Internet Governance Workshop Wednesday 31 October 2007 ICANN Meeting - Los Angeles >> Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We're from the interpreter services that are being provided here today. We'd like to encourage every one of you to please go and get a headset, even if you are English-speaking. Questions asked in languages other than English that you hear up front will be interpreted into English. So if you have a headset and you just have it set to channel 5, you will hear the -- an immediate interpretation into English of the questions being asked. And for those of you who need and/or would love to listen to the proceedings in a language other than your own, if you pick up a headset, if you switch to channel 1, you will hear French; channel 2, you will hear Spanish; channel 3, Russian; and channel 4, Mandarin. And you will now hear this announcement in those languages as well. (Translation). >> I would also like to add, when you put on the headsets, I see some of you are having some difficulty hearing. The little clear glass marbles, because that are on the outside is where the infrared light enters. And that's what allows the transmission. If you wear them the other way around, you'll just get a lot of static. (Translation). >> I will now make the announcement for the Spanish speakers. (Translation). >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Well, good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you Mr. Twomey -- Dr. Twomey, my apologies, if you'd like to join us. My name is Chris Disspain. I'm the chair of the country code name supporting organization, also a chair of the Internet Governance Forum advisory group. And we're going to run this session today on the Internet governance. The panelists, I'll introduce the panelists, are, to my right, far right, is Paul Twomey, who most of you all know is the president and CEO of ICANN. Next to him is Everton Frask Lucero from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brazil. George Sadowsky, from the Global Internet Policy Initiative. And now to my left, Bill Graham, Industry Canada Advisory Group. Didier Kasole, the secretariat of Africa Regional At-Large Organization. And, finally, Fr?d?ric Donck, director of public policy from ISOC. The format is going to be very simple. We'll have a five-minute presentation from each of the panelists and we'll have a -- ten minutes for discussion between panelists, if there is any, and then we'll have an open microphone and questions for around about ten minutes. I'm going to do this in a particular order. Could I ask you, Everton, to start, please. >>EVERTON LUCERO: Thank you, Chris. Thanks for inviting me to this panel. I'd like to say a few words with the upcoming IGF in Rio de Janeiro as it is a product of the World Summit on the Information Society. I'd like to begin by briefly referring to WSIS and its achievements. WSIS set new grounds for the conduct of business on any issue related to information society at the international level. That includes Internet governance. WSIS recognized, among other things, that the Internet has evolved into a global facility available to the public, and its governance should constitute a core issue of the information society agenda. WSIS outcomes also stated that the international management of the Internet should be transparent and democratic, with the full involvement of governments, the private sector, civil society, and international organizations, which is the multistakeholder approach. There has also been the recognition that Internet governance is an essential element for the creation of a people-centered, inclusive, development-oriented, and nondiscriminatory information society, which is the WSIS main directive. It was also said that states have rights and responsibilities for international Internet-related public-policy issues and that all governments should have an equal role and responsibility for international Internet governance and for ensuring the stability, security, and continuity of the Internet. Bear in mind these and other relevant principles adopted by consensus at the World Summit, the Secretary-General of the United Nations was mandated to convene an initial block of five annual meetings of a multistakeholder mechanism in order to facilitate the dialogue between institutions with complementary roles in global Internet governance, and to foster the debate on cross-cutting issues and topics that do not fit in the mandate of any particular organization. This mechanism is the IGF, the Internet Governance Forum, whose second edition we Brazilians are honored to host two weeks from now. For those of you who might not be entirely familiar with the IGF, I think it's worth mentioning that the IGF is not a traditional U.N.- style conference. Its format is innovative, as it provides a truly open and inclusive environment for the participation of all stakeholders on equal footing. The very multistakeholder nature of the IGF poses challenges regarding its role and responsibilities, as well as balanced participation, scope, thematic agenda, internal structure, and possible results. I'd like to recall that in my country, issues related to Internet governance are dealt with by the Internet steering committee known as CGI.BR, which includes representation from all stakeholders. CGI.BR is the main sponsor of the IGF in Brazil. The decision to host this major event in my country shows the Brazilian interest and commitment to an international process of raising awareness, debating, and possibly elaborating useful contributions on matters related to Internet governance at the -- at an international level. The IGF can be recognized as an evolving and incremental process. It has a clear mandate, as established by WSIS, against which its success will be measured at the end of the five-year process. The first meeting, held in Athens in 2006, has been widely recognized as a great success. In Athens, one of the innovative prescriptions of the IGF was fully accomplished. A numerous audience had the opportunity to hold deep and high-level discussions on access, diversity, openness, and security aspects of Internet governance, in a truly multistakeholder environment. The meeting in Athens gave birth to a diversified set of good ideas as well as to a number of multistakeholder coalitions committed to pushing these ideas forward. In Rio, we want to build upon the achievements we had in Athens