New Africa Internet group pushes regional issues at ICANN

To make African Internet users' voices heard internationally, the Africa-At-Large Organization (AFRALO) held its inaugural meeting last week on the sidelines of the Mexico City meeting of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN).

"AFRALO meetings will be held at every future ICANN meeting," said Fatimata Seye Sylla, president of the tech professional organization Bokk Jang Bokk Jeff in Senegal. "All participants expressed commitment to work together for a more meaningful participation of Africa in ICANN-related issues," Sylla said.

African issues have been underrepresented in ICANN, industry insiders say. Paul Levins, ICANN vice president of corporate affairs, has acknowledged that there exists a gap within ICANN between issues affecting developed and developing countries.

While Africa grapples with issues of connectivity and access, ICANN meetings address larger issues such as the introduction of new generic Top Level Domains, security and Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), which are important to Internet development but remote for Africans with no access.

ICANN plans boost underserved regions through a new outreach policy, as part of its overall development strategy.

"There are a number of initiatives ongoing: training on security, stability and resiliency for country court Top Level Domains," said Ann-Rachel Inne, the Africa liaison at ICANN, in response to an online forum query posed by Yassin Mshana, a former Africa representative in ICANN. Mshana questioned how far implementation of the outreach policy had gone.

ICANN is also offering fellowship for civil society and government representatives to participate in public meetings, and ICANN staff is reaching out to local communities and universities and organizing regional meetings, Inne said.

There are various At-Large groups within ICANN that address issues affecting individual Internet users and participate in ICANN policy development work. At-Large representatives attending the Mexico summit came from Africa; Europe; Asia-Australia; the Pacific islands; Latin America and the Caribbean islands; and North America.

In a meeting report, however, the At-Large groups said that there is uneven participation and engagement in ICANN-related issues and a lack of mechanisms to connect ICANN with the end-users.