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ICTA and ATU Internet Governance Forum ushers in a new era in the development of the Internet in Africa

Port Louis: The Declaration agreed upon by the delegates from some twenty African countries who took part in the Internet Governance Forum organised by the ICTA and the ATU have ushered in a new era in the development of the Internet in Africa.

The Declaration was the highlight of the Forum for African Policy Makers and Regulators on Internet Governance, (17-19 March 2009) which was held at the Swami Vivekananda International Conference Centre in Pailles on the outskirts of the capital Port Louis. 

The Chairman of the ICTA, Mr Trilock Dwarka welcomed the Declaration and congratulated the delegates who contributed to its drafting adding that the Declaration effectively provides the foundation for an Internet Governance action plan for the African continent.

The 49 foreign delegates had come from across the continent including South Africa, Burundi, the Republic of the Congo and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ivory Coast, Egypt, the Gambia, Kenya and Malawi. They were joined by around a dozen from Mauritius. They were unanimous that the country code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) should be hosted locally by each country in question.

During panel discussions and presentations, speakers and delegates underlined   that the ccTLD is a critical national resource granting each country its unique identity in cyber space, is the driver in e-commerce and helps countries develop technical human capacity.

Among the setbacks for African citizens wishing to register a generic domain like .com under the ccTLD of their country is that the registration costs are channeled overseas and do not as such constitute a  national investment.

One other issue which withheld the Forum's attention was that of re-delegation of domain names for several African nations. The   ccTLD of Congo, .cg, is controlled by a Swiss national. His offer to Congolese citizens wishing to register under .cg is a monthly subscription of 245 Euros.

The Pailles Declaration urges African governments to pursue the re-delegation of their ccTLDs where this applies. Drawing upon international best practices, the Forum agreed that a multi-stakeholder framework should be created. This would include the involvement of the private sector, academia and civil society organizations.

One of the main recommendations of the Declaration was that each country should set up an entity charged with managing the ccTLD and where necessary drive through the re-delegation process.

This entity would be non-profit making unless decided otherwise by the local Internet community. The proposal is that governments provide the start up capital for the creation of such an entity with the governments taking on the role of facilitator.

With African governments being the biggest repository of local content, it was agreed that that local content should be hosted locally and that governments should move towards the digitization of this content and make it available online in local languages under the ccTLD name and space.

This would also help in transforming respective ccTLDs into national brands in order to reap the full benefits of e-commerce opportunities especially in the growing US and European markets. This would serve as a guarantee to customers that African goods and services being sold under their country domain name are indeed from that country.

20 March 2009