Digital Cooperation and Empowerment: Insights and Best Practices for Strengthening Multistakeholder and Inclusive Participation

Summary

This discussion focused on digital cooperation and empowerment, specifically examining how to strengthen multi-stakeholder and inclusive participation in internet governance processes. The panel brought together representatives from civil society, ICANN, the European Commission, RIPE NCC, and the UN Development Programme to share insights and best practices for fostering collaboration among diverse stakeholders including governments, technical communities, civil society, business, and academia.

Key criteria identified for effective multi-stakeholder participation included creating open processes with minimal entry barriers, providing capacity building support, encouraging new voices particularly from the Global South and non-English speaking communities, and ensuring meaningful two-way communication between organizations and stakeholders. The panelists emphasized that participation must be embedded systematically within organizational structures rather than treated as optional add-ons. Several concrete examples demonstrated successful multi-stakeholder outcomes, including the development of DNSSEC for DNS security, IPv6 implementation for expanded internet capacity, and universal acceptance initiatives enabling multilingual internet access.

The European Commission highlighted their mandatory consultation processes requiring four-month evidence calls and 12-week feedback periods for all regulatory proposals. RIPE NCC described their community-driven approach spanning 35 years, organizing government roundtables and supporting over 70 national and regional Internet Governance Forums. Challenges discussed included the significant learning curve for newcomers, resource constraints for participants from developing countries, and the need for UN system organizations to better understand multi-stakeholder processes.

Looking toward the WSIS+20 review, participants emphasized keeping processes open and inclusive, strengthening the Internet Governance Forum, preventing fragmentation of internet governance, linking digital cooperation to Sustainable Development Goals, and ensuring participation leads to actual influence in decision-making processes.

Keypoints

## Major Discussion Points:

– **Essential criteria for effective multi-stakeholder participation**: Panelists emphasized the need for open processes with minimal entry barriers, capacity building support (especially for developing countries and non-English speakers), and genuine encouragement of new voices rather than tokenism. The importance of accommodating diverse perspectives and providing accessible pathways for participation was highlighted.

– **Innovative engagement tools and mechanisms**: Organizations shared specific strategies including mandatory consultation periods (EU’s 4-month calls for evidence), compulsory public feedback processes, capacity building programs like ICANN’s Fellowship Program, regional roundtables, and sponsorship of national IGFs. The focus was on embedding participation systematically rather than treating it as optional.

– **Concrete outcomes of multi-stakeholder collaboration**: Speakers provided tangible examples of successful multi-stakeholder initiatives including DNSSEC implementation, IPv6 deployment, Universal Acceptance and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), regional peering improvements in Central Asia, and Saudi Arabia’s IPv6 leadership development through coordinated stakeholder engagement.

– **Challenges in bridging theory and practice**: Discussion revealed gaps between multi-stakeholder ideals and implementation, particularly around providing meaningful feedback to stakeholders about how their input influences decisions, addressing access divides for remote communities, and ensuring UN system adaptation to multi-stakeholder approaches beyond traditional member-state-first processes.

– **Key recommendations for WSIS+20 review**: Panelists called for maintaining open and inclusive processes, strengthening the IGF as essential infrastructure, preventing internet fragmentation, ensuring clear mandates without duplication, making documentation more accessible (shorter, clearer), and addressing misconceptions about multi-stakeholderism in diplomatic circles.

## Overall Purpose:

The discussion aimed to examine how multi-stakeholder participation in internet governance contributes to digital cooperation, identify practical opportunities for promoting diverse participation, and develop recommendations for strengthening inclusive engagement in the WSIS+20 review process.

## Overall Tone:

The discussion maintained a constructive and collaborative tone throughout, with speakers sharing practical experiences and concrete examples rather than abstract theories. The atmosphere was professional yet candid, with participants openly acknowledging both successes and shortcomings in current multi-stakeholder processes. The tone became slightly more urgent toward the end when discussing WSIS+20 recommendations, reflecting the importance of the upcoming review process.

Speakers

**Speakers from the provided list:**

– **Yu Ping Chan** – Leads digital engagements and partnerships at the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP); previously worked in the UN system and Singapore Information Service

– **Hisham Ibrahim** – Chief Community Officer at RIPE NCC, one of the five regional internet registries; works in the technical community registering IP addresses and internet numbers

– **Theresa Swinehart** – Session moderator/chair

– **Tripti Sinha** – Serves on the ICANN board of directors as chair of the board; technologist by profession

– **Amrita Choudhury** – Represents civil society organization called CCUI from India; works on tech, digital policy, building awareness reports, and studies on technology issues and internet governance

– **Fabrizia Benini** – Works for the European Commission where she heads a team working on open source blockchain and internet governance

– **Audience** – Multiple audience members who asked questions during the session

**Additional speakers:**

– **Flora Santana** – From Sleeping Giant Brazil, studying the multi-stakeholder model in her scholarship in Brazil, specifically ICANN (identified herself during audience participation)

– **Desiree** – Mentioned as co-chair of a working group and member of a small informal group on the generic name supporting organization (identified during audience participation)

# Digital Cooperation and Empowerment: Strengthening Multi-Stakeholder Participation in Internet Governance

## Executive Summary

This comprehensive discussion examined the critical role of multi-stakeholder participation in digital cooperation and internet governance, bringing together diverse perspectives from international organisations, technical communities, civil society, and government representatives. The session, moderated by Theresa Swinehart as a follow-up to an IGF session on digital cooperation, focused on identifying practical strategies for strengthening inclusive participation whilst addressing the challenges that prevent meaningful engagement across different stakeholder groups.

The conversation revealed both significant achievements and persistent gaps in current multi-stakeholder approaches. Participants shared concrete examples of successful collaborative outcomes whilst acknowledging fundamental barriers such as access divides, resource constraints, and institutional resistance to genuine multi-stakeholder engagement.

## Key Participants and Perspectives

The discussion featured representatives from major international organisations and communities involved in internet governance. **Yu Ping Chan** from the United Nations Development Programme, working in 170 countries and territories, provided insights into UN system challenges and opportunities for multi-stakeholder engagement. **Tripti Sinha**, serving as chair of the ICANN board of directors, offered perspectives on technical community governance and institutional design. **Hisham Ibrahim** from RIPE NCC shared experiences from regional internet registry operations spanning 35 years of community-driven processes.

**Amrita Choudhury** represented civil society perspectives from India, focusing on capacity building and accessibility challenges. **Fabrizia Benini** from the European Commission outlined mandatory consultation mechanisms and regulatory approaches to stakeholder engagement. The discussion also benefited from audience participation, including **Flora Santana** from Brazil, who raised critical questions about reaching marginalised communities, and **Desiree**, who contributed insights about ICANN-ISOC collaboration reports.

## Essential Criteria for Effective Multi-Stakeholder Participation

### Open Processes and Minimal Barriers

The panellists reached strong consensus on the fundamental requirements for effective multi-stakeholder participation. Amrita Choudhury emphasised that “the process needs to be open. There should be negligible entry barriers. There should be support for people” who may not traditionally have access to these processes. This perspective was reinforced by other speakers who stressed that openness must be more than theoretical accessibility.

Tripti Sinha argued that institutional strategies must embed participation into organisational systems globally, suggesting that multi-stakeholder engagement cannot be treated as an optional add-on but must be systematically integrated into organisational structures.

### Transparency and Feedback Mechanisms

A particularly significant contribution came from Yu Ping Chan, who offered rare institutional self-criticism from within the UN system. Speaking in her personal capacity rather than representing UNDP, she acknowledged that the UN system must be more transparent about engagement processes and provide better feedback on stakeholder inputs, noting that most UN staff do not understand what serious multi-stakeholder engagement requires.

Fabrizia Benini described the European Commission’s systematic approach with compulsory consultation periods and public feedback mechanisms. The EU’s mandatory impact assessments include four-month evidence calls and twelve-week consultation periods for all regulatory proposals, demonstrating how legal requirements can institutionalise stakeholder engagement.

### Community-Driven Approaches

Hisham Ibrahim shared RIPE NCC’s experience with “bottom-up, open, and rough consensus approaches” supported by community-serving secretariats. This approach emphasises that secretariats should serve the community rather than control it, with decision-making power residing in the stakeholder community itself.

## Concrete Examples of Multi-Stakeholder Success

### Technical Infrastructure Improvements

The discussion highlighted several tangible examples of successful multi-stakeholder collaboration. Speakers noted that DNSSEC implementation, IPv6 expansion, and Universal Acceptance initiatives resulted from coordinated multi-stakeholder efforts involving technical communities, governments, and private sector organisations.

Hisham Ibrahim provided specific regional examples, including Saudi Arabia’s IPv6 leadership journey through a 10-year collaboration, the Central Asia Peering Forum as a 4-year initiative, and RIPE NCC’s contributions to EU net neutrality working groups. These examples illustrate how multi-stakeholder approaches can address both technical and policy challenges with measurable results.

### Policy Development Initiatives

Yu Ping Chan referenced the Hamburg Declaration on Responsible AI, which had over 50 endorsers and demonstrates how multi-stakeholder approaches can address emerging technologies whilst linking technical discussions to broader development goals. Amrita Choudhury mentioned the Sao Paulo guidelines as another reference point for effective multi-stakeholder processes.

