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...
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...
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...
Note that on this link DCA also claims to have an endorsement letter from the same minister. What a mess!
I 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 Blog: 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.