IGF 2010
VILNIUS, LITHUANIA
16 SEPTEMBER 10
SESSION R/N 12
1630
EAST AFRICAN IGF
********
Note: The following is the output of the real-time captioning taken during Fifth Meeting of the IGF, in Vilnius. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the session, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
********
Ready to start?
Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the meeting of the East Africa IGF. The East Africa IGF was held in Kampala, in mid August. In front here, in front of the room here, I have some of the people that participated in that meeting who I'm going to introduce to you. On my left, from Uganda.
Tanzania.
Sorry about that, Tahegir. On my right-hand side, Lillian Nalwoga, our hostess in the meeting in Kampala, a capable hostess. The meeting was very well organised. Next to her is Akilagu, who works for the, head of the ccTLD administration in Kenya. And then right at the end there, taking the notes for us, doing the remote participation is Grace Bumu, one of the people we are trying to bring up along the road somewhere. We shall reach out from these IGF things and we are going to hand over to the people. So Grace is doing a very good job. She was also at the last IGF and did a wonderful job there making a presentation in one of our sessions in Sharm El Sheikh. I'm Wallace Aganda, Chairman of the Kenya and attended the meeting in Kampala, part of it that I was able to attend.
The format of the meeting we are going to have this afternoon, we are going to listen to Lillian, she is going to give us a presentation on what transpired in Kampala, some of the highlights, some of the decisions and quotes that were taken there. And from the report she is going to give us, we are going to open the floor for discussion, questions, that so that we can at least all be at par. We have visitors from the East African region. Welcome to you all, some colleagues here from West Africa. I think it is going to be, since there are not so many, we can go around and do quick introductions so we know who is here. I can see good friend Walda there. Let's start here, do quick introductions.
Binga from Nigeria, friend of East Africa.
Nigeria.
WALDA ROSEMAN: Walda Roseman from the United States and a friend of East Africa. At least East Africa is my friend. (Chuckles).
I work with Swedish programme for ICT and also a friend of East Africa.
HELEN BELCASTRO: Helen Belcastro, Swedish programme for ICT in developing regions, friend of East Africa.
GLORIA ATWINE KATUUKU: My name is Gloria Katuuku. I work with ministry of ICT, Uganda, East Africa.
My name is Emila, Zimbibwan who stays in South Africa and work on African project and friend of East African.
I'm Brian from Somalia.
From Tanzania.
ADIEL AKPLOGAN: Adiel, from AfriNIC.
I'm Estan from ministry of communications, Kenya.
AMBROSE RUYOOKA: I'm Ambrose from Information Technology, Uganda.
Thank you very much. We know each other, if we didn't know each other before. It is nice to meet all of you. Once again welcome. I'll hand over to Lillian, so she can proceed with her report of the proceedings from Kampala.
LILLIAN NALWOGA: Thank you, Doctor. I don't think I need any more introductions, but I'm Lilian Nalwoga, and Uganda was happy to host this year's African IGF. The report will be brief because it's on the Web site. So we just go into some of the key issues that we noted. Then after we are going into discussion. We had some discussions, interesting discussions and points from the West African IGF on the central IGF, central African IGF. We hope the discussion would be current after my presentation.
The third East African IGF took place in Kampala like you heard earlier from the 11th to 13th August, 2010. We had more than 100 participants across the region. That is Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, and the forum was organised by the Ministry of Education and technology, Uganda with regulator that is the communications commission, and then of course for those that were around in the previous sessions, you heard someone say Uganda we have a civil societies spearheading the national IGF process, for the last two years.
The civil society organisations were the collaboration on international ICT policy in east and South Africa which I represent. And also we had the Women of Uganda Network, and then we also had the information network, that is iNetwork, Uganda. Our supporters this year was supported, we got funding from ICANN, ISOC, we also had Victoria Information Technology and Biotechipac. We also had some good support from AT&T, and from our good friends AfriNIC. Then we also had funding from the GLOCOM and JICA, that is the Japan International Cooperation Agency and IDRC of course.
Just a brief maybe background to the East African IGF. We so far had three IGFs, this year has been the third, the first two were held and organised by our good friends, the Kenyons. So that was 2008 and 2009.
This year, Uganda hosted. The model we use, we start, we use a bottom/up approach where we start with online discussions across the region. For all countries, that is Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, they start with online discussions and the reports from the online discussions -- the report from the online discussions -- it's back.
The reports from the online discussions fit into the national IGFs which also held across the region. And then the national reports fit into the regional IGF where we meet to concretize the issues that were identified in the national forums, and is from the regional IGF that we share with the rest of the world what our original issues are.
This year's Forum, we had a theme which was strengthening East Africa's critical Internet resources. Each country has its own unique critical Internet resources.
However, from original perspective, there were cross cutting issues, like management, managing of the ccTLD, the country Top-Level Domain name, and also the issue of having an IPv 6 strategy, and then of course, the establishing an original East African Internet exchange point.