and add value to that debate. To make it short, Athens is our benchmark. Rio should be Athens plus. We cannot do that without the full engagement of the entire community. In practical terms, Athens-plus means the evolution of the agenda. In Rio, we will have a main session and workshops to discuss critical Internet resources, also part of the IGF mandate. Our aim is to discuss whether the existing processes of coordination and management of critical Internet resources are consistent with the principles embodied at the World Summit. The Rio meeting is not expected to provide answers to all questions, but we want to make sure that it provides an opportunity to celebrate and to consolidate the existing Internet governance processes, like the one we follow within ICANN. We want to add legitimacy from the international perspective to the ICANN process by discussing it with a wider audience, an audience that is wider than the audience we have within ICANN walls. The IGF offers an opportunity for ICANN to present itself to the international community as a truly multistakeholder body, committed to WSIS principles and open to new ideas from all corners of the world. The IGF also provides a valuable opportunity for outreach, since the event is expected to attract around 2,000 participants. I am convinced that ICANN has a central role to play at the IGF in Rio. We, as hosts, are totally committed to make sure that the expectations from the ICANN community are met in Rio. I'd like to conclude by saying that we Brazilians will be delighted to receive you all in Rio two weeks from now. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. The next panelist to speak is Paul Twomey. >>PAUL TWOMEY: Thank you. Thank you, Chris, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to just speak briefly, I suppose, as an official capacity for ICANN, although what ICANN is is always a matter of definition. At some sense, and a very important sense, ICANN is a community of at least 10,000 people worldwide who actually help the domain name system and I.P. addressing and other unique identifier systems work. And I suppose just as an aside, I've just been conscious how many -- just in the last six months, my own experience as president, just how many other businesses and interests have been paying attention -- I think I made the point on this on Monday -- just how many different types of businesses and communities and governments, for that matter, have been in contact with us who we don't often see at our meeting. So it does give me a sense of ICANN, the ICANN community being a very broadly defined and active and probably somewhat fuzzy at the edges definition community. ICANN has been -- warmly received the Tunis declaration and warmly received a proposal for the Internet Governance Forum. We think it's an important -- not only about Internet governance, but also we think it's a very important initiative and evolution in the international system itself, and, in particular, in the U.N.'s own actions. I must admit, I was very pleased with the discussions I had at the time with Kofi Annan and Mark Malloch Brown about the sorts of things they were thinking about and how this IGF represents an evolution in the U.N.'s own systems of operating, particularly adopting the multistakeholder approach and, importantly, adopting a model geared more towards discussion around issues rather than necessarily preparation of declared statements. In that sense, I think it reflects the sort of processes of a multistakeholder variety of inputs and is an interesting diversion or parallel action for a U.N. body, which must, by its mandate be dedicated to the concerns of diplomacy and diplomats. We particularly appreciate the leadership and the dedication of the government of Brazil, and we had through Everton, we'd like to pass on formally our thanks to the government of Brazil for putting forward and hosting this upcoming meeting. We're looking forward to that meeting. Everything we're hearing about that says the preparations are going very well. And we're pleased to hear that. Although, I know what it's like to host a meeting. So undoubtedly, there's lots to be done between now and November. Perhaps a few general observations. The -- ICANN, as I said, is a strong supporter of the IGF. Indeed, we've been not only a supporter by word, but by deed, and by wallet. And the ICANN board has been very comfortable, and, indeed, committed, to ensure that we would make an appropriate financial and other contributions to ensure the IGF process is successful and will continue to do so in the context of its present operating regime. The second thing, I think, is that we're very comfortable with the topics for discussion. ICANN is generally, in sort of an emotional sense, and certainly true for the broad community, supportive of the idea of development and ICT for development and the key roles for that. ICANN itself is also, you know, pleased and expected that this upcoming agenda item would include the critical Internet resources topic. I think a few observations on that point, we understand quite clearly that the critical Internet resources is a very broad topic and that there are a range of resources that are important for the Internet to be made available particularly in the developing world and that that discussion needs to be a broad based discussion. A discussion of critical Internet resources that was merely to focus on domain names and I.P. addresses would be a pity, because it would fail to really appreciate the broad range of issues that are facing us generally about implementation of critical Internet resources and ensuring that they are being developed. So we're happy to have that discussion. Obviously, even in that narrow area of unique identifiers in the Internet, ICANN is not the only entity. And we're pleased to be part of a broad range of Internet community and technical bodies that we are participating. The Regional Internet Registries and NRO, country code operators, regional bodies of country code operators, the Internet Society's role, and others, others who are participating. Because we think that's appropriate. One of the things that we think was a highlight of Tunis was the recognition that the broad area of Internet governance involved a broad range of players, and that one of the key elements, we think, of the IGF process is that it's a great place both for the sharing of ideas, for the raising