The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Tenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in João Pessoa, Brazil, from 10 to 13 November 2015. 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 event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> PENG HWA ANG: Ladies and gentlemen, we will begin soon.
So good afternoon. Welcome to the session on equity and the developing world in Internet governance. I think it's a very timely topic given the attention now of the Internet Governance Forum because the forum was started in part because of a drive to understand the role of information of the developing world.
We have the idea of oil as a resource; but in the Middle East when oil would run out eventually and where information seems to be the more critical resource, where does it fit in the scheme of things? Where would a developing world fit in the world where information is the resource and no longer your traditional commodities?
The topic is timely also because of the issue of developments in the emerging world where it seems to slow down in the world economic development. So what is considering this? This session, by the way, is put together by the Center for Communication Governance and the National Law University of Delhi. It's been put together by my friend here, Chinmayi Arun. I'm more like the Queen of England, I wave and smile. They do the work. Sorry. And (?) which is a new resource center being set up by the development center at Harvard. It will be launched this month in Hong Kong.
There are all together about 20 speakers, so what I'm going to do is follow a format completely plagiarized from what I saw this morning, where we will speak in batches of four or five and then open it up to the floor for inputs and then continue for another four or five. I'm not sure it's possible but you guys will have to try to speak within about two minutes or two and a half minutes, and then we will open it up to the floor. I will introduce speakers as we go along. So my name is Peng Hwa Ang from Singapore. I used to run a resource center in Singapore. I'm not just a regular professor; I do a bunch of other stuff that may not be all that necessary.
So the first speaker we have is Rahul Gosain from India. It's a quite interesting organization called DeitY. The director of DeitY.
>> RAHUL GOSAIN: The department of electronics and information technology.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Right, right. So, Rahul, you will speak for about two and a half minutes.
>> RAHUL GOSAIN: Yes, thank you. Thank you, Chair. And since I've been given this onerous responsibility of sort of opening the discussion, so this discussion is critical for the inclusive and sustainable growth of the Internet. And if we truly want Internet to transform the lives of all global citizens. So the current Internet governance related decision making processes ostensibly are restricted to limited to a few stakeholders mainly from the developed nations.
So despite all attempts, more than 60% of the global population still do not have Internet access. And there is an outgrowing gender and economic divide. And this clearly indicates that the current structure of decision‑making needs amendment. If we want to connect the unconnected in regions such as Africa, Asia, South American, it is important that their voices are brought to the forefront. These processes need to be made more inclusive.
New groups and constituencies who were not being represented need to be brought to the mainstream. For that we all need to make special efforts. We need to join hands and we need to bring them to the mainstream.
For example, in some of the developing countries, some of the small telecenters provide assisted access to the local population; however, their voices are no longer represented in any other decision‑making forums. Such stakeholders who play a critical role in Internet reach to assistance need to be brought to the forefront.
This is just one example. There are many more such representative groups who are still not there on the table. And here what we need to take into account is the fact that the Internet by its very nature is a dynamic medium, it's not a static medium. So at every point of time there will be newer constraints which will be coming into play, and we need to have the openness in our systems, the flexibility in our systems to be more accommodating and inclusive of all new such constituencies.
Even today the creation of new constituencies such as the ICANN is also an uphill challenge. This needs to change. Creation of new constituencies must be encouraged and the process must be made more simple and inclusive for which the matter is being also taken up at all levels in terms of underscoring the need amongst ICANN for greater diversity in its community.
The decision making process in all Internet governance structures shall be truly Multistakeholder in nature for all decision making and that is our ultimate objective. So governments, businesses, Civil Society, academia, et cetera, all should be encouraged to participate and share their opinions freely.
Multi‑lingualism is one of the key constraints which has hampered the smooth and free flow of the change of information, so this needs to be promoted in a big way. And all possible technical support in terms of promoting in terms of promoting greater multi‑lingualism in terms of possibly having greater localized content with a number of ideas facilitated, whatever technical support is needed and whatever technical standards needed will need to be worked around so that these things really work.
So in a nutshell, what the point I'm trying to make is that the decision making processes in all these forums should be accommodative of new thoughts, believes and languages, because that is the only way forward. And the world, more so the digital world, the world of the Internet needs to be inclusive in a big way. Thank you.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Thank you. So that I not spring a surprise on our speakers I'm going to have Parminder Singh next from IT For Change, and then Milton Mueller from North Georgia Tech and from the Internet School, and then Jane Coffin from the Internet society. So Parminder, Milton, and then Jane.
>> PARMINDER SINGH: Thank you, Peng Hwa. I would like to speak about the real details and issues and I'll try to see the same issue from larger structure questions which I think are in question today in this area.
So the subject is about equity related to developing countries in Internet governance. So three things here, equity, developing countries and Internet governance. Let me first start with equity because it's what we use easily but if we go to the meaning of that word, what does it mean? And then you can carry on with whether we have equity in Internet governance for developing countries.
There's the word called equality, of course, which is a very powerful particular word. It's not a simple slogan. Equality is a big political theme. Equity is and has equality when equality is not enough.
Quality is not less than ‑‑ it's not, okay, for someone ‑‑ equity means that equality is not enough. Some people need to start from a different starting point; and therefore equity is enhanced equality. Not to see whether we are able to see it in Internet Governance areas.
Now, there are two kinds of equality, one is political equality known as democracy and the other is economic equality. Now economic equality is a little contested fact. There's the issue of equality of opportunity, of equality of outcome and different kinds of political systems put themselves into a different parts of the spectrum. But political equality is generally for the last many decades accepted as the institutional norm. Nowadays no longer is a new institution made which would not have political equality or democracy in its institutional thinking plan and rules.
It's different that institution may not act democratically afterwards. Design‑wise everything is democratic and that's ‑‑ and we need to look at how democratic current Internet governance systems are. And I not only think there's a problem with them, there's a huge regression on democracy in this part of our social existence and we need to figure out why it is so. We have current systems being built in the area of Internet governance which I think are not so democratic. For instance, they ask that private sector should have an equal role in public policy as governments should have. I have these kinds of statements on record by the private sector.
