[kictanet] WHO NEEDS THE ITU WHEN WE HAVE THE GAC (Governmental Advisory Committee at ICANN) & KENYA'S SHENANIGANS AT ICANN 46

Alice Munyua alice at apc.org
Thu Apr 18 20:35:19 EAT 2013 

Dear Ali and All


We cannot be sure how the ICANN Board will respond to GAC advice on new 
gTLD safeguards, but comment in an video interview with Fadi Chehadé and 
Steve Crocker 
(<http://www.icann.org/en/news/press/kits/beijing46/video-post-meeting-12apr13-en.htm> 
<http://www.icann.org/en/news/press/kits/beijing46/video-post-meeting-12apr13-en.htm>) 
indicate they will put the section of the GAC communiqué on safeguards 
for pubic comment. This seems to be the best and correct course of 
action. However, I am not sure how that will impact on the time lines 
for delegation of new gTLDs, especially if there are differences in 
interpretation of GAC advice.

On the safeguard advice, we must acknowledge that governments have a 
role to play. We expect that they would providepolicies/policy direction 
for the protection of users/consumersto enhance trust in online 
activities and indeed in the new gTLDs. If you all recall our 
discussions regarding online behaviour duringour elections, we all 
appreciate governmental role and indeed roles of all other stakeholders. 
It would be good if Kenyan stakeholders had a look at the safe guards 
being proposed and provided input if and when a public comment period is 
opened.

The role of governments in ICANN's multistakeholder model evolved after 
the 2009 Affirmation of Commitments (AoC), replaced the Memorandum of 
Understanding between the United States Department of Commerce, 
providing international stakeholders, particularly governments, more say 
in how ICANN manages the DNS.

Under the AoC, 3 review teams were created, WhoIs, Securitystability and 
resiliency (SSRT) and accountability andtransparency (ATRT). The first 
reviews teams completed theirreviews in 2012. The first ATRT provided 
recommendationsincluding the role and effectiveness of the Governmental 
Advisory Committee, public Input and public policy processes, and review 
mechanisms for Board decisions. Recommendation 11 and article XI of 
ICANN bylaws mandates that "The advice of the Governmental Advisory 
Committee on public policy matters shall be duly taken into account" 
with a view to speeding up the process. It goes further to say that if 
GAC and board are not able to come to an agreement, the action that the 
board intends to take against GAC advice would have to be adopted by 
majority vote (2/3) of board members.


The second ATRT has started its activities and expected to deliver final 
recommendations by end of 2013. Our very own Fiona Asongais on this team 
(she was not appointed by government:-) ) Congratulations Fiona.

Regarding Kenya's position on the AUC application, it has beenguided by 
several processes, as you have rightly pointed out, including the 
African ministerial summit, 2010 Abuja declaration, which provided the 
African Union Commission with the mandate to"establish dot Africa as a 
continental Top-Level Domain for use by organizations, businesses and 
individuals with guidance from African Internet Agencies" and "set up 
the structure and modalities for the implementation of the dotAfrica 
project" In addition, the AU heads of state summit. Our former Minister 
and president participated in all of these AU/AUC processes.

On appointments to the GAC and indeed any other roles that require 
representing the country's position, good questions for further discussions.

On the policy role of the CCK, it is a regulatory authority, to what 
extend should it be involved in policy formulation? is another good 
question


