DC-Connecting: Intro

 

As the theme of the 2015 Internet Governance Forum recognizes, one of the central problems confronting the world is increasing the number of people connected to the Internet. According to estimates, only 3.1 billion of the 7.3 billion world inhabitants were connected to the Internet as of July 2015. The adoption problem is particularly acute in Africa and Asia, where adoption rates continue to lag behind the global average. Of equal concern are the facts that in recent years, the growth rate of Internet users has started to flatten and that women and other segments of the population are often excluded from Internet connectivity.

The IGF has already begun to identify new strategies for connecting the next billion as part of its intercessional work. The IGF would benefit from a Dynamic Coalition that would consolidate, extend, and share this work by collecting and disseminating information about practices that have proven effective in improving broadband adoption. It is a task to which a multistakeholder forum like the IGF, which brings together representatives from such a broad range of communties and countries, is uniquely well suited.