The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Okay. Good morning. Very tough to be in the morning. I don't know, Jason. Must be the middle of the night for you. So thanks for joining us in the middle of the night. So excited for everyone here. For those of you that don't know me, my name is Jennifer Bachus. I am the number 2 in digital policy bureau. We proposed this workshop because we believe in the critical importance of digital solidarity working together to address digital policy in the rights respecting manner. For this workshop, we would like to start with introductory remarks and then we'll finish with some audience questions about before we get into the introductory remarks, I'm going to try to do my best to introduce our panelists. Apologies if I missed anything about your bio.
First of all, I'm so excited to introduce ‑‑ I should really say I am really terrible with pronouncing names. Again, my apologies. Nashilongo Gervasius who is public interest technology with extensive experience in our field and Media University of Science and Technology and the founding President and board member of the Internet Society in the Nibbia Chapter. Hopefully she will talk about as we go through this workshop.
Remotely, we have Jason Pielemeier. He leads the Global Network Initiative which is a dynamic humans rights collaboration for advancement of freedom and among advancement companies and human rights. He served as the Deputy Director and Policy Director. And had previous experience working at the state department. So seems to understand sort of those of us that are at the state department.
Very pleased and excited to have Robert Opp at UNDP. He is for those of you who don't know UNDP, it's the global sustainable organization which works across 170 countries with more than 17,000 staff, which is actually very close description of the state department. We were talking about or similarities there. He is leading the agencies digital transformation, which is an organization wide effort to harness the power of new technology to improve the lives of those for this behind
And last but really not least is Susan Mwape. Executive Director that seats to promote citizens participation and various government processes, leveraging technology to enhance public accountability and resource tracking. And really excited to have all of you here today and having been able to engage with all of you separately in various situations. I know you are going to be amazing panelists here today.
Because I have decided to ply both the role of moderator and speaker, congratulations to all of you here to hear me do both. I will start with my brief opening remarks, which are mostly to sort of situate us in our vision on digital solidarity and what it means to the United States and how we're working to advance this concept.
You know, digital solidarity is a concept that had been out there, but which we really fully embraced when we published the U.S. international cyberspace and international strategy back in May of this past year at RSA, which is cybersecurity conference and our Secretariat launched it. We believe that it's the itself we have a willingness to work together, help partners build capacity and provide support. Stuart has excerpts from the strategy. If you want to know more about, this I will try go through more of it. We do not bring printed strategies, but he has a page for you to see the excerpts. It is about framing partnerships, building like‑minded coalitions and people around the world can achieve a more secure, resilient, inclusive and prosperous digital future. We have a never ending firm commitment to multi‑stakeholder rights baited and international processes and the design development and use of emerging technology. Simply put, digital solidarity ‑‑ I think we all recognize the urgency of us promoting digital solidarity. There are too many stakeholders that cannot fulfill that promise. So we need to really come together to do so. We recognize the lack of connectivity or digital capacity and I know all of you are working on this and these things can hinder the ability to fully participate in the digital economy and challenges collectability. Having to participate in either panel. A lot of talk this week about connecting the unconnected and we're all coming together around this idea.
We also recognize the huge financing gap to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. The financing gap right now I think you all know is estimated around $4 trillion. That's a lot of money. Cyber threats, which is another issue that my office focuses on by criminals and other bad actors. That's another thing we have to continue to push back against. We are pleased to host a side event. We, of course, see authoritarian governments who continue to increase efforts to undermine the multi‑stakeholder rights preach and digital policy processes including across multi‑lateral and recognizing where we're here today which puts at risk the future of an open interoperable and reliable and secure Internet.
We know various actors are increasingly misusing technologies and ways that undermine development goals of emerging economies and human rights and democracy.
But we would like to be optimistic in our organization, which is why we have the concept digital solidarity and we know that many people here today are seized with the urgency of building the international coalitions to build digital and cyber capacities to harness the benefits of technology. To this end, the United States does and will continue to support a global, multi‑stakeholder rights respecting governance, digital policy processes like the review which has been the point of many conversations this week and emerging technology such as AI. We recognize as I said governments can't do it alone. We need a broad array of stakeholders who help us by using expert ease to inform and drive action on these issues and participate meaningfully in various floor such as this one. Thank you for your long travels as well as working with allies and partners to design, develop and use responsible. I just wanted to say and this came up in a panel discussion. The U.S. Department of State and USAID are working closely together with leading tech companies as well as Civil Society, academia and insure many people can benefit from emerging technologies and we'll also hear work we're doing on AI. I have a handout on AI programs for those of you that are interested.
Over the past few years, we're very proud that foreign assistance budgets for these issues has more than tripled. Still not enough, but every year, you just keep trying to do a little bit more and a little bit better. So we have already been engaged with over 140 countries around the world and poised to increase bilateral corporation. We will get into examples later. I feel I have been speaking for way too long, but I will try to turn to our panelists now. So I will start with our first panelists. Nashilongo. You can please ‑‑ why don't you give us your opening remarks, please? Thanks.
>> NASHILONGO GERVASIUS: Thank you very much for being here and I appreciate the putting together of this panel and thank you for leading this conversation.
