The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during an IGF virtual call. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Hello, let's wait two more minutes to give other people a chance. There is not that many people on. Let's wait two more minutes.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Chengetai, Anriette here. Are we ready to start? Or do you want to wait longer.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: One more minute. We can start. I mean ‑‑ because six people have joined in the last minute. I think if we give them a little bit longer, maybe more.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: In the meantime, are there any apologies that should be noted?
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: I think Chenai sent an apology, that is the only one I received. Let me check my email again, quickly.
Oh, sorry, Chenai wasn't on that call, it was another call she was apologizing for. So no, there is nothing to be noted at the moment.
Before we start, to remind everybody that the call is being recorded and also being transcribed, and we would like to keep on using the speaking queue. And I think Luis is going to just put in the link to the speaking queue in the chat for everybody. And of course, we will be posting a summary of the meeting, a couple of days after the meeting.
And I think with that ‑‑ oh, we're up to 33 now, yeah, people are coming. With that, I will hand it over to Anriette to start whenever she's ready.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you very much, Chengetai. Anriette here. I'm in Johannesburg. Welcome to everyone and to the call. Apologies if there was confusion about the call last week. Strictly speaking, we were supposed to have a call last week, but the Secretariat wisely decided we should give the Working Group on virtual evaluation more time. On that note, welcome everyone. I will go through the agenda and then take input on the agenda.
Item 1 is the MAG Chair welcome. Then we have update from the IGF Secretariat. That will cover quite a range of different issues. Then we added the COVID‑19 virus and how that will impact on us and how we should be responding to that. And fourthly, we have reports from the MAG Working Groups and if we have any other discussions or proposals or any new Working Groups that people feel we should put in place at this stage, we can bring it up under item 4.
And then an update from BPF and update from Anja on NRI, and then updates to Dynamic Coalitions if there are any, and finally, any other business or matters. Any comments on the agenda? Is the agenda okay?
I don't see any hands on the agenda. So on that note, I'm assuming that the agenda is adopted. And you will all have the opportunity to bring up additional items under item 8. And on that note, nothing else from me, just to say that it's really good to have you all in the meeting. And I'm going to hand over to Chengetai to update us on item 2.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Thank you, to start off with, I will update you on the submissions we have had so far. With our various calls, workshop proposals, booths, events, et cetera. At the moment, we have 10 workshop proposals that have been started, one has been submitted, we have 32 booth requests, and nine pre-events, and also four Open Forums and two remote hubs, plus 107 sent travel requests, and 18 contributions for our music night, and no Dynamic Coalitions requests have been received at the moment. I would ‑‑ I mean, for the workshop proposals, et cetera, this is fine. We do expect that most of them will be submitted during the last week of the call, and the majority, over 50% of them, of course, during the last two days of the call. This is just like Duke University, when you call for a term paper, it is always the last hour that gets the most submissions. But I would like to caution people, especially for things like the booth requests, because we have ‑‑ and the pre-events. We have a limited number of booths, and a limited number of slots for the pre-events. And all other things being taken into consideration, you know, when the Secretariat looks at booth requests, geographic and stakeholder representation, we also take into consideration when the request was submitted. So all things being equal, then we'll look at when the request was submitted so first come, first serve there. So it will be in everybody's interest to put in those requests as quickly as possible, including pre-events, et cetera. We do encourage you all to ‑‑ encourage people for the remote hubs to submit requests for the remote hubs, because the earlier it is done, the better it is for us to try and sync those up with proposals, et cetera, and to get them more integrated in a better way into the schedule for their contributions. And now, the other thing I wanted to talk about is we have been talking about translations and transcriptions.
One way to go about it, of course we can ask the U.N. to do it, and there is a long waiting queue for the U.N. to do it and quite a bit cost factor when they translate documents. So we talked it over with the Secretariat and Anriette, my Chair, and that is that we request that former host countries and also countries that are interested to try and at least translate their key outputs of the 2019 meeting. That means the IGF messages, et cetera. For instance, I know I can put them on the spot. For French, we can ask the Swiss Government to do it. We can see whether or not they'd be willing to do that. For Arabic, they have done it before as well, we can ask other Governments to do that as well. And then we can also just do a check‑in, just to see that, you know, the language is what we expect it to be, you know, because we are dealing with intimate governance issues, it might be a little bit difficult in translation as well. This is my experience, especially with, you know, Spanish and some Spanish words that have ‑‑ in English they may be one word that means multiple things, but in another language these are two distinct concepts, with two distinct words, et cetera.
The next thing I would also like to talk about is ‑‑ I know everybody ‑‑ we have this COVID‑19, and the U.N., for now, we're all working from home, and I think most of you who are in the WIOG region and a good majority of Asian countries are working from home as well. We will continue to do this it.
The first thing that actually comes up for us is the June meeting. That is our first face‑to‑face with the June meeting. I mean, you may have heard that WSIS changed its dates and CSTD has changed dates. And I heard CSTD is looking for June dates as well. We don't know whether or not these extraordinary measures that the Governments are taking would be finished by June, but if not, we may need to convert to online. But hopefully they will be people are talking in the range of ‑‑ from what I'm hearing the range of three months or ‑‑ I know the current measures are until ‑‑ for us, at least, until April 14. And then we can reassess the situation for May. That does not stop us making preparations for that.
So I will send out a call for people who want travel support for June, and please, people please respond to that, at least we have everything ready. As far as the November meeting is concerned, I mean, that's way down the line, and people who are rescheduling the meetings that were supposed to take place in April, doing it for August and September.
So November is way down the line. And I'm not an expert, so please don't quote me, but when people are talking about this with the other coronaviruses, they died out within three or four months, but ‑‑ so, as far as we're concerned, everything is going on as scheduled.
And I don't know if Shimak is online. Maybe he can give a host country perspective to this. I ‑‑
>> SHIMAK: I'm the only one on the line, so I'm here, listening carefully to what you are saying. Yes, I can only confirm what Chengetai is saying, that we are keeping to the schedule and making the preparations as normal, so we are sticking to the dates and we are ‑‑ we are going forward. And so for the moment, nothing is envisaged to be changed or postponed or anything like that. We are keeping as normal.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Also, for instance, booking of hotels. I booked my hotel. I know it is there. You can book your hotel you can be careful. When I booked my hotel, I could cancel, I think it is in September, I think. End of September, I mean, you can do that.
But, again, as I say, this is so far away, November. As far as the planning goes, I am seeing other events, they're postponing their events until, you know, end of summer and the autumn. So looking at the current situation, I think everybody should just carry on planning for the IGF 2020 meeting as usual.
I think ‑‑ I don't know if I have forgotten anything else that the Secretariat should comment on. I will ask Anja, Luis, or even Anriette, if you think we should comment on something else?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Luis, Anja, anything from your side?
>> LUIS BOBO: No, Anriette, I don't have anything at the moment.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Good. And Anja, you will brief us later on the NRIs.
ANJA: Yes, I will.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: So Chengetai, I want you to build a bit on your update on translation. I want to contextualize this. This was a recommendation, and Mary is on the call, she can confirm that. The language group decided that at the very least, the IGF outputs should be translated into U.N. languages. Chengetai has proposed how we want to do this. I want to reiterate that. We looked at the various options.
If we did this through the U.N., we would have to use the IGF trust fund budget, which as you all very well know is limited. We try to be conservative in how we make use of it. And that is why we are asking for volunteer translators. So the Secretariat will follow‑up because time is of the essence, if we wait too long, and I think we already are probably a little bit late, it becomes the interest in the 2019 outputs will be less. We'll be following up with people. If any of you would like to volunteer or have your institutions volunteer to do the translation of the 2019 IGF messages and contact the Secretariat as soon as you can. What we will do is proofing and editing, to make sure that there is consistency in terminology and translation of terminology, we will make sure all of the volunteer translators are proofed and edited by U.N. staff, Secretariat staff and UNDESA staff. We will do as much quality control as we can without having to draw on the trust fund. I want to reiterate that.
