The problem

The Internet has become central to public and private communication while contemporary tools, including social media, have brought millions into open, peer to peer conversation spaces. This provides enormous opportunities and challenges for states big and small as they seek to speak and be heard in policy processes and, at the same time, engage with their own citizens on the public stage .

The solution

Diplo works across all of this territory. On the one hand, Diplo offers complete support for conceptualising and deploying e-participation in international meetings. This includes strategic planning for remote hubs and workshops, guidelines for meeting organisers, integration of social media tools, and training of moderators. On the other, Diplo offers programmes which examines the use of new tools in the context of everyday diplomatic activities, developing strategies and capacity for effective participation 

Results

At the Internet Governance Forum in Vilnius, Lithuania, in September 2010, participants at the venue were joined by 33 local hubs (local meetings held worldwide in parallel), with hundreds more contributing worldwide through the smart integration of social media.  For the first time, virtual participation approached the interactive status of those present in person, creating a unique policy space and vastly extending the forum’s reach. In September 2011, at the Internet Governance Forum in Nairobi, Kenya, the number of remote hubs increased to 42.

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