The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: Hello. Welcome. If you would like to discuss civil society participation in international fora on internet governance and the inclusiveness of the spaces.
You're in the right room. I see that this is the time where everybody would rather take a nap with jetlag. And discuss serious topics, but we do have a wonderful panel and the good topic today so I hope you will all be engaged. We see this open forum dialogue. Learning experience. Would like to hear from you. A lot of expertise in the room from our panel. Let me kick us off with introducing myself.
My name is Pavlina Ittelson. I'm the executive Director of Diplo U.S. I'll be moderating this session and also speaking on behalf of DiploFoundation.
We have Peter Marien, team leader of digital governance, Unit F5 science and technology innovation at DG INTPA.
We have Tereza, IGF MAG member, GFC outreach manager and esteemed boardmember of Diplo U.S. Then we have Viktor Kapiyo, member of the Board of Trustees of KICTANetwork.
And Marlena Wisniak, senior advisor of digital rights, European center for nonprofit law, ECNL.
We also have online participation and my colleague Shita Laksmi, as the moderator, will come in with questions from online.
So what are we going to be talking about? We will discuss in this session new initiative by the European Commission, which DiploFoundation is a part of, and the new project, Civil Society Alliances for Digital Empowerment, CADE, led by the DiploFoundation working with nine partners globally that aims to increase participation of the civil society and international IG processes just founded by European Commission.
We have partners at this table and some in the audience as well. They are foras international, ECNL, KICKTANet, Vision for Change ‑‑ others, a big group and quite a diversity of views on our end.
So our aim is to discuss how to improve and enhance engagement of civil society organizations in multistakeholder forums. What challenges do civil society face in meaningful engagement, and also how can we bring in the perspective global south civil society into the international multistakeholder forums?
Specifically, we'll talk also about standardization forums at ITU, IETF and ICANN. This, I would ask Peter to start us off with a short introduction. Please.
>> PETER MARIEN: Thank you very much. Good afternoon everybody, or maybe people online. Good morning or good evening. Thanks a lot for giving me the mic. I think I'm probably the least knowledgable in the room on the topic. So but anyway, I'm glad to kick it off.
So maybe a bit of context because as was mentioned, we are going, moving into new project on this topic and I just like to shape a little bit how we got to that point.
About three years ago, the topic of digital became a priority for the European Commission. And in my international partnerships, we were looking at how to best approach this topic to work. Specifically we're looking at topic of the global level, international level, regional level, and of course, at different thematic levels. When we looked at this specific topic, we always look at it through the lens of humancentric digital development, and that means that, of course, humancentric, not the State, not the company, and also, as you probably heard many times before, we are aiming at tackling the digital divide.
So very soon, we came on this topic of global digital governance. What does this mean? This was quite new to us. I have to stress we are still in learning mode. And another aspect of our approach is that we wanted to look at this topic from a multi‑lateral point of view and also from a multistakeholder point of view. This is key. Very strong proponent of multi‑stakeholder approach, IG and other. Area approach. Multi‑lateral approach. When we started looking at this null multi‑lateral level, we noticed that even though everybody claims to be proponents of the multistakeholder model, maybe not all actors in the multistakeholder prism are there. And so specifically, we thought that maybe on the topic of civil society, that that could be a topic we would like to see worked on.
So I was talking about digital. On the other hand, EU is a strong proponent of civil society in general. I won't go too deep into that. But for us, it's clear that in the absence of a strong participation of civil society, we tend to see, if you look at history or even today, we tend to see society's drifting off in the directions that are not aligned with our humancentric model, or with our free democratic society, so is a bit where we come from.
The question was, okay, global digital government, who needs to be around the table? We were looking at UN agencies, and we also noticed that there are actors out there which are pushing some of these discussions into the intergovernmental sphere. IGF, I think this is a topic that is coming up quite a lot. We just want to emphasize again that we really would like to have certain discussions, global discussions at the multistakeholder level.
We're the first proponent worldwide for the multi‑lateral system. Don't get us wrong, but certain discussions should not just be intergovernmental. How shall we approach the topic of civil society? I"m sure we will get back in more detail into that later. Just a few things. On one hand, we noticed possibly a lack of know‑how on the topic and a lack of capacity?
I have to say we face same issues internally. This is not only something for civil society organization. Even in our own DG, our own unit, there are very few people that actually know this topic. We actually barely have resources to cover it. So it's not unique. That is the first thing.
Second was that even though civil society was present and maybe not at the volume, at the amount that we wanted. I'll not go too much into that now.
Just to emphasize, for us, in our perspective, when we talk about digital, we link this to the topic of rights, fundamental rights, fundamental for any of our discussions, that whatever we talk about, in the end, it has to be aligned with our views on the rights‑based approach. Basically, also aligned with the UN charter human rights. And that underpins many of the discussions that we can have afterwards.
Another thing is that we wanted to make sure that the global south is involved. When we looked at the capacity, there are actors also in civil society that are very knowledgeable, that have a track record, but that was not, I mean, we saw maybe gaps in global south so we wanted to the work on that.
Last thing, almost finished, this program, for us, we position this in an overall program where we work on digital and multi‑lateral. So digital and multi‑lateral. In that context, just for your information, we're also working with ITU and UNDP, so we have funding them for actions on digital and multi‑lateral ITU and UNDP and OHOHR rights, UNESCO. And also working with a tech envoy, working with EU member states.
As was mentioned, and this is quite new, first time on this specific topic, we have two actions that will start soon and one is indeed under the leadership chaired by Diplo as well as explained. Thank you so much. I'll pass the word back.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: Thank you Peter. We certainly appreciate your insight on how European Commission views participation of civil society. I think it resonates a lot with what we see in the field as well. And we certainly agree that working with the small and developing states, that the capacity problem is not only on the side of civil society, but with fragmentations different forums and shifting things. It is an overall problem which needs addressing.
With that, let's go to Tereza with her IGF MAG hat to tell us more about how the International Forum sees this problem.
>> TEREZA HOREJSOVA: Thank you very much. Thank you also Peter.
