[governance] IGF review

[Ken Lohento]

Dear friend McTim, all

In my opinion, the African CS that's trying to get involved in the 
international IG debate, is also involved in IG initiatives on the 
continent. I'm not sure saying the contrary can be fully illustrated. I 
agree more African CS stakeholders should be involved in Af*'s works. 
Maybe Af*s should also make further progress towards inclusion 
of/dialogue with more broad/non technical African CS stakeholders? What 
is being done can be improved. You also have a lot of CS people involved 
for example in local ISOC chapters. (I don't know if African ISOCs 
are/can also be called Af*s). I think collaboration between stakeholders 
in Africa comes naturally in fact : you may wish to read this working 
paper I wrote and that was published in a doc by UNECA 
http://www.uneca.org/istd/documents/AfrCSOs_Speak.pdf (notably page 58) 
- not focused on IG though and in French. But we need to strengthen that 
collaboration between stakeholders on the continent. In particular the 
technical and business community need to support the other CS with 
regards to better mastering technical ICT/IG issues. This question is a 
bit discussed in this document that Mawaki Chango wrote "WSIS and Then? 
What Prospects and Roles for African Stakeholders in The Subsequent 
Internet Governance Processes?" that we have published in this working 
document 
http://www.cipaco.org/ancienne_versions/spip_v191/sources/OpeningthedebateonIGFinAfrica.pdf 
(see page 66/67 in particular)) - I'm mainly talking here as for West 
africa which I know best, but I guess the situation is more or less the 
same elsewhere.

Another key problem is that the African CS doesn't benefit from the 
inputs of the African academia. If for example you watch this list, 
you'll see that "best" or most prolific contributors are people from the 
academia or with strong university background. In Africa we are far from 
this situation. Improving the involvement of the academia will also 
improve the involvement of African stakeholders and CS in policy making 
in general, at local, national and international levels.

My two cents..

Ken L

McTim a écrit :
> On Fri, May 22, 2009 at 1:23 PM, BAUDOUIN SCHOMBE <b.schombe at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> Dear Ginger and Ian,
>> Subsequently abouT IGf review, I beleive that IGF process is till necessary
>> for a most of developping countries specially in africa.
>>     
>
> This attitude breaks my heart, and I'll tell you why.
>
> There ARE existing African IG institutions that need support.
>
> When Africans (especially African CS groups) focus on the IGF instead
> of the Af*'s (AfNOG, AfTLD, AfriNIC, AfrISPA, et. al), there is less
> time, money and energy available for the home grown decade long (+)
> African IG experience.   That to me is a real pity.
>
> Why on earth one would choose to just talk about making policy (IGF)
> instead of actually making policy (as we did at AfriNIC 10 recently)
> is beyond me.
>
> I appeal to African CS orgs reading this list to become more involved
> in the Af*s mailing lists and meetings.  We need all the support we
> can get.
> There seems to be a smaller resource base here in Africa than in some
> other regions, I don't understand why we don't support our own
> initiatives when we easily can!
>   

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