Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Colleagues and Friends:
It is a pleasure to join you today for the annual Internet Governance Forum (IGF) of Italy. The work that occurs in this venue is extremely important to all of us who are committed to preserving an Open Internet. We consider the IGF model to be one of the most important outcomes of the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). Since its inception seven years ago, the IGF has demonstrated the value of having truly multi-stakeholder dialogues to address Internet issues.
In 2005, the Tunis Agenda called for the IGF to be multi-lateral, democratic and transparent, with all stakeholders taking part on an equal footing. When the mandate of the IGF was renewed for 5 years, back in 2010, the UN Commission on Science and Technology Development (CSTD) set up a multi-stakeholder WG on Improvements to the IGF that was chaired in its final phase by Peter Major. The recommendations we elaborated then remain to be adopted by the UN General Assembly – hopefully beginning of 2013 – but was it remarkable is that although improvements are still possible, it was acknowledged that the founding principles that have made the success of the IGF need to be preserved: 1/ A bottom-up process 2/ open to all stakeholders and operating in a truly multi-stakeholder fashion 3/ and laid by an independent Secretariat.