The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF virtual 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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You'll need it to be open and safe. You'll want to trust and to be trusted. We all despise control, desire freedom.
>> XIANHONG HU: Hello, good morning, good afternoon and good evening, everyone. Here is a warm greetings from IGF in Katowice. Welcome, you all to this UNESCO session on the internet universality which is really several times discussion since we developed indicator also through and at IGF. It's my first time to moderate this hybrid session. I can see you, I hope you are also able to see and hear us very clearly. At the gung, I would like to just structure the discussion a little bit because it will be a three‑hour discussion this afternoon. We are going to have several discussion sharing according to the different areas, on Human Rights, seven speakers from different countries to present their assessment and then you'll open this access and as well as a methodology. So please do stay with us for three hours, it will be very exciting.
I think I'm the UNESCO and director in Katowice. They will come and to interact with all of us. To give all of you overview of the project, I'm going to present jointly with Mr. David Souter on the implementation of the indicators project. So may I ask our technical support to present our first PPT project on the screen? Thank you. Thank you. Great. So I would just saw a few words before I hand over to David Souter, who is the best positioned to unpack the indicators themselves and also the unique strength of this framework. You know, this year, 16th IGF is a hybrid, despite of the pandemic. We have seen so many people coming here, and we all share the same passion, same dream to have an internet united. By internet being united is not just about connectivity, about the infrastructure, it's about the internet not to be fragmented.
The policy, the regulated framework should also be harmonized at the nation and global level. I see the value of UNESCO's principles and indicators have developed to really give teeth to ensure the universal values being mainstream to all levels of Internet governance. What exactly are those indicators to measure this for and principles of ROAM, universal access, multi stakeholder and openness. David, would you like to take the floor and to tell us what you are really the main architect of this ROAM‑X indicator. Tell us what is in there, since many participants attend our events maybe for the first time and also what are really the real strengths of this. All right, David, please take the floor.
>> DAVID SOUTER: Thanks, I'll give a very brief description of the ROAM‑X indicators, I expect most people in the session are familiar. My apologies if this is repetitive. There are two versions of the indicators, a full set which has 303 indicators and the core set which contains 109. And why so many I'm often asked, because we are trying to enable you, the researchers to put together a picture, which I've often called a collage of the international internet in the country, to form ‑‑ the scope and scale of that information will vary greatly from one country to another. There is no country, I think, where it will be possible to answer every question out of those 303.
But in every country, there should be enough scope to build a picture from what is available and draw conclusions from that. So there will be substantial variation in what you actually need to do in the different contexts. Most national studies to date have, in fact, all to date have focused on the core set of indicators. But we hope you'll also look at the others in the larger set and reflect on those and include those that seem particularly useful to the country concerned. So the next slide, if it comes up, will show that the indicators are grouped in five categories, and just to summarize that again for you, the overarching categories in UNESCO's concept of internet universality, so that's rights, openness, access and multi stakeholder participation.
Cross‑cutting issues concerned with other themes that are important in assessing any internet environment. Children, sustainability, trust and legal and ethical dimensions of the internet. None of these categories is intended to be more important than another. None should be given less attention than the others in the analysis. Each of the categories is divided into themes, each theme has a number of questions and there are indicators attached to each question, they fall into three main types. Some are concerned with the presence or absence of legal institutions or norms. Some are quantitative. Some are qualitative. That you are concerned, for example with the perceptions experts or the wider public, derived from commentary rather than numbers.
All of these resources, including the qualitative need to be taken with precaution, all of them need to be interrogated not just about what they say, but about why they say it and who wants them to say it and what it is that isn't being said. So what's missing from the record. The next slide shows the process and reporting structure that UNESCO asks those who are using the indicators to follow if they want their reports to be published but UNESCO. So first, critically here, studies should be multi‑stakeholder in character, each should be a multi‑stakeholder advisory board, supported by a research team that draws on all stakeholder groups. If to be valid for UNESCO publication, a ROAM‑X should not be led by one party, government, or business or civil society and should not reflect the interests of one party, either stakeholder community or a particular organization.
It should genuinely be collaborative, and its recommendations should be based around consensus within that multi‑stakeholder collaboration. It should be gathered critically. The aim is to learn as much about the internet environment as possible and to learn from links between the different themes and categories. So it shouldn't be a cross-checking exercise in which each indicator is treated separately. That's important as a starting point, but it should then move on to look across the theme and across the category and across the whole internet experience of the country to see how different they interact and what might be done in addressing them holistically.
A good report won't consider just answers to individual questions, but how that you fit together and make recommendations that encompass the internet environment as a whole as well as responding to the specific issues of individual questions. It's important, too, that the recommendations aren't just aspirations, aren't just things it would be nice to see. They should be practical and practicable. Things that can be implemented now or in the near future, by the different stakeholders involved. And that will make a difference to the internet experience within the country in terms of the different sections, different categories of rights of openness, access, and multi‑stakeholder participation and those cross‑cutting issues addressed under letter x.
To go back to the slide that Xianhong Hu has up initially, which I hope is the next one, to summarize the key downs here, this is one. The ROAM‑X framework is holistic, doesn't cover every aspect of the internet but does cover a set of aspects that are critical within the UNESCO's mandate. To the internet's ability to deliver on its promise. It emphasizes the citizen within the internet in terms of rights and access and government and business and other stakeholders should take, not just actions to benefit themselves, but to benefit citizens, not just the actions they should take, but the actions they should avoid. I think certainly it provides a methodology for holistic multi‑stakeholder. It builds on the evidence available within the country, identify whether there are gaps that draw people together with different perspective into a discussion about the best was forward that achieves their various goals, and recommend ways of moving forward to the benefit of all.
And it's a work in progress. We have had around 30 countries making use of these in one way or another so far. That reveals weaknesses as well as strengths. I think different countries experience have pointed to ways in which these indicators should be developed. Of course, the internet itself and the wider digital environment are constantly in change. So it is our intention, Xianhong Hu to review the from work in the lawsuit of this as we move forward. Back to you, now.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you. Thank you very much. David. I have heard you presenting this framework many times, every time I hear new insights. That's exactly the beauty of ROAM‑X, it's so inspiring why every time we get new thoughts and inspiration from it, simply to illustrate, I would have said that, you know, since we introduced the ROAM‑X indicators in 2018, voluntary basis, we have seen so many countries, increasing number of countries embracing the ROAM principles, using ROAM‑X indicators assess. It's like diagnosis tool, like a doctor.
If you want to know if the internet in your country is healthy or is sick, you can use this as a very comprehensive diagnosis to check if all works well, anything missing, any problems and you can formulate the recommendation actions to fix them. As you can see from this slide, I like to congratulate all those countries on this slide and also like to congratulate those leading researchers also in this meeting. This is your show to showcase what you have achieved in certain country's assessment, what you have observed, should it be reformed, should it be improved at a policy level and for the future, what do you recommend to take action? That will also be a very useful exercise for the other countries across five continents, to learn from the exercise we are having here in the 33 countries and then we want to have more countries in to use these indicators to assess the internet ecosystem in their country.
It's really universally relevant to every country's internet policy‑making. As David just mentioned, the multi‑stakeholder advisory board, this inclusive process is a key to guarantee the success visit the assessments. You can every country, the first step to compose such an advisory board consisting of governments, private sector, technical, civil society, NGO, gender, specialist, everyone, regardless of a pandemic, they are convening regular meeting to supervise and guide scientifically the research, that's a key to the success of assessment.
That's also a very innovative experiment of approach of having, put in place the multi‑stakeholder approach at an international level. The assessment will be completed by a national validation workshop to have all stakeholders to look at the results and then to debate the recommendations, to reach consensus which is the next step to take to fix the challenges, the merge the gaps and expand the achievements. Also, this is Internet Governance Forum, the discussion has far gone beyond the internet. Since internet universality principle is much broader than the internet itself. Just equally applied to all the digital transformation aspects, all the digital technology. This slide shows the AI and ROAM framework. UNESCO has recently endorsed the first global instrument AI as its recommendation in the 41st general conference.
The first global standard setting document, which also will recognize the ROAM principle and human rights, humanistic approach as the Bosnia, universal value and the AI policy and AI development. At IGF we are going to convene the first Dynamic Coalition of ROAM‑X meeting on Thursday. We already are having so many supporters and advocates and partners to support this project morally, financially spiritually and professionally. We do look forward to receiving more interest from all stakeholders at IGF to expand this coalition to promote the ROAM altogether.
We are advocating this at all kinds of forum, not only IGF, all kinds of international initiatives and also we Lees a with academia, liaison with the private sector and also other different strong actors through different stakeholder meetings, please do approach us to join us to promote this principle and try to apply them to your international context. Even this indicator found relevant to certain other actors. The ICANN and the internet society have a certificate gory of indicators for access can be useful for their work, same for NGO, for the academia, it can pick anything from this package to use for their daily research and work. Next steps.
We have been drawing out for three years with 33 countries. For next step, we certainly want to have more and more countries to assess the indicators. Also, we recognize the fast development of technology and policy, welcome to review the impact of the indicator project and update the indicators themselves, imagine new movement and new policies, new challenges to be considered in this in achieving universality of access to information. So it is an ongoing process, we look to you to contribute further. We are doing the global consultation to talk in, and the inputs on updating this indicator themselves. Also, we are going to improve the quality of the national assessment because a very complex assessment. We recognize the need for more technical support from our researchers and actors in strengthening the multi‑stakeholder advisory board and in collecting data and strengthening the methodology to ensure the results are really solid which can formulate into the sustainable action. We are going to support the Dynamic Coalition by restructuring a new online platform for all stakeholders, easy to follow up the implementation of indicators in each country.
On this map, our future platform, it can dynamic if you cluck Thailand, if you click Kenya, Brazil, you can see all that has been done on ROAM‑X indicator ranging from the assessment to the activities to events to the implementation of the recommendations, et cetera, so that it can be very useful to share good experiences, lessons learned among all the countries. So thank you very much. Now, I'd like to introduce the sessions, different from last year, we organized the sessions by regions. This year we organized them according to the areas of indicators. The first session we have invited seven speakers representing seven countries assessments of ROAM‑X indicators across five continents. But I'd like them to share first the overall progress and the situation in the country, but also to focus on their key findings and the key recommendations on Human Rights indicator. As you can see from this slide, we look at free expression, route to privacy, access to information, freedom of association and broadly on social, economic and culture rights.
As well as the cross‑cutting indicators. As you can see from the screen, the gender equality, empowering youth, sustainable development, the trust and security issues, legal, ethical aspect of digital transformation. I'm going to invite the seven speakers, I hope they are all online, maybe my co‑moderator, Karen, can you ‑‑ I think they are all here with us. The first speaker I'd like to introduce, the leading researcher, the ROAM‑X indicator in Ethiopia, Dr. Asrat Mulatu. Are you there? Could you please unmute yourself? If you are not here I saw Karen text that doctor is having some connectivity issues. Don't worry, please try to connect later. I'm introducing second speaker, Sadaf Khan representing the research in Pakistan. Are you there? Sadaf.
