At the end of the day it's about reaching the people
By Haru Mutasa
Highway Africa News Agency (HANA)

A Sudanese delegate at the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) conference in Cape Town stands and speaks about his home country.

“In Sudan we started what is called the Free Internet system where internet users only paid for local call costs and not ISP costs,” he began, “The number of internet users tripled impressively. Then the numbers stopped growing and we found out it was because many Sudanese people did not have access to computers to enable them to connect to the Internet in the first place.”

Access and the cost of computer hardware is just one obstacle to internet development on a continent where less than one per cent of the population has access to the internet.

“If you want to bridge the internet gap between yourself and someone else, you have to run faster,” said Clement Dzidonu, a member of the regional Internet group Africa At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC), “But how can we bridge the digital divide if we are not engaging our communities? Charity begins at home and by home I mean both at the individual country and organisational level. For ALAC the issue of governance is more about people engagement and involvement.”

The African branch of ALAC, was set up to give and encourage Africa's Internet users the opportunity to actively participate in matters and decisions made concerning the internet and how they are affected as users. This is one of several At-Large Communities around the world.

“Our organisation aims to do a lot of things,” said Dzidonu, “promote Africa's role in Internet Governance space, facilitate Africa's participation in global Internet decision making processes and give Internet users a platform to get involved and influence policies related to the Internet and its use.”

He was addressing delegates at the ICANN At-Large meeting in Cape Town today, a meeting which culminates in a series of workshops and forum discussions educating people on how they can and should become “not only active but informative players on the Internet”.

A host of groups participate in the At-Large structures to increase community participation on the Internet in Africa.

These include civil society groups, academic and research organisations, consumer advocacy groups and computer user organisations. They all play a role in community development in their respective countries and regions.

The ball has already started rolling.

“In January next year we will be on the streets in full force spreading the word on the Internet and what it can do,” he said, “We are embarking on an active campaign that will reach schools, NGOs and other organisations in all regions of the continent. Our people need to have a say in what is going on and this is one of the ways they can do that because at the moment, the rules are being set elsewhere, and Africans are being left out of the process.”

User groups interested in climbing aboard the Africa At-Large participation wagon should first get certified by ICANN. Certification is free, easy and done on line by visiting the website http://alac.icann.org/