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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RIETTA ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much to our tech team and welcome everyone to this session. We are about to start. Apologies that we are a little bit late. So I am South African, I'm very proud to be facilitating this high level session. Which is also unveiling the UNESCO UNESCO's advanced facilitators. I work as a consultant and sometimes from other organisations as well. So before we start on this momentous occasion there's a lot of work that's gone into this process I just wanted to introduce you to our high level panel. We are happy to have our opening speaker the assistant director general for communications and information at UNESCO and as I think many of you would know UNESCO has really been one of the lead U.N. agencies in the world in the information society and also participating in shaping the IGF. After Mr. G, we will have Mr. Alexandre the head of studies for information and communication technologies in Brazil. Very important role that they have played in the revision of the UNESCO indicators, we'll then have online and if I can just get confirmation, is David online? I'm have happy to welcome Dr. David Souter, the managing director of ICT for development associates in the UK and David has been the lead researcher and author in first the first version of the internet universality indicators and also now with the revision. Next, we'll have Miss Jennifer who has just arrived. And principle assistant secretary from the bureau of cyberspace and digital policy for the U.S. And online, joining us as well, will be Vint Cerf, another lead person who has been in the space of the IGF leadership panel and in fact chair of the IGF leadership panel. And then we have Veronica over there who is the chief executive officer of Tuvalu communications organisation. And last but not least chief of digital economy foresight and at the digital corporation organisation. But I think you work in sixteen different countries around the world. So welcome to our panel. And now to get us started, and to add some welcoming remarks to this high-level session on behalf of UNESCO I'm going to give the floor to Mr. J, if you can tell us also after you've made the welcoming remarks, why is UNESCO doing this work on the IUIs?
>> TAWFIK JELASSI: Thank you very much, colleagues and friends, good afternoon to all of you. Can you hear me currently? You can. Excellent. Sorry being few minutes late I just arrived from Paris so this is fresh from the oven whatever I am about to say. I am pleased to welcome you to this session which is very important to us since we are going to unveil the revised internet universality indicators of UNESCO and will tell you more about it including answering your question on why we embarked on this effort a couple years ago. For UNESCO this works with our effort in human rights, in accessibility, and in ensuring a multistakeholder participation. This milestone would not have been possible without the invaluable contributions of organisations which I would like to recognize first the Brazilian network information center and its original center for studies on the development of the information society.
That is BR, their expertise has been very, very valuable for us at UNESCO and I would like to acknowledge here Mr. Alexandre B. who is in charge of this. And he is seated on my left and also Fabio who is second to us at UNESCO for a long period of time to specifically work on the revised internet universality indicators I would like also to acknowledge the contribution of David Souter who was the architect of the initial version of the indicators, is it working and also was very much involved in the revised framework. I would like also to acknowledge the contribution of the IUI steering committee. And dynamic coalition. Which both provided us with guidance to ensure the framework addresses today's challenges. I would also like to thank our host countries, Saudi Arabia, for making this session possible and for their hospitality at this year's IGF. And finally, I would like to acknowledge the IGF Secretariat for its enduring partnership. Which has been a cornerstone of UNESCO initiatives including the IUI framework and its revision ladies and gentlemen, as we know the internet has democratized access to information. Has involved people from all over the world and for us, it's a way of implementing the principle of leaving no one behind. However, as we know in spite of democratization of access to information the internet created some disparities. Not only between countries but within countries as well. And has introduced new challenges among which of course the digital divide but not only. As the U.N. Secretary General Mr. Antonio reminded us when he said, the future of digital must be human centered. We all share this statement this principle and as we will see in a few minutes the revised IUI indicators wholeheartedly embrace this principle. I mention that all acts, framework which encapsulate this vision and the pillars of the ROAMX for those who may not be familiar with it, so the R in ROAM stands for human rights-based approach and this includes, of course, freedom of expression, data privacy, dignity, gender equality, the O stands for openness ensuring that there are no silos. The A stands for accessibility.
As I said, to very much to my internet to ensure an equitable internet access and the M stands for multistakeholder participation in order to foster transparent and inclusive decision making. I said it's ROAMX, the X stands for crosscutting issues such as gender equality trust, security, sustainable development, and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence. You may know that to date, over 40 countries worldwide have used the UNESCO internet universality indicators to conduct national assessments and the latest I would say Argentina.
Senegal and I would like to mention here the impact of these national digital assessments using our framework. And the ROAMX indicators, in Argentina, for example the findings from the assessment have empowered the IUI research team to propose loans addressing critical gaps in the country's data protection framework.
So again, this is one of the tangible outcomes of the IUI based national digital assessment. In Senegal, the assessment facilitated the implementation of the country's 2025 digital strategy and its high-speed national plan. Now to answer Anriette's question, why did we revise the framework.
Obviously, we wanted to make the framework relevant. To make it adaptive, future ready, we wanted to integrate key insights and lessons that you have learned from the 40 implementations around the world. This is very important for us. But also, we wanted the revised indicators to enhance accessibility and ease of use to accelerate stakeholder adoption and implementation of the ROAMX.
Let me just conclude here by saying the revised framework also is aligned with the global digital compact. And the pact of the future which were adopt as you know last summer and the revised framework is now more streamlined with 63% fewer questions to answer in the survey and 56% fewer indicators to use. This makes the revised framework both comprehensive and accessible. I think I will stop here, Ari yet, and give you the floor back.
>> ANRIETTE: Thank you very much, Tawfik, I do want to ask you one follow up question particularly because I think we may have people in the room who are not that familiar with the indicators.
But if I am from a country in the global south, we have very little bandwidth and internet access should we be worried about using the indicators, would we find ourselves in some sort of ranking where we look as if we are not performing well? Is that something I should be scared of or not something the indicators will do?
>> TAWFIK JELASSI: That is not something the indicators for a simple reason, UNESCO has been around for 80 years and has never done rankings of member states. We are not in the business of rankings; this is the indicators are meant to be a guidance to our member state to conduct a national digital assessment. But not to compare countries and certainly not to rank them.
>> Thank you so much for emphasizing that. I think it's one of the reasons that the indicators are not just a powerful tool but an empowering tool. And David, are you ready? Are you online? Can you hear me? David, can you tell us, is David able to speak? I just want to make sure I can hear you, excellent, good. David what is new in this revised internet universality framework. Tawfik underlined why it was done and also, it'll be much easier to use but from your perspective what is new, what do you feel are the key trends and challenges that was identified, you know, across the global IUI assessment process that informed this revision?
