Meetings
ISOC Chapter Meeting at the Internet Governance Forum
Sunday, November 11 2007, 17.00 to 19.30hs (UTC 19.00-21.30)
Royalty Barra Hotel - Kingdom Room
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Participants
- Norbert Klein - ISOC Cambodia
- Stefano Trumpi - ISOC Italy
- Charles Mok - ISOC Hong Kong
- Monica Abalo - ISOC Argentina
- Sebastien Bachollet - ISOC France
- Rajnesh Singh - PICISOC
- Cristos Velasco - ISOC Mexico
- Veronica Cretu - ISOC Moldova (in formation)
- Hakikur Rahman - ISOC Bangladesh
- Aziz Hilali - ISOC Morocco
- Yaovi Atohoun- ISOC Benin
- Carlos Vera - ISOC Ecuador
- Julian Casasbuenas - ISOC global member from Colombia
- Antonio Martino - ISOC Argentina/Italy
Staff
- Matthew Shears- Public Policy
- Lynn St. Amour - President & CEO
- Dawit Bekele - Regional Manager for Africa
- Sebastian Bellagamba - Regional Manager for Latin America
- Kevin Craemer - Senior Events Manager
Agenda
- Welcome and round table introductions
- Approval of agenda
- ISOC expectations for IGF
- Internet Governance situation in Latin America and the Caribbean
- Chapter perspectives and discussion
- Q & A
- AOB
Welcome and round table introductions
Sebastian Bellagamba, manager of the LAC Regional Bureau of ISOC welcomed the participants and invited them to briefly introduce themselves. Introductions followed.Approval of agenda
Sebastian Bachollet suggested discussing the membership system’s business rules. However, there was no one from the membership department at the meeting, so it was agreed that the participants present their issues for the staff to forward to the membership department.ISOC expectations for IGF
Matthew Shears gave a brief overview of the IGF process, noting that he was encouraged by the increasing participation of governments. He said that more and more governments recognized that IGF is not a guinea pig and are interested to participate. For instance, there is increasing involvement of the governments in the advisory group. He said that, a new development in Rio is to have a co-chair from Brazil for every session.Another development is the new area 'critical resources', added by the advisory group, which felt that critical Internet resources were not well addressed in Athens. The representatives in the panel will discuss various issues that are likely to add a political aspect in the IGF.
Governments are pushing for more results from the IGF process, such as the production of recommendations. As a result, in Rio, there will be a report of the secretariat. This seems a slight change but may be very important. Another change is that capacity building is less prominent in the agenda.
There are also some logistical changes: there will be more question and answer time, which is good. Furthermore, the number of panelists has been limited to 5-7. However, there will be more people specifically brought into the discussions.
ISOC’s expectation has not changed. It continues to push for focus on access and capacity building. Our focus should be to give access for the next billion. It encourages unconstrained discussion between the various stakeholders, at all levels including at local level. It wants the reinforcement of the IGF spirit: discussion. We also believe that how IGF goes this week is very important for its future.
As for critical Internet resources, IPv6 has gained importance this year, while the perceived importance of DNS has diminished. We believe that IP addresses and root servers are only two issues among many other important issues.
There is a big push to evaluate to what degree the IGF is reaching its objective. It is important to see what this will bring about. The taking stock and the emerging issues have greater importance this year.
ISOC has sponsored and co-sponsored many workshops: IPv4/IPv6, access, and a range of workshops around access. There is an ISOC booth and open forum (Q&A). The involvements of chapters have been very good. There will also be a lot of individuals moderating and speaking on various sessions.
The participants commented on Matthew’s intervention. Stefano Trumpi said that a number of chapter members have different hats, but it is important that they also promote ISOC and contribute to its visibility. Italy’s chapter is part of the Bill of Rights delegation within the Italian delegation and wants to promote and strengthen the dynamic coalition. He invited the participants to join this dynamic coalition. He also noted that there is a political issue on critical resources, explaining that ICANN and the Internet technical community should contribute to making sure that the discussions go in the right direction.
Matthew agreed that the role of the US government will probably be discussed. Lynn St. Amour added that ISOC has made its position on ICANN clear with its position paper. ISOC supports the US government’s position to move ICANN to the private sector. It does not agree on a UN type model, whether it is under ITU or another intergovernmental organization. It believes in a bottom-up, accessible, and transparent model. Stefano Trumpi said there will probably be a confrontation between those governments that are sitting in the GAC and those that are not.
