IGF 2019 – Day 4 – Convention Hall II – Bringing it all together and Open Mic/Taking Stock

>> Ladies and gentlemen, we'll start in three minutes.  If you can kindly come in and take your seats, that would be great.  Three minutes.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.  Welcome to the closing sessions of the 2019 IGF meeting.  On the podium today, we have the host country co‑chair, Ms. Daniela Brönstrup.  Deputy Director General of Ministry of Economy and we have the 2019 MAG Chair, Lynn St. Amour.

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And we have the 2020 host country co‑chair, Ms. Wanda Buk, deputy Ministry of affairs and the 2020 chair, Anriette Esterheisen and representing U.S., we have Waiman

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We felt it was very important this time around since we do have the announcement of the 2020 MAG Chairs and co‑chairs that they are present to listen to the input given by you on your reflections of the IGF 2019 process and the IGF 2019 meeting.

Now, as you know, this session is divided into three sessions.  The first thing we're going to have is the bringing it all together session and reporting in where we hear quick summaries from all the mainstreams of the IGF 2020 meeting and then we'll have the open mic taking stock setting and then after that, we will have the closing ceremony.  So, to start with, so to begin, I would like to call upon the 2019 co‑chair, Ms. Daniela done strop.

>> DANIELA BRÖNSTRUP: Thank you, Chengetai.  Oh.  Thank you, Chengetai.  Ladies and gentlemen, dear friends and colleagues, time flies.  I remember very clearly inviting you all to the 2019 IGF Berlin one year ago at the fantastic IGF in Paris.  Today, we got together again, once more, closing an Internet Governance Forum.  And I'm really happy and proud to say it has been an interesting and outstanding one, and this is thanks to you all.

Never before has an IGF been attended by so many participants.  More than 5,000 people, many apartments from the government itself have come to Berlin and joined the interesting session of this IGF.  Never before have so many stakeholder groups been represented.  For the first time ever, we welcome more than 100 legislators from over 50 countries.

We have truly, all together, written IGF history.  Germany applied to host the Internet Governance Forum this year because we deeply believe in the IGF.  For us, the IGF is the most concurrent and successful conference.  Our application to being host country has been followed by several months of intensive work, requiring a lot of joint efforts.

Many thanks to all who have contributed.  And worked days and nights.  In the name of the German government, I would especially like to thank our partners, the United Nations, and the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, especially, its Chair, Lynn.  Yes, please applaud whenever you like

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As well as the IGF Secretariat, this very small team which is extremely helpful

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We thank them for their outstanding work and for their fruitful cooperation.

Only together, we were able to put on such an event.  Many thanks.

Ladies and gentlemen, also, for the first time, the IGF was structured around three main themes.  Data governance, inclusion, and safety, security, stability, and resilience.

In numerous workshops, open fora, and main sessions, you have debated pressing internet issues, exchanged ideas, and experiences.  You have argued and agreed.  During these days we would witness your dedication, ideas, and companionship.

In the name of the German government, I want to thank all for your inspiring commitment.  You and us, we are what the IGF is all about.

We are the multistakeholders, fighting for an open, secure, reliable and truly open internet free from discrimination, propaganda and censorship.  This is today more important than ever.  We very much enjoyed welcoming you all to Berlin.

I'm sure the city has proven to be an excellent place to host the IGF as it is an open, diverse, and vibrant metropolis.  I hope that you took the chance to enjoy also that.  Of course, this conference center is a gorgeous one but so is the city out there, and if you haven't enjoyed the city, please do so over the weekend.

Next year, the IGF will take place in Poland.  And what has been achieved this year in Berlin and also last year in Paris should be an incentive for all of us.  Let's continue the dialogue.  Let's keep up the good work.  Let's cheer the IGF spirit.  And I'm sure we will be able to transfer that spirit, and I'm looking forward to that.

I'm personal will you looking forward, also, now, to your comments, your impressions, your takeaways and insights.  Thank you again very much for participating.  Thank you for making this IGF that special and let me say already now, see you again next year in Poland.  Thank you.

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>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Dr. Brönstrup.  Next, I would like to call upon the 2019 MAG Chair, Ms. Lynn St. Amour.

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>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Thank you, Chengetai.  I'd like to start out by thanking the German government, particularly Dr. Daniela Brönstrup and Rudolf Gridl.  They attended every one of those meetings and without their consistent attention to this matter, we would not have had the quality of the IGF we've had so far so it really needs to be recognized.  Of

At the same time, I also know first hand that the entire German government was behind this.  We had many meetings with all of the Ministries and all the other departments and he this also put their full commitment and time and effort behind it.

And again, without them, this would not have been nearly a success either so they need to be recognized as well.

So, in all the efforts of the MAG and the community last year, we focused on improvements requested by the community including input from the NRIs, DCs, best practice forums and as well through traditional review processes such as CSCD working group on IGF improvements or the retreat held in 2016 which is organized by UN DESA.  It of course includes all the suggestions we received through the annual stock taking exercise, which we're going to head into shortly.

It also includes remarks and suggestions that we get from many, many sources.  Clearly from things such as the UN Secretary‑General speech, the United Nations Secretary‑General's High-level Panel on Digital Cooperation, which has been taking place over the last year and a half roughly.  All of those efforts are taken and comments are taken very much into consideration in the work of the MAG as we actually plan the activities for the program, I know it's taken into account across all of the other ecosystem activities as well.

So, in particular, some of those efforts were really focused on delivering a more cohesive focused program of work which is one of the more consistent suggestions for improvement that we've received over the years.

That did include identifying the three main themes, based on community surveys and a call for issues and as Daniela mentioned a few moments ago, digital inclusion, data governance and security, safety, stability and resilience.

Tracks were built around those narratives and they incorporated efforts from across the community, including the multistakeholder high‑level leaders meeting held on day zero.  We had to return to that this year after for very good reasons not having them in past years.

Last year, for instance, it conflicted with the Paris Peace Forum and the one hundred year anniversary.

So, we're very glad that's been put back in because I think it gives us insight into different perspective and views which are so critical here in the work that we do.

It also, obviously, included the opening panels, workshops, open forums and again, of course, best practice forums, Dynamic Coalitions, and all the activities of the NRIs here.

And these were significantly enriched by the presence and augmented approach of parliamentarians and SMEs.  We have a lot we can learn from and build on from those two set activities.

The best practice forums in particular focused on increasing outreach and strengthening output.  There was a focus on increased collaboration across all the IGF ecosystem.  Even more importantly, there was a significant effort to expand outreach to other disciplines, to developing countries and to marginalized groups but it's also safe to say, we still have a very, very long way to go.

In addition, there was significant effort put into looking for channels for the outputs.  It's fine to create outputs here but a lot of the substantive activity needs to take place through other forum or for efforts so to the extent we can move that forward, clearly, we'll have more success.  And you'll hear some of the us successes on that when we have some of the report-outs, particularly from the BPF later on today.

And across everything we did, we worked on building reporting, and in that, we really need to thank UN DESA and the team for all their work and Diplo, of course, which was supported by the German government.  Because without their tireless work and many, many late nights, we wouldn't have the reports and Chair summaries and many other messages.

It's a critical piece of work that I think is not fully recognized.  As I said, you'll hear more details on these activities in the coming reports.  But, one additional point here is that we worked really hard to focus on key policy questions, or to identify what we wanted to accomplish with every one of these sessions.  It's a very rich resource when you have 100, 200, 500 people in a room all caring about a particular topic to the extent we can drive and consolidate our activities, the more impact we'll have.

So, the more concise we can be about what it is we're trying to advance, I think the more progress we'll make.  And that's also partly in response to a lot of the comments we've had over the years.

And maybe just finally, today, parliamentarians from across the world and Rudolf will report out on that in just a few moments, agreed on a set of messages.  And they were dedicated to Jimmy Schultz who was a German politician who initiated the parliamentarian's meeting at the IGF and he was a long-time passionate advocate for the IGF and for multistakeholder processes.  And as all heard earlier, he passed away Monday of this week.

Finally, SMEs.  I sat in on some of the SME sessions and we have so much that we can actually do to help them and learn from them so I do hope that we find a way as we go forward to figure out how we pull them in, whether it's at an NRI level or it's here.  You know, that is really where the significant engines of growth are coming from in the economy, and frankly, a lot of innovation.  So, I do hope we can take into account some of the things they said would be helpful and they'd like to see and find a way to support them as we go forward as well.

And I think I'll stop there and just thank everybody for all their attention and support throughout the year and very, very, very warm welcome to Anriette coming in.  You will be in great hands.  She's been a member of this community for so long and has been participating in internet government, W is, IS activities, things for years.  There are very few people that actually have the background and history she does to the IGF and community so I just want to warmly welcome her and say I'm there to help her in any way I can and also very happy to stay out of the way.

Thank you very much.

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>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Lynn.  Now, we go on to the brief summaries from the various tracks.  I would like to invite Rudolf Grindl to come and say brief summaries on the high-level meeting and the legislators' track.  Thank you.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL: Thank you, Chengetai.  Good afternoon.  The day zero, which is already five days ago and some of you perhaps have already not such a good memory of it was indeed an exceptional day zero.  Because for the first time, there was this high-level meeting on a multistakeholder format.

There was a breakfast, ministers only from 28 countries, all over the world.  Very balanced.  But, afterwards, there was a real high-level exchange with CEOs, with leaders from the technical community, with civil society, with the ministers in different panels all organized along the tracks that Lynn and Daniela have already mentioned and I'm shortening it data conclusion.  That was something that we thought when we are looking at it as very inspiring and very fruitful.  And that's why our minister decided to wrap this high-level discussion up in a short summary which is already online and some of you might have seen it.

I'm not going to repeat this here but just want to, one highlighted view of the principles that are not new or not revolutionary but it was something that has been perhaps for the first time consolidated on this high-level, in a multistakeholder context.  It might have been already in the G20 context, business context, others.  But for the first time in a multistakeholder high-level principle, we had principles like something which has also already been mentioned by the parliamentarians that the human rights and declaration of human rights of course do apply as well offline and online, and that's a sum of the guiding principles for all the work we're doing here, that the ISOCs have to be reviewed through the use of internet and digital technologies.

That the core, that was something that many of the participants have mentioned, that the core must be safe, must be a safe backbone.

