On 31st January 2017, ICT4Peace was invited by the United Nations in Geneva and DCAF to discuss our continuing work with the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Executive Directorate (UN CTED) regarding supporting effective public-private capacity building with respect to countering the use of the Internet and technology for terrorist purposes.
The UNOG seminar focussed on “Violent Extremism Online – a Challenge to Peace and Security.” Adam Hadley from ICT4Peace, presented interim recommendations from Phase 1 of the joint ICT4Peace-UNCTED project. To view a copy of the presentation, click here. Other speakers at the seminar included Mark Stephens, Independent Chair of the Global Network Initiative, Ambassador Kok Jwee Foo, Permanent Mission of Singapore to Geneva, and Ms Wedad al Hassen, Senior Program Associate, Hedayah.
During the seminar in Geneva we emphasised the importance of building upon existing efforts that have already been made regarding developing effective public-private partnerships in countering the terrorist use of technology. We also outlined the effectiveness of the emerging public-private voluntary framework and discussed a number of challenges to be considered.
In the presentation (see here), we lay out our plan of action for 2017 which is focussed on two of our nine core recommendations from Phase 1 of the project:
- Continue to strengthen dialogue on the emerging normative framework by means of multi-stakeholder engagement through convening a regular programme of global stakeholder workshops
- Establish a Global Knowledge Sharing and Capacity Building Platform focused on Emerging Policy and Effective Practice
Recommendations from Phase 1 of the joint ICT4Peace / UN CTED project
Following from a UN Counter Terrorism Committee (CTC) request to the UN Counter-Terrorism Committee Executive Directorate (CTED) to further study the role of the private sector and self-regulation in preventing and countering the use of Information Communications Technologies (ICTs), in particular the internet and social media, for terrorist purposes, in 2016 UNCTED and ICT4Peace launched a joint project on Private Sector Engagement in Responding to the Internet and ICT for Terrorist Purposes.
Phase 1 of the joint ICT4Peace-UNCTED public-private partnership project ran from April to December 2016 and had the following objectives:
- Establish a global network of experts, stakeholders, and advisory group members from across the public and private sectors
- Identify and analyse existing and emerging threats
- Understand industry approaches and the emerging principles and norms
- Understand trends in multi-stakeholder and public-private engagement
- Scope mechanisms and platforms for effective knowledge sharing in the future.
In this initial phase, we convened major stakeholders through workshops and seminars in Zurich, Kuala Lumpur, and Silicon Valley to bring together more than 100 stakeholders and experts from the public and private sectors. These included major industry representatives from leading technology companies and tech start-ups, governments and inter-governmental organisations, leading civil society organisations and human rights groups, and experts from academia and prominent think tanks.
ICT4Peace and UN CTED presented our interim findings to the United Nations Counter-Terrorism Committee at a specially-convened meeting in December 2016 at the UN Headquarters in New York. To see further details and download the report, please click here. We presented nine core recommendations at the UN in December 2016. In summary our recommendations are:
- Build on existing policy initiatives and avoid duplication of effort
- Strengthen dialogue on the emerging normative framework through multi-stakeholder engagement
- Promote coordination between inter-governmental initiatives
- Establish a Global Knowledge Sharing/ Capacity Building Platform focused on Emerging Policy & Effective Public-Private Practice
- Build capacity and raise awareness (companies, gov. agencies, civil society, academia, think tanks)
- Strengthen the Links Between Offline Prevention Efforts and Online Content Management and Counter-Narrative Efforts
- Support data-driven research on effectiveness
- Promote Critical Thinking and Media/ Digital Literacy
In Phase 2 we will be focussing on two workstreams that correspond to the major recommendations from Phase 1:
- Strengthening dialogue through continued multi-stakeholder engagement with the global network of experts and public-private partners we established in Phase 1
- Developing a knowledge sharing platform to build capacity focussed on Emerging Policy and Effective Public-Private Engagement