The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Twelfth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Geneva, Switzerland, from 17 to 21 December 2017. 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 event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> We are getting ready to start in a couple of minutes. If you could come closer to these tables so we're not so scattered around the entire room. One more time. So we are getting ready to start in 3 to 5 minutes. So maybe come closer to this table here so we're not scattered over such a big room.
>> Since we are spot so many in this room, can I invite you here so we make it a little bit cozier. We would like to invite you at this table and then we'd like to get started. Here I'm visible for everyone actually. All right. I think we are getting ready to start. I still invite the people who are all over the room to join us here. My name is Ruxandra Panda. I work for the Council of Europe as educational advisor. It's a very complicated title to explain. And I'm here to host this session on youth participation in Internet governance. Now we have this session in three steps, three major steps. The first one to give you an overview of what we have, what we are doing on youth participation as an organization and why we are hosting this session. The second part would be working groups to review the recommendations that stem out of a seminar on youth participation and Internet Governance that we have recently done in October 2017 and to see how we can further them or hold what measures we here can take to advance them to make them reality. And in the third part, we will have a panel with several representatives of the Council of Europe. Could reflect with us either on some of the good practices and new developments in the institution, but also what I can do to support the work on advancing youth participation. Since we are not so many and since this is not the (?) this Internet photo, I would like to actually do a round of names. And for this to work, I would invite you to say your name, not the full ‑‑ just the first name that you'd like to use. Your organization and maybe the country you come from. But the trick there is to really keep it to the three things. Not to say hello I'm happy. I come from this. This is what my organization is doing. It has to be really Ruxandra, counselor of Europe, Hungary. Is that clear? Good. Can I start from my left?
>> SAM: Hi, everyone. My name is Sam from Israel. I'm based in Hong Kong. Thank you very much.
>> (?) counselor of Europe based in France.
>> (?) from Argentina from the youth observatory.
>> Hello. I'm from Albania and Albania government.
>> Hello. I am the youth from (?)
>> MICHAEL: I'm Michael. I'm an independent consultant and I live in Serbia.
>> NADIA: I'm Nadia from the Netherlands and European leadership.
>> ADISA: I'm Adisa from Nigeria.
>> ROMAN: Roman from Russia.
>> CHARLOTTE: Charlotte (?)
>> DIANA: Hi. I'm Diana from Albania, student at the University of Terana.
>> Hi. This is (?) there Korea and government sector.
>> Hi. This is Hacky.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Can we invite the people that is sitting at the other table to also introduce herself.
>> (?)
>> Hi. I'm working on the Embassy in the U.K.
>> IVAN: Hi. I'm Ivan from mission DotAsia.
>> HENRY: I am Henry from the fighters and I'm from Sweden.
>> JUSTIN: Hi. I'm Justin and I'm from mission DotAsia.
>> I'm from Syria based in Paris. I'm not listing anyone. I'm a student.
>> ALEJANDRA: I'm Alejandra from the internet society based here in Geneva, but in Spanish.
>> ED HAHN: I'm Ed Hahn from Pakistan currently in Turkey and I'm in ISOC.
>> INGRID: My name is Ingrid. I'm from the European center based in Oslo.
>> I'm (?) based in France.
>> Counselor in Europe based in Brussels.
>> BRIAN: Brian from South Africa.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Thank you. Very nice. Good. It's nice to see even more diverse than we actually had in our first seminar which was unfortunately Europe focused because obviously this is the counselor of Europe. Now, for those who do not know and with excuses to those who know, the counselor of Europe is an intergovernmental organization that fights for human rights rule of law and democracy in Europe. Now, generally the counsel of Europe works on two layers. One is standard setting that can be conventions, that could be recommendations, that could be policy standards and they're monitoring and their implementation of national and local level. So it works primarily with governments. But it also has quite a significant part of work that is less visible sometimes, which relates with capacity building and that capacity building aims both building capacity of governments, but also the capacity of Civil Society and other stakeholders that are relevant in building a culture of human rights. I'm not going to tell you everything that the Council of Europe does. We have a nice booth upstairs. So I hope you can go and check. Most of you probably heard about the humanitarian court human rights where you can sue your state for violating your rights. We also do work on drugs and other movies and so on. So it's quite diverse. I just tease you here and invite you to check further. Now, for more than 40 years in the Council of Europe, we have a youth sector and we work also with young people and governments primarily trying to set up European policy in a standard setting that insures all young people are included and can participate in society. And the emphasis on all is very important in our work. More than that, I would like to let you know that youth participation has always been a decor. It's traditionally our main priority. So if other priorities change in the work of the youth department or the youth sector, youth participation has always been a core element in the work that we do. So it is no surprise in a way that we're also a bit concerned about youth participation in Internet Governance because it falls within our tradition. Now, in terms of ‑‑ in terms of the way we work, so yes. We set up standards. Let's say these are usually in the counselor of Europe recommendations. So the counselor of Europe would recommend to its members to take certain members on certain topics that are of interest for young people and for youth policy feud. Then the government would have to implement those. But we also have a capacity building program and an educational program which makes us slightly different than other international organizations because this capacity building program is mainly aim at youth organizations, initiative groups and so on. And it takes place in our mostly in our European youth centers. We have two of them one in Budapest and one in Strasbourg. Remember when we are running programs telling with a specific members. For curiosity reason, we run currently one with the Russian Federation, one with Ukraine and several other countries.
