Abu-Ghazaleh: UN Studying System to Follow Up on WSIS decisions
30 Mar 2004NEW YORK – An international forum on internet governance was held last week at the UN headquarters in New York under the auspices of the United Nations Information and Communication Technologies Task Force (UN ICT TF) on the occasion of the semi-annual meetings of the UN body.
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan opened the meeting sessions expressing his great happiness on addressing this forum adding that this initiative came at the right time while applauding the presence of several leaders and pioneers from the internet industry in addition to government employees and representatives from private sector firms and civil societies at the meetings.
He called for participants to "keep in mind the primary goal of helping people from around the world to build a free and honest life, since the basis of your consultation and efforts should be directed towards human development."
On his part, Mr. Talal Abu-Ghazaleh, the Vice Chair of the UN ICT TF, said that the UN body's efforts focused on efficient internet performance, a highly controversial subject amongst international organizations, governments, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), and information societies.
Abu-Ghazaleh added that the meetings have studied the set up of a system to follow up on the decisions agreed on at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), confirming that the objective of such follow ups is to make all involved parties responsible for executing these decisions.
The forum was established on four main points of discussions which are: the different dimensions of internet governance; identifying the main stakeholders that organize groupings and consultations related to the main ideas of internet governance; determining the main concerns and challenges of each of the various internet governance cases; and determining how consultation can facilitate the operations of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), which was formed on the request of the UN Secretary General.
It is worth noting that the WSIS, which was held last January in Geneva, has requested from the UN Secretary General, the formation of a working group that is able to work within an open and comprehensive program, and according to a mechanism that can provide for the effective partiticipation of governments, private sector and civil societies in developing and developed countries, and attract the participation of organizations as well as government and international forums to study and provide recommendations for the appropriate measures that should be adopted for internet governance.
The forum offers an opportunity for open thought with various points of views and aims to organize the consultation process on a global basis under the supervision of the UN Secretary General.
The WGIG was the result of an initiative made by several stakeholders and launched by the UN Secretary General in 2001 out of his support to the first phase of the WSIS. WGIG has since contributed successfully in making the development goals of the UN one of the basic topics proposed at the summit and activating the participation of stakeholders as well as contributing in meetings and the launch of new initiatives.
The group is planning to actively participate in the preparation of the second phase of the summit to be held in Tunisia in November, 2005.
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