Another principle, and that was also very dear to us as a host country to bring in the SMEs, the small and medium sized enterprises into the Internet Governance dialogue, the forum, but also in other fora because we think nowadays, Internet of Things, you cannot honestly divide the world into an internet world and an offline world.

It's all interlinked so we have to bring them around the world into this debate.  And we have published also some input from us as a host country, elements for a charter or elements for how to bring these SMEs worldwide into the internet governance debate.

We have also already heard several times, so, I'm going to be a little bit short on that, that this parliamentarian session has also been something very new and something very exciting.  I don't know who of you has been here this morning in the main session of the parliamentarians.  I think it was one of the most lively debates I have witnessed and it was also very diverse with representatives really from all over the world, all the countries, it's actually, I just got the last figures, it's 150 from over 50 countries.

And the message is, called the Jimmy Schultz call has been mentioned with many very important principles in it.  I already mentioned the human rights one.

And I think the most important outcome of this meeting was that the parliamentarians themselves, they were so excited and so happy about having this dedicated space for debate and for advancing their own knowledge and their own interlinkage that they have decided that they want to continue this, want to go on the next IGFs and possibly also the IGFs after that with this parliamentarian streak.

And that is something, for us, as a host country, really very gratifying because that was a little hope that we had when we had this idea of the parliamentarian session, and that now, it comes from the parliamentarians themselves, shows that it is something that has been timely and that has been relevant and will perhaps flourish in the future even more.

And for it to flourish, we have, and you know this, I'm just repeating it, committed $1 million dollars, our ministers have stated this, and one large part of money is actually earmarked for future parliamentarian activities and the other one for the Global South and a third one for the involvement of the IGF Secretariat in the HLCDP process so there is also an interlinkage there.

And this is something, so, we don't only want to have a principle that has perhaps been come out, but something really concrete that will be filled with life over the next years.

That was it for the host country priorities and the host country specificities.  We are very glad that you will have been here.  We are very glad that you could bring so many participants in the Global South to Berlin in order to have a really global IGF, a really inclusive IGF, and that leaves me with thanking you all for being here, thanking you for your contributions and hoping to see you soon, either in the MAG or at the latest Katowice.  Thank you very much

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>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Rudolf.  I would like next to invite Under‑Secretary‑General Fabrizio Hochschild who is leading the follow‑up to the HLCDP process to say a few words on his takeaways.

>> RUDOLF GRIDL: Thank you.  This is my third IGF, and has been the most extraordinary, perhaps also because I've made a learning journey along the way.  So, I probably understood more here, and foremost reached 10 percent of understanding at this stage, than in the previous IGFs.

It was particularly useful because of the feedback on the report, and we were very grateful, both for the extraordinary preparatory work that was done to ensure that the report got focus, and I must commend those who put out the background publications, books, for the IGF.

I think they are extraordinary documents that I suspect will live on in time.  The feedback we heard was generally very supportive of the recommendations.  But, with some qualifications.  I think, perhaps, the more controversial recommendation is the proposal to have a global multistakeholder political commitment for digital trust and security.

Something that would bring together the many charters, contracts, calls, that are out there, many of them multistakeholder, some of them specific to one or the other community.  But, none of them universal.

And that was the proposal in the panel, but, there are some, I heard some misgivings from some states, concern in particular, that there would be overlap with the first committee processes, the GGE and the open‑ended working group.  So, we will explore it further to see if it is something that can, where there is the potential to reach a convergence of opinion.

And of course, we will ensure that there is no overlap with the ongoing processes under the first committee of the GE which focuses on threats to international peace and security.

On governance, I heard virtually unanimous support for the IGF Plus model.  And even if much needs to be elaborated on how exactly it would work, it's clear that it would retain and build on many of the positive factors that the IGF demonstrates, in particular, the ability for free flowing and frank dialogue, and of course, its multistakeholder nature.

But, with a view to having more outcomes, more focused outcomes, but, as Lynn likes to stress and very appropriately so, those outcomes, of course, have to be linked to other processes where they could gain a more normative character.

And there, I think, this model that had some precedent, but was brought to greater fruition at this IGF, of having a high-level segment either before or maybe at the end of the IGF to allow for direct interaction with political leaders and parliamentarians is an idea that should be pursued.

And we're very grateful for the vigor with which Germany and UAE will lead a multistakeholder group in elaborating further on what an IGF model could look like.

Of course, within the broad WSIS framework.  We heard loud and clear concerns about the follow‑up process, that the information sharing had not been ideal.  And I'd like to say up front, I apologize for that.  But we will be publishing the groups that will be coming together to see what action is already happening under each of the recommendations to explore what further actions should be taken, and thus help to prepare the roadmap for the Secretary‑General.  We will be publishing those groups we come up with by next week.  It was critical to have more consultations with some stakeholders here.  We want the groups to be multistakeholder and as far as possible, and this is not easy.  Diverse in terms of geographic representation.

And that has required a lot of hard work from a tiny team, basically, David Kelly who many of you know and myself, and part‑time, one or two others to get off the ground.

And perhaps with those resource constraints, and perhaps with the community, I hope you'll find we make up for that.

Let me be clear that these working groups are fluid structures so if anybody feels left out and would actively wish to drive the recommendation forward, please approach us and that can be easily and quickly rectified.

In conclusion, let me just say, I think from year to year in the three short years I've been involved, it's becoming ever clearer that the challenge to, that, you know, the internet's very success is arguably its biggest threat.

From year to year, it's become clearer that upholding the open, free, and secure internet that was so much in the minds of its founders is getting an ever greater challenge as it can be taken over by ever larger commercial interests, ever bigger political agendas, and also, the agendas of those who love a tool that can diffuse not only the positive but also the negative at unheard of speeds.

So, to the extent things are left to drift, we may lose the gift, and to retain this open, free, secure internet that is respectful and upholds human rights rather than undermining them will require a very determined and conscious effort across all stakeholder groups.

And hopefully, we can work together to position the IGF Plus to do precisely that.  And finally, I'd like to thank Germany.  Not only for the wonderful organization.  Not only for making this more inclusive than ever.  But, also, for really the quite extraordinary generosity and hospitality which we all felt.

And I think the energy, the insight, and inspiration you brought to this IGF will really promises very well for how we can continue to strengthen it year by year as we move forward.

So, thank you all again.  It was a privilege to be here with you and I look forward to working together to make this an even stronger body.

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>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Under‑Secretary‑General.  The next session is short summaries from the thematic work streams with presentation of key messages.  I would like to call upon Ben Wallis to give a short summary on the data governance stream.  Thank you.

>> BEN WALLIS: Thank you, Chengetai.  And well, so, I was the MAG member responsible for overseeing the data governance sessions and there's been a very rich, very varied discussions across, I think we had 32 different sessions.  On the topic of data governance.

And we've, these have run just until 1:00 PM where we had the concluding session for our whole theme.  So, I hope you will indulge me drawing on my notes here.  I'm going to try and capture the varied discussions from the week in three different areas.  Cross‑border data flows and development.  Data as a key resource for our economy and society.  And the role of ethics and fundamental rights in data governance.

So, with the first one, the cross‑border data flows.  In the concept of one world, one net, one vision, that relies on the ability to connect across borders.  Whether that's people connecting to other people, businesses connecting with their customers or other businesses, and that results in flows of data and information around the globe.

And as data crosses borders, multiple legal and regulatory frameworks often apply to the treatment of the data and that can produce uncertainty and it can produce conflicts between different jurisdictions.

And a general preference emerging this week seems to be for international cooperation.  That's not in the sense on cooperating on some global extension on data, more cooperating between countries and across the world.  There's annealing that working collaboratively in a global context on developing commonly agreed upon values on data principles could assist in building the much needed confidence in cross‑border data flows with the resultant economic and social benefit ups that can bring.

The second of the three groups is data, as a resource for our economy and our society.  And we heard across the week many examples of how AI and open data can contribute toward the achievement of the 2030 sustainable development goals and there are many examples of how our everyday lives are being supported, influenced, improved by digital applications that rely on big data and algorithms.

But, there's a lack of adequate global and national human‑centered data governance and that limits data's potential as a key resource for sustainable development.

And individuals, smaller businesses, and developing countries can often find themselves left out of the ability to share and benefit from the value of their own data while simultaneously being vulnerable to data breaches and attacks on their privacy rights.

So, that brings me to the last of the three groups, and that's the role of ethics and fundamental rights in data governance.

Data governance challenges are increasingly seen through the lens of human rights risks.  And not just as ethical dilemmas.  And in the previous two areas, I've talked a lot about the centers in which data combined with new technologies can be a valuable tool.

But, just as a broom can be used to clean up a room, a broom can be used to hit someone over the head.  And just as the use of data can be a helpful tool, it can also be weaponized.  And artificial intelligence and algorithms, if they're not governed effectively, they can be used to monitor and manipulate behavior, to proceed just with ever more intrusive advertising, to manipulate voters and to stifle freedom of expression.

So, there needs to be a policy balance when developing algorithms between being able to extract knowledge that can be used for good and knowledge that can be used to infringe on the fundamental rights of people whose data is being collected.  Thanks.

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>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.  Our next speaker is Mr. Paul Rowney who is going to speak about the digital inclusion thematic stream.

>> PAUL ROWNEY: Thank you, Chengetai.  Of firstly, I just want to capture that the IGF is a personal journey.  It's a journey that offers a community experience, has a global impact, and for some of us here today, they joined our digital inclusion track as part of that journey.

So, I'd like to thank those that joined that track.  As one of the co‑moderators and facilitators for the digital inclusion track, and a member of the MAG, my task is to give you a bit of insight into that track.  Some of the key takeaways and to look at the sum of the key messages that arose out of those tracks.

So, whilst the key takeaways are broad, digital inclusion covers a multitude of subthemes, it's a very broad and diverse area.  It covers from access, affordability, infrastructure, to local content, multilingerrism, skills, education, jobs, and social inclusion and of course, we shouldn't forget governance.

The first and possibly most importantly takeaway is our common understanding of what digital inclusion means.  On an individual basis, a national basis, a continental basis, and indeed, on a global basis, we are, after all, one world.

