Africa Internet Governance Forum 10 – September 2019 Ndjamena Chad

The AFTLD Secretariat Participated in the 8th Africa Internet Governance Forum in Ndjamena Chad from 10 – 12 September 2019 at Radisson Blu Hotel. The Forum was attended by more than 350 participants drawn from governments, private sector, civil society, academia and the Technical Community. The theme of the Africa Internet Governance Forum was “Shared Responsibilities of Stakeholders for a Robust Internet Governance Ecosystem”. The Secretariat used the opportunity to engage the officers of NIC.TD the .TD ccTLD whose operations have been transfered to Adetic the Regulator for the Republic of Chad.

The 8th Africa IGF was preceded by two pre-events:
– The 7th edition of the African School on Internet Governance (AfriSIG) held from 5 to 9 September
– The National IGF of Chad on the 9th of September.
– Inaugural Africa youth IGF

This was the first time a Francophone country hosted the Africa Internet Governance Forum. It was also the first time the meeting was hosted in Central Africa.

The African Internet Governance Forum is Africa’s multi stakeholder forum for Internet actors. It carries the voices and efforts of the African continent to the global United Nations Internet Governance Forum, while ensuring that the benefits of a viable information society accrue to every African. It was formally launched in Nairobi, during the global Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in 2011.

The AfIGF Secretariat is hosted by the African Union Commission (AUC) in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The Forum’s website is www.afigf.africa. It currently runs social media outlets on Twitter and Facebook.

Objectives of Africa Internet Governance Forum

The Africa Internet Governance Forum aims to be a platform for an inclusive multilateral, multi-stakeholder and multilingual discussion on issues pertinent to the Internet in Africa in general and Internet Governance issues in particular.

Partners

The sixth African IGF was organized by the African Union Commission in cooperation with the Government of Chad. The 8th Africa Internet Governance Forum was supported financially by:

a) The Policy and Regulation Initiative for Digital Africa (PRIDA)
b) APC
c) UNDESA
d) Internet Society
e) ICANN
f) IGFSA
g) AFRINIC
h) Local private sector partners

Key Recommendations from the 8th Africa Internet Governance Forum

FROM PARALLEL SESSIONS

African Youth IGF Session

5 key recommendations were made as follows:

• Governments need to address the issues of Cyberbullying
• Governments and policymakers must consult and adopt a multi-stakeholder approach to policy development.
• Organizations need to rethink workflow, workforce, and workplace from the ground up to take advantage of technologies while creating meaning and value for employees.
• The youth in Africa urge the African Union and Governments to help in balancing the key elements that are changing the future of work: Automation and Innovation.
• Invest in relevant future skills and knowledge acquisition.
• Media/Digital literacy to individuals who operate media platforms to combat fake news.

Ruralization Session

• Establish a regulatory framework for the use, exploitation and security of connected objects by governments for the benefit of rural areas;
• Government to have the political will to increase ICT budgets in sectors such as health, education, agriculture, livestock;
• Development of content relevant to the national context;
• Need for ruralization of digital content and services by the actors concerned (government, civil society, private sector, etc.);
• Inclusion by government of courses on digital literacy in textbooks;
• Carry out regular awareness campaigns on the proper use of the internet tool and the prevention of dangers related to social networks.

FROM PLENARY SESSIONS

Session I : Induction for newcomers

• African IGF needs to upload the African Declaration on Internet Rights on its website in order to promote it
• African countries need to widely promote the positive aspects of the Internet while at the same time educate the population, especially youth on the negative impact and wrong usage of the social networks.

Session II : National and Regional Initiatives Session

• There is need to help countries that do not have IGF processes to start their National Initiatives.
• National and Regional IGF’s should develop fundraising frameworks for the sustainability of their IGFs.

• National and Regional Initiatives should utilize the manual on development of regional and national IGFs produced by the African Union
• NRIs should promote the development of multi-stakeholder framework in their organizing committees.

Sessions IV & V: Official opening & High Level Roundtable Policy Discussion: “Frontier Issues for Internet Governance in Africa: Achieving Equal Digital Opportunity for All”

• Member States are once again called upon to take the necessary action to ratify the AUC Convention on Cybercrime and Personal Data Protection and show their solidarity towards creating global online safety, security and data protection
• African countries should address counter-productive tax regimes that inhibit access and use of ICTs and explore ways to appropriately taxing companies (mainly global tech companies) extracting profits generated from domestic users.
• African countries should broaden access to rural and underserved communities by deploying unutilized spectrum including the utilization of universal service funds to extend commercially available public wi-fi to all public spaces to enhance the use of the Internet and promote inclusive digital development.
• Parliament need to be given a chance to participate in the development of digital laws, policies and strategies as they can help in underpinning the issue with local situations
• Civil society’s engagement is indispensable in ICT education, discussion and formulation of digital policies and strategies.
• Universities and private ICT companies must work together in order to address the ever increasing demand of students for ICT knowledge skills.
• African countries to lobby for the hosting of at least 3 global IGF’s by 2025.
Session VI: Achieving Digital Inclusion in Africa
• There is need to secure electronic transactions via two aspects, legal aspect- the state needs to have policies. Also technical aspect- This includes security and infrastructure.
• Government needs to ensure the availability of infrastructure.
• Build capacity of women in cybersecurity
• The AU needs to bring together member states to cooperate as a continent to improve cyber security, not just on paper but rather on Policy harmonization, cooperation against threats
• Sensitization and capacity building on cybersecurity
Session VII: Affordable & Non-discriminatory Access to the Internet in Africa
• Important to understand how to make the Digital inclusion a reality. Excessive tax and issues of power source are barriers to digital inclusion. Therefore, there is a need for good regulation and good electricity to increase the inclusion of everyone.
• National regulators both Upstream Internet Service Providers and the Internet Exchange Points (IXP ) should ensure that users are not overcharged and help to regulate the price
• Power is one of the major sources that is barring people from accessing the internet therefore, Internet Service providers and the Government can work together to build more power infrastructure.
• Reduction of Taxes on the Internet Programme for Infrastructure Development in Africa (PIDA)

Session VIII: Security, Safety, Stability & Resilience of cyberspace

• Secure electronic transactions via two aspects, legal , technical, management and policy elements. Government needs to ensure the availability of infrastructure.

• Build capacity of women in cybersecurity

• AU needs to bring together member states to cooperate as a continent to improve cyberspace, not just on paper but rather on Policy harmonization, cooperation against threats

• Sensitization and capacity building on cybersecurity

Session XIX: Digital Cooperation & Future of the Internet

• The need for stakeholders to work together
• Need for PRIDA project to establish monitoring and evaluation of various projects in Africa
• Establish an e-commerce for the African continent to be able to participate in the digital economy.
• Open and participatory governance
• Build trust among stakeholders

Session X: Emerging Technologies for Sustainable Growth

• Head of governments needs to be informed on the key recommendations for emerging technologies.
• Open data policy as we are lacking policies in Emerging Technologies
• Capacity Building and re-skilling to get the youth ready to the opportunities and new jobs created as a result of Emerging Technologies, as many of jobs will be automated
• Investing in Infrastructure and using Technology to do so
• Using Expertise and relying on research
• There is a need to re-think how the African data is used and who is using it
• Extend the discussion on this topic and not limiting it to the forum only