>> DAVID SOUTER: Okay, so let me say something first about some issues and then also something about the experience of research in using the IUI over the last 80 years or so. I'm working on the U.N.'s commission on science and technology for development. So that means I'm very conscious of the pace and the extent of change we've seen in digital development over the last twenty years but particularly the acceleration of that growth of pace and extent in change in the last eight years or so since the original IUIs were published.
And it was always intended that it would be revised in time with what was happening in the digital environment and the experience of researchers. In the last eight years we've seen dramatic changes in each part of the ROAMX framework. New trends, new challenges.
Which needed to be addressed within the indicators of the questions that frame them. So the enjoyment of rights online, for example, that's been profoundly affected by issues concerned with information integrity or with platform regulation. With the exploitation of data. The openness of the internet and open technology and resources, has been amplified by the way in which technology and services have diversified what we mean by access, the A in the framework, is much more concerned now with affordable connectivity and usage. And indeed with impact of new technologies. And I think the multistakeholder context has also become much more diverse because digital resources now have great impact in every area of our economy, societies and cultures, every aspect of sustainable development and require input from these whose expertise not rely in digital resources themselves but in public policy and life. Much more attention is being paid now than ten years ago in terms of gender equity, children's rights and welfare too I think have been greatly enhanced by or discussion enhanced by the 2025 convention. All of these themes to which we have responded in the IUI revision making them more to the fore and the AGE mentioned two friends in particular that we have especially sought to address. We've given them much more substance in the new framework. One of them is environmental risks. The environmental problems associated with digital development as well as opportunities are now much better understood than they were concerned with energy consumption, with climate change and waste and that has led to a more circular approach to the digital economy and that is associated with the academy than before. And also one artificial intelligence and other frontier technologies present great opportunities and also present serious new challenges of governance arising from uncertainty and risk which needs to be assessed with any thinking about the national internet environment. So all of those elements feature in the policies and in the future of the global impact and will feature in the review of the sustainable development goals in 2030. And clearly they needed to feature in the IUIs as well. Just something as well about why we revised the structure in response to experience. I think it's important that the framework's used to analyze is environment not just the tick boxes about particular indicators and it's important that it leads to recommendations that are feasible and can be put into practice by governments and stakeholders rather than simply speculating on what would be desirable in a perfect environment, so we've given more prominence to a couple of things in the framework to specific questions that should be addressed in the work of the research teams and of their multistakeholder advisory boards the reports which I generated from these studies they should respond to these specific questions. Above all, they should assess how the indicators relate to them. And they should make recommendations for ways in which the ROAM principles can be advanced to changes that can be made within the national internet environment.
And the other point as earlier mentioned is this was a substantial framework
>> ANRIETTE: Sorry can you pause, there's interference, is everyone hearing the interference as well? Just pause a second. I just want to ask our tech support to check into that. Is it fixed the interference?
>> VINT CERF: I'm not hearing any interference.
>> ANRIETTE: David, try again?
>> DAVID SOUTER: From where?
>> ANRIETTE: Try again let's see if there's interference. Can you speak, David? Okay, there's still interference. I'm pausing try now David.
>> DAVID SOUTER: Yeah. I'm trying again now, can you hear me now?
>> ANRIETTE: Afraid the noise is still there. Can that mic be off? Thanks.
>> DAVID SOUTER: How about now?
>> ANRIETTE: It's crackling as well. David try again.
>> DAVID SOUTER: Hello?
>> ANRIETTE: Okay, we still have an issue here. Tafik, fix can I ask you check with our tech team to see if they can fix this problem. David I think you should continue and I just apologize to everyone in the room for the noise on the line.
But hopefully it will be fixed, please go ahead, at least the remote participants are not hearing it. Go ahead.
>> DAVID SOUTER: I was about to conclude, in practice we had a core indicators and a further 200 that were optional. In practice very few of the optional indicators were used in the studies because of the version of research that they imposed. And it was clear that more focus was needed to we had them down, we used the number. We hope research teams will include all that is still there but we also hope they will add any extra questions they feel are perfectly relevant within their own countries so those are the two main aspects that we felt from the experience of research need to be amended. They're not particularly surprising and I hope they make the tools even more effective than in the past. That's all I was going to say and Alexandre will say something more about the way the revision was done and about how the indicators can most effectively be used. And I will pause I will stop there Anriette and hope that others that the rest is fine.
>> Thanks David and I'm happy to report that the interference on the reception has gone as well.
So, and I reserve the right to come back, not to cross examine you but to ask you another question at a later stage but now let's move onto Alexandre. What do you, I mean in your experience, Alexandre you were involved in the initial development, you implied the indicators in Brazil and been part of the revision process? How do you feel the revised IUIs can transform and advance national internet development and governance? Particularly from the perspective of evidence based policymaking and coming up with those kind of tailored policy recommendations like the example Tawfik gave us from Argentina?
>> ALEXANDRE BARBOSA: Good afternoon, everyone, let me start by thanking Mr. ADG for inviting me to this panel. And it was an honor for me to be part of the steering committee meeting of the internet universality indicators and I have to tell you, Tawfik that your leadership, and also Cedric's was all instrumental for this revision. It was one year of hard work of many actors revising this framework in the set of the internet universality indicators but if you allow me I would like to do back in history to 2013 in the IGF in Bali when UNESCO along with others decided to firm the paper on the concept of internet universality and after that year we had until 2014 in Brazil, and at BR included two national consultation to refine the concept and the framework and after that, in 2015, we have conducted the first pilot of the indicators that was gave us insights for the last revision and David was really amazing by revising and putting our goals and indicators together and the framework and everything. And in 2019, UNESCO published the first IUI report with a data from Brazil so it was a really honor for us. And since then, many countries as you said ADG, more than 40 countries have published already a national assessment and this gave us a lot of insights for this revision. And now going to your questions, I would like to highlight four key points in my personal opinion. That's on the importance on how the revised can transform national internet development and governance and I would like emphasize the importance. First I think it has already been said. Internet universality indicators empower countries to adopt policymaking by providing actionable data and diagnostic tool. This is the most powerful thing. We are not talking about this but assessment. They can identify gaps ranging from digital inclusion to data protection and so many other aspects of this ecosystems. And of course, allows country to develop policies that directly address these findings. From those national assessments. For reasons just to give you an example, the indicators can highlight disparities in internet access among marginalized groups or region profiting target interventions to bridge the digital divide and I would say that more than that, the assessments offer, I struck an approach to evaluate the impact of policies over time enabling continuous refinement and empowerment, so I think this is the first key important aspect on the how. The second point in my opinion is that the indicators facilitate tailored policy recommendations by aligning national priorities with internal frameworks like the Sustainable Development Goals. This is a very important aspect. The revised IUI integrate lessons from global application as was already mentioned. Huge number of countries have already applied this assessment. And those lessons learned ensure that relevance across diverse context and we in this revision took into consideration the past experience of those countries making the assessment and I would say that disability allows policymakers to customize their use where they're focusing on enhancing data privacy laws, fostering elevation or promoting digital literacy.
