NRI Assembly – European contribution to global IG process – 2017

From EuroDIG Wiki
Revision as of 17:01, 4 December 2020 by Eurodigwiki-edit (talk | contribs)
(diff) ← Older revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)
Jump to navigation Jump to search

6 June 2017 | 14:30 - 16:00 | Room Tornimäe II, Swissotel, Tallinn, Estonia | video record
Programme overview 2017

Session teaser

Until 1 April 2017.

Keywords

Until 1 April 2017. They will be used as hash tags for easy searching on the wiki

Session description

Until 30 April 2017. Always use your own words to describe your session. If you decide to quote the words of an external source, give them the due respect and acknowledgement by specifying the source.

Format

Until 30 April 2017. Please try out new interactive formats. EuroDIG is about dialogue not about statements, presentations and speeches. Workshops should not be organised as a small plenary.

Further reading

People

Focal Point:

  • Sandra Hoferichter, EuroDIG Secretariat in cooperation with Anja Gengo, IGF secretariat

Key Participants (for workshop) or Panellists (for plenary)

Moderator

Remote Moderator

Organising Team (Org Team)

Reporter

Video record

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu90nwItljY

Messages

The session brought together national and regional Internet Governance Forum (IGF) initiatives (NRIs) from Europe, to discuss how to best present themselves at the upcoming IGF meeting, which will take place in December 2017, in Geneva. Opening the session, Ms Sandra Hoferichter, EuroDIG Association, mentioned that having the global IGF in Europe offers an opportunity to European NRIs to showcase their work. As Europe is the continent with the largest number of NRIs, this brings it to the forefront of Internet governance discussions.

Ms Lousewies van der Laan, Board of Directors of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), noted that, since the multistakeholder model of Internet governance seems to be working well in Europe, this is something that NRIs in Europe can showcase at the IGF. She further elaborated on the need to make IGF iniatives more result-oriented, by moving from a simple identification of Internet-related challenges, to trying to come up with solutions to address such challenges. By not taking the multistakeholder model to this next level, we risk giving an excuse to those who argue that this model does not work. Mr Yrjö Länsipuro, Internet Society Finland, commented that there is, indeed, a need to advance from dialogue to concrete actions, but this is a dilemma that the IGF community has been trying to address over the past 10 years – how to create a bridge between the mandate of the IGF and the reality of today.

During the discussion, it was said that many IGF initiatives face a difficulty in bringing in more actors from the private sector, and, to some extent, governments into their processes. Mr Jorge Cancio, Federal Office of Communications of Switzerland, mentioned that in order to address this challenge, the initiatives need to address those issues that are really relevant and pressing for these stakeholder groups. Having a programme focused on concrete and challenging issues (e.g. hate speeches and fake news) will help attract more stakeholders. Ms Sorina Teleanu, DiploFoundation and South Eastern European on Dialogue on Internet Governance (SEEDIG), mentioned that a positive development was noticed at the SEEDIG 2017 meeting, which had increased participation from both the private sector and governments. Ms Marianne Sakalova, E-baltic.org, commented that when it comes to national IGF initiatives, the involvement of various stakeholder groups is largely dependent on the national context. In some cases, governments are driving the processes, while in others, it is the civil society or the private sector.

Mr Chengetai Masango, IGF Secretariat, mentioned that the IGF 2017 meeting will give space to NRIs to show what they are doing at the national and regional level. When planning their presence at the global IGF, NRIs should have a multi-year approach in mind, and how the activities they plan for IGF 2017 could lead to other activities in the following IGF meetings.

After this initial round of discussions, Hoferichter asked participants to try to come up with concrete suggestions on how European NRIs can present themselves at the IGF 2017 meeting, possibly in the context of a European forum. One idea was to allow NRIs to talk about the most important Internet governance issues and challenges tackled at their meetings. Taking one step forward, NRIs could try to identify whether there are common positions among themselves on any of the addressed issues. At the same time, challenges, good practices, and success stories in running IGF initiatives could be another topic for discussion at a possible European forum. Finally, it was suggested that European NRIs should also showcase the connections that exist at the European level between national IGFs, SEEDIG, and EuroDIG.

Building on these suggestions, it was agreed that the EuroDIG Secretariat would invite European NRIs to map three ‘hot topics’ discussed at their meetings, three challenges they face in their work, and three aspects that work well at NRIs and can be seen as success stories. Once this ‘map’ is created, discussions will continue on how to best plan a European NRIs session at the IGF, and both existing and under formation NRIs in Europe would be invited to contribute.

Participants were also reminded that EuroDIG traditionally has a booth during the IGF meeting, and that there is a joint booth for NRIs from around the world; these could also be used to better promote the work of European NRIs. A suggestion was made to try to prepare a brochure of European NRIs, with basic information about IGF initiatives across the continent, which would then be presented at the IGF meeting in Geneva.

