Internet Governance Forum Open Consultations 9 February 2010 Geneva, Switzerland Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during Open Consultations the IGF in Geneva. 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 to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record. [ Gavel ] >>CHAIR DESAI: Good morning. Now that everybody has networked enough, let's start. So you're welcome to this open consultation for the preparations for the Internet Governance Forum which is to be held shortly in Vilnius in Lithuania. Most of us were in Sharm El Sheikh, and I really want to begin first by once again repeating what we said there, which is a big thanks to our hosts for the excellent way they organized the meeting. I'm also really grateful to all the members of the MAG who came there and who really helped out in the management of that meeting. I think we can all be quite satisfied with the way that meeting shaped up, the level of participation, the number of people who came there, the quality of the discussions. But of course there will be questions about the meeting and that's one of the things that we will be looking at today. I think one of the characteristics of this whole process has been its capacity to learn from the past. We have never tried to simply do things a certain way because we have always done them that way. We always try to learn from each year. And I have no doubt that this time, also, this will be the same once again. In many ways, this year is quite important because it's the final year of our five-year mandate. And in some ways, we have to, so to speak, justify the entire process by the quality of the work that we do in the preparations for Vilnius this year as also, of course, in the meeting itself in Vilnius. You have before you an agenda which was circulated. I hope you have had a chance to look at it. The first item is the adoption of the agenda and some organizational matters, which I will ask Markus to walk us through. The second item on the agenda is what I just mentioned, which is taking stock of the Sharm El Sheikh meeting and the lessons learned from there. There is a paper which has been on the net based on the inputs which have been received from different participants. There are quite a few participants who had not provided an input directly but who may wish to do so here, so we should spend some time on that. The third item is the substantive agenda for the 2010 meeting, and the preparatory process for the 2010 meeting. The fourth item are related activities, like the dynamic coalitions, the regional and national meetings and so on. And then of course any other business which we may wish to -- which we come up. So this is what the agenda for our open consultations today is. And if that is acceptable, then let's proceed on that basis. Any questions? Then let's begin with the very first item. Are there any -- now that we have adopted the agenda, are there any organizational matters that we need to look at before we get down to the paper on the review of Sharm El Sheikh? >>SECRETARY KUMMER: Maybe just an information. We have stepped up efforts to facilitate remote participation with the working group. And Ginger, who sits in the first row, has volunteered to serve as anchor for the remote participants. However, unfortunately, we were told that we may have problems with the network capacity today, as the U.N. network here in Geneva is overloaded. So remote participants may be a bit hampered as they may not be able to watch the Web cast. But let's keep fingers crossed and hope that it will go as planned. >>CHAIR DESAI: Okay. Then let's take the next item, taking stock of the 2009 meeting, the lessons learned. As I said, there is a paper which has been there on the Web site, and I hope some of you have had a chance to look at it. It is a fairly detailed review of the comments which have been received, and they have been synthesized into this paper. And I wonder

whether Markus would wish to walk us through that. >>SECRETARY KUMMER: Thank you. On the whole, the feedback we have received was very positive. However, there were some aspects where the contributors felt there was room for improvements. In particular, it was noted that many commentators said there were too many speakers in some of the meetings. Other commentators emphasized the fact that there were too many workshops, as they saw it, and too many workshops had overlapping or duplicated topics. Allow me a brief comment on the number of workshops. This is also related to the number of participants. I was told as a rule of thumb, you can count that if you have three times as many participants as you have speakers. We had roughly 100-plus workshops. That means 600 speakers in these workshops, and that corresponds fairly accurately to the number of participants. We had 1800 participants. So by steering through the workshops, by limiting the number, you can also automatically limit the overall number of participants. I would say with 1800, we had reached the limits, I think, of our capacity. But let me go back to the summary of the various comments. We had substantive comments, and on the existing themes it was noted that there was some consensus reached on access and diversity and that there was an opportunity to showcase and to share innovative practices by operators and regulators that had successfully advanced people's access to the Internet. On security, openness and privacy, participants agreed that privacy and security could not be traded off against one another, or seen as opposing priorities that needed to balance. Both were seen as equally important. In this context, a proposal was made to discuss the Madrid Privacy Declaration which was adopted last year as a topic to be discussed in the IGF. There was most critical comment on whether the theme "Internet governance in the light of WSIS principles" should be repeated as a main theme. On new themes it was proposed that Internet rights and principles should be a major theme for the 2010 IGF. Also, the importance of climate change was again highlighted. Some said it was a key factor in any and all policies and frameworks that will shape the future growth of the Internet. And it was also suggested that Internet governance approaches should meet innovation challenges and allow high-tech services and applications to help CO emissions. Child protection has been an ongoing priority issue, and the proposal was made that in addition to discussing child abuse and pornography in relation to the Internet, the IGF should also discuss the positive effects the Internet has in terms of access to information, knowledge, freedom of expression, and openness. Privacy issues of cloud computing were proposed as a possible theme, and a more organizational suggestion was to introduce technical or introductory sessions to cover specialized topics such as cloud computing, DNS redirections, or net neutrality for the nontechnical participants. And there are many more detailed topics suggested as candidates for workshops and main sessions. On the program on logistics, I think the general thread was that the number of workshops should be reduced or limited. One specific suggestion was that no more than a predetermined, fixed number -- for example, 50 -- workshops should be allowed with some assigned to each of the main sessions and then to have some more general workshops. Another suggestion was that the experience of previous years could be reviewed for those themes that had generated a significant interest, with the MAG then putting out the call for one or two workshops on these themes, as well as an open call on new themes. Also, on the moderators, generally the format we had for the main session on critical Internet resources was well received, and there was support for continuing with that format with two moderators, and there were also suggestions to use a similar format also for other sessions. Then there were calls for more tangible outcomes. One of -- Several of them said we should consider issuing of messages from the IGF. Also a bit building on the experience in the European IGF, the EuroDIG, messages should come out of each session. Rapporteurs could be appointed to publish in their own names the key messages from sessions, and these could then be put online, and that allowed other participants to comment on the key messages. Some comments suggested a different balance between main sessions and workshops. For instance, the point was made that all main sessions did not need to be three hours in length. Or every time slot should not necessarily have a main session. And one accommodation was to reduce the emphasis on main sessions in favor of workshops. Or again, a possibility mentioned was that

workshops could be held in the morning without any conflicting main sessions. Now, here we run into some difficulties. The U.N. has fairly fixed rules that are set by the member state and supervised by various committees for budget and utilization of resources. And U.N. slots are two times three hours, and that is mainly because the interpreters work in three-hour slots. And we cannot change that. We cannot have three two-hour slots, for instance. We have to have two three-hour slots. And we are also required to make maximum use of these resources. So having a morning -- to give a morning off to the interpreters would not be seen as an appropriate use of very valuable resources. So whether or not we call it a main session in the morning or they are workshops, we are obviously going to use the interpreters that are here in a three-hour slot. We have -- The only flexibility we have is, as we have done before, is to split the three-hour slots into two sessions; that is, one and a half hours each. But there, it's nice to have creative proposals, but there I am afraid we cannot be creative. More on the substantive issues. It was also recommended that on some of the more maturing themes, it could be advantageous to allow for longer workshops. That is two hours instead of 90 minutes. Again, the roundtable discussions was floated as a possibility last year, and we had it in Sharm El Sheikh on some of the workshops. The format was recommended that it should be revisited as a possible format also for main sessions. And again, it was proposed that organizers of workshops should produce background documents and issue papers prior to the meeting. And reports from the workshops held at Sharm El Sheikh should be consulted in developing the agenda for the main session in Vilnius. That brings me to the statistics of the workshops received. We have set various deadlines and extended the deadlines. I think we have been more successful than in previous years, but nevertheless, we have not received more than one out of two workshop reports. We have a total of 53 reports out of 107 workshops. I was told this morning by some of the organizers that their workshop was still in the pipeline. Please, I would recall -- or call on each of the workshop organizers, send us the workshop. We said it's a precondition for being allocated a slot for this year's meeting, but it is also good to have the documentation on the workshop, both on our Web site and then again in the book we are planning to produce that will document the Sharm El Sheikh meeting. Then we received concrete suggestions on the organization of the physical meeting. Most of them are sensible and are also part of our objectives, such as registration should be quick and efficient and nobody can object to that. That has always been our main objectives; however, there are also limitations when you have to handle such huge quantities of people queuing up. Other suggestions are maybe more difficult to implement. One of the suggestions was venue hotel should be close to the venue and close together to facilitate network among participants and to minimize travel time. Of course, this would be nice to have, but we cannot rebuild cities to fit our purposes. And in Vilnius, I am afraid the conference center will not be close to hotels. It is slightly on the outskirts of the city. It is an excellent facility and all the hotels are in the historic center of the city. So participants will be close to each other. They will be able to network; however, they will have the slight inconvenience that they will have to be bused to the conference center. Then there were some general comments on the functioning of the IGF. In particular, the role of dynamic coalitions should be clarified with regard to structure, multistakeholder representation and their ability to do intersessional work. And this will be on our agenda, an item on our agenda. And as is the relationship between national and regional IGFs and the global IGF meeting. Then some comments were also on the multistakeholder advisory group, such as there should be more youth representation in the MAG. Also the question of balance of the MAG, the question of openness of MAG meetings, and how the MAG should operate in 2010. Again, this would be part of our agenda. Also, suggestions were made that more outreach should be made to communities that are not yet participating. Suggest the elderly, youth in general, also people with disabilities, again representatives from developing countries. One suggestion was to appoint representatives whose participation is supported and who are responsible for aiding in the outreach. My answer to that is, that's basically what we have the MAG for. We have MAG members from developing countries, and we fund their participation and we expect them also to engage in outreach to their colleagues in developing country. And also, another group was mentioned as the

nonspecialist lay people, we should outreach a bit more. Finally, to conclude, let me say a few words on what was known in Sharm El Sheikh as the poster incidents. There was much reported on that incident, and unfortunately, it was not always accurate. We corrected the factual events at the media conference. But again, the media, once the story is out, they don't pick up the correction. There's a note saying dog bites man is no news, but man bites dog is news. And there, the news was U.N. security has torn down a poster stifling freedom of expression. This was simply not true. We had asked the organizers of that meeting to remove the poster because, as a general rule, we don't allow posters, and the organizers had then put videos in the Web that made it look as if the U.N. security had torn down the poster. The organizer, 24 hours later, actually said this was not the case. But by then, it was over and was not reported and not corrected anymore. It was questioned whether we had always done that, enforced the rule of not having posters. It is possible that at times it had slipped our attention. I saw one blogger having scientific proof that I had tolerated a poster at the book launch. All I can say is that I didn't see that poster. I had talked to the organizers before, and I told them that they were not allowed to put up the poster. I think there was some internal miscommunication between them, and in the end the poster was up and we had not noticed it. But we have told previous occasions, a member in Rio, I told a big company to take down their fliers they had outside the meeting room advertising the company of a meeting. And they did so, and nobody reported on that. And I think on the whole, we also did that, I think, with the academic network at one point, tell them to take down the poster. The U.N. rules are fairly simple. Anything up would have to be approved by the U.N., and we don't want to walk down that path because we don't want to say yes to some and no to others. So it's much simpler just to have a no poster rule. And the place for posters is the Village. There, interested entities can put up their posters illustrating their activities. Having said that, the U.N. has also discretion over the Village and can also tell people to take down their posters if they, in any way, violate U.N. rules or are not respectful of U.N. purpose and objectives as defined in the U.N. charter. And also, of course, in the Village we say at the outset that they are not allowed to be commercial. This is all I have to say at this stage. Thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: There is a remote participant. Yes. >>GINGER PAQUE: It's not a remote participate. I have sporadic connection. The Web cast is not going through, so anyone who is here and tweets would you please tweet hash tag IGF10 because the remote participants do receive that on the Cover It Live channel. And they also wondered, is the captioning being cast on another channel? No, it's not. So the Web cast isn't getting out, but people are watching twitter. So if anyone tweets, please continue because they do see that. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Isn't tweet limited to 145 characters or something? It's a good idea. You can do that in the U.N. [ Laughter ] >>CHAIR DESAI: The floor is open. Yes. >>ANDREA SAKS: I think Ginger has just brought something up. I'm glad that she did. It would be nice if we had captioning for remote participants in the opening meetings, and perhaps that could be considered in the future, because that's a separate situation. And if the Webcast failed, we would be able to at least have people read what is being said. So maybe that could be considered. Because it was very successful to have the URL available for people to watch remotely in Sharm El Sheikh. So I just thought that I would bring that up. Thank you, Ginger. >>CHAIR DESAI: I turn to Spain. >>SPAIN: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you very much for holding today's consultations and for giving me the floor, and the possibility to make a contribution. I will speak on behalf of the European Union, but in the spirit of the open character of these consultations, you will hear, of course, the voices of individual member states as well. The European Union would like to express its gratitude to the government of Egypt for hosting the fourth Internet Governance Forum. We would like to commend the excellent organization and warm hospitality which made the fourth IGF an outstanding success. We would like to take this opportunity to thank also the participants whose contributions at the IGF are an essential element of the meeting. A major point of discussions at the last IGF meeting was the question of its continuation. Once again, I would like to repeat and to emphasize that the European Union strongly supports a continuation of the IGF. The contributions made at the Sharm El Sheikh meeting showed a wide and strong support for the continuation of the forum. The IGF is a process that evolves, and the E.U. welcomes that so many suggestions were made to how this evolution could result in even further improvement of the IGF in addition to the constant self-enhancement of the IGF that we have seen over the last years. This demonstrates that there is strong interest in this process. It is also a sign of an earnest endeavor and commitment to maintain the dynamism of the IGF. I would like to share with you that immediately after the Sharm El Sheikh meeting, the Swedish E.U. presidency and E.U. Commissioner Reding wrote to the U.N. Secretary-General on the continuation of the IGF. The Secretary-General was informed of our strong conviction that the forum be continued and the E.U. also shared with him the consensus at IGF on the need for the extension of the forums' mandate as was clearly noted by the chairman of the meeting, His Excellency Minister Tarek Kamel. The E.U., furthermore, underscored that it was looking forward to a fruitful and inclusive discussion on the Secretary-General's recommendation with a first rendezvous at the CSTD in May 2010. We would like to invite the chair of this meeting and the Secretariat to elaborate on the further process. In this regard, we would like to ask whether there is information on when will the CSTD receive the recommendations by the U.N. Secretary-General. And finally, I would like to come back on agenda item 3 on improvements of the IGF and core themes for the 2010 IGF meeting. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you very much. May I say that right now what we are discussing is an evaluation of the Sharm El Sheikh meeting. On the question that you have raised, we, of course, had the consultations which were conducted by the Undersecretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, Mr. Sha Zukang, in Sharm El Sheikh, and he has undoubtedly taken those messages back from Sharm El Sheikh and will reflect on these. But the matter now is not in our hands. It is in the hands of UNDESA, because UNDESA is the entity responsible for the further work in this area. And we're anticipating this, I have requested UNDESA to be present, and I am very happy that Mr. Patrick Spearing who is handling all these things is here and he is listening to all your comments and I would suggest we take this issue up under any other business, because -- and really, that is a point on which UNDESA should be responding rather than me, because it's not in our hands. It's now in the hands of the department. And UNDESA is present here. And later, after we discuss the Sharm El Sheikh and Vilnius, we will take it up under any other business and perhaps request UNDESA to comment on it. Okay? If that is acceptable to the E.U. Further comments, questions on Sharm El Sheikh? I think my own sense was that on the whole, people were quite satisfied with the way in which things happened in Sharm El Sheikh. I was really truly impressed at the very high level of participation from the host country, Egypt, and of course from other parts of the world, also. And so it's perhaps the highest level of participation we have had in the IGF so far. And that's certainly very positive. But there are many lessons learned, which Markus has identified. One which keeps coming up persistently in our reviews is don't have so many workshops. And I would welcome comments and remarks, if we are not going to have so many workshops, how shall we handle it? Because then we clearly cannot have an open house. Then questions of choice are going to be involved. I would like your comments as to how do we actually contain the number of workshops? On what basis and criteria do we say no to people. Say no, sorry, we have too many workshops. We don't have room for any

more. We by and large follow the policy that if we have physical space available, we should go ahead with this. Markus has also referred to certain comments which have come on the overall themes of the meeting. In particular, the question -- one issue which has come up is the handling of the session which we had labeled "Internet governance in the light of WSIS principles," and how that defers -- the points that he has raised there. And I would very much like your comments and reflections on that aspect. There are some other things on things which strike me that I would need to hear from you so that we can take a -- when we move ahead, we have a sense of what is it that the stakeholders would like. I now have Ayesha Hassan from ICC. I have the gentleman there. Martin Boyle. Where is Martin? There he is. >>ICC: Thank you, Chair. On behalf of the members of the International Chamber of Commerce and its initiative business action to support the Information Society, BASIS, that include companies and associations from around the world and across sectors, I am pleased to provide our reflections. >>ICC: Thank you, Chair. On behalf of the members of the International Chamber of Commerce and its initiative, Business Action to Support the Information Society, BASIS, that include companies and associations from around the world and across sectors, I am pleased to provide our reflections on the IGF in Sharm El Sheikh. We submitted extensive comments in writing, which are available in the back of the room and on the IGF and ICC Web sites, so I'll try not to repeat all the detail contained therein. We join many others in congratulating the host country of Egypt, the organizers, and the IGF secretariat on a most successful event and look forward to working with all stakeholders to prepare another successful IGF in Vilnius in September 2010. The entire host country team provided a warm welcome to all participants and supportive logistical arrangements. The special contributions of the prime minister of Egypt, Dr. Ahmed Nazif, and Minister Tarek Kamel, expressing strong support for this unique forum, set the tone for a successful event. And the presence of Her Excellency, the first lady of Egypt, Mrs. Mubarak, and the special session she hosted, added to the event. We would like to express our sincere appreciation to all of the host country organizing team, our special thanks and recognition to you, Mr. Chair, for your leadership and guidance, and to Markus Kummer, the secretariat of the IGF secretariat, and his talented team, for their tireless efforts and support. The IGF in Sharm El Sheikh successfully built upon the productive experiences of Hyderabad, Rio, and Athens. There was a strong business presence and an even greater number of overall participants than in previous years. This demonstrates the importance of the IGF for business and all stakeholders. The IGF in Sharm El Sheikh once again successfully brought together an extensive range of leaders from the many communities interested in Internet governance. It provided a unique opportunity to have frank and open discussions on a wide range of issues and brought together many stakeholders who otherwise do not have opportunities to engage with each other. A major value-add for all is the constructive exchange of best practices and considerations of the best policy approaches and options that, in turn, resonate in policy discussions and decisions around the world and at national and regional levels. This IGF proved once again that the IGF is a place where there is nothing that cannot be discussed. The IGF in Egypt underscored how vital the Internet is as a vast resource of information, tools, knowledge, and services, with enormous potential and many opportunities. We continue to learn a few lessons, to address a few of the questions that you've posed as well on practical aspects, which include the following: In general, we felt that the workshops and open forums were productive, useful, and interactive. There were still some duplicative workshops, including common speakers speaking on the same topics, which we believe could have been merged better, and recommend closer attention to merging efforts for this year. This may include also getting more information about workshops in the early proposals, which would aid -- which would aid the secretariat and the MAG and the community in merging. Providing information for workshop organizers in the form of guidelines or recommended ideas for consideration about how to organize the workshops most successfully could also be helpful. We recommend using different formats for the sessions

in the main room, for instance, focusing perhaps one and a half hours on one set of specific issues and then focusing the next one and a half hours on a different set, and using different interactive formats for main sessions, tailored to the topics and objectives. The use of two or more moderators worked well, and we believe that should be considered again for this year. We felt that the summary reports of the IGF provided by the secretariat and the transcription text posted on the Web site offered excellent records of the IGF sessions and would support continuation of that practice. On the opening ceremony, there was, indeed, a wide range of speakers. But we believe that it could be shorter and that this would be better to shape the opening ceremony more like the closing ceremony, which was short and to the point. The schedule of main sessions and workshops was posted much further in advance than in previous years, and continued efforts to finalize the schedule at least a month before the IGF should be the goal. We'd like to compliment the village. It was especially well-placed this year. The central location, that was all very productive for interaction and participants getting basic and practical information about a number of activities underway by various stakeholders. The Web site functionality and the meeting room allocation all worked well and served to support many of the benefits of the IGF for stakeholders. On very practical issues, as many have noted in written comments as well as us, the lunchtime buffets and coffee service provided by the host country in several places in the venue were really appreciated and allow both informal networking as well as quick and easy meals between meetings. This was really helpful, and the fact that it was hosted by the host country and was free was a real benefit for participants. We also strongly support the continued practice of having a real break in the schedule at lunchtime, which helps for networking and informal meetings without participants having to forgo attendance at other scheduled events. We provided a lot more suggestions for improves and detailed practical matters which we hope the secretariat and the next host country will consider carefully on issues from visa and custom cost information to Internet access and capacity at the venue and the hotels, to networking opportunities at the special reception, traditionally held by the host country. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have the gentleman from Diplo, followed by Martin Boyle, then Sweden, and then ETNO. >>DIPLOFOUNDATION: Good day to everyone, my name is Vladimir Radunovic from the DiploFoundation. I will not be formal. I would rather jump in with several suggestions which we are going to provide in written form later on, but as some of them are related to the format of sessions and the way to maybe cut down the number of workshops and so on, which may be interesting for discussions, we would rather bring it up here. But let me firstly express my feeling that the meeting in Sharm El Sheikh was again one step forward comparing to the others. And I think we are moving in a good direction, and especially would like to thank the hosts of the meeting, because I think they really invested a lot of efforts. Now, let me jump on several comments regarding to how we can improve further in Vilnius. One of the things that you mentioned previously was basically on how to decide which workshops should go in and which not go in and who should decide and so on. I would agree that the number of workshops should be somehow cut down so that it makes it feasible for people to really follow. For me, the way I see it is there are several goals of the workshops, or the goals that the workshops should fulfill. One is to bring the new challenges, which means either to raise awareness on some new issues or to map the field of some existing issues that were or discussed previously, or to listen to the stakeholders and their concerns related to something that has been mapped already, or, lastly, to come up with some suggestions on policy and ways forward. The other form of a workshop or form of a goal would be to bring in best practices so that someone else could copy the best practice that worked in some other countries. Based on this, or these could be one of the leading tracks for deciding on the workshops, so the goals. The other part would be the topic. In my opinion, the topic should be not too wide so that at the end of the workshop, you didn't really cover anything or you covered everything but you didn't get anything out of it. You don't have a take-away. Nor too broad. I'll give one example. Because I was

involved in a section on network neutrality in the past two years. And, for instance, seeing several new suggestions for the topics this year, which is, for instance, search neutrality or the human rights dimension of network neutrality, and so on, these could be fit well within one single session on net neutrality. Net neutrality has moved from net management as such, which is one of the topics, into human rights, into other areas. This is just one example. So trying to cluster different fields, different topics within a certain bigger areas maybe can be a way forward. And, lastly, some of the suggestions were very good related to evaluating the impact of the sessions that took place in the previous IGF meetings. So which sessions did really give an impact through the reports and maybe through the feedbacks from the audience. One other thing related to workshops is, maybe going back to the experience from the Rio meeting, where we did have short overviews during the plenary sessions of what happened in workshops. Bringing that back for five minutes of overview of each workshop so that people that were not able to follow multiple workshops at the same time would hear in two sentences what really happened over there and who to contact back on the issue. Another thing, on posting the reports online, the way that it's working now is good, but, obviously, we don't have that many feedbacks. One of the things that can improve linking the reports would be tagging the reports per topic. So at this point, when we are applying for a workshop, we choose whether it's open, whether it's diversity, and so on. But if we would be able to tag the workshop as it's concerned with child safety, with youth, with freedom of expression, whatever, then we could have a Wiki-based set of reports so that we could search through the reports through the topic, not only through the workshop number or whatever. And that can bring a new dimension to reporting on the topic from the IGF. Let me just bring one more recommendation that I think the youth coalition, which will be launched later today, will also bring shortly is to bring more involvement of youths on a formal level, maybe requesting for each plenary session, if not also the workshops, to have formally a contributor from youth. Either as a panelist or only as a contributor, a commenter to the section, so that at any point, we can really hear the comments of the youth on any issue. And lastly, one of the experiences that we tried to do last year, which is text-captioning for the workshops, but we, unfortunately, started in -- too late -- was that basically whoever is organizing the workshop should try to bring in the -- maybe the funds from the participants of the workshops, especially if the business is going to be involved, to also provide text captioning not only for remote participation, but specifically also for people with disabilities. And that could be one of the ways forward for greater participation. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Martin. >>MARTIN BOYLE: Thank you, Chair. I'm Martin Boyle. I'm with Nominet, which is the dot UK Internet domain name registry. And we are very heavily active in the U.K. Internet governance forum. In the U.K., we held our feedback session from Sharm El Sheikh on the 3rd of February, and we're grateful that Markus Kummer joined us and participated actively in that session. And the summary, the clear message that came out from that discussion was that Sharm El Sheikh had been a particularly successful meeting. It had been well attended. And -- and here it's particularly important -- the agenda had been interesting and busy. But as a number of people have noted, both in written contributions and just now, in its success of providing interesting things for everybody, there is perhaps the biggest problem that we still confront, that the program is just too heavy. At our feedback session, we did have one comment that the agenda -- about the agenda being too full and about the weak linkage between the workshops and the plenary sessions. Okay. It's one of the signs of success of the IGF that we all want our issues to be included in the agenda. And we all understand the reasons for this and struggle to find a way of addressing the problem. Of course, none of us wants to see less focus on the issues that we ourselves are particularly interested in, and thereby sits the problem of trying to resolve. The workshops, I think we all accept, are, actually, quite an important part of the IGF and actually help contribute to its dynamism and its success. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be any clear link between the workshops and the discussions in plenary.