## Innovative Engagement Tools and Mechanisms

### Capacity Building Approaches

The discussion revealed diverse approaches to capacity building across different organisations. Amrita Choudhury described how organisations can contribute through monthly newsletters and capacity building discussions to educate stakeholders, demonstrating that effective engagement does not require massive resources but rather consistent, targeted efforts.

Tripti Sinha highlighted how fellowship programs and next-generation initiatives have brought new voices into leadership positions, showing how structured programmes can create pathways for emerging leaders whilst ensuring continuity in institutional knowledge.

### Regional and Multilingual Strategies

Hisham Ibrahim outlined RIPE NCC’s comprehensive regional strategy, including regional roundtables, bilateral meetings, and sponsorship of national IGFs and Network Operators Groups (NOGs). This approach recognises that effective global governance requires strong regional foundations.

The importance of multilingual access emerged as a critical theme, with Universal Acceptance and Internationalised Domain Names cited as examples of technical solutions that enable broader participation by supporting non-Latin scripts and multilingual internet access.

## Challenges in Implementation

### Access Divides and Inclusion Gaps

A critical challenge emerged through Flora Santana’s pointed question about reaching “different stakeholders who don’t have access to these processes but are affected by the decisions.” She specifically mentioned communities in remote areas like the Amazon, highlighting the fundamental tension between theoretical openness and practical accessibility.

This challenge prompted recognition that current multi-stakeholder processes, despite their openness, may inadvertently exclude those most affected by digital governance decisions.

### Resource Constraints and Practical Barriers

Amrita Choudhury raised concerns about balancing the need for comprehensive consultation with the bandwidth limitations of voluntary participants, especially from civil society. She also highlighted practical issues such as time zone sensitivity, noting that Asia-Pacific participants often face scheduling challenges in global processes.

The discussion revealed tension between the desire for comprehensive participation and the practical limitations faced by many stakeholders, particularly those from developing countries who may lack institutional support for international engagement.

### Institutional Resistance and Misconceptions

Yu Ping Chan provided crucial insights into political resistance to multi-stakeholder approaches, noting that resistance in diplomatic circles often comes from misconceptions that multi-stakeholder engagement primarily means civil society criticism of governments. She explained that this resistance particularly comes from G77 developing country diplomats who may view multi-stakeholder processes as threatening government authority.

## Bridging Theory and Practice

### Ecosystem Approaches

The discussion revealed growing recognition that complex challenges require coordinated responses from multiple stakeholders. Tripti Sinha articulated an ecosystem approach where governments provide infrastructure, ISPs bring connectivity, and ICANN ensures multilingual DNS functionality, demonstrating how different stakeholders can take responsibility for their areas of expertise whilst working towards common goals.

Audience members reinforced this perspective, noting that private sector alone cannot solve access issues and that multi-stakeholder policy efforts are required for comprehensive solutions.

### From Consultation to Shared Responsibility

A key theme throughout the discussion was moving beyond ad hoc consultation to systematic integration of multi-stakeholder approaches. Tripti Sinha used the metaphor that multi-stakeholder participation is like maintaining a shared road – everyone uses it, but it stays functional when everyone helps maintain it with responsibility.

## Areas of Consensus and Divergence

### Strong Agreement on Principles

Despite diverse institutional backgrounds, participants showed remarkable consensus on core principles: open, accessible processes with minimal barriers, the importance of capacity building, transparent feedback mechanisms, and the need for tangible outcomes rather than merely discussion forums.

### Different Approaches to Implementation

Whilst agreeing on principles, speakers differed in their implementation approaches. Amrita Choudhury advocated for comprehensive global capacity building, whilst Yu Ping Chan acknowledged UNDP’s more limited current efforts. Fabrizia Benini uniquely emphasised the need for shorter, more accessible documents, noting that younger participants might engage more with concise materials than lengthy reports.

## Recommendations for WSIS+20 Review

### Process Design Principles

Amrita Choudhury emphasised the need to “keep processes open and inclusive with regional and young voices, avoid duplication, and be time-zone sensitive.” Tripti Sinha stressed treating the Internet Governance Forum as essential infrastructure rather than optional consultation, emphasising that “participation should lead to influence” rather than merely providing input opportunities.

### Coordination and Integration

Fabrizia Benini called for efforts to prevent fragmentation, link digital cooperation to Sustainable Development Goals, avoid duplications, and make documents shorter and more accessible. Hisham Ibrahim emphasised the need to protect internet coordination mechanisms, strengthen internet governance, and guide digital governance at appropriate layers.

### Addressing Political Barriers

Yu Ping Chan’s recommendations focused on addressing misconceptions about multi-stakeholder engagement, suggesting that advocacy efforts should demonstrate the benefits of these approaches for all stakeholders, including governments.

## Unresolved Challenges and Future Directions

### Reaching Marginalised Communities

The fundamental challenge of reaching communities affected by digital governance decisions but lacking access to participation mechanisms remains largely unresolved. This suggests the need for innovative approaches that go beyond traditional consultation mechanisms.

### Sustainability and Resource Allocation

The tension between comprehensive participation and resource constraints continues to challenge multi-stakeholder processes. Concrete solutions for addressing resource barriers, particularly for civil society and developing country participants, require further development.

### Institutional Reform Requirements

The discussion highlighted the need for significant institutional reforms to enable effective multi-stakeholder engagement, but implementation pathways for such reforms remain unclear.

## Conclusion

This discussion revealed both significant progress in multi-stakeholder participation and persistent challenges that limit its effectiveness. The strong consensus on fundamental principles provides a solid foundation for advancing digital cooperation, whilst the identification of specific barriers offers a roadmap for improvement.

The candid acknowledgement of institutional limitations, particularly regarding UN system shortcomings, suggests a mature understanding of what genuine multi-stakeholder engagement requires. The concrete examples of successful collaboration demonstrate that effective multi-stakeholder governance is achievable when properly implemented.

Looking towards the WSIS+20 review, the discussion provides clear guidance on maintaining open and inclusive processes whilst addressing practical barriers to participation. The emphasis on producing tangible outcomes, providing transparent feedback, and ensuring that participation leads to actual influence offers a framework for evaluating and improving multi-stakeholder processes.

The unresolved challenges, particularly around reaching marginalised communities and addressing resource constraints, highlight areas requiring continued attention and innovation. The future of digital cooperation depends on the ability to bridge the gap between multi-stakeholder ideals and practical implementation, ensuring that these processes serve all stakeholders effectively whilst producing meaningful outcomes for global digital development.

Theresa Swinehart: Just so you’re sure that you’re in the right session, this is on digital cooperation and empowerment, insights and best practices to strengthening the multi-stakeholder and inclusive participation. So I know that’s been a theme for many at this entire session and with this dialogue that we’ve been having here. At least it’s a theme that certainly we’ve been picking up on overall. In this session, we wanna look at how participation in technical internet governance has contributed to digital cooperation. I think that there’s a lot of examples among the panelists, but probably also in the room. So I wanna make sure we have a chance for conversations there. Exploring the near-term tangible opportunities for promoting diverse and balanced participation in any of the internet governance processes and structures. And I’m sure we all have ideas coming out of these sessions as well. How do we catalyze thinking for cross-sector collaboration and how do we further what we’ve already achieved and built on? And then highlighting also the role of international organizations. Many international organizations have evolved and certainly are engaging with stakeholders as they’re looking at decision-making processes. And that’s a great evolution over the past 20 years that I think we’ve all observed and hearing more about that. This session itself also builds on a session that we had co-organized at the IGF 2025 that related to digital cooperation and empowerment, where we also had the opportunity to discuss some areas, including partnerships with organizations such as UNESCO around areas of universal acceptance and internationalized domain names and other themes of that sort. So it’s an ongoing conversation. But before I delve into the questions for our panelists, because we’re gonna let them do the talking, I’d like to ask each one of you to just do a one sentence or two sentence or three, introduction of yourself and which sector you come from.

Amrita Choudhury: Hi everyone, quite a few known faces, very less unknown faces I would say. My name is Amrita Choudhury. I come from India. I represent a civil society organization called CCUI. I’ll leave it at this.

Tripti Sinha: Good afternoon everyone. My name is Tripti Sinha. I serve on the ICANN board of directors. I’m the chair of the board and I’m a technologist by profession.

Theresa Swinehart: In some very interesting areas. Yeah, exactly. To my left.

Fabrizia Benini: Thank you. So good morning, actually good afternoon. My name is Fabrizia Benini. I work for the European Commission where I head a team that is working on open source blockchain and also internet governance.

Hisham Ibrahim: Hisham Ibrahim, chief community officer at RIPENTC, one of the five regional internet registries. So we register IP addresses and internet numbers, technical community.

Yu Ping Chan: Hi, my name is Yu Ping Chan. I lead digital engagements and partnerships at the United Nations Development Programme. I’ve been in the UN system for a number of years now before that I used to be in the Singapore Information Service.