There is nothing else from me. Do we have questions? Any questions from the Secretariat or the items that we just discussed? I see the speaking queue is empty. Keep in mind that we do have our next agenda item will allow us to talk about the COVID‑19 virus in a little more detail. So if you have questions about that, let's just park that for the next agenda item.
>> Hello, can you hear me?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I can.
>> Okay. Sorry. I'm using my device and I'm on the road. I just want to say thank you for the updates so far. And in terms of the translation, I wanted to ask whether there are no resources in the U.N. to help us do the translation, as we said, even if we don't have ‑‑ we don't have volunteers? Is there anything that the U.N. or UNDESA can do for us to have the resources from the U.N. to do translation? Just a question, sorry.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you for that, Mary. And Chengetai can follow. And yes, we can use U.N. resources. There are two reasons to think twice about that. First, we would have to pay them from the U.N. trust fund, the IGF trust fund, it would be an internal outsourcing, but we still have to pay U.N. interpreters or translators for that. And secondly, it could take very long. So that's why we are pursuing this option of asking past host countries, members of the MAG and others who have institutional resources inside the IGF to volunteer to do the translation for us.
What we can do to help the volunteers is do a word count. I know most people cost translators by word and can distribute that information. We can send that out to the MAG. At this point, it looks as if the most cost‑effective and fastest option is for us to use the volunteer translators and then once we have the translations, what we can do is ‑‑ on a voluntary basis is ask UNDESA staff and Secretariat to do a proofing. Just to do a check that there is consistency. So that's the reason for this. We did look at that option, Mary, of using U.N. resources. But it doesn't seem feasible at this point in time.
I think this is definitely an issue for fund‑raising, though. I think that we need to anticipate that we are going to need more resources in the trust fund to translate outcomes, and that's definitely something we need to plan for, for the future. Chengetai, is that a fair representation of the homework that we did?
>> MARY: Okay. Thank you.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Chengetai, you have nothing to add to that? I think we have lost him for a while. So I see the speaking queue is ‑‑
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Hello? Can you hear me now?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, now we can.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: I had to change my microphone for some reason. Yes, I said ‑‑ you said everything perfectly Anriette, thank you. I have nothing further to add.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Chengetai. I don't see any hands and the speaking queue is empty. Shall we move on to item number 4? Which is the COVID‑19 virus and the IGF.
And I think while Chengetai has given us background on that, I think it is worth thinking about a bit more. We saw that it was written to our list, asking do we have a backup plan if we have a situation where we can't go ahead with a face‑to‑face event can the IGF do what ICANN has done which is have a large event virtually. That is one question that is on the table. That I'm opening the floor to. And I think the other question that is on the table is that this is really, this virus the way in which information is disseminated the way in which false or unhelpful information is being disseminated but also the enormous value of the Internet. This virus and how the world is responding to it, it is putting the Internet front and center as a tool for keeping work processes and business processes going when in fact, there is more or less a lot of shutdown at other levels. I think this is something to think about when we are looking at planning the content of the program. It is an opportunity for us to look at how Internet Governance can relate or respond to a situation like that. I will open the floor if there are questions about this or any suggestions. Then let's raise them. We might want to do some follow‑up. But it is certainly something that has come up. So anyone with any comments or questions on the IGF and the virus situation?
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: Can I say something quickly?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Go ahead.
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: I think what is most at question now is the June meeting. We will go ahead with the June meeting regardless, whether it ‑‑ during that time. Whether it be online or face‑to‑face. And I think we can do it online, there is no problem with that. We have got a wide range of experience of doing online meetings. And we have got a very good relationship with ICANN in any case, and if we need any of their advice, we can always talk to them and communicate. So for the June meeting, still block out the dates. It is either going to be face‑to‑face or an online. But it is going to happen on those dates, because if it doesn't, it will have an effect on everything else.
I want to underline what Anriette is saying, this is also an opportunity to discuss all the issues around what you are seeing now, which is, you know, telecommuting, remote education, trust on the Internet, fake news, all of that. We can actually make the IGF program strengthen it, make it stronger, making it more time appropriate so to speak, yeah.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Chengetai. I see Veni has his hand up, he's not using the speaking queue, but he has his hand up in zoom. Veni, you have the floor.
>> VENI: Thanks, I hope you can hear me. About the June meeting, if it goes, if we have to move it to virtual, one thing to consider based on experience of the last couple of weeks. We should make it not so long as the old meetings, in order to accommodate all different time zones. I leave that to the Secretariat to figure out which time zone we are using, whether there are multiple or not. We definitely cannot have the eight, nine‑hour meeting, because that will put some people in a very difficult position. That's just, you know, again, based on experience in the past couple of weeks. Thank you.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, I would agree with that. We might need more days, but a shorter chunk of meeting time, per day. So that I think is definitely something we can factor in. I think ‑‑ I mean, Veni and Chengetai and everyone, what I am hearing is that we feel it is premature to look for ‑‑ to consider the global forum not taking place as planned, but I would suggest Secretariat, that you begin to explore, in a worst case scenario what would be needed to run the global forum virtually. I know we're not there yet. But I think there is no harm in talking to the ICANN staff about their experience. About what worked and what did not work. So that should we start having to make a plan, which I assume we'll only be able to decide in a few months, at least we know where to begin. So even though there is no need right at the moment.
Any other comments or questions on the virus? I hope everyone is healthy and well and taking care of themselves and those close to them.
Okay. I see nothing. And in that case, let's move on to item 4 which is the MAG Working Groups update. So we haven't created a sequence here. But can I ask anyone of the Working Group representatives to give us a report? Can we start with the workshop evaluation Working Group? I know they have been working very hard. Is anyone ready to give us an update?
>> SYLVIA: Hi, Anriette, I was going to put my name in the speaking queue, you were fast. I don't type that fast. I'm sorry. I will be very brief, we have [audio skipping] about the conflict of interest for the assessment screens that the MAG will see when they are going through the applications process. We sent a message to the MAG asking to extend the current terms of reference. The Working Group, and I hope that this call can do that during this call and to make sure that we work under that Graham work. [Audio skipping].
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Sylvia, you are breaking ‑‑ Sylvia, you are breaking up. So we can hear you now, but can you just go back a few sentences, please? We lost you for a little while.
>> SYLVIA: Just give me a second. I'm trying to change my connection to my phone. So that the network is little bit more stable. Can you give me a second?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: That's fine, everyone. We're just giving Sylvia a little bit of time. If anyone else has a question in the meantime? Are you ready, Sylvia?
>> SYLVIA: You hear me better now?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, go ahead.
>> SYLVIA: Sorry Anriette. I was saying the Working Group sent a message to the MAG asking for extension of the current terms of reference, because we didn't have time to renew them. And it will be great if the MAG can accept those terms, so we know what framework we are using for the work of the Working Group. We have a call straight after this MAG meeting, and on that one, we will be discussing any input that the MAG would like to have around the conflict of interest disclaimer that will be added into the evaluation page that MAG members would use to assess the different proposals. Luis, very kindly, has helped us to put together a spreadsheet to test different weights to be added to the system. And all of those conversations are actually happening after this MAG call. So we don't have much else to report besides all the information on that email that I sent to the MAG a couple of weeks ago, a week and a half ago. So if there is anything that the MAG would like to bring to the Working Group, that would be great.
The next step for us is also to discuss how to split the proposals in the randomness, let's say, of how far we take the random assignment and review that. But the first point will be to have the MAG helping us with extending the terms of reference, and that will help us keep up with the work, and on that call, we are also going to discuss the names for the people that have volunteered to facilitate the Working Group. So that the three people that were doing it last year can step down or continue or whatever the group decide. So we will do that, Susan and myself. I'm happy to step back and help the Working Group and help with the transition for new MAG members, because this is my last year on the MAG and it will be good to have some continuity.