And as has just been noted, the concept that we had in Rio where workshops reported back in plenary seems to have got squeezed out of the agenda for subsequent meetings. So we wondered whether there was an opportunity for us to link the workshops more closely with the plenary sessions. To some extent, the workshops themselves are good indicators of what people want to talk about. Could they be used to help prepare for the plenary sessions, either by bringing together the organizers of different groups, different workshops, and asking them to develop messages for the plenary that could then be discussed, challenged, and expanded? Or, actually, perhaps even form the plenary themselves. Either way, this could be an effective way of identifying and scheduling workshops and in identifying the nature of the plenary. If I move beyond the idea of the overcrowded agenda and in fact go the other way and perhaps add to the overcrowded agenda, we did have one British member of parliament flag his concern that coming just after Copenhagen, environmental impact issues were just not prominent on the agenda. In the U.K.'s feedback session, there was interest in developing this as an issue, perhaps with some identification of best practice. There's a lot of work going on in different countries, and perhaps we nationally need to ensure that this is fed into the dynamic coalition. If I can now perhaps look at some of the things that were particularly good. And perhaps the most talked-about session among British attendees at the IGF was the workshop that was organized by Net-Aman and Childnet International, and aimed at hearing the voices of children and adolescents. This work of engaging with young people led to a very powerful session with refreshing voices and challenging ideas presented in a clear and focused way, but with a clear focus on the value of the Internet to them as Internet users. Many thought that in future years, it would be good to try to bring these voices into the plenary. Either way, we all thought that this was an approach that should be developed further. We continue to believe that dealing with security and privacy together is an important approach, and we acknowledged the efforts made to do this in a number of workshops, and we would certainly encourage continued work in this area in the future. While we recognize the difficulties that were caused for the agenda and for the secretariat with the introduction of the special session on the last day, we did welcome the very strong message on tackling child abuse that this brought to the plenary. It would be good to build on the outcome of this discussion in a plenary session in Vilnius. And, finally, it was good that there was parliamentarian representation in Sharm El Sheikh. In addition to the U.K., there was a strong contingent from east Africa and from the European Parliament. We believe that parliamentarians bring an important voice to the IGF, a voice accountable to the ordinary citizen, and we should continue to encourage their active involvement in the IGF. So, in summary, we believe that the fourth IGF was a great success and it is continuing to develop well. In the U.K., we've remained strongly committed to the concept of the IGF, and we hope that you, Chairman, will be able to take that message with you in presenting the case for the renewal of the IGF mandate. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I have Sweden, ETNO, followed by George Papadatos, and Finland. And then Marilyn Cade. >>SWEDEN: Okay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Maria (saying name) from Sweden, working at the Ministry of Enterprise, Energy, and Communication. Thank you. Thank you, to start with, very much for giving Sweden the opportunity to contribute at today's open consultation. Sweden would like, among others, to take the chance to express our gratitude to the government of Egypt for hosting the fourth Internet Governance Forum in Sharm El Sheikh. The IGF in Egypt was a real success, from organization of the event, the hospitality, to the number of participants from all over and around the world, a true multistakeholder event. Sweden believes that open and horizontal structure of the Internet is a strong force for promoting democracy and freedom of expression. This is a fundamental feature, as well as the fact that the Internet is developed by a wide range of actors all around the world. That is how it is and that is how Sweden believes it should continue to be. Therefore, the IGF as a global forum involving all types of stakeholders in discussions and exchange of views is so important, so needed, and so unique. The Internet

Governance Forum has evolved a lot since it started, and it demonstrates this positive progress of development from meeting to meeting. The strong support for the continuation was obvious at the stock-taking session in Sharm El Sheikh. And I would like to reiterate the view of Sweden and the European Union at the meeting in Sharm El Sheikh in this regard. We strongly support a continuation at the -- of the IGF with its open, nonbinding, multistakeholder nature. About the upcoming IGF in Vilnius, Sweden would like to come back at the next point. >>CHAIR DESAI: ETNO. >>ETNO: Thank you, Chair. I speak on behalf of ETNO, the association of European telecommunications network operators. Mr. Chair, we have submitted a written contribution on taking stock of Sharm and preparing for Vilnius, and we invite those interested to consult our contribution. It is posted at the IGF site under contributions. And we ask that -- because we feel that our views were not fully reflected for the synthesis paper prepared for this meeting. For that, we express our disappointment, as were used a certain quality of the documents prepared by the IGF secretariat. We understand the limited resources that the secretariat has. However, we hope that in the future, more attention will be given to the synthesis paper. Coming out of the taking stock of the Sharm meeting, of course, we want to congratulate the Egyptian hosts for their warm hospitality and thank everybody who was involved, the MAG members, the IGF secretariat, you, Mr. Chair, and Mr. Kummer. We believe that there are some elements of success, like good organization, broad participation, lively discussions. And we think we had all these in Sharm. So we can say that the meeting was successfully in many terms. The overall theme, creating opportunities for all, proved quite proper. The format was also good. We find that the setup worked well in general. However, certain changes or, rather, adjustments will be necessary for the next IGF in order to reflect the experience gained in the previous meetings as well as the evolution of Internet governance issues. We found the two main session novelties of setting the scene and original perspectives as most useful, with high added value, hence they're worth repeating. As for the opening session and the ceremony session, we believe that the number of speakers and the duration of each speech, particularly in the second part, were very time-consuming, so that at least the opening session needs rethinking. However, a brief formal part well justifies its existence. The main session on critical Internet resources served well its purpose, having co-moderating experts instead of panelists, that was a great thing which led to a lively discussion. The main session on security, openness, and privacy, with a few panelists and then discussion from the floor, also worked well, in general. However, the subtopics were too many and diverse, which made it impossible to cover all issues adequately. The main session on access and diversity, well, actually, that was two different sessions, at given moments, this main session, as well as the previous one on security, openness, and privacy, that gave us a feeling of dÈj‡ vu, so that makes us think that maybe there's something wrong there which needs restructuring and better coordination. The session, Internet governance in the light of WSIS principles, that was a late addition to the program, and it could have been a workshop, in our view. We think that this session does not need to be repeated at the next IGF in Vilnius. As for the taking stock main session, that was the most important, as, after all, it was the formal consultation about the future of the IGF. Despite the last-minute changes to the program, it served well its purpose and a strong and clear message about the continuation of the IGF came out. So it does not need to be repeated, because it served its purpose. And we really hope that in Vilnius -- by Vilnius, we hope to hear that the U.N. will take a decision on this matter. Coming out of the workshops, the IGF in Sharm offered an incredible number of workshops and meetings on a broad range of subjects. For many, this was the best and most interesting part. But many participants had to choose between many sessions, and we think that the number of workshops happening in parallel were still too many. We recognize that this year, there was a great attempt to merge workshops. Still, there was some duplication. And workshops of particular interest were scheduled at

conflicting times. We have stated many times before, we'll say it one more time, others have said it and you have said it, that quality should be preferred over quantity so that fewer and better workshops would enable better coverage of contents as well as optimization of resources. Coming now to remote participation, we also recognize that this year, efforts were strengthened and we're very pleased about this. Technology gave the opportunity to those who could not participate physically to follow discussions in real time. I know a few colleagues of my who attended remotely. However, interaction from remote participants was rather invisible or very limited in the discussions. And we do not know what the reasons behind this are. But we would appreciate any feedback the secretariat can give us on this as to what worked or what did not work. Regarding written material, we appreciate that the program paper became available in a timely manner and we also applaud the introduction of the background paper setting the framework of substantive discussions and preparing the participants. We sincerely hope that the background paper will be continued and it will become reference document for the Vilnius IGF as well. As for the chair's summary, it gave a well-balanced and neutral overview of what happened in Sharm and it was deeply praised. Given the opportunity, we consider the two books that were published on the proceedings of the first three IGFs of Athens, Rio, and Hyderabad, as great outcomes from the IGF. And we hope that all workshop organizers will respect the rule and submit the reports, because it is a pity that only half of them have done that already. Finally, on a more practical side, the Congress center in Sharm had great facilities. In general, there was great technological support. The IGF Village was very well located outside the main room. The provision of free lunch and coffee breaks was greatly appreciated. One negative was the location of the hotels and the lack of public transportation. And another negative was the last-minute changes to the program. But, overall, as we stated in the beginning, the IGF in Sharm was a great success. We also have suggestions for Vilnius, but for that, Chair, you will allow me to come back. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I have George Papadatos. Followed by Finland, followed by Marilyn Cade, then IISD, and then Theresa Swinehart. George. And remote participant. >>GREECE: Thank you, Mr. President. It seems that this issue of workshops is haunting us and is coming back, has been debated at length at the MAG and in our informal consultations. The increased number of workshops reflects the diversity of interests of participants. And coming back to what Mr. Kummer has said, how do you reduce, how do you tell people, "You cannot have a workshop"? In addition to that, by reducing the number, it will be tantamount to reducing attendance significantly at the IGF. And we all know that there are -- there's a group of people that just go there to attend workshops. It seems that the demand from various quarters to reduce the workshops stems from the frustration of participants not being able to attend most of them and not having a way of finding out what was the upshot of these workshops. And it seems also, to a certain extent, that the organizers are responsible for it. When you have half of the organizers that have not submitted reports yet, it is not a very credible behavior, I would say. Taking also the point on board that Martin Boyle made about the linkages, they have been tried in the past, but they lengthened the duration of the main sessions. Attempts to merge have not been very successful, overall. I was wondering whether the problem that attendees cannot benefit from what workshops have to offer couldn't be at least partially resolved by an obligation by the workshop organizers to post immediately after workshops some kind of a message or distribute a paper with the names of the participants and a little summary of what went on, so whoever attends could take these results back. >>CHAIR DESAI: Finland, Marilyn Cade, David Souter of IISD, Theresa Swinehart followed by a remote participant, and then I have Willie Currie of APC. Finland. >>FINLAND: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Finland allies itself with the statement made by the

European Union. Our national stakeholder meeting which took place after the Sharm El Sheikh concluded that we had a successful meeting in Egypt. We would like the IGF continue pretty much in the same format which has proven to be a success so far. However, we have concluded that the number of workshops and overlapping sessions in general could be reduced. This could be done by continuing to expect the organizers to combine efforts if they suggest workshops with similar themes. Also, entities which propose to organize several events could be asked to limit themselves to two or maximum three. The rule to expect workshops being organized on a multistakeholder basis should be maintained. The workshops should reflect the views of different stakeholders which have different perspectives on the topics discussed. On remote participation, we feel that it worked well, but it should be made more interactive in the future. Finland had a group of young participants who participated actively also with workshop organizers. Youth participation added value to the meeting and we feel it should play a bigger role already when preparing for the next meeting. Thank you for attention, Mr. Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have Marilyn Cade, then David Souter from IIST and then Theresa. >>MARILYN CADE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very pleased to join with others in thanking the host country of Egypt for their warm hospitality, but also thanking all participants who came together in Sharm El Sheikh for contributing to the deepening and broadening of the spirit of the IGF. I said in an earlier IGF, in a public forum, when we were discussing whether there is any output or impact of the IGF that, in fact, the spirit that is developing and the shared sense of community and responsibility that we are all developing is actually quite something. And we are taking it away and bringing it back, but spreading it into other activities in the interim period between IGFs themselves. I'm going to give a perspective about the importance of this community spirit by reminding all of us who came to Sharm El Sheikh about the wonderful sense of networking that has begun to develop. One had only to walk outside the main session and see the -- and hear the conversations and exchanges that were taking place in the hallways and the beginning of interactions that I think have continued since that period of time. From my own perspective I helped to facilitate or participate in exchanges that I would never have had an opportunity to have had I not been part of the IGF community. I say that to now make a comment about reducing the number of formal workshops or sessions. I do not support reducing the number of workshops. I think that we should focus on perhaps improving the process of planning, improving the process of documenting, the provision of information on what workshops will address. I think we should focus on reaching out broadly to identify new participants in workshops. But I will just say that because you and I have come to every IGF, and we're now ready for a main course in a workshop, doesn't mean that all the new players who are coming to the IGF are past the appetizer course. So we need to remember that diversity of workshops provides an opportunity to participate, not just to listen to others but to actively participate, and think about how we keep the diversity of the filling and the fillings that are available to the wide group of people that we want to keep bringing in to the IGF. There was a good deal of discussion about the importance of diversifying participation in the IGF to identify and bring in more participants from developing countries. In order to attract business speakers, and I come from the business community, I know that it's important to have speaking opportunities in workshops to get them to be able to justify coming to the IGF and contributing. I suspect that's going to be true for us as we reach out to participants from developing countries. So my suggestion on workshops is let's focus on the organizing, the structure, the diversification of participation, and let the number of workshops be guided by the space. If people put the work into organizing a workshop and they do submit a written report, that may be sufficient. It may be that we want to begin to develop, for the three-hour workshops, the ability to provide real-time transcription or to develop formalized rapporteurs who can quickly provide a report, and that might help to answer the concern of those of us -- those who express concern about not knowing what is going on in so many props workshops. I will have

comments later on some of the other topics. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I have David Souter, IISD, followed by Theresa Swinehart, remote participant, and then Willie Currie of APC. After that I have China, U.K., Canada and Brazil. And then France. >>IISD: David Souter speaking today on behalf of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, of which I am an associate. And it's interesting to follow the last comment because I also want to raise an issue about diversification of participation. IISD is different from most participants in the IGF in that its primary concerns are to do with other policy domains, to do with sustainable development and the environment. And it participates in the IGF because it believes communications and connectivity and the Internet are centrally important to those other policy domains. And this reflection stems from that perspective. From IISD's point of view, the IGF is very good at internal conversations about the Internet amongst people whose primary concern is the Internet itself from various stakeholder groups. And the Sharm experience, from IISD's point of view, reiterated this. IGF has developed a community across stakeholder boundaries which very few people here would have anticipated in 2003. But the discussions that it has range extensively into the relationship between the international and other public policy domains. Domains such as development, the environment, rights, the role of the Internet in economic recovery. From IISD's point of view, in order to engage effectively with those debates, the IGF -- IISD is strongly supportive of the IGF's role in these debates about other aspects of culture and society and economy. But in order to have an effective role within those debates, the IGF has to engage with people whose primary responsibilities lie in those other policy domains. It has to bring into the conversation those whose expertise lies in areas outside the Internet. And those people, it seems to us, are not sufficiently in the room at present. There aren't enough governments, but there also aren't enough people from different aspects of government. The private sector in the IGF is primarily to do with the ICT sector. It doesn't include, for example, direct representation of financial services industries. Civil society is primarily represented by individuals. The big initial NGOs are not present within IGF discussions. And that, I think, is unfortunate both from the IGF's point of view and from the discourse about the Internet and wider world, community wider world development. IISD has got a number of ideas about how to try and build a dialogue with these other policy domains which we will be putting forward, and certainly sees it as a major part of its work in the IGF over the next year. For example, I would be interested in seeing an opportunity for people who aren't part of the current IGF community to put on one or two workshops in the IGF to talk about their perspective on how the Internet affects their policy domain. Something from which I think both communities could learn. So IISD's point, which is also set out in a memorandum, is to urge the Secretariat, the MAG, and all participants here to consider how we can best bring in the wider community of other policy domains with which the Internet intersects into the conversations that we have. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have Theresa, then there is ginner has a remote participant, Willie Currie of APC, China. Theresa Swinehart from ICANN. >>ICANN: Thank you. ICANN would once again like to congratulate the government of Egypt as well as the chairman and the Secretariat of the IGF on the successful meeting in Sharm El Sheikh. It was really an exemplary performance. We believe that the Sharm meeting complemented the past IGF meetings with mature discussion on subjects under debate and the general acceptance of the IGF as a platform for discussions on Internet governance issues. We look forward to building on that success and moving forward to Lithuania in September 2010. In particular on topics relevant for emerging Internet areas and of relevance for developing countries. With regard to the IGF meeting itself, on the program, we recognize the effort of the Secretariat and the advisory group to try to enrich the meetings programming with a variety

of workshops. We would agree with the observations of trying to streamline and synthesize the workshops. We do support the reporting back of national and regional IGF meetings as being incorporated into the annual IGF meeting. On remote participation, we acknowledge the progress the IGF has made with regards to remote participation and the availability of tools and bandwidth necessary to make such participation effective. We know that takes a lot of resources. The main sessions of the Sharm meeting were also featured with the availability of sign language interpretation. This was a new addition and a significant development. We encourage the IGF to maintain the trend of utilizing tools and technologies that make participation more effective and inclusive for those who are unable to attend physically. On the topic areas -- one second; sorry -- we realize the IGF over the course of the past four years has provided an excellent venue for discussing issues under the themes identified. The themes of the IGF should increase in depth of discussion. For example, for access, the aspects of connectivity and network infrastructures as well as elements such as multilingual content and localized tools for computers as well as mobile devices. The IGF provides a unique platform to also inform on key technical and emerging issues from which participants may benefit from clarity and information. Theme discussions should focus on policy implications and best practices as well as incorporate issues specific to developing countries. Looking to the future, we wonder whether we might not do more in this unique forum to clarify some of the more difficult issues with which our community has to deal. Future IGF meetings should encourage discussions on emerging Internet issues that might affect the multiple layers of a single Internet, including areas impacting a seamless, critical infrastructure. We also think there are things like cloud computing about which we hear a lot in the media: the allocation of IPv6 addressing and how to get them, the hardware implications for the transfer of IPv6, implications of new forms of social networking. This is not an exclusive list in any way. It's just some ideas and thoughts about future areas, and there's a real opportunity for all sectors of our multistakeholder constituencies to bring clarity to issues where they have expertise to share. With regards to the continuation of the IGF, we believe that the continuation of the IGF past its initial five-year mandate serves as an important mandate. We were pleased to see the almost universal acceptance of the renewed mandate in Sharm. The IGF provides an important platform for discussions on a wide range of issues impacting the Internet and its users and its future. It has also proven useful in contributing to enhanced cooperation, building linkages across the diverse organizations and groups involved in one way or another in the Internet. I think many of us saw this reflected in the numerous side meetings and follow-up projects that have emerged for all of us from attending the various IGF meetings. And with that, thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Ginger, you had a remote participant. >>VIRGINIA PAQUE: Now we have several interventions from remote, and I would like to speak in reference to my several colleagues who have very kindly mentioned remote participation. First of all, I am speaking as a remote participant. I attended IGF 2009 by remote participation. I gave a presentation in the main session, I gave a presentation in a workshop, and I participated at all times. For me, many times the problem was my connection from my home in Venezuela. I can tell you that particularly for the main sessions, the Secretariat was constantly requesting interventions, and we were not able to keep up because in our own homes and our offices, at our universities, we didn't have the facilities. We're working very hard with the Secretariat, I'm speaking for, now, the Remote Participation Working Group is working very hard with the Secretariat to improve participation in the panels. And on the panels, in the moderation, we are still -- have details, and that is being actively worked on. Right now, there is a comment through Cover It Live from a remote participant, but since we can't take over the meeting, I am going to play -- there is a video which they made, it's just an intervention by the coordinator of the Remote Participation Working Group. It's uploaded to YouTube so that it can be shown today, but if we show the video, we will lose captioning. So what I'm going to try to do now is play the -- play it so you can hear the audio of --

