[ALAC-Announce] ICANN begins implementing Africa strategy

At-Large Staff staff at atlarge.icann.org
Sat Mar 9 08:53:50 UTC 2013



From:  Pierre Dandjinou <pdandjinou at gmail.com>
Reply-To:  AfrICANN list <africann at afrinic.net>
Date:  Saturday, 9 March 2013 06:50
To:  "africann at afrinic.net" <africann at afrinic.net>, Webmaster
<webmaster at famntic.org>
Subject:  [AfrICANN-discuss] ICANN begins implementing Africa strategy


Dear All,

The Africa MIGworks event has closed yesterday with a series of land
breaking decisions and actionable recommendations I will report on.
Meanwhile, here is the first just published story about this event

http://www.itworld.com/internet/347545/icann-begins-implementing-africa-stra
tegy

Pierre


ICANN begins implementing Africa strategy

http://www.itworld.com/internet/347545/icann-begins-implementing-africa-stra
tegy

Training, policy engagement, partnerships, incubation and
entrepreneurshipare key areas for Africa

March 08, 2013, 12:36 PM ‹ ICANN's CEO and President Fadi Chehadé was
atthegroup's Multistakeholder Internet Governance meeting in Africa this
weekwith the message that it is a new season at ICANN and Africa has a big
roleto play.

ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) has
identifiedtraining, policy engagement, partnerships, incubation and
entrepreneurship as the key areas in implementing its Africa strategy.

That strategy was unveiled last August and was meant to find ways to
improve Africa's participation within the Internet's governing body.

"In order to make this reality, ICANN has to change; it has been
America-centric, because the Internet has its history in the USA, but
now,all of us own the Internet and have a role to play in Internet
growth,"saidChehadé.

Chehadé announced that ICANN global operations will be offered from
threehubs, Los Angeles, Istanbul and Singapore, to cover the major time
zones.The Istanbul office will have an IANA (Internet Assigned
NumbersAuthority) liaison, who will be African and will understand African
issues. ManyAfrican countries are still struggling with management of
country code TopLevel Domains (ccTLDs).

"We need more money and resources in Africa; we will partner with
existingorganizations," Chehadé said. Those include the Africa
TelecommunicationsUnion, the ITU, the Internet Society, AfriNIC and the
African Union. TheICANN representative in the Indian Ocean will be stationed
at AfriNICoffices in Mauritius, he added.

ICANN has arranged to hold DNS Security Extension (DNSSEC) workshops
inGhana, Nigeria, Kenya, Ivory Coast, Senegal, Tunisia, Egypt and
SouthAfrica.

One of the major challenges facing Africa is lack of development in the
DNSbusiness, with many people in the region depending on
internationalcompanies and services. Currently, Africa has five
ICANN-accreditedregistrars.

"ICANN is willing to work hard with partners in Africa to raise the numberof
accredited registrars from the current five to 25 in the next 18
months.We will sit with the ICT industry and understand what we can do to
make theRegistrar Accreditation Agreement more Africa-friendly. It may
takepartnerships with banks and the insurance industry," Chehadé said.

Working with local businesses to promote growth in the DNS industry willalso
promote employment and business growth in the region, he said.



-- 
Pierre Dandjinou
Cotonou - 229 90 087784 / 66566610
Dakar 221 77 639 30 41
www.scg.bj <http://www.scg.bj/>
skype : sagbo1953

 





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