The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> Hello and welcome, everyone. Can everyone hear me?
Are we all set up with the online setup?
OK, welcome to everyone online as well. My name is Lisa, I'm a technology specialist at USA ID.
>> I'm senior programme officer within the democratic governance division in the Internet development research centre Canada.
>> LISA POGGIALI: And we're here to welcome you to the Donor Principles session in the Digital Age. I want to give a few housekeeping notes and we will officially start the session. I want to give a huge thanks to the freedom online coalition unit who is sitting right over there for making all of this possible and as well for supporting the drafting and negotiation of the Donor Principles process over the past six months or so. They've been absolutely fabulous, and thank you so much. We have a copy of the Donor Principles at all of the seats around the table. If you don't have a copy, they're at the entrance so please pick up a physical copy. We also put up a sign‑up sheet over there which I think is going to be going around the table. That's so that we can communicate, follow up since this discussion will be both a launch and also the beginning of the implementation process of the Donor Principles so we would like to be able to follow up and include you in those communications as we roll out the implementation in the next months and in the next year. We also have a web site which was up on the screen before but we'll also put that up in a little bit which is the Freedom Online Coalition's web site hosting the Donor Principles, and you can also find there an email address related to the Donor Principles. It's donorprinceles@freedom online initiative.com. That's for anybody who has questions or wants to get involved, we will reach out and respond to you. So with no further ado, we will kickoff ‑‑ actually, let me just also say, so the first portion of this event will be the launch of the Donor Principles where you'll be hearing from speakers on this lovely panel that you see up here as well as two speakers online, and then after the official launch, we will break out into breakout groups and actually dig into, you know, what it is that we should be doing in order to implement these principles, so we'll be collecting feedback from all of you so that we have a vision for next steps, given that, you know, we have all of you here with us for the launch. It's a great opportunity to actually think about action. So now with no further ado, I am delighted to introduce Vera Zakem, USA ID's chief digital development and rights officer. Over to you.
>> VERA ZAKEM: Thank you so much, Lisa, and thank you to everyone who is also gathered here today. I know it's also early morning, so ‑‑ but we're really, really grateful because we think this is such a momentous and exciting opportunity for us to roll out these principles and also what they mean for strengthening rights‑respecting digital ecosystem. So again, I'd like to welcome you all to this event. I am pleased to announce that as of last week, the Donor Principles have been officially endorsed by 38 member governments of the Freedom Online Coalition, some of whom you will here today. The Donor Principles established donor ethical obligations to do no harm. Earlier this month, freedom house released the annual freedom on the net report, a survey and analysis of Internet freedom around the world, and we see that the global Internet freedom has declined for a 13th consecutive year in a row. The Donor Principles commits governments from the United States to reverse the trend. They call on donors to safe guard international resistance from digital repression by establishing procedures to protect local partners and communities from the potential misuse of digital technologies and data. Over the past two decades, USAID and many donors have supported many initiatives around the world with their positive outcomes. We have assisted countries to digitize their public service delivery systems from healthcare, to participation, to participatory budgeting. We've also supported young entrepreneurs to support financial technology or FINTECH to create new economic opportunities from those who have been excluded from traditional economic systems. At the same time, we have witnessed how governments use digital data to threaten targets and journalists and activists in America. We have seen how FINTECH companies have wepinized personal data of poor people through predatory digital lending practices. We've learned how consulting firms have exploited citizens' personal data to influence their voting behaviour in ways that undermine freedom of thought, expression, and fundamentally weaken public trust in democratic institutions. Such examples are cause for concern but digital transformation does not have to come at the expense of digital rights. As donor governments, we can best fulfill our mandate when we put safety and security at the heart of these issues and the values of democracy, respect for Human Rights and accountability really at the heart and the centre of our work. Suffice it to say, I'm very pleased to be here with colleagues and partners in government, Civil Society, and the private sectors, who have demonstrated their commitment to these values. I believe and USAID believe it's only through this multistakeholder and collaboration to fulfill the promise and the intent of these principles. I certainly want to thank the Freedom Online Coalition support unit who have made this event possible and the Donor Principles themselves. I also thank our panelists in the room and online. Where is Guus, from the Netherlands. I am very much looking forward to working with you as the Netherlands takes the chairmanship of the Freedom Online Coalition next year. Estonia's Nele, thanks again for hosting the open government partnership and partnership last month in Thailand. Kenya's commissioner for data protection, Immaculate Kassait. We commend you for the work you are doing to keeping Kenya safe and look forward to working with you. Kenya begins chairmanship of the OGP partnership steering committee and from the Juan Carlos Lara, executive director derechos digitales, and Zach Lampell, we very much look forward to working with you and, of course, Michael Karimian from Microsoft, we appreciate your company's commitment to values and Human Rights. I want to express from our Canadian colleagues who have cochaired the freedom online coalition's funding coordination group with us this year and the Donor Principles drafting process. Huge thanks to you. The Donor Principles reflect US and Canada share a commitment for digital inclusion with the support of the FOC unit and the US Department of State, US and IDCOLA, deliverables yielded insights from Civil Society, academia, and the private sector, and various stakeholders from around the world. As a result, the principles better address the needs and desires of the communities that we seek that they serve. And finally, I'm so pleased at USAID in large to be in partnership with our colleagues from the Department of States, bureaucracy of Human Rights labor, it goes without saying that your collaboration on everything, the Freedom Online Coalition, these principles would not be possible, so I'm especially delighted to turn it over to the deputy assistant secretary, a dear friend who's been working hand and arm with all of us to really enable these principles. Over to you.
