{"id":10920,"date":"2024-07-13T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-07-13T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/igf\/2024\/07\/13\/en-srilanka-igf-2024-overview\/"},"modified":"2024-07-13T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-07-13T02:00:00","slug":"en-srilanka-igf-2024-overview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/igf\/2024\/07\/13\/en-srilanka-igf-2024-overview\/","title":{"rendered":"IGF Sri Lanka 2024 (3rd National IGF) \u2014 In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest &#038; 3-Line Summary"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/en-srilanka-igf-2024-overview_thumbnail-3.svg\" alt=\"Sri Lanka IGF 2024 \u30b3\u30ed\u30f3\u30dc \u2014 Thumbnail\"><\/p>\n<h2>The 3-Line Summary<\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/en-srilanka-igf-2024-overview_s3.svg\" alt=\"Sri Lanka IGF 2024 \u30b3\u30ed\u30f3\u30dc \u2014 3-line summary\"><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><strong>The third IGF Sri Lanka met 12\u201313 December 2024 at the Mandarina hotel in Colombo under the theme &quot;Empowering the Internet Through Multistakeholderism&quot;, with 178 participants and 52 speakers.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Five tracks \u2014 Main, Women, Youth, Digital Inclusion and Tech \u2014 hosted ten panels, and produced a concrete outcome: a volunteer group to advise government on the policy framework and parliamentary bill for disability accessibility and digital rights.<\/strong><\/li>\n<li><strong>Revived by LKSIG after roughly seven dormant years following the 2016 and 2017 editions, it stands as a case study in how a small country&#39;s national IGF can come back from hiatus.<\/strong><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Welcome \u2014 this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on <strong>IGF Sri Lanka 2024 (3rd National IGF)<\/strong> draws on official outputs, session records and on-site reporting. In a hurry? The three lines above and the diagrams carry the gist.<\/p>\n<h2>Conference at a Glance (from official records)<\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/en-srilanka-igf-2024-overview_h2-2.svg\" alt=\"Sri Lanka IGF 2024 \u30b3\u30ed\u30f3\u30dc \u2014 Conference at a glance\"><\/p>\n<table>\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th>Item<\/th>\n<th>Detail<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td>Official name<\/td>\n<td>IGF Sri Lanka 2024 (3rd National IGF)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Dates<\/td>\n<td>12\u201313 December 2024<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Venue<\/td>\n<td>Mandarina Colombo (hotel), Colombo<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Theme<\/td>\n<td>Empowering the Internet Through Multistakeholderism<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Participants<\/td>\n<td>178<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Speakers<\/td>\n<td>52<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Panels<\/td>\n<td>10<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Tracks<\/td>\n<td>5<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Host<\/td>\n<td>Lanka School on Internet Governance (LKSIG), the local representative of APSIG<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td>Outcome<\/td>\n<td>Formation of a volunteer group to advise government on the policy framework and parliamentary bill for accessibility and digital rights of persons with disabilities<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p>(See the source list at the end of this article.)<\/p>\n<h2>Discussion Digest \u2014 from the Session Records<\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/en-srilanka-igf-2024-overview_minutes.svg\" alt=\"Sri Lanka IGF 2024 \u30b3\u30ed\u30f3\u30dc \u2014 Discussion map\"><\/p>\n<p>Key exchanges extracted from session records and transcripts.<\/p>\n<h3>1. Digital Economy and Internet Governance \u2014 Government Vision and the Gig Economy<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Sessions<\/strong>: Main Forum Panel 1 &quot;Internet Governance and Digital Economy&quot; (12 December)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Chief guest Eranga Weerathna, Deputy Minister of Digital Economy, laid out the government&#39;s digital-economy vision, calling forums like the IGF eye-openers that show policymakers best practices [1]<\/li>\n<li>The acting secretary of the Ministry of Digital Economy, Mastercard&#39;s country manager for Sri Lanka and the Maldives, and ICANN&#39;s global stakeholder engagement manager debated the institutional design of digital payments and the gig economy [1]<\/li>\n<li>Recommendations distilled into three: build a comprehensive digital-economy framework, expand financial inclusion to marginalised and rural communities, and institutionalise regular multistakeholder dialogue [1]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>2. Safer Internet \u2014 Aligning Data Protection with GDPR and the Enforcement Gap<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Sessions<\/strong>: Main Forum Panel 2 &quot;Safer Internet, Privacy, and Regulations&quot; (12 December)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Practitioners from Sri Lanka CERT, a major bank, the bar and security firms audited Sri Lanka&#39;s data-protection regime, flagging enforcement gaps and the need to build regulator capacity [1]<\/li>\n<li>They urged faster implementation of comprehensive data-protection legislation aligned with GDPR-class standards, plus specific rules and technical safeguards for children&#39;s online safety [1]<\/li>\n<li>Encryption was affirmed as a critical safeguard for user data, with public-private partnerships called on to deliver child-safety programmes and digital literacy [1]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>3. Women IGF \u2014 &quot;Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges&quot;<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Sessions<\/strong>: Session 2: Women Internet Governance Forum (12 December), themed &quot;Breaking Barriers, Building Bridges: Women in Internet Governance&quot;<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>ISOC trustee Sagarika Wickramasekera opened the track, and ISOC CEO Sally Wentworth&#39;s video message underscored why women&#39;s participation in digital governance matters [1]<\/li>\n<li>It was deliberately participatory: a &quot;Voice of Influence&quot; simulation put attendees into government, civil-society, private-sector, academic and technical roles, alongside vision-mapping toward 2030 [1]<\/li>\n<li>Four recommendations emerged: stronger online-safety policies for women, digital literacy for women and marginalised communities, more women in governance bodies, and mentorship programmes [1]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>4. Digital Inclusion for Persons with Disabilities \u2014 From &quot;Nothing Without Us&quot; to a Bill-advisory Group<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Sessions<\/strong>: Session 4: Digital Inclusion and Accessibility in Internet Governance (13 December)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Persons with vision, hearing, physical, psychosocial and intellectual disabilities spoke and participated \u2014 &quot;Nothing Without Us&quot; in practice \u2014 and even the hotel was chosen for its accessibility, down to Braille-marked, voice-announcing lifts [1][4]<\/li>\n<li>LIRNEasia&#39;s 2019 survey data showed a stark gap: 78% mobile ownership nationally versus 32% among persons with disabilities \u2014 who nonetheless skew more heavily to smartphones (63% vs 50%), signalling demand for capable devices [1][4]<\/li>\n<li>The concrete outcome: a multistakeholder volunteer group to advise government on the accessibility and digital-rights policy framework and parliamentary bill, with calls to align national policy with the UNCRPD and WCAG [1][4]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>5. Tech IGF \u2014 A Sinhala and Tamil Internet, and AI Governance<\/h3>\n<p><strong>Sessions<\/strong>: Session 5: Technical IGF (13 December): Multilingual Internet &amp; Universal Acceptance; AI\/ML, Data Governance and Trust<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Growing Sinhala and Tamil content, spreading internationalised domain names and localised ccTLDs, and achieving Universal Acceptance were framed as the agenda for leaving no language behind [1][2]<\/li>\n<li>The AI panel worked through black-box opacity, scarce annotated data, adversarial attacks and the operational risks of generative AI, recommending a national AI committee with technical authority [1][2]<\/li>\n<li>The technical community&#39;s recorded recommendations included R&amp;D investment in Sinhala\/Tamil NLP, speech recognition and machine translation, plus GDPR-level data-protection alignment [1][2]<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Three-Minute Short Talk \u2014 Your Questions Answered<\/h2>\n<p><strong>Q. So what did the meeting actually decide?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A. No binding decisions \u2014 but something tangible did emerge: a volunteer group, formed at the forum, to advise government on the policy framework and parliamentary bill for disability accessibility and digital rights.