My very first introduce is noticing the importance of partnership, the importance of collaboration particularly for many of the things that we face increasingly digitalized world. From engaging policy matters whether local, regional or global level, from dealing with real issues that faces society and this is places as Civil Societies, but also academia dealing with issues of scaling and issues of cybercrime and cybersecurity issues at local level. So many of these things increasingly becoming issues that one cannot deal with by themselves. Even just a local level that we need the net works of collaborators of supporters of partners who are able to provide the necessary funding to assist us to carry out necessary research that produces the evidence to compel policy making local level, but also help us into getting in the rooms like this that many of our partners and our collaborators the local level can only dream to be ‑‑ I think we might not have this term solidarity as broadly as the U.S. government has made it intentional to embrace at local level, at regional level, but I think it is an important concept. It is an important approach to be working together for all of us I think. Thank you.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Thanks for that. Jason, thanks again for being with us at this ungodly, probably early late hour for you.
>> JASON PIELEMEIER: Thanks. Can you hear me okay? Wonderful. Well, thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be part of this panel. It is either very early or very late here, but ‑‑ I hope I can manage to stay engaged. I hope you'll forgive me if I have a few yawns over the course of the panel, but I'm really interested to hear from the other panelists and to be a part of this conversation.
I am Jason Pielemeier, I am the Executive Director of the global network GNI. It is committed to fostering respect for freedom of expression and private in the GNI sector. GNI brings over 100 members, investors and tech companies from around the world to work together and our members do that by sharing information any challenges to freedom of expression and privacy stemming from overbroad government regulations, policies and demands and working to support each other in pushing back on those scenarios. We do this in four primary ways. First through policy engagement. So we speak collectively on behalf of our broad membership to illustrate how diverse stakeholders from these regions often critical of one another and other spaces can nevertheless share common positions on a remarkably broad range of topics to AI safety.
Second, we foster safe spaces for learning across our membership through which companies can confidentially share in space and Civil Society and others can present research and recommendations to help companies understand risks and make more responsible decisions.
Third, we facilitate a unique accountability process through which our member companies inflate the GNI principles and guidelines to which we refer to as our GNI framework. So information is shared about how they implement that framework in a regular manner and they're independently ‑‑ those efforts are independently reviewed and assessed and these assessments allow companies to share again certainty, non‑public information about their internal policies, structures and systems as well as the kinds of challenges they face in upholding the responsibility to respect free expression and privacy rights in the face of government pressures and demands.
And finally, we work to share insights and good practices as well as recommendations gleaned from internal facing member processes including governments, multi‑lateral bodies and other companies that are not yet members. So it's a little bit about how we work and at the core of all of that is this concept of multi‑stakeholderism, the idea that different actors with different backgrounds and expertise can come together and be stronger than some of their parts.
>> Okay. Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. As Jennifer said, I'm Robert Opp. I come from the United Nations development program and I'm chief digital officer there. Maybe just a little bit of overview of our work. We are as Jennifer said, the UN development arm and present in 170 countries worldwide. I think our digital work has definitely accelerated over the last several years particularly in the wake of the COVID pandemic when countries around the world really started to accelerate their own digital transformation, building their infrastructure, kinds of efforts. That has meant that we as a united nations development organization need to look at what that actually means in terms of choices made every day by governments and communities and others when it comes to embracing technology. And I think I would say and characterize that prior to the COVID pandemic, a large part of the development community and we're talking about ‑‑ I'm talking about the conventional mainstream development community. We're tech no optimist and looking at digital solutions as I'll sprinkle an app here and put a database there and this will result in magical development results. But COVID really was an inflection point for us in the understanding of how we need to move from being very solutions and oriented and somewhat fragmented into being more wholistic and strategic in the way we use digital solutions. But moving from that moment of tech no optimism into understanding risks and the importance of putting people's rights at the center of whatever we do in technical or digital solutions. And so as we work with countries around the world, we find that the work that we get requested to support with breaks down is into three big areas. Digital policies and strategies where countries are looking to see how they can better support and govern the use of digital solutions. That might mean data protection, laws, et cetera. And misinformation, information integrity, that sort of thing. Also in the second area of sort of requests is around the use of technology. So this is where the kind of technologies like digital public infrastructure, digital identity, digital payments platforms and things like that. Countries request support this those. And the third area is capacity building where it is building the competence and capacity to build those platforms. In all of that, our starting point is the individual person that ‑‑ and that person's rights. And in our digital strategy, we have a set of seven guiding principles. The first one we put human rights in the center of digital.
When we talk about digital solidarity, digital rights, this is absolute fundamental for us and I would sort of finish by saying they ‑‑ when we work with countries, we often see they're in a big rush to put in place digital platforms and solutions because we know how urgent these things are, we know how quickly technology is evolving. We feel we need to get ahead with the right kind of advice when it comes to best practices, sharing lessons learned, cooperation mechanisms between other countries or a regional cooperation mechanisms. Countries tend to make the choices that are in favor of inclusion and rights but they need the right frameworks, the right learnings, the right practices shared among them. That's one of the elements for us that we look at as a UN organization.
>> Thank you very much for having me on this panel. As a way of introduction, common cause organization was 17d in 2013. Our role is promote citizens participation in governments processes. We do this through providing empowerment programs, building capacity and also trying to provide tools that citizens can use to hold their leaders accountable. We have a wide rage of programs that we undertake starting from research in terms of our technology program, research around policy, research around the state of digital rights in the country and also Internet freedom. We also do capacity building. We undertake advocacy work as an organization, but also collectively at national level and also international level. So over the years, we have built different levels of stakeholder engagement. We have what we call a cyber network, which is a membership of organizations that work at community level. So we're looking at community organizations, community based media, community registrations and traditional leaders as well because they play a very significant role. We do this to try and bridge the divide that exists in the face of the reality of where technology is taking us. We don't do this on our own. We collaborate with the government on doing this. IT regulator. We carry agencies and we found it is very effective. Serious issues that happen in this communities and we have noticed they have been able to hold law enforcement accountable on issues of fraud and things like that. That involve things like mobile money, which is very popular now.
