Global challenges for the governance of the digital world

NetMundial Plus 10 examines digital governance challenges and multi-stakeholder model evolution

The session titled “Global Challenges for the Governance of the Digital World” was part of the NetMundial Plus 10 event, aimed at discussing the governance challenges of the digital world. Moderated by Renata Miele and co-moderated by Bruna Martins dos Santos and Timara Souto, the session featured a panel of experts from various sectors, including civil society, academia, government, and industry. The panelists included Anne-Marie Engelth-Melgaard, Florian Martin-Bariteau, Jennifer Chung, Mona Gaballa, Manal Ismail, Michel Roberto de Souza, Neth Dano, Nicolas R. de Andrade, Umut Pajaro Velasquez, and Antonia Patriota.

The session was structured into two rounds of questions. The first round focused on the obstacles and opportunities for engaging in the construction of a multi-stakeholder structure with a concrete impact on digital decision-making. The panelists highlighted the foundational requirements for successful multi-stakeholder cooperation, such as trust, clarity, representation, and accountability. They discussed the importance of results-driven discussions and the challenges of ensuring proper representation, building trust among stakeholders, and maintaining clarity on the purpose and scope of the multi-stakeholder model.

In the second round, the discussion centered on the principle of equal footing among stakeholders and decision-making based on this principle. The panelists acknowledged the disparities in resources, influence, and access among stakeholders, which challenge the ideal of equal footing. They emphasized the need for equity, informed deliberation, and the continuous evolution of the multi-stakeholder model. The importance of transparency and accountability in the process was underscored, as was the need for capacity building to enable informed participation.

Key points raised during the session included the recognition that the multi-stakeholder approach is essential for internet governance, but it faces inherent challenges that need to be addressed. These challenges include ensuring meaningful and equitable participation, overcoming resource disparities, and maintaining ongoing dialogue to keep pace with technological advancements. The session also called for the reinforcement of human rights principles and the need for forums like the IGF to facilitate open exchanges of ideas.

Observations from the session highlighted the need for capacity building to enable informed and deliberative discussion amongst stakeholders. The intentional representation of diverse groups, particularly from the Global South, was called for to ensure their voices are heard and considered in decision-making processes. The importance of location for inclusivity and safety in hosting forums was also noted, with a focus on ensuring that venues are accessible and welcoming to all participants.

In conclusion, the session underscored the indispensability of the multi-stakeholder approach for internet governance and the necessity of addressing challenges to ensure meaningful and equitable participation. The panelists advocated for the continuous evolution of the multi-stakeholder model and the importance of maintaining ongoing dialogue to keep pace with technological advancements. The session reinforced the need for human rights principles to guide the governance of the digital world and the role of forums like the IGF in facilitating open exchanges of ideas.

Renata Jabali:
Okay, so now we’re going for the next session, Global Challenges for the Governance of the Digital World, which will be moderated by Renata Miele, which is on stage, and co-moderated by Bruna Martins dos Santos, HLAC and Digital Action, and Timara Souto, HLAC and ICC Basis. This session aims to be an overarching debate over the core challenges of the governance of the digital world, with a diverse set of participants. This session will tackle issues related to the main goals of NET Mundial PACE 10, and the speakers of this session are Bruna Martins dos Santos, HLAC and Digital Action, Timara Souto, HLAC and ICC Basis, Anne-Marie Engelth-Melgaard, Danish TAC Ambassador, Antonia Patriota from Mercado Livre, Florian Martin-Barruteau from the University of Ottawa, Jennifer Chand, DotAsia, Manal Ismail, Entra, Nicolas Robinson-Djendradi from OpenEye, Nath Dhaner, ETC Group, which is going to join us online, Michel-Roberto de Sousa from Derechos de Rivales, Mona Gadala, ISOC, Jennifer Chang, DotAsia, And now I would like to give the floor to Renata, which is going to moderate the session and co-moderate with Bruna and Timéa. Renata, the floor is yours. Thank you very much. I will pass the floor for Bruna Santos to start our panel. Please, Bruna.

Bruna Martins dos Santos:
Good morning. Welcome to everyone. I would like to greet everyone. I am part of AGELEC, one of the moderators of this session, along with Renata and Timéa. So, this session is going to be about global challenges for the governance of the digital world. And the definition that we wrote is to talk about a moment international communities discussing on different spaces, such as GDC, ISIS and some others, about different perspectives, the challenges for the future of a world where the Internet and its applications will deeply transform the socio-economic and cultural relationships. This is the time to reinforce important principles, update the discussion on core topics for the Internet and to continue implementing the multi-stakeholder approach while we wait for an appropriate discussion and for processes, mechanisms and procedures to be implemented. So, we are going to have two rounds of questions in our session, one about challenges and the other one about participation. Now, I give the floor to Renata to introduce the first round of questions and discussions.

Renata Mielli:
Thank you, Bruna. Thank you, Bruna. We’re going to address the first question. Thank you for all the participants, Anne-Marie, Nicolas, let me see, one minute, please. Thank you, Anne-Marie, Nicolas, Nef, Michel, Antonia, Mona, Jennifer, Florian, Humitz. The first question for our first round is, in your stakeholder perception, what are the main obstacles and opportunities for engaging and advancing in the construction of a multi-stakeholder structure with a concrete impact on the decision-making process for digital issues? Please, each speaker has four minutes to answer this first question. I will start with Anne, please, the floor is yours. Thank you for being here with us today.

Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard:
Thank you so much. Good morning, everyone. It’s a pleasure to be back in Sao Paulo. I want to address this question, first of all, for me, on what are some of the foundational requirements for what is successful multi-stakeholder cooperation, actually. I find that this word, multi-stakeholder, gets thrown around a lot, and those of you who were here 10 years ago, and those of you who were part of WSIS 19 years ago, will have a very delicate understanding, but there are many new people to this field, and so I think getting the basics straight and having an alignment on that is a good place to start. For me, some of the foundational requirements for a successful multi-stakeholder It’s first of all, trust. Are we meeting with people we actually trust enough to sit around the same table? Two, clarity. What is the purpose of the multi-stakeholder model? What is it supposed to solve and what is it not supposed to solve? Three, representation. It’s easy to say, do we have someone from government? Do we have someone from civil society? Do we have someone from industry? Do you have true representation? Who is not at the table and who is speaking on their behalf? Then it’s about accountability, how to make sure that what we discuss and decide at the table is also follow up on and that we hold ourselves to accountability. So that’s on the foundation of requirements. The second piece is around results. What are the incidents where every stakeholder is involved and where we actually make decisions, that leads to better outcome? So many of us has met in conference halls like this, in places where we probably not even remember what country it was, to discuss certain issues. And how many of you left, went home and said, that was an important result. Today remove the needle. Today we made the internet safer, more free, more stable, more interoperable. Today we made a difference. So when it comes to obstacles, I go back to these foundationals, one, they’re not all in place. So when we look at some of the obstacles that we are occurring today, I think it’s important to ask, do we have the right representation? Is there enough trust among these stakeholders and is there enough clarity on what we’re doing? And when it comes to the results, I was not here 10 years ago and I was not part of WSIS 19 years ago. So I am looking at this as a relative newcomer. And I think it’s fair to say that we’ve come a really, really long way, but we still have a very long way to go. The Internet is not freely open, secure, interoperable, and perfectly working. It is a fragmented Internet. It is one that is still characterized by monopolization, and that might even be further exacerbated as we go towards a more spatial Internet, where very powerful gatekeepers are at the helm of it. And so there’s a long way for us to go, but that brings me to the opportunities, and I’ll conclude with that. I think there’s a renewed momentum where we have never been discussed, at least in my own government and in Europe, so much about the necessity of the multi-stakeholder model. There’s an opportunity for us to fall in love with the whole concept of these large, challenging, but so important gatherings, from the technical community, from businesses, from government, from civil society. There’s an opportunity for us to reconcile some of the challenges in this space, that this is not merely a technical gathering. It happens at the backdrop of geopolitical differences and a lot of political turmoil. And so I hope that the opportunity today, at NetMundial, but for the next year and a half, where it feels like the Internet is at stake, and it is like the war or the fight or the opportunity of a lifetime to make sure that we’re going in the right direction, it is a time to fall in love with the multi-stakeholder model again, to show that we can get the foundational requirements in order and that we can deliver a result for generations to come. Thank you.

Renata Mielli:
Thank you, Anne-Marie. I would just like to ask the technical staff that the feedback panels are off here, for us to control, for us to time. to Florian Martin from the University of Ottawa to answer our first question about the challenges of the building of a multi-stakeholder process. Thank you.

Florian Martin-Bariteau:
Muito obrigado. Thank you, first of all, for the invitation to be with you this morning. And I’m delighted to be back in Brazil and to be at NetMundial. And congratulations for the organization. And so I have a few points and I really appreciate the document that was circulated earlier last week and also all the conversation this morning and some of the keywords. And those kind of meetings are an amazing opportunity to meet people, to discuss, to engage when you can have different kind of people and representation in the room. So openness, collaborative conversation, transparency are key as well as inclusivity as we discussed earlier. And I would like to insist on this point and maybe some of the obstacles, maybe to have meaningful engagements in such processes with three points. You know, like a single forum, a safe location and also support. I’m sure we’ll come back to this. So first, I do agree and I support some of the statements in the primary outcome documents that the fragmentation and multiplication of forum and consultations on so many topics doesn’t help with engagement. And as it was said before, it actually like hinders it. You know, most of the academic groups in society have already like very thin resources. And so it’s also an issue when some of those forum exclude some groups often and sometime by design, sometime it’s more by their practices or by the location. And I do believe for all that IGF, you know, worked and continue to works. Contrary to maybe to some other more recent initiatives such on AI that have not been delivering some of the expected outcomes. So I kind of agree that IGF might be the correct forum. Yet, you know, IGF isn’t perfect either and going for its own challenges. And that bring me to my second point. As the predecessor speaker mentioned, you know, representation is extremely important. Representation of many groups from North and South, especially from South, could be clear in the documents. Maybe we should say that, you know, it needs to be very intentional and we need to be intentional in the kind of representation we’re looking for. So there is a lot of important points in the documents, but I think one thing that might be missing is also about like the location. No location matters for inclusivity, for this kind of conversation and like for multi-stakeholder engagement. Both, we always have the visa issues for like many people from many countries, but also if you ask, you know, we want to have multi-stakeholder processes that should be governed by rule of law, inter-human rights principle, et cetera. But we then need to ask those meetings in location that welcome different people. I know we welcome representation, queer and trans voices, women, or divergent people and all the marginalized and all groups that are suddenly cannot go safely to all parts of the world. And so if IGF needs to be such a forum, it needs to be in safe location. And my last point may be also on the, you know, to have like a good multi-stakeholder engagement. And I know that NetMondial plus 10 aims at focusing on the processes, but I would be remiss to not highlight that we cannot dissociate process principle from substance principle, data protection, fundamental freedoms of expression, association, information, accessibility. We don’t design conversation the same way, depending on the content of the conversation. I know the document is already long, but with the geopolitical. state of the world and the positive and negative impact of internet AI and other technologies on democracy and rights I think it was mentioned this morning. I do think that rather than just referring to the 2015 statement the principle should be clearly stated as the need for human rights based conversation. We should like, you know, reinsert and reinforce the human rights and shared values section of the 2015 statement. I think that will really help for a meaningful engagement from all stakeholders. Thank you

Renata Mielli:
Thank you, Michel Florian, I’m sorry The idea of this panel is exactly this, a kick-off for our document and the main aspects that we need to deal with here at NET Mundial. I would like to thank the two contributions, the two inputs. Now I would like to give the floor to Jennifer Chung from Asia. Please, Jennifer, the floor is yours