Finally, it was noted that the idea of having European NRIs showcasing their work in a dedicated session or via booths during the IGF 2017 meeting should be complemented with ensuring that there is a strong European voice in the main sessions and workshops, from all stakeholder groups. NRIs should encourage their communities to be active both during the planning process for the IGF, and during the meeting itself, by contributing their views and experiences to the discussions.

Author: Sorina Teleanu see also [1]

Transcript

Provided by: Caption First, Inc., P.O. Box 3066, Monument, CO 80132, Phone: 800 825 5234, www.captionfirst.com


This text is being provided in a realtime format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.


>> ANNOUNCER: We request you to enter the room and take your seats. Ladies and gentlemen, the conference programme will continue in one minute. We kindly request you to enter the room and take your seats.

>> MODERATOR: Hello.

Okay. It's time to start the session. 6 minutes after the hour.

>> Six minutes late.

>> Yes (chuckles).

Let's start the session. Thank you for coming. The purpose of this session, which we call NRI assembly and actually I was hoping we would have a little bit more NRIs here in the room, because I know there are more attending the EuroDIG actually, is that we would like to discuss with you, first of all we would like to establish this kind of, NRI regular meeting during EuroDIG and also hopefully during the global IGF, and secondly, we believe that we have a very unique opportunity this year with the global IGF taking place in Europe, that we could actually showcase our, the work we are doing, showcase in the way that as I mentioned already, Europe is the Continental region with the most national and regional IG initiatives.

I really believe that our way of keeping discussions going on even in difficult times, the ability we have in Europe to do this brings us kind of in the forefront of leading Internet Governance discussions, although in Europe there are not the big high tech industries, companies that came from another region. But I think in terms of Internet Governance discussion, we could really add value to the global community, and I would like to brainstorm with you what we could actually do in action in Geneva.

First of all, do you want to do something together? And if so, then I would like to find out what we can do together. I have not prepared any proposals, anything. The only thing I would like to draw your attention to is the spreadsheet where most of the European initiatives already filled in what they had been discussed or what they had been focused on in 2016, and some of them even updated it for 2017 already.

This could be one thing to work along the lines, how we could present ourselves in Geneva. But I would actually like to stop here already, and would like to open the floor, and would like to hear your suggestions, your thoughts, what you would wish like or how you could think could, European community undertake and do in Geneva besides drawing some drinks to the community. Who wants to speak? Elizabeth.

>> Thanks. Is this on? I'd like to speak in my personal capacity because obviously in the board, this is, I'm a member of the ICANN board, but this is obviously none of our business, as we have a different responsibility.

I think it's a really good idea to try to do something with Europeans. I've attended two global IGFs and some local ones. One of the advantages I think we have in Europe is that the multistakeholder model seems to work pretty well. In certain parts of the world, for example, civil society is not very well developed or not very well financed. In other parts of the world, there is a tradition of looking to the government for everything, and not countering what the government does.

I think in Europe we basically have a good chance to get it right. That means that if we cannot manage to organise effective answers to serious Internet challenges in Europe, then, I don't want to be too dramatic but the rest of the world is doomed. I think we have a huge responsibility.

I always believe it's good to lead by example. One of the things that I found frustrating about attending different IGFs is that there are a lot of people around the table, but we don't always get concrete results. I would hope that we can focus a little bit on how to make sure that we go from identifying problems, identifying challenges, to actually solving them.

One of the challenges we have of course is that even though we want to be very multistakeholder, not everyone is always here. I don't know how many people for example from the private sector are here at this EuroDIG. But it's one of the things that is disappointing, because if they are not there, we can talk all we want, but then we are missing a key partner. I think this is important to see how we can improve the participation.

One of the things you could do is simply, I think what Theresa said basically saying Facebook is creating a safe haven for terrorists, so if you organise a IGF session saying Facebook is legitimizing terrorism, I think they would probably show up and be part of the debate.

If you make it very concrete, very, a little bit more challenging, stimulating, then that could probably dare them to be really a part of it as well.

The other thing that I find challenging is that some of the problems we run into on the Internet, because they have a law enforcement aspect, need to be solved by governments. When governments are not doing their job, that gives certain governments the legitimacy to say, but there is a huge problem on the Internet, be it terrorism, be it pedophilia, copyright infringements, etcetera, because they are not having a multi lateral treaty, against cyber crime, it's because their law enforcement does not work together because governments are not doing their job, that they can point to us and say, you guys are not fixing it. But we can't fix some of these things because there is no multistakeholder police authority, there is no multistakeholder or technical law enforcement or anything like that.

