Regional Roadmap for Internet Governance

Location

Beirut

The ICT Division of ESCWA and the League of Arab States have jointly organized the expert groups meeting on "Regional Roadmap for Internet Governance" in Beirut, during 25-26 October 2010. The meeting aimed at promoting the role of the Arab region in Governance of the Internet and enhancing its capacities in shaping Internet global public policies, and at strengthening results-based cooperation of the various Arab stakeholders for the period 2011-2015.

The meeting reviewed and adopted the "Arab Roadmap for Internet Governance: Framework, Principles and Objectives," and resulted in a "Call of Arab Stakeholders: Towards Activating Comprehensive Arab Cooperation for Internet Governance, Regionally and Internationally (Ar)". The "Call" also advocated the launch of an Arab Internet Governance Forum (IGF) as a vehicle to activate the Regional Roadmap and a platform to further develop the draft guidelines for implementation and progress monitoring of thematic subprogrammes that resulted from the meeting.

The meeting was attended by 54 participants from 9 of the 14 ESCWA member countries, including representatives from governments, businesses, non-governmental and civil society organizations, and academia. Three main topics were addressed during the meeting: (a) Details of the proposed regional roadmap, (b) Proposal for the establishment of an Arab IGF process, (c) Details of proposed registry policies for the Arab TLDs ".arab" and ".عرب".