CONSULTATIONS ON THE CONVENING OF THE INTERNET GOVERNANCE FORUM
         TRANSCRIPT  OF MORNING SESSION 17 FEBRUARY 2006

         Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken
         during the Consultations on the Convening of the Internet Governance
         Forum, in Geneva on 16-17 February in Geneva, Switzerland. Although it
         is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate
         due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an
         aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be
         treated as an authoritative record.

         (Gavel.) >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   Good morning.

         >> Good morning!

         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   Can we settle down, please. I think we need to --
         we could not complete the list of speakers that we had yesterday. And
         now there are some new ones who have come today on the -- who also want
         to contribute to the points that we had started discussing yesterday
         afternoon. So I'm just going to go straight into that list. And perhaps
         I would like to start with the republic of Korea after that, it will be
         (inaudible).


         >>KOREA:   Okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for giving me the
         floor. I am speaking on behalf of the republic of Korea, since this is
         my delegation's first intervention, I would like to extend our thanks
         to you for convening this very open and inclusive consultation meeting.
         The Korean government is very pleased to participate in these
         consultations on the convening of the Internet Governance Forum. And we
         would like to play a positive role in the Internet Governance Forum. In
         this intervention, we would like to comment on several major issues
         related to the Internet Governance Forum. The Korean government
         believes that the Internet Governance Forum must be multilateral,
         multistakeholder, democratic, and transparent. It is important that all
         stakeholders must be able to fully participate in the Internet
         Governance Forum to exchange best practices and to concentrate on the
         substance issues. Regarding the frequency of the Internet Governance
         Forum, we believe the Internet Governance Forum should meet once a year
         for two or three days, and we suggest that there must be a (inaudible)
         forum to deal with important Internet-related issues between the IGF
         meetings. The Korean government also would like to suggest that the
         first Internet Governance Forum meeting should focus on a limited
         number of high-priority issues in order to be more effective in
         producing meaningful results. We believe that spam and multilingualism
         would be appropriate issues for the first Internet Governance Forum.
         Whatever issues we decide to discuss for the first Internet Governance
         Forum, we should try to make our tangible recommendations to the issues
         and identify emerging issues. With respect to the structure of Internet
         Governance Forum, we believe that it is necessary to have
         multistakeholder steering committee to prepare the Internet Governance
         Forum and facilitate the decision-making process. And they must be
         lightweight and cost-effective. The Korean government looks forward to
         collaborating with other stakeholders for a successful Internet
         Governance Forum and to contributing more to the consultations. Thank
         you very much, Mr. Chairman.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   Thank you very much. Bertrand, are you ready?


         >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   No. Later on, if you don't mind.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   I welcome you, and I thanked you yesterday, when
         you were not here, I thanked you once again, and for all the hard work
         that you did in allowing us to get to this point. So I thank you, I'm
         sure, on behalf of everybody. Let me go to Ambassador Masood Khan.


         >>AMB. MASOOD KHAN:   Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Thank you so
         much. I'm so glad to see you in the chair. And Mr. Markus Kummer on
         your side. I take the floor on behalf of the Group of 77 and China.
         This intervention primarily aims at providing some preliminary ideas in
         interacting with some of the important issues raised by you, Mr.
         Chairman, and other speakers during the rich discussions we had
         yesterday. As mentioned in the statement made on behalf of the group
         yesterday, WSIS belongs to the series of U.N. summits that focused on
         economic and social development issues. The primary objective of the
         summit in all its aspects, including Internet governance, was to
         create, and I quote, a people-centered, inclusive, and
         development-oriented information society. The group would like to
         reiterate that the Internet Governance Forum we intend to create must
         help realize this vision of a development-oriented information society.
         The mandate, work, agenda, structure, composition, frequency, and
         venues of meetings of the IGF must be geared towards achieving this
         shared objective in the post-Tunis phase. Mr. Chairman,
         multistakeholder participation was referred to in most statements made
         yesterday. The Group of 77 and China would like to reiterate that the
         nature, composition, and operation of the IGF must be characterized by
         a balanced approach towards multistakeholder participation. Such an
         approach, from our perspective, would necessitate ensuring adequate and
         effective participation by governments, civil society, and businesses
         from developing countries, as well as international organizations. That
         are representative of their development aspirations. The objectives
         must be to seek balanced representation both in terms of physical
         presence and intellectual input in all formal and informal meetings, in
         all deliberations, and in any decision-making processes. This would not
         only lead to incorporating the diversity of views on the critical issue
         of Internet governance, but will also lay a strong foundation for a
         transparent, Democratic, and multilateral process with regard to
         Internet governance that would be inclusive and responsive to the needs
         of developing countries. The Group of 77 and China believe that the
         Internet Governance Forum must be structured on the basis of regional
         representation and convened on the principle of geographical rotation,
         with particular reference to developing countries. Mr. Chairman, you
         inquired about the content of the development agenda of the IGF. I
         would like to refer once more to paragraph 65 of the Tunis Agenda,
         which clearly underlines the need to maximize the participation of
         developing countries in decision regarding Internet governance in a
         manner that should reflect their interests. This paragraph needs to be
         operationalized through the IGF. It must also be noted that this
         paragraph is not limited to capacity-building issues. It casts the net
         wider, to highlight the systemic perspective of development-oriented
         Internet governance. The Group of 77 and China would like to mention
         this, because we noticed that many interventions yesterday adopted a
         reductionist approach to the development aspects of Internet
         governance, limiting it to capacity-building. The issue is more complex
         and has been addressed in a number of paragraphs in the Tunis Agenda,
         including paragraph 49, which affirms commitment on the part of the
         international community to turning the digital divide into digital
         opportunity by ensuring harmonious and equitable development for all
         and addressing issues like international interconnectivity costs,
         technology know-how, transfer, multilingualism, and providing the users
         with choice of different software models, including open source, free,
         and proprietary software. It would therefore be important for our
         deliberations to development a substantive agenda that is
         development-oriented. We heard a few delegations that raised some
         issues of priority to developing countries and development in general.
         We invite stakeholders, especially in the scientific and academic
         community, to contribute further with specialized ideas in this regard.
         We could draw on a wealth of literature on issues such as institutional
         arrangements for equitable and stable resource management, Internet
         access, and international transit arrangements, multilingualism, and
         local content. These are the type of contributions that we need to hear
         and look forward to exploring. Mr. Chairman, we have had a rich
         discussion so far during which we have heard views expressed earlier
         during the WSIS process and a host of new ideas with regard to the
         nature, structure, composition, mandate of the Internet Governance
         Forum. We expect to hear more views during the course of these
         consultations today. In view of the importance of the issue that we are
         dealing with, it would be important for us to take time out in order to
         reflect on these proposals. This would not only help us digest the
         essence of various proposals, but would also be useful in identifying
         the essential ingredients for consensus. The Group of 77 and China
         would therefore like to propose that we take time out and reconvene
         consultations in a month for detailed and substantive discussions. Let
         me conclude by assuring you, Mr. Chairman, that the Group of 77 and
         China, being the largest stakeholder in this process, would be willing
         to work closely with all the other stakeholders to ensure a
         development-oriented future for Internet governance that promotes
         interconnectivity and affords universal accessibility. I thank you, Mr.
         Chairman.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   Thank you. Thank you very much, Ambassador Masood
         Khan. Ambassador Masood Khan has suggested that we have these
         consultations, so to speak, in two rounds, one round now and one round,
         if I heard right, monthly. Did I? There are some logistical problems
         there, because the commission on human rights starts in Geneva, and
         then things become rather difficult. I would also like to stress that
         our purpose in these consultations was essentially to -- as messengers,
         to deliver to the secretary general not necessarily a consensus, but a
         sense of the range of views on the subject. I think it would not be
         appropriate for us as messengers to presume a consensus, or to presume
         what view the secretary general would take. So I would like to stress
         that we certainly do not come here with the intention of finding a
         single thing which we can then report, but to find what the range of
         views is, which we can convey to the secretary general. And if he feels
         it's so necessary, we will certainly condition with these discussions
         and consultations. But I would certainly request people when they speak
         to react to what others are saying so that we get a sense of where the
         range of -- is particularly wide, where the range is relatively narrow.
         That's been very helpful.  And I think we can now get back to our list
         of speakers. Senegal, ECA. Where is ECA? Can I first give the floor to
         Senegal, and then to the ECA?


         >>SENEGAL:   Thank you, chairman. Chairman, ladies and gentlemen, in
         Senegal, after the world summit information society stakeholders
         approved the idea that at the local level, a national forum be
         established on the information society which, in the long run, would
         allow all national stakeholders, government, civil society, and the
         private sector, to come to an agreement on a minimum common consensual
         base before defending any position in the international community. This
         is intended to make you understand that I speak on my own behalf,
         without being in contradiction with the official position of the
         government. On the purpose of our meeting today, there is a comment I'd
         like to make. In paragraph 72 (F) of the Tunis Agenda, it says that one
         of the mandates of the forum is to strengthen, enhance the commitment
         of stakeholders, particularly those in developing countries in existing
         or future Internet governance mechanisms. Now, let's look around
         ourselves. How many official African delegations do we have here out of
         the 51 which should be here? How many associations and NGOs from
         African civil society are present in this room? Maybe four or five.
         And, finally, how can you imagine initiating inclusive practices for
         the developing countries if they are left on the touch line from the
         very outset? And further, if I've understood things properly, the forum
         is not being called upon to replace or monitor existing bodies which
         carry out their jobs properly for the greater good of the community of
         Internet users. However, we cannot but note that when major decisions
         are taken on the policies required for a global vision, I really
         sincerely think that it's not up to the brave technicians to guide
         operations. The creation and establishment of the forum is a timely
         initiative. The Internet world is a model based on freedom. And we
         should, thus, avoid placing unacceptable constraints upon it. This
         means that the forum needs an operational Secretariat, as we've already
         had in the Working Group on Internet Governance. It doesn't need a
         cumbersome, inefficient administration. The bureau of the forum should
         be the same sort of thing, lightweight and operational. The
         establishment of the forum is a strong recommendation emerging from the
         world summit where thousands and thousands of men and women were
         involved, working tirelessly for so many years and who produced some
         excellent results. I think it would be useful to reproduce models which
         have shown that they can do. We could refer to the implementation of
         the bureau and that sort of thing. Although they have been criticized,
         these structures have produced appreciable results for the mandate of
         the forum. As long as the causes why the forum was created are still
         with us, it seems to me that we need to keep in place and improve, if
         possible, and necessary, the agenda must factor in problems related to
         developing country participation. I thank you for your attention.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   Thank you very much. Economic commission for
         Africa.


