[AfrICANN-discuss] Reflections on ICANN 47: African perspectives

[Dandjinou Pierre]

Dear Listers, Chers Listiers

I thought I should share these  reflections  on ICANN 47 and namely with an
African perspective!

Pour votre information, quelques reflexions sur ICANN 47 a Durban, avec une
perspective africaine..

Bonne lecture

Pierre
VP, Africa

-- 
Pierre Dandjinou
Cotonou - 229 90 087784 / 66566610
Dakar 221 77 639 30 41
www.scg.bj
skype : sagbo1953
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/africann/attachments/20130724/58d0146d/attachment.html>
-------------- next part --------------
Reflexions on ICANN 47 Durban, 14-18 July 2013 : An African perspective

ICANN 47 has been a great event! It happened while Africa has a strategy being rolled out and could report a few albeit important successes!

For many of the 1800 attendants and 91 countries represented, the Durban event was well organized and well executed logistically. The local arrangements were quite good and all of the events took place smoothly. ÊAlso, it should be noted that :
* ZADNA and ZACR, the local hosts and the African Union provided a tremendous support. Ê
* There was an uplifting and positive engagement with the African community with multiple events. ÊThe Africa DNS Forum on Friday and Saturday, a joint effort of ISOC, AFTLD and ICANN, kicked off the extended week. ÊTheÊreport on implementationÊof ICANN's strategy for Africa with the handout of the first ever domain name awards in Africa; AFRALO Showcase and Reception on Monday kicked off the official week, followed by the AFRALO/AFRICANN Joint Meeting ; a special session on Wednesday 17th July deemed Ô Africa Untethered: The Era of Digital Africa on Wednesday afternoon which also came as a premiere at ICANN, with showcasing of young African entrepreneurship. Ê
* 
 The spirit that Nelson Mandela holds over the entire continent and the very special occurrenceÊof his 95th birthday during our time there. ÊNii Quaynor gave a moving tribute to him and aÊnumber of ICANN people participated in painting a school and teaching the Internet to young students on ThursdayÊmorningÊto observe Mandela Day.?

The signing of the new agreementsÊwithÊthe registries and registrars. ÊThis culminated yearsÊofÊdiscussionÊand negotiation and is a big step forward. Ê

 A flowering ofÊactivityÊacross all of the SOs and ACs. ÊThe GNSO and ALAC continue to have so many events and activities. SSAC isÊprovidingÊadvice onÊmultiple fronts and is engaging with the entire community. ÊccNSO marked its tenth anniversary and smooth transition from the strong leadership of Lesley Cowley to the equally strong leadership of Byron Holland. ÊRSSAC is completing its reorganization and revitalization, and the ASO was active withÊan IPv6 session on Wednesday afternoonÊand increasing its plans forÊfutureÊengagements.?

Extensive meetings of both the Expert Working Group on Next Generation Directory Services lead by Jean-Francois Baril and the second Accountability and Transparency Review Team (ATRT2) under the leadership of Brian Cute, Avri Doria, Lise Fuhr and Alan Greenberg. ÊFiona Asonga of Kenya is the AfricaÕs representative on that review team. These are strategically important activities that will provide guidance on improvements in critical areas over theÊcomingÊyears. As usual, GAC had its own meetings and published its report..

The announcement of fiveÊpresidentialÊstrategy panels on long term critical topics. ÊIt should be noted that Nii Quaynor from Africa was appointed Chairman of the Corporate responsibility panel

The Board had its public meeting and passed a few resolutions such as :

The approval of the budget for the Singapore hub toÊcontinueÊtheÊtransitionÊfrom a single headquarters to "tri-quarters" operation.?
The resolutionÊrelatedÊto metrics for competition, consumer trust and consumer choice to initiate the fourth of the Affirmation of Commitments reviews.

And certainly not least are the changes in structure and management within ICANN, particularly the creating of the new Generic Domains Division with Akram Atallah as the divisional president, and the arrival of Susanna Bennett as the new Chief Operating Officer.

The gTLDÊprogramÊis well underway, with large numbers of applications through the evaluation process and delegations into the root likely to begin before the end of this year.?

While in Durban, I have been approached by half a dozen countries, seeking re delegation and/or reengineering of their cctlds : These are : .TG; .NA; .MR; .BW; .TD

Finally, itÕs worth noting that the Action plan proposed by ICANN Africa includes the following major projects :

- Extension of the DNSSEC roadshow to 8 additional countries
- Contribution to a survey on African ccTLDs (In partnership with AFTLD, ISOC, AFNIC..)
- Developing an exchange programme with global DNS industry leaders
- Capacity development for African ccTLDs and Registrars
- Contribution to IGF
- Deepened engagement with Government (via the GAC), private sector and civil society
- Contribute to facilitating cctlds re delegation and re engineering in Africa
- Deepened engagement with ICANN SO/AC



-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Reflections sur ICANN 47 Perspectives Africaines.docx
Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Size: 20001 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/africann/attachments/20130724/58d0146d/attachment.docx>
-------------- next part --------------
An embedded and charset-unspecified text was scrubbed...
Name: Reflections sur ICANN 47 Perspectives Africaines.txt
URL: <https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/africann/attachments/20130724/58d0146d/attachment.txt>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: Reflections on ICANN 47 African perspectives.docx
Type: application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.wordprocessingml.document
Size: 148227 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <https://lists.afrinic.net/pipermail/africann/attachments/20130724/58d0146d/attachment-0001.docx>