>> Hello, everybody at the open consultations. My name is Maria Maciel and I am speaking to you from (inaudible) in order to deliver a statement on behalf of the Remote Participation Working Group. The working group would like to thank the IGF Secretariat, remote hub organizers and all stakeholders that have continuously advocated the importance remote participation by the IGF. In 2010 continued emphasis should be placed on remote participation. The Remote Participation Working Group asks based on the practical success of remote participation and remote hubs, the IGF now turn to addressing remote participation and e-participation as part of the themes. Moreover, there are practical points that still need to be addressed. First of all, it is fundamental to have remote moderators who are responsible for facilitating communication between remote participants and panelists assigned for each session, at least one month before the event so they may receive proper and timely training. Secondly, it is important to foster more multistakeholder involvement in the efforts to put remote participation in place throughout the phases of preparation, participation, and reporting back. Finally, we urge the Secretariat, the dynamic coalitions, and the workshop organizers to foster accessibility features for people with disabilities. You can find more information and our recent statement at the Web site of the Remote Participation Working Group that has been launched here in the open consultations. The address is www.igfremote.info. We are glad to work with the IGF Secretariat towards the improvement of remote participation in the IGF, and we will continue to do so for the Vilnius meeting. I thank you very much for your attention and send you warm regards from Brazil. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you very much for that -- for those thoughts. And I'm sure we will take them into account. Willie Currie of APC, followed by China, then U.K., then Canada. >>APC: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. APC would like to thank the host country, Egypt, and the IGF Chair and Secretariat for a most successful IGF in Sharm El Sheikh last year. We have a written assessment which is available online, and I just want to highlight three aspects in the stock taking session. We felt that human rights were far more significant and prominent in Sharm El Sheikh than in previous IGFs, as reflected in workshops and main sessions. As has been mentioned, there was a very significant consensus amongst panelists from all stakeholder groups in the main session on security, openness, and privacy; that privacy and security are not to be traded off against one another or seen as opposing priorities; that need to be balanced. This really highlights the value of the IGF as a venue for policy dialogue, wherein the discussions, new insights can be generated. Workshops focusing on social media, freedom of expression, freedom of information and sexual rights all concluded that technical, legal, and other interventions aiming to regulate the use of the Internet should be based firmly on internationally recognized human rights instruments, and leave people with ultimate control over their own being, actions, interactions, expressions and data online. This aspect needs to be built on further in Vilnius. The second aspect we want to highlight is the issue around development. We felt that development, including measuring the impact of sustainable development, was highlighted in many workshops and in the main session on Internet governance in the light of the WSIS principles. We felt there was a strong feeling that with the exception of access, development issues have not received adequate attention in the IGF. Developing country participation was noticeably low, and increasing that has to be a priority for the next IGF. The responsibility lies not just with the Secretariat or workshop organizers but with developing countries stakeholders themselves. However, the issue of financial resources will have to be addressed, particularly to support participation from civil society, researchers, and small to medium businesses in developing countries. One way in which this can be done is to make support available for speakers and for session moderators from developing countries. During the IGF, it was very noticeable that more questions and comments were received from the floor from developing country participants when session chairs, moderators and speakers were themselves from developing countries. And

I think a good example of this was in the main session on Internet governance in the light of the WSIS principles. We also think that articulating a development agenda in Internet governance would help the IGF address a range of issues such as capacity building, developing country participation in the Internet governance and in the IGF and substantive policies of concern to developing country stakeholders. The last point wasn't to make is on innovative and creative meeting formats. We recommend that the IGF continue to develop innovative and creative meeting formats. The suggestions that were made earlier last year at the open consultations on the IGF program to have roundtable discussions aimed at building consensus on issues like accessibility, access, or child protection were not really taken forward. The super three-hour sessions were a step forward, and because they were three hours long, it was easy for facilitators to involve remote participants in the workshops. We feel that a fresh attempt should be made at the IGF in Vilnius to experiment with roundtable discussions. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: I now have China followed by U.K., Canada, and Brazil. China. >>CHINA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Concerning the fourth IGF session held in Sharm El Sheikh last year, I would like to make two points. First of all, I would like to thank the Egyptian government and the IGF Secretariat for successfully holding the meeting of Sharm El Sheikh. Secondly, the meeting in Sharm El Sheikh mainly focuses on the management of critical Internet resources and the continuation of IGF forum. We believe that on the basis of discussions already conducted, we should further discuss the relevant issues in depth, especially in relevant U.N. meetings. There should be a relevant decision made on the continuation of IGF so as to further implement the principles of multilateralism, freedom of democracy, freedom as related to the principles of WSIS. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I now have U.K., Canada, Brazil, and France. >>UNITED KINGDOM: Thank you, Chair. My name is Mark Carvell, I. Am from the U.K. government's Department for Business Innovation and Skills. I support the views expressed earlier by the European presidency. And my ministry is also a partner in the U.K. IGF, and that is a crucial sounding board for us in government of stakeholder views as regards the performance of the IGF, its achievements, and scope for improvement. And Martin Boyle gave a very comprehensive account of the feedback we have had from stakeholders. And we will be taking that into account in our policy development process on Internet governance. Turning to your specific question of how to reduce the number of workshops and avoid duplication, we would suggest a dual approach to workshops. The first one is to, first of all, for the Secretariat with the assistance of the MAG to identify core themes, and then invite proposals for workshops, and then undertake an open process of grouping and merging those workshop proposals under the core themes, and then submitting that, again, in an open way to the MAG for agreement. As was noted earlier, I think perhaps by George from Greece in particular, there is often reluctance, very understandably, from workshop proposers to give up ownership and merge with other proposals. And what we suggest to mitigate that is that these core theme workshops be longer. That they be two hours as opposed to 90 minutes. And that the reason for this is that it would allow for more participation by active stakeholders. Secondly, it would allow for more interaction with the workshop audience, the participants. And we saw in Sharm, I think, some workshops failed to do that sufficiently. And thirdly, it would allow the chair or the moderator of the core theme workshop to provide an initial summing up as a preface to reporting to the main session, which I think, as was noted earlier, is a valuable, important process to pursue in establishing the linkages to the main sessions on these core themes. All of that would require a very rigorous and effective chairing or moderating of these core theme workshops, and perhaps some guidance could be provided to workshop chairs to ensure that the opportunity for participants, attendees to

engage in the workshop activity is maximized. I described this as a dual approach earlier because I think it is also important, in addition to core themes, to open up the IGF agenda as much as possible to new emerging issues. And that was a point made earlier. And we are very sympathetic to that. The IGF must be seen to be continuously dynamic and embracing new topics, and allowing the bottom-up approach, which is key to this concept, to be fully allowed. And so those workshops need not be two hours in length. These workshops of new emerging topics, but certainly provide that opportunity for new areas of interest and new issues, new opportunities and new challenges, new developments, be it related to cloud computing or updates on the climate change issue as it is relevant to the Internet, to be fully explored and tabled as new for the IGF. So I think those are our comments on addressing that particular problem that we faced in Sharm of there being too many workshops, too much duplication. And I have to say I am also very sympathetic to the view that we do maximize the potential interest of business in engaging in these workshops. So I think the two-hour solution is perhaps helpful with that regard as well. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have Canada, Brazil, France. And after that I have Milton Mueller and Annette Muehlberg of the united services union. Can I have Canada. >>CANADA: Thank you, Chair Thank you, Chair. The government of Canada would first like to thank the government of Egypt for hosting the 2009 IGF, as well as Minister Tarek Kamel for his leadership in organizing such a successful and productive meeting. Canada would also like to recognize the efforts of Nitin Desai as chair of the multistakeholder Advisory Group, and Markus Kummer and the secretariat for their significant efforts. There was notable senior-level representation from all stakeholder groups in Egypt. And from this, we can conclude that the IGF is a valuable forum for governments, private sector, civil society, the technical community, and intergovernmental organizations. Canada would also like to acknowledge the efforts of the U.N. Undersecretary-General Sha and his staff for this session on the review of the IGF. In Canada's view, the IGF has now established itself as an important and listing multistakeholder contributor to policy development discussions and capacity-building in Internet governance without negotiated outcomes. As we prepare for the 2010 IGF, it is important to recognize that while improvements can always be made, the IGF has proven its ability to adjust and improve via its own internal multistakeholder processes. Canada finds the suggestion from Nominet to better link the workshops and the main sessions worthy of further exploration. The International Institute for Sustainable Development's proposal to engage with others concerned with the impact of the Internet on other aspects of culture and society, economy, and policy, should also be explored further. Canada would also like to offer a few thoughts on participation. Canada appreciates the efforts made to provide remote participation and believes this should remain a priority area in support of varied participation at the IGF. Also, participants should be encouraged to make use of the language interpretation made available at the meeting. Others have mentioned the importance of the involvement of youth. And we learned with interest today that there is to be a youth coalition launch. In terms of the main sessions, the Setting the Scene session certainly helped to apprise new participants of the IGF and how it works. And so we would strongly encourage that this be repeated in 2010. We would also agree with previous speakers that not all main sessions do need to be three hours. For example, Internet governance in light of WSIS principles could be handled as a workshop. We also support the comments made immediately prior by my colleague from the U.K. that a focus could be on emerging issues for 2010. To conclude, Canada looks forward to working with all stakeholders in preparing for Vilnius. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: I have Brazil, France, Milton Mueller, Annette Muehlberg, followed by Switzerland, and (saying name). Wolfgang. Okay. Can I have Brazil, please. >>BRAZIL: thank you, Chair. Good morning, ladies and

gentlemen. My name is (saying name) I'm from Brazilian ministry of relations. Mr. Chair, the Brazilian government would like to thank and congratulate the host country, Egypt, the IGF secretariat, and the IGF community as a whole for the successful meeting held in Sharm El Sheikh last year. We believe this meeting highlights a long but necessary path to ensure an adequate balance in geographic representation and participation of developed and developing countries within each stakeholder group. We recognize this is an essential precondition for the growing efficiency of the debate, reports, and especially recommendations on possible consensus that the IGF is allowed and must pursue to make in order to bring to reality all action lines agreed in the World Summit on the Information Society process. Mr. Chair, in the last four years, IGF has been able to experience a continuous evaluation aiming at bringing to the agenda new themes and building new mechanisms for consensus. Moreover, we believe that this continuous evolution, which is in the core of the dynamic multistakeholder process, indicates itself the convenience of renewing IGF's mandate. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. France, Bertrand. >>FRANCE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. France has submitted in the consultation a detailed online contribution that will be actually circulated to the forum this afternoon for those who might be interested. So I don't want to detail. A few comments. The first thing is that France appreciated very, very much the dedication and the engagement of the Egyptian authorities in the organization of the IGF, and particularly the ongoing presence of Minister Tarek Kamel and other high officials. I must add that we had the pleasure of having our minister present in Sharm El Sheikh. And I can testify for those who worry about the benefits and the usefulness of the meetings of the IGF that the feedback we got from her was that what was possible to achieve in the day that she spent at the IGF was without comparison with the kind of things that could have been achieved with other methods. The capacity to bring the different stakeholders very simply around a session that was organized in parallel with the normal program was tremendously valuable. So I wanted to give this testimonial, because it's important in terms of the outcomes. In terms of the logistics, the existence of a central plaza and the catering, exceptional catering that was already mentioned, is something to keep in mind. Because the central plaza was really what we've always expected to be the gathering and networking space in the IGF. And the presence of the village just nearby was also very positive. On the substance, we were very satisfied to see the overwhelming support for the continuation of the IGF in the stock-taking session that was organized under Mr. Sha Zukang. And the IGF in Sharm was a demonstration of the continuous self-organization of the IGF and its capacity to constantly improve. In particular, we were able to experiment with the new roundtable format in one of the workshops that were organized around the notion of social media and governance of social media. It was a very interesting experiment. And this format should be encouraged also in this physical setting. The other thing that we found positive was that the session on the critical Internet resources was remarkably moderated and also began to address, really, the core sensitive issues, even sometimes in very strong exchanges. But it did begin to address the sensitive issues. And we think it is going to continue next -- this year. One suggestion we could explore is, just like there was this sort of IGF 101 at the very beginning, there could be similar short sessions maybe in small rooms at the beginning of each day on the topics that are going to be addressed in the main sessions so that people who are not very familiar with the topic can go and have a sort of a briefing, a fact-based briefing. Then the -- the session of the Internet governance in the light of WSIS principles may have seemed strange to a lot of actors. But the reality is that it was touching, actually, upon the core subject of how do we organize multistakeholder deliberation and multistakeholder governance. So we would strongly support that this topic be maintained, maybe in a format of more of a workshop, not necessarily a main session. But this is also an opportunity for reviewing whether the different organizations of the Internet governance ecosystem do actually implement the WSIS principles. Finally, in terms of the question of workshops and the number of workshops, we need to be very careful

here, because on the one hand, there is a need to avoid too much overlap. But on the other hand, the number of workshops is somehow directly related to the breadth of activities and the scope of the topics that we want to cover. The broader the scope, naturally, the larger the number of workshops. And so we are trying to combine here the number of workshops, the breadth of the issues, and the need to allow for interaction. As Marilyn Cade has said, a lot of the benefit is to allow people to actually participate. This is why I would go along, and we mentioned it in our contribution, the avenue that is explored also by Mark Carvell from the U.K., the idea is to have the MAG identify major tracks -- three, maximum four -- and for each of these, identify specific subthemes where MAG-sponsored workshops or MAG-encouraged workshops would be organized, but it wouldn't be a call for workshop themes on that. It would be a call for people who want to participate in the co-organization of this. Let me give you an example. If we keep the management of critical Internet resources as a main theme, which I think is going to be the case, we can have subthemes like, for instance, does the introduction of IPv6 require some changes in the structure of the Internet registries, of the Regional Internet Registries that are being -- handling this distribution of I.P. addresses today? This is a topic that brings -- that would be put forward, and all actors interested in that topic would be required to come and participate in the co-organization. And we could list a certain number of others. The other thread that we saw emerging very clearly from Sharm El Sheikh is this notion of social media and the governance of social media. I think we have a very broad thread here that covers issues of privacy, freedom of expression, and many others, that can be handled in a general track. And, finally, the issue of cloud computing, and in general terms, the evolution toward the grid, could be one of the topics or the topic used for the emerging issues session. And we'll come back on other recommendations afterwards. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Milton. >>MILTON MUELLER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I want to address the workshop issue also. My name is Milton Mueller, I'm with Syracuse University and the Internet Governance Project. I think the way we handle the workshops is critical to the identity and success of the forum. I'd like to begin by saying I don't agree that there is a major problem. Diversity and choice are good. It increases participation. And imposing tighter controls based on a centralized assessment of content is unlikely to improve things. If we do have to err, let's err on the side of more opportunity, not less. Now, agreed, we do want to avoid duplication. And we do want to avoid low-quality workshops. One thing to keep in mind is that, as someone who has experienced the merger of several workshops, I would say that the forced or top-down imposed mergers have actually decreased the quality of workshops and rather strongly increased the costs of organizing them, because you're throwing together people who may or may not want to associate. I do not agree with the idea that the MAG should be driving the process of defining themes or tracks for the workshops. I think that's too top-down. I think that undermines the very value of the workshop process, which is bottom-up. For every person like Bertrand, who has very creative ideas about what one could do a workshop on or what an issue is, there may be several others who simply want to block ideas that they don't want to have discussed. So I don't like the idea of a centralized choke point. Fundamentally, it's the quality, not the quality, that is the problem. If you have too many really excellent workshops that people want to go to, that is a success. And if that initiative is coming from the people who participate in the forum, it is almost, by definition, something you don't want to suppress. It's something you want to encourage. I think if you have proper information about what is going on in each workshop, you can simply let people choose which ones to go to and let, you know, the marketplace of ideas decide, you know, who is successful at attracting audiences and participation and who is not. And as long as there are many workshops that are successful, then the forum is doing its job. That being said, I think there are some basic gateway controls that could be based more on proper preparation rather than having controls on quality or content. One thing is, indeed, to improve the amount of information we have about workshops. The program materials supplied to attendees should

accurately list the content and speakers and objectives of each workshop. And those materials should be far more accessible and finalized well before the actual meeting. Then the question which chairman Desai put very well, how do we say no? If, indeed, you do have a scarcity problem. Here are some relatively simple ways to limit the number without destroying openness and vibrancy. Number one, is it not possible to truly enforce the rule that workshop proposers who did not submit reports are not allowed to do them the next year? It seems like we could eliminate half of our workshops as we're talking now if we enforce this rule. Number two, is it not possible to limit the number of workshops proposed by each organization? To, let's say, a maximum of two. Surely, that can be gamed. But you know enough about who's playing here to perhaps know when it is being gamed. Third, is it not possible to require each workshop proposal to have both multiple stakeholder representatives and contrasting and not homogeneous points of view? Finally, is it not possible to impose a seriousness test that is tighten up the proposal and organization of workshops so that they are required to have reasonably finalized programs and speakers' lists and have prepared some advanced materials so that those who are really serious will meet those guidelines and those who maybe are more casual may fail to meet them and then be bumped off the program? Finally, a really strange idea that occurred to me is, maybe you could have individuals who want to speak, who want to be part of a workshop, register in some kind of central registry maintained by the forum. It could be automated on the Web site. And then people who are looking for people to fill a niche or a slot within their workshop proposals could access that list and maybe come up with ideas and interchanges that they wouldn't have come up with anyway. So those are some ideas about how to improve the workshops. Again, I want to reiterate that you want to keep it open, creative, and bottom-up as much as possible. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I have Annette Muehlberg of the united services union. >>ANNETTE MUEHLBERG: Thank you, Chair. Annette Muehlberg. I'm speaking here as the head of e-government new media public administration of the German Trade Union, one of the largest trade unions in the world. We think that the IGF is a very important forum, a forum which we also support on the national and regional level, helping to organize German and European IGF known as the European Dialogue on Internet Governance. I agree with Theresa Swinehart that the report of those activities at the global IGF would be helpful. We would like to thank the host of the IGF in Sharm El Sheikh, the IGF, and its facilitation by the Congress center in Sharm El Sheikh. They were very good. What might be improved is that there should not be any spontaneous changes of the agenda during the IGF. What we, as trade unionists, think is crucial about the IGF is its multistakeholder approach, which we think should be strengthened. One tool to strengthen it is to have a strong moderation of the panels and workshops highlighting the differences between the stakeholders as well as consensus between the stakeholders. A short summary of these positions discussed in a written form might be helpful for all participants of the IGF. Issues we would like to discuss in panels or workshops are, first, the basic right of freedom of association and the problem of surveillance at workplace, as well as best practices for dealing with this issue. Second issue, criteria for public I.T. infrastructure and I.T. infrastructure of public interest. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I'm not entirely sure, but I have a feeling this is probably the first time we have had somebody speaking for trade unions in this meeting. So I think Annette has been participating earlier in our meetings, but I think this is the first time I have had somebody speaking from -- so I really welcome that, as a socialist from Neolithic times, I really welcome that. Then I have Switzerland, followed by Katitza, followed by Waldo, then Wolfgang. Can I have Switzerland, Thomas. >>SWITZERLAND: Do you hear me? Thank you. I would also like to -- first like to join those who thanked the Egyptian hosts, the organizers, and everybody who was involved in

organizing this, noting that we also think that once, again, the timetable has been agreed and published, it should not be changed anymore. With regard to the discussion that was held today, we think that the number of workshops is an issue, but the number of workshops is a very important one. As you might know, we have made some concrete proposals on how we could deal with these numbers, reducing them. Noting that some people have brought strong arguments against reducing the number of workshops, we, nevertheless, think that there are some arguments for reducing the number of workshops that have not been mentioned so far. Apart from the advantages for those who participate that they might be able to -- they might miss less-important discussions if there are less workshops, we think one of the advantages that has not been mentioned is that the workshops themselves might or will -- we think will become more interesting, because if you have so many people organizing their workshops, you have a risk or tendency that the same people who are a part of the communities of those that organize go to this workshop, and other people who are part of another community go to the other workshop, which might be on the same issue. Like an example, we think instead of, for instance, the ITU organizing a workshop within -- or with their community on IPv6 and ICANN and people from the ICANN community organize a workshop on IPv6, it would be much more interesting and interactive if the two would get together and organize a workshop on IPv6. The discussion would probably be more lively and more interesting and more challenging, and there might be better solutions or ideas that would come out of such a workshop. So we think that the workshops should be more multistakeholder, more cross-communities, and reducing the number of workshops, and forcing people to get together if they want to discuss similar or same issues, that this would be a benefit. The argument that the workshops are also kind of a capacity-building process for those who participate at the workshop or at an IGF for the first time, I think this is a good point. But this brings me to proposals that we made. The experience in EuroDIG has shown that you can discuss with 200 people in one room simultaneously if you have a good moderator and if you do not have long panel and keynote speakers who take up most of the time. So we would actually prefer to have less workshops with more interactive participation by the participants than more workshops and more key speakers and more panelists. And so we think that this -- we propose that you think about this. The concrete proposal that we made was that you fix the number of workshops in advance. We brought up the number of 50. But you could also say 80 or 100 or whatever. But if you limit the number in advance, then you can distribute the number of workshops according to the issues and reserve a number of workshops which do not have to correspond to an issue of a main session. And that might give you the possibility to have a test, let's say, have the next IGF with a fixed number of workshops and see what the advantages and disadvantages are. We propose to you to consider this. With regard to the quality and quantity, I agree with Milton Mueller, that is, that we should take care that the quality is best and it's not so much a question of quantity. But we do not think that limiting the number of workshops that an organization is allowed to organize or to co-organize does not really say something about -- or help to improve the quality, either. There are some organizations or many organizations that have quite a vast experience in different areas, and they should have the right or should have the possibility to co-organizing or contributing to workshops. So we agree with the idea to improve the quality and not the quantity, but we do not think that this is the right way to go. If the MAG -- and this is to the proposals by the U.K. and France. If the MAG has a role -- and probably it has a role when it comes to concretely organizing the workshops -- we think that this is something that could be tried out, that the MAG would take some responsibility in framing and merging or in setting the scene for the workshops. But we should be very careful. And there, I again, would agree with Milton Mueller and others that this should not be a kind of censorship opportunity or a way to get rid of issues that some people do not want to discuss. We think that we would be ready to try this. But we have to be conscious that we do not try to -- that the MAG does not try to get rid of issues that somebody does not want to discuss. We should be very careful there. With regard to the other points, apart from the question of the number of workshops, that have been raised, we would also be one of those that would be very happy to see a more tangible outcome that could be in the form of messages which would be drafted in the personal capacity of rapporteurs of