Jennifer Chung:
Thank you very much. I’m really honored to have this opportunity here. From the previous speakers they’ve said they’re happy to be back, but I didn’t have the the privilege or the opportunity to be here ten years ago but I’m happy to be here now. I guess taking a little step back, thinking about the technical community which I’m speaking as part of the technical community we have coordination inherently built in from the history of the development of the internet as a global distributed network of networks. A friend, Lehman, from the root server operators had once said to me, and I’m going to paraphrase because they’re not as exact words maybe, but the sentiment is there, you will not notice when we are doing our job well. It is when we’re not doing our job well that you take notice. So this brings me to the obstacles. What are the obstacles in constructing this multi-stakeholder process, especially when we’re looking at decision-making? for internet issues and I guess wider digital issues. One would be the national and the regional push for legislation or regulation that impacts the core infrastructure or the critical resources of the internet without sufficient or meaningful consultation with the technical community or other relevant and impacted stakeholders. And sometimes there are unintended consequences of these legislations and some of these regulations have extraterritorial reach. So this could threaten, fragment the open, free, global, interoperable, resilient and secure internet that we know. Another obstacle, and we can see that it’s happening right now in all these strands of processes that are filtering through the end of this year such as the GDC and then also next year is multilateral processes have separated siloed stakeholder consultations or deep dives and this fragments the discussion especially on matters of internet governance. And this prevents also the holistic development of appropriate and future-proof policy frameworks and effective implementation. I mean, enough about obstacles that there’s so much more that I can talk about and my other speakers on this panel can talk about and I can’t do this in four minutes but I wanna leave you with the opportunities that we might have. I guess as a registry operator dot Asia, I’m gonna speak a little bit from the ICANN context and the policy and decision making for the DNS system. The advantage is that the intensive work leading up to the IANA transition back in 2016, the ICANN community had to undergo a really intensive bottom up stock taking and building and strengthening of accountability mechanisms that led to the empowered community that we have today. I heard from the speakers before that they emphasized openness, transparency, responsibility and accountability and I think we’re very. We’re privileged in at least the ICANN community that we’ve had to go through this in strenuous two years plus to develop these mechanisms as a backstop and create accountability measures that we can rely on here. In the other context, a little bit about the IGF context, for the Internet Governance Forum, we’re looking at policy shaping for wider issues. There is less to do with the technical functions of the Internet and decisions aren’t being made at the IGF, but the discussions of the issues, the impacts and concerns from the multi-stakeholder community is surfaced in an open and inclusive way. Decision shaping is a very valuable aspect that the IGF has over a range of Internet and increasingly emerging technology issues. And then finally, I want to leave us with this. The opportunity is here with all of us, here and online, at Nemo Deo Plus 10, to reaffirm and strengthen the principles of the multi-stakeholder process for Internet governance, to reflect not only the current coordination that ensures a single, open, global, interoperable, resilient and secure Internet that continues to work for everyone, it is also our responsibility as active participants of this process to ensure that the governance of the global Internet remains and continues to be rooted in the multi-stakeholder model. Thanks.

Renata Mielli:
Thank you, Jennifer. I will pass the floor to Mona Gabala from ISOC, please, the floor is yours.

Mona Gaballa:
Thank you. I’m honoured to be at NetMundial and thank the High-Level Executive Committee for inviting me to join the panel. The Internet Society and technical community supports and promotes the development. of the Internet as a global technical infrastructure, a resource to enrich people’s lives and a force for good in society. Our work aligns with our goals for the Internet to be open, globally connected, secure and trustworthy and we seek to collaborate with all of those who share these goals. We believe that the main obstacles in the multistakeholder approach is the growing number of multilateral processes. While we appreciate the interest of governments welcoming stakeholder consultations, having separate stakeholder consultations does not fully allow for meaningful participation. The growing number of processes and proposals serves as an obstacle for meaningful participation of developing countries and other stakeholder groups that might not have the same resources. We welcome more opportunities to engage with governments and other stakeholders in all processes regarding digital issues, such as the Global Digital Compact, which is now solely being considered by governments and at this stage will simply include stakeholder briefings. We stand ready to lend our technical expertise and would like to see all stakeholders have more meaningful participation throughout the process until it’s presented in the Summit of the Future in September. We see a growing opportunity for collaboration and support the Internet that we want, which is open and interoperable by fully applying the principles that emerged in the 2014 Net Mundial. We view the ETF and the IGF as exemplary in engaging and advancing a multistakeholder approach. The IETF utilizes a multistakeholder approach to develop standards in ways that reflect a balance of various considerations on the basis of relevant expertise of stakeholders. Alongside the technical community, which discusses domains like routing, security or operations, wider expertise and experience with regards to societal and economic geopolitical impacts of standardizations are reflected. The IGF is a relevant and important multistakeholder mechanism within the United Nations and enables stakeholders to come together, share information and develop solutions together. We see an opportunity with WEC’s Plus 20 review to reaffirm and reinforce the role of the IGF as central in having a multi-stakeholder approach. We’re also of the view that the outcomes of NetMutant DELT Plus 10 should be taken into multi-stakeholder settings such as the IGF. And while the IGF is not necessarily a decision-making forum, the principles reflected still serve as an opportunity to advance the multi-stakeholder approach as a repository. Thank you.

Renata Mielli:
Thank you, Mona. I will bring to the floor our colleague from the Egyptian government, Manal Ismail. Please, Manal, the floor is yours.

Manal Ismail:
Thank you very much, Renata. I hope you can hear me.

Renata Mielli:
She’s joining us remotely, and it’s okay?

Manal Ismail:
Yes, can you hear me? Hello, can you hear me?

Renata Mielli:
Yes, Manal, thank you for joining remotely our event. The floor is yours.

Manal Ismail:
Thank you. Thank you very much, Renata. I’m sorry I was not able to join in person, and thank you for the opportunity. The governance of the now very broad digital world requires innovative, unprecedented cooperation and collaboration among all stakeholders’ groups, but also within the same stakeholder group sometimes. The rapid digital transformation and new emerging and disruptive technologies open up many great opportunities, as was mentioned. by Jennifer but also pose many risks, uncertainties and challenges in relation to their governance. Among those challenges I would like to quickly touch upon the mindset, information, resources, skills, language barrier, workload and sustainability and I’ll try to be brief in touching on each. There is no doubt that the current issues naturally need to be discussed from different perspectives and that participants should come with a mindset that is ready to listen to diverse views, open to be convinced, flexible enough to compromise and willing to reach a middle ground. Global governance mechanisms of the digital world should allow, facilitate and empower the equitable participation of all stakeholders to an open and inclusive multi-stakeholder model and this is by providing them with all the necessary information, so sometimes overwhelming people with information can be equally unhelpful as providing them with too little information. The needed resources and support, so support is needed in terms of secretariat or admin work or funding for example, the required skills and sometimes stakeholders may need capacity building, onboarding, awareness or education on a certain topic, also interpretation and translation facilities to the extent possible to make sure that the language is not a barrier to their participation. All these measures would facilitate informed, meaningful and timely contributions by stakeholders who need them. Moreover, different simultaneous processes tackling the same issues need to cooperate and coordinate, and be optimized in order to avoid redundancy, duplication of efforts, as well as participation challenges and burdening of less resourced stakeholders. And finally, digital governance processes should be agile and able to adapt to dynamic circumstances, evolving technologies and emerging issues, as well as open, inclusive and accessible to all stakeholders, regardless of their background, status or level of expertise, in order to make sure we are addressing the digital gap, promoting digital inclusion and leaving no one behind. Thank you, Renata. Back to you.

Renata Mielli:
Thank you, Manal. Now I’ll pass the floor to Michel, Derechos Digitales.

