40 Members, I in another morale at euphoria, who you'll hear today remembers, which took some of the ideas that have been percolating in society and put them into a, a proposal to essentially launch we shyly called at the outset, a forum function that will be performed by some sort of a thing, which ended up being specified as the IGF. And you know at the outset this was opposed by almost everybody. When when the when we get report went back to the preparatory meetings of the witnesses, a lot of governments said they were not interested in this, as well as a lot of people in the private sector and technical community. But at the end of the day, when we got to the final summit in Tunisia, in November 2005 It was either that we were going to declare failure at this three year negotiation because there was a deadlock on fundamental issues around ICANN control of the underlying resources. Or we were going to announce that we release continuing conversation and a lot of players switched and came along and said that they supported the IGF so the IGF was created. It was also integrally related to what many countries perceived to be a promise to have a negotiation around so called enhanced cooperation and the possible creation of an intergovernmental body with omnibus authority over the IGF, which we spent 10 years on despite the fact that was completely unlikely, in fact, impossible to reach agreement on something like that. So anyway, the IGF was launched and it was quite revolutionary. We'd really been transparent, inclusive peer base, equal footing, multi stakeholder participation, no fixed membership, anybody could engage. Light and bottom up agenda setting process and substantively abroad holistic focus that could cover any kind of issues related to Internet governance and over time, the IGF developed a very loyal set of actors, including many of us here, who were very committed to trying to see this succeed and go forward particularly in the context of simultaneous pressures from some governments to have instead an inter governmental centralized control mechanism established in the UN. So the IGF was not took off in the pad down 17 years of beatings, community driven main sessions and workshops and all kinds of other types of events have been incorporated into the annual program. And a lot of interesting and important stuff happens on stage in terms of networking and using the IGF as a launchpad to create processes and annonce initiatives, etc. We'll get into all that. So the IGF has been in a lot of ways, very successful in terms of creating a space within the global ecosystem of Internet governance or dialogue and collective learning and sharing of information, but their voice with controversies and debates around perennially coming back and forth, about the format is an inclusive enough much of discussion to focus on outcomes strong enough, what is the impact? And these kinds of issues quickly just recirculate and of course, since the IGF just had a meeting in Addis Ababa, in November, December, they were back in the air again. So I thought this would be a good time for us to sit back, step back and try and take stock and see where we are in our thinking about where the IGF is and where it could go, going forward. And to do that, we have a panel of people who have been, as I say, very actively engaged from the outset. So our panel is Raul he birria, the executive director of Latin American Internet Association. He was involved in Internet governance for over 30 years and was one of the founders of LACNIC where he served as CEO for 12 years. He was also chair of the board of the Internet. Society, three years. He was a member of the previously mentioned working group in Internet governance where I got to know him and a member of the IGs Multistakeholder Advisory Committee or mag which has responsibility for the program, eight years among other kinds of roles and Rob has joined us from Uruguay. Riyadh Esterhuyse in the sea is a Senior Advisor for Internet governance, the association association for progressive communications and convener of the African School of Internet governance. Previously, she was for many years the executive director of the APC, which is one of the biggest and most prominent global NGOs in this space, served as a member and as the chair of the IGF madaket. She's joining us from South Africa. Adam peak is a senior manager for civil society engagement at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, ICANN, he was also very involved with the civil society processes around the wizards and the creation of the IGF and so on, and is a current member of the mag position he also served in previously and he's joining us in the Netherlands. And finally, we have Flavio Webster. Is emeritus professor at the Institute for inter Informatics at the University of Rio Grande Dosoo, in part to elaborate Brazil, Italy he was a member of the mag and a consultant to board members of Brazilian Internet steering committee and president of the Brazilian chapter of the Internet. Society. So he joins us from Brazil. So we're very globalized group. Everybody in this group has been from the has been on the mag including meaning to avoid excessive groupthink and seeing for the same hymnal. I'll try to be a little bit of a devil's advocate here and push and prod and some of the hard and divisive points. So we're not at all sort of channeling each other's thinking on this. And needless to say, I want to take note that everybody here will be speaking in their personal capacity. views expressed are not necessarily those video organizations that are affiliated. We'll do like five rounds of the top five different topics mentioned in the announcement for this event, then we'll open it up to discussion and I see a lot of people online, have a lot of experience and thoughts on these issues. So it hopefully will be a very good discussion. So okay, so let's get going questions to the panel then, just to get our juices flowing. For starters, we could talk a little bit about your, your broad sense of the trajectory of the IGF to date. How does the IGF as it is now, compared with how we were thinking about it in 2004 2005. What and what's in the mandate that was written in the wig and approved by a government at the whizzes. You know, how is the IGF evolved over time? I mean, we had an early period, we're very focused and critical Internet resources that evolved and changed. So how people see the broad lines their trajectory, I'd be very interested in getting the conversation going with that, who would like to start? Spread please use your raise hand function. It makes it easier for me to see what's going on. Okay. Rollo, you want to take off? Go ahead.
Okay, and thank you very much. Well, afternoon. Good morning, everybody. Thank you for the invitation bill. And just a quick recognition that it's I think it's worth it to say but when we celebrate the weather in the working group on internal governance, to solve some for I think, in this burden to recognize that you were the first person in the working group was speaking about the forum, the creation of a forum that we gave the form of that together later, but I have to recognize that you were a pioneer in that. So it's, we have been doing things together for for a long time. Okay, so, first thing I think that's the competition between the two selves on fire 2023 is not fair. Because the the policy portfolio the policy discussion was much more simple in in 2004 than 2005 And then now, it is much more complicated more players and more stakeholders. Different organizations involved in the in the ecosystem, and in even even a lot of different authored authorities locally in every country dealing with policy issues. So it's the challenge of the ATF is much bigger. So it's a while the ATF has made a lot of improvements in this in this time, is a race trying to, to, to to pick the new things and the challenges that that are emerging. So they I think that I have said that many times that they were definitely is much better with the IGF than without the IGF. So this I'm I'm kind of fan or supporter, a strong supporter of IGF but, but we have to recognize that there are things that are not satisfying all the stakeholders that the the IGF should have the discussions we've had at IGF should have much more impact in the policy development and policy development happen 90% At the local level, at the national level, except in Europe that has its own characteristics, but in the rest of the world. It happens at the local level. So the we should work much better in the link between an impact in the disk of the discussions that we call the global forum like IGF in the in the policy development and for that we need to bring the other stakeholders, higher official governments and other people and at this moment I think that's the we don't have all the incentives to do that. We can speak more in the in the second or third round, but so I think that's this is the micro solutions good. That's the landscape potential very much, have achieved a lot but other things that we have to work very
hard. Thanks, Rob. Incentives is an important word as is configuration of interest. So we think about what's really going on. So let's just go down the row. Flavio, your next step?
