Whose Internet

Last week was a rather interesting week for policy makers in the region, especially those who have taken time to understand internet governance issues. From the onset, everyone seems to know what internet governance is all about, but the moment you dig deeper and start asking hard questions, you start getting very interesting answers of how the internet cannot actually be governed.

But is this what internet governance really means? Internet Governance does not refer to governance in the "policing" sense or "control" of the internet as one would think, no. A working group established after the UN-initiated WSIS defined internet governance as "the development and application by governments, private sector and civil society, in their respective rules, shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the internet.  

So IG stems from the realisation that the internet is a scarce and valuable resource that each country and stakeholder needs access to and therefore needs policies and mechanisms acceptable to all players to promote its growth, maintain its stability and secure it. And that is what Internet Governance is all about...let me know what you think.