Sixth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum
27 -30 September 2011
United Nations Office in Nairobi, Nairobi, Kenya
September 30, 2011 - 14:30PM
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The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the Sixth Meeting of the IGF, in Nairobi, Kenya. 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 to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> Good afternoon and welcome, ladies and gentlemen. Siranush, are we off of the remote rooms? Good afternoon and welcome, ladies and gentlemen. I'm Madee Rahman from Pakistan. We have Siranush from Armenia that will be running this workshop with me. This workshop has been organized by Mr. Naveed Ul Haq. He is not physically present here, but he has joined us through a remote hit. Ladies and gentlemen, it is an already established fact that Internet is a revolutionary technology which has been playing a phenomenal role in economies, development of nations and most importantly in, ah, improvement of human lifestyles. It is this significance of the internet that call for attention towards a better governance today. Regulators and policy makers stand at cross roads and in a role of great transition. Where the Internet is constantly evolving and technical, economic social structure and many other important aspects in view of all this regulators and policy makers face an understandable challenge in trying to keep up with such a record pace of record growth, change, impact and emerging issues. Still focusing on this key challenge, the workshops are on the role of policy makers and regulators and the governance of internet.
Now, I would briefly introduce my panelists with all of you. First of all, we have Mr. Mohammed El‑Bashir. He currently manages gathering plans and registry. He was actively involved with Itech since 2001. He was founder and President of Sudan Internet Society from 2001 until 2008. He is a very active member of ICANN guidelines to visual working group.
Next, we have Mr. Tracy hack Shaw. He is a member of the foundations research and teaching faculty. He is solving as a chief solution architect in Tobago's ITD company.
And we have Mr. Fouad Bajwa. He is an information activist and brings [INAUDIBLE], researcher, government, ICT for development and internet public policy advisor. He has been extensively involved in free and open source software advocacy and people technology adoption activities. He is a member of the IGF multi‑stakeholder advisory group and Internet focus.
Next we have Mr. Baher Esmat. He manages relationships with ICANN stakeholders in the middle east. Prior to this, he was serving an Egyptian ministry of communications and information technology.
Then we have Mr. Rhaman. He handles affairs work in India and across the Pacific region. Having joined the company at the start of 2010. He holds a bachelor of arts and law honors of India university Bangalore where he was chief editor for volume five of the Indian journal of law and technology. He had started in this regulation as an independent research fellow with a program in the study of developing societies and contributed to freedom house 2009 freedom on the Internet reboard.
Then we have Mr. Qusai Al‑Shatti with us. Qusai Al‑Shatti in 2005. He has been working on issues of the internet ‑‑ Mr. Qusai is also a member of IGF multi‑stakeholder advisory group.
Ladies and gentlemen, I have introduced my panelists. My first question is what is your opinion on internet regulation? What were the areas that are particularly regulated. What in your opinion is present understanding of governance and do you think that are they really doing their jobs quite effectively? And I will start my discussion with Mr. Tracy Hackshaw.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: And good afternoon, everyone. Basically what we're seeing happening in the world today is that the rapid rise and rules of the incidental maybe lasts three to five years. Has it really gotten the government's attention? The influence of developing countries has insured that the previously private sector, um, has been shifting. And the impact of social media, Cloud computing and [INAUDIBLE] technology has been that the incident has become more pervasive in the lives of businesses and ordinary citizens for governance. That means that Israeli constituents and stakeholders. What is really challenging for government is the impacts of social media. Governments are trying to understand how that is impacting the lives of their citizens and I've been alarmed at recent events where social media has been gathering events. We've seen incident such as wick likes. We have seen our string event springs and developing nations and other movements and there are a lot of influence or under control influence has been reflected in attempts to change the Internets structure and governance. They do have that ability. The major concern is the growth of the events is quite on time. And the potential is usually [INAUDIBLE] and incidents have been read several times internationally. We have seen the other countries like Brazil and China trying to insure that the influence is somehow harnessed and recontrolled. What areas can be regulated very difficult to say right now. What we're seeing is fragmentation splintering different countries and seeing different aspects for their countries and jurisdictions. I think what's going to happen next is we will see the brick countries looking at certain aspects and parts of the Internet dealing it privately. It is restricting access to those parts of those countries. Thank you.
>> Thank you, Tracy. Now, I would like Mr. Mohammed El‑Bashir.
>> MOHAMMED EL-BASHIR: I would like to thank you for organizing this event. It was very useful. The internet is, I think, is rapidly changing currently. And it's changing in a pace that regulations and administration and forces is really hardly copying with the kind of development that we're seeing. So, Internet governance covers really a whole rank, wide range of loss of aspects. We can look at it and we can consider some areas to be either regulated or not. But the Internet as a global net has a loss of aspect that has a national, um, regulation against areas that can be regulated internationally. So, we're seeing that some of the issues like access and some of the controversial issues like filtering, for example, and you can see a different range of actions being done in that regard from different governments acting on that. Globally, yes. There's specific global areas. I'm not sure that we can say policy developing happens or regulations happens like I can or in standards areas. Also doing some work on that. There's a broad range of aspects that we can talk about from access to critical infrastructure to security. Security has been in the spotlight especially even in a national level or international level. National level I think we have seen governments proactively acting to insure that national security concerns address them through Internet in terms of access and in terms of sometimes realism and sometimes other things. I mean, there's huge range and each country and each community deal differently with that. Some of them have very social society community, Internet community who can influence the government and those countries in terms of regulation related to the Internet. But, ah, I think that we have to understand that there's a global areas of potential policies and there's aspect completely currently local restrictions have control and do that.