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q. What was the most contentious topic?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A. Data protection&#39;s law-versus-enforcement gap. Calls to fast-track GDPR-class legislation collided with the reality that the regulator lacks the people and capacity to enforce it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Q. Why should I care?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>A. A national IGF dormant for seven years came back, anchored by a school-style community (LKSIG). Its playbooks \u2014 a native-language Internet, disability inclusion \u2014 travel to any country.<\/p>\n<h2>What Is Sri Lanka IGF? (for first-time readers)<\/h2>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/07\/en-srilanka-igf-2024-overview_h1-2.svg\" alt=\"Sri Lanka IGF 2024 \u30b3\u30ed\u30f3\u30dc \u2014 About Sri Lanka IGF\"><\/p>\n<p>Sri Lanka IGF is a National or Regional IGF Initiative (NRI), aligning local internet governance discussion with global IGF principles.<\/p>\n<h2>Why It Matters to You<\/h2>\n<p>What was discussed here becomes <strong>the baseline for national digital policy, platform rules and AI regulation worldwide within a few years<\/strong>. The principles confirmed at the 2024 meeting are the foundation of the &quot;next rules&quot; for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.<\/p>\n<h2>Sources &amp; References<\/h2>\n<ol>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intgovforum.org\/en\/filedepot_download\/79\/28774\">Report on IGF Sri Lanka 2024\uff08\u516c\u5f0f\u5831\u544a\u66f8PDF\uff09<\/a> \u2014 Lanka School on Internet Governance (LKSIG) \/ \u56fd\u9023IGF\u4e8b\u52d9\u5c40filedepot (accessed 2026-07-11)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/igfsrilanka.org\/\">IGF Sri Lanka\uff08\u516c\u5f0f\u30b5\u30a4\u30c8\uff09<\/a> \u2014 IGF Sri Lanka \/ LKSIG (accessed 2026-07-11)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.intgovforum.org\/en\/content\/sri-lanka-igf-1\">Sri Lanka IGF\uff08NRI\u516c\u5f0f\u8a18\u9332\u30da\u30fc\u30b8\u30fb2024\u5e74\u6b21\u5831\u544a\u30ea\u30f3\u30af\uff09<\/a> \u2014 UN IGF Secretariat (accessed 2026-07-11)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/lirneasia.net\/2025\/01\/lirneasia-at-igf-sri-lanka-2024-bridging-the-digital-divide\/\">LIRNEasia at IGF Sri Lanka 2024: Bridging the digital divide<\/a> \u2014 LIRNEasia (accessed 2026-07-11)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><em>Quotes are translated or condensed from the records listed above. Bracketed numbers [n] refer to the source list.<\/em><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><strong>Related links<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>IGF official (NRI list): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.intgovforum.org\/en\/content\/national-and-regional-igf-initiatives\">https:\/\/www.intgovforum.org\/en\/content\/national-and-regional-igf-initiatives<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Japan IGF: <a href=\"https:\/\/japanigf.jp\/\">https:\/\/japanigf.jp\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Yuki Nakazawa&#39;s blog: <a href=\"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/category\/igf\/\">https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/category\/igf\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>\u66f4\u65b0\u5c65\u6b74<\/h2>\n<p>\u7b2c1\u7a3f\u6295\u7a3f 2026\u5e747\u670816\u65e5 12\u664255\u5206\uff08\u8a18\u4e8b\u30b3\u30f3\u30c6\u30f3\u30c4\u30a2\u30c3\u30d7\uff09<\/p>\n<p><em>\u2014 \u4e2d\u6fa4\u7950\u6a39<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The third IGF Sri Lanka met 12\u201313 December 2024 at the Mandarina hotel in Colombo under the theme &#8220;Empowering the Internet Through Multistak<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15,3,11,124],"tags":[163,161,160,162,164,744],"class_list":["post-10920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-aprigf","category-igf","category-regional-igf","category-srilanka-igf","tag-3-line-summary","tag-deep-dive","tag-english","tag-minutes-digest","tag-sourced","tag-srilankaigf2024"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/igf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/igf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/igf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/igf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/igf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/igf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/igf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/igf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nkzw.jp\/igf\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}