Opening plenary: Global Internet Governance processes

EuroDIG Panel Emphasises the Need for Inclusive Internet Governance and Youth Engagement

During the 2024 European Dialogue on Internet Governance (EuroDIG), a panel discussion brought together a diverse group of stakeholders to explore the theme “Balancing Innovation and Regulation” within the digital sphere. Dr. Tawfik Jelassi from UNESCO set the stage by emphasizing UNESCO’s dedication to promoting digital innovation that is governed in a responsible and inclusive manner. He highlighted the organization’s focus on addressing critical challenges such as the digital divide, gender disparities, disinformation, and online hate speech.

The panelists, representing various sectors, unanimously supported a multi-stakeholder approach to internet governance, stressing its importance in ensuring that a wide range of perspectives contribute to shaping the future of the internet. This approach was deemed crucial for achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and for ensuring that digital governance is balanced with ethical standards and regulatory frameworks. Platforms like EuroDIG and the IGF were highlighted as essential for facilitating impactful discussions and for serving as a foundation for advancing internet governance.

Youth participation was a focal point of the discussion, with Izaan Khan, a EuroDIG 2023 Fellow, representing the youth perspective. Khan stressed the importance of youth involvement in governance discussions, noting that the multi-stakeholder model is what makes such inclusion possible. He expressed concerns about the potential shift from a multi-stakeholder to a multilateral approach, which could sideline youth and other stakeholders. Khan also critiqued the Global Digital Compact (GDC) consultation process for lacking genuine dialogue and for being opaque, which could lead to decisions that do not reflect the input of all stakeholders.

The Declaration of the Future of the Internet (DFI) was scrutinised for its strengths and weaknesses. While the DFI was recognised as a significant attempt to crystallise essential digital policy actions, concerns were raised about its lack of an accountability and enforcement mechanism. Khan softened his initial scepticism about the DFI, acknowledging its importance in allowing nations to signal their intentions. However, he maintained that without enforceability, the DFI risks being merely a signalling document.

The NetMundial 10 document was discussed as a potential tool for evaluating multi-stakeholder processes. Khan suggested using the Sao Paulo multistakeholder guidelines from NetMundial 10 to assess the effectiveness of the GDC process. He argued that the GDC process does not meet the criteria for a multi-stakeholder approach as outlined in the guidelines, citing issues such as power asymmetries, lack of deliberative discussions, and opaque decision-making.

The panellists called for action beyond mere declarations about the importance of platforms like the IGF and National IGF Initiatives (NRIs). Thomas Schneider from the Swiss government highlighted the need for stakeholders to be more serious about their commitments and to ensure that their actions reflect their rhetoric. He pointed out that even European countries are not immune to the shortcomings in implementing multi-stakeholder processes.

In conclusion, the panel underscored the need for a common language and understanding in internet governance to facilitate effective communication in multilingual and global settings. The discussion highlighted the importance of political engagement, adequate resourcing for local initiatives, and the need for tangible actions to strengthen internet governance frameworks. The panellists called for a more inclusive, transparent, and collaborative approach to shaping the digital future, with a strong emphasis on the active participation of youth and other stakeholders to ensure that the internet remains open, free, and empowering for all.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Let’s hear a video message from Dr.Tawfik Jelassi, who is the Assistant Director General for Communication and Information at UNESCO.

Tawfik Jelassi:
Ladies and gentlemen, distinguished guests, I am pleased to address you today at the 2024 European Dialogue on Internet Governance. UNESCO greatly appreciates this year’s theme, Balancing Innovation and Regulation. Both of these aspects, innovation and regulation, encapsulate UNESCO’s mission as we strive to harness the potential of digital transformation while ensuring it is governed responsibly and inclusively. UNESCO advocates leveraging digital innovation to enhance access to information and freedom of expression. At the same time, we address the challenges of the digital divide, gender disparities, disinformation and hate speech online. Our long-term partnership with Eurodig aligns perfectly with this mission. By providing a platform for impactful discussions on digital practices, policies and regulations across Europe and beyond, we can together explore how best to balance new ideas with new guardrails. Many of you present today have made invaluable contributions to UNESCO’s guidelines on the governance of digital platforms, reflecting our multi-stakeholder approach with over 10,000 inputs which we received. These guidelines are now being implemented by stakeholders around the world to achieve a more inclusive, secure and equitable digital environment. At UNESCO, we firmly believe that global digital cooperation is essential to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. We actively participate in UN processes and forums such as WSIS, IGF and the Global Digital Compact to promote a balanced approach to digital governance. Recently, UNESCO assumed the role of Chair of the UN Group on the Information Society. This inter-agency mechanism coordinates policy issues and mainstreams ICT for development. It supports countries in achieving the WSIS goals and scoring our commitment to a digital ecosystem that fosters both innovation and regulation. Central to our efforts are the Internet Universality Indicators, which focus on building Internet applications based on human rights, openness, accessibility and multi-stakeholder governance. We launch next December at the IGF our second-generation Internet Universality Indicators, which address contemporary challenges. I warmly invite EuroDIG stakeholders to engage in this process and contribute to this global collective tool. As we advance multi-stakeholder initiatives, like the newly established IGF Dynamic Coalition on Measuring Digital Inclusion, UNESCO reinforces its commitment to inclusivity and accessibility within global digital policies. This coalition aims to enhance awareness and capacity to apply and monitor frameworks such as the Sustainable Development Goal on public access to information. To address the growing digital gender divide that threatens to leave millions of women and girls behind, especially in Africa, the coalition focuses on gender inclusion and mainstreaming gender transformative policies. In conclusion, I wish to emphasize that for UNESCO, EuroDIG is much more than just a conference. It represents an important, open and inclusive multi-stakeholder platform where diverse voices come together to exchange views and shape the future of the Internet and its governance. UNESCO deeply appreciates the collaborative spirit of EuroDIG. Together we can create an environment where digital innovation thrives, while guided by ethical standards and regulatory frameworks that protect and empower all members of society. I look forward to our continued collaboration.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you very much. I think that we heard a lot about multilateral approach, and therefore I think without further ado I would like to continue our discussion with different organizations from private sector, from international organization, and me myself as a representative from the political side. It would be very interesting to discuss further, so I would like to invite all panelists, Ms. Mirjam Kühne, RIPE Chair, also Mr. Thomas Lamanauskas, please applaud, Deputy Secretary General of the International Telecommunication Union, Mr. Izaan Khan, EuroDIG 2023 Fellow, and Mr. Pearse O’Donohue, Director of Future Networks, Directorate of DG Connect at the European Commission Online, and Ms. Lise Fuhr, Director General, European Telecommunications Networks Operations Association, also will join us online. I hope on technical part everybody is ready, so I would like to start with three minutes introductions from all the different organizations and your takeaway messages on global internet governance processes and your personal perspectives, so if we may start from Tomas Lamanauskas and then others can catch up, and maybe on the digital side colleagues will help us to moderate who will be further.