So I will leave it at that. And see if the MAG can agree on the terms of reference and any input on the conflict of interest, would be great to have. Thanks.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Sylvia. Does anyone have any comments or responses, questions for the Working Group at this point? I see the speaking queue is empty. I don't see any hands. Sylvia, do you want to give the MAG deadlines for when you want their input on the areas where you need input?
>> SYLVIA: The deadline for the conflict of interest was the 10th, was a week ago, but we didn't receive much input besides Ben's comments. So that was the deadline I put on that email. To give us a week, but we didn't receive additional input besides some comments from Ben and couple of discussions from people. And ‑‑
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Should we give people until this coming Friday? And if you can just send a reminder.
>> SYLVIA: Yeah, I will send a reminder.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: And on the co‑coordination, I know Afi has volunteered, are you looking for more volunteers?
>> SYLVIA: I think the Working Group has to decide. I know quite a few people put their hands up. I have no idea how that decision will be made.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: You will make that ‑‑
>> SYLVIA: Yes, exactly. First, we really need the MAG to tell us on the list, this is not the right time or okay to continue with the terms of reference we have. Because the scope of the Working Group ‑‑ the scope of the work is really big. We could keep adding things, it is important to refer at least to the terms of reference so other Working Groups so we don't take over work that others are doing, like the Working Group on reporting. That is like the next step after the selection is done. Right? It is important to know the framework for each Working Group is. It would be great if the MAG can confirm the terms of reference. Yeah.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Okay. So those are two ‑‑ two items, two issues that the Working Group on workshop evaluation need all our input on by this coming Friday. And the first is the conflict of interest. And the second is the terms of reference for the Working Group itself. So if we can all read those and comment and send our comments by Friday.
>> SYLVIA: Yeah.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Sylvia, just ‑‑ I discussed with the Secretariat the random allocation to MAG members of workshop thematic tracks to evaluate. So they're putting that process into motion. I just wanted to check with everyone on the MAG. My sense is that you were happen with the way in which MAG members were randomly assigned to themes to do the workshop evaluation last year and that we should continue with that? Is there general agreement that that was a good way of doing it? Or are there proposals for doing it differently this year?
>> SYLVIA: Can I respond to that from the Working Group assessments? Or do you expect other people ‑‑
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: You can respond, Sylvia, and I see both Susan and Uta want to speak. You can go first.
>> SYLVIA: Let them talk first, don't worry. I don't have much to say, I'm in agreement that it is good thing.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: So Susan and then Uta. Starting with Susan.
>> Susan: Thank you, Chair, can you hear me?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, we can.
>> Susan: Hello, everybody. I hope everybody is well. I'm in full agreement with Sylvia. It was definitely an improvement last year in the process to randomly assign the theme to folks. We had some very robust discussions on the reasoning for that. I think it is important to remember that the year prior, people could self‑select or self‑identify their area of choice for evaluation for themes. So if some people felt like they would want to evaluate let's say cybersecurity, they could request that. I think that was problematic for a number of reasons. The first is that it really kind of opens the door for people to be able to ‑‑ how do I say? Evaluate the proposals where they may or ‑‑ they may have some more self‑interest and ‑‑ in the subject matter area. It was argued that folks who have expertise in one area might be able to express that or apply that better to the workshop proposals in their evaluation set, but some people argued and including myself, that, you know, MAG members, we are not selected for our subject‑matter expertise. So unless folks are specifically selected for that purpose, I don't think that we should be fashioning our evaluation process on that basis. And lastly, the system wasn't perfect, despite all the best efforts of the Secretariat. If everybody selects cybersecurity, not everybody is going to get cybersecurity. And or any other given theme. So I think for a number of reasons, it is ‑‑ it was quite a positive development last year that people were randomly assigned. And I would just encourage sticking with that very same process, unless there are cogent and compelling arguments otherwise. Thank you very much.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Susan. Uta, do you want to add anything? I see you have taken yourself out of the queue? Do you want to add? If not, Ben, you can go, but let's give Uta a chance first.
>> UTA: This is Uta speaking here. I didn't take myself out of the queue, that was the Secretariat maybe. The only thing I wanted to add is an also think we had the experience from two years ago when a workshop proposals were assigned due to the area of expertise to the MAG members or the area they volunteered for to have the expertise. And I do think the experience of the random assignment was much better last year. And that is especially also due to the fact that if I volunteer for a certain area of expertise, the probability of having a conflict of interest is proposals that then go to me for being assessed is much higher than if the workshop proposals are assigned randomly. So because usually I know all the people in my special area of expertise. I know many organizations in my area of expertise, and that might mean I have more of a conflict of interest in assessing their proposals that if I get them assigned randomly. And the other way around, if I get a workshop proposal that I really feel uncomfortable because I think I don't know anything about that special issue in regard of Internet governance, that could be the case, of course, then it's always ‑‑ it should always be possible to go back to the Secretariat and just say I don't feel up to assessing this specific proposal, so I suggest that we do the random assignment, but have a bit of flexibility if someone really feels not to be up to an assessment of a certain proposal. Thank you.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Uta. I see there are also some comments in the chat. But people should feel free to speak as well. Ben, you are next.
>> Ben: Thank you very much and good morning, good afternoon, good evening. I also agree that last year worked very well, for the various reasons Susan outlined, it is much better to have people randomly assigned to one of the four things, rather than self‑selecting. I just wanted to highlight one difference from last year, last year, it was only after the MAG members had done their initial individual assessments of all of the workshops that were assigned. It was only after that point that the MAG members were asked to volunteer to lead each of the four tracks. This year, we already had people put their hands up and a certain number of MAG members have agreed to be co-facilitators to each of the four tracks.
So we might want to say those co-facilitators stick with their tracks when they are given workshops to evaluate, or maybe we say that those people will co‑facilitating for this original phase of drawing up the narratives, but then we kind of start again from scratch. Everyone is assigned randomly to different themes and once people have marked their workshops, we go through a process again of asking for individuals who are assigned to each group to volunteer to co‑facilitate. So that was just a change I saw from last year. I think the people who are going to be leading the thematic tracks throughout the rest of the year and, you know, introducing the introductory and concluding sessions and all of that, they should be people who were assessing workshops under that theme and doing the workshop evaluation for that theme. So I just wanted to highlight that change. Think about how we might manage that. Thanks.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Ben, thank you for raising that. I wanted to respond to it. But I just want to flag that, based on comments on the chat and comments made that people spoke, we'll go ahead with random assigning of MAG members to themes for the purpose of workshop evaluation.
On the chat there is a proposal. Asan makes a proposal that if any individual feels strongly or unhappy with the particular random assignment, you can write to us and you can address us. I see a comment from Milani as well. The rule is random assigning. If any individual feels strongly about that, you know, then just contact the Secretariat and myself.
Now to respond to Ben's question. Ben, I anticipated that and asked Chengetai and Anja's advice on that. We want to confirm with the MAG on the best way to move forward. The way we thought about it is it is two different types of tasks. It doesn't have to be the same people that designs the program that do the workshop evaluation. So my assumption was actually those that started working on the track narratives would continue to be the Working Groups that then see that process through as far as the program design is concerned. But it doesn't have to be that way. We can do that differently. I would suggest that we don't finalize that decision right now. You know, we might want to come back to that. If people were to think about solutions to that, there are two options. The one is that we continue with the narrative tracks, the Working Groups, those that worked on designing the text so far. And that they are the groups that stay with those tracks. Or we can have the workshop evaluation groups take over that role or maybe have some flexibility. It is definitely something we need to think about even if we don't have to decide right now.
