The 5th meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will be held in Vilnius, Lithuania, from 14 to 17 September 2010. It will focus on the following issues: managing critical Internet resources, security, openness and privacy, access and diversity, Internet governance for development, taking stock of Internet governance and the way forward, and cloud computing.

During the four-day Forum UNESCO will provide various spaces for inclusive discussion on the Organization’s key contribution to the Internet Governance debate. In particular, UNESCO will organize two workshops:

• Privacy and Social Networking (16 September)
  This workshop will bring together worldwide stakeholders and take a broader approach to examine the interaction between privacy protection, freedom of expression and security.
• Freedom of Connection – Freedom of Expression: The Changing Legal and Regulatory Ecology Shaping the Internet (14 September)
  This event is a follow-up to a well attended discussion on Internet Censorship and Filtering by the participants of IGF 2009 in Sharm el Sheikh.

UNESCO will take this opportunity to release an in-depth analysis entitled Freedom of Connection – Freedom of Expression: The Changing Legal and Regulatory Ecology Shaping the Internet.

This report, conducted by the Oxford Internet Institute, builds upon previous discussions and provides a panorama of observations and useful exploration of the subject.

UNESCO will also organize an open forum to present its activities on multilingualism in cyberspace, open educational resources and open access to scientific information. This forum, which will stress the importance of freedom of expression and information along with privacy and personal data protection, is the UNESCO contribution to a main session on security and openness.

In addition, UNESCO will install an exhibition stand throughout the Forum at IGF Villages to present the Organization’s overall activities and programmes.

Internet Governance is a core concern for UNESCO. The Organization will continue to advocate an open, transparent and inclusive approach to Internet Governance, echoing its consistent advocacy of the principle of openness, which encompasses the free flow of information, freedom of expression and technical interoperability. The main areas of relevance to UNESCO are the concern for ethical dimensions, the realization of multilingualism on the Internet and capacity-building.

The agenda of the Forum is available here.
All meetings will be accessed through live webcast here.