ICANN to review plan for regional Africa office

ICANN's promise to open a regional office in Africa has been deferred for years, but the Internet authority will take another look at the idea soon, according to CEO and President Paul Twomey.

ICANN, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, has found that it was able to work closely with regional organizations in Africa, Twomey said. Ann Rachel Inne, ICANN's Africa regional liaison, operates in Brussels and Niamey, Niger, which makes travel in the region easy, Twomey said.

ICANN is currently working closely with the Internet Society, the Africa Top Level Domain Organization (AfTLD) and AfriNIC, which is the regional registry offering support for management, security and stability.

In 2004, ICANN officials said that the organization was going to open an office in Africa in order to engage the Internet community in the region and conduct outreach activities. At that time, ICANN invited people to send suggestions on where the office should be.

The idea has not necessarily been shelved, however.

"We have a strategic planning process coming up in July; the community will decide whether to have an office in Africa or not," said Twomey. "We are a lean organization and the decision to expand or not rests with the community; African representatives in ICANN have a chance to actively participate in the planning process."

Defending the delay in establishing a regional office in Africa, Twomey said ICANN has global functions and not regional functions.

"We don't set up offices that may make it look like ICANN is a federation of regions," he said.

"ICANN is not a development organization; we do not receive any tax money; we are funded by the Internet community though we are independent," Twomey added. "We do not want to make our budget so big."

If Africa wants to address issues that may not be covered within the ICANN meetings, Twomey said, there is the African At-Large Committee, which comprises five organizations representing Internet users in various regions on the continent.

Meanwhile, the Sub-Saharan countries have not expressed interest in being part of the fast track process for Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs), which allow the use of non-Roman characters on the Internet, Twomey said.

"The IDN debate is gathering a lot of interest in North Africa and the Arab countries but most African countries seem to be comfortable with the Roman characters; they want to make the country code Top Level Domains work well before they can get on to the IDN process," he said.

One reason IDNs are not a high a priority in Sub-Saharan Africa is that the region uses mainly English and French.

Twomey said that African participation in ICANN has improved mainly due to his engagement with the White House over the role of governments and other stakeholders in ICANN.

"During my six years in ICANN, I have gotten the Internet community in Africa to address the myths of ccTLD management and we redelegated/repatriated many ccTLDs that were previously managed outside Africa," he added. "ICANN has employed an open and transparent approach in the domain transition process."