The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> Project Internet Governance by C CFIEC, and as discussed further we have experienced speakers to discuss this issue. Let me go through the names briefly. We have Avri Doria from the United States. She is connecting online. She is independent researcher on Internet Governance, and she has been engaged in various Internet Governance Projects and study research for a long time. Both research and practice perspective And she is connected online.
And on site, we have Amrita Choudhury. She is from India. She has among the various hats she has, she is director of CCAOI and she also serves as chair of APrIGF and they both served as MAG members in previous years.
We have another speaker connecting unfortunately, connecting online, Lillian Nalwoga. She is from Uganda. She is president of Internet Society Uganda. She also served as IGF MAG member between 2012 and 2014.
And we have Junko Kawauchi. She is from Japan. She is a current MAG member. She is from the centre for international economic cooperation. She acts as online facilitator today.
And me Keisuke Kamimura, I am the moderator for this session.
Let me give you the context of this session. Multistakeholder model is becoming even more important in the governance of Information Society. For example, ICANN has been a successful example of multistakeholder governance. And more recently the Global Digital Compact refers to multistakeholder models in various policy areas. So, multistakeholder model is becoming quite important today.
However, the scope of multistakeholder based governance is expanding, for one, policy issues are diverse. We now we are now talking about various other issues than the maintenance or IP addresses and other core Internet resource management. So, policy we have quite a broad range of policy issues today in terms of Internet Governance.
For second, participants are even more diverse. As the policy areas are expanding, we have more broader range of participants joining in the discussion.
And accordingly, geographic and cultural diversity may also be considered. We have quite different geographic and cultural perspectives in the way we decide we make decisions or we make discussions.
So, our question is as follows: Does the multistakeholder model equally fit each of these policy areas, or do we have or are we going to have somewhat multiple different models in dealing with the range of policy issues.
And if we have multiple, multistakeholder models, how can we make multistakeholder governance work across the broad range of policy issues?
So, that's the basic outline of the of this session. But let me give you some brief overview of the project behind. As I mentioned, our session is based on the discussion or analysis conducted by the research group under the Centre for International Economic Cooperation on Internet Governance. So let me give you some introduction of the project.
The research group is a multistakeholder group of experts and academics on Internet Governance research practice based in Japan. We have members from the government, the private sector, technical community and academia. So, we are discussing the group has discussed this issue for a while, since last September, October. And we looked at the changes of the Internet Governance landscape over the last 20 plus years, and Japan hosted IGF last year. So, we produced an official report on IGF 2023.
Actually, later this week, we have a lightning talk session featuring the report booklet on IGF 2023. So, if you are on site, please jump in and see what the report looks like.
And we also did a comment contribution to WSIS+20 review, and we also examined GDC draft text and considered its impact on Internet Governance and its future focused.
We also conducted a session in APrIGF 2024, our session was called multistakeholderism in the post GDC era. During this activity, we came to some kind of some sense of understanding or conclusion that applicability of multistakeholder models may vary depending on the policy areas in question and needs to be evaluated on a set of criteria so that we can see how effectively multistakeholder model work or not.
So, that was the brief overview of the project behind this session. And I talked about the multistakeholder concept is referred in a diverse context. Let me give you let me take GDC as an example. In the GDC, there are a number of references made to the term multistakeholder. One example is our cooperation will be multistakeholder in paragraph 8(k) or in paragraph 17(a), we are going to develop, disseminate and maintain, through multistakeholder cooperation, in terms of the digital divide. We have another reference to multistakeholder, the term multistakeholder in paragraph 27, Internet Governance. And so the references go on like this.
And multistakeholder initiatives are also mentioned in paragraph 31(a), digital trust and safety.
So, multistakeholder and there are a number of other references to multistakeholder in other policy areas, interoperational governance, artificial intelligence and follow up and review.
So, the term multistakeholder is one, but the contexts where the term is referred to are quite diverse. So, that's one point we came to realize.
I also mentioned that we have a broad range of policy areas being discussed in the GDC or broader Internet Governance context now. In the GDC text, we have connectivity, digital literacy, skills and capacities, digital public goods and digital public infrastructure, and the list goes to interoperational data governance and artificial intelligence.
So, we refer to multistakeholder models or multistakeholder approach in these quite a broad range of policy areas.
So, even if we say even if we agreed on the term multistakeholder, the actual implementations or adaptability may be quite different. So, let me summarize our outcomes of the research group on Internet Governance. One is expanding scope. So, we consider we need multistakeholder model because we have fast changing policy areas, and those policy areas directly affect the life and behavior of people. But with expanding scope, multistakeholder model may work better for some issues and not for others. That's one of our concerns.
Another concern is multistakeholder disguise. Multistakeholder models may take various forms. In idealistic form, multistakeholder model may mean multistakeholder participation, multistakeholder decision making, and multistakeholder implementation. But in some cases, multistakeholder may just stop at consultation. So, we have to take care of what we call multistakeholder disguise.
Expanding participation is another concern we considered. For multistakeholder models to be fully effective, we have engagement of smaller voices or the voices of the influenced. But how far does participation engagement go? How far should they go? So that's another concern we had.
And if we have multiple multistakeholder models, we better have core principles, principles such as inclusion and bottom up structure. These principles should always be in place while other principles may not. So, we may have core principles for multistakeholder models, but we also have non core principles.