Theresa Swinehart: Fantastic. So as you can see, you have a great set of panelists to ask questions to. So to kick off the conversation, I’m going to start with Amrita and Yu Ping, with a question really focused on what are some aspects that are essential. So what criteria do you believe are essential for enabling effective multi-stakeholder participation? What examples illustrate the benefits of inclusive approaches for the implementation of the WSIS outcomes in particular? And there’s so many action lines in relation

Amrita Choudhury: Thank you so much, Teresa. And I would say one of the key, some of the key aspects which I believe are important for the multi-stakeholder process to actually work is the process needs to be open. There should be negligible entry barriers. There should be support for people who are not eligible for the WSIS. And there should be support for people who are eligible for the WSIS. And there should be support for people who are not eligible for the WSIS. mechanism to build capacity because the learning curve is huge and people coming from developing countries or even from developed countries not everyone has the same resources or understanding so the capacity building part is very important. People have limited resources so making it easier to support them is important and obviously encouraging new voices and not just saying that we want new voices as tokenism but to encourage them into the process especially from global south and I would say asia-pacific and the non-english speaking people is important. Also if you we look at the discussions we have people even in the visas for example who may have been there before the business days but there are more people who are coming in now they may not have the same understanding of legacy which is very important but to be accommodative to them because if you look at visas as you said the action lines are huge it ranges from working together to health to rural education and since internet and these the business process was supposed to be people-centric process and it actually affects each and every individual people come with diverse views so being a bit more encouraging to them is something which is important and I would say the business process has been open and inclusive it’s not perfect in any way but at least open and inclusive so that depending upon the action lines or the work people have been contributing in some ways at least at the national level or the regional level and in some cases like for example the IGF which is also a visa outcome you would see there is a scope and it has been established that even at national levels countries and I would talk more on the developing country perspective they can discuss not only the local issues but also global issues pass on the messages to the regional discussions or the national the global one and also percolate down best practices which they can form so I think that is a bottom-up manner even within the UN system which has worked and I would say this is one of the successes and in terms of and multi-stakeholderism is not a monolith there are different ways in which it can work I would say perhaps looking at the Sao Paulo guidelines would be a good reference point to see what we are doing what we are not doing how we can improve how each I would say community can be more accountable for what they are supposed to be doing could be which we may look. I think I’ve stuck to my three minutes.

Theresa Swinehart: No, you’ve actually just caused some really good ideas. I think the entry barrier, some very practical aspects that are barriers for participation, and sometimes it’s just getting familiar with the space, but it’s also the learning curve. But one of the things you’d identified is the WSIS action lines have, the subject matter has evolved over the years. If one looked at healthcare or some of the action line areas 20 years ago versus now, we need the new ideas at the table. So the ability to engage is going to be really absolutely essential. If I could, Yu Ping, if you could answer, would you like me to repeat it?

Yu Ping Chan: And since we’re in an open conversation, I shall be a little bit frank and sort of take off the UNDP hat and sort of speak from the perspective of somebody who very frankly is actually a little bit newer to this community than many of the other colleagues around the table. I actually think that a lot of what Amrita is saying is perfectly spot on about what needs to happen. But I will also say that from the perspective of somebody in the UN processes, the same thing needs to happen on our side as well, that we have to be very clear about how we’re engaging with stakeholders and be very open and transparent about how we expect to engage, put forward deadlines and timelines, and then more importantly, be upfront and communicative about how we want to translate these consultations into actual results and then provide explanations back to the stakeholders as to why those outputs and inputs that were given by stakeholders don’t make it into the draft or then subject to perhaps discussions among member states. Because it was only after being immersed in this community for over the last two or three years that I realized how much effort it really does take to be thoughtful about these contributions to the UN system. And so I think the UN system does owe it back to then be similarly thoughtful in our responses to and consideration of those proposals. But I will say that, you know, in the same way that you mentioned the learning curve, I do think it takes a while for the rest of the system to catch up to that point. Because unlike, for instance, the IGF Secretary or the WSIS Secretary that has really spent the bedrock of its formation and time with these multi-stakeholder and the rest of the system does not understand what it takes to be serious about multi-stakeholderism and then have these types of processes in place and these thoughts, these self-thoughtful reflections back. So, for instance, a lot of us that come from the rest of the system are used to functioning in the UN way of working, which is member states first, in a secretariat role, and really not in the multi-stakeholder tradition that has been the bedrock of the entire conversations around WSIS and IGF as well. So I think it is very important for the stakeholder community to put forward these types of expectations and in some ways hold the UN community to these and sort of say, if you are committed to having this be the bedrock of the continuation of the discussions around digital and AI and, you know, Wilson and Information Society, these are what we expect to be completely engaged and contributing as part of this community. So I do think that it’s great that we’re having these conversations. I do think that you need to have these conversations with other parts of the system that need to be actually, you know, part of the conversation. So I am UNDP. I used to be in other parts of the secretariat as well, and I do think it’s a little bit of a shame that not more of my other fellow UN stakeholder system people are not in this room to actually engage in this type of process. It took me four years to get to really feel like I understand where we are coming from. So I think it is – I asked for that similar amount of patience with some of my other colleagues, but I do think it’s great that the stakeholder community is really putting in this type of effort to educate the rest of us in the secretariat about how we should really be doing this type of –

Theresa Swinehart: Those are some really good observations about how we actually get the information back on how the issues and the concepts that were raised are incorporated into the conversations and get that back to the stakeholders that raised it. And I think importantly as well, the – in the digital environment, there are no silos because everything has a dependency on each other. And so I think it’s really important that we have those conversations across the different groups and bring them together. So we have a little bit of work to do on this, coming out of this. Tripti, if I could turn to you on what strategies have been implemented. by your organization to ensure the representation of diverse stakeholders in multi-stakeholder initiatives. And I know that there’s many, many underway and also in your day job, you have different experiences but in the ICANN context, observations that you have.

Tripti Sinha: Oh, thank you, Theresa. Thank you, Theresa. As you just said, I am very familiar with ICANN. So I’m gonna cite ICANN as an example of multi-stakeholderism. So as you know, ICANN is fundamentally designed as a multi-stakeholder organization where one of its core functions is to develop policies for the internet’s unique identifier systems and in particular for the domain name system. So these policies are applied to the global domain industry and community and therefore it’s very important to ensure that when these policies are developed a wide spectrum of input is received. So as such, ICANN was built to ensure broad multi-stakeholder participation and is equipped and supported to enable stakeholders to contribute meaningfully. And ICANN uses defined accountable processes like the policy development process, which is bottom-up, open and consensus-driven. So this ensures that policies affecting global domain name systems are developed by stakeholder communities that rely on it. For example, governments that weigh in on public policy issues, the technical community that ensures technical resilience and soundness, civil society which addresses societal impact and facilitates citizen engagement, academia that comes from the lens of intellectual curiosity and exploration and of course the imparting knowledge to the next generation and the private sector which will look at the value proposition and business development. So each stakeholder has views that are relevant when articulating policy. So taking this. a step further involving the community at large that benefits from internet access and related technologies has resulted in ICANN taking the lead in Universal Acceptance or UA in offering the capabilities of internationalized domain names and IDNs. So it became apparent years ago that for services to be available to diverse communities with different linguistic backgrounds UA and IDNs facilitated enhanced accessibility to ensure people can use the internet in their own language and script. So if users can’t navigate the internet in their own language they’re excluded by design. So multilingual access is now not just optional it’s become an essential. But you know we don’t stop here. Organizational structure isn’t enough without capacity so that is why I can actually invest in programs like the Next Generation at ICANN and also the Fellowship Program which has brought hundreds of new voices into the internet technology policy and governance space many of whom now hold leadership positions. So multi-stakeholder participation if I could use this metaphor is like maintaining a shared road. Everyone uses it but it is only it stays functional when everyone helps maintain it with responsibility. If it isn’t maintained it will fall into disrepair and not serve its purpose. So these aren’t just symbolic measures they are institutional strategies designed to embed participation into the system globally and of course enduring in time.