>> Thank you very much. Mr. Baher Esmat, what's your say on this?
>> BAHER ESMAT: Thank you. I think the point that Mohammed touched upon, quickly about each community or each region or each country may deal with issues differently. I think that's important because, um, so if we talk about or if we take the, ah, developing countries per se or many of the internet policy issues are beingg dealt with as part of a broader telecommunications and that's not necessarily common in other regions or other places. I'm not saying whether this is right or not. I'm saying that it's different and it's ‑‑ it's correct that it's true that the, ah, the way that different countries deal with regulation whether internet regulation or something else is different. I just want to comment on the second part of the question about, ah, ah the understanding of governance. It is very difficult to say whether governance have understanding of, you know, Internet policies or internet regulation or not T. all depends on the legal and regularity framework in country X or country Y. It also depends on the revolution of the internet within the country itself. The Internet came has an effort from maybe, and academia and some other countries, the Internet was evolved or brought in by the government or [INAUDIBLE]. Some countries will have different understanding of the policies and regulation. So, um, you know, it's always up to the government, up to the policymaker to, you know, to put the rules or to set the policies as they see appropriate. Maybe the one lesson, the one key lesson that we can all learn from the IGF is the multi‑stakeholder approach of the multi‑stakeholder model and Internet policy. This is something we've all learned through the [INAUDIBLE] and IGF process that it's ‑‑ it's not only for governance or policymaker. The IGF is a great opportunity for all of us to learn and go back home to implement what we have learned. So, um, and I can see that in some countries even in the middle east, they started to implement some multi‑stakeholder processees in their policies, et cetera. So maybe it's important to also note the importance of the IGF in that regard.
>> Thank you so much. Do we have any questions from our participants? Siranush, do we have any questions from remote participants? No. Not yet. We move on to our next question that is to what extent exists [INAUDIBLE] and relative stakeholders such as private sector, academia and civil society? How can we bridge in and do we require change the approach of how public offices think of I. netted and the potential productivity associated with it's good governance? I would like to open up this discussion.
>> Thank you very much. Very interesting sent and the less choice you have for discussing because sometimes I bring to the table very sort of fundamental civil society beliefs, but at the same time, much while I start a discussion, I would like to revisit the state of regulators first. Number 1 thing regulators in their traditional form in national states has been regulated by constitutions of those countries. So the primary to exist is the constitution of provisioning. And then as you move on, what is it within their boarders they have to regulate. Traditional things come to mind are the telecom regulatory bodies. For them, they had some primary rows and secondary roads. Primary roads would be the number 1 like licensing spectrum and managing competition while at the same time, looking at the interests of its learned operators. Managing market shares and competition and at same time trying to protect the consumers of those services the operators are providing. But in the past one decade as a network has deepened its usage and its acts in society and the individual become more powerful has created some concerns over time. At end of the day, it is always things that happen across the network are triggered by one sort of, um, maybe incident and then when it goes viral, it creates or triggers further reaction. Those reactions are not ‑‑ do not stay within one region. They go beyond that region and they go beyond the boarders. Now, this is a major, major question that from those traditional market forms of regulation to these issues with the network society and a society which is not just local. It's a very global and very [INAUDIBLE] society, how do they tend to gain control. At end it's content. How do they gain control on the content that's been shared or distributed across a network? We are in a transitory phase at the moment. We are between the post industrialized regimes and forms for governance and then we're in the new network society and the new governance challenges that it brings. The men that we're seeing at moment are the capability of regulator bodies across the world to understand that the impact of the regulation would happen on any kind of service. I was having this discussion with a good colleague from south Asia during lunch that we're crossing roads with regulator issues which are concerns. I would say after 9/11, the world security had an extraordinary meaning all across the world. And security is to be dealt not only as an American ‑‑ strict American issue, but it's gone across boarders to other regions. In my country, you hear the amount of deaths happening in one week. Now the government has a tendency to look at the free services available on the Internet or let me say more accurately on the world wide web. To be part of relaying those communications between terrorist groups. Come that issue coming up, they pinpoint two major services on the Internet. One being Google and the other being facebook. The challenge comes down if you see traffic statistics, google facebook constitute the number 1 traffic sources. And they constitute one of the most what you call it primary reason for people to actually go online. They're fundamental way to find information across the world wide web. Now facebook is almost on its way to get completely shut down in Pakistan due to whatever reasons. What kind of challenge that poses in terms of regulator work. What is that going to mean for other countries. Other examples are followed by others. In Europe, you can say one country has put something in place. The others would say DCOE. What would that mean for us when we're part of something much more logically in the organization of Islamic countries. These challenges are emerging in the network society deal with the, of human rights. For us in a part of the world where human rights does not have full recognition where there is conflict on that. The basic understanding of human rights would always remain a challenge. And for countries about regulation and article 19 where my county would start that you have the provision for freedom of expression. But you're allowed only in a regulated environment. So from this transition from local to cross boarder and from cross boarder to local, these are huge and these are concerns and when regulators may approach this, they may shut down a complete service to announce to that. That would only be depriving citizens online to certain information right. So how do we approach this? The different stakeholders have different, appoint of views and maybe what you call emotional responses to these issues. But at end of the day, what was the rule actually of the regulator? It was specifically for telecom regulations. For us the consumer was there getting quality of service, good quality of service, getting them a subsidiary of network getting their net works to operate 24 by 7 without bottlenecks would have the best prices and the competition markets over would be happening. But no where we headed towards. We're having words like international harmonization. We're looking back at institutions like when IT was doing standardization Harmonization. Now there's discussion about doing Internet Harmonization. Is that even possible? Is that even achievable? When you have issues like control of the internet at moment on certain critical resource, how are we going to approach those? What you see just to end it, what you see in the receipt few months, the EGF sum it and the of the block which has been established by Russia and China and other countries are going to end up at the general assembly. There's going to be dialogue on this and retention against people's concerns over the Internet. Then nation are taking decisions for the rest of the 140 members of the countries in the U.N. Is that justifiable? Is that balanced? These vacuums from the bottom‑up, the concern that the Arab states, the Arab springs have generated a very diversified one. There's no way to regulate internet. There's no one way to find that Internet governance can half that's where the discussion of internet principals came out. But where did that discussion in the EGA point back to? The IGF. So this built disclose that's hang at a public level means a lot for the global community to reference as to how communication will be transforming in the coming years. I say the vacuum is huge. It is unachievable at this point. There is no link. There is no reference at this point. How we'll achieve this. The dialogue has to go on. And the IGF has to continue.
