[AfrICANN-discuss] [africs-ig] Africa report

Tue May 28 22:41:09 SAST 2013

Great point, Adiel! A wiki sounds a feasible solution... I suspect the
maintenance (with updated information) might prove more of a challenge than
the initial launch. Anyway, this would start with a good design effort in
order to be able to cover all foreseeable pertinent data entries. I leave
others also to react to the idea and share their experiences, especially
those who may have been involved in similar efforts.

mc

On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 7:53 PM, Adiel Akplogan <adiel at afrinic.net> wrote:

> Hello All,
>
> Good to engage Regional bodies and all to do the data collection and
> dissemination work with certain scope. But I'm asking myself what
> (resource) does it take for this group to setup a small DB and wiki to
> start collecting just the data as suggested by Nenna to start with? Can
> this community join effort in start building a simple repository like that
> for its own usage? How much $$ do we really need? Just wondering …
>
> - a.
> On 2013-05-28, at 16:51 PM, Poncelet Ileleji <pileleji at ymca.gm> wrote:
>
> Hello Colleagues,
>
> Personally I think we should start using the regional bodies, like ECOWAS,
> the East African Commission etc, for such kind of documentation that is
> really required, all these regional outfits should be able to have a focal
> policy unit focusing ICT and their regional ICT ecosystem to do this, then
> a body like NEPAD can be able to gather such information and validate it
> for all.
>
> I know their is a long way to go but we can start somewhere, but its the
> way forward I think
>
> Regards
>
> Poncelet
>
>
> On 28 May 2013 11:36, Nnenna Nwakanma <nnenna75 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> +1.
>>
>> The research and strenous  "academic"  work, though, does not seem to be
>> in line with what those organisations "especially in Africa" do.
>> I have read 2-3 pagers but I may be wrong.
>>
>> On another note, ITU is more of a member-country kind of engagement
>> still.  Which basically gives little or no influence to these other "sector
>> members"
>>
>> But whichever way, anybody can document and disseminate such
>> documentation. We MUST begin somewhere..
>>
>> Best
>>
>> Nnenna
>>
>>
>> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 11:27 AM, Dandjinou Pierre <pdandjinou at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Mawaki,
>>>
>>> You said it all ! collecting the information and documenting those
>>> relevant events as the ones Nnenna alludes to should be the focus. But this
>>> calls for resources (human and financial resources). The way some parts of
>>> the world do this is through regional organizations such as the European
>>> commission who commissioned (!!) appropriate studies and white papers.
>>>
>>> Our challenge here is how to get the Africa Union commission and other
>>> RECs interested.
>>>
>>>  Pierre
>>>
>>>
>>> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 12:42 PM, Mawaki Chango <kichango at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>
>>>> All,
>>>>
>>>> There is a lot to be done in Africa. So one might think it is even more
>>>> crucial here to bring in all segments of the society which can help improve
>>>> our understanding and practice. I totally agree that academia should be
>>>> invited in what we do at all levels. It doesn't matter how much you slice
>>>> this, you can't avoid education, training, research without a serious loss.
>>>> As recently as last year I was doing a survey in an African country and one
>>>> of my respondents working in a public research agency told me once she
>>>> asked to consult a document (which was not a government classified document
>>>> but has to do with some development issues in one sector of activity) at
>>>> another government agency, then after asking what exactly she was looking
>>>> for her colleague opened the corresponding pages for her to make note of,
>>>> while concealing the non-related contents. That's the mindset we're up
>>>> against. In many places, it is the very notion of collecting information
>>>> and making it easy to retrieve later on which is lacking. Believe it or
>>>> not, in some countries ICT-related policy documents are said to exist but
>>>> cannot be easily found by the public. For the medium and long-term there is
>>>> a need to educate and train information specialists, librarians, people
>>>> who are prepared to identify relevant data gathering opportunities and
>>>> sources and people who are prepared to systematically gather and curate
>>>> information, index it and make it easy to find and retrieve at any point in
>>>> the future. This can only help all researchers, academic or practitioners,
>>>> to do their job better as well as decision-makers, for that matter.
>>>>
>>>> In any case, and particularly for the short term, the best we can do is
>>>> to gather raw data whenever possible, I agree with Nnenna on that (Reports
>>>> are just a means to build reference repositories for such data and there
>>>> may be other ways). The most important (and urgent) is to make sure the
>>>> data (as per the data points she just indicated) is available somewhere for
>>>> the public to access. Otherwise, how is one to debate cogently about the
>>>> geopolitics of the Internet in Africa without knowing which African
>>>> countries were there during relevant proceedings, which ones contributed
>>>> language, what their rationale was, what the different
>>>> positions among African countries are and which ones took which positions
>>>> and why, etc. A handful of people may be able to find out with a reasonable
>>>> time investment but most people, who might use that information for useful
>>>> things that we cannot even predict, won't be able to find it. Not to
>>>> mention that the more aware the public, the greater the benefits of the
>>>> debate.
>>>>
>>>> So yes, we need to demonstrate more awareness for the necessity to
>>>> collect information and systematically document what we do and relevant
>>>> events, to associate academia and other researchers and work with them in
>>>> order to facilitate data collection and information retrieval for research
>>>> and policy analysis as well as for decision-making, policy-making and
>>>> public information.
>>>>
>>>> Best,
>>>>
>>>> Mawaki
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 9:40 AM, Nnenna Nwakanma <nnenna75 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> SM, all
>>>>>  I am talking about an Africa report directly in relation to the:
>>>>> WCIT - World Conference on Information Technology
>>>>> WTPF - World Telecommunications and ICT Policy Forum
>>>>> WSIS+10 - World Summit of Information SOciety + 10 meetings
>>>>>
>>>>> It is not about "what worked in a country" but rather the sum total of:
>>>>>
>>>>>    1. Which African countries contribted content
>>>>>    2. In which areas/domains were African countries
>>>>>    working/interested in
>>>>>    3. Which Countries had delegations
>>>>>    4. What commissions/committees of the policy rounds did they
>>>>>    chair/work on
>>>>>    5. What Ministers were present? What panels did they feature on?
>>>>>    What content did they contribute?
>>>>>    6. What engagements, what plans, what future..
>>>>>
>>>>>    All of that in the framework of global Internet/ICT Policy
>>>>>
>>>>> Best
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Nnenna
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 8:28 AM, SM <sm at resistor.net> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>>> Hi Nnenna,
>>>>>> At 00:04 28-05-2013, Nnenna Nwakanma wrote:
>>>>>>
>>>>>>> I honestly do believe that if we have an "Africa report" after each
>>>>>>> of these meetings, such will come in handy when we are planning for the
>>>>>>> future.
>>>>>>>
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Replicating what worked in Country X does not work well.  The quality
>>>>>> of reports are in my opinion relatively low.  That might be due to research
>>>>>> constraints.  The reader would expect an Africa report to include as many
>>>>>> countries as possible.  Reports generally cover a few countries as case
>>>>>> studies and are extrapolated from there.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> There isn't a breath of expertise as input; either the expertise is
>>>>>> not there, or it is untapped, or there is lack of interest.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Regards,
>>>>>> -sm
>>>>>> ______________________________**_________________
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>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>
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>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Pierre Dandjinou
>>> Cotonou - 229 90 087784 / 66566610
>>> Dakar 221 77 639 30 41
>>> www.scg.bj
>>> skype : sagbo1953
>>>
>>>
>>>
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>
>
> --
> Poncelet O. Ileleji MBCS
> Coordinator
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