[AFRI-Discuss] AFRALO Newsletter

[ICANN At-Large]

Volume 5 - EN  AFRALO NEWSLETTER  Volume 5 | English December 2020 The latest news from the African At-Large Regional Organization (AFRALO) Visit our Website From the Chair's Desk Seun Ojedeji, AFRALO Chair Dear Colleagues, I trust you are staying safe and maintaining all safety precautions during this period of pandemic. On behalf of the AFRALO Leadership (Myself, Aziz and Abdeldjalil) I bring you glad tidings, the quarter of 2020 has been a source of hope that we will get through this global challenge stronger on the emergence of possible vaccines. This is my final update for the year 2020 and AFRALO has continued her activities during this last quarter and here are some of the current and ongoing activities of the RALO.   In the Q3 update I informed you about our 9 action points towards implementation of our FY21 Outreach and Engagement Strategy. Implementation of the action points has commenced and leads for each action plan identified. During this quarter we welcomed our new Outreach and  Engagement Co-Chair for the region in person of Bram Fudzulani. I like to thank the past Co-Chair Mrs Fatimata Seye Sylla for her dedication and for leading the developmental phase of the FY21 strategy. Mr Bram has taken the bull by the horn and has commenced overseeing the implementation of our 9 action plan working with their respective leads in conjunction with the AFRALO leadership and the community.   AFRALO members participated at various sessions during the ICANN69, as it’s our custom, we also held our Joint AFRALO-AfrICANN Meeting. The session featured various guest speakers: Board members (including board members from Africa), ICANN President and CEO, ALAC Chair and experts on Universal Acceptance and we have received responses on the statement from the various recipients. Here are the highlights of the session: The Session focused on discussion on the topic “Status, Impact, and Recommendations for Universal Acceptance in Africa” and a statement was developed which provided some recommendations to ICANN Org, the Universal acceptance steering group (USAG) and the various stakeholders involved in universal acceptance. The future of AfrICANN and how it can evolve from just being a mailing list was discussed. Outgoing and incoming Leaders from AFRALO were recognised. Session:  AFRALO participated in the ICANN69 Middle East and Africa (MEA) Online Readout Session organised by the GSE-MEA team. Year 2020 has been full of challenges but I am glad we are able to still remain connected contributing our part towards representing the interest of end users within the ICANN community. As you and I made it through the year 2020, I encourage us to continue to abide by the necessary preventive measures against COVID-19 and I am certain we shall come out of this even stronger as we look forward to a fruitful and rewarding 2021. On behalf of the AFRALO Leadership, I wish the entire community a happy new year! See At-Large 2021 Priorities Editorial Team Editor-in-Chief: Seun OJEDEJI Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Aziz HILALI Managing Editor | Secretariat: Abdeljalil Bachar BONG Editor (English): Remmy NWEKE Co-Editor (French): Olévié KOUAMI CONTRIBUTORS ENGLISH Bukola Oronti Hadia El-Miniawi Jules Nizeyimana Raymond Mamattah Sarah Kiden Yazid M. Akanho FRENCH Bakary Kouyaté Michel Tchonang Linze Full list of team members SUPPORT ICANN At-Large Staff staff at atlarge.icann.org About AFRALO  African Regional At-Large Organization: Engaging Africa for Development AFRALO is the home of the individual Internet user community for the African region. It provides news, key resources and interactive information sharing tools for individuals and end-user groups in the African region who are interested in ICANN and in shaping the future of the Internet. AFRALO aims to: Strengthen users’ participation in ICANN decision-making structures Help ensure that its members will actively encourage more direct participation by end users Build Internet policy making capacity in the region Reach out to Internet users on the issues in the scope of ICANN Represent users’ interests and defining public interest aspects of Internet governance with specific focus on the areas of privacy, transparency, and accountability Strengthen consumer protection in ICANN policies Identify social impacts of technical infrastructure design Take cultural diversity into account when formulating technical standards (e.g. IDN implementation) AFRALO currently consist of 67 ALSes located in 32 countries and territories, as well as 16 Individual members and 3 Observers. To learn more about the ongoing work of AFRALO, you are welcome to check out the AFRALO workspace.  