>> Thank you very much. I would like Mr. Qusai Al‑Shatti to comment on this.
>> QUSAI AL-SHATTI: They have a large steak holder to talk about governance. Basically they are educated by other stakeholders and these are holds are of private society and users of the internet and they are more aware of the issues of [INAUDIBLE] that need to be addressed at a national level. The other problem is that most governments are still regarding the internet in terms of regulation, not in terms of governance. And that's different between regulating and governing. Therefore, if we are trying to see whether the governments are doing their job, we will see if they still are not one engaged in a multi‑stakeholder bailover regarding issues on IG. They are thinking as I just mention is not shifted governance, but whether they are focused on regulation. They are not bringing multi‑stakeholders together to discuss the Internet Governance issues. Their focus is mainly on political or democratic issues rather than the issues that is important to their respective users or respective constituency. Of course, ignore these issues is what is making the Internet, ah, a more out of site for governance. And it makes unpredictable for them and if something unpredictable happens, then you will find a drastic, major that will be taken guy the government and there is a severe reaction from the users against the governments. So, ah, this is where the government really like. Now, ever they doing completely about job? No. I think governments in the developing work did a fairly good job let's say in a promoting access and getting to the local user Internet community. Um, when it comes to a vacuum or the issue of a vacuum, I would say the answer yes and no actually. Yes in terms that governments are well aware of what their users are doing on the Internet. They know what they're using the internet for. This is not something that is beyond their reach or beyond their horizon, but they don't know what is the issues of importance to get users. They're unable to reach to resolutions addressing these issues. They are not use the internet as an effective consultation tool, for example. And they are not giving the proper attention to, ah, let's say even for costing what the internet would be or how good it would be for their country three years down the road or five years down the road from today. Does that imply a change of approach as the finer part of the question? Yes. Shifting from regulation mindset to a governance mindset is important because that first will push the government to engage in a multi‑stakeholder dialogue with all relevant stakeholders. Two, the tools that is used for governance are different than the tools that is used for regulation. It means when it comes to governance, we are talking about frameworks, principals, code of conduct, best of practices rather than regulating by laws or let's say procedures or roads. that means we'll have a more flexible framework dealing with the changes of the internet rather than having ail static, rigid las in tact. And creating policies based on national concerns not based on a bureaucratic region of say a political view, that would also be important when it comes to let's say overcoming this. Thank you.
>> Thank you. Mr. Rahman. I will summarize some of what they said just because it is important to note the fact that many of them have point out things in common. One of the things if noticed and this is one of the questions raised. One of the things especially in communication space are working on Internet works. Issues on content, on matters of social policy, economics and arrangements and that is take us across the world. Some regulators look at internet and the openness and the slight anarchy of it as being a source of fear, something they talk about. What I am to talk about here is really what is the agenda we need to build forward in terms of the vacuum that panelist identify. Sometimes just base when the first elements is always saying information and indeed, in many ways, that's what the judged about. Sometimes regulators or policy makers when they get in the process don't know the technical nature of how it works or forget how networks function. Some people might find the idea of services that they can post and it is ridiculous except when they realize it saves non‑profit groups and sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and it's like distribution costs. But more importantly, sometimes they don't understand the economic costs of that regulation and the benefits that are open network and I want to focus on this because this is something they believe is called to everything. It's the fact the Internet is an open network and open Internet. They have open internet and Google would not have connection into existence. It needs services that are being used at very moment like web cost and the systems that some of us have used airline tickets to this place. They want to come into existence without an open network. Want point is sometimes regulators don't understand that you point to point. What would be the cost if you modify this or if you put in regulation on speech and discretion and just like to highlight some simple statistics for you. One is economic costs of bad regulation. In one week when Egypt was cut off, the way we see some calculations the OCD has many policies and many of them like to do these things and what they did point out is I am taking a very conservative estimate. Egypt has $90 million work of losses. The ID sector, business outsourcing and many other important areas and important business. This is a cost, a fair cost from a simple political decision taken at that point in time. The other one can be economic benefits. Sometimes it difficult to quantify open network and those people remix content. What are the benefits in it. That's something we took seriously. We will check out Google IGF mini site. You go to Google/events/IGF, we put up links to some of the economic sturdies we have worked to partnership with and consuming firms and independent and groups as well as to what are the economic benefits they bring. Again, range is low as low as 0.7% of GDP and they later point out 0% on GDP is the education budget of the country. But these are the economic benefits. Maybe I am preach think to the choir, but the important thing is what is opening this vacuum? They have spoken that regulators need to function in the internet manner. You use the internet in your consult issue. You use new technologies and use SM, some and other ways to get opinions from people. I am talking about governance as well. Open government is key to insuring an open Internet. They answer what constitutes the internet. And in a few short bullet points, will I would like to say that it allows innovation to take place without innovation. You have access to a network where you can express yourself, collaborate and creating products that we [INAUDIBLE] today. If you really think about it, the issues that come up in IGF such as matters as copy right and governance on protocols and security on it. These are elements that make and sometimes it is just as important for steak holders to remain regulators and policy makers about that.
