[kictanet] Fwd: [Igfregionals] Published & for distribution: New IGF resources now available

[Barrack Otieno]

Listers,

For your information and attention,

Dear Internet Governance Stakeholders,

We are glad to let you know that the IGF has just published all of the
tangible outcomes from its intersessional activities conducted in
2016. These outputs include:


BPF Gender: Outcome resource 2016 (access and gender) &
recommendations roadmap (online abuse and gender-based violence);

BPF on Internet exchange points (IXPs);

BPF on commercial and economic incentives to deploy IPv6;

BPF Cybersecurity (‘Building Confidence and Security in the use of
Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) through Enhanced
Cooperation and Collaboration’); and

Policy Options for Connecting and Enabling the Next Billion(s) (Phase II).


These resources are the outputs from bottom-up, inclusive, and
community-driven activities of the IGF that took place over the course
of 2016 (for more information about these initiatives, please see the
Notes at the end of this email).


The IGF, along with the facilitators and rapporteurs for all of the
respective intersessional activities, are grateful for the invaluable
support given and time invested in these activities by numerous
stakeholders and volunteers. We would also like to recognise the
leadership and dedication of the coordinators, facilitators, and lead
experts who supported the IGF’s intersessional work over the past
year, including Aaron Hughes, Anri van der Spuy, Brian Gutterman,
Constance Bommelaer, Douglas Onyango, Izumi Okutani, Jac SM Kee,
Maarten Van Horenbeeck, Marco Hogewoning, Markus Kummer, Salanienta
Tamanikaiwaimaro, Sumon A. Sabir, Renata Aquino Ribeiro, Segun
Olugbile, and Wim Degezelle, among many others.


What can you do with the IGF’s intersessional resources?


We encourage all stakeholders to share these resources with their
respective communities to ensure that the IGF resource outputs also
become useful inputs into other processes of relevance to the Internet
and its governance in 2017 and beyond.


We hope these resources will not only be useful for policymakers and
other stakeholders, but will also continue to symbolise the IGF
community’s belief that multistakeholder collaboration is fundamental
in effectively addressing pertinent Internet policy challenges.


What’s next for the IGF’s intersessional activities?


All outputs from the IGF’s intersessional activities are intended to
be living documents that can be updated at any time. At the first Open
Consultations and IGF multistakeholder advisory group (MAG) meeting in
March 2017, stakeholders will discuss potential themes for the next
cohort of intersessional activities, including what will happen with
the 2016 BPFs and their outputs.


The IGF Secretariat invites stakeholders to submit written
contributions to the current public consultation stock-taking
exercise. In these contributions, stakeholders are also welcome to
send recommendations and proposed themes for intersessional activities
in 2017. Written inputs should be sent to takingstock at intgovforum.org
by Friday 27 January.


Kind regards,


IGF Secretariat


NOTES


About the IGF

The Internet Governance Forum (IGF) serves to bring people together
from various stakeholder groups as equals in discussions on public
policy issues relating to the Internet. While the IGF has no
negotiated outcomes, it serves the important function of informing and
inspiring those with policymaking power in both public and private
sectors.


The IGF facilitates a common understanding of how to maximise Internet
opportunities and address risks and challenges that arise. One of the
ways in which it does so is through its intersessional activities,
which are conducted following recommendations from the UN CSTD Working
Group on Improvements to the IGF and form part of a broader effort by
the IGF community to produce more tangible outputs to “enhance the
impact of the IGF on global Internet governance and policy”.


About the IGF’s intersessional activities


The IGF Best Practice Forums (BPFs) continue to offer unique platforms
to investigate topical Internet policy challenges by collecting
community input and experiences in a flexible and bottom-up manner.
Through their substantive outreach efforts and continued calls for
input and contributions, the BPFs have already enabled more diverse
and varied participation in IGF processes, including from a richer
variety of regions and stakeholder groups. By continuously involving
new people in their work, the various BPFs also contributed to
enlarging the global footprint of the IGF.  BPFs worked throughout the
year in an open and inclusive way via open mailing lists, regular
virtual meetings, and BPF workshops during the 11th IGF meeting in
Guadalajara, Mexico, from 6 to 9 December 2016.


About the BPF Gender

The BPF Gender’s second publication, entitled ‘Overcoming Barriers to
Enable Women’s Meaningful Internet Access’, builds on its work in
2015, when it also published an extensive resource on online abuse and
gender-based violence. In 2016, the BPF furthermore produced a
user-friendly infographic roadmap for addressing online abuse and
gender-based violence, based on the key recommendations for diverse
stakeholder groups from its 2015 report. The BPF Gender is also
partnering with ITU and UN Women’s EQUALS partnership, a global
initiative aimed at addressing gender inequality, to raise awareness
of its outputs. Further details of this collaboration will soon be
announced.

About the BPF Cybersecurity


The 2016 IGF BPF on Cybersecurity built upon the previous work of the
IGF CSIRTS and SPAM BPFs. Its work was also guided by the WSIS +10
review process which produced an outcome document with a strong focus
on "building confidence and security in the use of information and
communications technologies", making an IGF BPF related to
cybersecurity even more relevant. The 2016 discussions and output
report addressed cooperation and collaboration on cybersecurity issues
between stakeholder groups as an overarching theme.


About the BPF on Internet exchange points (IXPs)


The BPF Contributing to the Success and Continued Development of
Internet exchange points (IXPs) collected best current practices that
have proven to contribute to building strong and successful IXPs.
Exchanging traffic at an IXP has a number of benefits that can
contribute to a more affordable, stable, faster and more reliable
Internet of a higher quality in a region. The success of an IXP will
be measured by its ability to sustainably contribute to the
development of its local Internet ecosystem. The BPF on IXPs focused
on the management and operation of an IXP and identified factors that
can contribute to success.


About the BPF IPv6


IPv6 is the Internet’s addressing system that was developed to deal
with IPv4 exhaustion and to make the Internet future-proof. The fast
growing number of networks that already supports IPv6 today proofs
that IPv6 is a technically feasible option for business. The BPF
Understanding the commercial and economic incentives behind a
successful IPv6 deployment collected case studies on commercial
experiences with IPv6 deployment to better understand challenges and
incentives, and provide an opportunity to learn from each other.


About Policy Options for Connecting and Enabling the Next Billion(s) - Phase II


In 2016, the IGF furthered its seminal work on Policy Options for
Connecting and Enabling the Next Billion(s) by investigating
challenges and opportunities for addressing and overcoming barriers to
meaningful Internet access, promoting meaningful access in diverse
contexts and regions, and ensuring that meaningful access also
supports the achievement of the UN sustainable development goals. Read
the report here.



Brian Gutterman | Associate Programme Officer
Secretariat of the Internet Governance Forum
United Nations Office at Geneva | Dependance La Pelousse
Email: bgutterman at unog.ch | Tel: +41229173423 | intgovforum.org



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Barrack O. Otieno
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