The Power of Convening in Our Digital World

[Commentary] I spent part of December 2014 in sunny Doha (Qatar), which hosted the annual International Telecommunication Union Telecom World Forum. By seeing the various stakeholders interact with each other throughout the Forum, genuinely interested to hear new and different perspectives rather than reciting a series of talking points, I experienced first-hand the unique power of convening that the ITU maintains. The Forum left me with the strong impression that the ITU should emphasize and enhance its singular role as a global convener. The ability to gather a wide and varied group together to focus on global Internet freedom of expression and key telecommunications policy areas is valuable in itself. It draws on the best attributes of the agency without the ITU continuing to struggle in creating a new, greatly divisive regulatory raison d'être.

[Stuart Brotman is a Nonresident Senior Fellow of Governance Studies at the Center for Technology Innovation]