Well, first of all, congratulations not only to the grantee, and a good one and with excellent consortium, but also for you as the donor recognizing the issue and the problem and deciding to make it a priority. It is important.
You know, I will start with a few reflections on why I feel, in general, input of civil society are essential in the various political processes that we are dealing with. Of course, many of the deliberations that are happening here for, like mentioned, actually, impact the individual. And it's often the civil society organizations that have the interest of the individuals really close to their heart. Beyond this kind of that existential reasoning, more and more, we are moving in some kind of general culture of multistakeholderism leading hopefully to more efficient coordination mechanisms.
Basically, with a few exceptions of some very hard policy issues, it's very difficult to think of a policy process that wouldn't benefit from multiple perspectives from multiple stakeholder groups obviously including civil society, which can lead to better and more informed policymaking.
We are talking here about civil society, but think also about other stakeholder groups like, for instance, how absurd would it be to discuss some digital policy developments without being in touch with the private sector. So I feel that the same absurdity would stand for not consulting civil society.
I'm wearing a couple of hats today. One hat is as Diplo. Current boardmember of Diplo U.S. The second one, Marlena said IGFMAG member, but actually, as of this morning, that's not the case because I have served my three years. But I hope that it still allows me to provide some perspectives on the current forum.
IGF is very traditionally dominated by civil society participation with, stakeholder groups that the IGF is struggling. Other stakeholder groups that the struggle is more of an issue in the sense really I feel it is a safe space and also a magic space in a way for civil society to allow to engage with others without the pressure of necessarily kind of having negotiation or very concrete outcome in this regard. So that's something that, definitely, should be protected and I'm really curious, once this IGF is over, how the chart of the various stakeholder representation will look like, but as usual, I will expect very heavy domination of civil society.
That's also why civil society, and maybe rightly so, is very defensive about any kind of, yeah ‑‑ how to put it. Maybe some concerns about the future of the IGF. So you will really hear a lot of voices you're hearing already and will hear in the coming months even more because, at this moment, there is no equivalent to space like the Internet Governance Forum where civil society could have so much opportunities to express and in a way to also influence the discourse on the issues that are here.
I'm happy to go more in detail about how it actually works, what is the role of the MAG in this sense, but that's maybe if we have time.
And the last hat I'm wearing, allow me just a very, very short mention, I currently work with Global Forum on Cyber Expertise, GFC.
For those of you not familiar, we are also like a platform or a member organization for various actors that are involved in especially capacity‑building issues and particularly related to cybersecurity. And I think from the whole vision, how the GFS wants to bring these actors together, it's also one of the organizations that has got how crucial it is to have various actors from all across the stakeholders spectrum to get together and exchange on issues related to cyber in particular.
So I'll stop here and flip over to the discussion.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: I'll turn to Marlena because we did have a very extensive position from Tereza on the engagement of civil society. From the position of ECNL, advocacy position, could you bring your perspective on the topic?
>> MARLENA WISNIAK: Sure. Thanks so much. Hi everyone. Great to be here today. I'm Marlena Wisniak. I lead the emerging tech and AI work at European Center for Nonprofit Law. A civic human rights organization based in Europe. I live in San Francisco so a lot of interaction with the tech companies, which I assume you mentioned as stakeholders.
So just couple opening remarks and we'll dive deeper into the conversation. At ECNL, we really see stakeholder engagement as a cross‑cutting and necessary component of any kind of policymaking at the national, regional, and global levels, and we really see it as a collaborative process. It's not just a one‑time mechanism where we hear someone speak, but it's iterative process where folks have different ways to intervene depending on where they are, what their capacity is, what the resources are, and fundamentally, they can meaningful influence the process. That is like something that is hard to quantify for now. It's one thing to listen, it's another thing to actually have our voices heard and implemented.
And of course, in terms of beyond IGF, policymaking and regulatory mechanisms in particular lie within the State. So this decisionmaking is members, states, or governments, but I think there is more evidence that should be, or evidence‑based research that should be done to really see how much of these consultations are impactful.
There's something also like stakeholder fatigue where we have lots of consultations, and to be clear, ECNL pushes for multistakeholder participation and we are deeply concerned also about the future of IGF in particular including where IGF 2024 may be for those who have heard. But all of this to say that it's not enough to just have multistakeholder. It has to be properly resourced including not only financial participation, but also trainings, especially for organizations that aren't the marginal rights organization so they can meaningfully participate. And thinking especially here marginalized groups like feminist groups, queer, and racial justice, immigration, refugee groups, so their voices can also be heard there in a way that is meaningful.
And fundamentally, there is an asymmetry of power between stakeholders, beyond resource and financial access. I don't think it's a secret that there's no level playing field between civil society, private sector, states. And within the sector, these sectors are not a monolith either, so there's no such thing as one singular civil society or one private sector. There's obviously a regional disparity.
I'm very privileged to work for a European‑based organization working in San Francisco so I can pay my way to come to Japan. I don't even need a VISA. I have a U.S. and EU citizenship pretty much open to the entire world in terms of travel. That's not the same for most of my colleagues.
I'm also generally much safer. That is not the case for a lot of activism human rights defenders around the world. Having in place mechanisms that enable safe participation is just as important as enabling participation in and of itself. And I will just end here. I know the rest of the session will continue on these topics.
Stakeholder engagement comes hand in hand with transparency. That means that while closed‑door meetings are important and often necessary, there also needs to be public transparent information about where to participate, what has been discussed, what are the outcomes of it, to enable true accountability. Thank you.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: Thank you Marlena. We certainly hear you on running the marathon, some sprint muscles. We do face the same issues where the engagement of civil society and international fora is a longterm engagement, longterm work, often decades.
So the proper mechanism not only on the side of international organizations need to be in place, systematically within the civil society organizations and within the funding scheme as well.
Now, you mentioned also being from the global north organization and having certain privileges. I would like to turn to Viktor from the global south part to tell us more about what challenges are faced in the global south and civil society organizations participation.
>> VIKTOR KAPIYO: Yes. Thank you very much. From KICTANet, which is a think tank based in Nairobi. We seek to promote the multistakeholder approach in the work we do and to ensure that outcomes are actually meaningful for communities at the local level.