So one example from my country Brazil was able to flag important aspects of this ecosystem. I am not going to detail but for instance the need to improve rural internet access we had a long debate on community networks and how to bridge a gap in rural areas and also the establishment of the legal framework for personal data protection enough to this assessment three years later Brazil improved the national law on the personal data protection. Another important point on the how, is that the IUI is strengthened, multistakeholder collaboration as a cornerstone of sustainable internet governance so the multistakeholder that I mentioned is really a key aspect of this framework. And by doing so, representatives from civil society academia, private sector, government, this framework really foster consensus driven strategies that reflect diverse perspectives and interest. This is a very important point. And these multistakeholder approach ensures that policies are not only inclusive but also rooted in practical expertise and finally my last point is that the IUI serve as a catalyst for regional and international cooperation. We have been seeing this in Latin America, we have helped many countries in the region to conduct their national assessment in collaboration was key in this regard. And countries can share best practice and align their own strategy with global standards fostering a collective effort to address shared challenge. For instance, the indicators can help neighboring countries in Latin America develop a harmonized approach to digital gaps and to adopt best practice to measure the new concept of meaningful connectivity. This is really a key aspect that I would like to highlight so, and yet, in conclusion I would say that the revised IUI offer an available roadmap for advancing regional internet development in governance. And by supporting evidence based policymaking and providing tailored recommendations, the framework empowers countries to create a more inclusive rights, respecting a resilient ecosystem. It was a great pleasure to work with all of you and to produce this new revised version that we have some copies here. So for those willing to have a physical copy, you can take after the panel thank you so much.
>> Thank you, Alexandre now a follow up question on this, now UNESCO a consultant widely in the process of this revision so this was an exercise based on talking to people who have used the indicators and also getting input from others. Are there any particular insights or perspectives that you came across in the revision process? That influenced this redesign of the indicators? Is there anything that stood out for you from the consultation process?
>> ALEXANDRE BARBOSA: Yes, it is important to mention that besides conducting a new round of consultations, we also, UNESCO, send out a survey for those countries that had already conducted the assessment, and the result of this survey was very insightful for the process because one issue was that the questionnaire, the number of indicators was too long, so it was an opportunity to review this set of questions in the indicators and more than that, in the ask the nation we were able to really consider new dimensions like sustainable development, gender, so these were was really insightful process and as UNESCO is a very transparent type of organisation we took into account the voice from regions and from countries.
>> Thanks very much for that Alexandre, I am Al I also have the Zoom on my phone here and I'm checking what's happening online. Now that you heard more about the indicators and about the revision, are there any questions or comments? I also wanted to invite all the other panelists including those online if you have any additional remarks or questions in this first segment, before we move on to our next part, the next part of the session will look at the future of the IUIs and how we see them playing a key role in global digital governor glance but the floor is now open. I don't see the online hands, Tawfik, is there someone online? I can't hear you I'm afraid. Is there a question for David, I'm sure you've read it but I will read it out for even in the room. For David Souter, it's from Susana, in your view, how do the IUIs stay adaptable to future technological and policy challenges while maintaining their core principles?
David, are you happy to take that on?
>> DAVID SOUTER: Yes. Sure. I think so one of the things is that, as I said at the beginning, and it was always the intention to revise these indicators after a number of years in order to respond specifically to developments that were taking place. The developments that take place within the digital sector are in particularly problematic because they're very able to anticipate. If we look back at the world summit 20 years ago, there was very little said then about mobility because that was not seen at the time as being a particularly important dimension of the future development of the digital world well clearly that was the most stark. And many of the services that we have now, most of them really were simply not anticipated at that time so these changes are dramatic and needs to be addressed. This is not meant to be a rigid framework but a framework for the use of the people within their particular environments and so the research teams the multistakeholder advisory boards that assist them in each country should be thinking about what is specifically important to their country, how do these questions relate to their country. The meaning of that is different in every country and it's also going adaptation that one might need here is twofold, I think every two years, every five years, maybe longer it's important for UNESCO to reflect on these indicators again and how they might evolve, perhaps next time after the ES 2 review in 2030 but it's also important for those dealing with them, those using them in individual countries to think of the adaptations that are needed to interpret those principles and those questions for their own country and their own time.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that David, there's a happened in the room. But I'm not bad audio again, better, great, I do have a question, and anyone on the panel can respond to that as well, David yourself included. Have you found that actually getting the data to respond to those questions and analyze, do the kind of analysis that you are talking about, has that been a challenge and if it has been a challenge how has that evolved over time and what have you found as effective ways of responding to that question, I'm not sure David or Alexandre if you want to respond to that. David, Alexandre is going to respond first and then you can add.
>> ALEXANDRE BARBOSA: Thanks for this question. This is a key issue in the assessment. We need data availability and we know that in many countries we still have a data gap for many indicators. In case of Brazil we have the privilege of having our very rich datasets for many, many years but what we have been seen in countries that when the data is not available, countries have to go to more official type of data source to an international. To World Bank, which is a secondary data source and of course that in terms of collecting primary data, the interviews that we have conducted with key actors in this ecosystems from a different segments not only government of course but academia private sector and civil society is really key so it is very important that the multistakeholder advisory board really have the domain and can lead the data collection. Not only using already existing datasets but also going through the data collections.
>> David doesn't to add?
