host the foreign as long as they have a passion, and regardless of not having, regardless of the legal registration on one hand, but there’s another point of view that I would like to mention here, that as long as the committee members have a passion, we can host the foreign at least in the virtual session, right? So even though it’s been like a full year, this is our full year to facilitate the activity related to the YNGF member, but we transform it into the workshop series this year because of our limited resources. We can do whatever, we can do this measuring our limited resources, and I mean like we can step back if we have very limited resources, like transforming the workshop to host, to continue our activity as a youth initiative of the NRI. That is the eighth number and the practice, I guess, that I would like to share here. So as long as you have a passion and you have a passion to contribute and support for the community, that would be very great that continue as in any kinds of activity that you can. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you. Thank you very much, Phil. We have three more minutes until the end, and we want to hear from four speakers. So let’s see how skillful our speakers are. I want to give first to Tijani Trusun, then we’re going to hear quickly from Declan. We have three more comments very briefly. I’m going to ask maybe for two more extra times from our colleagues in the technical domain and then we’re going to wrap up. Tijani, you have the floor.

Audience: Thank you very much, Anja, Tijani, Benjamin from the North African, and I am speaking on my own behalf. I think that this is a coordination session for the NRIs, and the NRIs will coordinate what they are doing together. And what we are doing together is these sessions in the IGF. So I propose that in the future, at least part of this session would be dedicated to the assessment evaluation of our performance of the past year. We should try to find what kind of effect our sessions made on the general attendees in the IGF. How was our performance? How was the content that our speakers gave? How was the moderation we did? Of course, we will not speak about persons, we will not speak about names, but we have to be aware that we need to improve our process so that for the upcoming year we will not make the same mistake if we made a mistake. Thank you very much.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Tijani. Declan, you’ve hosted the Irish IGF, if I may notice, and it’s a very exceptional venue. So I’d like to see what was the feedback from the community, how do you see the future, what was the biggest challenge, very briefly.

Audience: Very briefly, hi everyone, my name is Declan, I’m the coordinator for the Ireland IGF. As Anja noted, we just hosted our very first event several weeks ago, and the feedback has been exceptional. We’re very happy and we’re very encouraged for the future. We particularly, I think one of the main successes was just the wide array of stakeholders that we were able to bring together. We ended up actually getting a government minister as well to give a keynote speech, as well as getting very prominent figures in the civil society and academia to also take part. I think a lot of that success is attributed to the organizing team. We made sure that the organizing team was also very diverse, and that they could also have these connections as well within the different stakeholder groups who might not know about what the IGF is, but having those connections from the organizing team, they were able to sort of go out and advocate for very prominent key figures to take part. I would say that one of the biggest challenges, they were the normal challenges that seem to be recurring, identifying funding, explaining what the IGF is to the general public. But I’d say one of the biggest ones that stuck out to me was because everyone was very eager to participate, our agenda was very, very broad and very wide, and it was somewhat difficult to fit in five panels and two keynote speakers and a lunch all in one day. But we were able to do it when we only went about two minutes over time. So we’re very, very happy about that. But I think moving forward, we’ll try to be a little more targeted with our overall theme and with the selected panels. But to me, it’s also a benefit or it’s a strength because it did mean that there was such a wide range of people who wanted different topics discussed. So, yeah, we are very encouraged moving forward in the future. Thank you.

Anja Gengo: Thank you so much, Declan. And looking forward to see the continuation. So I have a signaling from the technical team that we have to conclude. So Abdel, Dialil, Saray, Toko, if you can be quick in 30 seconds, more than happy and looking forward to your remarks. I promise I will not take time for the conclusion. OK. Thank you so much.