We believe that multistakeholder model is important, not just in governance, but also in IG governance. Some of lessons that we've had from the internet space, we are trained to now replicate in other policymaking forums.
Just for example, in Kenya, we have the Constitutional provision on public participation which requires government bodies to consult the public whenever they're making policy decisions, which is useful for us, but is not there in all the countries. We are working in environments where the relationship between civil society and government is not only as good, which can affect the feedback or the responses to civil society proposals because civil society has sometimes been labeled as noisemakers and, therefore, when you present views, those noisemakers.
In as much as we have challenges of the local level, I think it is more difficult in global processes where you have the burden of getting the air ticket and VISA and all of those many kilometers that you have to travel to to make your point which sometimes is not the case for global north organizations.
for sub‑Saharan Africa, where we come from, the challenges of financing and the cost is a challenge, is a barrier to access. Issues around technical capacity, we're aware that many organizations, at least internet reach hasn't been much, and mainstream organizations have not focused a lot on digital rights or internet governance issues and, as a result, you have very few organizations that are working in internet to governance space and they cannot solve all the problems in as much as problems are well‑known. So you have a few organizations which they're not always adequately resourced with the capacity human or financial or technical to respond to all challenges or imagined challenges in the region. Only able to perhaps take, I don't know, deal with, what is it called? Tip of the iceberg, right? So maybe that's what they're able to deal with, but the bigger problem sometimes remain unaddressed.
We have an increasing population that is getting online across the continent and that means that we need to be able to get more people on board to speak up for all of these new communities that are joining. New challenges that, previously, it was easy to have multistakeholder for internet because there weren't so many users. Now, everybody uses. So who is the stakeholder who should be in and who should be out and how can we bring these conversations to everybody because everybody with an email account is a stakeholder, right?
So getting people to actually recognize that they do have a voice and they should be able to speak up and engage, I think that realization has not come from many people because of these barriers.
I think the other aspect is that for local organizations, you have very, very unique context which we are working in and different realities from those of the global south. And these perspective sometimes are not always, it's not always possible to have them articulated in the space where the decisions are being made.
For example, I participated in OEWD sessions and other sessions where you are in the room but don't get to speak, or you're in the room but you are allocated only three minutes to say what you need to say. That is not always enough.
We are grateful for hybrid participation because it's really opened up the space for participation, but not everybody is aware of this situation and I think sometimes organizations in our countries are dealing with other problems like internet connectivity so most of the time, they're looking down trying to connect to rural communities and trying to deliver digital rights challenges to the local level, that they forget the big picture. Actually, global and digital processes they need to pay attention to.
So end up dealing with home solutions or home problems, and when you hear that decisions are being made, but how am I supposed to get there and get my voice heard? That's the challenge of the disconnect between the local work and regional and global processes. And just being able to deploy resources to keep up with the number of initiatives that are ongoing at the same time. Resources, even for some people, you speak to them in the corridor and the confusion, which session?
You are the one representative. How many meetings at IGF? You are the one person that's come and you want to make an impact. So you may not have the capacity to attend, figure out where to make the most impact. So of course, that's resourceful, a challenge. Now people can participate virtually. That big mountain that global processes or digital processes, like a big mountain, need to overcome.
Not to paint an all gloom picture, this situation has really changed from 10 years ago. We now have more people, we have more voices, and we have quite a number of local initiatives and organizations that are actually working on internet government spaces.
And just to give you an example, we have internet, have been running Kenya School of Internet Governance for the past six years. We have trained almost 500 people on internet governance, and that's only in Kenya. We hope that with more people knowing what is happening, they can be able to make at least a chip in the ice, to make a difference. Thank you.
>>PAVLINA ITTELSON: Thank you Viktor. There is a lot of points I could reflect on. From the position of DiploFoundation, that is something we see. The three main issues we see the fragmentation of forums where the internet governance is discussed. Also forums where internet governance is discussed going into more detailed discussions requiring more resources capacity both on civil society organizations and governments because when we work with small and developing states, they just say, I don't have the capacity to go in and speak every other week somewhere on this. So we definitely hear that.
Another point is the lack of capacity. Understanding of human rights impact of technological developmental standardization, and of course, civil society is also the technical community. On that side, it is from the other side. From the side of the human rights implications where the understanding the technology is there, but implications of what that technology wanted can affect is sometimes not there. So we do have this gap we're trying to bridge and that is with capacity‑building, that is with outreach and advocacy, basically, creating networks of civil society organizations in the global south and connecting them to global north organizations which could support them and help each other, basically, because global north organizations also do not possess all the knowledge in the world. Bring those issues which are not currently at the Internet Governance Forums, but are on the regional or local level related, for example, to indigenous groups, to women's rights, to certain cultural or language aspects of internet governance to the global level.
So with that, what can we do? We all agree it's beneficial to have civil society at the table. All agree there are challenges to that, and what can we do? Peter, if you can maybe expand on that and explain to us where European Commission stands on that.
>> PETER MARIEN: Thank you. Thank you very much. Again, I think I'm not sure that I'm the best to respond to that, but I'll give some thoughts.
So I think, actually, quite a few things have already been said. I might be repeating few things. But okay, how can we make sure that there's more participation of civil society if indeed that is needed? First thing is that, not first, maybe one of the main things is capacity has to be there to participate in the discussion. You have to have the know‑how to participate. Or I'll say it differently. If you want to participate meaningfully, because indeed we can all participate, but to participate meaningfully, you might need to have a little bit more knowledge on certain topics. Doesn't mean we have to become ICT specialists. Far from that. Actually, not at all. But we need to know the broader implications, where does it fit in society in the process, what are the political implications, what do we need to contact to have an impact, and all of these things.
So I think it's about capacity. Efforts are being done at all levels, but simply the scene is moving so fast, that we're probably running a little bit behind especially with the last few years, I'm just guessing but I think maybe also with the Covid situation, shift from society to move online has been quite dramatic. Maybe increased the world's attention to these issues. To deal with this more adequately, capacity has to follow. First thing. I hope I'm responding to the question.
