Internationally organized,
non-profit company, responsible for the global coordination of the
Internet’s system of unique identifiers like domain names such as
.org, .museum and country codes like .ng, the Internet Corporation for
Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), has tasked Nigeria on ensuring
that Africa take its place in the proposed global Internet Governance
Forum (IGF) to be hosted in Cairo, first quarter of 2009.
Champion Infotel recalls that
Nigeria was in May this year at the International Telecommunications
Union (ITU) forum in Cairo, Egypt elected to chair the continental
Conference of Information and Communications Technology (ICT)
Ministers under the leadership of Mr. John Odey.
Also, the Government of Egypt
offered to host the 2009 IGF meeting.
Speaking execlusively to
Champion Infotel on the forthcoming Internet Governance Forum
scheduled to hold in Cairo, the African regional manager at ICANN, Ms
Anne Rachel Inne, said that it is vital that Nigeria energise African
participation at the forum.
According to her, little or no
action has been seen since Nigeria took over the mantle of leadership
of the African Conference of ICT Ministers and would like to see more
action especially in preparation to the Cairo meeting, which Africa is
hosting.
It is lamenteable that little
action is coming from Africa and it would not be an exciting future to
realise that the continent did not contribute to the
Internationalization of ICANN, which is touted to be top on the Cairo
agenda
She pointed out that on the
continent, "our countries are at different levels right now of
development the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD)," but her main
concern is that most of these ccTLDs are not working the way they are
supposed to be working.
"Most of them are managed by
entities that either do not have the means, sustainability or simply
do not have the human and technical capacity to get them to the point
where they need to be," she decried.
Conference of ICT Ministers in
Africa, she said, began as a good omen two years ago with Egypt
holding the first chair of the committee to be rotated every two years
and Nigeria as the incumbent chairperson, it is relevant to take the
bull by the horn to ensure that Africa’s voices are heard not only at
the Hyderabad session but also at the 2009 session in Cairo.
"Nigeria as the incumbent
chairperson of the Conference of ICT Ministers in Africa is supposed
to be organizing preparatory meetings on the Internet Governance Forum
which would be held in Africa- Cairo next year," she charged.
The essence of the preparatory
meeting is to help Africa harmonise its views, because, "Different
people are thinking different things about IGF and we are ready to
give insight into what ICANN is doing," Inne said.
She expects Africa to be fully
on ground with the developments in ICANN and raise salient issues
concerning the continent.
"And I want Africa to be part of
it all, especially concerning the internationalization of ICANN," she
said.
Stressing that her concerns is
on the internationalization of ICANN, "because I want Africa to be
part of the processes and I don’t want the region to say later that
they were left out or did not know what happened or even that they did
it again without African input," she warned.
Inne advised that by taking
charge of the situation Nigeria would make sure that certain issues or
process that do not favour Africa are taking out of the way rather
than lamenting later: "we didn’t really know what was happening."
To this effect, she noted that
in several other forums, ICANN in the region has been briefing
ministers and secretary generals and regulatory agencies as to update
them.
Recently, she said, there was a
meeting in Senegal with AfriNIC, ISOC, AfriSPA and regulatory
authority in Senegal about Internet Governance in general.
In a related development, all is
now set for the Hyderaba meeting of ICANN in India, which would take
place at the Hyderabad International Conference Center (HICC) and
arrangements are in top gear as ICANN anticipates a successful
meeting.
The Under-Secretary-General,
Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), Mr. Sha Zukang,
assured that it would be a fulfilling one.
A letter of invitation to the
third meeting of the Internet Governance Forum, signed by Zukang and
made available to Champion Infotel showed that the meeting would be
open to all World Summit on the information Society (WSIS) accredited
entities, as well as other institutions and persons with proven
expertise and experience in matters related to Internet governance.
He pointed out that following
broad-based consultations through the Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group
(MAG), the proposed agenda for the Third Meeting of the IGF would
include the reaching of the next billion Internet users; promoting
cyber-security and trust; managing critical Internet resources; taking
stock and the way forward; and emerging issues - the Internet of
tomorrow.
"The overall theme of the
meeting will be ‘internet for all,’" he said.
Zukang also said that this theme
complements that of the 2008 World Telecommunications and Information
Society Day, which was ‘connecting people with disabilities’.
"The theme underscores the
importance of ensuring that we include the world’s 650 million people
with disabilities as we move towards giving internet access to the
next billion people," he said.
Zukang equally expressed his
gratitude to the Government of India for accepting to host the next
meeting of the internet Governance Forum (IGF).
"Our host this year provides us
with a practical example of how tremendous economic growth can be
achieved through harnessing the tools which the Internet has placed at
our disposal. We will see first hand in the host city of Hyderabad,
how India’s development through the application of Information and
Communication Technology (lCT) has been truly astounding," he said.
