Summary

  • A 2020 draft framework defined Internet-governance capacity as a capability that people and institutions must obtain, strengthen and maintain over time.
  • The IGF’s 2021 report records funding and activity at meaningful scale, but those counts do not show whether local institutions later used or retained the capabilities the framework set out to build.

A longer measure than attendance

In 2021, the Internet Governance Forum could report concrete inputs: 20 National, Regional and Youth IGF initiatives received grants totaling US$96,518; more than 110 people from least developed, landlocked developing and small-island states, as well as transitional economies, received support to participate; and eight thematic workshops ran online alongside regional meetings. Those numbers describe real work. They also invite a harder question: what would count as capacity after the grant, workshop or annual meeting had passed?

That question was already present in the draft framework Esterhuysen prepared for the IGF Secretariat, completed in February 2020. The document was part of a 2019 research consultancy, not a binding policy adopted by the MAG. It defined capacity development as the process by which individuals and institutions obtain, strengthen and maintain the capabilities to set and achieve their own Internet-related policy objectives over time. The phrase “their own” matters: the intended result was not simply fluency in an international forum’s vocabulary, but the ability to assess policy choices in a local institutional setting.

The definition also changes the unit of analysis. A person may learn how to read a proposal or build a professional network. But if the organization that employs or supports that person lacks time, authority, continuity or a place in national policy work, an individual’s learning may not become institutional capability. The framework therefore connects individual development to the capacity of the institutions around participants.

Five parts of one pathway

Esterhuysen’s draft did not make a single fellowship or course carry the whole burden. It proposed five connected pillars: access to information about opportunities and learning material; mentoring; supported participation; learning events linked to the annual IGF and intersessional work; and internships or professional exchanges. The IGF’s account of MAG chair activities for 2020–2021 repeats those pillars and their accompanying principles, including continuous learning, recognition of national and regional expertise, links between individual and institutional development, and peer learning across communities.

The companion needs assessment explains the design logic. Its synthesis draws on more than 40 respondents and earlier studies; it is not a statistical survey of every IGF participant. Respondents valued fellowships and travel support but did not consider one-off attendance sufficient for sustained participation. The assessment also notes that local policy institutions and contexts shape whether global engagement can be used at home. Funding a seat in the room can remove a financial barrier. It cannot by itself supply follow-up, a mentor, a working relationship or an institution prepared to act on what its participant learned.

That distinction is not a dismissal of participation support. Travel assistance can be essential, and the framework includes supported participation as one of its pillars. Its claim is narrower: a funded appearance is an input to a pathway, not proof that the pathway has produced durable capability.

What the 2021 record can show

The 2021 Annual Progress Report documents multiple forms of delivery. It describes financial support for more than 110 people, grants to 20 initiatives, eight online workshops linked to regional meetings, consultations and webinars, and training for session organizers and moderators. It says the workshops attracted more interest in intersessional work and the 16th IGF. The report also records that the Secretary-General reappointed Esterhuysen as MAG chair for 2021; the 2019 appointment notice supplies the start of that chair period.

These are useful measures of activity, reach and reported engagement. They are not, on their own, evidence that participants retained skills, that institutions changed their policy practice, or that local priorities were more effectively pursued months later. The same progress report includes other kinds of meeting outputs; those should not be mistaken for an evaluation of the capacity programme. The gap is in what these particular counts establish, not a finding that the programme failed or that no evaluation exists elsewhere.

Esterhuysen’s draft explicitly called learning and evaluation necessary to determine whether needs were being met. It also asked for local and national follow-up, institutional commitment and connections between global activity and regional or local initiatives. A public record could therefore report beyond enrolment and delivery: whether a participant’s institution chose a policy objective; what support it committed; whether the participant returned to a relevant process; and what changed, if anything, over time.

Such evidence would need to preserve differences among countries and organizations rather than rank them against one universal standard.

The institutional setting matters. The Tunis Agenda assigns the IGF a role in contributing to capacity-building using local knowledge and expertise, while also describing the Forum as non-binding and outside day-to-day or technical Internet operations. That boundary makes the framework’s institutional ambition specific: improve the ability of people and organizations to participate in their own policy environments, without implying that an IGF programme can substitute for local institutions or grant authority over them.

The evidence question remains open

The 2021 activity record shows that the IGF used more than one instrument and reached initiatives and participants across different settings. It does not settle the longer question the framework posed. To do that, reporting would need a follow-up horizon, consent-based tracking, and evidence from the institutions where participants work. The measure should be whether people and organizations can pursue objectives they chose—not how many badges, workshops or grants can be counted at year-end.