Press - NEWS: Global Internet Governance Forum 2013 Bali will definitely go ahead

• By igf2013
• 6 August, 2013

Jakarta, Indonesia – Today a letter was sent to the United Nations (UNDESA) from the Indonesian Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MCIT) confirming that Host Country Agreement is agreed in principle and will be signed formally by 20 August 2013 after the end of the major Indonesian National Holiday of Idul Fitri.

The Indonesian Internet Governance Forum (ID-IGF) met yesterday with MCIT Minister Tifatul Sembiring who confirmed his commitment to and support for IGF 2013 Bali. Andi Budimansyah (Chairman – Indonesia cc-TLD PANDI) commented, “As we had reported to MCIT Minister yesterday, we are happy to share that the ID-IGF Multi-Stakeholder Organizing Committee’s preparations are in place, and we look forward to welcoming the world to Bali. The letter sent today gives us a clear mandate to continue all preparations needed for a successful meeting of 2500 global delegates in Bali.”

Ashwin Sasongko (Director General of MCIT) stated, “Indonesia is a regional leader in the information and digital society. We invite the global internet leaders to join us in Bali to discuss relevant issues in cyber space especially matters concerning global ethical principles that we all share, to achieve a safer cyber space for all.”

From civil society’s representative, Shita Laksmi (Deputy Chair of ID-IGF and also from HIVOS) said: “The active Indonesian Internet civil society invites the global civil society to join us in Bali in relevant debates and dialogue that matter to all internet users. It is really important for better transparent and accountable Internet governance, globally.”

Chengetai Masango of the IGF Secretariat expressed his confidence that the ID-IGF Multi-Stakeholder Organizing Committee is well-positioned and prepared to host the Global IGF in Bali this October.

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Relevant info:

• Article: Indonesia is Ready to Host IGF2013 Bali (http://bit.ly/16oEypX)
• ID-IGF Website: www.igf2013.or.id

Source: 

http://igf2013.or.id/global-internet-governance-forum-2013-bali-will-definitely-go-ahead/

For more information, please kindly contact:

• Gatot Dewabroto (Ministry of Communication and IT)
  Mobile: +62811898504 / email: gatot_b@postel.go.id / twitter: @gsdewabroto
• Semmy Pangerapan (Indonesia ISP Association / APJII)
  Mobile: +62817122764 / email: spangerapan@apjii.or.id / twitter: @spangerapan
• Donny B.U (ICT Watch)
  Mobile: +62818930932 / email: donnybu@ictwatch.com / twitter: @donnybu

Event: Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) - SEOUL 2013

About Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF)

Today, Asia has the strongest growing demand for Internet addresses. That is more and more people in Asia are using the Internet. In contrast to North America and Europe, demand for the Internet in Asia is not only growing, but also growing at an accelerating rate.

Asia Pacific Regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF) serves as a platform for discussion, exchange and collaboration at a regional level, and also where possible to aggregate national IGF discussions, ultimately advance the Internet governance development in the Asia Pacific region.

In 2010, while the global IGF is already in its fifth and final year of its initial charter, and Regional IGFs have been established in many other regions, including Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, to date, Asia has seen no parallel forum for discussing Internet governance issues at a regional level. For the first time, the APrIGF is therefore being convened with objectives to raise awareness and encourage participation from relevant stakeholders around the region on Internet governance issues, as well as to foster multi-lateral, multi-stakeholder discussion about issues pertinent to the Internet in Asia.

The multi-stakeholder approach is a core principle of the APrIGF with the emphasis on the diversity of participants and openness of the discussion. Valuing the youth as an important stakeholder and the future generations of the Internet, a Youth IGF also become an integral part of the APrIGF whereby they are held in parallel annually featuring a simulation of the multi-stakeholder discussion model among the young people on various Internet governance issues.

Source: http://www.aprigf.asia/about.html

Internet Governance: latest debate over who controls the internet - you or government

Internet governance is a hot topic at the moment. In the run up to the International Telecommunications Union’s World Conference on International Telecommunications (WCIT) last December, the idea of Internet governance became more widely known among the many who don’t participate in the concept as part of work or research. I’ve just come back from the ITU in Geneva where the World Telecommunication/ICT Policy Forum (WTPF) and the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) went on concurrently. These events were the latest in the debate over who controls the internet.

The WCIT was a watershed moment in Internet governance. It was about the Internet, but wasn’t, but was in the end. Intense discussions went on for two weeks over issues like security, spam, and broadband connections. At the end of the day the International Telecommunication Regulations, a treaty, was not signed by a number of countries that couldn’t live with proscriptive regulations. The WTPF this last week was the first time since the WCIT that the delegations met again to discuss a number of the issues. But the WTPF was not a treaty making conference and it only lasted three days. Quite a different experience than in December.

At the WTPF a discussion of six different opinions took place. The opinions were non-controversial and involved general and topical policy issues like IXP creation and IPv6 transition. The last two opinions, however, sought to define the multistakeholder approach to Internet governance. Multistakeholderism, as defined by the Tunis Agenda in the mid-2000s, is the idea that the all participants in the Internet – from governments, to civil society to the private sector and beyond – have a role to play in how the Internet is governed and managed. This is not a new approach, but the controversy last week was the introduction of a new, formal opinion on the role of government in the multistakeholder approach to Internet governance.

It is no surprise to anyone that governments are increasingly taking a lesser role in control over the Internet, though many countries do manage and maintain rather strict power over their internal Internet connections. However this situation at the WTPF speaks to a wider and ongoing set of issues that are occurring beyond just the conferences and conventions. Among many issues, the fact that ICANN is still a US based organization does not sit well with the Middle East and Latin American countries. The debate could fill more than a few phd dissertations, but there remains much tension over which organizations control domain names.

What does all of this mean at this point in time? As I mentioned, in parallel with the WTPF was the WSIS forum that discussed the review to take place in 2015 of the WSIS goals.  During that event stories about how transparency and Internet governance is evolving in different countries for different cultures and different governments emerged. Though many governments do not support freedom as an underlying priority, it became clear to me how far the world has progressed in terms of connectivity and access. However, public choice theory tells us that governments are driven by the interests of government officials, bureaucrats and special interest parties that seek to gain rewards, often in the form of power. The fight between governments and users of the Internet is far from over.

The current approach to Internet governance remains the multistakeholder model, but there will be many more discussions of the role of government in this model especially from governments who continue to loose control over their citizens. But the situation is more nuanced than that. Some governments are adopting the language of freedom online for their own, very different ends. It will be interesting to see how this continues to play out in international Internet governance fora.

This article gives the views of the author, and not the position of LSE Network Economy Blog nor of the London School of Economics.

This blog will have active in commenting the issues sorrounding internet governance and its discussions post WCIT in Dubai last year. In this piece, Dominique Lazanski reports the latests debates that have just taken place in May around the fight for the control of the internet.
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About the Author

Dominique Lazanski is a London-based digital policy and strategy freelance consultant and works on digital policy for the TaxPayers’ Alliance. She has spent over 13 years in the Internet industry with many of those years working in Silicon Valley for the likes of Yahoo!, eBay and Apple. She has a long held interest in Internet governance and recently attended the ITU’s WCIT as part of the official UK delegation. She has written and spoken on digital issues over the years from a free market and entrepreneurial perspective. She holds degrees from Cornell University and the London School of Economics and currently sits on the Open Data User Group board in the Cabinet Office and the Tax Transparency Board in HMRC. She is currently working on her PhD.

Source: Blog of LSE Network Economy Forum