         >>ECA:   I thank you, Mr. Chairman, for convening this important forum,
         which is fully inclusive, and for also giving us the opportunity to
         address this gathering of distinguished stakeholders as members of the
         group of the U.N. general recommendations. Mr. Chairman, we have been
         talking about Internet governance during the last three years because
         of the growing importance of the social, economic, cultural, and
         political role of the Internet. Moreover, at the global level, key ICT
         decisions are being made at various international meetings and in
         global institutions that directly or indirectly have implications on
         the development of ICTs in a number of developing countries, including
         Africa. Some of these global policy decisions are also having an impact
         on and shaping the direction and the nature of ICT for development
         policies and programs in these countries. These issues have been
         discussed and learned in Africa in several fora, including discussion
         list on Internet governance, together Africa input for the WSIS
         process, face-to-face meetings during the Africa general preparatory
         conferences on the WSIS, preparing research papers in cooperation with
         the U.N. ICT task force. However, despite all these efforts, African
         participation in global IG is still hampered by several factors,
         including the limited bargaining power and leverage of African
         countries as compared to other countries in the regional blocs, the
         absence of consistent positions by African countries on major global
         Internet governance issues, the lack of expertise and capacity in
         relevant Internet governance issues, including standards and technical
         issues, the absence of effective cooperation among African countries on
         how to engage in collective negotiation on relevant IG issues for their
         mutual benefit, the effort of some of the extra-regional bloc alliances
         that some African countries enter into, which in some cases makes it
         difficult for African countries to act as a group. There is also the
         lack of necessary financial resources, as stated by several
         participants, to meet the cost of attending the meetings of the
         relevant international IG organizations, which are most of the time
         held in Europe or in America. These factors have increased the acute
         dependency of African countries on a governance system for which they
         have little or no influence. Hence, in line with the WSIS outcomes, we
         recommend the Internet Governance Forum to address IC-related
         development issues as a priority, including the following: 
         Capacity-building, affordable and equitable access, national
         infrastructure development, interconnection cost and development of
         (inaudible) points, cultural and language diversity, network security,
         data protection, protection and privacy, intellectual property rights,
         free and open source software. There also need to develop sector
         applications on e-government, e-education, e-commerce in order to
         create digital opportunities and enable the countries to achieve the
         MBGs. Mr. Chairman, on the structure and its composition, we believe
         that the IGF should have a multistakeholder steering committee at both
         the regional and international levels. There are -- the regional level,
         in order to make the process inclusive and take into account view of
         stakeholders at the national and continental levels, the IGF annual
         meetings should be preceded by regional meetings which may be organized
         as often as necessary. This would allow regions to prepare common
         positions as well as unified input and common understanding, before
         moving to the global level. These regional meetings may be held
         together with the implementation and evaluation workshops to be
         organized by the U.N. regional commissions in accordance to the WSIS
         action lines. This may lead to more efficient annual meetings. In
         addition, Mr. Chairman, use of online resources and online meetings as
         well as video conferencing facilities should be encouraged at both
         regional and global levels. On the output of the IGF, we believe it
         will not be enough to exchange views and information only, but to have
         the IGF influence decisions and processes to be taken into -- in the IG
         arena. To conclude, Mr. Chairman, I am pleased to inform you that as
         capacity-building is one of the biggest impediment to Africa's
         participation in the IG process, -- we are working in developing
         training material and organizing onsite and online courses for Internet
         governance and policymakers. With the support of industry Canada and
         participation of other partners, such as Agence Intergouvernementale De
         La Francophonie, ICANN, and DiploFoundation, Africa will have its first
         course in May 2006 in Kigali, Rwanda. The online course will be made
         available at the African Virtual Learning Academy. Mr. Chairman, may I
         also inform that you the first conference of ICT ministers to follow up
         on the WSIS decision will be held from 3 to 5 April 2006. Thank you,
         Mr. Chairman. .


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   Thank you very much. I now have a couple of
         speakers from yesterday, Mary Rundle and then Bertrand de la Chapelle.


         >> Mary Rundle:  My comments echo those of many speakers. Specifically,
         I'm here to offer resources from a new, nonprofit Geneva-based
         association with open membership, that is, Geneva net dialogue. Geneva
         net dialogue would offer its resources to help carry out the following
         functions:  Maintaining an interactive, multistakeholder Web site;
         helping to coordinate background papers and academic research; and
         helping to organize technology tutorials and briefings on emerging
         issues. Working with other groups, the three academic institutions
         would like to offer their services to the IGF effort through this
         association. These include the Berkman Center at Harvard Law School in
         the United States, the research center for information law at the
         University of Saint Gallen in Switzerland, and the School of
         Communication and Information at Nanyang Technological University in
         Singapore. These institutions would welcome the active involvement of
         IGF fellows as well from developing countries. The envisioned Web site
         would offer the following features, among others, regular updates from
         relevant intergovernmental organizations and standards bodies, a
         calendar to signal upcoming meetings where net-related rules will be
         discussed, descriptive as well as normative content from the
         stakeholder community to be summarized in periodic updates for
         policymakers. Geneva net dialogue already includes members from the
         technology community who have built successful multilingual Web sites
         like creative comments international, with a community of international
         volunteers. These ideas are elaborated in a proposal on the IGF Web
         site. They are put forward as food for thought. If it turns out that
         the community would like to draw upon these resources, Geneva net
         dialogue would be delighted to contribute. Thank you.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   Thank you. Now Bertrand de la Chapelle from
         WSIS-online.


         >>BERTRAND DE LA CHAPELLE:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for giving me the
         floor. I am Bertrand de la Chapelle, the director of WSIS-online, but I
         am making this contribution on a personal behalf. Mr. Chairman, you
         invited us yesterday to contribute in a thinking-aloud mode, and I will
         follow your recommendation here, presenting a few concrete ideas in a
         personal capacity to feed the debate. Focusing on the first meeting in
         Athens, first of all, the IGF should be established in the most
         pragmatic and self-organizing manner possible. As the participant from
         Singapore mentioned yesterday, we want the IGF to start small and
         evolve. And in order to prove the movement by walking and save time,
         the simplest approach is probably to organize Athens as a three- to
         four-day open conference with a basic registration process like the one
         used for the present meeting, open also to interested individuals. The
         second point is, drawing from the discussions yesterday, it seems that
         in one way or the other, Athens will, to be substantive, address a
         diversity of issues in a limited number of thematic sessions. Numbers
         may vary, but something between four and six sessions might be middle
         ground. In addition, of course, to the necessary opening and final
         wrap-up plenarys. A third point is that these thematic sessions would
         have the main purpose of allowing all actors to reach a better
         understanding of each issue and the challenges it raises, even -- and I
         insist on that -- if they do not agree at that stage on how it should
         be addressed. The only thing that is important is that actors agree
         that the issue has to be addressed, even if they don't agree on how.
         And, unfortunately, on what the solutions should be. The fourth point
         is, as an example, such sessions could start with a panel allowing
         experts from the different categories of stakeholders to present the
         different dimensions of the issue, and then a brief overview of the
         main actors already involved in addressing it would be followed by a
         brief discussion on how the forum, according to its mandate, could
         facilitate discussion on the issue and interaction among the various
         actors. Now, I'm coming to the tricky part, and the fifth point is how
         would and should these themes be selected.  Several suggestions have
         been made yesterday and surely others will be made today, but we could
         benefit from an iterative, inclusive and structured process between now
         and the coming weeks. I suggest that following these consultations, an
         open call for suggestions of themes be initiated by the Secretariat to
         all stakeholders with a deadline at the end of March. The sixth point
         is that in that respect, to respond to this contribution, to this call
         for suggestions, stakeholder could ideally contribute one-page
         submissions in a sort of six-point format.  The six points would be,
         first, a proposed theme in a concise formulation. Second point would be
         a brief description of why, in their view, it is important to address
         this theme. The third point would be why, in their view, it is in
         conformity with the Tunis Agenda in terms of substance, and
         particularly in reference to paragraph 34 to 54, but not exclusively.
         Fourth point would be how, in their view, this issue fits within the
         mandate of the IGF and its mission as detailed in paragraph 72. The two
         last points would be a rapid indication of who the main actors in the
         field are to the best of their knowledge.  Actors could be anchors to
         participate in the forum and its thematic sessions.  And last but not
         least, the submissions would indicate why, in their view, this issue
         should be addressed at the first annual meeting of the forum rather
         than in subsequent ones. Very quickly to finish, the submissions will
         be posted online by the Secretariat and a second round, second phase of
         online comments would be open for all actors to express support or to
         criticize the proposals during the month of April. Then, as I saw on
         the Web site of the IGF, the second round of open consultations that is
         envisaged for May, which is not decided yet, could then provide a
         summary report to the Secretariat, finalize the precise list of themes
         for Athens, and multistakeholder program committee would then, then, be
         formed to organize the introductory panels for its thematic session and
         guarantee the involvement of the key stakeholders in this field.
         Finally, Mr. Chairman, as a concluding suggestion, there will be a
         large number of actors that will be proposing themes that will not be
         retained for the Athens meeting. I suggest that during the Athens
         meeting a short session of two to three hours in the format of a posted
         session is organized to allow all the actors who have submitted a
         formal suggestion of theme to present in a three- to five-minute strict
         presentation the various elements of their submissions in order to feed
         the agenda-setting process. I keep my intervention on that issue for
         the moment, and I thank you very much for allowing me to give this
         contribution.


         >> CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Thank you. I now, I'll name the next three, Axel
         Pawlik, the managing director of RIPENCC, Raul Echeberria who is also a
         member of the numbers resources organization, and then I have Dr.
         Jeremy Beale from the confederation of British industry, and Brazil.


         >>AXEL PAWLIK:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I appreciate the opportunity
         to take the floor during these open consultation.  My name is Axel
         Pawlik.  I speak for the RIPENCC, a Dutch membership association that
         operates one of the Internet root name server clusters and also
         performs the task of regional Internet registry for Europe, Middle
         East, and parts of central Asia.  Having been established in 1992 we
         are currently serving about 4,300 members in that service region, most
         of them companies that among themselves are responsible for operating
         the Internet in this part of the world. We have followed and also
         actively contributed to the WSIS process since the early Geneva phase. 
         Only last week we hosted a round table meeting for governments and
         regulators an activity that we view as a direct outflow of our
         activities around the world summit.  May I say we are quite impressed
         with and congratulate you for the progress you made so far which you,
         Mr. Chairman, and secretary Kummer have been able to sustain until
         today. Listening to the debate, and yesterday and here today, we sense
         there is a strong consensus emerging on the fundamental principles of
         the Internet Governance Forum.  Clearly it will be multistakeholder, it
         should not be bound by u.n. procedures or WSIS (inaudible) rules in
         order to be fully open and accessible.  We too feel about three days is
         appropriate for the meeting itself, that there should be one meeting
         per year, that the Secretariat should be relatively small and
         lightweight and there should be a program committee that prepares the
         individual meetings. We agree with what has been put forward so far to
         be among the first topics, Spam and multilingualism.  And further
         consistent with our own actions over the last years whew would like to
         emphasize the need for a strong development approach. Finally I would
         like to close this intervention with a statement that for the IGF to be
         a success it is essential that the Internet community in this pervasive
         medium for decades now is recognized as a primary stakeholder in the
         process on an equal footing with government, civil society, and the
         private sector. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.


         >> CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Jeremy Beale, confederation of british industry. 
         Dr. Beale.


         >>JEREMY BEALE:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  The confederation of British
         industry fully supports the statement made yesterday by the ICC/CCBI,
         but I would just like to elaborate some of the issues raised there
         about support for a multistakeholder event with a lightweight
         Secretariat by drawing on some of the experiences that we have had
         working with our members in the United Kingdom. Like the representative
         from France, MEDEF in France yesterday who spoke, the CBI represents a
         very broad range of british businesses, from very, very large ones to
         very small ones, and in total membership has thousands of members. This
         area of Internet-based commerce, though, is one where there really are
         in many respects no established rules of success.  Much of the work
         that we do in the CBI is really about sharing best practice amongst our
         members.  And large companies learn from small ones about how to be
         dynamic, innovative, and fleet of foot, and small ones learn from large
         companies about how to be efficient and looking forward over the
         horizon from their immediate factors. But there are two things that
         stand out, really, in what companies find that they need to take into
         account in relation to being successful in developing the Internet as a
         medium of commerce.  Firstly, social factors. Companies find that they
         cannot operate in the traditional business manner in many respects. 
         They have to take account of the social environment that they operate
         in and also of their employees, the social background of their
         employees, the social interests.  And that way they become much more
         effective at marketing, it's a much more sophisticated marketing
         process, but it also means that they have to design products that are
         much more tailored to different social interests and social groups. The
         other area is in governance.  Both in terms of internal governance by
         companies, they have to change the way they operate.  Less
         hierarchical, more decentralized, more participatory.  The other form
         of governance is in terms of the relations with the public sector and
         the state.  There is many different ways, many different new forms of
         partnership that are being developed between the private sector and the
         public sector in the UK, and many of these are experimental. Whole new
         business models and ways of operating have resulted from this, and they
         are still ongoing.  It is a learning process for everyone.  But in
         order to get at that learning process, we found that we have to share
         best practice.  We also have to do so in a way that is not centralized.
          We can't set the rules.  We actually just have to act as a way of
         supporting the efforts and interests of our members. Now, being
         successful at this is essential for our businesses, but that means that
         in total, it's also essential for global economic growth and the
         development issues that have been raised here.  You can't have
         successful development globally if you don't have successful commerce. 
         And so the lessons that are being learnt by some very advanced
         companies, but also some very traditional companies in the UK and in
         other countries I think would be usefully shared with other countries
         and businesses in developing countries in the process that we're
         talking about. Thank you very much.