You will so thank you for the invitation. It's a pleasure to be here with you and all the people for this very interesting debate. So I would say that the IETF is almost entirely fulfilling its role as defined in the wizards mandate as a premier venue for multi stakeholder dialogue on Internet governance issues, but as Raul already mentioned,
the the
range of interests of the IETF has changed a lot. In this meantime, you had the digital transformation of the society has had a dramatic acceleration, the last 10 or 15 years since the whizzes and this process, which is still accelerating had and still has major impacts on the IGF. From one side, the IGF is not anymore only about the Internet rates about digitalization of the society, where the Internet is only a mechanism even if a very important one for this transformation. So we are discussing in the IGF issues like protection of personal data and cybercrime impact of AI just to name a few that are much more the consequences of digitization in general. And not only all because of the use of Ranger net. From from this perspective, I would say that the IGF has naturally positively evolved and transform itself on a major venue for discussion. Almost all digital transformation aspects and impacts from another side however, as that is digitization F affects all the aspects of our society, it's natural, that is became a main issue for many other fora where classical dimensions of the society are discussed, such as commerce, work, health, education, finance, environment and so on. So we have now multiple and legitimate inter governmental and non governmental fora discussing issues that are also covered by the IHS, as we organize it, for instance, in the report from the high level panel on digital cooperation, so three years ago, so from the second perspective, I would say that the IGF is maybe at great risk, since many of these other competing for spaces have a decision making nature or those preferred as arenas for the discussion and sometimes even approval of concrete norms and public policies regarding specific dimensions of the digital transformation of the society. So I will leave for now on these and then we will certainly come back to those issues
later. Flavio, certainly that whole evolution into digital issues generally, is one of the big dynamics and one that we're going to come back to again, I'm yet
either well, and really good to see everyone. And I agree with with Flavio's remarks. I think it's really interesting actually, because I think the IGF was in a sense a placeholder it was a gap filler, when when governments couldn't agree on how to move forward and I think So firstly, it illustrated how effectively civil society can actually influence inter governmental negotiations by providing a creative and innovative solution to to essentially deadlock between governments. I think that was really interesting at the time. And I think what's been interesting since is that the IGF actually became a develop its own identity. I agree with role that has met most of what it was mandated to achieve in the tunas agenda, but I think it has done more than that. Actually, I think it has socialized the idea of multi stakeholder engagement on Internet policy and regulation. It has almost almost generated a kind of normative pressure on national processes that are similar. So you have the emergence of national and regional IGs and where it's now the done thing to have a national IGF where you bring together different stakeholders to talk about Internet policy. So I think it has actually really succeeded in changing how Internet governance and Internet Internet policy is being maybe not made, but definitely how its how its outs discussed. And I think what's really unique about it is that it has this capacity to bring together experts and generalists, old timers and newcomers. And you see that if you look at IGF stats, about 30 to 40% of participants in every annual event, are first time participants. And I think that's indicative of the fact that it's generating and new new participants in the process, new new engagement, and that might come at the expense of expert based policy influence. But again, is this idea that we had of democratizing Internet governance. I think it's actually alive, might not be particularly healthy. But I do think the AGF is generating that kind of trust. I think the fact that it brings together technical and non technical people perspectives and issues is also pretty unique. I don't think I mean, Flavio, you're right, there are many specialist forums, where more specific challenges like how to regulate machine learning, for example, is being discussed. Based, cross cutting, multidisciplinary approach. I think that's pretty unique. And it's also intergenerational. So So I think for all its flaws, and I think it can be improved. We'll come back to that. I think it's achieved something actually quite unique in having this open, inclusive, participative space. And I think what I'm really worried about and I'll come back to that later, is that I don't think that's valued sufficiently. And I think the fact that that's not valued sufficiently, to me means that we not really valued valuing democratization of Internet Policy and Governance sufficiently. And I think partly, one of the reasons is, people become bored, they become bored with with, particularly those of us who are experts who are really invested in embedded Internet governance processes. We want more, and I think, therefore, we tend to underestimate exactly how valuable the IGF actually is.
Thanks, Andrea. I think that's undoubtedly true.
Thank you. Yes, it's always a bit silly to not put your hand up sooner so that you can say that I tried to say the smart things that have already been said. I think something that I've been thinking about recently is of course, that 2000 to 2005 That was a very different time. There wasn't social media. His book was 2006 2007 iPhones 2007. We're talking about a very different world. We're talking about a very different set of issues. was on the mag and as you mentioned, all of us were very involved in that early period. And at that time, we were a more coherent group. We knew the issues closely. We'd been discussing them in wizards. So we came to the IGF with an ongoing conversation and reasonably established memberships of members of stakeholder groups memberships the wrong term, but participants in those stakeholder groups and that has changed over time, as we've changed, as already mentioned about the issues that we're discussing 1005 2006 in Information Society was a concept we were considering what it would be what we're doing now is living it we only have to think of the pandemic and the issues that are raised by accessing the Internet using the Internet and the Internet being essential to all our lives that we've transformed very much the IGF has transformed, transformed with it so we're responding to a very different period and certainly the IETF needs to respond to that as well. Something Andrea mentioned about the NRA is they are probably the biggest change we've seen, what in terms of how we participate and how we how we talk about where we come together to talk about these issues. The IGF has always had a tendency to focus upon the annual event that we're building up to that period in the fall in the autumn when we come together in some exotic location as Ali mentioned, but what the NRIs have done is given us intersessional work, and also work at the national level, of course, and I think we should talk about the importance of intersessional work as we as we go through this. Through this discussion today. It's something that we spoken about a lot is something that is desirable but it's extremely hard to achieve. Volunteers, how much time do we have, and also the focus of the IGF and the way it's set up does point very strongly to coming together, whether online now or in person at one of these locations around the world. So I'll stop there, but I do think that we've moved from a period where we were talking about what would be the future of inflammation society, to understanding how it works and how it affects our lives. So that's the that's the effect we've seen over these years. Thanks.
Thanks. I was gonna move the next question But Ellie are you raising your hand is that from before? If you're trans,
I just wanted to follow up on Flavio's points so that we can have a discussion here which is that I mean, he correctly pointed out that the agenda has increased enormously from Internet to digital society. But what does that mean that covers so much ground market power infrastructure, human rights, disinformation, governance, Democracy, Development standards, social networks, culture, with contending interests, contending ideologies, contending, politics and economics. And so the question is, if everything is digital, we talk about it in IGF then are we talking about everything and are we diluting? Is there some kind of a dilution going on in how many topics can you cover? important topics? No question. Why is the focus then,
Ellie, you're getting ahead of me that we're going to talk about this later. So if we can, okay. That's fine. All right. So yes, then the second question is, there's been a lot of debate about the impact of the IGF and a very divided kind of views on this. I mean, defenders say that the IGF helps to build norms and promote collective learning and mutual adjustments Pro has promoted institutionalization of Internet governance issues across governments and organizations, etc. Capacity Building is fed into different decision making bodies and it's also served as a launchpad for many important initiatives national regional IGF, the summer schools and Internet governance, the global Internet governance, academic network, many other kinds of initiatives. Dynamic coalition's best practice forums, policy networks. So people point to all that and say it's making a big impact in the ecosystem. Then there's a lot of other people critics who say it's just a Top Shop and has no real role in the Internet governance and talking about the IGF distracts us from the need for real international decision making. So how do people think about the impact of IVF? How do we measure it? How do we how do we assess it the like to hear from the panelists on that point? So you still have your hand roll. Okay,
I think that's the at the beginning of IETF and 2006, and so on as the impact was very big, was huge. In I would say in in three sense. One is because we finally built a place where we could discuss things that at that moment, we didn't have a single place to, to deal with. We have had previously events like I knit that in some way we're trying to achieve similar things. But in 2006, we didn't have anything and so that's, that was the first impact. The The second area, which I think that the impact was huge was that we brought everybody together. And we could say that in 2006 to 910 we had almost everybody in the same place. Everybody that was involved in in digital policy discussion on Internet policy discussion was there participating at HF so they the impact was very big. And the third area of impact was the that the possibility to consolidate the idea that the multi stakeholder model could work to deal with topics like those that that we were discussing. And I remember in Athens 2006 When we were arriving to the to the to the venue for the at the beginning of IETF the first day, and I was walking in together with people from governments from Latin America, and we arrived in the venue they ask it, where is the place for governments? And it was very revealing to me that say, Oh, this this is the reason why this was important. It was important to build something like that. Because so they we changed that they it, it look at that very unrealistic at this moment, but in 2006, many governments still thought that they needed that place. Only for them so they but I think that's the in the last few years of not SAS a few, probably in the last 10 years. We lost impact. Because as as we say before, the number of players increases very much. And so we still have important people and relevant people and high quality people go into IGF participating of IGF discussions, bringing their intelligence and they but the people that is taking decisions at the local level later is in most of cases is different people, people that and the in several leaders and in consumer protection and data privacy in in taxes and many other things. So they they really I think that's that's using the same word that Ellie usually he's using the ratio I think that it was diluted there the impact of that, Jeff, and this is why we have challenges. I think still I'm very optimistic, but we have to recognize where the problems are and to work together and how to face off rooms.
