WSIS+20: IGF, EC, GDC and digital future by Jimson Olufuye - ITREALMS

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The World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) convened by world leaders in 2003 and 2005 following the realization of the crucial roles of Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) (also known in the industry as the Internet) played in economic growth and development. Since 2005, ICTs have added more than $10tr to the global economy, according to Oxford Economics as at 2020.

The outcome document of the WSIS 2003, the Geneva Declaration, outlined the expectation of the Summit for a “people-centred, inclusive and development-oriented Information Society, where everyone can create, access, utilize and share information and knowledge, enabling individuals, communities and peoples to achieve their full potential in promoting their sustainable development and improving their quality of life, premised on the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and respecting fully and upholding the Universal Declaration of Human Rights…” to be achieved through 11 Action Lines, and targets. 

Diplo in Paris for 13th Internet Governance Forum - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

Diplo Foundation is at the 13th annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) taking place between 12 and 14 November 2018, in Paris, France, reports ITREALMS.

The meeting will be hosted by the Government of France at the UNESCO Headquarters.

The three-day IGF meeting will include a large number of workshops, open forums, dynamic coalition meetings, and other events that will give participants the opportunity to engage in open discussions on multiple Internet governance and digital policy issues.

Several main sessions will also be part of the programme, on topics that will be decided by the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, in consultation with the broader IGF community. 

The outputs of the IGF 2018 intersessional activities will also be discussed at the meeting. In addition, national and regional IGF initiatives will share experiences and discuss about their specificities, challenges, and plans for the future.

DiploFoundation and the Geneva Internet Platform will be actively engaged at the 13th Internet Governance Forum, in Paris and online. Join us for the following events and sessions, and stay tuned for just-in-time session reports and IGF Daily newsletters

Nenye Dom/GEE

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5000 participants join opening section @ 10th Internet Governance Forum Brazil

ITRealms:

An estimated 5,000 participants, including high-level government officials, civil society leaders and internet policy experts, gather both in-person and online for a three-day 10th annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in João Pessoa, Brazil, reports ITRealms.

The forum slated to last till November 13 would be discussing crucial role the internet must play in the successful implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

The tenth IGF comes at a critical time with the recent adoption of the new sustainable development agenda that underscores the importance of ICTs and the internet in development activities. The new agenda sets an ambitious goal to “significantly increase access to information and communications technology and strive to provide universal and affordable access to the Internet in least developed countries by 2020”. 

Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) and the Internet promote development by enabling access to information and educational resources, health care and improving food production and distribution.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted in his address that less than two months ago, the world leaders adopted the visionary 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, thus placing the challenge now is to implement this blueprint for a better future. Information and communication technologies and the Internet can empower this global undertaking.

According to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), there are more than 7 billion mobile subscriptions worldwide, compared to only 738 million in 2000. However, while there has been some progress in bridging the digital divide, four billion people in the developing world remain unconnected. 

The Internet Governance Forum, held annually, provides an impartial and independent platform for all stakeholders, including developed and developing countries to discuss public policy issues relating to the Internet. While there is no negotiated outcome, engagement at the Forum feed into discussions in the national and regional IGFs.

 “Evolution of Internet Governance: Empowering Sustainable Development” is the overarching theme of this year’s Forum. With the adoption of the sustainable development agenda, the 10th IGF presents an opportunity to foster discussions on internet governance and identify means to increase internet connectivity for all stakeholders. 

“Information and Communications Technologies, as a powerful enabler of sustainable development, can make great contributions to the implementation of the goals and targets of the 2030 Agenda,” noted Mr. Wu Hongbo, UN Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.

The sub-themes of the Forum which will be addressed in the main sessions of the Forum are: Cybersecurity and Trust; Internet Economy; Inclusiveness and Diversity; Openness; Enhancing Multi-stakeholder Cooperation; Internet and Human Rights; Critical Internet Resources and Emerging Issues.

