The final workshop I attended today was on a similar theme to the other two, but was hosted by two ICT industry groups, WITSA (the World IT and Services Alliance) and the GITC (Global Information Infrastructure Commission). As I have noted before, it would have been more consistent with the IGF's multi-stakeholder principles if the technical community, civil society and the private sector had collaborated on a joint workshop rather than holding three separate workshops on similar topic.

Unfortunately, the same error is continuing to be made. CENTR, an association of European ccTLD registries, have scheduled "Government, Civil Society and Private Sector Informal Round Table discussions" for tomorrow morning, not as an IGF workshop but as a separate event in a nearby hotel. This event conflicts with two full workshop streams, and the main session on Diversity. And they are not discussing anything new.

Why couldn't they have wrapped their discussions of bottom-up policy development, private sector participation and capacity building, into the (many) existing sessions and workshops on these issues? If they had, more people would have been able to participate and more perspectives would have been shared.

Anyway... the main session of the workshop on "Enhancing Multi-Stakeholder Participation in ICT Policy Making" comprised a series of presentations, followed by discussion, about new forms of public-private partnerships that have broken down barriers to the deployment and use of ICTs, particularly in developing countries.

That's all I have to say about this workshop really, since I haven't eaten today, and I need to find some food. A lot of delegates (not only those from developing countries) are complaining that there is no affordable food in the area. The Divani Apollon Palace and Spa where the IGF is hosted is a five-star hotel with menus priced to match, and the few surrounding restaurants are of a similar class. The nearest inexpensive cafe I know of is twenty minutes walk away. Oh well, I need the exercise...