Second is, apart from the know‑how, even if you have the know‑how, as was mentioned here, there's still the question of resources. Now you can follow hybrid. You can participate. We do so many things thanks to the digital technology. Nevertheless, even if you don't travel, you need resources. Need people dedicated to work. But even if you want to participate, of course, to events, you need other resource.
Maybe to come back to one of the elements in this project that will start soon is that the idea is to participate, also have a meaningful participation at IGF, but also at other fora such as for our organizations, if I say can that, which is IETF, ICANN, ITU.
To meaningful participate in ITU working groups, it takes time, so you need resources for that. Simple. At the moment, it's companies and states backed mainly, operations that are able to do that and, therefore, influence. Same for standards setting and so on.
If you don't have the resources financially, also then this is difficult. So we try to, with this project, but there's many other ways maybe to partially respond to that.
Then maybe to also underline how come that may be the voices were insufficiently heard. Just maybe reiterate that maybe there has been an acceleration of events in the last couple of years because of Covid, also simply because of adult adoption of technology, spoken also about connectivity, access, but then of course, there's new technologies.
AI is now the hot topic. Another day, it will be something else. Hot topic but it's fundamental. I'm not diminishing it. But to be able to participate also in the discussions of AI. Big principles, I think everybody can do that, but to have a really be on top of it, again, you need to be able to invest in those topics. Thank you.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: I heard part of the project is basically the involvement of civil society and different standardization fora as you mentioned. ITU, ICANN, IETF, we all know in this room, not all of them equal. Some of them are more open to civil society participation and transparent and have human rights principles set in place with standards setting.
ITU and ITUT is another one where the civil society, when the door is closed, they go through a window basically, become part of the government delegations and find different ways to get into, one example is Consumers International who do it through the consumers rights.
So there are ways to get engaged. It's not an easy one, I would say, but there are ways to get engaged and ways, once you have the capacity to understand where the connections are, how to advocate for certain human rights and humancentric values. But let me turn to Marlena to explain more to us on this from the advocacy perspective.
>> MARLENA WISNIAK: Sure. Thanks. At ECNL, we participate in some of the standardization processes mostly on AI, which is what my team focuses on. Like Peter said, it can be highly technical, so talking about things at high level standard, high level principle level, such as transparency, participation, that is easier, but then what does transparency mean in practice? What do we want to become more transparent on? What are the standards? Becomes more technical. That's something we've seen as a struggle especially to get more orgs involved.
My team has expertise on these issues, but it really is a small group of people. By small, for example, at the EU level, we talking about 10 comparing to hundreds if not thousands of representatives from the private sector, for example. You can see there quantitively the difference in numbers.
AI, for example, you mentioned, Peter, is a hot topic now. We started work on it in 2020. I've been focusing on it in 2019. For a long time, it was incredibly niche, more closed to civil society. I was a handful, I literally mean handful of people working on it.
This year, probably be ChatGPT, on nonempirically tested theory, it has become a big topic on the policy level. I don't know if anybody was here at UNGA in New York. AI was the topic focus everything. UNGA is not even digital focused.
How do we ride these waves of hotness, to piggyback on your word, Peter, while at the same time having meaningful participation is a struggle. Specifically now at ECNL, we participate in the ISO standard 42005 on impact assessment of AI systems. You can hear now nerdy that sounds. When we have expertise in human rights impact assessments, which I think is more broadly shared expertise amongst civil society, but still highly technical, working on the UNGP's, for example, should participate more.
We're also part of the IEEE, I don't know what it stands for. International Electronic something. I can Google it. On AI risk management. Subgroup on organizational governance. So all of this is very technical as well. At the EU, there is the sense, and I like, which is the standardization bodies and, actually, we manage to get the European Commission to, let me get this right, mandate sense intellect includes civil society. And, actually, they have allocated resources. So the standardization bodies have allocated resources to include stakeholders. Standardization, they still don't do it. Even when they are required to do so by the Commission, when they get funds, they're still very reticent. And when it actually does happen, it's really really hard to participate.
Right now, to give you an example, mostly ECNL Article 19 and Center for the Democracy and Technology that participates, and a handful of academics. It's really a closed space. When it honestly pretends to be open, it's not even though if people have the best intentions.
One positive case study I seen, National Institute for Standardization Technology, I think, they have been very inclusive and engaging stakeholders in the risk assessment framework and also have made it a little bit more welcoming. Again, you still see a disproportionate participation of not only digital rights orgs, but also those with expertise on AI specifically. There's always this push and pull between inclusiveness vs. needed expertise. At ECNL, we really try to train other CSOs both digital rights and nondigital rights on these issues. If anyone here in this room is interested, check out our learning center. Shameless plug for ECNL learning center on Google where we have a couple basically courses specifically for CSOs on AI with some specific things like surveillance technology or platforms so that you can participate a little bit more. This is just technical expertise in addition to obviously challenges of VISA and funding and everything I mentioned before.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: Thank you Marlene. I'm happy there's also some positive examples because it did, for a while, sound like doom and gloom here. We do not have any questions online. If there are any questions in the room, feel free. We'll also a Q&A session at the end of this block of questions.
I see a lot of familiar faces. Please don't be shy to come to the microphone. And I know it's a little scary to go in the middle of the room sometimes. Ask a question. Feel free to also share your experiences if you have any with these processes and how they relate. Any takers?
>>DON: Hi my name is DON. I'm with Article 19's global digital program. Work to support civil society organizations and individuals primarily from the global south to participate in technical standards. So everything you've said really resonates.
Just also, what he found has been useful when we're working with civil society organizations is being able to identify their priorities and then aligning it with what would be useful within technical standards bodies because we recognize, as you said, it's a whole fragmented landscape and even within standards developing organizations, there are dozens and dozens of working groups and study groups within each one. It can be quite overwhelming for organizations to jump into like the IHF and work out which of the 36 meetings they should be attending like you said.
We've been Working to develop engagement strategies, being able to support them, and we take on, we institutionalize a lot of support structures. Like in terms of financial capacity, in terms of working on the VISA process, we kind of take care of that so the organizations and individuals from the global south don't need to necessarily to put in time and effort to focus on that, but rather go about the work, be able to understand the concepts being brought up.