We also engage at national level. We established additional rights network and it is a multi‑stakeholder network that brings together different organizations to the table where we assess issues of policy and various issues and we fight collective causes. I will talk more about some of the work we have done, but basically that is what common cause Namibia does.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Thanks all of you. We will go to an interactive discussion now in what's a little unconventional. I am posing myself questions. We were jokingly saying I might just jump seats to say when I am moderator and not the moderator. That is a little too interactive for this hour of the morning. And so the question I got was actually partially came from the panelists because the question ‑‑ the question is: Essentially what do I say to those who advocate for digital sovereignty or data sovereignty and of these exclusive? I think I want to start by underscoring the commitment of the United States to a positive and economic benefits that come from preserving openness while protecting privacy promoting, and mitigating arms. And I thought, Robert, your comments on this question about guard rails is really incredibly important and we believe that you can both have digital solidarity and guard rails. Those two things are not mutually exclusive. But what we see when we hear talk about digital sovereignty and it is mostly often times an idea of protection itch. The idea of blocking access to markets, data flows, preference and domestic manufacturers and service providers and we see this as potentially undermining what is critically important when it comes to interoperability, security and market access. So we see the rise of this digital sovereignty or data localization narrative including or acknowledge from partners, very close partners and allies has a potential to undermine key economic and cybersecurity objectives. And essentially, the possibility to limit the potential of economic, social and individual exchanges that the growing digital economy and cyberspace make possible.
So in over the last 2 and a half years, there's been a lot of discussion about Ukraine and even though we're not currently sitting in Europe, I will start by talking about Ukraine in terms of the value of digital solidarity. Before Russia's full‑scale invasion of the Ukraine, it changed the laws to have data stored in the Cloud. But lots of engagements with them, but they felt their data was going to be more secure if they could look at the servers. If I can see it, I feel it will be more secure. But in reality, this does undermine cybersecurity. Because of the last minute change, U.S. Cloud service providers were able to safely and restore Ukrainian data abroad. It allowed the government to serving its people and in many cases, continue serving its people regardless of where they ended up in the world.
The free flow of data, for example or failed to take advantage for the sake of protectionism, it has increased class, slows innovation and we can cybersecurity. We need to continue to make sure the data can flow seamlessly and securely across boarders. This is critically important as the back bone of our digital economy. We recognized a very, very clear concern that many countries have over the affordable and sustainable digital investments. The lack of which we know can undermine their sovereignty. But solutions proposed such as data localization, network usage fees, other market access barriers, as I said, it can undermine security objectives. These contribute to this idea that you have increased control, but in reality, they often cause real damage. There are other better ways to addressed these concerns. We in the United States have embraced the global cross border privacy rules, CDPR. It's a mouthful. It's a system they can ensure privacy protections that travel with the data while at the same time, facilitating data flows to support digital trade, international transactions and other critical business needs. The global CVPR demonstrates countries can come together to protect privacy while fostering openness and interoperability and integration. I think it is also worth noting that some of the narratives around digital sovereignty are really an idea of localizing data so governments can have better access to that data ultimately to undermine the privacy of their citizens. We have been engaging with UNDP on digital public infrastructure and we strongly support UNDP universal DPR, safe guard framework designed to protect and promote the protection of members of vulnerable groups online including children, multi‑stakeholderism and to guard against cybersecurity vulnerabilities. DPI again creates potential vectors for inappropriate access to information. So we think that there is a middle ground where you can have protectionism. You can have protection safe guard, but you don't need to sacrifice digital solidarity. The idea we're going to work together and need to work together to advance and tools that mitigate potential harms, they consistently with human rights and Democratic values and we have developed so many tools to do this in the past year which includes as always promoting the multi‑stakeholder rights respects and approaches relating to AI and information integrity. Some of those will be in a tool capacity toolkit. We will show the results from the session. And with that, I'm going to ‑‑ every once in a while ‑‑ for those of you in the room, you have to point our little thing at one of the lights. If you didn't do that ‑‑ yeah. That one too. Just that one. So every once in a while, I lose my mic. So anyway, so now, you get the question, which is as a Civil Society leader, how do you think about opportunities and challenges of stakeholder collaboration? How can we foster a more effective across mull‑stakeholders and groups. Please.
>> So thank you again, Ms. Bachus for this new level of engagement. So in terms of collaboration, I think once again there are so many opportunities for many organizations like ours who works closely with grass root organizations. But again, engaging across all levels, national level from policy and implementation. We find a lot of challenges in making meaningful contributions or even finding meaningful ways in enforcing, you know, policies across sectors. But opportunities are key. Many of these engage in different issues and finding common grounds, but there are key challenges I have mentioned before in creating meaningful collaboration and even participation once again. Issues of accessing stakeholder platforms in another, but also research and accessibility. Many of the engagements that we have find silo by technology. So Private Sectors and engages in platforms such as this. Maybe my observation, I haven't seen many people from your usual tech in this platform. Your meta, your Google and many of these platforms and really finding getting together and answering those questions together.