of critical questions, and for the ability for bodies that have responsibilities in different arenas to be able to take on those questions, listen to them, be able to respond in their own context and potentially even be able to come back and talk about what they've done. I want to come to that what we have done part shortly. But before we go any further, perhaps I could just say a few things about what we'll actually be doing in Rio. There will be an open forum session that ICANN itself will be specifically hosting for 90 minutes. And all major organizations dealing with Internet governance-related issues have been given a slot in order to present, discuss their activities, they'll include people such as the OECD, the Council of Europe, the ITU, and others. We'll be involved in the meeting's opening discussion of critical Internet resources. There are a number of workshops which ICANN has been involved in in terms of mission-related subjects, which we're doing alone or in partnership, actually, quite a number of those. I've actually been a little bit overwhelmed by the number of requests we've received from many parties if we would be partnering with them on particular topics in the workshops. For example, we'll be in partnership with ISOC and GIPI in a workshop on critical Internet resources. We're going to have a workshop with UNESCO and I think also with the ITU on multilingualism, we keep, obviously, a dialogue with the ITU on issues around security. So there's a lot of activity where ICANN as an institution will be involved, and its broader community will be involved. And we're pleased to be doing that. May I also make a further -- just sort of a somewhat more general, Chris, related comment about Internet governance and the discussions -- Everton raised the issue of Tunis. So perhaps I could just have an observation. One of the things I think that's very important in the broad discussion of Internet governance is not only there's a discussion and a necessary discussion around a range of issues. There's also a necessary discussion at levels of issues. So, obviously, there's philosophical discussions, ranges of discussions. ICANN, as an institution, is normally a very pragmatic institution, because it actually has to do with operations or assisting its community in the operations they perform to ensure that there's a single global, interoperable Internet. In that practical work that it has to do, I think one of the things that I have found outstanding in the last several years -- and I would congratulate all parts of the community, but I would particularly congratulate the board and the leadership of the -- and -- of the Governmental Advisory Committee -- has been a re-forming and a reworking of the way in which work gets done within ICANN, and, in particular, the way in which constituencies, including the governments, have become much more involved in the actual framing of the specific problems and framing of principles relating to the pragmatic issues in front of ICANN. The model of work done up through the silos of the various supporting organizations, then being, if you like, thrown over the wall at the end, just sort of saying, what do you think, Chris, or what do you think, Janis, has changed to a much more, I think, sophisticated and more collaborative and positive one of early engagement around issues, early engagement around key principles, then the ability to help have dialogue as one particular part of the organization works through a particular issue. I am reminded of the process that has taken place around new gTLDs and the whole discussions around Internationalized Domain Names, particularly as they may relate to ccTLDs, that there is very early discussion. And I was asked about it -- by a journalist about this recently. And it strikes me as a model, it's very interesting, that the model is actually very similar to the way in which policy gets made in a domestic context. If I go back to my own experience of being a senior government official in a country, the model I see now working in ICANN is actually very similar to the model I saw working in the domestic context for domestic policy-making. In other words, public policy officials, business people, technical people discussing very early about how a particular issue has to get solved in the country, who's going to do what, that sort of engagement. And then working it through together. And I find that's a very interesting model, and I think it's very interesting that in ICANN we've managed to be able to take what is sort of a domestic model for policy-making and actually begin to make it work in a context that is related internationally. And in that sense, I think it reflects that the issues we deal with are different to the sorts of areas of international policy-making where it might be more appropriate that there is, you know, the more traditional government- to-government negotiation or diplomatic exchange. My basic message is, horses for courses, as we would say in Australia. That certain things are applicable in different parts. And I think that also fits well within an IGF context, in that IGF has been reinforcing that various people had various roles, implementation is really something that's up to them within the context of how they work. In that sense, the sort of concept of improved, perhaps even one could use the word "enhanced" cooperation in the way in which people operating I think it's been very interesting to watch in the ICANN context. So perhaps that's sufficient. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you very much. Now, the next panelist is Bill Graham. >>BILL GRAHAM: Thanks, Chris. Well, the Governmental Advisory Committee is obviously very interested in the Internet Governance Forum. It came out of the WSIS. Several members of the GAC are WSIS veterans. And it's very clear to us that the Internet Governance Forum is a prime way of moving forward in the development of the Internet globally. The GAC has been discussing its participation in the Internet Governance Forum and will continue doing that later today. The one thing that is certain at this point is that we will and our various members will play an important role in the IGF in Rio. And we're very much looking forward to being there. We think it'll be a very stimulating and, hopefully, a very successful event. I should say here, the GAC process is perhaps a little strange to other participants in ICANN and so needs a little explanation. And you may have heard this explanation before. Governments do not always trust one another to represent one another's views. That may come as a great shock. Thanks, Vint. I should have learned. So the discussion in the GAC is one of a process of discussion leading to gradual agreement. We haven't yet reached an agreed position on the IGF. So I want to be really clear that anything I say here does not represent the GAC or the views of any governments other than my own. The WSIS really clarified the need, I think, to discuss a large number of issues. And it identified the Internet Governance Forum as a way of continuing the discussion that began in the WSIS on Internet governance. Even though the WSIS was about a five-year-long process, all we really managed to do was raise a number of issues, flag things that needed work. But they still need a lot of discussion. The IGF is an important recognition, however, of the multistakeholder process in Internet space. It makes it very clear that you can't talk about Internet or Internet governance in a room full of government spokespeople. You probably can't do it in a room full of any other single kind of spokesperson. So that, I think, is significant. And as was said earlier, it marks a real change in United Nations process to create a multistakeholder group. The IGF also is specifically not to replace other forums. There was a clear recognition that Internet governance issues are very broad. They're discussed now by a range of stakeholders in their own forums or together in different forums. ICANN is clearly a key one of those multistakeholder forums where we discuss a fairly narrow range of Internet governance-related issues. There are many others that we could go through, if you wanted. What's interesting is the Athens event and how it worked. No one really knew what Athens was going to be like, I think, on the way in. It was a real gamble in some sense. The instructions for the Internet Governance Forum in the WSIS text are fairly long but fairly vague at the same time. So it was really interesting. No one even knew how many people would show up. As it turned out, it was a large event. The discussions were very fruitful, surprisingly open. Certainly, as a government spokesperson, we were a little bit surprised by how willing people were to speak with one another with other groups in the same room. So it was, in our view, a real success as a multistakeholder process. Obviously, we're now drawing to a close in the preparations for the Rio event, which, as Everton said, we're all hoping will be Athens- plus. One of the big pluses is the addition of the discussion of critical Internet resources. There, too, there is a lot of nervousness. During the preparation, people have been cautious about whether it's time to address what some see as being a very contentious issue. We feel very clearly that it's -- and I'm saying "we" in the Canadian sense here. The Canadian government feels that it's essential to address the issues that WSIS identified, and to do so in a way that takes advantage of the unique character of the Internet Governance Forum. In quoting from the WSIS text, it is to be a neutral, nonduplicative, and nonbinding forum. The list of issues for discussion was a result of compromise among a number of groups. There are a number of issues on that list that are uncomfortable for, I would say -- I'd say it's about equally uncomfortable for all the stakeholder groups. We feel that the inclusion of critical Internet resources in Rio is a good step towards addressing one of those uncomfortable issues. If we don't deal with issues like that and all of the other issues, we won't have fulfilled the WSIS mandate. And, frankly, we will have missed an opportunity to move forward in discussions of the Internet and Internet governance. We actually believe there will be concrete outputs from the Internet Governance Forum, and I'm sure from the Rio event itself. But we don't think those will be measured in the form of a formal statement of some sort. We think that it will be measured in the actions that groups, that individuals take on their own initiative coming out of their discussions in the IGF. It will also be measured by the conditioning of discussions in other organizations where people will have learned from the IGF and the exchanges there and be more open to discussions in other, more formal forums. And we finally see it as being measured in how we move forward on ensuring that the Internet develops more broadly globally and becomes more accessible to everyone. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Bill. Our next speaker is George Sadowsky. George. >>GEORGE SADOWSKY: Thanks, Chris. When this session was being put together, I was asked to speak on behalf of the Internet community's role in the IGF. And Paul Twomey said just a few minutes ago that the definition of the ICANN community is fuzzy around the edges. The Internet community is not only fuzzier; it goes a lot further, depending on the context, you can conceive of the entire human race as the Internet community. A techie view would conceive of a few thousand people at the core, people who are at IETF, people who run networks, et cetera, as the Internet community. I'm not sure that the definition's terribly important. But here, in terms of the IGF, there are a bunch of us on the advisory group, advising Markus Kummer and Nitin Desai as representatives of the secretary-general, as to what we think would be useful and would help. And some of us are from civil society, some of us are from RIRs, some of us run ccTLDs. It's a mixture of people who are technologically savvy in terms of -- and historically rich in experience in terms of what works and what doesn't. In the late '80s, early '90s, mid-'90s, this was the group that was defining the way in which the Internet would evolve. And which was establishing the technical standards and building operations which worked, which operationalized the Internet in an increasing number of countries. They did more than that. And I think it's important to remember that, that there were people, real pioneers, who believed in the development agenda of the Internet, unspoken, but, nevertheless there. And I'm thinking, in particular, of somebody like Randy Bush, who went to many countries and developed the first Internet links, enabling those countries to start understanding what