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@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.