Hello, Welcome your thoughts/comments. Asante, Alex ------- Interesting ICANN developments happening at Beijing, China. 1. 'Debate In Beijing: ICANN As Online Content Regulator?' www.ip-watch.org/2013/04/12/debate-in-beijing-icann-as-online-content-regulator/ and, 2. 'Is ICANN Policymaking Around Its Bottom-Up Multistakeholder Process?' http://www.ip-watch.org/2013/04/12/is-icann-policymaking-around-its-bottom-u... ....and... [Business Daily] Internet governance agency picks six to represent Africa 10 April, 2013 By Okuttah Mark Africa’s participation in the governance of Internet is bound to increase with the appointment of six representatives from the continent to Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). ICANN is the organisation responsible for coordination of the global Internet addresses, stability and security. However, Africa’s representation in the institution has been poor, denying the continent representation and policymakers’ input. This is now set to change following ICANN President Fadi Chehadé’s announcement it would change its approach and reach out to countries by scouting for representatives instead of waiting for these countries to approach them. “ICANN used to say if you want to participate in the Internet governance come to ICANN,” said Mr Chehadé. “We’ve changed that, now ICANN is coming to the stakeholders. We’re not waiting for you to come. We’re coming to you.” He made the remarks during the Africa multi-stakeholder Internet governance meeting in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The two-day meeting drew Internet leaders from the continent. “We will have ICANN staff, at least one, in each of the six regions of Africa. North, South, East, West, Central and the Indian Ocean,” said Mr Chehadé. “I want African on-ramps into the ICANN structures. I will give you the on-ramps, but you need to climb them.” Previously ICANN had left participation open to any interested person, a model that only worked best for commercial stakeholders with businesses built on the domain name system that curtailed a sustained volunteer participation by public interest civil society, which was never addressed because there was no one to fund the “volunteer”. Alex Gakuru, who has served as elected Africa’s representative at ICANN’s non-commercial users constituency from 2009 to 2011 and currently regional co-ordinator for Africa at Creative Commons, said it would be important to find out what interests the six will represent by broadly classifying them as either civil society, technical, commercial and/or governments, given that Africa’s civil society presence at ICANN had been minimalist. “It will be interesting to see if this new ICANN initiative will speak to this reality on its stated multi-stakeholders embrace of Africa,” said Mr Gakuru. http://www.businessdailyafrica.com/Internet-governance-agency-picks-six-to-r... enjoy!