every workshop or every main session. And this goes along with the proposals that there should be more information about the sessions and the events and the workshops before the meeting to make it easier for people to know where they should go, where they can get most out of a session. But there should also be more information on the events held after these were held. And messages, producing messages, key messages, for one, for every session is a very efficient way, in our view, to provide for this more information. But, of course, there should be possibilities to comment on these messages. So if these people who draft them would miss something or people would not agree, they should have the possibility to do so. With regard to enhancing the participation at the IGF, we also think that inclusion or involvement of parliamentarians, of youth, and of many stakeholders from developing countries would still add to the output or to the result of the discussions at the IGF and should be improved. And like Switzerland has done for EuroDIG, where we financed the Diplo program to support the participation of stakeholders from central and eastern Europe, we'll do something similar again this year, putting a stronger focus on remote participation. Those people who follow these courses should organize remote participation hubs in their countries and will also bring a few of those people to Vilnius. And we would invite others as well, too, those that have resources or have the possibilities to take care of some of these stakeholders and specifically or concretely support them and support their participation for the Vilnius IGF. One last thing. With regard to the continuation of the IGF and the process on how this should be done, we would -- are looking forward to hearing from the representative of UNDESA on how they see this process under any other business later today. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I have KATITZA, followed by WALDO, Wolfgang Kleinw‰chter, then I have Marie, France, and there's a remote participant. Can I have KATITZA. >>:Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to thank and congratulate the Egyptian authorities, the IGF secretariat for the successful IGF meeting held in Sharm El Sheikh, which has been a step forward in relation to others, the past meetings in Hyderabad, Athens, and Rio. Regarding the main sessions, we agreed with the proposal mentioned earlier that the main sessions can be divided by specific set issues/subthemes. And each of these issue/subthemes have an allocate time. For instance, the main session on emerging issues on cloud computing can tackle concrete clusters of issues/subthemes. For instance, the first issue cluster could be access and development. Cloud computing has interesting implications for developing countries. Can cloud computing produce incentives for developing information and communication technology capacity at the local level? Can cloud computing be used by innovators in the south to provide products and services to meet local needs and stimulate innovation in developing countries? Cloud computing is dependent on high broadband speeds and affordable prices. Is there any risk that the existing digital divide will become an abyss as the majority of users in developing countries, particularly in Africa and large parts of Latin America, continue to depend on poor quality, high cost broadband? A second cluster can be the privacy and security implications of cloud computing. We welcome further discussion with all the stakeholders on the essential issues related to privacy and security implications on cloud computing. Following the suggestion of DiploFoundation regarding associating issues with broad topics, cloud computing presents the perfect space to discuss the issue of global privacy standards in a global world. Third cluster, competition interoperability and open standards. Can cloud services become so proprietary so that your data will not be transferable from one proprietary cloud to another one? There are also concerns that such services will be concentrated in the hands of a few big players. Finally, we want to support the proposal made by IISD to bring different communities that work in a wider policy issues. For instance, the environmental community is working on the importance of innovation and the adoption of ICT applications for the monitoring and management of environmental challenges such as smart ICT applications. However, there has been no dialogue between the privacy community, the environmental community, and the ICT for development community

on this topic. We think that the IGF provides an excellent opportunity for dialogue among all stakeholders, and even within civil society regarding the privacy implications of a smart ICT. We believe that the importance to address data protection in every field of application of sensor networks and any other tracking technology framework should be addressed. Finally, we want to support the human rights as a main theme for 2010. For many civil society, human right is a civil society agenda. The Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council at the OECD in its charter, Seoul declaration, states that the compliance with international human rights standards and the respect for the rule of law as well as effective human rights protection must be the baseline for assessing global Information Society policies. Freedom and democracy, and maybe democracy 2.0 are an important topic that should also be addressed on the IGF. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. You have gone into substantive issues about the agenda which I was hoping to take up in the afternoon. But let's move on. Waudo, followed by Wolfgang Kleinw‰chter, after that I have Mma Diop, France, there's a remote participant, Council of Europe and ICT. I don't think we can take any more. Can I hear Waudo, please. >>WITSA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I speak on behalf of WITSA and also as a delegate from Kenya, who many will know we have an active national IGF process, and where we are also looking forward to hosting a possible future IGF meeting. I join with the sentiments of many speakers in thanking the Egyptian hosts, the IGF Secretariat and the chairs of the sessions for a highly successful meeting in Sharm El Sheikh. In particular, the presence of the First Lady at the meeting needs to be lauded as it raised the prominence of the meeting. The organization of the event was very good, and set a high standard for a country like mine, which is interested in hosting the IGF in the near future. I must commend the prominent involvement of youth in the meeting, particularly in the emerging issues session, where the youth had a chance to address the meeting, report their observations and make recommendations. I would like to recommend that youth as an important stakeholder group be further prominently involved in this year's meeting. Mr. Chair, I, like my colleague Marilyn Cade, do not recommend a reduction of workshops for two reasons. Firstly, the workshops offer good platforms for re-learning and showcasing specific subjects and best practices. Secondly, a reduction in workshops will probably impact negatively on overall attendance numbers, since some people come to the IGF attracted by workshops. Finally, I was also very happy with the overall consensus in Sharm El Sheikh that more focus and emphasis be placed on issues of Internet governance for development and capacity building. This is, of course, one way to further enhance the participation from developing countries. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I now have Wolfgang Kleinw‰chter followed by Jovan followed by Mma Diop, France. Can I have Wolfgang, please. >>WOLFGANG KLEINWƒCHTER: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Wolfgang Kleinw‰chter. I am speaking in my personal capacity as a professor from the University of Aarhus. Mr. Chairman, when the IGF was established five years ago by the heads of states, it was seen as an experiment. There was a lot of skepticism, and some people argued this will become just another talking shop. Five years later, my observation is that skepticism has gone. The IGF is seen by the majority of involved stakeholders as a very interesting place, as a laboratory, a clearinghouse, a watchdog. Some people have called it the world -- the Davos of the Internet like the World Economic Forum, but would I argue it's even better because while in the World Economic Forum only private sector and governments are involved, in the Internet Governance Forum also civil society is involved to a high degree like no other place in the world. Why people come to the Internet Governance Forum? They can speak freely without the pressure to agree on certain issue at the end of the meeting. When they are going to the IGF, that means they are leaving

their silo where they normally sit to do their daily work. They are meeting people from other constituencies dealing with similar issues, becoming inspired and going home enriched with the knowledge and new contacts. As Milton has said, this is a marketplace of ideas. You get information and ideas for free, and sell it at home to your constituencies. I think this is really important to have the real understanding what the IGF is. It is still an experiment, but it has opened the door for a new way, for an innovative and experimental way to develop global policies. And I would encourage that the IGF continue to be as open as possible for innovation, for experimentation, and for exploring new ways for global policy development. The IGF is really a pacemaker which discovers and explores, you know, how global policy can be done in a new, more efficient way and an inclusive way. In this point, you know, I want to in particular encourage to deal more with emerging issues, because the IGF has to look into the future. It has to learn from the past, but the primary task is to look into the future. Cloud computing was already mentioned. Internet of things. You know, consequences of the second generation of social networks, and all this should become an issue of forthcoming IGFs. And I would also encourage to think about innovative governance mechanism for the Internet Governance Forum itself. So far, we have a mechanism where the Secretariat, the MAG, the open consultations and the broader community are interlinked in a more or less informal way. I think this is an interesting experiment, you know, that you were able to organize four IGFs without the big bureaucracy and without a very formal procedure. In other circles, there are discussions now about liquid democracy or fluid democracies, or the terms of liquid and fluid becoming very interesting elements in the discussion how to develop policy further in the 21st century. And I encourage all involved parties to think about how we can develop, also, new innovative forms of management of the whole process, because the IGF is much more than an annual event. It's a process which includes all the regional events, national events, as we have heard from many, many discussions here in these open consultations. Having the floor, Mr. Chairman, let me use this also for an announcement. After the -- in the lunch break, there will be a special outreach meeting for the ICANN's nomination committee. I have distributed some fliers. That means if people are interested, to get more knowledge about ICANN or to become an ICANN leader, they are cordially invited. The meeting takes place in room XXIII on the ground floor. Thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: Your reference to liquid democracies inspires a thought, but actually, the U.N. and in this building we should be talking about a gaseous democracies. Let me now move to Jovan. After Jovan, Mma Diop, France, a remote participant, and Council of Europe. >>JOVAN KURBALIJA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You may also think about introducing liquid diplomacy, by using an analogy to liquid democracy. First I would like to join others in congratulating our Egyptian colleagues for a great success in Sharm. It was not only well attended but also highly professional and inclusive event. And our Egyptian friends made Sharm a very charming experience, as we already heard from many colleagues. Paradoxically, the great success of IGF in Sharm brought into focus some serious challenges and limitations for IGF as we heard previously. And the main challenge is how to make IGF broad enough to include all relevant actors and themes, and deep enough to have proper coverage of issues. In the past, IGF managed to achieve this balancing act, but in Sharm, due to its success, we tested some limits of IGF concept and approach. Simply speaking, many participants, as we heard after Sharm, left the IGF overwhelmed by information and overall experience. And the question is what can be done in order to achieve and to continue further growth of IGF while making it, if I can say, cognitively manageable process. Starting point is that IGF should reflect diversity and complexity of Internet itself. And we should find the ways to harness this diversity, not necessarily to reduce it. We have already heard quite a few ideas and proposals from U.K., Milton, Switzerland, and other speakers how to manage this -- how to harness this diversity, and how to manage the question of the number of IGF workshops. I will just add one example, one small experiment that we did quietly in Sharm. Since it was experiment, we didn't want to announce it. We tried to aggregate

by using combination of technology and human input, cacophony of blogs, Twitters, text streams and other outputs from the IGF. The idea was to have one place on the Web site where those various inputs could be, in a way, accessed in simple way. That if you look for privacy issues, you can see this diversity. And that experiment worked quite well, and I think it is worth considering for the next IGF as a combination of technical and human way of harnessing complexity of various inputs. When it comes to depth of discussion, I think the easiest method that we can use is a camera. And we at the IGF should try to find a way to zoom in and zoom out. Some participants, parliamentarians, ministers, want to have a panoramic view of political and technical issues. Others, from technical community, wants to discuss details. And this zooming in, zooming out exercise I think worked quite well in the past IGFs. And through various techniques, like combination of workshops and reporting into plenary session. I would like to mention another example of session where it worked quite well. It was network neutrality session, which LADA organized with a few other partners, and they managed to combine both panoramic view of net neutrality as important political issue and also quite focused view on various aspects of net neutrality. Managing of networks, technical management, human rights, and other similar issues. And that some lessons could be drawn about the way how to zoom in and zoom out about the coverage of issues. My last point is about the way and the ways what IGF experience can provide for other global governance processes. Recently, in December, we witnessed quite important failure in global governance in Copenhagen, and although it is difficult to compare Internet governance to climate change and other processes, there are a few experiences that IGF can share with the broader diplomatic community. And I will mention three particular experiences. First is the way how to engage different professional communities. And I think we can say that IGF was a success in building bridges between diplomatic, technical, and other professional communities. Second, and it was a big failure in Copenhagen, IGF was a good way of managing expectations, and as we are aware in policy processes, managing expectation is usually the key for the success. And third possible lesson is remote participation. As a way of having practical inclusive low-cost way of building the legitimacy of global policy processes. And if I can use the current policy terminology, we should try to increase global IGF footprint. Thank you, chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I was at Copenhagen, and I think my perception is a little different from -- it's very different. Let me turn to the next speaker now. Mma Diop. >>SENEGAL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like, on behalf of the government of Senegal, to thank the Egyptian government, the chairman of our group, the IGF Secretariat, and all the members of the MAG who made it possible for us to have a fourth meeting, which was greatly appreciated by all of the stakeholders. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who participated and who helped the developing countries to participate. I would like to thank the government of Canada in particular which allowed a number of delegations from developing countries to participate. I would also like to stress here that certain developing countries are having difficulties coming up with remote participation possibilities. We don't have all the necessary conditions in place in our countries to ensure good remote participation. This is why we would like other countries to commit themselves to improving the participation for developing countries. Participation conditions for developing countries in these debates. I would just like to stress that with the last summit of heads of states of African countries which was held from January 31st to February 2nd in Addis Ababa which dealt with the subject of transfers of technology and Information Society challenges for development, this summit allowed us to look at two things, to realize two things. Africa has made a great deal of efforts in terms of access and diversity, but there is a gap that existed between African countries. That gap has been somewhat bridged. But the gap between developing countries and developed countries in Africa is wider than ever in terms of access and cost and security of networks and the individuals and development of content. This is why I would have liked, in the next forum, for the topic of access and

diversity to be kept. And that there be much more extensive participation both in the workshops and in the plenary meetings by participants from developing countries. Considering the number of workshops, I would say that it doesn't bother us that there are a lot of workshops. Quite the opposite. It shows how rich the debates are and how diverse the approaches are. I also think that the length of workshops should be extended because I participated in several workshops, particularly the one on the resources and these were held with ITU and ICANN. But the time allocated to workshops didn't allow us to go into detail in discussions. We had to stop the debates because there were subsequent meetings. So I think that we should extend the length of workshops, and this would help to make the discussions more in depth, and would allow better participation from the audience. Outside the workshops, I would like us to revise these sessions on good and best practices as we had in Brazil in 2008. I think we should revisit those. In fact, these are useful for developed and developing countries to determine what works well and what does not work well in our countries. Thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. France. Do you want the floor? >>FRANCE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a brief -- I wanted to chime in again following the comment made by Milton, which I share in a lot of aspects. And I wanted to clarify something. The proposal that I was making in no way was suppressing other workshops. The idea was that on the topics that have already been addressed several times in the previous IGFs, the MAG would identify formulations for something like 10 or 12 workshops, with a specific subtheme, and then call all actors who organized the workshops on those themes in the previous years, who would be interested in participating in it, to join forces and hold a meeting, together. And in parallel, a normal call for workshop proposals would be made for subjects and topics that haven't been really addressed by those 12 or 15 main track workshops. So I fully support what Milton was saying regarding the need for diversity, the need to maintain openness, the need to maintain the initiative by the different actors. The general idea is that there is a weakness remaining in our discussions, is the difficulty to reach closure. And I want to give credit to Jovan for a discussion we had on that topic in Sharm El Sheikh. This notion that it is very difficult to go beyond discussing and discussing again. And so having those workshops that force different actors who do not have the same perspective to be in the same room is likely to bring better closure. The danger I see in maintaining the mechanism of just calling for proposals is that you get a multistakeholder workshop of the people who believe that issue "A" is white and then another workshop with the people who believe that issue "A" is black, and there's nothing that forces them to get together. And so as Thomas was mentioning, the topic of IPv6 and how it impacts the current system of distribution of IP addresses is typically something where I do not want one workshop organized by one organization and one other workshop organized by another one, but, rather, have the main organizations dealing with this, the RIRs, ICANN, ITU and all the other actors being in the same room. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: We have time for one more, so can I have the remote participant. >>GINGER PAQUE: Thank you very much to everyone. Particularly, the remote participants have appreciated the comments, like those from Canada and others who have supported remote participation. I can tell you that right now we don't really know, but we have at least 66 readers, 7 people on remote, other people on WebEx. We do not know how many. Others watching the U.N. Webcast. And several remote groups on Skype. So there is a significant number of people following this meeting. We're learning a lot. We are trying various platforms. Some of them drop out. The Webcast is dropping in and out. But with this practice, we will learn. There are people here who particularly know a lot about remote participation. For instance, the RIPE and ARIN people. I understand your meetings are excellent on remote. We would appreciate your input and your suggestions. I also would like to point out that we must

appreciate the work done by the Secretariat. Markus Kummer and the idea of Secretariat are responsible for funding my presence here to be the remote moderator, and of course as IGC caucus, it's a dual position. But as you see, what we do need in the workshops is someone in each workshop doing, for remote, what I am doing with the panel, to present. And we could ask for collaboration in the workshop design, that the workshops keep this in mind. Ideally, each workshop would have someone on their panel who does what I am doing and gives this input right here to moderate with the panel so that the panel can be active. And, of course, they're thanking everyone very much. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: I think we can probably take Council of Europe. >>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Council of Europe would like to thank the Egyptian authorities and the IGF secretariat for having hosted, organized, and managed the panoply of events at the IGF in Sharm El Sheikh. We'd also like to underline our commitment and support to the continuation of the IGF and to note that we have since conveyed this support in writing to the IGF secretariat. The Council of Europe now looks forward to working this year with the Lithuanian authorities in particular to bring a pan-European dimension to the IGF discussions by facilitating and co-organizing various events and by bringing a range of stakeholders to the IGF table in order to share their experience and expertise. We are pleased to inform you that the Council of Europe will be facilitating and thereby injecting into the IGF the results of the third European Dialogue on Internet Governance, EuroDIG, to be held in Madrid on 29 and 30 April. EuroDIG is being hosted and organized by the Spanish IGF, including Red.ES, Telefonica, and Madrid City Council, and is strongly supported by the Swiss Federal Office of Communications and a number of other stakeholders. Moreover, we'd like to announce that EuroDIG has succeeded in becoming a sustainable platform as a result of a Council of Europe decision made by its 47 member states to make arrangements for the regular organization of a European Dialogue on Internet Governance, EuroDIG, or the European Internet Governance Forum, in cooperation with interested stakeholders and in partnership with European Union bodies providing it with Council of Europe secretariat services. I would like to come back later with some suggestions for themes and the format of IGF 2010. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I think we've had a good discussion. I still have a couple of speakers on this agenda item, on looking at Sharm El Sheikh. I'll come back to them, if you don't mind, ICC and (saying name). I suspect there may be one or two others. But let's move the afternoon into the -- many people have already touched on this -- but the next theme, which is the preparations of Vilnius, where I will ask Markus to introduce the paper, which is there on the Net. And then, after that, under -- we will -- and perhaps we can take up the regional/national meetings as part of the same discussion. And then leaving a little time for some reflections from -- particularly from UNDESA on the process of the review of IGF, which is now in the hands of the intergovernmental process. So we can come back to that towards the end. But let's stop now and reassemble at 3:00 in this room. (Morning Session adjourned.) (Lunch Recess.) %%%l1start.pm (starting first after lunch) [ Gavel. ] >>CHAIR DESAI: We can start. All right. A couple of speakers where we had carried over from the morning. If we can hear them and then before we move on to the next theme, next item. ICC and Malcolm Hutty of the London Internet Exchange. Ayesha? Sorry. Heather. >>ICC: On behalf of ICC/BASIS, I am pleased to provide input on the substantive discussions to take place the 2010 IGF -- >>CHAIR DESAI:

Can you wait? I'm not getting -- Let's finish up the review. I want to do some -- then we'll move on. Malcolm Hutty. >>MALCOLM HUTTY: Is this thing on? Yeah. Thank you, mr. Chairman. This morning, I wanted to just address one item that arose from this morning, because quite a lot of discussion was given this morning to the question of whether or not the next and future meetings of the IGF we should attempt to reduce, perhaps aggressively reduce, the number of workshops. I can understand some of the concerns that have been raised about the number of workshops and the difficulty with attending them and the quality as a result. I can certainly recognize that some of the workshops were not as well attended as would have been ideal, and it would be better to consolidate where possible if that will achieve a better and more engaging workshop. However, a point has been made as a point of principle that it is desirable that people should be able to attend all the workshops that are relevant to them. And I would like to ask you to consider the opposite point of view. If the Internet Governance Forum were a negotiating forum and the workshops were something like a study group that formed a part of the decision-making process, then it would be a real concern that people were not able to attend everything that was relevant to them, as that would be excluding them from the decision-making process. But the Internet Governance Forum is not a negotiating forum, and this is not a decision-making process. If people are able to put together a good workshop with a lively participation that has real value for the attendees, then I think that should be welcomed and celebrated. I fully support the idea of encouraging those who wish to organize workshops to consider consolidating together where they believe that will generate a better workshop for those that attend it. This may, indeed, take up some of the ideas that were suggested by France earlier of putting together not just those that are talking on the same subject, but maybe on related subjects, so that they can consider the balance between some issues. I can support all of that. However, the principle that we should reduce the number of workshops just so as to have a smaller number of workshops that it's capable to attend just a few seems to add nothing to the discussions and detract from the ability of participants in the workshops to take the most out of the forum that there is. Without recommending this, I believe that it would be possible to actually abandon the entire main session and still have the workshops and still call it and have it as the Internet Governance Forum. The workshops are a huge source of value for this meeting. Trying to reduce that is reducing and diminishing the actual value of the forum as a whole. And I think that should be very much shied away from. So please let us not have any fixed number of workshops. Please let us not have the MAG deciding what the topics for the workshops should be, or, for that matter, anyone else. The ideas from the workshop should come from the community. And if they can, indeed, gain benefit from the topics discussed, then we should be supporting that with other resources at our disposal. I thoroughly support, as I say, the idea of the MAG having a role in encouraging and facilitating workshops to join for the benefit of those that attend the workshops in getting a better workshop out of it. But that is quite different from the goal of reducing the number of workshops to what is considered in some way a manageable number. Thank you for your attention. >>CHAIR DESAI: Yes. Yes, Andrea. >>ANDREA SAKS: I got it. Thank you very much. This is Andrea Saks, the coordinator of the dynamic coalition on accessibility and disability. I share some of the views of the last speaker, because as much as I enjoyed being in a main session, because it gave such a big highlighted issue to disability and many, many people changed -- I mean, attended, the problem is, people were going to the main sessions and not going to the workshops because they felt that the main session was the most important, which is how it's been presented. So I'm of mixed feelings, because the main session achieved my objective, but at the same time, it also diminished the attendance to a rather important workshop, which was on Web accessibility, which is vital to us all, especially as we get older. So I have mixed feelings on this. But I do share what is being said. I did want to say

