On 2-5 September 2014, the Ninth Internet Governance Forum (IGF) was held at the Lufti Kirdar International Convention and Exhibition Centre in Istanbul, Turkey. The event’s theme was "Connecting Continents for Enhanced Multistakeholder Internet Governance".
I, together with FMA’s gender and ICT coordinator, Lisa García, participated in the IGF in Istanbul. We both also attended the recently concluded Asia Pacific Regional IGF on 2-6 August 2014 in India, where FMA organised a workshop entitled "Towards a Dynamic and Active Internet Governance Rights-based Space with a Gender Perspective".
We see the IGF as a venue to realise FMA’s major goal of bringing human rights to the centre of internet governance discussions. Aside from focusing on advancing human rights in local internet policy spaces, we believe it is important to surface country-level internet rights issues in the global discourse on internet governance. The IGF Istanbul was a timely event to make sure that global civil society recognises that although much progress has been happening in the struggle to uphold human rights online in the international arena, it does not necessarily translate locally or regionally, and this was one of the focuses of FMA’s interventions during the IGF in Turkey. While the IGF model wishes to employ a bottom-up approach – national IGFs, regional IGFs, global IGF – not much support is being given to make sure that the voices of grassroots internet rights advocates and civil society movements are heard in national/regional IGFs.
We shared at the IGF in Turkey the rich experience of the Philippine internet freedom movement in temporarily halting repressive cyber crime legislation, exhausting different avenues of struggle, how we are also cultivating a multi-stakeholder approach in addressing the challenges in the ICT sector in the Philippines. FMA’s gender coordinator, Lisa Garcia, also shared the rich work and experience in the Philippines in addressing technology-related violence against women (VAW), employing a multi-stakeholder approach. In partnership with the APC Women’s Rights Programme, FMA recently concluded a research study on ending VAW using the framework of access to justice, which it shared with other IGF participants.
I was also fortunately given an opportunity to speak on a panel in a workshop where we were able to showcase our experience on the ground in crowdsourcing rights-based legislation, and we were able to share our thoughts on how inclusive, democratic crowdsourcing should happen not just online, but also offline.
Aside from attending the formal sessions at the Istanbul IGF, we both attended meetings that gave us opportunities to have more time to share our thoughts on the expanding movement of internet rights advocates in our region, how we are addressing our current context in the Philippines to forward our advocacy, and some best practices in building alliances and fostering partnerships with different stakeholders.
Conclusions/recommendations
- Organisations supporting collaborative projects in different countries should see the IGF as an important platform for their work and as such should actively use this platform to showcase their work to the global community; thus one recommendation perhaps should be organising a workshop at the IGF for the presentation of results of collaborative projects.
- The IGF should be true to its bottom-up approach and should also put more energy in national/regional IGFs where more grassroots organisations and activists can attend.
- We prioritised attending meetings instead of workshop sessions simply because there was more space for us to share Philippine experience in these meetings.
- The conversation during workshops should always try to showcase country-level experience and leaders in order for participants to have knowledge of the different realities and contexts on the ground, and to have more space for the audience to talk and discuss.