Of course, we also had issues that cannot be left behind, issues of access and affordability. The issue of cyber-security management in East Africa, and also there were imagine issues of youth and Internet, youth in light of Internet Governance and ICTs in general, and also standardizing ICT policies in education.
Just a brief, on the critical Internet resources, some of the resolutions or the way forward were in East Africa of course in Uganda, I'm sure you have heard that we do have our ccTLD being managed by a private individual. Kenya has got a multistakeholder kind of model, and so is Tanzania. Burundi, I stand to be corrected here is being managed by someone out the country. And so is Rwanda. We try to come up with a way forward on that. And so those are research and research findings were presented by our colleague, Alice, the East African IGF. We are looking into the issues, how do we strengthen the critical, the ccTLD in Africa and East Africa in particular.
Parts of the proceedings from this research were presented at the East African IGF. There was an appreciation that we have different ccTLD management and governance structures.
These are determined by the local circumstances in the particular countries. Then we also have the ccTLDs in East Africa face competition from the gTLDs. Therefore, the need of strengthening our ccTLDs by having multistakeholder structure model. We believe that if we have a multistakeholder model, we will increase competition. It will be, it will call for marketing, branding of the East Africa and also improve the quality of service for the ccTLDs.
We also, part of the research also found that the pricing of ccTLD by, was determined by numbers. That is then the nature of the operation for the particular country and maybe the perception or the value of people attached to the ccTLD.
Also, in regard to ccTLD there was a proposal to set up a working group to further explore the issue of having a dot ESE, a dot ESE domain instead of use, we thought we would strengthen the country ccTLDs and also maybe set up a dot EESC.
On IPv6 we learned that in all countries, apart from Burundi, in all countries, that is Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and Tanzania, there were task forces being set up to follow up on this transition. And then of course, there were capacity building initiatives that were being facilitated by the ICU and also AfriNIC did some training capacity building activities for some governmental officials in Uganda, I know in Uganda and I think also maybe in Kenya.
But however, the participants called for particular capacity building in IPv6 transition and strategy, by establishing an effective knowledge-sharing platform, either using knowledge sharing platforms like this, like the Forum we had, in order to create more awareness about the challenge, the IPv6 challenge in East Africa, and also maybe have a standard approach for the establishment of IPv6 test beds and laboratories to encourage training institutions, to establish better IPv6 and also from an East African level, building synergies and collaborations with existing institutions at national, regional and international levels.
In regard to access, we looked at access in two different levels. There is rural access and youth access. When we looked at rural access, we thought that despite the landing of the cables and connectivity we are experiencing in East Africa, a large proportion of the general population, and these are people who are in the rural areas, are not connected.
And also, the speeds are good, but the prices are still a little bit high. It is not really affordable to the every day person.
We also feel that we needed to, as a region, we need to devote strategies to find a way in which we could provide for more connectivity for the rural areas. And also, bearing in mind that most of the rural areas still have the first challenge of supply of electricity.
In regard to youth access, we called, we thought that as you well know that right now, youth, the youth are the most active on the Internet. I mean, when you look at the social networking going on, and most of these youth really do not know what Internet Governance is, and they don't know what it means.
So they do go to the Internet just maybe for fun, get in touch with their fellow youth. But how do we engage them in this debate? So we called for engagement, calling for programmes to empower the youth, for them to make, for them to have a much more profitable engagement in the Internet, and also for them to be able to contribute to the debates, because like Dr. Awanda said they have to handle for the youth to come in.
And then also, the other thing was developing addressing the last solutions to reach the rural areas, and also improving interconnections, interconnection in the region by creating more ISPs or establishing a regional ISP.
Also in regard to access, yes, as we thought that we are looking at access, but there is the issue of content, local content, locally, local contents available in the local languages.
It is an issue that had to be, that needed to be addressed, and part of that solution that was shared was localizing the existing content rather than creating new content, because there is content there, but maybe it does not really address the needs of the people who access it.
And then also, participants feels that most of the Internet related information has a lot of technical, is technical information. So there was one of the recommendations was for repackaging technical information into a language most suitable for the population, East African population.
Also, we called for multistakeholder participation. For this year's EIGF we had some bit of challenge getting the private sector to take part in the Internet Governance Forum.
So part of it, part of participants feel that we needed to have more private sector involvement in our discussions, especially the Telcos, the IT companies, the ISPs. And that way, they called for maybe redefining that term Internet Governance into something more appealing to the private sector, because for instance, in Uganda the moment the ISPs hear, maybe hear something from the UCC, oh, no, that is the, they are monitoring my movements. So maybe if we need to have them more involved into our discussions, we should redefine that term Internet Governance.
Part of the way forward, the way forward on the issues we discussed, was first, we thought that for us to further take on our discussions, we needed to form a working group, and I think this is in process, a working group to develop strategies to strengthen the ccTLDs in the region, in light of competition of the gTLDs and then also determine the business case for the dot ESE domain.