Theresa Swinehart: Thank you. I like that analogy of maintaining a shared road the way that’s how we all communicate with each other and get to our destinations. It’s also I think a good really good concrete examples around how do you operationalize a multi-stakeholder conversation into a deliverable that is then a tangible outcome. Having a conversation around internationalized domain names or universal acceptance so the ability to use one’s language online the way one wants. You can talk about the theory but then getting it to come together and using the multi-stakeholder process for that is certainly something that I think we’ve seen a lot of experience around so thank you. I’m going to turn to Fabrizia and Hisham on the next set of questions. What innovative engagement tools or mechanisms have proven successful in fostering collaboration among diverse stakeholders including government, the technical community, civil society, business and academia and you both come from a different sectors so it’d be interesting to hear your observations on those. I’ll

Fabrizia Benini: start with you Fabrizia. Thank you very much. So I’m going to take a little sidestep because what I heard in fact echoes very much my experience in the European Commission and indeed the work of the European Union. You have to embed participation in the system, in the system that you are working on because without it and it needs to be participation that is both accessible that is accessible in the sense of allowing people to do it but also allowing those people to have the tools to do it so it’s various aspects of accessibility within a certain amount of time so that the participation is actually meaningful and you said rightly so the conversation needs to be both ways to the organization doing it and and vice versa to the stakeholders that are participating in the process. So in the European Union in terms of tools because I want to come back to your question we’ve have we have the same problem so it’s not multi-stakeholderism in the sense of IE government but it’s exactly the same problem. A very diverse in terms of digital I’m not saying when we talk about agriculture the situation is different but in terms of digital we have an absolute necessity to have the technical community in, we have a necessity to have the academia in, we have a necessity to have the business in and by God are they in and we have the necessity of course to have the endorsement by the government. So the way that we’ve done it is that we make it compulsory first of all to have to have calls for evidence that precede any impact assessment and impact assessment It’s the analysis, whenever it is that we want to take a regulatory step. So we have to have a call for evidence. It needs to last four months. It needs to be accessible to everybody in every language. There is no way that you can get your regulation through the machine if you haven’t gone through that. So that is very important, making it compulsory to go through a number of loops, because otherwise you cannot issue a paper, a regulation, recommendation or whatever it might be. And then when it is, you know, for more binding acts, legally binding acts, we have a period of 12 weeks that is compulsory. It doesn’t stop here because afterwards we are obliged to give public feedback to what was submitted. Again, it is a part, a compulsory part of the machine. And as good bureaucrats, you can be actually trained to do it and obliged to do. And we should because we serve the public, the public and not vice versa. And then, of course, this doesn’t stop here, because through the life of the regulation, you do have high level groups, experts, groups that participate. And in the case of Internet governance, for instance, we’ve got the high level group on Internet governance, which is a group composed of member states. But every time we have a meeting, for instance, we have an open session where I can write other relevant stakeholders come or either they bring news of new actions and we listen to them and then we will deliberate. So one thing is also being able to listen in a permanent set up to whatever is is happening in your in your environment. So I would say that these were the two instruments that we have written down in our laws, internal laws, of course, called better regulation.

Theresa Swinehart: It’s fantastic. Thank you. Thank you. You shall. I’ll turn it over to you.

Hisham Ibrahim: Yeah. Thanks for the question, Teresa. So, introducing a little bit about the R.I.P.E. community and the technical community that I work with. The R.I.P.E. community has been around for 35 plus years, and the core values that it has always talked about is being open, bottom-up, and rough consensus. These are the words that were used over 35 years ago about how they want to engage as technical community. That started with like 12 academics that met somewhere in northwestern Europe and started talking about how to connect universities. Now, five years later, so roughly 30 years ago, they decided they need a secretariat, and that’s where the R.I.P.E. NCC was established to continue to serve that community with those values, with the work that we do. Now, other stuff has been added since, including the work that we do as registry, but really serving that community is the core reason why we were established as an organization. Now, as part of the work that we do to hear from all the different stakeholders and what we can actually be doing there, maybe I’ll start with governments because we just heard a little bit about some governmental engagement. From our side, we organize roundtables for governments within our service region. We do one in Brussels where we also invite the commission to attend, and they do participate, but also different governments and stakeholders that are based in Brussels attend and discuss topics related to that. We do similar ones in the Middle East. We do one in Southeast Europe and in Central Asia for different political reasons. We depend more on bilaterals than these roundtables. Now, we participate in the consultations that you would have heard on now, so we are active contributors to any of the consultations that the commission puts out because R.I.P.E. NCC is based in the Netherlands. We follow very closely the regulation that’s coming out of that space, and we do contribute with our thoughts, whether it’s R.I.P.E. NCC, ourselves as an organization, if it pertains to us, or on behalf of the R.I.P.E. community. We have working groups there that put forward their positions, and we submit that on their behalf. Now, we do that also with other regional and national consultations in different parts of our service region, but obviously also on the global level, so GDC, WSIS, all that, we do put our submissions within those processes. Moving a little bit towards the IG space, so in our service region, we sponsor all national IGFs and regional IGFs that ask us for sponsorship. I believe the number is 70 plus something. We also sponsor all NOGs, which is Network Operator Groups, in our region as well. And the reason why we look at this is it’s part of the community development work that we do. People coming together and talking about the Internet is important. is a good thing in our opinion. So we support that and we try to support funneling up from the national to the regional all the way to the global IGF, where the RIRs collectively as NRO sponsor and contribute to the global IGF as well. And we’ve done a lot of sessions there and a lot of work that is happening in that part. Capacity building was mentioned. We do a lot of capacity building in the service region. Obviously we have a very diverse region that covers Europe, Middle East and Central Asia. So you have very strong economies, very developed countries and you have weaker economies and a whole range of different topics, which is why we segment even the round tables the way that I mentioned, so that it can be a lot closer to the topics that need to be discussed. And we don’t only use the capacity building, it’s one of the tools, but we also organize these community meetings, whether it’s regional ones where we invite people from all over the region, again, following the same logic that I mentioned about the round tables, but also national engagements as well. And the way that we see this is we develop a lot of data. So we put out a lot of reports on the state of the internet and state of certain technologies. We leverage that through the regional community development engagements that we do alongside with the capacity building and the relationships we build with government and all of that comes together as a strategy that we do to try to engage everybody and everybody being on the same page.

Theresa Swinehart: Thank you. So really quite a few efforts by both institutions in different ways to evolve and adjust and build in mechanisms around that. It’s very thoughtful and obviously successful. Yeah. So let me turn it now to Amrita and Yu Ping on what initiatives do your organizations promote or advance undertaking? And a microphone would certainly help. Let me try that again. So for Amrita and Eyuping, what initiatives does your organization promote or advance to build and strengthen the capacity of stakeholders to effectively engage in multi-stakeholder processes? So what initiatives have you undertaken and seen as successful? Thank you, Teresa.

Amrita Choudhury: And I’ll speak about CCY just for people So we are a very small civil society organization based in India. We work mostly on tech, digital policy, building awareness report, you know, trying to do studies reports on related to technology issues, internet governance, et cetera. So in terms of working to build capacity, if I take the Indian instance, for example, we have a lot of technologists who are coming in, but the understanding of what is the capacity but the understanding of what the internet governance issues are or digital technology issues are is quite less. So what we do is try to build capacity within the country and the region. It goes to the other places, but I’ll restrict it to the country itself. We have a monthly newsletter where we curate and put in information, not only of what is happening globally, like, for example, what happened to the global IGF, what are the key takeaways, what’s happening in ICANN meetings, or what is happening in APNIC, or even what is happening in India, which is of importance, or geopolitically, so that people can get all the information in one place, and whatever interests them, or at least keep them abreast with it. Because not everyone has the bandwidth to look at everything. And so that’s one thing I would say. The other is we have capacity building discussions, which we have on issues. So, like, end of May, we had a discussion on visas, and what it would mean for the Indians, and why Indians should engage in it. And we had different stakeholders coming in from the government, civil society, academia, and even private sector to discuss why it is important. And before that, we had a tutorial kind to say what it is, what it has, so that people are abreast, and then discuss what can be of importance to us, what should be there, what should not be there. We tried to collate those informations into a report, and when we did make a submission to UNDESA, we submitted this, so it’s not our views only. Similarly, at the Asia-Pacific region, and I’ll wear my APR IGF hat, what we’ve done is, from the APR IGF, we have created a working group on visas. I’m keeping it to visas because we are here in visas. The first of our webinars, which we had, was in the beginning of June, and it was to abreast the APAC community what visas is all about, and William is here, he was one of our speakers, so that at least people know to some extent what visas is, what may be of interest to them, and why they should at least follow it to some extent, if not the complete thing. Obviously, we would want to make our submissions, and we have a second webinar planned, hopefully, by the end of July. So these are certain things which we are doing. I know it’s not enough, but these are certain things which we are doing. Thank you.

Yu Ping Chan: Very frankly, Theresa, we don’t do that much and I think we should do more. I’ll say this, UNDP is a very big organisation. We’re primarily focused on our delivery in-country in the 170 countries and territories around the world. So our country offices work very strongly with stakeholders in their countries, but usually on very specific types of projects. So be it support to the government, around education programmes, or you know, online gender violence, or like developing certain types of programmes. That’s where they engage individually stakeholders that are relevant to that particular programme of work. But when it comes to building capacity of stakeholders as a whole to engage in these types of global conversations, it’s not really something that we as UNDP do. But I would like to explore that possibility because I do think that there is that idea that we need to bring these types of conversations into the development outcomes themselves and really think about the areas where we collectively can work together to deliver this kind of in-country impact because that’s ultimately the change that we want to see in this world, right? Direct service and delivery and impact in communities and countries that most urgently need these types of information, expertise and technical advisory support services. So I would flag, for instance, that we’ve really been trying to take a consciously multi-stakeholder approach to our global convenings and our global work. So for instance, quite recently with the German government, we actually launched the Hamburg Declaration on Responsible AI for the SDGs, which is actually the first ever multi-stakeholder, completely multi-stakeholder document that really is trying to link these conversations around AI and the ethical and responsible use of AI to development outcomes in the area of, for instance, environments, financing and so forth. So that’s something that we’ve been working on that will be part of the next Hamburg Sustainability Conference. So that linkage, I think, between this technology community, this AI digital business community with development communities of practice, I think, is really our effort to bring in this type of expertise. So join us in that. I’m happy to share more information. We have over 50 endorsers of the declaration so far and commitments to be part of this continued.