something else. I've been listening to everybody, and I'm very grateful for the comments in support of captioning. And everyone knows that I prefer captioning to be put over the Web so the deaf community could have followed this particular discussion. But I have to compliment the Egyptian hosts on how accessible they were. It was a -- we're making progress in this area. And I wanted to point out that they did a really good job. There were some problems. But in our report when we finally finish it -- because we are delinquent also in submitting it -- we will highlight some of those issues. But they were -- it was fabulous. And people could access the venue very easily and the hotels very easily, and the Internet was very, very good. But that's not the main issue that I need to address. We have to make a communication to the next host that they also have to be accessible. So when we do do our first dynamic coalition meeting, I am proposing that we will submit to the next open meeting some suggestions that -- and rewrite our accessibility report as well so that the next IGF is as accessible as the last one. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Our hosts from Lithuania are here, and I'm sure they're taking notes. And certainly I'm pretty confident that we should be able to provide full access for that purpose. I'm not too worried on that score. It should be possible. And let me then say that maybe the lessons which I would draw on this for the purposes of the MAG meeting tomorrow and the day after is that we do need to look at the way in which we manage the workshops. I can't say that there is general agreement about numbers. There are differences of view. Let me here point out one thing, that there is a natural limit provided by the physical space available. This is unavoidable. If we don't have the number -- it so happened that in Sharm El Sheikh, there were many rooms available. Then we could have about over a hundred of these. But I'm not sure that at every event that every location will be able to accommodate so many. So there's a natural limit. We cannot have more workshops than what have physically space for. So in that sense, some element of choice will always be involved. And we surely -- Why don't you say a word on the workshop issue before I can sum up. And maybe give us a sense of -- >>SECRETARY KUMMER: No, I mean, it is very much what you said. We have to take into account the facilities we have. It's very difficult, basically, to say no to a workshop organizer if we know we have a slot available. But if there are less slots, then you can say there are less slots available. But we will have a planning mission to venues at the end of the month. And after that, we know also a little bit more on what the facilities are. But as far as I do recall, they're extremely flexible, and we can also design on that. And the other thing is also the time slots. There were some participants who wanted longer time slots for some of the workshops. And, of course, the longer the time slots are, the less time slots we have for the workshops. These are two elements of flexibility we have to take into account. And, again, the practicality of streamlining workshops, we may all agree on the principle, everybody's in favor of streamlining, but it seems nobody wants to be streamlined. And all the discussions we had, the backwards and forwards, saying, look, they seem to be two identical workshops, and both organizers of the potential workshops find a thousand arguments explaining that they are completely different. Last word, I think there may be a natural attrition if we apply the criteria we agreed on, that is, that we only will give a slot to workshop organizers that have actually provided the report. From last year, we had 53 reports. That very much coincides with some of the ceilings proposed by some people. So we may actually be talking about a nonissue in terms of concept if we apply the criteria. And you can also tighten the criteria. But there was quite strong support for workshop organizers making available background material prior to the workshop. So potential organizers may just fall off the table through the fact that they don't provide enough background material, don't provide speakers' list, don't provide a detailed program. But based on the sort of serious workshop organizers -- and I include those who have not yet produced a report, Andrea, I have listened to you, and I know it will come, and I know there are some others who have said the report will come. And we know who they are. They worked hard, and they are coordinating with their various panelists, and the reports

are in the pipeline. But I think, in the end, if we apply these criteria, we may meet in the middle, and there may be no need for an abstract discussion on what is the number of workshops we impose at the outset. >>CHAIR DESAI: So I think, first, let me say that my sense is that it's going to be difficult to, say, have a limit, regardless of facilities. The facilities will impose a limit. Time slots will impose a limit, which we will have to work with. Because there's nothing we can do about that. The second lesson I get from this is, I would describe it as -- I probably will use the word "quality." I would describe it as a performance review. We've had four years now. And there are people who have been doing these workshops now perhaps again and again over these four years. And we have some assessment now possible of how well they have performed in terms of the variety of participants they have been able to bring to the table, the panelists, whether they have submitted reports or not. And my suggestion is that we take that into account, that when somebody submits a proposal for a workshop, we look at the past four years and see, okay, you did -- what happened with the workshops you organized last year and the year before, and the one before that? Is it really the same workshop again? With the same participants? Have you submitted reports on those ones? If we have some evaluation of that, we may keep that in mind. We need not ignore that. And in that sense, I think what we have to focus on perhaps a little bit more is quality rather than -- and performance, rather than necessarily an arbitrary limit on -- Certainly I think the idea that if there are proposals of workshops which look very similar, where there are good reasons for supposedly bringing them together would be helpful. Then I think we could certainly encourage that and see to what extent we can -- how shall I say? -- force the issue a little. The -- In terms of further criteria, a couple of things that struck me as I was listening to you was, you know, people wanting somewhat stronger focus on emerging issues. And maybe we can keep this in mind in the workshops, the workshops which are dealing with issues which we have not covered very thoroughly in our main meeting may be given a certain preference, on the argument that it is part of our job to encourage discussion of emerging issues. And it's possible that a first discussion of emerging issues may well take place in a workshop rather than in the main plenary itself. So we would keep -- we could keep that in mind when the choices have to be made, as they will. I'm certain we are going to get requests of workshops which will exceed the numbers that we can accommodate, given the physical facilities. The other thing that -- which struck me was, a couple of people mentioned, is the idea that we need to pay more attention to the link with development. Somebody else mentioned the fact that we have to connect with other policy areas. I think it was somebody from IISD who mentioned that we get, basically, the people who are directly involved in an Internet governance management. But there are those who have something useful to say, for instance, on privacy and security issues, who are involved in other areas of work, not necessarily in the Internet. How do we get them? And it's possible that they -- it may be easier to do that through a workshop. And if there are workshop proposals, now, for instance, on financial services which touch on issues of privacy, okay, and which is likely to bring people from the financial services industry to that meeting, then, okay, we should keep that in mind when we have to do an evaluation. So my suggestion is that we -- instead of having a limit, which will be set in any case by the physical facilities, when choices have to be made, as they will, we will get more requests than what we can accommodate, this is undoubtedly the case, then we keep this issue of past performance, we keep in mind the -- whether this is dealing with emerging issues which we have not been -- covered adequately in normal plenaries, whether we are through this workshop going to be able to bring people to the IGF who don't normally get involved directly in Internet governance activities, but who have a contribution to make on some of the themes you are addressing from their perspective. So these are some of the thoughts that strike me on the selection side. A further theme which has come up frequently is the connection between the workshops and the plenary. Several people referred to the procedure that we had in Rio, where people reported in. We had the session in the morning. I must say that as a person who chaired the sessions, I was -- I have a slightly more jaundiced view of that. Apart from the fact that I had to wake up earlier than any of you to chair the session,

the fact is that usually at these sessions, other than me and the person making the presentations, nobody else was there to listen to those sessions. And it was rather tedious to have one person after another come up and speak for five minutes, and with hardly anybody listening. Well, how do we address this? And I would ask the MAG to look into this. And I don't want to start another debate. The MAG will look into this. But one possibility, I thought, was that maybe instead of this business of giving everybody five minutes to give a summary, we have a structured set of questions as the starting point for the particular main session which is there for that day, and we ask the people who have been involved in the workshops to sit in a panel, moderated panel, where they're asked these questions, and say, okay, what did your workshop have to say on this? Let's say you have done a workshop on privacy issues, and our session is going to be on privacy. It's not simply that five people come and speak for five minutes each. We have a set of four, five, six questions. And the moderator will ask them. And we give them half an hour before the session, plus possibly without translation, so that we don't eat into the time available for the main meeting. And we say that, okay, this is how the outcome of the workshop will be projected. Not through five-minute speeches, but through a short, moderated panel focused around three, four, five questions, with the moderator enforcing very tight limits on how much time each person takes to respond, so that there's no hogging of time. This is one possibility. But there may be other ways. But I think we do need to address the question of how do we improve the connection between the workshops and the plenary. I can't say that all of this will work out. I will say, I am really -- the sense I get from a lot of people is that increasingly, in many ways, the value that the IGF is adding is the space that it provides for a workshop. And remember this, that as a forum, a lot of people who come to our meetings have to mobilize resources to come to that meeting. And for somebody to go somewhere and say, "Give me a travel grant to attend the IGF" is not that easy. It's not that easy for somebody to go and say, "I need a $5,000 travel grant for travel to IGF to attend meetings." But that same person, if involved in organizing the workshop and so on, might find it much easier to get the funding to travel to that meeting. And I can't not say definitely, but I suspect that a lot of people from civil society who come there probably have had -- mobilize their travel grants through these types of arrangements. And so don't underestimate the importance of the workshops in actually ensuring that people can come to that meeting. They may be interested in the main session, but they will not get a travel grant to attend the main session. But they will get a travel grant if they are part of a seminar process which somebody is funding. So don't be too hasty in throwing this out, because you may end up then cutting off an important source of support for the IGF. And we are not counting, in all of the calculations that we do, the resources which are being deployed by a lot of people to run those workshops. 100 workshops, just do a rough calculation as to how much money was put in by some grant somewhere to run that workshop. And it will be quite substantial. Even if they have paid for travel for only four or five people in each workshop, it will still be quite substantial. You are probably looking at maybe 40-, $50,000 per workshop as amount of funding which is mobilized, if just pay for four or five people's travel plus other preparatory expenses and so on. And when multiply that by 100, and it adds up. So don't underestimate the importance of the workshops from this other perspective. I won't go as far as Malcolm saying you can run an IGF without the main sessions. You sound to me -- It's a bit like the -- when the trade opened up between Italy and Northern Europe and all the fairs used to take place in the Great Valley from there, particularly in France, and you had the vendors, the trade people who came and set up the stalls there, the vendors who came and set up the stalls, and the duke concerned basically gave the space, and anybody was free to come and set up a stall. But the duke did run certain facilities, like a mass in the church, a recruiting drive for his Army. So one should not ignore that part of the proceedings. It's not as if all that matters is the, if you like, the marketplace for ideas provided by the vendors. I think there is a certain role, important role, which the main sessions play in providing a structure to those vendors. It's not just an absolute free-for-all. There is a certain structure, because they are increasingly organizing themselves around the themes of the main sessions. But with some elasticity so that new issues, emerging issues, can come to the fore. So thing this is all our structure which

comes. And I would therefore ask the MAG, when they start looking at this over the next two days, to focus its attention on how do we ensure a performance quality orientation, in whatever selection -- we will have to make a selection in the end, and how do we connect the workshops better with the sessions. Several ideas have come up, and we can proceed with that. Remote participation. I think this is something which was certainly much better in Egypt than ever before. And I think the main thing that we should probably start looking at now is to see how we can structure that remote participation so that it's integrated better into the main process. One thought that has come up is to insist on moderators at the remote end so it isn't just who manages to click the button faster but there is a more structured way of people to get through. I am concerned about the point which Mma Diop raised about the difficulty in developing countries, people in developing countries being able to get remote participation organized. And I would not treat remote participation as a complete substitute but effort we need to make to increase participation of people. And I would ask the MAG again to see in what way we can integrate remote participation more fully. We have experimented with different techniques. I think having time slots did not work. Once we had that, I think. It was in Rio, I think, we tried. And we had a time slot and we said, okay, at this time, some will connect. And somehow it didn't work out. We ended up spending most of the time trying to get the connection working. But how should we do that? And I would ask the MAG to look into this and see what best to do. I think there are many questions raised on participation, particularly from developing countries, of youth. And I think this is largely a matter of mobilizing resources. But I think it's also a matter of finding space for the people from developing countries, for young people, to play a fuller role in the work of the IGF. You cannot expect them to come there simply as audience. You have to create a space where -- a way in which they can connect more completely into the work of the IGF. And is it possible that we have focused our attention far too much on experts, quote, unquote, "experts" as far as panels are concerned? Then we should be worrying in many cases not just of getting experts up there but people who can speak for a user community, who are not necessarily experts in that particular area. Is this something that we need to cover? And will that help in bringing young people and others, who might not necessarily qualify as experts, into the process more fully? Again, I would like the MAG to look into this, but not just in terms of a general statement saying, "Let's bring more people," but also how, what for. And one of the things is to integrate them far better into the tunnels and the other processes that we have in the IGF. A final thought, it didn't come up that strongly but I would like the MAG, in terms of the participation and so on, we have had people from the Internet community participating in our work, particularly from the business sector. I sometimes have felt that we need a much more organized and focused -- much larger sort of extent of participation from two categories. One is ISPs. In many ways, for most people, the ISPs, the Internet Service Provider, is the front end. He is the retail vendor with whom you connect when you are using the Internet. And I have had a feeling that we haven't had enough of a participation and presence of these people who really are the persons who are purveying Internet services in our process. And the second one which struck me was that a lot of us are also, in some ways, for us, the service provider is some major network manager at a university or in a government department. The person who is managing this network of thousands of computers and is setting the standards, deciding controls and everything, you see. Now, we don't have enough of those people also participating. So can the MAG give some thought, can we design our panels so that we can bring such people also into the process a little more fully? There are many other questions that are arisen but most of which do not have a strong relation to the question of themes and so on. So I would suggest therefore this is sort of broad guidelines for the MAG to look at over the next couple of days. Let's move on to the next theme which is -- >>SECRETARY KUMMER: I think there is a remote participation. >>CHAIR DESAI: One more? Yes?

>>REMOTE PARTICIPANT: If it's possible. Okay. Thank you. There have been several comments by remote, and of course this is something we will have to work out later on when it is appropriate and how we can work them in. There is a large group. They have been making comments. We have one question: When will the host country page be up? This comes from Nairobi. >>CHAIR DESAI: Let's focus on the Vilnius thing now. So why don't you organize the comments on Vilnius that they have, and put them together, and we can come up with them, because -- Is it possible to do that? >>GINGER PAQUE: Yes, it is. >>CHAIR DESAI: So why don't you then start off. You can start, you put the questions that they have on Vilnius together. And let's start on that, because -- so that there is a certain thread to our conversation. Now I want to start on the programming. Markus, would you like to start us off on what are the issues we need to look at on the Vilnius preparations? >>SECRETARY KUMMER: Maybe more in terms of process. Compared to previous years, this year's meeting is much earlier in the year. It is in mid-September. In previous years it was usually November, if not December. The invitation issued by the Undersecretary-General obviously has to be out in time prior to the meeting. In past years, it was out in July. That is four months ahead of the meeting. Four months ahead of the meeting would be, working back from Vilnius, would be in mid-May. So it has to be out more or less else at the time when we have our next consultation MAG meeting. That is, we will have to agree at this meeting on what is the agenda of the Vilnius meeting. That is, the broad key themes for the Vilnius meeting. We can leave the details open for planning later, but we will have to agree on the broad agenda for the meeting. And so that definitely needs to be our main focus, so we can report back after the MAG meeting, "The mag proposes these themes as the agenda for the Vilnius meeting." In previous years, we did that in May. But due to the different timing, we have to refocus a little bit our attention and focus our attention on that so that we are able to propose that. Otherwise, we leave the Undersecretary-General with empty hands and he has to determine what is the agenda of the Vilnius meeting. >>CHAIR DESAI: So in a sense, we need to -- I would like -- some reflections were there in the earlier part of the discussions, but I think we need to have a much more focused discussion on the themes for the Vilnius meeting. We don't need to wade through the workshops, but we may wish to say something also on the organization of the main sessions. We have time. We can -- The organization of the main sessions does not have to be finalized at this meeting itself. The themes have to be, because they have to be out there to allow people time to organize workshops and other things, you see. And we can't wait till May to say, "We won't be able to tell you until May what the themes are going to be." So the MAG needs to sign off on this by the day after tomorrow. But when it comes to other features of how the main sessions will be organized, et cetera, we do have time. We can keep a few things open. But still, it will be helpful for the MAG to have some indication of how people see the main sessions being organized in the light of what we discussed on our evaluation of Sharm El Sheikh. There may be other questions about panels, et cetera, which you may want to pick up, but, really, it's the themes that we have to really finalize. So may I invite comments now. I have one person here to start it off. >>APC: Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. Willie Currie from the Association for Progressive Communications. Mr. Chairman, we would like to propose, as an overall theme, Internet for democracy and development. And we say that as a way of trying to get back to the WSIS notion of people-centeredness, a people-centered approach to Internet governance. Democracy, as we know, is part of the WSIS principles and development by which

we really mean sustainable development is an issue that we felt was a bit lacking in the previous IGFs, and that perhaps in this year of the millennium development goal review could pertinently be put forward as an overall theme. With regard to main sessions, we want to put forward a slightly different approach to trying to take a concrete Internet governance issue that is currently facing us that draws together a range of different themes. So that instead of starting from a thematic approach to a main session, we start with a problem. And the problem we would like to propose is that of intermediary liability of Internet service providers. And we say this because it appears that various governments are thinking about or are already taking steps to make Internet Service Providers play a role in law enforcement with regard to content and activities conducted over the Internet. And while making this kind of approach, one automatically draws in themes, obviously, of rights, privacy and freedom of expression, issues of net neutrality, issues of intellectual property, and issues of the due process of law. Particularly those kind of proposals on intermediary liability that have put forward that any consumer or citizen who makes some violation three times is struck off the Internet. And I think that this is a -- perhaps a different approach to a main session where I think different stakeholders will automatically, from their position, have different opinions and perspectives, and where one approach is a complex issue and tries to come to grips with the real complexity of Internet governance in practice. We also wish to support a main session on a development agenda for Internet governance. We'd like to support an emerging session on cloud computing. Thank you, Mr. Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: Okay. I have ICC, then Council of Europe and ETNO. >>ICC: Thank you, Chair. On behalf of ICC/BASIS, I am pleased to provide input on the themes for the 2010 IGF. ICC looks forward to contributing to the program for IGF 2010 as it's developed. Before I continue, however, I would like to introduce my colleague, Andrius Iökauskas, who is chair of the ICC committee and member of the board of ICC Lithuania. >>ANDRIUS IöKAUSKAS: Good afternoon, my name is Andrius Iökauskas and I am a member of the committee in Lithuania. And I am pleased to participate in this consultation on behalf of ICC Lithuania and representing Lithuanian business. I would like to say that we are thrilled to have the IGF in our country. The event is very important for the local business community, and also I feel a growing responsibility after hearing about the success of the IGF in Egypt. I can assure that the Lithuanian business will participate both in the preparation and in the IGF event itself. ICC Lithuania is already cooperating closely with the Lithuanian government to start raising awareness about the IGF at the national level and to provide business input into the preparations. We greatly appreciate the Lithuanian government in including news the preparations and we will continue our efforts and look forward to seeing all of you in Vilnius. I am now returning my floor to colleague. >>ICC: Thank you. As I think we said earlier, creating opportunities for all was a productive overall theme for the IGF in Egypt. We support an overall theme for the IGF in Lithuania that is inclusive of all relevant topics. In this regard, I would like to suggest two possible overall themes for this year's IGF. The first being Internet governance, developing the future together with the possible subline of working together to promote sustainable social and economic development, or as a second alternative, Internet governance for sustainable development, 2010 and beyond, with the subtheme working together to ensure Internet governance promotes social and economic development. Moving to the substance of the main sessions, we thought the IGF orientation session on the first day in the morning was an excellent opportunity for new and returning participants to understand the IGF, its opportunities and benefits. For new participants, the session assisted them in making the most of the IGF and brief them on previous IGFs. We support including a setting the scene session in the

next IGF's program. The regional initiative session was also an excellent addition to the program. This session should be part of the 2010 schedule as it enables all participants to gain insight into how various regional initiatives are being organized and the priorities and experiences emerging in their discussions. The Internet governance and WSIS principles session provided a useful overview of the WSIS principles and their integration in Internet governance processes. This could be a topic for workshops, but we do not believe it is necessary to have another main session on this topic at this year's IGF. Creating the necessary enabling policy, legal and regulatory environment to facilitate access to the infrastructure and the Internet will remain a key issue, as will the range of diversity issues. Discussions around access and diversity could be reinvigorated this year by addressing it in a main session on development, and in emphasizing the human and institutional capacity building cross-cutting theme with focus on policy implications, informed policy choices, best practices and challenge and how they have been overcome. Workshops could still focus on specific access and diversity issues which could take place before the main session and thus feed in on particular issues. Considerations of all aspects of the interrelated topics of security, privacy, and openness should be continued to ensure the broad range of views can be expressed and to promote an appropriate balance in the discussions among these issues that sometimes have caused tensions. Linking views and experiences with these issues to stakeholder level values should be part of the discussion. We believe that the critical Internet resources session provides participants with a real opportunity to exchange information about CIR issues being addressed in various organizations and forums, and allows for a range of issues to be raised with all stakeholders present and thus support inclusion of a CIR session in the 2010 program. Like many others have already suggested, cloud computing would be an excellent topic for the emerging issues session because this topic could benefit from a broad discussion to explain what the cloud is and is not, novel solutions it offers, and related security solutions and the policy issues it raises. However, it may be appropriate to have an introductory workshop or general session regarding the technologies that could identify some of the policy aspects while the broader general discussions -- for example, access, security, privacy, CIR -- could consider these policy aspects of cloud computing along with those of other technologies, applications, infrastructures in greater depth and in cross-cutting discussions. Finally, another topic that could be useful would be how to shape Internet governance approaches to meet innovation challenges, and how -- and allow high-tech services and applications that help reduce CO2 emissions. The OECD, for instance, is developing a comprehensive strategy for innovation, green growth and sustainable economic recovery, largely based on ICT contributions and the use of the Internet as a main platform to meet these policy goals, which could benefit from part of this discussion. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Let me -- I have Council of Europe, ETNO, and then I have Qusai Al-Shatti, and I have Spain for the youth, and Yuliya Morenets from the Together Again Cybercrime. >>COUNCIL OF EUROPE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With respect to the format of the IGF 2010, the Council of Europe has already provided written comments and suggestions about the format, but it still underlines the need to encourage increasing the expectations on workshops to respond to key issues and concerns, maximize audience interaction, encourage the audience to explain their take-aways, what they have retained from the workshop and to consider next steps, as well as allotting more time to discuss regional and national IGFs. With respect to proposals for specific themes for IGF 2010, the Council of Europe is currently working in several areas pertaining to its core values of human rights, the rule of law and democracy, where we would welcome the opportunity for dialogue and to share findings as well as best practices and experiences. Namely, state sovereignty and shared responsibility for the Internet, jurisdiction and the Internet, with particular reference to alternative dispute resolutions and arbitrations in order to provide roaming justice; cloud computing, preserving the rule of law in the skies, including data protection, jurisdiction, and cross-border law enforcement in the clouds; technical cooperation against cybercrime, including

