The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> ANNOUNCER: Please welcome to the stage the moderator, Christine Arida, strategic advisor to the executive President and board member at the national telecom regulatory authority of Egypt, North Africa IGF and Arab IGF.
>> CHRISTINE ARIDA: Good afternoon, everyone. Distinguished Delegates, colleagues, friends, both here in our Plenary Hall joining and those joining online from around the world, a warm welcome to all of you. It's my distinct honour and pleasure to be welcoming you to the IGF 2025 NRI main session titled Multistakeholder Dialogue Governance Beyond 2025.
My name is Christine Arida with the Egyptian Government and I have the privilege to be moderator for today.
We are meeting at the pivotal moment for global Internet Governance, two decades after the World Summit on the Information Society, and well into the digital decade of the 2030 Agenda. We find ourselves reflecting not only on past achievements, but on how we can collectively ensure a more inclusive and transparent and resilient digital future. The multistakeholder model has been foundational to this journey, and today we aim to both reaffirm and rethink it for a rapid evolving world. So with over 176 national, regional and youth IGFs collectively known as NRIs who are contributing voices and experiences to this session, we are anchored in the diverse realities of digital governance on the ground.
This is not only a testament to the strength of the local multistakeholder communities, but a demonstration how they can shape and influence global policy. So our goal for today's session is three fold. We will draw on evidence‑based insights from the NRIs to assess how the multistakeholder approach to Internet and digital governance has been functioning and to highlight tangible impact at grassroots level. We will explore opportunities for strengthening multistakeholder digital governance beyond 2025 particularly within the ongoing WSIS+20 review, but in light of the Sao Paulo multistakeholder guidelines and the adoption of the Global Digital Compact.
And thirdly, we will spotlight practical and forward looking proposals to enhance global digital governance, including adapting governance structures to new technologies and developments.
Let me quickly mention a few organizational remarks. We will begin by hearing from seven speakers who represent various NRI communities, and who will be setting the scene for us. I kindly ask each speaker to keep remarks at four minutes, and following that we will have an open floor discussion with all of you and have a broader exchange so we can have questions, input and reflections. I encourage all of us to think not only in terms of challenges, but in terms of opportunities and possibilities and how can we engage the wider community across the world.
So without further ado, let me introduce our speakers for today. So from Canada IGF representing Canada IGF, we have Mr. Byron Byron Holland, President and CEO, Cira. From Lesotho IGF we have Honorable Minister Ms. Nthati Moorosi tight, less. From Ireland IGF, we have Mr. Declan McDermott, Internet Policy and Regulatory Affairs Manager, representing Argentina IGF we have Ms. Agustina Ordoñez, Chief of Advisors to a Deputy in the National Congress of Argentina and Coordinator of the Gender and Public Policy Forum at Yale University Argentina. And representing APrIGF we have Joyce Chen, Senior Advisor Strategic Relations, APNIC, APrIGF Australia, Singapore. And representing Pacific IGF we have Mrs. Sarai Faleupolu Tevita, Chief Operating Officer, National University of Samoa and representing North African IGF and Arab IGF we have Mr. Ahmed Farag, National Telecom Regulatory Authority, Egypt.
Please a warm welcome to our speakers today.
(Applause).
So welcome, everyone, and let us start with our panel today, and our first question is for Byron. If you can talk to us about how the multistakeholder approach can be strengthened within UN led processes such as the WSIS+20 review and Global Digital Compact to ensure more inclusive, transparent and effective digital governance, please.
>> BYRON HOLLAND: Thanks for the question, Christine. It's a pleasure to be here.
My name is Byron and I'm President and CEO of CIRA. We are also the Secretariat for the Canadian Internet Governance Forum, or the CIGF.
So your question, Christine, in UN processes like the upcoming WSIS+20 review, I think the multistakeholder approach can and should be strengthened, both in how the process is actually conducted and in its outcomes as well as in its ability to build trust and confidence.
I will focus on a few points. Primarily informed by my own organisation's work convening the CIGF, but having personally participated in global IGF since I can't believe it, 2008, but when it comes to processes, non‑government at stakeholders really need to be enabled to contribute meaningfully and consistently to the WSIS+20 review.
With clear visibility on how their input is being used or not many NRIs that engage in the digital, in the Global Digital Compact process are expected and are expecting to contribute to the upcoming WSIS+20 review. And as a global IGF's mandate itself comes under review, these initiatives, I think, can offer valuable perspectives on the IGF's wide ranging and hopefully long‑term impact.
The process NRIs and other stakeholders participate in really must be transparent, comprehensible, actionable, and accessible. Both to the commonly identified groups like Academia or the Private Sector but also to the diversity of other stakeholders be they linguistic, cultural, geographic or others as well. This means in practice providing ample outreach and notice for consultations which can be difficult to find and understand when, to ensure transparency by posting submissions publicly, and establishing a connection between those contributions and how they shape outcomes, or not, and these are just a few concrete examples that can make a significant difference.