>> DAVID SOUTER: Yes, we have inadequate data to assess how the data revolution is actually going. The I think one of the reasons why there were so many issues in the framework is addressing this problem. It's giving options that researchers can use within the particular question that they were looking at. To find evidence and essentially data are inadequate in many different contexts and therefore researchers have to make the best use of what's available. That includes using assessments which are quantitative rather than qualitative.
Considering the authoritative sources which might be available to fill in those gaps. As credibly as possible. And also I think at the end of the day it's really important among the recommendations that are coming out of these responses, coming out of these reports, that a part of that some of those recommendations are about the ways in which the data gathering data analysis framework needs to be improved within the countries. Because good data are essential for good policymaking.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that, David. Vint, I'm happy to see your hand in the virtual room. You have the floor.
>> VINT CERF: Thank you very much, I wanted to draw attention to two activities in the U.S. that might be of interest with regard to metrics one of them is called the Measurement Lab it's part of an organisation called Code for Science and Society.
Google is one of the members among many. It's a data collection service to report service in of the internet. There are different measurement tools and metrics in order to understand the quality of service that is provide.
For a long time bandwidth was the big cahoona but now people are worried about latency and other things. I would turn people to the M Lab or the measurement lab. They can find this useful and also perhaps participate.
The second activity is called the broadband coalition at the Marconi Society and that's a regular meeting of people who are concerned about getting broadband access in the rural parts of the U.S.
Into operation and many of you would be aware of a major 42 billion dollar effort to make broadband internet access available. In the rural parts of the U.S. So I just draw those attention draw these to your attention because they are very much relevant to the metrics that you've been developing.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Vinton, those illustrate how the multistakeholder approach that the indicators deploy allows you to source metrics from the national statistical agencies.
But also metrics that are generated by other stakeholder groups or other sectors. And I don't see any hands in the room. No one wants to ask a question? Is it too noisy here? And I don't see any other hands online? Is there a question in the chat? No, I think we covered everything so far. So let's move onto the second part of our session and listen to more of our fantastic speakers. And just to look a bit more towards the future now and the role of the IUIs in this evolving landscape of global digital governance, Jennifer. I'm going to start with you. I mean, what is your view? How do you think evidence based policy can inform the development of national digital policies to address tech equalities and policies. And I will add a bit more as well if I'm allowed to do you feel that evidence based policy always comes naturally to governments or is there also sometimes a process there too that has to be undertaken in a collaborative consultive way just to demonstrate and convince policymakers of the value of evidence based policy?
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: I think this is working, yes? My team gave me a great answer but I'm going to riff a little on your question and thanks for including us here today and, you know, as since the U.S. rejoined UNESCO we have really been thrilled to be collaborating and working with you and your colleagues on a whole range of issues that we find incredibly important. So I should say I have been in the U.S. government for, I'm coming up on 27 years. And let me tell you this question around data driven policymaking has taken off probably in the last 15 20 years. But it's really challenging I think you have to start with the idea that what's the metric you use. Right? I like to give the example, I was 20 years ago or so, I was working on our embassy in Vietnam as the econ and labor officer and we were supposed to determine whether or not, you know, what was the metric we were going to use on the state of labor relations in Vietnam and they said, okay, well, if you have more demonstrations, more labor actions, is that a good thing or a bad thing? And I was an economic person. I said more economic is a bad thing because it leaves labor unhappy and they said, they can go and have their point of view heard.
In many worlds trying to figure out how to judge these issues is really difficult as policymakers. Now luckily for us on some of these issues it's actually quite easy what percent of the population is connected? That one I feel like is pretty good. But there are always going to be indicators that are probably going to be a little more fraught on what you're trying to achieve, right? So I think first of all, we should all strive for data driven decision making. It's something the U.S. government has embraced over the last twenty years and we need to recognize there's going to be some tensions between what data are we looking for? Is that a good thing? A bad thing? How can we continue to try to strive towards reaching these outcomes that we want? Because the thing is, again, I am clearly a career bureaucrat, I haven't worked in the private sector but having worked with lots of bosses they have they say, okay, I have to understand what the return on investment is. If I'm going to spend X amount of money to connect it, am I getting my money's worth uh, where is the return on investment and how can we demonstrate our share, which is the taxpayers that it is worth it. They're going in and out, apologize for that, I promise it's not me. I do want to spend a couple of minutes on the idea of what they have written in here. We have the vision perhaps digital technologies are working to that. Part of the vision is the idea of connecting the unconnected of trying to bring the development in the world and in a multistakeholder point of view and I was struck about the comment of the indicators that can come from the private sector. The U.S. government can say we believe we have this percent of the population connected but we need to double track that if we look at the U.S. approach by talking to U.S. telecommunications providers, and U.S. civil society, and other organisations who say you think it's this percent but you're missing, you got this over here on the left. Can you need to look at that. We think about trying to analyze. You need to get as many data resources as possible and then recognize that sometimes those data sources are in fact going to disagree with each other.
And then you have to figure out a way to reconcile them. All of that is messy and time consuming but I do think has to be our ultimate goal as we look at these indicators. I think I missed a lot of things that my team wanted me to say.
>> Thank you for that response and I think you cut to why this is so challenging and I don't think we should pretend that it's not. Jennifer talked about the value that the private sector brings to this kind of process.
What do you see as the role that tech companies and specifically but the private sector at large can bring to this approach and these principles but also addressing this issue of data driven evidence based policymaking?
>> VINT CERF: So first of all, data driven policymaking is really smart. I mean, any business model that you want to put together really needs to be based on data otherwise you're just flying blind. So I'm a huge fan of data collection and analysis. In Google we believe that numbers count and gathering data is absolutely essential. So I am a big fan of measurement and I would like to congratulate the UNESCO on its further evolution of the IUI framework. I wanted to just make a comment about metrics for a second because it's one thing to measure things like data rates and latency and so on. But there are some other very important things that determine whether something's useful or not, one of them is availability and is it reliably there all the time when you need it. Can you actually afford it which is a major issue and is it fit for purpose that is do its parametric performance. Values. Actually serve the applications that users want and I would argue that as you move around the world you find people using different applications, requiring different kinds of performance. Reliability and resilience equally important because if it's not there when you need it, then it doesn't serve your needs. And I would include one other possible metric. I'm not sure how you would do this but I wonder if accountability is an important component of the utility of the internet. We know that there are harmful behaviors on the net and we wonder about how to hold parties accountable. I have no idea whether that's a metric that you can measure but it certainly is something that should be concerned about. Am I assuming that we're moving into my more general presentation Anriette or am I just responding to your immediate question
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think you're responding to my immediate question but if you have time if you want to take more. I am going to alert David and Alexandre to your question. About accountability. And Vint has put an important question on the table. Do you measure accountability but perhaps you can think about it and after Vint has gone again you can come back and tell us the extent to which the indicators at present tries to deal with this question of accountability. But back to you, Vint.