We've also done one‑on‑one mentorship and engagements because we also recognize that these standards bodies have a monoculture. It's a technical space but it's also Europe and U.S. dominant, so being able to have someone go with you to these meetings really helps because I think after these meetings, a lot of times people are often processing what they've learned, what they've heard. And so being able to have someone to be able to bounce ideas and thoughts, this process. So just some sharing some of our experience.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: Thank you. That resonates very well with the project we're about to start where there was a big study done by one of the partners for us which found that especially standardization bodies are male‑dominated, white‑dominated, English‑speaking, inaccessible to any type of variety of opinions by design. So that's why we're talking about the running the marathon. It needs to be slowly chipped off and there needs to be different opinions presented by the civil society organizations.
You also mentioned, I Viktor spoke about it, the participation from the global south organizations, how we can help them. Part of what we will be doing, there is a three‑pronged approach. One part is capacity‑building. Diplo will be responsible for. One part is advocacy and bringing in grassroots opinions and networking between the civil society organizations, but also helping those who ready to do so in engaging with these forums, engaging through guidance on how to write briefing, for example, how do you go in and present it, what is the best strategy of being involved in these processes to achieve the goals of your organization?
With that, I would like to turn back to Viktor maybe and ask you about if you could elaborate a little bit about benefits of building partnerships between the organizations, both global north and global south, and global south, global south, civil society organizations.
>> VIKTOR KAPIYO: I think various advantages to this collaboration. I think first is it addresses the problem of lack of linkages that existed across the various digital rights organizations. Realize that coalition building is very important and collaborative approaches are even more important because we are working to solve this problem or similar problems if at all. So having that alignment that we are able to share our concerns collectively and figure out what are some of the key imagined themes we want to address, I think that is an important way. The second is that takes advantage of competences of both organizations. If, for example, there is an event in Geneva where one of the global organizations is based, it's easier for them to cross the road and present the views than it is for me to come from Nairobi to get a VISA and struggle through trans to make the point.
Scaling becomes easy because of physical presence and understanding also the local dynamics. The global north organizations which work closely with, whether it is the UN in New York or EU in Brussells, they have built relationships with the various policymakers in those various offices, therefore, when we come there, it's easy to, this is the person to talk to. Don't go around all the offices on fifth floor, room number 5. Simple thing such as that make a big difference between when you arrive at the UN, it is a big space, and having someone who has that local understanding really helps.
The Other is also helps in terms of capacity‑building and knowledge exchanged between the two organizations. Global north organizations may not understand perfectly 100% the context in global south countries, so this discussion helps in times of sharing global knowledge and exchanging ideas like what works for us and what works for you. We're able to present. Sometimes access to our government officials is usually difficult at the national level because you can't access a minister easily, but sometimes if you're able to participate in a global forum, then you're able to meet the delegation there and still be able to articulate the issues. There is the benefit of learning from the organizations that have done it before in terms of even knowing what to say and to say it and maximizing that two minutes you'll perhaps have with that person before they dash into the next meeting and say, these are the three things we need you to do.
And also leveraging on the other partnerships that we know within the global circles are influential governments, and so on, and all of these alignments. And perhaps the paw mapping, that perhaps that skill, the global north organizations already done and understood who the power brokers are.
I can have my three issues and know who do tell them to as opposed to going there and wondering where to start from 200 members states. So that beneficial partnership is very useful. It's an advantage. Of course, more importantly, the resources that are able to leverage, technical resources in terms of skill. For example, some of the IETF, i.e., very technical. And global south organizations might not have a technical person like an ICT person because, now, it is becoming an important component that human rights organizations, don't just lawyers, must have the techies there and you must have the engineers and so on, because some of the issues, I remember once, when a government official told me, we are discussing spectrum. I'm going there, saying yes, we want to hear about human rights concern with this spectrum. So who do I bring to say things and break down what spectrum actually means for the ordinary citizen on the street.
Leverage partnership, we're able to get engineers who have done it before and have best practice, then they could be able to review the submission that we're doing and give some perspective. There are unique benefits to those alliances. And if we're able to build strong coalitions between global south organizations and also with global north organizations because there is a certain power that we can have when we work collaboratively.
I think lastly, for funders, because we have these significant problems when he have different funders funding different things, it's all disjointed and fragmented. They're supporting the same organizations competing for the same basket of funds to attack the same problem, and so when they are not coordinated, it is also creating problems for civil society organizations in terms of coordination because we are competing for the same EU grants. So do I partner with you or go solo? That's collaborating effecting opportunities. Are the donor's goals aligned with specific needs of people to help organizations collaborate? It is important that funders appreciate the dynamics of global south organization and the impact of funding and how they model those funds in terms of ease of access and how they can help build and strengthen civil society in the global south to actually make a strong impact.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: Thank you, Viktor. I'm having stereo here. One side Tereza, the other side Marena, and they both want to chip in on what you said. You start and then I'll give word to Marlena.
>> TEREZA HOREJSOVA: Thank you very much.
What you raised is very important because there is a problem. I will comment a little bit on the donor experience because you're very right. First of all, like for civil society organizations to be able to be involved in some of the policy, it has to be deliberative approach. Otherwise, no way how to make it work. At the same time, among donors, there might not be kind of sufficient coordination of the priorities in this sense. So if I can also encourage donors who are interested in more meaningful participation of civil society in various policy fora, like you have probably identified already, it's really important also to talk to other donors and to try to not overwhelm also civil society organizations with each donors coming with a specific narrow vision and perspective. It could be ultimately more impactful. I'm not aware that it's not an easy and intuitive task.
Another point that I would like to elaborate quickly is what you and Marlena raised, that sometimes this bad habit of like tick the box approach of like consulting civil society. You also mentioned it actually in your intervention. It's actually tough to consult civil society because civil society is not like, okay, I have consulted civil society. No. It's so many various organizations with various agendas, various objectives. It's certainly not easy. But on the other hand, we are sometimes sliding towards experience, just tick the box, some pro forma consultation that not necessarily leads to anything, but you can say that you've done it. And let's be honest, some policy fora are more prone to this than others.