We don't have to invent the wheel again. There are other entities like the NetMundial+10, that allow, and as far as outcomes go is I think the WSIS+20 reviewed outcome document should explicitly support the multistakeholder Internet Governance. The tune nice agenda was foundational in defining this very model. Now, we have critical opportunity to strengthen and future enable it. In the WSIS+20 review outcomes, CIRA strongly supported a long‑term mandate for the global IGF along with enhanced institutional resourcing. I think this would reflect the forum's pivotal role in shaping discourse around Internet Governance and related policy issues as well as the broader ecosystem that it fosters including all the bottom up work of the NRIs.
And finally, confidence and trust. Early drafts of the GDC did not include any references to the technical community. Language has been common for rally decades. It worked its way into the final draft but I would argue only after unnecessary effort, truly an unforced error.
And we see questionable wording in the elements paper intentional, or not, an unforced error. It diminishes confidence and trust in the process. If we are going to have a robust model of Internet Governance globally, multistakeholder processes are critical, even in multilateral environments like the WSIS+20 review.
In fact, I think done effectively with clear processes and strong feedback loops, multistakeholder processes have significant potential to instill confidence and dramatically strengthen UN processes like the WSIS+20 review. Thanks.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much, and thank you for reminding us the core principles that are at the essence of that whole multistakeholder model. So now I turn to Honorable Minister Nthati Moorosi, and if you can also give us your perspective on the same question particularly from the perspective of Governments and their role in the multistakeholder model evolution. Please. The floor is yours.
>> NTHATI MOOROSI: Thank you, Christine.
I want to first start by affirming my country's strong belief in multistakeholder model, not simply as a matter of principle, but as a core strategy for building digital governance that is inclusive, resilient and future ready.
As a model that allows all voices to be heard. From a Government perspective our role in shaping this model must go beyond simply participating. We must actively enable and protect multistakeholder within global forums such as Global Digital Compact and WSIS+20 review.
That means advocating for institutional commitments that ensures that civil society, the Academia, technical communities and the Private Sector are not merely invited to such forums to sit around the table, but that their input carries real influence. In Lesotho, our ministry organizers, the Lesotho Internet Governance Forum annually in partnership with the civil society, the Private Sector, Academia and development partners, this national platform allows all voices to contribute to the shaping of digital policy. It exemplifies our commitment to collaborative decision making and ensures political coherence with global norms while reflecting national realities.
The 2025 edition of the Lesotho IGF is under preparation as we speak. Our recently adopted national digital transformation strategy builds on this foundation. It embeds whole of society governance model with a multi‑ sector Advisory Council, stakeholder engagement forums and innovation sandboxes because we believe digital ecosystem must be co‑own the.
Internationally we believe the same approach must apply. The multistakeholder model must beinstitutionallized not treated as a tone gesture in intergovernmental settings. This ensures meaningful participation of smaller states and underrepresented regions, investing in capacity building, and enabling transparency and accountability across all stakeholder categories.
Governments like Lesotho have a duty to model this inclusivity at home and advocate for it abroad. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much Minister Nthati Moorosi and I think it's inspiring to see that view coming from the Government and the support for the national IGF. So now I turn to Declan McDermott. So, Declan McDermott, from your point of view, what lessons learned from the experience of NRIs demonstrate the tangible benefits of multistakeholder governance and how can these be scaled and replicated on a global level.
>> DECLAN McDERMOTT: Thank you. First off, hi, everybody, my name is Declan McDermott, I'm here as the coordinator for the island IGF. It is fantastic to be here in Norway, but I would like to just kind of preface at first just to establish that we are a new NRI. We just held our very first inaugural event several weeks ago, but it has had very positive reception and it's been very, very encouraging so far. I would say that the main lessons learnt for me in coordinating it in the last year is there is a very real appetite I think among all of the stakeholder groups to take part in these processes and there is a real desire for everyday people to have their voices heard. People really do, they care deeply about how the Internet functions and how it is governed, and we really did not need to pull any teeth, I find, to get people to participate.
Most of the time we simply just had to explain exactly what the IGF was or what the NRI was trying to accomplish, and most of the time the actual response would be like, oh we should have done this years or or this sounds like an amazing idea and I would love to participate. And that does speak to the convening power that the IGF has and that NRIs should and can have. We had policymakers talk to us afterward saying that they appreciated how engaging the sessions were, and that they actually walked away with different insights and different perspectives than they had previously.
Just yesterday I had a civil society organisation say that at that event that they were able to make connections that they hadn't been able to elsewhere. So I think that it really does demonstrate that there is benefit to having she's multistakeholder fora in ways that are open and that are inclusive and transparent, you know, free from having to negotiate outcomes to just sort of have these candid discussions.
I think that there really is benefit to these multistakeholder discussions, but to the point with your second question, this is very watered down summary of just a theory. There is a school of thought when it comes to social innovations and how to scale them. And generally it's held that there are three broad approaches for scaling. It would be scaling out, which would be increasing the reach of your initiative. So for a local NRI this would mean getting on more people's radar or trying to get more people to attend or participate in your events, but for the global NRI community this means replicating that model in new jurisdictions and territories where there isn't an NRI.
