Following the NETmundial Global Multistakeholder Meeting on the Future of Internet Governance, there is increased awareness of how civil society’s participation in and shaping of multi-stakeholder Internet governance processes can reorient them towards promoting an open, neutral and free Internet that promotes social and economic development and upholds human rights. The 2014 meeting of the Best Bits network moves forward from NETmundial to share analysis and strategy on a range of key Internet policy processes that civil society groups plan to influence over the coming year. Through the shared outputs of this meeting and the indirect benefits of participation, we expect to empower civil society organisations and individual activists to create more informed, effective, inclusive and complementary advocacy outcomes, in which the public interest is better reflected in high-level policy discussions and in the outputs that these discussions produce. The meeting will also place Best Bits itself on a firmer institutional footing, in order to enhance its legitimacy as a broad-based civil society advocacy network and improve its long-term sustainability. Registration is now closed.
Objectives
- To raise the level of shared understanding about related groups, initiatives and issues and their political contexts.
- To broaden and diversify participation in the initiatives that participants are undertaking individually or in smaller networks in the areas of Internet governance and Internet and human rights.
- To amplify the voice of global civil society at upcoming multilateral Internet governance and Internet rights meetings.
- To strengthen involvement from civil society from the Global South in particular in global Internet governance and Internet rights debates and to dissolve North-South divides.
- To produce tangible shared civil society outputs addressing pressing current issues that can be used in advocacy at important upcoming Internet governance and Internet rights events.
- To develop an inclusive and sustainable civil society network for Internet governance and Internet rights issues.
Sunday31 August 2014
9:00 — 9:15
Registration
9:15 — 9:30
Welcome and introductions (moderation: Andrew)
9:30 — 11:30
Highlights and tactics for IGF (moderation: Nnenna)
- Ministerial event
- Renewal of IGF mandate
- IGF evaluation report
- NETmundial Alliance (moderation: Carolina/Jeremy)
11:30 — 13:00
Policy slam – people have 10 min to present or discuss something they find relevant
- Civil society coordination group (Jeremy)
- African draft Declaration of Internet rights and freedoms
- Latin American learning platform (Francisco Vera/Claudio)
ICANN (Jean-Jacques Sahel)- Multistakeholder definition – presentation of online discussion (Jeremy)
- TPP and the impact of trade on IG (Burcu)
- Internet Ungovernance Forum (Niels)
- Feminist principles for the Internet (Joy)
- Network of Centres case studies on multi-stakeholderism (Jeanette)
- Preparing for ITU-Plenipot (Carolina)
13:00 — 14:30
Lunch and networking break
14:30 — 16:00
Follow-up to WSIS+10 and tactics moving forward (moderation: Deborah + Anja)
- Modalities
- What we know of the process by then
- What we know about the big substantive issues that will likely dominate the government agenda
- What we can start doing even without knowing what the process will look like
16:00 — 17:00
Best Bits way forward
- Recap of 2013 annual report
- Working group on review of procedures
- Staffing and funding
- The way forward and priorities for next year
[participants event=”134671″]
Background papers
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Reports
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Consensus output from the Best Bits meeting, 31 August 2014
We call for the establishment of the IGF as a multistakeholder forum within the framework of the United Nations with an open-ended mandate, that should be reformed and strengthened.
See also this statement which grew out of discussions at the meeting and is endorsed by a subset of participants.
