Post-IANA: ICANN Pledges Increased Voice for Africa Community

Africa’s domain name registration community will receive a boost following the recent hand over, by U.S. Commerce Department, the control of the Internet’s “address book’, the highest level of the Domain Naming System, or DNS, to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), Nigeria CommunicationsWeek can report.

Pierre Dandjinou, vice president, Stakeholder Engagement – Africa at ICNAN in an email interview with Nigeria CommunicationsWeek said the Body was very pleased with the historic milestone.

Dandjinou said, “Two and a half years ago, the ICANN multistakeholder Community embarked on a journey to develop a globally agreed on plan to transition the U.S. Department of Commerce, National Telecommunications and Information Administration’s (NTIA) stewardship of the IANA functions to the global Internet Community and here we are today.

“This is a proud moment for us and the global Internet Community. We are very proud to be a part of the global multi-stakeholder model of Internet Governance and I want to congratulate the ICANN Community, especially here in Africa, on their hard work over the past two years to get us where we are today,” he said.

He said that the gesture by US Government will have major impact on Internet governance, however, ICANN will not relent on its oars to setting and implementing programmes that will benefit the global domain name administration community.

“There is no impact”, he Dandjinou, “ICANN is responsible for setting and implementing the rules that facilitate the Internet’s unique identifiers and supporting the technical operation of the Domain Name System (DNS). Governance on the Internet goes beyond technical issues and involves complex social, economic and transnational issues related to the use of the Internet. This area is outside of ICANN’s remit”.

With particular reference to Africa, he said, “Africa is part of the ICANN community. With the transition of the Stewardship of IANA Functions to the Global Internet Community there will be more engagement and participation required from the regional community. It is interesting to note that post IANA transition means more community empowerment. This means any entity within ICANN that is now a member of the empowered community has the opportunity to weigh in on ICANN operational issues such as the ICANN strategic plan, and operating plan.

“For us, it is important to increase the African voice utilising the multi-stakeholder approach. ICANN’s role in Africa is to increase connectivity in the continent and highlight the abundant e-commerce opportunities, and encourage the creation of mega content providers. Implementation of the Africa strategy remains key to help transform the Internet industry, by facilitating capacity development and conditions for the emergence of an Africa grown domain name industry and business. The approach of the Africa team is to coin relevant projects focused on reviving the DNS industry in Africa and capacity building while promoting active participation in the wider Internet governance space”.

He said that ICANN looks forward to the African community’s ongoing and increased collaboration on their work.

“We want to encourage the African community to participate actively in the ICANN policy development process; and in contributions as members of the newly formed entities,” Dandjinou said.