The other second option is scaling up where instead of trying to increase your reach, you are trying to increase the initiative's impact, especially when it comes to policy making or for law making. So for a local NRI, it's asking questions like how much are they contributing to their local policy making processes or how much influence or how much are they contributing to that? For the global NRI community, it's talking about how, how effective is the community as a whole contributing to these larger processes like the WSIS+20 review, or how effective are they at taking, how effective are we as a community taking local voices and really amplifying that on the global scale?
The final one would be scaling deeply. And this actually deals more with kind of fostering cultural change and addressing, trying to really shift mindsets, I think, in the long run by promoting learning and promoting different principles such as multi‑stakeholderism.
I think the most, the best example that I can think of on this would be the schools of Internet Governance where you have different individuals from different regions or sectors learning about the multistakeholder approaches to Internet Governance, perhaps shifting the way that they engage with it or understand it, or how to engage with the policymakers and then taking the language back home where they can replicate an NRI model there or increase effectiveness or deepen impact of the NRI model.
I will conclude by saying that obviously these are very broad theoretical approaches, but I would encourage local NRIs and community as a whole to look at where they are in stages of growth to see if any of them make sense for them, for us as a very new NRI, for instance, we are looking at scaling out, just trying to let people know that we exist and get on people's radars.
But I would encourage to kind of as just a general exercise to see if any of these approaches make sense for other communities.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Very inspiring as well, because that scaling part of whether going deeply or reaching out is exactly, I think, it's about the essence of that whole NRI network. So I will turn to you, Agustina Ordoñez, for that same question as well, if you can give your views on that.
>> AGUSTINA ORDOÑEZ: Thank you so much. I will speak in Spanish, so if you want to put your headphones on.
Thank you very much. For the opportunity to be here to Anja for everything she's been doing. We worked all year, so I think there is really deserves a great applause. It's a lot of work invested here.
This question, I think, is particularly relevant for that question not only about renovating the mandate. What do we want, what have we learned so far from the previous IGFs, and I think the first thing we have to take into account is that the IGF core is the National Initiatives and the regional initiatives. So it's important to see what not only at the global level, what worked at the regional and local levels.
In Latin America, we have three very concrete examples I'd like to share. They have to do with impact, which is what the previous speaker spoke about, the impact we have where people from different parts of the world, we have made efforts to come here, costs money, time, so why are we doing this? What's the impact that we have? What's the result of all of this work? We talk and we talk. Is that it? Or are we doing something serious? The selection of topics. There is an example from Colombia, but it is also the opening up to other communities, not only the topics that are defined by the Secretary‑General, but they can bring in new things we haven't thought about, other viewpoints. Now, the role of youth in Latin America is especially important and I'm very glad it's been mentioned previously because with a multistakeholder focus, we have to have youth at the centre. It's not just another sector because all of the other sectors, the people who talk in the principle sessions, we don't see the youth because we haven't reached a sufficient level. They are not that visible anymore, but yet, sorry, but we have to have them present.
So the money is the overarching of all three. We need money. So this is just very briefly how we could do this in Latin America.
We need more involvement. We have had a Minister here. We need more involvement from politicians, those who really make the decisions, legislators, and in that sense, we should have another round of applause for the parliamentarians who have been here. It's a wonderful B track Parliament.
I think this has been covered partly, but I think it's also necessary that we have more Ministers involved. We need to have politicians here who can really do something, not just make recommendations because that's what's it's going to be if they are not here.
For example, the IGF that decides, when we decide on the topics, we have to have people propose topic that's we haven't even thought about. We have to have a vote, and we vote, and we use the one that's most voted for. That gives the opportunity for other people who haven't really thought this to be the most important to understand that there are other ideas out there for groups that are more vulnerable, further away, and they can also have the proposals on the table.
About youth, I think Elise from Brazil, that's a good example, they have summer schools, they have courses, they have focus groups, and the best, that have performed best over the year are given a grant and then they can attend the regional and global meetings. I think these are three concrete experiences that we could learn from here in. Thank you, and I will be happy to entertain any questions you may have.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. I think you mentioned about the inclusion of youth specifically as a very important topic. So, Joyce, I will turn to you from the other side of the globe, and in your view, what concrete measures can enhance the participation of different stakeholders in global digital forums.
>> JOYCE CHEN: I may start off with talking about the barrier to participation. I think we know the obvious ones, and we have talked about the obvious ones for many, many years, some are language, multilingualism, resources, funding, et cetera. One big barrier I want to address is the amount of baggage the Internet community is carrying from conversations 20 years ago. For us to start a conversation, we need to spend hours first explaining the background, the context, setting the scene, how we got here before we can even talk about how we are moving ahead.
This is very overwhelming for newcomers especially because we can't have a conversation on, say, the WSIS without first elucidating the battles fought and all of the meaning encoded between the lines.