Michel Roberto de Souza:
Hello, good morning, thank you very much. I will take the privilege of speaking in Portuguese, so if you would like to… Thank you very much. Good morning, everyone. It’s an honor to be part of this panel. I would like to thank for the opportunity to be part of such an important discussion as we’ve seen throughout the years. There is absolutely no doubt about the importance of this discussion four and ten years after the first NetMundial, exactly the same venue. This is a moment that, at that time, Brazil was leading a global agenda towards privacy, something that had been approved after the network and the framework of Internet management. A lot has changed in our world, in Internet governance agenda and also the stakeholder process. But this is a very timely moment because this is an year where we are having very important discussions with ISIS plus 20, Summit for the Future, the GDC, and a number of other processes that will impact our future, including internet, multi-stakeholder management processes. There are a number of challenges within each country and how the multi-stakeholder process takes place in each country, in each nation. There are huge challenges regionally. How do we deal with all the issues within each region? And finally, the issues concerning global forums. My approach is very simple. I’m going to talk about three obstacles that are interconnected with a number of other difficulties that we have, especially concerning the participation of the civil society. But I have to say that now and then they are huge when we talk about global process. First of all, the difficulties for effective, inclusive participation of the civil society in all these forums. There are no clear processes. There is a lack of clear, objective procedures about how the civil society can have a voice and participation. What is the role of the civil society and how can the different inputs from civil society be really considered? Sometimes there is no clarity about other sectors apart from the government. How can the civil society contribute and present its insights and inputs? Sometimes there is lack of access to basic documents. The language may be a barrier. And also, some issues related to the choices where the meetings are being held. Sometimes they require visa, there are problems with human rights, etc. The second challenge I would like to pose to you concerns transparency and accountability. What was the feedback of the civil society? What has happened with previous inputs that have been made? What kind of feedback have we got? How can we make sure that these processes can be considered in future forums? And finally, the last challenge I would like to share with you concerns processes and fragmentation. Sometimes there is no dialogue among all the different forums, some silos which are artificially created, not fostering a dialogue among all the different groups. So these are additional hurdles. This really prevents the civil society from participating. The different ways that the society can participate and the different hurdles I’ve shared with you are not mutually exclusive or limited. We still have got a lot more to cover. So thank you all very much for your attention.

Renata Mielli:
Thank you, Michelle. I will pass the floor now to Neth Dano, remotely too. Please, Nef, the floor is yours.

Neth Dano:
Thank you, Renata. Am I audible? Am I coming out clear? I hope so. Okay. Yeah. Good evening from the Philippines, and I’m glad to be participating even albeit online. I have also not participated in that Mundial 10 years ago, neither in the WSIS 20 years ago. So I’d like to start by answering the question by challenging all of us to unpack what we mean by multi-stakeholder approach or multi-stakeholder reasoning as that approach is called. I think we have to also take stock that the multi-stakeholder approach that we know now actually has evolved from what it was 10 years ago and definitely from 20 years ago. The context has changed, the landscape has changed, political relations have actually also evolved. I think it’s important to unpack multi-stakeholder before we could even identify the opportunities and challenges of multi-stakeholder approach in governance, discussions on digital issues. I think the first question that we have to ask is like, who are we talking about? Because there’s a lot of reference to civil society, government, academics, industry, but it’s not just about naming, but also knowing and recognizing the power and the context where these actors are operating. A number of the speakers also spoke about the inherent limitations for civil society to participate because of visa, because of cost, also because of political issues in many contexts. I think when we’re talking about who should participate in the governance, it should definitely not be limited to those who have relevant expertise. Because as we all know, digital issues and digitalization is already widely impacting across sectors, like the sector where I’m closely involved in, et cetera, group is involved in, on food and agriculture, definitely digitalization issues are actually front and center. So those who are impacted. not just those who are involved in the technicalities of internet or who have relevant expertise should be involved when we talk about participation and definitely governance. And I think we also have to take into account that when you talk of multi-stakeholder, definitely there is an assumption that there is equal footing. I think we have to question this. Like if you have highly disparate, highly unequal power relations, corporate concentration and also concentration of power in the hands of a few, not just in technology but in food and agriculture, big ag, big tech, I think we have to understand that there’s not equal footing in reality even in concept. And that has to be a starting point when we discuss the how of multi-stakeholder approach. I think the second question, important question that we have to ask is why. I think we should not just be doing multi-stakeholder approach just to tick the box. I think there is a tendency towards this, ticking the box for multi-stakeholderism. And I think we’re seeing some aspects of this unfortunately in the GDC where you have deep dives that are online, three minutes there, five minutes there. But the question is like how are these inputs being taken into account and taken into the process and also in the outcome? Like when the GDC co-facilitators announced that they will rely on AI to consolidate our inputs, I think that really raised a lot of alarm bells. Who defines the algorithm that will be responsible for consolidating all our responses? Isn’t those who own the platform and probably who design the algorithm are also being consulted as part of the multi-stakeholder? So I think we have to really question those trends. And lastly, I think the issue of fragmentation, yes, has to be taken into account, the siloed approach in terms of allowing, putting in place mechanisms, and a lot of grey areas in terms of how inputs are being taken into account, I think need to be addressed at the beginning, not as an afterthought, definitely not as an afterthought. And I think we really have to acknowledge that there’s a lot of stepping back and degradation of how mechanisms for participation and meaningful decision-making has actually been happening in the UN compared to what it was, for example, Rio Plus 20, definitely the development of the SDG is much more, I would say, substantive in terms of methodology and process compared to what we have now, leading to the soft and the global digital compacts. I think the main opportunity there is we have lessons where we could actually call from experiences that we’ve had over the past 20 years on what meaningful participation is and what is not. So that’s my initial take on the first round of questions. Thank you.

Renata Mielli:
Thank you. I will pass the floor now to Nicolas Andrade from Open AnEYE. Nico, the floor is yours.

