Internet Governance Conference

09/03/2007

As the Rio Internet Governance Forum (IGF) draws near, four themes have been discussed during the conference: Critical Internet resources, Dynamic Coalition, Logistical arrangements and Advisory Grant. The participants wanted to clear up certain aspect of the first forum that occurred in Greece in 2006 so that it won’t happen again.

Critical Internet resources:

This part is a general critic of Greece meeting. Most of the participants agreed on several aspects of internet resources as the use and misuse of the Internet.

What should be emphasised is:
- what are the internet resources,
- provide information about the range of issue involved DNS and regional resources,
- provide skills development and resources that are necessary to get on line.
a) focus on the greater understanding,
b) do not promote particular view point,
c) landscape of critical resources.

Peter Hellmonds think that governments should insure better access to have a comprehensive discussion and emphasize the legal policy. This discussion must be a concrete example of local build out which will lead to the access of education, information and knowledge. Governments should stimulate local content of online services: providing seed funding and exchange of the best network. They should put the issue in a balanced way, emphasize the role of Internet and ITC, inform about strategy to maximise access content, and give perspectives.

Japan’s speaker added that one should put more attention to people who didn’t so far demonstrated any interest in IGF (Greese2006) and believe that such efforts are crucial. Then the government should give more importance to: competing, traffic, infrastructure progress, infrastructure that hosts the local content and challenges of mitigating the cost of access. Furthermore, the Japanese government is offering 10 millions Yens for the facilitation of preparing process of ICF.

As for China, the discussion should focus on four aspects
- the capacity in building demonstration that deals with the problems of measures for the enhancement of net security and stability.
- enhance the participation of governments for the benefits of all countries. The responsibility should be regarded from day to day technical and operational management.
- allocation of IP addresses during the transit of IPv4 to IPv6. A point that Mr. Echeberria will find accurate.
- the 5th item of CIR’s should lead to global application. The administrations should also work together to explore the different possibilities.

Russian speaker agrees with China about including a discussion of the administration of the domain main system IP and added that it’s important to focus on the IT workshop. This idea is also share by Mrs. Cade (from ICC). She proposes to establish a deadline for the finalisation of a structure as “there is to many unfilled and uncompleted gaps”.

Several participants such as Senegal propose to produce a kind of formal report of the IGF in order to present it to the country delegation. The Senegalese speaker wonders whether it was possible to have a “communiqué like a memo which would give the major focuses”. It would be a manner to have a base of following up the evaluation. The different stakeholders should participate on all the debates so that the benefits would be worldwide. Mr. Pisanty Alejandro proposes that each state and person presents a summary of their notes so that they can be compared.

Mr. Bill Drake stresses out 3 points:
- concentrate on broad issues rather than on specific issues. It would be more productive to discuss on national policies, European policies… than concrete policies,
- the treatment of development is a cross-cutting theme. One should strongly encourage the moderators to treat the development aspect,
- moderators that are truly experts should be neutral in the treatment of alternative solution to particular problems that are being promoted by different stakeholders.

Another issue that had been pointed out is the one of security on the internet. It’s an aspect that should be taken seriously. It is thus very useful to discuss on cyber-criminality especially child pornography.

Dynamic Coalition:

The Dynamic Coalition is the second theme that had been brought out. According to Secretary Kummer, there is a need for a geographical diversity: all the stakeholders should be represented at the meeting. As for Mr. Singh he deplores the fact that the political views are not very broad.

France believes one should make a difference between advocacy group and facilitation group and that it’s necessary to determine on witch category the dynamic coalition belongs. The criteria to participle must be pointed out clearly. “The main criterion is to have clear criteria on who participates”. This idea of having a criterion is shared by Mr. Hellmonds who proposes to have a short deadline as Dynamic Coalitions are still in the process of making themselves. And Mrs. Cade added that the role of Dynamic Coalition is about a platform of criteria: some regions or some groups but not a single region or a single sector.

But China argued that even thought the idea of having criteria is great, they won’t put it in a rigid way such as France.

To conclude this theme, Co Chairman Desai pointed out the role of the Dynamic Coalition which is according to him, to go beyond dialogue and suggested that a sort of guideline should be spelled out. The governments must help the progressive structuring on one hand, and on the other they must keep flexibility.

The logistical arrangements
This part, which was not for discussion but for information, was mainly led by the Brazilian’s representatives who will host the Rio forum. They presented a 20 mn film about Brazil and the different hotel that will host the guests. Brazil have invested more than a million dollar for the event: new places, new hotels, transportation: shuttle from the hotels to the place of the meeting, safety, Wi-Fi for 2000 people …

Advisory Grant

Due to the time, the co-chairman asked the participants to be brief on their interventions. The main point that came out is the one of transparency of the advisory group and the multi stakeholder idea.

The delegate of APC (Association for Progressive Communication) is against having a delay in the renewal of the members. He also proposes that members make a staff assessment and that the host country should co-chair the role of the nomination process. Therefore the government must not have any influence over the participants. The process of the advisory group should be more transparent with an every year cycle so that the advisory group can check is own rules and way of functioning. That point was share by the ICC representative and also by Mr. Kleinwachter.

Mr. Adiel Akplogan who was speaking for the NRO executive council added that the principle of transparency should be the baseline for the success of multi-stakeholders. India asked for clear nominations and rotation of the members, and spelled out the idea of having a day to day report.

Mr. Muguet wondered whether the Chairmen would allow the silent stakeholders to assist the next session. He asked for the separation of powers between the bureau and the program committee: “the rule of the law and the good law is to protect the weak”. But European Telecommunication Network Operators (ETNO) representative believes that a bureau is not necessary, all stakeholders must be represented and membership must be replaced every year for transparency.

China and Russia hopes that the future advisory group would be more balanced for transparency and reflect the diversity. The stakeholders that are not members should all the same assist stakeholders.

France points out an aspect that was contested by co-chairman Delai। France said that the chairman should be a representative of the country and not the government itself, but it’s the latter who nominates the representative.

Faye Ismaila Pedro