ICANN Holds First Capacity Building Workshop for African GAC Members

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in cooperation with the ICANN Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) Under-served Regions Working Group (UsRWG) has announced the first capacity building workshop for the Africa Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) members holding in Nairobi, Kenya.

The workshop, themed “Harnessing the Potential of the Africa GAC Members for better Participation in ICANN” will be held from 23-24 January 2017 with the support of the Communication Authority and the Government of Kenya.

This is the first regional workshop organized by ICANN’s recently established Nairobi Engagement Office.

From ICANN, Göran Marby, the President & CEO; Thomas Schneider, GAC Chair will both be present with executives, the regional ICANN team and community members, according to Buket Coskuner, global media coordinator for ICANN, in a statement made available to Nigeria CommunicationsWeek.

She said that the the keynote address and official opening will be done by Joseph Mucheru, Cabinet Secretary Ministry of ICT – Republic of Kenya.

“The workshop will focus on raising awareness and assist in building capacity of the African GAC representatives and governments on how best to effectively participate and contribute to policy making at ICANN.

“It will also introduce critical active relevant policy topics, working groups including relevant GAC and cross-community working groups that require the immediate attention and participation of GAC members. The workshop will seek feedback from the African GAC representatives on how to better help them improve their regional footprint as well as at ICANN,” Coskuner said.

The workshop will cover a range of topics that will include: understanding the ICANN Ecosystem; policy development process at ICANN; ICANN Africa Strategy - an Overview

New gTLDs and the Role of GAC: understanding ccTLD re-delegation.

Also, Luna Madi, communications director (ICANN) EMEA, said the Body looks towards creating a stronger association with the community in Africa, including governments in the region, to help increase awareness and participation in ICANN’s work and the Internet policy processes under ICANN’s remit.

ICANN's mission is to ensure a stable, secure and unified global Internet. To reach another person on the Internet you have to type an address into your computer - a name or a number.

That address has to be unique so computers know where to find each other. ICANN coordinates these unique identifiers across the world.

Without that coordination we wouldn't have one global Internet. ICANN was formed in 1998. It is a not-for-profit public-benefit corporation with participants from all over the world dedicated to keeping the Internet secure, stable and interoperable.

It promotes competition and develops policy on the Internet's unique identifiers. ICANN doesn't control content on the Internet. It cannot stop spam and it doesn't deal with access to the Internet. But through its coordination role of the Internet's naming system, it does have an important impact on the expansion and evolution of the Internet.