Secretary-General establishes advisory group to assist him in convening Internet Governance ForumSecretary-General Kofi Annan on 17 May 2006 established an Advisory Group to assist him in convening the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), a new forum for a multi-stakeholder dialogue on Internet governance. The Group includes 46 members from government, the private sector and civil society, including the academic and technical communities, who represent all regions of the world. Its chair is Nitin Desai, the Secretary-General’s Special Adviser for the World Summit on the Information Society. The Advisory Group will meet on 22 and 23 May in Geneva, following an open consultation on 19 May, also in Geneva. Its main task is to prepare the substantive agenda and programme for the first meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, which is to be held in Athens from 30 October to 2 November. The Forum is an outcome of the Tunis phase of the World Summit on the Information Society, which took place last November. In Tunis, governments asked the Secretary-General to convene the Forum, giving it the mandate to discuss the main public policy issues related to Internet governance in order to foster the Internet’s sustainability, robustness, security, stability and development. A press release on the Advisory Group is available. |