adminStakeholders in the technology sector yesterday agreed that there was need for an Internet Governance Forum in the country.
Speaking on the sidelines of a summit to debate the issue, the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of ICT Postal and Courier Services, Engineer Sam Kundishora said that he was optimistic that Zimbabweans will be able to create the framework to govern the internet forum.
“I am glad there is a general consensus that we really need to create the framework and all stakeholders here have unanimously agreed towards the move, though we have a divergent of views on how best it should be implemented we are moving towards the crafting,” he said.
Zimbabwe is one of the few countries regionally which is yet to create its own internet governance forum, a move which was announced 10 years ago during the United Nations-organised the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS).
One of the most critical outcomes from this landmark summit was the creation of the Internet Governance Forum, or the “IGF”, where each year there are global, national, and regional IGFs events happening around the world.
Engineer Kundishora said that one of the resolutions reached was to create a dot Africa concept, a local worldwide network, technically which is a wide area network with local traffic which will plug holes forcing us to drive local content outside our borders only to bring it back at a cost.
“Traffic created for Zimbabweans or Africans first have to hit international servers before responding, a move which means more costs on the broader communication, even local content is mostly hosted in Europe and American servers, which has kept the cost of internet access in Zimbabwe higher,” he said.
The Internet Governance Forum was first established in 2006 by the United Nations Secretary-General in a bid to advance Internet governance issues with the rest of the world.
In September 2011, the Southern African Governance Internet Forum (SAIGF) was established and out of the 15 SADC member states only four countries have come on board. Zimbabwe is not included in the quartet.
In his National Internet Governance Forum presentation, the Deputy Director in the Ministry of ICT, Postal and Courier Services, Mr James Madya, bemoaned the absence of Zimbabwe in the SAIGF.
“Out of the 15 SADC member states, only four are members of this SAIGF and Zimbabwe is not included,” he said.
While there was consensus on the need for an Internet Governance Forum, there was general resistance in the actual implementation and set-up of the IGF with a majority of stakeholders debating on the execution and meaning of the other standards with most stakeholders pushing for a more open and free forum.
Mr Tichafara Rixon Mujuru, head of ICT at Potraz, said efforts to propose the adoption of a draft Zimbabwe Internet Governance Forum were opposed by most delegates on fears of exclusion.
“The proposed draft doesn’t give a true reflection of our own thinking, it’s a copy and paste document hence cannot be ideal,” said one delegate.
Some delegates said that they need time to look at the document then convene another meeting after they have gone through the document than ambushing people with a document from somewhere.
The discussion ended after stakeholders formed various groups to look into the proposed frameworks and come up with a draft.
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