was involved. The Internet Society development workshops are in that area also. The IDN work started in the IETF long before ICANN was formed. And now we finally have some good fruition of that work, which is going to be very helpful to a lot of countries in the world. As the Internet has grown, I tend to characterize the -- what's happened is that all forms of human behavior have moved to the Net, both the good and the bad. You can probably find for any form of behavior where human beings have physical contact with each other roughly the same form of behavior on the Net. And as a result, all of the benefits of the real world and the problems of the real world have been magnified. So what we have now is an Internet which not only requires technical guidance, but really reflects issues between people, between cultures, between countries. And ICANN is rubbing up against these. It's clear that, for example, any top-level global name will work. The computers see it as a string of bits. But when those characters have semantic meaning for a culture or a country or a group of individuals, then bad things can happen. And so technical management, technical administration, technical evolution of the Internet is not sufficient. And this is where the WSIS process comes in, and the IGF process comes in. Now, the people who specified what the IGF should do, I think -- I suspect was purposeful. And I hope so. They were very wise in making the following decision, that there should be discussion only. I worked in the U.N. for 13 years. And I remember when I went out on missions, one of the first things we said was, "Well, how shall we write the report?" The report was a central converging instrument, an obligation of every discussion we had, whether it was a conference or whether it was a mission to a country. The IGF is free of that. And as a result of that, people feel quite free in talking with people they otherwise wouldn't, in expressing opinions that they might not like to see entered into a competition of opinions with what the final results should be. This is an enormously useful development. And to the extent that we can keep it that way, I think that the IGF will flourish as a way to discuss issues among groups which have very different roles in the process of trying to figure out what this Internet is all about and how we should deal with it as a global society. Let's see. The Internet community within the context of the IGF, and, in particular, within the context of the advisory group, I think offers some things that are -- have been very useful in the discussion. First of all, it's quite clear that the Internet community has been concerned with the operation of the Internet, with its security, and with its stability. And the people who are involved have a fairly good understanding of what it takes to maintain that security and stability and to maintain an efficient operation of something which is now an absolutely critical resource for most businesses on the planet. We serve, I think, as a check on possible outcomes, possible directions which, although they may sound like they're useful to pursue, may not or are almost certain not to work in practice. We see the IGF as a major opportunity to educate, to discuss, to educate people in what the Internet is, how it works, why it works that way, why certain other models may or may not work, and, in general, to provide a more well-informed set of people who will be participating in this discussion, because this discussion is going to go on for a long, long time. The IGF may not, or may. But the discussion will go on among governments, among individuals, among organizations. So this year, the Internet community is putting on a rather large number of workshops. It has a major stake in all of the panels. And we think that it's going to be really useful to compare notes with our colleagues in the other sectors and to help them understand and appreciate what the degrees of freedom are in whatever -- whatever the ultimate distribution of responsibility and authority is over the various aspects of Internet governance. At the same time, I think we see it as an opportunity to identify those problems that are truly national in scope and can be handled at the national level, which, in my own personal opinion, are the great majority of them, and also identify those problems which are international in scope, in which international organizations -- generally, present international organizations -- can play a role and help the process to mature. Let me stop there. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, George. Our next speaker is Fr?d?ric Donck from ISOC. >>FR?D?RIC DONCK: Thank you, chairman. I will concentrate on three key points here. First, what should the focus be in Rio, and then what, were, and are our contributions, and finally, what are our expectations. First the focus. I would love, actually, to read to you an extensive -- the fascinating conclusions of a conference we did organize in Abuja, Nigeria, a few months ago. The reason why I'm saying this is that those conclusions reflect perfectly what we at ISOC believe should be the focus in Rio. So, first, a greater participation of developing countries in the IGF level. Secondly -- and this is not contradictory -- localize the IGF discussion at local level, actually. This is really what we feel is important to how we could organize this virtual circle between the international and the local level. Then multistakeholders as a value in itself. Capacity-building is really a key also in the IGF discussions. And then the top priorities are really simple: Access, access, and access. Access first as a connectivity, as a way to enhance the regulatory policy and business environment for the deployment of Internet. Access also as access to content, the creation of content, and the demand of content. And then access to knowledge and skills. Then what are, were, ISOC contributions to Rio. First, a lot of energy. Believe me, we spent a lot of time in preparing Rio, in organizing workshops, not only the INID one and the conference, but also a lot of workshops on a local and regional level, again, this willingness to actually just be able to link the international level with the local one. But more concretely also, the engagement in Rio, what you will see as the top of the iceberg. First, we have built on the successful ambassador program that we initiated in WSIS Tunis. So