[Ncuc-af] Report: Meeting with ICANN Africa VP during ICANN64

[Thato Mfikwe]

Hi all

This email serves as a report from a 45-minute meeting that was held with
ICANN VP of Stakeholder Engagement for Africa, Pierre Dandjinou during
ICANN64 on the 13th of March 2019 and apologies for the long message.


Participants who attended this meeting were Thato Mfikwe (South Africa) and
Joan Katambi (Uganda), who are both NCUC members.

The meeting started with introductions by everyone and before and question
and answer portion, I also explained the evolution of the LACNIC region in
order to clearly articulate areas of improvement in ICANN and community
regional efforts in contributing more effectively in delivery of ICANN
remit and community activities.



*1.       **Improving regional participation within ICANN and the region*

Pierre mentioned that it was important for members to get involved in
community activities within ICANN and anyone interested in participating
must be able to submit a 1-page document on how they have impacted or
cultivated the ICANN community at regional and national level and how they
would like to further contribute.

Proposed way forward for improved participation

-          There is a need for an ICANN/AFRICA environment. During ICANN65,
there will be a slot to discuss the Africa strategy, also noting that
previously Africa never had an engagement platform within ICANN.

-          Fadi Chehade, the previous CEO of ICANN, strongly felt that
Africa is not well represented and treated within ICANN, for instance less
than 1% of gTLDs were allocated to the region out of 100 applications and
most of the allocated were in South Africa. The main problem in this regard
is that Africa did not know about the gTLD program, it is therefore
paramount that Africa outlines their expectations from ICANN.

-          The current Africa strategy plan has 2 proposed pillars:

o   Participation in ICANN’s work

o   Capacity building in the Domain Name industry, a proposed campaign is
“DNSSEC roadshows” as few ccTLD managers were assisted to sign the zone
file thus far.

-          DNS forums originated in Africa, with the first one taking place
in Durban, South Africa and now these forums span across different regions.
The advantage of these forums is that they create a platform for registrars
and registries in Africa to collaborate and the next regional DNS forum
will be in Botswana.

-          Law enforcement agency campaigns. These campaigns involve
mitigation of cyber crime through capacity building of law enforcement
agencies and for purposes of this, ICANN Africa has empowered 12 registrars
within the region.

Lastly, to increase the number of fellowships for F2F meetings, SO’s & AC’s
are always supported to attend and the mechanism has been developed within
AC/SO’s to receive fellowships. Members must take leadership positions,
actively participate and contribute based on the focus of different AC’s
and SO’s.

30% of ICANN F2F meeting attendees come to ICANN through fellowships and
the rest of the participants come by themselves or receive support
elsewhere. In order to improve regional participation outside ICANN’s
support, there needs to be awareness campaigns targeting regulators to
support participation of local or regional community members. Pierre also
recognised that the current capacity of the Africa engagement office is
limited and he mentioned that currently, plans are under way to double
capacity to 6, as this will help in ensuring ICANN is able to service the
entire region to a certain extend.



 *2.       **LACNIC Region background*

According to Pierre, LANCIC has its own hub, whereas Africa’s hub is in
Istanbul with its engagement centre in Kenya. Another advantage the LACNIC
region has, is that they also have internet houses with RIRs, RALOS and so
on, making it simple for them to collaborate and work together to
effectively contribute in activities of ICANN, while influencing policy
direction and position, especially at community level. LACNIC also
participates within working groups which offer fellowship opportunities.



*3.       **Other opportunities for development in Africa*

Fundraising at regional and national level

Africa only has the Africa Internet Summit, which takes place once a year,
which is not sufficient, so then, the African community needs to start
organising itself. Pierre pointed out a need to tap into local capacity
like mobile operators, stakeholders and entities benefitting from the
domain name space, so engagement with them is important to supporting local
and regional initiatives. Also pointed out that the GNSO brings in a lot of
money in ICANN as it encompasses, registries, registrars, the Commercial
Stakeholder Group and RIR’s for instance.



Capacity building program

ICANN Africa participates in regional events and have ICANN day and
specific workshops for registries and registrars, they have also initiated
a youth community, NextGen fellowships and law enforcement workshops. The
question to be answered when it comes to such initiatives is, “How do we
grow them within Africa”.



AFRISIG

In response to continued and possible increased support for the African
School on Internet Governance, Pierre mentioned that although they have
budget limitations, they will continue to support AFRSIG financially and
sending resource people without making promise of increased support.



National and Global IGF

They do support, sponsor and participate at regional and sub-regional IGFs
(5 years ago to date), the problem with national IGFs is that Africa with
54 countries will mean ICANN committing funds and people for every request
for support which is not viable based on current and experienced budget
challenges within ICANN and the region.



Community Support and regional participation

The Africa engagement office currently works with AFRALO when opportunity
permits. *Personally, I think we need to learn something from AFRALO in
term on how they self-structure, organise and co-ordinate themselves.*

During ICANN meetings, 15-20 years ago, you would find only 2 Africans out
of 500 participants, the number grew steadily from to 10 – 15 Africans
overtime and today we have 40 – 50 regional participants in ICANN meetings.
This is one of the reasons why quality participation has to be always
promoted within the region, like working groups, leadership roles and
participation in ICANN public forums. The good thing about ICANN, is that
it creates opportunity for networking. ICANN localisation with multiple
stakeholders is needed to prepare for participation of members and the
regional community need to start initiating their own Readout sessions
after every ICANN meeting.



 *My recommendation or side input to members*

Initially, we need to consider setting up an online meeting to discuss this
report and obtain other updates and comments. We cannot rely solely on
ICANN to resolve regional challenges, we need to be proactive in creating
an enabling environment and coming up with ideas and projects to see local
ideals come to fruition.

We need to organise ourselves and immediate community members to ensure
that we are well represented, treated and our voices are heard within ICANN
as outlined in the report. Below are some of the proposed action steps we
can consider:

a.       Development of a concept document on how the African strategy can
be improved or best executed before ICANN65, to be submitted of the ICANNN
African engagement office and then presented and discussed at the meeting.

b.       Establishment of a steering committee encompassing community
members and/or representatives from NCUC in the meantime and then other ACs
and SOs in the medium term, to:
                          i.      initiate establishment of WGs (policy
development, community engagements, capacity building, fundraising and etc
for instance, guided by agreed priorities)
                         ii.         develop an action plan and procedural
documents defining terms and parameters of participation and engagement
amongst other activities.

Thanks for taking time to read,
Thato Mfikwe.
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