Every word is fraught with meaning and it is daunting for many people to engage and participate. I have been doing this for ten years about which is genuinely young in the Internet Governance world and Internet Governance ecosystem, and I'm still constantly playing catch up, listening to the stories around the fire.
The burden is getting heavier and I think we need to do a better job of moving in a way that we relieve the burden from one another. So any measures to enhance participation in all of these conversations need to first start with the storytelling. There are avenues for this. At the APrIGF, which is the Asia‑Pacific Regional IGF, we convened the WSIS+20 Working Group, and recently put together the inaugural web for our community to function as a background and level setting exercise. We will then continue to organize Town Halls for the community to share the views and eventually be able to hopefully come to some consensus positions.
This is from the APrIGF community. For the past year there have been many online resources that describe the history and the importance of the multistakeholder model. The NRIs play a critical role in this tribal ecosystem because we connect the various stakeholder groups and try to articulate what issues are important to us, and how that feeds back into global digital cooperation frameworks like the GDC and the WSIS.
Some local communities have coalesced around the national IGF networks to form multistakeholder consultation groups that function as sounding boards for their Governments. Outside the NRIs, there are also several coalitions like the technical coalition on multi‑stakeholderism, which I'm a big fan of that has done a lot of work to gather the technical operators and upskill our knowledge and provide a safe space to discuss first the GDC and now the WSIS+20 to develop positions that we can bring back to our communities and Governments or to craft statements as part of the consultation process.
But is this enough? I'm interested to know how we can bring people to the table. The multistakeholder model is all about bringing people of diverse backgrounds and perspectives to the table participating on equal footing.
The UN construct of closed room multilateral negotiations combined with multistakeholder informal consultations is a step in the right direction. But does it go far enough? The cofacts convening a multistakeholder sounding board even better. If more Governments would be willing to take on non‑governmental advisors into their Delegations we would be in a much better place.
To quote the Sao Paulo guidelines we need to foster, a safe, trustworthy and fair environment. Imbalances among participants are addressed and civil society, the Private Sector, Academia and the technical community are able to meaningfully participate in multilateral processes. We are doing everything we can to gather the Internet community to not just participate, but to do so on equal footing and be part of the decision making and agenda setting. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Joyce. I will turn to you, Sarai Faleupolu Tevita with the same question but from the perspective of a small island and developing state perspective.
>> SARAI FALEUPOLU TEVITA: Thank you for the question.
From the perspective of a Small Island Developing States or the SIDS, multistakeholder governance is not merely an idea. It is an absolute necessity and comments balancing act. As the Pacific Islands chapter of IGF we host the Pacific IGF. Next week we will have Pacific IGF in and this is our main an annual event every year. I can attest that for effective digital cooperation hinges on overcoming unique vulnerabilities and leveraging the collective expertise that only a true multistakeholder approach can provide.
From SIDS perspective, multistakeholder governance is really important to us. Why? Because our resource capacity. Since limited human resources, financial and technical resources within Government agencies so relying solely on Government processes will severely constrain the ability to participate meaningfully. Adapting or adopting multistakeholder approach will engage us, SIDS, to tap into expertise of our local civil society, Private Sectors, Academia and technical communities. This will amplify our national capacity.
Another one because we are vulnerable to amplification. So SIDS face unique challenges like climate change, its impacts of rising sea levels, extreme weather, our geographical isolation, small domestic markets.
So if we adapt or we continue using the multistakeholder governance approach, this is crucial to co‑design, co‑design solutions that are resilient and correspond textual all specific.
The other is bridging the digital divide because we live in geographical states for all our SIDS, not only the connectivity, but for the ability as well, digital literacy. These are relevant local problems.
For a multistakeholder approach this ensures that the efforts to bridge these divides are holistic involving communities. There are lots of perspectives of multistakeholder, the SIDS are looking to adopt. So what SIDS want from multistakeholder governance and how to achieve it? Prioritize accessibility and affordability of connectivity. How dedicated funding mechanism in private ‑‑ public‑private partnerships to tailor for SIDS unique. Go to community, localize it, take the responsibility so that they feel the value and impact of that.
Promote resilience in the climate smart digital infrastructure. Being involved with this multi‑stakeholderism will incorporate climate resilience, and this will improve the digital infrastructure projects as well as warning systems.
Lastly, foster local capacity building as Joyce mentioned. There is a lot of capacity building being developed and being deployed, ITU, APNIC, here, IGF, APrIGF, a lot is out there.