         >> CHAIRMAN DESAI:  I have Raul Echeberria from the Number Resource
         Organization and LACNIC followed by Brazil, followed by European union.


         >>RAUL ECHEBERRIA:  thank you, Mr. Chairman.  My name is Raul
         Echeberria, as you said, and I am the executive director of LACNIC, the
         registrar of addresses for Latin America and the Caribbean, and I am
         the chair of the NRO, the number resources organization.  And it gives
         all Internet registries in 2003 the -- it improves the coordination
         between regional registries and it acts as a focal point in linking the
         -- linking the various stakeholders up. I wanted to make a number of
         comments representing the NRO.  And I would like to say that I am very
         pleased to see you chairing this group, sir.  Also Mr. Kummer working
         as the secretary. I'm sorry I wasn't here yesterday because -- but
         unfortunately I had personal reasons for not being here.  It's not easy
         for many of us to come to meetings in Geneva.  It takes me over 20
         hours to do a round trip.  Many people think that Geneva is the ideal
         place for these activities to take place, but for many people, it's
         very difficult to attend and to have these activities centralized in
         one particular place. As we all know, one of the characteristics of the
         forum that was defined throughout the long negotiation in the summit,
         and of course the important aspects that need to be defined don't need
         to be discussed once again, but one of the aspects that I was
         mentioning was the multistakeholder nature of this forum, and the
         importance that all stakeholders take part on an equal footing in the
         IGF. So this is the basis upon which we should build this forum. It
         doesn't need to be debated. I agree with those who have taken the floor
         to say that the forum should not have a bureau but, rather, it should
         be headed by a program committee. We support that approach. Of course,
         it being understood that this committee, program committee, must be
         multistakeholder and the conditions for participation for this
         committee must be the same conditions for all the stakeholders.  In
         this respect I would like to repeat something that has already been
         said in this room; namely, the importance for the technical community
         to be involved, which was recognized in paragraph 36 of the Tunis
         Agenda. So the technical community is a valuable stakeholder, and they
         have made extremely valuable contributions to the current situation of
         the Internet. We also agree with those who say that, if appropriate,
         the Secretariat should be small and lightweight, and we'd like to add
         that it should have -- be balanced in its composition.  Not only the
         participation of stakeholders, both in the regional participation and
         agenda participation.  It should be the model used for the creation of
         the working group on Internet Governance.  That could be the basis on
         which we could build this program committee, which should be smaller
         than the WGIG was.  Smaller than the WGIG was. It's important that in
         the forum we seek mechanisms to find consensus within the work of the
         forum, and in that respect the mechanisms that were used and are being
         used in many Internet organizations and which have proved successful
         can be taken as a reference point. With regard to the frequency of the
         meeting of the IGF, we believe that a high frequency of meetings would
         be an obstacle for the participation of the civil society and
         organizations developing country organizations because they have fewer
         resources to fund an effective participation in an international agenda
         which already has many events. So we think once a year is enough, and
         the meetings should not last more than two or three days at the most. 
         That should be enough. And what is most important here, of course, is
         something we have been repeating, we have been saying before the WGIG;
         namely, we should have online participatory tools because that
         guarantees the chance for everybody to participate.  Web casting,
         remote access, the publication of documents for public comments, the
         availability of electronic forums.  These are the most important
         aspects to take into account for the implementation of the forum. With
         regard to where to hold the meetings, well, we believe that we need to
         have geographical diversity in the meetings.  As I was saying before,
         it is no easy for people to attend meetings in Geneva or go to places
         that are far away from where we live.  So, therefore, the
         regionalization of the meetings and the rotation of the regions would
         enable a fair participation for stakeholders from the whole world.  We
         propose that the meetings be organized back to back with other
         important meetings dealing with the same issues.  So that not only
         would more people be able to be involved, but also the organizational
         costs would fall to the organizations that host the events and the
         organizations that work with the IGF. Finally, with regard to the
         agenda, we believe that we mustn't reproduce the ideological
         discussions which took place in the summit for a long time.  We must
         focus on issues which are real issues for the community. There is a
         great opportunity here to build things that benefit the greatest
         possible number of people.  Therefore, one of the main issues, as other
         people have mentioned, should be cybercrime, the right to privacy, cost
         of interconnections, Spam, capacity building, multilingualism, inter
         alia.  Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.


         >> CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Thank you. Brazil.


         >>BRAZIL:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  I will be brief in my remarks,
         just to try to help you on these topics that you asked for our opinion.
         First of all, of course we would like to say that we support the speech
         of ambassador Khan on behalf of the G77.  I would like to touch upon
         only three topics, Mr. Chairman.  The first one on the proposal of G77
         for another round of consultations.  The second one on how many days we
         are planning to stay there in Athens, and the third one on the format
         of the bureau. On the first one, Mr. Chairman, I think it's very useful
         the proposal of G77 to have another round of consultations.  Maybe the
         ideal period could be after the ICANN GAC meeting that is going to take
         place in New Zealand at the end of March.  We could have something at
         the beginning of April here after this gathering there in New Zealand.
         Second topic, on the days, how many days we should stay there, I told
         you yesterday, Mr. Chairman, that Brazil favors at least five days. 
         And I think it's a reasonable thing, if we can think together with our
         Greek colleagues.  For them there will be not much trouble because the
         amount of resources they are going to put in place if we stay there one
         or two days more for them, there will be no difficulty.  And my
         reasoning is very simple.  I'm pretty sure that the Greek government is
         going to organize a very beautiful opening ceremony with high-ranking
         officials there that will take at least the whole morning.  And then we
         are going to have the afternoon for speeches.  National speeches,
         speeches from the private sector and civil society. Then we lost the
         first day [ Laughter ].


         >>BRAZIL:  As simple as that. [ Laughter ] [ Applause ]


         >>BRAZIL:  Then we go to the second day, Mr. Chairman, and on the
         second day we have a very good proposal by our dear friend De La
         Chapelle.  And if we follow what he is proposing us, i think we are
         going to stay there two weeks at least.  But let's see, if we stay just
         one day, we manage to split our groups in 10, 15 workshops and then we
         manage to do all the topics Mr. De La Chapelle is proposing and then we
         go to the last day.  There will be the wrap-up discussion.  You are
         going to prepare a very good resume of the discussions, and then the
         whole morning is lost. We go to the afternoon session again.  The Greek
         government is going to organize a very beautiful closing ceremony and
         then finish. I think that's not enough, Mr. Chairman, and that's not
         fair for people.  As my colleague from Uruguay just said, they are
         going to fly 20 hours to go to Athens just to stay there three days,
         losing the first and the third one, having just one day of working.  I
         think that that's not reasonable, to say the least. On the third topic,
         mr. Chairman, on the format, I think we could profit from our
         experience in the WSIS.  We used to have -- used to have three bureaus.
          We used to have the government bureau, private sector bureau, and the
         civil society bureau. We could have something similar there. Now, three
         bureaus, 15 representatives in each bureau, which makes a total number
         of 45.  In the governmental bureau, that I understand a little bit more
         than the other ones, we could have -- we have five regions, we could
         have three representatives per region making 15 representatives.  It's
         reasonable.  It worked in the first phase. In the second phase I think
         we increased the number of representatives from the regions. But it's
         manageable. Then the Brazilian proposal to the format of the bureau,
         which is different from the Secretariat, as I told you, I would like to
         see you there along with Mr. Markus Kummer heading the Secretariat, we
         could have the three bureaus, and manage to have a way to exchange
         information among the three bureaus and take decisions on how to do,
         how to proceed, which topics to select and things like that. I think I
         will stop at this point here.  Thank you Mr. Chairman.


         >> CHAIRMAN DESAI:  On your last point, I would like to stress that I
         am a retired man, and I would certainly, given my eating habits, not
         fit into the lightweight categories. [ Laughter ]


         >> CHAIRMAN DESAI:  So that is not practical. As far as time is
         concerned, I would also like to remind Brazil of a very fundamental
         principle of all multilateral diplomacy, which is that discussions and
         negotiations expand the contract to fill the time available.  So if we
         have more time, it will be used.  But if we give less time, things will
         also get done. But we can come back to this.  There's nothing set in
         stone in any of this. Greece, did you want to respond to this?  Yes. 
         Then maybe before I turn to you, I would request Greece to respond to
         this.  And then we'll come to the E.U.


         >>GREECE:  Thank you, chairman.  Later in the day, my good friend
         George Papadatos, who has been dealing with this IGF achievement,
         because we call it an achievement, will brief us about the Greek
         position.  Just a few remarks, after the very interesting and useful
         intervention of our Brazilian friends. As far as dates were concerned,
         we are, of course, I think in the hands of the secretary-general, and
         we trust the chair to bring to him the message of our consultations
         today.  And as far as the organization is concerned, we have to say
         that we belong to those who believe in light structures. But once
         again, we are in your hands to suggest the form of bureau or bureaus. 
         And of course we are ready to be as constructive as one can imagine,
         and flexible. Now, as far as the days that we last, our meeting in
         Athens, of course it is not for us to decide, but we think that one of
         our challenges is to keep this meeting dynamic and interesting for the
         days it will last. So we are not sure -- although of course we are
         ready, as a host country, to undertake a longer period than the one
         envisaged at the beginning from the organizational point of view, we
         are not sure that long days, or one week or something, one working
         week, would be the best solution.  But once again, we will follow the
         consensus and we will be happy to take the measures needed. Thank you,
         chairman.


         >> CHAIRMAN DESAI:  European Union.


         >>E.U.:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  Mr. Chairman, I speak on behalf of
         the European Union and the acceding countries Romania and Bulgaria. The
         E.U. would like to thank you for leading yesterday's fruitful and
         constructive discussion.  We have listened with interest to the
         interventions made and we would like to address some of the questions
         you put forward yesterday. Mr. Chairman, we reiterate the importance
         the E.U. attaches to the overall multistakeholder nature of the IGF as
         enshrined in the Tunis agenda. In this context, we support the idea of
         a slim workable and representative program committee working in an open
         and transparent manner. We agree that the Tunis Agenda has identified
         several follow-up mechanisms, the IGF process being one of them.
         Bearing in mind the issue of limited resources, we share the views
         expressed by several participants to limit the number of physical
         meetings in the IGF process by using virtual and electronic means of
         communication. At the same time, we would like to ensure that this will
         not pose an obstacle to the participation of any stakeholder. GIIC in
         order to ensure a constructive debate, these meetings should focus on a
         limited number of subjects. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   Thank you. I now turn to Allen Miller of WITSA.


