GENEVA - Abu-Ghazaleh Intellectual Property (AGIP) Executive Director, Charles Sha’ban, took part in the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) held in Geneva, May 14-15, 2008.
The meeting focused on the preparation of the third IGF meeting to be held in Hyderabad, India, December 3-6, 2008.
“The MAG discussed various ways of organizing the agenda and the program of the Hyderabad meeting. It was agreed to hold two types of main sessions: main session workshops and main session debates, in addition to best practice forums and open forums,” Sha’ban said.
Where “Internet for All” was chosen as the overall theme for the Hyderabad meeting, the agenda suggested by the MAG is centered on the following four substantive threads: Reaching the next billion; Promoting cyber-security and trust; Managing critical Internet resources and Emerging issues: The Internet of tomorrow.
Sha’ban, who is a member of the MAG, pointed out that access, multilingualism, fostering security, privacy and openness, transition from IPv4 to IPv6 are some of the subthemes that were provisionally defined in the meeting.
Chaired by the Special Adviser for Internet Governance to the UN Secretary-General, Nitin Desai, the MAG of the IGF includes members from governments, private sector and civil society, the academic and technical communities, who represent all regions of the world.
The IGF was set up by the UN Secretary-General in November 2005, at the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) held in Tunisia, to discuss issues related to Internet governance.