The latest news from the African At-Large Regional Organization (AFRALO)
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Seun Ojedeji, AFRALO Chair
Dear Colleagues,
I trust you are staying safe and maintaining all safety precautions during this period of pandemic. On behalf of the AFRALO Leadership (Myself, Aziz Hilali and Abdeldjalil Bachar Bong) I welcome us all to our second newsletter (volume7) for the year 2021.
Our AFRALO Webinar series 2021 continued in Q2 with the topic: “The DNS and how it works”, with participation from members of our community. This webinar was also an initial step into drafting the next statement for the Joint AFRALO-AfrICANN meeting. The “AFRALO Webinar series 2021” was initiated to keep our community engaged, making this “online only” time more beneficial and productive for all. Due to the limitations in our face-to-face meetings imposed by the current health crisis. The webinar series will continue to alternate between topic-based and activity-based webinars, both of which are geared towards improving capacity and participation of our members within ICANN. I encourage members of our community who will like to lead any of the upcoming webinar topics to contact the coordinators in person of Tijani and Bram
AFRALO participated in the Africa Engagement Forum organised by the ICANN regional global stakeholders engagement team. The event which ran for 2 days was filled with various sessions held and we featured during the Africa community public forum session.
AFRALO will participate at various sessions during the ICANN71 Policy Forum, as its our custom, we will also hold our Joint AFRALO-AfrICANN Meeting where we will be finalising a statement around the topic titled “DNS Abuse Mitigation Strategies”. The session will feature various guest speakers to include: Board members (including board members from Africa), ICANN President and CEO, ALAC Chair, AFRINIC CEO and other experts in the field of multistakeholderism. We will also take a few minutes to pay tribute to Mr. Faye. Makene who is now late. Makene is one of the big contributors to IGF in the region
Finally the review of the Individual membership section of our operating principles is in progress and one of the key changes to watchout for is the voting rights to individual members. The Working Party is still discussing the implementation mechanisms and the draft will be shared with the community.
We are already mid year - on behalf of the AFRALO Leadership, I wish the entire community an engaging virtual year ahead!
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Editorial Team
Editor-in-Chief: Seun OJEDEJI
Deputy Editor-in-Chief: Aziz HILALI
Managing Editor | Secretariat: Abdeljalil Bachar BONG
Editor (English): Remmy NWEKE
Co-Editor (French): Olévié KOUAMI
CONTRIBUTORS
Pierre Dandjinou,ICANN Regional Vice President, GSE Africa
Sarah Kiden, AFRALO ALAC Member
ENGLISH
Isaac Maposa
Sarah Kiden
FRENCH
Olévié Kouami
ISOC-Mali
SUPPORT
ICANN At-Large Staff
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About AFRALO
African Regional At-Large Organization: Engaging Africa for Development
AFRALO is the home of the individual Internet user community for the African region. It provides news, key resources and interactive information sharing tools for individuals and end-user groups in the African region who are interested in ICANN and in shaping the future of the Internet.
AFRALO aims to:
- Strengthen users’ participation in ICANN decision-making structures
- Help ensure that its members will actively encourage more direct participation by end users
- Build Internet policy making capacity in the region
- Reach out to Internet users on the issues in the scope of ICANN
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Represent users’ interests and defining public interest aspects of Internet governance with specific focus on the areas of privacy, transparency, and accountability
- Strengthen consumer protection in ICANN policies
- Identify social impacts of technical infrastructure design
- Take cultural diversity into account when formulating technical standards (e.g. IDN implementation)
To learn more about the ongoing work of AFRALO, you are welcome to check out the AFRALO workspace.
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Pierre Dandjinou,VP, Stakeholder Engagement - Africa
As has become our tradition, I want to begin my note by sending across (On behalf of the Africa SGE and OCTO TE) our warm greetings to the AFRALO leadership and community for their continued active participation and focus on policy work even as the global Pandemic lasts. It is a clear testimony to your commitment and contribution in ensuring that the Internet, the global, open and interoperable Internet continues to be that hope that keeps our communities connected, regardless of where they are.
In this edition of your newsletter, and as we hinted in the last edition, I wanted to report back to you on one of our important Pilot Events that we pioneered during the FY21 period, The Africa Engagement Forum. This inaugural event was hosted virtually on 19th and 20th May 2021 and attracted more than 211 remote participants. The forum sought to collate, update, follow-up and synchronize on the work done by ICANN GSE – Africa, as well provide a platform to share direct updates and feedback from the ICANN org staff and as well as the community. At the close of the forum, the following key recommendations and observations were made.
Highlights of the Africa Engagement Forum 2021:
- It consisted of active high-level panel discussions and sessions covering updates from ICANN and the community at large.
- The community was very supportive of the Africa Engagement Forum overall as it demonstrated that there was indeed a lack of such space for discussion on ICANN specific topics in Africa.
- It provided an opportunity for ‘ICANNers’ to deepen collaborations with a New friends and audience such as IGOs and RECs like the ATU.
- Calls to ICANN org to consider running a follow-up Study on the Africa DNS Market.
- There were calls for greater efforts to localize the Multistakeholder Processes across African Countries.
From the feedback, it was clear that the community not only found the event quite valuable but also keen to see the event evolved into an annual forum and ICANN org would work internally to ensure this is achieved. In particular, I want to recommend reviewing the recordings of these three sessions that proved very popular:
- High Level Panel
- ICANN org Global Stakeholder Engagement Team - Updates
- Africa Community Public Forum
Thank you and I do hope that we would be able to work even more closely this FY22.
