WSIS+10 Consultation

WSIS Consultation

My participation in the WSIS consultation, Stakeholder Consultations by the President of the United Nations General Assembly on the WSIS+10 process:

Your Excellency Chair of the Session Dr. Indrit Bannerjee, distinguished panellists, respondents, ladies and gentlemen,
Thanks for organizing this consultation. We are glad to have been able to join and will also gladly contribute to an improvement in process for the next round.
We have a Summit Gap, a distance between this discussion and the creative, disruptive, joyous world of Internet and ICT development by youth all over the world. It feels like a 20 year gap to any Howard Rheingold book like “Net Smart”. There is intense life bubbling under our level of aggregation and the risk exists that it will make Summits OBE if all stakeholders don’t act fast and decisively.
In the aftermath of the recent earthquake in Nepal, the members of the Internet Society entered contacts with the members of the ISOC chapter in that country. They are true heroes of selfless dedication and great talent. Within hours of the disaster they had started operations to reinstate electricity and communications. A small but decisive community of international volunteers from the technical community started, using those contacts, to establish a backstage online crisis room with the local volunteers, Internet Service Providers, staff of the State’s regulator, and people outside Nepal involved in humanitarian relief associations as well as Internet-radio-link engineering and deployment. The voluntary and energetic engagement of all parties led to success and progress. Once it stopped being useful this spontaneous task force dissolved. The power of the Internet is in this plasticity of creating but also shutting down response capabilities. The radio engineering and the education are not ephemeral and will continue to grow in place.
The technical community contributes not only its scientific, engineering and operational knowledge; it also provides its experience with large-scale project management and provides a neutral platform on which all other parties can coordinate. The complexities of the interaction of international humanitarian aid, local and subnational governments may not diminish but become far easier to navigate through towards sustainable, scalable solutions.
Summits, governments and organizations are centralized by definition. The technical community does its work every day and everywhere. Therefore support for its development is needed every day and everywhere. CSR is not enough; it does not scale up enough and often has no teeth.

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) are essential and transversal to all the ways to achieve the Millenium Development Goals up to now, and the Sustainable Development Goals into the future. An open Internet facilitates information exchanges, self- and co-education in all modalities, and the appearance of innovators at every level of geographical granularity. The Internet’s core design principles or “Internet invariants” such as interoperability, openness, permissionless innovation, global reach and accessibility are the most solid basis going forward. A layered analysis of problems helps to separate the technical and the social and provide solutions where the two cross over. Compliance with standards ensures maximum availability of the products of developing-country creativity and expands their business competitively. For example, HTML5 compliance can erase the need for separate Android, iOS etc. implementations; apps walled gardens then are replaced by open Internet. This is working now!
A previous speaker, Mr. Michalewski from Poland, has spoken about the need to confront hate and the induction of violence. These do not originate on the Internet but in society in general. If a new social contract is needed let us use the Internet to reach it in favor of free speech, human development and peace, with a clear vision of what layer problems originate in and In what layers action is useful.

For success in this way forward, education is indispensable. Not only what we refer to as capacity-building specialized for particular, technical tasks, but also fundamental and general skills of critical and mathematical reasoning, when possible knowledge and practice of computer programming, and other ways in which people can take technology in their hands and contribute to local development. Both schools and informal learning spaces such as “maker spaces” and “hackathons” provide opportunities for youth and for adults to engage in new practices and businesses. Engineers with policy understanding and policy-makers with awareness of what makes the Internet what it is, and all with the ability to bring multiple stakeholders to cooperate and produce progress, need to be educated more intensively in order to achieve the SDGs. The Internet technical and policy community will be there to support and contribute.

Consulta regional previa al IGF - Río de Janeiro, 2009

En estos días (11-13 de agosto de 2009) se lleva a cabo en Río de Janeiro una reunión de consulta multisectorial (multistakeholder) regional para América Latina y el Caribe, preparatoria en algún sentido para el Foro sobre Gobernanza de Internet (Internet Governance Forum, IGF) 2009 que se llevará a cabo en Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egipto, a fin de año.

El programa de esta reunión de consulta está publicado en http://www.nupef.org.br/igf/espanol/apres.html y allí es posible revisar objetivos, ponentes, organizadores, etc. Por mi parte agradezco a LACNIC haber hecho posible mi participación y a RITS y NUPEF la organización del evento.

Copio a continuación mis notas del evento, sin editar, en ánimo de que estén disponibles de inmediato para los interesados.

11 de agosto de 2009



Bienvenidas.

Carlos Afonso – presentaciones y agradecimientos: LACNIC, APC, ISOC, IDRC, CGI-BR, y a RNP por conectividad.

Raúl Echeberría – Esto no es “el IGF de LAC” ni nada parecido; ante todo es una exploración de opiniones y puntos de vista entre los asistentes. La reunión no tiene las estructuras ni la organización que se requeriría. LACNIC se alegra de contribuir.