And finally, long term goals. What do we want multistakeholder models for?
So, this is the summary of the discussion we had in the research group on Internet Governance.
So, we have to evaluate multistakeholder models in some way or the other. One way is to look at it from a process point of view. NetMundial+10 multistakeholder statement is one of the guidelines that we can use for evaluating multistakeholder readiness of a policy process, or maturity levels, which is presented by Avri Doria, one of today's speakers.
We may we can look at the multistakeholderness of a process from this positive perspectives, or there are other researchers presenting evaluation framework for multistakeholder models, Palladino and Santaniello Panday, Mueller and Badie. We realize people are becoming aware of the necessity to evaluating across different multistakeholder models so this is one of the issues we want to discuss further today.
But we also are concerned that there should be other elements in evaluating multistakeholder models. The works I just mentioned look more of the multistakeholder model from a process point of view but we thought there should be other elements we need to consider in evaluating multistakeholder models applicability. One such element is the policy one such element is the characteristics of a policy issue in question. Take digital literacy, for example. It is very likely that we need multistakeholder model, but there are some areas where multistakeholder model may not work effectively or efficiently. Digital trust and safety seemingly less likely that multistakeholder model is fully applied. And digital economy, honestly, I don't know how MSM, multistakeholder model, works. Even if we agreed on we need we even if we agreed on that we need multistakeholder models, there are quite different implementations or applicabilities out there. So, this is what we want to discuss today.
So, this is the key question. So, this is the brief overview of the session.
But away like to invite Avri Doria, who has done a series of works on the evaluation on maturity level of the multistakeholder models. So, Avri, you have the floor.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. I need to share my slides. I think you need yeah. Okay. Now let me see. Okay. And share.
Okay. I'm going to talk a little bit about multistakeholders. I'm doing a little bit more than just the model, because I need to, sort of, work my way to the model and what it consists of.
First, I want to say thank you very much for inviting me to talk about this. Thank you very much for the introduction. And while I may quibble with you about some of the things that you said in the introduction, I very much appreciate it.
For example, I tend to believe that a form of the multistakeholder model can be used just about anywhere a group of people need to make decisions together. I tend to think that we are never in a situation of all or nothing in terms of the model.
So, let me move on to my first slide. Okay. So, part of what brought me to this discussion is a context in which I started looking at it was this sort of tussle, this dichotomy. Are we working in multilateral, are we working in multistakeholder, are there issues that can only be dealt with in a multilateral method, can multistakeholder be used. Do multilateral and multistakeholder methodologies, modalities ever work together or are they completely incompatible, and basic this is also part of the question that the São Paulo multistakeholder guidelines look at it. Sometimes you hear people talk about there really be continuums and discussions but I hear people quite Anally when a multilateral group tried to do a stakeholder discussion or stakeholder opening, people would scream, no, no, no, that's not multistakeholder because it's only comments. It's only, you know and that sort of rang a bell with me and sort of said, no.
If a multilateral process manages to reach out and to stakeholders and start including them, that's something we need to encourage. We need to understand it, we need to understands its limitations.
The two methods are rather different. The multilateral is, sort of, the very formal negotiations, whether they are bilateral,try trilateral. There's ratification, work on a consequences.
Whereas in a multistakeholder approach and that seems to be a word that's being used a lot. You will find that each group that does them, while they are working on similar principles, tends to develop a different set of modalities, a different set of ways of doing it, diverse decision making procedures.
And this way of doing things has sometimes we spend almost as much time, I think, talking about the difference between multilateral processes and multistakeholder processes, as we do actually talking about the specific issues.
But anyhow, we have, you know, ICANN, the IGF is a multistakeholder body, IETF, the Internet Engineering Task Force. They all have very rich multistakeholder models and yet they are all somewhat different.
When you start looking at how do I build something with a multistakeholder model or how do I apply multistakeholder modalities to the multilateral model, there's a lot of issues to look at. That's one of the places where the São Paulo multistakeholder guidelines also comes in useful, because they look at modalities, they encourage the notion of application of some multistakeholder modalities within a multilateral environment.
So, it becomes something that has a set of guidelines for how these two very different and constantly tussling models can actually work together.
So, just a brief slide on this. I will not go into these deadlines. The NetMundial in 2014 laid out a set of principles, multistakeholder open participatory, consensus driven, et cetera, and these have really held through. Nobody looks at this list of attributes and says, no, that's not what multistakeholder is about. That's not what Internet Governance is about.
What they did put together is a set of guidelines and process steps for how to do it. And I really recommend reading it. And it's section 3.2 of NetMundial+10 which for several pages goes through and gives a set of recommendations. I have also really gotten into word art today. I actually took Section 3.2 and did that little piece of word art with it. And I like the whole idea of a rainbow bridging them.
But anyhow, moving on. So, then so we have people that said, I'm doing something multistakeholder. You are not doing something multistakeholder. So, how do then we deal with it? And that's where I go back to sort of a definition of multistakeholderism where it's the study and practice of various models, approaches, forms of participatory, open and accessible organized human centered efforts.
And it is something where many models. There isn't one model. There isn't the notion of one model that fits all. As long as you are delivering on these principles, then the model matters less than the fact that you are using some set of techniques to achieve that. So, basically, there's a large set of models and modalities.