Now, can we actually change the slide? Now we are aware that there are many levels of youth participation. It can be a nice container of what we put in there. There are many levels and many forms of participating from whatever liking something on Facebook to being part of decision making. Traditionally in the youth sector, we are mostly concerned with participation in decision making and we have been concerned with participation at local and national and regional level. And for this, I think it's interesting to see the definition that we operate to see where the organization is coming from and what it is trying to add. We can move. Thank you. And you can see on the slide. I don't know if you can see the slides, but it's good. No? So this is the definition that we have from a chart that's been adopted at the level of Council of Europe and it's mainly with local and regional life. It says that ‑‑ regional life. It says that participation that it's more than having the right to vote or to be effected, but it is about having the rights, the opportunities, the space. What do you have? The means and the support. I did that in the wrong way. I'm turning all the time. To take part and to influence decisions that concern the life of the society in which I live in. Or the topics that affect me. And this furthermore says that I can also take part I or young people can take part into activities or actions that further these decisions. Now, it says there that this is participation in democratic society ore community should be about this. I think this also applies to internet because we're also talking about democracy online and we're talking also about the governance of the internet to be based on democratic principles. And we are quite ‑‑ let's see. We are a bit fundamental in the youth sector with this definition because is it is fixed‑‑ it speaks about participation as a means to achieve your human right, but also it speaks about the fact that it's not only about putting young people in a panel and saying now tell us your view. But rather insuring that they are recognized as SQL steak holders and supported to participate, that they have ‑‑ that can mean training. That can mean capacity building. That can mean financial aid to take part in meetings where decision making is taken place, that their place is secured and so it's not a question of moving others. And so on and so forth. Now, can we move to the next slide? Thank you. We try to practice this also in our department or in our sector. So we also have a co‑management system. This means that the decisions about political priorities, activities that we do are done together by government representatives of the governments of our member states and representatives of Civil Society in Europe. New Civil Society and I'm really happy we have with us also representative of young people in this statutory (?) which is Menna next to me. We think this is the way to move forward. It's also interesting enough that they are not taking decisions by voting. But they have to make decisions by consensus. So it's a little bit of a nasty process in there. Milage can tell you more about what it is to build consensus with governments. You might know that a new all have in front of you this nice no hate speech movement fliers. So about I think five years ago already, young people through advisory council have pointed out that hate speech online is one of the issues they're mainly concerned and they have also pointed out the fact that generally youth workers and youth organizations traditionally those who are working with them have no capacity to engage online in this issue. So we started a campaign called a no hate speech movement to not only to promoter not only, but not at all to promote censorship on the internet, but rather build a capacity of people and organizations to deal with these topics in a constructive manner and to promote human rights online. I mentioned this because it is through this campaign that we also started as a sector, not as counselor of Europe, but as a sector to be involved with Internet governance. Through the campaign and activists, we started to be part of Internet Governance photos and so on. Primarily advocating on a specific topic but then we understood that there is more work for us to do. So this is why I'm mentioning this. And because we understood ‑‑ we've understood two things. One that youth participation in internet governance is not necessarily secured and clear. There's not a secure track of participation. That is one and the second thing we understood the youth organizations, traditionally main street that we mainly work with and the youth sector such as ministries are not necessarily so much concern about how do young people participate in matters of governing the internet. So we thought this is an area where we would do something. So the first thing that we did and this is maybe not a lot, we are also as an institution in our starting point that we organize the seminar this October where we brought some 30 participants and I would like to ask those who have been in the seminar to raise their hands because some of them are actually here. So you can see around who has been already involved in the seminar. So they can also tell you much more about the seminar. We have had three days and I think what was ‑‑ it's actually looking now the experience of the Internet Governance photo here. It is actually quite luxurious to have three days to learn and discuss from each other. We have explored both what is internet governance because some of the young people who participate who are not necessarily involved with Internet Governance. So they had to also build up their confidence, but we have ‑‑ what do we mean by youth participation and what is the minimum standards for this? And we think that we managed to come up with a couple of good suggestions. We have compiled the suggestions now into four main ‑‑ into four main areas that cover. The first one covers the recognition of young people as a stakeholder in Internet governance processees. They're also very concrete suggestions made by the participants including to have, for example, a youth representative in the preparatory teams of the main conferences on Internet Governance such as this one or the Euro DIC where we are looking at issues about how to insure a representative of the Council of Europe looking primarily at issues of youth participation in youth governance, developing specific criteria so we can measure, youth participation and so on and so forth, codes of conduct coordinating with other international organization such as the UN to insure global dimension. The second bunch of recommendations concern primarily capacity