MIG works:Multi-stakeholder Internet Governance
"We Are All Partners"
6 - 8 March 2013
UNECA Conference Center
Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Pre-conference training workshop on DNS market developments
in Africa will occur on 5 - 6 March 2013 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
Organizing Partners:African IGF, AFRINIC, AFTLD, ISOC Africa, ATU, W3C, and ICANN
Background
The Internet has become an integral part of socioeconomic development in Africa, as exemplified by many ongoing initiatives. One could cite the successes in transferring money via mobile telephone with M-Pesa, which is transforming the banking sector in Kenya and other places; the PanAfrican projects on eHealth; and many national eGovernment projects that are contributing to the modernizing of public administration and to the offering of better services for citizens.
Growth in Africa's Internet and broadband sector has accelerated in recent years due to improvements in infrastructure, the arrival of wireless access technologies, and lower tariffs. Broadband is rapidly replacing dial-up as the preferred access method, and this process is virtually complete in Africa's more developed markets. While being the world's most rapidly growing market for mobile telephony, Africa is also home to some of the fastest growing fixed-line markets in the world. Yet, Africa still has some of the world's lowest penetration rates in both market sectors.
In just the past five years, Africa's mobile phone market, with some 650 million subscribers, has rapidly expanded to become larger than those of many developed countries. At the same time, Internet bandwidth has grown twenty fold as hundreds of thousands of kilometers of new cables have been laid across the African continent to serve an increasing number of its one billion citizens.
The new online access is quickly changing lives, driving entrepreneurship fueled in part by collaborative technology hubs, and delivering innovation and homegrown solutions for Africa. The recent report by the World Bank on ICT emphasizes such a need to build a competitive industry to promote innovation and job creation on the continent.
Today, Africa's intake of the Internet is at crossroads. While the so called digital divide of the 1990s is dwindling rapidly, the current challenges of content generation, development of a genuine Internet industry and full participation of Africa in international Internet business and policy development are at the forefront.
Indeed, Africa's overall participation at international meetings, such as those hosted by ICANN or by the Internet Governance Forum (IGF), is still very low even though great efforts have been made since the 2000s. Africans' contributions to ICANN's constituencies and IETFs are still very modest; all of this despite the fact that the continent has hosted two of the IGFs and four ICANN meetings, and has organized its own Internet registry, AFRINIC, which now provides IP addresses to the continent as one of the five Regional Internet Registries of ICANN. In terms of levels of participation, African civil society and professional associations have been active in forums such as the WSIS, the IGF and ICANN; however, governments and local private sector entities seemingly demonstrate less visibility in participating in global international policy development processes.
On the DNS industry side, fifty-four African ccTLDs have been operating with very few registrations in most countries; in fact, of the total of 1,500,000 registrations for a population of one billion, South Africa and North Africa account for almost three quarters. Africa claims six ICANN accredited registrars of the 956 accredited by ICANN. The recent decision by ICANN to expand the domain name space through the introduction of new generic top-level domain names presents an opportunity, but the consecutive results from the first bids clearly indicate that the African continent is just not part of the global industry as only seventeen new domain names were requested by Africa out of a total of 1,930 that were applied for globally.
One must recognize that the domain name industry in Africa is far from being close to the developed world in terms of investment, policies, and markets. It is not just about price nor the new gTLD program (whether this round or the next one), rather it is about establishing an industry in Africa around existing gTLDs and ccTLDs so that there is a market for startups and entrepreneurs. Today, only a few registrars operate in the local African market, but there are many people who sell domains in Africa and they have no legal relationship with ICANN. Within this context, consumer choice and consumer protection, which are core values of the multi-stakeholder model, are needed.
Fortunately, Africa does still offer potentialities for advancing the Internet economy. According to a recent World Bank report, over the next five years, Sub-Saharan Africa economies will be more stable with an average GDP growth rate of 6%. The African population is still young (60% under 25 years of age), and with appropriate supporting policies and strategies youth entrepreneurship could be one of the levers of growth. Indeed, these youth constitute the vast majority of the African Internet population, and many of them bring enormous expertise to various fields, seeking opportunities online to unleash their entrepreneurial skills to the maximum extent possible. African countries too have begun embarking on digital hubs and labs as centers for growth.
The equation to be solved seems to be the one of how best to balance cross fertilization efforts by diverse stakeholders, including governments, private sector and civil society, with bold decisions on capacity building and implementing appropriate support mechanisms for a buoyant Internet industry, including the DNS and business sectors. Thus, how should the necessary multi-stakeholder model of Internet governance within different countries and regions in Africa be promoted? And how can this multi-stakeholder model help support a sustainable DNS industry in Africa? How can we increase African participation in ICANN and other I* organizations, and help Africa to become more active in global Internet governance issues? And how can we measure this increased participation during the various upcoming meetings, for example in Durban, South Africa in July 2013?
The proposed event in partnership with African I* (AFTLD, AFRINIC, African IGF, ISOC Africa, ATU), W3C, and ICANN, to be held in Addis Ababa, will provide a platform for discussions around issues of Internet governance, multi-stakeholder model participation and adoption, and DNS industry development in Africa. The event is timely as it comes during a 'new season' at ICANN, which is interested in further deepening engagement with all constituencies.
ICANN has - since its inception - adopted a multi-stakeholder, bottom-up model of policy development to ensure the involvement of all stakeholder groups from government, business, and civil society to technical, academic, and other end-user communities, in its processes. Indeed, the African community has been represented in many ICANN constituencies, and some African experts have taken the lead on certain issues; however, the time has come to stimulate more active African participation in ICANN and other I* organizations, and to increase ICANN's own presence in Africa.
In fulfilling its role as a global Internet body working for the public interest, ICANN has embarked on regional engagement plans in a number of developing countries and regions around the world. An Africa strategy was announced in October 2012 at the ICANN Toronto meeting, and it was developed by an African multi-stakeholder working group; thus, serving as a mechanism for engagement with the African Internet Governance community. The strategy has key objectives and strategic projects (africanncommunity.org), most of which are geared toward the promotion of the African DNS market, the deepening of African participation in ICANN, and repositioning ICANN's presence and perception in Africa. This parallels ICANN's mission to help grow proper and better industries serving end users in Africa.
This particular event being organized in Africa offers a unique opportunity for a constructive and forward-looking dialogue among government officials, policymakers, top industry leaders, academia, representatives of non-government organizations, and Internet experts.
The meeting agenda is designed around a number of Internet governance and ICANN related topics that are essential for the region, and which require further collaboration among all parties in order to stimulate greater engagement by all African stakeholders in international Internet governance related processes. The meeting will have a preconference event in the form of a training workshop on the DNS industry from a technical and business perspective.
Expected Outcomes and Purpose of the Event:
1. Deepen the engagement of African stakeholders in ICANN constituencies (GAC, GNSO, ccNSO, ASO, ALAC, NCUC, etc.) as well as in other I* organizations such as IETF.
2. Encourage African countries to adopt the Multi-stakeholder Model for national Internet governance issues and to study role models of other countries and regions in this regard.
3. Follow-up on the implementation of the African strategy, with specific focus given to engagement with the DNS industry, both globally and regionally, to promote realistic mechanisms for the advent of a sustainable DSN industry and business model in Africa. Initiatives will be presented such as the incubator programme for the DNS business in Africa, the Award programme for African ccTDs and registrars, and business models on DNS industry. The DNNSEC roadshow will also be presented as a follow-up to the implementation of the African strategy.