>> SADAF KHAN: Yes, I'm here, hello.
>> XIANHONG HU: The floor is yours, please let us know what's your major finding in Pakistan and what do you suggest improving Human Rights online in the country. Thank you.
>> SADAF KHAN: Thank you, it's an honor to be the first speaker. Not something I was looking forward to, but yeah. Adds a bit of pressure on me, thank you so much, it's great to see the process come this far. I became involved in the process of development of the internet universality indicators while the indicators were still being developed. So I have like a lot of regard for the kind of hard work that has been put into this framework. I'm going to be sharing my screen. So you think your screen is going to get turned off for that so.
>> XIANHONG HU: Please share a screen. I think our technical supporter with all ‑‑ yeah, is projecting your screen, I can see it now in the room. Please start.
>> SADAF KHAN: Okay. So at the beginning, I would like to just give a background of what's been happening in Pakistan. We launched the assessment for the internet universality indicators earlier this year. And because the pandemic was still raging when we started the process. We have had a few troubles related to our inability to get people together physically. So we managed to put together a pretty good multi‑stakeholder advisory board who have come together online together multiple times to help us get the research so far. We are holding or workshop tomorrow. So good luck to us on that. But yeah, we are at the stage where the findings are with us, and we are kind of looking at developing recommendations that are multi‑stakeholder in that regard. Moving on to the findings, start with the rights. I hope that my screen is properly visible to everyone.
So in the area of rights, just to keep on time, I'll be sharing the very basic findings at this time. What we found in Pakistan is both good things and bad. The framework, if you look at it is based on three thematic areas within the rights, digital rights and Constitution and law. In Pakistan, the Constitutional protections do provide the provisions for relevant Human Rights, Pakistan is signatory to Human Rights mechanisms and has signed on to most of the resolutions in which the digital rights and internet has been discussed. There are limited legal protections for freedom of expression, right to information and privacy, especially when it comes to the online provisions. And that is not for the lack of laws themselves.
There are a number of laws, the limitation, limited legal protections, the limitation comes from the fact that a number of restrictions on speech and expression have been put in place using very vague subjective terms which allows for the abuse and misuse of law sometimes. Moving on to specifically the content regulation of digital content. There has been a lot of locally and nationally on the lack of transparency and oversight mechanisms. The content regulation is carried out through the regulator, PTA and the government have been involved in implementation of other laws dealing with privacy, freedom of association, et cetera. But the main criticism is not on the legal instrument itself, but the lack of transparency in how those legal instruments are implemented.
There are challenges not just because of subjectivity but also with regards to the human resource, the technical resource that is required implement laws dealing with cyberspace effectively. There is a look of you understanding, lack of capacity within the legal community, within the judicial community specifically, in dealing with digital specific issues. In some cases we have seen a really good role of judiciary. It is not directly coded into legal instruments, we have great examples of case law coming in from higher judicially that does create the K‑12 see and does use legal protections. Moving on to team b and c, freedom of expression and access to information.
This has been a challenging area to assess because right now, and actually since 2020, this whole area of dealing with content regulation online, the regulation and governance of digital content, that's something completely in flux, at least two new major policies have been introduced, either discarded in the middle and one that's going to kind of define how digital content is regulated in Pakistan has been challenged in the how court. I'm one of the those appointed but the court on this particular case, by the way, which, you know, just having been ‑‑ just having conducted the assessment is really helping me put together my brief for the court as well.
The restrictions on speech, the restrictions and regulation, content takedowns, they come majorly in the category of blasphemy, if you look at transparency reports pushed out and published by most of the global corporations, the content reinstructed on the basis of blasphemy is almost half or more than half of the total volume of content that's restricted. I hear a bit of contextual understanding, Pakistan is an Islamic country. Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Blasphemy is a highly volatile area. Dealing with blasphemy in the law and outside the law, these restrictions, this is really sensitive teams, so even though there are ‑‑ there have been multiple recommendations during the process, other Human Rights instruments regarding dealing with blasphemy online, this is a difficult area for our governments to deal with. Additional concerns and the main area of concern I have pointed out are restrictions based on decency and morality.
It is a very subjective thing to kind of outline, and in a community that's as diverse as Pakistan, more than 40 languages spoken, multiple communities living, decency and morality has been something on which there is a social conflict that preexists and is being translated to the internet. We have a history of lock o blocking platforms. Most recently Tik Tok was blocked. By the PTA. In the past we have faced a block of YouTube, the platform, for lasting over four years. This is one of the areas on which the challenge in the court is based on. Then on freedom of association, what we have found is some documentation, there is some documentation, media reporting of structure, in authentic hate campaigns against online organizers, especially feminist organizers and women who are politically active or who are associated with journalism.
But there is no evidence of direct interference from the government. I'm pointing this out, if you look at the indicator, it talks about direct interference from the government in online associations, while that evidence doesn't exist, there is documentation that some politically motivated or seemingly politically motivated campaigns have been unleashed to disrupt political organizations, especially around women's day in the digital spaces is taking plus. That structured activity includes both hate speech and incitement to violence. It does include disinformation, videos, et cetera, some kind of resources have been spent on it. Again, the rules that you've been talking about, the ones that have been challenged in court, tries to decriminalize disinformation. Obviously criminalizing Ms. Information is not something as straight forward.
Privacy and data protection. So privacy is a Constitutionally protected right. So it is recognized as a fundamental human right, we do not have a data protection law as yet. The data protection law has been embraced since 2017 when Pakistan signed onto the open government partnership, and multiple drafts of the research have been discussed with the public. They have been open to the public. There are limited legal protections that exist currently. Which are kind of sectoral, banking protection sector exists, in the business sector, some protection exists, data protection framework. There have been multiple units of data leaks from both public and private bodies. Regarding social, economic and cultural rights, e‑health facilities picked up during COVID, they have mushroomed. However, challenges of excess remain because accessibility is still limited, we do not have universal access and the ability to use the internet is limited. Pakistan is one of the lower ranking countries in the index in which people and ability of people to use the internet.
That's fairly limited. Even though e‑health facilities have mushroomed because of COVID, in the past, in 2020, the accessibility remains a huge challenge. There is no indication at all of this policy with regard to culture and culture rights. Sorry, I'm going very fast because I want to ensure you finish in time. So in terms of recommendations, I've listed three here. A, there is a legal framework, a question of legal from work. We do have a reasonably good framework, after talking to the experts, after discussing the findings with the civil society sector what we found out is the issue lies more with the process of legislation than the legal instruments.
So recommendations, is the improvement of stakeholder consult out of process, right now we do have a multi‑stakeholder process, the data protection law has been in consultations over the years. But the process itself is problematic, there have been lack of transparency, about the lack of back and forth about the logic of reasons behind when y recommendations are accepted, and who is invited to the table and not invited. In terms of legislative process, that is the first step in ensuring the process in terms improved. Then there's a recommendation to create Human Rights, not just for the policies that are dealing directly with rights, like data protection law, but all the policies that deal with the cyberspace. For example, crowd policy, broadband policy all being in different phases of being formulated, what we are in ‑‑ you we are recommended a creation of Ministry of Human Rights, national commission, national Human Rights commission and private ‑‑ Human Rights activists to conduct a Human Rights assessment related to business development, or anything else, even if they're not directly focusing on rights. Finally, if FOE and RTI, increased transparency and creation of oversight mechanism, removal of subjective terminology from the law.
Good important first steps. Cross‑cutting indicators, the gender has been one of the most, I think, overlooked parts, most concerning findings in Pakistan. There are political, social, economic and structural challenges that all exist. Specifically because of the social and cultural challenges that occur that exist with railroads to gender, this area is difficult to document, and this area is difficult for the government to target through policies as well. However, we do have the widest mobile visual gap and biggest gender digital gap.
It requires a lot of priority. Unfortunately, we are not seeing a lot of that. There is a subsection dealing with ICT for girls and targets set but the digital Pakistan policy and need to be improved much more. The details for achieving those targets have not been made, that has yet to be made. Again, with regards to women, legal protection exists in cybercrime law with regard regards to women, the FOE, the law enforcement body dealing with cybercrime cases has released reports year after year the largest amount of cybercrime complaints come from women being black play balled, harassed. There is a huge bag log in dealing with the crimes that women do report and because of cultural constraints, most of the cases are not reported at all. So that gives one of the definitive action points, one of the gaps that Pakistan, the policy needs to develop, and implementation and practices needs to improve. In to 20 a group of 160 women journalists released a statement against online ‑‑ rising online use by political workers. The government was not named or any political party was named.
It talked about how women are consistently targeted if they verbalize political opinions. There was a hearing in the national seam blue as well, but the situation, unfortunately, remains pretty much the same, women face abuse, if they are vocal and prominent, journalists or activists, they face significantly worse and targeted abuse in the digital spaces. The government's policies have kind of focused on creating one program, which means improvement regarding children, there is a complete data vacuum. There are legal amendments. Sorry, I need water. You Sorry about that. So the policy on children seems to be completely focused on protection from child abuse and child pornography. Which are obviously is not enough, and that's something that we are also proposing and working on. The perception data is a bit concerning it shows over 48 percent of the respondents think it's not at all important for children to have access to internet.
Which is not true in today's day and age. That is something that indicates an area the government might need to work on. Move on to the recommendations, because I'm already over time. But yeah, for the recommendations, obviously data collection is still the first recommendation, we do not have any gender segregated data, that's released but public bodies or officials and household services are pretty limited in their approach. There might be indicative of some trends, but not exhaustive data. That policies can be built on. None of the areas that needs to be covered. Then rather than talking an ICT, we focus on creating spaces to encourage girls to use the internet. For all policies to be gender responsive, gender sensitive and inclusive.
We do see a need for change within all the different policies dealing with ICTs and all the digital responses. Prioritizing children is very important. Creating safe digital spaces for children, creating strategies to increase media information, literacy among children, products to make sure schools are imparting good IT education, finally focus on social barriers, this is one thing we found missing in the policies, through our own research not the south. Our own research and other researches focused on women. It's very apparent that families, family values, access to mobile permission from families, cultural perceptions that are ‑‑ using ICTs are one of the main barriers stopping women from using mobile phones and the internet. Dealing with these negative perceptions that create one of the main barriers is not ‑‑ is not ‑‑ it's not really good, and that's a focus that needs to be built into the policy, I'll stop there, sorry for going over time here. Back to you.
>> XIANHONG HU: I didn't want to interrupt you at all because all you have been presenting is so substantial, amazing results from your research. I do hope this PPT will be lunged and shared on our website later down so the stakeholders can know more about your research. Really too short for any country to be presenting in five minutes. So I do appreciate your contributions. Thank you, Sadaf. I'm interested Matthias Ketteman to present the ROAM‑X assessment from Germany particularly focused on the Human Rights and gender cross‑cutting issues, the floor is yours.