That's row. Who's next I don't see hands on though I can go next. Yes, go ahead. And impact is.
I'll do that next time impact is about politics and power, I don't think and perceptions of whether the IGF has impact or not, when it had impact what kind of impact is very much shaped by by who's doing the assessment. I think in the first few years of the IGF, there were interest groups that were very firmly wanting the IGF to prevent more more governmental oversight to prevent any kind of regulation. You know, there was a there was a sort of a libertarian culture, that there was a sort of hands off the Internet culture very much coming from business and the technical community, and they succeeded. Actually, they stopped any serious discussion about Internet resources at the Ajay for quite a while. And but it also succeeded. I think that it succeeded in building more buy in and more engagement and multi stakeholder process. It did not succeed and having serious conversations about the role of government and serious conversations about when to regulate when not to regulate how to regulate what to regulate. Now, those discussions are being had at the IGF maybe not as effectively as they could be. I think the other area of impact that I think is very much underestimated is the IMF transition. I think the IGF was the sand box. Where were all the issues about internationalization of ICANN, broader democracy, democratization of naming, management, the management of names, you know, that played out at the AGM. And the transition process had its own structure that took place under the you know, the wing of ICANN and it worked very well. But the IGF was the place where all the noise could be could be heard, and I think incredibly helpful for the transition. And I've heard people that were part of that transition like Fiona Alexander, the NTIA at the time, saying that the IGF played a very important role. And then other things, I think human rights, the whole idea that human rights is a legitimate Internet governance issue, getting the Human Rights Council to pass that resolution on rights that apply offline, also playing online. Again, taking that to the IGF and making the technical community also aware of the importance of social issues, economic issues, human rights issues. I think the IGF played play that kind of role. I think gender issues, you know, LGBT issues, and the IGF is the space where many of those issues which those that come at Internet governance from the narrow perspective would not actually have wanted to discuss about it. And I actually tend to work at least once a week for coming up with the broad definition because I think coming up with a broad definition of Internet governance, that includes the use and abuse of the Internet, I think has created the scope the scope for this kind of whole of society, multidisciplinary approach to Internet governance. And then I think the other thing about the idea that I think you guys in the north, I think those were power versus influence under estimating enormously. how valuable the IGF is for actors from the Global South. It is a space that's much more accessible than even many other UN spaces. And now that the idea of has become so much better facilitating virtual participation, I mean, that's enormously valuable to people who struggle and you don't have the resources or the opportunity to participate in other global governance processes.
Absolutely. Although I took a lot of grief for the broad definition so
Fabio? Thank you,
Bill. Let me try to address this question of impact from from a different perspective. From the perspective of the outcomes that were mandated in the 20s agenda for the IGF. We take a civil society and most parts of academia that participate in the IGF they are certainly happy with the fact that the IGF now discusses almost all dimensions of the digital transformation of the society. These groups are keen to discuss issues such as privacy, protection of personal data, social impacts of AI, human rights and all the other issues that were already mentioned. These issues are now governed by the IGF. So this evolution of the IGF scope is certainly welcomed by these groups, and they have a large impact from from this perspective, but they must recognize that there is a kind of war or separating two camps in the IGF community regarding this this mandate. Yeah. And so the question to the impact depends on which side of this wall you are. So if you are on the candidate prefers the IGF, just as a discussion space, talk about doc shops, then you are certainly happy that the IGF has remained so and I would say that most governments and major parts of your private sector and to a lesser extent, maybe some parts of the civil society are on the side of this war. But if you're on the other camp, and you were expecting the IGF has more tangible outcomes, for instance, making recommendations when appropriate, as written in its mandate for today's agenda, then you are certainly out of unhappy about the evolution of the IGF and I think this is the site where most of the civil societies probably placed. So why hasn't the IGF evolved in this direction? Well, mostly because of lack of consensus within the overall IGF community. So then I come back to the question of the day shall I mentioned before that since there are now many other competing fora have a decision making nature of our preferred as arenas for the approval of concrete norms and to be policies Pentas This puts the IGF at some some risks. So, even if we want to keep the IGF multiuser tuckshop that which only I indirectly influences decision making process has been developed as well. It should be at least for a relevant workshop. It should, for instance, attract all stakeholder groups, even governments and private sector all parts of them. So it should attract many other stakeholders that are still left outside we know that many, many groups are still missing. So until now, from from this perspective of making recommendations, for instance, we have not yet seen major norms or initiatives coming directly out of the IGF, the AI directly, most probably yes, but not directly coming out of the IGF. So, it has an indirect influence on mobs initiatives, as of course it promotes better understanding between the stakeholder groups, but personally, I would prefer a more directly influence. If the IGF does not negotiate the norms itself. It should at least propose norms and discuss them. They definitely could launch and develop initiatives that end up in
arms. So give them
Yeah, so first bill, thank not just you but other week members. The definition that gave us often on the Internet, the notion that it's not just Internet governance of the technical layer, but also the activities that take place is extremely important. And we see this I saw this last year when working groups were debating how to consider Internet fragmentation and topic that I know is important to you, Bill and others. And also, you know, it is a key topic and the way people began to think about it was fragmentation of the technical layer. So that's, you know, of the Internet and then fragmentation of the user user experience and how that manifests itself. And that is really an extension of the on and off the Internet that we see in the wiki definition. So thanks, and it's helpful and it's still fought back to impact and learning and I will again, I work for ICANN, but I'm not really giving an ICANN perspective at all. But the transition is a very good example. You know, there was a meeting I think 2013 where there was a main session that considered principles of good Internet governance, and at that time, there were 20 to 25 principles documents about what governance was OECD Council of Europe, African Union, and those were brought together in a discussion to highlight the commonalities and what the meeting thought were good. When we came together about a year later in that Monday, OWL we built off those and REL and Flavio will remember particularly from being part of that sort of discussion that these became part of the net Monday owl. What is Internet governance, what are the principles and norms for Internet governance? That Mondale documents were the first documents that were included in the community ICANN community chairs, initial document to set up the discussion for the transition. So you see how these these things evolved from a period of time and different spaces and how the IGF was the initiator as people have said about, about about things that are affecting important governance topics like the transition, and this has still been taken up in discussions last year about AI governance and reacts absolutely right that the IGF is important because it brings in the global south and inclusive, more inclusive those voices is very clear that the speakers in main sessions were why while they were from the Council of Europe, OECD, European Commission, they began by recognizing the importance of multi stakeholder participation in the global south that their work won't go forward without those voices being included. And again, they were talking about what is good governance for AI and referring back to some of the principles that we saw from 2013 from net Monday Alex cetera. So it's iterative processes and the IETF is very useful, both convening voices, making sure we have inclusive processes, and that we learn from each other. So it's, it's a, it's a good, it's a good thing. I'll leave it there. Thanks.
