Internet Governance Forum 2008
Hyderabad, India
5 December 2008
Report on workshop 49
A Development Agenda for Internet Governance:
From Principle to Practice
Organizers
Centre for International Governance, Graduate Institute for International Studies, Geneva [academic/civil society]
Federal Office of Communication, Government of Switzerland [government]
Association for Progressive Communications [civil society]
Consultative Committee on UN Information Technology, China Association for Science and Technology [academic/civil society]
Diplo Foundation [civil society]
Internet Society of China [technical community]
Ian Peter and Associates Pty Ltd. [private sector]
Panos Institute West Africa, Cipaco Project [civil society]
Panelists
William J. Drake
Centre for International Governance, Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies, Geneva, Switzerland [Moderator]
Jose Vitor Carvalho Hansem
Deputy Head of the Division of Science and Technology, Ministry of External Relations, Brazil
Raul Echeberría
Executive Director, LACNIC (Internet Address Registry for Latin America and the Caribbean), Uruguay
Olga Cavalli
Advisor to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and representative to the Governmental Advisor Committee of ICANN, Government of Argentina
Anriette Esterhuysen
Executive Director, Association for Progressive Communications, South Africa
Fiona Alexander
Associate Administrator (Head of Office) for International Affairs,
National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Department of Commerce, Government of the United States
Summary
A development agenda is a holistic program of analysis and action intended to mainstream development considerations into the procedures and policy outputs of global governance mechanisms. In recent years, many stakeholders have worked to promote such agendas in the multilateral institutions dealing with such issues as international trade and intellectual property. But in the field of global Internet governance, there has not been any debate about whether a development agenda could be functionally effective and politically feasible. To begin filling this gap, a workshop entitled, Toward a Development Agenda for Internet Governance was held at the 2nd IGF in Rio de Janeiro in November 2007. Participants who spoke to the point at that session agreed that in principle, a properly configured and consensual development agenda could help to promote a more open, accessible, diverse, and secure global Internet. They also agreed that the IGF provides the right venue for further non-binding dialogue on the possible substance and modalities of a development agenda.
The Hyderabad workshop was designed to follow-up on the discussion in Rio. Its goal was to move beyond the question of whether a development agenda is desirable in principle and consider what it might actually involve in practice. Two overarching sets of questions were explored. The first concerned the possible substantive focus of such an agenda. This included assessing both the policy outputs of governance mechanisms pertaining to Internet infrastructures and their use for networked information, communication, and commerce (the vertical dimension); and procedural or institutional issues, such as the transparency and inclusive participation called for by the WSIS principles on Internet governance (the horizontal dimension). The second set of questions concerned the operational aspects of establishing and promoting a development agenda, i.e. the concrete steps that would need to be taken.
To set the stage, the moderator began by highlighting the main themes that were discussed in Rio. He then compared and contrasted the conditions that have facilitated the development agenda processes in the WTO and WIPO with those evident in the Internet governance environment, where a highly distributed institutional architecture and complex configurations of interests would make it difficult to pursue a centralized approach with formal negotiations and commitments. Given these parameters, he suggested that it might be sensible to concentrate initially on institutionalizing collective analysis---e.g. monitoring trends, aggregating information, and assessing progress---with an eye toward identifying best practices and lessons learned that could inform the work programs of the diverse institutions and collaborations involved in Internet governance.
The first speaker outlined a number of substantive and operational challenges that developing countries have encountered in Internet governance decisionmaking bodies. These included, inter alia, an uneven distribution of risks and rewards across countries and stakeholder groups in the approaches taken to individual issues concerning Internet infrastructures and uses; and barriers to effective participation related to the prevalence of the English language, the highly technical nature of certain issues, and institutional shortcomings at the national and international levels. He concluded that absent a flexible and integrative development agenda that facilitates more equal participation by all stakeholders, these problems could deepen rather than attenuate over time. The second speaker reviewed steps that have been taken by LACNIC to promote capacity building and development in Latin America, and then suggested that the IGF is well positioned to serve as the focal point for cross-cutting international dialogue and knowledge sharing on development issues. The third speaker echoed the latter view, and cited the problems of access and international interconnection costs as meriting particular attention in the context of a broad development agenda geared toward ameliorating international and intranational inequalities. Going further, the fourth speaker argued that such an agenda should seek to identify common ground on global public policy principles, consistent with a public goods and rights-based orientation; take stock of development-oriented progress on such issues as access, open standards, security, and IPV6; and be pursued not only in the global IGF, but also in regional IGFs. Finally, the last speaker observed that intergovernmental discussions of Internet governance often turn into laborious and highly politicized negotiations over texts and generally do not systematically explore real development challenges. At the same time, while many organizations are engaged in solid capacity building work, the absence of a “one-stop shopping” mechanism to access and compare information on their activities impedes the identification and generalization of best practices. The IGF could help to fill these gaps, although it would be difficult to galvanize the collective energies required through annual conferences alone.
In the discussion that followed, a number of audience members raised substantive issues they thought should figure prominently in a development agenda. With regard to Internet infrastructure, topics identified included the root server system, names and numbers, technical standards, network security, access, and convergence. With regard to the Internet’s use for networked information, communication, and commerce, the development aspects of intellectual property, cybercrime, privacy and spam were cited. On the operational aspects, there was broad agreement that the IGF was most logical place to pursue a development agenda, and there were expressions of interest in the possibility of forming a dynamic coalition to carry the matter forward.