But I also wanted to really engage on the issue of digital sovereignty, issues of ‑‑ whether ‑‑ this is mutually exclusive or not, we recognize from the African Union and maybe this is something a bit more closer to home for African Civil Societies. EU has digital transformation strategy in 2030. The prioritized digitally enabled social economic development that stimulates job creation and (?) reducing equality and also dealing with issues of delivery of goods and services and that's how it would becoming a bit more relevant. This could be controversial. The concept of sovereignty need balance in terms of engagement with issues of access and issues of control. With that, (audio cutting in and out) it cannot operate or cannot be aligned to solidarity. You can have one and still have the other. The common goals are broader issues that affects everybody globally issues of privacy and human rights. Issue cuts across with whatever market that we have.
And so ‑‑ yes?
>> ROBERT OPP: Your mic is cutting out a little bit.
>> Is this much better? (mic cutting in and out) this in itself is undermine issues of sovereignty all together and I think for many of the African countries in the African region and I don't want to speak for everyone, it is investment infrastructures that we are addressing within the UNDP and DPIs that control of whether it's the infrastructure or the data over the infrastructure can pose serious challenges just that (audio cutting in and out) cyber ware that can tend to be beyond the control of any nation, but also provides more opportunities. Right? Opportunities such as data that innovate us particularly ‑‑ that gain data. How do we find values of that kind of data at local level where we can entrust researchers, innovators to use particularly if it is, you know, accrued public funding means to be innovated and find solutions for local challenges, for instance. And many of these initiatives still requires investment, requires support and that can also be enhanced fly digital solidarity that we're talking about here.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Thanks. Let me see if I can get this to work. I'm going to turn to Jason online. So here's your question. As the leader of multi‑stakeholder organization, what does a multi‑stakeholder approach offer for digital solidarity and where can multi‑stakeholder approaches be strengthened? I'd appreciate your thoughts on that.
>> JASON PIELEMEIER: Yeah. Thanks. So the digital ‑‑ the cyberspace and digital strategy the state department has put out talks about digital solidarity as recognizing that all who use digital technologies in the rights respecting manner are resilient, determining and prosperous when they work together to shape the international environment and innovate at the technological edge. It goes on to know that the sight department can't accomplish subjectives in the strategy without strong partnerships with the Private Sectors, Civil Society and Technical Communities. I think the strategy acknowledging both the core importance of international and human rights as a framework for bringing actors together both in different countries, multi‑laterally and bilaterally and multi‑stakeholder spaces and processes and really what this sort of fuel that allows, I think, digital solidarity to work and then allows this kind of collaboration across countries and across stakeholders is trust. So trust is really the critical ingredient and trust is something that is the famous addage goes is difficult to build ‑‑ build and very easy to lose. My time at the state department has pretty consistently tried to articulate approach to international tech policy that centers human rights and bring in diversity stakeholders and we have done a lot through financial support, done a lot through multi‑lateral engagement and but there have been many bumps in the road as well. It's not a straight line. It's not a linear process. I think the challenges are only in some ways getting the barriers are getting higher and the challenges are getting more intractable as you were alluding to in your remarks. So it's really great to see the state department doubling down and recommitting to this kind of approach. I think there's a real 30 and desire among many other governments and states as well as other non‑state actors for this kind of approach rooted in human rights and the concept of solidarity.
I just to just note a process that I was privileged to take part of earlier this year. So NETmundial was a conference organized eye decade ago by the government of Brazil. It is Internet Steering Committee to bring together a really diverse range of stakeholders in Sao Paulo to talk about the importance of multi‑stakeholder. This was in the wake of Erin Snowden and his revelations at eye moment of pretty low trust. My understanding is that atmosphere and context that Net Mundial was seen as a very successful moment where the multi‑stakeholder community was able to assert itself and put forward important principles for how Internet governance can be most effectively carried out and so fast forward to 10 years later.
As the multi‑lateral community, international community is preparing for the plus 20 review and the global digital compact was being initiated, many of the same actors who organized NETmundial came back together and organized a remedial in Sao Paulo in April. A civil society network and I wasn't a part of that process and I was in the state department 10 years ago when the original NETmundial took place. It was important to see how that process worked, very diverse views across not only Civil Society, but other stakeholder groups. Nevertheless, they coalesced around a document. At the core of NETmundial and talks about the original are a set of guidelines referred to as Sao Paulo multi‑stakeholder guidelines. There are key guidelines and they underscore how trust can be built and how the processes should work. The first one reminds us all that we need to be mindful between diversity stakeholders and in particular we need to pay attention to the resource constraints that were mention the earlier that can keep people from being able to effectively participate. I think often feels like who they are under resourced compared to governments and Private Sector. The second line is informed and deliberative discussion. So really making sure that there is equal access to information and open space for deliberation.
The third focuses on treating them ‑‑
The fifth talks about the value of linguistic diversity and the need to respect that and enable that. The 6th focuses on the shared responsibility to uphold accountability and transparency across these kinds of processes. We often see actors nodding towards concepts, but really meaningfully build them into the processes is critical, especially for those moments when trust is tested.