Valeria Betancourt – A APC este foro le importa mucho y por ello trata de facilitar la participación. Consenso de que Internet debe ser gobernado de manera transparente, democrática, multisectorial y participativa y es necesario desplegar esfuerzos, acciones y recursos para involucrar sectores de los países en desarrollo.

Esta reunión preparatoria adquiere connotación más estratégica porque el IGF incorpora espacios para perspectivas regionales y eso le da más importancia a las conclusiones que se alcancen aquí. Avanzar hacia entorno de Internet democrático etc.

MARKUS KUMMER.

WSIS – Internet model vs. Intergovernmental. Therefore mandate from WSIS to UN-SG to convene IGF. Seen as most significant outcome of WSIS, certainly framework for post-WSIS governance.

It is NOT a UN conference, new organization, decision-making body, defined membership.

It IS based on “soft governance” approach, can identify new issues, shape public opinion and decision-making, based on multistakholder dialogue. Goverrnments recognize they need non-gov actors as equals, everyone with a say.

Roles of stakeholders; need for solid understanding of issues, dialogue, advice for consequences of decisions and solutions.

Critical Internet Resources added in IGF#2, includes physical infrastructure – not only DNS. Related to other themes, therefore not discussed separately.

In Sharm-el-Sheikh treatment of themes will be further differentiated – e.g. Security still need clarity of what we are talking about, other issues we know better what they are, need to discuss how to approach the problem, third set: issues we know we won't agree but will continue to discuss (such as CIR.)

Overall theme will be “Internet governance – creating opportunities for all.”

New thene will be Internet Governance in the light of WSIS principles. Also developoment and digital divide. Will lead to effective participation and capacity building for that.

The discussion of WSIS principles will allow better discussion of development issues, as this has not been dealt with adequately.

WSIS principles - Tunis Agenda creative ambiguity, negotiated text open to interpretation.

Traditional IGO cooperation vs. Bottom-up multistakeholder cooperation discussion will not be conclusive but conducive to learning.

National and regional IGF initiatives will be discussed and put in perspective.

IGF Mandate – what it is, why and how it will be reviewed (UNSG->CSTD->ECOSOC->General Assembly in Dec. 2010 whether the mandate will be extended.

Comments open on IGF website for IGF Review.

Strengths and weaknesses:
non decision-making power is seen as strength by some, weakness by others; open dialogue only possible if there were stress factor of having to negotiate outcome.

The IGF enters uncharted waters (Kofi Annan, 2006)

Scylla – too much empty talk
Charybdis – too much like a traditional Internet conference



Preliminary conclusions from questionnaire so far:

1.IGF confirms value of multistakeholder dialogue
2.value in being involved
3.all can contribute to decision-shaping process
4.reach out to new partners
5.learn new needs, trends, and solutions
6.decisions will be taken elsewhere but will be based on informaed opinion



HADILL VIANNA (BR Ministerio del Exterior)

Comentarios sobre lo que piensa el Gobierno Brasileño, especialmente el ministerio del exterior, sobre IGF y trabajos preparatorios así como reunión de Sharm-el-Sheikh

Demostración del gran interés de los brasileños sobre Gobernanza de Internet y en la cooperación con los países vecinos.

WSIS – Internet no debe ser manejada como fin en sí mismo sino como medio para el desarrollo y por ello su gobernanza debe ser acorde a principios WSIS.

Brasil reconoce y respalda todos los principios acordados por WSIS; todos están incluidos en el modelo brasileño reflejado en el CGI-BR.

Por eso Brasil quiere participar en construcción de mecanismo global similar.

Hicieron también encuentro de representantes gubernamentales de LAC.

Y la búsqueda de mayor patticipación de LAC llevó a Brasil a proponer a ONU for en Río.

El gobierno brasileño cree que al final de 5 sesiones el IGF podrá completar su mandato. Se necesita que en las 2 reuniones faltantes tenga plena participación de los sectores de los países en desarrollo y que esto ocurra en todo el proceso de planeación y no sólo en la sesión anual.

El IGF no puede ser iniciativa aislada sino parte de otras acciones para adecuar la gobernanza global de Internet a WSIS.

Enhanced Cooperation – el SG-UN tiene el encargo, y el IGF debe crear caminos para poder hacer recomendaciones acordes con su mandato y contribuir a la internacionalización de los mecanismos globales de gobernanza de Internet.

Por otra parte es necesario reconocer que falta mucho por hacer para que los recursos y beneficios de Internet se extiendan a todos los países. El IGF puede contribuir.

Estoy seguro de que éste segundo IGF regional contribuirá y al final estaremos listos para trabajar por una sociedad más justa y humana y un Internet más democrático.



Corresponden al primer día de la consulta, en que se llevó a cabo la inauguración y el panel de discusión inicial.