>> MATTHIAS KETTEMAN: Thank you so much, thank you for your wonderful introduction. If you would allow me to share my screen, I could do that too.
>> XIANHONG HU: Excellent technical support in the room. They are going to promote you to a co‑host so you'll be able to share your screen.
>> MATTHIAS KETTEMAN: Appreciate the promotion.
>> XIANHONG HU: Immediately.
>> MATTHIAS KETTEMAN: As does UNESCO with its promotion of Human Rights. Through the Internet Universality Indicators.
>> XIANHONG HU: Sur, could you please promote Matthias to share his screen.
>> MATTHIAS KETTEMAN: Yes, thank you. That is wonderful.
>> XIANHONG HU: We see your excellent graphics. Please go ahead.
>> MATTHIAS KETTEMAN: Thank you very much. , I'm Matthias, the beautiful man behind me is the creator of the German broadcasting system, and the person behind the name of our institute. And we conducted the indicator study on behalf of German UNESCO commission, the team of professionals and myself. One of the key success factors we found was an excellent cooperation with the political establishment, which helped tremendously in accessing data. The chair of our advisory board, the cyber ambassador, ambassador Green called the report in the final version a milestone for digitalization in Germany, and we happy to help provide that milestone. You already heard about process, I can keep that very short. We took the indicators and built up an interdisciplinary team, also an important success factor. Only lawyers or only political science people. You have to get everybody involved, including people who know a lot about data and how to tease out the secrets from data.
We focused specifically on how the internet protects Human Rights and how Human Rights can be ensured through digitalization. Some of the central results focusing on the categories which you pointed us to, Germany is wrong of those countries where the level of internet usage is high, still growing, but already very high. Even in a developed country like Germany, there are differences in usage between people who have jobs and don't have jobs, people in full employment and those who are not. Between people with immigration background and without one. We found that those gaps are important enough to warrant a more ‑‑ a stronger political response.
We have also found, importantly, the internet digitalization has arrived at a center of different political fields, digitalization, shapes, politics in Germany, I'll come to that at the end, in our recommendations, we suggested that digitalization should be mainstreamed into each and every policy area and now the new German government has decided not to create individual ‑‑ an individual ministry for digitalization, but rather two mainstream digitalizations into each and every ministry's work. Not saying it was only because of our recommendations, but it's an aspect of political planning is very much in keeping with our recommendations.
We have also focused in our study on distilling the problems inherent in a multi‑level system of governance with European Union laws, national and federal, the country system. Interacting sometimes ‑‑ sometimes counter acting. We teased out where we still see room for improvement. The German ‑‑ our assessment pointed to a certain lack of data regarding exclusions, digital violence, especially as amplified by platform design decisions. Nothing peculiar to Germany, it's something also a comprehensive analysis of, for instance, digital violence and the process is divided by. Calling in our recommendations for more transparency and accountability by all stakeholders. In terms of infrastructure, Germany lags behind its own commitments, the last government committed to substantially expanding broadband to all Germans, didn't quite manage that.
Still on the board to do that. Teaching, especially during the coronavirus year, is now full of commitments to increasing digital skills, federated structure of adjust German education system, which doesn't leave room for experimentation, sometimes leads to planning problems, regarding rights specifically, we have shown that the German court systems have a strong commitment to the online‑offline K‑12 see of rights. We refer to a number of court cases, including lowest court cases which have confirmed that online rights have to be protected, including by private companies. They can take down content but have to respect fundamental rights in doing so and the courts enforce that duty. Access to the internet is a right for everyone, if you are on a governmental subsistence, that subsistence has to ensure that you have enough money to be able to take part in the communicative space, and you can't do that without internet access these days.
We are recommending more investment in the quality of media education and digital literacy, all the way keeping the federalized structure that opens up room for experimentation. We point out to the success story of the self‑regulatory youth media protection system. Calling for more data on gender and diversity usage, that encompasses the whole life cycle of digital politics and policies. Gender diversity mainstreaming has to happen at the point of construction of the teams that select the input and training data. Of course, also with regard to the training data. Germany has a long history of a strong defense of Democracy against antidemocratic statements. We have national loss against Holocaust denial, those are applied online too, through the internet enforcement act.
Which has become very well‑known globally. It's still digital violence and leads to radicalization and offline harm. We underline the state responsibility to bridge the digital divide within economic sectors and employed and unemployed dimension and calling for more strong protection of ‑‑ against AI based discrimination. Our report has been published online, you can find it. Which translates to how ‑‑ also internet 2020 in English and German. That's a snapshot of our website which the German UNESCO did a fantastic job in designing.
You can search for specific words, such as e government, multi‑stakeholder, community and this will automatically give you all of the indicators where that word appears because some of these are intersectional, and you can immediately find all of the topics that you are looking for. The site, as I've said is well designed with a good visual component, also very well accessible to people with disability. We have done our very best to be present and to report UNESCO's attempt to tell people about our experience the last couple of months, I've had the honor and privilege to present our experience a couple of times, and I'm very willing to do so always again, it's such a privilege to talk about the last year and the recording process. We have launched the whole thing at the internet governance forum in Germany, when I had less hair and looked kind of sad. And when we did that, it really made quite a splash.
Germany's biggest television started its program with a reference to what UNESCO wants, of course what UNESCO wanted, rather a report conducted ‑‑ conducted for the German UNESCO commission suggested a better internet connection, in today's media age, things get abbreviated a bit. They want a right to a quicker internet isn't completely false. We did say that internet is important and rights are important. The words were there. This, as you said, made quite a splash and all the media referenced the report. I think that's an important thing, you have to get them the report and then they are stuck there and start reading what it's really about. We were happy with that. A lot of the topics we waste in our recommendations hatch made it into the coalition treaty which has been agreed to last week, for a period 2021‑2026. We are very hopeful that the recommendations will therefore be ‑‑ make an impact. Thank you very much for your attention, and if there are any questions, also but e‑mail, thank you so much. Thanks for having me.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you so much. Like you are sending us a Christmas gift. Congratulations for such an excellent online platform using the German IUI assessment. We should link it. That could be really good practice for other countries also to try it out, to share impact more policy‑makers through this kind of communication initiative. Now I'm introducing the next speaker, representing the ongoing research of ROAM‑X in Ghana, Mr. Simon Kafui Aheto. Are you there? Mr. Simon Kafui, are you there? If you're not there, I'm going to introduce the next speaker, representing the ROAM‑X assessment in Tunisia, Mr. Kamel Rezgui. Are you with us?
>> KAMEL REZGUI: Yeah.
>> XIANHONG HU: Nice to see you on the screen.
>> KAMEL REZGUI: Thank you very much. .
>> XIANHONG HU: Please start your presentation on Tunisia.
>> KAMEL REZGUI: You share my presentation.
>> XIANHONG HU: Yes, please. Could you please promote Kamel Rezgui to share his screen, thank you.
>> XIANHONG HU: It's a Word document.
>> KAMEL REZGUI: Thank you very much. For your invitation. So I will ‑‑ to respect the time, the five minutes is a hard limit, I will just read my contribution and maybe after, in the exchange session, I will talk about other aspects, okay.
>> XIANHONG HU: Yes, please.
>> KAMEL REZGUI: Okay. So while the development of the internet environment is reached to Tunisia, due to the significant steps but the government, private sector, independent regulators, civil society. The reactive vision is still lacking from the government side due to the political stability of the last few years after 2011 political change. As such, there are a short coming in the process of developing consistent and coherent framework for the government in collaboration with other stakeholders. This leads to inequalities in the use and exploitation of the Internet, especially for vulnerable population such as people with disabilities.
Concerning the Human Rights issues, I could say that the Tunisian political change of 2011 has greatly shifted the landscape in Tunisia, from repressive regime that engaged in online censorship and widespread surveillance, the country now enjoys relative openness. Tunisia's internet environment is regulated by several sector regulation, as well as the Constitution of 2014, which can be applied to the online sphere. The Constitution provides several gosh tees, such as the route to freedom of expression, the right to access information and the route to privacy. Tunisian law doesn't make explicit distinction between rights protected online and offline, currently this is tailored to the visual world in Tunisia. However, the Tunisian legislator to certain initiatives to the adaptation of flow on the electronic cop text such as the law of June 2009 amending the law on coupe routes, for example.
Freedom of expression in Tunisia is generally outlined by the Constitution and two Hallmark laws. The law on the freedom of the press, printing and publishing and the law on the freedom of audio-visual communication. These two laws establish certain limitations that are consistent with international standards, and the ICCPR. In practice, these Constitutional and legislative texts, which guarantee freedom of expression on the internet under these conditions are generally observed. However, at certain times, it has been noted that public authorities, especially, don't accept freedom of expression on the internet particularly on certain social networks.
Moreover, there are no laws that limit access to information online. Indeed, freedom of expression is guaranteed but the Constitution. Additionally, Tunisia has been a member of the open government partnership since 2014. There are, however, a few challenges that persist, I think. The lack of a Constitutional court is another point of concern. Still unestablished after six long years of political delays, the court would be the ultimate arbiter of violations of the Constitution. The court would also be tasked with the revision and possible abrogation of former laws that no longer conform to the Constitution.
The establishment of the Tunisian technical agency for telecommunications in November 2013, created to fight the threat of cybercrime and cyberterrorism and mandated to exploit national monitoring systems of telecommunication traffic, for the purpose of providing technical support to the judicial investigation should be reviewed because of the debate about its status, missions and prerogatives. Additionally, the law for protection of personal data should be reformed to provide adequate safeguard and guarantees for personal data protection that conform with international human rights standards, and that infringe on other fundamental rights, such as the route to access information, which is an issue in the current, ongoing bill.
Finally, while the much‑lauded access to information law has been in place since March 2016, the law remains incomprehensible for much of civil society, and the general public. More should be done to simplify the laws, procedure, in order to facilitate action to public documentation. In addition, public and governmental document should be provided online in formats that allow for use in opengov, or opendata projects for the improvement of social, environmental and health related issues. Concerning the cross‑cutting issues, we could say that while the internet acts as a new frontier for business and civil society, it also represents a space that is rife with harassment and potential abuse of users. Tunisia doesn't currently have monitoring or reporting mechanism for the experience of user, especially vulnerable groups like woman and children online.
Data on the extent to which there is harassment or abuse is valuable. So society groups and the Ministry of Women currently offer services for user to report abuse online and in some cases certain nonprofit organizations have intervened and worked with private companies to stop the abuse. In general, Tunisia has very strong laws pertaining to violence again woman. In addition to physical violence, it recognizes other forms of violence against women and girls, including economic, sexual, political and psychology ‑‑ psychology, however, it is application in the online sphere remains difficult due to the inefficiencies within me judiciary and lack of capacity in understanding and other things online, violence and abuse. So that is the main remarks in which we can answer to the two questions. Thank you for your attention, and I will be disposed to questions and thoughts. Thank you very much.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you so much, Kamel for your comprehensive presentation. I also take this opportunity to pay tribute to our strongest partner in Tunisia, the ENTT, regulator of access information law, as you just mentioned who has been the strong partner with the ROAM‑X assessment in Tunisia, and we do hope that Kamel, all of us can continue this project to ‑‑ I think it can be more valuable to help with transitional society like Tunisia to achieve good results of digital transformation. Now I'm inviting the next speaker, Maria Fernanda Martinez, our newly initiated Executive Director in Argentina.