Won't go through the rest because there are lane of them total, but you get a sense from the ones I talked about the detail in the principles. They're born out of extensive experience that the Technical Community where whether through standard setting or governess bodies have learned and crystallized and ‑‑ there are different actors at the national level, regionally or internationally cause the principles to help build multi‑stakeholders and foster trust so that digital solidarity can prosper it and be the force that helps us push back again sovereigntist, sovereignty focused or self‑interested or national interest to purchase.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: So Robert, from your point of view, what are the advantages and opportunities or challenges of using the UN and multi‑lateral?
>> ROBERT OPP: Jason has done a beautiful job of describing what we're talking about here insuring the rights base approach to digital, digital solutions, et cetera. We have opportunities and we have challenges as your question puts out there. On the one land, we have a system delivered global digital compact that puts rights at the center, has quite strong language about the need for cooperation. It even has multi‑stakeholderism. But it is a multi‑lateral and there were some struggles on how best to incorporate multi‑stakeholder into that process. Some sis facts, but it wasn't a more stakeholder agreement. The truly global ones that sent a strong sudden in certain directions. I think it is also fair to say the multi‑lateral system delivers in the norm of the Weis Forum and IGF. A very strong and inclusive multi‑stakeholder platform that's been going on for 20 years. I do think it can create space for multi‑stakeholder dialogue and I it's probably more than important than ever that we voices of individuals and people and Civil Society Private Sector are able to put together and talk about our digital future. That should continue and I think the UN does make it possible to have those kinds of platforms in place. I don't need to say more than that. I think there's more that we could do on the kind of Intergovernmental side and sometimes when we do these agreements. I know there's a lot of good will to make that possible. So there's more room to go, but we need to preserve what we have and make it better as well.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: So Susan, as the Founder of Common Cause Zambia, how do you suggest citizens participate in this.
>> SUSAN MWAPE: Thank you very much. Citizens can participate in promoting and I think that's a rage of ‑‑ parts of the efforts that can take part of that we have seen it in other platforms. But I would citizens can do a lot of that to insure they promote the concept using emotional media platforms. We have seen that happen. We were going towards elections and people would tell government how they were conducting government business. They decided to hold a protest and then the government threatens to break the government would not let them so ‑‑ they had more than 12,000 people that viewed that stream. They had more broadage and more impact. And also there was a lot of solidarity around that. In as much though of getting their message, they were able to use digital platforms to get their message across. Per‑for‑another strategy that citizens can use is also supporting digital rights to privacy. This can be done by joining other movements. We have seen that there's a lot of effectiveness in working collaboratively. A very quick example is the keep it on campaign. It's different organizations that push back. It provides an opportunity for global communities to understand what is going on, but also be able to lend a voice and provide that solidarity to push back against Internet shut downs. I would also look to ‑‑ supporting ethical digital platforms and I think supporting efforts is.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Thanks for that. I think the next question that I will answer and I will put it out there is how do we operationalize this concept? What are examples of practical approaches and tools. I know we're running a little behind. So I'm going to run pretty quick three through some of those we in the U.S. government are using and some of the work we're doing. To start the work, we have done a lot on cyber base security working on approaches to cybersecurity. We are working on law enforcement collaboration to build, and ‑‑ all this seems to be in line with international law and set behavior in cyberspace. On AI, there's so much going on in this space, I can spend an entire panel on that. We did launch the partnership for global inclusivity. Again, I have some paper work on ‑‑ they're galvanizing more than $100 million to unlock their development. We are gathering to share best practices, figuring out ways to collaborate with USA ID, we lunched and an AI in global development framework. Just a second on commercial were ‑‑ maybe we'll continue in 2025. And really it's a whole government strategy which includes things like regulating the U.S. government during an executive government using economic sanctions, expert walls and working with partner countries too, but we in the U.S. government really thought it was important to engage with Civil Society, to promote multi‑stakeholderism. We have lots of roundtables. And we use these and implemented these consultations into what we were going to do and I know we're going to talk about this plus 20. I will leave forward looking.
>> SUSAN MWAPE: So in amplifying, we should be looking at facing convoices, key issues. I think Susan mentioned issues of standing up, shutting down things. But so how do we collaborate? How do we stand together when countries where communities we join through digital solidarities that we face through surveillance and issues of Internet shout out. So that really requires a lot of coordination. We think digital solidarity being operationalized through collaboration standing together creating regional Harmonization report that it is whether it is coming through the regional forums such as the digital IGF or the sub‑regional IGFs and getting to platforms like this. The other is also creating evidence and this is possibly one of my favorite. Really getting down and creating knowledge by research and providing those balances and thing them ‑‑ this is forcing us to say look. This is fully how it looked like at local once we get down at home, you really go with a different perspective. You go with an informed voice to ‑‑ you know what, this concept as you find it effective for your law enforcement, this is Contravention of human rights and you're putting people at risk. So capacity building remains very key. And also we faced with so many issues related to surveillance. I am possibly happy to be engaging with one of the projects that we are doing through the digital rights network of Africa. We are really researching how surveillance is taking shape within Africa. And how that is seen by government but also how Civil Society and all the other stakeholders at local level I engage with that. And looking at issues of digital rights, asking with the support of the solidarity asking rights online must be recognized as true human rights whether constitutionally or through other means. We should also be able to walk together through other existing mechanisms. I think the UPR yesterday we had that quick conversation. We just found out that many of our leagues involved in the assessments at local level and many of us don't know. But we have not been able to effectively done it. We know many of the time where they're putting that report together from themselves, they decide who gets in the room, but we found ways and means to create our own reviews, particularly in digital rights. This was the case with the Internet society during our last review and really present that. And we also found that even government was very respective to say look. We know you looked at human rights, issues of vulnerable communities, but that's what we're looking at from a digital rights perspective privately, freedom of expression online, access to information and just amongst others and making sure we have the right frameworks that our human rights respecting and making sure they put people first. So there's a lot of work that we possibly foresee ourselves in 2025 and even beyond again. It requires all of us and it requires partners who know better and possibly are better resourced and help us carry and bring our voices and platforms like this. Thank you.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Thanks for that. Smart cities is another topic. I think there are very good things that can come out of smart cities, but we should be concerned about them. So very glad to hear you're raising your issues on that as well. Over to you, Jason.
