The UN Secretary-General António Guterres has appointed Anriette Esterhuysen of the Republic of South Africa as the new chair of the Internet Governance Forum’s Multistakeholder Advisory Group (MAG)
The MAG 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.
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 ICT-focused civil society network in the world, from 2000-2016.
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.
Esterhuysen has served on the African Technical Advisory Committee of the UN Economic Commission for Africa’s African Information Society Initiative (1996-1999), the UN 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 MAG of the IGF (2012-2014).
She was inducted into the Internet Hall of Fame as a Global Connector in 2013.
The secretary-general expresses his deep appreciation to Lynn St. Amour, outgoing Chair of the MAG, for her leadership and able guidance since 2016.