>> Thank you so much. Do we have any questions? Okay. We have.
>> Know we do have many people following us remotely and, um, there was a statement from Caribbean telecommunications and we would like to announce that statement. A multi‑stakeholder approach does not mean there is no specific road for policy makers. Governments in particular can implement policies to help promote the development of the local Internet infrastructure. Two, regulation is seen as controlled in the negative sense. They're use the university service fund to help promote the spread of the Internet in rural communities where it is not visible for ISP to provide service there. This is the positive side. We also have two questions from one of our call organizers of this workshop. Self regulation the way forward as far as internet is concerned? And the second question was I will tell you later come my computer is on. Sorry. But first question be is answered.
>> Thank you. Fouad, over to you.
>> FOUAD BAJWA: Regulation remain. As they were pointing out, what is it that we want to achieve through regulation? The example of innovation with an innovation network, something from the open source community is that our problems in the offline world encourage us to develop things which are actually the foundation for creating good for people across the world now. And what happened helped us to do it was the network. That's how open source prop gated all across the world. If there was no Internet, I cannot even dream about how open source would have gotten to where it is today. How it would have been distributed and how the costs download. You very, very large software programs, right? It can be usable across the world. We have a very good example of community regulation, self‑regulation in place whereby you see us organizing ourselves in dozens to hundreds and thousands across the world. Our developing community ‑‑ not everybody is a techno logical person. We have people from governments. We have people from private sector. We have people from civil society and academia research. We have stakeholder model works on the network on an open network and we actually have products to give out. I would say something usable. Something good. We can create further common good. Not just pick up on that example. What is that government going to give out? Do they give out easier accessible affordable access to the internet? Do we want to give them opportunity to create content and innovation? Do they want to give them the opportunity to express themselves? Regulation is provisioning there. And that is what sometimes we saw in the Arab spring breakout. What does self‑regulation do there to break that down? This is an example I was quoting that one of the governments which was the most provocative and the most fastest to use, the internet to share that the government was online. The downing was treating this. Right? The M piece, the house of Lords and the house of commerce was creating this. They were creating news to reconsider the easier facts to facebook and are the services treated or commenting. So that is self regulation actually starting, right? So this question is again for us, what is it that we want to regulate? Thank you.
>> And there was a second question. The question from [INAUDIBLE]. They are seeing policies and makers. Thank you.
>> Do we have any other questions from our participants? Now let's proceed to Tracy.
>> I think I would also like to post a question ‑‑ my name is Philip. I am from the university here in Nairobi, Kenya. We saw things of what it relates to on the ground. In Kenya, they left when the Internet access abilities started to arrive on the cables. The government was not prepared for the huge demand that was going to be put in place by local users w that black of legislation and that lack of regulation, there was so many players coming into the market from the private sector each with a different technology for the provision of this internet access. And it ended up in a situation where you are running cables left, right and center is there was one. All those computers the market wants to stop in each on the back as per se just to make sure they can begin the market whole. Now it is two years down the line and the government is realizing that there is some regulation gap. How is the internet provisioning the country so that there is some sense of responsibility. There is some sense of business ownership between the private 60 offer players and all the people who are actually using the internet locally. I think there is open market and it feeds in very well with some of the questions which consider been raised by the remote participant.
>> I will just repeat the question, Tracy. While we are moving with the digital age, how the issues of private, security and social media are to seem by policy makers or regulators? How you see the issues of privacy and security and social media?
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: Thank you. I would like to actually agree and tie in the recent comment from the past from Kenya. Governments I would say maybe two to three, sometimes five years behind and any sort of regulation or control‑type policy over these practice of security speaking to the Caribbean region particularly where I come from. They introduce privacy or data regulation. I am still trying to get it going. And they're dealing with issues that are old. The old privacy and data protection issues. The social media and even more by computing introduces an entirely new range of issues from where I said governments have not even begun to comprehend. What's my sharing? How am I contenting information to people? From where I [INAUDIBLE], I think I seen it only from the perspective of sharing amongst themselves. So if I am government, I have services to deliver to the public. I will be sharing that information from agency to agency or ministry to ministry about citizens that haven't begun to understand the concepts and sharing amongst themselves and to the private sector such as Facebooks and Googles of the world. They have not begun to even comprehend or speak think to those issues right in time. So at this juncture, it's like the wild, wild west. There is no understanding. They're focusing only where they can control and where they actually control over their particular scenarios. Even [INAUDIBLE]. He was going to come in, but the idea is that unless there's the gap that we spoke of to be closed, unless there's a way to speak to citizens and understand what they're doing, and people coming up, people use facebook every day, they're speaking to them today. They need to speak to them. There's no way to comprehend that gap that is currently distinct. I think it is five years. Maybe we close that gap, but it is very, very difficult.