Audience: Hello. Can you hear me? Yes. Yes, we can hear you. OK. Thank you so much. My name is Saray Falopote-Evita from the Pacific IGF, from the Pacific Islands Chapter. So I just want to comment on hearing some best practices from the colleagues here. And I think we have the same, but just named two, the challenges we are facing. And we have the same challenges getting the fund. But the most important thing of the opportunities of giving out there and sharing and advocating what the IGF is. Getting the buy-in from the government is one of the important things for us to do. And also for us, coming from the technical background, you know the technical architecture of this thing of IGF. So we are the ones as well, assisting the political and the policies people to push through the IGF. So my point here, it is a collaborative work. And it’s for us, they know what to do that helps and impacted others. It’s something that we need to work together with. So that’s my two cents, and thank you for the opportunity.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Saray. Okay. Abdel, very briefly.

Audience: Okay. Yeah. Hi, everyone. Thank you so much, Anya and dear colleague. So my name is Abdel Jalil Basharbong. So I’m coming from Chad. I’m coordinating the national IGF of Chad. So happy to learn the different experience. So my comment is that about collaboration. So here in Chad, we have a good collaboration with government and private sector also. So like coming for funding sometimes difficult, but we have some strategy to do it. We prepare our budget. Sometimes we receive funding from IGFSA or Secretaria. But we’re going directly to private sector sometimes, like the mobile operator, to tell them this is our budget. We don’t need physical money, but for example, taking from the food, or the printing, or the media. So sometimes this kind of collaboration, after that we put their logo in our publication. And sometimes they have some session also. This kind of collaboration will help also. And other side also for the NRIs can help the countries, like coming not only for the idea, but for the internet space also. Like we say that chat are not in GACO. We say, as NRIs, how we can help that, to bring like chat in ICANN, chat like in CCNSO, so in ITU also. There’s a lot of things that us NRIs can become a key platform to help the national users also. Thank you so much.

Anja Gengo: Thank you very much, Abdelalil. I have received a final warning, I think, from the technical team that we cannot take more interventions. I am very sorry. But we have four more sessions of the NRIs on various topics as of tomorrow. So let us please continue there. I use the opportunity to also invite you to join, I think, what could be a very interesting panel at half past 3 at Studio N. It’s the Global Youth Summit, where we will have the Australian digital ambassador speaking with young people from around the world on why putting age verification on social media may be good or not a good thing. So I hope that you can come and support that dialogue and we can continue also this discussion there. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you.

Agreement points

Funding and sustainability challenges are universal across NRIs

Speakers

– Jennifer Chung
– Carlos Vera
– Mahindranath Basgupul
– Mary Uduma
– Audience

Arguments

Sustainable funding remains a critical challenge for NRI longevity

More of us are volunteers. So we need the support to maintain our local IGF, our regional IGF, our presence here

Financial challenges persist despite some corporate sector support

Heavy reliance on government funding and international donors

Difficulty securing substantial private sector funding despite demonstrating impact

Summary

All speakers consistently identified funding as a major challenge, whether from traditional sources like CCTLDs, government support, or private sector engagement. They all acknowledge the volunteer nature of NRI work and the need for sustainable funding mechanisms.

Topics

Development | Economic

Compressed timeline for IGF preparations created operational challenges

Speakers

– Jennifer Chung
– Nazar Nicholas Kirama

Arguments

Compressed timeline for IGF preparations created heavy burden on volunteer-based organizations

Time limitations made it difficult to meet deadlines for global IGF coordination

Summary

Both speakers from different regions (Asia-Pacific and East Africa) identified the early timing of the Norway IGF as creating significant preparation challenges for volunteer-based organizations.

Topics

Development

Multi-stakeholder model effectiveness and importance

Speakers

– Carlos Vera
– Julian Casasbuenas
– Audience

Arguments

NRI model demonstrates effective multi-stakeholder approach across all levels

Multi-stakeholder model needs reinforcement rather than one-size-fits-all application

Collaborative work between technical and policy communities essential for success

Summary

Speakers agreed that the multi-stakeholder model is effective and important, but emphasized it needs to be properly implemented and adapted rather than applied uniformly across all contexts.