Okay. Great. Thank you. Alright, so let me ask one more question. And then we'll start to move towards opening it to everybody who wants to speak because there's we've got a lot of people here who have deep experience with IGF, but I think we have to talk about this question of outcomes because it keeps it's been with us since the beginning. It's been with us since we wrote the the mandate and the IGF and included language about ability to adopt recommendations, as advisable etcetera, etcetera. been debated extensively since then. 20 agenda, the 2012 working group and in Provence, the NetMundial statement 2014 The UN DESA retreats in 2016 2021. You know, and more recently, we've had, you know, heads of state, Emmanuel Macron, and also champ, the Chancellor of Germany, saying that we need more concrete outcomes coming out of the IGF to make it useful and so on. So I think we really need to like talk a little bit about is there the possibility to adopt something that counts as, quote, more concrete outcomes? What would that necessarily could that entail, what sorts of issues what types of mechanisms are we talking? What's conceivably possible given the configuration of interest? Can we do recommendations or just messages as we do now or adopt like opinions like the ITU us real telecom Policy Forum, which is a little bit more informal or options for action, which I've tried to argue for, for that we're allowed different types of views to be put on the table? What how do people see this question? I mean, we've been we've been debating this from the outset, and it's still with us is still shapes much of the politics around the IGF. So I think we have to tackle in row What's your thought about this?
Raul, your sounds not happening.
Right now. Yes. I spoke before about the that we need more better incentives for meaningful participation in IGF in order to increase the to improve the link between the discussions at HF and the policy development at the local level. Then one of the things that we need is that we need coherence and connections on the topics that we are discussing. There is no incentive for many stakeholders. To go to ITF. If if the things that I'm discussing in the region with policymakers are absolutely different than the ones that I'm discussing in the NHF. That's one point. And the the the other point is that, that there is no incentive to go to ITF if if we have developed some kind of common understandings and general principles about how to deal with certain issues in at ATF, and when I come back to the region, I have to start from seed of discussions with policymakers. That's how a lot of creativity and are proposing ideas and solutions that are absolutely opposed and the things that are gaining traction in the in IETF as a common understanding, so then, they I think that's that. So how to get to that. So the first thing is the connection in the topics that so what are the things that we are discussing, what are my daily job, my daily job, how I decide I use my days to discuss in about taxes, content moderation, for nooses impact on democracy and, and other things. So if, if the discussions of IETF and the possible outcomes can help me in advanced discussions that they have every day with policymakers, so it's a good incentive, I will continue to support the IETF and go in and attending if not, I have to prioritize connection with topics. Second thing is that we need more focus that I think that we have improved the focus of IETF but we still need more focus. And the leadership panel can help on that. Again, advice in the HF saying, Guys, we have to disguise those two three things if you want to discuss other 20 That's okay. But we need some discussions and outcomes on those juicery things that are the pressing issues. And of course, I think that there is a lot of room for improvements in diversity also at the level of the leadership panel. And that it is crucial in order to really that have valuable advice and and connected to the to the things that are happening in the world. And then finally, yes, I think that we can produce outcomes and and it's possible we already did it. We did it in the Moodle we never ended to learn the the lessons from NetMundial we can do that together. But so we need to bring the we need different kinds of high level sessions, much more focuses I before and to put some very high level ideas very high level principles. We don't need recommendations, very high level but things that are kind of felt the discussion and they are the local labor and saying this is this is possible the best way to go through and this is not the way to go. So don't insist going in that direction. This is wrong. It's proven. This is a everybody agreed in that in those international debates that this is the wrong path of don't waste time doing in that direction. So these kinds of things can help we did it. We can do it again. That is I think there's political willingness to
to move forward. Do you want me to go next row? Alright, so we follow the same sequence.
You're muted. You didn't have your hand up sorry, mister. Sorry. Go ahead. Um, yeah, I didn't have my hand up
and I'm going to respond to this question in two parts. Firstly, I want to debunk this whole notion of outcomes and located in its political context, where did the demand for the IGF to produce outcomes from in the first place? It came from those governments that wanted emphasis on the enhanced cooperation track from the Tunis Agenda. Those states who felt that the IGA was all very well, but that's not the real issue. The real issue with was the unresolved role and responsibility of governments when it comes to oversight. So so they, those governments that were ambivalent, or critical of the AGF were the ones that first raised this critique of it not producing outcomes. So and I think what happened then is that everyone started kind of you know, jumping on that bandwagon without really thinking about what the agenda or the tuners agendas mandate is for the IGF and what the value is of the IGF and what it means to democratize and make Internet governance more inclusive and more open. You know, and I think trying to do both trying to do to be this very open and inclusive forum and I agree, the IGF can do that better. And producing outcomes is actually I think, pretty difficult, but I think it's possible, I just think we need to be a little bit skeptical. And look at the historical context of this whole debate about the idea of just being a talk shop and producing outcomes. But now when it comes to producing outcomes, I think the IGF wouldn't necessarily call it outcomes, but I think it really is wasting resources and wasting people's time. And now it's currently working with its intersessional modalities. It has these kind of practice forums and our policy networks. It also has the national and regional IGF and dynamic coalition's which are communities of interests that are self organized and they together represent, you know, a vast number of people, maybe not a numbers but in diversity and a lot of knowledge. And instead of having a model that's a bit more like the IETF or like the ITU were resolved issues that emerged from a global IGF is then delegated to these intersessional bodies to come up with do some research, do some stakeholder consultation, come up with more in depth recommendations, which then go back to an IGS will go to other policy forums. There's just a lack of continuity and integration. And the idea of has become a lot of dots of disconnected modalities, which I think if we actually tie them together more effectively, more creatively we can maintain that open inclusive space for broad based discussion and debate on policy, but also in a few more focused areas, do more in depth investigation and feed it back into the AGF process, and from that if it becomes substantive enough into other policymaking processes, the problem of the ages outcomes as they are being packaged and generated at the moment, they're just too superficial, to really be a value to any hardcore policymaking process.
