General ICC BASIS intervention 1 – Open Consultation – Internet Governance Forum (IGF)

Thank you, Chairman Desai. I just wanted to briefly, on behalf of the International Chamber of Commerce and its initiative, Business Action to Support the Information Society, join others in congratulating you on your reappointment and also expressing our appreciation to the host country Brazil for all the work that they are doing to prepare this important event in Rio in November.

We would also like to express our appreciation for Mr. Vianna’s (new co-chair) comments about the importance they place on collaboration and cooperation with other stakeholders. That said, we would also like to say that ICC/BASIS believes that the addition of a co-chair from the host country of Brazil should be considered an experiment. We believe that a link with the host country and the Chairman to provide logistical and organizational support will help in the planning for the IGF in Rio.

We believe that the co-chair from Brazil can play a productive role in providing a link between the host country and the Advisory Group on these matters, and that there may be a logic in creating a co-chair with responsibility for logistical arrangements, which our Greek host performed so ably last year and helped to make the first IGF a real success. We do support the role in the Advisory Group that Mr. Desai, you, have provided in the past. And we believe that you continue to be an important guide on the substantive issues as the U.N. secretary-general’s special advisory for Internet governance. We would also like to just reiterate our support for Mr. Kummer and the IGF Secretariat, and all of the substantive support that he and his team and you, Mr. Desai, have provided as we prepare.

With that, I just want to also take this opportunity to reply to a few comments that were made by others this morning. We realize that the novelty of a multistakeholder dialogue discussion forum is challenging for some, but we believe that it’s very important to continue to focus on the multistakeholder on an equal footing principle that is the IGF in all of its aspects as we continue the organizational planning and discussions here today.

With that, I thank you very much.