Tripti Sinha: The consideration of DNSSEC and its subsequent implementation happened because multiple stakeholders came together and deliberated on ways to enhance the security of DNS. There was a desire from the multi-stakeholder community to provide ways to verify that DNS responses are legitimate and haven’t been tampered with, protecting users from attacks like DNS spoofing and cache poisoning. So these conversations have had meaningful and actionable outcomes, in this case, the implementation of DNSSEC. IPv6, which expands the internet’s capacity, is yet another example. It was made possible by broad coordination, not imposed unilaterally by any entity, but implemented through a joint stakeholder effort. This, again, was a result of communities coming together and addressing the issues of IPv4 exhaustion and the need to enhance IP address resources. So I’ll give you yet another example, which I’ve talked about already, which is universal access. So UA shows the multi-stakeholder model in action today through initiatives like UA Day, where ICANN, UNESCO, and other national partners are working together to ensure all valid domain names and email addresses work across languages and scripts. This directly enables multilingual access and supports digital inclusion. These outcomes are only possible when institutions are designed to cooperate, and when that cooperation is practiced, you see real outcomes, and it’s not just presumed and assumed. So these are just a few examples, but solid examples of global multi-stakeholder participation that have had impactful and tangible outcomes.

Theresa Swinehart: Those are really good words. Yeah.

Hisham Ibrahim: I’ll also mention three quick ones, looking across my service region, trying to give different examples. The first one that comes to mind, and I mentioned that we contribute, whether as RIPE NCC or as RIPE Community, towards the open consultations. And there’s been a long debate for a long time around net neutrality, fair share, topics like that. The working group, the cooperation working group, and I see Desiree, one of the co-chairs in the room here, worked on a paper on the topic, and they actually organized a number of sessions to discuss the perspective from large operators, small operators, content providers. And then they submit that as part of the input to the process, the RIPE NCC did that as secretariat on their behalf. We also saw Beric, for example, putting out a report on the use of IP and how the markets evolved. We contributed to that, we discussed that. So this for me is the process working, right? Discussions being had, listening to the different opinions and making informed decisions based on realities that are happening. So that is a good example, in my opinion. Now the dialogue is still going on, but so far I think it’s going in the right direction. Another example of that is, well, moving to the Middle East, for example, engagement that a colleague of mine, Shafiq, he’s also in the room here, has been leading for almost a decade now with the Saudi government. So the Saudi government, 10 years ago, said there was this thing called IPv6, and we want to be leaders in this space as well. So working with the government that brought together the operators and organized a number of sessions and capacity building and different efforts. Saudi now ranks, I think, amongst the top five or 10 worldwide within that decade, where all they brought the stakeholders together and they really put the effort, the government put their support, the operators understood the urgency and importance. They made sure everything was in place. And according to the statistics, like I said, they’re ranked worldwide. Again, another example of successful collaboration. The last example I’ll give is from Central Asia. So due to a lot of reasons, geopolitics being one of them. So Central Asian countries, the Stan countries, are mostly landlocked countries developing, so that’s also something that gives them a very unique flavor. But also if you look at the geography around them, all the different surrounding countries where they depend on the internet from have different issues for sanctions or war or whatever. So discussing that with the community there, again from government to the operators to others, we created a forum there called the Central Asia Peering Forum, where this year is the fourth year of us running that. And you can see tangible change in a part of the world that was very dependent, the pipes all led somewhere else, and they did not interconnect. You can see interconnection, you can see exchanges, you can see them building into each other’s countries. That happened because of these dialogues and these discussions. Now all three of these topics are still ongoing and there are no easy answers to them, we haven’t fixed them yet. So we need to continue doing this. That’s my three examples. Thank you.

Fabrizia Benini: Well, I can only reiterate, you know, the good examples that have been said in my context of activity. I mean, for any rule or for any initiative or for any attempt of change to take place, it takes place over time. That’s an obvious finding. To take place over time, it means that you need to keep that community, those communities engaged. You need to keep them not only with you, but engaged amongst themselves in a simple, accessible manner. It sounds easier than it is, because it means looking constantly at your processes, reviewing whether you are delivering simple enough rules or simple enough access opportunities, and that those are not time consuming to the extent that they become impossible for people to contribute. This is absolutely paramount. One of our metrics, for instance, is the engagement of young people. The last political guidelines of my president, Ursula von der Leyen, obliges each and every commissioner, each member of her college, to engage at least once a year, but they do it much more than once a year, with the youth representatives in their domain of competence, which means that for digital, Enervirkunen will go out and often just meet with young people that are experts in their field. And there’s also, in the case of internet governments, and that means being in a, sitting in a scenario like this, not much bigger, where the young people can actually ask questions, and by God, do they ask difficult questions. There’s no preparation, there is no rehearsal, it is free, but you need to give that opportunity, you need to go out and do it. Now, this is on the more, let’s say, extemporaneous relationship of trust building and interaction. But what we know for a fact, and we’ve known it for a number of years, is that for any legislation, any rule to be really effective over its lifetime of implementation, it needs to have an environment around it that is contributing all the time. Example, the Digital Services Act, which some of you might know, a quite novel approach to the regulation of platforms and the services they provide, lives because there are the digital services coordinators, there are the trusted flaggers, there are the member states authorities, and all this network and environment will be mutually reinforcing and speaking. They are interested parties, they are sometimes parties that can be active, but the rule itself cannot exist, because the objective is not to throw out rules at the world, the objective is to generate transformative habits, transformative ways of producing, ways of engaging, so it’s the transformation that is our end objective, and for that we need participation.

Theresa Swinehart: I think you highlighted it very well with transformation. If I think of all these examples that have been given, what situation would we be in if we didn’t have everybody at the table for those conversations? We may not have some of these items in these very tangible results. This does lead me into my final question for the speakers, and we may have a little time for any questions from the audience or your shared experiences. So, for each speaker, and I’m going to start to my right, so with Amrita Choudhury, given what we’ve heard, what key insights do you believe are most important for the WSIS plus 20 review and looking forward? How do we take this forward?

Amrita Choudhury: Thanks. I think one of the key takes I would say or asks is keeping the process more open and inclusive to all stakeholders, and I would say we need to see how we can get the regional voices and even the young voices. into the room in a cohesive way so that they can participate in these discussions. Of course, it goes that there should be not many duplication of processes and try to create synergies because most people don’t have the bandwidth to do too many things. For civil society, it’s voluntary time. How do you do it? You can’t be in New York. How can you make it easier? For AIPAC, our ask is always, at times, please do have a bit of an AIPAC-sensitive time for discussions. At least this time, we had one discussion. Else, a day in New York is like midnight for most of us and for some early morning. So since we are global, we want to be global. Let’s be sensitive to it also.

Tripti Sinha: Thank you, Theresa. I’ll make four points. First, we must treat the IGF as essential, not optional. It remains one of the only global, trusted, neutral venues where all stakeholders engage as equals. If you want globally representative governance, we must invest in the structures that support it. So second, during this review, digital inclusion and the many ways in how it can be facilitated are key. Inclusion must be designed into the system. And as I’ve stated earlier, an example that I have already shared numerous times is universal acceptance. And IDNs are technical capabilities that enable accessibility in how multilingual participation becomes possible. So if people cannot use the internet in their own language, they’re excluded from the digital landscape. I mean, they essentially are unknown. And a third, coordination must remain central. ICANN’s experience shows that global infrastructure can be managed through coordination and not necessarily through control. That principle must carry forward, especially as digital governance evolves. And finally, participation must lead to influence. Institutions need to evolve and… response to new voices as the young voices Amrita was just stating. That is how legitimacy is sustained and why the WSIS plus 20 process continues to emphasize participation as the foundation. So those were my four points.

Fabrizia Benini: I had to look to my phone because my team is looking for a room with another bilateral that is starting now. So this is the type of thing that happens in this meeting. Anyway, going back to the business at hand. What for us is very important on WSIS is that we prevent fragmentation at all costs. Internet needs to remain open, accessible, secure and interoperable based on the multi-stakeholder governance mechanism with human rights language and safeguards against state-controlled models or shutdowns very clearly spelled out. The other very important thing is the link with the sustainment development goals. It needs to be a mechanism that will deliver progress, tangible progress to the SDG. So there should be a strong push to avoid duplications, have clarity of mandates and have clarity of deliverables. And of course, last but not least, the multi-stakeholder participation needs to be effective. It needs to be real. For it to be real, I would read it, but that is a personal request. Please make things shorter, less words. We can say the same thing with less pages. And that will mean more people will be able to read them. It is not a bad thing if it is just a two-pager. It does not mean that it is less substantive. But it does mean that a 25-year-old perhaps will take a greater interest in it if it is a 70-page document. But that is just my personal request. Personal reviews aside, of course, the strengthening of the IGF, but with a mandate that is clear, that has an impact beyond the organization of one annual meeting. I think that that sums it up.