building. And if I have heard correctly in several sessions that look at youth and young people, this seems to be a very strong need. The session before that Michael led on how to explain to family and friends what Internet Governance is, looked at how can we make the topic digestible and in an accessible language. I think the youth observatory also showed that it's very hard to attract young people because sometimes the whole issue of Internet Governance seems to be overwhelming and there's no ‑‑ it seems it has no beginning and no end. And so a lot of these recommendations in the area are capacity building and building educational materials or training models and some what we can then all of us use in our local or national level, but they also look at building the capacity of mainstream organizations to include the topic when they are working on youth participation issue or looking at building the capacity of such people as teachers or trainers or others involved in educating young people. Another category concerns national and regional youth IGFs and we have seen that this is an area of development not necessarily structured or equally developing all over the world. But we have seen that especially in the seminar it seemed to be from the examples of good practice that we heard. This seems to be a more sustainable way of involving more young people in decision making. So there are several recommendations about how to build on existing good practices, how to gather support from the government or having youth IGFs maybe to coordinate also with other sting holders in terms of youth policies or to coordinate both Internet policy and youth policy in this sense of working with youth counselors also have a very broad outreach. And last category of recommendations cover support measures. And here they carry from funding. I heard yesterday that all the young people in IGF are dependent on funding to participate and this is not surprising. But also they look at training, at coordinating also different initiatives, expanding scholarship programs and so on and so forth. And this is where I will finally stop talking. I am looking at participants in the seminar or colleagues if they would like to add something. No? I'm wondering if there is any burning question. Okay. Menna has something to add.
>> MENNO ETTEMA: How do you make youth participation and Internet Governance as we said all so young people from minority backgrounds that have ‑‑ they have additional challenges in a general to participate, let alone the Internet Governance. Those are here and this is also one of the discussion points. In that sense, mainstream or existing youth structures sometimes represent these kind of groups. How do we get these youth structures that exist in the Internet discussions. This is also a double layered approach. They're representative organizations.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Okay. What we would like to do now actually is to split into four groups where we have copies of these nice recommendations and to review these recommendations because these were also very much Europe focused. So to have a look at them and look at each group in one category, have a look at them and see if there's anything to add because I'm sure there are things to add that we missed out. And also see something to add maybe if there are actions that are proposed that are to be prioritized because some might be more urgent than others and then to see if there is something that we do to actually make these things a reality. So maybe some concrete ideas of cooperation, of support can stem out of our discussions. Is this clear? I see some sort of nodding. Yes? Very good.
Then the first group will look at the recognition of young people as stakeholders in Internet Governance processees and it will be with Milash. And I suggest that you take the table over there to the far right. Then the second group looks at recommendations on capacity building to insure youth participation and this will be with Ingrid and with Irina. She's somewhere, somewhere over there. And I would suggest that this group stays at this table. Okay? Then we have a third group on national and regional Internet youth IGFs and I suggest take the table on that side to my left. And then the fourth group on support measures necessary for youth participation goes to the table over there in the end where there are already people sitting. And so the national youth IGFs is with Menna and the support measures is with Anja. Is this clear? Yes. Recognition of young people with Milash is already going. He has copies of the recommendations. So you don't have to worry. Capacity building with Ingrid and Irina stays here at this table where I am now or where most of us are. Then national and regional IGFs goes to the first table or the table closest to the entrance with Menna there. Then support measures with Annika. So over there in the middle. Is this clear? I can also repeat them one more time. Or I can also ask people to shout out whom they are looking for. We have about 25 minutes to work in the groups. So we also secure a bit of time for reporting and moving on.
I would like to lead you know we still have five minutes. So try to speed up. One minute and half left. So try to wrap up and also the main points to present. Okay, dear people. I am sorry to be the party pooper, but I have to stop you. I have to stop your good discussions. So maybe invite you back so that we also hear what each group has done so far. I know that there is much more to add and I think we can use at least one more week, not three days, but rather one week to put our heads around. And it's a starting point. But in the ending point.
So without much more introduction to this, I would like to invite the groups to report back on their findings on the main points that they've discussed, additions, ideas. I would like to actually ask the people reporting to keep the report short if possible into three minutes, 3 to 5 minutes so then we also have the time to have a bit of discussion with our guests, which are already here with us. The Ambassador Corinna is the coordinator in the committee of ministers on Internet Society or information society and our colleague from the children's rights division of the Council of Europe has also been heavily involved in consultations with children on insuring their rights into digital environments. So we would also like to have time to discuss with them because I think there is some interesting things to also find out, but first is first. First our groups can I start with the group that looked at recognition of young people as stakeholder that would be (?). If nobody else, they happily volunteered you.