>> VINT CERF: Thank you so much. I will continue, more broadly, I want to talk a bit about the private sector because that's where a great deal of the internet access is implemented. Certainly at Google we invest very heavily in international sub c cable networks. Land based cable networks and of course our data centers and all of the communications that are required to support them.
Plus interconnection to the public internet in order to allow users to get to our data and computing capabilities so we make as do others in the private sector major investments that enable people to make use of the internet and the kinds of applications it can support. Certainly another element here in terms of metrics is internet exchange points that allow the various networks of the internet to interconnect efficiently with each other. And I'm sure many of the countries that are concerned about connectivity have made a point of, at least measuring if not also investing in internet exchange points to facilitate interconnection and resilience. There are other ways in which the private sector can contribute. One of them is open source and we're big fans of that at Google. Much of our software is available through open source and it is an enabler for others to take advantage of that work and to build upon it. We also provide broad platforms like large language models for artificial intelligence and machine learning applications that, again, let other people build on top of those frontier models. We're also big fans of open research that is to say sharing of what we discovered and what we learned. We're also very active as you know in the Internet Governance Forum and the national regional Internet Governance Forums because those are places where the metrics you develop can be disseminated and perhaps also feedback can be obtained. From the measurements that are made we're active in standards as well and I think those are other equally enabling mechanisms that make the internet more useful for everyone. I could go on and on here. I won't. I will say though that with regard to accessibility this is a space where the private sector has made significant contributions not only at Google where we're very focused on captions and translation of languages from one to another, others have made significant investments at Microsoft and Apple for example in terms of accessibility. These are really fundamental to making the internet useful to everyone as far as UNESCO's primary objectives. I don't know what to say about artificial intelligence and the IUIs, I don't think we're clear about what to measure to tell us whether it's working well or not. So there is still some work to be done. And if it becomes increasingly central to the applications that we all use, I suspect that there has to be some further discussion within the UNESCO context. About how we measure the utility and safety of the artificial intelligence applications that are emerging. So I'll stop there, I'm sure you've got other questions and more for the rest of the panel.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that Vint and I think if I recall what the revision does is actually it's not overly ambitious I think it's actually asking country to assess are they at least talking about the challenges related to AI? So rather than having a finite measuring framework there I think it is giving those country teams to have that conversation that you just opened but knew I want to move to Tenanoia from Tuvalu. Because Tuvalu has applied. What are the challenges particularly for a small island developing estate which already has so many internet challenges.
What challenges do you feel you face in internet governance and reflecting on your experience and can the framework provide solutions? Do you think it can? Do you feel it has? Just give us your insights based on your experience.
>> Thank you so much for the question. I would like to take the opportunity to thanks for the opportunity to participate and include our small Pacific island countries in this. It's great to have people from UNESCO visit our small island state. Thank you. Looking at Tuvalu's digital development journey really it reflects both the aspirations and challenges in advancing IUIs within a unique socioeconomic and geographic context so let me just give you a little bit of the Tuvalu digital development journey. Our journey is forward looking towards digital transformation. It shape basically by the geographic isolated infrastructure vulnerability with climate change and I think David mentioned that as well. But despite these challenges Tuvalu has embraced a digital digitalization as part of its digital nation initiative. And the mission really involves and also we are very disadvantaged from the tech solutions. It aims to enhance connectivity and foster economic inclusion from our perspective. But I think this development reflects a commitment to more leveraging tools like this, frameworks to overcome structural strengthen governance. Coming to the question of challenge, small island nations like Tuvalu face very, very unique challenges. Which I would like to highlight a theme. One of which is the big challenge is structure in the sense that high cost cables and I'm happy to say that my nation Tuvalu just landed the first cable just a couple days ago and I thank the help from companies like Google and Vint for getting us connected to the entire world and also the constraint of limited capacity. Given that the structure and geographic landscape of our islands are very remote and isolated. So the deployments can be very costly. And for the cable, we can we are left out from the opportunity, you know, on advancement in technology. One of the other limitations that I think we highlighted in the assessment that we did is because we are very small economies we struggle to attract private investment in digital infrastructure and we rely heavily on development aids. Other challenge that I want to highlight is capacity building. We have very limited technical expertise because of our isolated islands and we are very far from the world with advanced technology and we are now connected to the internet through cable, this will enable us, you know to, get those capacity built at a very regular rate. One of the major challenge in the Pacific island countries is the fragmented and underdeveloped frameworks. Which makes it difficult things like cyber security, other protection and basically competition. The other factor that really takes into account when it come to internet governance is environment and risks. We are very vulnerable, a small island state, to disasters because of the connectivity and it strains our ability to recover from those disasters and so bridging the digital divide in remote islands and remote communities ensuring access, it's made a persistent issue so of your question, the next part of your question asks if we consider this a solution, both the IUI framework, well, it provides, it offers quite a number of solution from the perspective of assessment and benchmarking. Because it identifies the gaps in the in how we access the infrastructure, the skills and content of how we prioritize our interventions. And also localize solutions and I think adapting global practices to the reality of small island nation is very important because we can contextualize what we need. From a policy guidance perspective, I think the framework really offers the dominance like a recommending governance structure that foster equatable access I would say in sustainability and resilience. Comeing back to capacity building this highlights the training and partnership programs to train the expertise.
At the local context. At the local level. My last that I wanted to point out the framework offers is the facilitating of funding availability given our small context given our donors because we are a small country.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think those are really good response. I imagine when you face so many different challenges, going through this national process which allows also perhaps constitute I can't hear myself but I assume it's working. And I think what you said there, I think this is, I would, I mean, I've been close enough to say this is part of their thing. The IUIs are designed in such a way that you do the measurement and the analysis so evolved into partnerships for collaboration around addressing those challenges and I think you just said that so well but I want to move on now to Alaa and you worked for digital inclusion in so many different countries. You are engaging with IUI and how do you see it facilitating the kind of multistakeholder collaboration that you that you really are working with in those 60 countries.