>> I think I will take the social media part and also that. I think we need access to information and access to the internet is all right now. Many countries are all very clear that this is right in executions. In terms of social media, I mean, I think we know the concerns. Yeah, from the government. This is a platform currently there. It is open free access platform that's access for our citizens. And that's three of the concerns from the government side. It's unfortunate that we're seeing governments that are really active in blocking the access to social media websites. And preventing this. It's free unfortunate. But looking into the dynamics really, as I said earlier, a lost Internet community have services and they have a role. They are stakeholders within the country that could play different roles in this. Globally, we have seen condemnations from different and even international human right agencies. Everyone was more happy with an example of blocking access to certain web sites or shutting down the Internet, but really it seems there is less the global community can do in that area. Block community would have to take a stand on that. On issue and security privacy, I think the government could ‑‑ they could have a mandate to insure that, ah, there's national standards and in terms of the security as well. This is very important now I think an aspect that government need to pay attention to it and if there's gaps, ah, it needs to be filled. If we know about those gaps even civil society, we need advocate government. Things like online child protection for example. Cyber bullying, for example. So there's lots of work to be done by government in terms of privacy and security. Privacy things like mandating and insuring encryption already in laptops and [INAUDIBLE]. I mean, those regulation is important to be done and there seems to be a gap. Those are important to be limited because it will help Eco system and private sector to wait more and produce more tools and application for us.
>> Thank you. We would now move on to our next question. As we see that many countries still lack in Internet accessibility, while we talk on the next generation of Internet users coming up from those countries, what challenges it brings for governments to develop a more useful utilization of internet through its governance for the public. I would like Mr. QUSAI, I would like to open up governance.
>> QUSAI AL-SHATTI: They open up a multi‑state governance. I will focus shifting from regulation to governance. First that one will be appreciated and more owned by stakeholders. They will be representative of their stakeholders and whatever issue related to Internet governance because they involved a constructive [INAUDIBLE]. That's why. It will help government to realize national priorities, national interests that is related to issues, related to Internet governance and Internet as a whole. They will have a more participatory and can be established. It can transfer the way the government operates to more ‑‑ to have a more effective public consultation tools that reflects the view of other stakeholders and yet can take the [INAUDIBLE] and reach any issue. And that ‑‑ and know in that format, the opportunities and the prospect that the government will be a total representative of their people on issues of related let's say to an open free flow of formation Internet will be a more established process and a more ‑‑ it will be built on a more concrete base. So, ah, I think this is the opportunities that would be afford to government if they important such a dialogue.
>> Thank you so much. Mr. Rhaman.
>> There is communications mentioned and there's an important rule for governance and what that participant term is regulation, but I would say intervention on government measures to help remote access. That's one of the most important elements here. It is true that in emerging markets, interaccess is move where it should be. To be fair, if you look at United States, for example, you have communications commission pointed out in the U.S. that the many communities don't have Internet access. Or they have ‑‑ they will be national meanless that allow e‑mail or so, but won't allow streaming video, which is all you need in remote communities where people might be [INAUDIBLE] and needing access and these are the things that are there in the developing world as well. So there's an opportunity in this challenge that regulators and policy makers facing. It is adding to this infrastructure in markets where you have functioning telecommunications, players and a running market. It is Republican courage the private sector to bridge in more tech. It is a problem with the existing market and it is getting a reform. Many regulators across the world are engaging in reforming. You realize the spectrum because many communities are mobile Internet access is the only way people get internet access and you need to reform that. Sometimes words on establishing interest. In other cases, that is some of the most important on spending optical fiber and that is sometimes the heavy cost, but it is realizing it is as important as other forms of infrastructure. To give you an illustration government moving on crisis response, icers and technologies in disaster situation point out that many governments the first thing they do when they start rebuilding that on the immediate week after they put in this water, and put in the roots, but they sometimes forget the people who come am and have communications easy is in order to coordinate. So that's importance of understanding it is sometimes worth the cost and sometimes also thinking [INAUDIBLE]. So many people and many regulators are very unhappy about leafing the spectrum open saying it is not fixed to a particular device. The device space is movement. In many countries across the world, they are planning on leaving the spaces that are opening up due to conversion television and the dividend from the conversion of analog to digital TV. Like how our laptops have Wi‑Fi has a positive thing. It is not creating roads and then saying you want to drive on them and you can't do anything on them and the only people who believe in a particular grief and drive. It is owning it up to everyone. All you see here is innovators stop on top of the network and members need to shall the outline for this infrastructure.
>> Thank you very much. Do we have any questions from or participants?
>> Okay. On the issue of accessibility, I would like to keep putting my contribution. You have seen that the governments not only problem in Africa, but also elsewhere has Internet provision of the service providers and they choose where to give Internet because the service providers look at where areas where it is profitable to put infrastructure. But looking at the current trend, you see in the zones becoming a utility like water and electricity. In one way or the other, the government must come in with proper legislations and strategies in police to make sure that actually there is accessibility of this Internet utility and internet to struck out every internet society. There is population densities in specific areas where it make sense or not because you know everywhere that where people leave, there has to be water and electricity. They can use the same strategies to make sure that at least the internet is accessible to every sector of this society. It will not make much sense to talk about E‑government like it happens in many countries without make sure the society and the people themselves can have access for that E‑government sources.
>> Okay. We have another question.
>> I am from Napal. Talking about regulation, regulation means if we go through the dictionary, that means we are going to bind it in some limit. So my question is: We're talking as a regulation ever the Internet. Do you want to bind Internet in some limitation or do you want to make Internet free for all?
>> Thank you so much. Who would like to answer the first question? Okay. Mr. Ramen, please go.
>> Yeah. I will start with what I said lap.
Nothing is free for all. The questions are the details. So again, it is a very interesting book with academics in the United States and the title it says, ah, who can draw the internet? Illusions of a bottlist world. It turns out the internet has never been a free for off.
