To be (constructively) provocative, let me call the below as an exercise in exploring post-multistakeholderism models of participatory digital policy making, since MS ism is mostly corporate captured now: ... Worth some collective thought perhaps. We welcome your engagement. parminder


Dear All

The Just Net Coalition (JNC) is doing a 2.5 hours event, consisting of 3 panels, on  "Digital policy making from below -- Ask the impacted sectors first", on December 6th, from 09.30 to 12.00 UTC. Those at the venue of the Internet Governance Forum in Katowice, Poland, the physical place will be Ballroom A. 

As will be clear from the workshop note below, and enclosed, the event is around discussing a new paradigm of digital policy development, which in our view should be the best way of discovering and anchoring public interest with respect to our digital future.

In pursuance of this belief of JNC, which is still shaping up, and this event is a part of that exercise, it is also expected that JNC will re-orient itself more consciously to this new direction in its work -- developing the required networks of civil society groups, from inside and outside digital arena, and proposing and advocating for institutions that would best enable and facilitate this new context and the needs of the proposed new paradigm of digital policy making. 

The event should therefore be interesting and useful for all JNC members and friends, as well as all those who grapple with institutional issues around how to best develop digital policies, so key to humanity's future.

We invite all of you to attend. Instructions on how to attend are in the workshop note. For those never been to an IGF and/or not registered for this one, please do register right away - -meaning today - -to be able to participate.

See you at the discussions.

parminder


Digital Policy Making from Below – Ask the Impacted Sectors First


Hybrid event organized by Just Net Coalition at the


16th United National Internet Governance Forum (IGF)

December 06, 09.30-12.00 UTC


Ballroom A (onsite) /Online


The Just Net Coalition (JNC) invites you to our hybrid event, ‘Digital Policy Making from Below – Ask the Impacted Sectors First’, taking place on December 6th 2021, from 09.30 to 12.00 UTC.


JNC has been convening regular events at the UN Internet Governance Forum’s (IGF) annual meetings, bringing key contemporary issues in digital justice, as well as JNC’s work and journey, into a public discussion. At the last in-person meeting, at the IGF Berlin in December 2019, we released the JNC Manifesto for Digital Justice. In 2020, our virtual session at the IGF on ‘Digital Justice Conversations’, with a keynote from Saskia Sassen, saw a renewed commitment and dialogue towards a Digital New Deal. This year, the IGF will be held at Katowice, Poland, in a hybrid formant and we convene again to push the needle on a progressive agenda for digital justice.

It is crucial to open up avenues and create spaces for organizations and civil society from sectors that are actually impacted by the ‘digital’ – health, education, agriculture, labor, trade, finance, media, etc., that enable them to influence and shape digital policies. They should be able to engage with central digital policy issues such as 'who owns data’, 'what are the appropriate rules of platform management’, what is ‘just and fair AI', etc. Such ‘sectoral actors’ need to be put into a sustained dialogue with actors in the digital arena on digital policy issues. This has to be undertaken in a manner that respects and employs their respective competences to together determine what is public interest in a digital society. This we think must be the future of how digital policy is made.

Just Net Coalition plans to orient itself towards building such possibilities, and appropriate networks and institutions, for cross-sectoral, participatory, digital policy making. The Coalition has embarked on a project in this regard, working with leading progressive organizations in various sectors.

At the event on Digital Policy Making from Below – Ask the Impacted Sectors First’, the first panel discussion will bring together some of the ‘sectoral organisations’ collaborating with JNC to present their views, ideas, as well as the current work that they are undertaking in JNC’s project on cross-sectoral engagement for digital policy making.

A second panel will pick up from the first panel’s presentions to build up a more general discussion about the way digital policies should be shaped with equitable and empowering participation of actors from the ‘impacted sectors’, towards a new paradigm of digital policy making.

In the end, we will have an open discussion on what role the Just Net Coalition, and other progressive groups, both in the digital arena and the ‘impacted sectors’, could play to develop the needed networks, as well as advocate for development of the institutional conditions required for the new policy paradigm. Here we will zoom in to explore some specific directions that JNC may take in the coming years.

We invite you to be a part of this urgent and important conversation.

How to join:

Agenda

Time Slot (UTC)

Session Details

9.30 to 9.35

Check-in

9.35 to 9.45

Opening remarks


Sean O'Siochru & Parminder Jeet Singh , Just Net Coalition – who will also anchor the event with its three panels

9.45 to 11.00

Session 1 – A view from the sectors impacted by the ‘digital’

  • Lara Merling, International Trade Union Confederation

  • Jun Ho Jung, People’s Health Movement

  • Chee Yoke Ling, Third World Network

  • Cédric Leterme, The Tricontinental Centre

  • Elenita Dāno, ETC Group

11.00-11.30

Session 2 – ‘Impacted sectors first’ – A new paradigm of digital policy making


Speakers

  • Deborah James, Centre for Economic Policy and Research

  • Nachiket Udupa, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan

  • Richard Hill, Association for Proper Internet Governance

  • Amber Sinha, Center for Internet and Society

11.30-11.55

Open discussion on the future role and directions of Just Net Coalition, and other progressive actors interested in digital policies

11.55-12.00

Closing remarks