>> Thanks so much, vera, and especially to Lisa for your tireless leadership getting these principles over the finish line. It is not everaise negotiating anything in a multilateral, multistakeholder process, and we really appreciate your leadership and also to Sydney in I BRC for your strong partnership in this effort. Thanks all for joining us. We hope it's an early morning. We hope everyone is well‑caffeinated, but this is an exciting moment to launch these principles so we're glad you took the time to join us this morning. The Department of State and the US government as a whole view the Freedom Online Coalition as a key, indispensable partner in our efforts to promote and protect Human Rights in the use of digital technologies globally. Pretty much every issue set that we have heard discussed here at IGF is a core priority of the work that we're doing with the other governments and the Freedom Online Coalition to promote Human Rights online. As the chair this year of the Freedom Online Coalition, the United States made a firm commitment to work within the FOC and within our partners and allies to promote and protect fundamental freedoms, counter the rise of digital authoritarianism and the misuse of digital technologies, advance knowledge of artificial intelligence based on Human Rights, and promote safe spaces for marginalised and vulnerable groups. As we heard from our secretary of state Anthony blinkin at the general assembly which feels like a hundred years ago now but was only a couple of weeks ago, we are delivering. These principles launching today really translate these priorities into action giving donor governments concrete guidance to hold fast to our commitment to invest in digital technologies only when it is possible to protect against their potential misuse. They reinforce the Freedom Online Coalition's shared mission to endorse indig neity. Respectable of democratic values and Human Rights, and these Donor Principles will help us take one step in that direction. They also demonstrate our shared commitment to advancing the UN's 2030 sustainable development agenda, as we look to harness the power of digital technologies in a rights‑respecting manner to advance our shared goals, from achieving gender equality to promoting inclusive and peaceful societies. As our secretary of state stated at the UN general assembly, we can develop the best technologies in the world but if we haven't determined how to govern govern them and share our values, these technologies will likely be misused for destabilizing purposes, making our communities less peaceful, less prosperous, less secure and unfortunately the undermining of Human Rights. And societal progress from around the globe. Thank you all for joining us today. We have some exciting panel with some key partners and we're thrilled to be joined by the government of the Netherlands who are turning over the chairship to FOC next year but we're really thrilled to join you in the breakout sessions to hear your thoughts on these Donor Principles and how we can move forward through the FOC so thank you again to Lisa and vera for your leadership.
>> Thank you, Allison.
>> GUUS VAN ZWOLL: Thank you very much in getting through the principles. I think that was an important process and a decisive one. But you already made the transition to the first speaker in the panel from the Netherlands. The senior officer of the legal rights and foreign a favors in the Netherlands, as you take over the chairship in 2024 it will be interesting to see you implement the Donor Principles in that chairship in 2024. Over to you.
>> Thank you, Sydney. First of all, thank you, USAID and thank you, IDRC for really bringing something new to the table here. I think it's great that you were able to create these principles, not only tying all these different topics as we've been hearing the last few days about, really connecting and tying that into the rights of each other that we are discussing in our little side sessions the last few days, and I think it's an important bridge not only in getting the development goals ‑‑ getting to the development goals or reaching the development goals but also it will be an important step for us at least from a policy side to get where we need to be in order to have fruitful discussions to the GDC, and I think it's a great step not only from a digitalisation perspective or an age perspective but really connecting it to the more Human Rights‑related discussions we are having as well. Also thank you for setting a really high bar that will be very difficult to reach in forms of having an open multistakeholder process.
I mean, you've done an excellent job in that, and I really want to congratulate you. I'd rather you would do it after our chairship because it will be so challenging to work to that high standard but it's great inspiration for us, and we'll really try to continue that line of work as well next year. Under the guidance of the USAID and the IRC and, of course, in partnership with the US State Department, they really set these important Donor Principles that encompass the basis for Human Rights and digital development. For us, this will be only the beginning. Turning these principles into low‑key driven action that truly serves to target communities that we support within the context of a very diverse coalition, that is still a very big task that lies ahead of us. During our upcoming chairship, the Netherlands want to see how we can adapt these principles into even more concrete tools that can be used by our community to practice and integrate them into the activities that we support. This can only be done between cooperation with our members, in close cooperation with members and partners who are essential to any solution. We therefore also ask all of our members, all of our Freedom Online Coalition member states to also share their best practices either as a donor or a recipient, given the multiregional build‑upon cooperation, this will be a great chance to see it from both sides. And also at the Netherlands, these principles will be key and a great way in connecting the development work and tying it to important ‑‑ to tie the agenda that we have on digitalisation, and tying in the need to connectivity, security, and governance, because we see sometimes we have these high‑level discussions at the OEWG, and there are a certain set of countries that are very active in that, and we need to reach out and make sure that the last third of the world that's unconnected will be able to connect, but will also have the cybersecurity tools to keep that structure secure, and then of course have a good Human Rights set of principles to govern their structure as Allison really in much more detail pointed out. Thank you for that. I think I'll leave it at that. Thank you so much.
>> LISA POGGIALI: Thank you so much, Guus. I have no doubt you will be able to even exceed the work that we've done this year in your FOC chairship next year so we look forward to partnering with you. No pressure. [ Laughter ]
now I'm pleased to introduce nel nel, the ambassador at large from Estonia. Over to you.