Nicolas R. de Andrade:
Thank you. I’m going to be speaking in my native English today. But first, let me greet all of you and all of those who have organized. Thank you, Verenata, Bruno, thank you, everyone, who have put together this event, including those who are in the simultaneous translation, so that we can have an international dialogue here. And he’s going to speak English. General intelligence is safe and benefits all of humanity. And I have the privilege of leading that work here in Brazil. the country that this year chairs the G20, and that also is famous for being an early adopter of technology and very creative uses of the Internet. It’s also a very humbling experience to be here, to see so many faces, old and new, that participate in this dialogue and this debate, a decade after the groundbreaking discussions that set a precedent for how we think about digital governance today. And as we gather here in Sao Paulo, we’re reminded of the importance of our continued commitment to this multi-stakeholder model, which I’d say is a cornerstone of Internet governance, and that ensures that all voices are heard. I’ve worked in this space for a little over a decade, and it’s special to think that so many of the principles that we hold dear today, and by that I mean the idea that stakeholders from academia, civil society, government, and private sector, in many ways didn’t start here but had a very important milestone moment. Minister Luciana Santos mentioned the importance of gender balance and the high numbers of women that we have here, and I’d like to echo her words, but take that one step further and say how happy I am to see many members of the technical community, because technical community is extremely important, vital, I would say, in these discussions, having a seat at the table and helping us understand what can and cannot be done from a technical perspective. In an era that’s really defined by rapid technological innovation, I think the significance of maintaining these open and inclusive dialogues really can’t be understated, and artificial intelligence is just one of many, many examples. I’d like to highlight as well the importance of participation being a very fluid, long-term, and constant dialogue that enriches all sides of the discussion on conversations like, but not limited to, internet governance. These are complex, they’re highly dynamic in the sense that technology itself changes very quickly from one month to the next, and that’s why I think that we should go beyond very specific moments in time, like public consultations, for example, as important mechanisms as they are. I’d say that AI is a good metaphor to explain a multi-sectorial approach because it requires such an amount, it’s so complex, such a high amount of resources, such a high amount of energy, that it really requires a governance approach that is as multi-faceted as the technology itself, and I’m glad to see that multi-faceted reality in this room today. Engaging in these dialogues and these processes is really vital for addressing the broad range of ethical, social and regulatory issues that technology presents, and we’re very happy to be part of this discussion. It’s a pleasure to be here. I look forward to the rest of the discussion, and since I know we’re a little bit short on time, I’ll end there just by thanking once more all of the organizers and saying how happy and how humbled I am to be part of this.

Renata Mielli:
Thank you, Nico. I will pass the floor now to Umit Paharu. The floor is yours, thank you.

Umut Pajaro Velasquez:
Thank you very much. Before I start this intervention, I would like to say thanks to NeMundia Plus10 for inviting me to be in this panel, but also to all the young people, black, indigenous, women and gender diverse people, and so many others that don’t even fit into the categories that we have right now, for allowing me to be in the same space with them and share experiences during my journey in internet governance. Dance to them and learn that importance of having individuals with diverse background and diverse careers is at the backbone of what we do as as advocators and defending the multi-stakeholder model. You probably wonder what I started with this is because probably 10 years ago a person like me with several hats in his head right now I’m representing academia, but I also come from civil society but also I’m an activist, an advocate, I’m also a black person. I’m from the Caribbean and I’m queer. I probably couldn’t be in this table talking about the issues that they are facing on the internet. As for the question that was made for this panel, I would like to say that the internet doesn’t have boundaries and we can have access to websites hosted on other countries and we can talk to people in other countries in real time and more. However, recently so far particular social media platforms has become another context for geopolitical thoughts. We may assume that these issues we not only get worse, we need mechanisms we’re so pleased to demonstrate transparency in countries following international traditions, otherwise we may witness firewall internet in every country and as one of the principles of the New World Order is to have an internet for all. Saying that, we recognize the dynamic nature of the stakeholder. It’s a holder involved and adapts in the changing times of the internet ecosystem. It is important to consider challenges and trends in multi-stakeholderism, such as classification of the stakeholder and discuss how the multi-stakeholder approach can adapt to accommodate diverse outcomes while presenting the fundamental principles of Internet. Also, it is important to emphasize the consensus-based decision-making. Encourage for decision-making processes that are based on consensus and take into account the development practice of all stakeholders. In a previous discussion, as Susan Shamer from the U.S. says, the participation of the different multi-stakeholder shouldn’t be just in content, but also in engagement when we talk about multi-stakeholderism, that’s what we are trying to say here in the consensus-based decision. Another thing that we would like to highlight from the academia is not to be afraid to advocate for the inclusion of you as a specific transversal stakeholder in Internet governance processes, emphasizing the significant proportion of the global population influenced as Internet users and contributions to shaping the Internet future. And finally, we shouldn’t be afraid of using AI to shape multi-stakeholder platforms. This use of AI could ensure that every voice could be heard, support, and guarantee a comprehensive participation of consensus-building processes. This approach is essential for achieving an inclusion, transparency, and inclusion of all stakeholders.

Renata Mielli:

Umut Pajaro Velasquez:
and participatory digital governance as a mission in the NEM Mondial. Thank you.

Renata Mielli:
Thank you, and now I will pass the floor to Antonia Patriota from, please, the floor is yours.

Antonia Patriota:
Hello, good morning, everyone. Thanks for having me. Thanks for the organizers. It’s a very high-level event, and it’s an honor to be here with you all. On behalf of MercadoLibre, where I’ve worked for the past five years, I’m excited to share insights and experiences on this issue. MercadoLibre, as many of you know, is Latin America’s leading e-commerce and technology company. We operate in more than 18 countries, connecting millions of buyers and sellers through our platform, and we go from having e-commerce services to online payments and logistics. So, as you can imagine, we have our plates full in policy matters. At Meli, we grapple with wide ranges of digital governance issues every day. These range from data privacy, to cybersecurity, to platform regulation, and online trust. It’s very delicate balancing everything together, but on one hand, we have to foster innovation, and on the other, ensure safety, fairness, and responsibility. Our approach has always been to strike that balance, making our platform not only innovative, but also safe for everyone. We understand the complexities of governing digital spaces, particularly in a global context. Especially, to promote online safety, protect consumer data and foster digital inclusion, considering our Latin America scenario and Brazil specifically, where we still have long ways to go in. MercadoLibre is a digital company, so our mission is to, and has been, to democratize commerce and enhance its access to financial services. With this, we have participated in public policy discussions in every market where we have presence, and so we believe that well-informed public policies can make a significant difference in people’s lives. It is important to have information from the get-go, from the beginning of any important relevant policy discussions, and go through to the end in order to have efficient and effective results. One key aspect of this engagement, we understand, is that we need diversity in perspectives and experiences. That’s why we encourage governments to listen to all interested parties during policy discussions. We also recognize the challenges that the multi-stakeholders can present if the group’s composition is limited, or access to interested parties restricted, which ends up resulting in less complete and relevant policies. Transparency and clear communication are critical to ensuring broader participation and diversity of thought. We have been seeing this a lot in many countries, in Brazil particularly, through public consultation but not limited to. We understand that the whole process from the beginning to the completion of the policy must have multi-stakeholder participation. Thank you.