The one thing I do think that is important, and that is why I asked the Secretariat to start with this, is to do the assigning of MAG members to tracks so that it is ready before the deadline of the workshop proposals, so we don't lose anytime. That gives people an opportunity, if they want to start having some general discussion or maybe share some readings with one another, they're welcome to. I think our goal is to have the assigning of MAG members to track done before the deadline of the workshop proposals. Then the Secretariat can assign you with workshops randomly.
So we ‑‑ I see Sylvia, and then Nebojsa in the queue. Then we need to move to other Working Group.
>> SYLVIA: Sorry, Anriette, I don't think the swapping is a good idea. I think they can use the conflict of interest system on the evaluation it would let them notify the Secretariat that they for whatever reason can assess a particular reason, whether they know the people on the proposal or they feel totally out of the water in the thematic issues that they are dealing with. But not the whole theme. I don't think that's a very good idea. It will ‑‑ it will ‑‑ the reasons that someone might give the Secretariat and you should be if you are going that way, then those reasons should be listed somewhere, so there is not a blanket for why you choose to change. That should be ‑‑ you know, a little bit more narrow why you can change and defined.
And then on the issue about the co-facilitators for the tracks. Well, I don't agree with Ben. I normally agree with Ben. But I don't on this particular issue. Because I think that when you co‑facilitate a track, you are really not dealing with what workshops are included in that track or not. That is a list that is sort of given to you by the scores and by the decisions of that particular group that you are assigned to, and you just kind of move it to design, introductory and concluding sessions and figure out what the key messages are, all of that work that is required after. So I don't really think ‑‑ for example, I could ‑‑ although I'm not an expert at all, I think that I'll be learning a lot if I'm assigned to the environment track, for example, and I volunteered to help Ben on the trust one. So in that one, I have more experience. On the technical side, at least. But I think I could assess my workshops on the one track and then focus on the rest of the discussion on the tasks that are allocated to me related. Anyway. Thanks.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks, Sylvia. So you see it as two different types of activities. Nebojsa, you are next.
>> NEBOJSA: I hope you can hear me. Talking about random assigning. We had the situation we were not randomly assigned to one specific theme, but we got all of the different workshop proposals from the range of themes.
And just dealing from my belief last year. I had [?] online, and reinforcement online, and artificial intelligence, and then I have cybersecurity. So I think that would be the best way to proceed, to have randomly assigned virtual proposals from all the teams, and as I put it in chat, just [audio skipping] those particular version of proposals that we are not comfortable creating for the reason of conflict of interest or feeling that we are not comfortable for expertise enough on the particular theme we got.
On a case by case basis, rather than be assigned to a whole theme. I think on that way, we avoid the whole confusion on what type of workshops evaluations we will have.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Nebojsa. Workshop group, do you want to respond to that.
>> SYLVIA: I think the idea is that it is all random, what the Secretariat decide in terms of how applications are given to us. We were given a theme and if you were asked to be excused, you were given another theme. It is not like they were 80 or something and the same track. That is something maybe for the Secretariat to clarify how they did the random bit, but I mean, I'm okay with random ‑‑ totally random or random by theme. [Background chatter]
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I suggest ‑‑
Uta?
>> UTA: I was trying to skip in, jump in. I think we should refer that request to the call of the workshop evaluation group that will take place directly after this MAG call. I think it is an option to do it completely randomly, not just the four themes, but do it completely randomly across all of the themes. I think it would be best to discuss that in the group and get back with a suggestion to the list of the MAG, maybe. Thank you.
[Silence]
>> (?)
>> Hello.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Sorry. I saw that my mic went off. I'm sorry. I will start again. Thanks, Uta and Nebojsa. I agree with the proposal to let the Working Group assign. And the proposal is workshops assigned randomly across themes or are they assigned by a theme. I think the advantage of evaluation by theme is it gives those people or group of people a sense of what is being covered under that theme, whether there is a lot of duplication, whether there are gaps in how the theme is covered. I think that's the advantage of evaluation by theme. We will close on that.
Before we move on, I want to make sure new MAG members have followed this discussion as well. I'm new as well, so I'm also catching up. Are there any questions about the workshop evaluation process from new MAG members that they would like to ask? I don't see hands and don't see the speaking queue.
On that note, I know we are running out of time. Other Working Group, I know we have had reports, but there weren't proposals or plans from other groups. I think the language Working Group has been working. Mary, June, do you have anything new to report?
>> This is June ‑‑
>> Can you hear me? This is Mary?
>> They can hear you, Mary, go ahead.
>> MARY: Good afternoon, good evening, good morning, everyone. I want to thank the members of the group, the language task force who have been working on language. We have done one call, and we'll continue to do and we'll be finding recommendations ‑‑ I mean, we're receiving recommendations. One thing is set, one of the first agreements is that we do translation, which the Chair had already told us about. We're hoping they will be able to translate the outputs for 2019 meetings into various languages. We have working document developed at UR, some of the issues we have said, the issues were the work methodology and the rest of them. So if you need ‑‑ if you want to look at that, you can look at that.
From us, I think we're looking at physically proofing. It is not something happen yet. We know after this year, there will be other issues coming up. And for us, if it were possible for ‑‑ to do a pilot of word suggestion or putting workshops in it the [audio skipping] language, and English, there are suggestions that are coming up. I know as we continue to work together, we would be able to get that. Again, we have not gotten the report from Secretariat Chengetai is supposed to give us the status, what has happened, what made us not pursue the translation issues, he said it was during our meeting. So we also said that we would look at that ‑‑ I'm sorry.
Okay. So will continue working ‑‑ I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is okay.
So we tried to look at what a couple in the past, and see where we can improve on it. But I think there were four ‑‑ if I have forgotten, there were four issues, look at what happened before, translation, looking at the new ‑‑ phasing the [audio skipping] process of getting the language inclusion worked on. I think Anriette, I missed one of the things you said to us. Maybe you will tell us, but those are the things. I don't know what if the other person can jump in. We're still working, and we're working on the recommend.
We have not come with the recommendation, so we're still working, trying to see what is on the ground. What we can [audio skipping] what we can achieve. The IGF year or next year or the year to come.
Again, the issues of resources. I think that's one of the constraints we have. When Chengetai ‑‑ I mean, when Anriette talked about volunteers for translation, I think she mentioned that as well. That is some of the things we'll put into consideration. We're still working. And anybody can jump in and add to what I have omitted.
Please, thank you.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks for that Mary. I think as Mary said, this Working Group is still in process. I think what I would recommend is that you ‑‑ perhaps at your next call, that you prioritize what the requests are to the Secretariat and the Secretariat needs to respond to that formally to say what is possible and not possible. I think the discussion is useful.
What is important for us as a MAG is to be fair and not to prioritize ‑‑ not to be seen to prioritize some languages over other languages. I think we have to remember we're representing a global community with a lot of linguistic diversity. And with languages that are minority languages, and that are even more marginalized than some of the other major non‑English languages.
I think the work is going well. I want to thank you for your work. And that would be my only recommendation. That you do pin down your requests, so that the Secretariat has sufficient time to do the research necessary to know what they can respond to and what not.
So I want to move on. Mary, sorry, did you want to respond?
>> MARY: I wanted to say thank you, we have taken that into consideration and we are also sensitive to the fact that we're ‑‑ this is a global effort and a global space and we just ‑‑ there is no language that we should prioritize against the other, but at least the translation of output that the U.N., there is a standard by the U.N., I think we should all look at that. Okay? So that ‑‑ I'm agreeing with you. While I haven't said that, I'm saying as we continue to work, we will come up with specific recommendation as some ideas as said if we can do a pilot in 2020, then we continue with 2021 and 2022 and see what we can do.
I agree with you, there is no language that should be prioritized against the other. Because if you come to think about it, you think about ‑‑ six U.N. languages, even within the six U.N. languages there are so many [audio skipping] where do we start and where do we stop? Those are our consideration. We will come up with a recommendation ‑‑ I mean, I specific request to the Secretariat, thank you very much, Anriette.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Mary. I'm really very bad at timekeeping. We were supposed to finish now, but we are not finished. So let's just move on quickly.