>> NELE LEOSK: Thank you so much. I'm glad to be here in this very early hour, and I'm also glad to see so many other people here. Actually, last month, we celebrated a little birthday at the ministry of foreign affairs because 20 years have passed since Estonia became Estonia. So from the donor side also we have this experience and I will express principles by some practical, I would say, takeaways from over 25 years, out of which I would say 15, digital has been a priority. And I know that we have been discussing here over the past days and over today, quite a bit of everything that can go wrong with technology and in a way I believe it's increasingly trendy too talk about. It's of course a very much timely and needed conversation but it seems to me that we also at the same time are forgetting about everything technology can bring, and in this sense, Estonia, I believe is a good reminder that technology actually can be used to build democracy. Technology can be used to enhance economy, to rebuild trust, to build openness, transparency, and Estonia has done all this, and I believe also has been the reason for interest in our experience because it's not about dedication, it's not to become the world leader in digital services. It's really about democratising the State and the opportunities it gives. For us, digitalisation, and these principles we're talking about here have actually been horizontalally integrated into different programmes and not only I would say our development or economic policy or trade policies but currently also in our technical diplomacy. So these policies we're talking about here need to be implemented. But just talking about the principles will also not get us very far, and actually digitalisation, practical ways, how do we build a democratic state and there were some examples here in these principles. For example, data governance and management, so it is clear that in order to introduce a data governance or management system for companies, in Estonia, we have this famous system called X road, it allows to exchange data. In order for this to work, you need to create also an ecosystem and a supporting legal framework and policies. You must have have access to information act, you must have the open standards and so forth and so forth so at least in a way creates, I would say, a democratic ecosystem. One other aspect that we were discussing about yesterday evening also over the party, it's the development. It's not about us. And in order to really reach these principles, it is actually about also the preceding site. So we really need to put the emphasis in building the capacity of the others to the level of us and even beyond, and we have very good example, practical example from Lunk corporation, Ukraine, for example, for the last few years, we have been working with Ukraine to build their democratic system, and we can see now that in many areas, they may actually exceed all of us in this room, so it's really about the other side and not that much of us in this journey. I believe my time is almost finished but I wanted to bring maybe just quickly three main priorities for us, that are also issues, and one of them is a gender divide, which is also integrated into all of our policies, and actually it's also a priority for tech diplomacy and in a way my own work. The other is the work in the private sector, our development agent is only 2 years old, so it has been mainly through the partnership with private companies and other organisations that we carry out our policies and it's actually about openness and also addressing the technology openness, so we support Open Source in our development corporation, not to get anybody hooked and have also more control and transparency over these processes, so this is maybe very short‑lived on how we have approached this.
>> Thank you very much, ambassador, and thanks for the great reminder of the democratic potential and also the importance of building capacity. You were starting by saying that it's really early. I'm afraid that for our next speaker who is based on in Kenya, it's very late. So ‑‑ but it's ‑‑ ‑‑ it's my pleasure to introduce Immaculate Kassait, commissioner, office of the data protection commissioner.
>> It's actually 3:00 a.m. in Kenya, so thank you, ambassador, and my fellow panelist and USA and Netherlands for the opportunity to participate in this panel. I think it's a really exciting moment to be discussing key principles in terms of digital when we are discussing governance, and we we work towards to ‑‑ we're not talking about governance. This could lead to misuse, and we need governance. Of course from a data protection perspective, we are often seen the people who will back development as interfering with innovations because we are asked questions. And this office has been there for three years now. It was established in 2020, but enforced in 2019. Principles are very common across digital protection authorities. Our mission is to make sure that when we talk about the rights to privacy, it's actually not just a right we speak about. It's a right that's actually implemented by the Kenyan government. That's the social justice set. On top of that institution, we established additional framework for the digital subject. Some of the key issues that we'll be able to achieve in this short time of course is data ‑‑ we are members of three international bodies. We'll be hosting the digital protection authority in the coming year. We have digital protection controllers, and you have a strategic plan. What I'd like to just speak about is we have (?) And have actually a first almost three ‑‑ almost six. It was like a week ago, was to do with people using photos of children and also using people's photos in social places, and also unsolicited messages. And that comes to the point that many times in the process of marketing, many controllers are not paying attention that this is personal information. It must be taken into account. I'm happy we have this composition. We are finding ourselves where in the context of when we developed the act to come up to ‑‑ we did not anticipate to have much national reach in Kenya. And addressing AI as one of the issues. Coming now to the highlight, one of the issues for Donor Principles for Human Rights. What does this mean when we say we need to commit to doing no harm in the digital age with enhancing technology?
And also ensuring accountability. I see several areas for collaboration. When we say donor support in terms of the legal framework, I see the need for supporting ‑‑ those countries that don't have existing data protection framework. So that we're not leaving other countries behind as far as digital governance is concerned. Sharing expertise, some countries are ahead. I think it should be important to collaborate and come up with some of the data, and that's why this is a concern. The need to ‑‑ in our case as a country, we are digitalising over 5,000 government services, and the need for leverage, what others have done. Sharing best practices, first in terms of collaboration in the private sector, we see an opportunity there with the private sector, and we seek countries to encourage respect. And I would say this is also more of the digital protection. Capacity‑building is another area for collaboration and technical support, support in training programmes. First, when it comes to recognition, they see joint advocacy efforts as one of the things we can do. Support on the groups of rights, as a principle, I see one of the ages of collaboration, facility training initiative, and, of course, facilitating exchange of information. When it comes to digital security, they need to provide for resources, and, of course, capacity‑building. I think I don't take too much of the time. I want to thank you once again for the opportunity and really will come the principles and it being launched here is a really big mile stone for donor countries or partners and especially in this era of technology where we're now being hold to account and holding other people to account, where it's not just development or technology for the sake, but technology to protect Human Rights. Thank you.
>> LISA POGGIALI: Thank you so much, commissioner, for those remarks. You provided a really nice bridge for us to start thinking about implementation by offering some concrete ideas of how we can partner with other countries around the world. Not only donor countries but all countries around the world, so really appreciate that and appreciate your remarks and the work that you do. I wanted to turn it over to Juan Carlos Lara who is the executive director of the derechos digitales and has played an important role in drafting these principles.