>> JASON PIELEMEIER: I want to address Nashilongo's comments. It enables free expression and freedom of association can enable connectivity where it doesn't exist before can promote voice where it may have been stifled, but how they're misused and the technologies can be very, very dangerous to those who are trying to raise their voices and to call governments to account. So in that context, I think it is important to note and referencing also my earlier comments about trust that I think the IGF itself is a really great retailer of digital solidarity. It's not just this conference that's happening right now. It's the national and regional level IGFs that Nashilongo referred to, the policy networks. This is a process community that's been built over decades and it's been incredibly valuable. It brings so much expertise and knowledge and experience together. But for those same reasons, it's important to recognize that hosting the IGF in countries where those same human rights that we've been referring to creates a challenge. I'm not with you in person because my board made a decision that we would not attend this IGF in person as an organization because we had real concerns about safety and security as well as concerns about human rights track record of the host government. So we put out a statement that indicates our ongoing support for the IGF and IGF communities and raises concerns about hosting decisions that the IGF and the broader UN have made. And the need to insure that IGF is hosted in countries where the community feels safe where there is trust and where we can have robust conversations without fear of reprisals, without fear of unwarranted surveillance and censorship. So I think this is an incredible mechanism that is available to the community. It is a medium for building trust and fostering digital solidarity ‑‑ those decisions are going to come up in the fort coming process which includes, of course, the question of renewal and the mandate of the IGF. We really hope we can use that process not only to extend the mandate but to strengthen the IGF including decisions about hosting are made going forward.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Over to you, Robert.
>> ROBERT OPP: Yeah. Sure. I would ‑‑ I want to talk about two levels. I don't know what is going on with the microphone. I think we are in an unprecedented time right now of the technical ability for the exchange of information data and the need for greater data as we look at Artificial Intelligence systems. There's parts of the global compact that talk about data governance. At a technical level, I think we need to be thinking more than ever about cross border flows of data information, interoperability of systems and so on. And this is, you know, again a bit behind that UNDPs infrastructure on how we can really create greater economic and social prosperity coming out of the digital platforms. Then, of course, they have to be accompanied by the policy level, policy legal protections level that has a very careful focus on people's rights. As we said, I don't want to be repetitive, but I think it is worth emphasizing that we should not be in the space. As a UN agency, we're not in the space of offering technology support to countries without the accompanying governance mechanisms, policies and legal protection, et cetera. As Jason says and other panelists have been saying, they present that risk. So in 2025, our intention is to continue to pursue the benefits of interoperability of data availability and interoperability better data governance that takes a global cooperation approach, but doing that in the ‑‑ in a safe way that really puts people's rights at the heart of it.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: And over to you.
>> NASHILONGO GERVASIUS: Thank you. And for me, to talk about looking forward to how we can make digital operationalize digital solidarity. I just had a few things about that. I think there was talk from Jason and Jennifer around DPI. So I think building inclusive infrastructure to access technology will be helpful. We talked about the digital divide and how things are moving forward. Until we have infrastructure, it is inclusive of those left behind. This whole journey is going to be challenged. After all, solidarity is best with many numbers as you can without leaving anyone behind. Infrastructure is very important. Nashilongo talked about cities. We have countries talking about bad laws, data protection laws that are non‑existent in some countries. That is great importance for us to move forward with. I think that we also need to begin to think of platform designs where we can do this in a more open space. Robert opens a very valuable concern. For instance, hosting IGF. When we think about those data enabled to travel, if we have platforms that enable them to participate, it is helpful. I think you talk about cost of Internet, I come from a country that has one of the highest costs where data is concerned. Not many people will be able to participate in an event like this. We are struggling with issues of less hours. That creates a barrier in itself.