>> Okay. So it was quite nice discussion in the group. I am going to ‑‑ we have had deeper teams and young people to have (inaudible) when it comes to organizing forms, but not only participants, but there has to be space for people to also be decision makers when it comes to organizing internet governance, but specifically the parts that are tackling people directly. Young people should participate, but we have to think of ways of how people are participating has to find ways of how to transfer the knowledge from one person to another in order to have a more streamline participation from different groups. There has to be a representation that is going to be done through organizations who are like national councils and international organizations and et cetera. And something that we discussed that even on this IGF we have to find a space for the young people that have the momentum to be here to develop some kind of an initiative for this to be fold up. Is it going to be a declaration of young people or something that has to happen now here too that can be fold up in the future. So we make sure that we are not just the momentum, but we make sure that we the young people are stakeholders for the Internet governance as such global. I think this is a very (?) discussion.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Do you have to follow up on this idea of actually doing something now? A declaration? Is there a proposal on how to do it?
>> At the moment we discussed we want to meet tonight. But yeah. Definitely after the session is done, we can day and talk on how can we move on from the discussion if we moved on now. Yeah.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Okay. Good. Very good. Then I'm moving to the capacity building group. Who would like to ‑‑
>> I will. Yeah. So we were discussing here capacity building. So all the plans. So we were adding new points. So first we were saying we can maybe add some points or guiding light including ID topics or courses and schools, curriculum. They have to be thought from the beginning. People ‑‑ the earliest the best I would say. Then we have to also raid larger community how we can do that is we adapted the language because the issue we also have is we true replicate all the initiative we have to take into account all the languages to avoid translating into all languages, we have to focus maybe in the highly youth languages by region. So that could be easier to get all the material in that language. And also we can use the youth that are volunteering because they can be engaged with especially some experts. They can be volunteers and not the others and get the information and knowledge that the experts have and share it there locally. Also try to do the true IGF opportunity on more fellowship opportunities world wide. Then we were talking about mentor, the mentorship that you suggested in one of the points and we were saying that online and offline, but better offline because we don't have access to the Internet. You can be a mentor and talk about on the Internet governance to make them aware of that even if they don't have. They can motivate people to ask for access to the internet. And also we were saying we have to have sustainable system. The mentors ‑‑ I would say the mentees will be the mentors of the future. It's not just one day, one year. You have to be sustainable. Then we were talking about sharing documentations, youth initiatives and best practices that already exist in the world today. Maybe like a global platform or website where everybody can put their DS youth from everywhere. So when you have an idea and you want to initiate your project, you can go to that platform and say what is going on around the world with youth initiatives and learn from that because it will be best practices and examples prior that worked in another area maybe and you can replicate that in yours.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Thank you very much. We move to (?)
>> I forgot to ask if anybody wants to presented. I take initiative, I think. We discussed how can we get more youth involvement in national regional IGFs. Folks admit this is setting up youth IGFs in a solution or is it about involving young people in national level, I think. Both ways are appropriate as long as young people are there. I think that was clear. That came straight away to the first question. There's issue of criteria. There are areas for people to participate. Criteria sometimes can be very limiting. So it is certain groups that are more profile than others. This already has an inclusion issue and some people fall out. This is one problem. Especially when it comes from the governmental sides or government initiatives, this process is not transparent or clear. When we're talking about participation and recognition of these young people. There are good examples and experiences of national youth councils being involved in national initiatives or participation. But that doesn't trickle down to the local level or even the regional level. So national support, but it doesn't go down. The other way is also possible. There are lots of active regions where civil initiatives are supported and you see regional initiatives, but it doesn't go up to the national level because the national ministry doesn't answer the e‑mail or it is not recognizing the work that's been done and there's no official platform. So it goes both ways. Many different experiences that needs to be dealt with. There was a question here. How do we reach young people. Most of those people do not exist. Yes, there are some websites out there, but these websites are not the best way of communicating. So we need to look for examples on Facebook. It was a wonderful tool in reaching out to young people. Peer to peer learning, but we also discussed teachers. There are fellowships out there in various countries, but even teachers that deal with technical issues do not know about these fellowships. There are communication issues that needs to be done. People still don't know how to apply. And then the last point of discussion I think was very interesting was about welcoming spaces. So actually to make sure that young people do feel welcomed. So this could mean mentorship, culture of mentorship that has a process of guidance creating a space that is comfortable and safe for people feel they can express and be heard. Also to learn to make mistakes without major consequences. So it is all about space go where young people can be and create space that is safe for young people to do so. Then there was ‑‑ there was a quote here that many of the penalty are not very youth inclusive unless it is a youth penal or youth topic. But reflecting on that, there is reality that some experts do not know how to find young people. And there are youth experts or young people that are experts in that field and they are ‑‑ there's no link between experts that are slightly older. So there are things to be done on the connection. I think this wraps it up. Yeah.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Thank you. Then I'm moving for small grouping in the back to look for support measures. It's Martin.