Sebastien Bachollet informed the participants that, in Athens, two groups have been formed representing civil society. The first group, headed by Francis Muguet, is against the ICANN model and wants to create a new grouping for civil society. It is probably created against the technical community or ISOC. Some of these people are from ISOC chapters and we should discuss this with them.
Stefano Trumpi explained that the agreement between ICANN and the US government will expire in 2009. It is expected that after that, ICANN will become a real international organization in the private sector. He added that the root server is not directly controlled by ICANN even though it is a critical resource. For those who were in Tunis, this enhanced cooperation should have started by 2006, but the UN realizes it is difficult. We need to see where we are. An interesting evolution is that the UN said that it wants to create a synergy with ICANN rather than replace it.
- Internet Governance situation in Latin America and the Caribbean
Sebastian Bellagamba explained that in the LAC region there is a lengthy process called eLAC, run by ECLAC (UN), to rank major ICT issues using a methodology called Delphi. For this study, Internet Governance came at the 34th priority position. However, if you define IG in some other ways, for example including cost issues, it could rise to number one.
He also pointed out the most important IG issues in the LAC region. Access is not a separate issue: if you aggregate the traffic (regionally and locally), costs come down. There are also a couple more issues. IPv4/IPv6 is already an issue; steps to tackle it are being taken by LACNIC and ISOC. As in Africa, transitioning is going to be harder in developing countries than in developed countries.
Another major issue is ccTLD management in general (not just technical management). ccTLDs are excellent factors for the growth of Internet in a country and need to be helped.
As for the main players in this area, he said that from a government perspective, in the LAC region Brazil is the most important player in IG, followed by Argentina. El Salvador is leading the next round of eLAC. The Caribbean Telecommunication Union, especially the Trinidad & Tobago government, is very active. The rest of governments are currently not so involved.
For governmental organizations, ELAC and CITEL (Organization of American States) are playing some roles.
Among non-governmental organizations, ISOC, LACNIC, APC, AHCIET (telecommunications company), LACTLD, and Development Gateways are the main players.
ISOC has been invited in the inter-ministerial meeting in El Salvador next February. It is also thinking of having some workshops. ISOC will work with ITU. The INET meeting in May will focus on access. ISOC will also be present at the IG forum of the Caribbean where Caribbean ministers will be present.
Sebastien Bachollet then asked what the At Large constituency and chapters are doing in the LAC regions.
Sebastian Bellagamba responded that there are eight chapters in the region. He said that they have their first in-person meeting in Venezuela in May and that he is trying to have them participate more in the IG area.
Hakikur Rahman says that in Bangladesh there is better access thanks to mobile. He said that competition has increased. He said that there have been several workshops on BGP and ccTLD since SANOG has been formed. However, he said that Bangladesh still lacks capacity development and hopes they can have an event every year. They are working on IPv4/IPv6 transition. He said that they would like to translate their chapter’s website into the local language and make it bilingual. He said that they want to develop capacity so that the next billion people can develop content and not just browse the internet.
Matthew Shears then asked “if you want to choose one particular space in capacity building what will be your choice?”. Hakikur Rahman asked that he will choose security.
Rajnesh Singh shared that in APNG.org, young people are brought from developing countries and trained for four weeks. It is running for the 10th time. It is a good program that needs to be replicated in other regions.
Stefano Trumpi informed the gathering that a book in Italian on juridical aspects of the Internet has been written and that it can be seen at www.isoc.it.
Sebastien Bachollet informed the participants that ISOC France is part of the organization of the ICANN meeting to be held at the end of June 2008 and that they are also organizing their annual meeting EGENIE which will have three sessions: 1) European questions (since France will be chairing the European union), 2) Internet future and future of Internet and 3) user perspectives. It is also planning to push ICANN to organize a meeting of all the ALAC structure.
Sebastien Bachollet followed by indicating that he is concerned with the business rules of the membership system in that says that a member of a chapter should be a global member of ISOC. If all chapter members have to be members of ISOC central and not vice versa then it will be biased. It would be very profitable for both that there is reciprocity.
Stefano Trumpi asked why chapters members want to be global members. Chapter members want to have information on the Internet, how it works, how it is controlled, etc. Local chapters should have their own views. In the recent discussions, there was a convergence in ideas that the chapters should invite their members to join ISOC global and vice versa.
Norbert Klein says that there has not been any discussion in any public policy issue. In this situation, he says that they are trying to get people interested by explaining that it’s not only sufficient to use Internet but that there are important issues behind that they need to know. He added that an important issue for Cambodia is the introduction of software in local language. He also said that ISOC should support the use of FOSS in local languages.