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Need for demonstrable impact to maintain engagement and support

Speakers

– Nigel Cassimire
– Mahindranath Basgupul
– Audience

Arguments

Creating measurable impact attracts continued participation and sponsorship

Government policy influence through IGF recommendations drives engagement

Partnership strategies help reach underserved regions and populations

Summary

Multiple speakers emphasized that showing concrete impact and policy influence is crucial for maintaining stakeholder engagement and attracting continued support from various sectors.

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Development

Similar viewpoints

All three speakers identified challenges in engaging different stakeholder groups – government, general public, and private sector respectively – highlighting the universal challenge of stakeholder engagement across different contexts.

Speakers

– Agustina Giaccio
– Masanobu Kato
– Participant 1

Arguments

Difficulty getting government involvement in IGF processes

Struggle to draw general public attention and explain IGF importance

Need for more private sector participation beyond occasional session attendance

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Sociocultural | Economic

These speakers all emphasized the importance of outreach strategies and educational mechanisms to reach broader audiences and explain internet governance concepts to those not traditionally involved in these discussions.

Speakers

– Kasun Vikramasuri
– Lilian Chamorro
– Audience

Arguments

Preliminary sessions tied to specific events help reach grassroots communities

Mechanisms needed to provide information about internet governance scope to broader audiences

Partnership strategies help reach underserved regions and populations

Topics

Sociocultural | Development

Both speakers demonstrated successful strategies for engaging government officials and parliamentarians, showing how this engagement leads to concrete policy outcomes and increased funding support.

Speakers

– Mary Uduma
– Mahindranath Basgupul

Arguments

Parliamentary involvement increases legitimacy and budget allocation support

Government policy influence through IGF recommendations drives engagement

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Unexpected consensus

Adaptation and flexibility in resource-constrained environments

Speakers

– Audience
– Audience

Arguments

Strategy of seeking in-kind contributions rather than direct funding from private sector

Transformation of activities based on available resources maintains continuity

Explanation

There was unexpected consensus on creative adaptation strategies, with speakers from different regions (Chad and Myanmar) independently developing similar approaches to overcome resource constraints through in-kind contributions and activity transformation rather than abandoning initiatives.

Topics

Economic | Development

Regional coordination strengthening national processes

Speakers

– Mary Uduma
– Lilian Chamorro

Arguments

Regional collaboration strengthens individual national initiatives

Intersessional work and regional collaboration need strengthening

Explanation

Speakers from different regions (West Africa and Latin America/Caribbean) unexpectedly converged on the same conclusion that regional coordination and collaboration significantly strengthens individual national IGF processes, suggesting this is a universal principle rather than region-specific need.

Topics

Development | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion revealed strong consensus on core operational challenges (funding, timeline pressures, stakeholder engagement) and the effectiveness of the multi-stakeholder model. Speakers also agreed on the importance of demonstrable impact and the need for creative outreach strategies.

Consensus level

High level of consensus on fundamental challenges and principles, with speakers from diverse regions identifying similar issues and solutions. This suggests these are systemic rather than localized challenges, implying that coordinated network-wide solutions and support mechanisms would be beneficial for the entire NRI community.

Different viewpoints

Approach to private sector engagement

Speakers

– Participant 1
– Audience (Chad representative)

Arguments

Need for more private sector participation beyond occasional session attendance

Strategy of seeking in-kind contributions rather than direct funding from private sector

Summary

While both recognize the need for private sector involvement, they differ in approach – one emphasizes the need for more participation while the other advocates for strategic in-kind partnerships rather than direct funding requests

Topics

Economic

Unexpected differences

Role expansion of NRIs beyond traditional internet governance

Speakers

– Audience (Chad representative)
– Other speakers

Arguments

NRIs can serve as platforms to help countries engage with international organizations

Most other speakers focus on traditional IGF coordination and governance

Explanation

While most speakers focused on traditional IGF activities, the Chad representative uniquely proposed expanding NRI roles to help countries engage with broader international organizations like ICANN and ITU, which wasn’t echoed by others

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory

Overall assessment

Summary

The discussion revealed minimal direct disagreements, with speakers primarily sharing complementary experiences and challenges. Main areas of different approaches included private sector engagement strategies, funding solutions, and public outreach methods.

