[governance] APC's IGF2010 brief (info on regional IGFs)

[Ginger Paque]

  Thanks, Anriette!
In particular, there are summaries of three regional IGF meetings, 
pasted below, as there were requests for this information earlier.

Annex 1 – Reports from Regional IGFs that were co-convened by the APC

Latin America and the Caribbean

The third Latin American and the Caribbean regional preparatory meeting 
for the IGF was held in Quito, Ecuador from 3-5 August, 2010. APC, 
LACNIC and the NUPEF Institute collaborated once again to offer a 
platform for the multi stakeholder policy dialogue, with the support of 
the Brazilian Steering Committee (CGI.br). Over 120 people from 25 
countries attended the event. Debate was encouraged to identify regional 
priorities on access and diversity, internet critical resources, 
privacy, security, openness, internet governance for development, and 
emerging issues. Rapporteurs shared the main outputs with the audience, 
which are the basis for putting together a message from the LAC region 
to the IGF. The issue related to the need for the LAC region to build an 
internet governance agenda that responds to regional particularities and 
countries´priorities came out strongly. It would not prevent but 
contribute to enhancing the engagement of the LAC region in global 
processes like the IGF, the participation in other related internet 
governance institutions and, primarily, would establish linkages with 
national internet governance public policy priorities with the 
perspectives of developing countries.

As the previous year, the importance of universal affordable broadband 
access was highlighted as a pre-condition for innovative and competitive 
environments that generates new types of revenue generating models that 
puts people and their rights in the centre. The need to broaden the 
approach to the access theme was stressed. Issues related to the 
commercial agreements with developed countries that determine the 
conditions to access to information and knowledge should be also 
addressed if the internet is meant to significantly impact on people´s 
lives. Similarly, regarding openness, it was proposed that a new system 
of intellectual property rights, appropriate for digital media in the 
context of developing countries, should be put in place to facilitate 
access to knowledge and information. There was general consensus around 
the importance of an open governance model for the internet which allows 
an active, effective, diversified and multi-stakeholder participation. 
The code of good practice on information, participation and transparency 
in internet governance was well received by different stakeholders as a 
tool to move towards an open governance model.

The internet governance for development session focused on the need to 
build capacities for increasing the participation of developing 
countries in decision-making mechanisms and processes in global and 
regional fora. Additionally, the importance of addressing the economic, 
social, cultural and political impacts of the internet in societies was 
highlighted.

Once again, the need to search for an adequate balance between security 
and privacy was raised, particularly in the fields of social networks, 
transparency and access to information. The importance of 
legal/regulatory harmonization and practices in the management of 
information was addressed. Some pointed out that cloud computing brings 
benefits in terms of virtual data capability, reduction of costs of 
hardware, and resource optimisation. However, it was also emphasized 
that risks of privacy violations increase.

Regarding critical internet resources, participants indicated it is 
necessary to find participative and collaborative multi-stakeholder 
models for management of IP addresses at national levels with a view of 
public interest, balancing the participation of governments and private 
sector in order to ensure respect for citizen´s rights.
On the security session, one of the most innovative proposals had to do 
with substituting the perspective of security for a realistic approach 
to risk administration. Finally, participants emphasized the importance 
of remote participation for the success of the global and regional IGFs. 
There was general agreement about the relevance of the IGF and the need 
for its continuation.

14http://intgovforum.org/cms/the-preparatory-process/512
A brief from APC on the Fifth Internet Governance Forum 7


