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“Strengthening East Africa’s critical Internet Resources ”Thinking globally; Acting locally” is the theme for the Third East African Internet governance forum (EAIGF) which is currently taking place at imperial royal in Kampala Uganda. The forum started on 11th August and ends on 13th August.

The forum was opened by Eriya Kategaya, the first Deputy Prime minister and minister of East African Community Affairs in Uganda who represented the prime minister Apollo Nsibambi.

Hon. Kategaya emphasized the need to create awareness on Internet Governance issues within the East Africa region and to enact enabling laws for Internet growth and cyber security. The Ag. Executive Director, Uganda Communication Commission (UCC) Mr. Patrick Mwesigwa said that the Internet is a critical resource whose governance is mandatory. He added that The Commission has been involved in the Internet Governance process since the World Summits on Information Society of Geneva in 2003 and that of Tunis in 2005, which resulted in the creation of the Internet Governance Forum. It is gratifying to note that the Uganda National Internet Governance Forum has continued to play an active role throughout the entire process. Mr. Chengetai Masango, from UN Internet Governance secretariat said there is need to look at lowering of Internet prices in East Africa after the landing of cables at the Mombasa cost.

The East African Internet Governace forum is an annual conference within Eastern Africa that takes place to mainly discuss issues that have come up at National level form all the the East Africa Community (EAC) countries Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi and Rwanda which have IGF chapters

Critical issues discussed included discussed IPV6 migration, de-regulation of ccTLD, cyber security, rootservers and exchange points among others.

Alice Muyua from Kenya who is also the East African Internet Governace Forum convener mentioned that Kenya would host the next global IGF in September 2011 if the UN Assembly gives the mandate.

Country Reports on Internet Governace.

Ms. Lillian Nalwoga from CIPESA one of the organizations sponsoring the event shared the National internet governance report for Uganda. In her introduction, she said that the Ugandan Internet Governance forum started way back in 2006 and since then, 3 national IGF forums have been held.

Lillian said that the objectives of the forums are to; provide updates on outcomes of key issues identified in the 2009, Create awareness about Uganda’s IG issues, Redefine IG issues that may have been vaguely defined as well as Seek to define new IG issues.

In her recap of the 2009 IGF, Lillian noted that there was need to continue the IGF debate in Uganda and at the global level also to promote access and affordability while getting ready for the landing submarine cables, a call for a change management of the .UG ccTLD , to develop an IPv6 transition strategy for Uganda also calling for review of proposed cyber laws in order to address issues of cyber security and privacy without violating the constitutional rights of citizens, Need to form a national cyber security strategy, the need to have gender balanced ICT policies to address gender imbalances in IG and finally Strengthening Uganda IXPs.

It was noted that Uganda’s critical internet resources are; Administration, Application, environment and infrastructure. She also added that there is need for re-delegation of the .ug ccTLD by establishing a non-for profit organization Uganda National Information centre (.ugNIC), establishing a Board with multi-stakeholder representation, two advisory committees i.e. Technical Advisory Committee &Policy Advisory Committee. Seeking to designate UCC as the sponsor of the .UG, while the created organization/company will be the technical Manager was one of the solutions of re-delegating.

Other national reports came in from Emauel Hubemuremyi from Media High Council in Rwanda, Joe Kiragu from KENIC in Kenya and Victor Ciza from AfriRegister in Burundi. The session moderator was Dr. Waudo Siganga.

Access and Affordability to Broadband in EastAfrica.

Facilitated by Natasha Primo from the Association for progressive (APC) the afternoon and last session of day 2 during the EastAfrica Internet Governace Forum focused on access and affordability to broadband in Eastafrica.

Mr. Douglas Onyango from Gidigiclear EastAfrica Limited made a presentation on the broadband status in EastAfrica. He said that according to the worldbank analysis, it was revealed that 10 % points of broadband penetration result in 1.21% increase per capita GDP growth in developed countries and 1.38% in developing countries. Mr. Onyango added that with the three fibre cables now operational, the prices of the internet have considerably reduced. However, expansion of the infrastructure is still limited to capital cities where a steady market is guaranteed.

According to Eng. Charles Lwanga the Assistant Commisioner ,Telecom and posts in the Ministry of ICT in Uganda, he says that until rescently, Uganda depended only on statellite for international access which is very expensive and has limited capacity compared to optical fibre. He said that the national backbone infrastructure is that all Ministries (28) in Uganda are connected with 2.5Gbps connectivity; 2.5Gps connectivity is available in the districts of Kampala, Mukono, Bombo, Jinja and Entebbe and also the Optical fibre has been laid to the districts of Iganga, Tororo, Malaba, Busia, Kumi, Soroti, Lira, Gulu, Nimule, Luwero, Nakasongola, Masindi, Hoima, Mbarara, Bushenyi, Fortportal and Kyenjojo and currently the Ministryof ICTS is implementing Phase II (lighting the fibre). Eng. Charles said that the only way forward is that;Telecom operators should rollout Broadband infrastructure to all parts of the country regardless of profitability,eE-Government services should be rolled out through National Backbone Infrastructure for use by central and local Governments and finally that there is need for more optical fibre international links to cut costs of broadband.

Ms. Beata Mukangabo from Legal affairs/RURA presents on the access and affordability to broadband in Rwanda. She shared Rwanda ICT policy Mission of “achieving a middle income status for Rwanda by

2020 and transform its society and economy into an information-rich, knowledge-based society and economy by modernizing its key sectors using information and communication technologies” She also cited the characteristics of broadband in Rwanda as satlitte and optic cable like in the case of Uganda. Rwanda’s current broadband status is that it has experienced substantial growth in telecom services (especially mobile telephony) although broadband Access is still low and expensive and that the government subsidies to satellite bandwidth also the national Backbone is under construction and finally that there are regional initiatives connection to Submarine Cable.

In Kenya, Ms. Esther Wanjua said that the vision by 2030 is a globally competitive and prosperous nation with high quality of life by 10% p.a over 25years, equitable social development in a clean and secure environment and an issue based people-centered result-oriented and accountable democratic political system. It was noted that all the countries in EastAfrican face similar challenges in access and affordability to broadband like costs, infrastructure, accessibility, governance and affordability.

On the part of WOUGNET which was one of the sponsors of the event, Mr. Milton Aineruhanga facilitated a session on the emerging issues on internet governace in Eastafrica where as Maureen Agena was contracted to work with Esther Nakkazi a journalist with the EastAfrican Newspaper to tweet and blog during the event. Other staff who attended included Javie Ssozi, Goretti Amuriat and Berna Ngolobe

For more details please follow updates on twitter https://twitter.com/EA_IGF and the blog http://www.eaigf-uganda.blogspot.com/

By Maureen Agena.
Attending the 3rd EastAfrican Internet Governace Forum in Kampala Uganda.

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