With a debate on necessary reforms of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) of the United Nations on Tuesday is the 15. IGF annual meeting has come to an end. The conference, which was held purely virtually for the first time due to the coronavirus pandemic, counted around 6000 participants. “The Internet moves every second. We cannot chase after that with an annual conference,” said Fabrizio Hochschild, special envoy to UN Secretary-General António Guterres and a candidate for the role of “UN Tech Envoy” established by Guterres.

Guterres warned that universal access to the network and to education were becoming increasingly important in view of the pandemic. Thus 11 millions of girls worldwide ran the risk of not going back to school after the school closings due to the pandemic. Such types of digital divisions are hardly noticed in the western world.

Networks are not always the problem The network coverage is not always the problem, explained the chairman of the network operator association GSMA. Of the four billion people who have not yet had internet access, only around 700 lived. 000 actually in areas with no network coverage, said Mats Granryd. For over three billion people, the barriers to using existing networks are too high, for example because of the costs, a lack of knowledge, but above all a lack of offers in their own language.

For the first time, all participants in the 250 Ask the IGF to discuss the question of voluntary commitments for the coming year – also an attempt to make practical progress. Some referred to existing initiatives such as Brad Smith, who highlighted Microsoft’s zero emissions initiative. The group wants to be CO2-neutral by 2030 and by 2050 too have offset the emissions caused since the company was founded.

Out of conference mode Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga announced a Initiative to create a “Political Network Technology and Climate Change”. She welcomed the fact that the topic of sustainability had been at the top of the IGF’s agenda for the first time. Voluntary commitments by government representatives and business, such as the project of the Swiss Federal Council, primarily aim to get the work of the IGF out of the conference mode, as Sommaruga emphasized the UN Secretary General said at the end of the forum. Recently there had been repeated complaints that the IGF was being used primarily by non-governmental organizations as a platform, but that governments and business were holding back. Guterres wants to improve this with his digital timetable, but his suggestions did not go unchallenged. Numerous non-governmental organizations demanded a transparent procedure from the UN when filling the position of the future “Tech Envoy”.

Preserved grassroots character The parliamentary forum created by the federal government last year must meet more often than once a year, advised the chairwoman of the IGF program committee, Anriette Esterhuysen, and at the same time warned that the grassroots character of the IGF must be preserved. Because the concept of multi-stakeholder cooperation does not simply serve to create political legitimacy. Rather, the involvement of those affected and business also ensures “that we really make progress, that networks are built and cables are laid, that Internet nodes are created and know-how is built up”.

See also: IGF 2020 Outputs

(vbr)