Renata Mielli:
Obrigada. I’m going to say some words in Portuguese, so please. I’m going to say a few words in Portuguese. I would like to thank you for the first round. I think that we have already posed a few key questions for our debate. The ambassador of Denmark has talked about trust. We talked about the role of IGF, the technical community. We talked about the need of thinking of inclusion of women, black women, indigenous women, and the challenges in terms of funding, security, and linguistic to assure the participation of many in multi-sector approaches. So we have had the first round of interesting insights now. To coordinate the second round, I’m going to give the floor to Bruno Santos.

Bruna Martins dos Santos:
Thank you, Renata. Renata started already, summing up the conversations that we have had so far. The second question can be easily correlated with many of the things that the panelists have mentioned, especially in terms of barriers, discrepancies between different sectors, and participation can be more effective. When we talk about the barriers to access, we need human and financial resources, but also capacity to identify and to include this in the processes, and to keep a place for all these people to express themselves. And then we talk about equal footing. So the second round is multi-sector processes are discussions based on the principle of equal footing between the different stakeholders based on consensus. My question to the panelists is, what does it mean, equality in participation conditions for the different stakeholders, and how do you make decisions based on the principle of equal footing? So, let’s do the opposite now, so let’s start with Jennifer, can we start with you?

Jennifer Chung:
Thank you very much, Bruna, I was waiting for the translation to tell me who was going to be speaking, so I guess it’s me. I guess I want to take on, I don’t know if it’s translation from Portuguese to English, but I do want to point out a little bit of a nuance when you talk about equal, because equal is not the same as equitable, right? Because stakeholders may not already be on the same level, so you need equity to be able to address this. I guess multi-stakeholder processes are not only about decision-making, right? The multi-stakeholder participation in the agenda setting, the development, and also the implementation stages are crucial to the successful implementation of policy interventions. But this also requires nuanced understanding and recognizing that different aspects require different considerations and different expertise. I guess, you know, from the technical community perspective, if you’re talking about the security and stability of the Internet and the technical layers, the technical community should be given more weight to be able to give their expertise and opinions on these matters. Just as when we’re talking about human rights on application user layers and human rights concerns, we have to listen to the concerns of civil society and users. I guess, bringing us back to equity and capacity building, I think one of the really good principles that are reaffirmed in the updated NetMundial Plus 10 principles is that we have to enable informed and deliberative discussion amongst stakeholders. And to do that, you need targeted and meaningful capacity building to allow these stakeholders, new stakeholders coming into all the different groups, to be able to have this informed discussion. And then finally, I guess I say the trust is the glue and the product of global multi-stakeholder governance. So stakeholder group interests should not obstruct the path towards global public interests. And continuous improvement and evolution of multi-stakeholder model is a feature and not a bug. Continuous evolution is the key to inclusion and engagement of different stakeholder groups. Thanks.

Bruna Martins dos Santos:
Obrigada, Jen. I’m going to bring it to the government stakeholder group right now, so Anne-Marie would be happy to add on that.

Anne Marie Engtoft Meldgaard:
Thank you. And first of all, thank you to my co-panelists for some excellent insights. This question around equal footing, I wonder how many of you feel that you’re here in equal footing? How many up here in the panel? And I think it’s a really good starting point for us not to believe that there is not equal footing in this. We heard Michael, we heard Mona, we had several people talking about lack of resources, lack of skills, different mindsets. Looking around, there are many countries, so speaking on behalf of a government, there are many countries not represented in this room right now. And so multi-stakeholder decision-making and governance is not going to be perfect. In the past 20 years, it has not been perfect. There will not be a complete, coherent, equal playing field from the get-go and throughout the entire thing. That’s simply not going to happen. Looking at from both the technical to the industry representative, as Nicolas, sitting to my right, companies differ very much in size and influence on how we think of this. Some of them have a lot of lobbyists in Brussels, where we make a lot of decision-making in the EU. So I think a really good starting point for us here is to not be naive, but try to address the fact that there is not equal footing on this, but there is an opportunity for us to still meet constructively in a room and make decisions together, to achieve outcomes that are reflected upon the different things that we bring to the table, and to reach decisions that are good enough for everyone involved. Somewhere near to me, multi-stakeholder governance has this weird cloud. You can’t really hold it. You can’t really tell exactly what it is, but you can see it move. So every time we spend three days together, you can sort of see it constantly progress. And so the dialogue that we have here today, not on this panel necessarily, but in the coffee breaks, tonight over drinks, those will be the important aspects of slowly but gradually moving this cloud. And since this was just mentioned, on human rights being the foundation, and that is something that unites us despite the differences that we have, and that we keep the multi-stakeholder bodies independent. They will not be perfect, but they have to remain independent, and we need to strengthen them.

Bruna Martins dos Santos:
Thank you so much. I’m going to bring it to my own stakeholder. Michel, would you like to weigh in on this question?

Michel Roberto de Souza:
Thank you very much. I’m going to speak in Portuguese. Well, first of all, I think it’s necessary to… existing inequalities between the global north and the global south. There are huge differences also within the sectors. So, to have an equal… we need to… to admit this. That’s the number one thing that we need to see and consider. How can we make sure that participation of civil society is effectively significant? And how can we include different voices, different accents into internet governance and in digital spaces? It’s important for us to think about this right from the beginning. So, participation oftentimes only comes at the end of the processes as an element that is additional to the checklist that is added. So, inclusive participation should come from the initial design of the process. So, we need to think about this participation from the starting point. So, we need to find processes that really foster the participation of civil society and also to define what we learn. How can we learn about those processes so that we can learn from our mistakes and from what we do right in other processes? So, in a nutshell, three points, I think that number one, we need to assure effective participation, to be proactive, to hear those who are not heard. This is very important. To bring in communities that have been historically excluded, to break the barrier of those who participate in the processes. Number two is to give visibility for the realities of the global South, to bring our realities and needs into the discussion. And finally, to complement everything in a way that is objective and clear. clear, so that all these processes are more significant. So I think that NET Mundial has an amazing opportunity to bring in concrete elements for the participation of civil society to also become effective. Thank you.

Bruna Martins dos Santos:
Thank you, Michel. And speaking precisely of effective participation, I will bring the academy to bring it. Speaking about effective, a discussion I would like to bring Humbert now for the discussion, please.

Umut Pajaro Velasquez:
Hello, everyone. To respond to this question, well, I would like to remind you that this period in the Mundial is multistakeholderism and must remain as the way we should share and guarantee the governance of the Internet itself. For me, for my perspective on academia and civil society, that’s mainly my two hats. I would say the two main things to guarantee equality and inclusion are face the digital divide and the digital scapegoat. This means not only to address the difficulties that we have with infrastructure, especially in the global south, but also giving the tools to the young people to address the future of the Internet and the present of the Internet. And the other is data governance. Why I say data governance? Because data governance includes things as algorithm bias and fairness. That’s one of the issues that we need to focus on right now, and one thing that I would like people to start to paying attention, especially in this particular context of open data, is data colonialism. Some of the research that has been made in the Global South or the majority of the world has been made in the framework of open data, and by universities and academia in the Global North. I’m representing here a university in the Global North, and one of my main concerns is especially that most of the information that I’m sharing there, that is from the Global South, is going to be used by universities in the Global North and not as a result of the dynamics of the Global South.