ICANN Update In December 2020, ICANN:   Responded to the European Commission's (EC) public consultation on the EC's draft Standard Contractual Clauses (SCCs) for transferring personal data to non-European Union (EU) countries. Signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the Georgian National Communications Commission. Announced a call for nominations for the ICANN Community Excellence Award by 29 March 2021. Invited applications from the European region for the NextGen at ICANN for ICANN71 by 22 January 2021. ALAC Update There was no ALAC monthly meeting during December 2020. A new series of guest speakers are to be invited to speak to the ALAC during ALAC Monthly. One of the next guest speakers will be John Crain, Chief Security, Stability & Resiliency Officer for ICANN. He has been asked to discuss the upcoming ICANN Public Comment on Domain Abuse Activity Reporting (DAAR) 2.0.  The ALAC held an Appointee Selection Committee (AASC) call to confirm At-Large applicants for the IGO Work Track. The successful candidates, Yrjö Lansipuro and Carlos Raul Gutierrez, were announced after the AASC meeting. They will present updates to the CPWG on the IGO Work Track. The ALAC & GAC Topic Leads for EPDP held a meeting on 15 December to discuss natural vs legal status and anonymized email, among other items. In addition, the ALAC are working on: At-Large 2021 work plan activities The FY22 Additional Budget Request (ABR) schedule and next steps Statements on policy via the CPWG Statements on operations, finance and budget via the OFB-WG In addition, the ALS Mobilization WP Final Report was ratified by the ALAC. The At-Large Operations, Finance, and Budget Working Group (OFB-WG) is leading the process of prioritizing ICANN recommendations (including WS2, ATRT3, MSM, et al) from the Internet end user perspective. ALAC / At-Large Policy Comments & Advice All of AFRALO and the At-Large Community are invited to contribute to ICANN Public Comment proceedings. For more information, please visit the At-Large Policy Advice Development Page or contact At-Large Staff. The At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) submitted (6) statements and (1) correspondence to ICANN org since the last AFRALO Newsletter: Operational Design Phase (ODP) Concept Paper CPWG SubPro PDP Final Report CPWG Recommendations for Early Warning for Root Zone Scaling CPWG Proposed Amendment 1 to the .JOBS Registry Agreement CPWG DRAFT PTI and IANA FY22 Operating Plan and Budgets OFB-WG IANA Naming Function Review (IFR) Initial Report OFB-WG Mozilla DNS over HTTPS (DoH) and Trusted Recursive Resolver (TRR) Comment Period CPWG See: letter from David Conrad to Maureen Hilyard 04 January 2021 See: ICANN OCTO comment to Mozilla 04 January 2021 The ALAC is currently developing (2) ALAC statements: Comment ALAC Advice to the ICANN Board on Subsequent Procedures TBD CPWG Comment Draft FY22-26 Operating & Financial Plan and Draft FY22 Operating Plan & Budget 15 February 2021 OFB-WG See: At-Large Website on Public Comments and Policy Advice See: Executive Summaries: ALAC Public Comments and Advice See:  Consolidated Policy Working Group (CPWG) See: At-Large Operations, Finance and Budget Working Group (OFB-WG) ALAC/At-Large Policy Issues Note from GSE Africa Pierre Dandjinou, VP, Stakeholder Engagement - Africa As this epic year draws to a close, I want to take this chance on behalf of ICANN org and specifically the GSE Africa team to really thank the AFRALO family for the incredible collaboration we have had despite the very difficult year and circumstance. As a community, your resilience, commitment and focus on ICANN work remained optimal and some of the key milestones we achieved this year in general would not have been possible without your efforts and involvement. It was a year of many first for the ICANN community with everything going virtual. The new normal we called it. But with your partnership: We finalized our new Africa Regional Plan fully virtually in July 2020 We held regular Webinars on key thematic Topics such as DNS Abuse We joined hands in both Regional and Subregional IGFs and SIGs Additionally, the GSE Africa team are now regular attendees to the monthly AFRALO meetings through which we have continued to brief the members on our activities, events and plans. This has now been enhanced to include updates from our ICANN OCTO Technical Engagement colleagues so that we continue to synchronize our efforts and overall engagement in Africa. We hope that you continue to find this useful and we wish to keep providing these updates going forward. As we prepare to usher in a promising new year 2021, I want to reflect on one of the key findings of a recent Study by Google Africa and IFC report titled “e-Economy Africa 2020” which projects the value of the African digital economy to be worth USD 180B by the year 2025. Put differently, Africa can only achieve this as a region if all stakeholders jointly address the various layers of the Digital Value Chain in their respective expertise. This includes the Domain Name System and economy value chain. This would need us to redouble our efforts to address some of the challenges that remain outstanding such as the important work on IDNs, Universal Acceptance (UA) as well as Email Address Internationalization (EAI). Not only these but also issues to do with DNS Abuse remain critical. And I know that the AFRALO community have put these as top priorities in their plans, just as we have at ICANN org. I therefore look forward to even a deeper partnership on these thematic areas of focus and more as we seek to jointly play a role in the implementation of our Africa Regional Plan and by extension contribute to a greater Digital Economy in Africa. With this, I want to wish you all a very merry Christmas and Happy new year. Until then, I leave you with these three Ws: Wear your masks, Wash your hands and Watch your distance. Thank you. Stay well and stay safe! AFRALO Interviews We bring you an interview between the Editorial Team and Paul Muchene, Regional Technical Engagement Specialist, Africa & ME, ICANN.   