A Letter From The President

Take home from Netmundial 2014
Sao Paulo the beautiful city in Brazil played host to all peoples of the world who came together to define principles and road map for the future evolution  of Internet Governance ecosystem in a two-day intensive meeting
The meeting congregated 1,480 stakeholders with active voices, including remote participation, from a diversity of 97 nations.
There were about 30 remote hubs all over the world where participants followed and contributed online, some with video.
The meeting was declared open by the President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff.
Reading through the contributions prior to the meeting, the voices of the Civil Society members crying for equal participation with Government, Academia, Private Sector and Technical Community in the governance of the internet was heard most.
Analysis of the of the 188 contributions and 1307 comments on the first  summary of 45 paragraphs of the initial submissions to  a truly bottom up approach to arriving at the outcome of meeting, shows that over 60%  of the input came from the Civil Society. The process of deliberation and discussions during the meeting followed a round robbing method of giving equal speaking opportunity to all the stakeholders in their groups to make comments and voice their concerns.
At the end, the meeting came up with a non-binding NetMundial Multistakeholder Statement which majority of the attendees applauded, others had their reservations, while some Governments opposed to the process and the outcome, as they saw it as non-transparent. 
About eight participants from Nigeria attended the meeting mostly from civil society organizations, one from business and yours truly from technical community.
Some of the takeaways for Nigeria are, consensus on: human rights and shared values; culture and linguistic diversity; security, stability and resilience of the internet;, multistakeholder process in Internet governance and development.
On the whole, the initiators were satisfied with the statement. Further information on the process, conversations, submissions, presentations and the final statement could be accessed at www.netmundial.br.
Please go online and register for Nigeria Internet Governace Forum 2014 atwww.nigf.org.ng and be part of the dialogue on who and how of internet governance in Nigeria,  happening on 9-10 July 2014 at Muson Centre Lagos, spread the news to your mailing list and discussion network.
Yours Sincerely,
Mrs. Mary Nma Uduma
NIRA President


L-r Tope Fashidemi, Remmy Nweke, Bimbo Olayinka, VP Sunday Folayan, President Mary Uduma, Financial Secretary Shehu Sekiru, Treasurer, Biyi Oladipo, Mohammed Rudman, Acting COO/Secretary Akinbo Cornerstone @6th AGM in Lagos.