So yeah, I don't have a solution, but just raising the voice of the civil society more and having donors that have realized an item, they find this issue is a strong start.
>> MARLENA WISNIAK: Following up on Viktor's intervention, I want to bring another perspective from global north organization. The cooperation and collaboration between global north and global south or majority based orgs isn't only, definitely should not take this like white saviorist approach where we uplift global majority based orgs. But also there's a lot to learn for global north orgs. There's so much resistance in many countries outside the U.S and Europe with really creative advocacy strategies and I and my team learn constantly, and I think the global coalitions are inherently better when there are diverse perspectives as well and can be pretty easy to become complacent or lazy to some extent when you live in the U.S. or western Europe, you forget many of the fundamental issues of organizing and influencing policymakers. So that's something to remember.
Another aspect is that a lot of the International Governance mechanisms, even like UNESCO, for example, rarely ‑‑ I will not offend UN people here, but they don't have as much influence in the EU and US. However, they do have a disproportionate impact on national regulation and the global majority.
For example, UNESCO policy with the drill platforms are often portrayed to be Digital Services Act or DSAesque version of the EU.
There's also recommendations on ethical AI, the EU has its AI act, so there is binding regulation in the EU. The US is, bipartisan politics aside, also has its own regulation. However, a lot of the recommendations from these entities including like UNGO CHR really can influence and often are weaponized to enforce problematic regulation at the national level around the world. That's something to consider when we have these coalitions.
And then fundamentally, I mentioned before that civil society not a monolith. The global majority is not one either. It's multiple regions. The regions themselves are homogenous even in terms of languages.
One individual country, India, has how many languages? I don't know how many languages. 60? How many? 27, okay. I thought it was more. Officially. Plus the dialects. So differences of languages, social norm, economies, between and within countries, so that is something to consider, and I'll give an example, which is something that we've been working on with Access Now, Electronics for Teens Foundation, other organizations including I think Article 19, on DSA human rights alliance involving global majority based orgs implementation of the DSA, which is deleting EU regulation on the drill platforms.
What we're trying to do with Diplo and the orgs represented here is really to bring in learnings from that experience and others into our international governance of the internet.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: Thank you. We have questions in the room. Yovan, please start, and then the lady in the blue dress.
>> YOVAN: Just one, building on what Viktor said, what we can call power of triviality. We discuss big systems, but sometimes to navigate the UN corridors in Geneva and Europe, knock on the office. Or I remember still when we had a program for the college students from the developing countries even wen you wear a jacket during the winter or what do you do? It sounds completely trivial, but it impacts of the feeling of being part of the process.
I will bring you a few examples that we have been recently focusing on. PDF is done in format of UN, European Union and other actors. In PDF, you cannot do a lot if you want to interact, if you want to display nicely. We took the European AI act and we were in Brussels discussing with different negotiators. If you try to consult European EU act draft, which is now negotiated between commission counsel of parliament, you simply, you're lost on a very trivial level, not on knowledge of AI. On displaying three columns, four columns, one PDF, 300 pages.
What we did, we basically organized in the simple way that you at least can read it and then have obviously expertise to have a context.
Similar applies with the UN Secretary‑General policy briefs. If you read these policy briefs and you can consult on digital watch, they're done by designer would wanted to have nice printed publication. This is the mindset. You can see the mind set. Who is going to maybe a meeting like AGF. They will distribute, maybe a nice publication, as we are, doing all of us. But in reality, people will consult it online on their mobiles.
This power of triviality which shapes people participation a big thing. We planned, during this project, to focus on these things. One of the elements is the reporting from the IGF. You have here the paper. This session will be reported by a mix of AI and experts. You have yesterday's sessions with main points and why is this important for the civil society? It is important because you simply have a limited resources to navigate such a flow of information and sessions in Kyoto, but also last 18 or 19 years.
Frankly, some issues digitally divide them basically every year and you have the more or less similar similarities. Therefore, again, this is one small thing. Small NGO, we had discussion two days ago from Brazil with two or three persons, wants to know exactly what is about try protection discussed during the IGF. Not necessarily AI. Not necessarily other issues. They should have the access. It's not as easy as it looks.
We are trying with this reporting you can consult it, to use a mix of AI, deploy AI system, and now experts mainly to bring to the help of the small developing countries, to bring them substantially into the discussion, bring also small civil society and marginalized groups.
Those are a few points for all of us here to reflect on the power of triviality, and there are tools. And also to create a space, I call it AI hallucination, human hallucination, to think, I won't go too far with how to hallucinate, but to create a space for alternative thinking.
My criticism of all the actors, and mea culpa, is that we sometimes become domesticated in global fora. We basically start integrating thinking of the IGF governments, which is very human. You interact and you basically develop the thinking. And the time which we are facing, you open Al Jazeera, CNN news, you see the world is not in the best shape and they need alternative thinking and we need the creative inputs. This is the role for civil society and academia where they are not contributing, I'm sorry to say. We are not contributing to this.
Therefore, those are just a few points which influence Diplo's approach and we hope that together with the partners in this project, we'll try to do this power of triviality, making things accessible to people, and also trying to create a space where we can think a bit out of the box for the benefit of governments, public, and global public good.
Should I ask some questions?
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: No. We'll have the lady in the blue dress and then the gentleman in the blue shirt for questions coming up.
>> AMY: Thank you for the interesting thoughts from different perspective and different experiences. I like to ask you about a question regarding capacity‑building. I am Amy from Japan working at a private company giving docent‑related service, giving more reliable information to mainly visitors. I think‑capacity building cannot be made in one day, but for example, since I'm familiar with climate change issues process around the Paris Agreement, there were citizens assembly, citizens Congress with randomly sampled citizens without any expertise discussing the very important issues about climate change, and that didn't really solve all the problems, but it moved forward somehow. So how would you think about such process regarding this issue, and also, the possibility or threats or limitation of such, what do you say, citizen participation in very local level? My personal hope is to have such Congress in different areas, different parts of world, and then they can have capacity‑building and also participate in global level. So I would like to know the opinions. Thank you.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: Any takers? Should be me on capacity‑building. Peter, go first.