Renata Mielli:
Thank you very much. Umut, can I bring you to the conversation, Nicholas?

Nicolas R. de Andrade:
You know, so much about having an equal footing is about putting yourself in each other’s shoes, understanding different points of view, and I think that these kinds of in-person events are invaluable opportunities to do that across sectors, but also across countries, across languages. What does it mean to be in an equal footing? We have a little, very little time, so I’ll reiterate a point I made during my panel, which is that these technologies, not just AI, which I represent here, of course, today, are moving so fast, and there’s so many of them, that we’re seeing dozens, sometimes hundreds, of small breakthroughs every single week, and that’s why these processes need to be fluid and constant. They can’t be limited to specific moments in time. They have to be ongoing conversations that benefit all parties, and that are reflected, of course, in regulation, and by the way, that’s a conversation that goes both ways, and that’s why when we have, in my company, but I’m sure I speak for other industry colleagues in the room, important developments, important decisions that affect our products either globally or in Brazil or in Portuguese or other languages. I do my best to bring those perspectives in, to contact people, to call them up, to listen to their views and to bring those views and make sure that they’re represented in our headquarters in the United States. And since we’re in Brazil, I cannot miss the opportunity to extend a little bit on what Anne-Marie was talking about on global representation and say that the fact that Brazil is chairing the G20 this year is an incredible opportunity that the Brazilian government should seize. Because Brazil is in an incredible position to lead this discussion on representation, on governance and on benefit sharing. It’s a country that is an early adopter of technology, a creative creator of technology and has the human, technical and natural resources to be an important player in this discussion. Thank you.

Bruna Martins dos Santos:
Thank you very much. To bring in some additional thoughts and ideas from what we heard so far.

Florian Martin-Bariteau:
So consensus is very hard to achieve with such a diverse group, often starting from opposite views. But this is what makes global consensus more powerful, when all stakeholders and all regions can reach such a consensus. It supposedly requires equal footing across stakeholders. However, to be honest, I hardly see how an equal footing can be realistic because of the asymmetrical and imbalance of power between North and South, but also between groups, as was mentioned before. Academia as civil society, we’re not on an equal footing with industry or government. And we’ll probably never be, either as an organization or even all academia and civil society together in front of industry or government. So we need to be realistic. And as Jennifer mentioned, this is where you need to differentiate maybe between. equality, equality, and equity, equidadic. We do not have the same capacity, team of writers, research ability to travel, send people, have one person per issue, like industry or government. And the gap is even bigger when we talk about emerging technologies such as AI, which is often built and deployed beyond closed doors. And not sure to fully achieve, you know, a more like equitable footing, more than equal footing, both for the conversation and the decision process. But I would say it’s first like, you know, having funding and making sure that each stakeholder group are equitably represented. It goes into the solution process, support hybrid solution for the decision process, not making sure that shares and not takers need to be to ensure meaningfully, consider points on an equity-based principle to reduce those asymmetries in the patient. And finally, we need transparency on all the processes, ways of engagement, meetings, documents in advance to be prepared. Thank you so much.

Bruna Martins dos Santos:
Thank you Florian. Now let me bring Neth Dano into the discussion. We know Nath that your work talks about the issues being discussed, especially concerning the significant participation of players. So I’d like to invite you to join us about the second question, please.

Neth Dano:
Thank you so much, Chair. I’m actually glad to hear some fellow panelists coming from different sectors agreeing that there is no equal footing, no such thing as equal footing in this discussion of digitalization, digital issues right now. I think when you have players that have outsized power. that is actually bigger than the chair that is given to them in a table. They probably even own the room. It would be illusory to call that equal footing. And I think that should be explicitly recognized as a starting point in order to provide a context and to provide a realistic assessment, a realistic context of where any decision or outcome is coming from, especially if we’re talking about a consensus-based outcome. We cannot say there is consensus when defining the context, and the context is about the power asymmetry, that there is no equal footing. And I think at the very least, particularly at the level of the UN, if we’re talking about issues in digitalization that have transboundary impact that affect every corner of our lives, every aspect of our lives, the issue of equitable access, equitable participation, equitable involvement in governance should be a goal. It may not be a starting point, but it should be a goal, which means that along the way, you actually provide mechanisms in order to address inequities or unequal or asymmetry in power relations, as well. For example, the issue of knowledge sharing, building critical knowledge along the way and understanding among different sectors need to be ingrained in the process in order to address, partly address, help to address asymmetry in knowledge, for example, especially if we’re talking about building consensus for an outcome. The issue of what is meaningful should not even be imposed from outside or from the top. Whatever is meaningful should be defined by the sectors or events who actually opt to participate or opt to engage or opt to contribute from outside. and the transparency was elaborated on by fellow panelists. I think that that transparency should be ingrained, like from the beginning the process should be clear, how inputs are actually consolidated, how inputs are taken into account, how AI and the algorithms that actually are used to consolidate inputs to make lives easier for the secretariat and co-facilitators should be transparent. So we know what kind of game we’re involved in and what kind of process are we all investing time and effort. And lastly, I think the issue of access has to be operationalized. I think colleagues have already mentioned lack of access in terms of going there in person. Several have actually emphasized the importance of in-person interaction, like the cost involved for civil society, for social movements to be present in key moments of governance and decision-making is something that should be addressed. It’s not just an issue of investing in terms of money, but investing in terms of providing political and strategic value to that kind of participation, to enable that participation, enabling support, enabling mechanism is key. And definitely ensuring that processes and also support are transparent and everyone knows where the food on the table is coming from and who’s paying. So I think these are things that we should take into account in the upcoming processes that are defining, is going to define how the world is going to face these digital issues that we are confronting right now. Thank you.

Bruna Martins dos Santos:
Thank you very much, Nath. Let me now hand it over to Manao, please. Can you make your contribution?

Manal Ismail:
Thank you. Can you hear me now?

Bruna Martins dos Santos:
Yes, welcome.

