Internet Governance in Asia-Pacific

Help build a portal on Internet Governance in the Asia-Pacific. Call for contributing theme editors.

UNDP's Asia Pacific Development Information Programme (APDIP) in co-operation with the Asia-Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) is launching a portal on ICT policy issues in the Asia-Pacific region to stimulate dialogue on ICT policy priorities and build a resource collection with country-specific news and key background readings in major issue areas. The portal will be a collaborative online effort, with all resources added and managed through an easy-to-use web interface. APDIP is seeking to appoint a number of topics editors that assume responsibility for maintaining information resources on a pro-bono basis in one of the following issue clusters, all with specific focus on the concerns of the Asia-Pacific region.

- Editor 1: physical infrastructure policies: e.g. interconnection and backbone access policies, competition regulation, universal service rules and Internet, wireless and Internet telephony regulations, collective access schemes

- Editor 2: logical infrastructure: e.g. IP address management, domain name rules, public policy dimension of Internet standards and standards development

- Editor 3: data and network security, online fraud, spam and cyber-crime regulation

- Editor 4: e-commerce related policy issues: consumer protection, taxation, customs duties, secure payments systems

What are we looking for?

The ideal candidates would have in-depth expertise in the selected policy area in the Asia-Pacific region and they would be committed to nurturing a public information exchange on the issues from an independent and objective perspective. Editors are expected to make time for populating the topics area with a limited number of key background references, for providing news updates twice a week, and for managing the submissions of information resources suggested by other website users. They receive credit for their efforts through high visibility and prominent recognition on the website, as well as the opportunity to interact with senior-policy makers, private sector representatives and civil society actors that will make up the main target audience of the web portal.

How can you get involved?

If you are interested, please send your CV and a brief cover page outlining your interests, expertise and preferred thematic area by no later than November 23 to Mr. Dieter Zinnbauer: dieter@apdip.net

Background

- About the Internet Policy initiative

UNDP-APDIP has initiated an Open Regional Dialogue on Internet Governance, to establish a regional perspective on important aspects of Internet Governance as viewed by stakeholders in the Asia-Pacific region. The initiative aims to facilitate consultations at the national, regional, and sub-regional levels, while surveys and research will be undertaken that will result in a consolidated input to the UN World Summit on the Information Society and the UN Working Group on Internet Governance (UN-WGIG).

About the Portal

A core component of the initiative is the development of an interactive portal website that consolidates key resources on Internet Governance for Asia-Pacific stakeholders and provides a wide range of interactive and participatory features, including options for commenting on issues, adding resources, starting discussions or setting up private information sharing spaces for related communities of practice. The portal will operate on a Plone content management system, which provides all these features through a website based-online editing system that does not require any advanced website programming skills. For an example of Plone in action see www.iosn.net.

About APDIP

UNDP-APDIP is an initiative developed and funded by the United Nations Development Programme and covers countries in the Asia-Pacific region through 25 UNDP country offices. APDIP aims at assisting member countries in the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to foster social and economic development.

For more information on ORDIG, please go to www.igov,net; for more background information on APDIP, please visit www.apdip.net.