law enforcement responsibilities and the potential role for ICANN, registrars, and registries; the convention with the global vocation against sexual exploitation and sexual abuse of children; mechanisms to complain and to seek effective redress when using online content services, including the roles and responsibilities of nonstate actors; journalism in the new media environment; net neutrality, in particular as regards its human rights dimension; protecting women's rights; Internet content from a gender perspective; counterfeit medicines and the sale of medical products on the Internet; in particular, using the IGF 2010 to host a future Internet health action framework. Internet as a means of dissemination of culture. We're open to working and sharing these Council of Europe areas of work with all of you. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: That's a long agenda you have given. We would require a meeting running in too many days to cover all that. But interesting suggestions. I'm sure the MAG will want to look at those. I hope you have a list which we can then send out to the MAG, because it's difficult to keep track, listening. I have ETNO, followed by Qusai, Spain, Yuliya Morenets, UNESCO. I will just read out the names. Waudo Siganga, followed by France, this lady at the back there, Sweden. And the remote participant. Have you organized now? Both hats. Remote participants and civil society. Civil society caucus. Okay. >>ETNO: Thank you, Chair. We're looking forward to the Vilnius meeting. After all, it's coming back to ground where it started in my home country, Greece. Vilnius should build upon the success of previous IGFs. As always, good organization and programming are fundamental. This is more important this year as everything will take place much earlier. We heard you about the official invitation and what that implies, so we consider it essential that we have a full program suggestion, including themes, framework, and format of discussions and a schedule for the fifth annual meeting available before the second open consultation in May, and that everything is finalized by June. Based on the experiences so far, we suggest that last year's overall theme, creating opportunities for all, or another variation of it without changing or distorting the meaning, is kept, because it is still valid, horizontal and broad enough to cover all discussions. Additionally, we propose for the next IGF that particular emphasis is given to Internet governance as regards development, innovation, and green ICT, which could be the axis for creating opportunities for all for this year, to be more specific or to have something slightly different but creating opportunities for all seems proper as a start. As for the main sessions, we believe that in addition to the orientation and opening sessions the first day and in addition to the emerging sessions and closing session the last day, the next IGF in our view should have only three main sessions. One on critical Internet resources, one on access and diversity, including a discussion there on Internet rights and freedom of speech, and on security, openness and privacy. As a matter of fact, these three main sessions can take place during one-half of the day, preferably in the afternoon, so that participants the other day can attend workshops. This way, main sessions can really be constructive and workshops can build on the previous discussions. In addition, this year's main session should be more focused, and in certain cases with less duration. We understand the limit of the three hours -- I'm sorry, not the limit. The rule of the three-hour slot, but that necessarily has to be -- everything has to be three hours. Regarding original perspectives, in our view this should not be considered a main session but an open forum which could take place in the main room to take advantage of all of the facilities there but not in conjunction with the orientation session on the first day. As for the format, experience proved that using two co-moderators in the main session was very constructive. And ETNO prefers, where possible, that experts with communication skills are the moderators instead of journalists. A keynote speech could replace panelists where panels still seem necessary. In addition, more emphasis and time should be devoted to remote participants. We find the idea of moderators for remote participation worth trying. There are also some other ideas that occasionally have been brought up, simple ideas, for example, setting a clock on the screen to know what the local time is, and some other -- I'm sure there are people that know

how to organize remote meetings. So we should try to improve remote participation. As for workshops, we're the ones urging for a reduction. An excessive number of them held in parallel makes it difficult as regards participation and even more difficult as regards representation. And by that I mean balance in the audience. Workshops, if possible, should not take place in parallel to the main sessions. The IGF secretariat and the MAG should continue to push for similar workshops to merge. And an early call would help in this direction, as it did last year. For the record, ETNO thinks it is a good idea to set an upper limit for the number of workshops which can take place, as well as to identify possible subject, as is the case with the main sessions, which can later be specified for the potential organizers. The upper limit of workshops depends on the themes, but we think it is worth trying this year. And, anyway, for the record, this is our view. As for practical issues and logistics, and I conclude with this, the same rules as agreed for Sharm and Hyderabad should apply, that is, for example, no events during lunch no events starting after 6:00 except social ones. And we kindly ask the Lithuanian organizers to consider providing information in a timely matter for visas, traveling, and accommodation, because, after all, everything is taking place earlier this year. And, finally, we ask the Lithuanian organizers to consider facilitating the ability to work at the conference center before or after the sessions or the workshops. And, of course, to take care of the Internet connection, which is an absolute must in this case. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. >>QUSAI AL-SHATTI: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm the representative of the Kuwaiti Internet association. I wish to start by addressing our deep thanks for the excellent organization of the fourth IGF last November in Sharm El Sheikh and for the great success that we scored, which was a continuation of stories of success of the three previous IGFs. The very high attendance of the IGF and the variety of themes is proof of the success of this IGF meeting in its capacity of an open environment for discussion of all items related to IGF. The fifth meeting, IGF meeting, will have a greater responsibility to score even a bigger success. One of the main points that have already been raised is the multitude of workshops that have been organized in Sharm El Sheikh. Despite its importance in terms of giving an additional space for discussion, yet the multiplicity of those workshops affect the main themes handled by the main sessions. And that is why we would like to ask for a reconsideration of the number of workshops. And we have to take into account the impact of the multiplicity of such workshops. The major role played by civil society, which have been attending from the very beginning until the Sharm El Sheikh meeting, we hope that a bigger chance will be given in the forthcoming meeting in Lithuania. The social network and youth is one of the most important themes that should be handled in our forthcoming meeting, considering its impact and its link to the freedom of expression. And that is why we believe that this should be one of the main issues to be discussed in Vilnius. And this will lead us once again to the issue of access and the spread of Internet. We have to take into account that many developing countries and many people in the developing countries have no access, either as a result of lack of infrastructure or otherwise. And, as a matter of fact, the item of access has always been inscribed on the agenda ever since the first meeting. But we insist that the item on access should be inscribed on the agenda, particularly for those with limited income and in order to break any monopoly of the field. In conclusion, I wish once again to express our deep thanks and great appreciation for the hospitality we received in Sharm El Sheikh, wishing Egypt every success, and we look forward to having continuation of success in Lithuania as a continuation of the previous stories of success. I thank you, sir. >>CHAIR DESAI: Okay. (inaudible) after that, I have as I said, (saying name), UNESCO, Waudo Siganga, and France. And I will mention the others afterward. >>EUROPEAN UNION: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you

for giving me the floor again. On behalf of the European Union, I would like to share our position on the related issues of improvements of the IGF and core themes for the 2010 IGF. The European Union is prepared and open to participating in exchanges on possible further enhancements of the IGF. It should, however, be noted that we consider the open, nonbinding, multistakeholder nature of the IGF as a fundamental basis of its success and none of the modifications should change these underlying principles. In order to further extend the benefits of the IGF, we believe that all existing IGF participants should work in particular towards increased outreach, including, but not limited to developing countries, youth, policy-makers, including parliamentarians, and business, and enhanced visibility. Possible measures include more remote participation, increased contributions and funding to the IGF trust fund, and further efforts to raise awareness of the outcomes which are arrived at at the IGF, such as through a database of good practices or through nonnegotiated synthesis of the debates. We also subscribe to proposals to improve coordination and limitation of the number of parallel events at the IGF and streamlining them into core themes while maintaining their inclusive character. The E.U. is looking forward to continue to work with other stakeholders to maintain and increase the value of the IGF. The E.U. would propose that the CSTD consider the issue of possible improvements of the IGF at the May 2010 session as part of its discussion on the recommendations of the U.N. secretary-general. And the E.U. would like to stress the importance of consultations with all stakeholders in this regard. On the core themes for the 2010 IGF meeting and in the upcoming meeting in Lithuania, we believe that future-oriented themes should remain on the agenda. One theme could be the future of the Internet, ubiquitous Internet, high-speed Internet, and related topics, and the challenges this evolution encompasses in terms of stability and resilience of the Internet, including the management of critical resources. Another main thematic thread could be Internet's role in the tackling of global challenges, in particular, for a sustainable economic recovery based on green growth and innovation. In addition, discussions at and input by national and regional IGF initiatives should be taken into consideration when shaping the IGF agenda. The EuroDIG initiative effectively contributed to the preparation and shaping of the Sharm El Sheikh meeting, and the E.U. looks forward to the 2010 EuroDIG meeting to fulfill an equally inspiring role for the Vilnius IGF. The E.U. would like to share some further deliberations in this respect at the next consultations, including on the possible interaction between the IGF and regional and national Internet governance fora. Finally, Internet as a tool for freedom of expression and the importance of respecting international human rights standards on the Internet and in Internet governance would need to be a transversal thread to be considered during the thematic discussions. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: I have Julia M. from the Together Against Cybercrime. >>YULIYA MORENETS: Thank you, Chair. Thank you, Chair. I'm Yuliya Morenets from the nonprofit-making organization Together Against Cybercrime. And we have a suggestion for Vilnius agenda is to take into consideration the specific issues that face the immigrant population and/or minorities with regard to the Internet or ICT. We believe that the issues are different or more specific and have to be underlined. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. The -- after this, I have UNESCO, Waudo Siganga, France, then I have the lady at the back there, then Sweden. UNESCO. >>UNESCO: Thank, Chair, for giving UNESCO the floor. Let me please first introduce my colleague, Xianhong Hu, and myself, Cedric Wachholz, to you, as we will be coordinating the preparation for the Vilnius event from UNESCO's side and are pleased to work with you on this. The main focus of my intervention will now, of course, be on the themes and main themes of the Vilnius meeting. But before that, let me first join former speakers in thanking and congratulating the government of Egypt and the secretariat of the IGF for hosting and organization of a very

successful fourth IGF. I want to also briefly renew the statement confirming the organization's interest in continuing IGF's multistakeholder practice and the continuation of the IGF beyond the five-year mandate, expiring in 2010. In fact, at UNESCO's general conference in October 2009, UNESCO's 193 member states decided that the organization should strengthen its work in relation to all relevant aspects of Internet governance. Now, more precisely, on the main sessions. UNESCO has always stressed that Internet governance must respect fundamental human rights and be based upon the principles of openness encompassing freedom of expression, diversity, and universality or interoperability. We have contributed to all IGFs, with numerous co-organized panels, workshops, and sessions on topics which are at the center of the organization's mandate, including freedom of expression, multilingualism, increased access and accessibility, privacy issues, as well as information and media literacy. The discussions in Egypt demonstrated a growing recognition of the tremendous potential the Internet holds for creation and dissemination and sharing of knowledge if the net is kept open to the free flow of information at global level. We therefore would like to propose to have as the first main theme in Vilnius securing openness for all. This theme would include many different dimensions, e.g. for example, the freedom of expression, freedom of information, universality, and interoperability of the Internet, as well as privacy and security matters. One could, however, also single out these privacy challenges and responses as what Mr. Desai just called an emerging issue, and it could include, for example, the discussion of social networking privacy challenges. So we propose privacy challenges and responses as a second main theme. After this proposal for an emerging issues theme, UNESCO would like to suggest that the idea continues with access and diversity as a main theme, as just also proposed by three previous speakers. We believe that these three proposals are well aligned with the main -- many online contributions and discussions as well as with several statements made this morning, and we hope will receive your support. UNESCO is certainly ready to engage wholeheartedly in preparation for these themes. Thank you for your attention. >>CHAIR DESAI: Waudo Siganga. >>WAUDO SIGANGA: Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Internet committee from east Africa would like to propose the -- as an overall theme for Vilnius, IGF 2010, developing the future. Sorry, developing the future together. We have made wide consultations with colleagues, including those in the WITSA and the ICC/BASIS, and we feel there is broad support for that as a main theme. If I could just take a minute to explain those words, because each word has a significance. The word "developing," we feel, is a reflection of the recommendations from Sharm El Sheikh that we focus on IG and development and capacity-building. Those of us who have been in this process for a while will remember that also in the working definition of Internet governance, the word "development" or "developing" also appears quite -- has a role to play there. It appears in that definition. Then the word "future," I think, is important in the theme, because we know that Vilnius is a crossroads. We are going to reach five years, the end of the mandate. So we are thinking of a future for the Internet Governance Forum. So that word also has a big role to play. And then the word "together" emphasizes the multistakeholder -- multistakeholder approach of the Internet Governance Forum, as well as inclusiveness. So we -- that is the main theme that we would like to propose for the meeting in Vilnius. In terms of the sessions, the main sessions, we would like to propose also a subtheme of Internet governance for development and capacity-building. That should be reflected somewhere. And also another subtheme of Internet and the youth. I think there was an experiment we did in Sharm El Sheikh to include the youth in the Internet Governance Forum process. And that should be able to continue in Vilnius. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Next, Bajwa. >>F. BAJWA: I want to add a few observations. We are a fast-changing global Internet environment and we will need to adapt to the

new realities, challenges, and actors. Within the last 24 months, the Internet world has changed tremendously. And the magnitude of new issues, both positive and negative, combined with earlier concerns, has increased, pressing all of us at a phenomenal rate. The increase in usage and diffusion of the Internet as a significant medium for socioeconomic development cannot be undermined, despite whatever stance may arise in any kind of dialogue. It has also been observed that a large number of countries, both from the developed and developing world, are demonstrating the force of the Internet as a platform for social and economic development activity. Therefore, it is evident that the Internet plays an important development role within the framework of the information society and the knowledge economy. The Internet continues to be the medium for global citizenries that bridges the many existing divides that various development activities worldwide could not have produced in the past. The Internet is a one-stop resource for access to development information knowledge and pragmatic undertakings and is gradually becoming an affordable medium for communication, bringing about positive socioeconomic change where its facility has been made available. The Internet provides the facility for true dissemination and accountability -- >>CHAIR DESAI: I don't want all this stuff about the Internet. Tell us what your suggestions on themes are. >>F. BAJWA: That's what I'm getting to. -- for true dissemination and accountability, thus formulating the basic foundation of a development agenda in Internet governance that can also be possibly defined by the three A's for development agenda and the possible theme that is access, affordability, and accountability. We are all witness to, as well as I would like to support and strengthen the call by various speakers for inclusion of the theme on development in the main themes. The Vilnius event should be the launching pad for this significant theme as a development agenda in Internet governance. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I have France. After France, the lady back there. Then Sweden, and then ginger once from the remote participants and once civil society caucus. Then Emily Taylor, then (saying name) from the center for Internet Society Bangalore. Jamil. And the ICC. And Martin Boyle. >>FRANCE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, very quickly, in terms of the general theme, I sense a real interest in having the word "future" in the general theme in order to position the questions that we are asking ourselves, less looking backwards at the things that we've always been discussing for ages, but also taking into account the new issues and the things that we are trying to -- to address for the future. In this respect, I have already said that we support the notion of having the emerging issues sessions on the cloud computing. One topic regarding, in general, the -- the themes, it would be useful if the themes, or at least some sessions, could be oriented more around questions than just generic elements. For instance, in the case of access, there is one challenge that we haven't really tackled or that could benefit from a best practice exchange in a main session, is enabling environments for connectivity so that possible obstacles, legal obstacles, or, on the contrary, best practices that have highlighted how things could move forward, could be presented. Otherwise, access will just go round and round. Obviously, the management of critical Internet resources is going to be a major, a major topic. I think one element that we saw coming from the Sharm El Sheikh meeting is that there are at least two elements that will deserve some attention. It could be workshops in the form that I was suggesting that would feed into the main session. And those two themes could be, if I formulate it in questions: Is the introduction of IPv6 requiring changes in the mode of attribution of I.P. addresses, for instance, and having really a workshop that focuses on this that feeds into the main session. The second issue is, I don't have a formulation, but I think there was an agreement emerging at the end of Sharm El Sheikh that after the adoption of the affirmation of commitment for ICANN, the question of the IANA contract and the evolution of the root server system will

be one way or the other on the agenda. I am thinking about how to address it in a way that is respectful, educational so that there is a -- as little (inaudible) about this system as possible, and forward-looking in the perspective of the IANA contract in 2011 and the agreement with Verisign in 2012 would be something useful. And, finally, the third theme, after enabling environment and management of CIR, is directly coming from the discussions last year, which is governance of social media. This is taking a very large role in the evolution of the Internet. And some issues have been highlighted that could be, likewise, used as workshops feeding in the main session. One was mentioned by APC, which is intermediary liability. This is a very important topic. Another topic is applicable jurisdiction for globally hosted content, which is a problem that a lot of actors are facing. And a third one is something that the French minister for the digital economy mentioned when she came to Sharm El Sheikh, is the notion of the right to oblivion or the right to delete the data that is about oneself. It's a specific aspect of privacy. But these three themes, and maybe others, could feed into a general session that would then address them in the main room. And, finally, some of those topics could benefit either in the workshop or maybe in one of the main sessions of a real roundtable discussion where the actors who are on the different sides of an issue really interact together. It's harder to do in the main session. But if the workshops work correctly and if we endorse the proposal that George Papadatos from Greece was making this morning regarding having immediate reporting in a very short format, this could feed directly into the main session of the afternoon. And it could also go along the lines that you, Mr. Chair, were proposing as having a brief introductory sequence for the workshops that feed into the main session. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you (inaudible). >>:(No audio). >>:Can you use your microphone, please. >>:I'm Lisa Horner from Global Partners & Associates. Apologies for that. And I'm also now the chair of the Internet Rights and Principles Dynamic Coalition. We submitted, or the dynamic coalition submitted a statement for these consultations, and I'd like to thank the secretariat for doing a good job in incorporating them into the synthesis reports. And I hope the MAG takes on board some of the points we raised in that. In that statement, we welcomed the commitment that many stakeholders have made to upholding human rights through Internet governance. And that came across very strongly in Sharm El Sheikh and also in these open consultations. The challenge now, the coalition believes, is to really pin down and explore how we can actually uphold human rights in and through Internet governance processes. Now I'd like to switch from talking on behalf of the coalition to in my personal capacity to say that I think that we can do this through two main avenues. Firstly, either have a human rights agenda for Internet governance, and equally, the very closely related theme of a development agenda for Internet governance as a main theme. Or have main themes focused around very specific problems and issues. And I think some of the most pertinent ones for human rights and development and, indeed, wider Internet governance perspectives, have already been raised. Intermediary liability is key. You might frame that slightly differently, as network neutrality. Some of the issues related to the management of critical Internet resources. The governance of social media. All of these could be posed as specific problems or issues which themes could be based around. But if that would be the case, I'd like to see a strong commitment made within the agenda for the IGF to consider each of these issues from a human rights perspective, thereby mainstreaming human rights considerations into the agenda. And the Internet Rights and Principles Dynamic Coalition would be very happy to participate in that process. Finally, I'd like to apologize that I'm going to have to leave early. I was looking forward to the discussion on the role that the dynamic coalitions can play within the Internet Governance Forum. I would like to see that role clarified a little bit more. We're very keen to

participate more both in the formation of the agenda and in the outcomes from the forum. And so I look forward to reading about that discussion later on when I catch up on the transcript. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: One role the dynamic coalitions can play is to report on their activities. Right now, the majority of them have not. So I just thought that would be very helpful if we were to know what the dynamic coalitions are doing. Am I right? >>SECRETARY KUMMER: Yes. >>CHAIR DESAI: So -- But that's just an aside. Sweden and then Ginger will take up remote and civil society, then Emily Taylor, and then Anja Kovacs, Centre for Internet and Society. Sweden. >>SWEDEN: Okay. Sorry for the delay. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. About the upcoming meeting in Vilnius, to be able to utilize the Internet to its full extent, inclusive of freedom of expression, Sweden welcomes discussion on how Internet security can be strengthened and how resilience can be improved. We also strongly believe that if we start making rules for workshops, we all must recognize existing frameworks and roles, especially the roles of existing stakeholders with respect to Internet related public-policy issues, and should not seek to duplicate such roles. For the fifth meeting in Vilnius, Sweden believes that the design of workshops as well as main sessions would benefit from improved interaction. To enable a true multistakeholder environment, all such sessions should maximize the ability for anyone interested to speak, including via remote participation. Sweden would also propose to seek to minimize coalitions between workshops and main sessions. We also welcome the proposal in the synthesis paper to devote a main session to human rights at the IGF meeting in Vilnius. So, Sweden looks forward not only to a successful fifth IGF meeting in Vilnius but also to many more IGF meetings in the future. And as we heard a lot of interesting and good ideas today, we also look forward to increased amount of open preparatory meetings in the future. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Ginger, you are going to take up two. The first remote, and then also civil society caucus. >>GINGER PAQUE: Okay. First I would like to apologize for any disorganization. I almost feel like I am a member of the IGF Secretariat. I am learning to multi-task and do ten things as once, like I know all of you have to. As I am interpreting when we have a failure in our remote participation, I am tweeting, I am sending them the critical comments and trying to solve problems as we go on. At this point, I will not go into the comments from earlier. It really doesn't make sense. We will send a summary to the Secretariat later with comments. One thing that would be particularly important, and we are experiencing now, is the fact that it's unable right now to transmit the real-time captioning. If that were possible, the breakdowns in bandwidth and audio and video right now would be much less important. So a significant -- significantly larger portion of disabled -- persons with disabilities and remote participants would be able to be watching right now if they were receiving what we're seeing on the screen. That's a wonderful possibility. One question that I hope you will be able to answer is when will the transcript be available? Because many of the people who are attending remotely right now are not able to follow it and would like to read the transcript. So that's one summary. I do have, also, a remote participation that was sent by e-mail and received by the Secretariat, and they have asked me to read it. This is from the ISOC, Internet society chapter of the Philippines who would like to emphasize their interest for Internet rights and principles as a major theme for the IGF 2010. We address this theme with great support as it is currently a vital and emerging topic for Internet governance. This support is in line with ISOC Philippines upholding the spirit of core values that guide our policy work in our ability to connect, to speak,

