APC Priorities for the Sixth Internet Governance Forum

The sixth annual meeting of the IGF will take place in Nairobi, Kenya from 27-30 September 2011 with Internet as a catalyst for change: access, development, freedoms and innovation as its main theme.

Internet access remains unavailable or unaffordable for many people, poverty and famine –currently plaguing Kenya’s next-door neighbour Somalia- persist in spite global and national commitments to meeting development goals. The free flow of information on the internet is increasingly challenged by walled gardens, by an over-emphasis on the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights by those with vested interests in their enforcement and by policy-makers who forget their primary responsibility is to uphold and protect fundamental human rights.

In this document presented in the run-up to the IGF APC strongly supports the focus on access, development and freedoms but outlines a series of recommendations for IGF participants.

Clustered according to the IGF main themes, our priorities are:

Internet governance for development (IG4D)

• Increasing the participation stakeholders from developing countries in internet governance agenda setting and decision-making

• Greater focus on the impact of internet policy on sustainable development

Emerging issues

• Equitable access to the internet from a human rights perspective

• Conflict minerals and why they are important in internet governance

• Affordability, openness and network neutrality in the mobile internet

• Net neutrality

Managing critical internet resources

• Reform of internet governance institutions to ensure greater accountability, participation and transparency

• The ICANN reform process

Security, openness and privacy

• Internet intermediary liability

• Impact of internet restrictions in freedom of expression and association online

• Responding to online violence against women

Access and diversity

• Open spectrum and television white spaces: Creative regulation of wireless internet as a means of bridging the access gap

• Access to knowledge

Cross-cutting issues

• Human rights approach to internet governance: The relationship between human rights and internet regulatory environments

• Capacity building.