Hisham Ibrahim: Yeah, so Fabrizia already mentioned the SDGs, right? We are not done yet. So we still have a long way. So that needs to be in mind. But I think she covered that point nicely. To not repeat what was said, because I think the previous speakers covered that also in a very nice way. What we believe at YPNCC and we’ve been saying in again consultations and documents that we’re putting out, that we need to protect internet coordination which keeps the internet running through the stable interoperable systems. Open standards, registrations, whether names and numbers, that is really important. We need to strengthen internet governance which shapes how we use the internet through shared norms and policies. And we also need to be able to guide digital governance that shapes how the society transforms because of the internet. And understanding at which layer are we talking about the problem is really key so that we do not conflate everything or fragment the discussion by discussing it in different fora that might not have the full picture of the work that has been happening for decades. Thank you.

Yu Ping Chan: So I would start with learn from and advocate for what works but the other thing I would add to this conversation, seeing this as a New York diplomat who’s negotiated all of this, part of the resistance to multi-stakeholderism in New York comes from a misconception that multi-stakeholderism equates mostly to civil society. And this fear that civil society means criticism of the governments, especially in terms of governmental policy on aspects like human rights and how certain types of governments function. And so what we really need to do is get that connection away from the minds of diplomats because you’ll see that alignment between, for instance, developing country G77 type diplomats who oppose multi-stakeholderism because of this misconception with civil society. So I think what Amrita says about local voices, regional voices, more diverse voices talking about the importance of multi-stakeholderism is precisely reassurance to G77 developing country diplomats multi-stakeholderism is in their interest because it allows for this plurality of voices that are looking towards the long-term impact of digital cooperation, the importance of WSIS for actually translating principles into action that benefit their society. So I think that feeling, this fear of multi-stakeholderism really starts from that misconception of what it means and that conflation with civil society criticism. So I think for instance, not to point out to the private sector corporate companies in the room, but like redirecting some of that energy towards perhaps potential of, you know, holding private sector companies or big platforms in check is a way to advocate for more of these types of multi-stakeholder conversations. So turn the focus away from civil society equals, you know, criticism of government for government practices to what the benefits of multi-stakeholderism and diverse local perspectives coming from the ground and calling for these types of activism and, you know, engagement means.

Theresa Swinehart: We have quite a list of items here. This is fantastic. So it’s regional voices, young voices, let’s not duplicate, let’s have an effective multi-stakeholder model, an IGF that’s actually functioning, not duplicate. We’ve already heard bandwidth for all of us regardless. We don’t need to duplicate. Why does it matter to engage? We have a few minutes here. Were there any comments or observations from the audience? Anything that, yes, please, if you just identify yourself, please. Thank you. Can you all hear? Great.

Audience: I’m Flora. I am Flora Santana from Sleeping Giant Brazil, but right now I’m speaking on my own capacity because I study the multi-stakeholder model in my scholarship in Brazil, specifically ICANN. So my question for the whole panel, but specifically for the ICANN representative is like, when the most stakeholder process meets the access divide and why you guys are doing to, in your organizations are doing to bridge this access because I heard you speak about how open the process is for different stakeholders to come, but why are you doing to go to different stakeholders that have not access to what these organizations are doing, but they are affected by it? For example, I can think of my country, the Amazon region, people don’t have access to internet properly there, so, but they are impacted by the decisions they are taking those bodies. So, but we can think about other regions around the world that face this kind of thing. So I would like to know what you, what these organizations are doing to go there and have these conversations.

Theresa Swinehart: Thank you.

Amrita Choudhury: Okay, so to answer your question, I’ll wear another hat, which is of the end user community at ICANN. So I come from the Asia Pacific, but we also have something in the Latin American region. So we have different at-large structures, for example, who may be internet society communities or other communities who work at the grassroots. So what also happens is just like we have discussions here at those communities also, you have those discussions who try to take these, we expect those discussions to be taken to the community, get their feedback and come. That’s just one part. Then you have different communities within ICANN who work on it. The business community works, there is a non-commercial stakeholders community who are working. Plus you have the technical communities like Tipti was mentioning, who train the internet service providers. For example, Brazil has more than 5,000 ISPs, as I understand, big and small. So how do you train them that their networks are secure? etc. Tripti can correct me, I’m not a technical person, can be made more secure, you know, what are, how the domain name system works, how even young entrepreneurs can earn money by making, you know, becoming a registry registrar. So those are different aspects. It’s an ecosystem, I would say, that is work, but…

Tripti Sinha: Thank you, Amrita, I was just going to say exactly that. So as I said earlier, it is an ecosystem of collaborative bodies around the world that make, that makes the internet work. And when it comes to accessibility, and specifically from ICANN’s lens, we do, we work within our remit, which is we operate the DNS, and we ensure that the DNS brings accessibility, and we do so via IDNs and universal access. Now, when it comes to going deep into the Amazon and other remote parts of the world, that is certainly tied to governmental efforts of, you know, putting fiber in the ground, and I think that is one of the SDG goals. These are all, there are so many players, and so governments put, you know, infrastructure on the ground, then you have ISPs that bring connectivity to these remote sites. ICANN ensures that the domain system, name system, is able to resolve into, you know, multiple languages. That’s a steep hill to climb, we’re climbing that hill, but it’s being done for a good reason, to bring access to these various remote areas in local languages. And so it is, it is a complex ecosystem, and the responsibility sits not just with one entity, but with the collective global entity. Hope that responds to your answer, your question.

Theresa Swinehart: Thank you. I’m cognizant of time, we have about two minutes. Desiree, did you indicate you wanted, yeah.

Audience: If I may just add, to continue the conversation that you’re having about access, I think 20 years ago when we were here, we’re assuming that private Thank you very much for joining us on this session of the ICANN ISOC. I would like to start by saying that the private sector will solve all these access issues in remote areas. But what we are understanding now that it’s a multi-stakeholder effort that is needed, not just by the private sector, but you need other policies. So I would call out to the excellent report that ICANN and ISOC have done about the IGF, of ICANN, our small informal group on the generic name supporting organization has done a mapping how ICANN contributes just in these areas that were also spoken about, the multilingualism. And we’re looking at the new generic applications as well coming up. So we’re working on policies that are creating applicant support for undeserved communities and in other areas.

Theresa Swinehart: Thank you. Thank you, everybody. I see they’re bringing in the next round here. So I think that’s our signal that we should exit. But thank you to the panelists and thank you everybody here. And really importantly for your efforts on contributing to these conversations and the WSIS plus 20 dialogue moving forward. Thank you.

Agreement points

Open and inclusive processes with minimal barriers are essential for effective multi-stakeholder participation

Speakers

– Amrita Choudhury
– Tripti Sinha
– Fabrizia Benini
– Hisham Ibrahim

Arguments

Open processes with minimal entry barriers and capacity building support are crucial

Institutional strategies must embed participation into organizational systems globally

Compulsory consultation periods and public feedback mechanisms ensure meaningful participation

Bottom-up, open, and rough consensus approaches with community-serving secretariats work effectively

Summary

All speakers emphasized the importance of open, accessible processes that actively remove barriers to participation and embed multi-stakeholder engagement into institutional structures through systematic approaches.

Topics

Development | Human rights principles | Infrastructure

Capacity building and support mechanisms are crucial for meaningful stakeholder engagement

Speakers

– Amrita Choudhury
– Tripti Sinha
– Fabrizia Benini
– Hisham Ibrahim

Arguments

Monthly newsletters and capacity building discussions to educate stakeholders

Fellowship programs and Next Generation initiatives bring new voices into leadership positions

Regular engagement with youth representatives and accessible processes are essential

Segmented capacity building across diverse regions with different economic development levels

Summary

All speakers agreed that systematic capacity building through various mechanisms – from newsletters and fellowships to youth engagement and regional programs – is essential for enabling effective participation across diverse stakeholder groups.

Topics

Development | Human rights principles | Infrastructure

Multi-stakeholder processes must produce tangible, measurable outcomes

Speakers

– Amrita Choudhury
– Tripti Sinha
– Hisham Ibrahim
– Theresa Swinehart

Arguments

Regional capacity building and policy discussions create tangible improvements in internet infrastructure

DNSSEC implementation and IPv6 expansion resulted from coordinated multi-stakeholder efforts

Net neutrality discussions, IPv6 leadership in Saudi Arabia, and Central Asia interconnection improvements

Multi-stakeholder processes must demonstrate tangible outcomes and deliverables

Summary

Speakers consistently emphasized that multi-stakeholder engagement must result in concrete, measurable improvements rather than just discussions, with examples ranging from infrastructure improvements to policy implementations.

Topics

Infrastructure | Development | Economic

Feedback mechanisms and transparency in decision-making processes are essential

Speakers

– Yu Ping Chan
– Fabrizia Benini
– Theresa Swinehart

Arguments

UN system must be transparent about engagement processes and provide feedback on stakeholder inputs

Compulsory consultation periods and public feedback mechanisms ensure meaningful participation

Feedback mechanisms are crucial for stakeholder engagement and accountability

Summary

Multiple speakers agreed that organizations must provide clear feedback to stakeholders about how their input is used and incorporated into decision-making, creating accountability and maintaining engagement.

