Building Bridges-The Role of Governments in Multistakeholder Cooperation

Day 1 – 22 October

Main Session- 9:30-12:30 - Building Bridges-The Role of Governments in Multistakeholder Cooperation – Main Hall

While WSIS confirmed that the existing multistakeholder arrangements for Internet governance worked well, there was also the recognition that governments had an important role to play. However, that role was not clearly defined. Much of this discussion was contained in the paragraphs related to ‘enhanced cooperation’. This discussion remains open and is dealt with by the dedicated working group on enhanced cooperation convened by the CSTD. In May 2013, Brazil, at the World Telecommunication Policy Forum (WTPF) submitted a Draft Opinion on the Role of Governments in Multistakeholder Cooperation. A first draft was revised, taking into account comments by various governments and other stakeholders. The second version was well received, but there was not sufficient time left to reach an agreement and it was suggested pursuing the discussion in other for a, including the IGF. This session will pick up the thread of the discussion as it was left in Geneva and will aim to find a rough consensus among all the IGF stakeholders.

Speakers:

Moderator:


Markus Kummer, Vice-President, Public Policy, Internet Society

Co-moderator:

Jeanette Hofmann, Head of Project Group The Internet Policy Field, Alexander von Humboldt Institut für Internet und Gesellschaft, Berlin, Germany

Remote moderators:

Vladimir Radunovic, DiploFoundation, Belgrade, Serbia

Rafik Dammak, NTT Communications

Panellists:

Ed Vaizey, Minister for Culture, Communications and Creative Industries, United Kingdom
London

Benedicto Fonseca Filho, Director, Department of Scientific and Technological Themes, Ministry of External Relations, Brasilia

Ambassador Daniel A. Sepulveda, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, U.S Coordinator for International Communications and Information Policy, Department of State, Washington DC
USA

Jari Arkko, Chairman, Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF), Finland

Virat Bhatia, President South Asia, AT&T, Delhi, India

Avri Doria, Independent Research Consultant, Providence R.I, USA