United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Ms. Anriette Esterhuysen of the Republic of South Africa as the new Chair of the Internet Governance Forum’s Multistakeholder Advisory Group.
The Multistakeholder Advisory Group advises the Secretary-General on the programme of Internet Governance Forum annual meetings. It comprises 50 members drawn from Governments, the private sector and civil society, including representatives of the academic and technical communities.
Ms. Esterhuysen currently serves as a Commissioner on the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace. She was the executive director of the Association for Progressive Communications (APC) – the largest ICT-focused civil society network in the world – from 2000 to 2016. She continues to work with APC as a consultant and convenes the African School on Internet Governance (AfriSIG) a joint initiative of APC, the African Union Commission and Research ICT Africa. Ms. Esterhuysen has served on the African Technical Advisory Committee of the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa’s African Information Society Initiative (1996-1999), the United Nations ICT Task Force (2002-2005), the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Working Group on Financing Mechanisms (2003-2005), the Commission on Science and Technology for Development Working Group on Internet Governance Forum (IGF) Improvements (2011-2012) and on Enhanced Cooperation (2017-2018), the Global Commission on Internet Governance and the Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG) of the IGF (2012-2014). She was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame as a Global Connecter in 2013.
The Secretary-General expresses his deep appreciation to Ms. Lynn St. Amour, outgoing Chair of the Multistakeholder Advisory Group, for her leadership and able guidance since 2016.