Strengthening Multistakeholder Internet Governance at NETmundial+10

A Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance known as NETmundial+10 took place last week in São Paulo, Brazil. InternetNZ was there to show our commitment to good global Internet governance, and multistakeholderism as the foundation of an Internet that benefits everyone in Aotearoa.

The context of NETmundial+10

NETmundial+10 took place in the context of the global threat to multistakeholder Internet governance

In 2014, the original NETmundial was the first of its kind: a bottom-up, open, and participatory process involving thousands of people from governments, private sector, civil society, technical community, and academia from around the world. That event produced a non-binding statement that offered, as contributions to the Internet governance ecosystem, a set of Internet governance principles, and a roadmap for the future evolution of Internet governance. 

A decade later, the global multistakeholder community has reconvened at NETmundial+10. The timing of this event was deliberate. As we discussed in our April Internet governance blog, between now and the close of 2025 a number of discussions on the future of global Internet governance are taking place in the United Nations (UN) that could result in significant and irreversible changes to how the Internet is governed, and who gets to participate. 

NETmundial+10 was stood-up with a view to contributing to and influencing the substance and process of these UN dialogues, and to endorsing the multistakeholder approach for use in these and other “Internet governance and digital policy processes”.  

The phrase “Internet governance and digital policy processes” is used throughout the NETmundial+10 outcome document, and is a result of a robust discussion at the event. The use of this phrase underlines that it is not just the governance of the Internet’s technical architecture that should be multistakeholder, but that there should also be multistakeholder engagement in processes to shape policy for the content, services, and activity that takes place on the Internet itself.

How to do multistakeholderism

NETmundial+10 was an opportunity to discuss and contribute to the institutional and procedural aspects of Internet governance… 

There are numerous forums and processes across the global Internet governance ecosystem where stakeholders engage on various technical and policy issues relating to the development and use of the Internet.  

NETmundial+10 was a rare chance for stakeholders to discuss how we should do Internet governance in those spaces. What are the tools we use when addressing technical and policy issues in these processes and forums? How do we ensure that multi-stakeholder principles are applied? How can we make it easier to operationalise those principles?

At NETmundial+10 InternetNZ added our voice to the multistakeholder community to:

• Endorse the existing 2014 NETmundial Internet Governance Process Principles and called for all stakeholders to fully implement them in all Internet governance and digital policy processes, with particular emphasis on ensuring that the multistakeholder process principle is properly applied.
• Develop practical multistakeholder guidelines and process steps for how to operationalise those principles in Internet governance and digital policy processes. These are articulated in the “Sao Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines” which can be found in Section 3.2 on pages 11–14 of the NETmundial+10 Multistakeholder Statement.
• Call for all Internet governance and digital policy processes — whether multilateral or multistakeholder, whether national, regional or global — to apply the guidelines to achieve better decisions and delivery of outcomes for the common digital challenges we face.

 

Messages for United Nations processes

…an opportunity to feed into current important dialogues and processes that will impact the Internet governance ecosystem for decades to come... 

Given the global context in which this meeting took place, the NETmundial+10 community took the opportunity to present specific messages into processes that are currently underway in the UN context, in particular the Global Digital Compact (GDC), and the World Summit on the Information Society 20-year review (WSIS+20). These messages can be found in Section 4 of the NETmundial+10 Multistakeholder Statement on pages 15-18.

These messages aimed to strengthen existing Internet governance processes and ensure synergies and coordination between them, so as to optimise allocation of resources and avoid further fragmentation of Internet governance discussions. They include:  

• A call to strengthen the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) rather than set up new structures.  The IGF should become the preferred space for information sharing and improved coordination among digital governance processes, and the foremost global platform for public dialogue on all Internet governance and related digital policy matters.
• A message that the GDC should avoid creating new structures or processes where existing ones (e.g. the IGF) could be strengthened to support in monitoring the implementation and review of the GDC. 

Multistakeholderism in action

…and an opportunity to defend but also demonstrate the multistakeholder approach for Internet governance and digital policy processes

InternetNZ was excited to be part of multistakeholderism in action at NETmundial+10.

What was very apparent on the ground at Sao Paulo, was a deeply held shared belief that we have the best chance of identifying and implementing solutions to the complex global issues of the Internet and the digital world, only by properly engaging and drawing on the diverse expertise and experience of multiple stakeholders.  

This foundational belief can be seen throughout the outcome document, but was also demonstrated through the NETmundial+10 event and process itself. 

NETmundial+10 was pulled together on a extremely short timeline through the impressive hard work and dedication of the Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) (a multistakeholder initiative in its own right), a multistakeholder High-Level Executive Committee (HLEC) which was put together to shape the programme and modes of participation and draft the outcome document, and other hard working people who care about the Internet as a global resource that should be managed in the public interest.

The process involved a global multistakeholder consultation via survey, a preliminary outcome document drafted on the basis of the consultation and shared with the community prior to the event, and working sessions at the event where stakeholders on the ground lined up behind “civil society” “technical community” “academia” “government” and “private sector” assigned microphones to take turns to share input on the text. 

Let’s use the São Paulo Guidelines

The NETmundial+10 outcomes are “living” and should be used and improved

The NETmundial+10 outcomes document states that the São Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines should be considered as a living document, and recognises that they should continue to evolve in their wording and in practical implementation. 

It recommends the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) act as a caretaker for the Guidelines, and as a place for further discussion and evolution of the Guidelines and potential future tools to support their application.  

We look forward to seeing the Sao Paulo Multistakeholder Guidelines being discussed, applied and further developed in all sorts of Internet governance and digital policy processes around the world at national, regional and global level. 

We encourage everyone in Aotearoa who is undertaking a process relating to the development or use of the Internet, including digital policy, to do so with reference to the Guidelines. At InternetNZ we will be considering how we can test and apply them in our own processes. 

Want to comment or discuss?

For any pātai on this blog or other Internet governance issues, please contact internet.governance@internetnz.net.nz