Dear listers, Just sharing our latest Newsletter for Africa, the last in 2014. Happy reading. Regards Bob. Dear Readers, 2014 has been long and eventful with key events and announcements globally and regionally that promise to significantly change the Internet Ecosystem. In Africa, we continue to keep you updated of our activities and really hope that you also enjoyed reading our AfriCANN October edition! The last two months have been full of activities not only in ICANN but also the wider Internet Ecosystem. The Africa team participated jointly and individually in a number of key events across Africa all aimed at deepening our Engagements with all stakeholders. We sponsored and participated in the historic AFRINIC 21 meeting in Ebene Mauritius, the home of AFRINIC, as it prepares to celebrate a decade of existence. We also want to take this opportunity to congratulate and wish the outgoing founding AFRINIC CEO – Mr. Adiel Akplogan the very best in future endeavors. AFRINIC remains a key partner of ICANN in the implementation of the Africa Strategy and we thank Adiel and his staff for their support. Lastly, and alongside the AFRINIC 21 meeting, the Africa Strategy Review team met and reviewed the current Africa Strategic plan to make it more responsive and aligned to the current ICANN plan of 2016 – 2020. We also took the opportunity to participate at the 2nd Africa School of IG as well as visit some of our stakeholders. Our spotlight section will highlight a key proposal from the community to Enhance Engagement with Africa in 2015 as we prepare for ICANN 55 in Marrakesh. We are also happy to announce the commissioning of yet another L-Root instance in Africa hosted by Mauritius Telecom - Mauritius and would like to sincerely thank you - the African community - for your support in 2014. *Welcome to AfrICANN as we wish you all a merry Xmas and prosperous 2015!* *Africa Team* Spotlight: Supporting Enhanced Engagement in Africa – 2015 Early last month, Community concerns that would prevent maximum participation at ICANN 52, a critical one given the ongoing discussions around the IANA Stewardship Transition and ICANN Accountability, prompted ICANN to postpone the meeting in Marrakech, Morocco and to relocate to Singapore on the same dates. In the announcement <https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2014-11-03-en>, the Board confirmed its intent to hold the first ICANN 2016 meeting in Marrakech, Morocco taking into account the vital role of the African region to the success of ICANN's globalization efforts. *Figure 1: Africa Community in Mauritius* The Africa Community team was subsequently invited to propose possible ways of enhancing engagement in Africa in the run up to the Marrakech meeting now slotted for March 2016. The Africa team (Fig 1 above) composed of representatives from SO / AC leaders, AFTLD, AFRALO, AFICTA, AFRINIC, NEPAD, GAC, African Registrars Association, AU and others met in Mauritius alongside AFRINIC 21 and came up with the following 4 key projects that will further be evaluated and refined for implementation ahead of the Morocco meeting *1) Active participation in African regional and continental ICT ministerial meetings* The objectives of this project will be to increase awareness among African stakeholders, especially high-level (Ministerial and heads of state) governmental decision-makers on: *a)* The bottom-up multi-stakeholder Internet Governance model of policy development, *b) *The role of ICANN in the IG eco-system, *c)* Key issues on the Internet economy such as IANA Stewardship transition. ICANN staff and board members where possible, will actively participate in African regional and continental ICT (and other key) ministerial (and Heads of State Summit) meetings as well regional meetings organized by Regional Economic Communities (RECs), and the African Union Commission (AUC). *2) ICANN High Level Governmental Meeting (HLGM), Marrakech 2016* This particular meeting, and as a fulfillment of the recommendation of Accountability and Transparency Review (ATRT1 & 2) under the Affirmation of Commitments will have the following key objectives: *a)* To promote awareness of importance of multi-stakeholder Internet governance and governments’ positive engagement in multi-stakeholder fora and entities such as ICANN; *b)* To support ICANN globalization and outreach to non-participating communities in developing countries and Small Island states; and to the approx. 50 governments that are not members of the GAC (20 of which are from Africa e.g. Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe) *c)* To foster a greater level of meaningful engagement in ICANN by more GAC members *d)* To secure commitment by governments to support and contribute to ICANN process on IANA stewardship transition; *e)* To steer discussion of the NETmundial roadmap towards existing multi-stakeholder fora, specifically the Internet Governance Forum *3) NewGen Program* In the framework of the ICANN NewGen Program, an event will be organized in the Marrakech meeting gathering around 10 young Africans from all over Africa aimed at bringing the youth to ICANN ecosystem with their fresh knowledge and innovative spirit. The target group will be - Mostly from the academic environment (Students, young researchers) - From civil society organizations - Young entrepreneurs (startup) and other private sector employees. (Partnerships) ICANN will issue call