Am I ‑‑ Secretariat, we don't have any other Working Group reports, correct? Is there any other Working Group input or report?
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: No, we don't.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Okay. I see Gunela in the queue. Before there is Karim. I will give the floor to Karim and Gunela and then we will move to the BPF and NRI updates. Karim.
>> KARIM: Thank you, Madam Chair, as far as workshop evaluation, as newcomers we can't imagine how it would be difficult to make that recommendation. So I would like to ask if it would be possible to share, even by PDF how the process, how the evaluation work is organized, to allow us to have an idea of how it will be. Yes, Chengetai already, last virtual meeting said we will have certain training.
If we can have some way to organize, it will help us to follow the current discussion. Thank you.
>> SYLVIA: Anriette, can I respond to that? Sylvia here.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, go ahead.
>> SYLVIA: Who was the person that spoke? I'm sorry, Karim?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Karim, a new MAG member.
>> SYLVIA: Yes, Luis shared the MAG list and I sent the link to others to allow you to see what the evaluation system will look like. It will be very difficult for us, because all of the changes are happening live to prepare a PDF with instructions for you or for any one of the new MAG members. But if you look at that link, with the more, you can see what is expected of you and how the scoring will actually happen. I'm looking at the email where this more cup was sent, and I will put it in chat. Hopefully with that you can play around. Luis put two proposals there. Luis put two proposals there so you can see that with the two proposals. Just don't select the conflict of interest, because they will disappear from your menu. So you can see what the scoring will actually look like. The link is already on the chat for you to see and I will include it again on the link.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Sylvia. Gunela and I see Adama has her hand up as well.
>> GUNELA ASTBRINK: Hopefully you can hear me. I wanted to respond about the language Working Group and apologies to Mary, I haven't provided input directly to the Working Group, but just wanting to mention, in regard to languages, sign language for persons who are deaf. In New Zealand, for example, there are three official languages, English, Maori, and sign language. This may not have been covered before, I'm not sure. But I just wanted to raise it that it is something that may need to be considered, depending on participants at the IGF, if there are any deaf participants, that they have a possibility maybe of requesting a deaf ‑‑ sign language interpreter. In the Asia‑Pacific regional IGF for the first time, it was supposed to be held in late May. There were two be sign language interpreters, so this is starting to happen. I wanted to flag it as something to consider in the near future. Thank you.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Gunela. And Adama ‑‑ I will respond to that quickly. What we do have in the IGF are the transcripts, which the transcript for hearing‑impaired people makes it possible to follow the discussion. But if they wanted to speak, they would need to use the remote participation system. If they didn't want to speak. But that is definitely something we can look at. And I think Secretariat, even if we are not in a position or maybe it is not necessary to have sign language interpreters, how we make the IGF accessible to the visually and hearing impaired is extremely important. And we do need to communicate to people how we do that.
I see Adama, and then Chenai. And TITI you are in the queue. Adama, Chenai and Titi in that order.
>> ADAMA: Hello, this is Adama, from the Civil Society organization. I'm sorry, I came in a bit late. Thankfully I'm here. I wanted to do an update on the Working Group on outreach and engagement, I believe we have not really done one. And the work has been on hold for a while. So we have been working on it recently. And I recently take up the position as the Chair to work on something to present today. So we have been working on it. With a small group in the Working Group to provide something. But because this has been very recent, just last week, we really couldn't prepare everything and send in the MAG list, because we are waiting on everything approval up to today's meeting. After this meeting, a charter will be sent out to the group. To let everyone know the Secretariat and the MAG, that we are continuing the work in the Working Group.
So last week ‑‑ Thursday, we did have a Working Group. We did have a meeting with few people participating on the Working Group. So it has some time, still, but we were able to come up with something for a recharter. This has been attended by myself, who is the new Chair, by June, the co‑chair, Rose, co‑chair, Darcy and Leanna. Also, we had input from Mama Dello, as well.
So on this note, we were able to work on how to strategize an app to increase the outreach and visibility of the IGF and work of the Secretariat as a whole. So we have drawn out some points to how to really do this. We have come up with content cancellation. This is one of the points we tried to improve diversity in languages. If necessary to work with the Working Group on language, chaired by Mary, in order to really ‑‑ when sharing content to the global public, to try to get more diversity in the language, by translating some of the snippets of the content being sent out.
And also adding images to the snippets being sent out there.
So I will ‑‑ our way of doing this, we really propose and what we're trying to do is get more MAG members participating in the Working Group, because this has been a bit ‑‑ it has been on a standstill. We don't have MAG members participating or know about what is going on. So we are encouraging more members to participate and volunteer as people that will help in translating this contents that are sent out there to the public on social media and social media and other platforms that are used to send out content, announcement, or information or anything in regards to the public.
We also did point out way of improvement for the Secretariat to try to reach out by sending weekly updates to [?] and other platforms about any related IG, any related governance issue to the public.
And also, to really involve our MAG members to sign up and willing to share to what is sent out to the public in the wider network range.
So to improve also digital outlets and marketing on social media outlets to increase visibility of the IGF and activities of other organizations. We did recommend also negotiating a space on media platforms to share IGF content with other organizations. Maybe we say ICANN and other organizations we deem related to our work.
And also to encourage creating or providing video snippets of activities or events of last IGF held by the last host country to feature a recap of the IGF and also to feature feedback and success stories of achievement over the last event from the host countries.
And also, to encourage the succeeding host countries to make video snippets as well in calling for more involvement and participation.
In this case, let's say we can try to get Poland to get our video out there. Featuring or highlighting on the focus area of this year's IGF, the location and general information of the whole event.
We also recommended under decrement for a weekly report of newsletters, Articles featuring [?] images. Typically when content is shared on social media, people usually are interested in a huge meeting, but it attracts attention and would really have people click and see what is going on, what is in the content. What is the IGF talking about. And then to have it amongst a summarized way. And more people are interested in see and would have that to click on the link.
Also to ‑‑ we also came up with ‑‑ by creating ‑‑ come up with a point in creating organizing IGF sessions on all NRI physical meetings. That is when there is an NRI physical meeting, there should be a time or an allocated space for IGF comment session. So newcomers would not just get into awards and understand the motives are all about. With the beginner session they can be introduced into the whole thing. And interest in participants and also engagement.
We also recommended also coming up with fliers ‑‑ I think I mentioned, newsletters and also to increase our presence in other organizations, meetings or events by having good presence and increase presence for visibility.
We also came up with the idea of outlining the roadmap and contents on the report. To be very concise and precise. This is going to be a way of supporting the Secretariat on the content that have been shared.
And also, like I previously mentioned, working with the language Working Group in involving more MAG members to really volunteer. MAG members speaking different languages to volunteer with presenting the Secretariat with the translations of the announcements or any call, for example ‑‑ call to proposals or call for inputs out there to reach many people in a diverse manner.
Also to kind of increase the reminder, the remind of the incent out there. Lastly, but not the least, previously, where the Working Group has really took a standstill is where, somebody last year ‑‑ activities were sent. And we had feedback or suggestion proposal for a merger with the reporting Working Group. I believe there is a ‑‑ the Working Group ‑‑ we have not really communicated because the whole work group is ‑‑ it was static last week, to ask the other Working Group as reporting and try to match the two Working Groups together. That is the proposal from the Secretariat. So our proposal is to really clarify on this and what our expectation or the outcome of merging the two together. And also to ‑‑ after the formal merging and set out for a work plan in order to consolidate on what we want to achieve this year and how are we going to do a time line and all that needed action or activities or under involvement of all the support to really come up with an improved Working Group and outreach and engagement.
So basically, that is what we were able to come up with. Now, we will send a MAG list and Secretariat for approval and we would really, really appreciate more MAG members volunteering in joining the Working Group in tort have a practical implementation of the work that is needed in this Working Group.