For us, we targeted training, support for local digital education initiatives to empower, give the specific programmes that is a need, not just overall. So if you go to the community, you localize it so that it's relevant, the content is there. So that's what covers persons with disabilities as well. So to concludes with that, my view from the SIDS perspective, multistakeholder governance is not a luxury but a fundamental operating principle for survival and sustainable development in the digital age. It's about empowering to active shapers not just passive recipients of global digital norms and policies. As the Chair of Pacific Internet chapter my view is global digital cooperation for frameworks must prioritize concrete, actionable measures. I heard is this morning and this afternoon about actionable measures to truly empower SIDS stakeholders recognizing the unique vulnerabilities and contributions to truly inclusive digital future. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, and we will listen to the last speaker, Ahmed Farag. How do you think in the context of digital public policy and especially the evolution of new technologies, how should the multistakeholder approach adapt to remain relevant and effective for digital governance?
>> AHMED FARAG: Thank you, Christine, for your excellent moderation as usual. It's a great pleasure to be here in this important session, and allow me to switch in Arabic so you can use the headsets please.
Thank you. So what is it we are all talking about really? We are trying to develop the multistakeholder approach. I'm talking here about the Middle East approach to the IGF and the local IGF.
We have different chapters, and we see different fora on the national level as well in our region.
Those different fora are more and more numerous. What we are really trying to do is have a true multistakeholder approach. We are developing this approach as we speak, and the goal is for it to be more efficient, more efficient for our economies and for other aspects as well.
So what I'm going to try to explain is how we really can develop this approach in order for it to be more inclusive, include more women, include more people with disabilities. The idea being to also have researchers more involved. At this IGF we have insisted a lot on this exclusiveness, but, of course, this is not enough in isolation.
What we really want is a more efficient kind of participation, and we want AI to be fully part of this participation. We can't really have superficial consultations anymore. We really have to have in depth consultations. What we really need to do if you ask me is start from scratch. Let's not wait for the end of the process here.
We really need the different stakeholders to be connected, and they need to be connected from the get‑go. We will need to have a very difficult balance between a certain amount of firmness, a certain amount of flexibility. It's very difficult to obtain. So why we need flexibility? That's to include most people, but at the same time, we need a firm hand in order for there not to be abuse in the use of data sa long the way.
What we see as IGF's added value is it's value for the whole value chain. The problem in our region is that all of the rules regarding IA and Internet Governance are not very well known in our region.
We think that Internet Governance will not be enough in the future. We need to keep the process open, and we need to see who else we need to have in it, and include the human aspect, thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Now, I would like to turn to the audience, and have your perspective as well. We will have in the room two microphones, one to the left, on both sides, left and right. I will ask you to start lining up. We also have, we can take questions online. I think we have Lily as our remote moderator. So I will ask her also if there are any questions that are coming online to also stand apt the mic and really I do not see you if you are in the room, please raise your hand. Wonderful. Now, I see you. So I will ask you to alert us by standing at the mic if there are interventions from the floor.
So I will go directly to the first question, sir, please introduce yourself, state your comment or question, and be brief so that we can allow for other questions.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you. This is Mamud from Bangladesh IGF. Myself engaged with national IGF process including initiatives like universal acceptance day in local language. How can we ensure that multistakeholder digital governance, meaningfully includes linguistic culture and regional diversity, especially from the Global South within global frameworks such as the WSIS+20 review and the Global Digital Compact? Thank you.
>> AUDIENCE: Can you hear me?
>> MODERATOR: Please introduce yourself.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you so much. My name is Nazza Nicholas Kurama from Tanzania IGF. And what I wanted to contribute is that, we are discussing about renewing the mandate of the IGF and the WSIS+20 to become permanent. And one of the of the suggestions that I have the person who has been doing this work on the ground is for the national IGFs to establish things like trust funds, and these trust funds will enable us to continue to be sustainable for the future. That is what we are currently doing in Tanzania to establish a trust fund for the national IGF because we know for the past five, six years IGF, our national IGF has been a major player in terms of driving policy change and policy, acting new legislations.
For example, the data protection in Tanzania, we as the national IGF has been very instrumental in terms of pushing for it to be, to come to fruition.
So I believe that national IGF, the NRIs are critical for the regions and the nations as well. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. So our first question was about the linguistic diversity, and I don't know if maybe Agustina Ordoñez or Ahmed Farag or someone else would like to take that question?
>> AHMED FARAG: Do I understand the question correctly, we are talking about cooperation between the GDC.
>> MODERATOR: The different processes, if this is what was meant? So language and how to include, to be inclusive with linguistic efforts.
>> AHMED FARAG: Well, actually to bring the different local and regional pathways and journeys we are up against linguistic challenges and financing challenges. So each local and regional initiative is trying to get the resources that they need.
And other types of solutions. So we are looking to the international community to get some help. One question or one issue, for instance. In our region, we have three languages, we speech English, French and Arabic, and we always try to offer interpretation services, simultaneous interpretation services and sometimes we use English when we speak.
So we are talking here about the content that needs to be accessible in the local and regional languages, and that's a real challenge. We need financial resources that would allow us to offer content in a local regional language in Arabic speaking region. And I believe this should be the case in all regions, by the way.
In each region, the priority should offer solutions.
>> MODERATOR: Funding and resources, Agustina Ordoñez, do you want to come in on that.