Please keep safe.
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The ICANN71 Virtual Policy Forum was held from 14-17 June, attended by 1,330 participants from 147 countries around the world. During the meeting, the 2021 ICANN Community Excellence Award was given posthumously to Marilyn Cade and to Rafik Dammak.
The GNSO Council had their regular meeting, various stakeholders organised their own meetings, and the GNSO held a session to provide updates to the community of the activities of the various policy initiatives such as the GNSO EPDP Phase 2A , GNSO - CPH DNS Abuse Work Group, Transfer Policy Review Working Group. The GNSO also had a meeting on the Registration Data Policy IRT and IDNs EPDP community outreach.
GAC had meetings with GNSO and ALAC. There were sessions to discuss DNS Abuse Mitigation, subsequent rounds of GTLD auctions, RDS/ WHOIS and data protection. The GAC Communique of ICANN71 can be read here.
Apart from the ccNSO Council meeting, ccNSO organised a session of the Strategic & Operational Planning Standing Committee, a ccTLD-related Board Members Questions and Answer Session and a Members Meeting Governance Session.
Additionally, there were two DNSSEC and Security workshops, two Tech day sessions and an SSAC public meeting. RSSAC has a work session and there was a session organised by the Customer Standing Committee (CSC) - IANA Naming Function Session.
The At-Large sessions have been highlighted separately in the next section.
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At-Large @ICANN71
At-Large was very active in ICANN71 and organised several policy sessions that were greatly appreciated by the community.
During ICANN71, the At-Large community held three policy sessions.
End User Participation in ICANN PDPs and their Role within the ICANN Ecosystem
This At-Large policy session explored the level of influence of Internet end users on ICANN policy development processes (PDPs). The session explored two questions:
● To what extent does the ICANN Board rely on the Internet end user community in making its decisions?
● How does the ICANN community gather opinions that are representative of Internet end users?
ICANN President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Göran Marby, ICANN Board Vice Chair León Sánchez, and ALAC Vice Chair for Policy Jonathan Zuck exchanged their views on end user participation in ICANN. León Sánchez noted that “the end user is at the center” of ICANN. The discussion also highlighted the important role the ALAC and At-Large community have in the public interest.
ccTLD Governance Models: Testimonies from At-Large End Users
In this policy session, Country Code Name Supporting Organization member Katrina Sataki introduced the four types of country code top-level domain (ccTLD) governance models consisting of academic, government, for profit, and not for profit. Nine At-Large members from around the world and across the various ccTLD governance models spoke about their experiences with the ccTLD operators in their country. Moderator Olivier Crépin-Leblond noted in his summary that all four models of ccTLD governance appear to be listening to end user inputs in how they serve their local community. Following ICANN71, the At-Large community will continue the discussion to increase end user input in their local ccTLD. The session organizers are considering a follow-up session during ICANN72 on ccTLDs and how end user input could be heard to a greater degree, including how to promote end user input in the governance of ccTLDs and which aspects of ccTLD operation have resonated well with end users.
GDPR as a Technology: Policy Implications
The At-Large community held a policy session on the European Union General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and its technology and policy implications. The policy session explored the potential impact that advancing GDPR compliance with the use of technology will likely have on Internet end users, in particular the policy implications of a United States patent, “Systems and Methods for Preserving Privacy of a Registrant in a Domain Name System (DNS),” recently issued to Verisign and the level to which it might impact further work of the Expedited Policy Development Process on the Temporary Specification (EPDP-TempSpec) for Generic Top-Level Domain (gTLD) Registration Data. Program participants noted that national patents may impact ICANN policies and PDPs and may raise questions of enforcement. The At-Large community and other stakeholders will follow up on these evolving issues.
There was also an AFRALO and AfrICANN meeting along with the At-Large EURALO social event. The African community held the 26th joint African RALO (AFRALO)-AfrICANN meeting to discuss regional issues and finalize a joint statement, “DNS Abuse Mitigation Strategies”.
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In June, the ALAC did not hold their monthly meeting due to ICANN71 Virtual Policy Forum activities. Read more about At-Large activity during ICANN71 in the ICANN71 Policy Outcomes Report.
The ALAC met with the ICANN Board in July, and discussed 1) ALAC advice to the Board - best practice in format, approach, feedback and process; 2) ALAC advice to the ICANN Board on Subsequent Procedures; 3) Holistic review.
In July, the ALAC met and reviewed ICANN71 action items, discuss ALAC advice to the ICANN Board on EPDP Phase 2 (SSAD), other At-Large policy and operational issues, a review of ALS and Individual membership applications, reports from At-Large PLUS leaders, plans for ICANN72 AGM, as well as a guest speaker presentation from León Sánchez, ICANN Board Vice Chair and Director selected by At-Large.
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ALAC / At-Large Policy Comments & Advice
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All of AFRALO and the At-Large Community are invited to contribute to ICANN Public Comment proceedings. For more information, please visit the At-Large Policy Advice Development Page or contact At-Large Staff.
Have your say! To contribute to ALAC policy activity, please comment on the At-Large workspace or volunteer as penholder, and join the weekly At-Large Consolidated Policy Working Group (CPWG) meetings.
The At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) submitted (8) statements and advice to the ICANN Board, ICANN Public Comment proceedings, and cross-community solicitations for comment since the last AFRALO Newsletter:
The ALAC is currently developing (1) ALAC advice to the ICANN Board:
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