The 2015 Internet Governance Forum (IGF2015), organised under the United Nations aegis, was held last 10-13 November in the Brazilian city of João Pessoa.
The theme of IGF2015 was ‘Evolution of Internet Governance: empowering sustainable development’. The gathering was marked in institutional terms by discussions about the high level meeting on the review of implementation of results from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and by the process involving transition of functions of the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA).
Regarding institutional debate about internet governance, the process of globalisation and internationalisation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) was therefore debated at length, along with the extension and prolongation of the IGF’s mandate, which expires at the end of this year. It is expected that it will be renewed at the high level meeting on the implementation of WSIS results.
Beyond that institutional debate, IGF2015 discussed several important sector-related issues, such as policies for privacy and security, the internet of things and the so-called zero rating.
Several European Union (EU) countries attended IGF2015. Four European coordination meetings were held; the European Commission (EC) chaired three of them while the fourth was chaired by the European Parliament (EP) delegation to the IGF.