So the question is how that how is it we are ready to proceed on these democratic (?)? Look at how Internet resources are governed in the jurisdiction of one country. Actually developing countries opposed it in 2005 more than they oppose it today which is strange and I would like to come to the reasons later when Peng Hwa gives me an opportunity, but why are we now accepting things that we didn't accept ten years back, definitely not 15 years back. Most of these things if you had proposed 15‑20 years back, people would have said no. This has to be looked at. The governments made comments to the ICANN process and they said no we can't.
So there are issues here, if democracy has to be enhanced, this doesn't look like enhancing democracy. And the last part is not only on political Internet resources which for me is a smaller part of Internet governance, but on public policy issues side.
We are today ready to accept in many of the dialogues which have taken place in this building, this whole IGF structure, that public policy is a divided role, government is just one stakeholder in public policy making, others have an equal decision making power. This kind of excuse was not acceptable. So you need to think. And this does not point to equity. So this for me is a lack of equity.
While today, public policy in the Internet space is being done by OECD's for example, the OECD's digital policy committee which does public policy on Internet issues. And it does it in intergovernmental manner with stakeholder input. That's how they do it. The same countries come to the U.N., and all countries cannot do the same model.
I'm sorry that Civil Society agrees with it. I also see many developing countries are stepping back on lack of perspective and they are not aggressive enough that if OECD's making Internet policy for the globe, actually their policy instruments say that we would like these policy principles to expand to the whole globe. This is not equity. This is not democracy. And these kinds of things we have stopped objecting to, to challenging. I have a tentative reason why we are actually going back over democracy, what we now accept that we would not have accepted 20 years back that we accept today, but that will come later on. Thank you, Peng Hwa.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Okay. Thanks, Parminder. Next, we have Milton to give us two minutes.
>> MILTON MUELLER: Two minutes, okay. So I think we have to begin with the discussion of what equity means and then hopefully we will have more opportunities to go into more depth.
So I think I have a different conception than Parminder. To me equity means justice. It means fair and impartial treatment. And it's not so much about equality of participation which we're talking about in the Internet governance institutions.
I also don't think ‑‑ I think there was a tendency to equate equity with democracy. Democracy to my mind is a method of government and not by definition equitable. I think it's very obvious, now that I live in the U.S. South, that you can have a democratic voting system which can be very inequitable. Majorities can expropriate or violate the rights of minorities. It's not to say that all democracy is always like that but usually you have a framework of individual rights and laws which say you have to treat people equally and this is not itself a matter of democracy, it's a separate standard of treatment.
I think two issues are raised with respect to Internet governance and one of them is the obvious one that the Internet started in the U.S. and therefore the U.S. has inherited and U.S. institutions have inherited forms of control over the Internet governance institutions that I don't know whether they're equitable or not for that legacy thing to happen, but it's certainly something we need to grow out of, we need to change.
You know, you can say that the U.S. should not have unilateral control of the route. I've been saying that before certain people knew what the route was. Hopefully we are in the process of getting rid of that. I don't know if it's an equity issue or not. I think it's a good governance issue. I think it's an international relations issue. I think it's an issue related to the role of government in Internet governance if we want to get all governments out of the route, we want to get the Internet community governing itself, but that's something that applies regardless of whether they're talking about the developing world or the developed world.
So what are the equity issues for the developing world? I think that there are serious equity issues that you're facing that have to do with again the time advantage that was given to the U.S. in particular and some of the western countries and creating the Internet.
And so they're well‑positioned within that now and they have created methods of operating and rules for operating that unconsciously mostly but sort of disadvantaged people who are latecomers into the process. That is indeed an equity issue.
But I think the question that we might disagree on and we don't have time to go into in two minutes is what do you do about that? What is the best response to these kinds of equity issues?
So I'll leave it at that. I hope we can follow up on these discussions. But just to summarize my point, equity to me is about fairness, about justice, about impartiality in the treatment of people. You can actually have very equitable and just institutions which do not produce completely equal results. And sometimes that's actually ‑‑ I mean, that's just a fact. It's an unalterable fact of social reality. Social systems are not by nature producing inequality. You're going to get various kinds of inequality reality no matter what you do. You can debate ‑‑
>> PENG HWA ANG: Milton, it is time.
>> MILTON MUELLER: Okay. You can debate policy measures for remedying those or for avoiding those. But inequality in terms of the results what people know of what they can do of how much money they have, it's always going to be there.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Okay. Thank you. Next speaker is Jane Coffin from Internet Society.
>> JANE COFFIN: Thank you, Professor. I'm going to speak from an institutional capacity for the Internet society. We obviously are not from the developing world. I have lived and worked in it; however we do have colleagues and chapters throughout the world.
Our mission and our vision, Internet is for everyone and we're looking at providing and helping as a catalyst, providing inclusive, accessible open Internet including open standards, as was mentioned. And we work with partners and chapters to do that. And as a facilitator and perhaps a catalyst that's something that many institutions can try and do as Milton has suggested and Parminder and others that equity is a critical issue and how did you achieve that? Well, if you don't have places to talk about and people together to share those ideas and that information and the critical architecture of the Internet, then you don't have that place and those ideas that come out of it.
We do do the regional work and the support of the IETF for those standards. While those processes may not be accessible, our objective is to try to disperse our meetings throughout the world to bring more players to the table and create more opportunities. No institution is perfect. There are ways to improve what we do. I spoke a little bit about this yesterday. We are looking for best practices for Internet technical infrastructure, and that would be develop and support connectivity, develop and support the communities that are surrounding the Internet governance infrastructure, architecture, developing standards and policies, and develop and support capacities of humans who are either developing that infrastructure for more open access and standards and the policies that bring people together to have a voice in the debate.
We see sustainable development goals that the UN has just agreed to and the processes within the WSIS as a great opportunity. We have often said it is the Internet of opportunity, how do we create that mechanism for that to be more equal and open. I would note that on connecting the next billion is it the next or is it the final billion and who are we trying to connect in an equitable fashion and how you do we do that. And is this through youth? Also we have a next generation there, the connected generation. How are we bringing that, those thought processes to the table and to finalize ‑‑
>> PENG HWA ANG: Jane, your time is up.
>> Jane coffin: With respect to Internet governance we are a strong supporter of national regional IGFs. This is a way to bring the debate to regions and localities. Thank you.
>> PENG HWA ANG: All right. Thank you. Sorry. I'll open it up to the floor for comments and questions.