Thank you, Andrea, and I have to give you the award. The idea Jeff has a lot of disconnect. Thoughts of disconnected modalities definitely gets the award for you and speak for the day. So that's great. Hey, my modality says to turn next to Flavio thank you
so I was talking about the BPF and policy networks and dynamic coalition's if you want to go for instance for the IGF flows model that has been proposed by the high level panel on digital cooperation and that the model their proposals policy incubator, in fact, the BPF D policy networks and dynamic coalition's, which as correctly said still do not play a prominent role they they could deserve. They are very adequate, in fact, mechanisms for implementing this function of policy incubation as proposed in the IGF Plus model. So rather than establishing a whole new structure policy incubator, we just need to further develop the these intersessional modalities. They should be given a clear mandate working procedures and principles and receive more resources administrative support by the IGF Secretariat. And certainly the wizards plus 20 and renewal of the mandate of the IGF would be a very good occasion to to, to give this new role to this intersection all modalities. There is also proposed in the IGF close the cooperation accelerator and that's that's a good idea. Maybe it's not too complicated thing to implement. But of course, it will need a new dedicated structure. So it would include members with multidisciplinary expertise, receive organizational support by the Secretariat of course, and could monitor the work of different bodies. And on plus cutting digital issues and forgot that DeFi lack of cooperation and where necessary facilitate cooperation across a wide range of institutions and processes to strengthen cooperation and coordination. These all would already give the IGF a more important role in this whole digital cooperation arena.
I entirely
agree that the IGF should produce shared agreed X, maybe norms or at least proposals of norms. As long Of course they are non binding, very high level things like Raul already said. So this is essential if the IGF wants to keep a prominent role or in the in this arena and especially regarding the the GDC we will talk about the the the global digital compact, certainly the sequence here. But to produce these kind of outcomes separately, the IGF need new needs new structures. We don't need to touch on the current structures they can be kept but we need something else maybe we will need to start experimenting possible new structures like in the kind of sandbox approach for developing and testing innovative approaches for the development for instance of concrete recommendations or proposal of normals or or agreed texts. So one possibility is it has already been mentioned but our rule is to use a kind of NetMundial right approach. Good choose one or two issues every year startup to begin by choosing a very specific issues for each there is already kind of rough consensus in the community. For instance, respect for human rights online or desired characteristic of digital governance model. And the community is invited to send contributions in a special call dedicated multi stakeholder committee you should be different from the Mac. This contributions and drafts are first text. The text is part of the public comments and the committee comments into consideration draft a second version, which is published well in advance of the IGF. And this version is then discussed during the next IGF and the final version is prepared. And this could run as a new kind of parallel parallel little session. Or freq. In the IGF cycle. And I think a multi year plan for the IGF would fit very nicely here, if you knew in advance the issues to be discussed in the IGF 2024. For instance, in this new NetMundial, like back then not only the community at large, but also the intersessional IGF tracks and mainly the enterprise would have plenty of time reading 2023 to discuss those issues and prepare contributions to the open call that I say when landline in March or April. 2024. So that the multistakeholder committee responsible for this track would have time to prepare the draft for discussion at the IGF 2024. And then they said that look could be closed as the enterprise could after the IGF 2024 digest the proposal text or norms and suggests new improvements. To them. And I don't think that this type of mechanism will turn the IGF into a negotiation platform, which is a fear from many stakeholders as texts alarms would not be binding. And I think this also solves one of the problems that we that we have is that the feedback feedback loop with the den arise is still deserves attention. Yeah, it's it's hard because the mag decides on the domain issues. The beginning of the year, January February, and then comes a call and then maybe it's too late to influence the agenda of the enterprise, and it's too late for the enterprise During the same year to discuss those issues and then prepare contributions to be taken to the IGF. Okay,
Flavio, I want to get Adam in here quickly and then we're coming up on the hour and I want to turn it to the broader open discussion. So if we move this along, thank you very much for that. Does. Adam just
have pretty much like the idea of adapting some NetMundial like process in exactly the way Flavio has said except I wouldn't like to see it replays, what happens in the IGF itself. I wouldn't want to lose the richness of best practice forums on gender on other things that are broadly out outside of my general you know, the work that I generally do and I expect many of us do and there will be many issues that we would all miss out on. If we if we didn't keep the IGF. We have tried over 2022 as the mag to respond to the themes of the global digital compact with an idea that the IGF would then be able to provide a contribution to that process. And that worked quite well. I think, probably until the IGF ended and I think we didn't then didn't know quite what to do. What do you do when you've had main sessions and working groups and so on? Producing relevant info, how do you bring that together in a way that can contribute as it as Andrea mentioned, the the outputs, or the documentation that we produce from the IGF aren't really suitable for that, which leads to another point, which is who's going to do that? Either. It's a professional staff and I'm always concerned about funding, and I can be very boring about it, and we'll be very happy to do so. I think it's important, I think, you know, anytime we have a good idea, and you can think about the recommendations we've heard from the UN Secretary General's process a couple of years ago about the IGF plus, if you don't cost these ideas, recommendations or just wish lists, right. So that is important. We could do a lot but we do need money to do it. And I think these are very good ideas. But the other thing we're finding is that intersessional processes the number of volunteers who are involved throughout the year are not high. There are a lot of people participating in MRIs, but there are not a lot of people participating in dynamic coalition's and best practice forums. We have other things to do so it you know, we need to realistic recognition that resources are important whether they're human beings or their money or whatever. But I would really like to see how net Monday our process might look work. See something in the chat from Andrew yet about who would validate this, these outcomes. I think you would validate it in the same way as you did. We did the net Monday hour which was to present to the room and call for the room. This is always difficult. We would now probably call to a hybrid room but there are ways of doing it. Never going to have full consensus. As we found in more detail when we met in person, part of the room remained seated rather than standing in acclamation. Yet the process went forward and you can always note dissenting voices with their point of view as well.
Thanks. Thanks. I want to open it up soon. So I usually like to have a half hour for open discussion. But before we do, Adrienne, you just wanted to get back real quick on what Adam was saying.
And thanks. Thanks, Bill. Yes, I'll be quick. I think I'm also just want to do a reality check on the net mondial. NetMundial window was great. It produced a great outcome statement. And where is it now? Not any place where it really should be? Because it wasn't able to cross over into the inter governmental space. So I think just just let's not be naive about how the world works. And having these multi stakeholder collaboratively produced outcome documents. They're great and they could be influential, but we need to think about the institutional challenges, challenges and channels. And then secondly, I think, Adam, I know we need money in the IGF. But there are lots of good ideas there was the IGF. The UN convened an expert group meeting earlier or early last year in New York. It's not the first time there are lots of proposals on how to make the IGF more effective, but they just never effectively implemented because the structure of the IGF is such that accountability isn't clear. There's no real governance or oversight that is public or transparent during the UN. You know, there's there's there's management and coordination, but there's no real political leadership and the capacity to actually make plans and produce results. You know, a little bit of results based management is what I would like to see in the IGF and an institutional structure. You know, in the early years of the IGF one, I think it really had a lot of impact when Marcus Guma was the Executive Secretary, there was something about that structure about having that person who was available to other stakeholders available to funders. And we took responsibility for the idea of actually living up to its potential at the moment that responsibility is very distributed. Between you and Tessa, the IGF Secretariat, the mag takes a little bit of it. Now the leadership panel takes a little bit of of it, but there's no real accountability for for implementing and introducing improvements, which we have lots of suggestions to do.