But when you start then comparing them and looking into them, it's sort of taking the multistakeholder model, and what we often do is hand wave about it. We, sort of, say, yes, it's multistakeholder because, well, because the stakeholders are there and they are participating. Whereas, taking down to the next level of analysis, start looking at various aspects.
I picked three aspects here for an example, but other aspects are quite possible, you know, and like methods of selecting participants, funding methods, geographical, cultural. But the three I'm focusing on at the beginning are orientation. Is your model a bottom up model, a top down model, one of those start in the middle and then, you know, do a little bit of up and a little bit of down?
Any of those can be used to build a multistakeholder model. They don't all need to be bottom up. However, each one of them is going to give you a slightly different model. So, being aware of the orientation of the model you look at becomes critical.
The next part is of the analysis is participants. The stakeholders. You know, and by the way, we call them stakeholders. There are people that love that term. There are people that hate that term. Basically, this whole notion of calling it multistakeholder is really something that came about during WSIS time. But people have been experimenting, you know, with various forms of this model all the way through the 20th Century, and it wasn't just in Internet. You find various usages of the model in different or the approach in different topics.
But when we look at stakeholders, even in our own area, you know, we have the Tunis agenda, GDC, et cetera, way of bringing in stakeholders and identifying them. You know, there are three, there are four, et cetera.
There's affinity groupings where people of a similar interest gather together to work on a problem, but they have different, you know, whether it's the plumbers and the electricians, they have different affinities, they look at the world differently, and therefore, they bring different approaches in.
You have some that organize organizations and only organizations are members. And others, individuals in the engineering task force, I very much see it as a multistakeholder organization with this umbrella definition. And it's individuals. It's not organizations. It's not memberships and such.
So, looking at that and anytime you are creating a new organization with a multistakeholder model, you have to look at your stakeholders. You have to look at your participants and think about how you organize them, because that will give you a different looking model.
And then finally in this three aspect, there's the roles and responsibilities. Can you contribute? In other words, can you contribute text, can you contribute ideas and are they accepted and used?
These all or are you part of the decision making processes? Just make recommendations, advice. And you look at any project, you will find at different phases of a project, the stakeholders may have different roles. They may have different responsibilities. You can't look at a large model and say in total, those are the deciders, because at different phases of the model, that may come out differently.
Finally getting myself to the maturity models. So, let's say you have done many of these aspect studies and you start to have an idea of the structure and the understanding. So, then I started looking at, since I didn't want to exclude someone from multistakeholder modalities, simply because all they did was solicit comments and then actually consider them, soliciting comments and ignoring them, I tend to leave out. And we have seen some examples of that lately. So, that may be a concern.
But comments that are really solicited and are considered is really one of the basis on which almost any multistakeholder model and maturity has to be built. But then you move up and are there are there standing chartered advisory groups and who have roles and responsibilities who give advice, who do analysis, who propose solutions, et cetera, is that something that's in the norm, that's in the fixed structure of the organization, the model you are looking at.
Then you get to decision making. Who makes the decision? Who role does a stakeholder group have in decision making? And it isn't just who is the final decider. But decision making is a larger process. And there may be other parts where people contribute to the decision making process, even if they are not voting on it at the very end.
But then it goes beyond that. Once you have made a decision and you have gone that and then some group or other goes to implement it, goes to deploy it, goes to take it out into the world and, sort of, do something, is it being done consistently? Is the decision that was made by one group of people being followed through? Does it work? Does it not work? Does it need to be changed?
And then finally, another piece in the maturity is, you have put all this together. You have got comments, you have got committees, you've got, you know, decision making and you've even got implementation reviews. Who has responsibility for oversight of reviewing your model, your approach and making sure that it works, that makes sure it makes sense? Is it a bottom up oversight where the stakeholders themselves are the ones that are doing that, or is there some sort of superior, some UN General Assembly that's doing the oversight of review and such.
So, when I am starting to looking at that and then I start to look at how the various aspects in the previous slide, sort of, feed into these maturity levels is the way I started looking. So, we are not in a situation that says, I am multistakeholder, you are not. But we start looking at our various levels of maturity within these models and how we can, sort of, move to a greater maturity in multistakeholder models.
And I think that's it. So, thank you for letting me go through that rather quickly. These are slides I could spend hours on or just a few minutes that I have spent. So, thanks.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you, Avri.
So, I would like to draw the reflections of the panel, Avri, Amrita, would you take give you some comments on my (?) or comments by Avri.
>> AMRITA CHOUDHURY: Yeah, I hope I'm audible now. So, yes, I completely agree with what Avri said and I think she said most of what we would want to say, as in there is no multistakeholder model has different forms. It can be used in different ways, and there is no one size that fits all.
And it is practiced in different ways, in different levels. It could be at the consultive phases, it could also be at decision making or even implementation. But, again, what needs to be seen is are the right stakeholders there. It doesn't mean everyone has to be there, but the people who are relevant needs to be there.
You know, one of the comments which you made initially is, is it applicable to digital economy? Yes, it is. For example, if you are looking at payments, which is an integral part of the digital economy, how it is even at the grassroot level the payments are working, whether people are literate, and I come from India where digital payments are used, even illiterate people are using. Are they able to use it safely, securely, or easily in their own languages that matters. If you don't take the feedback from them, even if you design the best of solutions, it's not going to work. It cannot just be multilateral.
