[IGFmaglist] Thank you, good bye, welcome and happy 2022!

[Anriette Esterhuysen]

Dear all

Welcome to a new year - the 17th for the IGF. I wish you all good year
personally and professionally. A special welcome to the new MAG members
and the new MAG chair, Paul Mitchell. Enjoy the ride ahead which can be
challenging, but it is also a privilege and is a rewarding experience.

*To the 2021 MAG*, thank you for your hard work during a challenging
year. Organising a hybrid IGF without the benefit of an initial face to
face meeting early in the year to get to know one another was difficult.
The MAG also had to respond to the ongoing evolution of the IGF
ecosystem and calls for the IGF to adapt and strengthen and be more
focused and issue driven. I believe that you managed to actually do
this, and do it well. I want to thank the MAG collectively and also
thank those individual MAG members who stepped forward, showing
leadership and taking initiative. It made all the difference and enabled
others to contribute more effectively.

*To MAG 2021 working groups and their co-chairs *(WG-workshop process,
WG-hybrid, WG-strategy and WG-outreach and communications) your work was
excellent and also served to draw in members of the broader IGF community.

*To the 2021 hosts*, thank you for your consistent support and your
generous and professional hosting of a successful hybrid event. *To all
past host countries *who continue to participate actively, your presence
and support is invaluable. I know not all past hosts send
representatives to the MAG. It takes time and capacity and this can be
in short supply. But I encourage all past host countries to try and
maintain a strong connection with the MAG and with the incoming
Leadership Panel.

*To past MAG members*, thank you so much for your contribution. The work
of the MAG is not easy. It involves "learning from doing". That is why
the support of past-MAG members is so helpful. Past MAG members also
contribute to IGF intersessional work such as the coordination and
support of Dynamic Coalition. All of this helps with cohesion and
continuity.

*To current and new MAG members*, it is because I believe that one
learns from doing, that I want to urge those MAG members who were not
very active last year, and incoming MAG members, to step forward this
year and be more active. Ask questions, ask for help; ask for clarity;
be impatient if you don't get it and ask again. A key take away that I
hope the Secretariat and the incoming chair will keep in mind is that
MAG members have asked for more guidelines on what is involved in being
a MAG members. More information will help and I am ready to contribute
to continue some of the material we started working on while during my
term as chair. However, guidelines that need to be read and understood
can never really substitute for plunging in and doing the work, and
building confidence and insight in the process.

*To colleagues in the UN*, it has been a pleasure to work with you. The
support of Under Secretary-General Liu Zhenmin, and other colleagues in
UN DESA (in particular Juwang Zhu, Wai Min Kwok and Deniz Susar, is
vital to the IGF and represents the link between the bottom-up community
driven aspects of the IGF and the UN member-state driven processes from
which the IGF emerged.  Huge thank you to Ms Maria Francesca Spatolisano
of the Office of the SG's Envoy on Technology and team members Jason
Munyan and Yu Ping Chan for active engagement in IGF2021 and in MAG
working groups.

*To Intergovernmental Organisations* who participate in the MAG and MAG
working groups, thank you for doing so and please continue. Your
involvement connects the IGF in a continuous way to precisely those
decision-making processes and institutions that the IGF aims to enrich.

*To other observers* and active participants from civil society, youth
IGFs, NRIs, the technical community, governments, business, the academic
community - thank you for following the work of the MAG and for
participating actively in calls and meetings. Your inputs adds value to
the work of the MAG.

*To past MAG chairs* thank you for your support, and your ongoing
participation and voluntary contributions.

*To those who provide financial support *to the IGF, past, present and
future - thank you and please continue. The IGF is even more relevant
now than it was in 2006.

*To the Secretariat* (including the consultants) thank you for the hard
work and the patience and support you gave me as chair, and your
adeptness at navigating the complex IGF environment.

Warm regards to all

Anriette Esterhuysen - outgoing MAG chair

3 January 2022

-- 
Anriette Esterhuysen - anriette at apc.org//anriette at gmail.com
Senior advisor global and regional internet governance
Association for Progressive Communications
www.apc.org // afrisig.org

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