That is a brief summary we have on it. And then we will leave it to the MAG after it is sent to really see how we can consolidate in the merging and the work. So thank you. I will give the mic to the Chair again.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much Adama for that report. And we have a proposal of the reporting Working Group and outreach and engagement merging. Please send the report to the MAG list and people can respond and discuss that further. And I see on the chat there is also a suggestion that ‑‑ two suggestions, one is that we have a Working Group on accessibility. And there was also a suggestion that the Working Group on outreach and engagement takes on accessibility issues. So I suggest that we discuss that further in the list.
I'm going to go back to the speaking queue. If there is anyone that has questions for Adama, add yourself to the speaking group. Next is Titi followed by Chenai and Carlos.
>> TITI: Thank you for giving me the floor, can you hear me?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: We can.
>> TITI: I want to share a few words about Working Group, maybe you and my colleagues can consider the request, however. Working Group focus more I IGF strategy. I know in 2013, there was a Working Group, and maybe we can reactivate it. It is important that the IGF, I mean, the MAG IGF adjust to the strategy of the project, it want to put in place in order to reply to the request that are coming every year, the 12 most tangible outputs and Government and business. It is important. The Working Group which defines the plans that IGF is going to put in place to reply to all of those requests. I think it is important this morning, because of the eye‑level digital corporation, so on. I think also this Working Group should take care also about the opportunity for the IGF and maybe to issue a recommendation. Because I know we have discussed this a lot of time, during this meetings, but maybe we can also reconsider this option, because it is already considered. We can consider the opportunity to issue a recommendation after an IGF event, I think it would make a difference worthwhile. These are my thoughts. Thanks for listening to me. Thank you.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Titi. Maybe one can also consider that this Working Group that you are proposing merging with another dormant Working Group, which is the Working Group on IGF improvements. Or do you see a Working Group on strategy and Working Group on improvements being very different? Or do you think it would make sense to merge them? Titi, if you can respond to that?
>> TITI: Okay. It could make sense, but I was part of the Working Group on improvement. It was very difficult to follow that Working Group. I mean, as it was my experience, it was just trying to all recommendations and see if the recommendations were put in place. Sometimes it is difficult to follow because you didn't have experience about one of them. Because some information, we have not shared among the MAG members. So I think that Working Group was requiring a lot of work and very difficult to follow. I think it is more operational Working Group which puts the objectives, which defines the roadmap, a plan, and maybe they could be merged, but they could be kept to different kind of activities. One somewhere operation and the other one which just verify it some objective which has been defined the past year have been implemented or not. Maybe they can be merged, but I suggest to provide attention to the two drafts.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes.
>> TITI: And to verify if some objective have been done or not.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Okay. Now, that makes sense, thanks, Titi. Secretariat, I think what we will need after this meeting is just a document or message that captures these proposals on Working Groups. So we have something to use as a basis moving forward. Next we have Chenai.
>> CHENAI CHAIR: June and I chaired last year with the support of Julian and Fabio from the previous years. I sent an email from the group, I think it is still awaiting approval from the moderators. I had volunteered to co‑chair it last year, I cannot volunteer this year, due to my own commitments. I'm not sure if June will be able to carry on as well. She can also pipe in on this one. I think our biggest challenge last year was trying to get volunteers, when we had set up a couple of people on the Skype group, we only had very few people being engaged in the Working Group. That did cause a challenge and ensued in us going [audio skipping] didn't have the right amount of capacity to continue the work that had been started the previous years before. I think it is a very important group, but it does require those who have the interest, the time and the capacity to either develop a new approach to address the issues or consider the work that was done before. That is my intervention. Thank you.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Chenai. Carlos. Welcome to those that have joined recently. I see Lucy and Carlos. Carlos, you have the floor.
>> CARLOS: Thank you. I'm sorry for the mistake in time zones. I was listening to the description of the report, it has the language. They wonder what ‑‑ this work and the December intercessionals, like [?] I think there is something to the local [?] I'm not sure what is communication would lack or if the task force is [?] I suppose it would continue and would like to join the task force. Thank you.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you very much, Carlos. I don't see any other hands at this point on this issue. So I think what we need to do now is just to capture the current proposals for new, existing or merged Working Groups and put that all in one document, have some discussion about that and aim to ‑‑ after no more than about two weeks, consolidate what our Working Groups will be for this year so people can sign up and finalize their work plans. And we can take it forward.
The next item on the agenda is the Best Practice Forums update. I want to highlight for the workshop evaluation and Working Group that there was some comments in the chat. Nebojsa made the comment that not all the themes receive the same number of workshop proposals. So please, when you have your meeting to discuss next steps, take that into account. I know you have been following the chat. I know Sylvia has been. Just make sure you are addressing all the items that the MAG members bring up on the evaluation.
Next item is BPF updates. I will hand the floor to the Secretariat to take us through that. I need to drink some water, I'm losing my voice. Chengetai, can you share this session? I'm not sure which BPFs, we have present. Is Marcus with us? I don't. I don't know who is ready to start.
>> Marcus is with us.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Marcus, why don't you start then, I think it is important to start with the BPF on BPF.
>> MARCUS: Thank you. I take it you can hear me. Yes, the BPF on BPFs. You will recall I shared a draft proposal on objectives, actions and deliverables on this BPF with the group. Unfortunately I was not able to join the last call, I'm not too sure where we are on this. Can I take it the proposed charter has the approval of the MAG and we can get started on that basis. The idea is ‑‑ again, to avoid every ‑‑ any possible misunderstanding, this is not about influencing this year's Best Practice Forums but rather going forward the next year and learning lessons and including all the key actors in past BPF forums and what worked well, what worked less well and document all the lessons learned and output and outcomes of all the BPF organized since 2014.
The objective would be that we then have a process in place for evaluating, proposing and approving Best Practice Forums from 21 onward. That is, from next year onwards. Part of the work would be the development of the systemized evaluation tool, proposals for metrics, to have a kind of objective assessment of past BPF to determine if they are successful or not and live up to expectations. The aim was to have two phases, the first phase, fact‑finding phase, with key actors where people were involved in past Best Practice Forums, and then present a report for the June MAG meeting, whether that will be a physical meeting or virtual meeting, that we don't know yet, as we learned during this call.
But it should be ready ahead of that MAG meeting, whether online or physical. The aim would be to have something ready two weeks before that meeting so MAG members can look into it. And based on that proposal, then we would open the discussion, open for comments and review the paper again and have it ready to go into the annual IGF meeting where the last recommendations could then be taken on board and be taken up in the process for selecting the BPF themes for 21. So that, in a nutshell was the proposal. We have not really started the work proper as the consultant support for the BPF is not in place yet. I understand that it should happen fairly soon. But we definitely will need the support of somebody who holds the pen. And helps with the work.
Now, next week, there is a proposed call for all BPFs to align themselves and that would also be a good kickoff start for the work of this uber BPF, while we could benefit from the input from all the other BPF coordinators and experts. So that is my report on how we see the work going forward on this BPF on BPFs. Thank you.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Marcus. Yes, as Marcus said, we promised this, that we would facilitate, myself and Secretariat, better coordination and support for BPFs. So next week, we will have a call of all the BPF coordinators.
Any questions for Marcus? I see the queue is empty. So I'm assuming there aren't any. I'm checking for hands. Nothing. Can we move on.
>> Yes?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Carlos, are you ready to do local content BPF?
>> CARLOS: I'm not sure what I would say. First of all, I want to test my microphone again. Are you hearing okay now?
>> Yes, perfectly.
>> CARLOS: Okay. Good. I had the wrong microphone active. Sorry. Okay. It is time for the BPFs.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes, so if you have any updates on local content, share it with us. If you don't have any updates, that's fine. Just tell us you don't.
