As part of our introductory guide to internet governance, Andreas Karsten introduces key organisations and bodies working on the internet, communications and governance, including their overarching aims and where you can find more information. Organisations covered include the United Nations, Council of Europe, UNESCO, and civil society. In this article, Andreas introduces the work of the OECD on internet governance.
The work of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development on internet governance is rooted in the mission of OECD to promote policies that will improve the economic and social well-being of people around the world. The organisation has developed key indicators on information and communication technologies, which are updated annually, to provide a knowledge-base for digital governance policies.
The fifteen indicators mostly cover availability, accessibility, affordability and usage of landline, mobile, broadband and internet connections.Latest updates were made in July 2013, covering statistics on mobile and broadband access in the 34 OECD member states. More detailed data can be found on theOECD broadband portal.
Publications and events can be checked on this central page.
The OECD Internet Economy Outlook was last published in October 2012.
The OECD’s work on internet governance spans across several themes, including information economy, information security and privacy, broadband and telecom and public-sector innovation and e-government.
The OECD has published a number of Digital Economy Papers, among them
The OECDregularly publishespolicy guidelines on internet economy issues(feed), reviews of good governance in information society, reports (see list above)and OECD Outlooks including the OECD Communications Outlookand the above-mentioned Economy Outlook.
In end of October 2013, the OECD will host the“E-Leaders 2013 meeting” on “ICT Governance to deliver Public Value” in Bern, Switzerland. Otherrecent web-related events included: theTechnology Foresight Forum, held in Paris in October 2012 on “Harnessing data as a new source of growth - Big data analytics and policies”, a conference in Tokyo on “Anticipating the Special Needs of the 21st Century Silver Economy: From Smart Technologies to Services Innovation” (September 2012) and the “Final ICTNET Conference on the Economic Impact of ICT: Policy Drivers and Economic Evidence”, organised in Paris in June 2012.
At the occasion of the latestHigh Level Meeting entitled “The Internet Economy: Generating Innovation and Growth” in June 2011, the OECD developed an Issues Paper (June 2011, pdf) outlining some background to the issues discussed at the sessions of the High-Level Meeting, including broadband access, the role of broadband in developing the internet economy, the balance of policy goals to strengthen growth, and policy making principles for an open internet.The final communiqué on “Internet Policy-Making Principles” outlines, among others, two major principles:Encouraging multi-stakeholder co-operation in policy development processes andfostering voluntarily developed codes of conduct.
Originally published on nonformality.org.
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