IG awareness in Romania
Bucharest – February, 2007
Liliana Moga and Adela Danciu
The
Association for Technology and Internet (APTI) and the
Strawberrynet Foundation held a workshop to raise Internet Governance awareness in Romania. The workshop was supported by the ICT Policy Portal Programme of the Association for Progressive Communications. DiploFoundation associate and APTI member Adela Danciu and Strawberrynet member Mihaly Bako contributed to discussions. Adela was a participant of the Internet Governance Capacity Building Programme in 2006 and was one of the participants nominated for the fellowship to the IGF in Athens.
Adela Danciu
The main theme of the workshop was "Civil society as a participant in post-WSIS policies". The workshop tackled the roles of state and civil society in elaborating and implementing ICT policies and the efficiency in accomplishing their respective parts. The participants expressed concerns about the lack of communication between the policy-makers and civil society. While the government representatives shared awareness of the importance of civil society support on their projects during the consultation processes, the NGOs considered that the initiatives of involving civil society were insufficient and uncommitted.
Bogdan Manolea
(APTI)
All the participants acknowledged the lack of cohesion among civil society representatives in the ICT field, which impedes it from fulfilling its role of sharing expertise and contributing to policy implementations. Therefore, it was considered that greater involvement and a pro-active attitude from the stronger side – the state – in aggregating opinions and promoting consultations would be beneficial.
It was concluded that the role of civil society is differently perceived by NGOs and government representatives. The facilitation of a multistakeholder dialogue was essential for improving communication on policy development and participation of civil society.
Participants were handed out the APC Internet Rights Charter and introductory materials on Internet Governance – the IG booklet and DVD, produced by DiploFoundation.