Tomas Lamanauskas:
Thanks very much, Agne, and thanks all, it’s great. I feel I’m sitting here the whole day on the podium here today, so it’s a great feeling. So first of all, indeed, I think the biggest context of our discussion today is, of course, the Summit of the Future Global Digital Compact that we are looking forward to September to be adopted there and having discussion there, so I think, of course, this feels in many ways like a new moment, but I think for us, of course, from ITU, which will, by the way, a reminder, will be celebrating 160 years next year, a lot of those things don’t feel that new, you know, just a reminder, we feel that all our history was about governing groundbreaking technologies, from telegraph, that was super groundbreaking at that time, to radio spectrum, to the satellites, which actually managed to regulate three years after, sorry, 60 years after the first satellite was launched, to mobile broadband, to internet, and so on. And there were a few rules there, first of all, standardization, key importance of standardization, but second is multi-stakeholder. Actually, you know, we allowed private sector to join ITU since 1868, and actually our first conference where private sector participated in, and that company is still our member, was 1971. So I think this has a lot of things that are new, but also I think there’s a lot of things to learn from the history. Now, WSIS process. When we think WSIS process was agreed in 1998, and started, and then summits were 2003-2005. So 1998 was when internet was booming, 2003-2005, those who remember, when internet busted, no? So it was also as groundbreaking time where we didn’t know where the things will go, you know? Why, how important will be this technology for us? We knew it’s groundbreaking, but we didn’t know where it will land. And at that time, we managed to come together and say we need to be together, that means, you know, all the stakeholders. We need to be together, that means all developed countries, developing countries around all the world, and we need to make sure that this technology is available for all. And we agreed on that. And I think in many ways, these principles stand the test of time, you know? So, you know, being together, figuring out together, both all the countries and all the stakeholders, and then adding one element here, which WSIS also added, integrating the overarching human rights frameworks into that, making sure that it’s, the technology is not for the technology’s sake, but for the sake of the people, and with a certain value system there. Of course, now we are standing in the place where this new technology, artificial intelligence, that we’re all talking about, it raised fears, and sometimes when someone talks about AI, it feels that we all think about Terminator, when we talk about the Terminator, when we talk about AI, but it also has other opportunities, you know? So indeed, you know, that to the global economy, we say 4.4 trillion, you know, US dollars can be added, you know, like climate change, and so on. So it’s, but of course, the biggest question here, how we harness that for all, you know? How, again, make sure that this technology works for all, and of course, again, we’re talking about a huge amount of divides, from divide in the data sets, we just discussed, I think, with the youth, divide in policies, because we have a lot of countries, I think 85% of the countries don’t have any regulations, and more than half don’t have any policies. We talk about value chain, and we talk about so many other aspects, so I think we, again, need to harness that, but I think here, and again, here, I think we need to have new solutions, but it doesn’t mean, necessarily, that all the process should be thrown away and reinvented, you know? We really need to think how we use those processes, and here, I’m very happy, and Thomas is in front of me, another Thomas is here, Thomas Schneider, who was representative of a chair of WSIS, just, you know, for a week, two weeks ago, you know, we had the WSIS plus 20 event, together with the AI for Good Summit, 8,000 people came together, and we kind of confirmed a few things, first of all, that the framework is still very important, and we shouldn’t duplicate, but we should build on, and I think this also, I’m very, you know, very happy that, you know, Carol mentioned the, you know, ITU Council, where Secretary General came, Secretary General said the same thing, and now our ITU Council now also asked us to really provide an input, but also provide that input, bringing all the stakeholders, so I think, I think, for me, that’s kind of all lessons, we need to build on what we have, we need to make sure that what we have, we don’t throw out, because it’s not easy to build, to bring the stakeholders together, it’s not just like saying, just come, you know, you actually need to make sure that it’s meaningful, you need to make sure that all the countries involved are very happy that our AI Governance Day, we have more than 50 percent from developing countries, you know, so that’s very important, and need to build on the value systems that we also build over the time, such as human rights standards, so thank you very much.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you, Thomas, for your insightful approach, let’s move now to the video side, maybe Lise could take up on Thomas’ message as well, please.