>> Members of the audience are also free to join us at the table.
>> PENG HWA ANG: So you have a comment, John?
>> JOHN: Sorry. I was late. I was double booked on another panel. But just two things on the equity in general. One, that equity was about access to meaningful participation. Again, I haven't heard what other people said but I guess that would be yes that would be a procedural equity if you like. Procedural equity tends to be connected to a distributive equity, so distributive justice in terms of resources you have. So probably want to embed political equity, economic equity. And then you probably want to embed the political and economic equity in cultural equity so there's also about having different lifestyles, life ways, being able to participate in the processes. So that's something as well.
Second point I want to make maybe is that you're talking about equity for the developing world. And that's one important dimension but there's so many dimensions of equity in Internet government so there's equity on gender lines, on racial lines, on class lines, on age lines, on disability lines, on sexual orientation lines, and many, many others. So I think it's fine to talk about equity in the developing world, but maybe to remember that that's connected to many others.
>> PENG HWA ANG: We didn't begin by definition, but since you are on a roll, do you want to continue ‑‑ if there's no questions on the floor, what do you want to continue your presentation? Okay. All right.
If there are no questions on the floor, I'm going to proceed to the next group of speakers. So I have Tomas Lamanauskas from ITU. Tomas, please. And then we have (?), Sylvia Cadena from APNIC, and (?). Tomas, please.
>> TOMAS LAMANAUSKAS: Thanks. And as people sit here, they think first why we need equity. And I like the approach that we still have a lot of people unconnected. And for me if you want to talk about someone, have that someone at the table because then what you're designing for them may not be exactly what they want or need. So we need to bring people here.
And so I can strongly believe that all stakeholders from all nations should be involved. That was our Deputy Secretary‑General in the high level event emphasizing his speech. Internet is now a global asset and all the people of the world have a stake in its development.
And he emphasized that it is necessary to have equitable participation of stakeholders from all nations especially from developed and undeveloped countries in Internet governance processes so that all voices are accountable for all the decision making properties.
And when we talk about stakeholders, we don't just talk about countries and governments but we talk about academia and nonprofits. And I remember like you had some discussion about this so we have stakeholders but whether we have representation from all the subsidy holder groups in the world, people who have a various interest, and whether we have a right or proper presentation of stakeholders.
I also stress that the importance of the proper stakeholder presentation so that we not just have someone from a stakeholder but they actually reflect the views of that community.
The other part that is very important is meaningful participation. There's one session before where people were saying those are open, if you want to come, come. But it's not about that. To come you need to know what is the process design, you need to understand how the process works. You need to actually have the money and the means to come there as well.
Another challenge and another challenge just also to note there is how many forums we have to discuss these issues. That's another thing that we are more and more raising it, because basically to participate in all the discussions of Internet governance it should be a full‑time job.
So the question is how you can actually allow the people who are not a full‑time job to actually participate in those discussions.
So what do you do from that perspective? Just to give you some examples, how do we try to let more people in? So first of all the language issue. So we as a UN agency have six languages, it's not ideal but at least it's better. We have ‑‑ so we are moving towards increasing government openness, we have ‑‑ we do the ‑‑ we are very actively employing remote participation and working methods so people in the room even if they can't travel. They're using crowd sourcing and similar means to collect information.
Making membership easier. We just had academia membership a few years ago, and now our membership is discussion a not‑for‑profit membership to allow them easier access. Fellowships, also capacity building for newcomers to the sessions. So trying ‑‑ these are some of the means of any organization in this area. The last point ‑‑
>> PENG HWA ANG: Tomas, I'm sorry. Your time is up.
>> TOMAS LAMANAUSKAS: The last point here is just we are also committed to contribute to the capacity building before the stakeholders in this area as well in participating in Internet governance processes and we are now working with the stakeholders in those areas to enhance that as well. Thanks.
>> PENG HWA ANG: So we have 16 speakers and we have 57 minutes. So next speaker, please.
>> I think we are going to do something different like I was just talking to my colleague over here. So she will go first and then I will follow.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Okay. Change of order.
>> Yeah.
>> Thank you, very much, for that flexibility. Yeah, I just wanted to pick up on the point that Milton Mueller was making about what equity is and the understanding of equity. And I share similar understanding of it, that it being about justice and fairness. And I think that really needs to be at the root of our governance processes as we go forward, especially when it comes to the developing world because there are so many processes that are very difficult to understand from the perspective of Civil Society, for example. And I'm talking about decision making and decision shaping.
So sometimes we have these conversations where we are saying oh, this is a type of discussion that doesn't actually end in binding agreements. I don't think it's either/or really. And I think that's when they're going to talk about trade agreements because those are where I think there's a serious lack of capacity on the parts of society.
>> Okay. So following up on these remarks, when I first received this invitation I was thinking okay this is a really great discussion and how can I contribute? And I think I can contribute by sharing my own experiences with you because I've been following the trade negotiations very closely. And last four years of the partnership was I was really involved in the process. I've been to all the negotiations rounds. I'm coming from a developing country but I work for an organization based in Washington, D.C.
So it's very important (?) countries and most of them are developing countries. And there was no Civil Society input. The Civil Society coming from north, we handled some of the negotiation rounds. And we really promoted the stakeholders from developing countries to attend because it's important to communicate with the negotiators because (?) where the rules made. We can't have these discussions all day and night but in a parallel universe people are making rules. And unfortunately there's no input ‑‑
>> PENG HWA ANG: Sorry. Summarize please.
>> Okay. And so there's very limited input from developing countries from trade agreements and from Civil Society from developing countries. So it's very important to include and to hear the other voices of countries. But there's lack of technical capacity and knowledge, and this is a serious issue.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Sorry, but really the time ‑‑ we don't have much time. Next is Sylvia Cadena.
>> SYLVIA CADENA: Well, my name is Sylvia Cadena. I work for APNIC in Australia, we coordinate the pacific region but I'm from Latin America so I kind of know what a developing country looks like and how they actually display realities. So I guess I'm a very practical and operational person, and that's the work that I do.
I would like to take this discussion from the level that is being managed and just put a little bit of more practical terms in terms of what is what you actually need to make it equity. And what continuing for participation in Internet governance looks like for developing countries. So it's not equity, it's not one opportunity to go to a meeting and just fit some indicators and statistics that so many people from the developing world and there are a few women there. It's more about how do you empower those voices through processes. It takes years and decades of work.
