Charting the Course: Discussing the Impact and Future of the Internet Governance Forum

Experts debate the future and impact of the Internet Governance Forum at WSIS workshop

During a workshop at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum, experts gathered to discuss the impact and future of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), particularly in light of the upcoming 20-year review of the WSIS process that led to the IGF’s creation. The workshop, titled “Charting the Course, Discussing the Impact and Future of the Internet Governance Forum,” highlighted the IGF’s role in the evolving landscape of internet governance and its significance as a platform for diverse stakeholders.

Carolina Caeiro, co-author of the “Net Effects” report, presented the findings from the report, which underscored the IGF’s substantial value in internet governance, especially for the Global South. The report identified the IGF as a crucial connection point for policymakers, the private sector, technologists, activists, and academia, fostering inclusive dialogue. It also emphasized the IGF’s success in nurturing new Global South leaders and supporting connectivity initiatives, including internet exchange points and community networks.

Jennifer Chung, representing Asia-Pacific voices and the technical community, stressed the region’s diversity and the IGF’s role in introducing internet governance to underrepresented areas. She discussed the Asia-Pacific region’s efforts to document the IGF’s influence on policy decisions and called for broader Asia-Pacific representation in global internet governance discussions. Chung also highlighted the technical community’s commitment to preserving the internet’s critical infrastructure.

Anriette Esterhuysen, offering an African and civil society perspective, praised the IGF’s convening power and its ability to facilitate learning and experience sharing. She cited the IGF’s achievements in integrating gender justice into internet governance and combating online gender-based violence. However, Esterhuysen noted that the IGF could do more to address digital inequality, a pressing concern in Africa. She lauded the impact of national and regional IGFs in Africa for creating inclusive spaces for internet policy dialogue.

The panel addressed the IGF’s preparedness for future challenges, including the renewal of its mandate and its potential role in the Global Digital Compact. There was agreement on the need for the IGF to evolve to remain relevant and for increased systematic funding and support to ensure its continued effectiveness.

The workshop also touched on the importance of intersessional work, such as dynamic coalitions, policy networks, and best practice forums, in shaping policy. Participants discussed the need for better governance of these groups to maximize their impact. Concerns were raised about the multi-stakeholder approach being susceptible to dominance by well-resourced groups like the tech sector, suggesting the need for protective mechanisms.

Audience questions prompted discussions on the IGF’s contributions to specific Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and its role in resolving significant policy issues. The session concluded with a call for attendees to engage with the “Net Effects” report, support the IGF through the IGF Support Association, and continue contributing to the discourse on internet governance.

Key observations included the IGF’s ability to quickly respond to emerging issues and the necessity of maintaining a balance of diverse perspectives within the multi-stakeholder model. The workshop underscored the IGF’s potential to further the achievement of SDGs and highlighted the ongoing need to guard against stakeholder capture.

Chris Buckridge:
please take your seats. We will kick off now. Welcome to this afternoon’s workshop, a quick 45-minute one, as they all are, called Charting the Course, Discussing the Impact and Future of the Internet Governance Forum. It’s interesting to be at a WSIS forum discussing the future of the Internet Governance Forum, but hopefully a sign of the new, more complementary relationship that these different forums have with each other and in terms of the global governance structure. We’re approaching the 20-year review of WSIS, 2003-2005 events, and we’re preparing again to evaluate as part of that the impact of the Internet Governance Forum, which was one of the major outcomes of that original WSIS process. The IGF has convened around 18 meetings, well, it’s convened 18 annual meetings from 2006 to 2023. In that time, the landscape of Internet governance has undergone some very significant changes, with new challenges, new trends, new technologies. We’re looking a lot more at issues like AI these days, while also addressing perennial issues like promoting Internet access and affordability, and ensuring that the Internet community can consider strategies to collectively respond to those kinds of issues. Now, the basis or the driving reason behind our session today is a paper that was recently published by the DNS Research Federation entitled, Net Effects, an Evidence-Led Exploration of IGF Impact. And we have Carolina Queira here as the lead author of the team that produced this report. We also then have Jennifer Chung here from, who’s Director of CorporateKnowledge.Asia organization, and Anriet Esterhausen, down the end, the senior advisor on global and regional internet governance for APC. And we have a few questions, and hopefully to unpack a little of what’s seen in this report and how different stakeholder groups and different regions see the value of the IGF and how it will proceed going forward. But I wanted to start with Karolina and ask maybe to give a bit of an initial outline and impression of this report, the findings it had, and yeah, next steps. Yeah, absolutely.