for expression of interest to be launched 6 months prior to Marrakech meeting through universities, civil society networks, technoparks and incubators in which the applicants will explain their achievements in the field of Internet. An evaluation committee will select the first 10 best achievements while considering Gender Balance / Innovation / Geographic spread. *4) Workshop for Africa Telecom regulators* The team also expressed the need to deepen outreach with Africa’s Telecom regulators with an aim to amongst others: *a)* Explore challenges and opportunities in achieving a supportive legal and regulatory enabling environment for African Internet interconnectivity *b)* Explore how regulators can contribute to the promotion of domain names industry? *c)* How can regulators contribute to Strengthen ccTLD development in Africa? *d)* Sensitize African regulators to be more active and visible on the global scene as well in the technical management and Internet Governance in terms of technologies and their uses. Africa Strategy Review: Ebene Mauritius In our 10 Nov 2014 blog post <https://www.icann.org/news/blog/taking-stock-of-our-africa-strategy>, we informed you of the need to review the current Africa Strategy to make it more responsive to Africa’s needs as per feedback from the community. *Figure 2: Africa Strategy Review Team in Session* The Africa Strategy Review team (Fig 2 above) composed of representatives from SO / AC leaders, AFTLD, AFRALO, AFICTA, AFRINIC, NEPAD, GAC, African Registrars Association, AU and others nominated based on their personal experiences was convened in Mauritius on November 24 – 25, 2014 alongside the AFRINIC 21 meeting. The review team came up with a reviewed and realigned document, deemed the ICANN Africa Strategy Ver 2.0 2016 – 2020, to be further on disseminated for additional input from the African community. A final strategy document is planned for the first quarter of 2015. The strategy review team also identified the need for the establishment of a steering committee that will work closely with the ICANN staff to support and monitor the implementation of the strategic plan. This committee will work independently based on own charter and will also be publicly announced to the community to apply or nominate members. ICANN Participates in AFRINIC21 On November 22, the ICANN Africa team travelled to Ebene, Mauritius, the home of AFRINIC to participate in the 21st AFRINIC meeting <http://meeting.afrinic.net/afrinic-21/en/agenda/agenda#day-6-27th-nov> as well as the 2nd Africa School of Internet Governance (AfriSIG 2014 <http://african-ig-school.events.apc.org/about-afrisig/>) jointly organized by NEPAD and APC. Indeed it was an incredible experience especially with AFRINIC celebrating 10 years of existence while looking ahead to a new era of opportunities even as they bid farewell to the founding CEO – Adiel Akplogan. While day 1 & 2 was dedicated to the Africa strategy review, the rest of the week saw the team organize and participate in various meetings and 2 key panels as well as visit some of the stakeholders including a tour of AFRINIC offices. *a) ICANN Panel* *Figure 3: Panelists at the ICANN Session during day 4 of AFRINIC 21* This session was moderated by Dr. Nii Quaynor and discussed the following focus areas for ICANN in Africa and all the slides can be found here <http://meeting.afrinic.net/afrinic-21/en/agenda/agenda#day-6-27th-nov>. - Report on the Africa Strategy Review meeting (Pierre, ICANN) - ICANN IDN program and IDN Africa project (Yaovi, ICANN) - Update on the New gTLD program (Bob, ICANN) - NOMCOM Outreach Presentation (Tijani Ben Jeema, AFRALO) - Presentation on AFRALO (Aziz Hilali, AFRALO) Key questions raised during this session includes, the relevance of the ngTLDs for Africa, the *.Africa* delegation delays and status, prohibitive prices for African ccTLDs compared to gTLDs as well as low African participation in ICANN tech days. Like other sessions, this meeting was streamed live by AFRINIC and widely covered on twitter *#ICANN #AFRINIC21* *b) IANA oversight Transition Panel* *Figure 4: IANA Stewardship Transition Panel in Session* This second session generated as much debate; discussion and interest just like the first. Panelists included Mouhamet Diop, Seun Ojedeji (CRISP – Africa Region), Paul Rendek, Elise Gerich (ICANN), Dr Nii Quaynor, Andres Piazza and Daniel Karrenberg. Adiel Akplogan while moderating the session started with a brief presentation on the background of IANA functions and the status of the African Region Number Community process <http://www.afrinic.net/en/community/iana-oversight-transition> (CRISP). The rich experience and mix of panelists was reflected on the quality of debate that followed. Elise while encouraging and appreciating the collaborative model displayed by the African community in an effort to come up with a proposal to the ICG was keen to point out that the NTIA has never interfered in the operational work of IANA and referred the audience to IANA’s reports <http://www.iana.org/performance/>. Overall, panelists agreed on the need for more aggressive and sustained awareness efforts by all stakeholders including ICANN to ensure proper understanding of the IANA functions especially governments. Participants also noted the critical need for the Names and Numbers communities to work closely with the Protocol Parameters community as they developed their responses to