Manal Ismail:
Perfect. Sorry, I was unable to unmute at the beginning. So thank you, Bruna, for giving me the opportunity again. And I would like in the context of this second question to reiterate a few points I mentioned earlier. So it’s not enough to allow with an open process the participation of everyone. It’s very important to make sure that they are, the participants are provided what they need to have a meaningful participation. So in terms of information, again, as I said, sometimes in the context of transparency, people are overwhelmed with information and it’s more like asking someone to drink from a fire hose. So it’s very difficult to cope with this. And sometimes it is equally unhelpful as providing too little information. Also, if, again, if people are not able to participate in person, it’s good to find funding mechanisms or even allow remote participation. This is also providing opportunity for those who are not able to be there in person. Again, giving equitable chance for everyone to voice their input and their concerns. If a topic is quite complex and needs specific skills or is a long standing topic that needs, some onboarding or awareness or capacity building or education, it’s important that this is provided for those who are participating to make sure they are providing an informed input and make sure that we are reaching consensus by really a meaningful participation of everyone and not just by silence or lack of participation. Because again, sometimes if there is no objection, you can reach consensus, but this is not really meaningful participation or equitable participation by everyone. And finally, as also I mentioned earlier, the language barrier, sometimes the language is a barrier for participation, so it’s not enough that we allow everyone to participate. It’s important that we provide the tools and mechanisms for them to ensure that they are taking a fair chance to provide their input. I hope this is helpful. Thank you.

Bruna Martins dos Santos:
Thank you very much, Manal. We are going to the last two panel comments of this session. Let me bring Mona now to join us. Mona, the floor is yours.

Mona Gaballa:
Thank you. I would like to echo the statement shared by other panelists that equity here is really central to this discussion. The way we see it, all stakeholders share collective responsibility for the continued vitality of the Internet and the benefits that it brings to people, societies, and the global economy. In the technical community, we share a sense of collective stewardship of the Internet and the open standards its technologies are based on. The consideration of digital issues, including Internet governance, should be open and accessible to all stakeholders. with respect to their roles and responsibilities, of course. We recognize the attributes of a successful multi-stakeholder decision as inclusive, transparent, with collective responsibility, effective decision-making and implementation, and collaboration through distributed and interoperable governance. Thank you.

Bruna Martins dos Santos:
Thank you very much, Nona. Thank you so much. Antonia, you are our last panelist. Would you make her comments, please?

Antonia Patriota:
All right. For leveling the playing ground, I think everyone has mentioned the representations. We need all stakeholders involved. But I think something that’s very relevant here is not only the participation of all players involved, but also the level of power that each one holds in the discussion. Because if we don’t have equal power, we can have a distortion in the results. So we need to be able to give equal voice, opportunity and inclusion, which is very important for the outcome. Access to information, like I’ve said before, I think is extremely important in a country and also Latin America, where MercadoLibre is, for example, that we need to be able to include everyone who will participate and has expertise and can contribute to the discussion. And without information, it’s not possible. So with a balanced representation and voting power, influence in decision-making can still be unequal. So, dominant players can still overshadow others, so here I think it’s very important to balance between the participation and decision making. Achieving the equal footing is a process about creating an environment where we can all have voices and be heard. By focusing on representation and all of the above, which I have spoken before, we can ensure a more inclusive and effective policy development process. Thank you for your attention. Congratulations.

Bruna Martins dos Santos:
Thanks, Antonia. That was pretty much it in terms of the panel and discussion so far. I’m going to hand it to Tamia soon, but just flagging that this was an idea to have a first set of initial assessments on the conversation, the problems, the barriers, and how to leverage the opportunities as well. But, Tamia, I’m going to hand you the floor so we can do the wrap up.

Renata Mielli:
Thank you, Bruna, and thanks, everyone.

Timea Suto:
Huge thanks to all the panelists for this very rich discussion and to my colleagues Renata and Bruna for organizing this panel. I have the very simple task of wrapping up the past hour of conversations. I’ll try and do that really briefly so that we don’t eat more of the upcoming session. Really what we’ve heard here from the participants is that the world has changed since most of you were here ten years ago, but the principles that were adopted then still ring true. And what we’ve heard from our speakers is that the conversation on the governance of the Internet cannot happen in separate silos and separate conversations from those discussions on the governance of technologies that enable or are built on top of the Internet. And the multi-stakeholder approach to these conversations is indispensable to shape informed decisions that really build this inclusive, human-centered, and development-oriented digital environment for everyone, everywhere. We have also heard how the multistakeholder approach is especially important to keep the pace with the fast evolution of technology that no one stakeholder can endeavor to do alone. But building these effective processes comes with a lot of challenges, as we’ve heard. I tried to group these into three main buckets. So there’s the challenge of inclusion to try and determine who needs to be present in the discussions. And this is sometimes challenged by lack of trust, lack of awareness of who is actually needed in that room, lack of resources, and this is on both sides, the lack of resources to invest in designing and convening processes or the lack of resources to attend them. Then there is the challenge of engagement, how to ensure that the participation of those who participate in these discussions is truly meaningful, and that needs a lot of discussions around transparency and accountability to really make sure that it’s not about just sharing ideas, but also knowing how those ideas are taken into account and where they have not been taken into account, why haven’t they been taken into account. And then there’s the challenge of coordination, because we have these conversations in distributed places and sometimes that can bring a lot of value and expertise. But then the idea is to not duplicate conversations or cause fragmentation, but to effectively bring these individual expertises together and communicate between one another to really inform collective decision making. So our panelists have already tried to bring in some ideas on how to overcome these challenges, and I’ve heard things like need for discussion forums, such as the IGF, that are not bogged down in negotiations but allow for open exchanges of ideas and help shape decisions. Need for intentionality, accountability, transparency for processes to enable meaningful participation of all stakeholders, either those impacted by the decisions to be taken or those that are necessary for the implementation of the decisions. Then there’s a need for capacity building to set everyone up for successful participation and the need to keep up the dialogue and not to stop at a certain moment as the technologies evolve, we need to evolve with them. And this is actually what I want to close on, this idea of need for continued dialogue. That’s our mission here today and tomorrow, to hear more from all of you here in the room and online on how we actually enable multi-stakeholderism, how to make it effective so that those decisions that need to shape our digital world for the future are truly inclusive of all of us. So with that, thank you to the panel and thank you to all of you. And we’re looking forward to our discussions in the space. Thanks everyone.

Renata Jabali:
Thank you very much to all the panelists for such a great discussion. Before we go to the next action, I would like to ask you to keep your belongings with you all the time, OK? Some of you are using our case to keep your computers. So keep them with you all time, OK, during the intervals and even if you go out, all right? Thank you very much. Just one second. I’m going to ask you to wait for just one second before I call for our next action, OK? And I also remind you that.