>> MARIA FERNANDA MARTINEZ: Yes, hello. I would like to present too. Yes, I can share.
>> XIANHONG HU: We can see your screen now. , I think we are having the most active presenters at IGF. Every speaker presenting. So I call upon our technical support to promote everyone to be a co‑host. Thank you. Yes, Maria, I can see your screen very clearly. Maria, I think you are muted. Could you turn on your ¶ row phone.
>> MARIA FERNANDA MARTINEZ: Now it's fine. You will speak louder.
>> XIANHONG HU: I hear you very clearly.
>> MARIA FERNANDA MARTINEZ: Well, I'm saying it is very interesting to share this experience with colleagues all over the world. I'm going to start to introduce myself. My name is Fernanda Martinez. I'm the Director of the Center for Technology and Society Studies, Cetys in Argentina, it's the Center for Research, education and dissemination on public policy and the development on digital process in Latin America. The members of the research team are here. Co‑direction and research team are Carolina Caeiro, Ivan Kirschbaum, Delfina Ferracuti. With regards to findings in the categories of Human Rights and crosscutting indicators. The protection of human rights in Argentina is guaranteed by the National Constitution, and although ‑‑ I'm sorry, I have some problems here with my -- don't worry. I will say that Argentina's ‑‑ has a long history of promotion of Human Rights.
The principle there is no specific rule in Argentina that recognizes the principle of online, offline equivalence, we adhere to the Human Rights council stating that the rights of individual must be protected on the internet. In practice, however, there is not always guarantee. Lack of adequate infrastructure and technical equipment to enable citizens to access quality internet, diverse level of digital literacy among the population. Laws that are not adapted to the specificities of the digital environment, for example, online crimes against woman or girls. I don't know why I have so many troubles to share this. Argentina has also a legal framework consistent with human rights standards for the protection of women and children. However, there are some difficulties in guaranteeing the fulfillment of these rights online. Work is currently under way to incorporate the route category of digital violence and telematic violence. Argentina has also developed various actions to promote the equal inclusion of women, especially in the public sphere.
However, this trend is not reflected with the same strength in the digital sphere. Threats or human rights violations we find doing this research, here in Argentina we have problems associated with migration, police abuse and deficiencies in the security and prison policy, difficulties in exercising the rights of indigenous people, and the sustained increase in poverty and destitution which mainly affect children aged 0 to 14. Especially on digital environments, the implementation and expansion of the use of facial recognition technologies, we also have increasing cyber patrolling situations and increase of discriminatory expression or harassment situations affecting mainly women. While COVID context revealed and in some cases deepened, preexisting weaknesses. For example, we had increases in complaints and cases of surveillance on networks by the security forces. Although the increase in situations of intimidation and attacks on journalists.
Abusive implementation of restrictions on movement and forced confinement. Increased restrictions on freedom of expression. Existing inequalities in access to and use of the internet that mainly affect the most vulnerable population. We are still working on recommendations, the most outstanding ones. First, we recommend advance consensus with all stakeholders to enable the design and implementation of long‑term policies of internet issues. Second, raise public awareness of the importance of protecting their rights online. Third, to generate awareness‑raising and training for government actors on these issues. Finally, to develop an active policy of collecting and analyzing disaggregated data on Internet access, affordability and use. Thank you very much and sorry for the inconvenience.
>> XIANHONG HU: No, it went very smoothly. We got you perfect. Thank you so much, just Fernanda, for sharing the interim findings from Argentina assessment. We do look forward to a full, completed assessment and the results from Argentina perhaps early next year. Also we look forward to more collaboration with you and your institute. Now I'm introducing the next speaker from the same Latin American region, Latin America region has been very proactive to use the ROAM‑X indicators to national assessment. First from Brazil, now a number of countries in Latin America. The next speaker is Mr. Eduardo Carrillo, representing the ROAM‑X assessment in Paraguay. Are you there? I see you. Hi, Jim couldn't hear you, can you unmute yourself. You did? We couldn't hear you. Our magic technicians, I couldn't hear Eduardo.
>> EDUARDO CARRILLO: Can you hear me now.
>> XIANHONG HU: Now I can hear you.
>> EDUARDO CARRILLO: Yes, it's a microphone for some reason, Zoom doesn't like my computer very well. Well, thank you very much, I'm going to share my screen myself. Just let me see if I can do that smoothly.
>> XIANHONG HU: I'm asking our technician to allow you, you did it instantly, thank you.
>> EDUARDO CARRILLO: Great. I already ‑‑ so going straight into the subject because I know the time constraints, thank you very much for this opportunity to discuss about the idea of ROAM‑X indicators and particularly for the continuing support in this work. So in regard to the context, the research was conducted but the ministry of the local civil society organization, TEDIC, which I'm representing to, I'm Eduardo Carrillo. It was finalized in October 2019 and includes 109 core indicators, full indicators for the dimension of multi‑stakeholder participation and two general indicators, namely those of open government partnership to showcase the progress of the country in the matter, much like the Tunisia example that was just showed a few minutes ago. So just to have like a brief moment to talk about the methodology, much like some of the previously presentation from this panel, initial data collection combining freedom of access requests and consultation of official statistics and reports, consultation of reports of different credible sources such as academia and think tank here were conducted.
What's interesting in the Paraguay context, this data collection was combined with three consultation and validation responses, we had a first request with government departments, private companies, technical community, academia and civil society organizations for initial information validation, that was then followed by the confirmation of the multi‑stakeholder advisory board, the main aspect of the ROAM‑X methodology. Which was compose bud three representatives from the public sector, four from civil society, two from the academic sector. Of course, this was the main body that peer reviewed and gave feedback for the report before it was finalized.
There was a final assessment and validation from the Paraguay internet steering committee, the main multi‑stakeholder body of governance of the. Due to time constraint, I will only do a general description of the main findings and cross‑cutting usuals which are this particular panel's objective. For the rights section, at the findings and recommendations, I would say, Paraguay has a robust human rights framework such as the route to privacy, freedom of speech, access to public information and others. And what particularly stands out for the context, the existent harmonization between the public international rights norms and the National Constitution.
Although there is not an explicit normative that indicates the same online routes are applied to the online requirements, in practice, the judiciary system, as well as some public policies that emanate from the executive sector do extend ‑‑ do extend such rights to the online environment as well. Now, for this particular section, one of the main findings and recommendations is the need of a new personal data protection law for Paraguay, such law has to be treated with urgency in the sector because there is an important confusion as we speak with the law of credit‑related data, which is the one that is enforced because the protection of such rights are not enough for protection ‑‑ of personal data of people. So therefore, these laws should be in line with other international holistic and protective legislation, such as for example the European Union, the GDPR.
Moving on to the cross‑cutting issues findings and recommendations, I would say that there is and there was a particular difficulty transversal in this indicator, but also all the others while the research was being conducted. The absence of evidence needed to build a more assertive policy to meet current needs. To do credible and effective diagnosis, which why we think the ROAM‑X is such an important advance on this matter.
From this perspective, online abuse and harassment are worrying, and there is still a look of accountability from public institutions when it comes to proper data collection that could help measure the real and current impact of online violence towards women and children. In general, we do recognize the existence of a legal framework to protect women against violence and abuse. However, there are still problem because of structural problems with the judicial and public security systems and how that you understand this issue, particularly when extended to the online world. Regarding children, we have pretty much the same problem, there is a need of a proper recollection of this aggregated data by responsible institutions to overcome the lack of current data related particularly to the use and perception of children on the internet and ICT and lack of desegregated data more broadly on this particular matter.
In relation to sustainable development and ethical and legal aspects, a, la of proper monitoring mechanism for projects related to the use of the Internet and ICTs within the public sector has been identified as a challenge that needs to be tackled to follow the real degree of execution and progress of these projects by civil society and citizens interested and to ensure a proper level of accountability. Finally, I don't have a slide for that, but it was asked from us talk about the lessons learned for the context, in the development of the ROAM‑X methodology. I would say that first the combination of different validation processes has used to be useful in terms of networking and ensuring different actors are aware of the conduction of a ROAM‑X indicators, in this case Paraguay, sustaining the commitment of this ad hoc bodies is also an adult thing because everyone has different commitments that needs to be addressed.
Sustained progress through time and of course being the ROAM‑X research that takes a lot of time, there is a bit of a disconnection maybe from the initial moment where a particular body both for peer review or validation conformed and then when they actually need to do the job. There might be some time that's ‑‑ time gaps there that needs to be, let's say, taken into account by future teams that would like to do validation processes promise multiple sources, not only the multi‑stakeholder advisory board. In our particular case, the commitment from government to conduct the research is crucial to ensure public institutions answer you and give you the necessary information to fill the gaps in the different indicators. So I would stay here, I think I was in the five minutes. Thank you very much, for the opportunity.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you very much. Eduardo for such a solid presentation. Actually, we are ending this first session, unless if our speaker from Ghana and Ethiopia, did that you eventually connect in? If not yet, let me move to the second session, because we are quite behind schedule, and we'll wrap up all the question and answer in the end to allow for a full presentation from all our speakers. I know every speaker representing one country's situation of research, we need more time. Now I'd like to introduce the second thematic session to share the key findings, recommendations in the ROAM‑X indicator particularly, openness and accessibility indicators The first speaker, Alain Kiyindou, please come to hear. Approve country due is UNESCO chair based in Universite Bordeaux. He has been leading a number of national initiatives in western Africa. So today he's going to present Benin and Niger two countries assessment process. I'm asking the technician, could you please project ‑‑ sorry, not this one, the third one. Thank you. From Kiyindou.
>> Alain Kiyindou: Slide in English. (Speaking non‑English language)
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you for preparing such a bilingual presentation. I would like to thank the colleague in Paris, Karen, she has been ‑‑ a good colleague, Steve tone take notes to prepare the documentation we are going to link all this contribution to the website on Younes following the session so everyone can access them, to have a full information after the session. Now I'm asking the next speaker, Mona, Shaya, representing the ROAM‑X capability in pal student. Mona, thank you, please take the floor.
>> MONA SHTAYA: Thanks for having us and organizing the session. Advocacy advisor for the advancement of social media. We started working on the ROAM‑X since the last year, but obviously we are going to launch that earlier, hopefully early in the next year. Now we are still preparing that and under process. Bust I'll be sharing like the insights we are collecting and then if you have questions, feel free to drop that. I'll start with different in Palestine that we have, because Palestinian are living like under complex political situation because of the Israeli occupation, but also because of the plus Cal between the west bank and Gaza strip, as a result of that, we have three different governments that affecting or impacting digital rights in Palestine and the internet reality in Palestine, the de facto government in Gaza strip, but the Israeli authorities in Israel who are also affecting the reality in the Palestinian territory.
