First Internet Governance Forum Paraguay (IGFPY 2014) — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

The first Internet Governance Forum Paraguay (IGFPY) met on 4 August 2014 at the Sheraton Asunción Hotel with 76 participants, under the theme 'Internet Governance, a Paraguayan challenge'.
The ISOC Paraguay chapter teamed with the state ICT secretariat SENATICs to debate net neutrality, free expression and privacy, and unequal access to the international backbone, with ICANN's Daniel Fink keynoting on the NetMundial experience.
A closing workshop seeded a standing working group that carried the forum into annual editions. Centering a landlocked country's connectivity costs made this a distinctly Paraguayan starting point.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on First Internet Governance Forum Paraguay (IGFPY 2014) 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 listed the location as TBD; the official report filed with the UN IGF fixes it as the Sheraton Asunción Hotel

Conference at a Glance (from official records)

Item	Detail
Official name	First Internet Governance Forum Paraguay (IGFPY 2014)
Edition	First edition — a genuine debut; the official site states 'La primera reunión del Foro fue llevada a cabo en Paraguay en el 2014'
Dates	4 August 2014, 9:00–18:00
Venue	Sheraton Asunción Hotel, Asunción, Paraguay
Theme	'Internet Governance, a Paraguayan challenge'
Participants	76 (Per the official report: 105 registered on Eventbrite, 76 attended, all from Paraguay, with remote participants from Argentina, Mexico and Venezuela)
Host	Hosted by the ISOC Paraguay chapter in cooperation with the national ICT secretariat SENATICs; sponsored by ISOC and supported by ICANN

(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. Net Neutrality — Taking Stock Through Laws and Indicators

Sessions: Panel 2 'Net Neutrality', from 10:40 — Christian O'Flaherty (ISOC), José Usher (ISOC Paraguay), Marcelo Maltese (Ministry of Foreign Affairs)

Panellists mapped what Paraguay was doing on net neutrality, walking through the relevant indicators and laws, with ISOC's regional staff and the foreign ministry sharing the stage [1]
Every panel took remote questions via Zoom audio and the #igfpy2014 hashtag — forward-leaning logistics for 2014 [1]

2. Lessons from NetMundial — Bringing the Global Debate Home

Sessions: Keynote from 12:00 by Daniel Fink (ICANN)

ICANN's Daniel Fink reported on NetMundial, the April 2014 global multistakeholder meeting in Brazil on the future of Internet governance [1]
In panel 1, ISOC's Raquel Gatto and ISOC Paraguay's Natalia Enciso traced the IGF's origins and principles, arguing for Paraguayan presence in regional and global debates [1]
The opening featured ISOC Paraguay chair Nicolás Caballero, SENATICs minister David Ocampos and senator Blanca Ovelar of the education committee — government, congress and civil society jointly launching the forum [1]

3. Online Protection — Free Expression, Privacy and Intellectual Property

Sessions: Panel 3 'Online Protection', from 14:30 — Richard Ferreira Candia (UAA), Óscar Pavía (APADIT), Maricarmen Sequera (ISOC Paraguay/TEDIC)

A digital journalist, an IT lawyer and a privacy advocate mapped what existing law did and did not cover on digital rights [1]
Online content and liability, and privacy protection, surfaced concerns that later grew into the TEDIC-led data-protection law movement [1]

4. Access and Backbone Asymmetries — A Landlocked Country's Connectivity Gap

Sessions: Panel 4 'Access and asymmetries in the international backbone', from 16:00 — Alfredo Moreira (SENATICs), Carlos Núñez Castillo (UNA), Víctor Hugo Parada Roca (Bolivia)

The structural problem was stated plainly: landlocked Paraguay needs better access to the international backbone for cheaper, faster Internet [1]
A Bolivian speaker addressed access as a right, framing the connectivity gap as a shared problem of South America's landlocked states [1]

5. The Roadmap Workshop — Seeding a Standing Dialogue

Sessions: Workshop 'Roadmap for Internet Governance in Paraguay', from 17:00, facilitated by Yeny Villalba (Universidad Columbia del Paraguay/ISOC)

A closing workshop drafted a roadmap for national governance dialogue; a working group formed afterwards, anchored on the open mailing list gobernanza@listas.cnc.una.py [1][2]
A late-August debriefing of all stakeholder groups agreed to consolidate the forum and adopt Operating Principles — the start of an annual run that reached a ninth edition by 2025 [1][2]
The organising team spanned five sectors from day one: ISOC Paraguay, TEDIC and APADIT (civil society); SENATICs, CONATEL and the foreign ministry (government); CAPACE and VOX (private); NIC.PY and CNC (technical); Universidad Columbia and UNA (academia) [1][2]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What kind of meeting was this?

A. Paraguay's first national IGF: one day in an Asunción hotel on net neutrality, online rights and backbone access gaps — 105 registered, 76 in the room, with remote participation over Zoom.

Q. Why does the landlocked angle matter?

A. Paraguay has no direct submarine-cable access and buys international transit through neighbours, making connectivity slow and expensive. Placing that structural problem front and centre defined this IGF from day one.

Q. Why should I care?

A. The post-event playbook — mailing list, working group, operating principles, annual cadence — is a textbook example of turning a one-off event into a standing institution.

What Is Paraguay IGF? (for first-time readers)

Paraguay 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 2014 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.