And those voices from developing countries have some scattered opportunities to be raised and they don't have the same support over time. It's about funding and being able to be at a place, having the bandwidth to follow on those discussions and be able to conquer the language barrier, to structure your thoughts in Spanish or Chinese or something and then be able to quickly answer those in English to the rest of the crowd that are already ten steps ahead because you're thinking in another language.
So I think it goes to a lot of the practical mechanisms that empowered people from developing countries to participate in this arena. And we really need to work on what are those practical mechanisms. But it's practical and complete.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Great, thank you. Final speaker for this section, please.
>> Thanks. I guess we can start to implement equity on the speakers regarding their allocated time. Saying that, it's interesting that we start about the definition and that's kind of how we define equity, but since we are talking about developing countries, what I see for developing countries and the stakeholders is we see as kind of political group. There's not concern when we talk about Internet governance environment about developing countries, there is a lot of focus on some that I would say one of these like India or China or Brazil and so on. I'm coming from a small country, Tunisia; we have 11 million people so I'm afraid, even when we talk about equity of interest and kind of what are those bigger countries looking. So how you can ensure equity if you are talking about developing countries? I'm not even talking about the different stakeholders in Civil Society, so how you can insure equity here?
So this is one of my concerns when we talk about participation, how we can make maybe changing the setting in Internet governance. That's all the discussion. Because for me by few countries they have more political interest that doesn't correspond to much to my interest coming from that small country. That always really bothered me, how we can ensure equity in such environment. So this is the kind of ‑‑ for Civil Society I guess the issue is always about resources capability and also the attention because if you are in Civil Society, a member of organization, are there so many things that you would like to cover. So how we can do here?
I'm a practical person because I'm an engineer but I don't have an answer to this. So are we looking for a response from the global north or ‑‑
>> PENG HWA ANG: We have to sum up here.
>> ‑‑ or what should we do?
>> PENG HWA ANG: We have to sum up here.
>> Yeah, okay.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Are you done? If you want to sum it up.
>> When I talk about equity, I have a concern in the beginning, that's why I really focus on the idea of developing country and the rest of the world. Developing countries, we are diverse started by small islands with emerging countries and so on. You cannot just put us in the same group and then take care only of the concern of one of the divisions of the superpowers. I am from Africa. If you are taking care only of South Africa, they don't represent us. I am from the region of more than 53 countries. We are so diverse in terms of language and so on. So you need to start to talk about the diversity so we can talk about equity.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Okay. Thank you. Is there someone remote chiming in.
>> Yes, we have a speaker on the line.
>> (Speaker off microphone).
>> PENG HWA ANG: Is that coming through? Sorry? Is that coming through? Are you typing it out?
>> (Speaker off microphone).
>> PENG HWA ANG: Why don't you go to the mic and then we will move on.
Is the microphone working? Try the other one.
>> AUDIENCE: (Speaker off microphone).
>> AUDIENCE: Okay. Thank you. It's taken me a very long time to get some attention to get here, but thank you. I just wanted to pose a question to the panelists first, whether there is actually a recognition that when we speak to the developing world we still need to characterize it as well. And this is not just in terms of Internet governance at the global platform but the recognition at even the national level that in the developing countries there are variations in terms of who is leading the Internet governance process.
If there that is recognition, then what is the strategy in terms of identifying what are the priority areas for each of those segmented developing countries? Then the second aspect is also in terms of access. I think for a lot of us in the developing world the issue really is around access. And I think the tendency for a lot of governments within the developing countries is to develop or try and get an increase in the infrastructure but there's not a lot that's been done in terms of support. So for instance you get computers in a school but you won't have teachers there who are able to do anything in terms of training or improve the learning environment for the students and the school.
So firstly do we acknowledge that there are differences, variations, in terms of levels? In some countries you have a government who is leading the process, in others it's Civil Society. If we do, what then is the strategy in terms of identifying to what level we can engage as a global level especially prioritizing what actually matters to us as a developing nation?
>> PENG HWA ANG: Okay. Please come forward.
>> Can we try again?
>> PENG HWA ANG: Remote participation is ready? Yeah, please.
>> Yes, thank you.
>> (Speaker off microphone).
>> PENG HWA ANG: While we are waiting for your question, we will have three questions before we respond. Are you ready?
>> No, it doesn't seem to be working.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Okay. So next, please. Please identify yourself.
>> My name is Deirdre Williams and I come from an even smaller country than Rafik (phonetic). There are 174,000 of us in St. Lucia. Excuse me, I'm sorry, I have a cold. I would like to support very firmly what Tomas said. I am very concerned about the next billion who we seem to be connecting whether they like it or not. Professor Mueller said the Internet community should govern the Internet but those 1 billion people are not there yet. And I hope very strongly that someone will take time to find out what they think about what has been done to them. Thank you, very much.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Anymore questions or comments on the floor? Yes, please.
>> Yes, Nigel Hickson, ICANN. So I might as well say my bit now to save you time, should I, as one of the panelists rather than ‑‑ to save you time, Mr. Chairman.
So, I mean I think those points were exceedingly well made and we certainly shouldn't assume that we can talk for the next million or the next billion. We can certainly put infrastructure in place to ensure that everyone has the ability to connect. We can't force people to come to the table. And when those people do come to the table, we have to involve them in processes as being discussed.
So equity and democracy, I think it's been summed up very well by Professor Mueller and others. And I think what it comes down to in an ICANN sense is that we have to put processes in place for democracy. We can't ensure equity overnight. We can strive to do our best to enhance equity, to do something that is going to be a goal. So in terms of the structures in place, we heard a lot of the transition and we discussed that in great detail. But clearly the process put in place of that was a Multistakeholder democratic process.
ICANN has done its best to encourage governments to take part in the decision‑making process of its structure. We have 155 countries now in the government advisory committee. And we have many participants from developing world in many of the other equities.
Can we do better? Of course. Organizations can always do better to reach out. I'm sure Jane would say for ISOC, the marvelous job they have done on their chapters. They can do better. We can do better. I'm sure most organizations can do better. It takes time. But we must ensure. And I think the lady from St. Lucia, Ms. Williams is absolutely right, that we can't speak for these of the next million, or next 2 million, but what we can do is try and include them in the debate. Thank you.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Thank you. Any other comments?