To start with, I'll start with infrastructure, which is something fundamental when we talk about internet reality in Palestine, the Palestinian authority are now controlling the infrastructure in Palestine, all the ICT telecommunication infrastructure is being controlled but the Israeli authority and because of that, this will affect the quality of the internet we have in Palestine. Until now Palestinians are using the 3g, they don't even get the 4g or 5b while the Palestinians are still having 2g, second generation of the internet because we are not controlling our infrastructure . Going further and discussing much more details about the internet reality in Palestine, we should not about, as part of the ROAM‑X indicators, the privacy data access to information law, but also how the internet and access to website is looking like.
Because of that, you'll start with the cybercrime law the Palestinian authority started legislating that in 2017 and adapted that in 2018 with pressure from the organizations, local and international organizations. And because of that, now we sometimes have some restrictions from the PA because that you are blocking specific web sites, last year, for example, they blocked around 55 web sites because that you were pointing to the PA. But also they have some other restrictions and that law restricting people's accessibility to specific web sites. On the other hand, in Palestine until now we don't have the access to information law, UNESCO has been like one of the longest organizations who have been advocating for that, also as well as other Palestinian Human Rights and media organizations, we have been advocating to have the access to information law since 2006.
The government was working on that, until now that you did not like to publish it or announce anything about that. Because of that, this was one of the restrictions why we were collecting the data and information for our report because we don't have the access to information law, and this definitely will impact the ROAM‑X indicators that we are collecting until now and we are analyzing. On the privacy and data protection you'd in Palestine, we don't have any privacy and data collection law, that is affecting Palestinian rights and the internet, we have a report talking about privacy and data protection earlier this year, which shows during the launching event, we just were informed that we were discussing to launch privacy and data protection law despite the fact they have never consulted the civil society, except the governmental bodies.
Because of that, we are trying during our preparation process for our ROAM‑X to engage through them, multi‑stakeholders advisory board different people from the private, governmental, civil society and media organizations so we can have all other inputs as my colleagues previously talked about their countries, but we have this thing in Palestine. If we are like moving back to talk about misinformation and disinformation, we have this kind of thing in Palestine and in an earlier report we published last year, we saw that there Palestinians are affected but the misinformation and the disinformation because of many things, like the political spread and also having the occupation in the Palestinian territory, and this is also included in our indicators that we are still preparing until now. Because of that, we have like multi tools, like that are affecting the ROAM‑X results we are preparing.
We are looking for to have it by the end of this year and hopefully sharing that but the beginning of the next year. But also when we are talking about ‑‑ the ROAM‑X, we cannot ignore, as my previous colleagues said, the gender‑based violence and how the gender and the internet is like having this intersectional thing. In Palestine, women like there are increasing number for women who are being harassed on the internet. Because of that, they are sometimes reporting to the police and sometimes reporting to the feminist organizations. We at Amleh, one out of three Palestinians have experienced harassment in online places and one out of three women are leaving the internet because they have been harassed on the network.
All this information is included in our ROAM‑X, many other indicators, many other information. So yeah, that's basically from our you'd. But also if you have any questions, please feel free to drop that in the chat. I don't want to take more time just to leave some time for the other colleagues to share their insights. Thanks.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you so much, Mona for your valuable sharing of insights, we do look forward to the successful completion of the assessment in Palestine. Now I'm introducing Simon Ellis, our expert leading the assessment in Thailand and also his ‑‑ or international advisor to have help and reviewed a number of assessment reports. Simon, I think you have a PPT and sir, could you please project ‑‑ yes, that's right.
>> SIMON ELLIS: Okay. So I'm going to go as quickly as possible, very short of time. Okay. So thank you Xianhong Hu, thank you to everybody, there has been a lot of very rich presentations, enormous amount of detail about so many countries. So what I want to do is to first pick up on a few emerging issues that come across quite a lot of the studies, which are from all regions now, in IUI, there are many countries which have rights adopted, there are questions emerging about whether they are actually implemented in practice. One of the things IUI does, it looks at the institutional, legal structures and also looks about how that happens in practice. It's difficult for countries because we know that there's the right for freedom of speech, but we know that there are also reasons for all of us want hate speech, fake news, child abuse, to be taken down.
So governments often are not sure how to balance this, what to take down and what not to take down. Especially governments which are not used to legislating on the internet. This can be a major issue. The other thing is, we'll come back to several times, disadvantaged groups, we talk about women, remotes. People who are difficulties of poor, of access to the internet and, again, you think one of the things here is that increasing need to meet their needs, apps are designed to meet the needs of people in big cities. It should be more to do with rural things. For example in Thailand, a lot of apps being developed for remote management of farms.
Data protection has come up a lot. In this context, the European GDPR is taken as a standard, once again, that's being applied in many countries without countries really realizing what the GDPR means and its doll of protection in various wases. Another thing that's that emerges to me is a question as to whether we are seeing regional patterns on the internet emerge. So Africa has been a leader in developing mobile money. Why in Asia, electronic payments are now universal, by contrast, for example, somebody read recently, of course, it's only three or four years, since America stopped having to sign for all credit card payments. So things are not always ‑‑ things are going in different directions. Things which are important in one region may not be important in the other. So this is picking up again on the rights. Balancing rights of internauts versus hate and misogyny. I think, again, we should be support Secretary General here the media transparency report by companies, which have been kind of lost out of the attention in recent years and companies have started to move back on them and publish them in more remote location.
You think actually we should be calling for these to be more strengthened especially in countries where the government is not really taking that forward. Access and use, I think this is really important, this first point, access is can you connect? Having connected, can you use it for anything. Sometimes the disadvantaged groups of people who are not using the internet the thing they report, they don't see the point in it, and why would anybody not see the point in the internet. The reason is because there's nothing on the internet which meets their needs, you know, where are the apps for agricultural management, for finding problems ‑‑ everyday problems of just basic health and education and jobs. And ‑‑ let me go on. Okay. And the multi‑stakeholder aspect is also extremely important. We are in the multi‑stakeholder environment.
The IGS is multi‑‑ IGF is bringing together everybody to discuss this, what IUI does is cement that in an international context, where all these different parties we find here today and online as well, are able to have a say in working through the internet and developing it for the particular countries concerned. I think also another important here, internet studies divide between the kind of technical telecom side and the social human rights side. IUI can cut across that and two examples that you've seen here is a number of countries have this use of tv white space, tv companies that are allocated certain Spectra to broadcast.
They don't use it that often. In local communities, that spectrum can be used without damaging or interfering with tv signals at all. That sense of using tv white space for local networks is important. Another one vis‑a‑vis webs and takedowns, there is this error code which should be ‑‑ should go up when you contact a web page, technically error 451 means the page is not available for legal reasons. As I've said, this could be good reasons or bad reasons. That's a technical thing, it should be up on the web and therefore you can count it, you can see why this site has been taken down and at least have some sense as to where to go to if you feel that it should not have been. I'm going forward. Next please. Thank you.
Again, you've talked about this a little bit, regionalization of the internet. Asian platforms, Line is one of the big Asian platforms, social exchange. Compared to Europe and North America where Facebook is completely dominant. Then there's a mixed level of development, urban and rural. But also there's a sense of ‑‑ it's not just ‑‑ it's in developing countries, it can be money and relevance of apps. The digital divide is not about getting phones into people's hands, it's now the more countries do developing the internet, the more the problems are in more and more particular groups whose needs must be promoted, recognized. So finally, I'm coming into Thailand, which I guess I will develop or specific here. We have heard this before, what the IUI reports need to do is key interviews, interviews with all sectors, the businesspeople have their saw, let civil society have their say and the telecom industry, ICT industry, government agencies, so that you can have all the views expressed altogether and emphasize this right from the start. Next please. Similarly, several people have also talked about this idea of triangulation, bringing in different evidence from different sides.
Secondary literature, UNESCO expertise, it needs to come from the country, needs to be embedded in the country, UNESCO is there to lean on, as it were and point in the right direction or put you in touch with the route people. Then integrating that all together. Next, please. Of so we see the sense of parallels of human rights in the physical and digital world, that's the basis for the way things should carry on, something that people generally understand, and it is important. The balancing of freedom of expression and abuse. Again, this point that countries are taking on ‑‑ developing countries are taking on loss from more developed countries and not seeing either how they allow or not seeing how they must be implemented. Emerging right to information usuals, which is in the SDG. Sustainable development goals are a big thing to push on and which can help inform policy development and implementation. Talked a little bit about disadvantaged communities.
Technology to him pact. Again, this is a sense of how IUI can take the technology and technical telecom side and push it forward to what that means in society. Innovative technical pilots are not followed up. In Thailand with an open hospital management system developed in the early 2000s, which was very successful and adopted in various countries and nowadays would be fantastic, it has disappeared, I've talked about tv white space, you've talked about remote management of farms, lastly, again, something more of a regional or developing country, e waste. Southeast Asia has a particular thing of dumping of e waste in Southeast Asian countries, David Souter mentioned at the start, it's not the core indicate earns, it is not a core indicator in IUI, but extremely important in Southeast Asia, it is important this is recognized that the results, the huge discarding of this tech should not be dumped on certain countries. So for me, IUI is an emerging standard.
It's an international standard, but a standard which is coming bottom up. All these indicators, there are these principles that are beginning to merge as core issues, which are lunging the technical and the social. Lunging what happens in government to what happens in civil society, which mirrors the way that things ‑‑ institutions like internet governance forum work. Now we really have a large number of countries moving forward. The stronger the arguments are going to be to support this work and the stronger the arguments are going to be to suggest that some countries should move into direction. So that is really the conclusion for me from all of this, we have an emerging standard, but emerging standard built bottom and built but the people you have heard today. Thank you.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you so much for not only sharing the Thai report but your global insights on the ROAM‑X, and high expectation on the potential for IUI to be an emerging standard. Now I'm looking to my agenda, we are having the last speaker for this session, Mr. Santosh Sigdel. Representing the ROAM‑X in the pal. Santosh, are you with us? If not, I'm very happy to say that today, for the first two sessions, we have very high percentage of success of accessing. That's personal link to this session because we have 12 speakers invited and now we have three speakers who had difficulty, still we are lucky to have most ‑‑ the majority of speakers with us.
Now I think we have five minutes before we can move to the next session. I would like to suggest that we relax a little bit, although it's not a break, but I'd like to ask colleagues in the room, if you have any quick questions to exchange with our presenters? Particularly on the human rights and openness and accessibility indicator findings just presented or if you have any other general questions, comments, please don't be shy and take the floor. There's a microphone in the room, and I trust our speakers online also like to hear some vows from the room. Now floor is yours, we have three to four minutes. Yes, please, sir, please go to the microphone and introduce yourself. Thank you.
>> S.