the ICG since protocols actually determine how names and numbers are administered and used. *c) 2ND Africa School of Internet Governance (AfriSIG2014)* The ICANN team also took time to visit and participate at the AfriSIG 2014 <http://african-ig-school.events.apc.org/about-afrisig/>. This event, hosted at a different venue also attracted over 40 participants selected from across the Africa continent. The following themes were under discussion this year; - Theoretical concepts and principles: including human rights, history, politics, and law relevant to Internet users and intermediaries - Technology and the governance and management of critical Internet resources - National and regional policy: including convergence with telecommunications policy and regulation - The Internet Governance landscape in Africa *d) Meeting with Mauritius Telecom: a new L-Root Instance Commissioned!* On Nov 28, the team visited Mauritius Telecom, who have just concluded and commissioned an L-Root Instance. The team discussed about ICANN and the MSM model and invited Mauritius Telecom to start participating in ICANN processes. We also received questions on the ngTLD process and procedures as well as discussed the challenges currently facing the .MU ccTLD. Overall, this has been a very successful mission on all fronts for us as ICANN In focus: Engagement Activities by the Africa Team *Medays summit; Morocco* The VP for Africa was in Morocco on 11-16 November for a series of meetings with local organizers of ICANN 52 on the one hand, and for participating to the Medays summit organized by the Amadeus Institute on the other hand. While there, Pierre took time to meet and also engage the Moroccan government officials including the ministry of foreign affairs, the ministry of Tourism and the telecoms regulator as well as AFRALO chair Mr. Aziz Hilali. The Medays summit <http://www.medays.org/> was a four-day event themed *‘What Order in the chaos’*. A high level gathering on issues related to stability of the world. The Meeting gathered more than 600 participants, including 25 former or present ministers, key international peace negotiators, former Prime Ministers. The gathering issued a Tanger declaration on 15 key points intended to recommend avenues/ solutions for the numerous socioeconomic political and security threats. ICANN participated on the panel on Cybersecurity titled: *Cyber threats and cyber wars: What Internet after Snowden?* Our key message was about spreading the word about ICANN’s remit. Indeed, while we do not deal with cyber threats or cyber security, we do manage to secure the DNS and we do collaborate/partner with other stakeholders to ensure stability and security of the net. *Outreach Mission to Mauritania November 12-13, 2014* Mauritania is one the countries with low participation in ICANN SO/AC activities. ICANN’s Yaovi Atohoun visited Mauritania on November 12-13, 2014 for various engagement meetings with stakeholders in the country in coordination with M. Mohamed Lemine, the director of ICT at the Ministry of ICT. While there, Yaovi was able to meet with:. - Ministry in charge of ICT - The Regulatory Body - University of Sciences, Technology and Medicine - The WARCIP project team - Local Telcos *Figure 5: Students of the University after a lecture on ICANN* He also managed to offer a lecture to a group of 60 university students about ICANN. In the end, we he received a full commitment from the Ministry in charge of ICT for the involvement of Mauritania in GAC. The other stakeholders have also expressed their commitment to more participation in ICANN future activities. We’ll keep in touch with them for any additional information and necessary support. *DNNSEC Roadshow in Gaborone, Botswana: December 1-2 2014* DNNSEC Roadshow in Gaborone, Botswana: December 1-2 2014 After Cameroon in July 2014, Bostwana is the second country to host a DNSSEC Roadshow as part of the implementation of the Africa Strategy in this fiscal year 2015. The roadshow was hosted by Botswana Communications Regulatory Authority (BOCRA) and was attended by local Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and the rest of the Internet community, as an effort to have adequate engagement and consensus within the local Internet community about issues relating to Internet security. Please read an article from a local newspaper after the event at http://www.weekendpost.co.bw/wp-news-details.php?nid=277 Upcoming Events in Africa *Africa Telecom People 2014 <http://www.afrinic.net/en/library/news/1013-af21>* To he held in Abidjan, Cote-d'Ivoire from December 18 - 19. Yaovi Atohoun will represent ICANN in this event. More information here: http://www.telecomafricapeople.net From ICANN Global - *ICANN 52:* This meeting will be held in Singapore on February 8 – 12. Please read more here: http://singapore52.icann.org/en/ - *ICANN 53* Fellowship Application now open, please apply here:https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2014-12-05-en - Apply for *Key leadership positions* in ICANN: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2014-12-08-en - The latest in IANA Stewardship Transition and Enhancing ICANN Accountability: https://www.icann.org/stewardship-accountability - Nomination period opens for the ICANN Multistakeholer Ethos Award <https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2014-12-10-en> <https://twitter.com/ICANN> <https://www.facebook.com/icannorg>