And also there was a call for supporting of original exchange point, and also adoption of unified strategies and initiatives involving the youth and also part of the recommendations we took on what we are going to work on is the East African IGF Secretariat, the Web site, will host a knowledge management repository for Internet Governance related content from the national, regional and international organisations, so that members across East Africa can have one particular section, where they can access content related to Internet Governance.
And yes, in conclusion, the next, the fourth EIGF Forum will be hosted by Rwanda and we welcome all you East African conference to attend and we support Kenya hosting 2010 all East African countries, 2011 IGF, all East Africa, East African countries come Kenya because it's one community. It is the East African community.
Thank you.
(Applause)
Thanks, Lillian. So that was a very detailed and very easy to follow report that you have given us. I think you have done very good work putting it together. Thank you very much for that.
We have all had that report, some of the recommendations that she has included there, development of our working group to develop strategies, particularly with regard to the TLDs, ccTLDs in East Africa, and then also in anticipated East African regional TLD, support for regional ISPs, support for youth initiatives, and this setting up of East African IGF Secretariat repository, I think is a very wonderful things that came out of the meeting in Kampala.
So now I'd like to open the discussion to the floor, in case of any questions or any clarifications or even just comments to the report that Lillian has just given us. Or any other matter touching on the Internet Governance within the East African region. Yes, right, the corner there. That is Judy Oketa, she didn't have a chance to introduce herself. She is from Kenya.
Thank you, Aldo. I'm an African based in Kenya. A little bit of comment on East Africa IGF Web site. It does not fall under the accessibility rules at all. So I would really encourage for you to work on that so all persons are able to access the Website. Thank you.
That is a valid point. It is important for us as Internet Governance practitioners to say, walk the talk or talk the walk. To walk the talk. So we come to meetings like this and the accessibility is one of the key issues that we are discussing here. I think on Web site should be the forefront, so we have a good test case that we can point at when we are talking about accessibility issues. That is well-taken. I think Joy is taking notes. Maybe you can talk about it.
Actually the same issue is mentioned during the East African IGF in Kampala, where participants felt that they wanted to know why is it okay in East African and some participants feel that probably should go for common dot net but when you look at it, what was our theme for the event? Our theme was strengthening TLDs in East Africa. So we felt that probably that was not the case. We don't need to go for dot-com, we don't need to go for dot net.
Our resolution was that the other TLDs also create their own Web site. Then their own domains, we all point to the same Web site. Then you are going to promote your own TLDs. Apart from that, the issue of redesign has been going and will be able to help us on that. We have been trying to work on the site. You can see TLDs already on the site. We have tried to post as much as possible like all the presentations that were done during the previous IGFs have already been posted. All the presentations and report that was done at the Ugandan, East African IGF has already been posted on the Web site. We are still working on that. We require more input from the industry. The Web site is hosted by registry. We welcome input from any other stakeholder within East Africa community.
I work with the registry and unfortunately due to administrative issues, I couldn't attend the Uganda meeting. But I fully support the use of local ccTLD to tonight to dot KE Web site. We are talking of strengthening the East African ccTLD, so going to dot-com or whatever would be contrary to our strategy. I encourage and Tanzania will do this to create a domain and create a pointer to the Web site. This will be done in the case of Tanzania and will give other inputs as well.
To add on that, I think Lillian when giving her report, talked about the working group that was suggested, from the five TLDs in East Africa, and one thing that the purpose of forming this working group was to share best practice within the five TLDs in Africa. For example, KENIC might be better off compared with other TLDs in East Africa but the other TLDs in East Africa are struggling. Some of them are hosted outside. The case for dot UG is hosted by an individual compared with the multistakeholder we have at KENIC.
This working group is going to assist in sharing best practice as well as looking at the business case for the regional TLD. There was a question whether we really need dot ESE first or need to strengthen dot UG or do we need to strengthen our TLDs first before we go we think of dot Africa. I think in that case the working group is going to look at that as a business case and look how we are going to do that, if we need it and if we are going to do it, how are we going to, our system is going to benefit from this.
Maybe you can inform us, who are the actual members of the working group? You mentioned people from the five ccTLDs, but some of those ccTLDs are being run from outside the country. Are people running them from out of the country members of the working group? How have you done the membership?
Yes, initially they belong from the five TLDs. The one being run outside, they did have a local person in their country who is running, technically it is run out of the country.
To add to that, you don't have to put them aside. We need them inclusive of the process so we are not considering that this is the NME and this is not the NM and such things. If an effort is being managed maybe technically outside of the country but there is contact within the country, so they should participate.
This is the case for Tanzania. Initially it was being technically managed outside of the country. But we had demonstrated contact within the country. During the process which was facilitated by the regulator, all these people are involved, so they can share the experiences. By so doing, the delegation becomes easy because everyone is involved.
Relevant to that, the delegation process for TNIC was not contested. The case by (off microphone) but it is a case which can be borrowed by other TLDs even in East Africa, if you can share these together it can be a case which can be shared with the others.
Thank you very much. These are two experts on the TLDs running the connect TLD. Other question from Judy. Let's hear from Judy first.