I would really like us to get more concrete to define what the problems are, and then to say that if we don't come up with concrete solutions or ideas for solutions or directions for solutions, then we have to be careful about sitting around talking, because dialogue can be very, noncommittal in the end. It is important to have dialogue. But in the end, if we are not actually solving real life problems that things that are happening on Internet Governance, then we are giving an excuse to those who don't support the multistakeholder model and who don't like the way that we are approaching it to go and say, look, it's not working.

I don't want to give those, especially governments, that excuse to point to say it's not actually working. I think I feel a sense of urgency to do it. I think that there is many things that are going really well, I mean coming from outside of this, the whole Internet sphere, I was amazed to learn about the whole notion of multistakeholderism, how it works, there is a dialogue, how global it is. It is one of the few things that works globally. It works well.

I don't want to sound like I'm criticizing it. It's that I think we can do even better. It's a wonderful system and wonderful model, that I'm afraid if we don't take it to the next level, we are giving an excuse to those who are actually trying to kill the model. That is what I'm worried about.

I think it's great that we are having this meeting. I hope there will be a lot of cool concrete ideas. As I said before, I apologize because I have to get on to a call so I'm really sorry I have to leave. But if anything, I hope it can, we can strengthen the model and make sure that it becomes an example for the rest of the world and other sectors, rather than an excuse for certain governments to say, hey, let's put this all under U.N. control which is I think still a risk.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Elizabeth. One thing I forgot was to do a quick tour of the table. You started, Elizabeth, from the ICANN board. Shall we go that way.

>> I'm living in Europe, so some of you may know me from other parts of the world, Amsterdam, three weeks and three days counting. I've moved from Japan. I'm responsible for civil society, academic engagement with ICANN, which means very much the national regional IGFs, particularly in this region, I work with John Jacques, so if you are looking for support in various ways, we are always there for speakers and general ideas and so on. I very much agree with Elizabeth's, I wrote similar things about commonalities, differences and my own note was solutions but in bold.

I think those are the sorts of messages, not so much on reporting, but where your commonalities were, the differences, and then what are the solutions that we can look to. I would emphasize that the private sector is, you can see the attendance record that the Secretariat makes available and you can see the percentage of private sectors dropping quite significantly over time in the IGF and encouraging European private sector would be extremely valuable. Thank you.

>> Hi, I'm a student, entrepreneur and now also organizing the Dutch youth IGF. I'll make it a quick word.

>> Hi, hello, I'm representing one of the organisations from the government side, that is co organizing the IGF from Portugal.

>> Hi, on behalf of the Spanish IGF, I'm supporting them with international part.

>> Hi, I'm from Armenia, representing Armenia IGF and also a member of executive committee for SEEDIG. Thank you.

>> I'm from Estonia Internet society, from local similar organisations.

>> European Dialogue on Internet Governance, and one quick comment because I've heard a lot about governments and private sector being less represented. We had a big surprise at SEEDIG this year to have more private sector and more governments than civil society, which is a first time for us. We usually had a lot of civil society and not the others. But this time it was the other way around. Something is happening in our region, finally.

>> Hello, everybody. I'm from the Federal Office of Communications, Switzerland. While I'm here very fittingly seated next to Chengetai because this year we are together organizing the global IGF in Geneva from the 21st of December, I'm also active in the ICANN environment, because I'm the Swiss representative in the governmental advisory committee. But returning to the IGF, I think it's very important that if we want to have more representation from the business sector, from the private sector, from governments, we also have to tackle the issues that are really relevant to them, which are really burning on their fingers.

I think we have made a good choice with the overarching theme for 2017, which is to shape your digital future. You can put lots of things under that. But the main intention, I think, is that we talk about not so much about the esoteric issues around Internet Governance, which interests perhaps only a few experts, but that we really tackle the issues that are related to digitization, be it hate speech, be it fake news, be it how the digitization is affecting how democracy, how public opinion is being framed and transformed, or be it also the disruption and the transformation of traditional economic sectors which go well beyond the traditional on line platforms.

If we really help to make that programme really attractive, and to gather the relevant people around the relevant topics, I think that the discussion will attract the right people, and also will help us to shape the future and shape the decisions that will be taken first by national governance, by multistakeholders processes or by international organisations. Okay. I'll leave it by that and give it over to Chengetai.

>> Thank you very much. I'm from the IGF Secretariat. Unfortunately Anja couldn't be here. She gave me strict instructions that I have to say some things (chuckles).

So she is listening, so I better do. First of all, I'd like to agree with Elizabeth that this is a great opportunity, especially not just because we are holding it in Europe, the IGF annual meeting, but also this year we have given, we have made a lot of effort to give the national and regional initiatives a lots of space during the annual meeting.

This is the opportunity for you to show what you can come up with in the programme, and then if this is successful of course, you can be given more space in the coming years to follow. I'd like to mention it shouldn't be just for this year, you should be thinking of what to do this year would lead into some activities for next year because we are trying to build a multi year programme, instead of this one year we finish, and then we start again. No. We are trying to build a multi year programme.

