Young African meets Global Forum

African Internet Rights. Whose rights are these anyway?, at IGF 2015.

The first thought that came to mind when I heard that I was going to Brazil was white sand beaches and clear blue waters. Roxana Bassi who led the APC participation for the trip confirmed in an email: “Your room is booked, get your bikini ready!” I was excited and looked forward to meeting new people, spending time with APC colleagues, putting into practice what I had learnt at the African School on Internet Governance (AfriSIG) and getting some tan! Or so I thought! Instead of enjoying a bronzy summer tan in Joao Pessoa, I was mixing and mingling with tight-suited and stiff-faced people (no offence).

I participated in AfriSIG and the African Internet Governance Forum (AfIGF) in September 2015, held in Ethiopia at the African Union Commission. Being an AfriSIG alumnus means that I had a crash course in issues relating to internet governance that seek to speak and be applied to the African context. Attending both the school and the AfIGF meant that I left the events wanting to know more, to engage meaningfully and to interrogate current positions of my country and my continent on matters of internet governance and human rights. Significantly, I left both events wanting to find more research material that speaks directly to Africa’s reality and context, but I have yet to find anything that has tickled my fancy and answered some of the questions that I have been pondering.

We need a strong voice that resonates the reality of African countries and people

What I took with me from AfriSIG and the AfIGF was that there is not only a need for more participation in global spaces like the IGF and WSIS+10, but there needs to be a perspective and a strong voice that resonates the reality of African countries and our everyday people. In order to achieve this, we as Africans, governments, business, academic institutions, civil society and individuals need to build our capacity ourselves with better understanding and learning on the following issues:

• What does internet governance mean to an African country?
• What does it mean for the different business sectors in Africa?
• What does it mean for the ordinary citizen who may be connected or yet to be connected to the internet?

I had left South Africa with these questions in my mind and I was looking forward to the global IGF, with the intention of trying to map out where my country and continent fit in the conversation. I am thankful to have attended the AfriSIG and AfIGF which have both shaped my understanding and focus in relation to internet governance. The value of both these spaces should be recognised and hopefully upheld for many years to come.

South Africa to Brazil…

I had a couple of expectations for the global IGF and I wanted to ensure that I at least left with something to research about. This being my first IGF, Emilar Vushe, APC’s coordinator of Africa-related activity in the Communications, Information and Policy Programme (CIPP), warned me that it would be a big event and that there would be a lot happening at once. As a result she gave me my first IGF tip, saying, “Map out which sessions you want to attend.” Her advice helped a lot, and as a result I attended the workshops that hit closer to home, since I was in pursuit of understanding my context and where my reality fits in this conversation.

I have to credit the Internet Society event – Collaborative Leadership Exchange – held on day zero, which in my opinion is the first go-to workshop for anyone who is grappling with certain internet governance topics. The workshop orientates one to a number of issues and topics related to internet governance, in an environment where the bottom-up approach is upheld, and opens up the space to a plethora of conversations and debates. As a newbie to the IGF, this workshop was truly an environment where I felt safe to ask “silly” questions, and to bounce ideas off of individuals with expertise in their respective fields.

Meeting AfriSIG alumni and Africa at the global IGF

Since my main goal for attending the global IGF was to understand where Africa and its countries fit in this internet governance landscape, it was great to see Africans at the event, including the AfriSIG alumni. The importance of participating at the IGF and other global forums as Africans is underpinned by the transformation of development nowadays, which is backboned by the growth of ICTs. In the context of Africa, the development of ICTs and the progression of the Sustainable Developmental Goals being now on the developmental agenda, has shifted the dialogue to incorporate ICTs and particularly the internet in the hopes of bridging many challenges and divides across our continent. The newly adopted agenda by the African Union called Agenda 2063 The Africa We Want stresses the development, importance and much needed growth of ICTs and the internet, to see the Africa we want and, arguably, the Africa we need.

While at the global IGF, it was encouraging to see African participants attending workshops and being on panels, but the question remained whether this was enough. AfriSIG alumnis were among the crowds at the annual forum and some were involved in workshops and panels; nevertheless, many of them stressed that even though Africans were present, their presence was not felt. Natasha Msonza from Her Zimbabwe expressed that even though some Africans were on panels, it was the same faces and voices. She further went on to say:

There needs to be more different faces and voices from Africa and I believe that strengthening the capacity of Africans both to understand the issues as well as facilitating their participation in the different spaces is the way to go.

Natasha’s point made total sense to me, especially when observing the workshops and discussions relating to Africa and the “prescribed” path in developing the internet in our continent, and this was mostly done by people who were not from Africa or who did not even understand the African reality. Mwendwa Kivuva, who was a Google Policy Fellow and is currently a member of the Kenya ICT Action Network (KICTANet), shared with me that even though Africans attend the global IGF, more needs to be done in terms of speaking on issues close to home. He shared his thoughts on how the African reality is denoted at the global IGF by saying:

In the IGF, we see a lot of people trying to speak on behalf of regions from the developing world on many issues, especially issues on access and cost.

I share his sentiments as I believe that when countries are spoken on behalf of, this has a potential of distorting the truth and by doing so, causing a shift of focus and not effectively dealing with issues that actually exist. In order for forums like the IGF to have reputable outcomes and achieve hopes of guiding domestic policy, issues discussed need to be accurate and be reflected and represented by people who actually have firsthand experience.

Where are the people who attended the African IGF?

