IGF to Focus on Web Openness, Security, Diversity, Access
GENEVA -- The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will focus on openness, security, diversity and access, officials said after meeting Mon. and Tues. to plan the event. Focus will be on Internet governance as defined by the body’s mandate and its interplay with development, capacity building, freedom of expression, awareness and defining avenues forward, they said. The IGF is set for Oct. 30-Nov. 2 in Athens.
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Officials stress the IGF talks’ developmental dimension, but since they have no decision-making authority, individual govts. and interested parties are angling to get something out of it. “Some of the proposed themes are very, very broad,” said Martin Kummer, head of the Internet Governance Forum secretariat, but he called it a good balance of more technical and social themes.
Business was strongly represented in the IGF Advisory Group, said Kummer: “Various participants made the point that it would be better to focus on 2 or 3 themes at most. Now we have 4 very broad themes. This may be too much as a menu.” Workshops are expected to address emerging technology and policy issues in more detail.
IGF is an opportunity for national and international business, said Masood Khan, Pakistani permanent representative to the U.N. and chmn. of the Geneva chapter of the 133-nation Group of 77. More awareness of local laws and rules and the internal economic and political environment “would help entrepreneurs and businessmen understand the entire setting and then they could go into these areas,” he said.
The Advisory Group’s proposed program will be forwarded to U.N. Secy. Gen. Kofi Annan, who will announce details and invite U.N. member states, officials said. The mechanism of invitation for interested parties hasn’t been set. Written contributions on specific themes and sub-themes are due by July 15. General meetings will be webcast with real-time transcription.
International entities are organizing workshops. The ITU, Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development, UNESCO and Council of Europe may host workshops, officials said. W3C (World Wide Web Consortium) is interested in doing a workshop on web accessibility for people with disabilities, officials said.
Govts. may be invited in hopes of spurring national dialogs, Kummer said: “This has happened in some countries already where they have set up -- I heard in some African countries -- national Internet governance forums where all internet governance stakeholders sit at one table.” Representatives now must bring in people from their groups, Kummer said: “Eminent people from civil society, academics, bring in eminent figures from the internet community, CEOs from the business community, and of course the governments representatives reach up in their governments to bring ministers.”
Coming from different schools of thought, representatives presumably won’t shy from controversy, which will make the panels more interesting, Kummer said.