IFLA is this week attending the NetMundial meeting in Sao Paolo, Brazil. NetMundial is being organized by the Brazilian Government and /1Net, a forum that gathers international entities of the various stakeholders involved with Internet governance. The meeting can be considered a response to the 2013 Snowden revelations about mass Internet surveillance.

This meeting is focusing on the elaboration of principles of Internet governance and will make a proposal for a roadmap for future development of this ecosystem. Representatives of civil society, private sector, academia and technical community are attending the meeting to try to find consensus on these issues.

Nnenna Nwakanma, the Africa Regional Coordinator of the World Wide Web Foundation, delivered an inspiring keynote speech yesterday at NETmundial’s opening session. Speaking on behalf of Civil Society worldwide, Nnenna stressed the necessity of providing equitable access to information in less developed countries and to under-represented groups. Two thirds of the world’s population still lacks Internet access and without it the larger issues of social and economic justice, transparency, accountability, participation, collaboration, and human rights will continue to struggle in these places.  Libraries play a key role in providing access, and so to can play a role in the larger issues.

IFLA is contributing to the meeting onsite, and will share information about its outcomes when it closes on Thursday April 24th.

Watch Nnenna Nwakanma's speech beginning at 35:24

The full transcript of Nnenna’s speech is also available. 

See Day 2 at NETmundial live (24 April) through remote participation in a variety of languages. 

Complete archived coverage of the meeting is also available.