And I presume it is not applicable in all spheres because we need to go back and see why different stakeholders or participants are necessary. Because Internet today affects each and every one in different ways. So till the time you do not have different people coming and speaking, it's difficult.
For example, in AI, there may be software technologists sitting and planning it, but if you want the right perspectives, the privacy by design, the human rights aspect to be built into those systems, you need those kind of people in the room.
You also need to have other people, for example, the sustainability, people who are looking at energy consumption, et cetera, in the room. Obviously, you need government, you need social activists or civil society. Impacting it as a huge way to take care of those things. Because if you don't take care of the risks earlier, you will not be able to take care of it later.
Similarly, when you are talking about trust and safety, yes, security experts can do it. Law enforcement can do it. But even if at the individual user level, you don't understand what the issues are, you will not be able to take care. Simple example. You have online gaming, children are playing it. You may want to regulate them. But do you know what actual issues are or where they are playing it. For example, people who are actually playing games are not there when these discussions happen, when digital trust and safety, does governments or regulators making the decisions do not get the results which you would actually want.
And obviously there is a question on the maturity markets. Which again depends. There are developing countries who have leapfrogged into technology. For them, coming into the conversation, it may take a more longer time to make it more inclusive. For example, if I take an example in India, the telecom regulatory authority of India has consultations on all their aspects. They have consultations, they put it up transparently on the website and then finally take they give their directions or recommendations.
But, again, if we look at some discussions like we had for the data privacy regulation, we had a consultive phase. However, how it was used was never known. I would say even in South Asia, it depends upon the maturity of the country or market because they are still grappling with other issues so it may take time.
But I think the São Paulo guidelines are essential. Gives a list on multilateral organizations need to look at if they want to make it more inclusive and they also have it on how the multistakeholder process is, what checklists they need to have and they have the process steps also like scoping the issue better, identifying who the relevant stakeholders for that discussions, engaging them, sharing information but not everyone may be at the same level.
Or even facilitating a dialogue after discussing sharing it with people. So, I think it has 12 such process steps, which could be a good, I would say, reference point for everyone to look.
But, yes, it cannot be a one size fits all for everything, but it is definitely necessary into the digital economy. Thank you.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you, Amrita. Now we have Lillian. Do you have your views on this? Can you join now?
>> LILLIAN NALWOGA: Yes. Can you hear me? Let me see if my video is yes. So, thank you for having me.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Yes. Go ahead.
>> LILLIAN NALWOGA: I have a bit of some few thoughts on your presentation, and probably in agreement with what Avri just presented, especially relating to, say, Africa or Uganda. But just a reflection is I think in one of your in one of the questions that you raised, one of the points that you mentioned that the multistakeholder model works for some issues and not others. I'm a bit, I think, also Amrita's mission, that I think I'm slightly in disagreement, because if we are looking at a digital space, they are quite different issues that come into play.
So, especially the one that you raised on digital economy, and I think Amrita mentioned some bits of that. So, I think depending on the maturity level or the different pockets that Avri has mentioned, I think it should be able to work. But the contexts are kind of differs.
The other thing that I wanted to point on is the multistakeholder disguise. Kind of interested how you framed it. And I like the question I mean, you put disguise in quotes. And this, we kind of see it happen a lot where, to some, it is more of if there's a consultation, then with the multistakeholder, you know, model, you know, has been affected. And this is something that I really find a bit disturbing.
But looking at the presentations from Avri on the maturity levels, the process, is it top bottom or, you know, starts, you know, in the middle, where do we draw the line to say, to conclude that this indeed has been a multistakeholder kind of, you know, approach that has been, you know, taken.
So, in Africa and in many countries in Africa we have the issue of the multistakeholder disguise where you have a few, you know, kind of entities or groups, for instance, let's say there's an issue or developing a kind of, you know, a policy kind of document, you find that the policymaker will invite probably two, let's, for instance, say it is around, say, cybersecurity. You find that you may have just two entities represented in the initial drafting process of, say, this document. You find the government, you find maybe the private sector, someone in the banking sector, and representative from maybe academia. And then this will be consultive. And first of all the policy will be kind of adopted.
Again, when we look at the broader multistakeholder model, can we say that this is, you know, the multistakeholder, this was very well conclusive approach. So I think we are seeing lots of this multistakeholder disguise. If we went back to what Avri listed we may to rethink on who constitutes to be on the table for us to say that, you know, multistakeholderism has been applied.
Reacting to the very first point in your presentation, the selective, yes, I think I have mentioned that, yes, there's a bit of selectiveness, especially if the issue at hand is may consider, you know, may bring some tension, you know, within the different actors. So, you find, like you said, digital economy may not be needed for, you know, multistakeholder approach. So, this kind of, you know, whoever is leading this process, that kind of, you know, looking at it policy issue, you know, we select this, we leave that, I think that is really something that needs to be put into consideration. It's the wrong approach and we are seeing this happening in most of the African countries, even my country where I come from, Uganda.
Last but not least, I would like to say that from what captured my mind was in the presentation, Avri mentioned the different processes, you know, and where do we put this all together, the multilateral kind of, you know, processes where you see the ITU being active, you know, that versus those that are pushing for multistakeholder, you know, governance model, you know, the ICANNs, the IGF and all of that. And the participation we see of certain actors tend to go much in the treaty kind of, you know, kind of processes.
