IV Internet Governance Forum of the Dominican Republic (FGI-DO-2019) — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

On 9 December 2019, the fourth Dominican Republic IGF (FGI-DO-2019) convened at the INDOTEL Cultural Centre in Santo Domingo's colonial quarter, under the theme 'A model of internet governance based on principles and rights.'
Panels covered the country's experience connecting the unconnected, privacy and data protection, the national IXP project IX-DO, and free expression on platforms — plus a public reading of the Dominican Republic's Charter of Internet Principles. The Presidency's vice-minister for República Digital and the regulator's board president attended.
The charter first conceived in 2016 reached its public reading, and the 2017 IXP debate matured into the IX-DO project — a live demonstration of how a small national forum compounds into policy over successive editions.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on IV Internet Governance Forum of the Dominican Republic (FGI-DO-2019) draws on official outputs, session records and on-site reporting. In a hurry? The three lines above and the diagrams carry the gist.

Conference at a Glance (from official records)

Item	Detail
Official name	IV Internet Governance Forum of the Dominican Republic (FGI-DO-2019)
Dates	9 December 2019
Venue	Centro Cultural INDOTEL (Espacio República Digital), Zona Colonial, Santo Domingo, 8:30am–4:30pm
Theme	'Un modelo de gobernanza de internet, basado en principios y derechos' (A model of internet governance based on principles and rights)
Host	ISOC-DO (chapter president Osvaldo Larancuent gave the closing remarks), supported by ISOC's Beyond the Net programme, Google, INDOTEL and the IGFSA

(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. Access — Dominican Experiences in Connecting the Unconnected

Sessions: Panel 1 'Dominican Republic experiences in access, to connect the unconnected'

Vice-Minister Zoraima Puello, who runs the government's República Digital programme, attended — putting state connectivity policy and civil-society scrutiny in the same room [1][2]
The panel reviewed national efforts to close the urban–rural connectivity gap, from community networks to broadband rollout [1][2]

2. Privacy and Data Protection in the Age of Emerging Technologies

Sessions: Panel 2 'Challenges of the right to privacy and data protection in the use of the internet and emerging technologies'

Representatives of Access Now, Panama's IPANDETEC and the ISOC Peru chapter brought a Latin American comparative lens to data-protection law [1][2]
In line with the forum's theme, the panel positioned privacy as a precondition of technology policy, not an afterthought [1][2]

3. IX-DO — The National IXP Project and the Charter of Internet Principles

Sessions: ISOC-DO project updates on the national IXP (IX-DO) and the public reading of the Dominican Republic's Charter of Internet Principles

Progress on IX-DO (ixp.org.do), the national exchange-point project that grew out of the country's first IXP workshop in 2017, was reported alongside its expected impact on digital transformation [1][2]
The Charter of Internet Principles, first conceived in 2016, received its public reading — three years of multistakeholder work made tangible [1][2]
A report-back from the just-concluded global IGF 2019 in Berlin tied the national forum into the worldwide IGF process [1][2]

4. Free Expression and Platforms — Discussing 'Digital Democracy'

Sessions: Panel 3 'Freedom of expression, social networks and digital platforms for content' plus a discussion of the book 'Democracia Digital'

The panel took up free-expression challenges around social networks and platform content distribution, with national elections due the following year [1][2]
Elaine Ford of ISOC Peru presented her book 'Democracia Digital', drawing on regional cases to examine how online spaces reshape democracy [1][2]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What did the meeting decide?

A. Nothing binding, but the Dominican Charter of Internet Principles got its public reading and the national IXP project IX-DO reported progress — earlier editions' seeds visibly bearing fruit.

Q. Was there no 2018 edition?

A. No. The organisers themselves wrote that this was 'the fourth event since 2015' — three editions before it. Small national IGFs skip years when money and volunteers run short; that is the reality of grassroots NRIs.

Q. Why should I care?

A. Privacy, platform speech and public scrutiny of a government digitalisation programme are universal issues — and this forum shows how a small country builds a standing venue to debate them, edition after edition.

What Is Dominican Republic IGF? (for first-time readers)

Dominican Republic IGF 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 2019 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.