Disagreement level

Low level of disagreement with high collaboration. The session functioned as intended – as a coordination and experience-sharing forum rather than a debate. Differences were more about varied approaches to common challenges rather than fundamental disagreements, which suggests a mature, collaborative network working toward shared goals.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

All three speakers identified challenges in engaging different stakeholder groups – government, general public, and private sector respectively – highlighting the universal challenge of stakeholder engagement across different contexts.

Speakers

– Agustina Giaccio
– Masanobu Kato
– Participant 1

Arguments

Difficulty getting government involvement in IGF processes

Struggle to draw general public attention and explain IGF importance

Need for more private sector participation beyond occasional session attendance

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Sociocultural | Economic

These speakers all emphasized the importance of outreach strategies and educational mechanisms to reach broader audiences and explain internet governance concepts to those not traditionally involved in these discussions.

Speakers

– Kasun Vikramasuri
– Lilian Chamorro
– Audience

Arguments

Preliminary sessions tied to specific events help reach grassroots communities

Mechanisms needed to provide information about internet governance scope to broader audiences

Partnership strategies help reach underserved regions and populations

Topics

Sociocultural | Development

Both speakers demonstrated successful strategies for engaging government officials and parliamentarians, showing how this engagement leads to concrete policy outcomes and increased funding support.

Speakers

– Mary Uduma
– Mahindranath Basgupul

Arguments

Parliamentary involvement increases legitimacy and budget allocation support

Government policy influence through IGF recommendations drives engagement

Topics

Legal and regulatory

Key takeaways

The NRI network has grown to 177 national, sub-regional, regional and youth IGFs, demonstrating significant expansion and impact in internet governance

Compressed timelines for IGF preparation in 2024 created substantial challenges for volunteer-based organizations that typically require longer preparation periods

Sustainable funding remains the most critical challenge across all NRIs, with heavy reliance on government funding, international donors, and limited private sector engagement

Impact measurement and demonstration is crucial for maintaining stakeholder engagement and attracting continued funding support

Multi-stakeholder engagement strategies that include parliamentarians and government ministers significantly improve legitimacy and budget allocation for IGF processes

The integration of WSIS+20, Global Digital Compact, and IGF processes created confusion but also opportunities for broader policy influence

Regional collaboration and partnerships are essential for strengthening individual national initiatives and reaching underserved populations

Maintaining volunteer engagement without compensation requires demonstrable impact, regular activities, and diverse stakeholder involvement

Resolutions and action items

Continue cross-cutting discussions on WSIS+20 and digital governance beyond 2025 in the three NRI collaborative sessions throughout the week

Host the NRIs main session specifically focused on multi-stakeholder approach to digital governance beyond 2025

Convey suggestions from NRIs to relevant authorities (IGF structure, MAG, leadership panel) for possible implementation

Expand funding cooperation with stakeholders like German Development Fund (GIZ) to support NRIs in Southeastern Europe and Central Asia

Continue monthly coordination activities and study discussions to maintain ongoing engagement between annual meetings

Implement better assessment and evaluation mechanisms for NRI performance in IGF sessions

Strengthen intersessional work and regional collaboration among NRIs

Unresolved issues

How to effectively engage general public and explain the importance of IGF participation to broader audiences

Strategies for securing substantial and sustainable private sector funding beyond occasional sponsorship

Methods for maintaining institutional knowledge and good practices during leadership transitions in volunteer-based organizations

How to balance broad stakeholder engagement with focused thematic discussions within limited timeframes

Mechanisms for executing decisions and recommendations from IGF meetings into actual policy implementations

How to support independent youth initiatives and NRIs that lack legal registration for formal funding applications

