  
Internet Governance Forum: Identifying the Impact Study
New Analyses The multistakeholder approach, bringing together representatives of governmental, business and civil society (including academia and others) sectors in discussions of Internet Governance-related issues, is a hallmark of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF). The key hypothesis, that added value can be expected from bringing together people from different professions and areas of society (different stakeholder groups), who are involved in Internet and Internet governance policy-making and implementation, became an underlying strategy of the organization of the Forum.
This research study on the impact of the IGF reflects the complexity of the IGF as a multi-stakeholder, multi-disciplinary and multi-layer policy process. The research study presents a focal source of information on the perception of the impact of the IGF on the global interaction and communication in the IG arena.
General information. 239 participants from 7 world regions and 81 countries contributed with their responses to the online survey. Not all participants completed the whole questionnaire; 183 out of 239 respondents provided complete responses on impact rating scales in sections 3. and 4. of the online questionnaire. For all questions, the total number of responses collected was analyzed. For sections 3. and 4. on impact perception, the data from 183 respondents providing complete information were analyzed.
Many respondents highlighted that it is difficult to identify and measure the impact of such a diverse and complex phenomenon as the IGF for two main reasons: The IGF overlaps with many other policy processes. How is it possible to attribute any particular development exclusively to the IGF? For example, while many participants argued that the IGF contributed to breakthroughs in ICANN-related discussion (Affirmation of Commitments), it is difficult to measure relative developments of the IGF’s impact in comparison to other elements such as internal political developments in the USA...
One of the main challenges in modern diplomacy is how to synchronise global policy processes with developments on the regional, national and local levels. A disconnect among those policy levels could reduce relevance and legitimacy of global processes. The IGF added emphasis on “vertical communication” with the various stakeholders on regional, local and national levels”. In this part of the research study the main focus is on the spread of the IGF-related knowledge and information on local, national and regional levels. The results of the online survey showed that 129 of the respondents (53,97% of the total sample) communicated IGF relevant knowledge and information on the level of their local communities, 54 (22.59%) did so with the people from their local administrations...
As to the issue of improvement in the communication among different stakeholders, our participants were asked do they think that the example given by the IGF process has opened new paths toward multistakeholder discussions in other international organizations or global arenas. The forced-choice procedure offered the following responses (with the number in the parentheses indicating the percentage of choices): (a) “Yes, the IGF process has opened new paths toward multistakeholder discussions” (49,37%), (b) “I am not sure” (27.19%), and (c) “No, the IGF process failed to open new paths toward multistakeholder discussions” (5,02%), with 18,41% of participants not responding...
This section addresses the impact of the IGF on specific Internet Governance issues. Since the IGF does not have clearly defined subject areas it is difficult to identify specific IGF issues. The basis for issues was the WGIG report which identified close to 50 IG issues. Some of those issues have changed level of significance, such as, for example spam, which went from high prominence in 2006 to almost non-existence in the current IGF agenda. New issues have emerged, such as social networking. The evolution of the IGF agenda reflects the evolution of the Internet. In the following section we address some of the issues that have been in the focus of Internet governance debate.
The initial five-year cycle of the IGF will end in 2010. The discussion on the future of the IGF has already started. For this reason, this part of the research survey focused on ideas for the future of the IGF around the following block of questions/issues: topics for the future discussion, increased inclusiveness and participation, increased visibility and organizational/procedural issues.
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