LACIGF 2014 San Salvador — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

1. The 7th LACIGF met on 16–18 July 2014 at the Hotel Real Intercontinental in San Salvador, El Salvador — the forum's first Central American edition — with about 170 on-site and over 2,000 remote participants across three language channels.
2. Coming just months after NETmundial in São Paulo, the meeting's eight thematic sessions tackled the regional implementation of the multistakeholder model, net neutrality, human rights and open data, with NETmundial-style remote participation feeding questions into every session.
3. The Programme Committee also struck a deal with the eLAC process to co-locate the 2015 edition with the region's Ministerial Conference in Mexico City — a turning point that wired the regional IGF into governmental policy-making.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on LACIGF 2014 in San Salvador draws on official outputs, session records and on-site reporting. In a hurry? The three lines above and the diagrams carry the gist.

📍 The catalogue's 'Salvador' refers to San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador — not Salvador (Bahia), Brazil. The year and edition match the official list (7th edition, 16–18 July 2014); the one-year offset found for 2023–2025 does not affect this edition.

Conference at a Glance (from official records)

(See the source list at the end of this article.)

Discussion Digest — from the Session Records

Key exchanges extracted from session records and transcripts.

1. After NETmundial — Bringing the São Paulo Consensus Home

Sessions: Sessions on 'The Internet governance ecosystem in 2014' and the NETmundial process

• With NETmundial (April 2014, São Paulo) having just adopted its multistakeholder principles and roadmap, the forum focused on translating that outcome into regional governance practice [3][5]
• Remote participation was modelled on the NETmundial experience, and every session fielded five or more questions via chat or Twitter — the most successful remote engagement of any edition to date [3][5]
• An opening session on 'the Internet governance ecosystem in 2014' mapped the region's position in a turbulent year [3][5]

2. A Broadening Regional Agenda — Net Neutrality, Human Rights and Open Data

Sessions: Eight thematic sessions (16–18 July)

• Net neutrality had its own session as legislation advanced across the region — including Brazil's newly enacted Marco Civil — letting the forum consolidate shared positions [5][3]
• The eight sessions spanned safeguarding human rights, open data, national governance initiatives and the eLAC2015 working group, keeping development and rights at the core [5][3]
• Per ICANN's report, more than 150 representatives from over 20 countries convened to sharpen the regional agenda [5][3]

3. First Time in Central America — Widening the Forum's Reach

Sessions: The meeting overall (local organiser: Conexión El Salvador)

• For the first time in seven editions the forum came to Central America — one of the regional Internet community's most important events of the year, as ICANN's blog put it [3][2]
• Open-call selectee Conexión El Salvador hosted locally, with Google, CGI.br, LACNIC, the Internet Society, ICANN, APC and Telefónica funding the event [3][2]
• A joint scholarship fund supported 32 participants to attend both LACIGF 7 and the IGF in Istanbul that September, keeping under-resourced voices in the room [3][2]

4. Another Participation Record — 2,000 Attend Remotely in Three Languages

Sessions: The meeting overall (remote participation channels)

• On-site attendance matched the previous record at roughly 170, while remote channels in Spanish, Portuguese and English drew more than 2,000 participants [2]
• The #lacigf7 hashtag generated significant social-media traction — cementing a hybrid regional forum where remote participation outnumbers the room by an order of magnitude [2]

5. Linking Up with eLAC — Toward Co-Location with the 2015 Ministerial

Sessions: Agreement between the Programme Committee and the eLAC Coordination Board

• In a first, the LACIGF Programme Committee agreed with the eLAC Coordination Board to hold the 8th edition jointly with the programme's Ministerial Conference in Mexico City in August 2015 [2]
• The deal bridged the multistakeholder regional forum and an intergovernmental policy process, paving the way for expanded government participation the following year [2]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What did the forum actually decide?

A. It's a dialogue venue without binding decisions — but this year brought a big organisational one: the 2015 edition would be co-located with the eLAC Ministerial Conference in Mexico City, plugging the forum into an intergovernmental process.

Q. Wait — Salvador or San Salvador?

A. San Salvador, the capital of El Salvador — not Salvador in Bahia, Brazil. Easy to confuse, entirely different places. This was the first LACIGF ever held in Central America.

Q. Why should I care?

A. 2014 was the year global Internet governance moved — NETmundial, the IANA transition announcement. This forum showed how a region can pool its voice, with over 2,000 people joining remotely in three languages.

What Is LACIGF? (for first-time readers)

LACIGF is a National or Regional IGF Initiative (NRI), aligning local internet governance discussion with global IGF principles.

Why It Matters to You

What was discussed here becomes the baseline for national digital policy, platform rules and AI regulation worldwide within a few years. The principles confirmed at the 2014 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.

Sources & References

1. lacigf 7 — VII Reunión Regional Preparatoria para el FGI（公式アーカイブ） — LACIGF（公式アーカイブサイト） (accessed 2026-07-10)
2. LACNIC Memoria Anual 2014 (PDF) — LACNIC（当時のLACIGFテクニカル事務局） (accessed 2026-07-10)
3. LACIGF: América Latina y el Caribe se reúnen para celebrar su 7° IGF regional — ICANN（ブログ） (accessed 2026-07-10)
4. Foros anteriores（歴代開催一覧） — LACIGF（公式） (accessed 2026-07-10)
5. Reunión Regional Preparatoria para el Foro para la Gobernanza de Internet — Wikipedia（スペイン語版） (accessed 2026-07-10)

Quotes are translated or condensed from the records listed above. Bracketed numbers [n] refer to the source list.

Related links

• IGF official (NRI list): https://www.intgovforum.org/en/content/national-and-regional-igf-initiatives
• Japan IGF: https://japanigf.jp/
• Yuki Nakazawa's blog: https://nkzw.jp/category/igf/

Revision History

Rev. 1 — published 8 August 2014, 15:00 (Article published)

Rev. 2 — updated 10 July 2026, 23:16 (Fully revised into the in-depth edition: added the 3-line summary, minutes digest, short talk, source list and diagrams (all quotes verified against the listed sources))

— 中澤祐樹