Hopefully, Anja, is that good enough? Thank you. (chuckles).

>> Hi, from European Broadcasting Union, but also I'm here because I'm among the group that creates EuroDIG, and I'm deeply involved in the IGF. And also I'm one of the organizers, IGF Italia, even if I'm living abroad.

I want to use this opportunity to answer to a misunderstanding that there is about the scarce presence of European business entities. Apart from EBU we are also commercial entity so we represent also that. The main problem is that currently the European enterprises are discouraged to intervene in the Internet field because within the ICC that is the body that allegedly represented the business entity and we are a member of it, as EBU, the European entities doesn't count nothing. This body since three years it doesn't keep a general assembly, no elections. Now we will have to ask for having a assembly. But in reality there is not a big dialogue within the business community, and not a big participation.

I think that this will continue like that. You can imagine which are the reasons. I think that if we really want to solve this issue, we need to go to the roots of the problem. If not, we continue like this forever.

>> Yeah, hi, from next door, that is to say from Finland, ISOC Finland. I very much agree with what was said about the need to advance from the dialogue to concrete action. But we have been basically trying to solve this dilemma for more than ten years now, the conflict between the original mandate, and the need and requirements of today. However, I'm hopeful. We are advancing. If we look at the road that has been traveled since 2006, it's enormous. We really have gone a long way.

>> Hello, I'm from Baltic Internet initiative. But I'm here because of the Belarusian IGF which took place for the second time this year. I'm not a member of a organizing committee. Unfortunately, they do not have an opportunity to come.

But they delegated me to express my impression of the IGF in Belarus. And I would say that again the context in different countries is different. In Belarus, the major initiatives of IGF, they were from business community. And the first one was mainly organized top/down, the government and business.

This year, there was a big participation of the civil society. So, and I think that, again the major challenge for Belarusian IGF, I think for many national IGFs, it's important, for EU international IGFs it's important to make an IGF national IGF not an event, but a process, something that does not only occur once a year, but something which should raise awareness of the numerous issues concerning Internet Governance.

In my part of the world, the most difficult thing to understand is this multistakeholder partnership. This concept is not simple. It is even more difficult to realize, to bring it into reality. But still there are some parts of the world where even the notion and understanding of this kind, new kind of partnership, is absent.

So when we speak about the NRI part in Geneva this year, so maybe we can just think about multistakeholder models in various contexts, in various national contexts, because everywhere, they are different. Thank you for your time.

>> Hi, I'm from Ukraine, I'm director of international nongovernmental organisation European media platform, and member of IGF steering committee.

I would like to say that we have submitted our proposition to Anja for IGF in Geneva, and would like to ask Sandra to include our proposition into this table. It was about documentation of Internet. This was provoked by the decree of our president regarding blocking of some Russian Internet platforms, but during discussion in our steering committee, it was revealed that the blocking by itself could not resolve the implementation but a lot of other aspects, gender, age related, social, cultural aspects of reacting on this blocking really can result in documentation.

(microphone feedback).

>> MODERATOR: Okay.

Thank you very much for this extended tour de table.

I want to pick up what Chengetai said, he said global IGF is giving more space to national and regional which is good because they have been, the mark has been recognized, input, global and regional IGF, global and national IGFs are, sorry, national and regional IGFs are giving to the global one is of great value.

So my question would be now very concrete, what are we going to do with that space, with that additional space? I could think of a kind of European forum or let's call it whatever it is. But what are we going to do in that session? Are we going to do process? Are we going to meet just to discuss or are we going to discuss real topics which are somehow of concern for many, for majority of people in Europe. What are your thoughts on this? What would you like to discuss as the European, as a European community in Geneva this year?

Then maybe make a model case out of this and work along the lines and do that similar in the next coming years.

>> Now it works? Good. On the screen we see the last year topic which we had discussed for national IGFs and national, regional from European region, which were the hot topics. This was done by national IGFs provided.

I really like that format, when we have revealed topics of interest from national IGFs. We can have open forum and bring to the discussion hot topics and challenges what we have in our countries.

For example, Belarus IGF and about the multistakeholder thing, that it is not a common thing or it's not that much understood for the community for all stakeholders, but for Armenia, for example, we have this permanently working group who Internet Governance comes so we succeeded in this thing. It would be good to share some opinions and bring the topics of challenges and maybe success as well, so that the other countries know what is done in other countries. This is my suggestion. This format was great for previous year. So we can repeat it.

>> We as European NRIs are quite good in finding each other, so the public and the private parties can meet easily in Europe, I guess. But at the international IGF it would be maybe something like a best practice, we can do something like that to show how we in Euro collaborates between the public and private parties in the multistakeholder model, because in Netherlands we are having an organisation that is actually facilitating the public private table.

