Public Comment
ICANN Africa Regional Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025
Open Date
15 April 2020 23:59 UTC
Close Date
27 May 2020 23:59 UTC
Staff Report Due
10 June 2020 23:59 UTC
Brief Overview
Purpose: This draft document presents ICANN's Africa Regional Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025, in an effort to align the regional strategy with ICANN Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025. This Public Comment proceeding seeks input on the ICANN Africa Regional Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025.
Current Status: The document was prepared by the community, taking into consideration the feedback from diverse stakeholder groups in a bottom-up manner. The regional plan follows the five objectives identified in the ICANN Strategic Plan, but approaches them from a regional perspective, referencing some of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
Next Steps: ICANN org will consolidate the comments, generate an updated strategy document as per the comments and formally re-launch the final ICANN Africa Regional Plan for fiscal years 2021 – 2025 by end of June 2020.
Your Comment: Your submission, including responses to questions and your name, will be published in the Public Comment archive on ICANN org's website. If you have any questions regarding Public Comment, please contact public-comment@icann.org.
Section I: Description and Explanation
After the launch of ICANN's Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025, an open call was made to the community to join a new African Strategy Working Group (ASWG 2020). The goal of the ASWG 2020 was to develop the draft Africa Regional Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025 and align it with ICANN's Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025. A Working Group of 25 individuals was finally selected and inaugurated on January 2020. The Working Group worked hard to prepare a draft aligned Africa Regional Plan in time to present to the community by ICANN67. Feedback from ICANN67 was further considered and incorporated into this final draft version now posted to the community for Public Comments. The document presents community solutions to some of the current challenges, and an action plan to be executed by ICANN organization and the community.
Section II: Background
ICANN org's first Africa strategy was drafted in 2012 by the Africa Strategy Working Group (ASWG) and adopted by the community in 2013 during the "Multistakeholder Internet Governance and the Domain Name System (DNS) Industry in Africa (MIGWORKS)" event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Over the past eight years of ICANN's presence in Africa, guided by the ICANN Africa Strategic Plan FY16-20, tremendous progress has been made through initiatives focused on reviving the regional DNS industry, fostering capacity development, and promoting active regional participation in the wider Internet governance.
The plan became ICANN's overall guide in Africa, encompassed ICANN's overall activities in Africa; which focused on capacity development in the DNS businesses and country code top-level domains (ccTLDs), support for the security of the African DNS, and engagement with all regional stakeholders including governments, private sector, academia, and civil society. However, on 23 June 2019, the ICANN Board adopted a new Strategic Plan for fiscal years 2021–2025. This necessitated a review of ICANN's overall engagement plan in Africa as well. This proposed draft regional plan therefore presents the aligned ICANN Africa Regional Plan that follows the five objectives identified in the ICANN Strategic Plan FY21-25, but approaches them from a regional perspective, referencing some of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Each strategic objective has specific objectives, goals, targeted outcomes, action steps, and strategic risks.
Comments Closed
Report of Public Comments