Meetings

Second Meeting of the IGF

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The mandate of the Advisory Group for the Internet Governance Forum has been renewed. The press release announcing the new mandate can be viewed here. The list of members is available here.

The Advisory Group met in Geneva on 4 - 5 September 2007. The agenda is available here.

A summary report of the meeting is available.

A new version of the draft programme, as revised by the Advisory Group, is available here.

The Secretary-General's invitation

The Secretary-General has issued an invitation to all stakeholders to attend the second meeting of the IGF, hosted by the Government of Brazil. The meeting will take place in Rio de Janeiro on 12 - 15 November 2007.

Consultations on Programme and Schedule

The full transcript of the consultations of 3 September is available. The audio and video archives will be made available in due course.

A draft agenda for the open consultations is available.

A second round of consultations open to all stakeholders was held in Geneva on 23 May 2007. The consultations were part of a cluster of WSIS related events which took place in Geneva from 15-25 May, 2007. A full transcript of the proceedings is available.

Taking Stock of the Athens Meeting

A stock taking session took place in Geneva on 13 February 2007.

The full transcript of the meeting is available for download and the Chairman's closing remarks can be downloaded separately for easy access. The Web cast of the session can be accessed here and a list of participantsis available. Audio recordings of the interventions are also available.

A synthesis paper summarizing contributions submitted by stakeholders was made available prior to the meeting.

Inaugural Meeting of the IGF

The Inaugural Meeting of the IGF took place in Athens, Greece from 30 October - 2 November.

Transcripts from all the main sessions are available here:

The Secretariat's summing-up of the panel sessions is available here. [MSWord] [HTML]

 Archives of the main session Webcasts are available.

More details are available here.

The preparatory Process for the Athens Meeting

Consultations on the convening of the IGF

Two rounds of consultations were held in Geneva on 16-17 February and 19 May 2006.

First round of consultations

A first round of consultations on the convening of the IGF were held in Geneva on 16 - 17 February 2006. About 300 participants representing all stakeholder groups attended the meeting. The participants addressed a wide variety of issues, such as the IGF's scope of work and substantive priorities as well as aspects related to its structure and functioning. The aim of the consultations was to develop a common understanding among all stakeholders on the nature and character of the IGF.

The texts of the realtime transcription of the consultations are available here:

The audio and video recordings of the sessions are available in both English and French.

Some pictures taken at the consultations are available for viewing.

The list of participants is available here. Click here to view the agenda and more information regarding participation at the meeting. Click here to view the official notification of the meeting sent out to all stakeholders.

A possible timeline for convening the IGF was made available prior to the consultations. Click here to view the questionnaire or download it in a rich text format (.rtf) document. The aim of the questionnaire was to stimulate discussion on the convening of the IGF.

Second round of consultations

A second round of consultations open to all stakeholders was held on 19 May 2006. The consultations focused on the substantive preparation of the inaugural meeting of the IGF. The meeting was chaired by Mr. Nitin Desai, the Secretary-General's Special Adviser for the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).

A webcast of the proceedings is available in English and in French. Transcripts of the morning session and afternoon session are also available.

Written contributions that were submitted as input into the consultations can be viewed here. A paper with a summary of the discussions and contributions with some preliminary conclusions and questions was also made available.

Meetings of the IGF Advisory Group

The Secretary-General appointed an Advisory Group to assist him in convening the first IGF meeting.

The IGF Advisory Group held meetings in Geneva on 22 - 23 May and 7 - 8 September 2006.

At the first meeting it agreed on recommendations for the agenda and the programme as well as the structure and format of the first meeting of the IGF in Athens. The recommendations were transmitted to the United Nations Secretary-General who was mandated by the second phase of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) to convene “by the second quarter of 2006, a new meeting for a multi-stakeholder policy dialogue”. Read more about the proposed programme outline, call for contributions and meeting format.

At its second meeting it drew up a short list of panellists, selected the workshops and finalized the programme of the Athens meeting.