>> Martin: Yes. Hello. I was volunteering to present. First I want is to congratulate you. There's a lot ever new words adding to the repertoire of the typist such as co‑management and party pooper. Great job. We went through the support measures, but we also noted that there's a couple of issues in the document that are sought off doubling or reinventing the whole proposing structures that are already there. For example, a dedicated use contact point. There is somebody (?) who is not here who is dedicated on working youth issues. There's a couple more points. I will later come back to that. But on the support measures, first and foremost, first suggestion would be in .4A. The recommendation that there should be counsel of Europe's IG experts invited to coordinate the youth side Event. And that is not a skill that is missing. What is missing is a skill that is about education and an approach on how to convey these topics. So there's a lot of experts in the conference and if you want to hear the expert opinion, there will be plenty of opportunities, but when it comings to structuring the youth events and dedicating measures to young people, there should be educational experts that are coordinating these events in order to make sure that this rather complex topics are understood. On the 4M, the paper recommends to expand and use Ambassador programs and scholarships such as ICANNs and ISOCs. This is not going (?) of. For once, the programs should be better advertised. Not a lot of people are reached by the current advertisement of them. They should clarify and how they work, but they should harmonize. We do not have so many competitor uses where a lot of people apply. But then we have a lot of parallel structures at the IGF on day zero where we have five different youth events, but instead rather bring young people together and coordinate this approach. They should be better coordinated and heard. Then we suggest additional points. One would be to enhance the understanding of youth participation in Internet governance and not just amongst young people or the institution, but amongst all stakeholders and age groups because we often find that in these meetings, youth participation is still understood very differently between region stakeholders and yeah age groups. And the last point would be that we should also share the European experience with youth participation as we consider Council of Europe quite advanced on the topic. And that information should be brought into these forums. Aside from that, the paper was very much focused on Europe, which made it a bit difficult to discuss this international context, but I think this message should be able to put out there particular youth participation. Thank you.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Thank you very much, Martin. Thank you very much, everyone. I think you all deserve a round of applause for doing quite fantastic work in very short time. And we have for the time remaining, I think it's time to discuss also with our guests who I am very happy they had the chance to also hear their points of view. They also had the chance to look at the recommendations that came out of the seminar. Now, you might know or not the committee of ministers is still the highest decision making body in the Council of Europe. So nothing that we decide or do is actually reality unless the committee of ministers says yes to that. No pressure. And the committee of ministers has a point of the Ambassador to be the coordinator on information policy. And I would like to ask her first and foremost what are the major developments in the Council of Europe on the topic that maybe we should take into account when looking at ‑‑ yeah. Fostering or advancing youth participation.
>> Good evening to everybody. I'm really happy and pleased to see you in that room because I think it's really important to have a dialogue between the decision maker and the young generation. And I'm really pleased to see that you understand your role and your proposals and your suggestions that was imagined today in this room are really important and I will try to inform my colleagues in the committee of men esters as well because on the young generation, depends on our future. When we're talking about internet, it is really important to take into account that the Internet invaded our reality, our existence and when we are talking about Internet, we have governments, we have Internet providers and we have the society. And in the society, we have young people, we have children, we have teachers, we have students and many, many national regional and international stakeholders. So as the automatic coordinator on the policy, I have a role to monitor the implementation of Internet governance strategy. This strategy had one of the main objectives, the creation ever the platform of cooperation. So it was dedicated to negotiate the creation of this platform. So at the 8th of November, the secretary general of the Council of Europe had exchange of (?) with eight internet companies and associations. In the companies, we have Google, Microsoft, (?), Deutsche Telefonica, Orange and the associations. This is the first ever rule of dialogue between the governments, the Council of Europe and the businesses. So during the negotiations, I had the privilege to listen to comments and even some critics on behalf of the companies which I think is really important. Because usually the comment of ministers level through the intergovernmental committees we are drafting and adopting a lot of legal binding instruments. If we're talking about internet, one of them is dedicated to the cyber crime where we have a lot of guidelines and recommendations and usually the companies are saying that we are drafting that from the perspective of law enforcement structures. Forgetting about the fact that all the standards should be applied. So I think in general when we're talking about Internet, we have different perspectives. And it's really important to have an exchange of opinions to have the dialogue and the communication. Even online or offline, but it's most importantly to have the dialogue to understand all the advantages that we have, but at the same time, the challenges because I'm sure that even the young generation using Internet has their own understanding given we are trying to make our studies online where we're trying to communicate online, but definitely we need to have that dialogue. So now the platform dedicated to the business we are trying to understand each other to have the room for the communication and exchange of information. The second main development right now is dedicated to the draft recommendation on Internet intermediaries. So we hope that by the spring, we'll have adopted this recommendation is really important to emphasize here that we are not talking through the recommendation just about obligations and the internet intermediaries. But as well on the rights and obligation or responsibilities of the governments. Again, Internet and all the stakeholders on the Internet had rights and obligations. Unfortunately, we are not able probably at this stage to develop the new rules in general on the Internet. So most probability we are at the moment about we should understand better all our responsibilities and how we need to use the internet for the development of our economies, but at the same time, how to develop our existence through the Internet avoiding cyber crimes where misusing the Internet for our societies.