to innovate, to share, to choose, and to trust. As citizens of a small Island developing state, we also highlight the necessity for continued development of remote participation as a tool for the Philippines and for all -- for other small Island developing states to improve our participation in international policy-making process. In particular in the give process. The Internet Governance Forum working group of the ISOC Philippines chapter will establish a remote hub again for the upcoming IGF that will serve as a means to keep Filipinos abreast of emerging global and local issues. So practice the intervention for the moment of the remote participants. Hopefully, now, people will be able to separate my intervention as remote moderator. >>IGC>: I will now be speaking for the Internet Governance Caucus. And the Internet Governance Caucus has prepared a statement. We have consensus on a request for the Vilnius 2010 meeting of the IGF, the Internet Governance Caucus suggests the following main session themes: network neutrality. Network neutrality has been an important architectural principle for the Internet. This principle is under considerable challenge as the Internet becomes the mainstream communication platform for almost all business and social activities. The IGC proposes a main session with the focus of network neutrality, ensuring the openness of the Internet. This main session should examine the implications of this principle and its possible evolutionary interpretations for Internet policy in different areas. Issues about the openness of the Internet architecture are increasingly manifest in all layers of the Internet today. As a second main session, the IGC recommends a theme of development agenda. A development agenda for Internet governance development is a key focus of the Tunis Agenda and its mandate for the IGF. But while development has been posed as a cross-cutting theme of IGF meetings, they have not featured a broadly inclusive and probing dialogue on what Internet governance for development, or IG for D, might mean in conceptual and operational terms. To address this gap, the IGC previously has advocated a main session on a development agenda for Internet governance. And some of its members have organized workshops or produced position papers elaborating different visions of what such an agenda could entail. In light of the related discussions during the Sharm El Sheikh cycle, we renew our call for a main session on this theme. The dialogue at Vilnius could, inter alia, identify the linkages between Internet governance mechanisms and development, and consider options for mainstreaming development considerations into IGF discussions and Internet governance processes, as appropriate. We also continue to support the Swiss government's proposal to consider establishing a multistakeholder working group that could develop recommendations to the IGF on a developing agenda. Our third request for a main session has rough consensus, requesting a main session on Internet rights and principles. Internet governance has, up to this time, largely been founded in technical principles and, increasingly, on the Internet's functionality as a giant global marketplace. With the Internet becoming increasingly central to many social and political institutions, we are of the view that a consideration of Internet rights and principles can provide the basis for a more comprehensive conceptual framework for IG. In Sharm El Sheikh, specific three-hour workshops on the two themes of a development agenda and net neutrality were organized, which represents a certain degree of maturity of these themes within the IGF context. These successful and productive sessions should be built upon in 2010 in main sessions. The dynamic coalition on Internet rights and principles has done dynamic and productive work on the issue of Internet rights and principles, highlighting the concept of dynamic coalitions and laying the groundwork to address this issue as part of the Vilnius agenda. Thank you very much. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I now have Emily Taylor, then Anja Kovacs from the Centre for Internet and Society. Jamil, and did ICC also want the floor? Jamil, then Martin Boyle, Finland, and (saying name) from Diplo, and Canada. >>AuDA: Thank you, Chairman. Today I am speaking on behalf of the Australian domain society, auDA, which has asked me to make the following comments. The Internet Governance Forum presents a unique

opportunity for all stakeholders to participate and dialogue on an equal footing. You mentioned, Chairman, that the process itself has demonstrated the capacity to learn over the past four years. As a result, the agenda has been able to move with emerging issues. While supporting those who call for a development theme for 2010, auDA would like to make an additional suggestion. One aspect that has worked very well over the past few years has been the dialogue over critical Internet resources. We have seen real progression, from a situation where it was not possible to hold a discussion in the plenary, through scoping and scene setting, to a meaningful, lively dialogue that was both substantive and productive. To quote France, there were strong exchanges on core, sensitive issues. The key aspect of this is not that a consensus has been reached but, rather, that the participants have a growing understanding of and appreciation of the existence of different -- the co-existence of different perspectives on what has been a highly divisive issue. Perhaps in the spirit of learning, we can apply this success formula to other emerging issues. For example, the tensions and challenges seen as businesses seek to enter markets where different norms and cultures apply, or where there are challenges of languages and access. To quote ICC/BASIS, IGF is a place where there is nothing that cannot be discussed, and we should be bold in bringing to the main agenda issues on which people continue to disagree. At this stage, as the IGF prepares for its fifth meeting, we should pause for reflection about where the IGF can do more to increase awareness amongst those at the highest levels of not only governments, but also the other sectors that make up the unique multistakeholder community that meets under the IGF umbrella. auDA strongly supports the renewal of the IGF mandate and we have seen with recent events that as the Internet grows and develops, potentially divisive issues emerge which are increasingly finding their way into the mainstream. IGF presents an ideal forum in which to explore such issues in a nonthreatening, inclusive environment. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you, Emily. Now I have Anja Kovacs from the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore. >>CENTRE FOR INTERNET AND SOCIETY: Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. Can you hear me? Yeah. I would like to express strong support for having a main session on development in the upcoming IGF. The need for more devoted attention to the question of development was a clear message that came out of the Egypt IGF. And as the Chairperson also recognized in his summary of our meeting this morning, again was stressed here today. Devoting a main session to this topic would be a clear signal that we take seriously this message. It is also likely, we strongly believe, to reenergize developing countries interest in the IGF as well as their participation. Although this is perhaps slightly early in our processes, I would also like to use this opportunity to immediately make a suggestion on scheduling. Although it is true that the development agenda requires a separate session to get the attention it deserves, it also remains true that development is an overarching issue that affects all aspects of Internet governance. To make the most of the learnings that will come out of a session on development, I would like to suggest that it will be scheduled early on in the agenda so that development aspects of Internet governance can be taken into account in greater detail throughout our deliberations in Vilnius, rather than just in the sessions specifically devoted to this topic. Finally, choosing Internet governance for democracy and development as the overarching theme of the upcoming IGF would make an even stronger statement that we have, indeed, heard the message that we need more attention for development in the IGF. At the same time, it would also allow us to address many of the other crucial themes have that already been mentioned here today, including intermediate liability, cloud computing, and a broad concern for human rights. We strongly support the suggestion to make Internet governance for democracy and development the overarching theme of the upcoming IGF. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I now have Jamil, followed by Martin Boyle, Finland, Vladimir, Canada, and Katitza. And Raul. >>ZAHID

JAMIL: Chair, thank you for this opportunity. I speak as an ICC/BASIS member and as a representative of PASHA, the largest I.T. trade association of I.T. and I.T.-enabled businesses in Pakistan. As we look towards the agenda for the next IGF I take this opportunity to speak in favor of broader inclusion of substantive policies of concern to possibly all stakeholders in developing countries, and whilst doing so support the earlier comments of the government of Senegal, Mrs. Siganga and IISD. The Internet is a driver for enormous innovation and the provisions of products and services over various mediums. In particular, the mobile revolution and the ability of developing economies to bring regions and sectors of their population heretofore not serviced have seen innovative and exponential development in recent years. The Sharm IGF had a few workshops related to the mobile Internet. However, I would like to underscore a need for focus on the development aspects of the mobile Internet and policy in the next IGF. The mobile platform is becoming essential to outreach by government, utility companies, banks, et cetera, to rural and even urban sectors and their heretofore unserviced populations in developing economies, which are, for the first time, able to access relatively cost effective, efficient and easy-to-use services from the convenience of their home. This has, in practical terms, also meant reducing and, at times, the end of long queues in front of tax authorities, post offices, utility companies, banks, et cetera, where in developing countries it could take up to the better part of the day just to pay the tax, utility bills, or access bank accounts if you were lucky enough to have one. Now these very people in developing economies can access government revenue and registration services, news about farm and market rates, communicate with family bread winners overseas, utility companies, bill payments, mobile banking payments, mobile remittances, repayment of micro-credit and bundling of grocery services, even. All of which are powered by a mobile handset, usually harnessing the Internet or Internet protocol for delivery of such products, services, information on behalf of developing economy governments, businesses, as well as civil society. Key issues necessary for the further development and delivery of such mobile services remain, which include access, multi-lingualism, privacy, security, openness, net neutrality, all of which are all too familiar to the IGF. In general, enabling regulation that impacts the Internet, be it by governments, the private sector or civil society, at a national, regional, and international level, have a direct bearing on the future ability of developing economies, sustainable growth, and reaching the billion. In particular, regulations impacting the mobile Internet at all these levels would impact the development of the mobile Internet. The IGF provides a unique forum for all such stakeholders to be able to share the knowledge and best practice and learn from each other, thus playing a pivotal role in the future of developing economies and the Internet. We also support the auDA comments and look forward to the continuity of the IGF as a means to continue to address and focus on these emerging areas vital for developing economies. Thank you for this opportunity. >>CHAIR DESAI: Martin. Martin Boyle. >>MARTIN BOYLE: Thank you, Chairman. Probably like many others in this room, my head is beginning to reel with quite the number of headline issues that we have now got on the table for Vilnius. And I'm hoping that my meager list is not actually going to add to that long list that you already have before you. But, rather, I hope that it might contribute to ideas on how we might be able to address some of the issues, whichever issues we eventually choose as being the main focus for the Vilnius meeting. As I said earlier, the issues that the U.K. IGF in our recent discussion identified as being of interest include the environmental issues, green ICTs, the emerging technologies, in particular the issues associated with cloud computing and child protection, and in particular there, building on the session organized by Mrs. Mubarak in Sharm El Sheikh. That one was particularly an issue which we think would merit from sometime addressing it in the main forum as a way of trying to make sure that all stakeholders understand the importance and recognize the things that can or should be being done to address it. Those issues, I think, all do help respond to the suggestion that somebody put forward that we should be looking at problem-based or question-based focuses

for the main group. And that, perhaps, leads me to think that one of the important issues that we have had in the Internet Governance Forum throughout has been the sharing of best practice, practical ways of addressing ideas, of issues, focusing on things that have actually been achieved rather than getting stuck in the mold of looking at the things that are going wrong. But, rather, looking at how people have already addressed those issues. Now, I am actually aware that the Secretariat is planning to put some work into a repository of good practice, and I would be quite keen to help them bring that to fruition. It would be good to have something to show in Vilnius. I think it would be good to try and bring some of those best practice examples into the main sessions. The other contribution is on the users. And I think that is a very valuable comment that somebody made earlier about engaging with the wider community, not just those people directly focused on the operation of the Internet itself. And it seems to me, there again, that it would be particularly good to draw on the work done in Sharm El Sheikh that brought in the voices of young people. I think young people have got a lot to say about many of those issues that people have mentioned in the enormous list that has already appeared. And we also continue to believe that the increased involvement in parliamentarians in the IGF, and directly engaging them in sessions, will be a valuable way of helping to identify issues of direct concern to citizens. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: Finland, followed by Vladimir, Canada. >>FINLAND: The synthesis paper and interventions heard so far have been very inspiring. For Vilnius meeting, we would especially like to endorse topics such as cloud computing and the future, new dimensions and business models of social media. More generally, we support orientation towards future-related or emerging issues. And in addition, we support keeping sustainable development, environment and climate change in the agenda. We also feel that developing country participation in main session panels and workshops has to be improved. We would like to note that IGF donors, Finland included, are already financially supporting the participation of developing country representatives since part of the Secretariat's core budget is used for this purpose. But perhaps more could be done in that respect as well. A successful IGF has real influence in the reflection and decision-making at different policy levels. We would like this focus to be kept in mind when planning the content of each IGF meeting and session. We also fully support the comment made by IISD on improving IGF visibility to assure that all stakeholder stay on board also in the future. In this respect, we encourage all participants to increase efforts to advocate IGF at national and regional level. For example, the engagement of parliamentarians is really a key. We would also like to encourage the Secretariat to increase its own outreach activities. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: (Saying name.) >>DIPLO: Thank you. I just found myself contradicting what I said this morning, and it seems like for an hour we have been discussing what more topics we can bring in, in the earlier session we thought about how to cut the workshops. Let me add to this confusion a little bit with the few topics that we outlines or from the community of Diplo that came with some suggestions. Of course many have already been mentioned. One of them being capacity development, of course, but especially building the capacities of institutions -- regulators, ministries and so on -- and awareness on the importance of IG so that they could do the impact especially in developing countries. The second one is we mentioned network neutrality and open Internet, and I can only support the idea of the Internet Governance Caucus for a plenary session on that, and not only discussing what we used to discuss in the past two years but also extending to future challenges, which are search engines, public value of services, cloud computing and so on related to network neutrality. The third one would be ICT and impact on or off other global issues. Security migrations, environment, health crisis, crisis management, economy. It doesn't have to be a session or topic, as such, but rather the aspects we should

definitely address through the other sessions, probably. The fourth one would be legal and policy aspects of e-participation. When we are talking about remote participation as a good example of e-participation, we are usually not thinking about possible policy challenges of e-participation and, namely, for instance, the impact on inclusion and the question of legitimacy of remote participants in many international meetings and so on in diplomacy, if you want to put it that way. The fifth one would be media literacy and education, and many community members reemphasize that and the importance of one laptop per child does not mean anything if there is no methodology of using this equipment, especially in the education aspect. And the last one would be something that someone took back from Rio. It seems like we really liked that event in Rio, not to say that we didn't like the event in Egypt, which is how to make Internet to forget. And that was one of the topics under consideration for the emerging issues that was suggested by our community. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Canada. >>CANADA: Thank you, Chair. I can be brief. First, I would like to speak in support of previous speakers wanting to highlight the sharing of best practices as a means of building capacity. In terms of themes, sustainable, social, and economic development could serve as an overall policy theme as this would maintain an appropriate emphasis on development for the IGF. We would also support proposals made earlier to discuss the important role the Internet is playing in fostering democracy and freedom of expression. There is certainly a range of emerging issues where the IGF can benefit from policy expertise of others. However, we would identify two to help us prioritize, and they would be cloud computing and environmental issues. Thank you, Chair. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Then I have Katitza, followed by Raul and Jeff. >>K. RODRIGUEZ: Thank you, Chair. I work for the Electronic Privacy Information Center. EPIC is also the current liaison for Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council at the OECD. CSISAC contributes to the policy work of the OECD Committee for Information, Computer and Communications Policy and promotes the exchange of information between the OECD and civil society. CSISAC charter stresses that compliance with international human rights standards and respect for the rule of law, as well as effective human rights protection, must be the baseline for assessing global information society policies. EPIC and the Internet Governance Project, as members of the CSISAC, support the previous call for the Association for Progressive Communication to make intermediaries and cloud computing a main session of the IGF. For this main session, for the Internet intermediaries session, we want to support the discussion on Internet intermediaries and limitation of the liabilities. CSISAC believes that legal approaches to Internet intermediary liabilities and limitation of liability regimes should be discussed as they can preserve citizens' civil liberties, due process of law, and privacy rights. CSISAC issued a statement highlighting that little comparative analysis has been undertaken on the characteristics and the impacts of the various limitations of liability regimes in the world. IGF could be the right venue to discuss how the imposition into some Internet service providers to terminate Internet access of users' account on the mere allegations of copyright infringement, as proposed in some graduated response schemes, raise serious due process of law concerns. As more of our civil and cultural life is lived online, this may also violate citizens' civil and political rights. Graduated response schemes also requires private sector Internet intermediaries to assume roles that have traditionally been reserved for government law enforcement agencies and judicial bodies, with a variety of potential undesirable consequence for Internet users. A specific observation: The team of Internet intermediaries is larger than ISPs, Internet Service Providers. For instance, it can include any Internet bottleneck, registries, registrars, dominant application providers. Second, the public-policy implications of cloud computing. We welcome further discussion with all the stakeholders on cloud

computing, which can be divided in clusters. CSISAC, in a statement on this topic, highlighted three main clusters. The development aspect of cloud computing. Cloud computing has interesting implications for developing countries. A key question is, can cloud computing be used by innovators in the south to provide products and services designed to meet local needs and stimulate innovation in developing countries? Cloud computing is dependent on high broadband speeds and affordable prices. Is there any risk that existing digital divide will become an abyss as the majority of users in developing countries continue to depend on poor-quality, high-cost broadband? The second cluster could be the privacy and security implications of cloud computing and Internet jurisdiction. We welcome further discussion with all the stakeholders on essential issues related to privacy and security implications. Cloud computing presents the perfect space to discuss the issue of global privacy standards in a global world. As a stated in the civil society Madrid declaration, we call for a global framework of fair information practices that places obligations on those who collect and possess personal information and give rights to those individuals whose personal information is collected. The third cluster could be competition, interoperability and open standards. We welcome further discussion on key questions. Can cloud services become so proprietary that your data will not be transferable from one proprietary cloud to the other one? This question becomes more important as more governments and users are moving their data to the clouds. Finally, if a green growth session will be held, CSISAC has issued a statement on this issue. They highlight the importance of innovation and adoption of ICT applications for the monitoring and management of environmental challenges such as smart ICT applications. However, CSISAC also urges the expansion of dialogue about the privacy and development aspects of those technologies. CSISAC also stresses the importance of data protection in every field of application of any sensor networks and any other tracking technology. Finally, I would like to support the proposal made by the Internet Governance Caucus on the development agenda for IGF. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Raul. Jeff, then China, then Sweden. >>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to say, speaking on my own behalf, I would like to say that I find very interesting the proposal from the ICC regarding having a session about human rights. I think that in the past four years, it has been understood by most of the people that human rights is a cross-cutting issue to all the other topics that have been under discussion. There are implications in human rights, access and security, privacy, as many other topics. But while there has been an intention to cover those issues sometimes by the dynamic of the discussion, those implications of human rights are not properly discussed. So it could be an option to cover the discussion, but from the opposite perspective, from the human rights perspective, as looking at what are the issues in each of the topics that have implications on human rights. I think that could be a very efficient way of dealing with this -- with this important dimension of the Internet governance and at the same time it's a big innovation in IGF. I think that we have to carefully analyze this proposal, because it's -- it has value to the discussion. And I would like also to endorse the -- the proposal to have more -- a main session discussion about development, because it's another topic that has been around the four years but has not been properly covered. So I think that a session on the development aspects of Internet governance would be very welcome. I think that those issues have been claimed by many people in the four years, and while those topics are -- have been going up in the ranking of the most popular topics, we have not covered properly. So I endorse that. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. (inaudible). >>AT&T: Thank you, Chair. I'm Jeff Brueggeman with AT&T. To cover many of the suggestions that have been made to focus both on development and capacity-building as well as keep looking forward for emerging issues, with respect to development, I support the idea of including, whether

it's ISPs and other types of service providers, particularly from developing countries, to be in the discussions and participating, I think, adds a tremendous amount of value. And as a large ISP, I think we -- we see the benefit in having an exchange of ideas on the practical and operational issues that we're dealing with, whether it's mobile Internet or cybersecurity or access issues, I think there's a lot to be gained by getting -- getting that view directly reflected. I also think it's important to continue to look for ways to target the issues that are going to matter to the people dealing with practical issues when it comes to capacity-building. And I think IGF has continued to do that. And I think Zahid's suggestion about mobile Internet was one example. But, again, I think a continued focus on critical Internet resources and cyber security are things that make a big difference to an operator daily at work. As far as emerging issues, an observation that cloud computing and social networking services are examples of important technology and market trends, but in many ways, as Katitza points out, there are extensions of the policy issues we have already been addressing in the IGF, whether it is access issues or openness and privacy and security issues. So I encourage the focus on these types of emerging trends, but I do think it actually is a way to keep the debate and the discussion going on some of the issues that are already priorities, you know, looking ahead and fresh and new as -- so we're not just repeating the same discussion each year. So I almost don't think of them as separate issues, but a way to integrate into the discussion about some of the key policy issues that are discussed at the IGF. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: China. And then Sweden. >>CHINA: Thank you, Chair. On the fifth session of IGF, the main theme of the session, based on the interventions up to now, I feel that we should continue to focus on critical Internet resources as one of the themes of the session. Personally, I think that under this theme, we can focus on two issues. One is stock-taking, to have an overview on the progress of CIR in the past five years, the problems that still remain. The second focus, what kind of issues should be focused upon on the CIR. This is the second step to be followed. At the Sharm El Sheikh meeting, in-depth discussions were carried out on CIR. I hope that at the Vilnius meeting, that this issue will be further enhanced so as to contribute to the development of the global Internet governance process. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Sweden. Did Sweden want the floor? Doesn't look like it. No. Okay. I think we -- it's been -- Yes. >>C. KANE: Thank you very much, chair. I represent African Civil Society for Information. There are a certain number of proposals I wanted to make on this subject. The first proposal is that after Geneva and Tunisia or Tunis and for the past five or six years, the situation in Africa remains unchanged. 80% of children, children in schools, have never seen a keyboard at all. So we have this persistent problem, a problem of access. And I think that says it all. We will not have achieved the Millennium Development Goals in very many sectors, certainly, as far as access to the information society is concerned. So I certainly want to move towards a new future, but I think we hear all this talk about virtualization, Internet on demand, but there are also very many who are not in touch with the information society at all at the moment. And this is a major concern for us, access, in general, and access considering the economic fabric of the business sector, is very important. And, truly, in our situation -- well, our situation is very -- is truly catastrophic. And then local content is something I wanted to bring up as well. The Internet is increasingly dominated by three, four, or five languages. Some countries have a healthier approach and try and use their local language or their national language for the Internet, with all of the problems that that poses at national level. But there are some languages that are virtually covered not at all in the Internet. So that's something we must consider. The African Society for Information wishes to re-emphasize its grave concerns in these two areas. They are certainly connected to the current

governance of the Internet. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I think we've had a very valuable and useful first round. I must say that the list of themes which has been suggested is rather large. And if we were to accommodate all of them, you would probably have to have a one-month meeting, which is obviously -- so we'll have to do something to distill it. But I'm not sure that that's such a big issue, because in some ways, some of what people described as themes are really what, traditionally, we've called subthemes under -- Yes, Raul. >>RAUL ECHEBERRIA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that's -- the access is, of course, a topic that should remain in the agenda, as there has been several speakers that mentioned that, the last one, our colleague from Egypt. I would like to propose, however, maybe a slightly different approach to access. Because what we need is not to address exactly what are the problems of access. We have heard about that for many years. What we need is to focus the discussion on what are the solutions. As we had a good step in that direction in Sharm El Sheikh, I think that we should go farther even in that direction. And we should have -- we should listen what are the solutions to fix the problem of access in developing countries from those people that work in developing countries with significant success. There are several or many things that can be done in developing countries to improve the access. And there are many good set of solutions that could be implemented. And so we need to hear that people. That's not to speak just like we have a problem, we don't have access in this place. If not, how we can solve the problem to give access to that place? Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Yes, I'm not going into the issue of how we structure the thing. The MAG will have to look into it. What I have said is that in the listing of all the themes which people have given, some of them are, of course, very broad level. Some are more like subthemes which people have suggested. If I hear what people said, I think they would like the idea of development to be more visible in the way in which we treat the themes. At the moment, it is there, but it's tucked away, under access, under this, under that. They would like that to be much more visible and have a much more focused discussion on this. The idea of democracy has been put up, the idea of the future, the idea of growth. Different concepts have been put together in talking about what the overall orientation of the meeting should be. The -- In terms of themes, the one thing which has come up persistently in the discussions as an emerging issue which needs to be addressed, because it touches on a wide variety of issues relating to privacy, security, and even access, is cloud computing. And as something that is there on the horizon and could have a major impact in shaping how the Net evolves. Particularly if we move more and more towards a mobile phone-based Internet, you may well find that the role of cloud computing increases very much more. I am not going to try and suggest a structure, because I think the MAG has to do some work. So they should sit down and work with these. One of the thoughts that struck me, listening to people, was that towards the end, Mr. Tang mentioned a very interesting idea. He said that when we looked at the critical Internet resources session, we should start with a review of what has happened over the past five years. Where were we five years ago? Where are we now? Where is it that progress has been made? Where is it that progress has not been made? That was, I think, your thought -- right? -- as that would be a way of looking at it. And in some ways, it struck me that maybe this is a view since, in a sense, we were set up for five years, it would be a good starting point for several other themes. We could say, where were we five years ago on issues of access? Where are we now? Where were we on multilingualism five years ago? Where are we now? And that would be -- it's a type of snapshot comparison which we don't always do when we have annual meetings. But I just put this as a thought which the MAG may wish to consider. But within that, there are, I think, several newer themes which have come up which we need to see how to put them in, the extent to which they fit in within the classical structure that we have worked with or the extent to which they have to be put into a different type of structure. Besides cloud computing, several people referred to the