Some part of it seem [INAUDIBLE] pointed out and sometimes there is arguments in particular segments, subjects. You made more effective engagement from regulators or stakeholders, but it is never a free for all. The question is what do you want with that? For example, you want to be educate, but you [INAUDIBLE] to knowledge. So, the same thing here. You would say you want to establish certain standards or do you want to put in place incentives on certain malicious to protect children? But also want to put in clearly you do not want to call the rights of most people across the world of the rights of free speech or the ability of businesses to function. The question is details. There are details in the middle.
>> Ramen, over to you, Mr. QUSAI.
>> QUSAI AL-SHATTI: Whenever I hear the word internet, it actually scares me because it is related tod fry flow of the information of the internet and really the openness of the net which we are used to and happy with. Regulation in that aspect, if we take regulation from that aspect, um, first we need to say Internet is borderless. There is no boarders on the internet. That's one. Two, it's about the user, the user seeks information or receive information or part information and who creates formation. If the user wasn't there, the Internet wouldn't be important for us at all. That's a fact. So it's about the user. It is in a constant change. It is not like today. And maybe next is year it is totally different for us. So regulation would always lag behind and will take us back rather than evolve. Especially when it comes something related to free flow and the openness of the net. Not only that, it is to be regulated. There are attempts to regulate. There were attempts to regulate internet in the '90s and it failed. It was doomed to fail. So regulating that will have a negative impact especially if it's over a control ‑‑ if it's to control an activity that the user will do simply and will immediately reflect on an economical and social aspect that we don't want to really to have or come close to. That doesn't mean all regulation is bad or there shouldn't be any regulation. That is not true. When it comes to issues like rights and accountability, there got to be regulation. Regulation on privacy. Regulation to seas. Regulation to IP issues. But again, these are mature issues to us and these are issues that was there even before that.
>> Okay. We have another question from our remote participant.
>> As I said, the coordinator of this workshop is online and he also encouraged some conversation among all panelists. First, I would like to announce the statement ‑‑ another statement from Caribbeans. Within the discussion, it is important in particularly for developing countries to maintain a parallel focus on policy and regulatory issues on Internet Governance. On one hand, emphasis which be placed on those clear and present dangers that are immediately importance to countries; however, on the other hand, such countries must also dedicate resources to tracking issues of more global significance. It is clear the issues is difficult in an environment of limited resources and technical expertise too much of a focus on the clear and present danger contributes to a take of catch up or a fire fighting orientation particularly for developing countries. This was the statement. And the questions first to Mr. Ramen. Can policy makers look ahead to include development in their future internet policies incorporating the policy or regulator steps required to increase productivity and economical growth opportunity through internet. This is question to Mr. Ramen, but others also can put their input and the second question to Mr. Bahere. We have seen approval of new GTL base. You can share good practices experienced from developing countries where policy makers or regulators came ahead to introduce new Internet domain name system within their communities. Thank you.
>> So the question as I understood it was what can regulators do? Can they build an agenda for development and promote economic development and other development in the states? So as I mentioned, there is an agenda here and you can build it clearly. It is about promoting easy is and the network that's the regulators. They have insuring access and then how do you that on an open Internet. And that's the question that regulate, on understand what is all taking place and do prep work as we mentioned here. How do we insure that benefits this open community they're creating? You should allow for innovative bees that you copy responsibly. Do they exist? You must provide protects when Internet platforms allow users and other third parties to communicate and collaborate to have clear protection within a framework or responsibilities, but do have protection. Then you do other important measures about insuring e‑Commerce. Many governments have this. Europe has been driving this. Marriage other regulate, on do that and that sometimes is interesting because that's a document of hope. There's a document of optimism. It sounds negative from the beginning. It is what you build of it. It is concrete interventions and subjects. It is telecom regulator and may be for order bodies. But the point is to Internet existing law to see what is required in order to promote the network, to address any issue that might be a problem, issues of [INAUDIBLE] and security. Going to order technical issues sometimes longer in terms of what sort of network you want to build. So on the question about IDNs and GTLDs, so maybe there have been some success stories when it comes to [INAUDIBLE]. First of all, the governments or the policy makers were a part of the even before they get to [INAUDIBLE] for the policy, development process and they were a part of the awareness building process within their countries and regions. So, in the Arab region for innocence, the legal out of states had formed a working group on IDNs and particularly on Arabic domain names since 2005 and that goes way back before the actual implementation of IDNs. Now, as IDNs have become reality and IDN in domain names are added to the route. There are a number of experiences I would say in some countries like [INAUDIBLE] and I am sure they talked to this like in other countries in India. For instance, there has been a great effort from within the community, the internet community would also [INAUDIBLE] for the government as a policymaker in that regard. The, um, maybe it's hard to say something about new GTLEs because they have not been implemented yet, but again, some public initiatives like again in the middle east, the legal Arab states is supporting an initiative for dot Arab and those who are part of this initiatives again are the policy makers in the different countries. So ‑‑ maybe within the next week or so we'll start to hear more about experiences and more involvement of policy makers and GTLDs as well.
>> Thank you Mr. Baher. Mr. Fouad would like to comment on this.
