The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) serves to bring people together from various stakeholder groups as equals in discussions on public policy issues relating to the Internet. While the IGF has no negotiated outcomes, it serves the important function of informing and inspiring those with policymaking power in both public and private sectors.
The IGF facilitates a common understanding of how to maximise Internet opportunities and address risks and challenges that arise. One of the ways in which it does so is through its intersessional activities, which are conducted following recommendations from the UN CSTD Working Group on Improvements to the IGF and form part of a broader effort by the IGF community to produce more tangible outputs to “enhance the impact of the IGF on global Internet governance and policy”.
About the IGF’s intersessional activities
The IGF Best Practice Forums (BPFs) continue to offer unique platforms to investigate topical Internet policy challenges by collecting community input and experiences in a flexible and bottom-up manner. Through their substantive outreach efforts and continued calls for input and contributions, the BPFs have already enabled more diverse and varied participation in IGF processes, including from a richer variety of regions and stakeholder groups. By continuously involving new people in their work, the various BPFs also contributed to enlarging the global footprint of the IGF. BPFs worked throughout the year in an open and inclusive way via open mailing lists, regular virtual meetings, and BPF workshops during the 11th IGF meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico, from 6 to 9 December 2016.
About the BPF Gender
The BPF Gender’s second publication, entitled ‘Overcoming Barriers to Enable Women’s Meaningful Internet Access’, builds on its work in 2015, when it also published an extensive resource on online abuse and gender-based violence. In 2016, the BPF furthermore produced a user-friendly infographicroadmap for addressing online abuse and gender-based violence, based on the key recommendations for diverse stakeholder groups from its 2015 report. The BPF Gender is also partnering with ITU and UN Women’s EQUALS partnership, a global initiative aimed at addressing gender inequality, to raise awareness of its outputs. Further details of this collaboration will soon be announced.
About the BPF Cybersecurity
The 2016 IGF BPF on Cybersecurity built upon the previous work of the IGF CSIRTS and SPAM BPFs. Its work was also guided by the WSIS +10 review process which produced an outcome document with a strong focus on "building confidence and security in the use of information and communications technologies", making an IGF BPF related to cybersecurity even more relevant. The 2016 discussions and output report addressed cooperation and collaboration on cybersecurity issues between stakeholder groups as an overarching theme.
About the BPF on Internet exchange points (IXPs)
The BPF Contributing to the Success and Continued Development of Internet exchange points (IXPs) collected best current practices that have proven to contribute to building strong and successful IXPs. Exchanging traffic at an IXP has a number of benefits that can contribute to a more affordable, stable, faster and more reliable Internet of a higher quality in a region. The success of an IXP will be measured by its ability to sustainably contribute to the development of its local Internet ecosystem. The BPF on IXPs focused on the management and operation of an IXP and identified factors that can contribute to success.
About the BPF IPv6
IPv6 is the Internet’s addressing system that was developed to deal with IPv4 exhaustion and to make the Internet future-proof. The fast growing number of networks that already supports IPv6 today proofs that IPv6 is a technically feasible option for business. The BPF Understanding the commercial and economic incentives behind a successful IPv6 deployment collected case studies on commercial experiences with IPv6 deployment to better understand challenges and incentives, and provide an opportunity to learn from each other.
About Policy Options for Connecting and Enabling the Next Billion(s) - Phase II
In 2016, the IGF furthered its seminal work on Policy Options for Connecting and Enabling the Next Billion(s) by investigating challenges and opportunities for addressing and overcoming barriers to meaningful Internet access, promoting meaningful access in diverse contexts and regions, and ensuring that meaningful access also supports the achievement of the UN sustainable development goals. Read the report here.
Source: IGF
Source: IGF