Carolina Caeiro:
So thank you, Chris, and yeah, good afternoon, everyone. So yeah, I’m one of the co-authors of the report that Chris mentioned, the net effects and evidence-based exploration of IGF impact. I just wanted to say we’ve distributed a few hard copies of the report across the room. The link to the report is also available on the description of this session in case you also want to download it for your record. But essentially, what we set out to do with this project was to look at the work of the IGF since the last WSIS review, so essentially since 2015, 2016, and see if we could find evidence of areas where the IGF generated value. As you see, it’s quite a thick report, so I will not attempt to sort of summarize all of our findings. But spoiler alert, the report did find that the IGF has actually generated a great deal of value. We found that the IGF serves as a connection point for policymakers, private sector, technologists, activists, academia. We found that the IGF enables inclusive and constructive dialogue. We demonstrate. But there was one point I actually really wanted to highlight in the little time that we have today, that sort of emerged from the from the report and I think, you know, being Latin America, it’s something that really sort of stood out to me. And that’s the value that the IGF has generated for the global south, in particular. So I actually wanted to break down that a little bit for for the audience today. So, you know, what we found there’s, you know, obviously, you know, certainly room for for improvement. Our report shows that over the years the IGF has consolidated as a space with true global south representation right so a few data points on this front. The number of countries represented in IGF has continuously increased over the years. In 2023, for example, 178 countries were represented at the global IGF in Kyoto. We also see active global south participation in IGF leadership position. So for example, if you look at the mag, the multi stakeholder advisory group of the IGF over 50% of its members are actually from the global south. And also when when looking at the global network of national and regional initiatives that have organically proliferated around IGF, we see that 60% of all national initiatives take place in G77 countries. And, you know, these national and regional initiatives, as we all know, are very sort of powerful mechanisms, really, to bring the global internet governance conversation, sort of down to local realities. You know this notion that good governance begins at home, and that, you know, internet governance requires or calls for local implementation. We also found that the IGF through its youth initiatives has been crucial, both youth initiatives and intersessional work, and other initiatives has been crucial in nurturing new generations of Global South leaders. So these are some examples really of how the IGF has sort of truly delivered in, you know, in terms of Global South participation. Another point that I thought was really worth highlighting is that some of the areas where we found greatest evidence of impact are precisely areas of priority for the Global South. So if you browse through the report, you’ll find that some of the success stories of impact have to do with issues related to connectivity. For example, essentially how the IGF helped unleash connectivity solutions through its support for internet exchange points and community networks. So those are some examples of how the IGF has generated value for the Global South. And Chris, the reason really why I wanted to sort of highlight this specific point is because as we engage in the, you know, Global Digital Compact discussions, we prepare for the WSIS Plus 20 review. I think it’s very valuable to sort of remind ourselves how complex it is to craft and sort of weave spaces like the IGF, where we actually sort of deliver on the promise, if you will, of, you know, elevating the Global South, giving the Global South a voice. And through now nearly, yeah, two decades of work, the IGF has done a very good job at that. And that’s work that we can leverage and that we can continue to build on. So I’ll save that for initial remarks and hand back to you, Chris. Thank you.

Chris Buckridge:
All right. Thank you very much. That sets the stage very well and gives us an awful lot to digest here. I’m going to turn to our other speakers. And Jen, maybe you first. Because, yeah, as we mentioned, it’s a, well, as much diversity as we can. we can have in a relatively small group, but we’re coming from different regions, different stakeholder groups. I’m presuming you’ve both had a chance to read the paper, although maybe not would be even better, but to get your perspective on from where you’re sitting, your stakeholder group, your region, what do you see as the value that’s been generated by the IGF?