>> AUDIENCE: Yeah, I just don't want to be the bearer of bad news here but I'm struggling with the notion that equates unequal distribution of access with an equity issue because no technology in history ever has dropped upon the earth and had 100% penetration. They all have to start somewhere. That means at any moment in time some people have them and others don't.
So if you can see this as an equity issue as an injustice, what is your respond to go and expropriate the people that have the technology or to stop them from having it? I don't think that's very productive.
If you view this as a wealth generation issue that the people who are poor need to find ways to get resources to acquire these things on their own, then it becomes more of an economic development issue which is where I think you really get progress in these, you know, in connecting the next billion or the first billion for that matter.
But if you look at India, for example, they have done amazing things with their telephone policy to get mobile phones in villages and the diffusion levels have gone very rapidly.
If you look at China, they didn't suddenly become a mid‑level developed country by begging the west to give them things. They reformed their own economy and developed it according to their own particular model which is successful in some ways but has problems in others. If all you mean by equity is that some people have more of a particular technology that is diffusing out the world than others, I don't think that's necessarily an equity issue.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Parminder, you wanted to say something?
>> PARMINDER SINGH: Yeah. I'm not sure ‑‑ I mean, this equity is universal (?). And it's a normative value that we think that certain kind of capabilities should be available. It’s too extreme for me to even respond to here.
I come to the other question which Rafik pointed out and Deirdre also, that small countries not having representation. I think we also need to know which battle to fight when and where. And when you're in a global forum and there is an issue where at least the equality which you have in the U.N. has not been given and it's the big countries as you say, look at the countries there. It's cheaper to make the policies, (?) but not the small countries. So the fight here is of a different kind where you at least have your existing defended while you fight with those possibilities a greater representation. There are small island countries groupings in the UN or in other global, so push them there but use the logic but (?) on representation will probably be counterproductive. Thank you.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Grace, you have a comment, please?
>> GRACE: Thank you. In response to one of the comments that has been made I think from my point of view I would like to point out that it's also an issue of equity if some people are so far ahead and the gap with the ones with nothing keeps getting bigger and bigger. So technologies keep coming up while the ones who do not have any technology keep being left behind and it's an issue of equity because of the digital divide.
If you allow me, Professor, I'll just make a comment which is that my name is Grace, I come from Kenya, and I’m part of the ISOC ambassador partnership. And I'm also with a group which is a Multistakeholder platform where we discuss Kenyan policy issues. We are also the conveners of the IGF.
One of the challenges we have had in convening the IGF and having discussions about our international Internet governance processes is there's a lot of apathy from the local users. Some is because they don't have access to the Internet so they cannot participate in the online discussions unless they're at work and using the employer's Internet. Others are because it takes a lot of work like Tomas said. And it's almost a full‑time job to participate in Internet governance sessions.
So now from where I see it, how some of the opportunities I see moving forward is that first of all and in response to a question that was asked by the lady is that we have ‑‑ government has to take up the role of facilitating Multistakeholder discussions. It cannot be any other party. It has to be the government.
And I say this because ultimately it is the government to implement whatever solutions come out of the Multistakeholder discussions. So as a stakeholder the government has to take up this role. But on the other hand we also have to make sure that Civil Society is ‑‑ we build a strong Civil Society that can always protect the public interest in this discussion. And so in an issue of equity we have to work harder in funding organizations, local organizations, where ever they exist, so that we can have people whose full‑time job is to follow Internet policy discussions from an organizational level, as opposed to indigenous individuals who at the end of the day in developing countries individuals still have to look for their bread and butter, still have to do some other job in order to make ends meet. Thank you.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Thank you, Grace. We are going to have the next group of speakers: Jan, Jan Scholte; Nigel, Nigel Hickson from ICANN; Caroline Aguerre, LACTLD; Mario Viola, ITS. So, Jan, next please.
>> JAN SCHOLTE: This is more in spirit of conversation responding to other things that people have said. But in this discussion between Parminder and Rafik I think ‑‑ I'm not sure that the G‑20 members have a great record for standing up for the G‑77 once they've come into that circle. So I think that the comment, yeah, so I mean ‑‑ when the G‑20 was formed I actually posed to the founder of the G‑20 that two of the 20 should be (?) of the world, but he said they don't count so that's kind of what the G‑20 is about.
The Chinese minister on cyber affairs at the beginning in the transition process said that he hoped that the team that was negotiating and deliberating on the IANA transition would reflect the distribution of Internet use which would then imply from the top eight countries Internet use, China, USA, India, Japan, Brazil, Russia, Germany and Nigeria; if one looks at the actual patterns of participation in those deliberations, there's been almost no one from China, there's been almost no one from Nigeria, almost no one from Japan. A little bit from the Brazilian government, not from Civil Society. And a little bit from Indian Civil Society but not from the Indian government.
So again, Nigel, I think ICANN has done really good efforts because you're starting from low base, but there's such a very, very long way to go. My concern is I've been working on these issues for several decades and this conversation could have been had in 1995.
If you go across the different areas, finance, trade, health that I've worked on in the governance this issue of developing country participation has been around for a long, long time. And I'm not really convinced actually that we are that much further along. There are translation efforts and the like; there are fellowships and ambassadorships, that's all great. But the fundamental distributions of participation in these processes are still heavily, heavily skewed. And I think that one needs to look at deeper structural reasons for this that do not lie at the level of fellowships and translation facilitation.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Okay. Good, thank you. There's a prize on keeping the time, but I don't have any with me right now. Next, Nigel Hickson.
>> NIGEL HICKSON: Mr. Moderator, I'll concede my time because I've already spoken. Thank you, very much though.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Okay. That's very generous. Next, Carolina Aguerre.
>> CAROLINA AGUERRE: Thank you, professor. I want to go back to the idea that was mentioned a few minutes ago and it's the mention of the idea that many of these processes started 20 or 30 years ago in a particular context in a very particular region using a very particular language in a very particular culture format, and we to have live with that in a way.
And I'm not saying that we cannot change it. I'm just saying that usually when things are born and institutionalized in a certain way, then we get a process where it is extremely difficult to change that because the rules of the game were basically set then and there. And we are with the IANA transition I think facing a very crucial moment in terms of redefining some of those rules of the game that were said in 1998.
