UK Government funds major redevelopment of IGF website

‎27 April 2020

The UK Government will fund a GBP 250,000 (USD 310,000) redevelopment of the IGF ‎website into a fully-fledged interactive collaborative platform in order to better fulfil the ‎IGF mandate. This work has taken on a new urgency and significance as COVID-19 has ‎highlighted the world’s reliance on digital technology and a free, open and secure Internet. ‎Support such as this is important for global Internet governance and will enhance the ‎inclusive participation of all stakeholders. The grant aims to: ‎

• Strengthen the ability for participants to exchange and find information and good ‎practices ‎
• Better support capacity-building to enable stakeholders, particularly those from ‎underrepresented regions and marginalized communities, to engage in the global ‎Internet governance processes wherever they are
• Improve accessibility for persons with disabilities
• Improve usability on mobile devices - the main way of accessing the Internet in ‎developing countries
• Boost the multilingual features of the site. Including the translation of key ‎documents into the six official UN languages ‎
• Create a more comprehensive suite of community collaboration tools for IGF ‎participants and the IGF community use for intersessional activities as well as during ‎events

The funding for the updated website and its expansion of online community tools has come ‎at an important time, with many countries having implemented stay-at-home schemes to ‎combat the novel coronavirus. The IGF Secretariat hopes that the updated set of online ‎community tools will complement the existing tools that have already made available for ‎IGF community use.‎

The United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Secretariat of the ‎Internet Governance Forum and the Multistakeholder Advisory Group appreciate the ‎generous contribution of the Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and ‎Northern Ireland. ‎