Finally, I know we are running out of time. I think there's also need for supports to NGOs, Civil Societies and also other stakeholders to look at how we can also bring the Private Sector on board. Many providing incentives for things like responsibility that supports digital solidarity. Thank you.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Thanks for that. Private‑public partnership is at the corner stone of (microphone cutting out) let's see if that one is better. It is absolute accurate that the amount of resources the U.S. government is going to be able to put into this is going to be dwarfed by the Private Sector resources. And I'm always really heartened when I talk to tech companies and I hear about academies they have and the work they're doing and getting the word on that and continuing to promote that and I think that I will say just because you both come from Africa, but I had the opportunity to travel to Africa and seen what really impressive work with the wide range and also not because you're both women, but focused on bridging the gender digital divide and in some of the cases, it is so interesting the way they fought out things like transportation, child care, food. It is great to say we're going to empower you. We're going to train you. It's another thing to say we will do that in the circumstances that you live in. And that is incredibly important to understand that if you ‑‑ for cost reasons you have to locate in a place to get people there. The people participating in the program get pregnant. Can you figure out a way? They have to be home or have to be home for their children. It is thinking through elements. It is really complicated and the best programs are the ones where it is the Private Sectors that come together with Civil Society that say you need to think about this thing in our country and that's incredibly powerful. I went off and we're supposed to talk a little bit. We find ourselves situated and the question of the exception of the IGF mandate and what all this means. I have listened to lots of conversations. I would acknowledge to many of you already. I'm not the expert in these things. I have experts on all of these processes and just to say, you know, we will continue the U.S. government will continue to support IGF. We will continue to support multi‑stakeholder approaches to Internet governance. We know that this is a particularly pivotal year. I also was given the opportunity by my team to announce that we launched a $3 million initiative to build the international stakeholders including Civil Society and governments to engage more meaningfully in multi‑lateral development particularly related to AI. This is a demand again that we keep hearing. And we hope that this could potentially include facilitating greater engagement which is not going to be cheap as well as the 20 plus review in the GDC implementation. I am happy to say more about that and also to note that I've had the opportunity to meet with some of you that we supported in traveling around the world to various events including Jason to NETmundial plus 10. So in early 2025, after the IGF workshop report comes out, we would like to host a virtual reunion of this panel to just follow up and see how things are going because it is great to meet here and better if we continue to meet and build on these engagements. So I will turn it to you all for your thoughts as we continue to look at multi‑lateral processes and what you're thinking about.
>> Thank you. Again appreciating just this engagement and the nature that it is taking. We appreciate the U.S. government's commitment for funding and making sure realize many of the efforts taking place locally, but also participation again in platforms like that.
With that, also recognizing that a sweet engage on this concept of digital solidarity and support that the U.S. government is able to put forth is a recognition that many different countries at very different levels of development or engagements on digital issues. I think many of the countries are already thinking about how do we review our policies on cybersecurity, for instance and making sure it is aligned to the UN, but yet you also have countries that just do not have laws. So policies in place. So we have many of those challenges of alignment and I hope the digital solidarity provides opportunities for sharing lessons learned and insuring that policies at some level reflect the (inaudible) of whether this is global ambitions, but the regional ambitions. Again, the convention and many others. Declarations of this year that looks at cybercrime. So we have those. We move forward and we use this platform to align interest but also aligns policies and other framework emerging requirements. And then there is from a GDC perspective, I think this is something you mentioned. We hope that maybe IGF at 20 would really shape the clear reporting mechanisms for the GDC. It seems very ambition. Looks good to have, but maybe a bit more broader and does not give us specificity in terms of how do we deliver, how do we focus and say this is what we have delivered on this particular document. And then, of course, we had issue ‑‑ we had mentioned from Robert on issues across the border and I really appreciate the UNDP effort as you mentioned making sure that in promoting platforms and promoting sort of channels with this data is saved or distributed. We also enforce or promote safe containment of this data that it does not lead to putting people at risk whether this is your usual human rights defenders and just an ordinary citizens. So much work that we see ourselves working and this platform will help us with that. I think that also goes with issues of interoperability that again we faced in many of the countries we have systems that don't work that don't talk to each other. Why isn't your (inaudible) talks reflection. System and really solve many of the issues that come with great ability of elections. Make it very seamless in processes like that. But so many ‑‑ I think the UNDP's effort through digital infrastructure that is helping maybe this conversation from UNDP only is a those conversations happening maybe only this year and it's a person that has been engaging maybe through the little and limited means. I'm asking why are we studying only now?
[Laughter]
But clearly because again really aligning those efforts. What is happening locally, but what is happening globally. In my closing here is really the support that we need in the policy making process. I think I'm repeating and finding myself the potential of repeating myself. But also ‑‑ repeating myself. But also easier mechanisms for Civil Societies, but other stakeholders to say this policy is legitimate. This policy puts people first. This policy respects human rights. Thank you.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Over to you, Jason.
>> JASON PIELEMEIER: Thanks. Yeah. I will try and be brief. I know we're running out of time. Yeah. I wanted to highlight something Nashilongo referenced which is the UN cybercrime convention. It was to be finalized this month and create a framework that will ‑‑ that intends to enhance and facilitate more collaboration to address cybercrime and that is certainly a good thing. We know that cybercrime needs to be addressed. However, we have been pretty consistent as GNI in Private Sector and Civil Society in pointing out some of the real potential challenges from this convention could pose by creating a sort of sanctioning system that allows for countries to put pressure on private companies and their employees domestically to require them to hand over data, to violate user privacy for countries to continue the types of digital transnational repression that we are increasingly seeing around the world. So there's going to be a lot of work that will be done including under the framework of digital solidarity to insure that the cybercrime convention is used appropriately and not misused. As GNI, we are very committed to continuing to help Civil Society and Private Sector actors come together to Shepard this process. Hopefully in eye more rights respecting manner. We are engaged and very hopeful that as Nashilongo said, the WSIS can remain the central mechanism for and the WSIS can continue to provide the framework that is needed to insure more collaboration, more access and support for those who are falling behind the digital divide as well as renew the mandate of the IGF. Net Mundial, it calls for a 10‑year renewal of the IGF to give it the sustainability and predictability that it needs as we continue to deal with all kinds of new technological challenges and opportunities. It also calls for strength and funding and resourcing for the IGF, including the process for selecting host countries going forward, which I mentioned earlier. So the WSIS conversation will be an important one and we really think GDC needs to be a process that supports and feeds into WSIS and doesn't duplicate, doesn't create new separate tracks for similar conversations, which would allow for potential conflicts and also duplication of the burden for those of us who are trying to participate meaningfully in the various processes. So yeah. Lots of important processes and conversations to be had in 2025 and we're very much looking forward to participate together with many of you.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Thanks, Jason. We look forward to working with you on issues around the signer crime convention because we recognize potential for misuse and our guarding against it as well as these questions on the future of IGF. I will say you have done (?) in the middle of the night. I will turn it over to Robert.