So these are the less most important developments. One of them will be as well in the modernization of the convention 108 in the signer crime. I hope ‑‑ cyber crime. I hope that we'll be able to find the way of how the young generation would suggest some improvements to all the instruments where how you can help us towards the implementation of all these instruments. We're making these more visible at the national and regional level because again, the Council of Europe has many important instruments, but still it should be more visible in our societies and again, the convention 108 is not limited to the Council of Europe member states, but to other countries and at this stage, we have 51 UN member states that are exceeding to this instrument. Thank you.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Thank you very much for this update. I also understand you are very willing if they stay overnight and draw up a paper to take it forward to the committee of ministers. I am pushing here too much my luck.
[Laughter]
Well, this is I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate here.
>> It is really interesting the role and the amount of (?). Usually we have the informal meetings and formal meetings. So perhaps we can think how we can bring the youth voice in the activity in the Council of Europe as well. Loving is ‑‑ possible could be possible.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: We have with us our colleague from the children's right division and I would like to ask her to maybe share with us some of the main findings and some of the main lessons of actually working with children knowing that some of the children are also young people. We have a bit of an overlap there. You know?
>> Thank you very much for the floor and I am happy to share with you some ideas. I will be short given that probably you are probably very tired of listening to people talking. I think that in a nut shell, what the children rights division is doing with children is very innovative and it's also giving good results. So participation you were talking about in your recommendations about be part of a decision making process. Somehow, participation is that way is the manner to get part of this decision making process. And what we have been trying because in the children rights division, we believe in participation although we have some times to face challenges and not everyone is convinced that it is fruitful and useful and how it can be translated to grown up decision making process while the youth of the children have to say. We consider they have a lot to say. We have recommendations to insure this participation. It can go and look at our website. It is committee ministers have participation of children and young people under the age of 18. And in this standards, we secure the right for children. This is the UN in definition. Everyone under 18 is considered children to participate and be heard. We also ask the state to create the space,s pockets and opportunities to participate for young for children and young people. And as I said, not only we set standards, but we also walk the talk and we did this in practice. We did it for the guidelines that we just mentioned it. They were not yet adopted by the committee. They will be adopted as it was said before early late spring, early summer. These are the guidelines to protect, promote and fulfill the rights of children in the digital environment. And what in what we did we consulted about 200 children in eight countries. Croatia, Hungary, Italy, and Ukraine. We worked with NGOs working with children. We prepared a health Dodge which means very clear kind of set of what was the purpose, what were the questions, what were the guidelines we were looking at to make all this, you know, material digestible and understandable at every level. We create all these tools. Then we trained the NGOs that one person who was in charge of this consultation. We asked to create two groups based on age and based on vulnerabilities in order to have as many opinion as possible back from the children. Then we did the consultation. And I must say we were very much impressed by the results. It was about digital environment as I said and the opinions expressed with children. They were very knowledgeable. When I say children, it was normally between 12 and 16. And they were very knowledgeable and a lot of what they suggested has been taken on board by the drafting group who has prepared the guidelines. So it was for us a very important exercise just in a nut shell, you can see what the children said. There is a report which is on our website and the title of the report is it is our word children's views on how to protect their rights in the digital environment. And you go to the website, you can find this report. Children who are very unanimous low agreed they should have access to Internet and they even went far and said we must have free access to Internet which is not the opinion of everyone. But they also recognize that they need guidance on how to use it. Guidance from parents and guidance from school from education. They ask to be literate about. Because they realize without a real knowledge of the environment, there are challenges. So I stopped here for what we have done, but just for some lessons that can be useful as well even if you go a little bit up with age. For sure, children and youth views are an added value. Another decision making and the instrument we are working on in the Council of Europe because they shed light on a different perspective. They see things from a different perspective and as I told you, our experts say oh, we didn't think about it. So there really is another value in that. It needs preparation. As I said before, we worked all the steps to be sure that what you get out in the end is also usable. You know? You have something which is more or less structured and you can transfer it in the process of decision making. This is why we worked out this methodology and now we are using the same in other fields. We have done right now it's not digital environment, but we did the consolidations on child friendly information with respect to migration. And the feedback we had again was very, very valuable for the discussion. They are the ones that were experiencing actually. The migration process. So their feedback is very important. Also it is important that when you organize participation, you try as much as possible to work them in (?). Otherwise you won't have a good representation their opinions. If you only focus in English, you already select somehow the views of the young people that you may collect. Finally, it's very important to provide feedback. Feedback on what has been done, how it has been used and to go back to those who help you for this. We have ‑‑ during the consummations, in any event whatever we say, you will never be considered. There is also a lack of trust in the process. So the much you can give feedback, the best it is in this kind of exercise. But again, I think it's worth the sometime and it's worth engagement because it will require a lot. It requires a lot of work. But if you have any other questions, please feel free. Thank you.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Thank you very much, Gisella. We have with us also Milash and he's a representative in the advisory counselor on youth of the council of Europe. This is a decision making body in the youth sector, but they can also address also other sectors of the council. I think this is important to know because their voice ‑‑ their decision might stop at the level of the youth sector, but they might influence decisions also in other policy sectors. Now, you have seen the recommendations and you have heard the working groups discussions. What do you think can be taken on board or forward in the youth sector and also I think one of the questions that we have been sort of juggling with in the last month is how can we also bring more mainstream organizations like the ones that were part of the advisory council on board in Internet Governance processes.