I wasn't talking about the TLDs or the dot KE. I was talking about Web accessibility. Can a blind person be able to read your Web site?
No. Like I said, we need more input from the industry. We welcome that.
We look forward to that being implemented, so that as I said we can walk the talk. Yes, another question?
My name is Emily. I want to find out, maybe I missed that in your presentation, I'm interested to find out that from the discussions that you had in the East African IGF, were there any input on gender issues? I want to compare with maybe our process in West African, Nigeria, I want to hear whether there was anything like that. Thanks.
Sorry, maybe I missed that. There was one of our partners, the Women of Uganda Network, though it sounds Women of Uganda Network is gender advocacy organisation. They are part of the preparations and the organisers and the hosts of this year's. And yes, there was some bit of it, although I don't know from which angle, because WOUGNET is the gender ICT policy of Uganda. And most of the issues, most of their work is around engendering ICT policies and when I say ICT policies Internet Governance also lies in there. I don't know if you are looking for any particular resolution that was adopted or anything.
I wasn't looking at any particular resolution. I was looking at gender issues in general. While I do have the microphone, I want to find out from the regional event that you had in Uganda were there many women in attendance, in comparison with men? I'm just looking... (Chuckles) were they actually contributing to the discussions that way being held?
Yeah, the process by, was led by a woman. That is me. But there were women. I think there was quite a good number of representation, women representation in this year's EIGF compared to the national forums we do have, because maybe we had the women organisation on board. But the gender balance was there.
On that question of gender, in Kampala I happened to chair one of the sessions there. The session was very gender neutral. But it was by accident that it was gender neutral. What happened was that day I could not trace my specs. And without my specs I cannot see very well. When I was taking questions, I couldn't tell whether one was a lady or a man. (Chuckles).
So I questioned them beforehand, I told them, in case I call you sir, and you are not a sir, you forgive me. But I also told them that we had recently passed a constitutional in Kenya where gender equality so it wouldn't really matter, just on the side line. Some more questions? I saw some hands up. Maybe let's give Walda a chance. She can give us a perspective maybe from a different --
First of all I would not admit what you just admitted publicly.
(Chuckles)
But it's too late.
I had first a couple comments and then questions. The comment is congratulations. There is actually some excitement about what the East African IGF has accomplished. I've heard it from many places. I was not able to be there. But I wanted to congratulate you on what was apparently a very well organised, very successful meeting.
Along those lines, since presuming that the General Assembly is going to say yes to future IGFs, the next one will be happily hosted in East Africa, by Kenya. So I wondered whether you foresaw the East African IGF perhaps contributing in some sort of special way to the programme or the planning of, either from national perspectives or sub regional, regional perspective to some of the discussion and programme at the next IGF.
Second comment was, along those lines, I think that while it's excellent that one of the major issues of this IGF is IG for development, it is unfortunate that it's happening at the very same time that all three of the African IGFs are making their presentations, so that people in this room instead would be (off microphone) presenting a lot of what their interests are there. Perhaps in the future planning that particular (off microphone) a lot of people who would like to be here.
The last point is I'm very interested on the special focus on youth. I wonder if you could maybe tell us a little bit more, what about who you are defining as the youth, and what you see as the follow-on steps from that recommendation. Thank you.
That's for you, both questions.
First, I will contribute to the EIGF contributing to the programming of next year's IGF, either from a national perspective, actually we had quite an interesting discussions in the West African IGF and central African IGF, and we felt that perhaps these discussions could have come, we could have had a joint presentation where we had panellists here, East Africa, West Africa, Central Africa, and then we have the general discussion. But East Africa being the host, we would like to have some bit of influence, not some bit but influence into the programming of next year's IGF, because like you said, we should be either in the main session, but we are here and there are people here who would like to be in the regional Forum.
So we intend to and we hope that we will be given that chance to have influence how this will be the host.
On youth and Internet governance, it was an imagined issue and we have presentations from UK-based NGO, is dot trust, is it? Yeah, yeah, and they are involved in youth and ICT activity. But in particular, this is something we introduced this year, and we want to explore further into next year.
One of the other things was we wanted to take it at a national level, to have all countries be able to explore how they can engage youth into not just Internet Governance, but ICT policy creating opportunities and employment. So that they are just not -- they are actually benefiting from the technologies. Thank you. I don't know if I answered everything.
Maybe one of the panellists wanted to add something.
Also on the agenda, IGF is a bottom-up approach. I think we start from there, national IGFs, take that agenda to the regional IGF. We also like to see that happen, some of the agenda also come to the global IGF. I would like to say that Kenya Government has already formed an organising committee for next year IGF. We are very optimistic IGF is coming to Kenya. We already are working on that. Kenyon Government has a committee on this. We have a committee whose work will be to look into issues how we can take agenda to the main global IGF so we can influence the problem.
We are already thinking in terms of that. Yes.
Maybe the other thing I can mention about the programme. Traditionally, the programme for the main IGF has been made by the Mac which happen to be a member at the moment. Now that we anticipating a new lease for the IGF, it is not -- there are still recommendations about how things are going to change or there are things are likely to change within the IGF.