>> ALAA ABDULAAL: Hello, I'm very honored to be here on this panel and I would like to thank UNESCO for the launch of the new IUI. I think it's a very meaningful step to have that reviewed because we are in an era where everything is accelerating very quickly and the utilization is impacting the transformation of countries. So it is important to stop, reflect and engage and update all the measurements. I think what we are trying to achieve through the IUIs and what we're aligning is really aligned with what UNESCO as an organisation is trying to do is to bridge the digital divide. To have a framework that will help and support countries to assess where they stand, to understand that current state and actionable assumptions and plans and even as digital cooperation organisation we have recently launched our digital economy navigated. Which focuses on the digital economy. Again, the (audio cutting out) I see the point where it is important for us when we are trying to bring collaboration is to try to have it in place and have it upon those different indicators which this is why I believe in this framework.
That even the new one with the IUIs I think it would really provide targeted stance for countries that all need to understand what they are but even it was mentioned by one of the panelists, to (no audio) or even change policies based on data this will really help you measure how much you are progressing because it's not just random. It's not just putting plans in place. But actually building those plans on existing data on a unifying the framework where not only one country is looking at it but a list of countries having the same direction having the same vision, that they want to accomplish, and then also it's very important which is mentioned share the lesson and the experience between those countries again, based on the framework for all the countries to have that unified vision is a very, I believe it's an accomplishment by itself. And not only from a country perspective but as we mentioned, it's a multistakeholder aspect to have also the academia.
To have the private sector, to have governments, all of them looking another the digital divide in the same way.
Trying to bridge it, trying to address it. This is a really step forward to accelerate that evolution and transformation that we are trying to achieve. It is the right way. It is the fastest way and I believe it is the only impactful way for us to move forward.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much Alaa and as a taxpayer I consider tax as my form of investment in the public sector and I ask that question too, you know, what return of investment do we get from our taxes. So I think that approach is as important. Perhaps even more so with public sector investment and I want to go back to you Jennifer, seeing that you're a self confessed government official. How do you see we talk a lot about the multistakeholder approach in the IUIs and in the IGF.
But do you feel there's a need to strengthen multilateral efforts? To use tools such as the IUIs which adopt the multistakeholder approach? You think there's enough of an understanding within the intergovernmental space about the value of tools such as this to address these emerging global governance and digital governance challenges.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Thanks for the question. I think the reality is is that multilateral dominates most of our work. Let's be clear, having initiated the global impact even though we injected multistakeholder into it and it did reinforce the role of multistakeholderism multilateralism has a leading role in these issues.
And I guess I'm more worried about multistakeholderism than multilateralism. I looked back in my notes and it sparked my mind with the idea of the rights based open accessible to all and nurtured. It's a question of how you evaluate the stakeholder participation.
If you consult me, is that multistakeholder? (Audio cutting out). Is that multistakeholder participation and I think we really need to when you talk about the quality data? The reality is, you need to be a consultant with multiple companies, multiple civil society, multiple academia and multiple tech communities. And I think that one of the things we need to think about, you know, and sorry to have ignored your multilateral question because I think we spend a lot of time on it but I think the definitions around multistakeholderism in a way that's actually meaningful is something that is incredibly important.
And make sure the data is not just one company we find regularly is talking to big tech, we'll get a different answer than talking to small tech and talking to civil society based in rural areas is different than civil society in urban areas. Also, yeah, quantity but a quality. Otherwise, you're going to make policies that are not the best and that are potentially not implementable. So I think, for me I think a lot about this because I am a government bureaucrat I am not an expert in the way technology works. I work with as many expert to say we think it will help them but in fact (no audio). Yeah, it's not working but anyway, hopefully to your point.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Sorry, sorry, the audio is cutting out for other people as well.
So the tech people in the back of the room, the audio from speakers in the room is not working fantastically. I don't know if it's the mic or whatever. Jennifer, I'm so glad you said that, you think it's the mic there? Good. So we need to give you another mic. I'm very glad you emphasized that because I think that's I think if we want to use this multistakeholder approach we cannot just use it as a tokenistic level.
We have to be intentional about it. Deliberative. Acknowledge there's diversity. So I think that's really important. And I think there's in fact we I think launched our open consultation process for this updated universal internet universality indicators during net 1DL plus 10 in Sao Paulo earlier this year and one of the outcomes is both the multilateral and stakeholder intergovernance processes need to get better.
And you wanted to come into this issue as well and we'll check your mic.
>> so I totally agree with what she has said. Again it's not only about one country perspective if we are talking about it affects the multilateral aspect. It's not one country perspective looking at different countries different region. Different situation. Different level of maturities. Of different sectors and then we're talking about as you mentioned are we talking about big tech companies.
About SMEs small medium enterprises.
They all provide their own right angle of how to attack different transformation challenges that different countries are facing. And I believe we should try even from an international organisations work together to bring everyone on the table. Through different consultations on different region, different layers, I believe this is the only way to help and provide that unified direction for different countries to to really all be on the not on the same level but at least we are talking about the same foundation.
And being in the same era. Not having third of the world unconnected or 2.6 million people not connected and the other are connected and talking about a different age of transformation.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks and Africa is under 30% at the moment. I want to invite other people to speak and ask questions. And also I have I have noted your hand and Vint asked a question in the Zoom chat about whether low earth orbit satellites are being used for Pacific Islands? So if anybody wants to volunteer to respond to that, either from the room or online, so Jennifer, you have an answer.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: The answer is yes, they are. And it depends what you're trying to do whether these are going to be sufficient to connect the unconnected. And this is, you know, we worked a lot on the Tuvalu. But recognizing that what you can do for a population the size of Tuvalu.
With low earth orbit satellites is nothing compared to what you can do with an undersea cable. But what was really interesting, when we started talking to ambassadors, U.S. chief's admission about AI we had a number of ambassadors that said you are talking about a conversation that really is about a small number of countries when in fact and these were particularly in developing countries, ambassadors were like we don't have to connect to populations so it's like there's almost two different conversations happening in different areas. And so it's a little bit of like you can't forget you have the unconnected.
You need to have them in the room. You can't have another complete conversation about AI when we can't talk about having, you know, meaningful access to information and connectivity. So that is I think your point about getting everybody in the room because otherwise you can't have a conversation that feels like only part of the world is participating in it. And I don't want to speak for Tuvalu, but you probably have similar points.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Do you want to respond? Go ahead.
