[kictanet] A Step Towards Meaningful Participation- EA-IGF

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http://www.glocom.ac.jp/e/publications/

A Step Towards Meaningful Participation

April 10, 2009

A Step Towards Meaningful Participation
By Adam Peake, GLOCOM Executive Research Fellow.

Now in the fourth year of its initial five-year mandate, the Internet 
Governance Forum (IGF) is established as an important arena for 
international multi-stakeholder dialogue about policy issues affecting 
the Internet's management, development and deployment. However, an area 
where it has failed to perform as well as hoped has been attracting the 
interest and participation of stakeholders from developing countries. 
With limited knowledge of the issues and discussions, developing 
countries have too often been under-represented in the global arenas 
where Internet policies are developed, and also unable to contribute 
fully to the dialogue at the IGF.

Enabling the meaningful participation of developing country partners in 
the formation of global Internet policy has long been identified as an 
important priority in achieving an equitable and accessible Information 
Society. Many of the rules and norms of global information society are 
being created in forums and processes discussing policies related to the 
Internet and ICTs, and it is important that all should have the 
opportunity to shape and influence the direction of these discussions.
With this challenge in mind, in 2008 a regional IGF process in East 
Africa brought together participants from Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda and 
Kenya to identify, explore and build consensus around common policy 
priorities. Each country began with an online discussion to identify the 
Internet policy issues most important to them, followed by a 
face-to-face national IGF meeting. These multi-stakeholder national 
processes then fed into the East African Internet Governance Forum 
(EA-IGF) held over three days in Nairobi, Kenya. The outcomes of the 
regional forum were then presented and discussed at the 2008 IGF meeting 
in Hyderabad.
I was fortunate to be able to help with the organization of the 2008 
EA-IGF, and hope to continue to work with colleagues from what will be 
five countries –Burundi asked to join the process– on the EA-IGF 
initiative this year.
Contributing to this process is a continuation of work GLOCOM began when 
we participated in the G8 Digital Opportunity Task Force (DOT Force) 
where our focus was on recommendations to ensure universal participation 
in international policy and technical issues raised by ICT and the 
Internet. We knew at the time that participation had to mean more than 
simply attending meetings and being in the room where Internet and ICT 
issues were being discussed; developing country stakeholders had to be 
able to identify issues important to them, bring those issues to 
international processes and have the results contribute to local 
strategies and policies.
However, in the seven years since DOT Force made its recommendations, 
little progress had been made in achieving the goal of "meaningful" 
participation. Developing countries are still too often 
under-represented and unable to contribute fully and effectively in the 
formation of Internet and ICT policies, even in the IGF.
National and regional initiatives around the IGF themes and process 
provide an opportunity to build a local foundation from which to 
contribute and participate. The multi-stakeholder model developed in 
East Africa of online discussions, followed by national meetings, 
culminating in a regional process provides a framework for sharing 
knowledge, experience and expertise, whether local, national, regional 
or global.
Goals of the 2008 EA-IGF process:

* Raise awareness of Internet Governance among policy makers and 
stakeholders in the East African Region
* Establish which Internet Governance issues are relevant to the 
countries of the region
* Build consensus and national and regional positions around relevant 
Internet Governance issues
* Share the outcomes of the regional forum with IGF Hyderabad 2008

And priority areas identified by the 2008 national and regional processes:

* Connectivity and infrastructure development
* Access including issues of local content development
* Representation, inclusiveness and participation through fostering 
collaboration of all national and regional stakeholders
* Capacity building to promote skills growth and general awareness
* Policies for the development of local content
* Development of legislative frameworks for information society
* Cyber-security and setting up national and regional Computer Emergency 
Response Team (CERT)/Computer Security Incident Response Team (CSIRT)
* Critical Internet resources, the transition to IPv6, ccTLDs, new gTLDs 
and IDNs.

These priority issues were shared with global partners in discussions at 
the 2008 IGF in Hyderabad, and are now the subject of ongoing 
discussions at the national level as the five East Africa countries 
(Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania, Burundi and Uganda) identify needs, assess 
progress and develop common positions on an ongoing basis, and continue 
the regional EA-IGF process in 2009.
While the global IGF was established as a non-binding forum and finds it 
difficult to directly influence policy, the processes in East Africa 
have no such restrictions. We are beginning to see outcomes relating to 
the harmonization of ICT policy in the region and more specific results 
such as progress being made with policy relating to country code 
top-level domains of Rwanda and Uganda.
The first online discussions for the 2009 process are being planned now 
and once started will continue throughout the year. National 
face-to-face IGF meetings will be organized and held by the end of July 
2009, the regional EA-IGF will be held before the end of September 2009.
A recommendation from the 2008 EA-IGF was to develop a capacity building 
initiative around the issues highlighted by process. A curriculum is 
being developed based mainly on local East Africa expertise and themes 
identified by the national and regional processes. The course will 
target policy-makers and policy-influencers from government, the 
non-profit sector/NGOs, academia and the private sector, with objectives of:

* Providing a deeper understanding of global internet governance issues, 
institutions and processes
* Developing regional perception of Internet governance topics
* Enhance use of the Internet in socio-economic development

The EA-IGF is being considered as the model for other clusters of 
national and regional meetings being planned in Africa this year.
It is my hope that these national and regional IGFs will help to realize 
many of the capacity building and development goals of the IGF 
discussions, as well as creating a sustainable foundation that supports 
developing nation participation and contributions to Internet policy 
processes that are shaping the emerging information society.