East Africa
The 3rd East African IGF was held in Kampala Uganda on 11-13 August. The 
theme for the 2010 meeting was “Strengthening East Africa’s Critical 
Internet Resources ”Thinking globally; Acting locally.” The regional IGF 
followed on a series of national IGFs in Kenya, Uganda, Rwanda, Tanzania 
and - for the first time since the regional and national IGFs started in 
East Africa – in Burundi.
The East African Internet Governance forum is an annual conference 
within Eastern Africa that mainly focusses on internet governance issues 
of key importance to the East Africa Community (EAC) countries, all of 
which have national IGF processes. Representatives from each of the 5 
countries reported on their national IGF processes and the outcomes of 
the national forums. This year, the critical issues discussed at 
national and regional levels included access to broadband and regional 
integration of networks, IPV6 migration, redelegation of ccTLDs (such as 
.KE and .UG), cyber security and privacy, as well as the need for 
regional internet exchange points. (As an illustration, someone in the 
meeting checked the routing of an email message from Uganda to Rwanda, 
and found that traffic meant for a neighbouring country was still going 
via the UK!).
The dominant theme of the meeting centred on strengthening ccTLDs. One 
of the hotly debated issues was therefore the proposal – and request for 
support – from a conference participant for bid to acquire the dotAfrica 
top level domain name, focussing on the potential negative impact on the 
viability of the ccTLDs. The emerging themes at the 2010 discussion was 
the issue of harmonisation of ICT certification in the region, and 
related to that, youth and ICT entrepreneurship. Also discussed was the 
Code of Good Practice developed by the APC in partnership with the 
Council of Europe and the UN Economic Commission for Europe. Alice 
Munyua, the East African Internet Governance Forum convener announced 
that Kenya would host the next global IGF in September 2011, if the UN 
Assembly extends the IGF mandate.15


West Africa
The third West African Internet Governance Forum (WA-IGF) was held in 
Dakar from August 23-25th 2010. The event was organised by a consortium 
made up of the Internet Society (ISOC) Senegal, Association for 
Progressive Communication (APC), AfriNIC, ECOWAS, Panos Institute West 
Africa (PIWA), Free and Open Source Software Foundation for Africa 
(FOSSFA), and the International Institute for Sustainable Development 
(IISD). It was supported by the Open Society Institute for West Africa 
(OSIWA). Over 200 participants and observers from 12 countries 
representing civil society, media, the private sector, government 
regulatory authorities, development partners and internet activists 
convened to deliberate on issues relating to internet governance (IG) 
issues in West Africa.

Regarding access and diversity, participants agreed on the need for 
affordable broadband, and efficient network coverage of the entire West 
African territory. They also recommended creation of content that is 
useful, affordable, accessible and adapted to the needs and context of 
Africa. Discussions on Internet Governance for Development recommended 
sub level domain name protection, abolition of Internet Protocol (IP) 
blocking and also government ownership and relevant stakeholders 
engagement at an international level.

On the issue of privacy and security, participants at the forum 
concurred that there was a need to implement a task force for defining a 
set of laws and rules about cyber security. Participants also 
recommended a need to propose policies and standards for personal and 
sensitive data protection to reduce the risks associated with openness.
On managing critical Internet resources, two issues came out strongly 
and these are strong regional cooperation among member states in the 
region and at a regional level, working with key partners like FOSSFA, 
ECOWAS and working with ISPs and IXPs. Secondly, it was also 
acknowledged that data centres should be regionally managed to maximize 
West African resources and create cascading programs and best practices 
among member states.

Participants acknowledged that there is need to embark on follow up 
discussions on the above mentioned issues and also agreed on the need to 
present these issues at the global IGF and perhaps incorporate these 
suggestions in the global IGF space.
15For detailed coverage on the EAIGF, see 
http://www.eaigf-uganda.blogspot.com
A brief from APC on the Fifth Internet Governance Forum 8

On 9/10/2010 8:37 AM, Anriette Esterhuysen wrote:
> Dear IGC
>
> We have tried to capture the APC community's priorities for the 2010 IGF
> in the attached.
>
> As always the comments from people in this space are helpful to us.
>
> Anriette
>
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> anriette esterhuysen - executive director
> association for progressive communications
> p o box 29755 melville - south africa 2109
> anriette at apc.org - tel/fax + 27 11 726 1692
> http://www.apc.org
>
> APC 1990-2010 www.apc.org
> Thank you for helping make APC what it is today!
> ¡Gracias por hacer de APC lo que es hoy!
> Merci d'avoir contribué à faire d'APC ce qu'elle est aujourd'hui!
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