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IGF 2009

Event
Process IGF
Date Nov. 15, 2009 – Nov. 18, 2009
Region AF
Country
  • Egypt
City Sharm El Sheikh
Venue Maritim Jolie Ville Royal Peninsula Hotel & Resort
Website

IGF 2009, the fourth annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Meeting, was held in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt, from November 15 - 18, 2009.

Context[edit | edit source]

The meeting was attended by stakeholders from 112 countries, with over 1800 participants. 96 governments were represented, and 122 media representatives were accredited. The meeting provided an opportunity for consultations among Forum participants on the desirability of the continuation of the Forum beyond its five-year mandate.

In his opening address to the meeting, Sha Zukang, United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic & Social Affairs, reminded the meeting that the Tunis Agenda called on the Secretary-General “to examine the desirability of the continuation of the Forum, in formal consultation with Forum participants, within five years of its creation, and to make recommendations to the UN membership in this regard”. So, he encouraged all participants to contribute fully to the consultations, explain the value of the Forum, how its purpose has been fulfilled and how it might be improved. Based on the consultations, he would report back to the Secretary-General, who would then make his recommendations in his annual report to the General Assembly, next year, on WSIS follow-up and implementation.[1]

Theme[edit | edit source]

The overall theme was "Internet Governance – Creating Opportunities for All" and the agenda was structured along the following themes:

  • Managing critical Internet resources;
  • Security, openness and privacy;
  • Access and diversity;
  • Internet Governance in the light of WSIS Principles.[2]

Discussion[edit | edit source]

The sessions corresponding to the themes "Managing critical Internet resources" and "Internet Governance in the light of WSIS Principles" were held in the form of open discussions (without panelists).

First Session[edit | edit source]

The "Managing Critical Internet Resources" was chaired by Nitin Desai, Special Adviser to the Secretary-General on Internet Governance, and moderated by Chris Disspain, CEO of the .AU Registry and Chair of the Council of Country-Code Names Supporting Organization (ccNSO); and Jeanette Hofmann, Senior Researcher of the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE)/Social Science Research Center Berlin.[1] focused on four main topics:

  • the transition from IPv4 to IPv6;
  • the importance of new TLDs and IDNs for development;
  • the Affirmation of Commitments and the IANA contract and recent developments in the relationship between ICANN and the U.S. government;
  • enhanced cooperation generally and the internationalization of critical Internet resource management.

The chair noted that many of the issues were discussed at the IGF in Hyderabad in 2008, and requested that remarks focus very sharply on what had happened over the past year.

Paul Wilson, Director General of the Asia Pacific Network Information Center (APNIC), was called to discuss the transition from IPv4 to IPv6. He explained that this "transition" had been deployed in what was known as a dual stack implementation, where both IPv4 and IPv6 were run at the same time. In the future, IPv4 would remain, even when IPv6 was dominant, and network translation systems would allow both systems to work. For businesses, it would make sense to transition according to the will of the clients. Governments were paying more attention to this matter.

About TLDs and IDNs, it was noted by Patrik Fältström that, in 2010, DNSSEC would be introduced and the root would be signed by many TLDs. IPv6 addresses for DNS services, new TLDs, in ASCII and IDN, and IDN ccTLDs, under a program that ICANN launched just a few hours before the session began, the IDN ccTLD Fast Track Process, would be added to the root.[1]

Second Session[edit | edit source]

Outcomes[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

... more about "IGF 2009"
Has ICANN regionAssociates an object with an ICANN-determined Geographic Region.
Has cityStores the city associated with an object. This value does not get normalized.
Sharm El Sheikh +
Has countryAssociates a page with a country. Territory names are extracted from ISO 3166, "Country Codes".
Has end dateStores an end date, normalized to the "Month DD, YYYY" format.
November 18, 2009 +
Has entity typeSpecifies the primary classification or fundamental type of the page's subject (e.g., Event, Organization, Person).
Event +
Has process connectionAssociates an object with a governance process (e.g., ICANN, IGF, WSIS).
Has start dateStores a start date, normalized to the "Month DD, YYYY" format.
November 15, 2009 +
Has venueStores an event's venue, specifying the in-person location or indicating that the event was held online.
Maritim Jolie Ville Royal Peninsula Hotel & Resort +