ICANN Wants More African Involvement

Leaders of Africa’s internet community have unveiled a plan that is part of a bid to dramatically increase African involvement in the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN’s) multi-stakeholder model.

The initiative presented to ICANN during the organisation’s 45th public meeting in Toronto, Canada by the Africa Strategy Working Group (ASWG). It was formed after ICANN’s new president and chief executive officer, Fadi Chehadé, encouraged a stronger voice from the African continent in ICANN’s multi-stakeholder model.

The three year initiative, entitled ICANN's New Approach to Africa, lays out clear goals and milestones and an action plan for the first 12 months. is a collaborative effort by AFRINIC, Africa's Regional Registry for Internet Number Resources and the ICANN community. It’s planned that the initiative will be posted for public comment.

Currently, African internet users represent only 6 per cent of internet users worldwide. This initiative is designed to dramatically increase that number.

 “When we met three months ago at the ICANN meeting in Prague, I felt a sense of frustration at our inability to come together and move the Africa agenda forward,” said Chehadé.

“It’s incredible what this working group has achieved in such a short period of time by engaging with many concerned groups and individuals through the multi-stakeholder process,” he added.

Nii Quaynor of Ghana, chair of the ASWG, said, “We employed a bottom-up, open and public process in developing this initiative.”

“We think this plan will lead to dramatically increased African participation in ICANN and greater presence for the organization on the African continent.”

“We are taking a new approach to Africa,” said Tarek Kamel, a senior advisor to the ICANN President.

“This plan is based on capacity building, business development, specifically developing the Domain Name System (DNS) business in Africa and insuring inclusion.”