So I think we need to participate more. I think we need to be responsible as communities from least developed countries whether it's state, Civil Society, et cetera, to participate and engage more in global processes knowing that the barriers we have are extremely challenging, culturally, linguistically, economically and financially.
And some of the way forward ‑‑ I mean this was expressed by the colleague discussing the TPP issue. And, I mean, it's the subsidiary level which ICANN, ISOC, APNIC, many organizations develop extensive programs and I would say the whole Internet community in a way is working in a way of trying to regionalize many of the processes and get the discussions going to the grassroots as much as possible to regional and national levels of discussion.
And I was talking to an Asian colleague before coming here and she said my colleagues when they speak in a Japanese forum they would always go to the mic and speak out but they would never do that in a global forum. And this is something that I have discussed with my colleagues in other.
So these are strong cultural issues. It's not just pure financial issues. It's a cultural way of working in a process, and ‑‑ this is it now.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Thank you. (?). Next up is Mario Viola.
>> MARIO VIOLA: Good afternoon. Well, I have to consider the time we have and I would like to share some thoughts with you. Let's see. To further Carolina's talk I think it's good to mention the problem of linguistic priority. I heard from a Brazilian ambassador some weeks ago that when we speak a foreign language we speak what we can, not what we want. So that's the first point we have.
We also have the issue of capacity building which was an issue that was not mentioned I think for the panelists, but and Brazil used to say it's not enough that you give a name for someone; you have to teach such person how to cultivate the land. So it's another issue that you have to address and there are some examples in terms of the capacity building of the IGF, the ICANN. But I think we still have to work more on training and capacity building.
I think we also should try to find some ways to ‑‑ some mechanisms to allow broader participation. Taking some examples we are here, like the law making process of the Brazilian Bureau of Internet Rights, where we created a kind of collaborative platform where social society, governments, national Internet corporations, the public in general, they have to draft the legislation.
So I think we should think about different mechanisms, not the typical Multistakeholder model where people sit around the table and try to discuss the same issues or maybe the same agenda. So we should focus more on the south or on the global south agenda than on the north one which is not the common issues like trying to destroy everyone. But we should be more specific and giving more voice to this part of the world. So I think I'll give my time and leave the floor for the rest. Yes.
>> PENG HWA ANG: A prize for you also.
>> MARIO VIOLA: Thanks.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Final speaker ‑‑ okay, by the way, I am cutting three speakers on the list. They are from a group called Access Now. So our next final speaker is Gangesh Varma.
>> GANGESH VARMA: Hi. So I think from the discussion we have had so far is that we all do agree that the (?) Equity exists and its various manifestations. And one thing that happened today is (?) who is subject here and we always tend to club with inequality in developing countries. So we have seen that within that cluster there is so much lack of equity that we see. And sometimes this happens because in our effort to counter a much larger force, you know, much larger structure within a governance system the smaller actors tend to come together. And in that process sometimes of these each individual interests are drowned out.
So what I'm trying to think about is how do we look at addressing this? Is it possible within the institutions that we discussed to have completely structural reforms and process‑related measures to see that these barriers can be overcome, whether it's language and gender or race? And how far has that been successful? Translations and language is one; cultural barrier is another. I would also like to hear from the rest, how far have we succeeded in the measures that we have claimed to have taken? And yeah.
>> PENG HWA ANG: So I'm going to open it up to the floor but I'm going to make some remarks before we continue. I've not given the definitions to what equity is and want to hear what you all had to say. You did hear different definitions about what equity is.
In this discussion we talk about equity as increased access and meaningful participation. So that's just one definition of equity. Not all of you agree, but it's just one definition of equity.
Second, do you want spaces we can use to improve equity talking about the groups, committees, governance, mechanisms? What specifically can we use?
The third one, what processes can we use to improve equity? Carolina talked about some issues regarding the way that you have participation, for example. So that is one issue of process and how that process can get in the way of equity. It's seemingly equal that everybody may not like to speak but culturally sort of not used in all of locals. The final one, (?) of equity participation. So obviously some issues of funding of capacity of representation of gender. So if there's some areas that you want to talk about in this discussion here, so questions or comments from anyone? Remote is working now?
>> Yes. I have a question from Norbert Polo (phonetic) of Switzerland. Reacting on that topic of digital divides that have been mentioned that the idea of an equity should be defined in terms of the capability model of (?) so equity would not be primarily about equality in the sense of having the same gadgets or access to the same Internet bandwidth but about having full empowerment in the sense of the same capabilities for communication and political influencing. I would impress that panelists please comment.
>> PENG HWA ANG: So that was a comment from Norbert? That's not a question, right?
>> That was a comment, yes.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Comment, okay. Thank you. Anyone here, from the panel especially, having a comment? Jane, please.
>> JANE COFFIN: Just very simply when it comes to access to infrastructure you do need to create the opportunities for increasing that infrastructure and it's something that many of our organizations all try and do. Sorry, it's just that I'm making a comment about the importance of increasing the infrastructure, building more infrastructure, training people, capacity development, and those communities to sustain them. It's something we have seen not only with Internet exchange points, with more connectivity.
So I would say Norbert's point about access to the infrastructure and more capacity, yes, we are trying to help develop more of that capacity. So there are layers of creating an equitable baseline. So some of us are going to provide some type of access and infrastructure and training. Others can come in at different layers with different issues perhaps surrounding some of the Human Rights related issues whereas my organization may come in at different layers and have different things to say. So we are all not trying to tackle the same issue.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Questions from the floor? Please, come to the mic. And briefly.
>> AUDIENCE: Sorry, I do not speak English. I can speak Portuguese?
>> PENG HWA ANG: Yes, speak in Portuguese, yes.
>> AUDIENCE: I'm Fernando. I belong to the State Health Surveillance agency of the state of Paraiba. I have two questions and I have some comments to make. In spite of the progress in access to the Internet worldwide, we have also had many problems in Brazil by using strategies to increase society participation in public policies. I agree that these differences should be noticed and remarkable in order to achieve equity.
So in your view, where does Brazil stand? Is it doing well? How is it developing for a contributor to such a large territory with over 205 million inhabitants in over 5,000 municipalities that have difficulty in ensuring active participation of citizens in public policies?
