Multistakeholder Advisory Group Renewed to Prepare Internet Governance

 

Forum Meeting in Vilnius, Lithuania, 14–17 September

 

The membership of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, which is entrusted with assisting in the preparations for the annual meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, has been renewed.

A total of 56 members, 3 among them new, have been appointed.  The Advisory Group members are from all stakeholder groups, representing Governments, private sector and civil society, including the academic and technical communities, representing all regions.

All Advisory Group members serve in their personal capacity, but are expected to have extensive linkages with their respective stakeholder groups.  The main task of the Advisory Group is to provide advice on the preparations of the next meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, which is to be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, from 14 to 17 September 2010.

As the Internet Governance Forum enters the last year of its five year mandate, the Multistakeholder Advisory Group has been asked to make proposals with regard to its own future, should the mandate be renewed.

The Special Adviser for Internet Governance to the Secretary-General, Nitin Desai, has been asked to continue as the Advisory Group Chairman.  He may select special advisers to assist him.  Representatives of relevant intergovernmental, international and regional organizations are also invited to attend Advisory Group meetings.

The Internet Governance Forum is an outcome of the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, which took place in 2005.  In the Tunis Agenda for the Information Society, Governments asked the Secretary-General to convene a “new forum for policy dialogue” to discuss issues related to key elements of Internet governance and set out the Forum’s mandate.

The Forum’s first four meetings took place in Athens, Greece, in November 2006; in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in November 2008; in Hyderabad, India, in December 2008; and in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in November 2009.

For further information, please visit http://www.intgovforum.org, or contact Markus Kummer, Executive Coordinator, Secretariat of the Internet Governance Forum, tel.: +41 (0)22 917 5488, e-mail:  mkummer@unog.ch.

The full list of members can be found at http://intgovforum.org/cms/ magabout/406-mag-2010.

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For information media • not an official record