NEWS RELEASE

African Policy Makers and Regulators gather in Mauritius to explore key issues on Internet Governance

Focus on ccTLD for Every Country in Africa

Port Louis: Policy makers and regulators on the African continent will be debating key Internet Governance issues with a focus on country code Top Level Domains (ccTLD) in Africa during a Forum from 17-19 March 2009 at the Swami Vivekananda International Conference Centre, Pailles.

At the heart of the discussions will be the question of the Domain Name System (DNS) which enables users which make up the Internet to use unique identifiers and names to access applications like web pages and mailboxes instead of long numbers or codes.

Multi Stakeholder Approach

One of the other hoped for outcomes of the Forum will be to propel the process of the redelegation of ccTLD in general for African countries and more specifically the .mu ccTLD for Mauritius and on how to build a multi stakeholder approach to managing and developing ccTLDs from a national and regional perspective.

The Forum is being organised by the African Telecommunication Union (ATU) and Information and Communication Technologies Authority (ICTA) under the aegis of the Ministry of Information and Communication Technology and in collaboration with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), the African Network Information Centre (AfriNIC) and the African Top Level Domains Association (AfTLDs).

The participation of the above organisations reflect the multi stakeholder paradigm and core values which underpin sound and sustainable Internet Governance.

The Honourable Mohammed Asraf Ally Dulull, Minister of Information and Communication Technology will officially open the Forum on Tuesday 17 March   at 9.30 am.

The three-day interactive Forum will serve to enhance the dissemination of information and understanding of Internet Governance amongst the continent’s policy makers and regulators in Africa.

Apart from the ccTLD issue, Internet Governance covers a host of concerns on how best to manage the Internet which is today considered as an engine of growth for the global economy and more particularly as an economic pillar for Mauritius and the rest of Africa.

Those key issues range from the operational stability, reliability, security and global interoperability of the Internet. Beyond the implications of the technological and technical complexities, the African policy makers will also have to address the human dimension questions like innovation, creativity, the flow of information, intellectual property, multilingualism, accessibility, privacy, security and spam.

Among the high level speakers from overseas will be His Excellency Jean Pierre Onvehoun Ezin of the African Union, Mr Akossi Akossi, the Secretary General of the ATU, Dr Paul Twomey, the CEO of ICANN and Mr Frederick Donck, the Director of Public Policy of the Internet Society (ISOC).

13 March 2009