New York - Helping developing countries build their citizens’ access to the Internet is
akin to giving them a tool that boosts their chances of achieving sustainable
economic growth, a senior United Nations official told a global meeting on
Internet governance.

“The Internet offers a lot of potential and opportunities for sustainable
development,” said the Director of the Division for Public Administration and
Development Management of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs
(DESA), Haiyan Qian.

Ms. Qian’s remarks, delivered on her behalf, were addressed to more than 1,600
delegates from 128 countries at the conclusion of a four-day conference of the
Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan.

The Forum included the participation of governments, intergovernmental
organizations, business representatives, the technical community, civil society
organizations, as well as any individual Internet users interested in Internet
governance issues.

The theme for this year’s Forum was ‘Internet Governance for Sustainable Human,
Economic and Social Development,’ reflecting the increasing role of the Internet
in the evolution of the various aspects of development, across all countries.

“We need to build capacities to address challenges and implement strategies, not
only in our own countries and organizations, but also to assist others,
especially those in developing and the least developed countries, as well as
countries with economies in transition,” Ms. Qian urged.

The question of promoting sustainable development – which aims to meet human
needs through resource-use that also preserves the environment – was central to
the landmark UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), which took place
in Brazil in June this year.

One of the main Rio+20 outcomes was the agreement by member States to launch a
process to develop a set of Sustainable Development Goals, which will build upon
the anti-poverty targets known as the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) – set
in 2000 for achievement by 2015 or earlier – and converge with the post-2015
development agenda.

In her remarks, Ms. Qian said IGF’s “inclusive, participatory and transparent
governance process” plays a “critical role” in driving the growth of the
Internet, which she said was “clearly” bringing new social and economic
opportunities to so many people in the developing world.

“This session of the IGF has again provided the valued platform for continuous
consensus building and learning opportunities for all,” she said. “I am sure
each one of us will bring back to our respective countries and organizations new
ideas and approaches on how we can best deal with these crucial issues.”

The forum emerged after 2005, when countries attending the second of two
conferences of the UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society asked
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to convene a new space for dialogue on Internet
governance policy. Though not a decision-making body, it saw its initial
five-year mandate renewed for a further five years by UN General Assembly.

IGF noted that activist groups drawn from civil society had demonstrated an
“appetite to drive (the) global Internet agenda by attending the Baku
conferences annual meeting in relative force.

“Civil society… was the highest represented stakeholder group at the forum,” IGF
stated in a news release, citing others as Internet governance experts,
government officials, international development representatives, academics,
private sector representatives and other “inquiring global citizens.”

IGF said participation of women also increased significantly from previous
years, and cited youth representation and activity as a “notable achievement” of
this year’s meeting.

Several dozen experts and panellists participated in the gathering from remote
hubs around the world – a development IGF said had become a “major strength” of
the forum process. It also highlighted the rising use of social media platforms
by delegates, noting that their use spiked “significantly” – enabling discussion
to continue beyond the meeting rooms.

“There were thousands of ‘Tweets’ about the forum each day, which reached
millions of others on the social information-sharing network,” IGF said.

The forum concluded on a day the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural
Organization (UNESCO) also highlighted the importance of communications for
advancing development. The Paris-based agency did so in remarks delivered at UN
Headquarters in New York to the UN General Assembly’s Second Committee, which
deals with economic and financial matters.

“UNESCO approaches the issue of communication-in-the-service-of-development from
the vantage point of fostering an environment in which freedom of expression,
independence and pluralism of the media can exist,” UNESCO’s Senior Public
Information and Liaison Officer in New York, Suzanne Bilello, told the
committee, which is open to all 193 UN Member States.

“Of particular interest to us therefore is the need to ensure that the
communication-for-development agenda gives sufficient emphasis to promoting
free, independent and pluralistic media, whether on radio sets, mobile phones or
printed pages, and including access to communication channels, such as community
media, and not forgetting, also, the importance of media and information
literacy,” she said.

Ms. Bilello added that, without progress in all those parameters, “societies
cannot advance more specific practices, like health or agricultural
communication, to optimum effect and participation by poor and marginalized
people.”