Group photo at the IGMENA Summit. Tunis, 2nd October 2016. Source: IGMENA
Between 30 September and 2 October, the Internet Governance in the Middle East and North Africa (iGmena) programme organised its first summit in Tunis: inviting its alumni, partners, and others to participate. The iGmena Summit, hosted by local media company Wasabi, took place at the Cogite Coworking Space, which provided an informal and more relaxing environment than usual conference venues. As a partner, APC joined the summit and took the opportunity to reach the community in the region at such a rare gathering. The summit applied Chatham rules to ensure the safety of participants and allow a frank debate. While there was no streaming, live tweeting was embraced by the participants using the hashtag #igmena.
The summit made it possible to learn about many ongoing initiatives and the work done in the region on internet governance and digital security, such as the Internet Legislation Atlas project. It also managed to be a good place for meetings among the participants, with outreach and discussions about possible cooperation among members of Front Line Defenders, Global Voices, Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GC4HR), Index on Censorship, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the Internet Society (ISOC), the Iraqi Network for Social Media (INSM), Maharat Foundation, Nawaat, the Tunisian Internet Agency (ATI), Ushahidi, and many others.
Civil society and internet governance in the Middle East and North Africa
APC communications officer Leila Nachawati Rego and myself, an individual member of APC, attended the summit and organised a session entitled “Civil society participation and internet governance in the MENA region: What can be done?” to share APC’s experiences with the participants and to have an honest debate on how to move forward for civil society to be more influential in a context with countless challenges.
Leila presented a quick history of APC, its values, its member network, and its most important documents and frameworks, among them, the Feminist Principles of the Internet, on what represented a good opportunity to highlight APC’s activities to those in the MENA region. We also mentioned materials such as the report by Mohammad Tarakiyee which explores the challenges in internet governance spaces for civil society in the region. In addition, we offered a quick introduction to internet governance, giving a definition of multistakeholderism from a theoretical and practical standpoint based on the World Summit on the Information Society and the Tunis Agenda, stressing that implementation differs depending on the forum.
“Who is a feminist?”, APC asked participants at IGMENA, Tunis. Source: Leila Nachawati Rego
What initiatives could be of interest and could be replicated? We presented the African School on Internet Governance (AfriSIG) and the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms (see APC’s recently launched interactive platform as examples relevant to the MENA region. This raised questions such as defining a concept like “Africa” and finding an agreement on common internet rights, needs and shared goals, in order to outline a relevant regional strategy.
Can civil society in the region influence policy processes? There are some positive experiences – for instance, in Tunisia – where activists could push for change; however, the situation in many countries is alarming and civil societies there are facing an uphill battle. There was acknowledgement of the differences between the countries and the fact that there is no one-size-fits-all solution.
What about a regional civil society coalition?
Discussions on the creation of a regional civil society coalition to coordinate actions and be a space for sharing knowledge, experiences and best practices have been taking place for a while, and the subject was raised again at the iGmena summit. Such a coalition would have to be inclusive, transparent and open to everyone to be legitimate. It also would not pre-empt other initiatives. However, we need better coordination and cooperation in the region to be more effective and strategic. Such an approach would make civil society visible and recognised by other stakeholders as an important player.
Some participants highlighted the need for more evidence and facts-based policy proposals and nurturing expertise on IG-related matters in order to be able to influence policy makers. Such gaps needs to be bridged, and capacity building is one component, while there is also a need to encourage more internet policy research, data collection and briefings. Some mentioned limitations such as the high digital illiteracy among parliamentarians in some countries, which may impede the effectiveness of such approaches. The Arab Internet Governance Forum was also mentioned as illustrating the disconnect between civil society and government, pointing to the example of two sessions about security held in parallel: one from a civil society standpoint, the other government-dominated.
How can civil society in the region contribute to a more open and free internet?
During IGMENA’s public session on civil society and internet rights. Source: IGMENA While most of the summit was closed and accessible to the participants only, the summit ended on the third day with two public sessions, the last one exploring how civil society in the region can contribute to creating a more open and free internet. APC’s Leila Nachawati participated, along with Tunisian internet rights defenders Slim Amamou, Sami Ben Gharbia and Melody Patry, the latter from Index on Censorship.
“Challenges are countless in this region, from repression and governmental control to increasing fragmentation of civil society, so joining forces, learning from each other’s experiences, and thinking of joint strategies is key, especially with a South-South focus,” Leila stressed. She also raised the issue of women’s rights and the need to incorporate them in the discussions, along with the importance of recognising our own priorities and challenges.
“Right now, because the conversation on online threats is increasingly monopolised by discussions on online extremism, it may seem like this is the only threat we face, but it is not. Let’s see what the needs and priorities are for civil society in the region, and develop joint strategies.”