Year after year the Internet Governance Forum renews expectations and opportunities of gender advocates to find innovative solutions to enhance women's rights online and offline. After 6 years of activism, this space still seems to be resistant to the inclusion of gender perspectives and activists arefaced with more questions than answers. Where are women's rights on the internet governance agenda? How to get the women's movements more involved within this new arena of public policy? How to replace the protectionist approach that traditionally surrounds women's rights defence with one that is rights-based? Along with Jennifer Radloff who introduces this edition we believe it is a responsibility of all stakeholders to make women's rights relevant and visible in the IGF debates, and to do so gender analysis and women's participation needs to be much more institucionalised in the planning of the next IGF.


Read new articles and featured resources that are part of this edition below.


Image by Flavia Fascendini, GenderIT.org

Stripping the IGF bare: where are women´s rights?

flavia & kaca
GenderIT.org's editors, Flavia Fascendini and Katerina Fialova, speak with the APC WNSP members who took part at the Sixth Internet Governance Forum that took place in Nairobi, Kenya from 27-30 September 2011. In the interview, Chat García Ramilo, Dafne Sabanes Plou, Jac sm Kee, Jan Moolman, and Jennifer Radloff from the APC Women´s Programme offer their insights regarding gender balance and the presence of women's rights in the 2011 IGF agenda.

Why women's movements should take a deep breath…and get involved in a new arena of public policy

genderit.org team
Aisha Lee Shaheed was one of the participants of the two-day workshop “Women’s Rights and Internet Governance” convened by the APC WNSP late September 2011, in Nairobi, Kenya, just prior to the 6th Annual Internet Governance Forum. In her blog post, Aisha recounts how the workshop shifted her perspective on internet governance and why she as a women human rights defender should care about it.

IGF Gender Report Cards

daphne & jac
APC WNSP is sharing some preliminary results of the gender report cards initiative. This was a pilot initiative put forward by the Association for Progressive Communications to monitor and assess the level of gender parity and inclusion at this year's Internet Governance Forum (IGF). Although the numbers of sessions monitored were relatively small, and that a deeper analysis is needed, the statistics generated and first impressions can give us an idea of the role that women and gender issues played in this IGF's debates.

Women activists and internet governance: let's open the debate

daphne
Dafne Plou reports on the workshop of about 20 women's rights advocates from different countries and backgrounds who met late September 2011, in Nairobi, Kenya, just before the 6th Internet Governance Forum to share their experiences in policy advocacy and to discuss internet governance and its linkage to women’s rights agendas. The workshop was organised by the APC Women's Networking Support Programme (APC WNSP).
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