That may include things like how do you involve the regional IGFs into the process of the main IGF.
So some of those proposals, I think, right now we are not really sure. But they could be given leeway to at least a chance for the regional IGF to be able to influence the main programme rather in the past we have only the main programme being just the preserve of the Mac so there is a lot going on, on that. I attended a meeting of the CCSTD and they are forming a working group to see how to improve and change the IGF in general and that includes also the Mac and the way the programme is done. Some work is going to be done on that. We will be hearing about it as we go along.
More hands, maybe we start there, then there, then there, then Adiel. Adiel, then we come back to you.
I'll just add some few words on what you have just said. We need to create an understanding. Next year's IGF is being organised by EA, the way I'm told, is the East African. But in that committee which you have said, none of the members from Tanzania or Kenya or Rwanda are involved which means the idea if it's Kenyon because we are not involved. I'm worried we are reaching a point where maybe we are just, as you have rightfully said maybe we need to get a structure which we can entice our governments also to participate in a different manner, in support or whatever, as an East African, I think. Rather than the way it is now, you know, it reaches a point, it becomes Kenyon IGF. It reaches a point, it is East African.
So I'm confused. What are we meant to understand?
Kiraugu, that is for you.
Thank you very much for that.
I strongly believe it's East African affair, not a Kenyon affair. But you have to begin some place. Yeah? So the Kenyon Government has already started an initiative. But as a committee, I believe our progress is as we get closer to the meeting, we have a year until the meeting, we begin to form more subcommittees. We begin to involve more people. I think the other players also come in the other countries, are also coming, you are not left out. It is not too late.
In identification the spirit of running the Mac which is organising the meeting, the programmes for the main IGF in the past, has been that it is not just all inclusive but also an open kind of process, where anybody can just walk in and participate in the process, at least to some extent.
I think you are making these groups and committees and so on, I think it is important if there can be some element of openness, where anybody who feels they can contribute something can also come in and feel as part of the process, rather than they are being just a list of Mr. A, B and so on, ABCD are the only people on this committee, and sorry, you are not on this committee.
I want to point that out, that IGF, the spirit is openness, and I think that needs to be continued even in some of those other things that we do.
I think you are raising an important point. In these settings, we ask money from other countries, we see they contribute. That is taxpayers' money from those areas, or NGOs who are involved, they need, they require account ability and transparency.
So it is very important that at least, when we talk of East Africa, it has to be formalized in a manner that we know who are responsible. Because when we start asking our governments to participate, these things, for instance, in my Government, I mean in Tanzania, they want accountability and some of these funds have to be audited.
I'm stressing that we have to reach to a point that these things are formalized. We know it is East African thing, and everybody is involved in a formal way. Thank you.
Thanks a lot. We are going like that, gentleman there, yes. Then we will go across.
Couple of comments. I want to thank you all.
You did a good job. I want to thank you very much for that. But also, specifically I want to thank the person who wrote the report from the Uganda meeting, the fact the report is online. That was well done. That was kind of you. You did a good job.
Here is my contribution. Why don't we think about early on, first of all there was some discussion about West African group and so on and issues about resources and the like.
How about instead of having four, how about merging and having only two, even beyond that, have one for the whole continent. You see where I'm going. The bottom line is if there are resource issue perhaps that might help us. It might help us in terms of sharing knowledge and ideas and what have you. Why am I saying this? For example, I write to some of the groups, West Africa, East Africa, one of the E-mails I send a few weeks ago I only got reply today (chuckles) that means resources must be scarce. In that case perhaps by merging we might get better outcome.
Lastly I want to mention the idea, what do we do about the top down or bottom up, whatever. Perhaps you can come up with another idea, from Africa, we can come up with something else, different model. Instead of following what has been done before, why don't we do something a little different, come up with something new?
Thank you.
ANDREW MAC: My name is Andrew Mac, I'm from Washington. First of all, I also would like to compliment Kenya on the most recent ICANN meeting. I was there, it was extraordinarily impressive. I know how much work went into it. I know about challenging circumstances you had to deal with.
As someone who has been to Kenya many times you did your country proud. We are looking forward to, those of us who were there certainly, and everyone who we have talked to is looking forward to going to IGF which we hope very much you will get.
Thank you for coming, by the way (chuckles).
Honestly, truly it was fantastic and everything worked perfectly. The welcome we got was extraordinary. As one of the taxpayers you referenced since part will come from donor money, I would say keep it simple. The goal is to have coordination. I agree with you that you want to have coordination, take advantage of all of the good things that you can. To the extent that it becomes bureaucraticized, that costs a lot of money and doesn't necessarily get you a lot of value. I don't have a problem calling it East African and Kenyon IGF. It has to be in somebody's country, somebody's house. The important thing is the content of what is there.