>>PETER: I'll try. I will pass to you afterwards. First of all, thanks a lot. I'll respond to that maybe give feedback on other points.
First of all, I don't know if it's planned or has been done. I do think it's interesting. You make me think of, I think one of the speakers in one of the other panels recently said, I forgot her name, the Nobel laureate journalist, who said that she hasn't done this, but she had interviewed, if I understand correctly, quite randomly, a few hundred or few thousand people. And she said, if I correctly remember, the topic randomly, like you say, just citizens which are not experts and that also have their impact.
I think that's interesting as part of the consultation process. Im not an expert in all of this consultation process. I think there can be space for that. I'm sure academics will have more to say about that. I do know that in the EU process, when it comes to legislation, there are consultation processes. Quite large ones. But maybe they're not so intimate. Maybe like, look, this is online and you can share your opinions.
I know that on some of these consultations, we do have thousands if not tens of thousands of inputs from society. Some of them are even indeed analyzed partially by AI because it's not possible to read every one of them. So I think there's some interest. Now, I think, specifically, it's more partners in the organization, so might give a bit more.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: So it makes me think of two things. One is the capacity‑building we're talking about is institutional capacity‑building. When we talk about increasing the engagement, it is, in a way, we're training people but we are increasing the institutional capacity of civil society organization. Person will come and go, but you need to have, within the organization, the knowledge and expertise, whether technical or policy, to engage, and we have ways to do that. I'm not going go into that because we're running out time in general.
Going back on consulting regular people in the process, and also your point on basic triviality of things, I remember one exact on accessibility where a blind person was able to access government's website. Going through accessible government website. Going to get their ID. They went through everything. Got to the end and we're supposed to tick the boxes with the bicycles to prove they're not a robot. The person is like, it's a trivial thing which can be replaced by small technical solutions, but because that trivial thing is not in the forum and it's not addressed, it's causes issues of accessibility on a wider scale to certain groups of people. So it is a way to think.
The fora we're speaking about, the Internet Governance Forum, standardization fora, way less open to direct engagement with the public or with individuals in an environmental sector, and also in youth, and rights of youth to their future. That is way more open to do this. And also, there was a court case in Germany which established the right of youth to their future in relation to the environmental rights. So the movement there is a little bit different, I think. The burning planet might have something to do with it. More urgency.
We do have three more questions in the room and I don't want forget about them. Gentleman in the blue shirt. Okay, then over there.
>> Hi. Souza. Legal counsel at software center here with my colleague.
Just wondering, so we've spoken about capacity‑building as well, and we are a civil society based out of New Delhi, India. India presently is at an inflection point. Very opportune time also. We've had a personal data protection act, which has been enacted, it has yet to come into force, and a Digital India Act which will regulate platforms. So the stakes are high. We are going to be dealing with 1.4 billion people regulated who will be regulated through these provisions.
Just as a civil society, we've seen the pushback that is there in terms of engagement. My question is two‑fold. Firstly, in terms of putting for the consolidated front on behalf of civil society and think tanks, any strategies or advice on that.
Secondly, to the gentleman's question. Any alternative points of engaging with parliamentarians and government for the simple fact that this may be jurisdiction specific issue to India, but the consultation process prior to the introduction of a bill is much more fruitful than the one that usually, which comes after that. Just wanted your views on that.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: Anyone? Viktor, go, then I'll go.
>> VIKTOR KAPIYO: That's interesting. We face similar situations in Kenya with consultation. I think some of the strategies have worked for us, one is to build a relationship with the legislators. I think it's is important to have that relationship with them before you submit the views so they know that this body and this is what you do.
I think second is, usually, to demonstrate the expertise that is being brought to the table. I know it's usually a higher standard for civil society organizations being placed, but I think demonstrating that you actually have value to add and you bring that value will add some weight to the comments that you present.
And I think with that, you know, to work collaboratively with other civil society organizations, I think sometimes it helps when you have 20 sign‑ons as opposed to one, so identifying the common issues across the various groups is essential in as much as there could be variances in terms of positions. At least there should be some key things that everybody wants or feels is important to articulate and coalesce around that.
Lastly just to say that be ready for the marathon, so you need to go to the gym and work out, so have your arguments and counterarguments primed because you need to be ready for the views of the other stakeholders.
Not everybody will agree with your positions. Just because you're civil society doesn't mean you're always right or that your position will be taken, so it's important to build the war chest in terms of understanding arguments or potential arguments and other scenarios that the other stakeholders could bring forth.
And the other push and pull factors that drivers, what is driving this and who is driving this and understanding that local context, which you probably do. And then it helps that when you get to the floor and question is asked, you understand and you're able to anticipate and have a very good response to any scenario because at least you have prepared for it as opposed to just walking in and thinking that it's going to be a smooth ride. Most of the time, it's not exactly from my experience. Thank you.
>>PAVLINA ITTELSON: Peter, did you want to reflect on that?
>> PETER MARIEN: I want to be a bit sensitive what I say because of course your question to CSOs and I'm speaking in the name of Commission. Maybe just to say that from experience in some other countries, we have governments in other countries, including Kenya for example, knocking on our door to discuss exactly this type of topic in an open spirit where we have engaged some of our experts, our director general of justice. Came on and dialogued and visit.
So I think if there's a way of creating this trusted relationship and this willingness for open dialogue, then of course, difficult for you to create this, but I mean, if that can somehow be found with the right people or the right entry, then maybe that is helpful.
Second, here again, I want to be really careful to not give any wrong message, but you might knock on the door at other organizations that you think might have the entry and it can a national organization or an international organization that's locally present with an office that might have better channels of access.
Then through that way, maybe open the dialogue.
>>PAVLINA ITTELSON: We have the last question. While you're going to the microphone, I'm going to reflect on the calls for common input by CSL on different processes. I would like to caution and say there needs to be a balance between one input by several organizations and basically leaving the variety of opinions and variety of perspectives behind because you are eliminating certain expects of that in the process.
