ICC-BASIS third intervention, Ayesha Hassan

The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during the 13 May 2009 open consultations of the IGF. 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.

Thank you, Chair.

Briefly, I wanted to respond to a few of the ideas that have been put forward.

First of all, we would support integrating the reporting-in to sessions and making a concerted effort with the session organizers and the moderators to ensure that the workshops and other events that are related to the main sessions get an opportunity to bring forward key points from their discussions.

ICC/BASIS had recommended that the — my second point on the critical Internet resources session — we had recommended that the discussion should be about the root server system more generally, given the JPA and the expiration date of 30 September.

We would remain supportive of that position. We understand that any issue can be brought up in the discussion. But as we are describing the discussion, we think it would be more productive to have the root server system be the point in the description, recognizing that the JPA and anything before or after, et cetera, would be part of any contributions to that discussion. So it is not meant to stop discussion; it is just meant to describe it in a way that would be productive and more broad.

Secondly, I wanted to suggest that as we are going forward, people have mentioned the need for the involvement of a range of stakeholders, particular groups, for example young people. I know we have been approached to identify young entrepreneurs, et cetera. And as we have prepared to come here for this consultation, I just wanted to underscore a concern I think that exists across stakeholder groups, which is, the budget realities and travel restrictions and issues that all of us are facing in the current economic climate.

So as we are looking at the schedule, I think we have a real opportunity to shape the program and take into account the range of stakeholders that we want to ensure can come, the various kinds of travel restrictions or authorizations they have to go through, and anything that we can do to make that more possible for them to be present.

My last comment is on the title. Listening to comments especially from our host country, Egypt, and from APC, I was going to suggest that perhaps a combination could be “Internet Governance: Creating Opportunities for All.”

Thank you.