Fifth Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Internet Governance Forum to be Held in Bogota in September

LACNIC together with the Association for Progressive Communications (APC), the NUPEF Institute, the Information Society, AHCIET, ECOMLAC, the Electronic Government and Computers National Office of Peru, the Telecommunications Ministry of the Republic of Colombia and the Internet Society (ISOC) are organizing the Fifth Regional Preparatory Meeting for the Internet Governance Forum which will be held in Bogota, Colombia on 24-26 September.

As in previous editions, the purpose of the meeting is to provide a space for multistakeholder political dialogue where governments, the private sector, the technical community, academia, and civil society organizations can share and discuss their points of view. 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 2012 Internet Governance Forum (IGF), which will meet in Baku, Azerbaijan in the month of November.

Likewise, as in previous editions, one of the meeting's goals will be to inform the region's stakeholders of the topics and trends observed in the debates and discussions of the global IGF. The process of regionalizing discussions 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, the third in Quito, Ecuador, and the fourth in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago.

In order to consolidate the openness of this process that began in 2008, since 2011 the new method for preparing the meeting's agenda includes consultation with the region's Internet community. The program, which will continue in 2012, poses various questions aimed at identifying the points of view, visions, sub-issues, and priorities of the Latin America and Caribbean Internet community.

Another change implemented in 2012 was that an open call for candidates was held to determine who would organize the event. Four proposals were received and the winning candidate was the team made up by Colnodo and .CO Internet who will host the meeting in Bogota, Colombia.

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