7th Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2012

Delegates attend the 7th IGF Meeting in Baku. Uganda was represented by 3 ISOC members.

The 7^th meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) 2012 was held in Baku, Azerbaijan at the Baku Expo from 6^th -9^th November, 2012. The theme of IGF2012 was “Internet Governance for Sustainable Human, Economic and Social Development”. Several participants from various sectors including Internet Governance experts, academics, researchers, government officials, politicians, civil society, international development personnel, youth and interested participants gathered together to discuss various Internet Governance concerns.

The purpose of IGF is to maximise the opportunity for open and inclusive dialogue and the exchange of ideas on Internet governance related issues; create feedback loops between the different types of sessions; create opportunities to share best practices and experiences; listen, dialogue and learn as well as identify key themes that would, in the future, benefit from the multi-stakeholder perspective of the IGF (Internet Governance Forum, 2012).

 The forum physically hosted over 1600 delegates from 128 countries while a total number of 52 remote hubs was registered with the number of remote participants doubling that of active participants. The simultaneous, dynamic sessions were translated into 7 languages – English, Chinese, French, Spanish, Arabic, Russian and Azerbaijani.  IGF2012 was noted to have an increased number of youth and women who facilitated or were panellists at various sessions and the multi-stakeholder model was continuously affirmed throughout the forum.

In His Excellency President IIlham Aliyev’s message (delivered by Mr. Ali Abbasov, Minister of Communications and Information Technologies – Azerbaijan), delegates were reminded that the Internet was not only a space for the exchange of information but also an environment which created new opportunities for public governance and advances in education, health, business, banking and other fields vital for positive human, social and economic growth.

The main sessions were:

• Access and Diversity
• Internet Governance for Development
• Managing Critical Internet Resources and
• Security, Openness and Privacy
• Taking stock and the way forward
• Emerging issues

Access and Diversity: Five themes were addressed under this category: Mobile Internet and innovation, multilingualism, infrastructure, human empowerment and free flow of information.  Issues discussed under these themes included access in terms of accessibility for persons with disabilities (and aging persons), empowering women to equally use Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as their male counterparts, cybercrime, Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs), preserving local/indigenous or endangered languages and local content. A UNESCO survey (UNESCO, 2012) revealed a correlation between local content and access prices, noting that quality of service becomes better and access prices drop greatly when local content is available.

Internet Governance for Development: The Forum theme focused on development. Participants were reminded to be keen on ensuring that any developments (on the Internet or otherwise) should ensure that future generations enjoy the same or better benefits. Issues regarding bridging the TLD space, expansion of the TLD space and shorter domain names were discussed. Shorter domain names were emphasised because in the near future, Internet access in some regions may be predominantly through mobile devices. Panellists discussed and explored ways to attract investment and encourage innovation and growth of ICT services and mobile technology. Participants were challenged to think about ICT waste and its impact on environmental sustainability.

Managing Critical Internet Resources: Sessions under this category focused on issues such as: IPv6 deployment and challenges/opportunities of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN’s) new generic Top Level Domain (gTLD) program and its impact on developing countries. Participants were informed that 1930 applications resulted from the call for applications for the new gTLDs and only 6 of those were for Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs). The Wold Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) was also discussed to give participants an understanding of its relevance to the IGF.

Security, Openness and Privacy: This category addressed issues such as online and offline security, online identity, human rights, freedom of expression, ‘big-data’, policy issues regarding domestic or trans-border crimes, inclusion of developing countries in policy formulation and inclusion of youth in Internet development initiatives. Youth should be at the fore-front of Internet development and policy formulation because they are ‘digital natives’ and they represent the future.

Emerging issues: These sessions addressed issues such as using ICTs in natural disasters or other emergency situations, implications of the use of new technical and political instruments on the free flow of and access to information, unique cultural content, hate speech and religious attacks on social networks, intellectual property versus respect for individual users to access and share content and identity theft.

Role of Uganda Internet Governance Forum

Uganda should pay more attention to the IGF because local, national and regional IGFs have become prominent and popular. In fact, issues discussed at the IGF are discussions from national or regional IGFs. IGF2012 was noted to have been attended mainly by civil society and government representation was minimal. Many participating countries did not have any government representation. The Uganda IGF has a big role to play in creating awareness about the IGF and bringing the community (including government officials) on board.