With that said, in my opinion it was rather disappointing to have not seen active participation from countries in Africa at the global IGF. I am aware that resources and funding obstacles are an issue, especially in countries from developing regions where money is scarce, but, as Chenai Chair from Research ICT Africa who is also an AfriSIG alumnus wondered: “Where are the people who attended the AfIGF?” She was asking this question because at the 4th AfIGF there was a strong call for Africans to actively participate in global forums with a strong and frank perspective and voice. Chenai also wondered about the careless use of the word Africa, which is thrown around by most with not much thought that Africa is a continent, with more than 50 countries, and not one medicine can remedy all its problems.

On the other hand, Sylvia Musalagani from HIVOS Kenya, suggested that “if we as Africans want to better engage and tackle issues relating to internet governance we need to sit back and identify what are the issues and challenges in my country and put more efforts in researching and understanding Africa’s context and individual country realities.” She said that while being at the global IGF is a great opportunity and platform to be part of, more work needs to be done back home in understanding internet governance and associated issues.

The IGF as a process of development and the internet as a tool for development

For the global IGF to be held in a developing country is not only significant, but can be seen as advantageous for developing countries to voice out their challenges, share their initiatives and use the space as a way to find creative solutions in solving issues related to ICT development and internet access. Furthermore, it can be seen as a way to advance the Sustainable Development Goals which are backboned by ICTs. This point further emphasises the need for the IGF to exist and be renewed as it is a space and a place for collaborative brainstorming and guiding/informing of policy which will ultimately shape the ICT development agenda for many countries, but notably the global South. During AfriSIG 2015 there were sessions that touched briefly on the opportunities that the internet can bring to Africa and our growing markets, and this is why the internet is a resource and a tool for development. Agenda 2063 also touches on the need to grow the digital economy in Africa, and by doing so will aid in creating new entrepreneurship and job opportunities.

An interesting workshop that I attended was the one on African Internet Rights: Whose rights are these anyway? which sought to speak about the internet with a human rights lens. The reason why I found this workshop particularly interesting and worthwhile is because the internet is a place that many people live, work, play, build relationships and educate themselves in and many other things. So, because the internet is widely used by people in different ways, there should be rights that protect users from harm, discrimination and violations. As noted above, the internet is a tool for development and thus has to operate in a manner that takes into account human rights. An audience member from The Gambia raised an interesting point that we must caution ourselves with assuming that rights that are offline should be represented online too. He was making this point in reference to countries where human rights are not acknowledged and upheld. This, in my view, highlighted why the internet is a space that is not only pro-development but that is progressive in terms of allowing users to enjoy rights that they would have otherwise been killed for in their countries. It is a revolutionary space!

“Back to basics” – Regional and national IGFs and the knowledge gap

While I myself am an AfriSIG alumnus and a first-time attendee of the global IGF, and I felt that Africa’s participation could have been better and more effective in discussing and shaping the conversation, I nevertheless also believe that it was a great and worthwhile experience. I left with the same question that I came with, which is: what was the purpose of attending the global IGF when I, as an African and a South African by nationality, did not even understand my country’s reality and context? I asked the AfriSIG alumnis who were present at the global IGF whether we should not put more efforts in strengthening and participating in regional and national IGFs. To me, most of the workshops I attended were not as fruitful as they could have been, because I could not place my reality and context in the debate.

Mwendwa Kivuva, member of the Kenya and East African IGF Steering Committee, made a strong call saying:

I call upon organisations operating within Africa to start participating, and increase their participation in the IGF by building capacity, funding research, and ensuring there is proper representation in the region.

Anri van der Spuy, who is currently working at the UN Secretariat of the Internet Governance Forum in Geneva and is an AfriSIG alumnus, also added to Mwendwa’s sentiments by saying:

I think more can be done to strengthen and support African participation (beyond that of governments’ involvement) in not only the global IGF, but also other forums where important decisions that have profound impact on the future of the internet and its potential for sustainable development are made (e.g. WSIS+10)

She further noted her apprehension at the moment with the current internet governance dialogue which only seems to focus on the digitally connected and leaves out children and future internet users. She added:

I really think it’s vital that we do more to ensure that children – the future internet users – are not only internet literate, but can also use the internet for personal and community development. At the moment debates about internet access are arguably largely dominated by people who already have access – not the people that don’t. We need to fix this and make sure we address people’s needs by working on internet literacy programmes and/or similar initiatives. What AfriSIG does is, I believe, a big step in the right direction.

What next?

In my view, regional and national IGFs need to be rejuvenated and be used to their fullest potential. I believe that if national IGFs in Africa were done and carried out in sustainable ways, we could reap massive benefits. To understand and better engage in discussions on internet governance, African countries need to invest in research and capacity-building initiatives. The internet is too much of an important resource to be put on the backseat. Through the recent years, it has been vowed to be a platform that can aid in development and thus needs to be prioritised in the region.

So why strengthen national/regional IGFs?

• To better understand country contexts and realities
• To adequately identify/map specific issues and challenges
• To find country/regional specific solutions
• To foster strong multistakeholder participation and relationship building
• To cultivate research outputs and capacity-building activities
• To add new young and fresh voices to the field.

National and regional IGFs will better equip relevant and active participation and representation from Africa in forums like the global IGF. It is important to realise that even though developing regions like ours would like to be involved in global debates and forums, we also need to be making the right type of noise and relate our advocacy to our everyday lives. That is why declarations like the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms need to be read and made accessible to all Africans, this is why the African School on Internet Governance should continue and be supported by all who are interested in the development and growth of the knowledge society in our continent. Internet governance and related topics should be integrated in education curriculums because the internet is too vital of a resource for it not to be understood by all.

What I left with from the global IGF are three things. One, it is an exciting space to engage in different topics, touching on different regions and sectors. Secondly, in order to participatie meaningfully and effectively, one needs to be clear and know what they are contributing to the workshops and discussions. Thirdly, there is a lot of food going around at the IGF and one leaves with a potbelly.

Till next time…