         >>WITSA:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I am the executive director of the
         World Information Technology and Services Alliance, which is an
         alliance of over 60 ICT associations from around the world. More than
         half of our members are from developing countries. WITSA maintains an
         active capacity-building program, and in recent time, we've been active
         in countries such as Senegal, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya, Rwanda,
         Mongolia, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia. I believe that
         some of the lessons that we've learned from that program can be useful
         in the context of the Internet Governance Forum. One main principle
         that we do support is that participation by all stakeholders in an
         integrated fashion is a key principle. Stakeholders from developing
         countries have valuable experience and information to share in this
         discussion forum, and they must all participate with an equal status
         and in all dimensions and aspects of the forum. In order for the forum
         to be truly open and accessible to many of these stakeholders from
         developing countries, we need to deal with practical issues, such as
         support for accreditation, visas. We must simplify those processes and
         be sensitive to their needs for financial resources to ensure their
         participation. We also feel that the first event should fully integrate
         and use the online tools that we've been discussing, and not
         necessarily tools of the Internet itself, but tools such as the
         realtime transcription system that is being used in this consultation,
         as this will increase the participation from around the world by all of
         the interested parties. The supporting functions for the IGF, we feel,
         should include representatives from all of the stakeholder groups, to
         ensure that their views are reflected. A small Secretariat or bureau
         focusing on the implementation of decisions made by a diverse,
         representative steering committee or similar guiding body is important.
         And that small Secretariat or bureau can then administer a Web site
         that acts as a repository for the contributions regarding the issues
         under discussion at any particular meeting. Finally, and in conclusion,
         we feel that the forum itself should be inspired by the substantive and
         constructive way in which these consultations are being managed and the
         interactive discussion that is taking place here by all on an equal
         basis. Thank you.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Switzerland.


         >>SWITZERLAND:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would perhaps want to
         respond to your appeal and on the comments, what was said. What is
         important to us, in our view, is that the first meeting of the IGF, we
         should be straightaway involved in the work, so straight into the
         substance. Many people will have made a long journey to arrive there,
         and they deserve to be involved in substantive discussion straightaway.
         So the practical issues and the procedural issues of the IGF must be
         decided upon before Athens. Some have suggested to achieve that that we
         needed to have an additional meeting to that, perhaps at the beginning
         of April. We're not against that idea, as long as we know what we will
         do at that additional meeting, complementary meeting. In other words,
         we could have clear proposals on the process. We should also have a
         clear signal from the secretary general on how we can proceed, how
         people will be convened to the meeting or how the program committee
         will be set up. And also at this meeting, we need to agree on the
         issues to deal with in Athens. On that topic, Mr. Chairman, if you try
         and spread yourself too thinly, then you might not cover things
         appropriately. So in the first meeting of the IGF, we need to focus on
         a handful of subjects. We've heard of spam, cybercrime,
         multilingualism. We could add another one, perhaps. But let us focus on
         three topics, essentially. I feel that will be the best, the most
         effective way of working. That's what I think we should think about,
         Mr. Chairman, at this stage of the discussion. Thank you.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:  CCBI, Ayesha Hassan.


         >>CCBI:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman, thank you, Mr. Kummer. I'm pleased
         to provide a few follow-up comments on behalf the CCBI and ICC members
         on the flexibility needed and the format of the IGF. Many interventions
         have highlighted the reasons and principles for why the IGF needs to be
         flexible, for example, each IGF event may focus on a different topic or
         closely related topics which will need different expertise, perhaps
         different ways of exchanging ideas and information. And this needs to
         be considered in formulating the support for the IGF and how the event
         will be shaped. On the format, business envisions the IGF as a vehicle
         to bring the substantive work and experience on the Internet-related
         issues selected from existing organizations and all stakeholders to
         this global space. The unique quality of the IGF is the participation
         of all stakeholders, participating on an equal footing, and thus the
         program for the event should be shaped to maximize this opportunity.
         Key visionaries and experts from all stakeholder groups will be
         attracted to the IGF because it offers an opportunity for them to reach
         a large, diverse, inclusive audience, and because they will welcome the
         opportunity to contribute in a meaningful way. A true exchange of
         information and experience is best accomplished by focused,
         well-prepared, interactive discussions. This could be in the form of
         expert panels discussing the topic from a variety of perspectives, thus
         sharing the lessons learned, the challenges, and successes. It is
         possible that solicitation of white papers or written materials may
         develop as an input to the IGF. And certainly it will be important to
         public the proceedings of each IGF. Unfocused discussions will not help
         us reach the goal of sharing and exchanging. We also encourage the
         secretary general to include in his request for reports information on
         how each organization is addressing the challenge of the WSIS, becoming
         more transparent, et cetera, and how the concept of
         multistakeholderrism is being addressed. On a practical note, we also
         have noted that there is a May meeting on the revised time line of the
         IGF Web site. If there are to be planning meetings, we urge them to be
         open to all stakeholders that a date be set promptly to allow for
         travel planning, and that where practical, they be aligned with other
         open meetings being planned on other activities identified in the Tunis
         Agenda. I would like to conclude by offering the following ideas from
         the global business community companies and members of national,
         regional, global, and sectoral members in the CCBI and ICC networks.
         First, this is a unique opportunity to maximize the substantive
         experiences, both the challenges and obstacles of governments,
         businesses, civil society, the technical and academic communities, and
         other stakeholders, to promote the information society for all. The
         most effective way to accomplish that in the IGF is for all of us and
         all the stakeholders around the world who are interested in these
         issues to be able to participate together with equal abilities to
         speak, share, and shape the IGF going forward. The program should
         facilitate this objective and not be a hindrance to this opportunity
         being realized. Thank you for this opportunity to contribute.


         >>SECRETARY KUMMER:   Thank you. The chairman asked me to take over. He
         is going to attend a media conference. And this maybe gives me also
         just the opportunity to address this tentative time line we have put up
         on our Web site, which may have caused some confusion. But this is
         basically a tentative time line working backwards. The secretary
         general has been given a clear mandate to convene the meeting by the
         second quarter of 2006. That means the end of June. And in order to do
         so, he will need the information on how he should do so. And we would
         have thought that it would be necessary for this, be that steering
         committee, program committee, to meet maybe sometime late in May to
         make proposals to the secretary general then what the agenda should be
         like and what the meeting would look like, what the program would look
         like. And we would hope that it'll be an attractive, interactive,
         dynamic program. So this is very tentative. But having listened now to
         various delegates who also proposed a second round of consultations,
         there are certain logistical constraints we are facing. We depend on
         the goodwill of the United Nations office here in Geneva, and they have
         been always very good and very kind at letting us use their facilities
         if the facilities are available. And I know already that this spring
         will be extremely heavy. And I think it will be almost impossible to
         get a date where we can have a meeting in this format, that is, with
         all the interpretation in all the languages, which I think is very
         important for all participants. So one way of looking at this might be
         -- and I say "might be," and I throw it into the room just for
         consideration -- that we could envisage having this program committee
         in place by end of May, and we could have maybe an open meeting, open
         consultation in conjunction with the first meeting of the program
         committee could meet the day after and would take into account the
         considerations given to the program committee at the open meeting. But
         this, as I said, is a very preliminary suggestion, and it is something
         maybe also participants would like to react. But the paramount concern,
         of course, is to be in a position to respect the mandate that was given
         by the summit to the secretary general, that is, to convene a meeting
         by the second quarter of 2006. And there we will need to have the
         elements to be in place. And I do apologize for having talked for so
         long. But I think it is good to -- that we are on the same wavelength
         also with regard to these logistical constraints. Morocco has asked for
         the floor, please, Morocco.


         >>MOROCCO:   Good morning, everybody. On behalf of the Moroccan
         delegation, I would first of all like to extend our warm thanks to the
         U.N. secretary general, who was kind enough to stimulate the
         organization of this meeting, consultations on the establishment of the
         forum, in keeping with the recommendations from the Tunis Summit. I'd
         also like to thank the chair and say how pleased we are to take part in
         a meeting which is so elegantly and skillfully conducted. Morocco has a
         major interest in the preparatory meeting for the forum and expects the
         forum to work to build on what was agreed in the Tunis Summit,
         particularly the development of the Internet in developing countries.
         This would, in particular, require the development of infrastructures,
         capacity-building, and that sort of thing. We'd like to make two
         proposals to that end on the future organization. It would be desirable
         for the number of participants in the bureau to be sufficiently large
         to allow developing countries to be represented and also allow all
         stakeholders to take an active part in the forum meetings. And, thus,
         if we are talking about regionalized organizations, we ought to maybe
         descend, then, to the subregional level, which would allow regions to
         express their development needs in terms of ICT, needs which could then
         be consolidated and classified on the basis of an approach yet to be
         defined. And together with that sort of approach, we consider that all
         topics and issues are of major importance and that any ranking of
         priorities may be required, but the importance of each and every topic,
         as understressed by previous -- as stressed by previous speakers, and
         the importance of each theme and question will differ from country to
         country. So our proposal is, first of all, that we provide for
         subregional representation, and, secondly, that we try to rank
         priorities, taking account of the specific needs and priorities in each
         subregion. Thank you.


         >>SECRETARY KUMMER:MERCI, and give the floor to theGlobal Information
         Infrastructure Commission.


         >>GIIC:   GIIC Kummer, thank you. For the GIIC, the Global Information
         Infrastructure Commission, which is a confederation of CEOs of
         information and communications technology companies from throughout the
         world, I want to briefly reinforce a point deserving, I think, of
         repetition. I intervened for the narrowly limited purpose of
         respectfully asking you to remain mindful of the overarching purposes
         of that from which the need for an Internet Governance Forum arose.
         That, of course, was the WSIS. And the ends towards which the summit
         was directed were directly tied to the millennium development goals of
         the United Nations and had to do with the diffusion of ICTs, including
         Internet access capabilities, to ICT underserved parts of the world. If
         the world -- if the forum is going to be responsive to the origins of
         its establishment, it must focus in a highly disciplined sort of way on
         those aspects of Internet governance that relate most closely to those
         who at present are largely unconnected to the world because of their
         lack of access to communications conduits, network-connecting
         information appliances, and, of course, the Internet. Absent such a
         focused orientation, the GIIC fears the forum may be diverted to issues
         of concern primarily, if not solely, to I understand in economically
         developed parts of the world. We must maintain our focus, I
         respectfully submit, on the needs of the vast numbers of the world's
         inhabitants who live not in the leading, but, rather, the trailing edge
         of technology. Thank you, and we in the GIIC look forward to
         cooperating with you, national governments, and other stakeholders in
         addressing responsive, as yet unresolved Internet governance issues.


         >>SECRETARY KUMMER:   Thank you for your statement. And turn now to
         Cuba. You have the floor, sir.


         >>CUBA:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As it's the first time I take the
         floor, I would first of all like to congratulate you, and through you,
         I would like to extend my congratulations to the secretary general and
         to Mr. Desai for having convened these consultations. First of all, I
         would like to say that Cuba would like to add its voice to those who
         spoke yesterday, and in particular, what Pakistan said on behalf of the
         G77 and China. Mr. Chairman, we would like, in particular, to
         underscore or support the proposal of the G77 whereby we should convene
         new consultations on the organization of the forum for the arguments
         and criteria which the delegation of Pakistan set forth on behalf of
         the group. We listened very carefully to your comments on possible
         obstacles to the holding of those consultations. But taking into
         account the fact that this meeting was convened by the secretary
         general of the United Nations, I'm convinced that the office of the
         United Nations here in Geneva will do everything they can to respond to
         the request of what we could call the big boss of the Secretariat. Now,
         I don't think it would be logical to have other consultations, because
         what we're doing over these two days is the first time we are looking
         at the structure and the format and other issues related to the forum.
         So everything that's been said here, we need to formalize it, digest
         it, and then to be more active and proactive in the debate, we need to
         come up with specific proposals. I want to make a general comment on
         the forum. The forum is a product of the summit. I would like to
         underscore that. And this is the process of follow-up for this meeting,
         especially with regard to Internet governance. So we're not starting
         from scratch. We have enough material to continue our work on this
         topic. For example, there is the report of the Working Group on
         Internet Governance, in which there are specific issues that could be
         dealt with by the forum. Furthermore, we must not lose sight of the
         fact that the forum is an outcome of the inconclusive discussions we
         had in the summit on Internet governance. So some questions are still
         pending an outcome. We are waiting for answers. And we hope that the
         forum will enable us to think more deeply on these issues. And we hope
         that the forum will provide recommendations. In other words, we see the
         forum as an extension of the Working Group on Internet Governance, but
         with a broader format and more extensive participation. We believe that
         the essence of the objective of the forum, as enshrined in paragraph
         72, subparagraph (E) of the Tunis Agenda, which stipulates, and I
         quote, "To promote and permanently ensure the materialization of the
         principle of the World Summit on the Information Society in the
         Internet governance processes," end of quote. I agree with what was
         said yesterday by the delegate from China, namely, that the Tunis
         Agenda has specifically paragraphs that give us guidelines on the
         establishment of the forum, in particular, paragraphs 72 to 82. We have
         heard a lot of references made to the fact that the outcome of the
         summit was successful, and Cuba agrees with those references. So it
         makes sense for us to follow the model of the format and the structure
         of the group of the work we carried out in the summit and which was
         successful. Therefore, in relation specifically to the structure and
         the format of the forum, we believe that we can continue -- we can
         follow the model of the summit. With regard to the bureau, we also
         believe that we should follow the successful model of the summit, and
         that the respect we found very interesting what was said by the
         delegate from Brazil. With regards to the -- how long the meeting
         should last, the forum, we would say four to five days. And on the
         frequency, at the beginning, we thought that it should be once a year.
         But I must say that we are flexible in that area and we are listening
         to the proposals that are being made in that respect. Thank you.