Strategies for reaching rural areas and underserved populations beyond main cities

How to measure and communicate the concrete impact of NRI activities to justify continued investment

Suggested compromises

Seeking in-kind contributions from private sector (food, printing, media coverage) rather than direct financial funding, with logo placement and session participation in return

Transforming full forums into workshop series when resources are limited to maintain continuity of activities

Partnering with existing events and celebrations (Global Encryption Day, Universal Acceptance Day) to maximize outreach with limited resources

Using diverse organizing teams with connections across stakeholder groups to leverage existing relationships rather than building new ones

Implementing monthly meetings with rotating moderation to distribute workload and maintain engagement without overburdening coordinators

Focusing on policy influence and parliamentary engagement as a pathway to secure government budget allocation rather than relying solely on external donors

I think there are three main things, especially when you’re thinking about it from a regional IGF point of view… the existential question. The second point that was a very big impact was a lot of NRIs, of course, don’t have their meetings so early on in the year… This year, because we’re here in Norway in June, a lot of NRIs really tried to shorten their preparation time, which actually is quite a heavy lift… And the last thing I want to touch on a little bit more is, again, it is a sustainable funding issue for all of us.

Speaker

Jennifer Chung (Asia-Pacific Regional IGF)

Reason

This comment was insightful because it systematically identified three fundamental structural challenges facing NRIs: existential uncertainty about mandate renewal, logistical pressures from compressed timelines, and persistent funding sustainability issues. It moved beyond surface-level complaints to articulate how global-level decisions cascade down to affect local operations.

Impact

This comment established the framework for the entire discussion by identifying the core challenges that subsequent speakers would elaborate on. It shifted the conversation from general sharing to focused problem identification, with nearly every subsequent speaker addressing at least one of these three themes.

I think when we look, and we talked a little bit about it this morning during the IGF support association session, how can we look at sustainable funding, not just obviously, very obviously, for the global IGF, but how do we look for sustainable funding and the sustainability, longevity of our own NRIs? And I think it puts a very big question mark over our head because… if they have a question mark over the head regarding if they don’t understand, if the global mandate doesn’t renew, for example, if they don’t quite understand, then they would ask the question, what is the value for us to keep on giving you this, you know, money to continue your meeting?

Speaker

Jennifer Chung (Asia-Pacific Regional IGF)

Reason

This comment revealed the interconnected nature of funding challenges, showing how uncertainty at the global level creates a cascade effect that undermines local fundraising efforts. It demonstrated sophisticated understanding of how donor psychology works in uncertain environments.

Impact

This insight prompted multiple speakers to share their funding strategies and experiences, turning the discussion toward practical solutions and collaborative problem-solving rather than just problem identification.

Very short answer, Agostina, is if people can see that they’re having impact, they would continue, and that would draw others in as well… So we created this document we call the Caribbean Internet Governance Policy Framework, which we’ve updated as time has gone on… So what comes out of the CIGF, we could put into government policy spaces.

Speaker

Nigel Cassimire (Caribbean IGF)

Reason

This comment was thought-provoking because it directly addressed the volunteer retention challenge by proposing ‘visible impact’ as the solution, backed by a concrete example of policy influence. It shifted the discussion from lamenting volunteer fatigue to identifying what motivates sustained engagement.

Impact

This comment introduced the concept of measuring and communicating impact as a sustainability strategy, which influenced subsequent speakers to discuss their own impact measurement approaches and policy influence efforts.

One of the things that has happened in West Africa is that we’ve gotten the attention of the parliamentarians to be part of the West African internal governance process… And the parliamentarians are those that decide the budgets for the country. So in doing that, they were able to push the ministers to be able to fund, you know, put in budgets for the IGF.

Speaker

Mary Uduma (West Africa IGF)

Reason

This comment was insightful because it identified a strategic approach to sustainability by engaging the legislative branch rather than just the executive branch, recognizing that parliamentarians control budgets and can create institutional pressure for funding.

