IGF 2014

It will focus on ongoing accelerated developments in the global arena of Internet Governance, with special attention to regional aspirations pertaining to the envisaged global Internet Governance model that would take place after 2015, and to the input of the regional IGFs regarding the ongoing consultation processes that will take place during the next year which will shape the future model.
The global IGF, as well as regional IGFs, played a major role in shaping Internet Governance debate, It is time to revisit the very essence of the IGF as a non-decision, non-output, non-binding platform. Revisiting this does not necessarily mean that IGFs need to change radically, but may mean that enhancements may be introduced in the next decade following 2015.
Panelists of experts and policymakers towards will discuss the following :
• Respective Roles of different subgroups of stakeholders in Internet Governance.
• The global IGF/Arab IGF dialectics: what went well and what went wrong?
• Should the global IGF as well as the regional IGFs (including the Arab IGF) continue to work as a non-decision-based platform, without any binding recommendations? Or is it the time to evolve to something else?
• Can the above evolutions take place before the future IG model takes final shape? In parallel? Or afterwards?
• How can the global and regional IGFs sustain their existing/new roles post 2015?

The evolution of Internet governance principles frameworks and accountability mechanisms has been the focus of considerable discussion in 2014. This process must proceed through careful analysis. Some governments highlighted concern about Internet-related policy issues for which they cannot identify relevant existing mechanisms. However, before concluding that new mechanisms should be created to address these issues, alternative options must be sought to ensure that changes would contribute to enhancing the security, stability, privacy, resiliency and interoperability of the Internet, and to economical and societal benefits.

This workshop will examine how governance/operational problems can be addressed in a manner that continues to safeguard the security and stability of the Internet. It will use a four-step process ICC-BASIS submitted to NETmundial.
1. A potential issue should be identified to the global stakeholder community, indicating the implications to governance and to determine whether the issue has already been addressed in an existing mechanism.
2. Upon assessment, proposed solutions should be described to the global stakeholder community.
3. Proposed solutions should be analysed to determine whether it would violate the principle of "first, do no harm" to the functionality, stability and interoperability of the global Internet.
4. Finally, solutions should be evaluated to determine potential effectiveness for addressing the issues and their potential for unintended consequences.

This workshop also will examine the WGEC mapping analysis and consider how to utilize the WGEC's work to enable a stakeholder to identify existing mechanisms - developed through private sector, (inter)-governmental organizations - to address governance issues.

To map, frame and make accessible the often-confusing tangle of processes underway across the vast number of Internet governance-related issues, an increasing number of initiatives have emerged or are being proposed, including:

• CSTD WGEC Correspondence Group mapping activity;
• GIPO;
• Geneva Internet Platform;
• Internet Policy Observatory; and
• Internet Collaborative Stewardship Framework (ISOC).

With the advent of so many initiatives, some of the possible issues and risks that may emerge include:

• Lack of coordination between initiatives;
• Unnecessary duplication of activities;
• Overlooking good initiatives in “competing” forums; and
• Adding to general IG stakeholder confusion;

This roundtable will bring representatives of initiatives together to explore similarities and synergies and ways to improve communication and coordination, with the ultimate goals of:

• Strengthening support and partnerships between initiatives to avoid a sense of “competition”;
• Enabling initiatives to gain access to stakeholders, information and processes that by themselves, they would not have direct access or knowledge of;
• Sharing best practices between initiatives, such as data conceptualization and visualization;
• Contributing to a more inclusive and collaborative mapping of issues, mechanisms, and gaps in Internet governance;
• Encouraging greater IG stakeholder buy-in for all initiatives; and
• Breaking down barriers, generally, between IG stakeholders.

The roundtable will also encourage representatives from regions or stakeholder groups that don’t have such initiatives to join the roundtable, with a view to helping such representatives ascertain whether or not initiatives are needed for their own regions and stakeholder groups.

The proposed workshop has the format of a roundtable during which participants from different stakeholder groups will discuss the results of RIA research conducted, some of which has been undertaken with NEPAD Agency, on mapping multistakeholders participation in Internet governance from an African perspective..
Specifically, participants will be invited to consider how factors such as low level of Internet access and use, low quality of service and high prices of broadband intersect with the notion of multistakeholder participation as a form of deliberative democracy for Internet governance - which is often informed by assumptions from more mature markets and the human rights frameworks of Western democracies.
Participants will explore the evolution of multistakeholders participation through consideration of the main international, regional and national processes/mechanisms of the Internet governance ecosystem from an Africa perspective.
Some specific issues that will be highlighted include:
- What these initiatives have achieved in terms of enabling or constraining the development of an open Internet;
- what has been the level and effectiveness of participation of African stakeholders in these processes;
- why have they not been able to fully develop an African agenda on Internet governance

Could we, as international citizens of the Internet, create a set of general principles, a "Magna Carta" for the Internet? Can we design a platform that enables us to crowdsource from across the world a vision for the "Web We Want"? Could we overcome linguistic, political, and cultural barriers in order to mobilize around issues of net neutrality and pervasive surveillance? How can we design both a technological platform and social process in a way that overcomes rather than increases barriers to inclusion? How can we get the participation of those who are disconnected or otherwise excluded from the Internet itself, the majority of the world?

It seems like such a document should be directly crowd-sourced from the Web itself, yet open-source tools for involving massive amounts of users in collaborative editing, discussing controversial topics, and reaching consensus are still in their early stages. Traditional Internet governance bodies work mostly over mailing-lists, but massive volumes of email prevent many people from participating in the age of Facebook and Twitter, and provide little help for structuring debates and issues. How can we build more effective socio-technological scaffolding is needed to let people engage effectively in multi-stakeholder processes?

Panelists from across the world will discuss and compare their experiences in large-scale constitutional crowd-sourcing, and will suggest best practices in order to extend these efforts in designing participatory platforms to engage users in political discussion and action. Ranging from the Tunisian Constitution and the “Decálogo da Web Brasileira (Brazilian Web Decalogue) to technical standardization at the W3C and the work of the IGF on Internet rights, we hope to learn how to build from these experiences to create a "Magna Carta" for the Web, so that we can build not only the Web We Want, but the world we want.