To that content, what you are all doing in East Africa especially has been referenced in four or five of the different sessions that I've been in. I mention it a couple times but other people mentioned it too as a real example. It is a place where you can get the kind of conversation that you wouldn't get normally between private sector, Government and NGO world. I'm very much hoping that the result of the renewal of IGF is basically a lot of what we have right now with a little bit of the extra spice that you all bring to it.
Last point, about the private sector. I think that you are right. It is a branding issue. When it comes down to it, everybody who is in the private sector whether they do it in a big way or small way uses the Internet. When you talk about job creation, about the expansion of regional businesses, about the ability for Kenyons to get credit for Kenyon content and sell Kenyon goods and East African, that is all Internet. It is a branding issue. I wouldn't change the branding from IGF East Africa but I would think of different ways of describing it, so people see themselves in this. If you are a Telecom company and you are not there but if you are an exporter and not there, you are missing out.
Adiel had a point first. We can give him the microphone. Can you come around this way? He is not sure anymore (chuckles) invent something. I thought I see your hand up.
ADIEL AKPLOGAN: Sorry, I already have the mic. What I would say first of all, to join other people who talk about the West African example, set by the, being set by the East African IGF. It is very refreshing to see an initiative like that, that comes from Kenya and spread around the region and now become something that is success of IGF and approach. What I would say is I think we in those regional and local approaches of the IGF we need also to refocus on the local aspect of the Internet Governance itself.
Global IGF is good. The idea of feeding in the outcome of the local and regional IGF in the global IGF is wonderful. But I think those local and regional IGF has to be focused on the need of the local community and the regional community. The topic addressed on the local can be completely different from the term that are set for the global IGF because those are global issues that touch everybody.
But it may not be interesting for a country, specific country, may not be interesting for a specific region for instance. I think we need to probably look at the original idea, East African specifically and look at how we can more get feedback from the different countries to address issues which are impediment for development of the Internet in the region, for instance.
What we are learning from the global IGF is the way to approach, how to use the approach to solve our issue, multistakeholder approach. If you manage to do that, even if the global idea doesn't continue, we should continue our local and regional IGF.
Thanks, Adiel. One of the examples of an issue that has been so big at the international level and like in my country, the feature is the IDNs because in my country we don't have a script, we don't have any scripts. IDNs if you go to a lot of the international meetings they are taking a lot of time talking about IDNs. But it is not on our agenda at the Kenya IGF or East African IGF. Maybe when we incorporate Ethiopia it might.
Thank you, even if global IGF ended that we can contribute an IGF, see how my point is how do we make it sustainable IGF. What is it? What is the IGF? Who makes that, what is composite of? How is it, is it an energy or a civil society somewhere? The challenge, when we are hosting it in Kampala last month, and wanted to invite the Prime Minister to come and officiate. The question is to answer, what is the IGF? Who is it? Who has endorsed it?
Issues explaining what IGF is, so taking it from the point that is mentioned and also from the member from Tanzania can we define that, and is it sustainable? We appreciate the work that is being done by a few individuals, yes. But then can you have structure that make it sustainable? Not just systems you need per Se but have sustainable mechanism. Who is it accountable to? Things like that. Because if you talk about sustainability, those issues have to come on the table.
That is my intervention as of now. Thank you.
That is a legitimate question, I think. Did you raise it in Kampala? (Chuckles) it is a legitimate question.
The way the original IGF and national IGFs has come up has been informal. The Tunis Agenda just made a very vague reference to this kind of situation. After that, it is very informal. People just came up with initiatives. It required perhaps an individual or group of individuals to drive the process, and get the thing going. But I think at some point, I agree with you. We need to have a good understanding. The regional IGFs, where are they getting their mandate from, what is their composition. Where are they accountable, to whom do they report? It is important. Our friend from Tanzania talked about accountability. If it is to interact from this perspective from an organisation, it needs to know. You are asking question, the organisation has to be well structured and well understood organisation.
As we go forward, with East African IGF, these are some of the questions that we need to be asking ourselves and coming up with answers. It is to be something that is not just sustainable but also well-defined and something that is with an entity that is with some integrity.
I don't know whether there would be any other ideas on this. But it is something we need to think about. You had your hand up first. After that, we will go to -- oh, you have the microphone. Sorry.
I wanted to add two things. One, there is contribution earlier about what is East Africa or KN. I'm a, are we sure we are not mixing things up, we need to clarify there is East African IGF regional. Next year's IGF is KN. That is clear. Funding for next year's IGF is hosted by a country Kenya. East African IGF funding comes from whoever is willing to partner within the region.
I think that clarifies whatever mixture of how Tanzania and the rest of the countries in East Africa should get representation. It is within East African, that is one. Second thing that hits me as you were speaking was, when you think about it, the issue of who owns what, who owns, who do you report to and all that, one of the side of that is a question would you end up creating so much bureaucracy that you don't really get things done. Because now, yes, you need to report to a person. You want to have impact. You want to have some measure of control. But the next thing, what is going to be the route you create an agency called East African Internet Governance authority or whatever name it is.
