IGF 2018 OF #4 African Union Open Forum

Room
Salle VIII
Description

Grounded on the theme Development of the Digital Economy and Emerging Technologies in Africa, the objectives of the Open Forum are to: • share the outcome of the 7th AfIGF and of the sub-regional African IGFs; • discuss implementation of the African IGF Charter, including the AfIGF Multistakeholder Advisory Group (AFIGF-MAG); • discuss implementation of the African Union Declaration on Internet Governance and; • secure views of participants on the exchange of information, including use of the African IGF e-platform, which was recommended by the African Open Forum 2017.

Speakers

Panelists will be derived from: AfIGF 2018 host country (Jamal Amin, Sudan), the African Union Commission (Moctar Yedaly & Adil Sulieman), the secretariat of the African IGF (Makane Faye), the AfIGF-MAG, Mary Uduma. Enough time will be reserved for discussion and interventions from the participants. The Rapporteur is: Lilian Nalwoga

Online Moderator

Aicha Chebbi Jeridi, Tunisia

Session Time
Session Report (* deadline 26 October) - click on the ? symbol for instructions

- Session Type: Open Forum

- Title: Development of the Digital Economy and Emerging Technologies in Africa

- Date, Time & Venue: 13 November 2018 from 15H00-16H00, UNESCO Room VIII

- Organizer: AFRICAN UNION

- Chair/Moderator: Mr. Jamal Amin, Sudan, AFIGF-MAG

- Rapporteur/Notetaker: Ms. Lilian Nalwoga, AFIGF-MAG, Ms. Loyce Kyogabirwe, CIPESA, Uganda

- List of speakers and their institutional affiliations (Indicate male/female/ transgender male/ transgender female/gender variant/prefer not to answer): Mr. Moctar Yedaly, African Union; Mr. Adil Sulieman, African Union, Ms Mary Uduma, Nigeria, AFIGF-MAG, Mr. Makane Faye, African IGF Secretariat

Key issues raised:

- Need for the High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation to take into account the views and needs of the African stakeholders.

- The Digital Panel should cooperate closely with the African Union to organize African consultations.

- Need to step up engendering process of Panels during the African IGF annua meetings.

- The African Union should organize a digital week during the annual African IGF and publish a yearly report of African Internet Connectivity.

Presentations
Three presentations were made respectively by:

1. Mr Gamal Amin of Sudan provided a summary of the 7th African IGF, indicating the theme of the conference, the attendance, the list of sessions and the outcome of the confference. Information is available at: afigf.africa.

2. Mr. Moctar Yedaly of the African Union described the current and planned initiatives of the African Union in relation to the Information Society, especially the new European Union supported project, PRIDA.

3. Mr. Adil Sulieman of the African IGF secretariat introduced the process of selecting hosts to the African IGF annual meetings. He indicated that there is always a bid which is sent out in January but any country could request to host before the bid is out. In this context he indicated that Nigeria had requested to host the 2020 African IGF and that we were looking for a host for 2019, preferrably from Central Africa or from a francophone country as the conference has been hosted at the North and South parts of the continent in anglophone and arabophone countries.

4. Ms Mary Uduma, member of AfIGF-MAG introduced the African IGF Charter, with particular emphasis on the compostion of the AfIGF-MAG and their role.

5. Mr. Makane Faye of the African IGF secretariat gave out the criteria for selecting AfIGF-MAG and the list of the 15 members.

Discussions
Lively discussions followed the presentations.

Gender Reporting
- The room was full and potential participants could not enter and were kindly requested by the Security Officers to leave the room. The number of participants in the room were at least ---- according to the attendance list.
- Approximately ---- participants were women. 

- There were discussions on empowering women to better participate in the African IGF conference and also to be members of the African IGF MAG.