So what are the successful strategies in other countries in your experience that might lead to equity in the capitalist system that domains our economic system?
>> PENG HWA ANG: On the equity front, comments?
>> Well, I would like to say in response to your comment that in a lot of cases it is about bringing the discussion to the people on the ground. So instead ‑‑ and that's when the national and regional IGF initiatives have so much power. When you have one way of enticing or exciting people about what they're missing or showing them what they're missing to participate on is when you bring the government down to them. And there are ‑‑ in Colombia, for example, there has been a lot of government sessions where they take the whole ministerial cabinet who operated in this home town to make sure voices are heard. And it's a similar approach to all methodologies but I guess it has to come with the intention of the people that are actually trying to build the consensus to take the band around and have distinctive voices. But it is again an issue of empowerment and having the community to be able to have those voices develop the strength to the same level.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Tomas?
>> TOMAS LAMANAUSKAS: Just very quickly. The paradoxes that that the ICT is supposed to challenge here with a solution as well. So when we talk about of equity participation, it's a display of our roles. So that's how we also need to extend that. Just an example from my previous ICT life, so for example, in a country like Vanuatu which is very dispersed and a lot of violence, you know, the things that they did was the virtual town halls, you know, where provincial centers bring people ‑‑ you know, even if you can't bring the Internet to everyone, you can bring everyone to the house, that allows to government engaging people who are very far away and otherwise would not be able to directly interact with the government officials. So I think that's part of the thing. So we need people to participate in the discussion of ICTs and how to develop that, but we also need ICTs to allow that participation.
>> PARMINDER SINGH: I think there are two aspects and they are both so complex that they should be discussed separately, equity in Internet Governance and equity as an outcome of Internet Governance. I think both are complex and I think if you're talking across them, and that kind of muddies the water a bit and that makes me uncomfortable. I think here equity in Internet governance is important.
Quickly to Carolina's point, I don't believe that it's 25 years back there was a regime that shaped up and we are on the defensive because of that. I simply think more can be done. But let's keep an aside and accept your argument. However, currently a regime is being shared about public policies in Internet governance that's been shaped in all cities digital policy committee, it's being shared in shared in trade agreements in the U.S., and when this regime is being shared, we are not there, so we are not doing what we should have done 25 years earlier and then we are proceeding to other questions which is probably a problem.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Rafik (phonetic), please.
>> Thanks. I just want to respond to a previous point. When I talked about equity in developing countries ‑‑
>> PENG HWA ANG: Speak into the mic.
>> Yes, okay. Just one previous point. So when I talked about equity among developing countries, I was thinking more about states. States they have interest. And they will try to grasp whatever they can in the global regime. So that's what I wanted to stress.
So when I talk coming from Tunisia, I didn't want to single out a country but the reality they want to grasp, to have some (?) and when we talk about cities. And if I want to take another example, let's not talk about Internet governance here; let's talk for example about open governance and open data and see how those experiences could get more participation of citizen. That's what we need to question because we tend to think because it's Internet, it's Internet governance, we will get everyone involved.
In reality, if you are a citizen, depending on the country, you cannot focus on many issues. You're not going to get involved, you're not going to get involved in your environment, you're not going to get involved in how your city is managing. You're not going to get involved in Internet governance. That's why people focus on some topics and don't focus on others. So I want to highlight first is that at the Internet governance it's also about how states try to grasp more power that they he have interest. On the other hand, when we talk about citizens, that the problem, maybe we try to do our best but I'm not sure I can get the interest of all citizens everywhere.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Other comments? Carolina and then Grace.
>> CAROLINA AGUERRE: I certainly agree with your comment, Parminder. I mean, we have the (?) but we also have a regime complex of different and organizations which they are setting up on building this regime and yes developing country participation there, and it's I think lacking. And other very formally constitutional important and relevant institutions are setting up and shaping those policies.
So I also think that we ‑‑ I mean, the least developed countries' communities need to do something about it, not just cry out. Just, like, do and move forward.
And I didn't ‑‑ I was ‑‑ I forget to finish my argument regarding the TPP case that our colleague was mentioning. I think that because it's a fact that it's much more difficult for lease‑developed countries to participate in these processes for all the reasons that most of us of have mentioned is to set up some kind of alliances and set up some kind of networks that can enable this representation and participation in the global forums because that is where I think the that voices can be heard and something that is feasible. And that is networking and those middle institutions, I mean it's something ‑‑ I mean, I'm not saying it's easy to say but I think it's a path that would enable these other voices to participate in these global settings.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Grace and then Nigel.
>> GRACE: I was going to bring across the point of enhancing linkages with other existing processes. For example, going back to the point of trade negotiations, if the trade negotiations had been done in the context of WTO (phonetic) and the Internet, then if there are already existing linkages in developing countries, maybe the APC group of countries, then there exits an opportunity for more equitable representation of developing country interests, and maybe even an opportunity for gender and reputation because these organizations we have already worked when assets of equity.
>> NIGEL HICKSON: Thank you. And just very briefly to pick up a couple of the last points, I think it's very important, indeed, to have greater transparency in some of these processes that are taking place. I mean, I think I find it, you know ‑‑ I used to work in a government, so to speak. But I do find it quite strange that we debate Internet governance in ICANN, and we debate it here at the IGF and we debate it in other forums we do our best ‑‑ you know, IGF is a very open forum. We discuss things like net neutrality; we discuss things like other important issues. And then we read in the papers and we don't read much else but we read how these issues such as net neutrality issues, such as data transparency issues are being discussed in private arrangements between governments, and not between governments of the UN where there is some transparency in terms of the open processes, but between a number of individual governments. And I think there is some cause for some concern on that. Thank you.
>> I just wanted to mention ‑‑ so we were discussing on how you said networks and then creating coalitions in a sense more empowering to people who are disempowered. So I think Deborah would be able to tell the experience from the WSIS process but I wanted to clarify, is there a possibility that some voices get lost when that coalition is being made.
>> DEBORAH BROWN: Thanks, very much. I'm Deborah Brown from the Association for Progressive Communications. And we have been involved in a few different coalitions. I think the one referenced is a Civil Society Coalition that has been working around the WSIS review, the World Summit on Information Society. That is a pretty broad coalition.