So maybe we can share something of that on the international IGF.

>> This is a comment to someone who has been a audience member of some of these meetings, and also before joining ICANN I was a member of the early Mag and did some consulting work with Chengetai. One of the things that I enjoy hearing is if the discussion is between you about what is happening in your region and the experiences of Armenia, I'm interested in the discussion.

I'm not probably going to be as interested in a Power Point presentation from and I'm not picking on Armenia, so I do apologize, but I don't want to hear a Power Point presentation of what you do. What I would love to hear is a discussion of you asking questions of, you know, we have this problem, what is your answer? We have the risk of doing a reporting on these issues, and that can be a bit deadly, or not so interesting, I should say.

But if you can make it a discussion, and a learning experience, that is extreme that is valuable to all of us. But if you can live in a Power Point presentation, let's not do it is what I'm trying to say. We don't need a listing of what you did, but understanding the differences, asking questions, learning from each other, that is where I think the value is.

That is an audience, someone who has been at these things for a while. Thanks.

>> As I already proposed last year, but last year was probably too early, I think that we need to ask ourselves the original question. The original question is what we want to do through a European dimension, European dialogue. What we want to do is to see where, if there are basis for common position that are shared by all the European communities of the Internet.

For me, the best way to do so is like this year IGF is at the end of the year, is to check as we did the last year, which will be the topics, and then gather by clusters the various experience.

If for instance there have been three or four local IGF that have discussed about IoT, then put them together and to see if there is an, out of the country situation, a common position, because this could be the seed of a European position possibly.

We can articulate through this.

This could cover most of the topics. But there will be specific national problems that need to be addressed, and that are important to be addressed to the European community of the EuroDIG. This makes it specific to us. We need to have these two tracks within the initiative that we can organise at the IGF. If we do and in advance, I think this could be quite successful and could be a model for other parts of the world.

>> I would like to come back again to our region, which is also Europe, but is a little bit different. We have been thinking about regional initiative, and what region, for instance, Belarus is in.

First of all, we can call ourselves Eastern Europe, but we have already central and southern Europe NRI, and it covers sometimes Eastern Europe. We can use eastern partnership which includes Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

But the question is, what do we want this national and regional initiative to be like?

Maybe it would have been useful again from the, from my country perspective to make it a kind of awareness raising event, educational event, because for instance in Belarus, there is very low awareness of what Internet Governance is, so to prepare people to participate fully in the international events, like EuroDIG or IGF, maybe we can use this NRI just to educate them. It can be a decision, a way to do something.

>> To answer your question, Sandra, I would propose that it might be a good idea to address topics that have a strong national, regional component, and cross border issues so to say, so to differentiate from other topics that are common to every country and global and are discussed in the other workshops.

To give you an example, we had our meeting last year, but we had last week a special forum focus on digital rights, and very often it remained in the conversation that the problem with digital rights is that they are understood differently in different regions, like the right to privacy is differently understood in the U.S. than in Europe.

So this sort of differences is what I'm trying to refer to that would be interesting for a space like the one we are talking about, like where the regional initiatives are mainly represented maybe.

>> I think from my perspective, beyond the themes and the issues that we can find some synergies along all the national and regional IGFs. One thing that is important is to, how can we get new participants from our national community and the European community to participate in this dialogue, because it's important to have in the audience some participants of our national community. It will be the first time that the IGF will take place in Europe. So it's an opportunity for them to get to know about the discussions on Internet Governance and to be aware of the importance of these discussions.

So I think we have to think about how to raise the interest and how to get our European community to participate and to be part of the dialogue in this national and European session in Geneva, not to have always the same representatives and the same participants.

>> I've been listening and taking notes from what everyone is saying. I think there are two major tracks. Some people are saying we should talk about the main topics that are being discussed in our IGF initiatives. Other people are saying that we should look at how we work as IGF initiatives. I think there is also a third thing we should try to address or present.

Look at us now, we are all representing national or subregional or regional IGF initiatives in Europe and we work with each other and we cooperate with each other. I think we should showcase that as well.

I'm talking on behalf of SEEDIG now. EuroDIG has been extremely supportive to us, and this is something we should be showing how we are working subregional, regional and national as well. If we do something as European group of NRIs I would like us to showcase this also. Thank you.

>> MODERATOR: Any other comments? We have Anja on line? If there are any comments from remote? No?

Okay. I also heard so far that there is a demand from Euro side to organise a kind of best practice exchange, allow room for this. But on the other hand, also that we identify the topics we might have in common, extract commonalities and set a seed for a kind of a European message, and whatever session format we will get from the global IGF and however, how long that would be, let it be 60 or 90 minutes, we could create actually agenda, including those two things.