we will bring 12 ambassadors, actually, to just represent the community in Rio, among which five chapter members. But also, we organized a lot of different workshops, some of them in partnership with ICANN and other actors, just to name but a few, we will organize an important workshop on v4/v6 to see how important it will be, and we will have also the whole community, the technical one, the private sector, and the civil society. Root server system will be another workshop. Then access and the local challenge, again, with the entire community being represented. Security and Internet governance, and Internet traffic. Also ISOC staff will be represented in many other workshops. What would be our expectations of Rio? First, and this is really important to us, is that capacity-building and access remain at the forefront of the discussion in Rio. We will see, actually, that the discussion focuses on everything that can help us to put the next billion of users online. What it should not be, the forum should not be bogged down in political discussions about the control of Internet or about Internet critical resources in a narrow sense. Will Rio be a success? Well, you know what we say, what they say at the U.N. The U.N. conference is a success or a (inaudible) and a success. We feel we should not take in this decision in places to see how Rio is a success through the knowledge that is being generated over there or the number of participants and whether all the problems on the agenda have been addressed. We will wait to see that Rio is a real success if it succeeds to contribute to the deployment of Internet at local level. Also if we have succeeded to demonstrate how multistakeholders is a value in itself, in everything that touches upon the Internet and Internet governance. And finally, again, how we can facilitate the next billion of people to just be online. Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Frederic. And our final speaker is Didier Kasole from the Africa RALO. >>DIDIER KASOLE: Well, the translation is not working for us here, so I will speak English. What is the problem for African users? So first of all, with the IGF, what we want is to focus on our concerns. And our concern. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: We are hearing French and English on channel 5. >> Can you hear me English 1234. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Yes, I can hear you. Now I can hear French and English as well. >> Okay. One second, please. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Now I am getting Russian. [ Laughter ] >> Can you hear me when I go into English? >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Yes. Just get everyone else out of the room and just you; okay? I'm sorry. Try again. >> One moment, please. Can you hear me? But I guess you can also hear the French. That's the problem? That's the problem. (multiple voices in translation. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Okay. Wait. Stop. We now have three languages. Can we maybe go for all five? >>DIDIER KASOLE: . (all scribes are getting are the various languages). >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: English at all. Okay. >>DIDIER KASOLE: Okay. So the first problem is access for the African user. The second one is relevant content. Not only local content but relevant content. Because relevant content will push people to develop the infrastructure to deliver the content. The third problem is regulatory problem. In many countries, the regulation still very old, and then people are not allowed, for example, to pull fiber. You are not allowed to pull fiber. So if you want to (inaudible), you need prior authorization before you pull fiber between cities or within city. This one is also a big problem. Then the last one is the capacity building. Now for more than ten years, ISOC grant some many iNet workshops, and many of African that you saw yesterday on the list attend at least one or more ISOC chapter. So the capacity building start for long time but we want to encourage and have more as we don't reach the critical mass of the African (inaudible) who can turn other Africans to this magic technology. In terms of governance, many things was done so far. Nowadays, numbers for African agents are managed by African, by AfriNIC. That happen because of many organizations, including ICANN, RIPE NCC, ARIN, APNIC LACNIC, all of those organizations work together to help this happen, and now, for number resources for Africa, managed 100 percent by African. And it was a very good, successful story about collaboration between many organizations. So what we are expecting from the IGF. What we expect from IGF is to advocate for deployment of network. To encourage intersection between countries. In many country -- in many part of Africa, all countries are connected by a (inaudible) wire, everything, and then to send packet between two countries you have to go via -- it will be expensive and then slow. Only two country offering transit to other. It is South Africa, who is offering transit to its neighbor as well as Senegal but we still need more connectivity. We need good connectivity between all of our cities and all of our countries. It would improve the quality of the network and the quality of the service. So we are expecting advocating on that. And then I continue also to -- in advocating as well for self- governance. Now we have, I think, 15 country or more are managing the ccTLD for themself. But we still have a few country who are not managing the ccTLD. And the ccTLD are working on that and are helping those who want to do that for the regulation and for take-over of the management of the resources. Okay. I will -- I think I will stop there. I already mention what we expect, and thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Didier, and please accept my apologies for the problems. We started late, and we're going to run slightly over time, certainly. But first of all, before I do anything else, are there people in the room who would like to ask questions? If you would like to come to the microphone, I think we will do some questions and then a wrap-up at the end, if that is okay with everybody. Is that okay? Dr. Cerf, please feel free. >>VINT CERF: It's Vint Cerf. This is a question for Mr. Kasole. First of all, thank you so much for emphasizing the need for capacity building and for cooperation. If there are any steps that you could recommend that would help countries in Africa share resources or make collaborative purchases of resources, communications capacity, that could be shared, there may be an economy of scale that everyone can take advantage of. And so I would like to at least suggest that there could be some discussions along those lines. There have been similar discussions in the Pacific Islands to share satellite capacity because that's the most common way that they can get access to the Internet. I don't know enough about the fiber landing points in Africa to know how easy or hard it would be to share access to cable plant. But once again, the spirit of cooperation that led to AfriNIC, one would hope could be instilled in an effort to share other capacities as well. I would certainly volunteer to participate in discussions exploring that possibility. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Didier, would you like to respond to that? >>DIDIER KASOLE: I think it's more comment than question. And I welcome this opportunity Vint Cerf give us. We will thank you for that. >>GEORGE SADOWSKY: I'd like to help Didier out to provide you some facts that show you how difficult the situation is. One of my colleagues and I were researching the possibility of putting bandwidth to West Africa and we found from an IVRC study in 2005 that the cost of a unit of connectivity which costs 12 cents to the average American university cost $8 to the (saying name) University in Senegal, and they had four megabits for 42,000 students. >>MATT HOOKER: This is Matt Hooker speaking. I wanted to respond to something that George mentioned in that a couple of ccTLD representatives have mentioned to me personally the last couple of days, and that is the idea that people at ICANN believe that by allowing certain gTLDs to be approved that some small group or even one person might think is abusive or is derogatory in some way, that in some way ICANN would be -- >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Excuse me, I am going to interrupt you. We are actually having a discussion about the Internet Governance Forum, not about new gTLD policy. >>MATT HOOKER: I realize that. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: And if you have a question about the Internet Governance Forum, that's fine, please ask it. >>MATT HOOKER: I am responding directly to something George said in this very forum here within the last 15 minutes. And it relates to the fact that I see both ICANN and potentially the IGF trying to legislate morality. And I believe the best way to fight hatred is to not to censor but to shed light on things. And if we start excluding things like gTLDs or whatever, in fact, we are letting us go down to the lowest common denominator. I think it's very important not to let countries that are restrictive of free speech tell ICANN what to do. And I think we are in danger of doing that with a lot of the language I have heard today right here and in previous consultations. I will leave it at that. A thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Next. >>KARL AUERBACH: Hi, I am Karl Auerbach. You all know me I think. A couple of comments. First, I am really glad the IGF includes the "G," the governance. We are recognizing something which we did not recognize in ICANN, which is that this is the exercise of plenary power. This is supreme authority over some aspect. It's the ability to say no to some otherwise lawful activity. Now, what I would like to point out is that the IGF is making a fundamental error in its structure. And that is stakeholderism. Stakeholderism is a regression that puts the IGF more in the court of Louis XIV of Versailles than what's expressed in the declaration of independence and the declaration of the rights of man. Stakeholderism replaces people with aggregates. Those aggregates do not have children, do not feel the warmth of families, they do not die, they do not fear old age. Stakeholderism rejects -- Sorry. I can't even read my own writing. Anyway, stakeholderrism is a wrong approach. We are building institutions of governance for people, for the benefit of people. People create corporations. People create schools, people create churches, people create governments. It's time to bring back into the conception of governance the fact that it is built for and by people. Otherwise, what we are going to end up with is a system of Internet governance that looks more like Fritz Lange's Metropolis or Charlie Chaplan's modern times than it does something else. Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Does anyone want to respond? I have a sneaking suspicion you might, Everton. >>EVERTON LUCERO: Thank you, Chris. I think one of the challenges that this unique and innovative model that is the IGF has is precisely how to balance this multistakeholder approach in order that it is perceived as a representative mechanism. Just by saying it is multistakeholder is not the solution for all problems. In fact, we could have something multistakeholder but some of the stakeholders do not feel represented or are not able, even financially, to be present and to follow all the meetings. And so those who are there might have some aspect of the problem, and the rest of the community. And now I would refer to the Internet community as the whole humanity might not feel represented. So I think this is one challenge that I think we really need to observe throughout this whole process of five years, which is the IGF. Now, as I have the floor I would like to briefly refer to a comment previously made by George Sadowsky. When he said that one of the merits of the IGF is to be a report-free environment, I just would like to say that, well, I, myself, being from the government of Brazil, I know how difficult it is for government officials to work without reporting back or without a text to consider comma by comma, word by word. And it is also a challenge for us not to have this kind of reporting. Nonetheless, we have to bear in mind that the IGF mandate as defined in paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda says that it is, we think, the mandate to identify emerging issues, bring them to the attention of the relevant parts and the general public, and where appropriate, make the recommendations. And of course, we do not envisage that such recommendations will be made immediately at this second IGF session because the IGF has not structured itself in a way that would allow that balanced representation of all stakeholders in a way that it could -- they could consider together to get to some recommendation. But we cannot in principle preclude the possibility of having recommendation in case there is a general sense and a greater common understanding that on a certain specific issue that requires some kind of recommendation. And we should bear that in mind as well. And my last comment is just to say that I believe the IGF is a little bit more than an opportunity to educate people. It is, rather, a space for having meaningful discussion by experts in all fields. And in trying to get a way that would be useful for the international community as a whole towards the progress in the subject. Thank you very much. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: One second, Adam. I am going to close the line because we really don't have any more time. So the last two comments, I have one question to ask the panelists before we close. I just wanted to make one comment myself, which is that I never cease to be fascinated by having been involved in the advisory group and the IGF and WSIS, I never cease to be fascinated by the myriad of interpretations that there are for what every section or paragraph or subparagraph of every document actually means. Adam, your microphone. >>ADAM PEAKE: Hi, Adam Peake. I just wanted to make a quick comment about the Internet Governance Forum and particularly the fact that many of the people -- you can't hear or can hear? Many of the people here in this room, of course, won't be in Rio. But there will be remote access arranged, and I don't think there are details on the Internet governance Web site as yet, but the address for that is intgovforum.org. So that would be one word. And remote access will be taken through e- mail from Webcasting, which will be done in hopefully the U.N. languages but we're not sure about that. Also, all of the workshops will be audio cast and questions and comments will be able to be taken in English, French, Spanish, and Portuguese. So hopefully people will, in this room, listen to that, contribute, ask questions, and become part of the Rio meeting. And that was the only thing I wanted to mention. Thanks. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: It's remarkably uncontroversial. Thank you, Adam. >>OLGA CAVALLI: My name is Olga Cavalli. I would love to speak in my own language, which is Spanish. Is it possible? It is very important that we can express our views in our own language. I think it is very important that we can express our views in the country -- our country of origin. So as a citizen of Argentina of and Latin America, I appreciate this opportunity. I would like to thank Brazil for the opportunity that it has given us by being the host of IGF. I would like to talk about the problem of connectivity that Africa mentioned. Latin America also has a serious problem with connectivity. Even though the capitals are connected, the region in general is not very well connected to the developed countries, and the connections are very expensive between the cities and the remote areas of the countries. I would like to bring this to your attention because sometimes this is not considered as a problem. But this is a problem for our countries and the region, and access is very, very expensive, especially in rural regions. So I would like the participants of all the panels to take this into consideration. Thank you. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, Olga. (inaudible) before we finish? Okay. So I would like to ask all of you one question. If I were a government person or a business person with no -- haven't been to an ICANN meeting, never been to an IGF and I turn up at Rio and I do the four and a half days, apart from learning to understand a lot of acronyms, what is one thing that you would like me to take home with me? Who would like to go first? Gotcha! >>GEORGE SADOWSKY: I'd like you to take home the fact that this is a revolutionary technology and it's really important to get it right for all kinds of reasons, for economic and social development in your country. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you, George. Any other volunteers to go next? Everton. >>EVERTON LUCERO: If you are not familiar with what is going to be discussed there, which is certainly not your case, but accepting your challenging question, I think that besides the enlightenment of receiving a lot of information that will be presented there, I think we would expect that this kind of person would go back home and then try - - with motivation, the motivation to try to take some of the understanding to their own people and then address the challenges of their local community with a view of creating the inclusive and people- centered information society that has been envisaged by the World Summit. >>FR?D?RIC DONCK: Excellent questions. I would like you to come back home with a conviction that multistakeholder and this approach and capacity building is of value in itself, be it from business, social, civil society, or government side. >>DIDIER KASOLE: Well, what I can do -- what I can say is that cooperation and collaboration is very good. So I think that's my word. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you. Bill. >>BILL GRAHAM: Surprisingly, I find myself in agreement with Everton by and large. I'd like people to come home with a sense of empowerment and a sense that they can actually do things to expand the use of the Internet in a positive way. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: And finally, Paul. >>PAUL TWOMEY: I think two parts. One is an understanding that a single global interoperable Internet is one of the most amazing gifts given to the empowerment of humanity that we have in our lives today in many deep ways. And that in the inevitable discussions about things that differ and cultures and change and whatever, that there's a big distinction between things that face the Internet addressing and routing system and the issues that face the content that's carried on such a system and an understanding of the distinctions between those. >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: Thank you very much. I would like to thank all of the panelists and I would like you to join me in thanking all of the panelists. [ Applause ] >>CHRIS DISSPAIN: And with that, I will call the session to a close. Thank you.