But, are we a world with one vision for a digitally included society?  So, I'm not defining this but I want this as a bit of a takeaway that we give some thought as to, what does digital inclusion mean to you?  And more important, what would it mean to you if your digital rights are removed.

On the subtheme of access, one of the key messages that came across, and this was also a fundamental learning curve for me because it's something I haven't thought of deep enough.

But, it's, we need to differentiate and understand what access and accessibility means, and capture this in policy dialogue if we are to achieve digital inclusion.

It also became apparent from the workshops that big gaps still exist in achieving digital inclusion.  Where the old divides still exist.  Where there's been a slowdown in the number of new connections, and where in Africa, for example, around 60 percent of the population is classified as youth while the continent has some of the lowest internet penetration rates and some of the highest youth unemployment rates.

So, this races questions that if we don't achieve inclusive digital inclusion, what will happen?  What are the consequences of our youth that are disconnected?  It is clear from the workshops that we cannot use the measure of mobile phone penetration as a measure of achieving digital inclusion.  We must recognize the fundamental human right to be connected to a safe and secure internet, and measure how many of our citizens have what is termed as meaningful connectivity.

So, it's become clear from so many of the workshops that it's not just about getting connected.  You know, that connection has to mean something to the person that's getting connected.

The workshops of digital inclusion identified big gaps in digital skills and access to digital jobs where many in the Global South are still being denied the opportunity to be digitally included.  That there remain gaps in education where we are not adequately equipping our citizens with the digital skills needed for the 21st century.

And one of the messages or questions that came out of one of the workshops was, how can we prepare or better prepare our educators to be able to transfer the needed digital skills to the learners and to our existing workforce?  Because we have to reskill our workforces.

And this is an issue that many of us have yet to solve.  There are many reasons why many of our citizens remain disconnected and these were discussed at length throughout the workshops.  But, some are geography.  Some are bias.  Some are financial.  And you hear too many stories of citizens in the Global South having to make a choice between having a meal for the day or connecting to the internet.

So, the issues are real.  And we need to address them now.  The workshops have identified, let's use the word unsupported national regulators and policy frameworks and in some cases, regulatory distrust or misunderstanding of community networks as one of the many reasons for communities not getting connected.

A key message that came out of one of our workshops was that for many community network operators, their first step is to create access.

But the real task comes later.  To turn that access into accessibility.

And I think that fundamental message needs to come across to our regulators and our policy makers.  And it highlights the need for our national regulators, in particular in the Global South, to adopt a new approach to connectivity.  An approach that is open and supportive of community networks and to the transformation of telecommunication policies into digital policies.  It also highlights the need for simple licensing, dynamic spectrum access, simple licensing regimes to the rural, access to the rural spectrum, and the same rules that apply in urban should not necessarily apply in rural.

For every day that we keep communities disconnected, it's another day the benefits of e‑health, e‑education, e‑government, e‑agriculture and not to mention all the other life changing benefits that we all take for granted as globally connected citizens.

So, we need action now.  And it's been highlighted throughout the workshops that we need to stop talking and we need to start implementing change that enables communities, all our communities, to be connected.

One of the workshops explored how we unlock the digital potential of the least developed and developing countries.  And by unlocking these countries' digital potential, ensure that they are contributors and not just consumers of technology.

And most importantly, benefit from an equitable share of the digital wealth.  To enable conducive environments in these countries to incubates, develop, and grow local technology companies that can grow into large domestic, regional, and continental tech giants.  The so‑called new Silicon Valleys of the Global South.  The workshop highlights that it's not just about being able to connect but also to actively participate as a contributor to the new digital economy.

As it stands, the unconnected citizens of the Global South often viewed as a potential new digital consumers of the tech giants of the north.

Lastly, just in closing, the workshop highlighted the need, and it was mentioned earlier, for meaningful connectivity.  And this is something that's now on the agenda at the UN broad bank commission and is being championed by the web foundation and alliance of affordable internet, meaning that when we connect, we now need to ensure that we are connected ‑‑ Okay. The message being connected in itself is not enough.  It must be meaningful connectivity delivered at the right speed with sufficient data.

Being connected through a suitable device enabling consumption and production of content, supporting connectivity as and when needed.

So, that basically closes my intervention.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Paul.  Our next speaker is Sylvia Cadena who is going to speak on the security, stability, and resilience thematic stream.

>> SYLVIA CADENA: Thank you, Chengetai.  My name is Sylvia Cadena and I am head of programs of the APNIC foundation.  As an active member of the MAG representing the technical community, I have the honor to share with you the messages from the safety, security, stability, and resilience track.

The track covered 42 sessions across six main subthemes.  I have identified b seven main points that in my view, really capture the spirts of this track.  In order to address the safety, security, stability, and resilience challenges of our times, all of us here, all stakeholders, have to renew our commitment to a multistakeholder approach.

So, the first point.  Put people first, not profit.  Can we think about that one for a minute?  Second, understand that the future of the internet is a shared responsibility, and as such, a multistakeholder and multidisciplinary dialogue is paramount to advise policy solutions as well as their implications from the online space to the physical world.

For dialogue to evolve into effective consensus building, s it's important to seek clearer language and standardized definitions that assist with policy implementation following rigorous research and analysis in identifying the contradictions, intentions between those concepts.

That point was common across all the security, safety, stability, and resilience.  The need for more clear and concrete definitions.

My fourth point, a safe space to disagree, to dissent, and to protest should be preserved as it provides a valuable opportunity to achieve better outcomes to correct course and to learn from one another.

Technology should not be used to quash dissent, to avoid protests, to pretend that we all have a common consensus when it's not there.

My fifth point.  The multistakeholder participation in the design and implementation is paramount so that policy, solutions are fit per purpose.  Complement one another.  Act culturally appropriate.  Transparent and translucent and more importantly are actionable so that their impact can be measured.

The sixth point.  Education about rights and responsibilities should be complemented with effective technical training.  That's key.  Without a solid understanding of how the internet works, about the risks and the threats facing us, responses can really break what we are trying to protect.

And the seventh and final point, as technology continues to evolve over layers and layers of existing infrastructure, concepts as basic as interoperability out of absolute importance.  In summary, the safety, security, stability and resilience track addressed the challenges that government, private sector, civil society and technical community face when defining and implementing the regulatory frameworks, community standards, terms of service, and cyber norms.

How we arrive to those answers is as important as the answers themselves.  The how brings legitimacy to the process, and is absolutely key to maintain the engagement and support from all stakeholders.

The answers are why we are here, working together to find them.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Sylvia Cadena.  Our final section here is for the best practice forums.  And I'd like to call upon Maarten Van Horenbeeck for cybersecurity.

(applause)

>> MAARTEN VAN HORENBEECK: Thank you very much, Chengetai.  And first of all, I'd actually like to start off by thanking all of you who have contributed to the best practice forum on cybersecurity over the last years and have made good faith contributions to the work that we've been doing.  I think it's valuable in ways that we're only just beginning to appreciate, so, thank you.

In 2018, the best practices forum on cybersecurity set the stage for the work that we did this year by taking a really long, hard, multistakeholder look at what were norms development spaces.

This year, we built on that by identifying 19 cybersecurity agreements, and best practices that were implemented to further their ideals.  Key agreements we looked up included the Paris call for cybersecurity in cyberspace, the UN 2015 consensus report and the African union convention on cybersecurity and personal data protection.

We reviewed those agreements to see if they included key provisions such as references to human rights, furthered the multistakeholder model, or recommended technical initiatives such as responsible disclosure.

In July, we published a paper that explored that world from nonbinding norms to legal agreements.  We issued a call for contributions and gained input in several meetings and then we brought together six experts here in Berlin to explore norms implementation at a much deeper level.

During those conversations, we identified a few key learnings.  The very first one was that in our context, norms are collective expectations for what we see as proper behavior for an identifiable group.

When organizations need to hide their behavior, it's often a good indication that a norm actually exists and is being violated.

We also identified a second approach to norms development.  Identifying a behavior that we aspire to, and then investing to implement that particular activity as a norm.

Second, despite the growth in norms initiatives, there are agreements of, or rather, there are areas of agreement and convergence.

A number of initiatives have started to map those areas, and we can consider them as a starting point for cooperation.  There's also a need to share challenges to norms implementation.

Third, we can learn from technical norms that are easier to measure and apply those lessons to less tractable problems that we have.  And a promising example that we identified is a mutually agreed norms for routing security or manners.

Fourth, during the IGF, there was a proposed approach to scrutinize norms implementation to case studies of historical events, through the lens of practical experience in the past, the effectiveness of norms can be evaluated.

And fifth, we identify that a relatively small number of agreements that we sampled were developed within clear multistakeholder places.  A larger number are actually being developed by single stakeholders groups.

We discussed several ideas to help make those processes better, and some of those ideas that we found were, first of all, to build networks such as communities of interest, as proposed by the global commission on the stability of cyberspace where stakeholders can cooperate on implementation efforts.

Second, there were, there is the opportunity for more multistakeholder engagement in the design of norms.  Today's stakeholder groups are often only invited near the end, which is too late to ensure that the norm can properly be implemented.

And third, while discussing norms assessment, it became clear that the civil society has actually been playing a very leading role in assessing adherence to norms and others can build on this.

As part of the work that we did this year, we will bring these learnings also to the intersessional meeting of the open‑ended working group in New York next week.

To summarize, what I what I think is the most important takeaway here, we believe there are beginnings in this space that can be implemented across these agreements and that we can all build on but those beginnings require the creativity that only truly multistakeholder and multidisciplinary collaboration can bring to the table to truly be successful.  Thank you very much.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Maartenen.  The next speaker is Maria Paz who is going to talk about the gender and access‑based practice forum.

>> MARIA PAZ: Thank you very much.  I have the reason this year to provide some of the reflection on the work of the best practice forum in gender and access.

I am a MAG member that has this role for the first time this year, and the first thing that I want to say, is to commend all the hard work of in best practice forum over almost five years now of work is one of the BPF with the longest period of time of work and this can be very much reflected in the breadth and maturity of the touching of the different topics that are related with how the issue of gender, it's something that is really essential for understanding the ability to connect to the internet and the ability to benefit from work.