I was just thinking while you are speaking how we could do this, because EuroDIG would be willing to facilitate this process, and to bring all of you together to prepare for such a session. My first initial idea would be, and you let me know if that would work for you, if you would propose otherwise, if we repeat that exercise, the three hot topics and it doesn't matter at the moment if these are the hot topics of 2016 which is not so long away or if it is our hot topics of 2017, because some of them, some of the IGF might have their meeting shortly before the IGF so you might work on the 2016 topics. That is totally fine.

But if we do maybe in the same way, if you ask the same questions, what are your three biggest challenges, where you would like to get feedback, advice from the others, and what are the three things where you think you are really good at and where you would like to share your experiences with the others, for instance, as Serena said we have a increasement in business and government which is something I hear from many directions, that this is an issue.

Maybe you could identify how you managed and let us know (chuckles).

EuroDIG might come up with some things where we think we are really good at and would like to explain you a little bit more how we are doing it, why we are doing it, and you might think about how to adapt this. On the other hand, we would like to hear your advice, things where we are really, have an issue with and where we see challenges.

Question again, would it be a workable way, if we ask the same kind of format with the Google spreadsheet, where Roxanna by the way, everybody was invited to fill in their topics, so also the Ukraine IGF was invited to populate that Google doc. And question, would it be a way for you? Jacamo, please.

>> I think that listening to what has been said by others, we need to add the specific question about, if you have a specific problem, related to the country, not in general to Internet Governance but one related to the country.

So couple or three questions but one specific, or eventually not necessary to be country specific would be subregion specific, like the SEEDIG or basically could be useful and interesting for everybody to know.

>> Jacamo, just a question for clarification.

Do you mean challenges for the country in terms of topic wise, Internet Governance topic or challenges how to organise the regional, national IGF?

>> I would leave to the country. In my opinion, I think that if the country has a specific problem, and address for help to the others is something related to Internet Governance let's say, civil society cannot afford because there are no meetings or the government doesn't listen or something country specific that could be different from one country to another.

For instance, Italy, we know that we have a problem because the government component work on within side and doesn't talk with the civil society that works on other silos. There is every year a risk that we organise two different IGF because they don't talk to each other.

That is crazy but it is a concrete risk.

>> I would like also to clarify, this table is based on the results of IGF event, or discussion?

>> MODERATOR: We just collected the topics which have been discussed. This is nothing about results. It is just what was the main topic in your 2016, 2017 event.

>> Okay, because we submitted our proposal not based on IGF event. We will have our IGF UA8 in October maybe. But just now we are discussing our propositions to IGF global, just for clarification.

>> MODERATOR: Are there any other ideas, how to

>> To understand each other, I think that what is valuable for us is at the IGF we consider, we assume our distilling process of the position of a country concerning specific ideas and topics. And because to be multistakeholder it means that we have arrived to composition that represent all the stakeholders or we have a minority in majority position but in any case we have a view that has been crystallized by the issue, treat topics that need to be discussed. You don't have this crystallized position yet, because you don't know which one is, while for us it is interesting to know what is happening in each country and what was the position and then trying to pile up the position of the various countries to see if there is an idea or a track for a possible European position.

This is my interpretation.

>> We also have some NRIs which are information in Europe so that will be really useful from, to have as well to see what are the challenges maybe, because there are some countries who are trying to have, to establish the IGF for several years and definitely they do not come to this. In this way they can show what is the challenge, where the dialogue is missing, etcetera. So we can include these countries as well in this.

>> By the way, we are not saying our name; the transcript might look awful because it's, it never says who is speaking. You are absolutely right, Lee Anna, and that is what we are doing at EuroDIG including also those that have an event, a initiative which is not yet recognized, exactly.

Question, would you think we can work on such a session in working groups? Or would there be any volunteers? Because what we don't want to do now as a next step is that EuroDIG is sending what messages, please deliver, please deliver and then we are organizing something and we actually miss the point. This is something I would like to avoid.

Are there any ones in the room who would join such a working group or such a committee to set up such a session, with the help of EuroDIG?

>> Not all NRIs are here. It would be good if EuroDIG, all NRI in Europe with their participation to define which way is better to go, but the first thing is from EuroDIG to be done to sent out for volunteers as well, to define the format working.

>> MODERATOR: Point taken. Any other comments or ideas, also with regard I'd like to remind you that we always set up a booth at EuroDIG, and this year the plan is even not yet finalized if it will be a bigger European corner. Idea is on the table to make a joint booth with the Council of Europe, with the European Commission and other European major organisations, so that we really also showcase from this side but also here, the European NRIs could be more visible, although I know that that will also be an NRI booth again in Geneva.

(someone speaking off microphone).

Helga, you had your national IGF just last week. You are in the Swiss committee to organise the global IGF. What would you think would be really, would make a difference in terms of how we can present Europeans ourself in the global IGF, or what would you wish as a Swiss IGF participant organiser. Sorry to put you on the spot.

