On the road to Hyderabad – Internet Governance and Development Agenda
January, 2008, Gurumurthy Kasinathan & Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change
Given that the Internet has emerged as a critical global public good, and a fundamental building block for transformative change, its governance is being increasingly perceived as a critical political arena. The contestations around Internet governance are significant for the vision of an inclusive, just and development-oriented information society. The trajectory of Internet governance processes has led to creation of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), characterised by its format of ‘multi-stakeholderism’, which opens up an opportunity for governments, civil society, business sector and inter-governmental institutions to collaborate in discussing and suggesting policies for meaningful governance of the Internet. However, vested interests favouring weak global governance systems with minimal regulation on the business sector have led to an absence of pro-South, development actors in IGF, which has instead been captured by market-led, 'user'-oriented agenda. With the ‘international public meeting’ of ICANN, an important institution in the global Internet Governance space in February and of IGF in December, in Delhi and Hyderabad respectively , it remains to be seen if governments of the South - especially countries like India and Brazil, with their strong developmental constituency - can challenge the neo-liberal basis currently underpinning Internet governance and claim the Internet as a commons / public good that serves development priorities, equity and justice.