[IGFmaglist] Where is Africa?

Mon May 12 05:29:35 EDT 2014

Dear Anju

It is probably simply a reflection of where there is concentration of
internet governance activities, actors (from all stakeholder groups, but
particularly government and business - civil society is more evenly
spread in the IGF) and the academic and research community.

I felt that, considering its small size, the technical community in
Africa is reasonably represented in this year's IGF workshop proposals.
Civil society is not well represented, and business and government is
almost not there.

Caribbean and Pacific countries have a small presence among the workshop
proposals, as you say, and I did not notice new voices. What is good is
to see a stronger ccTLD presence than during past IGFs. This is very
impressive, and  it was good to see lots of new proponents, particularly
from China, and also from Latin America.  We don't ask what region
proponents are from, so it is not always easy to know.

Your question is important. If less-developed regions are losing
interest we should talk about it. One thought is whether the regional
IGFs are satisfying the needs for networking in those regions. And the
resource requirement for people from these countries is huge considering
cost of travel/exchange rates etc.. I.o.w. it is hard for them to
participate in both the regional, and the global IGF - not to mention
national IGFs if they exist.  One thought we have had for a while in APC
is changing the cycle to have regional IGFs only once every two years.
But there is demand for regional IGFs and they do add value, and lend
themselves to capacity building and more focused problem solving.

>From experience we know that hosting location can make a big
difference.  We need governments from less developed regions to host.

Let's discuss more. This is directly relevant to implementing the
recommendations of the CSTD Working Group on IGF improvements.

And, we should also wait until we have more accurate data from the
Secretariat.

But definitely a worry. The NETmundial had very good participation from
Africa, particularly from governments. This is also important food for
thought.

There are definitely solutions. E.g. a thematic IGF focusing on access
issues. Or perhaps if we get the Best Practice Forum modality right,
that can also be of value to countries still struggling with affordable
access.

Anriette

On 12/05/2014 05:49, Anju Mangal wrote:
>
> There's nothing wrong with this observation. I feel the same way about
> Pacific Countries and Territories. Are the African/Caribbean and the
> Pacific region losing interest? If so, why?
>
>
> On May 11, 2014, at 4:29 PM, Lillian Nalwoga <lnalwoga at gmail.com
> <mailto:lnalwoga at gmail.com>> wrote:
>
>     Hi Anriette, 
>
>     I observed that too. There were also proposals that aimed to share
>     experiences from 'developing' countries and on the list of
>     speakers no representatives from Africa were being mentioned. I
>     wonder maybe Africa is no longer in the category of developing
>     countries. Anyways, I made comments on such proposals recommending
>     that they try to equally have panelists from all regions including
>     Africa.
>
>     But then, the issue of few proposals from Africa could mean 3
>     things -either Africa has no interest in IG  discussions or there
>     are no enough voices to rightly represent the continent in the IG
>     debate or workshop proposers do not know who to reach out to!.
>
>     However, I think there is need to encourage accepted workshops to
>     have equal representation of speakers from all regions.
>
>     Regards,
>
>     Lillian
>
>      
>
>      
>
>     On Sun, May 11, 2014 at 4:42 PM, Anriette Esterhuysen
>     <anriette at apc.org <mailto:anriette at apc.org>> wrote:
>
>     Dear fellow MAG members
>
>     Am I being over-sensitive as an African, or is there really a
>     very, very weak presence of African voices in this year's proposals?
>
>     I felt as I was reading through the proposals that Africa is the
>     internet's forgotten continent. Very few proponents from Africa
>     and few proposed speakers
>
>     I find this quite depressing.
>
>     Anriette
>
>
>
>     -- 
>
>     ------------------------------------------------------
>
>     anriette esterhuysen anriette at apc.org <mailto:anriette at apc.org>
>
>     executive director, association for progressive communications
>
>     www.apc.org <http://www.apc.org>
>
>     po box 29755, melville 2109
>
>     south africa
>
>     tel/fax +27 11 726 1692 <tel:%2B27%2011%20726%201692>
>
>
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-- 
------------------------------------------------------
anriette esterhuysen anriette at apc.org
executive director, association for progressive communications
www.apc.org
po box 29755, melville 2109
south africa
tel/fax +27 11 726 1692

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