“The IGF Platform has contributed towards efforts at national, regional and international levels to build a cyberspace that promotes peace and security, enables development and ensure human rights,” stated Mr. Lenni Montiel, UN Assistant Secretary-General for Economic Development.

This week, the IGF’s Best Practices Forums, the Dynamic Coalitions and this year’s Policy Options on Connecting the Next Billion present opportunities to discuss matters related to the future of the internet.

Policy Options for Connecting the Next Billion

The community-led ‘Policy Options for Connecting the Next Billion’ process strives to help identify obstacles, solutions and strategies to improve and increase connectivity and access for the 4 billion people who are offline.   Collaboration between governmental and non-governmental actors is key to addressing this issue. 

IGF Best Practice Forums

The outputs from IGF Best Practice Forums (BPFs) are intended to become robust resources, to serve as inputs into other pertinent forums, and to evolve and grow over time on the subjects of: Regulation and Mitigation of Unwanted Communications; Establishing and Supporting Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRTs); Developing Meaningful Multistakeholder Participation Mechanisms; Practices to Countering Abuse Against Women Online; Creating an Enabling Environment for IPv6 Adoption and Enabling Environments to Establish Successful IXPs.

IGF Dynamic Coalitions

This year, some of the IGF Dynamic Coalitions (DCs) will be presenting their work to the broader IGF community in a dedicated main session. Many of the DCs have undertaken and achieved significant work in their respective fields.  Broad community feedback at the IGF will help increase and strengthen IGF outputs for use of other relevant IG fora and bodies.
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UNESCO ends Connecting dots conference, reaffirms position on IGF

ITRealms:

The United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) arose from a two-day conference on “CONNECTing the Dots: Options for Future Action” at its Paris headquarters last weekend to reaffirm position on the multi-stakeholder-led Internet Governance Forum, reports ITRealms.

The conference, which took place between March 3 and 4, 2015, ITRealms gathered, noted the potential of the Internet to advance human progress towards inclusive Knowledge Societies, and the important role of UNESCO in fostering this development within the wider ecosystem of actors.

They also affirmed the human rights principles that underpin UNESCO’s approach to Internet-related issues, specifically that the same rights that people have offline must be protected online as per Human Rights Council resolution A/HRC/RES/26/13.

Equally,  ITRealms reports the conference recalled Resolution 52 of the 37th session of the General Conference, which mandated a consultative multistakeholder study with options for consideration of Member States, to be reported to the 38^th General Conference within the framework of UNESCO’s work on the World Summit on the Information Society.

ITRealms recalled that the establishment of principles in guiding documents that include the article 12 and 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and article 17 and 19 in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

Just as confab reviewed the draft of the UNESCO consultative study, hence, commended the continued work on the related options namely on World Summit on Information Society (WSIS+10).

The conference further reiterated its position on field of Access to Information and Knowledge, Freedom of Expression, Privacy and UNESCO role, thus reinforcing its contributions and leadership within the UN system, including continued implementation of the WSIS outcomes, the WSIS+10 review, the IGF and the post-2015 development agenda.

 
+Remmy Nweke (ITRealms) +Jean-Pierre Ilboudo +UNESCO +Guy Berger
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IGF 2014 closes with 3,537 participants

ITRealms:

The 9^th Internet Governance Forum (IGF) ended in the city of Istanbul, Turkey on Friday, 5 September 2014 with a total of 3537, both onsite and remotely, reports ITRealms.

Our correspondent also gathered that out of this total, the onsite participants were 2,374 while remote participants recorded 1,163 for the four-day forum.

In addition, ITRealms exclusively learnt that out of the onsite participants figure, Africans were 215, Asia Pacific-423; Eastern Europe – 153; Host country - 706; Latin America and the Caribbean – 158; Western Europe and Others – 714.

Also, the onsite participation by stakeholder group cut across civil society, government, intergovernmental organizations, private sector and technical community.

Whereas the civil society recorded 836, government – 542, intergovernmental organizations –98, private sector -516 and technical community 289.

