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

Wed Mar 20 13:18:27 CET 2019

Thank you Thato and Joan for this meeting and the excellent report.Let us continue working on the good tips and recommendations from this meeting to improve Africa engagement in ICANN.

-- Prenez soin de vous car chaque jour est une vie. Yazid M. AKANHO Mobile: (+229)97979910 LinkdIn: www.linkedin.com/in/yakanho
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    Le mardi 19 mars 2019 à 22:11:10 UTC+1, Thato Mfikwe <thatomfikwe at gmail.com> a écrit :  

Hi all

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

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

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

1.       Improving regional participation withinICANN and the region

Pierre mentioned that it was important for members to getinvolved in community activities within ICANN and anyone interested inparticipating must be able to submit a 1-page document on how they haveimpacted or cultivated the ICANN community at regional and national level andhow 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, alsonoting that previously Africa never had an engagement platform within ICANN.

-         Fadi Chehade, the previous CEO of ICANN, strongly feltthat Africa is not well represented and treated within ICANN, for instance lessthan 1% of gTLDs were allocated to the region out of 100 applications and mostof the allocated were in South Africa. The main problem in this regard is thatAfrica did not know about the gTLD program, it is therefore paramount thatAfrica 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, aproposed campaign is “DNSSEC roadshows” as few ccTLD managers were assisted tosign the zone file thus far.

-         DNS forums originated in Africa, with the firstone taking place in Durban, South Africa and now these forums span across differentregions. The advantage of these forums is that they create a platform for registrarsand registries in Africa to collaborate and the next regional DNS forum will bein Botswana.

-         Law enforcement agency campaigns. These campaignsinvolve mitigation of cyber crime through capacity building of law enforcementagencies and for purposes of this, ICANN Africa has empowered 12 registrarswithin the region.

Lastly, to increase the number of fellowships for F2Fmeetings, SO’s & AC’s are always supported to attend and the mechanism hasbeen developed within AC/SO’s to receive fellowships. Members must takeleadership positions, actively participate and contribute based on the focus ofdifferent AC’s and SO’s.

30% of ICANN F2F meeting attendees come to ICANN throughfellowships and the rest of the participants come by themselves or receivesupport elsewhere. In order to improve regional participation outside ICANN’ssupport, there needs to be awareness campaigns targeting regulators to supportparticipation of local or regional community members. Pierre also recognised thatthe current capacity of the Africa engagement office is limited and hementioned that currently, plans are under way to double capacity to 6, as thiswill help in ensuring ICANN is able to service the entire region to a certainextend.

 2.       LACNIC Region background

According to Pierre, LANCIC has its own hub, whereas Africa’shub is in Istanbul with its engagement centre in Kenya. Another advantage theLACNIC region has, is that they also have internet houses with RIRs, RALOS andso on, making it simple for them to collaborate and work together to effectivelycontribute in activities of ICANN, while influencing policy direction andposition, especially at community level. LACNIC also participates withinworking 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 placeonce a year, which is not sufficient, so then, the African community needs tostart organising itself. Pierre pointed out a need to tap into local capacitylike mobile operators, stakeholders and entities benefitting from the domainname space, so engagement with them is important to supporting local andregional initiatives. Also pointed out that the GNSO brings in a lot of moneyin ICANN as it encompasses, registries, registrars, the Commercial StakeholderGroup and RIR’s for instance.

Capacity building program

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

AFRISIG

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

National and Global IGF

They do support, sponsor and participate at regional andsub-regional IGFs (5 years ago to date), the problem with national IGFs is thatAfrica with 54 countries will mean ICANN committing funds and people for everyrequest for support which is not viable based on current and experienced budgetchallenges within ICANN and the region.

Community Support and regional participation

The Africa engagement office currently works with AFRALOwhen opportunity permits. Personally, Ithink 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 2Africans out of 500 participants, the number grew steadily from to 10 – 15 Africansovertime and today we have 40 – 50 regional participants in ICANN meetings. Thisis one of the reasons why quality participation has to be always promoted withinthe region, like working groups, leadership roles and participation in ICANN publicforums. The good thing about ICANN, is that it creates opportunity fornetworking. ICANN localisation with multiple stakeholders is needed to preparefor participation of members and the regional community need to startinitiating 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 otherupdates and comments. We cannot rely solely on ICANN to resolve regionalchallenges, we need to be proactive in creating an enabling environment andcoming 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 wellrepresented, treated and our voices are heard within ICANN as outlined in thereport. Below are some of the proposed action steps we can consider:

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

b.      Establishment of a steering committee encompassingcommunity members and/or representatives from NCUC in the meantime and thenother 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 agreedpriorities)   
                         ii.        develop an action plan and procedural documents definingterms and parameters of participation and engagement amongst other activities.

Thanks for taking time to read, 
Thato Mfikwe._______________________________________________
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