[Chapter-delegates] United Nations appoints new Internet Governance Forum Advisory Group

[Bill Graham]

Dear all,

I heard this morning from the IGF Secretariat that the UN this morning  
announced the composition of the new multistakeholder advisory group  
(MAG) for the IGF.  As you know, this is the group responsible for  
preparing the agenda for the IGF each year.  The new group is larger  
than the last, with 50 members replacing the previous 45.  Many of the  
members remain the same (including me), but 12 members of the previous  
group have been rotated off, in keeping with the decision to rotate  
between 1/4 and 1/3.  On first glance, it looks like the balance of  
the group has remained about the same.  Quite a few people from the  
Internet technical community and associated with ISOC are on the group  
in addition to me (the only ISOC staff person).  Matthew Shears, from  
our Public Policy group has not had his membership renewed, and will  
be very much missed, as he was an active contributor to the MAG's  
work, and to ISOC's presence and visibility at the IGF.  Overall,  
however, I believe the largest increase is in the numbers of  
representatives is in the group that can roughly be called the  
Internet technical community (although it is far from clear who the UN  
would see as being from each of the stakeholder groups).  The  
proportion of government representatives (the most easily counted) has  
dropped slightly.

All in all, I think the group is going to be able to get its work done  
as effectively as did the first and second versions of the MAG.  The  
MAG next meets in Geneva from September 16-18, including public  
consultations on the 16th.

The press release from the United Nations is available at: <http://www.unog.ch/unog/website/news_media.nsf/(httpNewsByYear_en)/417AFED5138FD8E5C12574AD002E6C13?OpenDocument 
 >.

Best regards

Bill

========================
Bill Graham
Global Strategic Engagement
The Internet Society
graham at isoc.org
tel +1.613.231.8543 or
  +1.703.439.2157