So, in this case, precisely regarding the long history of this BPF that have touched before on the topics about how to create infrastructure, that is more suited and sensitive to the understandings and the needs and the constriction that comes from the traditional ways in which gender is considered and then also touching issues like how violence in the internet sphere can be a challenge for providing the possibility to have meaningful access for internet.  We moved this year to analyze the particular issues and challenges and opportunities also that the gender perspective can provide for the participation in the digital economy.

So, this over the intersessional work along the year, and we have with the support of our wonderful consultant, now recently appointed Chair of the MAG, Anriette Esterhuysen, a result that deals basically around four main points.  How discrimination and cultural norms and barriers still exist for providing this meaningful participation of women and nonbinary people in the digital economy, which is something that really shapes the way in which the use of the opportunities in the digital space can be done.

And how there is an increased need to acknowledge these in the sense of like providing space for new narratives and new buildings and new kind of leadership that can be a little bit challenging the traditional notions of gender.

The second one was related to how we need to think about digital economy participation from a gender perspective beyond the training and the skill and capacity development.

Precisely because if we don't work in creating and providing the opportunities to develop the leadership skills that are required to succeed in this kind of environment, it will not be enough only with providing the technical training that can have access to that knowledge, technical knowledge but we will not be providing the full context to the participation to be really meaningful for women and nonbinary people.

Then, also, we have the issue of the meaningful access to infrastructure and devices that was already touched on in previous years of work of the BPF.  But, in this case, we look particularly how the meaningful participation in digital economy imply precisely what some of my colleagues were highlighting in the digital inclusion track about new format of organization, and new form of understanding to have access to the infrastructure and device, they are different from the dominant economic models that are, the walls that we have today.

And finally, how gender and digital work space need to be understood.  And we have from there, here, the main contribution and the comments from the participant and the BPF highlighting that new business models are necessary to be considered having in the core of these new business models, the gender consideration that maybe were not present in the past when current business models were developed at beginning of the internet.  So, we need to create these new business models with a different perception of what implies to have safe spaces for women and nonbinary people and challenge some of the consideration that came from the physical space to inhabit the digital space, that imply structural discrimination of these vulnerable groups.

So, finally, I want to just leave it with the note that one thing that it was, in some way, again, present in all the work of the BPF this year was the notion that we don't have enough data around to really measure some of these things because there are not enough disaggregation in the collection of data regarding the participation of women and nonbinary people in the gender economy.

So, in all the spaces that you work on, we make you a call for working and providing more disaggregated information in this system in order to be able to really change the things for the future.  But you cannot change what you cannot see.  Thank you very much

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Maria Paz.  Our next speaker is Concettina Cassa on the best practice for Internet of Things, big data and artificial intelligence.

(applause)

>> CONCETTINA CASSA: Thank you, Chengetai.  Good afternoon.  I will give you just a short bit about main activity that we have done this year for the best practice forum on IoT, big data, and artificial intelligence.  The BPF focused on how these three technologies can help us to address societal problems and what are policy challenges around using IoT, big data, and artificial intelligence application.

We started working in the spring as an open group with stakeholders to share thoughts and experience.

We had open conference with several conference calls, we also launched a survey to collect input from the community, and we published a draft report.

BPF collects examples on different ways on which IoT integrated with artificial intelligence are used to solve complete problems.  And we identified different policy challenges and we group them in three clusters, similar use r update, trust and application, and challenges related to collecting and using data.

We actually had a very fruitful discussion here on the panel on opportunity to address challenges and on policy challenges.

Just to summarize the main key messages that came out on the opportunity, so.  First of all, the convergence of IoT, big data, and artificial intelligence has a huge potential to benefit society.  And also, there is a need for improved outreach and digital literacy on IoT, artificial intelligence, big data.  As people fear what they don't understand.

And also, collective intelligence is a promising area of research that can be exploited for the benefit of society.

About the main key messages that came out on policy challenges and best practice.  So, first of all, the importance to have a human centric approach as these technologies will play an important role in reaching the ISOCs.

And then, uptake in trust are linked.  Improving trust will improve the adoption of these three technologies.  AI is dealing with more than data.  So, data protection is an issue, and regulation is important and is needed.

About the area of agreement that came out during the panel, I considered there was a broad support for the view that the IoT, big data, and artificial intelligence can improve, can play an important role in addressing societal challenges.  And also, all, people all over agree that improving awareness about benefits and these technologies is needed for final user to take informant decision.

Then, it came out also, that in addition to government initiatives and activity, the SMEs should be involved in dissemination action.  And also, it's important to improve investment in infrastructure as is the key to improve access and uptake of IoT, big data, artificial intelligence application.

About policy accommodation, it came out that activating pilot project and sharing lessons learned can help to drive policy and the regulation, and also the importance to have an active platform to share outcomes of pilot projects between all stakeholders as this could spot improvement for policy and regulation.

And the last, the importance to use an open source technologies in the adoption of open standard and the importance to have a certification process as this could improve system security and trust.

So, I want to thank all the people who attended the panel.  The panelists, also.  And the other BPF co‑facilitator,al E. Cominosa, Michael, Giselle who was BPF consulting.  Also, June Parris and Marco that helps in the online moderation and on the report.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.  Our final speaker in this section is for the best practice and local content, Mr. Carlos Afonso, please

(applause)

>> CARLOS AFONSO: It's good to be applauded before you speak.  Very good.  This best practice forum was facilitated by Jacobo Masoni from the EBU.  And with the wonderful help of Anriette Esterhuysen.  It was a privilege to have Anriette with us.

So, let me start to read for you the summary that we have.  Linguistic diversity and the need to nurture and develop local content has been a concern from the early days of the internet and was identified as one of the action lines in the Geneva Plan of Action.

A BPF on local content was first established in 2014 with a focus on how to create and enable the environment for the development of local content.  In 2017, the IGF MAG, once again, convened this BPF and it collected examples of initiatives that succeeded in stimulating the creation of local content and extracted experiences and lessons learned with the goal to inspire policy makers and other stakeholders.  The 2018BPF and local content is aimed at the relationship between local access provisioning and the development of locally relevant content and services.  The focus was on both enabling sustainable content value chain and the economic viability of creating, b providing locally relevant content.

This is local content, 2019.  We decided, the BPF decided to explore how the anybodies and digitalization can be used to preserve and promote local culture, languages, and heritage.  Other conditions in which cultural and the linguistic diversity, artifacts in histories, may be at risk as a result of political and social shifts and upheavals.

If efforts to rewrite history are known to happen in several countries.  War and conflicts have always been a major source of destruction of cultural heritage.  The devastation of sites in Afghanistan and Syria is massive and continues.

Digitalization is a means of preservation but digital memories in many respects is more fragile and precarious than books, scriptures or paintings.  A single click can erase hundreds of years of servers in a second.

The BPF, therefore, also aimed to identify best practices for managing and making accessible the digitalization of existing analog content related to linguistic diversity, artifacts, and histories, printed and electronic media, cinema, music, and other visual arts.

The need to be innovative and find legal and technical solutions that could help promote and develop local cultural assets creatively was certain.

Examples offed success of new approaches in local newspapers, in local languages, in the case of a collective license for all Latin American countries to finance musicians of Spanish speaking countries where presented.

The example in Namibia of creating open source software and databases to preserve indigenous languages was also noted.

The creative use of local languages and encrypted tools by communities to protect their content without renouncing to broader communication in a safer way.  This includes the free use of locally available spectrum to effectively enable community networks and media.  The BPF noted with concern, the growing use of this information including the mod liaison or destruction of local cultural assets and attempts at destroying local history in some cases.

The BPF is an opportunity to reflect about these issues, some of which go beyond enabling production of local culture.  A summary of recommendations, with the law to impose development of these practices.  With limited ability to shield vulnerable communities from their impact, we need to devise ways to mitigate and all together stop the illusion of local specificities in the name of global majority.

Build up the safe learning to enhance cultural assets including enhanced capacity for digitization of local assets.  Local governments and administrations should respect and foster free, and open source software and promote local source content.  Localize equal knowledges with local values that do not enforce dominant biases.  Advocate for public policies which effectively preserve local indigenous languages with adequate planning, effective government support, and supporting budgets.

Active participation of speakers in dissemination of their own languages is essential.  Effective policy is needed to support digitalization of existing archives and historical records along with resource‑based and economic support for researchers and technicians working on documenting and disseminating diverse local languages and cultural heritage and traditions.  Public or state media infrastructure should join in these efforts.

And finally, find ways around positive aspect of copy right but also look for ways of overcoming limitations.  The copyright regime should facilitate digitalization of heritage and cultural aspects to make unique local content available.

I have to do a personal final comment.  I found this IGF fantastic, the infrastructure is spectacular.  But, what most impressed me as a person who is hearing impaired is the capacity of understanding everything that was said in this room of this size with this audio system.  Spectacular.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Carlos Afonso.  Just to remind that with all these outputs, the thematic streams, the best practice forums will be producing downloadable PDF booklets that you can download from the IGF website and they should be available in about two weeks' time.

At the moment, we also have, if you go to our front page of the IGF website, we have an outputs tab.  And you can download the key messages, which incorporate some of the messages from the main themes and also a draft of the chairman's summary, which should be available right now, if you look at the front page in the outputs tab.

And that concludes this segment.  And now, we're going to the open mic, taking stock section.  And I think most of you are familiar with it.  So, I would ask you, first of all, just to line up, you be the first one and I'll call upon you.  Just line up on the microphones and just give us your reflections.  What you like, what you would like us to improve and any thoughts that you think will be relevant to the planning process of the IGF 2020.

That is one of the reasons why we have the co‑chairs of the IGF 2020 MAG here on the stage so that they can listen to your interventions.  We will also have the opportunity for remote participation to have input.  Anya Gengo over there is the remote moderator for this session.

Thank you.  So, we will start.  Sorry, let me just, please.  Go ahead.

>> Thank you very much.  My name is Mary Ann Franklin and I'm here representing the internet rights and principles coalition.  But, my input here is on behalf of a group of young people from the Mena region.  And I'm reading out questions that they wish to put to the stock taking.

So, number one, we are a group of young people from the Mena region and we would like to ask, number one, all this talk about digital inclusion and connectivity, yet, you failed to talk about the internet being blocked by the government and the censorship to freedom of speech and the persecution of people who post on social media, like what's happening in Iraq now where over 300 protesters were killed, yet internet blockage is preventing people from showing what the government is doing.

