ISDI director attends the South Eastern European Dialogue on Internet Governance annual meeting - SEEDIG 2016

ICT vice-minister Vitalie Ciolac and ISDI director, dr. Igor Cojocaru participated at the 'South Eastern European Dialogue on Internet Governance' annual meeting – SEEDIG 2016, held in Belgrad, Serbia on April 22, 2016.

The second SEEDIG annual meeting is an open, inclusive and informal space for dialogue on Internet governance issues between stakeholders from South Eastern Europe and the neighbouring area. SEEDIG is a sub-regional Internet Governance Forum (IGF) initiative, recognised as such by the global IGF.

SEEDIG is aimed to:
- raise awareness and promote a better understanding of Internet governance among stakeholders from South Eastern Europe and the neighbouring area;
- build or strengthen the capacity of these stakeholders to actively participate in national, regional and international Internet governance processes;
- facilitate multistakeholder discussions, exchanges and collaboration on Internet-related issues that of particular concern for stakeholders in the region;
- contribute to creating linkages between the Internet governance realities in the region and the pan-European and global Internet governance processes.

The event was hosted by the Serbian National Internet Domain Registry, with the support of Council of Europe, European Commission, Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Internet Governance Forum (IGF), Internet Society (ISOC), Afilias, DiploFoundation etc.

The program of the SEEDIG 2016 focused on several topics:
- What is Internet governance (IG), multistakeholder model of IG; correlation between Internet governance and the Sustainable Development Goals, examples of multistakeholder Internet governance mechanisms etc.
- Bridging the digital divide, regional access to new technologies, digital literacy, digital skills deficit, local content, relevance of IPv6 to the SEE region,
- Cybersecurity and human rights online, strategies and legal frameworks in the regional context, freedom of expression and the right to privacy.

It is worth mentioning, that several national IGF initiatives in South Eastern Europe and the neighbouring area are already in place, as recognised by the global Internet Governance Forum, in the following countries: Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Ukraine and the Russian Federation. In Albania, Georgia, Republic of Moldova and Slovenia the national IGF initiatives are under formation.