At the Global Governance Forum in New York in March 2004 – on the eve of the formation of the WGIG - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan summarised the situation as follows: "The issues are numerous and complex. Even the definition of what is meant by Internet governance is a subject of debate. But the world has a common interest in ensuring the security and the dependability of this new medium. Equally important, we need to develop inclusive and participatory models of governance. The medium must be made accessible and responsive to the needs of all the world's people". He added that "in managing, promoting and protecting [the Internet's] presence in our lives, we need to be no less creative than those who invented it. Clearly, there is a need for governance, but that does not necessarily mean that it has to be done in the traditional way, for something that is so very different."

When the WGIG took up its work in October 2004, Kofi
Annan's challenge for more creativity became its "leitmotif". The WGIG Report produced a definition on Internet Governance, an extended list of related public-policy issues and specifications of the responsibilities of the involved stakeholders. WGIG submitted a number of models for the enhancement of multi-stakeholder cooperation for the oversight over critical Internet resources and recommended the creation of a new global discussion space for Internet policy development, the "Internet Governance Forum" (IGF).

The WGIG report, presented in July 2005, became the basis for the adoption of the "Tunis Agenda for the Information Society" by the 2nd WSIS Summit in November 2005. The Tunis Agenda recognised the fact that the Internet, along with its infrastructure and applications, consists of many layers where numerous governmental and non-governmental players are involved with specific roles and responsibilities, and that there is a need to enhance communication, coordination and cooperation among the various players to ensure the Internet's continued functioning, as well as its stability, security and further development.

The fact that no one single organisation is responsible for the Internet, and that instead it is governed by a multilayer, multi-player mechanism, helped in designing the IGF as an open multi-stakeholder and multidisciplinary discussion forum for all issues related to Internet governance. The idea of the IGF is to bring the various stakeholders together and enable them to discuss existing and emerging issues from various perspectives without the pressure to find a political or legal consensus and to agree on "diplomatic language" at the end of the debate. The vision is that such a high-level multi-stakeholder discussion will help the organisations and institutions involved, which hold a mandate to deal with specific elements of the Internet, to make better-informed and more qualified decisions within their individual fields of competence. From such practice a diversified multi-stakeholder governance system could emerge which would to a certain degree reflect the decentralised architecture of the Internet.