>> Audience: I will speak in English. I would like to thank very much my colleague Alain Kiyindou, who have a study of Niger. What is important in these studies is that my country has a very interesting technique called infrastructure, and the system has worked very hard to deal with some aspects of human rights, some aspect of the accessibility, some aspect of Cass coding uses ‑‑ cascading uses. What we get is that the country didn't have a digital court, and we have many data which lack, and the recommendation, Niger can do a very good job because when we will in the process of report, will come back to try to find responses to all the data which we lack answers. I want to thank very much UNESCO for this very, very good job, which shows that really you work for humanity. Thank you very much, and I would like to congratulate you for this very good job. Thank you.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you for your very kind words and support. Anyone else? We have one other minute. Yes, please, sir, take the floor. Introduce yourself first, thank you.
>> Audience: I'm Kosi from Benin. The statement is a good thing. Now what is the next step. UNESCO have something like support money to help the countries to make the recommendation be reality? Is it possible to have some ‑‑ organization like UNESCO global IGF also if it's possible, U.N., to support the countries getting money to let them make the recommendation very useful for people inside, is it possible to have something like that?
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you for this very valid question. I take the opportunity of the presence of UNESCO director in charge of the partnership Operational Programme Monitoring, I think she'll be in a very good position to respond to your question,.
>> MARIELZA OLIVEIRIA: This is a very good point, UNESCO is supporting the development of several reports, the IUI reports themselves and the creation of these reports and the analysis, data collection and collection that results in the recommendations. There are opportunities in UNESCO itself for seeking support for implementation of recommendations, UNESCO has a series of programs such as the Information for All Programme, the international program on the development of communications, may offer conditions and opportunities for specific areas of the recommendations to be implemented. We can help countries to seek other sources of funding in implementation of a specific areas of the recommendations, and I think that's one area in which we would like to evolve the kind of support and collaboration that exists out of the IUIs. So thank you for that. If.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you, Director, for your strong support. Yes, UNESCO is mobilizing all kinds of financing and we are fundraising globally and regionally and nationally supports of the national assessment, so follow up action, to realize those recommendations into action, we have so many burning challenges, we are more than committed to providing all kinds of financial support as well as the technical support to ensure all the assessment ongoing and to come will be in high quality, will have an impact. Thank you for all your engagements.
Now I'd like to start the following session. The category of multi‑stakeholder indicators, we are having five speakers in line. I'd like to introduce the first speaker to present the first completed ROAM‑X assessment in Brazil, Mr. Alexandre Barbosa. Hi. Yeah. I can see you smile, yeah, please share with us, we all know Brazil is a leader, a hero of practice in multi‑stakeholder approach. And you have completed the first ROAM‑X assessment in the country. Please share your insights on the achievement and recommendations in this area. Please take the floor.
>> NASHILONGO GERVASIUS NAKALE: Thank you so much. A great pleasure to be here and congratulations for organizing this very important event on the implementation and results and I findings on the internet universality indicators. You would like to say first I enjoyed Simon's presentation and I have to say I fully agree with him when he highlights the ROAM as a standard and, you know, we are fond of the ROAM‑X framework, and I think that we have to take this statement from Simon's and really support countries in implementation of this very important. I'm not going to use any slides, because just to be within the time frame that I have, and before ‑‑ you mentioned that Brazil is really a country in which multi‑stakeholderism is really work for internet governance. So before highlighting some key findings and recommendations in the multi‑stakeholder, I'd like to record that the Brazil internet steering committee, you probably have heard about it, this is the multi‑stakeholder body for internet governance in the country. And it was really from the implementation of ROAM‑X indicators in the country. It is composed of 21 members from Federal Government, the private sectors, civil society organizations sector and academic and scientific communities.
We have the whole voice ‑‑ different voices of society, giving their inputs for the internet governance in the country. Among CGI's responsibilities are strategic guidelines related to the use and development of internet in Brazil. And it is very important to mention that in the implementation of the IUI indicators, we use this structured as the multi‑stakeholder board. As recommended in the UNESCO guideline. I would like to say as well that the Internet Universality Indicators, they did allow us to have a holistic view of the country's internet ecosystems, and although the country has advanced in building solid legal framework for internet use, the country is still ‑‑ still faces, I would say, a few challenge in terms of universal access, in particular to the most vulnerable part of the population, and I would say that we also have challenge in promoting more advanced digital skulls development.
Regarding the point that you mentioned, the findings and recommendations in the multi‑stakeholder dimension, regulation of internet development in Brazil is regulated by different laws and standards, to the general principles established but federal Constitution, that can be applied to the internet environment. Such as the private ‑‑ such as privacy, freedom of expression and right information. The main internet development in Brazil is the Brazilian civil rights framework for the internet, which are considered to be consistent with international standards and other references. This framework aims to promote global free flow of information to promote open and connected nature of Internet, and to encourage multi‑stakeholder.
Last but not least, to ensure transparency and accountability and strengthen the neutrality, privacy and data protection. The Brazilian report refers to a set of key recommendations for actions, and we divided these recommendations by stakeholder group, like government, civil society, private sector, academia, et cetera, since I don't have much time, I will just highlight some of them for the m dimension of the ROAM‑X framework. I would say that the two group of actors really very important here are governments and private sector. For the government, I will give you three examples. One recommendation related to the need to strengthen the instruments for online participation and consultation on topics of social interest in our institutional bodies at all levels of government.
We have a tradition to conduct public recommendations, but this is a very specific one for online participation, social interest related to Internet and digital, online environment. Another recommendation is to extend and accelerate the digitalization of public services and strengthen the application of the access to information law in all public agencies, in the federation, overseeing compliance, comprehensively at the federal level and promoting enforcement at the state and municipal level. This is important, many of the data collection that we did, besides the primary and secondary data, we also asked government through this ‑‑ for this access to information law, we required very important information to be included in our report.
Last, but not least, record and published government submissions to international forums, concerned with ICT and the internet, such as the IGF. We are recommending them to make public all of the government publications and submissions to these international forums. Regarding the private sector and technical community, I will how light just the need of having a more deep and strengthened initiative for promoting and combating human rights violation on the internet, particularly abuses committed against children, women and promote a culture of peace and respect in online environment. With that, I will stay only with the key recommendations, I would have more to say, but I will leave my colleagues to also share their views on the m dimension of the ROAM‑X. Thanks so much, and once again, congratulations.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you, you enjoy your presentation always insightful. I trust good practice will be very useful for other countries as well. Actually, we had UNESCO has published a publication on the practice of multi‑stakeholder approach a few years ago, Brazil and Kenya are among the good practice. That's why I'm happy to introduce the second speaker, Grace Githaiga, representing the KictaNet of Kenya to present the funding of that m indicators in Kenya. I wonder if Grace is with us today.
>> GRACE GITHAIGA: I am here. Hi.
>> XIANHONG HU: I cannot see you.
>> GRACE GITHAIGA: Wait. Just hang on. You can hear me.
>> XIANHONG HU: You are not with us.
>> GRACE GITHAIGA: No, no. I am joining from Nairobi. Let me see. My camera. Hang on.
>> XIANHONG HU: I see you perfectly.
>> GRACE GITHAIGA: All right. So in Kenya, we were able to assess all the 109 co‑indicators, and that was in 2019, and then we presented the report in 2020. I am happy to say that we will be reviewing, you know, the two‑year period in ‑‑ that is 2022. So we'll be focusing on the two‑year review and looking at Kenya's ICT environment. And so we actually did forecast on all ‑‑ on the ROAM‑X, and I want then to just speak about the multi‑stakeholderism and what we found. In Kenya, the aspect of multi‑stakeholderism is actually entrenched in our Constitution, that places are Constitutional requirement on anyone who is making ICT to involve the stakeholders, and therefore, bodies that make ICT laws and policies have actually ‑‑ do have a requirement for this. However, such bodies like the regulator, the communications authority, has actually always had a public consultation event before the Constitutional requirement. And so when we come to multi‑stakeholderism, Kenya was among the first countries that held a national internet governance forum, and in that, it actually embraced multi‑stakeholderism, that has continued through today where we have various stakeholders coming together, industry stakeholders to organize the Kenya IG, KictaNet, it is seen in terms of participants in terms of the topics that are discussed, in terms of even the funding and resources that are contributed. So we have that multi‑stakeholderism in nature.
In terms of the report that we did, I want to say multi‑stakeholderism seeks to bring together diverse groups such as government, industry, technical and civil society to engage, and this is in the design and implementation of policy standards. So the concept and r of this model that all actors that make a significant contribution should participate in consensus decision, representing a collection of a great viewpoints rather than a single source of confirmation, and thus gain legitimacy. However, sometimes efforts to build meaningful, inclusive, multi‑stakeholder approach have been undermined by you mistrusting multi-stakeholders. We have seen instances where some stakeholders have been excluded in some policy‑making processes or positions not being reflected in the final outcomes. And so you know, then we ‑‑ for instance, we have the ICT committees of the national assembly and the Senate, as well as the communications authority, who have called for public participation on different laws or different stages, and sometimes there has been a very low engagement of ordinary citizens, which has been sorted with the lack of understanding on how ICT policy processes relates to them or have ‑‑ you know, have a contribution in their lives.
Therefore, most of them have missed sometimes the big announcement. But also some of these big announcements have been put ‑‑ have been put in daily news pops and there are a few people now who buy the news pops. So, you know, as the processes continue the need to actually look at platforms that ordinary people can actually get to know and participate and engage with the policy‑making processes. So some of the recommendations made on multi‑stakeholderism, I wonderful highlight those of the government and civil society, but we did make a recommendation for the public ‑‑ for the private sector, for academia, for the technical community, and even for media and for ordinary citizens. So for governments, what we said was the need to enact public participation legislation, as the Constitution provides for public participation, we need an attendant law that outlines how this ‑‑ that guides public participation process.
So we recommended for a from work that should provide for avenues, for thresholds, timelines and formats for citizen engagement, while ensure Secretary General access to draft bills and also reporting back on instructions, that then are very clear and, you know, outline, if you are ‑‑ your recommendation has not been taken, what are the reasons. For example, does it go against the Constitution, does it offend public morality, why was it not taken on board, great public participation authority to enforce public participation between agencies and make decisions, and the public and much public participation tools, two objectives, we also recommended the need to facilitate citizen engagement with parliament and with county assemblies through alternative media, including radio and mobile phones. We did recommend the need to adopt open-source platforms to enhance internal parliamentary and assembly and facilitate information sharing with the public.
Again, it's necessary to provide access to weekly Senate, just national seam blue, county assembly plenary and community proceedings, by leveraging on both traditional and new media. Then, of course, there's a need to promote multi‑stakeholder by having an open policy on policy formulation processes, Internet governance discussion, on national and county levels. We supported the encouragement of multi‑stakeholder in all policy decisions and to have multi‑stakeholderism technical experts and civil society and government to making conferences and then, of course, support county ‑‑ we have smaller county governments, possibly through the universal service fund to enter policies to ‑‑ in local dialects and conduct public participation in the same to get people's views.