>> AGUSTINA ORDOÑEZ: Yes. Thank you. I will speak in Spanish. I think that this is one of the greatest challenges that we have, not only because, well, for instance, here in IGF, here we have interpretation. In the workshops we don't have interpretation. So what happens, there is a lot of people who would like to speak, and because they don't know any other language, they cannot speak.
And I understand that we cannot have interpretation into all languages. It's logical. Maybe some day with Artificial Intelligence or maybe today, I don't know, it would be good to explore that opportunity if it exists. But thanks to the interpreters, thank you for your work. Well, I think this is one of the great challenges we have, but also because the big problem to me are the definitions and the concepts. They are in a language that is not my language, and maybe it has a different meaning for others than for me.
So in the words, well, words create realities and every word has meaning, maybe we don't understand each other completely. Maybe there is cultural, social and historic baggage that comes with the word. So the first thing we could do with IGF, for instance, is at least to try to have interpretation in all sessions and also the workshops and also it's a question of finances of money, but if we are here in Norway, one could talk with the embassies for the different languages and ask if the embassies could provide interpreters, try to find a way to cooperate between all of us, and maybe also the national IGF heads and regional ones, maybe they can also help their countries to have interpretation services for their own participants.
>> MODERATOR: Maybe we can have a question from this side, please, introduce yourself.
>> AUDIENCE: Hi, my name is Adrianna Castro I'm a Professor at a university in Colombia. I'm addressing this panel as a member of the Colombian IGF. I would like to share some of our experience. First, there is some evidence that experience of national, regional use on Internet Governance are possible as well as have tangible results when implemented with commitment, openness and continuity. Colombian IGF national initiative has eleven years of experience. We have identified best practices to foster inclusive and participative work on the discussions and contributions to the decision making for the digital economy.
Let me list some of the benefits of million dollars governance. First, a permanent and neutral space for dialogue among different actors including youth and promoting their participation and empowerment. Second, meaningful participation and input to the consultative processes as GDC and WSIS+20 as an evidence of the link between local, regional and global initiatives. Third, to contribute to policy and regulatory initiatives. In Colombia, for example, this year there were some initiatives on the protections of children online, gender violence online, and AI policies.
The, fourth, the main areas of work are defined with the participation of the multistakeholders. For these years they have been established for sub groups ‑‑ four sub groups regarding digital wellbeing, meaningful access, safety on the Web, Artificial Intelligence, I'm sorry, five, and the fifth is a specific group on appropriation and a stronger theme the Internet Governance in Colombia.
We have considered also some options for further work to evolve within the model. The sustainability of the NRIs both financial and management issues have to be addressed. Continue articulating NRIs with global forums.
>> MODERATOR: Can you please wrap up.
>> AUDIENCE: Yes. I will just end, continue collaborating on building a multistakeholder agenda, and to promote more exchange between NRIs. The future of the IGF will define the future of the NRIs. The great outcomes achieved as a result of the work in the previous years can be graded with a continued and inclusive model. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much for sharing your experience from Colombia. Next, please.
>> AUDIENCE: My name is Chris Gedega. I speak on behalf of Kenya ICT Action Network. That's Kict Internet, the conveners of the IGF. Kict Internet convened the 18th Kenya IGF this year on May 16th so we are one of the oldest NRIs, and we have had support including from IGF SA, and we are very grateful for that continuous support to our NRI.
Now, what have we learned? I just want to speak to three key things very quickly. One is the value of multistakeholder engagement. The Kenya IGF has allowed us to dialogue on critical policy concerns in the country, and that way we have been able to harness ideas and perspectives from the different stakeholders, and, therefore, able to engage the Government on those pain points when it comes to Internet Governance.
The second thing is on capacity building, and we have also learned that it is essential to bring in new voices, for example, through the Kenya Internet Governance, the Kenya School of Internet Governance where we bring in fresh voices every year before the Kenya IGF, and they include youth, women, and marginalized groups mainly to broaden participation and sustain that effective Internet Governance.
And finally, we have learned the need to be adaptable and transparent. We were able to still hold the Kenya Internet Governance Forum during COVID. We adapted virtual forums. This year when it was announced that we would have the global Internet Governance in June, we adapted immediately and were able to convene in May.
So we see a lot of value in having the Kenya IGF. We see a lot of value in having the IGF because it allows us to dialogue very honestly some of these issues that we are not able to speak about, and then adapt them into our context. But how do we sustain that? Funding is an issue.
Kenya has been lucky because we have had a multistakeholder approach even in funding where businesses and the regulator support the process. But how do we entrench this? I think that's a big question. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I will ask the other interveners to keep it, please, to one minute so we can continue. But before I turn to you, I think I have a comment from Joyce. Joyce, please, very concisely.