>> Good question. (chuckles).

Let me think. Really what I think would make a difference is that there is a strong European voice in the main sessions, in the workshops, so that it is really participating strongly from all stakeholder groups in the different discussions, which will take place, if there is also space specific for NRIs, I think that is perfect, that is welcome. But I think it's also key to be present in all the discussions, in the main sessions we will be discussing next week in the IGF open consultations, and in the Mag and also to really participate actively therein, and to feed in the European priorities and the European point of view in those discussions, and how we shape those main sessions and the workshop proposals, so that the European voice is heard, and that it also is, it becomes more attractive for the larger audience to take part in the IGF in Geneva.

So I think that's what I could recommend. As to Swiss IGF we had last week, perhaps similarly to Anja, was it before, or I don't know, Serena, who mentioned that the participation of the business sector was growing. We also surprisingly had a kind of little change in the Swiss IGF, because it was nominated in the first two additions by civil society. And last week we had a lot of more presence from the business sector, and one very brainless explanation to that is that they were really engaged, and took ownership in organizing some of the key sessions. So they were really in the lead of organizing one session on all issues related to data economy, and what is related to that.

And that is something which is key to them, and if you give them ownership and you give them also the possibility to shape the topic, although you maintain of course a multistakeholder balance, they will participate more actively.

>> MODERATOR: Yuri, you wanted to

>> Yeah. I think we said that Europe is at the forefront of the multistakeholder model and yet even within Europe, there are various models of multistakeholder approach being applied.

One idea could be a workshop where we actually compare the multistakeholder models and approaches within Europe, where we try to relay best practices, how to identify the model and make it more inclusive. That could also be of benefit for others, I mean, not just our own discussion but basically benefit to others from areas where the multistakeholder approach is even more difficult than in some of our countries.

>> I want to strongly support this comment, because these models of multistakeholder participation, I think for my country and for our region this is a crucial point for IGF's success. I think if we make it so we will have a proper Internet Governance process.

>> MODERATOR: Any other comments or suggestions? Jacamo, please.

>> One question, there has been this very useful work made by Anja and by all the group about this guidelines for NRI. Do we want to see if there is possibly to do something more specific to the European situation eventually? This is something that probably we need to discuss within the EuroDIG, because we have some specific issues from the region, but of course that is a very good basis for the work of everyone. Most of the problems has been discussed here.

>> MODERATOR: You mean the document which is currently developed by the global IGF?

>> Yes, the guidelines for how to build an IGF. For instance, this could be useful also to make a check up, our old, the European IGF responding to this criteria, or if they are not, then there is something that need to be addressed. It is a useful tool, and if we start to be concrete and apply to our case.

>> MODERATOR: Anja is on line, actually. I wonder if she would like to give us a update on where we are, currently, with these guidelines. Could you ask if she would (pause).

While we are trying to connect Anja, we can keep on talking. This process of participating in this was quite a extensive process already. We have been working on this since a year already.

Is she okay.

(ringing).

>> Can you go closer to the mic?

>> Hi, can you hear me now?

>> Perfect.

>> Yes.

>> Finally. Okay. Firstly, I would really like to say hello to everyone, and to tell you that it's really good to see you all, from this side of the computer. I'm sorry that I can't be in person with you, now even more that I'm seeing you.

But I want to thank Sandra at the beginning for facilitating this because it makes easier for us as well to form on this very important work which is collaboration with the many of the national and regional and I'm glad we have IGFs represented there. Someone is asking me to turn on my camera.

But in any case, I would like to say that what Jacamo said is very important, and I think almost last year we were involved in a very important purchase of developing first of all some guidelines on how to form a national or subregional or regional IGFs, that those are incorporated into a toolkit that we translated to five or six U.N. languages now by the volunteers from the community.

There is another document that we are currently working on, which are the guidelines on the NRI sessions that are going hopefully to happen this year at IGF. One of the sessions is what we had last year, that is the main session. The second one is what the NRIs in the community collectively requested from the Mag which is the individual that we call the workshop like sessions.

Those are the sessions that will be focused on the substance of certain matters from Internet Governance field, and will give the opportunity for the NRIs to say what are the topics of their interest within their countries or regions, what are their approaches, and to share the best practices with the community.

The way we see it from our side as well, is that there is first of all a huge demand from the community, and there is also a huge value of it, because it will allow the global community to finally learn about the specificities of certain issues within their Internet Governance.

That second document that we are working on, the guidelines on NRI sessions, it is available for public commenting still. I think on Thursday this week, we have two calls with NRIs, very important calls that are focused on the NRI representation at the global IGF. It will be also discussing those guidelines.