>> JUAN CARLOS LARA: Thank you, Lisa, good morning or afternoon to anyone participating online. I want to first introduce myself. I work on digital rights in the global majority, specifically in Latin America. For us, it's very important to interact with governments and with donor governments, especially considering the role that they have in funding much of the work that organisations like mine do in the global majority, and that depends on the support that we can obtain from different funders. In that regard, it's also heartening to hear so much about having countries be accountable or having put principles that will lead to action, and other types of language that represents an intention to bring all the good intention that countries often attempt to put into concrete steps and concrete things, and the Donor Principles in that regard are a product of an interaction of an exchange of ideas and views that in many ways represent what our priorities are for Civil Society in the global majority, understanding as well that we need the support, not just to conduct work that we like but also to create change and to promote social justice and to generate conditions for a responsible development that is respectful of Human Rights that is centered around the people. I wish to before I close my remarks, I wish to recognise those efforts, and at the same time recognise the fact that whether we see this as a fruitful thing is going to be shown by the implementation process. As much as we would like to recognise this as the beginning of something very inspiring, we also need to see how this translates into action, and to the question about the opportunities that this presents for advocacy and for organisations like mine, it's also very positive to see that the principles recognise the need for coordination for stakeholders, and the need to admit participation of different people, participation of different stakeholders and recommendasion of different rights in issues such as technological development. So I think that one of the most important things that we can see here is that when we put the idea of the priorities of states into action, that we need for advocacy organisations, is that those priorities should come from the advocacy organisations and should come from the ground of the people that are doing this work, and that donor governments, donor institutions need to recognise that that's where the knowledge comes from from what is needed on the ground, and that the position of certain officials, it's better informed when they have that type of interaction and where they can foster collaboration to different stakeholders in order to promote Human Rights, so thank you.
>> Thank you so much, Juan Carlos, cannot agree more. IDRC. I'll turn to Zach Lampell, senior legal advisor for international centre for not for profit law who is online, I hope. Yes?
>> ZACH LAMPELL: Yes. Thank you, Sydney. Can you hear me OK?
>> MODERATOR: Perfectly.
>> ZACH LAMPELL: Well, thank you all so very much. My apologies that I could not be with you all in person in Kyoto but I know and trust you're all having a great time. Before I begin my very brief remarks, I wanted to quickly introduce myself, I'm Zach Lampell, senior legal advisor with the international centre for not‑for‑profit law, where I lead our global digital rights programming, where we work in over 100 countries to ensure that the legal framework promotes Civil Society and promotes and protects the freedom of expression, association, assembly, and the right to privacy. I'd like to also thank the whole Freedom Online Coalition the support unit and the member states, especially the US government, USA for their leadership in developing these principles, as well as Sydney and his team of the IDRC, the rest of the drafting committee, and finally, everyone who provided feedback, comments, and suggestions, especially all of those from Civil Society organisations in the global majority. I'd like to now briefly present three ways in which Civil Society can use the Donor Principles for accuracy. First, internationally, I would encourage all Civil Society organisations to collaborate with dorn governments as those donor governments develop their strategic priorities and institutionalise their processes to shape their foreign assistance. Like Juan Carlos was saying, let them know what you're seeing on the ground. Let these donor governments know what has worked, what concerns you have, and most importantly, articulate what gaps there are in domestic legislation. And finally, utilize existing processes like the UPR to obtain firm commitments from your governments to improve the legal framework. So that's internationally. Domestically, work with donor governments to encourage and facilitate real, meaningful, multistakeholder open public processes for drafting legislation. Be sure to reference all of the international legal obligations and frameworks on which these principles are based, and work with both your governments and the donor community to ensure that these principles and international Human Rights standards are being upheld in the legal framework. Finally, technically, and this is one of the principles, but work to push for inclusion into standard‑setting bodies. If you or your organisation or your partners do not have the knowledge base to effectively engage with these standard‑setting bodies, reach out to the international community, donor governments, international NGOs so you can develop and build your knowledge base, so that way you can impact the work of these technical bodies. Work to ensure that Human Rights protections are built into the infrastructure of the Internet. Work with private companies to help create product services and design systems that place Human Rights at the forefront. So, again,, internationally, domestically, and technically, there are ways for Civil Society to use these principles to advocate for and improve the framework, improve product and services and improve Internet infrastructure, all of which we believe will lead to the change and support, promotion, and protection of democratic principles that we all seek. Thank you again so much, and I look forward to rolling out these principles and working with all of you then. Thank you so much.
>> MODERATOR: Thanks so much, Zach, and you've probably given us the structure, internationally, domestically, and technically. Thank you so much. Let me turn to Michael Karimian, director of digital diplomacy from Microsoft to share private sector perspective.