Okay, thank you, Andrea. So, you know, I wanted to close with a round about looking forward and how IGF engages with the broader digital governance space and so on, but I feel like we need to open it up. A number of people have sent me private messages wanting to save things and, and I see Ali's got his hand up already. So why don't we just do that and maybe people are responding to points and if the panelists can be concise and responding the points we can cover, cover a number of them, and hopefully we can feed in some that forward looking stuff as well. So okay, I see Ellie and Nigel have their hands up. They're restricting sent the message. I hope others will get in the queue as well. Ellie, go ahead.
Thank you. It occurred to me that see, since 2010, five or six, when when this all when we're in essence started. Not only did the themes evolve, but also the technology. So now we're here and we're talking to each other all over the world with presume, et cetera, and so the technology did not exist then and so IGF kind of met to be physically meeting in the physical meeting meant also that there was only one meeting a year because it was expensive and complicated to organize. But now we don't have to do that and I'm perfectly aware of the advantages of rubbing shoulders and, and shaking hands, etc, etc. Nevertheless, if you have something in Addis Ababa, I mean, who's going to come? It's selecting a location like that it's an exclusion. Now, I know you can. It's hybrid and you can participate but you create this kind of to class type system. Seems to me that, given the fact that we have so many themes, and we have the technology, why does it have to be meeting per year instead of having little smaller specialized focused meetings 234 times a year with broader membership, but possibly participation because it was different participation depending on the topic. This way you democratize you open, and you have more focus.
It should be noted, of course, that I just was not exclusionary free Africans and people in Europe and so on who couldn't get to it easily. But for Americans, maybe, but I talked about let's take a few questions and then go back to the group circle around so
I'm sorry, Bill, I have to disagree. You have to it's not just the geography. It's the question of where where's the kind of oil the people who participate? If you've got a lot of people in the international partners who are in California, it's extremely difficult for them to kind of travel these long distances. I know it's the other way around, too, which is why electronics makes a lot more sense than having to buy airline tickets.
Sure, it's the United Nations thing though. I went to a sovereign state bids to be the host, then there's a dynamic but anyway, got you. And we'll come back to your point, Sally. When people speak, could they identify themselves in case there are others who don't know them? Nigel Hickson from the UK Government? Nigel, go ahead.
Yes. Thanks very much, and I'll be very thank you so much, Bill and colleagues for hosting this session. Really important discussion. Just a couple of observations, one, totally agree with Adam and Henrietta and others that the strength of the IGF, as it has evolved has been in the national regional initiatives. I mean, these are what really drives many of us, I think, listening to these incredible conversations in countries where multi stakeholder processes you know, haven't been as embedded as others. Secondly, the intersessional activities and best practice forums, etc. Really incredible, you know, policy work going on there and bring people together. And thirdly, just to reinforce Bill what you just said, I thought the ad is added, but IGF was was incredible. It was one of the I have difficulty in sometimes remembering the ball. But, you know, for me, it was a great occasion and marvelous to see so many African participants from many, many different stakeholder groups. The question I think, really to the panelists is how we go forward, not just in the enhancing the effectiveness of the IGF, which of course, is is in training, if you like with the adoption of the high level panel, etc. But also looking forward to the whispers plus 20, your review process and the renewal of the of the IGF mandate during those discussions in 2025, and how we can really work together to ensure that we have a successful outcome to those discussions. Thank you. So much. And it's Nigel Hickson, UK, D dC, AMS which stands for the Department of Digital Culture, Media and Sport. How about that?
You guys get the the Award for Worst acronym. So congratulations there. So all these other people have been sending me a message anybody want to raise their hand and, and get in the queue and say something Larry, or Chris or other people. Please jump in. If you would like to add to the conversation, in a way everybody can hear why don't we have people respond? The panel respond to the two points that have been made so far, while others think. So Ellie raised a series of points about decentralizing and having more meetings, and so on sort of changing institutional structure to open it up more and Nigel raise a number. I don't have to repeat the points. So let me come back. Row. Why don't you respond to whatever bits you think, or you'd like to speak to? Okay,
thank you. I thought that you would open the discussion to more people I was expecting, I'd like to, but people aren't raising their hands. I see Laurie's hands on Oh, you do?
Well. Okay, good.
We're
good. I don't know what screen Larry's on, but I'm not seeing as Henry's
Nari is
nothing but Larry. I
see it. And obviously
sorry, you didn't pop up in my Sorry.
Go go. No, no worries. And I preface my comments by saying I have not attended an IGF since Geneva meeting like in 2018 or whatever it was, I can't quite remember it right around the holidays at the end of the year.
Can you say who you are for those who don't know? Oh,
Larry stripling, currently a neighborhood vagrant in the south side of Chicago. Prior to that, I was the administrator at NTIA for eight years during the Obama administration and was around for things like net one DLL and the I in a transition and wicked and all those wonderful wonderful times we had back in those days. When I first was interested in speaking on this, it was before Andre yet made her comments which I basically subscribe to near totally, which relates to the IGF and defining reasonable outcomes for IGF and then thinking about in terms of what are the the the opportunities for IGF to achieve certain outcomes short of actually making decisions and perhaps even making formal recommendations because we know that that process particularly the decision making process, is can be long can be expensive requires very intensive activity by a committed group of people who remain committed to the process for whatever period of time it takes. So one extreme you had the AI in a transition that cost in the 10s of millions of dollars in engaged several 100 people, and it took two years now there is no way that in a more informal group, like the IGF could even organize itself to conduct at that level of decision making activity. And at the end of the day, the end of transition basically was one question and five criteria. So it wasn't became very complicated. The original task was actually pretty simple, but it still took two years in I don't know how many millions of dollars to get to an outcome. I even think that the current structure of the IETF meetings as I remember them, and they may have changed, although I don't think they have makes it very difficult even to coalesce around a piece of paper with some recommendations on it. I mean, typically the the international meeting is a series of workshops and seminars where people come together for 90 minutes to two hours and then they go on to something else again, there has to be a certain level of continuity and commitment and engagement even to generate a single piece of paper with some recommendations on it. Those of us who were at net Monday owl will remember that was I think two or three very intensive days to generate a document and it would have involved people all focused on that one task, working late into the evening to generate a piece of paper that was able to be reviewed, and I don't want to say adopted but at least received feedback and endorsement by the participants there. And I think folks may not remember but there was an attempt to take the net Monday owl outcome document and create the net Monday out commission that foundered you know, after several months because of the lack of buy in by key stakeholders, as well as perhaps a little too much top down design in terms of what the what the commission ought to look like and what it ought to do. And so it won't, it abandoned some of its core commitment to bottoms up multi stakeholder decision making, by the way it was organized. So it makes it hard but let's come to the good features of IGF which Andrei yet talked about in great detail. It's a way to engage people who might not otherwise have an opportunity to be exposed to a lot of these issues. It's an opportunity to create an agenda as to what are the key issues people around the world are experiencing and want to hear from other folks to share ideas about how to approach it. It's an opportunity to create momentum about to see around six certain issues to make sure that other bodies may take them up in a more concrete and formal way. These are all incredibly valuable outcomes, and I do think their outcomes, and I think that's the strength of IGF and it would be where I would suggest focusing to continue to expand and burnish those outcomes. And to that point, I think, Ali's suggestion about how do you make this thing more open and available using modern technology that I think fits very well into the idea of the IGF as a as an organization that's going to bring people together, who perhaps don't have an opportunity to participate in some of these discussions where they live or work and expand the universe of people who can have the opportunity to participate and talk about these issues. So I think IGF can be very, very successful without rendering a single decision without necessarily rendering a single recommendation, but simply is in the in the with what it's done. Over the years. It's been very valuable. So sorry for the rant, and I will sit back and listen to the rest of
you. Wasn't the rant it was great except for you mentioning that Monday Oh initiative, which is Fight Club rule. We don't talk about the NMI. So all right, good. Let's take a few. I'm great to great to see tense up. So Paul and David and then I think we just lost somebody, Paul, David and then we'll circle back to the group. Go ahead, Paul. Paul's the chair in the mag Paul. Good.