>> JOYCE CHEN: Thank you. And thanks Christina. Thank you so much to our friends from Kenya and from Tanzania from bringing up the important issue of sustainability of the NRIs. I will take off my hat are for APrIGF and the other hats that I'm on but put on my hat for the support association as a member of the Executive Committee to say we have funded and have been funding and continue to fund NRIs from the developing economies. And putting our focus squarely in these areas. I think it's really important that the NRIs consider how you could have longer‑term sustainability that could be apart from the IGF SA in that sense. I want to point to you that we had a day zero event that was convened by the IGF SA to talk exactly about this issue, which is the sustainability of the NRIs, and how to think more long term.
I think when we are talking about the WSIS+20 just bringing us back to the topic of the session, we must not forget that the NRIs are a critical piece of the IGF, and when we talk about the sustainability of the IGF, it is not just the IGF annual event. It is also the NRIs. So we need to have this collective dialogue. We need to try and find ways to do better in that. And so I really applaud Tanzania IGF for sharing this news that you are considering to have your own trust fund. I think that is excellent and we need more initiatives like that, more good thinking and creative ideas to have a longer term sustainability model. Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Joyce. I will have one question from this side and another from this side and keep it to one minute so we can have all of the line up. Please.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you all for your insights. My name is Vanessa Campos, I have been supporting a group that is, a project that is interregional from the European Union for the collaboration in between countries and this is region enabling greater Copenhagen, Swedish West Coast and one part of Norway.
I would like to ask more about the example that you mentioned, Agustina Ordoñez, if there is time. I'm originally from Colombia, born and raised there, about different groups, you said it was an example of different segmentation groups. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you for your question. Agustina Ordoñez, if you can wait a second. We will take another question and we can have your answer.
>> AUDIENCE: My name is generalia Fung, I'm the coordinator of Asia‑Pacific Internet Governance Forum. Thank you for the opportunity. I will take my privilege of having this one minute to share some of my thoughts. This session is about multistakeholder, the future of digital governance beyond 2025. And we have been talking about youth engagement for a long time. And in recent years we can see that stakeholders wanted and also advocated for ending tokenistic participation of youth.
And I appreciate all of the insight of all stakeholders sharing at this panel and in this forum this week, but if we want to talk about the future of Internet Governance Forum or digital governance in general, we should include youth more proactively.
And I want to also take the rest of my one minute to show my appreciation to stakeholders who support Asia‑Pacific youth community in the regions because we have been doing a lot of great work and appreciate stakeholder's including Governments in our regions who spend the time to read some of our input in consideration for the WSIS+20 discussion, but I would like to emphasize once again, if we want to talk about the future of Internet Governance, we should end tokenistic participation of youth now, because we have been talking about that for at least eight years of my participation. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Right on spot, I think. I will give the room, Christine in half a minute if you ‑‑
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you so much, my name is Claire, I'm part of the German youth IGF, and I participated in yesterday's consultation. We heard a lot about common ground points like we are from the multistakeholder approach, for the IGF mandate, and the role of the NRIs, and we were wondering whether there is some interest in sort of participating all together in the upcoming consultation and maybe as NRIs together sort of show our voice. I would be interested in some kind of partnership to sort of have a joint statement on those key points.
>> MODERATOR: I thank you very much for this suggestion, which I think we take note of, and are you done? Yes. Thank you. Please.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much. I am Yososo from the IGF Benin, I also support the Secretariat of the West African IGF. Regarding at the topic multistakeholder digital governance beyond 2025 this, the title of the topic speaks really well to align ourselves in terms of supporting the elongation of the mandate of the current IGF. Also looking at the paper from the Australian Government, my question to the panelists, how do you see a suggestion of rebranding the name Internet Governance Forum to the Digital Governance Forum because we are not only discussing Internet issues, but all issues related to digital itself.
And it is not only about technical issue. We are discussing issues related to policy as well. And it is not only aspect of the discussion we are having.
And on the other front regarding the youth engagement, thanks, Jenna for talking about tokenization of youth participation. I think at this point youth have proven that they have capacity and leadership to continue the work to be done. How do we make sure that the youth are getting more capacity, more mentorship to continue their work, and more supports not only financially, but sustainably coaching them so that we have more results from the different NRIs. Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much for your questions. Please, sir.
>> AUDIENCE: Hello, my name is Hodofo, coordinator in IGF Brazil.
Thank you for the opportunity to speak here and to contribute to such important debate with so many brilliant colleagues from our network of the NRIs. I will not repeat other colleagues important points. My intervention is brief and especially focused on the roles of the NRIs.
We have been increasingly hearing resonating messaging. The importance of considering the NRIs as a special asset within the WSIS+20 review. The reviewing of the IGF mandate and something that I believe is growing consensus among the community.
NRIs have grown in size, participation, importance, and impact in global, regional and the local realities. NRIs are intended to special access and they deserve a more central role to play globally.
NRIs should be considered as key catalyzers for accelerating networks of knowledge, expertise, and the privileged resource for bridging strategic contacts and relationships following all levels of the ecosystems at the same time the process and the results of the IGF and others related forum, and also we should balance that well.
From one side help include more countries and regions in the global debate. And also foster local debates on global topics of interest.
