Hi people

I agree that the most important participation needed is at national level.  In Côte d'Ivoire where I live, we have a formal and functioning IG initiative with even an elected President.  The man had been to Kenya also to understudy the Kenya IGF.  The IGICI, the Ivorian one, is entirely sponsored by national stakeholders.

In West Africa, OSIWA has given a 1 year support for the WAIGF, which hitherto had been supported partly by AfriNic and partners.  The framework of WAIGF (which is being managed by FOSSFA) was to have a resource person in a country and support that individual to do an initial mobilisation, so that once an initial national IGF was organised, national stakeholders will take it from there.

Here are the issues:
1.  The WAIGF does not cover all the countries.  So 1 year support to 8 out of 15 countries is not sustainable. At this time, the countries that may be able to carry on without continued support in West Africa may be Senegal, Gambia, Ghana, Sierra Leone and Nigeria.
2. Central Africa is far more shaky than West Africa.  Schombe Baudoin can update on that.
3. ECA has been lending support to EAIGF, (according to Makane) but there was not any national IG initiative in Ethiopia until last two weeks after we finished the Diplo training in Addis and the ET participants agreed to begin something.
4. The SAIGF idea is only about a few months old. I know Anriette of APC has started work on this, but so far, there are not much national IGF in the region.
5.  North Africa,  I am not aware of (I may be wrong)

On AFIGF, what we have so far is ECA and AU saying "it is a good idea and we will go for it".  And NEPAD saying, 'it is a good idea and we will support it", and Diplo that is willing to engage.

Nonetheless, there are questions on how best an AFIGF can best serve the needs of ongoing and yet-to-start initiatives, outside of a once-a-year meeting.  The other important issue also is that there are key stakeholders who are not necessarily linked to a sub-region, like ADB, ATU, MTN who need to engage.  As well as sub-regional economic commissions.  In west Africa, ECOWAS has not been very active, despite a willingness.

When I heard that ECA had accepted to hold the IG workshop, I contacted the people involved in the ongoing initiatives and sent a draft for the AFIGF that I wanted to go and present at Addis.  So what we have now is a kind of evolving document on : What will an African initiative look like and what should it accomplish?  Hopefully, an open forum will happen in Nairobi so that stakeholder present can evaluate and decide what direction is best.

It is true that for some countries where with an active IGF, it might seem like a waste of energy, but for some other countries, they are hoping to ride on the back of AFIGF to either begin or strengthen their national IGF.

All the best

Nnenna


Nnenna  Nwakanma |  Founder and CEO, NNENNA.ORG  |  Consultants
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