The Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the NUPEF Institute, and the Regional Internet Address Registry for Latin America and the Caribbean (LACNIC) are pleased to announce the Third Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) which will take place on 3-5 August 2010 in the city of Quito, Ecuador. The event will be held at the Hotel Quito.

As in previous editions, the purpose of the meeting is to provide a space for multistakeholder political dialogue between governments, the private sector, the technical community, academia, and civil society organizations. The region has made progress in understanding the challenges currently posed by Internet governance; further debate will contribute to identify regional priorities and broaden the region's participation at the 2010 Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which will meet in Lithuania in September. Likewise, as in previous editions, one of the meeting's goals is to inform the region's stakeholders on the issues and trends observed in the debates and discussions of the global IGF. 

The process of regionalizing the discussion around the agenda established by the IGF has been taking shape since 2008, when LACNIC, APC and NUPEF summoned the first preparatory meeting for Latin America and the Caribbean in Montevideo, Uruguay.  The second preparatory meeting was held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. This regionalization has become even more relevant because last year the IGF included in its official agenda a space for informing on regional and national processes, their points of view, challenges, and priorities.

APC, LACNIC and NUPEF encourage the participation of the entire community, and hope that the largest possible number of the region's stakeholders will be present. In this sense, in due time we will announce the sponsorship program that the meeting's organizers and sponsors will provide and publish the corresponding call for applications.

Information on the Internet Governance Forum:
http://www.intgovforum.org/

Information and results of the 2009 IGF Preparatory Meeting:
http://www.nupef.org.br/igf/

APC – NUPEF - LACNIC