So for civil society, we did recommend that there's a need to conduct research and document data on all multi‑stakeholder engagement to track participation and monitor inclusion, diversity and stakeholder representation. We actually looked at the need ‑‑ the fact that we documented this UNESCO study is really groundbreaking because it has all the information at one stop, and it allows for an assessment that is all around in the different areas of participation where IGF policy‑making processes are concerned. Then, again, the need to engage civil society need to engage the National and county governments in ICT policy initiatives as well as find wases to collaborate or utilize the existing policy structures and processes to force good governance.
There's also the need to hold the government accountable, to transparent participation, international policy making products, as well as advocate for balanced and inclusive stakeholder representation at national, regional and international internet governance forums. Finally, more inclusive participation on internet governance issues from underrepresented groups, such as women, persons with disabilities and marginalized communities. Of course, one recommendation to individual users, we, you know, working in Internet governance, make sure the stakeholders continue to understand how we make them cultivate interest to participate in awareness creation programs, on internet governance and the meaning on of stakeholderism so they understand they have a strike in these processes and need to contribute and need to actually ‑‑ to actually speak about issues and how that you affect them. I want to end there, I don't want to go into very long, I know people have been waiting. So let me end it there.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you, Grace, actually I like to congratulate you for having such a rich discovery from the two years in review, which is also good practice for all the National projects to conduct following their assessment, it's really useful. Now I'd like to introduce the representative from France, Mr. Lucien Castex.
>> CLAIRE MELANIE POPINEAU: I will be speaking for the French team. My colleague is in another meeting. Let me put on the camera. Okay. Is it fine for you?
>> XIANHONG HU: Can you try again to turn on your camera.
>> CLAIRE MELANIE POPINEAU: Okay. so am the member of the internet society of France for education and thank you very much for giving me the floor. It's a great pleasure to be speak Secretary General here. In France, how did we do in a nutshell. Starting point of reflection is that internet is a public good And the backbone for digital transformation of businesses and society. So the first step we took in France was in 2020. It was really a long process with extensive delays due to COVID pandemic. The research was restarted in late 2020 after ‑‑ we consolidated our research team, still going strong. The framework is the internet governance research group in France, Center for Internet society.
We built an interdisciplinary team, and we consolidated our multi‑stakeholder board, which is composed of 15 people to bring the expertise of actors from the different stakeholder groups and to be able to access from different sources. Members include internet society French. The federation reprisal team startups. As well as researchers and experts. The idea is to provide and promote a working space for the different stakeholders in France.
Now we have identified preliminary work. First, policies and digitalization and digital transformation. The indicators force us to look at the internet in a holistic way. During the COVID crisis approach needs to focus on the digitalization of small and medium enterprises and of course on digital inclusion. We have also identified a key thematic around freedom of speech and content regulation both at the national level and the European level with ongoing discussion around the digital services act, DHA and DMA. Of course, we need a policy review of the French legislation affecting Internet and in France we have got things enacted in 2021, in August on the principle of the French republic and in October, it is a law on protecting internet property online.
Another case around security is very important with the revision visit the NIS directive at the European level, as well the promotion of the French for security in internet space. Ensuring cyberspace security. To fight extremist content online. We finally have an imaging debate about environmental cost of digital technologies to the residency. And I stop there. We are looking to ROAM‑X. Thanks.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you, Claire, for your excellent presentation. We are so happy to hear so much progress achieved in France. Now the last but not least speaker for this session is from a special guest, representing the Ministry of Transport, information technology and communications from Bulgaria, Anelia, the floor is yours. Your multi‑stakeholder efforts in your country.
>> ANELIA DIMOVA: Thank you very much. Hello to all of you, thank you for being with us today. The Internet is much more than digital technology. It is a network of economic and social interactions and relationships. As such, this has shown potential to enable human rights empower individuals and communities and facilitate sustainable development. The internet has developed rapid eventually a, it continues to transform access to information, opportunities for expression and many aspects of government and business for people around the world.
It has become a global marketplace for ideas, goods and services. It has got facilitated the respect of human rights and raise new risks. Among the challenges that need to be eased are digital divides between different countries, between urban and rural areas. Between people with higher and lower incomes, and higher and lower levels of educational experience, et cetera. In this regard, the Bulgarian Ministry of Transport and communications proposes the measure conducting conditional assessment of the development of internet in the Bulgaria through the adopted framework of UNESCO internet universality indicators, within the framework visit the international initiative for open government partnership, thematic area of transparency and access to information.
What is the public problem that is solved with the measure? The current COVID pandemic has proven that the quality of the internet environment is needed for the proper functioning of the modern world, especially in crisis situations, digitalization has become much more important as a factor in protecting the rights and freedoms and opens new opportunities for entertainment and work. In Bulgaria, there is no regulation of the internet and therefore, we do not have consolidated and up‑to‑date information on network and quality of services, which is essential for the National Information Society policy, which should take into account in a timely manner the status and processes of technology and society development. The Information Society policy is a horizontal policy and the comprehensive assessment of the internet environment in Bulgaria through the UNESCO indicators will be extremely useful for all sector of economy, for social and technological development.
How will the implementation of the measure contribute to solving the problem? Through transparency, awareness and effective cooperation of many stakeholders, government, the academia, technical community, journalistic community, et cetera, for an open, globally connected, secure and reliable internet. How does the measure relate to the values of the good governance initiative? The measure is related to the principles of the initiatives, transparency, civic participation, accountability and technological renewal. The UNESCO internet universality framework is a research tool for all stakeholders designed to achieve meaningful and comprehensive findings that have real value for policy‑makers, regulators and other stakeholders to improve the quality of digital policy development and implementation.
Which are the stakeholders, civil society, private sector, academia, technical community, journalistic community, et cetera. So far, have been attracted as partners, organizations from the public council for information, technology and internet governance at the Ministry of Transport, IT and communications, will be presented so far, national commission for UNESCO, Ministry of Transport, IT and communications, communications regulation commission, national statistical institute, to foundations, media 21, and internet. As well as society for electronic communications, deregistry, our registry BG. The proposal for a national assessment was just approved to be included in the internet plan within the framework of the international initiative partnership.
The UNESCO framework, the rights, openness, accessibility, multi‑stakeholder model for internet universality indicators, is an effective and comprehensive tool for assessing the quality of the digital environment. The National assessments, it proves its importance to society for a deeper penetration and understanding of the complexity of digital processes and the involvement of various stakeholders in its governance. From a global point of view, this is a very fruitful process of collection are collecting and exchanging information, this is an integral part of international cooperation in the field of internet governance. Building an institutional framework of transparency and improving access to information will ensure the existence of a quality and efficient internet environment. We expect this project to unite the efforts of the national commission of UNESCO, the policy makers, nongovernmental and similar organizations, businesses, and academia, for an in‑depth and quality assessment of the status and opportunities for proactive and sustainable digital transform of Bulgaria. Thank you.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you, thank you. Anelia, I wish to give you applause for such brilliant news that you and your ministry are embracing roam indicators in the country, UNESCO really stay committed to providing all the support. I wish you all the success in assessing the indicators in Bulgaria. I would like to give floor to Madam Oliveira again, one of the strongest advocates in support of ROAM‑X indicators and framework and to say a few words and the floor is yours.
>> MARIELZA OLIVEIRA: I wanted to highlight a few things that are extraordinary. To echo the interesting comments made by Simon and echoed also by Brazil on the evolving nature of the IUIs for the global standard that can really look at how the internet is ‑‑ the quality of the internet, how Anelia mentioned right now. You know, it's really important to have this kind of standard in which we can do comparable analysis of the different types of ecosystems. The internet should be in a was global ecosystem, but in local environments, you know, different local environments, it has different conditions and serves different purposes, as Simon has pointed out. The importance of having global standards in which we can actually compare and help, we all aim for the best possible ecosystem for all of us.
It's really extraordinary. I thank you for that. And what enables us to have that kind of comparable and to actually aggregate different examples and different reports, to come up with conclusions such as this is what's happening in Asia, this is what's happening in Africa. Is the fact that a lot of adopters are starting or continuing their efforts to actually assess Internet universality and an essential element is the stakeholder mechanism. It's incredible how clear it is that the stakeholder mechanism almost by itself brings out some of the other principles. The fact that you have vows such as the voices of persons with disabilities how lights the importance of accessibility.
The fact that you laugh stakeholders, you have stakeholders from micro and small‑sized enterprises and small communities, shows you the importance of everything openness to reduce costs, the enable participation of these groups into the ecosystem in a fair way, fairly and equitably with other groups as well. It's really extraordinary how illuminating this session was, the previous sessions as well, and I'd like to invite all speakers and the audience as well to suggest to us guidance and elements that can help us build the support system that report writers, the stakeholder groups can rely upon in order for them to do the very best possible job of assessing their internet ecosystems so we can all benefit by aggregate views, comparable views and at the national level but actually national views as well. Thank you for your brilliant presentations, this was extraordinary, I'm smiling, big time because, you know, this is exactly the kind of conversation we should be having. So thank you and congratulations to all of you for this brilliant, brilliant session.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you, Marielza for your excellent remarks and big smile. You wish to take a group picture of all of us with remote speakers before anyone leaves this room. Yeah, yeah, maybe do it now. What do you think? And then so we ensure we have the most people here, and don't leave, we are having a final session following this photo opportunity to discuss the overarching issue of the implementation and methodology. So can I ask also participants in the room, go up here, stand in front of the screen and also I call upon all the on line speakers, could you turn on your camera so we can take a hybrid picture innovatively for the IGF. Can I take a picture with my phone? when you say one, two, three, put your biggest smile. You are free to take it off.
Your mask for one second for this. Hi, Cedric, hi. Come, we are having this photo. Please come, we are having this hybrid photo opportunity. Cedric, please. Usually the center here. So now I will say one, two, three, we all smile big. The two gentlemen there. Can I check? Okay. Yeah, this one. Let me take one more. Back up. Take one more. So you have this screen and people here. Okay. Great. We are not finishing we are having the final session to discuss the implementation process. And methodology. Yes, please, sit down. I think we are having only 22 minutes, then we have four speakers, also we have Mr. Jelassi for the closing remarks. The first speaker, Mr. Shavkat Sabirov, the president of internet association of Kazakhstan. Are you with us?
>> SHAVKAT SABIROV: Yes, I'm here.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you. So please talk the floor to share your experience and your suggestions on the implementation of ROAM‑X indicators in Kazakhstan. Your overall review and comments on how we can improve the process. The floor is yours.
>> SHAVKAT SABIROV: Thank you. First, let me just thank you for organizers of this meeting, it's very, very useful and helpful for us. We are going close to three hours, I try to be very brief and short. Let me saw, I'm not going to repeat all the general words about internet universality indicators because everyone knows about them. I would like to point to a few moments. Kazakhstan is a regional leader you in ICT field in central Asia. So for pandemic, we think the internet became single lung for billion internet users to media, to information, to shopping, to business, for everyone. And also for Kazakhstan, we have a huge territory. Kazakhstan is a non‑territory in the world. We have only 18 million people population. So it means sometimes the distance between cities or villages, it's about two or three thousand kilometers.