So just just one point I I really resonate with Enrique comments and Larry's as well. But something we seem to have collectively failed to do is really captured the imagination and the interest and engagement of broader parts of the tech community that figure parts of the tech community that that are the ones that are making the market moves, that that really have direct impact. And I know people have talked about that for a long time trying to figure out what's the what's the best way to get that engagement. And we haven't I don't believe a perfect solution. And that is something that you know, in meetings last year, we spent time talking about cohesion and trying to make sure that we were cohesive in in our selection of sessions and topics. But we we continue to struggle I think with getting the caliber or the quantity of engagement from the larger parts of the tech community. And I think there's work to be done there.
Paul, perhaps you should say that you were that tech community for a long time.
Yeah, I was in the tech community, that tech community for a long time. And I would say that, you know, in, in the business decisions, the business decisions, drive everything and, and engage. The IGF engagement was always important. But not important enough to get, you know, over that over the hill to being truly leadership perspective.
I've always felt like there's not enough private sector engagement from beyond North America, myself, in some European but that is a whole nother issue. All right, we have a couple other people and then we'll circle back to the panel with the time remaining. So Chris Puckeridge and then David Allen.
Thanks, Bill. Hi, everyone. I'll be really very brief here because I'm agreeing with a lot of what's been said I think Paul just then made a really important point. And I think, actually, even in the technical community organizations, I work for RIPE NCC, one of the Regional Internet Registries Sorry, I'm also on the mag I guess I should mention that but I think even in some of those more traditional technical community organizations, we see that there are elements of the technical community now that are having in driving the the industry driving the technology that we're not connecting with. So there is that I hesitate to use the very overused word but there is that fragmentation mean, and the IGF itself is just one of the institutions that is having to grapple with that and find its way. I think, just responding to the sort of discussion that led kicked off there. I think. Absolutely agreeing with others have said the MRIs are important the intersessional work is important. There is it's important to have use digital tools and digital remote tools to meet but none of this is either or it. I think Addis was a great meeting and it really did highlight for me and I think for many of us, others who were there the importance of these physical meetings, the importance of bringing together people in such a sort of significant event like that. It's not it can be accessible to everyone. And that's the drawback of these events. It will always be that but it has its place and so we need to find a way to strike a balance and to use the best of what we have available to us to make
those integrated.
Thank you. Thanks, Chris. Yes, we have to remember the remote aspect. I mean, we've always had in the IGF strong remote participation support, and for people don't want to fly from Silicon Valley that, you know, they could join remotely. They don't. So, David, go ahead. I'm David Allen, in Concord mass. bring you a perspective from outside the beast. It goes back almost 25 years now. First, participating in with us and then coming forward through IGF today. I'm part of something that is just net coalition a group of 41 organizations around the world. I'm struck, again, looking back almost these 25 years, how the topic today is outcomes, because that was the principal topic at the beginning here. Could IGF have an impact myself I pick up on but on Riyadh pointed at just where's the power? To put it in terms of demand? There is a demand for IGF output. If the government's private sector are not looking for that implementable outcome. Maybe there's a reason why that has never solidified. Personally, I would suggest looking at another notion that Henrique crystallize, which is the noise. The noise is incredibly valuable. It bubbles up from the bottom. All those things that are getting missed. Higher levels. The suggestion I'll make here is that focus, but use the word in the way I'm intending it right now. Or IGF become not policies can we get implemented. But can we contribute to that discussion process that get there otherwise to value the noise? In other words, thanks so much bill for making this happen. Thank you, David. Alright, so you know, I'm gonna circle back now for two minutes each from each of the panelists, and then we'll wrap this up. We might go a couple of minutes over hopefully not and I'm gonna go in the order that people have raised their hands to mix things up. So hopefully you could pick up at some of the different points made by it. Le Nigel, Larry, all David, whoever else I'm forgetting. And also maybe also, if you've got any thoughts about looking forward in the broader Digital Agenda, who terrorists and others are pushing role of IETF and that that's helpful too. So whenever you got the start with Go ahead. PHIL Yeah.
So thinking a little you know, following on from Ali's point about suppose rarely, it's how do we make the IGF more hybrid and more all year round? Something that Andrea chair tried as the Chair in 2021 was to begin the development of a main session process main sessions usually reflect the themes of the year so sort of inclusive in that sense. And it was an attempt to begin preparatory sessions during that sort of two to three month period. Before we did the physical meeting happened. It was not as successful as we wanted, partly because it was hard work. It's over the summer in the Global North. And it's sort of like, we're all on holiday. But if there's a demand on volunteer time, but it could be made to work we could be looked at again, we do have a habit in the AGF of of trying things and not making them you know not not looking at them again. It was a very good
and so, so I do think that's worth looking at again, and it would it would give a way of including people throughout the year in the key parts of the process. Paul mentioned the tech community, and I think this is really beyond the technical community in the sense of the icons, the IETF, and the regional Internet registries. These are the companies that are based on technology. It's not even Silicon Valley. It's the banks, it's airlines. It could be anybody whose whole business model is dependent upon using any new technology, AI, for example, and I know that there are efforts in the leadership panel underway to start doing that. So that is good to hear. And hopefully we'll hopefully we will hear more about that over the coming months as the leadership panel develops. Thinking about the future was this plus 20. It's around the group. The review is around the corner we're getting there. There's even the potential for whether the IGF is worth continuing renewal, are they going to suggest something different or are we going to get as we had during the during the whispers a renewal of discussion about issues like hate to say it enhance cooperation that distracts us all again, from issues we should be talking about, which is the future of information, digital or whatever society we're talking about. So with this, let's think about it but be aware of the pitfalls. Let's not make it all about enhanced cooperation and whatever it is that some governments want to do with the technical layer and controlling it. It should be about much, and I hope it will be. So yeah, thanks very much. Thank you for putting this together, Bill.
Thanks, Adam. And a half cooperation will never die. Roll. Row you're here to buy?
Yes, yes. Yes. Thanks, sir. Two seconds. I'm here. Thank you very much. I wasn't at the IGF this year in Addis Ababa. I think it was a very good meeting. It was very well populated meeting is it's worse much than I expected.