And in most cases, these are kind of selective, they are addressing certain issues, for instance, if you see now, like, the way ITU may be, we are seeing so many of countries in Africa being more present, more active in ITU processes than in these other, you know, kind of, you know, say WSIS, IGF, ICANN, there's little of that kind of, you know, how do you draw the line.
So, where is that mix, I think there was some kind of affinity symbol. How do we put this all together and constitute not to just, you know, addressing policy issues one by one.
So, I have a feeling that this is something we are from my from where from Uganda or from Africa, we still the point of consultive kind of model, you know, maturity. Yes, we have a few consultations, we have a few representatives present and then we conclude that this is a multistakeholder kind of model approach that's taken place. But, again, it is not that inclusive if we are to look at the (?) as has been presented by the previous speakers, mainly on the maturity in implementation tracking. It is still not clear who is doing what. The oversight of the review. Also, we still there are issues of how do you track who is doing what, who is responsible. In many cases, if it is a policy deployment, it is very hard to track the review and what informs another review, if it is needed.
So, I would say, I think I'm in agreement, but also a bit in context on the issue of maybe that we need to leave some issues, you know, some issues may not require, you know, the approach. I think the multistakeholder model approach needs to be deployed at different, you know at different levels, depending on where you are in the maturity process. But I think at least consultive and implementation, there has to be some bit of representation from the different actors. Thank you.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you, Lillian. You cannot make it online to the IGF, you cannot make it on site.
>> LILLIAN NALWOGA: Hopefully I will see you tomorrow. Yes.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: So I hope you all get well in the end.
>> LILLIAN NALWOGA: I hope so, too. Yes.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you. Thank you very much for your comment I mentioned multistakeholder disguise. I'm not sure if it's the right word to use. But I'm concerned that, the diversity of issues, we have diversity diverse issues so that we have different types of multistakeholder models. If so, we have to carefully we have to carefully design the multistakeholder process to deal with issues in the right way.
So, Amrita just pointed out that any policy item has some kind of multistakeholder elements in it. So digital even digital economy have some multistakeholder elements in it. But how we can how we can evaluate whether the issue is dealt with in a proper way. Do we have any thoughts on that.
>> AMRITA CHOUDHURY: Thank you, the first thing is for decisionmakers or even governments who have not taken that approach completely and it is a multistakeholderism disguise which I would call as tokenism, you know, we have seen processes like GDC also saying multistakeholder. We personally I do not believe it was multistakeholder. It was not at all transparent or accountable.
So, I think the first thing when people as in governments have a right to decide upon their sovereign interest. It's absolutely okay. But they need to understand something that will it be helpful. Are they getting all the issues. Objection doesn't mean they are raising an objection for the heck of it. They are raising it because there is a genuine reason also. If you take it into consideration, act on that or don't act on that. At least take it into consideration. There is more buy in from the different, I would say actors in that ecosystem. So, I think if they understand that having a more open approach to get the actual issues, even at a consultive phase and even if after a policy is formed, for example, many times governments fail is because they took in information only from few select people, and during the implementation time, they falter because the buy in is not there from everyone. And that is where the issue happens. If you had taken a more consultive approach, it will have been much better. And so if they understand the value of it, that is the time they will use it more. Now, there was a statement which is which Lillian made and I do agree with it, developing countries don't look at Internet Governance with that much of priority because connectivity is an issue, health is an issue, getting people jobs is an issue. So will they not look at those issues first and then look at Internet Governance? For them that is priority. And they will go talk in forums that is priority.
We also have to understand the maturity, and these countries have limited resources. So, they cannot put in so much resource. So you have to know how to balance it out.
And Internet actually provides that level of thing. So if they can use those things to get more views rather than be restrictive, and I have seen it in my country also at times. People feel worried of what kind of comments they will get.
But once people starts commenting, people also mature in the way they give comments.
So, I think these guidance with São Paulo gives, unfortunately all governments have not endorsed it probably because it has not been spread so much. If they go out more naturally, people will not be defensive, because each country actually wants to leapfrog, grow and serve the people better.
So, I think if we can explain it, no, it's not a fancy term, it will help you in the long run to get the results you want and these are the guidelines which you can work on. You don't have to create them. And cherrypick whichever you want. I think that would help.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you. Amrita. I have one question for Avri and then we would like to open the floor to the audience. Avri, as I mentioned, I am interested in the topic or issue oriented differences in applying multistakeholder models in multistakeholder models.
In your explanation, how policy by topic by topic differences are considered? Do you have any thoughts on this?
>> AVRI DORIA: Yeah. Thanks for the question. I think that that is actually a parallel set of issues. I think that it's one that comes up, for example, when you are selecting your participants, selecting your stakeholders, that that's one of the places where the subject matter becomes a big concern, because what kind of specialists do you need? What are the groups? Who is it that is participating in this? From one aspect, I say anytime you want to make a decision in a democratic manner and you want to make it in a participatory democratic manner where all the people that have some part of their life involved in this decision get a say, get to participate, then when you are putting it together, you, basically, have to look at, well, if we are going to be behaving in a multistakeholder manner on this topic, who do we need?
If we are discussing how to control fire threats within a city, you know, it's still very much a multistakeholder issue because it concerns the citizens, it concerns the fire department, it concerns emergency services, the government, the volunteers, you know, the people that come through and rescue the burn victims.
