Multi-stakeholder Public Consultations as part of Preparing for IGF 2009

The first public consultations of 2009 for preparing the 5th IGF – Internet Governance Forum, which will take place in Egypt in November, were held on 23rd – 24th February at the UN in Geneva. As is customary, representatives of governments, enterprises, civil society, the Internet technical community and NGOs were present. The main topics were the results and modus operandi from the Internet Governance Forum 2008 that was staged in Hyderabad, India, in December 2008, and how to improve the exchange of ideas and discussion between all participants at the IGF in November 2009.

The review process that the IGF will undergo in 2009 was also discussed, bearing in mind that the Secretary General of the UN will decide whether or not to continue with the IGF in 2010, based on the view the UN General Assembly takes on the matter. The conclusion was also reached that the review/evaluation process should not take over the Egypt IGF agenda as the Forum needs to go on with its work, i.e. discussing the main Internet governance topics in a multi-stakeholder environment, with the objective of convergence and bringing all the world’s regions and countries closer together in the Internet economy, thus meeting the objectives of the 2nd phase of the World Summit on the Information Society held in Tunis on 16th -18th November 2005 (see Portugal participates in the World Summit on the Information Society).