The same goes for Egypt, where the government arrests and kidnaps anyone who shares or posts about human rights violations in the countries.  Big corporations like Vodaphone work with the government to oppress the people.

Point number 2.  When you say one vision, whose vision?  The developed countries?  And where are the developing countries from these visions?

Number 3.  All this talk about inclusion, yet the major players and corporations in the forum were not there when there was talk about women, LGBTQI communities, youth, and other minorities.

Finally, we have less than ten years to fix what we've done to the environment, but there was no real presence for this topic in the forum's main program.  Though, all tech companies contribute in creating different types of waste, that is the leading cause of climate change, and global warming, and other environmental issues.

Thank you.  Best regards, young people of the Middle East and north African region.  It's been an honor to speak on their behalf.  Thank you very much.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much for your comments.  I think we have Lynn who wants to say something.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I just wanted to thank and recognize the comments and maybe two other kind of comments on this session.  The panelist is here to actually take the comments.  If there's something that we can make a really quick response, it would be helpful, we will do so but we don't intend to respond to every one of them because otherwise, we'll be very limited in terms of the input we can get back from the room.  I also want to point out that there is translation available, you so you needn't speak in English.  Please, do come to the mic and speak in your native language.

Maybe just one quick comment on the last comment, because it's always been so essential to the IGF.  Human rights and human rights violations has always been a very, very essential piece of all that we actually do here.  And I know it was covered in many of the sessions and we'll take your other input on board with respect to, you know, maybe whether or not there are some things we should do to deal with some more topical current issues and provide some additional space for that in the forum.  We have talked about that in past years.

But, again, the incoming MAG and the incoming MAG Chair will pick these up so we really are here just to receive your comments by and large.

We will rotate through the mics.

So, I guess we go over there since it was the middle mic.  And Waut, you have the floor.

>> Thank you very much, Lynn.  And the panelists.  The IGF MAG allowed a pilot to be held this year, an experiment with the format that we're used to.  This pilot was on the deployment of internet standards that would make the internet immediately safer if deployed, but the deployment is often rather slow around the globe.  But, what we were able to do with kind funding of several stakeholder communities is to do a research up front and that research showed a form of consensus on ways forward to bring into the IGF workshops.  They came with five recommendations.  I won't mention them because we have a report out in January, but what the workshop did and with the kind commitment of the German host was bring 20 parliamentarians into the discussion on a technical debate with the very human angle, the deployment itself is a very human vision in the end.

So, that came up.  It worked very well with a new recommendation on how to learn to speak to each other if you're a very technical person or you're a policy maker or a parliamentarian.

We will elaborate on that.  What we were at is one and a half hour with 45 minutes of debate on very concrete recommendations but as you well understand, 45 minutes is extremely little.

but, we had them and we came forward with it.  But what if, and that is looking at 2020, we're able to experiment a little more on a topic like this by maybe having an hour each day and work in between and come back with a solution for problems on day 4 here in this session and present these commitments, perhaps, even to the world.

My voice is going.  I apologize for that.  The report will be out on 31st of January, latest, hopefully, before that.  It will be on the IGF website, on other websites to share.

And as a final comment, first, let me thank the German organization for an extremely good IGF in many, many ways.  And half of the reason that my voice is the music night, and I think that we should continue that in 2020, and I'll promise to bring my guitar.

But, let me add to that that, in Katowice, let's try to rock this IGF not only musically but with IGF models that may not be official yet but at least let us experiment on what the options are for this conference.  We have so many brilliant minds with so many potential solutions and we will only get them there if we ask them what these solutions and perhaps connections and commitments can be.

And if we don't try that five years from now may be the end because we said everything there needs to be said.  And thank you for having this much time and I hope to see you next year in Katowice

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.  Just another note.  Since there's a lot of people lining up, if we could keep our interventions to 90 seconds.  That's one and a half minutes.  There will be a timer going up soon.

We're going to take your questions.  Okay. Let's, I think here.  We haven't been here yet.  Please, go ahead.

>> Okay. Hi.  Thank you.  I'm standing here and similarly, I'm not alone.  I'm with more than 100 young people who are here at this IGF together with the people, the young people who actually make the IGF because they're among the Rapporteurs, moderators, technicians, are actually working at IGF.

And we have heard how this one has been improving a lot the presence of young people thanks to the initiatives that was allowed at, and we feel privileged to be here.

But, yet, we are not happy.  We don't think this is a meaningful participation for youth.  With still feel we are tokenized and actually, the mention of youth was together with unemployment and this connection.  So, youth is still not a resource.

And we had a panel on the future of internet, a high-level panel, without even a young person and we don't want this to happen anymore.

(applause)

We don't think that if we want to change, really, the internet, we want to have equal or free, accessible, we need to stop with this top down approach.  So, it's about opening up spaces for youth, tailoring up sessions to allow a better and more meaningful participation of youth.

So, why not having youth in the next MAG, for instance?  It's doable.  It's not difficult.  And we are already there and ready to give out our contribution.

And I want to be short, so, I will just say, quoting what is the motto that we have already used that comes from the European network of people with disabilities.  Nothing about us, without us.  We cannot allow this anymore.  So, please, you know, open up the spaces and we will take care of filling it up properly.  So, thank you

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.  And that's a very good comment.  I would also like to invite you to come to us as well and work with us during our intersessional activities.  We do have the youth IGFs which we run and Anya Gengo over there is the coordinator so if you see her, you can get her contact information and then we can work together throughout next year to make sure that the youth are integrated.  Thank you.

(off microphone)

>> Hi.  My name is Elliot from Australia.  I'm here as part of the IGF ISOC youth ambassador program.

As part of the program, both the ISOC program and the youth IGF program, all of us have spent hundreds of hours in e‑learning courses and forums discussing internet issues.

And then we come here and we just go to workshops and we don't have any involvement at all.  We youth should be seen as someone who belongs on a workshop.  We have valuable inputs to give even when the input isn't coming from the perspective of a youth.

We learn.  We are at University.  We are working alongside everybody else here.  Youth should be seen as a bonus on workshops and we should be integrated as far as anybody else here.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: Just a quick response on behalf of the MAG.  I totally agree with the last two comments and the speakers on the youth and I can only say that youth has always been a central component of the MAG's discussions with regard to how we pull them in but it's also very, very clear that we have a long way to go.  So, please, do send any comments or suggestions in.

I would also like to remind everybody that we have a survey up that you can get through the Sched app which we're actually looking for comments so if you don't get a chance to speak or if you have further reflections, please, put them in the Sched app so we can take them in.

We're actually supporting that with an open application documents so that everybody can see the comments that have been made and possibly find a way to build on them going forward as well.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Yes, and also, next week we're going to announce a process where people can put in written inputs for the next MAG preparatory meeting for IGF 2020 so I would also encourage you to write something and give an input so we can read it and it can also be on the top of the agenda for the first meeting.  Thank you.

Thomas, please.

>> Thank you, Chengetai.  First of all, of course, a big thanks to everybody who was involved from the UN IGF Secretariat side.  And particularly, also from our German friends, having organized the IGF in Geneva two years ago, I think I know how you feel at this time of the week, so, start the party, your own party after work is done.  You deserve it.  It was really amazing.

And one of the amazing things that you again managed to improve the IGF to be innovative, the best new thing, I think, was the parliamentarian session, the inclusion of parliamentarians.  We know that this takes resources and you rightly devoted a number of resources there to have the parliamentarians from very many countries here with us in the debate.  I think that's definitely something that also with your continued support will be making the IGF even better.

We are also happy to see that the discussion about the future of Internet Governance based on the high-level panel's report has provoked a lot of good ideas and quoting Fabrizio, we're also delighted to see that there seems to be a strong, virtually unanimous support, is what he said, for something based on the IGF, for an IGF Plus.  Now, we need to see what the elements of that are.

It's obvious that as many have said, inclusion is still something important where we need to improve, so the support function is key.  And also, to bring together these experts to form these policy networks that help building the bridges between the dialogue here and elsewhere and the decision making.

So, parliamentarian networks is one thing.  There's other networks in the IGF, around the IGF.  Let's continue to bring all these together and we are looking forward to contributing to the implementation of the recommendation 5 in particular, and of course, also, offer our support and our experience to our polish friends who will host it next time.  Thank you very much.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much, Thomas.  Just one final question on the youth question.  Sorry, for also on the IGF website, we have a place where people can register as resource people because sometimes it's difficult for workshop proponents to know which people are ready to be panelists.

So, I would also encourage you to register as a resource person.  Thank you.

(applause)

Okay. Please.

>> Thank you, Chengetai.  My name is, from Ghana.  And I have a few contributions to make.  The last 20 years has seen measures of success, and there is one other aspect of the whole internet governance that we are kind of cutting off.

And it has to do with electricity.  Considering the underserved communities, most of them are not having electricity in order for them to even get connected to the internet.  So, I'm just putting this before you to see what we can do to also see how we can take literacy to these communities, maybe clean energy or something.

That can also help those underserved communities get connected to their internet.  And then, my last input is I see pressure coming.  I'm a former MAG member and I know how Lynn used to carry some of the pressures and all that.  The community has grown, and more inputs will be coming.  Now, the new MAG Chair has been announced and I'm proposing that if possible, we can get a Vice Chair to support the new MAG member in her job that she'll be doing.  I think it will help speed up some of the processes, from within the MAG and the community at large.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.  I'd also like to ask all the speakers to please try and respect the time.  The queues are very long and we may not be able to get through all of them because we have a hard stop at 5:15. Thank you.

>> Hello, good afternoon, I'm a member of the digital rights coalition, a group of civil society organizations in Brazil.  This week, we published an open letter in which we expose our concerns regarding the internet environment there.

For us, it's of great concern, the growth of surveillance initiatives by the Congress and the government.  Several bills and public policy proposals have been presented, expanding state surveillance through technologies, and even more worrying, the government has issued several presidential decreed providing for the centralized and massive processes of sensitive citizen's data without due safe guards.

We are also concerned with the announcement of the privatization of two state‑owned ICT companies, two of the largest Brazilian companies that control a huge set of personal data of citizens.

The simple transfer of this information to a private company can mean outsourcing to third parties the largest database of resident citizens without safe guarding how the data will be used.