         >>SECRETARY KUMMER:   Thank you, Cuba. Pakistan, you asked for the
         floor, please.


         >>PAKISTAN:   Thank you, Mr. Kummer. Mr. Kummer, I just wanted to
         respond to the specific comment you made earlier about the holding of
         the next set of consultations. We do appreciate the fact that,
         obviously, there are time difficulties involved. But the commission on
         human rights does not start -- now it's scheduled for the third week of
         March. So there is time between now and the third week of March where
         consultations could be held. The second point that we have not -- we
         need to consider in the Group of 77 is this concept that you are
         referring to and being referred to in this room on the steering
         committee or the program committee. There is as such no agreement
         within the Group of 77, or no discussion within the Group of 77 on a
         steering committee or a program committee. So this is an idea that we
         need to discuss before we go and say that the consultations be held
         after the meeting of the steering committee or before the meeting of
         the steering committee. I just wanted to flag that as a point of
         concern from the Group of 77 and China, because these are issues that
         have to be discussed. And that is why the Group of 77 and China felt
         that there were a number of points that were raised in the discussions
         yesterday and today that need further discussion and in-depth
         discussions, I would say, within the Group of 77 for our positions to
         be firmed up and for us to be able to come to any decisions within a
         consultative process to be held later, in a month, as we had suggested.
         We can have those consultations in three weeks, if not a month, so that
         we have the period before the commission on human rights gets into
         session. Thank you.


         >>SECRETARY KUMMER:   Thank you very much for your explanation. But I'm
         also -- of course, we will look into the possibility of meeting
         facilities, but I was told that it is very difficult after the February
         dates. And as you will recall, we already had to change the dates we
         had planned to have the dates for these consultations later. But then
         there was the question of hotel capacity. So there are many
         considerations that come into it. But we have to look into this, and we
         have listened to the concerns expressed. And to turn back to the
         distinguished delegate of Cuba, it is not quite as simple as that. I
         mean, the United Nations office in Geneva has been very, very
         accommodating because this is a mandate coming from the secretary
         general. But there are program budget implications. And these meetings
         are not on the scheduled program of meetings here in Geneva which are
         planned a long time in advance and which come out of an
         intergovernmental machinery. So we are really here at the courtesy of
         the United Nations office in Geneva. They do what they can, but they
         cannot do the impossible. But we will have to look into the
         availability of meeting facilities. But let me now turn to the
         Association -- I think you asked for the floor quite some time ago --
         from Paris. Doesn't seem to be in the room. Then ISOC France.


         >>ISOC FRANCE:  Thank you, chairman. I'd like to take up three brief
         points. For the organization, a number of people have suggested that
         the meeting use webcast to be broadcast over the net.  It seems to us,
         as well, useful to benefit from the facilities provided in that sort of
         meeting where everything is translated, for all the translations to be
         recorded and put on the net. That would allow people to listen to
         proceedings in the six languages. A number of speakers have talked
         about the Internet tomorrow, or at least looking at what we have today
         and to then think about topics which haven't been covered to any great
         extent, and which might allow the forum not just to consider today's
         problems but to look at the tools which will be installed and used
         tomorrow. And in particular, to consider subjects which would require
         more collective governance than we have today, and which might lead to
         the suggestion that -- either that subjects be allocated to an existing
         organization or that a new body be created to deal with specific
         subjects. To be clearer about what I'm suggesting, I'm thinking of
         everything revolving around object Internet, which seems to be a very
         strong element for the future of the net, where questions such as uses,
         protection of individual freedom, and that sort of thing are at the
         heart of the debate, and where, for the time being, these tools are
         managed fairly well, I imagine, by a small group, but which could
         usefully be opened up to all those involved in Internet Governance. We
         have also heard much mention of good practice.  My professional
         experience leads me to say that what would be even more interesting
         would be to talk about bad practice, projects which collapsed, because
         that's where you have the greatest collective benefit, when you analyze
         that. Last year, I talked about exchange of practice because it seemed
         more interesting than exchange of good practice, because what's good
         for some, may be bad for others. But quite frankly, failed experiments
         and projects allow you to make the most progress collectively.  And the
         representative of Brazil suggested an agenda, and I would suggest that
         all the useless days, we take off the agenda.  We'd save a lot of time
         if we did that.  Thank you.


         >> SECRETARY KUMMER:  Thank you.  Holy See, please.


         >>HOLY SEE:  Thank you, Mr. Chair.  And let me begin by thanking the
         U.N. secretary-general for inviting us to this consultation and
         yourself and also Mr. Desai for guiding our reflections since
         yesterday. And my delegation has been following these reflections very
         attentively, and we have been actually challenged by some of the ideas
         we have listened to.  And we have been posing questions to ourselves. 
         And what I'm going to do now is to share with you some of these, our
         questions.  We want to think aloud or reflect aloud so that you can
         listen to us and also reflect with us. First question is, will the
         forum that we are talking about discuss and maybe eventually propose a
         model of a structure for the study and management of the Internet
         Governance process? Second, do we consider Internet Governance Forum as
         dovetailing into the primordial or wider goal of bridging the digital
         divide? In other words, are we convinced enough that the main purpose
         of an Internet Governance is to facilitate access to everybody and to
         generate rules with the main aim of achieving a better communication
         between persons and peoples? Four, if the aim is in some way linked to
         bridging the digital divide, do we agree, then, on starting our
         discussions by looking at the process from the side of the common
         Internet user, with particular reference to those in developing
         countries, and not just from the point of view of the well-established
         entities and operators?  We agree, such entities and operators which
         are strongly represented here, exercising important rules in the
         development of the Internet. Mr. Chairman, I would like to conclude by
         returning to something I think I heard already proposed yesterday, and
         that is that for a better use of time, we should establish an online
         mechanism of the Internet Governance Forum which -- or through which
         meetings could be prepared.  This would help us reduce significantly
         the time of the meetings, and also to give such meetings the real
         nature of negotiations. Thank you very much.


         >> SECRETARY KUMMER:  Thank you, sir. I now give the floor to the
         representative of Francophonie.


         >>OIF:  thank you.  I am speaking on behalf of the Organisation
         Internationale de la Francophonie, which is made up of 53 states and
         governments, including 24 LDCs. We welcome the fact that this assembly
         wants to give particular importance to inclusion of developing
         countries, getting them involved in this very important issue of
         Internet Governance. We also agree with those speakers who seek maximum
         efficiency and effectiveness during the forum by sticking to a certain
         number of issues and by preparing upstream, using those tools available
         in the digital world. Of course, the question of languages is a very
         important one.  When we have occasion to meet in a room in the U.N., we
         have translation, interpretation in the six languages.  And I know it's
         difficult, but it's very pleasant for those who don't master the main
         international language. But to succeed in the work upstream, Internet
         sites should use more than one language, and we should all make an
         effort to try to make the text available in other languages. I know
         it's a bit easier or it should be a bit easier for international
         organizations which have a multilingual mandate, particularly united
         nations, organizations which would benefit from using more than one
         language when they submit a text.  The same could be said for civil
         society and private sector groups representing several members. We all
         have an effort to make, and I think it shows a feeling of unease, that
         even in a meeting where we have interpretation in six languages, that
         people use a language which isn't their own language, whereas their own
         language can be used if it's one of the six U.N. languages. But people
         nevertheless prefer to use the main international language to try to
         get their thoughts across. It's a very uncomfortable feeling, and
         particularly for developing countries.  Language can be a factor of
         exclusion in the major international debates.  And when you don't
         master the main international language, it's very difficult to get your
         views across and to be heard. I think it's to the benefit of everybody
         to know each other better, to talk to each other better, if we listen
         to everybody's expectations and hopes. Thank you.


         >> SECRETARY KUMMER:  Thank you for this statement, which I think you
         raised a very important point.  And I feel somewhat guilty, as you
         mentioned and you pointed out to our Web site which is one language
         only.  I am painfully aware of this shortcoming.  But this is also a
         question of resources.  And I also hope that it's not only resources --
         it's financial resources and human resources, but I also hope that
         maybe we can find ways with voluntary cooperation that we find
         voluntary contributions, voluntary translators, to have the Web site in
         more than one language, which would be, of course, a very important
         step forward. And on this occasion, I would also like to thank you the
         organization of the Francophonie for having financed the translation of
         the WGIG background report into French.  Thus, at least, making
         available some material to a large community which may be is not at
         home as much in English. Thank you once again. I now turn to the gate
         information technology society.  You have the floor, sir.


         >>ABDULLTEEF AL-ABDULRAZZAQ:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman,
         this is Abdullteef Al-Abdulrazzaq, chairman of Kuwait information
         technology society, a member of the Internet Governance caucus. The
         society believes that the Internet Governance Forum should emphasize on
         reaching a workable model for multilateral governance of the Internet
         that is compliant with the WSIS principles, evolutionary in process,
         and acceptable by all stakeholders. The IGF should regard the issue of
         the Internet Governance as a matter that unites the world community,
         resolves its differences, and not dividing it.  Ensuring the effective
         global participation of multistakeholders is essential to its success.
         We believe that all stakeholders should participate in the IGF
         activities in an equal manner. The status of the stakeholders should be
         agreed upon and settled and finalized from the start of all the
         activities of the IGF, and should not be reviewed at the specific stage
         later on. The effective participation of the developing countries and
         the equal presence of the north and south involvement are key issues
         that need to be considered. Bearing in mind the limited resources of
         some stakeholders in terms of participating in the upcoming IGF
         functions, we urge to take into account the following. First, holding
         events in various geographical regions. Second, giving electronic means
         of communications more leverage in holding events and carrying open
         consultations. Three, organizing back to back IGF events. The U.N.
         rules and procedures have so far contributed to the success of the
         WSIS, and seeing it implemented once again in terms of the
         participation mechanism of the IGF will definitely reflect positively
         on its activities. Furthermore, a combination of thematic regional
         conferences and open consultation meetings that would lead to an annual
         meeting of the IGF will enhance its process. Establishing national IGFs
         or local community IGF with open participation for all stakeholders
         will help the IGF process to be more focused. An acceptable
         multistakeholder model of Internet Governance will demand minimum
         requirements that each and everyone should comply with. Issues such as
         capacity building, such as technical expertise, best practices, and
         digital inclusion; second, information security and privacy; third,
         enabling environment, such as laws and regulations; fourth, promoting
         the national content and preserving the national identity. Such issues
         are all considered some of the most important matters to developing
         countries which expects -- which expect to address it with their
         sisters and involvement of major international bodies. In this respect,
         the subject of international domain names is an important subject that
         should be addressed and implemented in a manner that would not create
         blocs or isolated islands or harm the Internet integrity. But, rather,
         it should promote cultural diversity, national content, and the
         openness of the Internet to everyone. In the end, we do look forward to
         the successful outcome of the IGF. I thank you, Mr. Chairman.