Then from there, you would need to have staff, no matter how small. You would need to report to somebody within the sub region, maybe regional body. They would need to take decisions. That is I think a very cumbersome route. While I understand the need for ownership, maybe we shouldn't lose some of the openness in the structure that we also have for the global IGF as a process. Where essentially, my perception is across the regions as this meetings and efforts happen, it is a collaborative effort of different entities spread across West Africa, for instance.
The West African meeting this year was at least five organisations involved, and had funding from about three or four organisations, because once we go down the route of needs, you are going to have issues around control. I don't approve it. I'm the guy in charge. I'm not signing it. Or we are not passing it into law, so it can't be implemented.
Thank you.
Before we go to the next one, we will give a chance for the point of information. You know better so we will take your word.
What I wanted to clarify to my friend from West Africa, is that in my country, there is a law which requires NGOs to be accountable because these NGOs would normally ask for funding from whatever, and they get this money. This money has to be accounted for. They are asking the name of the people of the united republic. They normally have to be accountable, though we don't do much. But there is a law.
There is two different legitimate states.
Maybe I add something here. We talked about collaboration. To my understanding what we need is a facilitator, an existing entity to facilitate the process so the others can join instead of forming an entity to do what, we just need a facilitator so we can mobilize the other entities.
Then I think maybe we are going a little bit off track at the moment. I think we will let that particular topic to rest, and perhaps go to another one. If you want to raise that topic, we shall raise it at the next East African IGF in Rwanda. That particular topic was actually not in the report.
I think for the benefit of going to the IGF next year, at least not go through the experience I went through to explain what IGF is. We can in the meantime seek for a simple endorsement, because at the global level, it is IGF. So can we get an endorsement maybe at the global level, or if we can't get that, we get an endorsement at East African community level, so as a linkage, because you have to involve Government of Rwanda. So if Government IGF, those are the questions I had to answer in Uganda. Let's get a simple endorsement either IGF level, or at East African community level to facilitate the process. So my colleagues next year don't have to answer self questions that I had to answer. Thank you.
Joe, I think you have something.
I think on the question you asked about who, you need to understand how the national and the regional IGFs are found. I think most of the people tried to answer here, they are talking about openness and collaboration, is very key. Who are you collaborating with, when you talk about multi stake? You have Government, you have private, you feel civil society. You have academia. If your Government is involved in this, it becomes easy, the issue about accountability because I understand where you are coming from, all the bureaucracy and protocol issues. Probably private sector they don't mind about this. But Government, I believe this one is very important. If you understand how the model is formed for the national IGFs and regional IGFs it becomes easy. I think you will try to say something, we need somebody to spearhead the process.
Once you have somebody to spearhead the process it becomes easy. For example, Kenyon IGF to spearhead that process, our ccTLD is multi stake so people see trust when it comes to that. It is that accountability. The issue about who is accountable becomes easier. I notice same case for TZ for their local, for their national IGF, the same case, I don't know for Uganda how the national IGF is, whether they have that multi stake or not. The other thing you talk about sustainability. If we see the values of the outcomes of the IGFs, the national IGF, regional IGF, those values will sell the ideas of, to the stakeholders and the process going to be sustainable. We don't need to mind so much about this sustainability if the values are there. If you are able to see those values, sustain ability is going to come automatically.
Thanks. So John, you have been very quiet. There is somebody up before you.
Finally. (Chuckles).
You have been given the microphone.
Three people are ready.
Let me say what I want to say quickly before you change your mind. This is in terms of logistics, by the way. The East African IGF for next year is that going to hold in Kenya, do you know already?
No, Rwanda.
My question was going to be, would it be possible to make the regional IGF a truly pan African regional IGF? But now that it's in Rwanda that can work, because since the IGF is going to hold in Kenya, it would be great to have pan African regional IGF, before the countries will meet, regions will meet, continent will meet before IGF. That would be lovely.
Continental IGF is another idea as soon as possible.
That is an idea. We will say the idea came from you.
Congratulations. You should be the chair of that committee.
Finally, John. Then after that...
Hello. My name is John Bengal from Kenya. I'm sorry, I have to go back to what my colleague was saying here. I want to say that, yes, there has been benefit in having loose networks because they have efficiency of moving things faster with less bureaucracy.
But just like in the beginning, when the Internet was controlled by two or three people with the very loose environment, as the importance of the Internet has grown, so has it become necessary that the structures begin to solidify without necessarily losing the benefit of the looseness. So what I want to say is that maybe as we move forward, because we are saying East Africa IGF is going to be there, whether or not the global one is there, then it becomes important that we start to think perhaps how do we put in place certain structures to make sure that this idea of multistakeholder interaction is sustainable.
At the moment, the East African level, I believe those structures are not yet there. As we move for it, we will start thinking we need to start creating side structures to make sure that as a region, we actually benefit from this multistakeholder environment. Thank you.
I'm responding to Walwengo's submission. Something I did not report, we have begun taking on national Steering Committees.
