"We are moving in the right direction, although perhaps not as quickly as we would like," said Raúl Echeberría, Executive Director of LACNIC and member of the IGF Advisory Group created for starting the Internet Governance Forum, the first edition of which ended on Friday, November 4, in Athens, with the sponsorship of the UN.
LACNIC's Executive Director expressed that greater institutional participation in international debates will help governments reorient their resources towards the information society and discover the need to develop policies at local level.
"We must be involved in governance systems in order for those systems to facilitate the development of the Internet, instead of becoming obstacles," said Mr Echeberría.
Likewise, Mr Echeberría noted that despite the fact that Spanish is one of the languages with the greatest number of speakers around the world, Spanish speakers are not sufficiently represented in Internet content.
These statements generated intense press repercussions around the world. From the Spanish newspapers El País, El Mundo and La Vanguardia, through the Exelsior, Universal and El Diario de Chihuahua, to the Argentine InfoBAE, more that 74 newspapers worldwide reported on the important statements made during the Plenary on Internet diversity issued held during the Forum.
The Athens forum, attended by representatives from 90 countries with 1400 delegates, offers an opportunity for individuals related to the Internet to debate different aspects of great importance on a level playing field.
The issues debated at the Forum include topics such as the delicate matter of freedom of speech in cases such as China, as well as the right to privacy and better access to knowledge. The question of multilingualism was also addressed, an issue which is particularly relevant for the region of Latin America and the Caribbean as Spanish, considering the number of users, is one of the most important languages, second only to English.
To view press repercussions, please visit: http://lacnic.net/sp/anuncios/2006-reperc-fgi.html
For more information about the Internet Governance Forum, you can visit the following site: http://www.intgovforum.org/
