Best Practice Forums (BPFs)

What are the BPFs? 

A report produced by the UN Commission on Science and Technology for Development (CSTD) Working Group on Improvements to the IGF called for the development of more tangible outputs to ‘enhance the impact of the IGF on global Internet governance and policy’. To enrich the potential for IGF outputs, the IGF has developed an intersessional programme of Best Practice Forums (BPFs) intended to complement other IGF community activities. The outputs from this programme are intended to become robust resources, to serve as inputs into other pertinent forums, and to evolve and grow over time.  

BPFs offer substantive ways for the IGF community to produce more concrete outcomes. While BPF outcomes have already been useful in informing policy debates, they are also viewed as iterative materials that are not only flexible but also ‘living’ in the sense that they can be updated at any time to accommodate the pace of technological change faced by internet policymakers. BPFs have the freedom to define their own methodologies; tailored to each theme’s specific needs and requirements. The term ‘best’ in BPFs should be interpreted lightly because the topics of BPFs often relate to themes that need to be addressed in a flexible manner in order to accommodate the pace of technological change.

What is the substantive focus of the BPFs?

 Every year, the MAG agrees on thematic focus of the Best Practice Forums. For IGF 2019 cycle, the BPFs are focused on the following themes: 

• Cybersecurity (continued from 2016-2017-2018, builds on 2014-2015 BPFs on SPAM and CERTS)
• Gender and Access (continued from 2015-2016-2017-2018)
• Internet of Things (IoT), Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) (continued from 2018)
• Local Content (continued from 2017-2018)

How to participate in the BPFs?

The analytical process and development of the final BPF output document are done in an open and consultative way with the community. Every month, dedicated virtual meetings are hosted. All stakeholders are welcome to join the meetings and/or send their written contributions to igf[et]un[dot]org.

For the start, all stakeholders are invited to subscribe to dedicated BPF mailing lists: 

• BPF on Cybersecurity: https://intgovforum.org/mailman/listinfo/bpf-cybersecurity_intgovforum.org
• BPF on Gender and Access: https://intgovforum.org/mailman/listinfo/bp_gender_intgovforum.org
• BPF on Local Content: https://intgovforum.org/mailman/listinfo/bpf-localcontent_intgovforum.org
• BPF on AI, IoT and Big Data: https://intgovforum.org/mailman/listinfo/aiiotbd_intgovforum.org

BPF Outcomes

All of the tangible outcomes from the IGF’s BPFs are published as follows:

These resources are the outputs from bottom-up, inclusive, and community-driven activities of the IGF that took place over the course over several annual IGF cycles.

What can you do with the IGF’s BPF resources?

We encourage all stakeholders to share these resources with their respective communities to ensure that the IGF resource outputs also become useful inputs into other processes of relevance to the Internet and its governance in 2018 and beyond.

We hope these resources will not only be useful for policymakers and other stakeholders, but will also continue to symbolise the IGF community’s belief that multistakeholder collaboration is fundamental in effectively addressing pertinent Internet policy challenges.

Reference Reading

• IGF Best Practice Forums (BPFs): A Participants Guide
• 2016 IGF Community Activities: Modalities and Timeline(s)
• Looking back on the 2015 BPF process: Observations, Thoughts and Suggestions to Enhance the BPF Process, Participation and Outputs