Willie Currie expressed APC’s support for the world’s only existing global debate space on the future of the internet which could come to an end once its five year mandate is over next year saying “The IGF is an innovation in multi-stakeholder internet governance, it works, it is evolving and should continue” but stressed that it should evolve to be more than a dialoguing space and produce concrete outcomes. Read APC’s statement to the IGF.

A new report that reveals how vulnerable the internet as we know it is, has just been published by two global civil society organisations. The annual report, called Global Information Society Watch (GISWatch), was released today by APC and Dutch funder Hivos. GISWatch 2009 is entitled “Access to online information and knowledge – advancing human rights and democracy”.

Since the inception of the IGF, the Council of Europe, the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and APC have been working on a joint initiative on public participation in internet governance. Now a draft code of good practice on transparency, information and participation in internet governance is ready for comment!

In 2003, APC launched our first ICT policy handbook “for beginners” to critical acclaim. ICT policy was a relatively new area and very few really understood what was actually involved. The APC handbook was the first comprehensive guide for non-technicians. Now APC has published an entirely rewritten second edition free and online for anyone to download.

A poster promoting a new book called "Access Controlled" was removed by the IGF's organisers who claimed a sentence in the poster violated UN policy. The sentence in question reads "The first generation of Internet controls consisted largely of building firewalls at key Internet gateways; China's famous "Great Firewall of China" is one of the first national Internet filtering systems."

The Internet Governance Forum is the only space of its kind in the world – it acts as a “pressure relief valve” for some of the most important and controversial issues related to the global internet. The IGF is in its fourth year of existence and next year could be its last. APC brings you quickly up to date with some of the most pressing issues to be debated from November 15-18.

APC staff and members will be in Sharm El-Sheikh, in the fourth meeting of the Internet Governance Forum. We'll be running two workshops and launching two publications. Here's a quick review of our activities. We'll be providing on-site coverage for those of you following the IGF remotely.

The imminent arrival of broadband in Rwanda has exposed a policy vacuum that desperately needs to be filled if the poor in the country are going to benefit from the information society. Having good plans is not enough, argue Emmanuel Habumuremyi and Alan Finlay.

The new Constitution of Ecuador, which was passed in October of 2008, now legitimises the use of wireless networks as a way to achieve universal access. In the debate leading up to the new constitution, the wireless networks were able to boast low cost, sustainability and using existing and free waves to the communities and organisations using them. In an attempt to connect paper to practice, APC conducted a study on the possibilities and the political and regulatory context of this type of network, and explore a few success stories that took place over the last few years.

In rural Latin America, women are fed up of hearing that they are “too old” to use computers. “ The lives of many women in Latin America have changed significantly in the past few decades. Rural women in their thirties have at least primary school education and know their rights thanks in many cases to community radio,” says APC’s Dafne Sabanes Plou. “They are ready for a place in today’s networked world.”

By most standards, Tanzania’s information and communications technology (ICT) policy looks ambitious. In just six years, it wants to make the country a hub of telecommunications infrastructure to help build the economy and end poverty. But John Mireny argues that when it comes to broadband, this vision lacks practical application, and is out of step with the real limitations on the ground….

For twenty days in July, land-locked Niger was without internet connection owing to damage to the undersea cable which goes through neighbouring Benin, and on which Niger depends for 70% of its bandwidth. This APC investigation seeks to understand why this West African country is almost exclusively reliant on Beninese infrastructures, when an alternative satellite solution could have minimised the severity of the situation.

The East Africa Internet Governance Forum (EA-IGF), which first convened in 2008, aims at creating a community of practice that will, in the long term, become a sustaining foundation for meaningful participation of East African stakeholders in internet public policy debates at the national, regional and international level. This year’s EA-IGF was held in Nairobi Kenya, with over 200 participants from varying sectors, from fifteen different countries. This year’s forum focused on cyber-crime, policy regulatory needs consumer issues, critical internet resources, and access to broadband.

Privacy advocates and experts from the academic, consumer, digital rights and labor communities will discuss on November 3rd 2009 in Madrid with public officials and the business sector how to raise privacy awareness in the global community; and how better include civil society in the decision making processes for better global privacy and data protection standards. The conference “Global privacy standards in a global world” is being held by the Public Voice, an international coalition of civil societies. Find out how to register.

After eleven years, a direct relationship of accountability between the US government and the Internet Corporation of Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) is now over. This is a step forward although civil society commentators are clear that this does not mean that ICANN is entirely independent of US control.

The Board of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) opened new accountability measures for public comments. Willie Currie, APC's policy manager, said in his submission that “The community still does not have the power to dismiss the Board [which] is a signifier of a lack of accountability and democratic procedure that cannot be cured by the current proposed amendments.”

The Association for Progressive Communications (APC) condemns the precipitated and unilateral decision of the coup government in Honduras to take over management of the .hn domain and affirms our solidarity with the long-time domain administrators, RDS, a pioneer provider of internet services especially oriented to civil society networks in Central America. APC calls for immediate dialogue with all stakeholders towards a positive solution for the Honduran people, prioritising the stability of the domain name system and the stability of the internet.

The Honduran Sustainable Development Network has been running Honduras' .hn domain since the 1990s and is a pioneer in providing internet services in Central America especially oriented to civil society networks. Now they have been ordered to hand over control of .hn in an arbitrary decree made by the current Honduran dictatorship. Find out more and take action.

On 12 December last year – Kenya’s 44th independence-day celebrations – journalists, media owners and civil society activists took to the streets in Nairobi. They were protesting the publication of Kenya’s Communications Amendment Bill (2007) which was later passed into law. But the media protests overshadowed a more complex challenge that lies at the heart of policy convergence in a networked world, write Rebecca Wanjiku and Alan Finlay…

In Latin America there is still a lack of universal access to telecommunications infrastructure in general and broadband in particuar. Some countries have chosen to develop national and local internet traffic through national access points (NAP) to keep prices down by avoiding international networks. However Venezuela has not yet taken the decision to install a NAP. APC research takes a look at the situation behind the deadlock.