>> TENANOIA VERONICA SIMONA: The question is, is it affordable for standard local person in that remote area to get connected to this solution? It's (no audio)
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that. Vint, I will come to you. I see your hand but I have two people in the room that are eager to speak so I will give them the floor. Can I ask someone to help with moving the mic? And just introduce yourself and be brief.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you so much. Hi, everyone. My name is Dr. José. I coordinate. And I am here attending this session as a reporter. I would like to thank UNESCO for giving me this chance and if I'm here it's because of UNESCO so thanks a lot to UNESCO team for that. So the situations in my country and the indicators are quite different and for me to understand the co facilitators. I have questions if you could please specify how can the advance in tech in generation in universality indicators run the framework and have inclusive and sustainable going value future.
And what specific strategies should a stakeholder such as government, civil society, private sector and academy adapt to integrate these indicators, international and regional framework. Thank you so much.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much for that question and you can address that in your closing remarks. Let's have your question and just Bruce yourself and be brief and then we'll have Vint. Aziz you are next.
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you, I am a professor and a co chair. And member of different organisation. And I would like to go back to the special importance of educators particularly in the Arab region where digital transformation is happening. But in different speeds or different ways. More than half of, I think we are in the Arab region less than 500 million people in 23 countries over the region are connected to the internet. However, there are still digital gaps in the region remains below than the global average which is 65%. The same in African region. This educator I think the importance, they can act as a compass to guide public policies towards system solution align ing with the development goals. In this context I want to highlight the educators in the national and regional studies for example.
Or just to give the north African as an example with its challenges. Such as weak infrastructure and enable access to benefit from accommodation based in reliable data to reduce the digital divides. So these efforts must involve stakeholders as most speakers said in decision. We have to integrate these educators in other strategies is really crucial for building annotation that is increased. Openness and the human rights, thank you.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you we always speak about a holistic. And this is a way to apply that. We have a question you don't have a question. Sorry, I I can't hear. Maybe give him the
>> AUDIENCE: Thank you very much. Aviz from Cameroon, it is a concern and a question. I'm asking myself for civil society as I'm from civil society who want to involve in assessment.
And as you know, there is some data coming from the government specifically in this point from the use of the universal asset forum. Some country are not really, let's say, they don't want to give the information about this point. And as you know, the use of the universal give a lot of data for what is implemented in the field so I don't know if there is some advice when coming on this point, please.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Good, I think that's a very good question and I'm going to ask any panelist who has got experience of this and understands the indicators to talk about whether the process will reveal whether there are concerns about your universal access points. I fee I have learned from looking at the indicators how different countries are actually approaching universal access funds, deployment differently, but Vint let's have your question and then we'll go into a round of responses, I see David is ready to tell us about accountability. Vint if that wasn't an old hand please go ahead.
>> VINT CERF: It's not an old hand I am an old hand but that's a different story.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: So am I.
>> VINT CERF: Yeah, I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that multistakeholder practices are vitally important here. It's certainly true that member sates have a great deal to do with policy and and international policy in particular. But with regard to internet and its implementation it's fair to say that the bulk of the implementation is done in the private sector and so there is a natural partnership that should arise out of government and the private sector to say nothing about the influence of civil society and the technology community with regard to either utility or implementation of the internet. So I just want to overemphasize the importance of this collaborative component for connectivity as well as all the other metrics that go along with the IUI.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, I can't say this enough. If they were doing this job we wouldn't have less than 40% penetration in Africa but that's a challenge to the mobile sector not to Google. So, let's just hear what David, David, you can respond to the question and I will ask other panelists to respond. You need to leave, so, David, does the indicators, do they do they help us address that issue of accountability that Vint raised earlier? Please go ahead.
>> DAVID SOUTER: So, I would say the accountability is a very fundamental question to anything around this and it's really to do with the relationship between technology and the and human society. Both governments and actually businesses as well. And it's very much related to power structure so the extent to which you are capable of assessing accountability really does depend a lot on the on what the power structures within a society enable you to look at and what sort of data are available. In this framework here there are quite a lot of place where is the IUI questions are asked, indicators are asked to look at first what the state of law regulation and so on. So what is the formal requirement? And then secondly at how that is enforced in practice or what is actually happening in practice. That is about the second part of that question is to do with accountability and then assessing it, I'd say, well first, quantitative evidence is often lacking but not always going to be the best source however, the great openness from digital businesses here might be helpful. There's too much keeping of information confidential for commercial reasons or supposed commercial reasons. I noticed this particularly in the area working on the environment. There's a need for critical assessment of what constitutes information available with a point by researchers but also to look at the qualitative evidence as I said before what does serious observers, academics, serious journalists, researchers in think tanks what are they saying and in terms of accountability and I think they address this. It's also about the power of other actors within the digital environment including business markets. And two other quick points. Firstly on evidence based policymaking, one of the problems we have here is that not everybody believes in evidence based policymaking and actually quite a lot of governments don't believe in evidence based policymaking as we're seeing so that's a challenge here. In terms of AI that's going to be particularly difficult in the context where assessing accountability, how do you assess accountability if those who are running systems themselves are not really capable of understanding why particular decisions are being made. So I think with AI we reach another level of assessing accountability which is a challenge of the next inhibition of the IUIs but it's a much bigger challenge for society as a whole.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: And David, thanks very much for that and before I move on do you have any other comments?
>> I want to emphasize on the transformative potential on other frameworks such as IUIs and the role they play in shaping an evidence base policy and action plans. And having a good multistakeholder collaboration bridging the digital divide as the digital landscape is really evolving very quickly as the digital cooperation organisation really are committed to supporting these. By enabling our member states to look at this such as IUIs and our (audio cutting out). Digital transformation journey. We believe that as our and this is why we are very happy to be invited by UNESCO and having that multilateral and multistakeholder conversation and we believe that this is the right approach to work together to share our experience to make sure no one is left behind and that we have a future.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much and I know you have to go. Thanks for joining our panel. (Audio cutting out). Access fund is defined, deployed and contributing to meaningful access. Is that covered by the indicators? David, are you still there or are you muted?