These draft bills and surveillance policies call into question democracy and the rule of law by threatening citizen's fundamental rights and freedoms such as privacy, self‑determination, freedom of expression, equality, and freedom of association

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much for your comments.

>> Hello, I am also member of the Brazilian Digital Rights Coalition and I want to highlight other threats to internet and freedom of expression in Brazil.  At the national Congress, several bills are being discussed that intend to force platforms to remove content without decision.

Freedom of expression is also threatened by the use of information as a political strategy by governments and their supporters, along with the growing attacks and threats perpetrated by these agents against the press, journalists and civil society organizations.

Over the past year, the country has also experienced setbacks in access to information.  Many information and official data that used to be made available to the internet in compliance of legislation have disappeared from official websites, especially information related to health, system issues and environment.

I invite you to read the fuller that's available in the coalition website.  Thank you

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you for your commentses and also thank you for respecting the time.  Thank you.  Please.

>> Thank you.  It is a privilege to be here and therefore, my most sincere thank you for the panelists and for the entire event.

My name is Albert, I am co‑founder from Hedera sustainable solutions.  We are a start‑up based in Berlin and we have developed digital solutions for sustainable development and we are committed to provide impact monitoring based on the SDGs.

And my comment would be to suggest to have a space in this event for young entrepreneurs with perhaps new ideas, disruptive ideas and new ways to approach problems which are present and perhaps haven't been properly addressed since the old industry and the old technologies and knowledge need to perhaps consider new generations with new knowledge and therefore, I want to underline, again, the two speakers, the two questions, two remarks about young people having representation, and perhaps the next step, the elder group of the youngest, the young entrepreneurs, which perhaps have something that might make a difference.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.  And may I also suggest you may consider forming a Dynamic Coalition.  We can talk about it later as well.  Thank you.

>> Hi.  Thank you very much.  I am Veronica Ferari from the association of communications.  So, thanks for the German government for the organization of this IGF.  We would like to highlight some issues.

The first one is restriction for meaningful participation regarding these obstacles.  So, organizations from Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Indonesia couldn't attend IGF due to these obstacles.  Taiwan, passport holders what is clearly from this IGF so these are things that should be addressed in the newest edition.

Then we think that the experts and digital rights activists should be allowed to do their work without fear of political harassment from the state.  This is a key issue for us.

Then regarding the selling of the.org, internet doesn't do any good and we call for the dot org domain to stay as nonprofit

(applause)

Lastly, we feel that climate crisis was kind of absent of this discussion this year and we hope that following will address this issue.  We welcome the discussion on internet inclusion and community networks as a well topic and we hope they continue.

And lastly, we like to congratulate from ABC to Anriette Esterhuysen as the first civil society person becoming Chair of the MAG and we look forward to working with her and MAG in the IGF and next edition in Poland.  Thank you very much

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.  Please.

>> My name is Nitasha.  I'm a MAG member coming from Croatia.  And first of all, thank you to our hosts, Germany, for a great organization.

I would like to emphasize the importance of sustainability of national, regional initiatives.  Who are maybe the first layer of our complex IGF stack or ecosystem.

What I heard yesterday during the NRI coordination meeting from our colleague from Kenya resonated much with our thinking in our Croatian IGF initiative.  What is said was that their national IGF is used as a think tank for their decision and policy makers.

And I would very much support this idea, and I think that this would ensure move forward in recognizing national regional initiatives locally as a platform that could help decision makers to understand better the IGF related topics.

This title work of these topics is important for our country and to test the ideas and approaches they have in early stage, in that time, while they are still not part of the policies.

And regulation.  And there's still enough time to make certain corrections according to the old stakeholders perspectives.

So, they can be sure that final regulation will tackle the problem from all stakeholders' perspective.  And I also think it would also help globally that we have as much as possible aligned national approaches in tackling emerging Internet Governance related issues.

Of course, we need help, and support in, if this NRI transition is something that we would like to have.

And inviting members of parliament on this year's IGF is surely a step forward in the direction and I thank you for that.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, Nitasha.

(applause)

>> Good afternoon, everyone.  Thank you for the opportunity.  I'm sorry to come back to Brazilian history, but the digital rights coalition would also like to say that we consider it extremely serious when representatives of our country come to a multisectoral event of the United Nations built with a great association of civil society organizations to spread misinformation and accuse Brazilian organizations of corruption and of being responsible for the fires that hit Amazon forest this years.

Contrary to the Brazilian parliamentarian representative said this morning here, according to our National Institute of Space Research, this August, fires in the Amazon achieved the highest level in 90 years with more than 30,000 fire spots.

According to the Amazon environmental research institute, there are evidences that this is related to the increase of invasions from loggers, miners, and other business in indigenous territories in Brazil.  This goes together with the dismantling of environmental and land rights policies in our country.  Civil society, social movements, and journalists are historic advocates of social environmental protection in our country.

And as such, subject to life threats and human rights violations, a situation that has gotten worse with the current government in Brazil.  This unfortunate episode that we lived here this morning which took place in the legislative main session only proves the lack of democracy, the lack of Democratic dialogue in our country the authoritarianism of the Brazilian government.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you for your comment.

>> Hello.  We are part of the youth community representing Latin America and the Caribbean from the Seguras in internet project and the we are project and also observatory fellows.

And today, we want to take the opportunity of being at the most important event of internet governance in order to talk about our communities.  Latin American woman and members of the LGBTQIA plus community.  They face a lot of violence online and hate speech where they cannot express themselves freely on the internet and unfortunately, this situation happens not only in Latin America and in the Caribbean but also places like Africa and the Middle East.

>> That is why we want to draw the attention to the internet policy makers and the lawmakers in these countries to make a joint collaboration with a civil society and the private sector.  In order to provide the skills and the legal framework to allow women and LGBTQI plus community to freely express themselves, regardless their sexual orientation, gender identity, and gender expression.

>> We would also like to mention the lack of representation in the high-level panels regarding trans people.  We want to express loud and clear that gender implies not only women and girls but also LGBTQI plus community.  Therefore, we would like to foster the coming IGF this is taking into account, so, a promise of internet for everyone without walls will truly be internet for everyone, when no one is left behind or outside of the picture.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much for your comments.  Thank you.  Next one, please.

>> Good afternoon.  Thank you for giving us the opportunity to take the floor.  I am coming on behalf of the national chamber of commerce and first and foremost, we wanted to thank and congratulate the organizers for an impeccable organization.  We also wanted to commend them for mobilizing the business community the way you did.

We've seen a very active response and participation of the business community.  We'd like to encourage the next IGF organizers to continue.  Please reach out to young and less young entrepreneur start‑ups, SMEs.  I think they have a lot to contribute and they can also help forge solutions for the future.

We've talked a lot about the multistakeholder approach, and we certainly learn a lot from it and we hope that we can continue in that vein.

We'd also like to a thank and congratulate the MAG for all of their work and commitment.  It's really shown throughout the past week that we've been here.  Thank you for the opportunity.  And a special thanks to the IGF Secretariat for uploading the outputs in such a comprehensive and timely manner.

I think that everyone here has benefited from that and the people who have joined remotely.

We at the International Chamber of Commerce really enjoy the IGF.  We've been here since the outset so thank you for giving us the chance to meet new people, find new partners, and to build new projects and initiatives.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much for your comments and youth are very important.

Just to say that I think we have to close the lines now so no more new people and we will try our best to get through the lines that are there now.  Thank you.  I think you were next.  Thank you.

>> Yeah, thank you very much to everyone who has contributed to this year's IGF.  To all of those who have organized the Internet Governance Forum.  We hope that we'll have one world, one net, one vision.  However, the question that I would like to ask is the following.  This motto is about creating one internet for everyone.  If that is the goal, you also need to take into account that there are developing nations and third world countries and for these, it is still a luxury to have internet, because it is so expensive.

In these countries, the laws do not, are not made in way that they, they cannot keep up with the technology and they are not adequate to ensure that we have one world and one internet.

For example, this year, we had a local Internet Governance Forum in my country but the internet is still a luxury.  It only exists in large cities.  It is not around in rural communities.

In Asia and America, Latin America, it should be available everywhere.  And this is why I would like to call upon the responsible bodies to do everything they can to help the developing countries, particularly land locked countries, to provide the infrastructure that's needed, that is an important call upon the ICANN and other institutions to think about how they can provide the funds necessary to provide internet access in these countries.

And many other things have been said from the north of Africa and other regions and this is why I would like to limit myself to this

(applause)

>> Yes, thank you for the opportunity.  This is Muhamed from Pakistan and I am the president of Internet Society accessibility special interest group.  First of all, I would like to thank the local organizers, the German host for organizing such a wonderful event here.  I must say, from the accessibility for a person with disabilities point of view, this was one of the best IGFs that we have ever had.

So, a big hats off for German authorities.

In the same wave length, I would also like to thank IGF for providing support to three of our members to participate to make them enabled to come here in person and participate in IGF proceedings.  In the same wave length, whereas, where we see that there are like according to different stats, ten to 15 percent of persons with disabilities and there are so wonderful accessible venues and halls here, but we see like ten or 15 persons with disabilities roaming around here.

This is really disappointing.  We need to do something about so person with disabilities are enabled to come physically and participate in such conferences.

One of the reasons that I think would be that there are less number of persons with disabilities in IT sectors, so, while the UN, it may not be in the mandate of IGF exactly, but within the mandate of UN that whenever there are certain scholarships for the developing countries to participate in different kind of educational activities, I would like to encourage the developed countries for the participation and more inclusion of persons with disabilities in those scholarships.

Because this would, because now, science and technology allows persons with disabilities to participate in the society and all sectors of the society equally, provided with the right kind of technology and accessible aids.

So, this is possible and now, we just have to make it due.  With this, I thank you all.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.  And this is something we do have to work on.  Please.

>> Hello.  Alejandro Pisante from the National University of Mexico.  Multistakeholder model is always under challenge.  These last years and the coming year, we will see an increased challenge by the growth of multilateral that is intergovernmental groupings which are happening at places like the UN general assembly under the names like GGE, OEWG, friends of the ones in the middle between the two.

This will be a great challenge.  A further challenge is that in the multistakeholder community, it is not unusual for one group of stakeholders to look at the government or intergovernmental groupings to solve their problem with another of us.