whole issue of intermediary liability of Internet Service Providers. And this is right, it is more than just ISPs. There are others who are involved in that. There's a long list which dealt with -- which touched on this issue, which came from the Council of Europe also. We have not normally -- we have not really addressed this dimension very much in the IGF, though it is a governance issue. And I would urge the MAG to look at this. These are some of the thoughts which strike me, listening to people here. And I hope that the MAG can get to a point at which we can come to a sense of closure on the themes that we recommend to the secretary-general, because this will have to go out soon, since -- in fact, the invitations will be out before we meet again. >>SECRETARY KUMMER: Just around the same time. >>CHAIR DESAI: Just around the same time as we meet in May. And those invitations do have to indicate the basic structure of the meeting. There were several other suggestions on the overall formatting of the meeting which we should also consider in the MAG. But as I said, we may have a little more time to come to closure on that. We are now at 5:15. And I think we have covered the two major themes that we had to cover. But there were certain issues and questions which were raised, something which is not really a matter which we have to consider in the MAG. Oh, yes, on the preparatory process, in terms of the regional and national meetings. Oh, you mean whether the next meeting in May. Yes, spend a little time on that. The thought is that the next meeting we have in May, this time, we have to work a little differently, because we will basically have just two meetings of the preparatory group before the final meeting in Vilnius in September. We may be able to squeeze in an extra meeting, if necessary, of people who are sort of involved in the detailed working. And the thought was that our experience with the meeting last September, when we followed a very open format where it wasn't just MAG members, but anybody who had some engagement and involvement in the preparations of the meeting could participate, and did participate, seems to have been quite helpful, because -- in terms of actual preparations for the Sharm El Sheikh meeting. And one thought that has come in conversations is whether we can plan the May meeting as something which has this open consultation on the first day, but the second and the third day would be a more -- mm-hmm -- yes, please. >>SECRETARY KUMMER: Yes, we had, actually, quite an extensive discussion on the MAG list on that. We had in the past every year renewed the MAG by a significant number of participants, but it was always a fairly cumbersome procedure. And I raised the question, given the fact that this year, basically, we will have done the main job, that is setting the agenda, in February already, whether it was worthwhile going through the effort of having this rotation process, which would then basically not -- there would be no need for a meeting. However, there is need for the MAG to continue, and whether we could not recommend to U.N. headquarters, to the U.N. Secretary-General, to renew the MAG for the remainder of the first five-year mandate with the few changes. There are a few changes, due to natural rotation. And then based on the positive experience we had last year with the September meeting where we had an open planning meeting which was a MAG-plus, plus those who were interested in workshops, looking around in the room, it was more or less, I think, the same attendance, to a large extent. And that had worked very well, whether we could not just apply the same format. The question was then also raised, what do we propose should the mandate be extended. And one possibility could be to entrust the MAG, as we have done before, to think about this and come forward with proposals. So one theoretical option could be to have a May MAG meeting, that will be rather inward-looking and looking at all the various proposals that came up, to find maybe a more sustainable mechanism for MAG renewal, whatever that will be, and make concrete proposals coming out of that, and devote the other two days to an open planning meeting where everybody interested in -- and by then, we will also have proposals from workshop organizers who would, obviously, then be very much interested in being involved in the discussion, in the planning of the MAG, could also participate. I had originally anticipated we would have more

time for this discussion, because it's an important one, but we have not much time left and there are other issues on the agenda. >>CHAIR DESAI: I take silence as consent. Good. I think it's fairly straightforward. It's nothing very complicated. So we can do that. Let me talk then to the other issue which has been raised. I'd like to stress that we have done our work as far as the whole question of the extension of IGF is concerned. We are not required to do anything on this. It is not on our plate. It is not our job any longer. It is a job of the intergovernmental process. And the intergovernmental process is, as we say, seized of the matter. And we'll be looking at this. And the consultations which were held in Sharm El Sheikh was where we had participated. But I know that there are people here who are interested in the further process, so more for purposes of information rather than for debate, I have requested UNDESA -- >>SECRETARY KUMMER: There is still another agenda item. >>CHAIR DESAI: Which one? >>SECRETARY KUMMER: Dynamic coalitions. >>CHAIR DESAI: Forget it. Nobody's interested. We have done that. So now we -- [ Laughter ] >>CHAIR DESAI: The MAG can look at it. I was going to request Patrick Speary from UNDESA to brief us on the process that is -- that lies ahead on this. But again I would like to distress but I don't think this is time for a big discussion on this, because that is part of intergovernmental process. But if there are some comments which you would wish to convey to him, that is fine. Yes, Thomas. >>SWITZERLAND: Mr. Chair, actually I was waiting for the agenda point on the regional initiatives to announce for those who do not know it that there is a EuroDIG meeting tonight following this meeting in room XXIII. I just want to announce that for those who do not know. The EuroDIG preparatory meeting is in room XXIII right after this. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Would you like to say -- there is something from the youth coalition, also. >>SECRETARY KUMMER: Yes, thank you. I think we do have some movement in the field of dynamic coalitions. There is a new coalition, youth coalition, on Internet governance, and they basically had planned -- Would you like, Valeria? >>VALERIA BETANCOURT: Thank you. It is just to inform that we plan to have the regional preparatory meeting for Latin America in Quito in July. The meeting will be organized and host by LACNIC, Instituto Nupef and APC as the two previous years. We need to confirm the dates, and we'll inform opportunely when they are defined. We wanted to inform that. >>CHAIR DESAI: Finland and then France. >> Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I speak as a member of the youth dynamic coalition recently launched. And I will read a statement. We are happy to announce that the new youth coalition on Internet governance is officially launched and we would like to share this information with all participants of the open consultations. The coalition is the main outcome of the workshop organized at IGF Egypt, youth and Internet governance, the way forward. We

would like people from the Internet community to join our effort and the coalition. As a new coalition, we would be glad to cooperate with the Internet governance community and existing dynamic coalitions. We hope to help individuals and organizations interested or involved in youth issues to coordinate their efforts and foster more effective participation and involvement of youth on Internet governance community and IGF. Our current home page is groups.google.com forward slash group, forward slash YGIC. And we would like to invite everybody to visit it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >>CHAIR DESAI: France. >>FRANCE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Maybe I'm making a mistake here. Is this just interventions about dynamic coalitions or is it a moment when -- >>CHAIR DESAI: No, not yet. We are persuaded that we still need to discuss it. >>FRANCE: So I will withdraw it. >>CHAIR DESAI: Okay. Good. Then can I request Patrick to tell us -- There is one more. Yes. Katundu. This is for the Africa meeting. >>M. KATUNDU: Sorry, chair. I was outside. Maybe that's why you did not see me. Chair, I would like to inform the participants that we intend to have a regional IGF sometime slated for July or early August. And, Chair, I would like to take this opportunity to invite all of us to Kenya, Nairobi, because some of you are not likely to be here tomorrow. We are going to be having our ICANN in Nairobi from 7th through 12th, and we hope to see all of you. Also, your families, if you would like to engage in some tours and so forth. Thank you very much, and see you in Nairobi. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Yes, please. >>SECRETARY KUMMER: Still on the dynamic coalitions. So we have some new ones that are being formed. We have some older ones that are active. And we have some older ones that are dormant. And we will communicate on our Web site that they will be put into -- we will not remove them from our Web site but we will put them in a different category which makes it clear that they are not active dynamic coalitions. And unless we get reports from them, I think we can assume that they are not alive and well. Some of them are extremely active. You can tell that by looking at the activity. Some others just had a meeting and we have not received any report since. So to the question that was raised earlier by Lisa, what is their role. First of all, inform us about their activities. And on the regional meetings, we certainly will be very grateful from the Secretariat if you please send us your information, send us the dates, and also give us the links to your Web site and to your reports, and to your agenda so that we can be actively relating to the activities of these regional meetings that I think is extremely important to us. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I have been told dynamic coalitions which have not reported should be put into a section on our Web site which we shall call the purgatory. The next step after purgatory better be understood. Canada. >>CANADA: Thank you, Chair. I would like to provide a brief update on the commonwealth IGF, if I may. My colleague from the U.K. had originally intended to brief you, but he had to leave early. So first of all, there has been work conducted over the last year, and as a result of that, priority areas have been identified. Number one, the promotion of the regional and national Internet governance groups, capacity building and

awareness raising for policymakers and legislatures. Number three, fighting cybercrime through prevention, regulation and enforcement. And four, supporting the continuance of the IGF. These are areas that were identified by participants in those preparatory meetings for the commonwealth IGF. Also, again this year the commonwealth IGF will have a bursary program to support travel for members from the commonwealth. Also, efforts are under way to develop a commonwealth IGF tool kit, particularly on the issue of child online protection. Also, briefings will be prepared for commonwealth parliamentarians. And finally, a development of a resource area on Internet governance issues. For instance, that would be on topics such as information from ICANN and its principles and guidelines for country code top-level domains. And at this point, I would just provide information on the Web site, which is commonwealthIGF.org, and would invite those interested to visit our Web site and to participate. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Okay. Now, if I may request Patrick to brief us on what the next steps are. And after that, if there are some comments which you would like to pass on. Please, Patrick. >>UNDESA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Patrick Spearing. I am with the United Nations Department of Economics and Social Affairs, which is the Secretariat department having responsibility for the report containing the recommendations of the Secretary-General on the desirability of continuation of the forum. It's useful to recall that the forum was established by a U.N. General Assembly decision on the basis of the Tunis Agenda, and also to consider its desirability of its continuation after a period of five years. So ultimately, the -- it will be the United Nations membership that determines whether or not to support its continuation. The UNDESA will do all that is required of the relevant General Assembly decision. So we know that in order for the General Assembly to consider the recommendations of the Secretary-General, the report of the Secretary-General containing those recommendations must be submitted to the General Assembly, and this will be done at the 65th session later on this year. We also know that it's normally the Economic and Social Council that advises the General Assembly on matters related to development. So we expect, as well, that that same report would be submitted for consideration to the Economic and Social Council at its substantive session of 2010 in July. This way, all U.N. member countries that wish to express their views on this issue will have an opportunity to do so. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Okay. Good! So this is -- Yes, France. >>FRANCE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. We thank very much the UNDESA for the very useful information. As we mentioned earlier, it was interesting to see in Sharm El Sheikh during the excellent session chaired by Undersecretary Sha the overwhelming support for the continuation of the IGF expressed by an incredible variety of stakeholders. As you know, the decision to have a -- and to establish an Internet Governance Forum was, indeed, taken by the World Summit on Information in Tunis in 2005 and the World Summit on the Information Society was a heads-of-state summit and a U.N. summit. However, you are probably aware that the idea of creating an Internet Governance Forum was mostly emanating from the excellent work of the pioneer multistakeholder group called WGIG that took place between the summit of Geneva and the summit of Tunis. It is the interaction between the different stakeholders within this working group that allowed the idea of a forum to establish itself and to be accepted and recognized progressively as one of the way out of some of the deadlocks that the discussions at the governmental level were encountering at the end of the preparatory process of the Tunis summit. I think during the discussions today and in the stock taking session in Sharm El Sheikh, it was evident that the creation of the IGF has encountered a strong support from a broad diversity of actors. And as you remember, the requirements of the Tunis Agenda regarding the continuation asked the Secretary-General to consult the participant of the forum before making recommendations. In as much as the ultimate decision will be, indeed, in the hands of the member states, in the

U.N. General Assembly, the Tunis Agenda document also entrusts the ECOSOC to deal with the follow-up, and further resolutions have decided and confirmed that the Commission on Science and Technology for Development, which is a subsidiary commission of the ECOSOC, is in charge of the follow-up of the WSIS process. In this context, and according to the methodologies that have been used in the previous years, wouldn't it be appropriate that this document, the report of the Secretary-General, be transmitted also to the Commission on Science and Technology for Development at its session in May so that not only the members of the commission but also other categories of stakeholder can have capacity to interact on those topics. Is there any particular reason why this process, which looks in line with what the Tunis summit is recommending and what the ECOSOC resolutions are recommending, is not being followed? I would be very interested in having your feedback. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Spain. >>SPAIN: I also thank the representative of UNDESA for his explanations. And in similar tone as France, and on behalf of the European Union, I would like to repeat the question we kindly put before to this meeting. We would like to kindly ask UNDESA when the report will be sent for consideration to the CSTD. And also, we would like to stress the importance of consultation with all stakeholders affected in this process. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Greece. >>GREECE: No microphone -- oh. Yeah, I would like to ask a different question to the representative of UNDESA. He has mentioned that the report will go to ECOSOC, and I would like to know whether it has been determined at the organizational session under what item this report will be submitted, and if the section of the report of ECOSOC will go directly to the second committee of the U.N. or will it be dealt at the plenary? Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Would you like to respond? >>UNDESA: Yes. Thank you for those questions. Regarding the Tunis Agenda and follow-up to the Tunis Agenda, the request of the General Assembly was for the Secretary-General to submit his recommendations to the United Nations membership. And we understand this to be the full membership in the form of the General Assembly. So this is the -- this is one of the principal reasons for submitting to the G.A. We also note that ECOSOC has primary responsibility for relations among development actors. This is also an argument for consideration by the Economic and Social Council. We should note that the Economic and Social Council does have a mechanism for consultation with nongovernmental organizations, and there is an opportunity for nongovernmental organizations, therefore, also to contribute to this discussion through the Economic and Social Council. On the question of when will the report be submitted for consideration to CSTD, it's not our intention to submit the report to CSTD, as I elaborated earlier. And finally, on the question of the -- under which items of ECOSOC and the G.A. It's my preliminary understanding that the report would be submitted under the item on ICT for development of the Economic and Social Council, and similarly for the G.A. Whether it goes directly from the plenary -- to the plenary of the G.A. or the second committee would be a matter for the General Assembly to decide when it determines its program of work and allocation of agenda items later on this year. >>CHAIR DESAI: Switzerland. >>CSTD: Thank you, Chair. I am not speaking on behalf of Switzerland but as chairman of the famous CSTD commission. I am, first of all, very pleased to learn today that we will not have the CSTD report of the Secretary-General concerning the future of the IGF.

That's very interesting, very interesting piece of information. I take note of it and I think I am not the only one here to take note of that. However, I should like to make one or two points. In the whole summit of the system and follow-up to the summit, the CSTD was given the task of considering the well-known WSIS follow-up. And I believe, and I think everyone agrees with me, that IGF is part of the WSIS follow-up. Secondly, I should also like to draw attention to a point. The CSTD in May is to consider the well-known report on enhanced cooperation. Why does the CSTD have to consider this report? Because this report, last year, went directly to ECOSOC, and ECOSOC said ECOSOC cannot discuss this report. It's far too complex. It's a difficult issue. And therefore, experts need to consider it. So ECOSOC decided to send this enhanced cooperation , enhanced cooperation to the CSTD. Perhaps, Mr. Chairman, that is also what is also being contemplated here, that this year the report is going to go to ECOSOC and then ECOSOC will send it back to CSTD for the following year. But that, of course, will mean we will have lost a year in the meantime. Finally, I would like to make another point concerning the multistakeholder approach. The CSTD has the advantage of taking a broader approach to the multistakeholder aspect. By that I mean that the CSTD also provides for consultations with the private sector, which ECOSOC does not do. And also with a broader view of consultations with civil society. Thus, as the chair of the CSTD this year, these are the points I wanted to make so that everyone can also have a clear idea of what is needed for the next meeting in May 2010 in Geneva. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: I have France, Marilyn Cade, and Egypt. >>FRANCE: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I could not support more what the distinguished delegate from Switzerland and chair of the CSTD has just mentioned. The precedent of the report on enhanced cooperation is something that we must keep in mind as it was a relative inefficiency in the circulation of the different documents. The second thing is that if there is one thing that is a direct outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society, it is the IGF. To be absolutely honest, a lot of us believe that it is the major outcome, and in any case the most successful one. We therefore find particularly surprising that on one item which is at the core of the implementation of the world summit on the information documents, the mere title of ICTs for development in ECOSOC is being used to address this issue when a full mechanism is in place for reviewing the follow-up through appropriate mechanisms in the CSTD. And as a matter of fact, the question we asked earlier was not whether it is going to be transmitted to the CSTD or not. The main question is why will it not be. And I still expect some explanation on why it would be beneficial not to use this channel, which would provide an appropriate framework for further discussion. And I have heard and I want to anticipate this comment, I have heard the argument that the CSTD is a restricted membership group. But in many respects, the ECOSOC is as well. So the pure logic would say send it only to the General Assembly. If it is sent to the ECOSOC, there is no particular reason that we can foresee, unless we're explained otherwise, why the channel of the CSTD is not used, as it could be useful. >>CHAIR DESAI: Marilyn Cade. I need to call a halt to this. The reason is this is not something that we have to decide. You are conveying views. So I think we are running out of time. May I just leave the list at France, Marilyn Cade, Egypt, ICC, Greece, and Finland. >>MARILYN CADE: (Speaking off mic). I do understand that the decision -- that we are expressing views and the decision is not in our hands, but I will express a point of view as a business community member who has been involved in the WSIS process and continually participated all the way through. And that is while I significantly value, of course, the process that we have heard described, and I particularly appreciate having it explained, I wish to raise a concern that in the approach I'm hearing, I am not really comfortable about the

non inclusion of nonstate actors, such as businesses, NGOs and civil society, in those particular critical discussions. So that is a concern I'd like to express my view on. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. Egypt. >>EGYPT: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We wish to start by thanking the representative of UNDESA for his explanation to the way forward with regard to the issue of the continuation of the IGF. I wish in the same context to remind the meeting with the text of Tunis document. It says, and I quote, "We ask the U.N. Secretary-General to examine the desirability of the continuation of the forum, in formal consultation with forum participants, within five years of its creation and to make recommendations to the U.N. membership in this regard." Having read that, I think that the Undersecretary-General of the U.N. has fulfilled this mandate in Sharm El Sheikh by holding or convening a session on this. This session was agreed upon in the preparatory process of the IGF in Sharm El Sheikh. We agreed through the open consultation mechanism and through the advisory group to have a session in Sharm El Sheikh on this issue. So I don't think that the issue is open for further debate. Everyone contributed in that session. Everyone spoke out his views in that session. With regard to the interpretation of the Undersecretary-General or the representative of UNDESA to the meaning of the U.N. membership, for sure we believe that the CSTD has 42 members, 42 member states. Although it is allowed for other stakeholders to participate, they are not allowed to contribute in its work. They are observers only. They cannot go into the drafting exercise. I wish to remind the meeting that the CSTD convenes in May and deliberate over a wide range of issues, including reporting from all U.N. agencies on the implementation of WSIS. This year, specifically, as was mentioned by Switzerland, we are having a heavy agenda, including discussing the report of the U.N. Undersecretary-General on the enhanced cooperation. I think that it would be wise enough to have this discussion in the ECOSOC and the General Assembly. My last point, the CSTD can discuss with and without the reporting of the U.N. Undersecretary-General the future of IGF. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: ICC, Greece, Finland. >>ICC: Thank you, Chair. We join others in thanking the representative of UNDESA for the information he has provided. At the IGF review consultation session in Egypt, the overwhelming majority of participants conveyed their strong support for the IGF and its founding principles and structures, emphasizing the multistakeholder approach as an essential ingredient in its success and the fact that it is neither an intergovernmental nor a negotiating setting. With that, we understand that was the final consultation and would like to express our view that though the CSTD is an intergovernmental commission, we have enjoyed in the past years the opportunity, as observers from the business community and from other nongovernmental stakeholder groups, the opportunity to contribute to discussions within the week of the CSTD. We believe that the feedback from CSTD members and other government representatives has been positive in terms of the nongovernmental stakeholder contributions to those discussions. We would support the input from the chair of the CSTD and other governments that it would be, in our view, helpful to consider having the process going forward include -- include submission of the U.N. secretary-general's report to that commission. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Greece, and then Finland. >>GREECE: Thank you, Mr. President. I also want to thank the representative from UNDESA. I think that my earlier question was answered. However, I need one further clarification, which is procedural in nature. Did the bureau or the organizational session take a decision to send the report to ECOSOC under this particular item? Is there a decision? Or this has not been decided yet? Or there is some understanding? That's what I would

like to know. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Finland. >>FINLAND: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, Finland supports the voices coming from the European Union and the chair of the CSTD. And we would like to add another aspect to this. And that is, the CSTD normally drafts the resolution on WSIS for the consideration of ECOSOC and then later on, of the General Assembly. It is an expert body, yes, but it is a very important step in the preparatory process for the decision-making in the General Assembly. It would be very difficult for the CSTD to draft the resolution, which, indeed, should outline the decision on continuation of the IGF, if it didn't have secretary-general's recommendations at hand. So, if possible, we would ask UNDESA to reconsider this decision. Thank you. >>CHAIR DESAI: Thank you. I think certainly the points of view have been expressed. They have been, I'm sure, taken note of by Patrik Spearing and will be conveyed to the secretary-general. The only question that I would like him to clarify is a point which George raised. Has this gone to the ECOSOC bureau or is it still to be considered? Maybe -- if you don't know, just say so. Because it's possible, since you are not directly involved in ECOSOC, you may not be aware if it's gone there or not. >>UNDESA: Indeed, I'm not entirely sure of the answer to that question. >>CHAIR DESAI: I thought as much. So it's possible -- so I would say that -- I'm sure he will convey these views. I think we have had a fairly good day. And I absolutely have found the discussions both on the review of Sharm El Sheikh and the preparations of Vilnius very helpful. And I'm sure tomorrow when the MAG meets, it has a lot to chew on and work out. And my request to the MAG members is that we must come to closure on the overall structure of the meeting in terms of themes by tomorrow afternoon, because we -- this time, we really do have a deadline because of the fact that the meeting is nearly three months earlier than normal. So thank you very much for your participation. And for those of you who are going to the MAG, I'll see you tomorrow. For those who are not in the MAG, I expect I will see you in May. Thank you very much. [ Gavel. ]