         >> SECRETARY KUMMER:  Thank you very much. I now turn to the Foundation
         for Free Information Infrastructure, Mr. Bollow.


         >>NORBERT BOLLOW:  Thank you.  I would like to react to the statement
         of Brazil that the Internet Governance Forum could take many days so
         that we can wait -- so that we can afford to waste an entire day. I
         would like to emphasize that technical experts don't think that way. 
         If a lot of patience for political speeches is required, they will
         simply not come. So the position of FFII is that the IGF should be at
         most two days, although I suppose we could live with three. There is,
         of course, the concern that it may not make sense to travel a long way
         just for two days.  And for this reason, I would suggest to schedule
         the Internet Governance Forum back to back with a technical conference
         which is of interest to the leading thinkers that everybody has been
         emphasizing should be attracted to the Internet Governance Forum.  And
         such technical conference would also give diplomats and everyone else
         here the opportunity to set your feet into the world of how technical
         experts think and interact with each other. Thank you.


         >> SECRETARY KUMMER:  Thank you.  I now give the floor to Francis
         Urbany, vice president of BellSouth.  You have the floor, sir.


         >> Francis Urbany:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman.  My name is Francis Urbany
         with BellSouth corporation in the United States. And as such, I am
         attending this consultative meeting as part of the private sector. It
         will not come as a surprise that I endorse the views expressed earlier
         by CCBI/ICC. What I would like to do, though, is take advantage of this
         opportunity, mr. chairman, and to make a few personal observations
         based on some of the discussion I heard here today. I see the clock is
         moving.  I have only a few points, and won't take an undue amount of
         time.  I'll try to be brief.  Very brief. First, I would say that I
         clearly embrace the sentiment discussed here for a multistakeholder
         participation on an equal footing. Mr. Chairman, I compliment you on
         the way you have conducted this consultation in such an open way, where
         all attendees are able to participate on an equal basis. For those of
         you who may not have participated in earlier sessions during the WSIS
         in PrepCom 3 particularly, this opportunity for equal participation did
         not exist for nongovernmental members. I sat in this very room and in
         other rooms where discussions were going on, was able to listen but not
         able to interchange views on an equal basis with other participants. So
         I therefore welcome this opportunity, which leads me to a point. The
         earlier discussions were held under the procedural rules of the United
         Nations and intergovernmental organization.  Those rules, Mr. Chairman,
         in my opinion, are not suitable for the intergovernmental forum, which
         is of entirely different nature.  It is not an intergovernmental
         meeting.  It's a meeting of all participants.  Therefore, the rules of
         participation to allow people like myself and others here to speak
         freely and present views is really what is needed. In other words, the
         traditional rules of intergovernmental organizations are really not
         applicable to the intergovernmental -- Internet Governance Forum. The
         second point I would like to make is with respect to the initial IGF
         meeting, after listening to the extensive discussion here, which has
         been very welcome and has been very enlightening, one can come away
         with the impression that the IGF could mean all things to all people.
         Given the limited amount of time and the focus and the mandate in
         paragraph 72, it is my view that a well focused IGF addressing a few
         items of importance to the international community should be the MODUS
         vivendi for operating. In this respect I endorse the view presented
         yesterday by the spokesman from Canada, that said, to paraphrase, that
         the focus should be on positive outcomes, and not to address divisive
         issues. I couldn't stress more how important I think that notion is for
         the IGF, and particularly for the initial meeting of the IGF. We've
         come a long ways here.  We came to many meetings.  IGF is a decision of
         WSIS.  We want that to be successful. Therefore, it's important that
         the IGF succeed.  It's important that the process of the IGF get off to
         a good start. As we all know from our personal experience, success
         breeds success. We need to make a good beginning. So in sum, Mr.
         Chairman, I would say that in the end, common sense, not rhetoric,
         should guide us in formulating the agenda for the initial IGF, which
         will be held later this year. With that, Mr. Chairman, thank you for
         the opportunity to make these brief remarks.


         >> SECRETARY KUMMER:  Thank you very much.  Marilyn Cade speaking for
         Limited liability corporation. Well maybe -- she is in the back of the
         room.  Maybe we give the floor to somebody else. ISOC, you also asked
         for the floor. ISOC first.


         >>ISOC:  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We'd like to take this opportunity to
         address some of the questions that were raised yesterday.  In terms of
         the outcome that we expect of the Internet Governance Forum, we believe
         that the IGF should act as a forum for sharing best practice,
         expertise, and for presenting a range of finding related to a
         particular issue or limited set of issues. As the Tunis Agenda clearly
         states, the IGF should be a neutral, nonduplicative and nonbinding
         process, and therefore should merely present findings for consideration
         by interested parties. With regard to the multistakeholder bureau, ISOC
         believes the bureau should be renamed into a program committee as many
         here have said, that the term bureau has specific connotations in the
         U.N. system.  The program committee should, as is anticipated in the
         Tunis Agenda text, be a multistakeholder, representative advisory body
         that helps shape and set the agenda and issue focus of the forum. ISOC
         could foresee a program committee composed of representatives of the
         principal stakeholders with rotating co-chairs. Which of course brings
         me to the issue of the principal stakeholders. The Internet society and
         other organizations, as you have heard, believe that the Internet
         community should be recognized as a distinct principal stakeholder in
         the Internet Governance Forum for a number of reasons, not least of is
         which was the technical and academic communities recognition in the
         Tunis Agenda in paragraph 36.  This request for recognition as a
         distinct principal stakeholder is, we believe, more than warned given
         that the Internet community, including many tens of thousands of
         individuals and thousands of organizations, comprises inter alia
         organizations responsible for operating and managing the Internet.
         Standards setting organizations, international, regional, national, and
         local organizations responsible for the management and physical
         distribution of global resources. Organizations responsible for the
         long-term development of the Internet, and organizations such as the
         Internet society with 20,000 members and more than 80 chapters around
         the world, not forgetting the thousand of Internet user groups across
         the globe. With regard to the program committee, we see it having an
         important role in reaching out and encouraging the participation of
         experts.  In addition, we see the program committee as having an
         important role in encouraging the fullest participation across regions
         and stakeholders, with a particular emphasis on the developing world.
         We would note that the levels of expertise and the level of developing
         country participation will be one of the most significant measures of
         the success of the forum. Let me just address quickly the issue of what
         issues the IGF should focus on. There has been some discussion about
         the issues that should be discussed, whether there should be few or
         many, and whether contentious issues should be on the table. ISOC agree
         that is many of the areas included in the WSIS clearly will require
         additional review, and it will be up to the program committee to decide
         which will be the subject of its focus. However, we would recommend
         that the IGF prioritize its issue focus on those that will facilitate
         progress on developmental issues and address other unresolved issues at
         a later time. Clearly, work on these unresolved issues will continue in
         parallel in many existing fora. But the focus, we believe, should
         reflect a clear focus on ICTs on development that was the goal of the
         WSIS process. We'd also like to just briefly comment on the question of
         the online virtual community that was raised yesterday also. ISOC
         believes that the forum's success will depend very much on the
         mechanisms for contributing to the discussion, and one of the best
         means of doing so would be through a Web-based work and communications
         space. Such a Web-based mechanism will encourage participation from
         across stakeholders. But it will be important that this collaborative
         workspace be appropriately hosted, given the need for consistency and
         stability. However, we would pose a caution. We should all be cognizant
         of the related time and resource issues. It is unrealistic to expect
         all stakeholders to be able to participate in multiple-layered
         list-based exchanges on a realtime basis. Many stakeholders do not have
         the resources or time to spend managing or participating in ongoing
         discussions. With regards to the plenary, the forum should meet once a
         year. The meetings should not exceed two to three days, given the
         personnel and financial constraints that many stakeholders are subject
         to. We believe that in order to attract the greatest participation, it
         might be useful for the forum to be held in a different region each
         year. The Internet society and the Internet community stand ready to
         participate fully and constructively in the IGF, just as they have
         endeavored to do so over the last three to four years of the WSIS.
         Thank you, Mr. Chairman.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   Can I have Marilyn Cade from IIC.


         >>MARILYN CADE:   Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Kummer.
         This is my first public statement to the group at large, so thus, in
         addition to thanking you both, I should like to take this opportunity
         to express my appreciation to all other participants as well, as we
         are, by working together, beginning the practice of multistakeholder
         participation on an equal footing. And to me, as a participant, it
         seems to be working quite well. I do support statements made earlier by
         others from the business community, and I have heard contributions from
         others in the group that we are meeting in yesterday and today that I
         can also support. But as a speaker today, perhaps my perspective is a
         bit unique. I am now a small business owner and CEO of a microbusiness.
         My business is advising a range of companies and organizations that
         range from multinational corporations to very small entrepreneurs,
         companies like AT&T, overstock.com, World Stock, the Global IP
         Alliance, among others. There are several work activities and follow-on
         mechanisms that are outcomes of the Tunis Agenda. And all of us and
         many of the stakeholders who will want to participate in the IGF are
         also engaged in these issues. And since we are seeking to operate in a
         multistakeholder mode, we must now look at these congruent and parallel
         activities and respect that each of them has a space, without the need
         to duplicate each other's work or agenda. We must seek cooperation,
         collaboration, congruency, and coexistence across these parallel sets
         of activities. For instance, some of the relevant parallel activities
         are the ongoing examination by the ITU's member states and sector
         members of its work and activities, the action lines from the Tunis
         Agenda, the follow-on activities within ICANN, where the role of the
         Government Advisory Committee and the ICANN stakeholders is being
         examined, and where policies related to IP addressing, domain names,
         and other technical management issues of the Internet are addressed in
         a multistakeholder environment. And, of course, the Internet Governance
         Forum, a very important opportunity for all -- governments, civil
         society, the Internet technical community, business -- this offers a
         unique opportunity that deserves our efforts to ensure its success and
         its contribution to providing improved awareness, increased
         information, and increased opportunities to participate in a meaningful
         way, especially for those from the developing countries. I note that
         there are many demands on human and financial resources, and there is
         much work to be done. And we must be very careful not to duplicate the
         work that is being done in one of these other parallel activities.
         Interested parties, instead, should go to that other forum rather than
         seeking to centralize all topics into the IGF. I am supportive of an
         IGF that is focused on issues where there is consensus across all
         stakeholders to discuss these issues. We cannot address all issues in
         the IGF, and the selection of issues should be focused on those where
         there is the greatest consensus and those that address development and
         capacity-building. An annual event of approximately three days, held in
         the same time frame each year, with the support of a small, streamlined
         Secretariat, supported by a representative multistakeholder steering
         committee, and focused on dialogue and information, will, I believe,
         ensure the greatest success. As for timing, we must now examine more
         than just intergovernmental calendars and ensure that care is taken to
         recognize that major international gatherings exist in the Internet
         space as well. Just in the late fall alone, we need to take note that
         in November, there is an important three-week meeting of the ITU's
         plenipotentiary, the annual meeting of ICANN in the first week of
         December, and there's an important gathering of the IETF in December.
         Thus, personally, I look forward to meeting with all of you in Athens
         in October before the late fall marathon of these other meetings exist.
         I also urge that there is sensitivity to the demands upon all of us
         when there are face-to-face meetings for preparation. The vast majority
         of interested parties from the technical community, from business, from
         civil society, and, indeed, from governments are not located in Geneva
         or a single other city. And, of course, we all have our day jobs, that
         is, the work that must be accomplished as well. So planning should be
         undertaken largely online, with perhaps contributions of one page in
         length that are concrete and focused. And when it is essential that
         there are face-to-face planning meetings, they should be kept to a
         minimum, there should be realtime transcription, as we have today, as
         well as posting of materials for access by remote participations. And
         when there are face-to-face planning meetings of the bureau
         Secretariat, I welcome the idea to have open consultations, but note
         that it is challenging for small businesses, and I think for everyone,
         to devote the human and financial resources to participation. I have
         appreciated the opportunity to participate yesterday and today, and I
         look forward to the rest of our working efforts today in how we can
         jointly ensure a successful and focused Internet Governance Forum that
         enhances multistakeholder dialogue.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   I have David Allen from the collaboration for
         communication policy research.