Congratulations on your new job, kindly introduce yourself briefly.   My name is Paul Muchene and I work for the ICANN office of the CTO (OCTO) as the technical engagement specialist for the Middle East and Africa (MEA). I’m currently based in Nairobi, Kenya.   In an earlier life, I was a computer systems engineer enjoying technical troubleshooting and helping people resolve system failures. Yet even today, I still relish tweaking and playing with operating systems and security, cloud computing, DevOps, and most definitely the DNS.   2. How did you get here as a Technical Engagement Specialist for ICANN MEA?   While in grad school, I stumbled across a job post at the ICANN careers page that had an opening at their Nairobi office.   The job ad required someone who possessed not only technical expertise in DNS operations and DNSSEC but who could also conduct outreach activities to ICANN stakeholders in the MEA region via technical trainings and face to face meetings.   I dove right in and applied for the position.   3. What does your job entail?   Primarily my job entails planning and coordinating webinars and hands-on DNS/DNSSEC trainings that target ICANN community members and stakeholders in the MEA region.   The Covid-19 pandemic added another angle to my role; because traditional face-to-face meetings were barred, it was incumbent upon my team to devise webinars and a cloud based DNS lab to deliver online. Developing the DNS cloud lab was an exciting challenge and the lab has proved to be an effective tool for delivering hands-on technical exercises.   Other than trainings, on a day-to-day basis I work on course materials for the ICANN Learn website, review technical documents, and hold regular updates with both my OCTO colleagues and the global stakeholder engagement (GSE) teams both in Africa and the Middle East respectively.   4. As far as AfrICANN is concerned, how does this position you as one of the ambassadors in the ICANN ecosystem?   The ICANN Africa Regional Plan for fiscal years 2021-2025 outlines five strategic objectives. Two of these objectives namely Security and Unique Identifiers System are closely aligned with the work we do at OCTO.    At ICANN OCTO we have a compelling interest to strengthen the security of the global DNS and the Root Server System. In particular. encouraging the adoption of DNSSEC in African ccTLDs and providing technical trainings on DNS operations and security will keep me on my toes for the foreseeable future.   As part of fulfilling the strategic objective for the Unique Identifiers System, my team will be working with both the ICANN Universal Acceptance (UA) program manager and the Africa GSE team to promote UA and Email Address Internationalization (EAI) in the region.   5. What does the future hold with regards to technical development in the Internet ecosystem?   The Internet landscape in Africa has grown and changed very rapidly as seen by the increasing connectivity and access in the continent fueled predominantly by mobile phone penetration. With this growth, two overarching and incredibly challenging issues have appeared that will continue into the foreseeable future to be on the radar of both technical and policy discussions; Security and Data Privacy.   Be it end-to-end encryption, data breaches or data protection, people are becoming aware of why these issues matter; Security and Data Privacy have a direct impact on the safety and trust of the Internet and hence the need for solutions to address them. ICANN 2021 NomCom Leadership Positions Hadia El-Miniawi, ALAC NomCom Delegate, African Region The ICANN Nominating Committee (NomCom) is looking to fill nine positions for key leadership positions within ICANN. NomCom is looking for leaders who represent diverse cultural, geographical, and professional backgrounds, while striving for gender balance. If you are a critical thinker, with cultural awareness, knowledge of the Internet ecosystem with board or executive experience and a background in legal, government, technology, business or non-profit the NomCom is looking for you. As an ICANN leader, you can influence the global Internet policy, affect the evolution of the Internet, develop professional skills, collaborate with a diverse group of industry leaders and engage with a global community. For more information, please visit this page. ALS Activities EGIGFA host first-ever Ghana School on Internet Governance Raymond Mamattah The E-Governance and Internet Governance Foundation for Africa (EGIGFA), one of the recently accredited At-Large Structures (ALS) organised the first-ever Ghana School on Internet Governance (GhanaSIG) Fellowship event. The