We have to continue working within the multistakeholder model and that will be basic for the design of next year's IGF.

On that note, I would like to congratulate and wish the best success to Anriette Esterhuysen for the coming period.  I think that she is an extremely able leader.  I call on her to listen to all sectors as has done Lynn St. Amour during her period.

She had the wisdom to convene a study of the state affairs.  She had the great wisdom in listening to everybody.  She has great wisdom in bringing people and ideas together and I think that we owe Lynn St. Amour a great, great big load of thanks.

(applause)

>> Thank you.  Next speaker, please.

>> Hello.  My name is Carlo.  I'm an internet activist since 1989 and I feel a bit guilty for the damage and the mess that we, our generation, that created this internet made.

And all the blues that all the activists and legislators face when dealing with the symptoms of a fundamentally broken internet.

So, I feel very empathetic and would like to mention that there has been research going on for about 15 years on how to do an internet which, by design, cannot break human rights.  Which, by design, cannot break democracies.

Or, at least, it tries much better than the one we had.  So, I would just like to transmit a message of hope and invite you to foster these kind of initiatives in order that maybe the troubles you're battling now, which, are much of them the same battles that we've been fighting for the past 20 years, regarding internet politics, that they just might actually go away if we upgrade the internet as such.

If you're interested in more, please visit in one word, the website, youbroketheinternet.org.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Okay. Thank you.  Next, please.

>> My name is Maurice Muller.  I'm a parliamentarian.  German, and I really appreciated IGF forum here.  It was a really good discussion.  I think there should be a little more focus on the participation and the learning process on the intergovernmental perspective.

Because I think there was a lot of discussion on software and VPN and how to do it.  But, I think it's also important to give a broader forum on how to learn together, how to deal with big issues like climate change and so on, and how we can do it on a digital forum, and that would be really nice, that we can do this next year on IGF 2020.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.  Next speaker, please.

>> Hi.  I'm Elisa.  I'm a member of the GeMA.  Thank you very much for this opportunity.  It was a great opportunity to be able to have access to these seminars, conferences, and the knowledge of what's going on with the digitalization and so on.

Anyway, I would like to ask for protection because also here during these events, it's incredible the amount of violence also here, there's so much electronic harassment going on, with so much indifference and lack of protection.

Because some information are just like, accessible by sector groups that come and relate it.  For example, scared it's not possible to talk about the digitalization of human beings.  The possibility to hack bodies, minds, and manipulate people's behaviors as we and the fact that now, I'm not able to speak properly.  I'm sorry for that.  So, that's possible to hack human mind, the body of people and that we could be of like marionettes, manipulated by utilitarian ‑‑ authoritarian regimes.  We have lack of protection, no human dignity, no freedom.  Even not possible to think, to be free to express our fears.  There are millions of people, victims of this incredible violence.  There is an escalation of violence, these so‑called solid holocaust and complete indifference.  Thank you so much for your attention.

>> Yes.  Thank you very much.  And thank you for the opportunity to speak.  My name is Samuel George.  I'm a member of parliament from Ghana.  Let me say a thank you to members of the IGF for giving us the opportunity to take part in this year's IGF as my first time here.  Let me congratulate the government of Germany for a fantastic organization that we have seen.

However, one thing that I've noticed in all the sessions I have sat through has to do with the fact that the representation or the reality of the world today is not in tandem with the motto or the theme for this year's IGF.

One world, one net, one vision.

There is an internet for Europe, and an internet for America.  And it looks like Africa season doesn't matter.  In almost all of the sessions I've sat in, the discussion has been Eurocentric and focused on America.  Even when we talk about hate speech and misinformation and disinformation, it's all done within the context of the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.  It has no respect for local laws in Ghana or African countries.

We need to find a way to have that framework where you would appreciate the input of countries in the developing world, countries like Ghana, that are shining lights on the African continent for internet freedoms.

The whole world is coming to Ghana next year in FABRI as we host the freedom online coalition.  We've opened up the internet to Ghanaians.  But when we need to deal with the platforms, the kind of response you see from big tech companies, Google, Facebook, Twitter, the kind of responses they give to Europe and America is not what they give to Africa.

So, we want to ask that you give us the opportunity, use Ghana as a center example, a regional center where you can push the agenda of the IGF and I hope that the MAG will look how to bring Africa and policy makers on board.  Thank you very much.

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you for your statements.  Next, please.

>> Hello.  I'm from Sudan.  I would like, first, to thank the IGF organizer and to thank IFA cross culture for it giving me the opportunity to participate.  As you know, Sudan is under sanctions for years and I would like to know how Sudan will be engaged in the digital inclusion topic and for the new technologies for SDGs, considering the weak internet coverage in rural areas and also citizens level of education, which has been picture affected also by the lack of technological resources.

And also, because of the sanctions.  The question number 2, I also noticed there is a lack of representation from Sudan governance, and I would like to know if this also is because of the sanctions or not.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much for your statement.  We will have a reflection from of everybody's statements after 5:15. I'm sorry, but that queue, we've closed that mic now.  We're not using it anymore.  Yes, thank you.  Please.

>> Hello.  Everybody.  My name is Margarita.  I run a global competence online project and I'm also an ambassador for teach SDGs.

There is a big issue existing in education and it's like a vicious cycle which has been proved by a number of research papers that students don't get the necessary skills for the future because teachers or curriculum designers do not know what skills they need or how to educate them on those skills because they are not updated on the recent policies and research happening in forums like this.

So, I hope that for us to reach more voices for youth, for us to get more implementation of what is being discussed here, we can also invite more educators, people who work in education, people who work directly with educating the next generations that we are talking about here.

And I hope that we can involve more of them, who don't need to investment the wheel.  We can use organizations that already exist.  Such as teach SDG's ambassador or any other organizations like this.

So, I hope that from now on, we'll have more teachers involved in these discussions because they can bring it much further.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you for your statement.  We do have a remote intervention from remote hub based in Abucha and they say that the remote hub is grateful for another opportunity to host a remote hub in Abuja, Nigeria.  This year, we were able to get more locals interested in digital policy development and would appreciate a system where these newbies could be mentioned across various stakeholder groups towards actively contributing to the IGF process.  Thank you.  Okay.

(applause)

>> Okay. Thank you.  My name is Idana and I represent netmission, an organization which is based in Hong Kong, but originally, I am from Kazakhstan.  So, I wanted to raise the issue of inclusion diversity, yet again.  I come from the ninth largest country in the world and the biggest land locked country in the world.  Yet, I barely see any of my countrymen on this forum as well as I see none of central youth representatives here.

So, I really want to, IGF to consider including central Asian region more on this kind of event because we are the region of prosecution of journalists, human rights and political activists, many of them are very young people and there are also issues of political censorship, access, and human rights abuse online.

So, I really want you to consider it.  And UN has many amazing initiatives such as UN volunteers and model United Nations which support young people around the world and I would like to see the same support and funding on IGFs.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you. please.

>> My name is Algos.  I'm a migrant from Honduras so I have a double identity, and this is why I always used to live in the periphery and I did not have access to distinguished forums like this one, and yesterday, I almost felt guilty when I attended the artistic event and I thought how much you lives could have been saved with the money that was spent on this.

But, Honduras spends a lot of money on surveillance technology which is used to target human rights activists.  And we are talking about the next billion of users, but this group of people is underrepresented in this forum because there is a lack of understanding as to how important our needs are.

People don't understand how important this migrant track is.  More than 7,000 people made their way from Honduras to Tijuana and they were unable to enter the United States.

But, the answer for a hate campaign was launched on the internet and I'm still delighted to have attended this forum because I met many people from the Global South who are fighting for the rights of this community.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> My name is Baron Soka.  I represent an organization called Tech Freedom based in the United States.  I'd like to suggest that while we talk about having human rights and commitment to free expression as our one vision, not everyone here shares that vision and that's not new.  We've always had people at the IGF who are coming from repressive governments that do not believe in that vision.

What is new is that we're seeing those governments become better and better at weaponizing the language of human rights and co‑opting organizations like this to advance their agenda.

I want to commend in particular the representative of Russian civil society who spoke out two days ago about the way the Russian IGF has been used by the Russian government to suppress free speech, that it's a sham, that it doesn't have an open mic like this.  But that kind of weaponization is happening here at the IGF as well.  It's subtle, some of us may not see it.  But when we hear representatives from Russian organizations, talk, for example, about how they need transparency.  They need to know exactly what key words will cause content to be taken down online, what they're really doing is saying they want it to be easier for the Russian government and Russian government contractors to exercise disinformation campaigns against governments around the world to interfere with elections and to spread disinformation.

I want to encourage everyone here in the future to intervene respectfully and politely but to counter this kind of disinformation when we hear it.  It's going to continue to happen.  We're going to hear more of it and I worry in particular that next year when we have our IGF in a country whose government is a key ally of Russia, the law injustice party is one of the leading illiberal parties in democracies around the world, we need to be increasingly aware that this kind of creeping illiberalism is creeping its way into the IGF.  We must counter it respectfully and politely but we must never hesitate to call out these governments and their agents even when they're working here at the IGF to advance that agenda.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you for your comments.  North, we are rubbing out of time so I can only take probably to more and then for the rest of you, I can only say that if you could submit your comments either through the survey or through written input to the IGF Secretariat.

But, we can start.  Please.  Yes.  M‑hmm.

>> That's nervous.  So, hello, I am Stephanie Li from Hong Kong.  So, as everyone knows, the situation in Hong Kong, in an affluent and developing country like Hong Kong, we still face a threat to shut down internet.  And recently, the Hong Kong Court has granted an injunction to ban speech online.

And this could happen to anywhere in the world.  By mentioning this, I would like to ask the panel to invite more discussions on the Asian region and many other underdeveloping countries and most importantly to allow more youth to participate in the meetings, even the high-level one.

Youth, we are the pillars of the internet and our voice should not be neglected.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Okay. I'm sorry, we have one more.  Yes, just one under.  Please.  This is the next queue.  The last person.  Unfortunately.

>> Thank you very much.  Thanks for the opportunity.  My name is Rayud and I'm from Afghanistan.  I represent the Internet Society Afghanistan chapter.  I will be very short.  I just want to say that Afghanistan has been suffering the civil war and conflicts since like 40 years, but now, the story has been changed.  Afghanistan is not that Afghanistan that still the media and social media show to the world.