>> CARLOS: Actually, we don't. We stopped at that final revision of the BPF and waiting for comments in the list. And that's it. Maybe if Jacob is online, maybe other comments, I'm not sure.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Go ahead.
>> Jacob: I have no updates also my site.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: I think it is fine if the BPFs don't have updates, but do not wait too long. The last thing you want is to have too little time to do your work. I can share that I think the Secretariat, maybe I can update us, but the process of contracting consultants is underway. It will take a little bit more time. So it is understandable that you are taking a little time to get going, that's fine. But don't take too long.
>> CARLOS: Anriette? Carlos here.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Do you have something to add?
>> CARLOS: As you know, I am almost 75 years old and I am now confined to my home. So I will have plenty of time. [Chuckling].
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: That's good. I think that applies to all of us. ‑‑
>> TITI: Can ‑‑
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Do you ‑‑ Yes? Who is speaking? Is that Mary?
>> TITI: No. This is Titi. May I give you an update on the BPF?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Yes. Let me do sequence. Titi, you will go next. If we can then have gender and end with cybersecurity.
Titi, you are next.
>> TITI: I will give you an update. We have a new co‑facilitator in the BPF. You are among [?] among popularese, an Italian company and also a member of different groups like the group of artificial intelligence by the Minister of Economic Development in Italy. And member of Claire, a corporation for institutional comparing intelligence. About the BPF, we have update the information web page. You can find the new proposal. The new meeting will be 23rd of March, next Friday, 3:00 p.m., UTC.
I want to invite all of you to participate to the next one. Thank you.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Titi. Gender? Chenai?
>> CHENAI CHAIR: Sorry. I was unmuting my mic. Hi everyone. With gender, I was waiting for updates on our consultant. I did see the call go out a couple of weeks ago. There should be one now. Maria Pias and I are working on updating the group to get it going on the proposal that we submitted, which was accepted, based on not as much comments going against it. So that's where we were with our BPF and I am sure that there is a call with the Secretariat. I won't be able to attend, but I think my colleague will attend. We will take it up from there.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Chenai.
>> CHENAI CHAIR: We are not waiting too long.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: No, that's good. Cybersecurity?
>> BEN WALLIS: Thank you, it is Ben Wallis here. So we ‑‑ two updates, one kind of ‑‑ we're very happy they Wyman from UNDESA was able to present the work of the BPF cybersecurity at the second substantive session of the open‑ended Working Group. This is a U.N. initiative. Our lead expert presented at the stakeholder session, the open stakeholder session in December. The substantive session was a closed session for member states. The UNDESA was able to present it as a U.N. agency, which oversees the IGF.
That was great for linking our work to an ongoing U.N. initiative and raising awareness of our work.
In terms of this year's Best Practice Forums, we held our kickoff meeting on the 19th of February. And as a report and recording of the meeting on the BPF web page. And we're then moving forward with kind of planning for this year's work. And our lead expert just sent an email to the BPF list yesterday setting out the three areas of work for this year. So the first is going to be a continuation of what we did last year, which is looking at international agreements related to cybersecurity. And understanding how they're being implemented. The idea is to see if there are any new agreements to look at as well as any developments for the agreements we looked at last year. And to possibly go into more depth on a few of those. And so we'll update our research paper from last year and publish that in the summer, together with a call for contributions. So that's the first element of our work this year is a kind of continuation but also a deepening of understanding cybersecurity agreements and how they're implemented.
The second part is about understanding and documenting how norms are assessed and so I think something that is quite interesting, with this piece of work is that we're going to look at how norms are assessed in other social sciences. So we're kind of building in multidisciplinary outreach there.
Then finally, we're going to look at how to widen outreach and widen participation in the BPF. That was partly in response to suggestions came up with after presenting at the open‑ended Working Group. I think he was thinking about ways to reach out to the developing country Governments. We're also interested in having a focus on identifying participants from the youth constituency. So there's my update. Thank you.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks a lot for that, Ben. Remind me, I will communicate to you off list, in Africa, I know the African Union has convened a panel of cybersecurity experts and they would be interested in further follow‑up.
So I don't see any hands in the queue or people in the speaking queue on BPS. I know we're still in the beginning of the work.
Congratulations to those that have made progress. The rest of you, I know it will pick up soon, as soon as the consultants are identified. And my understanding from the Secretariat, is that it will be done in the next few weeks. So on that, I'd like to move on the to the NRI update. Anja are you ready. Yes, she's always ready. Anja, you have the floor.
>> ANJA: Thank you, Madame Chair. Very quickly, I wanted to inform the MAG about the recent developments regarding the NRIs preparatory process for the upcoming IGF in Katowice and also about the few NRIs that were recognized in the past two or three months.
Very briefly, our network grew to 127 NRIs in total as you can see on the graph, hopefully. We have 98 national IGF, 80 regional IGF and 20 youth IGF and 3 NRI that are information.
About the NRI that were just recently identified is the Quebec subregionalized IGF that has really good communication and cooperation with the Canadian IGF. The Russian youth IGF, again really good communication with the existing national Russian IGF. We also recognize the Botswana IGF, Cote d'Ivoire IGF, and Moldova IGF.
And we hope very soon we will finalize the process with the teams of the Chad youth IGF, Sierra Leon IGF, and Liberia youth IGF.
This is a map to visually see how now the newly recognized NRIs, the whole landscape looks like.
And very importantly, about the NRIs preparatory process for the IGF in Katowice. As you know we struggle among the NRIs to identify what are topics for the neutral interest for the network. We were doing that for the call of validation of issues. You know NRIs responded to that call. The Secretariat also analyzed all policy areas discussed during 2019 at the 80 NRI meetings. Those were subjects for the discussion on all NRIs in the past few virtual meetings. That process resulted that the NRIs again, shared their commitment and determination to host in cooperation with the MAG, again, the main session on this year's IGF on the topic of Internet, Internet Governance and the world of emergency situations, and they have also committed to host collaborative sessions, six topics were identified. Focus on future of jobs, data utilization, digital economy, cybersecurity, digital rights, and content regulation.
The traditional coordination session it is not the working meeting with all NRIs, colleagues from UNDESA, the chair the MAG Chair, and IGF Secretariat and all interested stakeholders will continue.
The NRIs will request to host joint booth this year. And they're committed to the intercessional work. And the IGF Secretariat will be the liaison between the Best Practice Forums and NRIs to hopefully get their inputs.
One important input that came very recently in a formal form, to the IGF Secretariat, I can say we can trace the roots back to the Berlin IGF, it is to NRI's wish to self‑organize as a network and respond to the ongoing HLPDC report consultations, precisely they would like to contribute to the consultations ran by the champions of governance Germany and Arab Emirates on the fifth recommendation.
The IGF secretariat was asked to help with facilitation to help this process in order to make at their disposal the infrastructure that is needed to run the consultations, such for example, is the Zoom platform to help schedule the meeting. Connect the focal points and provide the contact email addresses and so on. The whole process, as soon as we ‑‑ well, for now, what we understand is the whole process will be run ‑‑ facilitated by the regional and subregional IGFs in cooperation with the national IGF and each region would create a concrete output document as a response to possible mechanism for global digital cooperation and the role of the NRIs.
We will keep you posted on this as soon as we receive from this task force that is facilitating this process, formal update.
The NRI meetings are unfortunately, as expected, impacted by this ongoing pandemic. There are some meetings postponed, there are notice of further postponement of other meetings. You probably see in the mailing list the AP IGF, Russian IGF, Swiss IGF, Quebec IGF, and Azerbaijan youth IGF, and we received few minutes ago Moldova IGF will also be postponing its meetings.
And south Sudan IGF and Canada IGF are communicating, given that they were going to host the meeting in this month.
And we received an indication from this morning from EuroDIG and their youth IGF integrated initiative, that there is a high possibility that they will host a meeting during the scheduled time initially in June, but through online platform. So it will not probably happen in Italy as originally scheduled.