And
then the level of participants and discussion was also very good. I think. They felt that we were discussing about the right things, the right topics. It was It is true that I was surprised by the decreasing participation of some classic stakeholders, many of them from the technical community community. I think that ICANN was an exception. That's where they are with a good a good team participate in and involved in discussions. But we still need to make those those discussions relevant for different stakeholders and especially for the decision makers in Russia. I think that there is a lot of work to do is improving the diversity. I'm very concerned about the lack of the low participation of stakeholders from Latin America. I think that Brazil is an action. They always are very committed and participating heavily but but we didn't see significant number of public officers from from Latin America and in the meeting, and, and some of the ideas that I think are very valid and very important the ideas that have been discussed here that we need connection with the with the main topics that are being discussed are around the world. We need more focus. That's the leadership panel can help on that. We also need to improve the diversity of the leadership panel. The idea of having some outcomes process had to name on the other side process on one or two topics every year. The very good for that we need that kind of closing session, the with the net, then we'll get to style. It will be a way also to attract the high level officers from governments to participate in that discussion. I understand the challenges and the changes in that we have seen since 2014 that Adam mentioned that the difficulty to have to ask for that kind of acclamation as we did in 2014.
Then and
finally, I think that's that's the ICO today. The mandate of IETF is renewed in 2000. It's in the 2025. But if if, if it is done to be combined with the allocation of resources from stable resources, beyond the money that is collected from donors, that is an important source of and I think that should continue because some organizations that are are collecting money from internal users or different stakeholder groups, for profit organizations to continue supporting IGF and but the but we also need some stability and sustainability and it's only warranted with the with the official the from from UN contribution to
that. Thank you very much. Well, okay, we reached the half hour so we're basically out of time. So let's try to be really really a Flavio and unreality if you could have last word very concisely and then we'll wrap up and and try and get out before too many people drop off for other companies. Flavio, go ahead
Good deal. So,
my final quick words. We did not have time here in the debate today to cover for instance, the global digital compact and of course, there should be a strong relationship between the US and the GDC. I would like to see the IGF as the focal point for starting out with further discussion and the formulation and follow up of the EDC. But as this process is already running in the UN system, I don't think this is achievable anymore, but maybe there is still time to dedicate a large number of sessions of the IGF 20 protein to the GDC not only in terms of content, but also the future role the IGF maybe regards for the GDC maybe it's still possible to give the IGF a prominent role in the follow up of the GDC for instance, in on the continuous assessment of results obtained by companies and other relevant stakeholders regarding the GDC goals to be formulated and remember the enterprise will build a formidable network of resources and expertise to help in this task of processing the goals of the UDC. So, it has already been said yeah the Nigeria for regional Terms of Reference are already 18 years old. They must be necessarily revise it and the whizzes plus plenty process, right moment to do that. The Internet has changed a lot in the meantime, do us a favor, who has changed in society and so on, so that the IGF modalities of work should be redesigned. And if we want to advance something new and align it with the goals or with the DGC and also produce more tangible outcomes than the they must be changes. And I hope that renewed the mandate includes a concrete measures for advancing the IGF role as a focal point for the duration as proposed by add IGF boost by the age level, high level digital cooperation for implementing some of the functions that have been proposed there and then towards the goals to be established by the by the GDC. And the community should start working together and develop a concrete proposal. Maybe, Chris, is there maybe the mind working group on IGF strengthening strategy could start, for instance, drafting a proposal for new IGF Terms of Reference contribution, including both new structures regarding the IGF Plus model and role in necessity GDC goals and implementing some of the improvements that have been already been proposed. Is this achievable? Yes. Well, we have two years ahead. To make it maybe we start drafting an initial proposal, see how they are received by the community relevant stakeholders and by the UN. And just to conclude, yes, money and thinking is essential. So deputy secretary,
but as
a result already very well commented here on the chat. We need institutional from the decision papers in this process.
Do you get the final word?
I'll try to be quick. Thank you, Bill. And thanks to everyone for really great input. And I think we need to seriously think about about what the value is and what the value add of the idea is and and what it really takes to continuously incrementally strengthen this, this this way of bottom up inclusive policy processes and with all its added you know, I think, I think we get how important that is. So I think Larry also said that really what's next, I think the IGF needs to clarify its identity and response channel and really assert the value of its original mandate and instead of in response to poorly articulated and I think politically motivated criticisms, such as not producing outcomes, and actually really assert the value of its original state and do what it does best better, instead of trying to do things that it might just not be suited to doing. Perhaps the idea of is better in my view for getting inputs and packing them monitoring them. And then producing you know, responses to that. For example, I saw the UK Government in our in our call, you know, their share their online safety book at the IGF and they've got that European Commission is doing that, you know, that's the value of the IGF is that bottom up crowd to deconstruct to unpack to critique don't get it, you know, to produce very sophisticated policy recommendations, although I think that can be done in a more focused narrow way using the institutional intersessional work. I think the issue of institutional what will is essential and institutional capacity, I think there's been a tendency to not really do strategic assessment of where the Secretariat needs capacity. And just to give them the book, the leadership panel that's a whole bunch of new work the IGF secretary has to deal with. And in fact, what I think the IGF Secretariat could be better off with is a person who deals with government who deals with the tech community, and really knows that relationship. So and then I think just finishing what it starts, I think Pj is very good at getting community input. And the community is very committed and provides that input. And I do not see the UN I do not see the mag Secretariat. And this is partly capacity. It's partly wool. Implementing, we have the expert group meeting, we have the working group strategy. We really need to see serious commitment from the UN, from USAID, from the Secretariat to taking that seriously. And Adam I really actually do not agree with you completely. And maybe this is because I come from civil society. We never have money. We only get money when we come up with decent strategies that meet real needs. And we come up with good plans, and then we get money. I think the IDF will get the money because I think the demand is there. It needs to have clear strategy, clear vision and good institutional world from from its its hosting institution,
as well. Thank you, Andrea, and your point about the relation with the United Nations. That's another topic I wish we could have gotten into but just not enough time for everything. I just want to close by saying this year's IGF is totally an October, though, is very much worth going to in October. I strongly encourage anybody who has the means to consider doing that. It's a lovely place. I want to thank everybody for their participation. Obviously there's much here to be said but not enough time. And we will talk and as I mentioned in February at the next session, I can what's going on with ICANN years after its independence. So I hope you'll come back and join us for that. And with that, I stop and I turn it over to Ellie for closing.
Thank you very much Bill and thank you very much speakers and participants. This is great. This is really interesting. And I think the importance of the IGF in my mind is because it is a unique approach for international collaborations that involves governments but not only governments controlled not by governments, not up community. So it's a really a very interesting model that could be important for other sectors to not just for ours. I think that's one of the important thing is kind of how do we teach others what we are experienced. But conversely, there are other efforts of rational forms of collaboration and cooperation, whether it's in taxes or an aviation or whatever it is. And in some ways, we should not become siloed and kind of learn from what works and what doesn't work. And that might make sense and make more effective with IGF does. So thanks very much for participating, all of you, and we'll see you in a month.
Thank you, Bill. Thanks, everyone.
Thank you very much. Thank you.
I always enjoyable.
My everybody. Well,
thank you, Bill for setting. Thank you. Bye bye.
Thanks. Thanks, everyone and greetings to the IGF Secretariat. So nice to see them on the call. DESA