So sometimes to get the internet or information, just a single wait. So for Kazakhstan, it's more important to get this research, to get indicators, and also we are going to include some additional points such as the extent of internet exchange centers in Kazakhstan, for example, tomorrow we have a meeting with ISOC about it in Kazakhstan. So the next one, internet in Kazakhstan, just gave to us a lot of information. As I said before, in traditional media, we have over 95 percent is government media. In internet, we have over 85 percent is independent media. Only 6 or 7 percent of government media. It means internet bring us freedom of expression, additional information, and also we have to think about companies of digital communications, which came to ‑‑ connection to freedom of speech, our social network where digital companies of digital communications can be ‑‑ as a moderator. We have enough examples for blocking any pages or some commentaries of people.
So in Kazakhstan, the last two or three years, the load is very strong in internet. You think the same situation in our neighboring countries, including China and Russia, we have two big countries, China another part is Russia. So we have get the balance between two countries and try to keep ‑‑ still to keep our freedom so the internet is really important to Kazakhstan. So I think we are going to ‑‑ proceed through the research, organizing them, multi‑stakeholders advisory board, creating the methodology, to ask analytics to work ‑‑ close to analytics group and get the total recommendations to our government and show us what's going on with internet in Kazakhstan, because we have to understand where we are right now and also during the pandemic, we have to present our research for business as well, because business just increasing. So I try to be very, very short so thanks again for this event, and we will start hopefully our project for the next year. Thank you.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you for sharing valuable insights for Kazakhstan, I'm actually inviting my dear colleague Mr. Sergey Karpov, the officer in charge of not the National Programme Officer. He has been really recording a number of projects in the region, and now you are ready. Yes, please take the floor.
>> SERGEY KARPOV: Thank you. UNESCO discovered, in Uzbekistan, four countries, I would like to present some trends and challenges in the region. First of all, Kyrgyzstan has released the environment, including service broadcasting media. Number of internet users are growing, especially mobile users, mobile payments. Pressure on journalists is increasing, self‑censorship at editorial boards is growing, financial crisis in independent media and also disinformation about the local conflicts on the borders and situation in Afghanistan. Talking about internet users and issues of central Asia. In central Asian countries, digital transformation started at last ‑‑ for the last few years, including the ROAM principles. And artificial intelligence started February 2020. Internet universality indicators with all take care about the process in Kazakhstan in 21.
Started in 21, but it will continue until 22. Shavkat just mentioned on the participation. So numbers, you can see that Kazakhstan has 18 million people, Kyrgyzstan 6, at most 7 million, Uzbekistan 34 million. At the same time, you can see the coverage of Internet users, 82 percent in Kazakhstan, 70 percent in Uzbekistan, 38 in Kyrgyzstan and 22 in Tajikistan. If you could see the gross national income per capita, you would understand the situation in the country. Universal access to information and freedoms are not seen as a right of the regional residents. Woman and vulnerable groups are the two for self‑development reinforcing gender inequalities and the weak engagement of vulnerable groups. That inclusion of people with disability we are hoping solutions at the beginning of the implementation and UNESCO is doing some efforts on that "linguistic diversity limited to state languages, media and information literacy just observed as tool for silence in face of misinformation, hate speech and violent extremism. This is the trends.
And also problems. Talking about activities, we do some events of ‑‑ from ‑‑ since 2018 and current year, we just completed assessment of journalism safety situation in Kazakhstan, using UNESCO journalist safety indicators. Also just launched the media ‑‑ going to launch in February 22, media development indicators in Kazakhstan. As well as same indicators in Kyrgyzstan, the neighboring republic. We are focusing on inclusion of people with disabilities and open distance learning as well as artificial intelligence and translation of important moves and courses, including gender mainstreaming indicators and 56 publications into local languages. Recently we introduced internet universality indicator for Russian speaking countries.
It is the reason why you can see the Cyrillic letters on the ROAM logo, we call it baduk because it's a different pronunciation and different letters. This is more or less what we do and what kind of tools we translated the series of publications to assist media developers and researchers of internet, and the guidelines are available in local languages, including Kazakh. And what we are going to focus on, we are going to promote these four priorities, to support communication and information in central Asia, building knowledge societies and universal access to information, with a special focus on SDG16 pow 10.2. Safety of journalist. Media and information literacy and inclusive digital transformation. This is more or less what we are going to do without a lot of details, just general overview of the process in central Asia. Thank you.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you for being a driving force. Now inviting my dear colleague from the UNESCO office, key row, Mr. Aiman Badri. Are you with me? Are you online? If Aiman has an issue of question. Now I'd like to invite our last speaker, but not really least, madam from Namibia, is she in the room? I just saw her. Okay. Since we are lagging a little bit behind the schedule. I wouldn't be able to prolong the schedule further. I'd like to give the floor to our last speaker, Mr. Tawfik Jelassi. UNESCO's assistant Director‑General for communications and information. To address a few last words and before that, I would like to report a bit on the session, before you came, we had 25 speakers. Having presentation, representing the in 25 countries, only three of them couldn't connect in. Shows the power of Internet. Now I'd like to really thank all the colleagues, that you are so committed to staying with us for three hours. The passion. So Tawfik for making time for us, you know you have a busy schedule today. So please tell us what you think about this project and share your vision.
>> TAWFIK JELASSI: Good afternoon, everybody, both physically with us in the room at IGF Poland, but also all of you connected online to the session. Thank you for your contributions, thank you for the panelists and the speakers. Because this session, of course, has a key object of, which is sharing information and also disseminating best practices, when it comes to the internet universality indicators and ROAM‑X principles. It's only when we collectively exchange, share and stimulate our thinking that you can inspire the action and that you can inform policy‑making, and decision‑making down the road. Clearly we all know that there is a methodology, but there is also a process related to the internet universality indicators, it's very important not to know what these indicators are about and what benefits they can help says achieve, obviously, but also to understand the methodology and the process. How to get there. How to use them to conduct national assessment, because at the end of the day, it is by informing policy‑making that we can all achieve the type of benefits and the type of outcomes we expect out of this work.
So I think this is very important and UNESCO mission is, of course, to serve Member States, to empower countries on using in a humanistic way, this was emphasized, I heard it, that's what the ROAM principles are about, human rights based, open, accessible and multi‑stakeholder and inclusive approach to adopting these indicators and to having a national digital strategy that meets the purpose. So I think the in depth reflection that took place this afternoon, the exchange and I saw people from all over the world taking the floor to share with us what they have done, you think the outcome is inspiring, the ideas are to be followed up on in order to have the type of internet governance as well, it's not only about national digital policy, but also to have the proper internet governance and proper development, both at the international level.
I would like to reiterate our invitation to all of you, to join, obviously, our Dynamic Coalition, Internet Dynamic Coalition which was set up last year and you have a number of countries who have joined but would like to be inclusive and to have other countries join Secretary General our coalition on the internet universality indicators. It is a very important development, launched, as you said by UNESCO at last year's global Internet Governance Forum, but you think we ‑‑ the more members we have, the better it will be, because clearly we can have a reinforcing message and can support each other through the information sharing and the best practice dissemination.
Let me say that we have a number of sessions that UNESCO has prepared for this Internet Governance forum in Poland, you are most welcome to join us for the Dynamic Coalition meeting which will take place this Thursday, December 9, between 9:30 and 11:00 a.m. Please try to spread the word and try to join us for this important session, which is very much a continuation of what has been presented and explained this afternoon. Let me wrap up, because I see that my time is up. Let me here saw that it is only through our collaboration cooperation to mobilize the tools we have at our access, to developing the ROAM‑X tools to developing the internet we wish to have, the internet we want to have, an internet that is truly human rights based, open to all and accessible by all, but also following a multi‑stakeholder approach that is not only led by national authorities in the public sector and private sector, academia, digital companies, internet companies.
I think it is only through that truly multi‑stakeholder approach and consultation that we can achieve the objectives that we set for ourselves. I will continue to follow your exchanges, your interactions, the consultations that UNESCO has initiated and hopefully that together we can achieve the set objectives. Thank you all.
>> XIANHONG HU: Thank you. Thank you, for all your strong support, and sharing your vision and advice, which are super valuable to all of us for the next step. May I make an apology because I have my last speaker from the previous session, madam coming back. If you allow me, I would like to give her two minutes to express you and to share us the participation in Namibia. Please come over to you, you have a presentation.
>> NASHILONGO GERVASIUS NAKALE: Not really. Thank you, and previous speakers and all our previous speakers that have been joining the session virtually and in the room, really appreciate the opportunity. My name is Nashilongo Gervaisus, I'm from Namibia. I wear many robes, but amongst others am the founding president of the chapter and currently also founder, founding member of the Namibia Internet working group. For Namibia, we haven't yet started with the ROAM‑X assessment. We are looking forward that now that it has been mentioned for Namibia, we particularly are excited in the country. We have noted a number of developments in the country, policy positions. They have announced or set forth a national assessment ‑‑ conditional assessment for the full R, of which I am pleased to be having appointed as well, other than that, we have learned a lot of lessons today from other countries that have done the south.
And provided us an opportunity to ‑‑ and have provided us an opportunity to as we undertake the assessment next year. We are particularly looking forward to constituting our multi‑stakeholder advisory board, what we have learned from here in the room to be very inclusive of all sectors from civil society to the private sector, the technical community. But also academia. But, yeah, arrest than that, we are looking forward to including a ‑‑ other than that, we are looking forward to not just stakeholder, a methodology inclusive of everyone and that is taking multi‑dimension approach. Thank you very much.
>> XIANHONG HU: No, thank you, thank you, Nashilongo, the strongest method at the end. I like to make one more apology today. We are having 25 strong speakers presenters, overwhelming presentation, I am speechless, just so thrilled by the power of ROAM‑X, by the efforts, extraordinary efforts made by all our national speakers, national researcher, and your stakeholders, and we heard the good news from Bulgaria, after three years multi‑stakeholder dialogue, the kickoff of the assessment in the country of Bulgaria and look forward to good news from Namibia. I have one more last message of thanks to my ‑‑ to our technicians in the room.
Actually, I have both of them from early morning, to ensure we have all the PPT's presented, all the sharing screens, thank you so much for being so helpful. To make the hybrid super successful. I would like to thank our speakers online as well. All the participants in the room, as well, my colleagues, Karen, Steven who have helped us to report on the session, to the organization. Last, I still apology, we have no time for discussion, but ‑‑ we are having a Dynamic Coalition on Thursday, 9:30, please join us, more discussion, and UNESCO team, my colleague Cedric and our director who just left. We are all here for a few days, I'm ready, we are happy to provide support for any country, any stakeholder wanting to seek more help from us to support you on this project. So thank you. Maybe let's have applause for all of us for ‑‑ success for all of us.