Theoretically, Week 1 of ITU Plenipotentiary Conferences are meant to be dedicated to:

• High level policy statements by government ministers and other high-level representatives during Plenary sessions
• Lots of campaigning by Member States for various ITU elections that take place at the end of the week

These two strands are still very much alive and well in this first week of Plenipot in Doha.

However…

Because Member States also chose to be very busy little bees and submit over 400 proposals to the conference, in practice, the core work of the conference had to begin this week – Tuesday in fact – if there was to be any hope of getting through the very full agenda Member States have created for themselves.

Substantive policy discussions already underway

Plenary has already spun work out into the various committees and the Working Group of Plenary (WG-PL). And in turn, those committees and WG-PL have already begun spawning yet more specific groups to discuss more targeted discussion on resolutions or groups of resolutions related on the same theme. We are already seeing parallel Ad Hoc Groups being scheduled in parallel as of Thursday of Week 1.

Below is my own very unofficial diagram showing how things can become complicated very quickly:

To explain the above diagram:

1. Committees and WG-PL first hear presentations of proposals from Member States.

If by some miracle, there is agreement right then and there on a proposal, it can be adopted by consensus and then referred back to Plenary for adoption by the entire Plenipotentiary Conference.

Usually, however, there needs to be more work as there are multiple views on submitted proposals. In that case, move to step 2:

2. Committees and WG-PL can send discussion for proposals on particular resolutions, or groups of resolutions with a similar theme, to either:

• Informal Consultations

This is usually between two or three parties who have submitted proposals and who might be able to find a mutually agreeable way forward that can then be presented back to WG-PL or a Committee, in the hope of quickly finding consensus on updates to a resolution. The submitted proposals involved in Informal Consultations tend to very targeted, and not major changes proposed across the entire existing resolution. However, if agreement can’t be reached, it may end up needing to become an Ad Hoc Group.

• Ad Hoc Groups

These are the groups that end up taking up most of Week 2, as Member States negotiate proposals that address many areas of a resolution (or resolutions), and where there is often not much consensus in proposals that have been submitted by different regions on the exact same areas of text. WG-PL and the Committees can end up spawning so many Ad Hocs, or AHGs, that there can easily be more than 6 happening in parallel at any one time. Even when the sessions are scheduled to go from 8 am to 10 pm, to try and reduce the number of parallel sessions.

3. Ad Hoc Groups on particularly difficult topics can then create their own sub-processes:

• Informal Consultations

These are like the Informal Consultations that are created in WG-PL and Committees. Ad Hoc Group Chairs can send off interested parties to discuss specific competing proposals that are of immense interest to a handful of Member States, but would chew up valuable time in the main Ad Hoc for the majority of Member States who have no particular position on the proposals spun off to Informal Consultations.

• Drafting Groups

Here, there is general consensus on a topic, but the exact language used to express it has become the sticking point. So the Chair sends of the interested parties to argue it out amongst themselves, then come back to the wider group with an agreed text to present to the whole group.

At this level, the debate is about drafting the text in English, which means those delegates who don’t have a high proficiency in English are very much at a disadvantage, as subtle differences between words that can appear to be completely matching synonyms in English but in fact differ in how they can be interpreted, can very much alter the implementation trajectory of the text being drafted. (This is a problem, even when there is interpretation in the six UN languages, by the way, as there are still a vast number of Member States who don’t speak any of the six languages as their first, or even second language.)

3. Drafting Groups, Informal Consultations and Ad Hoc Groups report back to the process that created them, and so on, up the chain, until a (hopefully) consensus resolution finally ends up back in Plenary for final adoption.

Ad Hoc Groups coming up of interest to Internet and digital technology folks

Note: these times are subject to change, especially given the probable need to hold a third vote for the position of ITU Deputy Secretary-General.

1. Ad Hoc Group on Cybersecurity themed resolutions (130, 174, 179 and spoofing).

First meeting 17:30 Doha time, Friday, 13 November. May end up needing to meet on Saturday. To report to WG-PL Monday, 16 November.

2. Ad hoc group on AI (Resolution 214).

First meeting 9:30 Saturday, 14 November. To report to WG-PL on Monday, 16 November.

More Ad Hocs are being created for other areas of interest, including International Telecommunication Regulations (ITRs) and the WSIS and Internet-related resolutions, but no details available for those yet.

So many faces haven’t changed since my last Plenipotentiary in person in 2018.

But this time, I’m on an actual government delegation, rather on a Sector Member delegation. Thank you, Australia, for letting me join you!

As a member of a government delegation, I have slightly different responsibilities and need to be more careful how I communicate what’s happening onsite in Doha, so I don’t bring the Australian delegation into disrepute, but those who’ve followed me in the past at Plenipots will be pleased to know that Australia is happy for me to still report out to the community and help to bring any expertise out there back into the negotiations here, to help inform Australia’s interventions on the floor.

I also need to thank organizations in the Internet community who have helped support me to be here. I’ll list them for the sake of transparency in a later post, when the funds have come through.

What am I doing while on the Australian delegation?

1. Providing advice and expertise on World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and Internet related issues to Australia’s leads on these resolutions

I’ve worked in the Internet technical sphere since 2001, attended WSIS Phase II in Tunis in 2005 (where I hid in a cupboard for 5 minutes because I was so over-peopled at one point!), was part of the Australian government delegation to the UNGA WSIS+10 process in 2015, and was an active contributor to Australia’s prep process for the WSIS+20 process in 2025 (and the GDC prep process before that, too).

2. Possibly being active on the mic for Australia during ad hoc groups on WSIS and Internet related resolutions.

There are around 400 proposals at this Plenipot, and Australia’s delegation is not huge, so it’s more than possible that Australia’s leads on the WSIS and Internet resolutions will be required to conduct their own “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once” role play, and be in other parallel negotiations here in Doha. Given my long history in the WSIS and Internet spaces, I would then become a backup person on the mic.

3. Acting as a conduit between the Australian government and other stakeholders and experts in the Internet/WSIS worlds, to reach out when needed, to ask for more detailed expertise on issues under discussion, and to channel any input that other stakeholders and experts want to send through to Australia.

Over the years, I’ve built up trust not only in the Internet technical community, but also in civil society and the private sector, as well as governments, as someone who’ll listen with an open mind to their concerns and pass it on, without attribution if needed, to others who I think need to hear it. And Australia wants to use those channels to quickly access information on the fly here in Doha.

4. Report out to the community about what’s happening here.

I hope to help demystify what can seem like an arcane and what many outside the UN sphere can perceive to be an irrelevant process, but actually has real world consequences.

I’m also here to keep the community informed about the sorts of discussions that are happening, and what issues are turning out to be the most difficult to find consensus on. In part, this is to alert the wider community to where they may be able to contribute positively via their local friendly Member State to help find solutions to those contentious issues. But also, it’s to let stakeholders know what areas governments are most concerned about, in the hope that after this Plenipot, stakeholders can work to find solutions to these issues in the real world, so the various concerns expressed by governments here onsite are resolved via broader multistakeholder processes.

Follow me online

As well as blog posts on this website, I’ll also be active on BlueSky and doing some experimental (for me!) vlogging on YouTube.

To follow Plenipot more widely, the official ITU hashtag for the event across a number of social media platforms is #plenipot