And I think it was quite constructive in terms of online preparatory work and also to answer the question not everyone could come to New York. And those who we tried at the IGF now to bring in more voices and of course it's a point we have all said before but funding is limited and also the ability to follow progress that's two years long and not jumping and the end and trying not to influence a debate that's been going on. So it's a challenge. I'm not going sure if I say anything new that hasn't been said here before but I think we can do better. I think there's been a lot of constructive work among people in Civil Society and even within the cross communities, with the technical community and others.
But it's not always easy to find common ground, especially when there's a political outcome being negotiated so I think more work to make the text and the issues more accessible to people is more important. The WSIS review, for example, those documents are only available in English. There have been some opportunities to translate them, only to Spanish, but that's Civil Society driven, so maybe more coordinated efforts in that respect could be useful.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Any other comments or questions? In the back? Yeah. Please come to the mic. Briefly identify yourself, and then your question or comment.
>> AUDIENCE: Good afternoon. I'm Brazilian; I would like to speak in Portuguese, please.
We were speaking about equality and country participation. When the Brazilian colleague came to speak, I saw the people in the audience moving as they didn't have a microphone. Like yesterday I wanted to speak in Portuguese in order to bring out some discussion and the people were not wearing head phones or ‑‑ I think we need to discuss quality within IGF. When I decide to speak in Portuguese, some people may be following the session on the Internet; they may not listen to me because there may be no translation for these people.
It's easy to have translation into English here but from Portuguese into the other languages it's not very ‑‑ there's translation for all the other languages.
So before we discuss equality, generally speaking we have to discuss how this is being put into practice within the IGF setting. And then the idea behind participation, how can we have representatives of developing countries to take part in this project? I could only participate because of the youth IGF initiative, that's a youth inclusion program.
So before we discuss what developing countries need, we need to include these people so that these people say the things we need.
So I think this is some thought I would like you to comment on this and I really hope in the next IGF conference there is greater respect. And this is something I've noticed in all these sessions that I took part in, more respect for all the native languages. Thank you.
>> (Speaker off microphone) and they are able to participate, and then you realize there are barriers to participate. And step‑by‑step we need to realize the various barriers, what are these barriers and who is facing difficulty? And we should really look at each process and each institution so the IGF is a good place to start.
And the institutions like the ICANN have facilities that they have started but in an institution like ICANN with the kind of difficulties faced would be the understanding of the technicality and capacity building issues; and whereas in a forum like the IGF it's more about how you are able to unable to come or unable to speak at an event.
So depending on the platform, depending on the person who is in that particular context, we need to really look at developing a process and an institutional structure that will take into consideration these barriers and rectify that.
>> PENG HWA ANG: I will add it's really not trivial when it comes to the fees involved for translation, translation of written text, translation of oral part. So I was one of the coordinators for the Internet Governance Forum. So we had transcription, transcription costs about $10,000 US because the person doing it ‑‑ you know, it's quite tiring apparently, you have to switch. So you don't keep doing it forever. Say half an hour I'm told is quite intense. So $10,000 ‑‑ by the way, US dollars.
One association that I'm involved with, we tried the transcription into another language into Spanish. So the meeting was in San Juan, Puerto Rico. So Spanish into English. And that was done remotely. So you speak and there's some remote translation somewhere and it comes back on a projector, and that was $3,000 for 90 minutes.
So, again, not really trivial when you think about it for the costs involved. So the issue is do we ‑‑ so funding is an issue, one of the barriers to addressing some of these, you know, language issues, for example. So funding certainly is an issue. And when we talk about developing ‑‑ so there are really multiple levels of challenges.
Question? Okay.
>> There was a young woman who came up earlier who had a question. Her question was do we recognize the regional differences which ties in with the question of the young man from Brazil and a strategy.
Just to answer part of that question we do recognize regional differences, at least we are trying in our organization which is why we spread out with our regional offices. We have people in various countries that speak local languages to engage with the local communities. And that is also part of the chapter dispersion. Again none of what we have done is at a stage where it's finished. It's always a progression. And the inclusion of others in that process from a strategic perspective, that's where you come in. If you join the chapter if you know of my colleague Metuki in Kenya like Grace, who knows Metuki (phonetic) quite well, he's a technical expert but he also works closely with the policy community to tell you about their experience because we don't ever speak for people. We want to listen and work with people as Sylvia was to empower that community. So we are there to help facilitate and move with good ideas and let other ideas come forward. So I think that's what helps creates more equity. We are not trying to solve all the issues related to equity.
>> PENG HWA ANG: Thank you. So I want to wrap up soon but let me give the mic to Chinmayi, the co‑organizer. Chinmayi.
>> CHINMAYI ARUN: Thank you, so much. So I’m going to abuse my power to say thank you to all of you for coming and to Professor Ang for moderating so competently because I know that in the end there wouldn't be time.
Just an effort, because this a panel on equity in the developing world, I wanted to mention that at the end of this month our co‑organizer along with the center for communication Digital Asia Hub will launch officially. And the Digital Asia Hub is basically an effort to consolidate regional efforts and research and other kinds of Internet governance work. It's something that I think is a really exciting initiative from the equity and developing world point of view because sometimes one of the ways to gain a little bit of power is to consolidate our efforts.
And I think that what is lost, what you were saying about the differences between different kinds of states being lost and used in a broad model like developing for small island states and developing for states that are larger like India, Brazil, all of that can be worked at in a more nuanced manner if we are using regional hubs to consolidate efforts.
I understand that the conversation has just begun about doing something like in Latin America as well, so I encourage all of you to work with the Digital Asia Hub and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens with it.
>> PENG HWA ANG: And I want to have the last closing remarks to say that this workshop actually brings together people who are already very privileged. I know we don't feel that way; I don't feel that way coming through this long haul and all that. But we are definitely a privileged group. We not just use ICT but issues of ICT and really the international level.
But we have to be conscious about this issue on developing to close the gap because without closing that gap it really leads to trouble. You can see troubles all over the place that you can see that people feel that we are not getting access, could be income, whatever but they feel they are being unfairly treated.
So I think we have to be conscious about this. And I speak for myself that we should be conscious. And I'm glad that the organizers have done this and put this together. I would like to thank the panelists for their comments.
(Applause)
(Session concluded at 15:31)