         >>COLLABORATION FOR COMM. POLICY:   I'd like to try to build on
         thoughts from Bertrand de la Chapelle earlier and from Brazil and from
         Switzerland, among several others. It's clear how important it is to
         have a successful first IGF, for ourselves, first of all, but to, for
         the future, attract those who have not so far engaged so much with this
         process, and also for those here who have some questions, some
         reservations about exactly what it will do. It seems clear from
         experience, at least to me, that real substantive, productive,
         attractive work in a meeting, like IGF, must be preceded by some
         serious substantive preparation. And I'm talking about substantive work
         on the topics that the program committee finally picks. And, equally,
         it seems that that gets done in groups of a size like ten or about that
         number. Let's call them working groups. Which says that to succeed in
         October, we need not only a selection of topics, perhaps in May from a
         steering committee, but there then need to be working groups really
         quite quickly formed and to get to work so that there is something to
         present in October. There's a subtext here. It is -- shall I call it
         the marriage between the working style of the Internet community, where
         working groups are everything, and where participation in those working
         groups is wide open, that's on the one side. And on the other side, the
         working style of U.N. proceedings and those that governments are
         particularly familiar with. We need in this brave new world to take the
         risk of those innovations and make some good choices about how that
         marriage will come together. This also raises issues about how we'll
         use online tools to support such working groups. But rather than go
         into that now, let me simply raise for consideration the importance of
         putting such core capabilities in place and to work soon so that
         there's something powerful to do in October in Athens. Thank you.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   I have George GREVE for the Free Software
         Foundation forum.


         >> GEORG GREVE:  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I speak in my capacity of the
         Free Software Foundation Europe, a European nongovernmental
         organization dedicated to all aspects of free software, as defined by
         the four fundamental freedoms specified in the free software
         definition. We operate in a network of sister organizations in Latin
         America, India, Europe, and the United States, and work in close
         cooperation with the Global Free Software Community. We have been
         following the discussions with great interest, and in the interest of
         moving forward, would like to offer a few comments on what we heard so
         far. Firstly, though, let me congratulate you and thank you and Mr.
         Kummer on the meeting and the open and inclusive spirit in which it was
         convened. We hope this will be maintained for future sessions. One of
         the terms we heard rather frequently in this debate was "multilingual."
         Alas, we are somewhat at a loss as to the concrete definition of this
         term. Private discussions throughout the past day and a half seem to
         have turned up various meanings and definitions that had little in
         common and were, in fact, at times contradictory. In the field of
         software, most people would probably understand it as localization of
         the software itself in order to make the software talk to each of its
         users in their own language. Since free software, and in particular,
         its freedom of modification, permits all groups to adapt the software
         to their own cultural environment, this has been a major driving force
         for adoption of free software in many parts of the world, especially
         many developing countries, which are often not considered interesting
         enough markets for major proprietary software vendors. You will thus
         not be surprised if I, of course, fully embrace the importance of
         multilingualism. If we plan for the IGF to come to concrete and
         successful outcomes, it does seem, however, necessary to come to a
         common understanding of what that term is actually supposed to mean.
         Spam is another issue on the minds of many delegations. In our
         experience, spam is not so much a technical, but, fundamentally, a
         social and economic problem. Most of the technological remedies we have
         seen proposed in the past would do very little to address the issue of
         spam, but raise a serious issue of interoperability. Several
         delegations pointed out that the Internet has a close relation to the
         principles of interoperability and freedom. The connection between free
         software and its principles and the Internet is, indeed, not
         circumstantial. If one takes a look at the history of networks, one
         will find a list of proprietary approaches to build something like the
         Internet, which failed without exception. It took free software to make
         the Internet work. Spam remedies we have seen suggested by major
         industry vendors require discarding the very principles that made the
         Internet possible, and it would be tragic, indeed, if attempts at
         regulating spam were to undo what we have all come to depend on. We
         therefore consider it necessary for the IGF to establish for itself a
         set of basic principles that will uphold and strengthen the foundations
         on which the Internet was built. These principles shall, in particular,
         ensure freedom and interoperability on a fundamental level as a common
         ground on which to implement the principles agreed upon during the
         World Summit on the Information Society. Regarding the tools discussed
         to continue the forum online between sessions, I wish to emphasize the
         importance of practicing what we preach. All IGF online resources
         should be fully accessible to all users, including those with
         disabilities, and put effective use of bandwidth high on its list of
         priorities to avoid excluding participants in regions with limited
         Internet access. The free software community has a longstanding
         experience in ensuring participation and collaboration across cultural,
         language, and connectivity barriers and gladly offers its expertise to
         the process. As a final and very concrete remark, let me suggest that
         for future sessions of the IGF, the very basic and necessary facilities
         of those who wish to use the Internet will be provided in future
         sessions. I observed a serious power struggle going on in this room,
         and it was not about politics. Thank you, Mr. Chair.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   That last point, this is one way you can recognize
         an IGF meeting is all of these wires where you will trip everywhere you
         walk. But I hope that these things change in time. I have one more.
         Philippe Vacheyrout, the president of Capucine.net.


         >>PHILIPPE VACHEYROUT:   Thank you, sir. Capucine.net, a nonprofit
         organization, has made a contribution to the Tunis Summit and we're
         glad to take part in this forum, without which the summit would have
         had no reason to exist. Our aim is to promote the use of ICT and a
         social partnership approach. We have a global approach based on users
         which leads us more specifically to study accessibility, sharing, and
         interoperability of use whilst we're expecting the specific features of
         each and every player, whatever his or her role in society. It makes it
         possible to concentrate on the fundamentals, such as security,
         accessibility, spam, multilingualism, subjects which we've already
         heard about, and we can thus contribute to a topic for the forum. To
         get down to the nitty-gritty, let's take personal medical files, which
         are being introduced in France. We are seeing the first effects of
         governance related to Internet use. It's no longer the doctor
         surrounded by patients, but patients surrounded by doctors, for
         preventive care and treatment. And the same will be true tomorrow for
         education, justice, employment, and online voting, with all the
         problems of accessibility and security relating to data protection,
         personal data, as well as the use of biometrics with the net, which is
         a hot topic. The aim is to find the means to put technology to the
         service of citizens and not the reverse. Convergence of technology, in
         particular, between the net and mobile phones is changing the possible
         uses we can make of them because we are seeing the emergence of new
         standards and new uses which will provide answers to the questions we
         are now asking and also raise new questions. This requires innovation.
         And we will be delighted to see this forum as a context for allowing
         citizens to contribute to Internet governance. Thank you.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   Thank you. We will have one more speaker, but I am
         waiting for him to sit down. Vittorio Bertola.


         >>VITTORIO BERTOLA:   Sorry, you will have to wait for ten seconds for
         me to bring up the statement. Okay. I guess I was possibly the only one
         getting the floor immediately after asking for it. So thank you for
         that. Well, actually, my -- I wanted to give a statement on behalf of
         an online campaign, they had -- I am participating to it. And they've
         asked me to give this statement to address one specific topic on the
         agenda for the Athens meeting. And -- okay, it's almost there. Maybe.
         Well, maybe I can just introduce it. I mean, it is an online campaign
         named Tunis Mon Amour. It was launched in Tunis. And the objective of
         this campaign was to raise the creation for a Bill of Rights for the
         Internet. In particular, a document stating the rights of the users of
         the network. So this is the statement. We, the supporters of the Tunis
         campaign for an Internet Bill of Rights would like to plead (inaudible)
         to receive our proposal. Our campaign was started in Tunis by an appeal
         signed by members of all the stakeholders groups of the Internet,
         including Brazil's minister of culture, the former chairman of the
         European Data Protection Agency's working party, Professor Stefano
         Rodota; the founder of Creative Commons, Professor Lawrence Lessig; and
         the founder of the Free Software Foundation, Richard Stallman. The
         purpose of the campaign is to ask the United Nations to lead an open,
         inclusive, collaborative process involving all stakeholders, both
         online and offline, to draft and adopt a Bill of Rights of the
         Internet, stating rights and duties of the users of the net. So to set
         a common founding basis at the level of principle necessary to address
         the numerous methods related to Internet governance that have been
         raised during the WSIS and WGIG processes. We think that the new
         Internet Governance Forum is the natural place to host this discussion,
         and thus we would like to propose that this matter is added to the
         agenda of the first meeting to be held in 2006. In such occasion, we
         would like to discuss and agree how to start the process through which
         consensus on the new document could be reached. We thank you for your
         understanding and support. If you are interested in getting more
         information about this campaign, the Web site is www.tunisMONAOMO.org.
         Thank you.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   We have heard, I think, all the speakers who wanted
         to speak on those questions. And I have just been trying to think on
         how we proceed for the -- Australia, yes.


         >>AUSTRALIA:   Thank you, Mr. Chair. You might be going to answer my
         question, but I'll ask it anyway. Will you be taking further
         contributions this afternoon or should I do it now? My preference is to
         wait until after lunch.


         >>CHAIRMAN DESAI:   I think let's meet after lunch. The reason is that
         I'm going to try and pose a few more questions to you. Because we need
         to move forward. And let me try and sense what I believe I can convey
         to the secretary general. First, as far as the question of convening
         the forum is concerned, I don't see any matter of dispute. It has
         already been decided. I do sense also a general agreement that it will
         be a multistakeholder forum with an open policy of participation,
         subject only to relatively light scrutiny of relevance, competence, and
         bona fides of the organization and people who wish to participate. I
         would say that there is some question about the exact timing of the
         first meeting which consultations are going on. And I was hoping it
         would get resolved by lunchtime now. But it has not yet been resolved.
         One of the reasons I want to meet in the afternoon is in the hope that
         it may get resolved by then. But if not, we would have to live with the
         uncertainty as to the exact dates. But it would be sometime in October
         and November. I think these are fairly straightforward things. I also
         am impressed by the fact that there's general agreement on the need for
         a relatively organized multistakeholder management process for this,
         and for -- to avoid confusion, I'm proposing to just refer to it as the
         program committee. Because I think to use concepts from
         intergovernmental negotiations, words like "bureau" and so on, adds to
         confusion. Whereas I think "program committee" makes it very clear, its
         job is to manage the program. And so there are -- I think there is a
         general agreement on the need for a multistakeholder process for this
         program management. And I will call this process the program committee.
         I would like to say that there is agreement on how this will be
         constituted, but, frankly, there have been many -- people have not
         given a very precise idea on what they would see this committee as. One
         notion has been a committee with balanced representation from all of
         the stakeholders, governments, civil society, private sector, Internet
         community, also ensuring geographical balance across all of these
         sectors. %%%l3end.