Lise Fuhr:
Thank you very much for inviting me, and sorry not to be there in person, I look forward to discussing many of the important global internet governance processes that are taking place this year. Thomas has already mentioned part of them, but ETNO, just for your knowledge, represent the European telecoms, and our members have a global and international footprint, and we believe that a globally open and interoperable internet is key for operators, businesses, and our members have therefore been a long time involved in global digital leadership for this reason. Part of what I’m doing as Director General in ETNO is that I’m also a member of the leadership panel of the IGF since 2022, and I’ve been part of the high-level committee in NetMundial plus 10 earlier this year, and with both NetMundial and also the WSIS plus 20 high-level event already behind us this year, we will have several important processes to look forward. We have, including Summit of the Future and the GDC, also IGF, and of course this EuroDIG is extremely important of all of this. To me, and for ETNO, there are three main messages I would like to talk about today. One is that ETNO and the European telecommunication operators community, we support, and we have always supported, a strong multi-stakeholder model of governance for the internet, and we think, and this is important, there should not be only one loud voice. We need to have many diverse voices contributing to how we think the internet is governed, or should be governed. Second, I think there is no internet without adequate investment in network infrastructure. Today, as we see, even in rich areas as Europe, we are not where we should be, and if we look at the shift to 5G and fibre, we think that if we leave millions of citizens behind, we have not done a good service to inclusion, so this is going to be important for the future. And the third and last is that emerging technologies such as AI and quantum networks, we believe these benefit greatly for us like EuroDIG, but also internet governance forum, and in this context, also as a proud European myself, I’m also convinced that the voice of the EU, with its values and human-centric approach, is even more important also for the future. So, I look forward to our fruitful discussions in such an essential time. Thank you.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you very much. You can hear me? Maybe you can move back to the real-time panelist, and Ms. Mirjam Kühne, RIPE Chair, could also share your thoughts.

Mirjam Kühne:
Thank you, and thanks for the invitation. I’m sorry for my voice, I hope it’s going to hold, and I have a bit of a cold. A lot of good things have already been mentioned. I want to actually focus a little bit on the community that I’m coming from, which is the RIPE community, and that means the network operators, mostly in Europe, but also basically worldwide. And I want to use that as an example, basically some principles and some values that are important to us, and I think that we can also bring to the table in the internet governance discussion that we have. We’re not quite as old as the ITU, but we just celebrated our 35th anniversary, so the network operators forum in Europe is like 35 years old. And one thing that’s very important to us is openness and transparency, so we’re not even a membership, we’re not an illegal entity, we’re just an open forum, and anybody can participate, subscribe to the mailing list or any other communication channels, and all our information and documentations and decisions are publicly available, accessible for free, and so that’s really important to us, and we subscribe to that from day one. Another important aspect, I think, and that’s also something many of you have mentioned here, is the value of collaboration and coordination, and in fact that was the main reason that the RIPE community even started back in the day, to coordinate certain technical aspects between the IP networks that were just starting at the time, because the early network operators, and also the operators today obviously, realized that they need to coordinate certain things, otherwise their networks wouldn’t connect, and we wouldn’t have that network of network, and not the internet as we… as you know, today. So they came together and kind of started to coordinate these things and collaborate with each other, even though most of them are actually competitors. And that’s really deeply rooted in our community, that type of collaboration, that type of necessary coordination of certain parameters and values and aspects that are necessary to connect these networks. And there’s something, the pandemic is always mentioned as a good example of that, because if you wouldn’t have had the community or the collaboration already established for so many years and people know each other, it might have been more difficult to coordinate the additional bandwidth and other shifts of routing and so forth that was necessary to actually keep the network running relatively undisrupted for most of us as users. Another good example I think was, last year was a presentation here by the Keep Ukraine Connected, which is an initiative that comes out of our community basically to keep Ukraine connected and help with equipment and expertise. And that’s basically, that was possible because we have this community and we’ve been working together for so many years and people know, knew each other and knew who can contribute what. I’m just using this as an example to kind of emphasize also the importance of just getting to know each other. And like we do here, right, this is also another open community that’s important to further, we can build on basically for further projects. And the last one, last value I wanna mention is basically our expertise. I mean, if you think of it, the internet is really still quite young. I mean, most of the people that have, some of the people that have created and built the internet, they’re still around, they’re still contributing, they’re still part of our community. And of course, also those who are now, nowadays maintaining and further developing and growing the internet, they have all tremendous amount of expertise and experience and they’re always happy to share with others. So we should not forget that. And I think we all need to, we talked about this earlier, we need to respect each other’s expertise. I’m not going to tell like a politician, so you need to understand all aspects of the internet technology, just like I’m not gonna become a diplomat tomorrow. But I think we need to respect each other’s expertise and, I’m sorry, and build on that so that we can come to the best possible conclusions. I better stop talking now, so. Sorry about that. Thank you very much.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
But very interesting insights and I totally agree that everybody needs to do their job and to share their expertise. But there is still a lot of room to talk with the politicians as well and all the organizations to better understand each other. So now I would like to move on to the representative from DG Connect, obviously at the European Commission, to hear your couple of points to these messages from the European Commission.

