Public Policy 

Internet Governance

World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)

The United Nations convened the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to develop a "common vision and understanding of the information society and the adoption of a declaration and plan of action for implementation by Governments, international institutions and all sectors of civil society".

WSIS was held in two phases: the first in Geneva, hosted by the Government of Switzerland from 10 to 12 December 2003, and the second in Tunis hosted by the Government of Tunisia, from 16 to 18 November 2005.

Intervention by Lynn St. Amour, President and CEO of the Internet Society during Open Consultations of the 2nd meeting of the Working Group on Internet Governance in Geneva, Switzerland on February 15th 2005.

Thank you Chairman.

The success of the Internet is clearly based on solid engineering and its unique structure (tens of thousands of interconnected networks) as well as what I call its organic growth or organic development model. The combination of all these things has not only enabled the Internet to grow rapidly, but also brings with it an inherent resilience and stability of the network.

In order to operate, the Internet depends on a number of technologies, resources, services and processes. These range from the basic protocols that enable basic point to point communications (such as the Internet Protocol), through to the system of addressing enabling this communication (IP addresses) and, of course, the services that make the Internet usable for applications and, more user friendly for end-users (such as the Domain Name System).

These components and services are all highly interdependent and require a significant amount of coordination in order to guarantee the stable operation of the Internet, hence the Internet Society's recommendation over one year ago now that we call this model "Internet Coordination". However, one area that is just as important but perhaps has not had as much visibility in WGIG is that the "Internet community" has also, for many years and as a priority, been working to increase participation in all areas of the Internet's development, something I hear many countries in WGIG and WSIS asking for. There is a strong history of decentralization and this can be seen in areas such as the increasing dispersion of regional Internet registries (RIR's). Recent examples are LACNIC and AfriNic, and the increasing number of LIR's, ccTLD's etc. There are a significant number of educational programs focused on building capacity in all countries of the world and these began nearly 15 years ago, note not one or two years ago, but 15 years - activities such as ISOC's Network Training Workshops (NTW's), RIR events and workshops, various briefings, tutorials by ISOC, ICANN and others.

And a side note here: re Alan Miller's question concerning root server information, ISOC has published several papers on root server operations that should be helpful, they are on our web site at http://www.isoc.org.

What would be very helpful would be for WGIG to determine how it can help with the goal of increasing participation. Last November the Internet Society sent a memo to the WGIG secretariat.... it's quite long so I won't repeat it here but will simply call out a few of the questions it posed:

1. How can national governments, the civil society, Internet users, and the general public around the world become better informed about all the varied organizations that affect the growth, evolution, and use of the Internet? And how can they stay informed?
2. How can such organizations more effectively involve individuals from developing countries? As you know, for over 13 years, the Internet Society has played a strong role in getting developing countries on the net, but there remains much to be done; and involvement and empowerment of individuals from developing countries is one of the most critical challenges we face.
3. Are there specific constituencies which are not able to be involved in the current Internet support structures? If so, who are they and how could they be accommodated by the organizations that interest them?
4. How can United Nations organizations, the World Bank, and other intergovernmental organizations do more to "build capacity" and develop Internet expertise among government policy makers around the world?
5. How best to define the term "Internet governance" and make clear that many factors and sectors - commerce, regulatory, social, legal, governments, private, public, etc. all have a huge impact on how the Internet grows and how it is used. ISOC would also encourage WGIG to examine the collaborative Internet model and evaluate whether a term other than Internet Governance would be more accurate and potentially less misleading.
6. How can the United Nations and other international organizations highlight and share success stories, e.g. government policies that have fostered the growth of the Internet; education programs that have led to sustainable Internet initiatives, particularly in developing countries; new Internet standards that enable new products and services that meet the needs of current Internet users and facilitate would-be Internet users; and useful information resources on Internet technologies and policy.

Finally, the Paris meeting of African delegates organized by the Bamako Bureau in July 2003 identified a list of 21 priorities for Africa which it hoped would be addressed by WSIS and reported to Prepcom 3 in September of that year. I will not list them all here but simply the first four as these are critical areas that we would also like to see WSIS and WGIG address:

• Infrastructure and maintenance of infrastructure and equipment
• Human resource development and capacity building
• Gender issues and women empowerment in ICT's uses
• Partnership between public and private sectors

Thank you Chairman and I hope this incorporated the areas you were looking for comments on, as well as allowing me to incorporate my original comments.