>> MODERATOR: Please wrap up, sir.
>> AUDIENCE: Helping generate positive impacts on local and regional policies streaming from global consensus. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. I think we are having a question online if someone can read it from the microphone.
>> Apologies for this, we are asking the technicians in Zoom to unmute the remote hub from Benin to address the floor. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Go ahead, sir.
>> AUDIENCE: France like from the Guamian IGF NRI. I want to share a few examples of what our NRI has done in terms of good collaboration, especially in respect to the Government of the Gambia having two focal points at the Ministry of Communication and digital economy involved in the IGF process and this has made the UNDP in Gambia to support us and it has led to collaboration of members of Parliament to be able to make the Gambia rectify the Convention, which a lot of African countries have yet to do in 2022 at the sidelines of the IGF, and I'm proud to say now we have the youth sharing our IGF process, Marian, but unfortunately she could not be here now.
It's important that we all to bring our Governments to be fully involved in the process and we will see an IGF really grow at national and regional level. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. Are we going to have the question online? Can we give the mic to the online moderator? We can't hear very well.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you to the team. I have a question. The.
>> INTERPRETER: The interpreter will do her best.
>> AUDIENCE: We can see some specialists for protection in terms of judicial questions, and I'm speaking from the remote hub in Abrikalavi. So my question is about digital governance and multistakeholder governance. Should there be a platform for African developers that would be more adapted to their own realities in terms of economy, and also to help the local civil society and regional civil society.
>> MODERATOR: I'm sorry, I would like to apologize. If you can phrase your question in less than half a minute, I am willing to give you the floor because we need to have final remarks, please, would you like to quickly see your point? Please.
>> AUDIENCE: Can I go ahead?
>> MODERATOR: Quickly and briefly.
>> AUDIENCE: Just to share that for sustainability what we have done in Nigeria was to get our Government right from the time we have agencies under the Ministry of Communications, they are part of the multistakeholder Advisory Committee, so they fund the Secretariat. We also have the equivalent of baroness, an organisation that is at the .NG managers, they also fund. And the parliamentarians are now interested in what we are doing because we have been involving them so they now want to, they have the buy in.
And at Africa level in our communicae we also said that we want to support the original of the mandate after IGF at that level. So I mean when we get the buy in of the Government and parliamentarian or the executives and the parliamentarians, we know we can sustain our initiatives and not just the NGO's or the civil society. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. I'm sorry, I will apologize to you because time is up because we will have a half a minute closing remarks, maybe one sentence that you would like to send out.
>> BYRON HOLLAND: One sentence?
>> MODERATOR: Yes, please. Something for our Rapporteurs to know to push forward.
>> BYRON HOLLAND: Global Internet Governance is messy, imperfect, frustrating and it's made incredible progress. I can see one of the founders of the IGF here and I'm sure 20 years ago he had no idea that it would turn into something this significant and would have this many NRIs doing remarkable work with remarkable stories like we just heard., period.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
>> NTHATI MOOROSI: One sentence, I believe we need to increase outreach and visibility of the work that IGF is doing. If multi‑stakeholderism is to thrive, it cannot remain an elite and abstract concept. It has to meet people where they are in their languages, their communities, their platforms. And that is what will turn consultation into creation.
I think there has to be some partnership with the media. It has been under toned in this forum, the whole forum. I think it's about time we bring in the media to the forum. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you.
>> DECLAN McDERMOTT: If we want multi‑stakeholderism to thrive, we have to invest in it. I think that ultimately a lot of issues come down to resources.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you. Very concise. Agustina Ordoñez.
>> AGUSTINA ORDOÑEZ: We have to consider that NRIs are the heart of IGF. We have to work bottom up. We have to work with NRIs and IGFs from other regions. We have to include new persons and other groups. We have to look at the impact they can make and above all, include the young people in the sessions. They need to have participation on an equal footing with other groups.
>> JOYCE CHEN: I think you can play a very special role to demonstrate how the multistakeholder model is practiced in reality. So don't feel like you shouldn't be at the table. You can't be at the table. You need to claim your space at the table. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Sarai Faleupolu Tevita.
>> SARAI FALEUPOLU TEVITA: SIDS often face marginalization in our global decision making, however, with the multistakeholder models, this brings us together as Joyce mentioned, it brings us together at the table covering civil society, Academia, Private Sector and technical communities. So this offers a chance for greater representation of our voices in shaping digital norms and policies. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Ahmed Farag.
>> AHMED FARAG: We need to make this multistakeholder model, we need to strengthen it so that we have an IGF that is present on the local, regional level. We need to apply this model to the Internet Governance, and we think there should be more integration, more examples. Less duplication.
>> MODERATOR: The Secretariat of the Brazil IGF has advised that they have some printed copies of the NetMundial+10 principles which I invite since we talked about them we invite you to visit the booth and grab a copy. With that, I thank you all for your active participation, and I ask you to join me in thanking our distinguished panel for all of their valuable intervention. Thank you very much. The session is closed.