Representative DG Connect:
So good afternoon, everybody. I hope you can hear me. I’m very, very sorry not to be there. Please consider that the fact that we are not to the European Commission is not able to be there physically. This does not mean at all disengagement or lack of interest. It’s simply because we’ve got a calendar, as you know, in the life of the institutions that in this period it is particularly heavy and important. That’s one of the reasons also why Pierce could not be here with you today. So my name is Fabrizio Benigni. I’m deputy head of unit, sorry, head of unit in the Internet Governance Unit in DJ Connect. And indeed, I would like to share with you the positions that you are already familiar with. We are amongst friends, but that doesn’t mean that our voices and our commitment need to be any less louder. You know that the Commission and Europe in general is engaged in the digital transformation, both businesses, governments, and society in general, but does not do that in a vacuum. It does that around a set of principles of founding principles and rights of the individuals that are enshrined and that regulate and frame each of our initiatives that you saw that in the AI Act, you saw that in the Data Act, and you saw that in the various activities that we have around connectivity. Being people-centered is an important aspect. It’s a founding value, founding European value, and technology is there to serve the movement, not vice versa. And recently, the European Council has tasked us, has tasked the Commission and the High Representative to create a practical and forward-looking plan to strengthen the EU role in EU affairs. This means our voice collectively, as the institutions and the member states, must be clear, must be loud, and must reaffirm the principles on which our common understanding is based. And again, the Telecom’s conclusions now recently in May ask the Commission to develop a strategy on multi-stakeholder governance of the internet with a common position to uphold in international fora to promote an internet that is open, free, affordable, neutral, global, interoperable, reliable, and secure. It seemed to be a series of words that are repeated over and over again, but unfortunately, they are not implemented worldwide, and there are threats to this type of approach. And so this year, more than ever, this year and next year, it is important that we reiterate this support to the multi-stakeholder governance. And of course, Eurodig is a founding, a cross stone in that process, and very important that you have brought us all together today. Now, the relation between the GDC and the YSYS plus 20 can be intricate and potentially contentious. We think that it does require careful management, and we very much hope and would like to preserve and strengthen the IGF. Strengthening and preserving does not mean recognizing that it can be improved, that it can be supported better. But as we saw just now in the intergenerational dialogue, it is crucial to have a place where the conversations need to take place between the different communities. Many times, the communities don’t know what each of them is bringing to the table or is wanting from the table, and so therefore, we need to have a place where that conversation takes place. This is so very important because the interconnection of digital and the way it’s one issue, one technical issue affects others, and then affects the way that human rights are developed as Thomas was explaining in the previous panels, but also the way democracy simply develops. I think it deserves all our attention. Now, we were very encouraged by NET Mondial, and thank you to Lisa for the work that you’ve done there together with others. We were encouraged because the guidelines came out, so a practical approach. Basically, we really need to map the road ahead because it’s becoming very intricate. So to conclude, no duplication, great attention going forward, reinforcement, improvement of the efficiency of the IGF, no duplication, and therefore, building on the current capacities, but making sure that they continue to be relevant and that they continue to be relatable to the community. We are building this for the next generation. The next generation must be part and parcel of this decision-making process, and their voices must be clearly heard. Thank you so very much.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you very much for such clear messages that I was heading towards, and I’m very happy that European Commission has a clear voice in the sense, and of course now, Izaan, what do you think and your community generally thinks of what is going on right now and how it will solve out in the future?

Izaan Khan:
Sure, thank you for inviting me here. I’m not sure if everyone saw what happened, but I thought it was like a very metaphorical and symbolic thing, which is that I, as a member of the youth community, was invited to sit on this panel, and the mic that was there in front of me got taken away, which I think is a kind of interesting parallel to what might happen if we’re not vigilant in terms of… I mean, we’re sharing the mics, but I’m just… We’re in this together, Izan. Absolutely, I mean, it’s just the imagery of it was just so profound in my mind that I felt that I had to make a comment about that, because it’s just something that could happen if you’re not in a community with supportive people who actually want the multi-stakeholder process to move forward. And I think this is something that I mentioned in a previous panel as well. The youth isn’t necessarily a monolithic group. All of us have very different opinions. If you see the actual process of the development of the youth take messages behind the scenes, you’ll actually note that there is a lot of substantive debate, a lot of healthy and active debate as well that goes behind the scenes, to the point where you end up with a common ground that really, really reflects the core of what the youth actually care about. And throughout my… You had mentioned, Agnes, actually, that you want to focus on personal experiences as well. I got into the internet governance community completely by accident. I cared about digital rights. I found out about the IGF in 2021. And so I went in with no context and no clue whatsoever. And it started off as an alphabet soup, essentially. There is your IEEEs, your ICANNs, your TCPIPs, and so on. It’s kind of difficult for individuals, especially from the youth community, that are not necessarily technical or geeky enough to have researched all of this beforehand, to penetrate through. But one thing that comes out after any young person goes through these processes is the fact that the only reason they’re able to go through these processes is because of the multistakeholder paradigm of internet governance. And it’s because all of the decisions that are ultimately being made with technologies that affect our digital futures need to have the individuals who will be impacted by those decisions in the future involved in the discussions as well. And that’s what multistakeholderism basically guarantees, in a sense. And the symbolic imagery that I was worried about essentially was something that we covered in the Youthdig messages last year as well, which is that we didn’t want any back doors towards global internet governance processes. We wanted it to continue to remain driven by multistakeholder interests and not, as we were worried at the time, multilateral interests. And that’s something that is continuously being reflected in the Youthdig messages throughout as well. And in terms of my own personal experiences, particularly with the Global Digital Compact, which is an experience that I think is shared amongst the members of the Internet Society’s Youth Standing Group and the Youth Coalition on Internet Governance, as we were responding to the initial consultations of the GDC last year, was the fact that there is no significant dialogue. We are able to participate in the same way that other organizations are able to participate by responding to consultations with extensively lengthy documents and occasionally being able to have a three-minute slot at an informal consultation session where you get to say something, but nobody ever actually responds to you. You’re just one in a long line of many speakers who are actually speaking, while the real conversations are being driven in a multilateral sense in intergovernmental negotiations. And so the risk that we face and the risk that the youth is very, very keenly aware of, even if they might disagree on other things, the one thing that they are absolutely united and absolutely keen to prevent is that being completely led by multilateral interests. And so I’m happy to cover this in greater detail, particularly in light of the Sao Paulo multi-stakeholder guidelines that came out that provide a very useful yardstick to measure how well the GDC is actually performing as a multi-stakeholder process, if it can be considered as such. But that is a combination of my own personal experiences, as well as the experiences of those that I’ve had the absolute pleasure to share time with across all these different conferences. Thank you.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you very much. So now I have four blocks of questions and I will just ask anyone to jump in if you have something to add. Some of the questions obviously are dedicated for one or another stakeholder groups, but it might be very interesting for the multicultural purposes to hear from other perspective as well. So I will start with a question from the global digital compact kind of block of questions. What should be the roles of the Internet Governance Forum and the national and regional IGFs such as EuroDIG in advancing the GDC’s commitments and calls for action? Please, Tomas. And later, Lise, I see.