>> MICHAEL KARIMIAN: Thank you. A private sector, not necessarily the whole sector. Thank you for allowing me to join in today's discussion. I have a lot of respect for Zach and his organisation. I work on Microsoft's digital diplomacy team which seeks to promote state and nonstate behaviour, including the international Human Rights regime. I previously worked on Microsoft's Human Rights team which seeks to uphold Microsoft's corporate policy to respect Human Rights and guiding principles on business Human Rights and it's great to see the UNGPs actively integrated throughout the principles here. I'll offer a quick reflection on current application of the principles and some of the ways to move forward where there's perhaps gaps in application. So principle 3, donor governments shared also share the need for feedback. First of all, that requires that donors are very specific and either encouraged or mandated. That companies uphold the second pillar on guiding principles of Human Rights. Many are having a Human Rights policy in place signed off at the most senior level, publicly available and implementable by accounting teams and with a wide degree of transparency, and, of course, sharing the work of Human Rights defenders. Additionally that requires both states and companies to uphold the third pillar of the United Nations guiding principles which is access to remedy. Both judicial grievance mechanisms and nonjudicial grievance mechanisms so that's a mix of mechanisms coming from the states, law enforcement, can be implemented by companies, society or other actors. And, again, companies should be expected to respect and participate in such processes and not to hinder them. There is an important recognition in the principles around the fact that transnational private sector companies have weak connections to Civil Society stakeholders. This is a huge platform where IGF comes into play as well as regional and local IGFs who have Civil Society networks around the world such as AccessNow. AccessNow is an incredible organisation who has a tremendous network which has certainly helped Microsoft be better at having those direct connections with society organisations in global majority countries. Additionally, donors can and should hold private sector partners available. This absolutely goes back to the fact that donors I think should have a high expectasion that companies should be undertaking Human Rights due diligence so that the actual inclusive, sustainable, and rights business investments are being made. And ongoing practices which are transparent, including stakeholders in Civil Society to assess potential Human Rights impacts. Turning to principle 7, support the growth of wide respect and technology workforce. Within that is referenced donorship, with respect for Human Rights and democratic values by hold ‑‑ or support I should say Human Rights processes. I want to take that down a step further and make sure that is a focus on several salient Human Rights. So the Human Rights are most at risk by business activities and it's generally understood to be the Human Rights risk where there's the highest to be of scale, scope, and remedeiability, challenged by those business practices, and for most technologies, that means privacy by design, accessibility by design, and AI by design, and having everything in place and the right degree of transparency. Principle 7, the code of ethics around organisations and institutions. This is a challenge. Many have looked at this before. For example, can you have software engineers having a code of conducts that are taught in university courses? The challenge there is those university degrees especially at the highest level universities, students have very little scope for optional courses. The mandatory courses are already full so it's hard to add into the curriculum. Donors should make sure that companies have the right standards of business conduct in place and making sure that there's a right training for staff throughout the company so they understand what are their responsibilities, they understand the structures in place, to seek additional guidance if they need to. They have access to additional training if they have it, and most importantly, they know where to go within the company for additional expertise on subject matters. I'll stop there and very much look forward to the breakout sessions.
>> LISA POGGIALI: Thank you so much, Michael, and what a rich set of remarks to think about when we start the implementation conversation in a minute. Thanks for that. Before we move into the second portion of our event, we will hear from last but not least, Shannon green.
>> Hello.
>> LISA POGGIALI: Shannon green, who is the assistant to the administrator for the bureau for democracy, Human Rights, and governance at USAID, and she'll be joining us by video.
>> Hello. I'm delighted to join you to celebrate the launch, the Donor Principles for Human Rights in the Digital Age and I commence the 38 member governments of the Freedom Online Coalition who have endorsed these principles and supported their development. These principles provide an important blue print to protect and uphold the rights of individuals in our digital world. They commit donor governments including my own agency to hold ourselves accountable for the role we play in shaping the digital global ecosystem. The principles encourage donors to examine our own internal structures and processes and introduce safe guards for all programmes. These safe guards will help ensure that the benefits for digital transformation are equitably distributed. Environments for partners and local communities. Donors have much to learn from our partners around the world, in government, Civil Society and the private sector. You heard earlier from commissioner Kassait who has been leading Kenya's office of data protection. These authorities are the safe guards that protect us from the darker aspects of the Digital Age. It is more important than ever that donors partner with them in their critical mission to better protect the public and increase transparency. USAID is also energized by the OGP's recent announce of digital governance as an issue. Oversight of artificial intelligence and data processing systems. We have seen remarkable process under OGP commitments and in the spirit on behalf of USAID, I am pleased to issue a call of action for other donor governments to joining USAID in making concrete commitments aligned with the Donor Principles. Internally, donors can make commitments, integrate Human Rights and pack assessments into their programme design and evaluation processes. They can also allocate dedicated funding to support partners and local communities' digital security. Externally, donors can support other countries to develop and implement strong frameworks and hold powerful actors accountable. Civil Society and tech companies large and small should consider how they can most effectively use the principles to encourage responsible donor behaviour. For more information please visit the Freedom Online Coalition's web site. We look forward to hearing what concrete actions donors commit to at the third summit for democracy at the republic of Korea. Donor rights in a digital age promotes democracy and ensures that the benefits of technology are shared by all. Let us act with determinasion and vision to fulfill its promise.
>> LISA POGGIALI: Thank you, Shannon, and with that, we will conclude the official launch of the Donor Principles for Human Rights in the Digital Age, and we will now move into breakout groups. So I'm going to invite Zora, who is over there in the corner to facilitate the process of getting all of you into breakout groups. There won't be too much movement, and then maybe I'll also just say if you have not signed in by the sign‑in sheet that is going around, we will also send it around again, and then we'll leave it on the table right next to the entrance and exit so that we can continue to keep in touch around implementation of the Donor Principles after this event. Zora.
>> Can you hear me?
Thank you so much, everyone, for joining us. As Lisa said, we will be going ahead with our breakout groups. So what we're going to do is we're going to be breaking out in five groups, so four groups here physically and then everyone who's joining us online will have their own breakout group and their own moderator. So I would like to ask everyone who is in the room just to move to the four different corners of the room, I think you'll have your own choice. We're going to be separating you so just direct yourself to one of the corners. I will be going around, and we have about four questions which you can see now on the screen. Maybe I'll just give it over to Lisa to explain maybe the questions in a bit but one final thing from me is that we'll have about 15 minutes for the breakout groups. After which we'll come back into plenary just to quickly discuss what has been discussed in the breakout groups. We have our own facilitators who will be taking your contributions, after which we'll be taking them and summarizing them and making sure we'll use that towards the next steps following the launch of the principles. And I think that's it.