Best,

Alice






On 18/04/2013 16:15, Ali Hussein wrote:
>
> Listers
>
>
> For those who followed the goings on at ICANN 46 in Beijing there 
> seems to be a concerted effort from Governments worldwide to endanger 
> the freedoms we have enjoyed on the internet.
>
>
> See GAC communique attached.
>
>
> While I applaud the GAC for having reached consensus to object to two 
> applications, one of them dot Connect Africa, my personal opinion is 
> that the same (in my opinion) retrogressive elements who derailed 
> WCIT12 are at play again with some GAC members trying to 
> introduce/recommend to ICANN a complete redesign of the underlying 
> policies for approving new top level domains.
>
> To quote from the article below (see link)
>
> *'The GAC has interpreted the task of providing advice on public 
> policy as a mandate to start from scratch and revisit every policy 
> issue related to the use of domain names that has been debated since 
> 1999. Six years of work by the Generic Names Supporting Organization, 
> which is supposed to develop policy, has been ignored.'
> *
> http://www.internetgovernance.org/2013/04/11/who-needs-the-itu-when-you-have-a-gac/
>
> I understand though that various ICANN constituents requested that the 
> GAC advice on safeguards be put under public comment and I think this 
> will be a good thing in protecting the multistakeholder model of 
> policy making at ICANN.
>
> But all the same, what should we make of this? Is the 
> Multi-Stakeholder model under attack? As it was in Kenya during 
> deliberations towards WCIT12 in Dubai?
>
> And what is Kenya's position on the safeguards?
>
>
> Can the new Kenya GAC Rep please enlighten us?
>
>
> Talking of the Kenya GAC Rep, we understand there have been some very 
> embarrassing situations where he contradicted the Kenya Government 
> Stand on the African Union Commission (AUC) .Africa gTLD application. 
> He is purported to have supported a competing application from 
> DotConnectAfrica (DCA) against the AUC application which is supported 
> by African countries including Kenya. See attached letter from our 
> former Minister of Information, Mr. S. Poghisio.
>
>
> By the way, how is the Kenya GAC Rep appointed?  We had Alice Munyua 
> and Michael Katundu and then now it seems there is Sammy Buruchara who 
> was recently appointed to apparently replace Alice Munyua, whose term 
> was ending after the Beijing meeting having been the vice chair of the 
> GAC. This is a terrible mess that points us as amateurs without an 
> inkling of where our heads are at..
>
>
> The link below paints a sorry picture of a country at odds with 
> itself. The gist of the matter is this:-
>
>
> http://tandaabiashara.com/icann-gac-ignores-kenya-advice-on-dotconnectafrica-dotafrica-application/
>
>
> Who should we believe? Michael Katundu and Sammy Buruchara or the 
> former minister of information who attended the African Union 
> Ministerial summit in Abuja and other summits which clearly mandated 
> AUC to initiate the process to acquire the dot AFrica TLD. The 
> Minister had following these summits sent a clear message to ICANN 
> regarding Kenya's support for the AUC application for .Africa (see 
> letter attached) and there is also our former President who attended 
> the African Union Heads of State summit that yet again mandated the 
> African Union Commission to pursue and implement an Africa TLD.
>
>
> Listers, I invite you to make your own conclusions based on the 
> evidence and documentation attached and linked to this posting. The 
> link below is telling:-
>
>
> http://tandaabiashara.com/icann-gac-ignores-kenya-advice-on-dotconnectafrica-dotafrica-application/
>
>
> Note that on this link DCA also claims to have an endorsement letter 
> from the same minister. What a mess!
>
>
> https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/images/cleardot.gifI make a personal 
> appeal to Dr. Ndemo to right this situation quickly as we risk the 
> good name of our country.
>
>
> This is serious as it paints the country in very bad light in the 
> international community and needs to be put to a stop. Should Kenya's 
> Representative be going against government positions? Were they 
> briefed regarding the government position on the AUC dot Africa 
> application?
>
>
> Lastly listers this also begs a question that has been burning me for 
> a while:-
>
>
> Who is responsible for Policy Formulation in the ICT Space? Is the CCK 
> or the Wider Government through the Ministry of Infocom?  It is 
> important that we interrogate this issue since we are seeing a slow 
> creep of CCK Apparatchik in policy processes and engagement as opposed 
> to regulation, enforcement and enablement. If this is the case then it 
> needs to be very clearly mandated through new law. Or am I missing 
> something? I stand corrected though if I am wrong in my assumptions.
>
> We are leader in Africa in this space and we must act the part. We 
> shouldn't be seen to stumble and look like fumbling teenagers when it 
> comes to our engagement in international fora. The Kenyan Private 
> Sector, Non-Profits and Government must be seen to move in tandem like 
> a well-oiled machine. We should strive to avoid another disaster like 
> WCIT12 and now our GAC involvement in ICANN 46, Beijing.
>
>
> *Ali Hussein*
>
> *CEO, 3mice interactive media ltd*
>
> **Partner, *Telemedia Africa Ltd
> *
>
> Tel: +254713601113
>
> Twitter: @AliHKassim
>
> Skype: abu-jomo
>
> LinkedIn: 
> http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim<http://ke.linkedin.com/in/alihkassim>
>
> Blog: www.alyhussein.com <http://www.alyhussein.com>
>
>
> Any information of a personal nature expressed in this email are 
> purely mine and do not necessarily reflect the official positions of 
> the organizations that I work with.
>
>
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