>> ROBERT OPP: I would agree with that. It sounds like we all believe IGF should be strengthened. I have a slightly different take on the evolution of this. 20 years ago when WSIS and IGF were first created, let's face it. ICT for development was a bit of a niche community. Digital has become more mainstream in our lives if you look at the use of personal devices and all of the kinds of issues coming around that. I think IGF and WSIS need to be expanded and strengthened in a direction that makes it more mainstream. Not in a good way and not in a bad way. I think that we need to see more integration with some of the other issues that we have out there, environmental sustainability is one of them I find missing here. There's some issues around children and gender violence and things that are somewhat here, but not super well represented. I think this is the path for us because these issues are absolutely crucial to the lives of everyone and if you like at the number of connected people worldwide, the trajectory of that is more important than ever that we're seeing this as such a central platform.
>> NASHILONGO GERVASIUS: I would just conclude by saying looking forward, I would be of the view that multi‑stakeholderism is a very important aspect to digital solidarity. It is my hope that we would be able to localize these concepts to the lowest level because one we talk about digital solidarity. It means different things to different people. We'll be sharing it is interpret the as much as possible. I really hope the mandate of the IGF be renewed because I think it is one of those platforms that is really, really relevant and very important and being a platform that provides a multi‑stakeholder engagement and peep have a chance to lend their voice to all the different conversations that happen at local and international level. So that is my hope and my parting words. Thank you.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Great. I happen to know there are a couple questions in the room. What we will do is at least get those questions down. We will do our best to answer them and if we don't get all the way through the answers, we promise to engage with you after the session. So anyone who wants to ask a question, we will ask at the same time and do our best.
>> This is (?) from Nepal, for the record. We talk about digital solidarity and we talked about digital sovereignty. In most of the case, in particular developing countries where resources is very limited and the enforcement is very tough to digital platform providers. So they talk digital sovereignty. Law enforcement are facing very tough times while enforcing cybercrime and other similar criminal cases. So where we can find the source about digital sovereignty comparing digital solidarity and data localization and talk about. So what could the ordinary way for the governance model, that kind of (?). Thank you.
>> Well, (?) also questions. From Russian Federation not representing government (?) I will turn to Jason special say it process was created. It was really authoritarian country and forces and organizations was used to meet people to build capacity and build solidarity then. As in the federation to my government, I really said that IGF had been moved to nor way. I expected a lot of hopes for such organizations and even state department to come and talk to people. Again, if I criticize my government, doesn't mean I not criticize or ask questions to you as government. When we're talking in solidarity, we also ‑‑ the most solidarity in cybersecurity is built on Technical Community. People are working together and so on and so on. I would like ‑‑ or ask questions to the government. Sanctions are breaking. The latest questions are few Russian based all line where support is removed and it broke. One of them lives in the United States for years and work for Amazon. Again, some kind of sanctions. That's some kind of example. Especially related to cybersecurity, sanctions are economical measures. Before what you call brutal attack and Russian citizens are based in Russian Federations have to call operation. Russians cybersecurity, huge companies and positive technologist are removed from all the processes of communications between Technical Community. I don't believe I am saying this, but I have noticed that not only Russian government breaks solidarity to cybersecurity. And I understand why they don't do this, but also some smooth governments and United States. So please answer what could be done to improve or stop breaking technical solidarity even by this measure. Thank you.
>> I will try to keep it brief. I just have a comment. I'm a public policy and human rights expert. A little bit of context. It's a 6‑year‑old women's non‑governmental and we also lead the Saudi delegation. I appreciate Jason's remarks about Saudi Arabia being hosted here. There is open mind and a clear understanding of the current legal frameworks and acted policy reform and local content. Let us insure biases do not Cloud our judgment going into 2025. Thank you very much.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: I lost my mic or my ability to hear. I just want to say look. We were talking on our way in today and the United States government is always ready and willing to take any feedback. I understand the IGF right after Snowden was quite complicated forever the U.S. government, but we show up, we listen and try to respond. That's what we're here to do. We will not pretend that everything we do is perfect. If we don't hear the feedback, we make bad policy. So I would say I recognize your points and it is important.
On the question of the non‑responsiveness platforms, it is something I personally hear all the time. We push them very hard to be more responsive, but criminalizing speeches is at the same time very problematic. They really want to shoo us out. A couple other words if they feel obliged.
>> ROBERT OPP: Just on your situation as well, digital sovereignty does not equal cybersecurity. What I mean is we can't assume acting in ways that we think are protective is actually safer.
>> JENNIFER BACHUS: Before we get kicked out of the room, thank you to all of you for your participation. Thank you to the panelists. And please if you haven't read our strategy, I encourage you to. Thank you for your participation and we look forward to continuing these conversations and thank you, Jason, from the other side of the world.
>> JASON PIELEMEIER: Thank you, all. Bye‑bye.