>> LISA POGGIALI: Thanks, Zora. So just to provide a little bit of structure, as you heard many of our panelists note, there is sort of an internal component to the Donor Principles and there's an external component. On the one hand we're thinking about what donor governments can do internally in terms of their own policies and principles, and what can donor countries do externally to uphold the Donor Principles. So we've structured each of the questions around that internal and external component. We're going to run this kind of like a speed dating situation, so each group will have a few minutes to focus on each question, and then the group will remain the same, and we'll just move to focus on a different question every few minutes. Zora will announce a loud buzz or something to indicate. And so you'll get to have a sort of cohesive conversation across the entire period of the breakout group. You can stay with your group and pick up on conversations you had as the questions move along. And I think that is it. Anything. And to our online group, we will do our very best to incorporate you in the discussion afterwards, and so don't think we're forgetting about you. We value that you're there as well. Let's break out into groups, and if everyone can kind of migrate to the corner you're closest to, I would appreciate that.
>> LISA POGGIALI: Everyone can stay in the same chairs in you're in the room or you can turn them and get up and move back but we need to move back to plenary at this point. We'll continue the conversation at this point. We won't just be reporting out. OK, so we're going to have a continued discussion, so we won't be reporting out, necessarily, from groups but we'll invite any of you to either raise your hands either in the room or raise your hands online if you want to make a comment, and we'll just start with one of the questions around implementation internally and donor governance ‑‑ she went to the restroom. She asked a question what it would look like in governments to implement these processes, and then somebody else whose name I'm forgetting ‑‑ but feel free to chime in ‑‑ asked a question around not burdening those who are receiving funding, such as implementing partners, grantees, from having to do extra work themselves in order to implement these principles. So just invite anybody to maybe give thoughts on that. I'm sure this has come up in multiple groups, so we'll just turn the floor over to anyone who has any ideas around that or wants to expand that idea on implementing the principles internally without burdening grantees and implementing partners with additional labor. We can start with IDRC, maybe Sydney. Or if you want to repeat what you said in the session.
>> First of all, I can't speak for all the programming that happens at IDRC, but for those of us who already work in technology, we already take these things into consideration a lot, and the thing I would want to do is socialise this across my colleagues and begin to talk to them about, for instance, providing more digital security and digital resilience as a portion of a budget and to work with grantees who are, you know, for instance if it's a health application and there's a ‑‑ you know, what are the data governance practices?
Because not everyone is on the same page with these issues, right, they're thinking about different Human Rights outcomes when it comes to health and access to clean water. How can we begin that conversation within IDRC.
>> LISA POGGIALI: Anyone want to add to that or have a follow‑on question?
Quinn. Please just introduce yourself when you go on the mic.
>> Is this on?
I'm Quinn Mcghee, the executive director for Article 19. We work on implementing a freedom of expression and Human Rights approach to technology and Human Rights actors. I wanted to echo, one of the things we see quite frequently when we're submitting grant proposals for Article 19 and donor governmentses is we will put a line in for safety and security and it is one of the most frequently‑questioned lines we have in our proposal. People are like, what's this for?
Can this be only to demonstrate the safety and security for specific actors in this programme and not for the organisations themselves to build robust digital security and business practices that keep our partners safe as well. That's something technical that will be useful in terms of implementation, maybe if there is a broader understanding of the importance of these kinds of lines in the proposals that we're submitting, and maybe this is something that can be echoed from yourselves down to your colleagues that maybe having a bit broader understanding of digital security and resilience and how that programming should be incorporated into some of the work with grantees so it's not just, again, specific to, is someone being given an emergency training or something like that. It will be very helpful.
>> LISA POGGIALI: That's really useful. Thank you. Are there specific directors, this could be directed to you or anybody else, that we should bring to the table or existing networks that we can leverage or bring in as partners in order to socialise these very issues to others across all of our respective development agencies who may not have the knowledge of what digital security might look like in a solicitation process and who should actually be involved and who should be protected?
>> We work this on Access Now, pretty much every organisation that's going to be here in Civil Society can provide something. In terms of donors themselves, the Ford foundation is really good at the idea of building capacity‑building into the grants they give as well. I'm sure there's other funders as well but that's one I'm very familiar with. They have a very open dialogue‑based approach and looking at issues of security, not just from technical things but like economic, social/cultural elements of digital safety and security as well, looking at the more kind of holistic approach to it. I would suggest if you're looking for a donor to speak to on their practices, they've been very good.
>> LISA POGGIALI: Thank you. What about ‑‑ go ahead, Daniela.
>> I just wanted to echo that that came up in our group around being more creative in terms of reaching more groups and going beyond the usual suspects and reach communities that are usually marginalised, and that goes back to the very clear point that was made earlier about that bottom‑up approach, but also, we discussed how these principles can be leveraged not just with donor governments but also increasing collaboration with private foundations, so that came up as well so, yeah, just echoing that and supporting that point.
>> LISA POGGIALI: Thank you. Are there specific fora where maybe these ideas are not socialised as much, thinking about other major development processes like the G20 conferences, or other spaces where we might want to work on socialising these ideas where our colleagues who can work on digital health and digital economy can start to learn about how to facilitate more digital security?
Uh‑huh, go ahead.
>> Thank you. Apologies for my voice. Cecilia from the APNIC foundation. I just wanted to say there are so many events and principles and processes, small, medium, and larger organisations are supposed to figure it out by themselves, that it will be very useful to have when you talk about mechanisms and tools for implementation, it would be really good to have like really practical things that allow organisations to see, OK, where do these align with my strategies, not about ‑‑ it feels a lot about like chasing the strategy of others instead of seeing how that has been the strategy of each organisation to actually deliver, and maybe that in our case, we can support, I don't know, or do follow‑ups on three or four of these principles but not necessarily all. Same with the room X indicators, and you start looking, OK, which one do I choose?
What do I do, and all the time you feel you're doing wrong because you are not following everything, so figuring out this, I really like the fact that you mentioned the principles of digital development, tiny little thing at the end, having things like that to say this principle, these other things are important. Then you start feeling like you are connected and you are contributing, and we have a bottom‑up approach to be able to participate in this process would be really good.
