English below ------------- Bonjour à tous Suite à la téléconférence du 25/01/2011 d’AFRALO, je vous prie de trouver ci-dessous le lien vers la Contribution AFRALO sur le rapport intermédiaire du groupe de travail sur la révision des régions géographiques. Aussi, je vous prie d’envoyer vos commentaires et contributions sur la liste avant le Jeudi 28 Janvier 2011 à 23:59 UTC. Cordialement Dear All Following the AFRALO teleconference on 25 Jan 2011, please find below the link to the revised AFRALO Contribution to the ALAC Statement on the Interim Report of Geo-Regions Review. Please send your comments and inputs on the list by Thursday 28th January 2011 at 23:59 UTC. https://community.icann.org/display/atlarge/Interim+Report+of+Geographic+Reg... Best Regards Aziz Hilali Président Isoc Mrocco www.misoc.org This revised statement from AFRALO is the outcome of the discussions undertaken by the African ALSes regarding their view on the Geographic Regions Review Working Groupinterim report AFRALO Statement on ICANN Geographic Regions We, AFRALO members appreciate the work done by the geographic regions review working group and the key questions raised during this exercise, AFRALO would like to express it has no objection to the current ICANN geographic region structure and distribution, we think that the current ICANN regions fit its purposes . Africa is a region fighting for unity to promote economic and social development. As such, AFRALO members think any division of the African continent would jeopardize the efforts deployed to realize this objective. History has divided the continent by language and the actual efforts are for reunification. AFRALO recommends ICANN to keep the integrity of the African continent as such with all its countries as actually recognized by the United Nations. With its 54 countries and its cultural diversity (multiple languages, different types of populations, high demography, different political systems, variety of climates and vegetations, etc.) Africa, by itself, is a complex community model in which the members learn to respectfully communicate and live together, in harmony. For equity reasons, AFRALO recommends that ICANN finds mechanisms to provide due representation actors to each continent according to the respective number of countries, regardless of the number of languages.