So that is something that, as a CSO, you need to try to be aware of. What is it that you are not presenting in a way when you are trying to make a certain different point.
Please, go ahead.
>> This is less of a question and more of a comment that speaks to everything we've discussed here.
My name is Ariel McGeed. I work with Internews. Congratulations on your proposal. We actually just won a very similar program from the Department of State working in South Asia, so I'll be implementing that as well and would love to kind of collaborate with you guys working on bringing our civil society organization together, also to speak to your topic, one of our parts of our activities are creating an online space where all of our civil societies and human rights groups can come together and work together around what they're learning. And at the final, we have bringing them to sessions at IGF and really being able to advocate. I had one other thought as well.
So speaking to how donors are not collaborating with each other, so you have the EU, State Department, similar projects, and obviously, the work needs to be done everywhere. But would be great to kind of bring Internews into the reflection as well.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: Thank you. I would love to talk to you in the corridor afterwards.
It is our intention within this project to harness what is already in place and what is going on to create a wider network of CSOs and kind build up on each other cross‑pollinate whatever is the space currently and whatever is going to be the space in the future because we do believe, beyond the project itself, that that is something we'll be dedicating more and more time in the future as well.
You can find us all individually if you want to talk more. I believe we can close this session if that's okay with everybody. Or is there more questions? Sure. Go ahead.
>> I just wanted to share something just to build on what Viktor and Marlena said. I come from a city in India. Like you mentioned we have a lot of languages. One problem we face is, with my legal team, internet technology team, they come up with these brilliant proposal writeups to share information or create awareness, but sometimes language is so complex, that the people they're trying to make aware find it difficult. So one of the benefits of local partnerships is that when I meet other CSOs for this kind of events, I realize that all of us have the same issues. So thank you for bringing that up because these kind of local partnerships help bring issues to light that sometimes go unnoticed. Thank you.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: Thank you for that point. Yes. We do have, I believe, still eight minutes to go, so we can go ahead.
>> CAMILLA: Perfect. I'm Camilla. I'm from eDAK in Brazil. You were mentioning that beyond the substantial research on how to participate in digital space, we have formal rules to interact on this space. This is so hard. We don't have a book on that. If we are in the UN, you have a way to interact. If you are in other spaces, you have other ways. So how can we share more information about that?
You were mentioning, for example, that we can make workshop on how to make a briefing on all the spaces, but how can we share this kind of knowledge? Thank you.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: Absolutely right about each of the processes, each the open work, open‑ended working groups having a different way of engaging civil society. We have seen, for example, on the open‑ended working group on cyber, how from the first session to the second one, the temperature in the room changed. All of a sudden, civil society is not automatically included in the conversation.
So it is a challenge from the procedural side to see where are the ways to get engaged, and that is part of what we will be doing and different effort.
For example, within the standardization process, Marlena, you do a lot of work on there, if you feel, later on, chiming in on that.
There are, as I mentioned, certain standardization bodies which are more open to civil society participation beyond the technical community. They do have principles in place, human rights principles and humancentric standard making processes in place. There are other ones which are not open and there are certain ones which are just multi‑lateral and that is the world we live there. It would be very ideal to have one way within, for example, UN or any other body, to have, this is how we go ahead and do it and put your input.
Another part to that is once you overcome the challenge of how you are going to participate, how are you going to put across your point, is whether those points, as Tereza mentioned, are a tick on the box and they are taken seriously. And that is a question of building partnerships, at least in my opinion. It is a question of working in that space for a long time, knowing who does what, knowing the trends, knowing what is coming up, where is the place to be, and which forum you need to be strategically engaged to achieve your civil society goals, so not an easy one, definitely not.
Marlena, you did some work on that, some lessons learned.
>> MARLENA WISNIAK: I was going to bring up your last point that, unfortunately, a lot of informal networks that we see, so many folks in this room, I know, so that is both a good thing and bad thing. Same people on panels. Generally bad. One good thing I would say is that we have tight networks between civil society, so able to text each other and have monthly meet‑ups.
I think there's also a lot of coalitions, so it's hard to know who does what and how to be coordinated and aligned. That's always a struggle. I mean, a colleague from Internews mentioned that there's a similar initiative and we work very closely with Internews. We've been part of the global internet freedom, I think, and we didn't even know about this. I think incredibly difficult and also unfortunate because it become a cool kids club of, if you're in it, then you have ‑‑ generally, to have these connections, you already are privileged and well networked. Then it gives you an even bigger boost to actually be, to have the platform.
So yeah, I think it's our responsibility of the orgs in this room to bring in new voices. Something that I've been experimenting with is if invited to a panel, I decline and give my spot to someone else, or I say yes under the condition that the other person comes. I didn't do that at this panel. Apologies. You're welcome. But different, I think, bringing in more people, but unfortunately, it is informal.
I forgot who mentioned. Some of the orgs are better at inclusion than others. The UN is really really difficult. I do a lot of UN advocacy. I don't really understand it. We have a UN advocacy officer at our organization that we've very lucky to have, so he knows a lot on the procedural side. Doesn't have the substantive expertise as much. My team is opposite. We know AI and human rights, but don't know really know where to intervene on what unless it's a very specific, like everybody knows IGF, but the smaller ones, it's hard to know.
Sorry. It's not a satisfactory answer. Basically, make friends, be social, and share your contacts and your privilege.
>> A story from this morning kind of encouraging everybody to be more experimenting and panel compositions, I was a panel and probably I had some calming effect on two other ladies speaking in the same panel. They were like, this is my first time doing a panel. This is going to be a disaster. And I told them, no. First of all, it's not going to be a disaster. You belong on this panel much more than I do, for instance. It's not going to be a disaster. By the way, they did great. So don't be afraid to experiment when you put panels together. It might seem easier to go with people you know before, but actually it might get much pressure if you get new people. Thank you.
>> PAVLINA ITTELSON: With this, there were three people on this panel I didn't know so far, only Tereza, so with this, I will invite you to get to know each other and we'll close out. Thank you very much everybody.
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