>> Thank you. Thank you. As you said, we are very proud with our co‑management system when it comes to the youth department gauze we feel that it gives space to young people to participate and to be heard. I'm sure that we imagined it so many times, but I will try it and very short to present you what it means on a very personal level. For me as a young people to be able to participate in the action. Some of you sat in the group that we were discussing there because of the Council of Europe, 35 young people were age to participate in the Internet governance forum. That decision was brought by the co‑management system. Young people were deciding that more young people should be able to participate in the internet governance forum. On what was presented by the ambassador, then you drop recommendations in the intermediaries. It is because of the system I was able to fall out. A young people who is coming from a single society organization. So when we speak about the co‑management and the space to have participation more than it is being present is actually this thing that I just shared. I think that forms like this and the Internet governance form and other places where young people are being tackled by the discussion, the young people should not be the ones that are only present, but I think that young people should be owed. So being here deciding on spot on what actually the topics should be, what kind of discussion there should be, but also not because they're going to bring up the topics that are important for them, but also this is going to be ‑‑ this is going to make them more accountable to decisions they're going to be making in forms like this. In a moment, we feel we participate and share and what we do with the outcomes. If there's a more systematic approach to Internet governance and any other firms, young people will be more responsible and we'll have a system on how to follow up the things that they're going to be deciding. It's not easy. It takes a lot because to create and enable the environment, it needs all the things which are written inside the recommendation that was just presented to us, the training, the education, the space to talk to make all the information and everything accessible to all the multi‑steak holders in the room. It takes time, but I think this is a way of how the decisions you're going to be made are going to be much more effective and will be taken afterwards. I agree with the last point that you shared is that we hear young people are very much engaged in the topic. Young people who understand the discussions, but we also have ‑‑ I can speak about Europe because my experience is coming from Europe. Europe has a very strong developed in the presentation system on national, local and international level. Meaning that most of the European countries have their own local youth councils and national youth councils and European forum. These are the stakeholders that we have to advocate to be here and present because if we have stakeholders like the national youth councils and the European youth forum and organizations, then our voice here is much stronger because we can say that we represent young people. It is not representing only young people who are interested in the topic, but we represent young people throughout all this thousands of young people that they're behind. I think that if we want to succeed to have the Internet Governance as a subject for young people, we'll need to have a bigger voice and has to be done in partnership with these kinds of networks with all representation bodies. How can we do that? I think that we as the co‑management can started speaking more about internet governance and I think that we started already this year with the seminar, but we will also try to follow up the Internet Governance strategy which is clearly written that young people are the stakeholder and we've talking about digital citizenship and how citizenship will be evolving in the future when it comes to this.
>> Maybe it is aught worthwhile to mention there are several corporation programs that go beyond Europe. So there is a program of corporation in the Mediterranean area and there is in Africa and I think the council is presented. Only the span is quite Europe focused what we can do or people invited here can do. I think beyond that, I think part of this recommendation is also be pushed through this corporation. So we can also support as in European organization the voices in other areas. I know we are a little bit behind, but I would still like to give the opportunity to ask questions if you have questions or if you would like to raise any comments. So I am hope opening the floor and I will get two or three if there are. So if you would like too, if you have a question or a comment, please raise your hand. Yes. I see one here.
>> Hi. My name is Katie. I am here from the United States. And I'm just wondering for you two specifically, what do you see as the best way for someone sitting here right now to get involved immediately? What is the immediate next step for us to take so that we can continue the conversations we're having here and when we go back home not lose this network or lose this experience and continue to build in our communities with the wider community?
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Any other question or comment? I see ‑‑ okay. I go to Martin in the back.
>> Okay. MILASH just talked about the 35 people you supported to IGF. That's a (?) project, I assume.
>> It was funded by the foundation.
>> So just in general, do you think there's a possibility to support in a steady way participation and not on this project BASIS so that we have a sustainable way of sending young people into the forums? Thank you.
>> My name is Sandra and I'm also youth at IGF fellow and I'm from Australia. I wanted to thank you for taking so much interest in this talk. I think we all appreciate being here. And my question was kind of to build on Katie's question and it was we were all going back to our regions now with this amazing experience. How can we engage young people and relate to them how great this is and how easy it is to get involved in this?
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: All right. I invite the ambassador to respond and then maybe we see.