Fellowship took a hybrid form that combined both virtual and face-to-face sessions. The selected Fellows did six weeks intensive online courses including some ICANN Learn courses, which qualified them for the face-to-face session. Out of the 30 selected and announced on 15th July 2020, twenty-six of them made it to the face-to-face session. The three days face-to-face, which was the climax of the Fellowship, was held from 11th to 13th November 2020. The guests of honour were Seun Ojedeji the AFRALO Chair and Gbenga Sesan the Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative. Faculty members outside Ghana joined through zoom, while those in Ghana joined physically at the event ground. The faculty included Glenn McKnight, Emmanuel Vitus, Raymond Mamattah, Siranush Vardanyan, Brice Abba, Teki Akuetteh Falconer, Leslie Daigle, Kenneth Adu-Amanfoh, Edilson Osorio Jr, and Dr Hillar Addo. Topics covered each of the three days were under the following broad topics, Internet governance ecosystem; cyber security, data protection and human rights; and how to get onboard engagements in the Internet governance ecosystem. The Fellowship reps were Abrahm Selby and Lavish Mensah. Some of the Fellows were provided full accommodation.  On 1st December 2020, five of the Fellows were appointed to various positions as part of team EGIGFA. All the Fellows have started engaging actively in the Internet governance ecosystem. Event picture at GhanaSIG Internet Society (ISOC) Benin Chapter Yazid M. AKANHO The 3rd quarter of this year was marked by important events ISOC by Benin Chapter. Femme & Internet: the 2nd major activity of this program, a webinar on women's leadership in the Internet ecosystem. In 2020, three major activities of Femme & Internet program have been carried out. The last one was a webinar with more than 50 women and 07 panelists that  took place online on Saturday 19  September 2020. The main objective of the program is to increase women Leadership in the Internet ecosystem. 2020 Chapter Training program: ISOC Benin published a white book on member’s initiatives You can download the White Book here.   In this White Book, you will discover various projects proposed by our 10 members who participated in the Chapter Training Program. Internet.bj project In the coming days, the Chapter will publish two important products: a book summarizing the long road of 25 years of Internet in Benin. The second product is a web platform for Internet measurements and a central repository of information related to the Internet usage in the country. In addition, the elections for the renewal of board took place recently with a strong women's participation:  women represent 45% of the new elected board. Internet Society Mali Chapter Ing. KOUYATE Bakary Malian School of Internet Governance debuts. The Malian chapter of the Internet Society, faithful to its mission, initiated with its partners the first edition of MaliSIG held from 22 to 29 October 2020. This project is the culmination of a long process focused on the Internet Governance. The issue of Internet Governance is one of the priorities of ISOC Mali. From 2018 - 2019, the Chapter trained more than 200 interns with a hundred certified with the Internet Society. The overall goal of MaliSIG is to empower participants of various sectors, the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and the necessary confidence to participate effectively in national, sub-regional and international internet governance processes. The level of this first edition was raised by the presence of the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy, Dr. Hamadoun Toure, during the opening ceremony accompanied by a ministerial delegation. A total of 11 modules were presented by national and international experts covering the key themes of Internet Governance. The practical work was based on the development of specifications for universal acceptance. #WetheInternet: Citizen dialogue on future of internet  Just like the other countries, Mali held its citizen dialogue on the future of the internet on Saturday, October 14, 2020. Several African, European, American and Asian countries took part in this global meeting. In Mali, this dialogue took place under the leadership of the ISOC Chapter of Mali chosen as the national partner. This Saturday about sixty participants gathered at AGETIC to deliberate on the following central themes: ''Internet and Me, My data, Your data, Our data'', '' Building a solid digital'' '' Artificial intelligence'' and Internet for and by citizens''. The objectives of this exercise was to allow citizen of all stripes (experts or not), (educated or not) in small groups coached by a moderator to deliberate on the themes mentioned above and to give their point of view through individual forms. Under the aegis of the Public Missions, this exercise was a success thanks to the combined efforts of the partners AGETIC, Internet Society (ISOC) and MICROTICS. Chapterthon 2020: ICT and Gender The Chapterthon or Marathon Chapters is an ISOC's competition recently took place all around the world. In 2020 the Malian Chapter of Internet Society opted for the training of a