NRIs perspectives: Rights in the digital world (second segment)

Event report

[Read more session reports and live updates from the 12th Internet Governance Forum]

Read more: Our report from the first segment

The second segment started with the question ‘Can the multistakeholder model be an effective approach for making improvements?’ EuroDIG mentioned capacity building and collaboration with policy makers as good practices while decision making remained confined to nation state level.

IGF Spain stated that the digital rights problems could indeed be addressed successfully through multistakeholder collaboration, keeping in mind economical and rights based aspects which were also mentioned.

IGF Italy pointed to the requirement for government acceptance to truly apply the multistakeholder approach to processes, and reported that they were pressuring the government for more active participation.

IGF USA listed challenges such as changing people’s perspectives on the difficulty levels for participation in governmental processes, and how they are trying to change this through presenting a more informal route to participation.

IGF Afghanistan mentioned lack of local content, lack of certain technologies, excessive taxation, and government officials having business interests as topics that create challenges. Opaque financial structures between private and public actors were also listed as a problem.

IGF Argentina, who organised their second event this year, stated that the multistakeholder approach helped raise awareness, and helped human rights to be seen as an important part of policy making.

IGF Africa mentioned the relaxation of taxation for competition to reduce cost of services and products to consumers, secureICT infrastructure with open data policy for research and facilitation of access for all, capacity building and quality research, easy access to resources and application of appropriate technologies to encourage innovation, especially from youth and finally the transformation of school curricula to better equip young people to participate effectively in the digital society.

IGF Croatia stated they perceived the multistakeholder model that IGF brings as an important mechanism that could be efficiently mapped in the process of involving all stakeholders in dialogues and decision- shaping processes, and also the development of aculture of dialogue especially dialogue that involves different perspectives.

IGF Poland are trying to reach opinion leaders and other communities working on Internet of things (IoTs), but more attention was needed from small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

IGF Netherlands mentioned their strong commitment to the multistakeholder approach, the government is very willing and active in collaborating with other stakeholders.

The Youth LACIGF implements the bottom up and inclusive approach adopted throughout the entire process of organising and selecting of program topics, and fellows for their annual events.

IGF Asia Pacific highlighted the importance of not only creating an environment for participation but meaningful and educated participation, language diversity, respect to different perspectives while building capacity were also mentioned.
IGF Nepal underlined the importance of including persons with disabilities into the discussions on national and global levels.

Youth IGF Turkey pointed to the need of more awareness of what the multistakeholder approach is by the public in Turkey and youth’s willingness to participate and promote multistakeholderism once it was explained to them, and why it worked well with internet governance. The discussions at Benin IGF focused on costs, management of domain names and ccTLDs, which helped the government see the benefits of the multistakeholder approach.

IGF West Africa stated their aims to introduce francophone schools of internet governance.

The NRIs present at the session were IGF Afghanistan, IGF Armenia, IGF Brazil, IGF China, IGF Colombia,  IGF Croatia, IGF Democratic Republic of Congo,  IGF EuroDIG, IGF Benin, IGF Germany, IGF USA, IGF Kenya,  IGF Nepal, IGF Netherlands, IGF Nigeria,  IGF Panama,  IGF Portugal, SEEDIG, IGF Spain, IGF Sri Lanka,  IGF Tunisia,  IGF West Africa, Youth LACIGF, Youth IGF Turkey, IGF Africa, IGF Argentina,  IGF Ukraine,  IGF Italy, and IGF Dominican Republic .

Read more: Our report from the first segment

By Su Sonia Herring