Those guidelines, they consist of first of all the objectives of the sessions but they also consist of a certain set of description how those sessions will be organized. They will be a input to the upcoming second meeting of the Mag that will be in Geneva from 12 to 14 June.

That is in short something that is available now. Of course, I really don't want to interfere or give any of my opinions, because it's up to you as the national regional IGFs to tell us whether there is something maybe different that comes from this part of the world that should reflect those documents and should we maybe make it more specific in certain areas.

Also, what I want to say that this year, the IGF will give it seems to me a lot of space for the NRIs to really say what are their issues. As some of you said at the beginning, it is really up to us now and up to you to decide how to effectively use this space that is going to be given in December in 2017.

That is in short from me. If you have any questions, I am here on line. Please ask and I'll try to respond. Thank you.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Anja, for joining us and for giving us this overview. Are there any other comments or questions on this issue, how we are going to prepare for the IGF? Chala, please.

>> In the previous informal meeting, I think there was an idea in the Mag meeting in February, it was shared the idea about to create a mailing list. Was it this mailing list created? Or do you intend to

>> MODERATOR: We are in the process of resolving this issue, because the EuroDIG is hosted under German law and with German law you cannot create mailing lists, where you simply put people in, people have to agree. But the reality is you never get a mailing list working, because you never get all of the people to, just to give an example, we have four people in the EuroDIG part I couldn't manage to get all of them to subscribe to this mailing list, so how it should be managed to get more than 20 NRIs.

So we would need a system simply to add people. We are working on this, and it is with the help of Olivia and my colleague and it will be set up shortly and we will have multiple mailing lists for policy discussion for announcing, for European stakeholders for NRIs, so this will be done rather shortly.

Then we can simply add people just ICANN is doing it, also add and delete people. Thanks for the reminder. This is under way.

Roxanna.

>> There was an idea to prepare materials regarding European NRIs, is it possible to do before Geneva? Just very brief information regarding EuroDIG, SEEDIG and national IGFs.

>> MODERATOR: What kind of material are you thinking of?

>> Printed, inform materials, European initiatives. Just to share, yes, in the booth.

>> MODERATOR: With a little bit of description, what is okay.

>> Maybe half of page for each initiative.

>> MODERATOR: That is a good idea. I take note of that. Now that you make the proposal, would you be willing to work on that?

>> I'm interested in mapping regarding checklist, corresponding of toolkits and reality.

>> MODERATOR: What we can actually do, call it an action item, that you come up with some questions, with some ideas, what you believe should be in this, and I agree half a page is totally enough.

Then we could create a brochure out of that, if you can collect the content, and if you share this draft, the questions you propose to be asked, you share that with the others before, they might add some questions or edit a question a little bit. And if you would volunteer to do this mapping exercise, I think that is a very good idea, and it would be a good outcome to have such a little brochure to be distributed in Geneva. Very good.

Any other ideas like this? Take the mic, please.

>> Technically speaking you will not wait for this before to send the questions, or you want to do the two things together?

>> MODERATOR: I think first of all, we have to have the mailing list. Then Roxana will send a draft what she believes should be in that checklist kind of thing, and to all the people, saying, okay, this would be the questions we would like you to answer before we send them out for answering them, do you have anything to add in terms of another question to ask, would you be interested in.

That is what was my understanding.

>> Take a little bit longer then.

>> MODERATOR: Yeah, but we should be able to manage this until, and from the EuroDIG side we could probably do the printout, the design and all this sorted and do the printing stuff as well, I think we would have a budget for this. Very good. Other ideas or proposals? If this is not the case, Serena, you were typing. We have a transcript. Would you sum up a little bit? Then I think we give you back ten minutes of your life and finish earlier, how does that sound?

>> Yeah, I was taking notes, there will be a report published on the digital watch website, doing a bit of promotion now, we are doing live reporting from EuroDIG, so you will see reports from us. This is one of the sessions. Just quickly, and I will go into the action points because I don't think I need to repeat everything. The latest one about this mapping exercise, creating this brochure on European IGF initiatives, then making sure that European voices are heard on main sessions and workshops at the IGF, and then trying to put together a session for European IGF initiatives, and to prepare that session, we will expand on that table, and add our ask IGF initiatives to talk about, to mention, in addition to the three hot topics they have spoken about at their meetings, also three biggest challenges on which they would like to get advice from other IGF initiatives and three things that they are really good at sharing best practices, and also a sort of fourth column in the table about a question on the biggest problem or challenge in the region or in the country, either IG related or related to the process of IGF initiative.

And I think that's it.

And we will be asking for volunteers for the working group, right? So join, whenever Sandra sends the E mail. Thank you, Sandra.

>> MODERATOR: Thank you all for participating. With this I declare the meeting adjourned, 20 minutes before the time. Enjoy the sun in Tallinn.


This text is being provided in a realtime format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings.