ICANN Nairobi Internet Governance Forum Thursday, 11 March 2010 >>ALICE MUNYUA: Good afternoon, everybody. I would like to ask those behind us (No audio). >>ALICE MUNYUA: So we can see you (No audio). Thanks very much. My name is Alice Munyua. I'm with the communications commission of Kenya. And I also convened the East African Internet Governance Forum, which brings together national IGFs from the five East African countries of Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya. (Bad audio) focusing on the development aspects of Internet governance, taking into consideration the fact that we are in the Africa region, and development issues, specifically, access, are of major importance to our region. We are also going to be touching on the continuity of the IGF. I think we all know that this is the fifth year of its mandate. And Markus Kummer is going to be giving us a brief on how that process is going. I've got about five speakers. Lesley Cowley, from Nominet, she's going to be giving us a brief of the U.K. IGF and how the -- and also ideas and U.K.'s ideas around the continuation of it. Then I've got John (saying name), who is going to be talking about the East African IGF. Zahid, who is a member of the GNSO, is going to be talking about stakeholder comment. He's not here yet. And then Adiel of AfriNIC, who's going to be telling us a little bit about the African experience, the region-wide experience, and AfriNIC's engagement with the IGF. So in the interest of time, I will hand over the mike to Lesley. >>LESLEY COWLEY: Thank you, Alice. Good afternoon, everyone. I have a fairly brief intervention from the U.K. to tell you about the U.K. IGF firstly. This is a collaborative partnership that was set up some years ago between Nominet as the U.K. registry, the U.K. government department in this area, which is the department for business, and also members of the U.K. parliament, who are particularly interested in this area. It was launched in 2007. And recently, we held our third U.K. IGF meeting. The aim of the U.K. IGF was to try to provide a local forum to engage with people, particularly industry, government, civil society, and others who maybe cannot all make it to the IGF. And what we wanted to do was identify key themes and key issues to take to the IGF from the U.K. That's developed also into those people who were able to attend reporting back from the event itself. So it's been great to try to get a pattern going in that regard. The format for us, we found it works very well with a series of workshops and panel discussions and also main sessions looking at developing the key themes and messages to take to the IGF. It's developed over the years. One would hope it would. Now we're on our third go. And what we found has been most successful is having key themes for the meeting. And the recent theme, really, for us became around the digital divide. Now, I know the U.K. isn't exactly a developing country. But digital divide is very much an issue for my country, as it is for many around this table, I know. We've also been very keen this time on the engagement of young people. And I was particularly proud that in Sharm, in the preparatory session, we had real young people, these young Internet users who have some very well-informed and strong views about their Internet. They are the Internet leaders of the future, I am sure. And we were able to facilitate a very lively discussion between those young people and parliamentarians. And, indeed, some of them were also able to attend Sharm and work with the Madame Mubarak Foundation, too. So we are very keen on this process. We, in conjunction with developing awareness about the IGF and the issues, we also run a best practice awards. And that is based around the key IGF themes, trying to showcase best practice, good developments that may be shared to the benefit of the wider worldwide community. In terms of the continuation of the IGF, I think it's fairly well known that the U.K.'s a very strong supporter. We see the multistakeholder approach as being a very key aspect of the IGF, and therefore very strongly support it as opposed to the alternatives. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Lesley. I think U.K. is one of the countries that actually initiated the national IGF. So it's -- for the East African IGF, it's been quite important to benchmark with them. So thank you very much. The next speaker is Adiel Akplogan. I hope I have pronounced that right. He's the chief executive officer of AfriNIC. And he's -- he initiated, or AfriNIC initiated and has supported the west African Internet Governance Forum and also the East African Internet Governance Forum. So over to you, Adiel. >>ADIEL AKPLOGAN: Thank you, Alice. So I will just briefly talk about our experience at AfriNIC supporting IGF initiative originally. I think one thing that's come out from the various global IGFs is that the African community in general need to focus more on original issue that are affecting the Internet governance in general, which are not always well promoted at the global IGF, because at the global IGF, the global IGF looks at the big picture stuff, while, regionally, and at country level, there are some specific issues. So we thought it's very important to encourage regional initiative around IGF so people from different regions and from different countries can look at the Internet governance, look at what are the issue in their country, in their region, that's preventing Internet development. So we have supported an East African IGF since the beginning. And it's a very interesting model. And we thought it would be something good to replicate elsewhere. So we have tried to facilitate and promote the same thing in west Africa. So we had a very informal one in 2008, and in 2009, we had a very formal west Africa IGF, which turned out to be very successful and very interesting for the participants. And we have noticed very high interest from government, because it's a forum that allows them to be in touch with the technical community, with the civil society, and try to discuss with them. So the main thing is to bring the spirit behind the global IGF back to the region, back to the country, and make government at their ease talking in a multistakeholder environment, appropriating the culture of the IGF. So it was very successful. And most interesting, we said last year during the west Africa IGF meeting that AfriNIC will facilitate. But our goal is not to continue to be the one organizing the IGF for the region. We want actors, local actors, to take it over. And interestingly enough, this year, we have an organization that's fully pledged the support for the IGF event. They have funded the whole event. They are working with different stakeholders to do it. So our role now is more to share our past experience and help in coordinating. But that is the kind of thing we want. And we want to take that to the country, too, where we can find actors in different countries in the region to facilitate the IGF process locally, to put effort in organizing the community around the IGF, because it's a culture thing. I think they must understand that those issues cannot be addressed only by the governments or only by the technical community or only by the civil society and others. It has to be -- they have to be addressed in the multistakeholder approach. So our goal, really, is to operate the multistakeholder approach -- excuse me -- when it comes to Internet governance or ICT development in general. So we are really looking forward to those regional IGFs, and, mainly, we are looking for more applications of the different stakeholders in ICT policy, ICT developed, and Internet uptake in general. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Adiel. Our continent, our region, is known to be the slowest or the quietest, if I may use that word, in terms of speaking up on Internet governance issues, indeed, on most issues that involve global policy processes. So it's quite impressive to see how some countries and regions, especially east and west Africa, have actively played a role in the whole Internet governance process, and particularly the East African one, and most important, the links, for example, at this ICANN meeting, where we see issues that were brought up during the East African IGF around capacity, for example, in understanding cybersecurity, and then brought up to the ICANN level, and ICANN was, you know -- we are grateful to ICANN -- was able to organize workshops around cybersecurity based around the East African IGF. So it's quite impressive. And also just the role of participation, it's also quite impressive to see how many Kenyans and Africans have attended this meeting. And some of them providing very meaningful participation. We haven't got there yet. But the fact that the meeting is here and Kenya will be hosting the IGF is quite important for the African region. Anyway, let me hand over the next speaker, Zahid Jamil. He's from Pakistan, member of the GNSO as well as the MAG. He's going to be telling us about the whole multistakeholder, stakeholder engagement in the IGF, as well as looking at the IGF from a development perspective. Thank you. >>ZAHID JAMIL: Thank you, first, before I start, I must apologize for my tardiness. The GNSO Council meeting with wrap-up session is still going on, and so I had to leave a little bit in the middle. I apologize for that. My perspective with regard to multistakeholder, from a personal level, and then I'll sort of share what has happened in my view on a global level, and then maybe some of the achievements we've had locally on the ground, and the importance of what Internet governance, multistakeholderism, and its impact on developing countries. I think that's something I'd just like to bring out. I wouldn't be here in ICANN if it wasn't for the IGF. In fact, I think that it was because I spent some time at the IGF that I got interested in all these technical aspects, met a lot of people, I think, and then I got pulled in. And I'm still sucked into the ICANN system at the moment. And I think that just gives you an example of the ability of the IGF and the Internet governance multistakeholder forums to discuss and engage people who otherwise would have been pretty much out of their depth. I would have been, really, if I had come to an ICANN meeting. So I think it was an interesting way -- and I know most people go from ICANN to the IGF. But I had a completely different experience. And I think that helps with developing countries and people who are learning. I think it also provides a very different platform and an engagement which is unavailable in certain other forums, where businesses, for instance, would have to get accreditation from their local government, regulators, et cetera. And this open platform allows you not to necessarily do that and come here and participate, and your voice to be added to the discussion, debate, and engagement. So I think that has been very useful. The learning that that leads to leads to, I think, a difference in developing countries, at least, in the way that they engage their businesses, civil societies, and governments. A person from my country standing up and questioning someone from another government, or even my own government, is something that I think is unique. It -- there are certain formalities. And I think this unique forum in the IGF allows that sort of much more relaxed discussion to take place. It also allows certain government individuals, for instance, or businesses otherwise to have an open discussion where they say, well, I may be speaking on my own behalf. I think that engagement and, basically, not having to negotiate things out, the discussion-making -- or discussion forum that is the IGF has a huge impact on enabling people in developing countries to ask questions and to engage. Now I want to give you some simple examples of what -- the impact of the IGF on -- in Pakistan on sort of development. Over the past few years, couple of years at least, I've shared in consultation some of the impact it has had in Pakistan. But some important ones. I'm sitting next to Nominet. If I hadn't been to the IGF, I wouldn't have met them. That wouldn't have led to the dispute resolution body that we have which is now successfully cleaning up or as someone else has characterized the other day, (inaudible) the environment of the dot PK, and led to a much cleaner, from cybersquatting, TLD. That's a huge governance issue, and I think it's a development aspect where technology was transferred from, you know, the assistance of a developed economy, effectively. Also, the cybercrime legislation in Pakistan follows, for instance, in many, many ways the Council of Europe's Convention on Cybercrime. That was a result of many engagements that we had at the IGF, which resulted in the draft legislation being a model on which that legislation was based in our country. And recently, we -- and I'm just speaking about a couple of weeks ago -- we had a multistakeholder session -- this is incredible for me. I never thought this would be possible. We actually had international governments, groupings, come down to Pakistan, conduct a three-day workshop on cybersecurity. The first day was engaged with investigators and prosecutors. The second day was engaged basically with judges. And the third day was a roundtable with all different segments to discuss what is it that developed economies and their governments can possibly do to help Pakistan put up a CERT, for instance, put up a center of excellence. And this was not just done between governments engaging with local investigation agents. There was civil society to some extent through lawyers at the table, and also businesses who spoke and actually gave their input as to what they could actually give, add value with tools to fight cybercrime and cybersecurity and do forensics. That gives you an incredible example of how some of that engagement was caused and initiated in some respects at the IGFs. And so I just wanted to end. Oh, sorry, I left judges out. Judges are also trained. And there's a project now for six months to basically interact with judges as well. We haven't had a -- a regional or national IGF in our region. I think the Hyderabad meeting was going to be looked at as a regional IGF. Due to unfortunate circumstances which we regret, we were unable to attend, and therefore, that was an opportunity lost. But recently, in Pakistan, the discussion to have it this year has started again. But just to give you a snapshot, all I.T. policy discussions that are taking place in my country right now, are multistakeholder, and they are being engaged on a broad-based structure, which is multistakeholder. That sort of looks like an IGF. But that is not official sanctioned as one. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Zahid. I'm now going to hand over the microphone to Baher Esmat. He is the ICANN manager for regional relations. He is going to be talking about IGF from (poor audio). >>BAHER ESMAT: Thank you, Alice. So, basically, from ICANN's perspective, we've been participating actively in the IGF and all the activities in relation to Internet governance and the regions. And we think that the IGF is providing a very good platform for discussions, open discussions, for knowledge and experience-sharing in different parts of the world. So on the regional level we have, we have the network of regional managers at ICANN where we work closely with members of the Internet community. And one of the things I've noticed over the past four years, that in some cases, people and organizations, they may be working on issues related to Internet governance, issues that are being discussed, you know, under the theme of Internet governance, while they're not -- you know, they're not realizing that this is an Internet governance debate, and in actual fact, they don't even care about the terminology itself, that this is an Internet governance issue. They work on things that impact them directly in their day-to- day business. So just a couple of examples. So in areas related to DNS operations, for instance, we have been working very closely with ccTLD managers. And as Alice mentioned, and I think Adiel, capacity building. So we have a lot of requests for making capacity building programs for ccTLD managers. And in that respect, ICANN is not working as its own. Still cooperating with other members of the community, like AfriNIC and other RIRs, like ISOC. So this week, in Nairobi, there was a workshop on contingency planning for ccTLDs. And it was attended by, I guess, like 24 people from 13 different countries in Africa. And last month, we had more or less the same kind of workshop on contingency planning held in Aman, Jordan, for a number of Arab countries. And there are two other activities as well. So basically, this is the kind of thing that we're trying to do, is to work closely with organizations that do stuff, sometimes regardless of any politics or any political debates around it. Same thing also goes with something like the MENOG, or the Middle East Network Operator Group, where again organizations like ICANN, CC and ISOC are sponsoring and participating actively in it, and ICANN as well. So they are ISPs and network operators in the Middle East, they get the chance to have hands-on training on things like IPv6, for instance. Topics like DNS security, DNSSEC, is a top topic on the agenda of MENOG in the past couple of meetings and the coming one which will be in Saudi Arabia next month. So these are the kind of activities we have been doing at ICANN, and I think the key thing is that -- I think collaboration is the key thing that we have been working very closely with members of different regions as well as members of the Internet community at large. So I think I will stop there and maybe we will come later to other activities related to the IGF. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Baher, for that brief presentation. I will hand over the mic to Mr. John Walubengo who coordinates the Kenya IGF and is one of the co-coordinators as well of the East African IGF. John. >>JOHN WALUBENGO: Sorry, Alice, I came late. Just brief me, what am I supposed to say? [ Laughter ] >>JOHN WALUBENGO: Am I supposed to talk about the process of Kenya IGF? Okay. Thank you. Okay. The IGF -- the regional IGF process in Kenya, well, in East Africa, has been run by KICTAnet which is a civil society organization. And what we usually do is we identify the themes or the issues that we feel are pertinent to the ICT community in Kenya. We thrash those issues online for about two or three weeks, and after that we summarize those issues and have a face-to-face meeting in Kenya in order to sort of validate the various positions that were identified online. Now, as we are doing this, our neighbors in Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda are doing a similar process with a view of eventually meeting as a region. So last East African IGF was held in 2009, I think, sometime in -- just before Sharm El Sheikh, sometime in August-September, and all the national IGFs, Tanzania, Uganda, Rwanda, will come and present their findings in that particular forum. One of the best experiences that I personally have seen with this type of, you know, interactions is the fact that all of stakeholders, governments, regulators, academia, when they come in this forum, they are on an equal footing as opposed to the traditional setup where some stakeholders always feel they have a strong (inaudible). It's quite humbling particularly from an African context to see a whole government bureaucrat being exposed to, you know, if you want, civil society noises without overreacting. And that to us has been the best experience and it means that the government people or the government officers are getting more accountable to the people, to the user, and vice versa. That's what I can say for now. Thanks, Alice. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. To add on to that, I think one of the other questions was just looking at how the development issues, Internet governance and development issues. And for us at the East African and Kenya level, issues of access are still very important. So even though we now have increased access to broadband, which we are hoping will translate to increased access to the Internet either through mobile or PC, but access, we still feel access is a very important issue. And then also thinking back to our own development needs as well. John wants to speak. >>JOHN WALUBENGO: Sorry, now -- I have just been inspired, now that you mentioned development. The issue of the undersea cable landing in East Africa was one of the issues that was thrashed out by these particular forums. And please do note that by the time the cables were getting to Mombasa, the decision-makers had developed deep understanding of the issues surrounding undersea cable. In particular, things to do with open access. And we were very pleased when we observed that government, particularly the regulator, had already worked out the policy framework of how these undersea cable are going to be managed as they connect into the Kenyan territory. That said, we also noted that whereas pricing the cost of these Internet services reduced greatly when the fiber landed, we noticed that that reduction is only at the wholesale level. The Internet gateway providers have gotten sort of savings. They are accessing international Internet at, you know, probably 50% lower than satellite prices. But when you come down to the retail level, yes, prices have come down, but it still looks like the reduction in price may not be, you know, -- it's still not affordable. I remember in the opening day, the CEO of ICANN was saying that now you can get Internet at $10, which is true, but maybe he forgot to say that it could be $13 for 300 MBs. So if you manage to download a big file, you find your $13 can evaporate within no time. So at the retail level, I still want to believe that there's a lot of room to improve as far as pricing is concerned. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much. I just want to add that one of the new -- one of the new things during the 2009 East African IGF was the involvement of parliamentarians as a new stakeholder group that we felt were very important, especially at the decision-making level. The other ones, some that are going to be determining the future of the IGF in New York during the U.N. General Assembly, and so we felt it was very important to involve them at this stage and not just the fact that they are going to be making decisions at the international level but also at the national level in terms of moving forward or acknowledging the fact that multistakeholder processes, the impact is felt more at the national level and that's where engagement of various stakeholders is very important. So with that I will hand over to Markus Kummer who will be telling us about the future of the IGF. And one of the questions I would like to ask him as well is whether he feels the issues, development issues, have been ably covered during the initial five-year mandate of the IGF. And if not, then how he sees that being played out if there's a new mandate. My other question would be there are quite a number of initiatives around national and regional IGFs. With the new mandate, does he see a role, you know, for -- more concrete and meaningful role for both national and regional IGFs in terms of determining the -- influencing the program as well as in organization? You are very welcome, Markus. Thank you. >>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you, Alice. Good afternoon. It is a pleasure for me to be on this panel, and it's a pleasure for me to be here in Nairobi. I had the privilege of attending the first two East Africa IGFs, and I was very much impressed with what I saw. I think. (poor audio quality to scribes). How important this multistakeholder cooperation is, and all the speakers, I think, before emphasized on this aspect, and I was particularly impressed what I saw in Kenya. Said yes, it's painful, but it helps us to make better decisions. And he, as a top civil servant, is willing to engage in these vivid, sometimes vivid, I'm sure, exchanges of this civil society and with all the stakeholders. This is really truly remarkable. I think you told me as well that it's not (inaudible) of what the ministries here in the country. It's very much politicians and bureaucrats take the decisions without necessarily consulting with bodies outside their ministry. So multistakeholder cooperation is really a key, I think, to the IGF and to Internet governance as a whole. And this brings me to your question on the regional and national and, I think, the previous panelists have all highlighted the importance of bringing down the debate to the regional and national level. Yes, there are global issues. Yes, there are transborder issues with the Internet. Its very nature transcends borders. But nevertheless, much that affects the Internet can be dealt with at the local level, at the national level, but also at the regional level. And if every country gets its act in order, then we have (inaudible) all the global issues. I think to draw on something I learned from the U.K. that I was told in the U.K., there is no U.K. hosted child pornography anymore. So if every country passed that, then you get rid of a global problem. So you don't need really a global solution, a negotiated global solution which might not work in any case, but it's important to act locally. Now, we are in the beginning of when we started discussing the IGF agenda. We did not say there ought to be meetings at the national and regional level. They just sprung up. They began to mushroom. But they are also not like, shall we say, in the tradition of diplomatic process where you have maybe regional preparatory meetings. They are much more than that. They are meetings, they are gatherings, they are to look at local problems, at national problems, at regional problems. They are not here to discuss a global annual meeting. I think yourself made that point last year, that the East Africa IGF is not here to prepare a global agenda. It's a meeting that has a value in itself. And even if the global IGF disappears, you will carry on with your regional IGF. And I think that sums it up nicely, that it has value in itself. Now, how to interact better. We have not settled a format for the IGF once and for all at the beginning. We have improved from year to year. We have evolved. We have developed new formats. Last year, for the first time, because there were regional national IGFs, we had a panel where we brought them in. It was maybe not done in the best possible way. So we hope that this year we will create a more interactive session where we will have a discussion also among the various regional Internet Governance Forums, that they tell us what is their priority, where do they see that solutions need to be found, where they find they cannot just do it in the region, where they need cooperation across the region. And we will also provide room, provide space where the regional IGFs can hold an open forum, inform about their meetings, and we will also provide space if they want to discuss among themselves to compare notes. It might be a valid exercise also that each region, lessons learned from each other. It can be purely organizational matters in terms of process, the preparatory process of the regional IGF, but it can also be an exchange of views of opinions on substantive issues. So, yes, we improve, we hope. We evolve. And the Vilnius meeting, again, will be -- will build on previous meetings, but it will not be a repetition of the previous meetings. That brings me to your second question, have we done enough to assist development issues. My clear answer would be no. We have said that development should be a cross-cutting priority. But as is so often the case with cross-cutting priorities, you then tend to neglect them. And instead of looking at every issue from a development angle, you tend to neglect it maybe a little bit too much. Development has to maybe be more part of the discussions on access, less so, I think, on other issues. So the Vilnius agenda will have a separate session on Internet governance for development, as it's called by its acronym so nicely, IG4D, but this is also clear that this is not ICT as such. We look there, and there is a difference. So we will basically try and look at the bigger development issues such as millennium development goals and work it backwards towards Internet governance, and impact on social, economic inclusion and sustainability. Hopefully, this will bring the debate a little bit forward. Also, what aspects need to be thought of when they discuss Internet governance to make it development friendly. In other policy areas, policymakers have developed a development agenda, be that intellectual property, be that trade. But in Internet governance, we are not there yet. There is a need also for doing some conceptual work on that. Your last question, the future, whether or not this will be part of a new mandate, should the mandate be extended, you mentioned that both in relation to the national and regional IGFs and their relationship to the global IGF and also to development. My feeling is that if the mandate is extended, it will be extended as it is. It comes from a summit. Heads of state, government decided that. So it's the highest political authority. I think it's very unlikely that the General Assembly would touch on this work. Whether or not the resolution will include other recommendations with regard to the future of the IGF, that is an open question. But this remains to be seen. But in terms of mandate, the mandate is in the Tunis Agenda, and I don't think -- diplomats love agreed language as a fallback position. We agreed that before. We don't need to renegotiate. So my feeling is that it will be staying as it is, will remain as it is. But let me conclude by saying that those of you who feel that there is value in the IGF and the mandate should be extended, please talk to your respective governments and make sure that they send the right instructions to their missions in New York. And I think our hosts, this year's host of the ICANN meeting have already offered to host the 2011 meeting, and they deserve the support to carry on with this project, and we have enjoyed their hospitality for the ICANN meeting, and I certainly would look forward to enjoying their hospitality for next year's IGF meeting. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Markus. And yes, Kenya does support the extension of the IGF in principle and as it is, and we will be hosting the 2011. We are already assuming that it has been extended or will be extended. And there's a lot of both political and other stakeholder support for the IGF and for IGF issues. I would like to thank all the panelists and now open the floor to questions for them. I will take four questions, then responses and then the next four. We have, I think, about 30 minutes. Thank you. So questions, please. Yeah, before I open the questions, Adiel would like -- >>ADIEL AKPLOGAN: I just want to add something which is very important for the regional and local IGF, which is the involvement of government representative and government entity. I think we have noticed at the global IGF level that we have very limited participation of government from developing countries in general. And by bringing this process closer to them in their country or in their region, allow them, one, make travel a little bit easy for them to attend the meeting, but at the same time, they can see by themselves how the community and the different stakeholders work together on those issues. And not that it is a controversial -- they are controversial issues where they have to fight, but it is an open and smooth discussion environment where they can participate and where the other stakeholders also can listen to what they are saying. So I think it's very important to bring that down to local and regional level to increase the real multistakeholder approach on those matters. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Adiel. Lesley. >>LESLEY COWLEY: I always think it's a bit of a danger when you have a like-minded panel that we give the impression everything is perfect; okay? So maybe let me be slightly controversial. There were 112 countries and 96 governments in Sharm, and I think it was the best-ever attended IGF. And for me and for many others, it's the best example of a multistakeholder approach in action. That doesn't mean to say that we can all think it's perfect, that there aren't any opportunities for improvement. And there's no room for complacency. I am not assuming the mandate is renewed, perhaps. I am not assuming it will continue to be as successful as it has been thus far. And I think a key question to throw out is what would keep people engaged? How do we get other stakeholders involved, particularly the business community, for example, as well. Because we need to be very active to ensure that this model continues and is seen to be as successful as it has been thus far. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much for that, Lesley. Open the floor for questions. >> : I'm sorry, I don't have a microphone but I want to follow-up -- -- >>Just a second. >>I wanted to follow-up on what Adiel. (feedback noise). (no audio). >>Sorry, I will start over. At the East African IGF, the parliamentarian session was closed. And in my experience, the last decade in working in Internet governance, I know that Internet governance likes sunshine, a lot of sunshine. So I would encourage those sessions to be duplicated in various other places and to be done again at the IGF, but open it up to everyone so that the parliamentarians can understand what all the stakeholders' concerns are. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. Any other? (feedback noise) >>ALICE MUNYUA: Is there another mic? Or maybe you can try and.... The mic. >>MARTIN BOYLE: Hello? Yes. Without feedback this time. Thank you very much, Alice, for the floor. I think one of the interesting things for me that came out, and it was mentioned both for Pakistan and for Kenya, is the importance of essentially that embedding the process within your own culture and your own environment. And having been involved right from the start in those days as a government rep in the U.K. IGF, I can certainly understand that culture as being a way of helping you make better decisions because you understand the issues very much more clearly. The U.K. IGF has tended to focus quite a bit on best practice and identifying best practice. And certainly I have been quite pleased to see other initiatives like, for example, the ManFan (phonetic) project where the south Asian countries have been identifying issues of specific interest within that region. And Markus reminded me before this meeting that the last U.K. give session, we had the U.K. Internet exchange extolling the value, the work that happened here in Kenya in establishing the Kenyan Internet exchange. So here you've got a very good example of best practice that you can share very much more widely. So really, my question to you from the East Africa IGF or from the Kenyan IGF is, have you actually put very much effort into identifying things where you are doing spectacularly well and things where perhaps you would like to try and understand the views and input from other people? >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. I will take two other questions and then the panel respond. >> : We have a remote question, and this one is directed specifically to Mr. Kummer. What is the position of the Secretariat vis-a-vis the ITU's role in governing the Internet? >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. Ayesha. Then I'll get the panelists to respond. And the first question was to the East African IGF and opening up the parliamentarian session. Sorry, you can also address the issue around linking ICTs identifying things that work and do not work in the East African IGF. >> Okay. My team was asking that the next IGF session that included parliamentarians to be open. I think that's a valid suggestion. I think maybe we would consider that, so that at least the parliamentarians are able to interact with all stakeholders rather than a few selected ones. With regard to what we do well as East African IGF and whether we were able to share with the others, I think that the best shareable thing within the East Africa context is the process itself, the fact that you have, particularly, government stakeholders participating in a particular forum on more or less an equal footing is -- is something that is not commonly seen around. And it enables even government officials to realize that they have much to gain by interacting with other stakeholders in a way that enables them to even (inaudible) intelligence about what other stakeholders are thinking or likely to do, not in a bad way, but in a way in which all parties' concerns can be addressed. That experience has been well replicated, particularly in Uganda. The Ugandan list actually has parliamentarians and government people participating almost to the level to which we are seeing on the Kenyan list. And in both cases, it's a totally novel idea within the African context. I will also probably add that a lot of government decision has, in the ICT sector particularly, has tended to be, in quotes, informed by some of the heated discussions that occur on those lists. So it means that the open, neutral platform that the multistakeholder model is providing is actually beneficial to all parties. And that, to me, is the things, that the model can be shared across to other regions in Africa. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. Before I get to the other question, I will let Adiel and then -- >>ADIEL AKPLOGAN: I just want to add to the same question about opening government closed session to the -- I think it is the ideal situation. And I remember for the first west African IGF that we had last year, we had also a closed session for government representatives. And I think it's also important for us to have a process that is not a -- a revolutionary process. Government has a way of working. They feel very good by talking within themselves first. So we have to also take a progressive approach, making them -- I mean, I think the most important thing is to make them feel at their ease in the community. And if doing that and then reversing the outcome of the closed discussion or then reassuring them that what is happening here will be very useful for them, as well as you just said, if you look at what is happening on some of the local mailing lists in East Africa, where government participate today, discussion list, it's very encouraging to see and something that we can replicate. But to reach that, it's because they feel that they can participate and this is not a revolution against them, this is not something against what they are doing, but they are gaining a lot by discussing with the community, by having feedback from the community on policy that they are working on. But it requires process to gain their confidence in the process. And I think by talking with them, even in the closed door, if that's what they want, is necessary. But then the ultimate goal will be to ensure that we are not here to -- assure them that we are not here to work against them, but we want, on the contrary, to work with them to make the Internet or the ICT development more efficient. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Adiel. I think it links back to the question that Martin had asked in terms of the understanding, the culture within which -- or the context within which you're operating. And for news this region, parliamentarians, I think, loath to be embarrassed. And it's very important to first explain to them in very simple terms what Internet governance means, link that to livelihood issues, and to perhaps present them in politically defensible arguments before you then introduce them to stakeholders. But then again, this is just for Kenya. I don't know about other regions. I'll have Zahid add on. >>ZAHID JAMIL: Thank you. Very quickly, to give you a practical example, the recent ICT policy discussion in Pakistan, we had a stage like that with the chairs up on -- at a higher level, and our secretary I.T. had actually visited the Paris ICANN meeting and seen the multistakeholder format. I think many of us, Fouad was there, many of us were there. For the first 15 minutes, all we did was rearrange the entire format of the room. And we came down to a roundtable session like this. Just to give you a practical example of how that engagement took place. It was something incredible. And secondly, the first thing we said was, instead of creating silos, and say, "You're in cyber security. You're in legislation," we said, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. Let's do overarching issues first. What's the policy process?" And that's something we'd never heard before in a governance framework in our country. So I just wanted to add that. That was definite value, and it was classic ICANN, classic IGF. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Zahid. Before I go -- I allow Markus to respond to the issue about the IGF and ITU, there was the question from Lesley around how we engage, especially communities like the business community that is not very actively engaged, particularly from this region. So if anybody has a response. Ayesha, thank you. >>AYESHA HASSAN: Thank you. Ayesha Hassan from the International Chamber of Commerce and its BASIS initiative, business action to support the information societal. I'm very glad to see a number of people from our local host in the room. And I hope that, giving a little bit of information to start to answer that question, and then turn the question back, actually, to local business communities. First of all, by way of background, I cc's BASIS initiative is an umbrella for many companies, business associations from around the world to gather together, exchange information, receive coordinating service from the I cc's secretariat, build input to the IGF preparations, but also receive information about the regional and national initiatives, support to be able to engage and contribute to the IGF at the global level at the events themselves, and a whole host of other ways in which we try to help business people bring their expertise to these discussions, try to help them also maximize the informal elements that are so beneficial at the IGF. Zahid and others have touched on some of these informal benefits. Many of the companies and associations that work in our group have found that by being there, the informal networking, some of the side meetings that we set up with governments and many other stakeholders have reverberating effects for them afterwards on a range of Internet governance issues. So we have a Web site. On the ICC Web site, you can find the BASIS link. You can get some of the information on our positions, for instance, the way in which the global business community fully supports the IGF's continuity with its multistakeholder founding principles intact, along with a range of other materials that we produce. In return, I would say I am available. I'm here until tomorrow, with the rest of you. I am happy to speak about it. We have many members in the room, Zahid, Marilyn, others, who are involved in BASIS and can help to facilitate your engagement. And I would welcome feedback to me and to all of us. What more can we do? Before I end -- and I promise I will -- I just want to point out that Doris is here from the computer society of Kenya. We've worked very closely, Marilyn has, with Waudo Siganga and Doris to help motivate some of the Kenyan business community. So that's just one way. But we try to do that around the ICANN and IGF events regularly. But please tell us what more we can do. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Ayesha. >>ANDREW MACK: Andrew Mack from AM global from the U.S. in Washington. I wanted to add to the points that Zahid and Lesley and Ayesha have just made about trying to bring in both the private sector internationally and locally. When I was in Sharm, one of the things that was really extraordinary was the fact that this is a -- it's a very unique gathering place, because you bring together people from the NGO sector who oftentimes have the broad idea, people from the private sector, who oftentimes are very focused on how am I going to implement that, and the combination of them is very, very dynamic. What I found was missing in most of the sessions that I saw in Sharm was the local private sector perspective. Because you are the guys, local Kenyan, local African private sector are the people who are actually, at the end of all of these broad ideas about your Millennium Development Goals and everything, there are contracts that need to be let for things that need to be done. So there's an opportunity in it for you. There's an opportunity to meet a lot of the international private sector people that you may want to know long term. And when government and NGO sectors see that interaction, it creates a very nice, positive dynamic and some interesting things get done. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much. Anybody else wants to respond to the question, private sector involvement? Okay. Still one more question we haven't responded to. There was a question from a remote participant on ITU and IGF. So I'll let Markus respond to that. >>MARKUS KUMMER: Before I respond to that, I would pick up on Lesley. And I agree totally with what she said. It's always a little bit dangerous when you are all like-minded. It's very easy to agree among ourselves. But we have to bear in mind that not everybody is so enthusiastically in favor of multistakeholder cooperation, and not everybody is so enthusiastic about it, like the top civil servant in Kenya, who is actually happy to be shouted at, because he realizes that his policy at the end is better. There are people who don't like that. We should be aware of that. In terms of participation, I think the diversity we had at the Sharm meeting is, by U.N. standards, a good one. 95 governments represented, participation from 116 countries. That is an excellent participation, especially considering the fact that in normal U.N. conferences, participants from developing countries get funded through regular budgets, so they bring up participation numbers from countries correspondingly. And here, the people who came funded it themselves, which in many ways add value to their participation. If I get my trip paid, you go whether you are particularly interested or not. But if you have to pay and then you go, that shows you're really interested. This is a commitment, I think, we value highly. The very concrete question, our relationship to the ITU, I can only say we have an excellent relationship. The ITU officially stated that the organization is in favor of a continuation of the mandate. And as the secretariat, we don't have opinions. We provide a neutral platform for policy dialogue. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much, Markus. I will take another floor question. >>PIERRE DANDJINOU: Thank you, Alice. Pierre Dandjinou. I just wanted to come back to the IGF for development component of this. I would like Markus to elaborate more on that, because I find it interesting. And my second point is also about the regional workshop on IGF, especially the (inaudible) that we have been having in these places in Kenya. Will East Africa be able to share the experience. There was one issue that I would like you to be able to highlight, the communication, how do you communicate between those different stakeholders and how, eventually, all of this is going to fit into the work that the high- level sort of governments and the ICT ministers have been doing (inaudible) African Union where they had the summit. The last summit was about those issues. But what we notice about the way we communicate, we as professional policy speakers is something we need to revisit. So I (inaudible) ask you to fit that into your best practice you negotiate with your organizations. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. >> This is another remote question. Would it be suitable to develop an earths ITG eartheration, quotes, based on the federal system where, one, global strategies and policies are developed by international stakeholders, i.e., the international organizations, ICANN, the ITU -- the I.T. community, and the like. On a second level, policies and strategies are adjusted at the national and regional level by stakeholders such as national governments, regional organizations, national ITGF, private sector, and the like. And, three, ad hoc policies and strategies are identified for specific local sectors, meaning at the local community level. >>ALICE MUNYUA: I didn't understand the question very well, actually. So you may need to repeat it, please. >> I will bring it over to you. I actually copied it out of the chat space. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. Let the panelist respond. And I think the first one was to the East African IGF and development. Markus, do you want to respond to that? >>MARKUS KUMMER: Well, we are developing the theme. It's -- we are not there yet. I hope that the meeting in Vilnius, we will provide first answers as to what it means and what our answers should be. But the -- your input is welcome. All of your input. I mean, we always have a very open process where you can provide papers. We post it. We will have a discussion. But, hopefully, at Vilnius, we will take something home out of this session that we know a little bit clearer what does it mean, Internet governance for development. But, basically, you know, what policies are development-friendly when it comes to policy-making in the Internet governance field? What does it mean? So this needs some conceptual analysis, needs some conceptual work. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Markus. Walu, do you want to respond on the East African IGF? >>JOHN WALUBENGO: I think Pierre's question was about how do we communicate between the stakeholders and how does that get filtered upwards to higher-level meetings. Like I said, the key tool is the online list. KICTAnet, which is Kenya ICT Action Network, has a list server that is fairly open. I say "fairly" because if you try to register, more often than not, you will get through. There are a few instances or cases of abuse where people registered for the sole purpose of abusing other stakeholders. So we decided to tighten the registration process just to ensure and validate that whoever is joining is really joining out of ICT interest. So the list is fairly open, and anybody can actually register. And we use it to communicate extensively and make discussions. Our discussions, when we have an issue like if there's an upcoming IGF meeting, we will then have extremely structured discussions, maybe for two weeks, we identify the topics on what will be discussed so that the stakeholders know in advance the issues at hand and they can do background research before the -- they submit their comments online. Once the discussions are done, we usually compile the reports. There's a rapporteur who will put together the discussions in a format that can be digested by different stakeholders at an individual or organizational level. These reports are uploaded on the various Web sites. I think the key one for East Africa is www.eigf -- that is East African IGF -- .org.KE. If you go to that Web site, you will be able to get all the documents for the previous IGF meetings. As regards upward sort of communication, I want to believe that the individuals on the KICTAnet list are actually -- they do have an 8:00 to 5:00 job in their different stations. Some could be CEOs of companies; others are directors at the regulators; others are lecturers in academia; others are, as Markus said, top civil bureaucrats. So when they're having formal meetings in their respective duty stations, it's really up to them to see how they can use the information they have gathered from those forums to make better and informed decisions about those ICT issues. I think that's how I see it. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. And just to add to that, Pierre, I think one of the issues that was very important to us when it came to ensuring that you were communicating for influence, if you may want to call it that way, was just making sure that we understood the interests of each stakeholder group. For example, parliamentarians, as I think in most countries, not just in Kenya, would like to deal with very concrete livelihood, development-related issues that make sense to them and can be politically defensible, as I said. For private sector, they need to see where, you know, the profits are and what it is for them. And for us, it was mostly around creating a conducive environment from a legal and regulatory perspective, and so on for civil society and the rest. I think that's getting those needs and interests -- understanding those needs and interests and getting a coordinator who understands how to place all of that and use that to make sure that you're communicating for influence and engaging all the stakeholders in a way that they feel they are part of it. We're still not there with a bigger private sector. And we're still working with CSK and the others to engage that. But I think we'll get there. >>LESLEY COWLEY: Just a quick addition on communication. I think it's important if you have multistakeholders that you recognize that they will, in more or less comfortable with different ways of communicating. That's why you need a range of ways that people can interact and engage on issues. From this community, we tend to be very comfortable with mailing lists. And parliamentarians, from the U.K., anyway, are more comfortable with face-to-face engagement. It's important that all stakeholders have a choice of ways to receive and make inputs to help that. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. Adiel. >>ADIEL AKPLOGAN: I just want to add on to what she just said. I think we need also to be ready to adapt. We have experienced the same thing about communicating with government. Usually when we send invitation to government, people electronically, as we do in this community, people understand e-mail, e-mail communication and take it as formal, formal communication, formal invitation. But for government people, they want a letter signed and stamped by the organization that -- that's what allows them to get the approval for traveling, the approval to participate. So we have to adjust to that, too. So when we are inviting government people to our event, we send them formal letter on letterhead, stamped and signed. And that makes them react more positively. So I think we need to look at that. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much. I'll let Zahid respond to the last question, the question that came through remote, and Behar as well. And then after that, I will get panelists -- >>ZAHID JAMIL: I have been advised very wisely to repeat the question and my understanding of it. Which is that would you propose the federalization or earthization model, which would allow these policies of ICANN, et cetera, standards to be built at the IGF or at an international level, followed by adjustment of them locally or regionally and, you know, et cetera. That's how the question goes. Well, that's my understanding. I think that this is where the best practices exchange that the IGF allows, which I think really is the take-away, which I think really is a great value at the IGF, has a role to play. Not only is it an up or down -- It's not just up two down or down two up. It's a mixture. Everybody comes here, pools their learning and they cross-fertilize. And when they go back to their different regions or nations, they can adjust them. They are not dictated to. There is no issue of sovereignty. There is no issue of this is against my culture, this is against my society. And so it allows this very open, flexible exchange of ideas. That is not available, that openness. And also I might add the accessibility of many actors, as I said earlier, business and civil society, in such an engagement does not exist in any other forum. Therefore, I think it's not a question of federalization. It's a question of basically generating a debate, exchanging these things, and people learning from it. So it's sort of like a learning effect and understanding each other's views, bringing those (inaudible) down, adjust them if you necessarily have to. So I wouldn't necessarily characterize it as federalization. But yes, it's sort of a globalization of issues and learning from each other, definitely. Thank you. Sorry, can I add another point? It's also different from negotiating international standards because it allows the openness. And I think that is a key benefit and uniqueness of the IGF as a forum. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Zahid. Baher, please. >>BAHER ESMAT: Quickly, I found part of the question actually as -- in existence. Taking this from ICANN's perspective and taking the global policies being developed on a global level by international stakeholders such as ICANN as the question states, then taking regional aspects on regional level. So taking this or reflecting this on what's happening on the DNS space, for instance, where ICANN through the bottom-up process develops policy for top-level domains, then each registry has its own policy. Then also on the CC level, each country code is entirely responsible for its policies on a national level. Same goes also for the numbers. So we have international groups like the RIRs and the NRO together with the S.O., they develop policies on a global level. Then also, within the regions we have the local registries develop their policies with regard to numbers within the region. So part of the question is actually -- I found it, you know, is already in existence and doesn't need any reinventing of, you know, any new systems. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. We have only got about four minutes, run out of time, so I will let the panelists present their concluding remarks. Two minutes each. And I will start. John Walubengo. >>JOHN WALUBENGO: Thank you, Alice. I will actually take one minute. I just want to say that the IGF process is multistakeholder, bottom- up. And that has been adopted at the regional level and allowed all the actors or the stakeholders to be able to benefit from a forum that is or appears -- it is, indeed, neutral to all actors. And that neutrality in itself enabled or enables most actors to be frank, open, because they know that whatever they are going to put on the table is not binding. And that sort of makes them relax and be more frank, less guarded. So that is very important. And we're happy that we have managed to adopt that, and we're practicing it locally here. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, John. Adiel. >>ADIEL AKPLOGAN: Well, I will be very short. I think we need to continue to encourage the regionalization and localization of IGF. That will definitely allow local communities to address issues that really is important for them, and we keep encourage the global participation to tackle more wide aspect of the Internet's development. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you, Adiel. Lesley, please. >>LESLEY COWLEY: Thank you, Alice. I can be brief, too. It's not a time to be complacent, so I'm afraid there's more work needed. We need to work hard to ensure that the national, the regional models and the IGF itself, of course, continue to develop and continue to evolve. They cannot stand still. But they need to continue to evolve as the successful models of open, inclusive and diverse multistakeholderism in action. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much. Zahid. >>ZAHID JAMIL: Thank you, Alice. I would like to support everything that the previous speakers have said. I think it's very important that this forum, especially for developing countries and multistakeholder -- the multistakeholders in developing countries, have access to this. I agree with Markus to some extent where even if this international thing doesn't continue, the value has become so well recognized regionally and nationally, it will have a momentum of its own. I know we expect the global one will be doing something in Pakistan, and I know that will happen in the region. I just heard about the Asia IGF that is being planned. So this gives you an idea of the momentum, and the European IGF has been a success as well. I just wanted to add something else. I think ICANN has a very important role to play here, and I think something that can tie in with its communications plan. We were talking about new gTLDs and Expressions of Interest. We were talking about the communications processes to begin. I think one of the global outreach and communication things that ICANN can actually help with is to localize a lot. Webinars. Don't have to actually go into the countries. Ask the local stakeholders and the people, I.T. associations, et cetera, even bankers, if you will, and others. And this is a conversation I have had with some of the communication people in ICANN, saying when you go down, explain what the Internet does, explain how ICANN is important. Maybe as a part of it, the participation that will start will also have as a byproduct an interest in the IGF and generate that interest and bring those best practices to be exchanged even on the ground. So I just wanted to add that. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you very much. I will let Baher. >>BAHER ESMAT: Very briefly. Again, for developing countries, I think we should continue to engage closely with the different stakeholders in there on different levels. I mean, and as my colleagues said, we need to talk the right language -- or speak the right language to the right groups -- governments, technical people, civil society, et cetera -- and if they cannot go to the ICANN or IGF or other foras, we should try to bring those foras to them. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: Thank you. I will let Markus have the closing remark. >>MARKUS KUMMER: Thank you. I could not agree more with all what the previous speakers said. I would very much emphasize Walu's analysis of the strengths and values of the IGF as a neutral space for dialogue. Nobody needs to be afraid that the wrong decisions is going to be taken. This is sometimes not well understood, especially in developing countries where governments are used to traditional U.N. processes where you negotiate. It's quite often made as a criticism. There's no concrete outcome. But this is precisely the strength that it creates a space where participants can talk freely. And this is a forum which, in that sense, helps policy development. Thank you. >>ALICE MUNYUA: I would like to thank all the panelists and all of you for participating. I think it's been a very productive discussion as the IGF is always. And I totally agree with everybody, especially Lesley, around not being complacent about it. And yes, we do have to put in quite a lot of effort to make sure the IGF is provided the second mandate, five- year mandate. And as I mentioned earlier, Kenya does support that fully and we look forward to welcoming you in 2011. Also agree with all of the speakers about the effect and the impact that the whole multistakeholder policy process has had, and you can see it very clearly at the national level. And Kenya is a very good example. And agree on the request that we need to share that. So thank you so much for all of you for your energy and for participating, and we do look forward to seeing you at the main IGF in 2011. Thank you again.