NPOC Trip Proposal 3

Trip Proposal Section

16-Apr-2014

The Pan-European dialogue on Internet governance (EuroDIG) is an open platform for informal and inclusive discussion and exchange on public policy issues related to Internet Governance (IG) between stakeholders from all over Europe. It was created in 2008 by a number of key stakeholders representing various European stakeholder groups working in the field of IG. EuroDIG is a network which is open to all European stakeholders that are interested in contributing to an open and interactive discussion on IG issues.

The stakeholders participating in the EuroDIG programme network comprise a considerable number of representatives from civil society, the business sector, the technical and academic community as well as European governments, institutions and organisations including the EU-presidency, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe and the European Broadcasting Union.

The purpose of EuroDIG is twofold: first to help European stakeholders to exchange their views and best practices on the issues to be discussed at global IGF meetings and to identify common ground which is shared by all European stakeholders as well as highlighting the diversity of experience of the different European stakeholders; second to raise awareness in Europe and among European stakeholders about the relevance of the issues discussed in the IGF context and also to raise awareness of the value of the new multistakeholder discussion format developed by and around the IGF.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (Required):

Trip Assessment Section

General Observations

The meeting took place over 2 days at the German Foreign ministry at Berlin. ICANN together with the BCG had organized a pre-event with it CEO Fadi Chehade. At the start of the meeting. The meeting can be best described as a regional dialogue that mirrored current global IG issues and topics such as privacy, security, IG future and economic development. The event in itself did not develop or presented anything new, (except maybe with the repeated expression that a global Internet Charter is very much needed and should be pursuit), and follow the current global Internet discussion in a comprehensive way. As such the event as a regional event was important and a success.

Several break out sessions represented specific projects. Whilst the event had a large percentage of participants it was still a very “German” affair, meaning that the proximity to the German political stakeholders and the German IG Business constituency and their respective interests was very obvious.

CROPP Goals:

1) Build local/regional awareness and recruitment of new community members

2) More effectively engaging with current members and/or “reactivating” previously engaged ICANN community members, and

3) Communicating ICANN's mission and objectives to new audiences.

Observations with regard to CROPP Goals:

ICANN played an important and positive role during the event, which was helped by the pre event which was very well received and the participation of Fadi Chehade in the opening panel. The presence of other ICANN staff like Jean-Jacques Sahel was also very worthwhile and supportive to ICANN and other meeting participants. This said: ICANN still has a problem with its corporate image and message. There where a number of ICANN stakeholders, (which had participated in many ICANN meetings and are active in their respective constituencies), that during the meeting and in side events and meetings speculated about what “ICANN wants and whats it going to do?”. There is still an uncomfortable disconnect between ICANN as an organization and those in the multi stakeholder process that are a key part of it.

The event was a very good platform for informal exchange between existing ICANN stakeholders. During ICANN meetings it is sometimes difficult to communicate informally outside your own stakeholder group. During the EuroDig event I had for example the opportunity to have informal but very interesting and educative exchanges with GAC members.

I was surprised by the number of stakeholders from the German political parties and government that participated in the meeting with interest. I had conversations with a number of them and some of the conversation will be followed up by further information exchanges,

Build local/regional awareness. If this is meant in the sense of outreach I think the event has only a very limited impact. There was basically no outreach to the NGO/Not-for-Profit sector and it seems that except the group of people with a “political” background. The lesson learned is here that by the next EuroDIG event hopefully the process of NPOC outreach to global and in this case European NGO's will be much more advanced and the event can be used in a far more effective way for outreach. 

If this is meant in the context to my own sense and awareness what is going on in the context of German and European Internet governance the event was very useful but also demonstrated to me that we are dealing in Europe with a relatively closed shop in IG, that requires a lot of engagement and participation in order to build up fruitful co-operations.

Side Remark: 2/3 support. The CROPP program only supports 2 night but in a two day event like the EuroDig that means including the travel that CROPP support is only sufficient for participation in one day, which makes no sense, or that the missing funds have to come from other resources.

It might make sense then only to submit 2/3 report to CROPP as only 2/3 of the participation is supported.