>> I'm David Sullivan with the digital safety trust and partnership. One thing that occurs to me, so principles are invaluable for building consensus, but that process of building consensus, you wind up with a fair amount of passive voice, and then the concern, of course, becomes that in that passive voice, responsibilities get driven down to implementers and their partners, and I was sort of thinking that you could almost have an accompanying tool for donor agencies to take the principles and then just add like specifics in terms of who is responsible for each of these things, going from, you know, the actors to the events and opportunities and items or whatnot, and that could be particular to each government and then you could sort of ensure, OK, we're not going to take these responsibilities for Human Rights due diligence and add that on top of other things that the implementer has to do and gets pushed down to other developers in the field, with the right agency and the right people involved so just a thought in terms of how this could be operationalised in a way that you go from that sort of vague consensus to clarity about who does what.
>> LISA POGGIALI: Thanks. That's very helpful. And I will say the idea for the call for action of donor governments is to allow individual governments to be able to think about within their own internal legal structures and processes and strategies, what commitments they might be able to make that are concrete, that are kind of bringing the principles down a level to concrete commitments and actions, and one of the things that we talked about in the drafting process was the potential for building out tool kits as part of the next‑year implementation under the Freedom Online Coalition, and so curious if anyone talked about that or has ideas around what kind of tool kit might be helpful, you know, there was a suggestion for different pieces of guidance that was more concrete that speaks to specific tools for different stakeholders, like maybe Civil Society for advocacy, or diplomats or development actors who are doing the work out in the field, so any ideas?
Did anyone have those kinds of conversations?
Online as well, feel free. Zora, is anyone from online wanting to participate?
Go ahead, Brett. It's not working.
>> Hello, hi. Brett Sullivan from Access Now. Thanks for the principles and the donors who have worked on it and Civil Society as well, and I just wanted to your point and also David as well. If these principles serve as a tool to focus donor's minds on how to get more money out the door and into the hands of the beneficiaries, then I think that's a real plus. If what actually happens is that they become bureaucrat road block to the delivery of money, then that's a back fire, and I think in terms of the tool kits and the processes and the briefings and all of that, that the starting point should be ‑‑ and I'm speaking from the perspective of Civil Society ‑‑ from my perspective as a Civil Society member, is that Civil Society is currently so underresourced and so under attack and so on the frontline, particularly in organisations in the global majority, and so whatever we can do to leverage these principles to facilitate the transfer of funds from those who have it to those who need it, then the better, I think that should be the starting point for any of the briefings or any of the processes for implementation.
>> LISA POGGIALI: That's very helpful. Thank you. Anyone else want to speak to that?
Go ahead, Quinn.
>> QUINN: I'm speaking too much, sorry, but to take off of what Brett, in Civil Society and those particularing working on Human Rights, particularly in global majority countries of what is going to happen with open society foundations. There is very strong indications they will be pulling away from funding a large number of the organisations they have supported in the past, and so the question is, what is going to be the response of the donor community if they think it's very important to have these organisations at the local, national level and the global majority countries be strong, what is going to be the response from, as Brett was saying, those who have lots of funding.
I mean, statutory donors particularly provide larger grants but it's harder to get them to smaller ones. While these donor principles don't talk about that in terms of that issue, because this is a form for donors here, it's useful to reflect that there is a huge amount of uncertainty in the community because open society has funded at the Human Rights level so many organisations broadly in a small level but was very useful for sustaining and securing, and with that question, there is, as Brett was saying, there is a huge amount of uncertainty in the field about how we're going to sustain the momentum that we've had. In these donor conversations it would be very useful to think about that level of how do we sustain and build the networks that are there when the funding environment is so uncertain at present. That's all.
>> LISA POGGIALI: Yeah, that's a really good point, changing landscape, for sure. So I wanted to bring it back to the question that Daniela raised about private sector. Any other private sector partners who maybe could comment on how private sector organisations who do have even more money than donors do, oftentimes, could potentially partner with donors on digital security or any of the other issues raised in other principles. Invite those online or in the room. Michael, I don't want to put you on the spot, but if there are no other private sector partners who want to speak, I will, but I know you are one.
>> MICHAEL KARIMIAN: Thank you. Appreciated. Your question speaks to a broader challenge, frankly, which is that in low and middle‑income countries as they undergo digital transformation that threatens the cybersecurity landscape. For example, the GEFC, Microsoft too, the government of Sweden, how do we main stream digital security, cybersecurity into the digital development Arena and as we start to look at the post‑2030 agenda we need to be aware of that when it was created in the first place when transformation was undervalued as a means of achieving the SDGs, which is a conversation happening now, which is a bit too late. It's absolutely a critical component of that conversation which is starting now. The GDC process must be part of that. Whatever happens with the new agenda for peace as well. But yeah, absolutely it's much more bigger than what we're connecting these principles to today, I think.
>> LISA POGGIALI: That raises a good point about some of the other flora through which these conversations through which Human Rights and democracy‑affirming ‑‑ conversations that have been occurring in the ITU, et cetera I would love to hear if anyone is engaged in those processes currently, if there are any concrete recommendasions for next steps for trying to engage in those spaces and networks that have thus far not been connected that well, at least from the space where I set in the DRG, democracy for Human Rights and government bureau, I know from talking to others as well, that the democracy for Human Rights issues on the technology side have been siloed oftentimes from many of these other technology conversations that are happening at the global level, so any insights from anyone in the room or Michael feel free also to respond, or anyone online as well.
>> May I?
>> LISA POGGIALI: Yes, please.
>> Yes, I don't know where to start. Thank you for being one of the participants in this launch. But all I want to say, my name is MEPHATo Reatile. It is 3:05 in the morning. All I want to say here is that when I think about the Civil Society, indeed, the Civil Society can play a critical role but at the same time we have to try to understand a few things because in most of the countries, you realise that there's no responsible society in place but the digital movement has violation in play. How do we try to protect those people who are living in those countries?