Jennifer Chung:
Thanks, Chris. Oop, I just pushed this away. I guess I sit here with two hats. First, really representing the Asia-Pacific voices, and then secondly, as technical community. So three quick points about Asia-Pacific. We are a really vast, very diverse region. And of course, actually for the regional IGF, the Asia-Pacific regional IGF, we’ve gone beyond the traditional UN regions, such as, you know, APEC, WE, AUG, RULEC, all of that. We’ve kind of expanded to meetings that have included Australia, which was last year. We had a really good meeting in Brisbane, and we’ve also included the Russian Far East. We had a meeting before the pandemic in Vladivostok, so the most Far Eastern city of Russia. We’ve also gone to places where it’s completely unrepresented, where internet governance itself is not even known as a concept. When we went to Vanuatu in 2018, the local population was astonished at the discourse that was happening, understanding what internet governance is first, and then seeing what they can contribute is really a valuable impact. After we were there, they developed their own national meeting and the youth meeting. So I think that’s a really significant and tangible impact. Second thing that we have, at least from the APEC point of view, we’ve created a census document process. I think there’s a lot of criticism lobbied at. We only talk at IGF, we don’t do anything. But I think we need to change our way of thinking. here, because there’s a lot of very good learnings that influence and shape a lot of policy decisions back at home. And having an output that is clearly understood in the region by all the people is very, very important. And we’ve also influenced Nepal IGF to create its own process to develop this kind of output that they could bring to their national legislature as well. And then finally, for AIPAC, I think our voices and viewpoints are still quite under represented, at least in the global internet governance discourse. Personally, I don’t want to still sit here year after year to be the one saying, I represent Asia Pacific, this is what we think I would love to see other people all across Asia Pacific to be able to sit where I’m sitting and telling you the interesting issues and policy decisions they have back home. And then finally, very briefly for the tech community. I think the technical community has coordination, inherently inbuilt in the history of the development of the internet as a network of networks. And I think there’s a lot of feeling at least with the tech community participation, that it’s driven to preserve the way the internet’s critical infrastructure works. Pretty much we’re saying don’t break what isn’t broken. So I think that’s the kind of impetus that I think a lot of the tech community has in preserving the multi-stakeholder way of discussing these internet items. And then finally, no tech development happens in a vacuum, and it can’t be agnostic to any prevailing forces. So understanding the geopolitical issues and the right-centered and ethical discussions, I think this is a benefit to all of us, especially in the technical community, when we look at developments of the whole lifecycle of all of our products.

Chris Buckridge:
Thank you very much. Definitely echoes there of what is some of the points in the paper. Henriette, turning to you. I have the same question from your stakeholder group, your region, what’s been the value that you’ve seen in the IGF?

Anriette Esterhuysen:
Thanks Chris, so speaking from an African perspective and a civil society perspective, I think I have to just point out that civil society is so diverse. I think all stakeholders, there’s no homogeneity, but I think civil society probably is the most diverse group. But I would say what it has meant for civil society. I think there are five dimensions. Firstly, it’s allowed us to convene. And I think that’s not to be taken for granted, especially if you’re diverse as a group. The opportunity to come together in a space where there are linked issues being discussed has allowed us to bring together people we work with and organizations, individuals from different parts of the world, particularly to bring people into the spaces who might not have been there. I mean, I still remember in 2014 in Istanbul, we brought 40 women’s organizations who really then started working on integrating a feminist and gender justice perspective into the IGF. And in 2011, we brought people who were working on spectrum regulation and establishing community wireless networks. And so, and through the dynamic coalition, the IGF intersessional modalities, we’ve been able to take this work and actually achieve real results. So, I think the next dimension for us is learning. I think the IGF civil society often is engaged in a wide range of activities, often at a fairly generalist level. And I think when you’re dealing with internet governance, both the policy dimension and the technology dimension requires you to actually know what you are talking about. You’re simply not going to have impact if you’re challenging government-led policies or private sector actions and business practices if you don’t understand. the nuts and bolts of how it works. And I think the IJF has allowed civil society to form partnerships with the technical community, with government, sometimes even with business, but to actually have a deeper and more technical specific understanding of the issues. And then I think it is allowed to share our experience. And again, I think I can use, for example, the best practice forum on online gender-based violence and how to combat it, allowed civil society organizations that have been working on how to combat gender-based violence in the physical world, and who was experiencing its manifestation in the online spaces to bring that experience to the IJF through the best practice forum and develop recommendations which in fact have been taken up at several levels. And then I think finally, it’s also enabled us to influence, just beyond the, I’ve used the example of gender-based violence, but I think human rights. Now, the IJF when it started was very reluctant to really integrate human rights beyond a very general human rights are good things to talk about. But through the IJF and through work at the same time in the Human Rights Council and in other spaces and working with governments that were committed to that, we managed to get the 2012 resolution at the Human Rights Council. But not only was that resolution about offline rights applying online made at the Human Rights Council, the IJF allowed us to socialize that, to make people from completely different non-human rights specific sectors aware of why they should know about this, why it’s important. It’s allowed us to raise concerns around internet shutdowns, for example, and digital exclusion. So I think it really has been a very important platform I think from an African perspective. I think it’s been good, but not good enough. I think the IJF has not been as successful as it was. that could have been or maybe couldn’t really have been in really profiling developing country issues and concerns. I think that the sort of the cutting edge angle of digital governance is so huge and there’s so many people engaged in it that the more sort of basic concerns of digital inequality in meaningful connectivity, they get some space at the IGF but they don’t get sufficient attention. And I think for those of us coming from the African region where digital inequality really frames our experience, the IGF is not quite delivered on that. I think the global digital compact doesn’t look like it’s gonna really deliver on that either. But at the same time, it has allowed us to partner on specific initiative to address digital inequality such as the dynamic coalition on community connectivity. But I think the final point here really where it has really delivered for Africa on national and regional IGFs. I think the impact of national and regional IGFs in Africa should just never be underestimated. It’s created spaces for more inclusive internet and communications and information policy at national level which actually just did not exist prior to those national and regional IGFs being established. And they’re all imperfect, some are better than others but even the imperfect ones, even if government doesn’t turn up or even if a government organizes the IGF, the national or regional IGF, they still have created a space for that kind of engagement. And you can see that when there are policy development processes. And you can also see that where there are actions like the Nigerian government, the president shutting down Twitter because he didn’t like what someone said about him. The immediate sort of mobilization, not just among civil society but across stakeholder groups and I think the IGF has really had a profound and I think a lasting legacy at that level.

Chris Buckridge:
Thanks, Amriet. Yeah, it’s a whole new paradigm in a way for actually, that’s feels like an achievement. I want to turn back to Carolina. I think we’ve been talking about essentially what was the subject of the study here, and I think there’s obviously some very good value and some very clear value that is evident. But if we look forward, is this model, is the IGF itself ready for upcoming challenges, and what do you see as maybe some of those challenges?

Carolina Caeiro:
Absolutely. Thank you, Chris, for that question. So is the IGF ready for upcoming challenges? I think yes, but it requires all our commitment really to get there. So yeah, to break down the question, what are the upcoming challenges? I think the most immediate one is the mandate renewal of the IGF in the WSIS Plus 20 review. And I think part of that will be impacted also by the outcome of the Global Digital Compact and the Summit of the Future and what role is envisioned for the IGF in that process. I think that when you look at the NetMundial outcome document, the Global Digital Compact contributions, it is clear that there has been sort of overwhelming support for the IGF renewal. So I think it’s highly likely we’ll have it, but obviously we need to see those processes through. In our report, we also asked people to contemplate the possibility of a world without IGF. We specifically asked if the IGF ceased to exist, what would you miss? And the answer we kept hearing back from people was that if the IGF ceased to exist, we would have to reinvent it. So I think the community that’s been participating at the IGF and as we were sort of discussing here with the panel, you know, does see value in this space and, you know, does see sort of a role for the IGF continuing in the future. Now, I do think that as a community, we need to come together and we need to sort of agree on what the ask will be of the WSIS process. We need to ask ourselves, you know, what are we willing to commit to? How do we need the IGF to evolve? And I think those, you know, conversations are unfolding. We are discussing among ourselves, you know, what that vision, you know, will look like. And I think, yeah, there’s extra work for us to do there. And if I may very quickly speak about a second challenge that I think is important is how to ensure that the IGF sort of stays relevant as a space. In our report, we speak of the IGF not only as a discussion forum, but also as a policy shaping forum. And I think there is room for sort of upping the game and leveraging some of the IGF discussions for impact. So if you look at the report, there are some very sort of concrete examples about how the IGF has managed to generate that policy impact. One actually, Henriette, you know, alluded to the work of the Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity. They issued this community networks manual that was cited by regulators in Brazil, actually, when they issued legislation supporting community networks. Another example that I think really sort of illustrates the potential impact. We had one interviewee sort of describe the role of the IGF in shaping the evolution of the Christchurch call to action. The IGF obviously didn’t deliver the Christchurch call to action. But it was sort of the one of the crucial spaces where relevant stakeholders sort of could get together to talk about. to hash it out. And that is, you know, impact that is incredibly, an incredibly valuable contribution. So there are a lot of examples, I think, like that. I call them the untold success stories of the IGF that we can learn a lot from, and that I think, you know, constitute impact mechanisms. If you can, you know, if you can call them that, that we can, you know, look out to sort of replicate and scale in the future as well.

Chris Buckridge:
Okay, thanks, Karolina. I want to turn to Jen and Anriet with a bit of a similar question, but I also will make this a heads up to the room. After that, it would be great to hear from the floor if any of you have questions for the speakers or your own thoughts on some of these impressions that we’ve got. But Jen, so turning to you, yeah. New challenges that are there. Is the IGF fit for purpose? And is there a priority that you, from your stakeholder group or region, sort of see to be addressed there?

Jennifer Chung:
Thanks, Chris. I’m going to try to be brief because I really want to hear all the questions and comments and I’m sure a lot of good viewpoints from the audience as well. I’m going to say there’s two and a half points that I want to make. So this is what I mean by two and a half points. The evolution of the IGF. This is really crucial because I speak a little bit about IGF having an identity crisis. Everybody wants something of the IGF. Does IGF know what it wants for itself? How are we going to shape it? And I think we have to be very flexible with our thinking this way because beyond 2025, and I’m speaking as though the mandate will be renewed and I really hope so. Maybe if we say it, we’ll manifest it. And of course, this is what we’re all saying here. But I think we need to also look beyond our traditional stakeholders, beyond the traditional things that we talk about. Already in the past few years, we see the topics change as the topics become very important in society. It reflects the kinds of things we’re talking about at the IGF. What does internet governance mean? Are we going to talk about digital processes? What about emerging? technology, what about AI? What about quantum in the future? Are we going to talk about these things there as well? The second point I want to make is the evolution of the multi-stakeholder approach. And that’s really important too, because from the NetMundial plus 10 outcomes and also the Sao Paulo guidelines, it’s a really, really good document to take a look and see what does multi-stakeholder mean? What does multi-stakeholder approach mean? And there’s a guidelines telling you, these are the attributes we hope that you look at, and this is what multi-stakeholder means. But if we look at it in a different way, it also is an evolution of multi-stakeholder approaches because I call them different flavors because you can be in WSIS and there is one kind of multi-stakeholder approach that WSIS employs and is very good at, and it’s best fit for what WSIS Forum represents. Another kind of multi-stakeholder approach is, for example, because I also, in the ICANN community, we employ that with our policy development, bottom-up multi-stakeholder approach. And at the IGF too, another kind of flavor of multi-stakeholder approach, and is any one of them the only one? I think not. And I think we need to be very flexible in understanding that. And not only that, and my point five points, the 2.5, is internet governance and digital policy processes. I think there’s a lot of criticism right now when we’re looking at multilateral processes where they have a very small oasis of consultation that they purport to be multi-stakeholder, you know, in nature. And I think we shouldn’t shun that and then we should celebrate that because the multi-stakeholder approach, I view it as a tool because it’s a toolbox we can use as appropriate. And I think we should look at it in the point of the evolution of how we see this as a toolbox to get to a decision that we want to get to, to get to through the processes that give it legitimacy. Of course, I caution against, you know, using this as a prop just to pretend we have false legitimacy. But I think we need to keep our minds open when we’re looking at this. Thanks.

Chris Buckridge:
Thanks very much, Jen. You mentioned what does the IGF want for itself. It made me imagine the IGF is this big hulking thing behind us waiting for us to determine what it wants. Henriette, maybe the same question. New challenges, is it fit for purpose? What are the priorities there?

Anriette Esterhuysen:
I think the new challenges are endless. Just look at climate change. Look at the impact of climate change and the relationship between technology and how the technology industry operates and climate change. Conflict minerals, for example. Establishing value change in those parts of Africa where those minerals are currently being mined by children in the most exploitative, extractive model that you’ve ever had in mining. How do we change that? How do we build economic partnerships and processes, value change that can transfer that? We haven’t even really started touching on those things at the IGF. I think provided the IGF remains flexible enough and open enough and visionary enough, I think it is a really good platform to pick up on those emerging issues. Particularly because of its flexibility, it can pick up on an issue quite quickly. Standard setting. I’m just looking here at Michel over there. Looking at standard setting and how to make that more inclusive, more global. I think that’s one of the real strengths of the IGF. That unlike other international fora where you need quite long bureaucratic processes with topics to be placed on the agenda, the IGF can pick up something quickly. You saw that with surveillance after the Snowden revelations. You saw that with internet shutdowns as well. The IGF was very quickly able to respond to these. So rather than set an agenda, I think what we need to look at is how do we make that more inclusive? at is a design of the IGF, which is able to pick up on those issues. I think what’s important is that those agenda items are really set not just by the Internet governance establishment or Internet governance insiders. You need people from other sectors, other disciplines, who are also confronted by digitalization and its implications to be able to bring their issues into the IGF, where they can engage with people that are in the Internet and digital sector. I think the evolution of the approach, I mean, I really agree with what Jennifer said. I think I would just say that, I mean, and thinking back on WSIS and why we were so excited about WSIS and the IGF 20 years ago, it’s because we thought it was a way of having better governance. And I think we sometimes forget, we become so preoccupied with multi-stakeholder governance that we forget that what we really want is governance that’s inclusive, that’s accountable, that’s transparent, that responds to people’s needs, and that’s accessible and legitimate, and governance that ensures accountability of states and of corporations, and governance that takes place in the public interest. And I think if we have to keep that in mind when we look at the evolution of the multi-stakeholder approach, the multi-stakeholder approach is, I believe, a way of having better governance. But if our end goal is just the multi-stakeholder approach or just multi-stakeholder governance, I think it could actually become self-defeating. And I’ll just give one example and then end on that. I also want to hear more what the room says. I think, for example, we need to be careful that we don’t apply the multi-stakeholder model in the IGF in such a way that we gloss over the fact that there are differences in interests, differences in views, differences in national… agendas. The IGF is a space where you can bring China together with the US, together with Barbados, you know, together with South Africa, and there will be differences of opinion. But that’s why we need the IGF. And if the IGF becomes a place where some countries are more welcome than other countries, it will lose that. Similarly, we need those corporations to be there so that we can engage with them and challenge them and understand them. And again, I think if it becomes a space where they don’t come, it also loses its value. So we need to find this balance between being inclusive, facilitating dialogue, but also facilitating debate.

Chris Buckridge:
Brilliant, thank you very much. Very current discussion, that one. I’m looking to the room here if anyone would like to just to raise their hand if they have any questions. Please, sir.

Audience:
My name is Horst Kramers from Berlin, Germany. And my question or my remark would be, I didn’t hear much about this special activity of IGF, which is called intersessional work, that really, to me, at least, made all the difference. It’s nice to meet. But as I also always told to colleagues in my work groups that I was leading, I said it’s allowed to work in between meetings. And that is not everywhere. And in IGF, that was for me very positive as a structure. Then the experience in practice, now you have 32 dynamic coalitions, and three policy networks. And that is quite a lot of people are engaged there. Nevertheless, it seems a little bit not all of them are working in same strength. I have the impression, I don’t want to go into details, but my recommendation would be that the governance people from IGF have a little bit of a closer look of what is going on and what is not going on in these dynamic coalitions or policy networks. If you leave them alone, then everything can happen. It’s voluntary, and then everything can happen. But even if it’s voluntary, it can be guided, it can be put into more positive results. Just a remark. Thank you very much.

Chris Buckridge:
I’ll say, as moderator, I’m not going to comment. As a MAG member currently, I’m taking this all in as very good feedback and input for the MAG. But, I mean, Karolina, perhaps, do you have some comments based on the work and the report?

Carolina Caeiro:
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, perhaps I didn’t emphasize the impact of the intersessional work enough in my remarks. I think it has come across a little bit with the comments from the other panelists. It’s sprinkled throughout the report as we sort of document different areas of impact. And to me, it really sort of struck me how powerful intersessional work has been, particularly in delivering the policy impact that we’re describing the IGF has managed to have. And this is the work of dynamic coalitions, policy networks, best practice forums. I do think there are some dynamic coalitions that work really, really well, that stand out in terms of what they have delivered for the IGF, for the communities, for the issues that they focus on. I think the dynamic coalition and community connectivity is the poster child, perhaps. At the same time, dynamic coalitions are community driven. And some, as you rightly point out, I think are more sort of impactful, I would say, than than others. One of the points I made in terms of learning from the untold success stories of the IGF is precisely looking at, you know, what generated success, you know, in the examples, you know, that we do have at hand, and figuring out how those processes can be, mechanisms can be sort of strengthened. So I take your point and your suggestion of working perhaps more closely with the dynamic coalitions to ensure, yeah, they’re, you know, delivering, they’re, you know, properly open and inclusive. And yeah, and just harnessing their power to influence policy. I don’t know if, and Riyadh, I’m sure, wants to come in too.

Anriette Esterhuysen:
Just to, actually, some of the examples I mentioned, the work on combating online gender-based violence that was done through intersessional work. I think that you’re absolutely right. It is what’s unique about the IGF, or not, there are ITU study groups as well. But I think that it needs, on the one hand, recognition that this is bottom-up and community driven. So therefore, it cannot be, I think, even guiding it would take resources. It might also create complexity. But there are different types of intersessional work in the IGF. Dynamic coalitions are self-organized, but policy networks and best practice forums are not. And I think there is room there for strengthening those. I think one of the challenges in the IGF is that it doesn’t have sufficient institutional resources and capacity to learn and modify its practices and implement those modifications. The secretariat tends to be stuck in the cycle of working incredibly hard, you know, an annual cycle, and they do their best to strengthen those intersessional modalities. But I think absolutely, for longer-term impact, I think they need to have more thought. They need to be refined a little bit. Perhaps we don’t need as many. And they need to work over a longer period of time, and then they can have more impact. I think particularly the policy networks are a really good innovation, but they need to be strengthened.

Jennifer Chung:
Very briefly, because I want to hear more questions, I see a lot of hands. The National Regional Youth Initiatives actually are intersessional work, and we have over 170 at this moment. I see Anja nodding. So, I mean, it’s so varied and diverse, and also within intersessional work, we have a lot of collaboration. For example, the Internet Standards, Security, and Safety Coalition has partnered with a lot of NRIs to actually showcase their work and actually get collaborative partners. Also, the Dynamic Coalition on DNS Issues actually looked at universal acceptance as a previous workflow to actually create something. So, I think the Dynamic Coalition’s flow and ebb as their projects are topically based, but the NRIs, of course, all year round, we do our work.

Chris Buckridge:
Okay. Thanks, Jen. I want to acknowledge there’s been actually a fair bit of discussion in the Zoom chat. Apologies, I’m going to play pretty fast and loose because we are approaching time, although I’m going to run a little over. So, I’m not going to ask all the questions here. There was actually one from Mark Carvell about the intersessional, which I hope, Mark, there’s been some discussion of that there in response to your query. There was a question from Andrew Kampling about saying an area of vulnerability for the multi-stakeholder approach is it can be easily dominated by the tech sector. It has advantages in money, time, bandwidth, focus. This can happen through lobbyists and indirectly through corporate capture. Should we think about ways to protect the community from dominance by any of the various stakeholder groups and their proxies? While we have that, I also wanted to throw to another question in the room, and then maybe we can have a few final comments in response to both of those. So, please.

Audience:
Many thanks. I’m Janne Hirvonen from the Finnish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. As probably you know, we are a long-time supporter of the IGF and the multi-stakeholder Many thanks for this discussion. I think it’s timely, and we should continue this discussion. The IGF should be fit for purpose also in the future. And maybe to follow up on some of the points that you raised in your remarks, maybe it would be useful to hear more in detail. Did you assess the impact of the IGF vis-à-vis concrete relevant SDGs and their achievements? That might be an interesting point to discuss. And also, Karolina, I believe you mentioned that some of the areas of the IGF segments, there were room for improvements. If you could elaborate a bit more on that, that would be useful. I will keep it at that. Thanks.

Chris Buckridge:
Okay, thank you. I’m going to give each of our panellists a chance. There was one other, and I just want to acknowledge Mokhaveri Hossein in the chat. A few different points he’s making there, but one was to really put to the panellists, are there significant policy issues that the IGF has played a significant role in resolving? So I think asking that very, really putting it to the, yeah. So maybe Karolina, and then we’ll move along.

Carolina Caeiro:
Well, I think I have a very concrete one to handle here. The question on the SDGs. So the impact framework that the report is based on is the Tunis agenda and the mandate of the IGF as established in the Tunis agenda. So we actually took those, I won’t forget the exact number, but I want to say it was 12, 13 points that outline the mandate of the IGF. We compiled those in six areas of impact and throughout the reports for all the sort of case studies that we document, we sort of link them back. to the Tunis agenda and the WSIS mandate. We didn’t do the exercise of connecting with the SDGs, but I’ve been hearing sort of the importance of working as a community more proactively in linking the WSIS process, the WSIS action lines as well, back to sort of the work of the IGF. And I do know the secretariat does collect when you apply for a workshop information on what SDGs actually being impacted. So I think there’s certainly data out there that we can analyze and we can produce some thinking around that. In terms of areas for improvement, I will sort of mention a couple that we document in our report very quickly. We found there’s opportunities for continuing to work on diverse representation. This goes, I think, to Henriette’s point about the fact that there’s still sort of room for improvement, concrete things that the community sort of suggested to us. It’s working on sort of the events, continuing to sort of travel across the world because whenever an IGF is hosted in a different region that enables a new wealth of participants to approach the IGF. I think there’s also picking up perhaps on Andrew’s point, this notion of sort of thinking, not only of participation, but the notion of meaningful participation and ensuring that we have sort of proper representation from different regional and stakeholder groups so that you reach some kind of sort of even representation if that’s possible. There’s been comments on the fact that we need better capture of discussions that have a bit more political weight. And I think I alluded to that as well with some of the examples of the outputs from dynamic coalitions that have had a lot of impact. you know, perhaps better curation, better innovation on how we design, you know, the meetings, the intersessional work. There’s a lot more in the report, so I encourage everyone to read it. But yeah, I’d love to save time for my other panellists as well. Thank you.

Chris Buckridge:
Jen, if I can give you 90 seconds, an unreacted 90 seconds, that would be great.

Jennifer Chung:
I’ll do you better, I’ll keep it in 60. I saw quite interesting questions and chat going on in the Zoom room, but I think one of the points that the participant raised is about capture, because the vulnerability of multi-stakeholder approach, because it’s so open to everyone, is there always more resourced parties. It doesn’t have to be big tech or governments, it could be any more resourced organisation or individual could capture. But I think this is something where we really need to look into accountability of ourselves as well. Because the value in IGF, it’s because it’s not a negotiation document forum. We don’t have stakes like that there. So I think that in itself already kind of level sets our expectations of how open we can be in these discussions. So that’s one value. And then an opposing point I saw here, or not really opposing, a relative point here about the funding. I think Bertrand de la Chapelle mentioned this in the Zoom room. This is a perennial problem. We want the IGF to continue. We support the IGF. Everybody here in the room and everyone I’ve heard talk about the IGF so far at WSIS and at other forums really, really support it. We really need to put our money where our mouth is. So I mean, afterwards, please take a look at this, because it’s very difficult actually, to fund the IGF. If you want to go to fund the IGF trust fund, it’s very, very difficult as individuals to do it. But if you are an individual and you do want to support, there is the Internet Governance Support Association that you can take a look at after this.

Anriette Esterhuysen:
for an individual membership and it makes a big difference. In fact, this IJF Support Association is an outcome of the UN Commission for Science and Technology Development Working Group on IJF Improvements that proposed setting up a mechanism for small contributions. I think the issue of capture, I think really that is the responsibility of the MAG. And I think particularly in how the MAG organizes the main sessions, it has the ability to ensure that there’s a balanced diverse perspectives that are shared. I think that in terms of how to strengthen the IJF, actually, I want to just recognize Finland, the Finnish mission to the UN hosted an expert group meeting on how to strengthen the IJF in 2022. There was a public call for input. The community gave fantastic input. It was compiled. I think the consultant might be in the room who compiled the report. But this report, which has wonderful recommendations about how to strengthen the IJF, is not being systematically implemented or even reviewed. So that’s just a capacity issue, but it means we have knowledge, we have experience. We just need to act on it. SDGs, it’s a really good question. I think the idea of, maybe it’s a bit of a hit and miss or an indirect connection to the SDGs, but there is a connection. I think where you see a more direct connection is in the national and regional IJFs, where you’ll often see a pre-event focusing specifically on public health and the internet, for example, or on agriculture and the internet. So you see a more direct link at that national level. I think it’s also partly because often the national and regional IJFs bring a little bit of WSIS into their agendas as well. So that link with the SDGs, with WSIS and the IJF is quite strong at many of the NRIs, particularly in developing and least developing countries. And Amir’s question, well, the IANA transition. might not like what the INA transition achieved, but I think many analysts would say that if it was not for the IGF, it would have taken much longer or been much more difficult to achieve that transition of ICANN being incorporated under, you know, part of the U.S. or accountable to the U.S. Department of Commerce to becoming an independent organization, because the IGF was where the battles took place and where the broader community became involved in that debate about the internationalization of the IGF. And then I think Sao Paulo, the Net Mundial in 2014, as well as the Net Mundial plus 10 guidelines, I don’t think we would have had either of those processes if it wasn’t for the IGF. Because remember, the IGF brings those different communities together. It does bring governments, the technical community, civil society and the academia and business together. And if it wasn’t for the IGF, I don’t think we would have had those quite concrete multi-stakeholder outputs that the two-phase Net Mundial produced.

Chris Buckridge:
Thank you very much, Henriette. Thank you, Jen as well, and Carolina. We are running over time. So the takeaways from today, read the report, join the IGF Support Association, and keep thinking about these issues. Thank you all very much for joining us, and this session is closed.