>> FOUAD BAJWA: A paradox dilemma with regards to something we call parallels and regulation, you have border‑based regulation in a specific country and you have it the same time a desire for global regulation. Now is it interesting aspect over here that if you look at way the things are progressing in the recent five years I will say, you see two kind of things emerging. You are thinking on the internet and then you see the level thinking on the Internet. When the two understandings emerge in parallels, you can see that they will not be a single global solution that would fret about. People won't be happy. Right? Stakeholders won't be happy across the board. And at the same time even if we resort to many solutions, in many different venues, again it won't make people happy. So, there is really no point of convergence in policy development that would say that everyone will be happy with one solution. As I mentioned earlier, the problem over the challenge that is being brought forward is one is a developing perspective. People still have to be given something. But if you look at this for countries to help countries opposed to developing countries, develop countries if they have it, we will be working strong and they have a majority of services. You will be amazed that the fastest adoption of the networks and for many countries to actually come in line with attempts to come in line with other developed countries of the world has been amazing. And this shows the power of the network or the network effect. But again, the political influences come is happening once again, one part of the world is not actually, ah, home to the corporations, the contact [INAUDIBLE] from the U.S. They only have like let's say maybe for local services on the ground offices of those companies. They can't in reality in full reality regulate those U.S. based companies. It would make sense to do so. Something like which is being enforced in my country where there's an attempt at the moment on the ground to regulate Google whereas Google doesn't have a ground office in Pakistan. They have concerns, but they have administrators and some legal action is due in that regard base of the terrorism sharing over the open network. This is to give you a small example in the paradox we live in terms of regulation. Are we supposed to regulate the termination point of the C cables into your country? Censorship is already hang even before we start talking about the Arab spring and so forth. It is literally almost every country which has a huge Internet presence and not as deep as a [INAUDIBLE] system which can go down to the SMS packet inspection. All your data is being retained and is available for investigation should the due process be required with the governments. The elements of privacy and privacy issues are already there and the countries we're concerned about how the amount of information being stored over the network from their countrymen. Is it being used in the country? The word some have really focused on in a certain decade on the Internet was creating its own content. If the innovation capacity of the open net work would have been utilized in its true sense, you have been amazed how many search engines have country levels and how many providers and associate networks and God knows what services we would have at the local level, but then the paradox whereby you have conservation and level views like in China. There's a deep amount of regulation applied to users. So, this is sort of a paradox and this is where we would like to end this question.
>> So much for that let's move on to our last question. I would like to invite the panelists on their take for the policy makers and regulators from here and what is the immediate way for the future. So would you like to open up the discussion.
>> TRACY HACKSHAW: So far in this panel, we have a gap in terms of time, in terms of knowledge and in terms of basically everything. So, maybe if you take away from today's discussion as you attempt to close the gap between governments and, stakeholders, regulation and how do we do that. There is a lot of knowledge and a full understanding of the issues related to the Internet and Internet governance. Specifically in the global context and more specifically [INAUDIBLE] context. How do we solve that problem? Again from west, it starts with the same knowledge and linking about the jurisdictions both at government level importantly there as well as stakeholder level, private seconder citizens. IGF has a role both in terms of global IGN, F, the four that can telephone thereafter between IGF and perhaps insure that the knowledge that is being shared on the north and south, between west and east is shared throughout the year and not only at IGF at this one location, at this one venue between these people and getting further into the villages, into the towns, into the town halls. There should be more meaningful private sector and society collaboration. I am reuses to use that for the time being. I want to identify those, but let's name them. And it should not be led by governments. In a developing world, what do we tend to see a lot in the countries and the governments they call the stakeholders together to have a meeting, but they leave the meeting. They pay for their food and drinks. But the government looks at town meetings or encourages to be held by society and private sector. We don't see a lot of that happening in the developing world. They have a meeting or private seconder has a meeting and governments tend to not show up. You have this gap that continues to emerge. The government is regulating and trying to do something and then sharing their knowledge. When the other stakeholders come together, they don't attend the level of resources to attend. Governments and collaborations should be modeled and always multiple ways and should not be government steak holders. Stakeholders realize that as I have learned in my few years here that we need to operate. One of the immediate factors and the lack of understanding when you meet a gap is that civil society and businesses don't detect how the government freights. Unfortunately, they're frustrated and they get truly, truly, truly annoyed, but they take the time to understand governments need to do this to proceed with their policies and regulations and have some patience. It will be easier for them to deal with the situation and easy for them to understand how to deal with it and talk to government and forward from there. Thank you.
>> The first important element for policy makers is look at what is discussed here. People mentioned one of the reasons why the idea doesn't need to do ‑‑ although some people do believe it needs Harmonized report. It doesn't need to do formalized reporting and it is being put out on the night it is organized and being categorized and for the distributed by many people. And that information is there. But for regulators, there are questions they won't answer. Governments have the limitations and they have limitation of time and patience sometimes. But they have made several works groups and several panels at this idea that is focused on particularly related questions. There are documents that have talked about regulators to look at the [INAUDIBLE] declaration. Look at stages that come out of the united nags, but from the human rights counsel and from other groups. Look at technical discussion that happened with this IGF and follow up. You are dropping people who attended these things. But the most important thing password regulators and policy makers are doing is things they're taking forward. Take the questions they have and put it out and many emerge markets are doing very broad consultations. How do we promote additional economy? What are the important elements of this and you have your frame works here at the IGF. It is such a broad topic and Internet for change and characters for change. We've had such a time of excellent panels with specific policy and sometimes proposed solutions. That's the first step. And then do all the follow up, which is the most important thing.
>> Thank you very much Mr. Mohammed. Would you like to say something?
>> MOHAMMED EL-BASHIR: I think governments need to consider the platform of sharing information and best practices as well and also meeting with other stakeholders and coming back to, um, with ‑‑ and try to find solutions internally. I think the governments are regulators are supposed to make it to engage with the local communities and Internet communities in the countries. And they need to be more proactive in terms of addressing internet issues. That's very important. They also to insure that they're building an Eco VRS that promotes choices, competitions and innovation for the internet services in their countries and they need also to be engaged with Internet standards or positive development organizations either regional level or international level. I think that's important also because they will be following up with what's happening on the regional level and international level as well.
