Ed. note: This is cross-posted on DipNote, the U.S. Department of State's official blog. See the original post here.
Last week, we announced that we were heading to São Paulo, Brazil to attend NETmundial, a global meeting of governments, entrepreneurs, academics, Internet institutions, civil society activists and users to discuss the future of Internet governance. We expressed our hope that NETmundial would make an important contribution to the positive evolution of the Internet and its governance. Our optimism was well-founded. As one of Brazil’s leading Internet scholars and chair of Netmundial Virgilio Almeida brought NETmundial to a close, the U.S. government delegation rose in applause. And almost everyone else in the room rose with us.
We applauded to affirm the Multistakeholder Statement of São Paulo, the ideas it presents, the ideals it embraces, and the multistakeholder process that made it possible. We rose out of appreciation for the Brazilians and the Internet community leaders that brought us together and impressively managed a challenging conversation. And we rose in joint commitment to preserving, promoting, and expanding the benefits of a single, interoperable, open, and global Internet for all of the world’s people.
The success of NETmundial was no small feat. Every sector of society from six continents came together to discuss and debate a path forward for international Internet governance. We outlined principles for Internet governance and developed a path for a way forward. In our open and collaborative meetings in Brazil, we demonstrated the utility of the multistakeholder process for addressing stakeholders’ needs, and set a valuable example for what is possible in other forums. It is a game-changing achievement that the results and outcomes of NETmundial were substantive and meaningful; we can and will build on the momentum it creates for progress.
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