So, you have a great number of people that are all, sort of, contributing to an event. You want the planning for these things, the understanding, the preparation for these disasters to be demon a way that makes sense to all those that are involved in the doing of it, that have responsibilities for it, that provide the funding for it, that provide the technology for it, that provide the workers that make it happen.
So, understanding who is involved in dealing with this particular issue allows you to build that participant group, that stakeholder group. Again, depending on the topic. When you are looking at advice recommendations, do you have scientists that give advice at a purely scientific level but really don't care about the rest of it? So, how do you design their advice section in?
It's nice that I put these here simple, as simple words, but each one of these has a level that you have to deepen. You know, what does it mean to contribute to a subject in different fields? Is it writing a paragraph? Is it building something? Is it coming up with some sort of template?
So, each of these things gets looked at. And if you looked at the other parts that I include at the bottom, the other aspects, you know, the funding methods, geographical indicators that makes a difference, you know, where you are doing, where you are doing this is, obviously, going to change. If you are doing it in Africa or you're doing it in Asia or you're doing it in Europe, it's going to have different aspects because people look at the different differently, so you will structure it differently.
You know, the cultural aspects of when people talk, how people talk, how they interact, is this being done more locally or is this a regional issue or is this an international issue is going to direct the kind of structure, the kind of analysis you have to look at in doing it.
You know, I didn't get into it all, the intersectional measures and the diversity elements and all of that, which are different. We have a different set of diversity elements, depending on where we are doing it and what kind of population. You know, the scope of interest.
So, there are many different aspects. I was really, you know, just trying to keep it, sort of, at a simple level that to understand what we are doing, we got to keep breaking it down into what are the important aspects of the model. And then within each of those aspects for any subject, there's going to be another set of considerations.
That's what I come down to and say, I cannot envision a subject where there isn't a set of stakeholders, participants, concerned citizens, et cetera, any number of words. I'm not really hung up on the words. But there's, basically, a group of stakeholders that have a concern and whose concerns need to be listened to, need to be understood, needed to be included in the decision making, et cetera.
So, as far as I'm concerned, it's a model that can be used in any number of situations, but you got to do a lot of thinking about it to make it work.
I hope that answers it.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you. Thank you very much. Now we would like to open the floor to the audience. If you have any comment or question, please come to the microphone or, yes, just take the mic. Otherwise, Zoom participants will not be able to hear your voice.
>> PARTICIPANT: Is that okay? That's on. Hi. Jim Pendergrass with the gall way strategy group. Thanks for the session. Picking up a little bit on what Avri said and I think what Amrita said, we just need to be cautious about mislabeling processes as multistakeholder when they are not. And you pointed out the GDC. And all those who are familiar with the model knew right away, you know, this doesn't feel right. It's not sitting right. So, I think we use that as a teaching opportunity, as an opportunity to educate people about the model. Because not everybody is familiar with it, and particularly in the multilateral space, it's very new to them. And we should encourage them to continue to try and adopt it, but using things like the São Paulo principles as a guide, not necessarily as, you know, you have to use all the principles, but use that as inspiration to better improve the processes, I think is something that we as the community can do to make them better going forward.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you for your comment. Just for your information, I referred to the GDC because I wanted to show the diversity of issues being discussed in the frame of Internet Governance. So I don't think GDC is completely multistakeholder model or I am a bit skeptical about it. So, just don't get me wrong.
>> AVRI DORIA: Can I jump in with a response also.
>> PARTICIPANT: I agree. I think one of the distinctions I had I have made in looking at the GDC processes is meaningful multistakeholderism. You know asking for input and not reflecting back to the community how the input was used, what portions were rejected, which were accepted, how did you change the direction of the policy. That's meaningful. You know, giving that feedback to stakeholders, that's meaningful. Asking for a bunch of comments and then either doing nothing with them or not telling us how you have done something with them, that's not meaningful, and that, you know people are only they are going to get tired of that after a while and not want to participate.
My point is, it happened, we can learn from it. Let's teach people how to do better going forward so that it is meaningful and it is productive and everybody sees value in it.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you. Avri.
>> AVRI DORIA: Yes. Thank you, Jim just said much of what I was going to add in there. But, yes, and in fact that's why I had written on that bottom running not only consulting, but paying attention to it. And I like your notion of the multistakeholder disguise because, a term I had not thought of before, because it does cover that where you can act like you are doing something that is multistakeholder without the follow through, without it being a meaningful action. So, I think that is something to be very careful of.
I personally think that if there is a good consultive and it is paid attention to and there's feedback and is that even if you don't go beyond it to what I'm calling the other levels of maturity, then you could still say, yeah, you have dipped your toes into the multistakeholder, you have had some multistakeholder modalities, but the actions that you take have to be genuine. Thanks.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you, Avri and Amrita.
>> AMRITA CHOUDHURY: What I would like to add is while GDC definitely was not a process which was completely multistakeholder, one thing we could look at is at least it tried to get people to respond. But, again, one, it was not transparent, it was not open, how consultations were used. And it was not inclusive. A simple example, when you want comments from Global South at a time which is not friendly to them, and I speak from Asia Pacific. Most of the UN consultations were at very odd hours for people in Asia. You had to keep your video on. Think of the countries where you do not have that much of Internet bandwidth. And keeping it on or you will be disconnected. It's not inclusive. You will not get people you will not have found so many people from Asia in those calls, because the hours were very bad.
