Addis Ababa will bring together representatives from governments, the private sector, the technical community and civil society (including academia) from around the world. About 3 thousand people are expected to be on the platform, with several thousand more to follow the event online.
The themes on which the entire program is shaped are five this year: connecting all people [to the Internet] and protecting human rights, avoiding fragmentation of the Internet, protecting privacy and managing data, enabling safety, security and accountability, advanced technologies, including artificial intelligence.
Russia will be represented at the Forum at a high level. On November 29, Bella Cherkesova, Deputy Minister of Digital Development of Russia, will speak via video conference as part of a high-level session. Maxim Parshin, Deputy Minister, will also take part in the Forum events.
From the Russian side, the Forum will be represented by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation, the Center for Global IT-Cooperation (hereinafter referred to as the Center), ANO Dialogue, the Alliance for the Protection of Children in the Digital Environment, the Coordination Center for TOLD .RU/.РФ and the School of International Information Security. Russian experts will not only take an active part in the numerous and diverse events of the Forum, but also act as their organizers themselves. Thus, the Center will hold two of its own sessions: "Fragmented Reality: New Horizons of Digital Distrust", dedicated to the problem of Internet fragmentation, which is relevant for the Internet community, and "Misty Metaverse: Blurring Letter of the Law", where issues of creating a legal framework for regulating new technologies will be discussed. The last session will be moderated by the director of the Center Vadim Glushchenko.
In addition to this, Russian new youth initiatives to empower young people in the field of digital development will also be presented at the Forum, including the experience of the School of International Information Security.
Yulia Poletaeva, Deputy General Director, and Timofey Vi, Head of the Strategic Directions Department, will take part in the IGF from the Competence Center in the field of Internet communications ANO Dialogue. They will present to the international community the best practices for building the work of the state on the Internet: digitalization of feedback with the population, development of competencies of Internet communication of civil servants, countering fakes and preparing analytics to make management decisions based on media data.
A separate theme of IGF-2022, which runs through many sessions, is the protection of children's rights on the Internet. Elizaveta Belyakova, head of the Alliance for the Protection of Children in the Digital Environment, will share Russian experience in this area at the forum, in particular, she will talk about the initiative to create the Charter "Digital Ethics of Childhood", which was voluntarily signed not only by members of the Alliance, but also by other big companies. International actors can also become its participants.
The creation of the IGF was first put on the agenda at the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS), which was held in two stages: in Geneva in 2003 and later in Tunisia in 2005. The final document adopted in Tunisia (the "Agenda for the Information Society") contained the idea of creating an Internet Governance Forum to discuss issues of governance of the Global Network. In July 2006, Kofi Annan, the 7th Secretary General of the United Nations, officially announced the creation of the Forum. It brought together all stakeholders to discuss Internet governance issues, whether they represent governments, business, academia or civil society. On the IGF platform, they can communicate as equals through open and inclusive dialogue.