>> DAVID SOUTER: I lost the connectivity and you came back at the end saying something about
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: My question is you have both in the revised IUIs there's now additional focus on meaningful connectivity. So the question that we had from the floor was would applying the indicators help at a national level that multistakeholder group of implementers of the indicators be able to unpack whether it is using its universal access or service fund effectively whether there are issues with how it's defined. Whether it's being used for, let's say, local access or community networks. Is that a topic that will be surfaced by applying the IUIs?
>> DAVID SOUTER: I mean, okay so, the indicators, they one of the things that's important about them is they're not overwhelmingly specific and so the issues that are raised in terms of meaningful connectivity in one country that will differ from these raised in another and what the indicators do is you do the research as to identify what is important within their individual country and then to focus on that. So the answer to your question is, yes, it does. And it doesn't need to identify that in a very specific way in order for that to be the case. It's something that the researchers and the multistakeholder advisory boards should direct their work towards in those countries where that is a particular important question.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much for that David and I know it can reveal if a regulator is finding it difficult to get data from operators which is often the case, the IUI process will also most likely reveal that too. But let's have some final remarks from the panel. I hear myself cutting out. Alexandre, let's start with you and then we'll go onto you and then to Jennifer and then Tawfik will close for us. Any reactions or responses to the questions or additional points that you want to make?
>> ALEXANDRE BARBOSA: Thank you very much Anriette. I would like to comment on the multistakeholder conversation you're having here.
In Brazil we have a well established multistakeholder internet governance model in which the government coordinate the whole structure.
I will say it is also multistakeholder dialogue platform in which we have different voices. I agree with Jennifer, which voices are we hearing? I want to say even though this is a well structured governance model we have so many opportunity of dialoguing with society like the national Internet Governance Forum, our different areas that is taking into consideration in this dialogue like culture, digital inclusion, gender, meaningful connectivity, artificial intelligence, so in those specific areas, we invite different voices so that we can take into consideration into the policy design those aspects. Besides that I am responsible for data production center. Measuring the adoption and the impact of ICTs in different areas of society. And in that particular case, we do have expert group that support our measurement activities we do have government, academia, civil society, private sector that guide us in terms of how to measure and what to measure based on which methodology, so I would say that the Brazilian model is really solid now. It provides the government very important policy design. And just to mention three important influential dialogue that we have, I guess that most of you may know the Brazilian act on the internet bill of rights that we are calling the (audio cutting out) committee. Also we had the personal Data Protection Act approved. It was based on the dialogue we have. Also in the digital inclusion policies or digital abilities, along with the municipal education in Brazil so this is a really important process. And I agree 100% evidence based policy it's difficult to have the policy design and process is quite complex but I would say that in the last 20 years, based on this dialogue of the Brazilian committee we did make progress in that regard and I would like to finish by saying that also the Brazilian government council structure on this (audio cutting out). In several areas in the digital economy so we work very closely with the document, in terms of artificial intelligence and meaningful connectivity and just to finish, I would like to say that since the first assessment that we had, in 2015, using the first generation IUI, I would say that today we are not discussing digital inclusion by the fact of being connect but the meaningful connectivity which brings a huge number of mentions like digital skills, safety use of the internet so this is the result of this process and I hope Tawfik that we'll be able to once again pioneer by adopting the second generation of this framework which is so important, so maybe you can give results of this second generation. This is so important. Because we have recently approved this. And we have ROAMX is a very important model.
And just to finish, I would like to say that the new title of this publication is adverse inputs in digital summation with ROAMX indicators. ROAMX is a key pillar in all this discussion of the global digital compact.
And with the review. So once again, congratulations to UNESCO and to your leadership for providing this very important and relevant framework.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much. Tenanoia, do you want to add anything?
>> TENANOIA VERONICA SIMONA: I think I will acknowledge the role of that, the multistakeholder advisory board. Because there are key benefits out of this arrangement.
And one of which is the board (audio cutting out) and also enhancing that credibility. It gives stakeholders involvement to entrust very groups and as was contributed technical expertise as well as inciting best practices which for me enhance the quality of assessment and recommendation from this. And the last one I wanted to say is that when it comes to a table, the sectors sometimes there's concrete resolution and I think of the (audio cutting out). Again I would like to echo the same sentiment from other speakers congratulating UNESCO for the launch of the new framework. Thank you.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Jennifer.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Thanks for that and, again, to echo the comments the rest of the panelists, congratulations on this, I think it's so critically important that we continue to discuss ways to try to evaluate and understand how connectivity is taking place. I think, you know, that the U.S. government has really upped the game on connectivity, on engagement with UNESCO, on engagement with the multistakeholder community. We're proud in our organisation to have been at a critical element of there. And also through the launching of our, the cyberspace digital policy strategy which talks about all of these things. But I think to conclude, I just want to say how excited I am to continue to work with this group and with others to really advance our digital future, one that's based on retrospecting technology, one that's based on bringing all the voices into it. Because ultimately if we're going to achieve our goals for connectivity and for meaningful access to information then we need to do it together. (No audio).
>> I would like to thank the audience as well for coming to this session. This is very important for us. And the multiple perspective we heard from Brazil. From the digital cooperation organisation and for the field. I think they clearly somehow all the frameworks and the indicators. Also they emphasize the challenges and the specificities of different complex around the world. I think this reminds us that we need to have an effort to bring the tools and open, safe, secure, but also multistakeholder and efforts. I think it was insisted on a multistakeholder addition.
In addition to the multilateral role of the organisations but I think we all agree that the world has to be not only anchored but remain respectful of human rights. And let me say again to conclude the framework that we present today and that we show that that we did is not just revising framework but more than that. It is a step towards ensuring that the internet remains for human development. I think we all, for sure, with our work and those who would be implementing the advice framework will foster our partnership going forward. A number of you mentioned the digital divide that still today is unacceptably high. I think this work of national digital assessment is a step towards putting in place the right national digital strategy among others to reduce the digital divide. And as we know, it's multiple divides, it's digital, it's informational, it's knowledge divide. It's a gender divide as well. So it's only through collective efforts and partnership. And we should not leave anyone behind or anyone out of the digital age in which we leave today. And thank you, Anriette for you.
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think the remote participants are also complaining.
>> I would like to thank the UNESCO team. I see Tawfik as well and colleagues who are in Paris or maybe I'm not sure. I want to also say (audio cutting out).
>> ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, it's been a massive amount of work for this launch. So thanks to everyone. Apologies for the difficulties with the audience. And thanks very much for joining us.