Also, when people, the other stakeholders were making comments, the rooms were empty. So, it didn't give a very good feeling to the others who were participating online that they were being heard. They may have been heard. We don't know. Because we don't know how the, you know, the feedback from everyone was used.
So, I think it is a lesson, as Jim said, if we can learn it well, we will do our WSIS+20 negotiations much better.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you very much. Thank you, Amrita.
Is there anyone who okay. There is a gentleman at the table.
>> PARTICIPANT: Can you hear me? From Japan. And I thank you for very interesting, you know, debate and presentations here.
Listening to all of you, I was wondering if we can have some global analysis jointly in some way with the people in this room, for instance, if some of the multistakeholder model, you know, work or not. As Avri is talking about, there are many different models and occasions. Even outside of digital world. And, of course, in a digital, you know, we studied the concept probably around the creation back in the '90s and then through WSIS, you know, process we talked about, you know, much of this.
In a context of government versus nongovernment and international government organizations dealing with Internet issues or not. And likely enough ICANN survived as it is and government is (?) making a direct decision making. That's very important fact.
But IGF model is, you know, completely different. It's not a decision making body. It is just a discussion in the process.
But at the same time, you know, we have to look at the good aspect, get the results of IGF in, for instance, people are gathering here, listening to others, what going on on the rule making in individual countries. And after we go back home and talk internally within the country, we create some of the similar laws, similar debates there. That created a lot of opportunity for countries to have their own more harmonized, you know, system on global basis.
And, you know, those are very small examples. But if you look at the other areas, digital, there must be some discussions going on, you know, such as SDGs. We heard in New York, in, you know, September that was more on SDG kind of debates and the digital was a part of that.
Whether we could use multistakeholder model, you know, to other areas, I think this is a time we really, you know, think and, you know, do a good analysis on a global basis. And I think for that purpose, everybody has to present some of the practices, examples what's going on and probably we should talk to our, you know, friends working on some other areas on if their model or their organization or processes are working well or not.
I think, you know, using Avri's maturity model, if we, you know, use more on the maturity and if we digest the benefit of those multistakeholder model, I think, you know, we can be better off by having such example and find out some best practices there and probably at next meeting we can get together and exchange some examples.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you very much. So, we have some kind of international called comparison of various models and various practices. We may need to take consider the possibilities of doing that kind of research forward. Thank you very much.
We have a parallel discussion going on in the chat. So, there's a comment from mark Nottingham. It would be interesting to hear reactions to get Mueller's characterization of multistakeholder as an empty label that does not describe the governance model. So Avri, can you
>> AVRI DORIA: Yeah, sure, I would love to answer it. And I would also like to I missed the gentleman who had been speaking before, his name. But I'd like to make some comments on that, too.
Partly the answer that I put there is, I very much agree that at the moment, I always said, and, in fact, I even think I said in my presentation, we very much hand wave when we say multistakeholder because we haven't done the deeper diving into what we mean when we say it, what are the aspects, how do we put them together, and such. We have done a little bit of that kind of analysis, but by and large, you know, whenever you see someone new coming in to say, gee, we would like to do multistakeholder, whose model can we use? Can we do the ICANN model, can we do the IETF model, and that never works for people because nobody fits anybody else's shoes that well.
I believe that what I am putting forward here and other people are putting forward here is, sort of, the meat on what is in the model, how do we define it, how do we identify it.
And to go on to the second gentleman's, and I apologize for forgetting the name, question is I think that's the next step. As we start to, and some of the stuff that I am doing in the background, too, you know, but it's just me doing it. It's not an organized thing, is, sort of, as these analyses of what is in the various aspects and how one defines them, then to take those and use them to do analyses on some of our existing organizations, some of our existing practices. So, that is indeed the intent. Thanks.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you, Avri.
Am I understanding Milton's point is that Internet Governance is about nonstate actors deciding principles and implementing them.
So, to me, he well, actually, Milton is going to have a dialogue on multistakeholder measurement right after this session as part of the Giganet symposium. So, if you are interested, go to the session after ours. But to me, it seems like Milton is looking at the topic by topic differences in terms of Internet Governance. But I maybe ask him later.
Oh, Avri, do you have any comments? Your face just popped up. No? Okay, never mind. Sorry.
>> AMRITA CHOUDHURY: What he mentioned in terms of stakeholderwise accountability is also important, because if you are giving input, whether you are accountable for it later is also important. And I think it comes with maturity of our model. So I think certain things are important, because and that whether you are accountable for it would also come during the implementation part or even the follow up part. So, I think looking at it in a broader scope, the phase et cetera is important to actually do it. But I think accountability of whoever is the stakeholder is also important.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you very much. Do we have any other comment or question from the audience? If not, let me give you the final question for the speakers.
So, future what should we expect about multistakeholder model in the future? So what kind of principles should be shared across policy areas or geographic areas? So, what do you see will become of the multistakeholder model in near future? Do we keep going on the same thing, or do we need some different action? What's your thought? Amrita, please.
>> AMRITA CHOUDHURY: So, I think whatever terminology you use, all participants who have vested interest or may have should be there when discussions happen or on policies, on issues where their lives are at stake or something is in stake. You call it multistakeholder, you call it whichever terminology. It is important.
