The Brazilian Internet Steering Committee (CGI.br) has announced that the NETmundial+10, a second global multistakeholder meeting on the future of Internet governance, will take place in São Paulo, Brazil, on April 29 and 30, 2024 with the possibility of either onsite or remote participation, which will enable real-time interaction. It will also have live streaming on the event’s official channels.
NETmundial+10, which aims to debate the global challenges for the governance of the digital world, is coming 10 years after the initial NETmundial meeting, which also took place in São Paulo on April 23 and 24, 2014 and was attended by 1,480 participants from 97 countries who came together to discuss internet governance issues in the wake of the Edward Snowden revelations about mass surveillance by the United States Government.
The concluding, non-binding Multistakeholder Statement of the 2014 NETmundial meeting contained a shared set of Principles and a Roadmap to guide the evolution of Internet cooperation and governance.
As was the case with the 2014 NETmundial, organizers of the NETmundial+10 initiative are inviting participation from the academia, civil society, government, intergovernmental organizations, private sector, and the technical community, saying expressions of interest will be approved according to diversity criteria, such as geographic origin, stakeholder group and gender, among others.
According to Ms Renata Mielli, Chair of NETmundial+10 and Coordinator of CGI.br, “The development and dissemination of digital technologies bring major challenges to Internet governance. CGI.br plays a pivotal role in this debate. In 2014, we led an important discussion on this topic, with NETmundial. In 2024, new challenges are posed in a world that is constantly changing, with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence and in a scenario in which people and things (IoT) are increasingly connected. To face these challenges, CGI.br along with international partners, will hold NETmundial+10. The event aims to discuss how to strengthen the multistakeholder approach, an essential premise for decision-making processes regarding the future of the Internet and the digital world.”
The developments and results which NETmundial+10 will strive for include:
• To review, renew and consolidate NETmundial agreements about the Internet governance principles, as well as updating a common strategic agenda;
• To debate the role of multistakeholder participation in Internet Governance and on national and international spaces, in collaboration with multilateral decision arenas; and
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To review the Declaration of São Paulo and the Roadmap proposed in 2014, considering the deep transformations that the digital ecosystem has been through, which highlight the social, cultural, and economic relevance of the Internet and its applications as tools for promoting development and citizenship.
The organizers say that based on the 2014 NETmundial meeting, the new event will take place at the same location, the Grand Hyatt Hotel, in São Paulo and casting a look at the future governance of the digital world, it will “provide a space for players to meet, discuss and reach consensus on a new roadmap that can tackle pressing challenges of our time, as well as collectively build a common, structured agenda of priority issues for the global community, and further multistakeholderism to all relevant global governance and decisional arenas.”
The Brazilian Internet Steering Committee, responsible for establishing strategic guidelines related to the use and development of the Internet in Brazil, coordinates and integrates all Internet service initiatives in the country, promoting technical quality, innovation and dissemination of the services on offer.
Based on the principles of multistakeholderism and transparency, CGI.br seeks to represent a democratic Internet governance model in which all sectors of society participate equally in its decisions.