Tomas Lamanauskas:
Thank you. Of course, I would add WSIS Forum as well to that list. But then I think what we really believe, I think that WSIS Framework, which is composed of IGF, Regional Internet Governance Forums, and as well as places like WSIS Forum, is a powerful implementation tool for GDC. We see GDC as a moment in time where we take a stock where we are, what are the challenges of today in terms of digital cooperation, what is ambition that we need to achieve, but then we hope that we can come back to the platforms that we already built and allow those platforms to then help us to implement and achieve that ambition. And then those platforms have demonstrated, on all those platforms have demonstrated that it can adjust with the time. Now IGF has grown with the time and different with intersectoral activities, with dynamic coalitions, with leadership panel, with other pieces as well. With the WSIS Forum, we also kind of made sure that we really build up that system where there is a WSIS Action Alliance have a clear implementing agencies. We have United Nations Group and Information Society where agencies come together to really work on joint program. But also we made sure that we integrate new technologies. For example, this year, we intentionally did AI for Good Summit with the WSIS Forum in the same week. And sounds very simple decision, but then we said, look, the AI for Good Summit, that’s where technologists and private sector comes. And WSIS Forum, that’s where civil society comes with the governments. We actually need those to be together. And we made that in one week and we had an amazing exchanges because of that. So I think, and that doesn’t come natural. So I think sometimes people think you can just kind of decree things into being, but I think that system that we’ve developed is there and we need to leverage that for implementation of GDC.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
So as I understood that first step is to bring everyone in one place. That’s where we starting off. Thank you, Tomas. Lise, I see you raise your hand, please.

Lise Fuhr:
Yes, I do. Because as a part of the leadership panel, of course, IGF is extremely close to my heart. And I think the Internet Governance Forum is in a unique position because they bring together diverse types of communities together. So they have discussions every year in different ways and with a lot of different. stakeholders, and they do it in a truly bottom-up, multi-stakeholder fashion. We have seen that the IGF has grown the last 20 years, so in Kyoto, the IGF last year, we had more than 9,000 participants, and this year the IGF is meant to attract the same. And if you look at the IGF system, the EuroDIG is part of this system. We have a lot of national and regional IGFs, and those are more than 170, and they feed in to the international IGF every year. So if you look at the involvement of the different stakeholders, I would love the IGF to be the place where the GDC and the follow-up to the GDC and others could be the place. And of course, IGF is not necessarily perfect, but as a leadership panel, we’re working on making this much more efficient, and together with Carol, who’s also leading the MAG, together with the MAG, we’re working on trying to see how we can enforce and make IGF stronger. And I think IGF has for many, many years dealt with issues not only on internet governance, but all the technologies around it, so all emerging technologies. We have taught AI, we have taught quantum computing, we have taught many topics for years, and as you see on your own agenda this year of EuroDIG, it’s actually adapted to fit the needs of the communities involved, and that is, for me, the particular strength of the way these organizations and these meetings are built. So of course, I think they would be perfect to advance on the GDC’s commitments and call for actions. Thank you.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you.Mirjam , you would like to add?

Mirjam Kühne:
Yeah, just briefly, I want to add what I said earlier already about it takes time and effort and energy to build these kind of communities and to build these forums, and I think we should really base our efforts on the existing structures that we have built over the last few years, like the IGF and like EuroDIG here, and I think somebody mentioned earlier also it would be a waste of energy and finances also to create new forums and to have to participate in all those as well. It’s really hard enough for technical community, youth, civil society, and other stakeholders to follow all the discussions as they are now. Imagine there will be other forums being created, and from a technical perspective, we always talk about decentralization, it’s a good thing, yes, maybe in the infrastructure sense, but not like fragmenting or duplicating a debate, I think would not be useful, because then we would fragment the community as well and the trust and the relations that we’ve built over the years.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you very much. So now I’m moving a bit on the CISPAS20, sorry, oh, there is a hand, so sorry, of course, as always, the floor is to the European Commission. As always, that’s dangerous. Thank you very much.