Impact

This comment introduced a new dimension to the funding discussion by highlighting the importance of engaging parliamentarians specifically for their budget authority and their role in mandate renewal votes, influencing how other participants thought about stakeholder engagement strategies.

I propose that in the future, at least part of this session would be dedicated to the assessment evaluation of our performance of the past year. We should try to find what kind of effect our sessions made on the general attendees in the IGF… we have to be aware that we need to improve our process so that for the upcoming year we will not make the same mistake if we made a mistake.

Speaker

Tijani Trusun (North African representative)

Reason

This comment was thought-provoking because it challenged the format and purpose of the coordination session itself, proposing a shift from sharing experiences to systematic performance evaluation and improvement, introducing a quality assurance perspective that hadn’t been discussed.

Impact

This meta-comment about the session’s structure introduced the concept of systematic self-evaluation and continuous improvement, potentially influencing how future coordination sessions might be structured and how NRIs think about measuring their collective effectiveness.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally shaped the discussion by establishing a progression from problem identification to solution sharing to structural reform thinking. Jennifer Chung’s opening framework set the analytical foundation, which subsequent speakers built upon with concrete examples and strategies. Nigel’s impact-focused approach and Mary’s parliamentary engagement strategy provided practical solutions that other participants could adapt. Finally, Tijani’s meta-commentary challenged the group to think systematically about improvement, elevating the discussion from reactive problem-solving to proactive quality management. Together, these comments transformed what could have been a routine status update session into a strategic planning discussion about sustainability, impact, and continuous improvement for the NRI network.

How do we keep people involved and working, knowing that it’s not their primary work and they do not get paid, so everything is volunteer?

Speaker

Agustina Giaccio (Argentina IGF)

Explanation

This addresses the critical challenge of maintaining volunteer engagement in IGF processes without financial compensation, which is essential for the sustainability of NRI initiatives.

How do you get funds? We cannot depend always on donors. So how do you manage that?

Speaker

Agustina Giaccio (Argentina IGF)

Explanation

This highlights the need for sustainable funding models beyond traditional donor dependency, which is crucial for long-term viability of IGF initiatives.

How do we execute the decision that we have taken at the Internet Governance Forum?

Speaker

Kasun Vikramasuri (Sri Lanka IGF)

Explanation

This addresses the gap between IGF discussions and actual policy implementation, which is critical for demonstrating the impact and value of IGF processes.

For those who have been successful in securing substantial funding from private sectors, how have you been doing this?

Speaker

Yao (Benin Youth IGF)

Explanation

This seeks to identify best practices for private sector engagement and funding, which could help other NRIs develop sustainable financial models.

How do we make sure that we maintain all the good practices, good work that has been accomplished by the volunteers, so that even though the leadership changes, the work progress still remains?

Speaker

Yao (Benin Youth IGF)

Explanation

This addresses institutional memory and continuity challenges in volunteer-led organizations, particularly important for Youth IGFs with frequent leadership transitions.

How could we learn from all the NRI network how we better engage private sector in terms of getting them to actually long-term fund the initiative?

Speaker

Yao (Benin Youth IGF)

Explanation

This seeks systematic approaches to private sector engagement across the NRI network, which could benefit all initiatives struggling with funding.

How was our performance? How was the content that our speakers gave? How was the moderation we did?

Speaker

Tijani Trusun (North African representative)

Explanation

This proposes establishing evaluation mechanisms for NRI sessions at IGF to improve quality and impact of future contributions.

What kind of effect our sessions made on the general attendees in the IGF?

Speaker

Tijani Trusun (North African representative)

Explanation

This addresses the need to measure and assess the impact of NRI contributions to the broader IGF community.

There should be the organization which can support the youth initiative and NRI who are running without legal registration barriers

Speaker

Pio (Myanmar Youth IGF)

Explanation

This highlights the need for support mechanisms for independent initiatives that face legal registration challenges, particularly important for youth-led organizations in restrictive environments.