This is, Rwanda give us a clear example. Too bad they could not make it because of the visa issues. That is something we talked about during the East African IGF, but that is not the issue. The issue is Rwanda has come up with a committee that is multistakeholder in one way or another.
They have Government backing, Government support. Then they do have the academia. They have the private sector. They do have the civil society. They are willing to take on the issues that were identified at the national level. Yes, that was the Kampala meeting.
Also Uganda is going to take the same thing, the same way, because it was a model that we saw that we can all take on. I cannot speak for Kenya but I'm sure this is something that all region, all countries, that will take on, and that way once we have a committee, I mean a national committee, things will move a little bit faster than having establishing going to the all East African IGF organisation. I don't know how we call it anyway. Thank you.
Thanks, Lillian. Let me personally, speaking personally, don't quote me, but I'm excited about the idea of endorsement from East African community. If you can follow that up, that will be a wonderful idea. But I don't know. It is something you have to discuss with the community. As I said, there are different levels. People would like the setup to be loose but having endorsement from community of some kind would help you when you are dealing with your governments. There is an East African entity called East African IGF and recognized and endorsed by East African community. Then this is kind of recognition that is given by East African communities. That is my personal view.
It's a good personal view. I forgot to mention that we receive support from the United Nations East African, no, economic commission for Africa under the sub region or level. That is in Rwanda. They are willing to support us. They are willing to support us. They will be having our workshop in Djibouti in February and we will be representing the East Africa model and idea for report there. We can start with sub regional level of ECA and take it to the African union or East African committee I don't know. Either way.
It's almost 1800 hours. One more question. Otherwise we shall miss our buses, those of us who take the buses.
GLORIA ATWINE KATUUKU: Thank you very much. I would like to take this opportunity -- my name is Gloria From Uganda -- to take this opportunity and thank the East African IGF. It is my first time to get involved. You are doing a great job at the beginning. Like I was telling my colleague Lillian, that it's good that the Government is coming up. We shouldn't be seeing this as civil society thing. When you come out, that we just see you pushing issues, and without involving us. But I thank Uganda IGF because they have come up now, they are involving government.
My question is, as we take up the issues, I don't know, I didn't hear anything being discussed on the level of content. What are you doing in that area?
You came in late?
Local content? You well know in Uganda, local content is being driven. We have some private organisations and maybe there is the academia, ministry -- no, no. Sorry. CIT, they are doing something in applications, localizing applications. But I cannot speak for the rest of, for the other countries.
But in terms of local content, we called for developing of local content but not just developing, maybe localizing the content that is available.
That was more of putting relevant content on the Government Web sites, that would encourage eGovernment applications, and citizen participation in the government initiatives. Maybe I can speak, maybe Uganda currently we do have voters can access their voting details online. I think that is a first step.
I mean it's a step towards providing content, relevant content to the, on the Internet. I don't know whether that is what you wanted to hear. Or it is something different.
Maybe it went to that. We can take the technical aspect as well. We have two official languages, Swahili and English. Most of the companies, most of the entities present the content in English. But as said in the previous presentation, in the strengthening ccTLDs the Government is taking a leading role in presenting the content in Swahili because Swahili is understandable wherever you go within Tanzania. Technically we talked about the issue of cost.
We talked also the issue of Internet exchange points. For the time being, we are not effectively utilizing this exchange points. You find that since we are beginning for the case of Tanzania the registry, we are not restricting on the domain hosting issues, Web hostings issues. But what we are doing, we are encouraging people to host the Web site locally, to host it on domains locally. By so doing, even the costing in the near future will be minimized because whatever is local, will be maintained locally. Whatever international is what will be going outside of the country.
Now another point, which I may take this opportunity, is just to remind all Afrikaans and our guests that as we said, the international IGF will be physically in Kenya and EA-IGF will be in Rwanda. I would like to inform you that the dot TZ registry and regulator of Tanzania sent for hosting 2011 meeting and workshop and this has been confirmed so next year's meeting will be taking place in Tanzania so you have three events taking place in East Africa.
That is a lot of wildlife we shall see there. A very last one, please.
Thank you, for giving me the last one. As we talk about all this, we have key issue of building within the East African building, which I think we should focus on as key areas of discussion points. On this note I want to thank visitors, Spider, I just met them in the room but they have done a good job. They have trained hundreds security officers within the Government, IA security officers that were trained with support from Spider and since they are remaining here, I would wish to say thank you for work you are doing to support the East Africa region. But clearly the Government, training government officials in the iSecurity matters. Thank you very much.
Thanks very much. I would like to take this opportunity to thank our transcribers and the people who are doing the work behind there. They are also doing translation. Thank you very much and also the cameraman. Thank you very much. I think we kept them until so late. I hope they didn't mind. Also the lady was doing the remote work here, Grace, thank you very much, all the people on the table here. Thank you for the good work you have done and all of you for the very nice contributions you have taken time off from attending other events to come to be here with us. Thank you very much. Let's meet in Rwanda and in Kenya and Tanzania next year. Thank you.
(Applause)
(end of session)