         %%%tstart3. Another concept which has been put forward is the notion of
         three bureaus, A la WSIS, but presumably the three bureaus would have
         to work together if it is a multistakeholder process to arrive at a
         decision. But by implication of that three bureaus, it would mean that
         any one stakeholder group, so to speak, would -- that all stakeholder
         groups must decide that this is worth doing.  That's, I think, the
         implication as I read it of the three bureau concept which has been put
         forward. But nevertheless, there are differences in terms of how this
         Program Committee should be put together or constituted. And also,
         people are not entirely -- have not been entirely explicit about how
         they see it being constituted. I would look forward to seeing any
         further comments that you have on this, because I think it is valuable
         to constitute this Program Committee -- agree -- that I would like to
         be able to say that there is general agreement.  Otherwise, I will just
         convey the range of views on the Program Committee, and then the
         secretary-general will have to take a view on how to handle this. I
         think there has been a great deal of discussion on what is it that the
         meeting itself should do, and there there are differences.  The
         differences were highlighted yesterday along what I would describe as
         three axes.  On one axis it is vertical and horizontal issues. A
         feeling that many of the people were focusing on what would be
         described as the vertical issues, specific issues of spam or cybercrime
         and so on, whereas some people felt what were called horizontal issues
         in the Working Group on Internet Governance, et cetera, needed to get
         more attention. The second dimension of the things that I sense is if
         it is being handled somewhere, then the IGF should not get into it. 
         And some people questioned that, saying why?  Because after all, if it
         is being handled somewhere in a process that is not open, we must still
         need to talk about it in IGF because the whole point of IGF is it's an
         open process in which everybody can participate. And I sense a
         difference in the way people would look at the eligibility of an issue
         to be on the agenda in this dimension also. And the third dimension is
         let's avoid controversial issues, and some people said, no, not
         necessarily.  Why should we avoid controversial issues.  After all, the
         forum exists to give voice to people.  And if it exists to give voice,
         you cannot necessarily avoid controversial issues. So these are
         differences, and I cannot tell the secretary-general that there is
         complete unanimity or agreement among people in those areas. In
         specific, I feel that there is a very strong message from not just the
         developing countries but many of you on the importance of reflecting
         the developmental dimension more fully and adequately in the work of
         the IGF. And the question I had raised yesterday as to exactly what we
         mean, and some clarity did emerge today as to what do we mean when we
         say the development. And there was, for instance, a certain listing of
         what these things could be, which was mentioned by several
         participants, which I think is very helpful. I feel that there is --
         perhaps this is not an area where there are big differences.  Most
         people seem to -- the message they were conveying is that they really
         see the role of the IGF as something which is focused on development,
         except that what they meant by "development" was sometimes very broad,
         sometimes a little more narrow in interprets of just Internet
         development. So I would -- I feel this also needs to be explored a
         little bit further. I can't see that we can do that today, on this
         exploration of the agenda, and what the IGF could deal with more
         generally as well as what it should deal with in its first session. I
         don't think it's possible for me to be able to convey to the
         secretary-general a clear idea saying, "This is what we should be
         doing" type of thing. I also feel that there was some discussion on the
         format of the meeting.  Several very useful suggestions came.  Clearly,
         the impression that I gather is most people expect this to have a
         plenary at the beginning and the end, and a fair number of working
         sessions in the middle, depending on what the agenda is, whether it is
         one, five, or -- it all depends on what finally is the view taken on
         the agenda. There was also a suggestion on, if you like, a sort of high
         box speaker's corner, where people could just come and say their peace,
         a poster session, if you wish to call it.  These are, I think, ideas
         which could be looked at. My own sense is that there's also been the
         idea, suggestion, that we really can't complete the consultations on
         this in these two days; that we may need a second round of
         consultation. I think there are some logistical problems in the second
         round in terms of doing it in Geneva because of the almost total lack
         of availability of meeting facilities, but there are other ways in
         which the consultation could be done.  And maybe we can do the thing in
         two parts, which is that initially we just take some -- the
         secretary-general basically takes the minimal decisions which need to
         be taken in order to convene the forum so that there is some
         definiteness on the basis of which the Greek authorities can start
         proceeding, and the second round would then try to see, in greater
         depth, as to what would be done, the structure of the forum, the teams,
         and various other issues which arise. What I would like to see is some
         sense of agreement on how -- what sort of Program Committee should be
         constituted.  I don't think we should get too focused on numbers,
         whether it should be 20 people or whatever it is.  Some people said
         smaller than the Working Group on Internet Governance.  That's one
         number that you can work with. Many people have mentioned the number 15
         as the number for the country representation, because it gives you
         three from each region. I think that's something which is -- we can get
         to without too much difficulty.  It's really a question of how it will
         be constituted, if it is a three-part committee, do you really see the
         three parts working independently or working together, in which case it
         really becomes a big committee of what do you see decisions being
         taken, so to speak, by -- separately and then coming together for some
         type of common agreement?  How do we reflect the multistakeholder
         management dimension?  We have to be creative in this process. The
         reason I'm stressing that we discuss a little, the whole question of
         the Program Committee in the afternoon and see whether we can get to
         some -- whether there is some further ideas which I could convey to the
         secretary-general, is because it's possible that the next round of
         further consultations would really be done by the Program Committee,
         who would then -- who would have the responsibility for managing the
         forum itself. There have been many references to how close or how far
         it should be from the U.N.  I think in certain respects, we have to
         recognize that this is a forum which is born out of a U.N.-based
         process; that it is the U.N. later which will be looking into its
         functioning as well as the various decisions, as we were reminded
         yesterday. But nevertheless, it's not a U.N. intergovernmental forum.
         The language is very clear.  It is an Internet Governance Forum.  It is
         not a classical U.N. subsidiary body of any sort. That is -- and this
         is certainly the legal opinion as far as I look.  The point, however,
         is we have to see what aspects of the connection with the U.N. would be
         of use and value in this whole process.  For instance, if we are to
         have host countries for this, as we have now, and this is probably
         almost unavoidable, because since nobody has a budget for this forum,
         it is going to depend very much on host countries and on voluntary
         funding.  It would seem to me that it's useful to use some of the
         practices of the U.N. when it comes to the -- that aspect. I think as
         far as other aspects are concerned, it could be done, as things evolve.
          There are some other aspects of U.N. work like the working in six
         languages which perhaps is something which also may be desirable for
         the forum to continue with, because it is meant to be a global forum,
         and if you start getting involved in the discussions in the forum on
         how many languages we should have, it will become too difficult. 
         Whereas here you have a standard, the six languages of the U.N.  You
         work with that.  And let's live with that practical approach. So there
         are aspects where I believe the forum could gain.  But are there other?
          Can people be a little more explicit and elaborate what other aspects
         of U.N. practice which they think would be of value, which other
         aspects are not of value?  Because it's worth keeping in mind.  I don't
         think this needs to be decided now, but it is something as a small
         matter which we wish to look at. I think the funding issue is
         important.  As I said, none of us have a budget for this in the U.N. 
         At the moment, a small Secretariat -- and let me be clear, the Program
         Committee is the management committee, like the political management
         committee for the forum, the Secretariat is just right now three of us,
         and I'm very part time.  I work roughly 20 days a year for the
         Secretariat, whereas Markus and his assistant are there all the time,
         so it is pretty lightweight.  If it is any lighter than that it will
         disappear [ Laughter ]


         >> CHAIRMAN DESAI:  So it can't be lighter than what we have now. So I
         would say that the Secretariat arrangements are there, we have some
         resources.  But perhaps the actual forum costs will, to some extent,
         will start being covered because of this hosting arrangements that we
         may have for the different forums. But I think the important point that
         I want to stress, which came across very sharply, is the resources that
         we need to enjoy -- to ensure that developing countries can participate
         effectively. I think this is a dimension we have often tended to miss
         out in this process -- in many of these processes. And I would stress
         this also. I would also now stress one more thing.  A multistakeholder
         process involves not just rights.  It also involves obligations.  If it
         is a multistakeholder process, people are participating on an equal
         basis. I will then say, well, please help, then, with the running --
         with the financing of this process also.  Because I don't think it's
         possible to say that we'll run it as a multistakeholder process and
         then say, oh, no, the secretary must keep mobilizing money from
         governments on a voluntary basis to run everything. I would say i would
         certainly deliver one strong message from my side to this, which is
         that a multistakeholder process has to be looked at not just in terms
         of right but in terms of obligations to support that process, both
         financially but as well as politically and in terms of outreach. There
         are some -- one final issue I wanted to raise with you.  When we start
         talking about the teams which we will cover in a forum like this, when
         we start talking about how the forum will be structured, let's keep in
         mind that we need to make this forum an attractive forum for people who
         are not normally a part of multilateral diplomacy. I was very impressed
         by a phrase which was used which was we need to make something where
         there is active capacity building of the people who come.  A value
         proposition.  Somebody said yes, if I go there, I will learn something.
          I am going to come away with some contacts, maybe, maybe I learn
         something.  Maybe some new deal will come out of this. We must keep
         this in mind.  I have noticed, now that I live mostly in my own country
         rather than the big centers of multilateralism, Geneva and New York,
         that when I talk to people about this process and about Tunis, their
         reaction is "what's in it for me?  Why should I go there?"  It's not
         that they -- they have the money.  All these chaps in India are making
         tons of money.  But that's not their problem.  Their problem is they
         don't see any value. They say there's nothing in this for me. And I
         think it's important that we keep this dimension in mind; that we have
         to try and design a forum which is not just a forum which would be
         attractive for people who are involved in multilateral diplomacy.  We
         have to design a forum which is attractive for the people who are
         really involved in the development of the Internet at every level.  At
         country level, at whatever else. And they are not going to be
         interested only in the big political issues.  They are also going to be
         interested in the sorts of things we do, which make them -- which allow
         them to learn things, which allow them to connect with other people. So
         would urge you to keep this aspect in mind also, that I don't think we
         are going to get the sort of participation we want, particularly from
         developing countries.  But people are much more particular about what
         they spend their money on since they have so much less of it.  We will
         not get the participation from developing countries unless we make this
         a forum which really is a learning experience and not just a
         negotiating experience. I've seen this not just in this.  I saw this
         when I was doing the Johannesburg summit.  I saw this in other places,
         that the bulk of the -- most of the people who come there do not come
         there because of their interest in the negotiating processes or even in
         the debates. The people come there because they want to find out what
         is happening in their area of interest when other places in the world,
         what they can learn from it, what they can take away from it, who they
         can network with, what connections they can establish.  And I think we
         should not lose sight of this when we speak of encouraging
         participation. Can we reflect this in some way in the way we actually
         manage this forum and run this forum? So I would pose these questions
         to you, and let's come back and see what reflections you have so that
         in the hope that I can convey to the secretary-general probably a
         somewhat slightly greater sense of convergence on some of these issues
         than what I sense so far. So with this, I would like to -- Pakistan. 
         Sorry.


         >>PAKISTAN:  Sorry, Mr. Desai.  When you were away, we had raised a
         point to Mr. Kummer from which we didn't get a response and we hope to
         get it in the afternoon. As you know, we represent the group of 77 and
         China.  This concept of the Steering Committee or the Program
         Committee, there is no discussion within the group of 77 on that, and
         there is no agreement that we can convey to you or no understanding on
         that concept as such that we can convey to you here.  And therefore,
         we'd like to put that down as a footnote and come back to it in the
         afternoon.


         >> CHAIRMAN DESAI:  Certainly.  In fact, my hope is that we focus on
         this.  And as I said, basically the responsibility of convening the
         forum rests with the secretary-general. We are not negotiating here.  I
         am only trying to get forth some views so I can convey something. 
         Because this isn't a classical intergovernmental forum. And as I said,
         I would urge that we keep it flexible, so it's not as if things get
         decided forever. But we simply say that we decide things for the first
         forum, and then we see how things are and maybe change as they -- if
         things don't work out. But at this stage, let's see how much we can --
         what sort of convergence I can sense.  If I don't, I will just convey
         that to the secretary-general, say this is the range. And perhaps we
         may think in terms of doing things in two stages.  Stage one where we
         just take the basic decisions required for the Greek authorities to
         start their work, and then stage two where we get into some of the
         other details, where differences are more larger and more substantial,
         and where the process of finding common ground would then have to
         include some measure of give and take by the different parties. Let's
         see whether something like this can be done.  We don't have to decide
         everything straight away, but at least enough to allow the process to
         start. Okay?  Thank you very much.  I see you at 3:00, then.