Meanwhile, ITRealms recalls that there was a High Level Leaders meeting the host country convened a high level session on the topic of capacity building for economic development, which was attended by 21 leaders, government ministers who spoke on this important topic and including the Minister of Communication Technology, Mrs. Omobola Johnson.

On NETmundial, participants looked back on the lessons learnt and mapping the road ahead, recalling that this was a follow-up event to the NETmundial in Sao Paulo, held last quarter of 2013.

One of the highlights at the IGF 2014 was the debut of the Internet Governance Forum Support Association (IGFSA) spearheaded by the Internet Society with the objective of achieving a stable and sustainable funding mechanism to contribute to the United Nations IGF Trust Fund and support related activities.

Participants, especially from the African continent held a session to the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms, which was a Pan-African initiative to promote human rights standards and openness principles in Internet-policy making on the continent, was launched at the 2014 IGF among others.

Remmy Nweke:

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Stakeholders route to stabilize IGF, seeks UN endorsement

ITRealms:

Participants at the ongoing Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in alliance with stakeholders across the global may have began to route for more stable IGF by seeking the endorsement of the United Nations (UN) to make it a permanent forum, ITRealms reports exclusively.

ITRealms recalls that the IGF which commenced in 2003 saw the second phase in 2005 held in Tunisia coming out with a five-year lifespan which was renewed 2010.

Most of the internet stakeholders who commented on this development described it as a laudable step.

According to the Executive Director, Operations at DigitalSENSE Africa (DSA), the organizers of the Nigeria DSA Forum on Internet Governance for Development (IG4D) Mrs. Nkemdilim Nweke, it is a welcome development, after all, the Internet has continued to evolve and needs sustained stakeholder involvement beyond the five-year term previously given.

She also said this development when adopted, would pave the way for a more structured IGF across the world, therefore more inclusive.

Mrs. Nweke further commended the efforts of Messrs Stephanie Perrin and Jeanette Hofmann in awakening this process with a draft recommendation.

As contained in the draft recommendation to UN General Assembly through its Secretary-General Mr. Ban Ki-moon, IGF stakeholders noted in the letter entitle “Recommendation for consideration to the UN General Assembly for a permanent mandate of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF)” that in 2005, UN Member states had asked the UN Secretary-General in the Tunis Agenda, to convene a meeting of the new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue—called the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). 

The mandate of the Forum, the petitioners said, was to discuss public policy issues relating to key elements of Internet governance, such as those enumerated in the Tunis Agenda, in order to foster the sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development of the Internet for all. “The Forum was not to replace existing arrangements, mechanisms, institutions or organizations. It was intended to constitute a neutral, non-duplicative and non-binding process, and have no involvement in day-to-day or technical operations of the Internet.”

The Tunis Agenda also asked the UN Secretary-General to examine the desirability of the continuation of the Forum, in formal consultation with Forum participants, within five years of its creation, and to make recommendations to the UN Membership in this regard.

Equally, at UN sixty-fifth session, the General Assembly decided to extend the mandate of the IGF, underlining the need to improve the IGF “with a view to linking it to the broader dialogue on global Internet governance”.

In his note on the continuation of the Internet Governance Forum, the UN Secretary General confirmed that the IGF was unique and valuable. It is a place where governments, civil society, the private sector and international organizations build a common understanding of the Internet’s great potential.

In furtherance of this, the Secretary-General had recommended that the mandate of the Internet Governance Forum be extended for a further five years; that the desirability of continuation be considered again by Member States within the context of a 10-year review of implementation of the outcome of the World Summit on the Information Society in 2015.

  

ITRealms gathered that in order to allow the IGF to reach its full potential, stakeholders recommended “an extension of the IGF mandate, which is open-ended, without term limitation.”  They stressed that this would ensure the stability of the IGF, and support long range planning for more comprehensive projects and funding initiatives. 

As part of its plan-B, stakeholders suggested that if the aforementioned is impossible given current UN rules and regulations, “we would recommend a stable ten year extension, to enable longer-range commitments and financial planning.” 

Remmy Nweke: 
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