Because anyone wants a particular policy process to work, you have to have the buy in of the people. For example, now GDC has been ratified. It has to be implemented. If it has the buy in of everyone, nation states, companies, technical communities, civil society et cetera, being a Herculaneum task, only then it it will be able to achieve what it wants to achieve.
What terminology you use, you have to have relevant people interested or accountable in the room.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you. Lillian, can you give us your thoughts on the future of multistakeholderism?
>> LILLIAN NALWOGA: Thanks. Yeah, so for me, just to add to what Amrita has mentioned, is it's not just about participation and having people present by taking numbers, you know. It should be more transparency, including, being more making stakeholders accountable. It doesn't matter, for instance, if it's at the global level and you are considering say the global majority voices and having a few countries represented and then this is called that, you know, we had presentation from this particular kind of, you know, people from, you know, say, the group of majority, so there has to be what kind of contribution are they bringing in place.
So, right now the future of the global of the multistakeholder model is really at it is in suspense because it's not just so clear what we really want. Some people really want to have the continue can the multilateral, you know, having a few people on the table at more of a high level.
But I think there has to be inclusive participation, transparency and accountability in what is being discussed, and also the ease of being able to track the outcomes of whatever process or whatever decision that comes out of the consultations. Thank you.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you. Thank you very much.
Avri, one last word, please.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you. First of all I will point out that, you know, it is still, even if it did start in the last century, it still is a very young model. We are still figuring out. I personally think it is an essential critical model necessary in any sort of democratic movement we are going to do. Representative, democracy is wonderful, but it doesn't get the people participating, it doesn't get them heard, it doesn't get them understood.
So, I think that this is a model that we need to keep developing, we need to go doing this deeper analysis, we need to go out and check, you know, the organizations that are and continuing to enrichen, to make the model richer so that it can be done.
Pretty much all the way through this I have, sort of, been almost sounding sometimes like a cheerleader, like I think it's all easy and it all works. And accountability, for example, is a big difficult topic.
The topic that worries me the most, that I don't even feel that I have a good grasp on and how to deal with it is, even if you have got to measure for accountability and you have got a measure for who gets to participate and all that, it's the notion of everybody dealing with the process in good faith.
And often when I have seen situations where it looks like, gee, things are really laid out well for this part of a multistakeholder process to actually work and deliver something that does respond to the needs of the stakeholders, there are those with less than good faith that throw wrenches in, you know, we use words like disinformation these days. You know, it used to be something else, or that. And how the model protects itself against things like that, things like what you suggested, the sort of disguised or the imitation of the model without it being genuine. So, that's one of the places where I am still very much.
But I think going forward, what we got to do is develop the analysis better and we have got to start to applying that analysis against existing and future efforts. Thanks.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you, Avri. I quite agree with the last point that Avri made. We have to look into what's below the multistakeholder tokenism or disguise or whatever you call it. And there is a quite a lot of research will be necessary.
So, thank you very much, thank you all. We still we have still a bit of time. But we will stop it here. Oh, there is a gentleman raising your hand in the audience.
>> PARTICIPANT: Thank you. When we speak about multistakeholder model, we have to speak about the role of each stakeholder. Each stakeholder in his or her role. Suppose we are in a hospital and we have to decide whether to undertake a surgery for a patient or not. Shall the nurse that the staff participate in this decision? No. They will be on the table. But not to decide if we have to make the surgery. For example, the financial people will say, no, he didn't pay or he doesn't have any guarantee to pay, so we cannot do it.
The nurses can speak about other things relating to this patient. But they cannot decide whether to have to undertake this surgery or not.
So, when we speak about stakeholders, we have to say, always say each and his role. Thank you.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you very much.
>> AVRI DORIA: Can I comment?
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Yes, please.
>> AVRI DORIA: I agree, but that doesn't mean that they don't have a voice around the table. They may not have the final decision. But certainly the ethicist who is sitting at that table and looking at whether it is ethical to perform that particular operation on that patient at that point in time.
Indeed, the funding may be part of it. If the surgery is not life saving but it's going to put the person in debt for the next 30 years, is that a consideration that needs to be heard? I would actually argue that those people do need a voice. They may not be the final decision. The surgeon and the availability of the surgical team is certainly, perhaps, a bigger.
But even a discussion at that, that looks cut and dry at the beginning. Once you start analyzing what goes into making surgical decisions, you will find that there's a lot of stakeholders that are involved in that.
So, I totally agree with you, you need to look at what the roles and responsibilities of each stakeholder are at every phase of a process. But that doesn't limit the number of stakeholders necessarily. Thanks.
>> PARTICIPANT: Avri, you are repeating what I said. I exactly said that. I said that they have to be on the table, because their aspects on the decision. But the medical decision is the role of the doctors, the other parts have their field of their part of the decision. Thank you.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you very much. There's many aspects where roles and responsibilities are concerned. So that shows we have a lot of work to be done in the future.
Okay. Let me conclude this session. Thank you very much. Thank you all for participating. And thank you, Avri, Lillian. Have a good day.
>> AVRI DORIA: Thank you all. Have a wonderful IGF.
>> AMRITA CHOUDHURY: Thank you. Bye.
>> AVRI DORIA: And keep yourselves safe.
>> KEISUKE KAMIMURA: Thank you very much.