Representative DG Connect:
No, I just, of course, I agree with what the previous speakers have said, just perhaps two things. So, indeed, IGF to be the place where we follow the implementation, but also where we evaluate the quality of the implementation. There are two aspects of that when you talk about evaluation, so that helps you promote. One is the quantification. You have to be able to measure what it is that you’ve achieved in terms of the voices around the table. There has to be some way to measure whether what has been proposed has in any way been followed up. And that goes to the point that Izan was making at the beginning, the sort of feeling that, you know, I’m just a number in a very complex process full of acronyms, and this has no, in fact, relevance. So for the community to stay strong, it needs to be relatable. What you are doing and what you’ve achieved needs to be relatable. And to do that, you need to have an evaluation mechanism of sorts. Now, that’s to be agreed, of course, amongst everybody. And this also implies resources. It doesn’t come cheap to do all of that. It does require some sort of resources. But the recognition that there needs to be a follow-up, a clear follow-up of what has been agreed and what has been put forward, I think that that’s key going forward. Of course, standing the principles that we’ve said before, no duplication and indeed a place to implement. Thank you.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you very much. Now, moving a bit to the FSYS plus 20, and my question is, what would you like to see as one of the main outcomes of the FSYS plus 20 review? Or in other words, what do you think can’t be lost in the FSYS 20 review? No, no, no. We will start from the youth. Now. Izaan, please.

Izaan Khan:
I appreciate that. Thank you. So over and above the obvious renewal of the IGF’s mandate, I think one of the interesting things when I was doing research on this topic was that for WSIS plus 10, there was a little bit of a note in it, like just sort of acknowledging NetMundial that had taken place before. I think one of the things that I think would be really interesting to see this time around would be like an acknowledgement, if not a positive acknowledgement of the Sao Paulo multistakeholder guidelines as a way to basically measure the effectiveness of any sort of multistakeholder process going forward, given that there is an historical precedent for the two to actually be linked together, essentially. Another thing that I found out in the, if you look at the commitments contained within the first revision of the zero draft of the Global Digital Compact, is that there is an explicit call, apparently, for the WSIS plus 20 review to consider how youth perspectives can be incorporated in the effort for the WSIS itself to support the compact’s implementation. Which is an interesting thing to think about, because realistically, the only way that youth support can actually be sought is if the youth agree substantively with what’s been said in the commitments contained in the Global Digital Compact. You can’t actively have the youth participate in some sort of way that will be reducing the scope of their involvement going forward, or putting it in the backseat. So one of the things that I think definitely cannot be missed from a youth perspective would be to essentially see how they exactly plan to make that happen in the context of what the GDC is going to be putting forward. So I think that would be quite interesting, and something that I personally, as well as a lot of young people here, would be quite keen to see. Thank you.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
So, in other words, just to also, once again, to understand the execution process, how it’s going to be measured, and how you can see the process going on further within real outcomes. Tomas, you wanted to add?

Tomas Lamanauskas:
Thanks a lot. You know I always have something to say. But indeed, I think the few things I’ll start with are what to preserve, and I think there’s a few already mentioned, but I think it’s good to reiterate, because first of all, the multistakeholder nature of the process, second is inclusivity, especially including the developing countries as well, and make sure it’s a truly universal framework. And these both things, as we said here, but I think it’s worth reiterating, don’t come as given. We learned hard way, just opening the door, saying everyone can come, doesn’t mean they will come. There’s a question whether they actually have resources to come, whether they have capacity to come, whether they have jargon to be able to participate in the debate, and that kind of takes time to build. And then of course, human rights and ethical frameworks that are also ingrained now in the process as well. So I think there’s definitely something to preserve. Now in terms of, of course we need then to adjust the framework to fit the new technology development, but I think this is more, for me it’s like a pit stop, reviewing what’s happening and adjusting it. I think it’s the time, and our council also asked for inputs, to review WSIS action lines. Maybe at least the wording on them, but also substantial, what needs to be new included, how these new challenges need to be reflected, how new technologies like AI impact that. We really need to, it’s the time to review them. We didn’t do the radical review in WSIS plus 10, we just kind of looked at them, but we didn’t review them. I think now is probably the time, 20 years later to review. And one, this may be a superficial thing, but I think sometimes, why trigger so many questions for search for the new? I think we probably will need to have a discussion about branding, you know, because even Secretary General and I, two councils, had trouble pronouncing WSIS, and I don’t blame him, you know. So, and I think that’s something that, of course, we need to also understand. You know, I think people are a little, sometimes, you know, things like digital, digital cooperation galvanizes people when WSIS sounds like something from the old times, you know. So I think we also, as a community, it’s fine for us to recognize that and re-galvanize ourselves by agreeing both on new branding and a new direction as well.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you very much. I think that what you mentioned, well, it’s very, very important, especially in the fact that how we understand all the notions and how we speak in the same language. I think that’s really, really important, and especially in the oldest organizations, it’s very important to look how we can make it easier a bit to understand each other on this matter as well. So if I do not see any hands on this question, I then move on. And I would like to ask, obviously, about Declaration of the Future of the Internet. What are the main strengths and weaknesses of this declaration, what you recognize at the moment? Who wants to, please, please, please, it’s, the floor is yours, Sam. Sure. I’ll be short and punchy about this.

Izaan Khan:
I used to have a relatively skeptical opinion regarding the DFI in terms of its potentially fragmentary nature. But I’ve softened up mainly because I think the language and the commitments contained within it are quite important for nations to be able to signal. However, it is essentially a document that would have been so much more stronger had it had an accompanying accountability and enforcement mechanism to hold the nations to account. Because we are seeing, quite interestingly, nations that are signed up to the DFI who are also members of the G77 who have recently put forward an input to the GDC that undermine multi-stakeholderism and effectively try to redefine the GDC processes as being completely nation-state led. So I think it would be interesting, and it was mentioned earlier today by Estevez-Sanz that there is going to be a tracker of sorts, so that’s one positive step forward in terms of being able to hold states to account and monitor it. But unless this has any teeth, I feel that it’s still basically going to be a signaling document as opposed to something that could meaningfully bring together nations to commit to something like this if they can just frankly ignore it.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you. Izaan. Lise.