marginalized group of the population. These are women in a situation of disability or with little or no formal education. Currently, the use of social networks is a fashion phenomenon. Literate or not, all have a Smartphone and buy internet data for distraction or fun on social media. That is why ISOC Mali decided to train these women on how to boost their generating-income activities with social network applications such as WhatsApp and Facebook. About fifty of these women come from several economic sectors: catering, hairdressing, small businesses, etc...They really appreciated the initiative because they were not making judicious use of it: for example to promote and boost their businesses. As for women with disabilities, they constituted 20% of the participants and made a plea for the continuation and multiplication of such activities for them. Internet Society Nigeria Chapter Bukola Oronti The Internet Society Nigeria chapter on the 11th of November, 2020 inaugurated a new set of executive council members. The event was held virtually due to the pandemic and in a bid to contribute her quota in reducing the spread of the COVID-19 virus. The AGM/Handing over ceremony was presided over by the outgoing President Mr Dewole Ajao who in his welcome remarks, congratulated all the newly elected executive members. He introduced the outgoing executives to everyone present during the handing over ceremony and commended them for their efforts and team spirit during their tenure as executive council members. Mr Ajao also encouraged the new executive members to work as a team in order to take the chapter to greater heights.   In his acceptance speech, the new President, Mr. Caleb Ogundele accepted the responsibilities of being the new chapter President and also spoke on behalf of all the newly elected executives. He further said that his tenure as president would focus on the T.O.G.E.T.H.E.R Agenda based on his manifesto (Transparency; Opportunities; Growing members knowledge base through capacity building; Engaging and expanding chapter’s stakeholders; Tailored and active regulatory and policy engagement; Harnessing the powers of the member for more volunteer work; Enlarging the chapter’s finances and Reaching out to the community) which would be blended with the manifestoes of other newly elected executives.   Mr Ogundele further emphasized that there will be lots of regulatory engagements, capacity building for members through several initiatives which include the Nigeria School on Internet Governance as well as several Technical Workshops for Engineers and Academics, Community Networks advocates. While top of the agenda will be to work with the Internet Society Global body on the action plan for 2020 and 2021 to achieve the strategic and shared vision to make the Internet safe, secured, affordable, accessible and available for everyone.   The new set of executives are:  Internet Society Rwanda Chapter  Jules Nizeyimana INTERNET SOCIETY RWANDA CHAPTER conducted a 2 days Workshop 04-05 December 2020 for teachers from Rural Area in Bugesera district to empower them with Digital Skills to enhance the use of the Internet in classwork.   50 teachers participated in the workshop and gained skills on the basics of computer systems and other digital devices that can be used in computing environment. The workshop also covered the Internet priorities and principles for ensuring quality education, focusing on Online essentials in relation to digital education, the privacy and security vulnerabilities associated with the use of the Internet.   “I have 30 years of Experience in Education and was not familiar with how I can use Internet in classwork but with solid foundation on the use of Internet in Education received from the workshop, I will use Internet in lessons preparation and guides students on how they can extend their range of learning through Internet” said NTABWOBA Jean Paul, teacher from G.S Nyirarukobwa.   ISOC Rwanda Chapter appreciated participation and engagement of all teachers in the workshop and has promised to continue the work of promoting the use of the Internet in Education.   RICTA Virtual Workshop Hadia El Miniawi The entity managing the RW registry, the Rwanda Internet Community & Technology Alliance (RICTA) in partnership with both AfTLD and ICANN is running virtual workshops to educate the registrars and Internet community at large in Rwanda. The workshops were not limited to the local community but were opened to all ccTLDs of Africa. The aim of the webinars is to create awareness on how the community can benefit from the local ccTLD during the pandemic and to equip registrars and resellers with relevant skills needed for Domain Name Business.    On 19 November 2020 RICTA held a session to discuss “DNS Entrepreneurship” panelists were Mr. Neil Dundas co-founder & CEO of DNS Africa, Mr. Olusegun Akinwunmi, Web Services Administrator at Nigeria Internet Registry Association (NIRA) and Ms. Hadia El Miniawi, Chief Expert at NTRA. Mr. Bob Ochieng, Sr. Manager, stakeholder Engagement – Eastern & Southern Africa from ICANN moderated the session. 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