What is the Internet Governance Forum?

One of the initiatives to come out of the final Tunis round of the two-round UN sponsored World Summit of the Information Society (WSIS) last year was the set up of an ongoing international dialogue called the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). They have their first meeting in Greece next month. Here is the forums mandate:

The mandate of the IGF is set out in Paragraph 72 of the Tunis Agenda:

72. We ask the UN Secretary-General, in an open and inclusive process, to convene, by the second quarter of 2006, a meeting of the new forum for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue—called the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).The mandate of the Forum is to:

1. Discuss public policy issues related to key elements of Internet governance in order to foster the sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development of the Internet;

2. Facilitate discourse between bodies dealing with different cross-cutting international public policies regarding the Internet and discuss issues that do not fall within the scope of any existing body;

3. Interface with appropriate inter-governmental organizations and other institutions on matters under their purview;

4. Facilitate the exchange of information and best practices, and in this regard make full use of the expertise of the academic, scientific and technical communities;

5. Advise all stakeholders in proposing ways and means to accelerate the availability and affordability of the Internet in the developing world;

6. Strengthen and enhance the engagement of stakeholders in existing and/or future Internet governance mechanisms, particularly those from developing countries;

7. Identify emerging issues, bring them to the attention of the relevant bodies and the general public, and, where appropriate, make recommendations;

8. Contribute to capacity building for Internet governance in developing countries, drawing fully on local sources of knowledge and expertise;

9. Promote and assess, on an ongoing basis, the embodiment of WSIS principles in Internet governance processes;

10. Discuss, inter alia, issues relating to critical Internet resources;

11. Help to find solutions to the issues arising from the use and misuse of the Internet, of particular concern to everyday users;

12. Publish its proceedings (link)