>> For me, I'm taking into account my previous experience working in the Civil Society and being the member of the children in the parliaments for children. I think it is quite important the voice as we mentioned before the voice of the young people and how we are streamlining this voice and all our proposals. I think the IGF and the participation of the IGF of the young generation should be somehow formalized by a declaration what you want to do after that, how you are going to work with that. Where if you participated here and taken into account we have Internet, but we have the participation around the world to create a platform online so your voice will be widespread and not just nationally, but internationally, but again I think the most important how to have the concrete proposals. How you were in which field you want to be more active because just now we were coming with Gisella from lounging from the flesh session dedicated to the new literacy internet literacy handbook of the Council of Europe that was updated recently. So we identified that it was a topic new, but very necessary for the audience. It doesn't matter. You are a child representative where you are a teacher, where you are a parent. So depends. And taking into account the internet is very widespread and has many different elements where you think that your voice is important on promoting safer Internet towards cyber crime or towards bullying and so on. But again, I think it's important to have a declaration of young participants at the IGF and what you want more. And I'm sure that you'll succeed.
>> On the question if it can become more (?) apply to a project. Yes, it can. If it goes ‑‑ because there is a program committee that is deciding on how the money of the Council of Europe and the European foundation when it comes to youth discussing and I think that it depends if it is at the moment we have to see if it is a priority and if it is a priority in the Department of the Council Europe, there can be money allocated in this direction. The budget is being planned much more in advance so we cannot say next year there will be money for people to come to the Internet Governance forum. But as an idea, it is something I can follow up with my colleague. So I can follow up with this idea and the program committee can see if there is a possibility for something like this. But yeah. It can go on. Martin wants to add another question.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Yes, Martin.
>> Martin: I want to give a hint to audience questions because if you're looking for a little bit of context and there is the university at IGF project which you maybe have seen here with the blue shirts and such. It is sponsored by ISOC and they have a regional, local youth IGFs all over the world that might be a good starting point if you want to do something local in the local environments. I think that's nothing where Council of Europe can directly support here.
>> Just if I can add. And just I will point out something we already talked about. It's on, I think. Also I strongly believe it is very important to mainstream this topic towards the organizations that are working and networked. So if you have an organization who is active, is it the student union, is it high school union, is it any kind of network that you know it exists mainstream and it is going to make your job much, much easier and it will bring people who actually understand what we're talking about.
>> Okay. Thank you.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Okay. Thank you. I'm wondering if there is any burning comment or question still to be addressed. Meno, yes.
>> Just to add to this international component, I think it's also important to recall the council of Europe has a long experience built up on youth participation. So while this is European context, there's many examples where national, local initiatives or organizations have used resources and translated to the local reality. Many thing are being translated in various languages. So I would invite you to come to the youth departments website and see what is available on participation, for example, gender equality issues, sexism. There's a lot of topics that are important for young people. Many manuals and training manuals that can be used in your setting for the capacity building or recommendations that have been drafted that give clear guidelines on what you could do and should be doing together with local governments or national governments on securing that. And in that sense, I think we would like to get your contact details so we can maybe send that out at some point together with the seminar report, which also has outlines of possible solutions or ways forward. I took part of what you want to say.
>> That's okay. So first just to complete on what Meno said, I think it is important to know what is in the plans of the youth department for the next year. We are working ‑‑ we will start working, we're not yet working. Let's be honest here. We plan to start working on a toolkit on youth participation in Internet governance and I think your contacts especially if you would like to be involved in this work to give feedback or maybe provide examples it is a living manual somehow. It would be really important and we are hoping that this could also be most of our manuals are manuals used in training. So we would like to make it as useful as possible to you. So we will start passing around this contact list. If Ron can help me, that would be brilliant. So I think this is fairly important and we also have foreseen already for next year a very small budget for a very small participation in EuroDIG. I think based on that, we then can see how to build it further. Good. I saw a hand up. So I will pass the floor to you and then I would like to close the session somehow.
>> Hi, everybody. I am Christina. I am from Nicaragua. The fellow are from developed countries. We don't have money. The majority of us we are beginning in this topic. So I have been learning something so important. If you don't have money for beginning a project, I mean, we are here at attending the IGF. We are attending a lot of sessions and confidence. So we can make up feedback. The majority of us are in the universities. We meet people. We meet a lot of people. So if we can make a feedback return (inaudible) country and make a feedback. So we are doing something without money. Just I may be some time we don't have to think oh, great. I don't have money so I cannot do nothing because I don't have money. But we have knowledge. So share the knowledge that we have. You don't have on spend money. So also if you contact the capital or log on chapter, they can help us. So they can help us because the local chapter have people working in our country. So that's the most important that the majority also want to do that are national countries and they feel like they have rides. I think that is the most important. Those things without money or maybe after you can guide it. So you can do something more big, but for the time, if you don't have nothing, remember you have knowledge. So you can chart your knowledge and history. Just that. Thank you.
>> RUXANDRA PANDEA: Thanks for reminding us that money is not everything. Good. Then I would like to invite to you leave your details, your contacted details if you would like to be further informed by the Council of Europe and consulted on various initiatives that we are taking. I am inviting those who are interested in working further on declarations or whatever was formed of engaging to stay in this room and coordinate with MILASH and group number 1. I am thanking our guests for their presence and for their support and I'm thanking all of you and I'm hoping that we will see in other sessions and we will also see ourselves in a very structured participation. Thank you.
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