Lise Fuhr:
I hope I’m unmuted now, thank you. I must say I agree with very much what Izaan was saying. And this is a document that has very good intentions, has some very good parts in it. So it’s not that it’s a bad document. It’s just a document that was made in a multilateral way and not a bottom-up and multi-stakeholder way. And I think it is touching upon a lot of the issues that the GDC is trying to touch upon. The leadership panel, we’re trying to build a framework called the Internet We Want. So it’s very, to me, we’re trying to have too many documents and too many different commitments and it would be nice to have a collective understanding of how we perceived the Internet We Want. So I’m also, of course, making a bit of advertisement for our frame document or framework, the Internet We Want, that the leadership panel has consulted the different stakeholders with, including the states. I think everyone are important, but we should try and make a document that can be used in a practical sense, meaning that we can measure what kind of progress and development we’re doing. Thank you.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you very much. And I have the last block of questions to touch upon. To what extent did NetMundial 10 make a difference, especially in the relations with ongoing GDC and CIS Plus 20 processes? Anyone who would like to add upon this? I think Fabricio still wanted to add something. Oh, yeah.

Representative DG Connect:
Well, I’m sorry, I’m always a little bit offbeat. It was on the previous question on the DFI. So sorry, please, please. I think the DFI is a very notable attempt to crystallize and list what it is that we think is absolutely important to do. I agree that, of course, it would benefit from a tracking instrument that is going to be put in place, but it would, of course, even more benefit from a compliance mechanism. But that is in the hands of those that are members of that declaration, that have subscribed to it. And my only regret is that there are not enough G77 members. Now, of course, to be a member, it is true that you need to do uphold and to practice what you preach. And that is not always the case, as we have seen. But it is important to bring issues to the surface. And it is important before talking about enforceability to say, OK, I care about impact on human rights. I care about how standards will affect human rights. Thomas was talking about that earlier on. And I care about how exactly all of this is going to affect SDG goals and exactly how it is affecting sustainability. It has to be practical, but, you know, there is scope for it to improve. Absolutely. But that does depend on who’s a member of it. Thank you.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you. Lise’s hand, please.

Lise Fuhr:
Well, that was back to your NetMondial question. And of course, I’m deeply biased here as part of that conversation and part of making the statement itself. I think the NetMondial plus 10 to me was important because it was a recommitment of the statement that was made back 10 years ago. It even took it a step further and make it into a more practical document about how can we best incorporate multi-stakeholder processes, how do we see multi-stakeholder processes being used in different organizations and different situations. I think it comes at a good time where GDC is an important document and also of course being consulted but not in a way what I would call true multi-stakeholder way and I would have liked to see it being done like that. Of course it is difficult for some states and some UN member to deal with the multi-stakeholder model because of the way they govern their countries. But it is important to have for me a vision of trying to push the multi-stakeholder model as far as we can and to as many issues within technology as we can. And I think the Net Mondial statement, the Net Mondial plus 10 statement was and is a very good tool to help that process.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you. Thank you very much. Since I do not see that anyone, please.

Izaan Khan:
Earlier today there was I think a really interesting idea by Tom Schneider to basically use the Net Mondial plus 10 outcome document, the guidelines and the process steps contained within it as a metric to evaluate how multi-stakeholder a particular process actually is. And so I went through the guidelines and the process steps and I tried to think subjectively about my experiences engaging with the global digital compact process and thinking does it actually meet the criteria contained in the Sao Paulo guideline document. And I just thought the first point, the first guideline on power asymmetries of the different stakeholders and the fact that for example somebody like myself who is a member of the community of young people versus a big government, there is an obvious asymmetry of power. The way that the document essentially says that you should resolve these is by open communication and transparency and having that degree of awareness of the fact that there is this power asymmetry that exists in the first place. At no point during my engagement throughout that whole process was that ever made clear to me or was I ever given any particular weight, not that I should be simply because I’m you know not powerful enough, but it wasn’t something that allowed me to inspire myself with much confidence in that process. The issue of linguistic diversity is a problem that we’ve had not only in these processes but just in general in the IGF due to a lack of funding. The fact that there wasn’t any particular deliberative discussions taking place, the discussions were very sort of transactional. As I mentioned in my previous answers about this, you know you just say something and then move on and somebody else comes in and says something completely different and there’s no actual dialogue that is taking place. It should be agile and dynamic, that is one of the criteria of you know or at least one of the guidelines for what a good process that’s multi-stakeholder based should be. Arguably you can say that it isn’t. It should contain really good conflict resolution mechanisms and I am at least from an outsider’s perspective not really aware whether any such mechanisms actually exist in the first place. It in my view receives a big fail for the open decision-making process because a lot of it is quite opaque to individuals like myself who are responding to these consultations but not entirely sure what is actually happening with those. It’s not, there’s no clear link between the next version of the zero draft for example or the next document that comes out with what individuals have actually said in previous documents necessarily and why something has been ignored or why something has been chosen. So the fact that there’s all of these potential issues indicates that you know you need to have both procedural as well as substantive fairness in a document or in a process. Even if it ultimately ends up being the case that governments come together and they end up with this absolutely amazing document that everyone would have already agreed with anyway, if the process that they followed wasn’t actually legitimate and excluded a bunch of individuals, that basically means that the exact same thing could happen in the opposite direction. So I think we need a combination of both procedural as well as substantive fairness in this whole GDC process in order for it to actually meet the criteria contained within the São Paulo guidelines. And I hope that the people in New York who are listening actually take this into account. Thank you.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you very much. So now I do not see any hands or willingness to add up. So I think we have the last six minutes. So maybe there would be some questions from the audience and I see already one, two, three hands. So maybe we’ll start from over there.

