On May 17, Minsk hosted Belarus’ first Internet Governance Forum, sponsored by the Operative and Analytical Center under the President of the Republic of Belarus, which manages the .by and .бел domains, and the hoster.by hosting provider, the technical support manager and biggest registrar of the above domains. ICANN and RIPE NCC also lent their support to the event, held as part of the global series of Internet governance forums within the framework of the United Nations.
Cyrillic domains received wide attention. Sergei Prokopov from the Operative and Analytical Center said that Belarus since 2013 has consistently led other European countries in terms of the growth rates of its domain zone, propelled not only by the traditional .by domain with 120,000 names, but also by the new .бел domain, which opened for registration a year ago and has since registered 16,000 names.
ICANN Vice President Mikhail Yakushev also said that Cyrillic domains are in demand and spoke about the multi-level model of Internet governance, which takes into account all interested parties.
Hoster.by CEO Sergei Povalishev said that the forum has become a comfortable place for all concerned parties to discuss Internet development in Belarus. “The idea of the forum is to promote partnership between the authorities, business and society in dealing with issues that are crucial for Belarusian Internet development,” he said.
The forum included meetings and roundtable discussions, which brought together IT and Internet experts and specialists, members of international organizations, and participants from other countries as well as from Belarus.
Andrey Vorobyev, Director of the Coordination Center for the TLD .RU/.РФ, attended the “Internet Governance in the Region: Current Issues and Prospects” roundtable discussion, which was chaired by ICANN Vice President Mikhail Yakushev, and saw attendees from Belarus, Moldova, Russia and Ukraine weigh in on Internet governance in Eastern Europe. “Section participants have concurred that there are a lot of issues that we can only resolve through cooperation. Particularly, we need to work together to further develop IDN domains. The Minsk IGF became a new venue for sharing experience, and it will unite specialists from different countries, especially from Eastern Europe,” Vorobyev said.
UN-supported Internet governance forums are held in over 30 countries and routinely attract the attention of large international organizations such as ICANN and RIPE NCC and technological companies. The Russian Internet Governance Forum, which was held for the seventh time in April 2016, is a major forum in Eastern Europe that brings together participants from Russia and other countries. Such events play an important and useful role in promoting mutual understanding between the state, business and society, and in helping countries find common ground and solve issues together.
