A single country won't be allowed to govern Internet: Seminar calls for unity among poor nations

A single country will not be allowed to govern the Internet, speakers at a national seminar vowed adding expectation of the poor countries should be addressed in the upcoming Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meet.

All the countries need to participate in the process of governing Internet. Bangladesh and other poor countries should work together to protect their interest in the field of Internet and other areas of ICT, they observed.

Bangladesh NGOs Network for Radio and Communication (BNNRC) and Monthly Computer Jagat, an ICT magazine, arranged the 'National Seminar on Internet Governance' at the conference room of Bangladesh Computer Samity (BCS) in Dhaka on October 14.

Abdullah H Kafi, one of the members of the advisory council of IGF, moderated the seminar while T I M Nurul Kabir, chief executive officer of Spinnovation Ltd, made a keynote presentation pinpointing on different aspects of Internet governance being discussed globally.

Speaking at the seminar, Kafi said: "Expectation of the poor countries should be addressed in the Internet Governance Forum. Bangladesh and other poor countries should work together to protect their interest in this regard."

He termed language a big problem in different countries in using Internet, saying a person needs to have at least some skills to use it. "We are not poor in quality of knowledge but international language such as English is certainly a barrier for us."

Many people face problem with the foreign language, he said stressing the need for developing content in local language to increase usage of Internet.

Referring to the poor role of the ministry of science and ICT, Kafi, also a former president of BCS, said this ministry has the lowest budget allocation. As a task force headed by the Prime Minister looks after the ICT related issues, the ministry does not have any role to play.

Bazlur Rahman, chief executive officer of BNNRC, said it must be made clear that a single country should not be allowed to govern the Internet and all the countries need to participate in this process.

"ITU can be given the responsibility of governing the Internet but a reform must be made in this global body before taking the decision in that case," he mentioned.

In his speech, Nurul Kabir mentioned telecentre movement is already there in Bangladesh but there is no coordination at the national level. "We will not able to move forward without knowledge sharing and people will not be benefited."

There is no follow up regarding WSIS action plan and a national committee has not been formed yet in Bangladesh, he said. "So, we are not in a position to review anything on WSIS action plan.

"We should use ICT as a tool in all the areas if we really want to see the economic development in the country," he noted adding that ICT has not been reflected in the agenda of national politics.

Citing poor progress in utilizing the huge bandwidth of submarine cable, he mentioned the country was linked with the global information superhighway at the cost of huge foreign currency but there has not been adequate 'last mile solution' to reap benefits from it.

Poor village people can't afford high cost of broadband service to have access to the Internet, he said and added broadband policy could be a part of the national ICT policy, criticising bureaucratic red-tapism.

Participating in the discussion, Ahmed Swapon, executive director of Voice Bangladesh urged the participant to think what role Bangladesh can play in the IGF.

"We need to keep in mind that who is benefited by the global policy issues," he said wondering whether least developed countries (LDCs) including Bangladesh have necessary capacity and knowledge.

As many a people illiterate, a participant emphasized on creating more multimedia content.

Md Faizullah Khan, president of BCS thanked all the participants, saying BCS would extend all kinds of support in the future so that everybody can be benefited through debates.

Internet governance is one of the highly discussed issues in the world information society arena since 2003. It is one of the two unresolved issues of the World Summit for Information Society (WSIS) Conference.

To resolve the issue United Nations has formed a high level Internet Governance Forum and assigned it to come up with recommendations.

The first international meeting of the forum will be held in Athens, the capital city of Greece from 30th September to 2nd November, 2006.

On the eve of the Athens meeting, civil society organizations organized the seminar.

Source: www.apc.org