Topics

Human rights principles | Development | Legal and regulatory

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the critical importance of the IGF as a global venue and the need to actively include diverse voices, particularly young and regional perspectives, while avoiding process duplication.

Speakers

– Amrita Choudhury
– Tripti Sinha

Arguments

Keep processes open and inclusive with regional and young voices, avoid duplication, and be time-zone sensitive

Treat IGF as essential, design inclusion into systems, maintain coordination over control, and ensure participation leads to influence

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Human rights principles

Both speakers stressed the importance of preventing fragmentation while maintaining clear distinctions between different layers of governance and avoiding duplication of efforts across forums.

Speakers

– Fabrizia Benini
– Hisham Ibrahim

Arguments

Prevent fragmentation, link to SDGs, avoid duplications, and make documents shorter and more accessible

Protect internet coordination, strengthen internet governance, and guide digital governance at appropriate layers

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory | Development

Both emphasized that addressing access divides requires coordinated efforts from multiple stakeholders rather than relying on any single sector, with each playing distinct but complementary roles.

Speakers

– Tripti Sinha
– Audience

Arguments

Multi-stakeholder ecosystem approach needed where governments provide infrastructure, ISPs bring connectivity, and ICANN ensures multilingual DNS

Private sector alone cannot solve access issues; multi-stakeholder policy efforts are required

Topics

Development | Economic | Infrastructure

Unexpected consensus

Need for shorter, more accessible documentation

Speakers

– Fabrizia Benini

Arguments

Prevent fragmentation, link to SDGs, avoid duplications, and make documents shorter and more accessible

Explanation

It was unexpected for a government representative to explicitly call for shorter documents, noting that 25-year-olds might engage more with 2-page documents than 70-page ones. This practical concern about accessibility from a bureaucratic perspective was surprising and showed genuine commitment to inclusive participation.

Topics

Development | Human rights principles

UN system’s need to learn multi-stakeholderism from other communities

Speakers

– Yu Ping Chan

Arguments

UN system must be transparent about engagement processes and provide feedback on stakeholder inputs

Explanation

It was unexpected for a UN representative to openly acknowledge that the UN system needs to learn from communities like IGF and WSIS about how to properly conduct multi-stakeholder processes, admitting that most of the UN system doesn’t understand what serious multi-stakeholderism requires.

Topics

Development | Human rights principles

Addressing misconceptions about multi-stakeholderism in diplomatic circles

Speakers

– Yu Ping Chan

Arguments

Address misconceptions that multi-stakeholderism equals civil society criticism of governments

Explanation

The frank acknowledgment that resistance to multi-stakeholderism comes from diplomatic fears that it equals civil society criticism of governments was unexpectedly candid, revealing internal UN dynamics and providing strategic insight for advocacy.

Topics

Human rights principles | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

There was strong consensus among speakers on fundamental principles of multi-stakeholder engagement: the need for open, accessible processes with minimal barriers; systematic capacity building; transparent feedback mechanisms; and the production of tangible outcomes. Speakers also agreed on practical implementation strategies and the importance of avoiding duplication while maintaining coordination.

Consensus level

High level of consensus with significant implications for WSIS+20 implementation. The agreement spans different sectors (government, technical community, civil society, UN system) and suggests a mature understanding of what makes multi-stakeholder processes effective. The consensus provides a strong foundation for advancing digital cooperation frameworks, though implementation challenges remain around resource allocation, time-zone sensitivity, and bridging the gap between global processes and local impact.

Different viewpoints

Scope and approach to capacity building

Speakers

– Amrita Choudhury
– Yu Ping Chan

Arguments

Monthly newsletters and capacity building discussions to educate stakeholders

UNDP focuses on in-country delivery but should explore more global capacity building

Summary

Amrita advocates for comprehensive global capacity building through newsletters and discussions, while Yu Ping acknowledges UNDP’s limited global capacity building efforts and suggests they should do more but focuses primarily on country-specific project delivery

Topics

Development | Sociocultural

Institutional design philosophy

Speakers

– Tripti Sinha
– Fabrizia Benini

Arguments

Institutional strategies must embed participation into organizational systems globally

Compulsory consultation periods and public feedback mechanisms ensure meaningful participation

Summary

Tripti emphasizes embedding participation into organizational design from the ground up, while Fabrizia focuses on legally mandated consultation processes and compulsory mechanisms

Topics

Legal and regulatory | Human rights principles

Communication and documentation approach

Speakers

– Fabrizia Benini
– Other speakers

Arguments

Prevent fragmentation, link to SDGs, avoid duplications, and make documents shorter and more accessible

Summary

Fabrizia specifically advocates for shorter, more accessible documents (2-page vs 70-page documents), while other speakers don’t address document length as a barrier to participation

Topics

Development | Human rights principles

Unexpected differences

UN system accountability and feedback mechanisms

Speakers

– Yu Ping Chan
– Other speakers

Arguments

UN system must be transparent about engagement processes and provide feedback on stakeholder inputs

Explanation

Yu Ping uniquely critiques the UN system’s own shortcomings in multi-stakeholder engagement, admitting that most UN staff don’t understand multi-stakeholderism and calling for the UN to be held accountable by stakeholders. This self-critical perspective from within the UN system was unexpected compared to other speakers who focused on external multi-stakeholder processes

Topics

Human rights principles | Development

Political resistance to multi-stakeholderism

Speakers

– Yu Ping Chan
– Other speakers

Arguments

Address misconceptions that multi-stakeholderism equals civil society criticism of governments

Explanation

Yu Ping uniquely identifies political resistance from G77 developing country diplomats who fear multi-stakeholderism as criticism of governments, while other speakers don’t address this political dimension of resistance to multi-stakeholder processes

Topics

Human rights principles | Development

Overall assessment

Summary

The speakers show remarkable consensus on the importance of multi-stakeholder participation but differ on implementation approaches, institutional mechanisms, and addressing barriers to participation

Disagreement level

Low to moderate disagreement level. The disagreements are primarily about methods and approaches rather than fundamental principles. This suggests a mature field where practitioners agree on core values but have developed different strategies based on their institutional contexts and experiences. The implications are positive – showing that multi-stakeholder governance has broad support but needs continued refinement in implementation approaches.

Partial agreements

Similar viewpoints

Both speakers emphasized the critical importance of the IGF as a global venue and the need to actively include diverse voices, particularly young and regional perspectives, while avoiding process duplication.

Speakers

– Amrita Choudhury
– Tripti Sinha

Arguments

Keep processes open and inclusive with regional and young voices, avoid duplication, and be time-zone sensitive

Treat IGF as essential, design inclusion into systems, maintain coordination over control, and ensure participation leads to influence

Topics

Development | Infrastructure | Human rights principles

Both speakers stressed the importance of preventing fragmentation while maintaining clear distinctions between different layers of governance and avoiding duplication of efforts across forums.

Speakers

– Fabrizia Benini
– Hisham Ibrahim

Arguments

Prevent fragmentation, link to SDGs, avoid duplications, and make documents shorter and more accessible

Protect internet coordination, strengthen internet governance, and guide digital governance at appropriate layers

Topics

Infrastructure | Legal and regulatory | Development

Both emphasized that addressing access divides requires coordinated efforts from multiple stakeholders rather than relying on any single sector, with each playing distinct but complementary roles.

Speakers

– Tripti Sinha
– Audience

Arguments

Multi-stakeholder ecosystem approach needed where governments provide infrastructure, ISPs bring connectivity, and ICANN ensures multilingual DNS

Private sector alone cannot solve access issues; multi-stakeholder policy efforts are required

Topics

Development | Economic | Infrastructure

Key takeaways

Multi-stakeholder participation requires open processes with minimal entry barriers, capacity building support, and institutional embedding of participation mechanisms

Successful digital cooperation outcomes like DNSSEC, IPv6, and Universal Acceptance demonstrate the effectiveness of coordinated multi-stakeholder approaches

The UN system needs to improve transparency in engagement processes and provide better feedback to stakeholders on how their inputs are incorporated

Regional voices, young voices, and non-English speaking participants need better representation and support in global digital governance processes

Digital inclusion must be designed into systems from the start, with multilingual access being essential rather than optional

Effective multi-stakeholder governance requires coordination rather than control, with institutions evolving to respond to new voices

Access divides require ecosystem approaches involving governments (infrastructure), ISPs (connectivity), and technical organizations (standards and protocols)

The IGF remains a crucial neutral venue for multi-stakeholder engagement and should be treated as essential infrastructure

Documentation and processes should be made shorter and more accessible to encourage broader participation

Resolutions and action items

Continue capacity building efforts through newsletters, tutorials, and regional working groups

Maintain and strengthen support for national and regional IGFs as pathways for bottom-up participation

Develop more time-zone sensitive meeting schedules to accommodate global participation

Create clearer mandates and deliverables for WSIS+20 processes to avoid duplication

Strengthen linkages between digital cooperation discussions and Sustainable Development Goals

Address misconceptions about multi-stakeholderism in diplomatic circles, particularly the conflation with civil society criticism

Explore opportunities for UNDP and other UN agencies to expand global capacity building for stakeholder engagement

Continue work on Universal Acceptance and Internationalized Domain Names to enable multilingual internet access