Audience:
Okay, thank you. I hope you can hear me well. Thank you very, very much for the really insightful panel. I just wanted to focus on a topic that almost all of you touched, but I believe it’s essential and I believe it is because I come from the humanities community, so I’m quite interested in this. It is essential to find a language that is common when it comes to the basic principles and concepts that can be translated into different languages. You cannot have multilingualism if you don’t have clear in mind which are the concepts and which are also the images and also the metaphors you use. Because every one of us, even though we don’t know that, we all think through our language, through the images we produce in our mind through language. And this is essential for representation and also to provide innovation and new ideas. So I don’t know if it is a question or just a suggestion, but I would strongly recommend to some linguistic or, I don’t know, people from the linguistic community to be involved in these kind of processes because it’s going to be essential for especially multilateral, multi-stakeholder and global governance. Thank you.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you. Can you represent yourself?

Audience:
Oh yeah, sorry, I didn’t present myself and introduce myself, so I’m sorry. I’m Francesco Vecchi from Youth League.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you very much. So it was a statement. If I do not see any other hands, maybe we’ll move to the second question.

Audience:
This is fun, isn’t it, having this box? Yeah, sorry, Nigel Hickson, UK government. Why do we have to take the status quo? There’s been discussions in this room this afternoon, not just in this session, but in the excellent session we had with the youth earlier. I mean, all part of the overall session, but a different conversation. And one of the questions asked is what do we do? How do we counter some of the issues on AI governance that are clearly not right? What do we do about some of these technologies? What do we do about the global digital compact? What do we do about the WSIS process? These aren’t easy questions, but we should not necessarily accept the status quo. As I put in the chat years ago in the UN CSTD, in various ITU processes, stakeholders had to stand up and be counted. They had to say this isn’t a way of running a ship. In the WSIS summit itself in 2003, civil society were thrown out of the room because it was felt that they didn’t have a status. Now look at the WSIS forum and look at the IGF and the invaluable contribution that civil society make to those processes. So we have to do more. And it is governments that have to do more. I appreciate that. We have to get our act together in New York and say it’s just simply not acceptable that you can have a process, and we’ve all seen what happens. We’re all guilty of this sometimes. You have a stakeholder session. One or two governments might come in before lunch, but probably not after lunch. They might listen to the three-minute interventions, but then get a bit bored. What happens the next day when they start negotiating the text? True, one or two governments would say we heard an excellent intervention from Mark Carvel or whoever on this, and we think we should take these issues up. But by far and wide, this doesn’t happen. Why can’t stakeholders be in the room? I know they can’t vote. I know they can’t make decisions. But in the same way as they’re in the room in the UN CSTD, in OECD, in UNESCO and in other bodies, why can’t they be in the room while the discussions take place? Sorry for waffling.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
So it was also an excellent statement and we will give the floor to Thomas now to say, and it will be the last question because we are almost on time. Please.

Thomas Schneider:
Thank you everyone. This is a funny microphone. I tried to give the answer to my dear friend, Nigel, because also in our countries, most of the politicians don’t care. That’s the answer that I would like to give you. It’s good to talk about multistakeholderism, about inclusivity, but what happens if they say something you don’t want to hear? Then you’re better not there, actually. And I mean, this is why I’m saying that we need not just to say we want to strengthen the IGF and the things that we keep saying for 20 years. We need to do it. And in order to do it, and Isaac is right, all these nice papers, DFI and also, for instance, the UNESCO recommendation on ethics of AI is great. 198 countries signed it. We know how many countries that signed it, I don’t use the word now, will not take this too seriously in implementing. So UNESCO is trying to find an implementation mechanism that creates a next first step. Of course, I know as the ITO at UNESCO, you can’t blame your members, but then others can step in. Civil society organizations could go together with business organizations and raise some money to actually get the accountability mechanisms, get the transparency out there, who is actually practicing what they preach. And if you look very closely also into European countries, we are not that holy as we sometimes think either. That doesn’t mean that, so it’s just to say that one thing is to say we need to strengthen, blah, blah, blah. The other thing is to do it, and that means work. It’s also hard. And what every Doria wrote in the chat, I just saw it by accident, and then I’ll stop. One thing is to say we strengthen the IGF. The NRIs are at least equally important because on local level is where most of the things get decided. If you look at EuroDIG, we are trying to find a minimum of resources to actually have a EuroDIG. The NRIs, the national initiatives in Europe, where are they in our countries? Who is funding them? Who is participating? Are the ministers there? And so on and so forth. And the same goes for many others. So we should be more serious looking in our own mirrors and say, okay, we think these processes are important. We keep telling the G77 they are important. Then we should take them also important ourselves. Thank you very much.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
Thank you very much, Thomas. I’m a politician, and I’m here, and I care.

Thomas Schneider:
You are the exception.

Agnė Vaiciukevičiūtė:
So thank you very much. I mean, so many professionals and good ideas and messages to take from here. I would like to congratulate and thank all the panelists here today for your insightful ideas in the afternoon, summer day afternoon. So thank you very much for that. And I will give the floor to the moderator just to say something.