Enhancing Multistakeholder Cooperation

Description

Internet governance today encompasses policy discussions and decisions whose effects can be far-reaching. As more and more businesses and industries come to rely on Internet connectivity and infrastructure, they are also increasingly impacted by the outcomes of Internet governance processes. Many of these industries, including telecommunications, energy, trade and many others, have their own well-established global governance processes, often based in intergovernmental institutions, and Internet governance processes are intersecting with these older governance models, tackling common issues via very different policy-making approaches.

What does this mean for the bottom-up, multistakeholder model of Internet governance? And for the older governance structures now intersecting with Internet-related issues? And what does it mean for stakeholders in those industries who must now navigate several governance processes? These questions are critical as we consider whether a multistakeholder approach to Internet governance is sustainable and can facilitate the broader global growth and development of the Internet.

This workshop will consider these questions via a Roundtable format with participants from bottom-up Internet structures (the IETF, the RIRs), international organisations (the International Telecommunication Union) and the private sector (Telefonica and the GSM Association). Outcomes will include positive examples for engagement across governance systems and identifying specific areas of friction or misunderstanding, and how those might be addressed.