>> Thank you very much. Mr. Baher Esmat.
>> BAHER ESMAT: Thank you. So I agree with what previous speakers said. So I will not repeat what they said. I will highlight a few points. So the IGF is not making policies, not take any decisions. And that's the beauty and that the sort of effectiveness of the IGF; however, it could and I think it does influence some of the policies and processees that they placing elsewhere. One example is the hold theme of the online protection had a great boost through the IGF three or four years ago and many countries afterwards implemented some policies in that regard. Even in issues related to internet domain namings and IDMs. When IDMs started to exist last year, my home country Egypt formed a multi‑stakeholder national committee from government business academia, civil society and some individuals to develop the policies for registrations under the IDM TLD. Those are the things. We shouldn't under estimate the importance and the effect, the impact of the national and regional IGFs. They're not mandatory. It is not mandatory to have that in every counted he or in each and every region, but the ‑‑ the impact that comes from those forms may be more important because the address or the focus on the national and regional needs and we have seen a number of experiments here in Africa and east Africa and west Africa in that regard. The other thing I want to mention instead of being more focusing on governance and policy makers all the time, I know this is the main thing of the workshop. I knowledge we need to also say how can the IGF help assist all the steak stakeholders governance others. I am sure they have been learning from this process. I must tell you that before the IGF, ah, existed during the WSIS days back in 2003, 2004, the technical community used to speak language that no one from the U.N. member states would understand. I think now both parties and both groups are sitting in the IGF and participating in the saint workshops and same session and they do understand each other. So I think that the IGF is assisting all the stakeholders and helping stakeholders to move out of their comfort zones if I may say. For technical community, they know a lot about technical stuff. Some may not be interested in policy stuff, but with the IGF, many people from that technical excitement are more interested and involved in policy stuff. Again, policy makers, governments again they started to look into technical issues and same applies for businesses. So I think this is something that is important to note what is the take away for all of us from the IGF.
>> Thank you very much. Mr. Qusai Al‑Shatti, please comment.
>> QUSAI AL-SHATTI: Really much has been said by my colleagues. But I will add to that. The IGF in being an independent policy of their local platform. It will allow the governments to understand the role of every respective stakeholder whether it is in developing policies or even in regulation. So, that's what. But also will help government to know which issues that they need to address and which issues they can leave for the future, for example. That does not need to be addressed at the moment. In a way, what the priorities would be on a national level. It will also help them to adopt the multi‑stakeholder model regard than shy away that would all be more or look at the Internet governance issues in a manner. That's what I would do.
>> So much. What would you like to say?
>> Again, I would like to [INAUDIBLE] panelists have really given some comments that detail out what we should be looking at from the current and the future IGS. And at same time, I would like to reemphasize that the greatest thing that today's connected mankind has achieved is the capability to sit together and have a public source in a safe hold environment. Just to share with you a small thing which is going to be happening soon, something totally non‑related to the Internet which does make use of the Internet is going to have a similar IGF multi‑stakeholder forum within the coming few months. Within the [INAUDIBLE]. That will be the first example of the ‑‑ of another body or another group or another [INAUDIBLE] adopting the IGF principals and stakeholders. We haven't really gotten there with the number 1 stakeholders and constituents you have been thinking this is where the dialogue should go. I sometimes say that when you come to the IGF meeting or any ITF meeting, you should have an agenda with you. You should be inclined towards either some sort of agenda. I know where mine S. mine is very social and very particular. I know why because I come from a developing setting. For us in a developing word, IGF means a very important space for us to have a dialogue to share, to learn ideas, to find references of what's been happening around the world ands that are the by the IGF. It's open nature. This is what has to be sustained, but at same time, we in the political dimension facing some challenges. I will not turn them to government and private sector and technical community academia.These are senses that as a network and as our cape act and as we are transitioning to ‑‑ because they have liberalists in terms of internet issues. We are facing these kind of challenges in the short term actually which we, for example, quoting just the theme for this year for the IGF. Development going across the governance for development gives a a small example the path that we're turning. Why are we going this way? Because it's a dialogue which is affecting the future of the internet. You have the fathers of the internet coming over here. You have people who have actually played very important roles in creating the open network. But at the same time, we are faced works which is not what we had planned. Who is planning for the [INAUDIBLE] spring? A life on the ground was lost. That life triggered a public response to that offline, us about the Internet played a role in getting that message out. But should the internet have not been there and should the internet have been cut dine before that activity actual Lee happened on the ground. The effect would have happened there for those people. So the networks availability at right moment for the right thing remains a major challenge and that's what was being discussedd in the emerging issues that keeping [INAUDIBLE], keeping the network safely operating, keeping the network there in the time of cast isers and being prepared for sharing information over the network, I come from a region that has failed badly when use the internet for responding for disasters. Should there have been an example setting for us that we had an earth quake, we had problems on the ground and we should have been ready for disasters. We were not ready when the floods happened and even this year when the floods happened. So, this awareness to raising these things are coming out of the IGF. This is where the regulate, on are meeting. This is where citizens are showing their interest and always remember I have yet to see any space apart from IGF and some what in ICANN where I can be sitting amongst [INAUDIBLE] Q2 is a with Google and have equal footing a dialogue that can show us all.
>> Thank you very much. We have some of the feel comments from the team from Caribbean.
>> Yes. There Caribbeans, IGF has provided the very important ‑‑ (no sound)