That would be all. We stay committed to the MAG to also inform you about the impact of the pandemic on the NRI meetings and to respond to any questions you have. Thank you very much, Anriette.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thanks very much, Anja. Anyone have questions for Anja? I don't see anyone in the speaking queue and we are nearly at the end of our meeting. So can I pass on to Marcus and Uta for an update on the Dynamic Coalitions?
>> UTA: Yes, thank you, Anriette. Marcus, would you like to go first, or should I start.
>> MARCUS: I leave it to you, Uta, please.
>> UTA: There is not so much to be reported since we had our last meeting on the 21st of January. It is a while ago. There we had discussed much about the meeting in November in Berlin. Had a very good feedback on the main session of the Dynamic Coalitions held and also on the structure taking process. I have looked up the minutes that thanks to Lima, we had already gotten consented on. And I think the most important issue discussed by the Dynamic Coalitions during that meeting is that they wanted to liaise more with the national regional initiatives, not only focus their work on the annual global IGF, but also to make use of the opportunity to present their work in the workshops or whatsoever at national and regional IGFs. And one step in that direction was already agreed between EuroDIG and the dynamic Coalition on child online safety and have a workshop on day 0 of EuroDIG. Hopefully we can make that also when it takes place in a virtual manner, like is planned right now.
I have not heard yet from other Dynamic Coalitions, whether they already proceeded with plans similar to that. That dynamic Coalition will join into the activities of national and regional initiatives. And another issue that I only came across within the minutes of that last meeting was that we announced during the meeting to all the Dynamic Coalitions, that the host country, Poland was planning to hold a youth contest and since I have not heard anything from that, maybe the Secretariat can step in and inform us whether that is still on the agenda. I do think the dates where it should have been started in February, but maybe we can get an update on that. And the Dynamic Coalitions are considering to set up the date for the next virtual meeting within the next two weeks.
Over to Marcus for anything additional, maybe?
>> MARCUS: Thank you, Uta, an additional summary. Maybe one additional point, there was also discussion that the DCs felt they needed more clarity on what distinguishes them from the BPFs. There was also discussion whether a DC could turn into a BPF or the other way around. That the BPF that has done its work could turn itself into a DC. There was no conclusion on this discussion. I want to flag that there was an interest in clarifying a little bit the relationship between the two types of intercessional work. That's all for me. Thanks.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: And thank you, Marcus and Uta. I think that is an interesting question and a legitimate question. I think we discussed that at the January MAG meeting as well. That is why doing this BPF on BPFs is important. I think there is a lack of clarity about the intercessional modalities, why they emerged. When they emerged what their relationship is to the MAG. How autonomous they are and so on. This is something to look at, the current information and update that. It is also emerged that there is the idea of IGF pilot projects, which some people feel is another form of intercessional modality, but there is lack of clarity on that. I think that is a good point. Secretariat, let's follow up on that.
Just one remark I want to make. A reminder for all the intercessional modalities is that we got a very clear mandate from the stock taking process of 2019 going into 2020. That the IGF community wants to see closer integration between the intercessional modalities and between the intercessional modalities and the global IGF program. So I just want to leave you with that. I think that doesn't mean that the MAG or global agenda wants to take over the work program and priorities of the different intercessional modalities. It is just that we need to find ways of using the intercessional modalities to deepen the reach of the IGF. And create more inclusion. So I think we have seen that in terms of the NRI and how the NRIs are linking their program to the global IGF program. I think we have heard from the cybersecurity BPF how they are trying to create those linkages. But I just urge everyone else, as you continue with your work to keep that in mind. And if it would be helpful for us to come up with more templates around that maybe we can. But I don't think it needs to be very top‑down or top‑down at all. It is just something to keep in mind how do we achieve that integration. I encourage all of you to look at that as you proceed with your work and for the BPFs, we can discuss that at our meeting next week.
Our final agenda item is any other business. Does anyone have anything else that they want to raise today? Or are there any questions or comments that anyone wants tow to make.
>> CARLOS: Anriette, Carlos here. Can I raise a question?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Go ahead.
>> CARLOS: I would like to propose once we join a list of the IGF or of the MAG, these listed are considered private listed. There is you have to subscribe and you have to be accepted by the moderator to enter the list, it is like a room. Once you are in this room this list, you should be able to recognize who is in the room. It is basic. Any private meeting. But we cannot ‑‑ we do not have access to the members of the list once we subscribe to it. I don't know why. Because this is not a problem. It is a GDPR problem? I'm not sure. Once it is private and we are in a private room, and we have been accepted as participants in this private room, why we cannot see the other members I am talking to in the list. That's a question?
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, Carlos. I will ask Luis to respond. I also have a question around that. My understanding is that if you are a member of the list, you can request the subscriber list. And Luis can clarify around that. But I have a similar question. And that is because I think it would be useful for us as a MAG, for it to be visible who is doing what. And who is assigned to which Working Group and signed up to which list. So I certainly would like to ask the Secretariat to produce a document that reflects that. I'm not sure if there are any ‑‑ I don't see that as being anything that violates any right to privacy. I think it is just a good way of reflecting how we're working together as a team.
But Secretariat, do you have a response to Carlos's question about making the membership of lists available?
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: If you are a member of the list, you can do a mailman command to give you who is subscribes to the list. That will give you the email names at least, maybe not the names. You can't? You are supposed to be. We can fix that.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Initially ‑‑
>> CHENGETAI MASANGO: You can. I think you can. Let me test it. We did it some time back. I don't know. Maybe ‑‑ but again, let me continue. If you want us to post the members of the list, we can, too. I mean, you make the policy, if you want. That's fine. I mean, you're the MAG. If you want that, that will be.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Does anyone else have any comments on this or any questions? Luis, did you want to add anything to clarify?
>> LUIS BOBO: I'm sorry. I'm sorry, maybe it is a miscommunication. No, it is the security reasons are data privacy. First, because all the lists ‑‑ most of the lists are open indeed to anyone to subscribe and the archives are public. Meaning anyone if they are going to participate [audio skipping].
They can just see the archives. Or if I they want to [audio skipping] or something. They can subscribe and all of this. I mean, in the case they're public. So anything that is said in the list is completely public. That is one thing.
It is possible that [audio skipping] the only point is the analysis of the members will appear to others. So [audio skipping]
As Carlos proposed, we could filter in joining the list. Except for specific lists. [Audio skipping]
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: My proposal ‑‑ my proposal would be ‑‑
>> LUIS BOBO: [Audio skipping].
>> I'm sorry, it is very difficult to hear you for some reason.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Luis, we couldn't hear you. We need to finish the meeting. I will make a proposal and people can object. I think the concern about making the email list available is you also make people's email list available. And because IGF lists are open and public, there is risk there for abuse. What I think we can do, and I think Carlos it will help you and help all of us, is for the Secretariat to produce a list of names of which MAG members are members of which Working Group and which list. We don't need to link email addresses to those. We can just put names and distribute that to the IGF MAG list. That would address Carlos's concern, which is to know who you are working with in that particular work space without necessarily making the email addresses available. Would that be ‑‑
>> CARLOS: That is precisely my question. Great.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: If there is no objection, I will go ahead and ask the Secretariat to produce that. We can update it from time to time as needed.
I don't see a speaking queue. I don't see hands. Does anyone else have anything more to bring up? No? So on that note, thanks very much, everyone, for the meeting. And we have done our two hours. And thanks for the work and lots more work to come, especially with the workshop and evaluations, thanks, everyone. And thanks for all of you for whom this is a difficult time. Sylvia, Gunela, I know this is a terrible time for you. Others I know you got up very early in the morning. Thanks to everyone, thanks for the reports, thanks to the Secretariat.
>> Thank you, thank you, everyone.
>> CHAIR ANRIETTE ESTERHUYSEN: Thank you, everyone.
>> Thank you, Anriette.
>> Bye, everyone.