We have now national IGF in Afghanistan since last three years.  We have organized with you.  We have tech woman in Afghanistan, women in business, women in economy, women in government.  That was just a request from the media to show the positive side of Afghanistan to the world.

Besides, like ISOC Afghanistan that we are organizing national IGF in the country.  Since last three years, we are the unique one which we are having the kids in our national IGF and we bring multistakeholder in the event from the government, from civil society, academia, technical community, and of course it will be great to have the support of our partners.  I thank you so much to the IGF Secretariat, ICANN, IGF have been very supportive to Afghanistan and I, on behalf of my team, I request that you continue your support and let us to continue our efforts on the technology and to bring youth in a roof and like make them contribute in the development of our country.  Thank you so much.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you very much.  Unfortunately, we do have to move on to the schedule because there's quite a lot of other things that have to happen and I do encourage you to use the use the survey send a message to the IGF Secretariat and we will take them under consideration during our first planning and MAG meeting.

So, with that, I would like to just pass the mic over to the co‑chairs and I think the best way to do it is to do from left to right.  Okay. Thank you.

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I will keep my comments quite short we do still have quite an interesting session ahead of us and just give my most sincere thanks to everybody that's ever participated in the IGF orgy activities.  This would not be successful and we would not be paying the progress we have without you the participation of so, so, so many people across the world.

And I think I'd like to echo Thomas Snyder here in my next comment which is to my mind, the single biggest factor limiting the IGF and the future of the IGF, whether it's IGF Plus, is support.

Physical support, participation in the processes, and financial support.  Just as a quick plug and I'm at one level sorry to bring it down to this level, but it is one of the key factors here, restricting our ability to move forward, is the United Nations has a trust fund that supports the IGF Secretariat developing country travel, developing country participation in MAG meetings and in the IGF, and occasionally things such as translation at various meetings.

So, the things that we care so much about with respect to inclusion are supported through the IGF trust fund.

Begin, through the Secretariat's efforts and some of the efforts I just managed.  That budget is $2.8 million a year.  And right now, we collect less than 40 percent against that budget every year.  We ran entire conference and all of our activities over the last year with a staff of three and a half full‑time people.

And that's not counting the Chair position, which is a volunteer position.  So, we all desperately want a stronger IGF but then we need participation and we need support.  And there are multiple ways to give it.  You can certainly give it through the IGF trust fund but the IGF SA was also set up to support smaller donations with a slightly kind of easier path to that.  If anybody has any questions would be that, I certainly would be happy to talk to them but I know also that Chengetai or anyone in the Secretariat, anyone from DESA and of course, Anriette as the incoming Chair.

More than that, I would just say, I don't know how we get as much done with the small Secretariat we have, and I really would like everybody to just very, very thoroughly recognize them and all of their efforts.

It's truly Herculean.

(applause)

Thomas, I'm sorry for invoking your name but we've been kind of a tag team on this for a few years now.  Thank you, everybody.

>> DANIELA: Thank you, Chengetai.  And first of all, thanks for thanking us.  Thanks for all your comments.  That was really helpful.  Maybe very briefly, to some points, inclusion.  You know that Germany donated funds for making possible the participation of representatives from the Global South because that was very important also to us and I think it is also due to that fact that we had a lot of representatives here.

Thanks to all who came.

Concerning the importance of an open and truly free available internet, that was and rightly so medication mentioned in a lot of sessions and I think that should be mentioned also here again.

Youth, I'm really encouraged that w I'm really encouraged that young people have been engaging in this session so much because I think it's good when we get more activity from the youth also in Internet Governance.

Maybe.  Maybe two other points.  I think it was also Thomas Snyder who mentioned the parliamentarian session.  This was new to the IGF.  I mentioned that earlier and I think it would be really good if you could follow up on that process and Germany is doing everything to help if we can.

Last, not least, we discussed several times in the mack how to strengthen the relevance of the IGF and I think there's one person who worked very, very hard to do that, and before I now hand over the co‑chair to Poland, I have a last task as the MAG co‑chair and that is also an honor and a personal pleasure.

And that is to thank Lynn.

(applause)

Because now ‑‑

(applause)

I think I have to sit down because otherwise nobody will hear.  Lynn was the first female to lead the multistakeholder advisory group.  She was also the first person not coming from a governmental background, and she has served longer than everybody else before.

She mentioned this is a volunteer position.  She had that position for four years, and it is really extraordinary how she is leading the multistakeholder advisory group.

Then, you have been always passioned in all the sessions, and you have been achieving a much stronger focus in the program.  This year, you have been working very hard for strengthening the intersessional work which I think is very important.

I'm sure that Anriette Esterhuysen will continue that track.  We all thank you very much.  So, for the MAG and on behalf of the whole community, Lynn, many thanks for all your work because you are really working for one world, one net, one vision.  Thank you.

(applause)

>> LYNN ST. AMOUR: I can only echo Daniela's comments, which is, thank you for the thanks but enough thanks.

I mean, there are thanks to go around here to so many people and again, I'm sure I've forgotten people to thank.  But, appreciate everything everybody does to make the internet, you know, the most powerful platform in the world.

So, thank you very much.

>> WANDA BUK: Okay. Hello, everyone.  I must admit that after all I've heard from you, yes, now I feel the pressure for hosting IGF 2020 and it's not going to be easy.

Thank you for all the remarks you have done.  Thank you for underlining issues which are important to you, and we did acknowledge them.  Most of my team around in the audience, in cognito.  They were carefully taking notes, I hope, at least.  I was taking notes.

So, we will take all your remarks into consideration.

I particularly like the idea of making young people's participation more visible and as a co‑chair of MAG, I will do my best to make it easier for you to to make your voice be heard

(applause)

Yeah, I still find myself as young.  So, you know, this is personal.  Thank you for the help offer.  I cannot see the face of the man, but we will reach you so we will be able to live up to expectations and to deliver meaningful IGF next year.  And I hope as you said, we will rock IGF 2020.  In Poland.  Thanks

(applause)

>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, and Chengetai, thank you for giving me the last word.  Well, firstly, thank you to those that have welcomed me.  It's obviously a very challenging task, and also challenging to follow in the footsteps of Lynn.

I want to remind you, Chengetai mentioned this.  The Secretariat and myself and other MAG members will look at the transcript of this session, and draw on that when we plan the next IGF working with our host government and my co‑chair.

But use the open consultation process.  We will publish a call for input and that call will allow you to talk about the format of the event, participation and inclusion and also content.

So, please make use of that opportunity.  And just in response to the diverse and important comments that were made.  The world is unequal and so is the internet.  And that's part of the context that the IGF has to respond to.  Technology can empower, but technology can also be an instrument of power, and of the abuse of power.

And I think we do recognize at the IGF and I endorse those who feel that we should confront those realities at the IGF.  I also want to emphasize as many of you said that digital inclusion and I think Paul Rowney said this when he presented the key messages from the digital inclusion theme.

It needs inclusive governance.  And therefore, the points that were made about gender diverse people, about young people, about people with disabilities, and their participation in governance is very vital.  I think the IGF, and I think we've succeeded but we need to maintain that, it's a space for difficult conversations.  And I think we mustn't lose that.  It is a space to come together to work for one world and one vision but we also have to recognize when there is fragmentation, when there is inequality and talk about that here.  And I think Democratic dialogue has to be robust dialogue.  And I you this, was it a German parliamentarian who mentioned that in his input from the floor?  We have to be able to have difficult conversations at the IGF, and I don't think people should feel that that is not something you can do at the IGF.

I think the silos.  It was good to hear, I got a sense that some of you felt that we have even within this huge diverse group of people with so many workshops that we might be creating new silos inside the IGF.  I think it was mentioned, for example, are businesses going to the gender sessions, for example?  I think that's a challenge that we need to take up in the community.  When you organize sessions, when you submit proposals for sessions.

Try and make sure that there is diversity.  That there is space for disagreement in how you compose the panels of the sessions you organize.

And then, final apply, and I think, again, I'm quoting one of the parliamentarians.  The IGF is a space to learn together.  It isn't a space just for people to express their views.  It is also a space to learn in order to make policy and regulation that will create a more enabling environment for an inclusive internet.  But the IGF also cannot be everything to everybody.  Of

And I think that is something that as a community, we increased to also take on.  The IGF doesn't stand alone.  It has its own intersessional processes.  They are dynamic coalitions, best practice forums, the national and regional IGFs, and these modalities are open.  You can create new ones.  You can propose new ones.

But, there are also other events that the IGF can interact with within the UN system, but within the multistakeholder universe.  So, just be careful about not expecting the IGF to meet every single need that there is.

But, I think you can expect the IGF to be the place where the connections are made.  And where we can somehow make, build a road for going forward.

On the youth participation, I think the challenge is to have youth here as youth but also to have youth as experts, as people with substantive content input in in sessions and I think be careful about just asking for youth participation.  Because that can end up in a kind of tokenistic approach to youth participation.  We need youth on panels.  We need youth on pain main sessions, we need youth to talk about human rights, about artificial intelligence and about policy.

So, that would be my call to the MAG but also to the youth yourselves.

(applause)

And then just, I know everyone has given lots of thanks but I want to thank also the Secretariat who have been thanked but also the UN offices and personnel, the security personnel, the security personnel that the German government also provided.  All the helpers.

There are so many people that made this event work.

The MAG members, every one of you who organized a session or who asked a question or spoke on a panel.

It's really, the IGF is a sum of its parts.  And I want to commend the host government for one thing in particular and hopefully, I think parliament can do this as well.  The government did not organize this event on your own.  They there were people from civil society, from the German technical community, the internet service providers, the domain name industry people, German companies were very much part of this outreach.

And I think that's one of the reasons why this has been such an amazingly, I think you didn't just organize a multistakeholder IGF.  You kind of lived and breathed and organized it in a multistakeholder fashion.

And I think that was really significant.  So, thank you very much to you for that.

And to all of those other German stakeholders who were part of the process.  And I look forward to next year.  And working with Poland and I hope that you are not disappointed, but it's also good to have realistic expectations.

(applause)

>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Okay. Thank you very much.  That concludes the first two sessions.  So, we will start the final closing ceremony as soon as we depart from the stage.  Thank you.