Unresolved issues

How to effectively reach and engage communities in remote areas like the Amazon who are affected by digital governance decisions but lack access

Balancing the need for comprehensive consultation with the bandwidth limitations of voluntary participants, especially from civil society

Addressing the fundamental access divide where infrastructure gaps prevent meaningful participation in digital governance

Reconciling different organizational cultures and working methods between UN system entities and multi-stakeholder processes

Preventing fragmentation of internet governance while accommodating diverse regional needs and perspectives

Ensuring that participation actually leads to influence and meaningful impact on decision-making processes

Managing the complexity of coordinating across multiple layers: internet coordination, internet governance, and digital governance

Suggested compromises

Segment engagement approaches by region and development level while maintaining global coordination

Use hybrid approaches combining mandatory consultation periods with flexible engagement mechanisms

Create shorter, more accessible documentation while maintaining substantive content

Develop ecosystem approaches to access issues where different stakeholders take responsibility for their specific areas of expertise

Balance bottom-up community input with top-down institutional requirements through structured feedback mechanisms

Accommodate both developing country concerns about sovereignty and multi-stakeholder principles through clearer role definitions

I will also say that from the perspective of somebody in the UN processes, the same thing needs to happen on our side as well, that we have to be very clear about how we’re engaging with stakeholders and be very open and transparent about how we expect to engage, put forward deadlines and timelines, and then more importantly, be upfront and communicative about how we want to translate these consultations into actual results and then provide explanations back to the stakeholders as to why those outputs and inputs that were given by stakeholders don’t make it into the draft

Speaker

Yu Ping Chan

Reason

This comment is particularly insightful because it represents rare self-criticism from within the UN system, acknowledging institutional failures in multi-stakeholder engagement. It shifts the conversation from external barriers to internal accountability and demonstrates genuine understanding of stakeholder frustrations.

Impact

This comment fundamentally reframed the discussion from focusing solely on how stakeholders can better participate to examining how institutions must evolve their processes. It introduced the concept of bidirectional accountability and led Theresa to emphasize the importance of feedback loops, setting up subsequent discussions about institutional reform.

So I think it is very important for the stakeholder community to put forward these types of expectations and in some ways hold the UN community to these and sort of say, if you are committed to having this be the bedrock of the continuation of the discussions around digital and AI and, you know, Wilson and Information Society, these are what we expect to be completely engaged and contributing as part of this community.

Speaker

Yu Ping Chan

Reason

This comment is thought-provoking because it explicitly calls for stakeholders to hold UN institutions accountable, reversing traditional power dynamics. It acknowledges that meaningful multi-stakeholderism requires active pressure from civil society and other stakeholders, not just institutional goodwill.

Impact

This shifted the conversation toward empowerment of stakeholders and their role in demanding better processes. It influenced the later discussion about overcoming resistance to multi-stakeholderism and provided a framework for how stakeholders can be more assertive in their engagement.

Multi-stakeholder participation if I could use this metaphor is like maintaining a shared road. Everyone uses it but it is only it stays functional when everyone helps maintain it with responsibility. If it isn’t maintained it will fall into disrepair and not serve its purpose.

Speaker

Tripti Sinha

Reason

This metaphor is insightful because it reframes multi-stakeholderism from a consultation process to a shared responsibility model. It emphasizes that participation isn’t just about having a voice, but about ongoing commitment to maintaining the system’s functionality.

Impact

This metaphor became a recurring theme that influenced how other panelists framed their responses. It shifted the discussion from procedural aspects of participation to the deeper question of shared ownership and responsibility, leading to more concrete examples of collaborative outcomes.

Part of the resistance to multi-stakeholderism in New York comes from a misconception that multi-stakeholderism equates mostly to civil society. And this fear that civil society means criticism of the governments, especially in terms of governmental policy on aspects like human rights and how certain types of governments function.

Speaker

Yu Ping Chan

Reason

This comment provides crucial insight into the political dynamics that undermine multi-stakeholder processes. It reveals the underlying fears and misconceptions that drive institutional resistance, particularly from developing country governments, offering a strategic understanding of how to address these concerns.

Impact

This comment introduced a new analytical framework for understanding resistance to multi-stakeholderism, moving beyond technical or procedural explanations to political psychology. It influenced the final recommendations about emphasizing diverse voices and reframing multi-stakeholderism as beneficial to developing countries rather than threatening to governments.

When the most stakeholder process meets the access divide and why you guys are doing to, in your organizations are doing to bridge this access because I heard you speak about how open the process is for different stakeholders to come, but why are you doing to go to different stakeholders that have not access to what these organizations are doing, but they are affected by it?

Speaker

Flora Santana

Reason

This question is thought-provoking because it challenges the fundamental assumption that ‘open’ processes are truly inclusive. It highlights the gap between theoretical accessibility and practical barriers, forcing panelists to confront the limitations of their current approaches.

Impact

This question shifted the discussion from celebrating existing multi-stakeholder mechanisms to critically examining their limitations. It forced panelists to acknowledge that openness doesn’t automatically translate to inclusion and led to more nuanced discussions about proactive outreach and the ecosystem nature of internet governance.

You have to embed participation in the system, in the system that you are working on because without it and it needs to be participation that is both accessible that is accessible in the sense of allowing people to do it but also allowing those people to have the tools to do it so it’s various aspects of accessibility within a certain amount of time so that the participation is actually meaningful

Speaker

Fabrizia Benini

Reason

This comment is insightful because it distinguishes between formal participation opportunities and meaningful participation, emphasizing that true inclusion requires systematic embedding of participatory mechanisms with proper support structures and timing considerations.

Impact

This comment introduced the concept of ’embedding participation’ as a systematic requirement rather than an add-on feature. It influenced subsequent discussions about making processes compulsory and designing institutional mechanisms that ensure meaningful rather than tokenistic participation.

Overall assessment

These key comments fundamentally transformed the discussion from a surface-level celebration of multi-stakeholder processes to a critical examination of their limitations and requirements for genuine effectiveness. Yu Ping Chan’s institutional self-criticism was particularly pivotal, creating space for honest assessment of systemic failures and power dynamics. The conversation evolved from focusing on stakeholder capacity-building to examining institutional accountability, from celebrating openness to questioning true accessibility, and from describing existing mechanisms to envisioning transformative reforms. Flora Santana’s challenge about the access divide served as a reality check that grounded the theoretical discussions in practical limitations. Together, these comments created a more sophisticated understanding of multi-stakeholderism that acknowledges both its potential and its current shortcomings, leading to more actionable recommendations for the WSIS+20 process.

How can we get regional voices and young voices into the room in a cohesive way so they can participate in these discussions?

Speaker

Amrita Choudhury

Explanation

This addresses the challenge of ensuring diverse geographic and generational representation in multi-stakeholder processes, which is essential for truly inclusive governance.

How can we make participation easier for civil society volunteers who don’t have the bandwidth to attend multiple processes or travel to New York?

Speaker

Amrita Choudhury

Explanation

This highlights practical barriers to participation, particularly for resource-constrained stakeholders who contribute on a voluntary basis.

How can we create APAC-sensitive timing for global discussions to enable meaningful participation from Asia-Pacific regions?

Speaker

Amrita Choudhury

Explanation

This addresses the practical challenge of time zone differences that can exclude participants from certain regions due to inconvenient meeting times.

How can the UN system better provide feedback to stakeholders on how their inputs are incorporated into final documents and decisions?

Speaker

Yu Ping Chan

Explanation

This addresses the need for transparency and accountability in multi-stakeholder processes, ensuring participants understand how their contributions are used.

How can we bring more UN system colleagues into these multi-stakeholder conversations to educate them about proper engagement?

Speaker

Yu Ping Chan

Explanation

This highlights the need for capacity building within the UN system itself to better understand and implement multi-stakeholder approaches.

How can we explore the possibility of UNDP building capacity of stakeholders to engage in global conversations, linking technology discussions to development outcomes?

Speaker

Yu Ping Chan

Explanation

This suggests expanding UNDP’s role in connecting global digital governance discussions with local development needs and outcomes.

How can organizations go to different stakeholders who don’t have access to these processes but are affected by the decisions, such as people in remote areas like the Amazon?

Speaker

Flora Santana (Audience)

Explanation

This addresses the fundamental challenge of reaching and including marginalized communities who are impacted by digital governance decisions but lack access to participate in the processes.

How can we address the misconception among diplomats that multi-stakeholderism equates mainly to civil society criticism of governments?

Speaker

Yu Ping Chan

Explanation

This identifies a key barrier to multi-stakeholder acceptance in diplomatic circles and suggests the need for better education about the benefits and nature of multi-stakeholder approaches.

How can we prevent fragmentation and ensure clarity of mandates and deliverables in digital governance processes?

Speaker

Fabrizia Benini

Explanation

This addresses the need for coordination and clear division of responsibilities among different organizations and processes to avoid duplication and confusion.

How can we make documents shorter and more accessible to encourage broader participation, especially from younger people?

Speaker

Fabrizia Benini

Explanation

This highlights the practical barrier that overly lengthy and complex documents create for participation, particularly for time-constrained stakeholders.