(Chopping audio)
‑‑ who can try to protect the interest in the broader community but at the same time ‑‑ because they have not registered in their respective country but at the same time ‑‑ I keep on telling them, once the violation of the Human Rights take the form of the digit I will take to governmental court but at the same time, I don't have enough muscle to protect the interest before the Court of law simply because of the financial muscle. Now, I want to pose the question: How are we going to ‑‑ the countries that are not really viable in the issue of the line of the Civil Society. I thank you.
>> LISA POGGIALI: So I think if I'm understanding right, the question was in spaces where the Civil Society doesn't have the leverage with the government or the resources how it is that we can support them in order to hold governments accountable when Human Rights are being violated. If you wanted to put something in the chat. We couldn't hear. Some of the audio was breaking up. I think that's an excellent question and I think that's something that donors can heed the call on to support Civil Society and these principles certainly provide a foundation for doing that on these critical Human Rights issues, in particular. So thank you for that. I will right now turn it over to Sydney to close out the session, and he will introduce the last speaker.
>> MODERATOR: Yes, time flies when we're having fun. We're a bit late but I'll introduce our team leader on democratic governance of IDRC, and he'll be providing some closing remarks. It is online from Ottawa. Adrian, over to you.
>> ADRIAN: Good morning, can you hear me OK. I just dialed in really just to say a few words of thank you. It's bed time here, so I managed to join in for the plenary discussion right now and I have flavour for the richness of your discussion. To distinguished guests and panelists, ladies and gentlemen, it's an immense pleasure for me to join you from Ottawa, Canada. We just passed our third annual recognition and truth day so we recognise the traditional custodians that the territories are on. It's a wonderful event, the launching of donor principles of Human Rights in the Digital Age, and we're really delighted to be part of this effort, and the principles couldn't arrive at a more critical time. I don't have to talk to a group of experts like yourself about the fast past and accelerating pace of change with technology and how it can be a double‑edged sword, and we always grapple in our work, do we talk about things as an opportunity or as a challenge, and we see it both, and especially for democratic values and Human Rights for the most marginalised and vulnerable communities in the majority world. And, you know, digital technologies, yes, powerful tools for information sharing, self‑expression and organisation, but they can also be used to deny or diminish people's Human Rights and, again, I think within the room it's come up quite a bit a lot of the threats, and we've seen how digital technologies can play a key role in the decline or back sliding of democratic processes, and from my understanding from vera, I read her opening remarks, mentioned how most often where you see stresses online in the digital space, it reflects a broader decline in Human Rights across the world and we see that where the democratic governance too. We see both the online stresses on the ground and how they actually make people something actively try to think about and understand. So that's why the international development research centres here in town ‑‑ we are a research for sustainable and includable development, research and understanding of all these critical phenomenon like information disorder, technology facilitated gender‑based violence. She's in the room there, she's definitely a resident expert. Focus on the experiences of populations and communities across the global majority. We have also aimed at strengthening the capacity of research institutions and Civil Society organisations to build global soft knowledge networks. A couple of examples of the Internet research development network. So many of the discussions just now definitely ring true about trying to reach local organisations, actors, flowing our funding directly. We're nibbling it off and it's really where colleagues like Sydney are finding the great work and see the power. This is part of our contributions to localisation agenda and on technology, we definitely see the gaps in opportunities especially in terms of ensuring that strategies are tailored to contents, and even from a non‑European language, I understand most of the action can be when it comes to some of it distortions and governance. So just to say collectively, we have a responsibility to ensure that the actions and investments made and digital initiatives do not contribute to an erosion of Human Rights protections in democratic institutions and processes. In other words, to echo the introductory remark, donors must do no harm. Because we're a research funder, we take it seriously, do no harm across every single project we fund so it's not a pediment to funding. It's actually something we take very seriously and it's becoming hard tore understand how to ensure do no harm with all the threats to democracy around the world. This is why developing principles are such an important step. Ensuring alignment between investments and initiatives and commitments to Human Rights and democratic values. So I'll also emphasise the importance of inputs from government, Civil Society, and private sector throughout the consultation and drafting process of these principles. We're kind of a public institution, we're close to Civil Society. We engage with a variety of actors, and so these kind of multistakeholders, we really see as key. I want to take this opportunity to thank all colleagues who have taken the time to provide feedback and really to improve the principles and to arrive at the version that you see now. And, of course,let adoption of the principles is just a start, and with colleagues, we have wanted this launch to be not just about presenting and discussing the principles but to dive into the critical question, so what, now what, what next?
Especially through the breakout groups you've had and, you know, I've had the pleasure to just really hear your debriefing now. And so this idea, again, reflects our mix of what we think is needed for effective change going forward. So as you've all just now in them session started to address the issues of what the principles might mean in practice, what kind of external change are required, how to go about implementation, who to engage with and how can we measure progress once it is made. This is viable to translating principles into action and impact. I have to say the large majority of the work that we support on Human Rights is about the implementation gap. Many great principles and frameworks and constitutions around the world, really ensuring that they get implementation, implemented in the spirit of human dignity as was mentioned in the opening. If you have input to provide, we encourage you to share any comments or suggestions you have after this launch, including through the dedicated email address, colleagues from the FOC have created and I imagine someone in the room can point you to it. Donor Principles@Freedom Online Coalition.com. I want to thank all the panels and presenters who came before. I believe they have already been thanked and also really to end on a note to our US colleagues who have shown incredible dedication and commitment through the development consultation and negotiations of the Donor Principles, it's with a debt of gratitude, I'll end. Sydney, sorry if I've gone over time.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you so much, Adrian, and thank you everyone for the round chair. Thank you so much, Lisa.