The Forum will bring together the leading actors and all relevant stakeholders, including UN member states, civil society and the private sector, who are interested in Internet governance issues. It is seen by the UN ICT Task Force as an opportunity to engage in an open discussion on all aspects of Internet governance.
The UN ICT Task Force is a multi-stakeholder initiative launched by the UN Secretary General in 2001. In supporting the first phase of the WSIS, the Task Force helped in placing the United Nations' development objectives at the concerns of the Summit and also mobilised the participation of the multi-stakeholder networks, organised a series of side events and launched new initiatives. The Task Force also intends to contribute actively to the preparations for the second phase of the WSIS leading up to the Summit in November 2005.
Internet governance has been a debated issue of late at the WSIS and after. Mailing lists have been abuzz on the kind of governance that will rule over the people's use of the Internet, and how private sector entities could influence and monopolise heavily in this aspect, which is a cause of concern for media advocates. One critique that has surfaced several times is the issue that meetings such as this one - especially when convened by non-civil society entities - could at most times exclude advocates and are usually not representative of the "multi-stakeholder claim." For women advocates, the concern centres on the possibility that Internet governance would fall into the hands of corporatised media entities which could monopolise its structure and leave social concerns behind. This critique is in line with the Seven Musts document submitted by the NGO Gender Strategies Working Group which highlights the priority issues for gender equality in the WSIS process.
To learn more about the Seven Musts, please visit http://www.isiswomen.org/onsite/wsis/prepcom2-genderstrat.html.
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