Fiji: ICANN Wellington and Forum ICT Ministerial Meeting
Prepared by
Rajnesh D. Singh, PICISOC, rajnesh.singh@gmail.com
March 2006
With thanks to support from PIP, I was able to participate in various meetings during the week of March 26th to 31st in Wellington, New Zealand. These series of meetings were centred around the ICANN Wellington Meeting and those that I took part in included:
- ICANN ALAC (Advisory Committee at Large cf http://alac.icann.org)
- ICANN Wellington (various meetings within the ICANN fold including GAC, Public Forums, etc. cf www.icann.org)
- ISOC (Meeting with ISOC CEO and ISOC Chapter Delegates cf www.isoc.org)
- Forum ICT Officials and Ministerial Meeting (cf www.forumsec.org.fj)
- Pasifika Day (cf www.pasifika-it.com)
My role at these meetings was as Chairman of the Pacific Islands Chapter of the Internet Society (cf www.picisoc.org) and my objective was to increase the Pacific's ICT profile amongst the delegates and to lobby on various matters as and where appropriate. I was not representing any one Pacific Island country but the region, and was focused on how we could obtain assistance on various fronts for the development of ICT in the region.
I was able to gain many new contacts in various fields (eg. governmental, private sector, academic) which I hope we can develop into stronger relationships over the coming years both for PICISOC and the Pacific ICT community at large.
From an ICANN perspective, PICISOC has been able to cement its relationship with the current ICANN Chairman (Dr Vinton Cerf) through his participation in PacINET (PICISOC's annual conference) last year and his willingness to return to this year's conference. Dr. Cerf now pays keen interest to Pacific Island affairs and is upated continuously on political and economic issues. He is also active in promoting issues in the Pacific Islands to his circle of contacts and we hope this will lead to more initiatives for the Pacific in the future.
The multitude of ICANN meetings which were running provided a good snapshot of current developments on the Internet front and it was interesting to hear opposing viewpoints on many issues.
From an ISOC perspective, I was able to get a commitment from the ISOC CEO on providing a higher level of support for our activities in the Pacific region and we expect some sort of work plan to develop in the coming months as ISOC appoints more staff for chapter activities.
At the Forum ICT meeting, I made a short presentation on PICISOC and its role in the Pacific, and made a call for the establishment of a Pacific ICT Day to drive home the contents of the Digital Strategy under discussion at that meeting. A Pacific ICT Day would provide a focused approach region-wide to the benefits that can be derived from ICT technologies, and would in itself be an implementation for parts of the Digital Strategy as part of the Pacific Plan (cf www.pacificplan.org). It remains to be seen whether this is taken up at the Governmental level and indeed what end objectives of the Digital Strategy are actually implemented by countries.
The Pasifika Day was a great opportunity for all Pacific Islanders present at various meetings to come together and discuss ICT in the Pacific. It was disappointing, however, to note the limited attendance by Pacific Islands delegates, and is (in my personal opinion) the typical problem we face in the Pacific – a lack of commitment to be part of something. This is sometimes due to cultural reasons, and sometimes due to other influences, but we really need to look at how Pacific Islanders can be made (forced?!) to actively participate in such events.
Being a one-person representative it was very difficult to cover all meetings and events in their entirety as there were just too many (and often running concurrently and it is hard being in 2 or more locations at once!). The webcasts from the main ICANN meeting came in very handy as I was able to effectively be in 2 places at once using this.
I do believe it is important to have Pacific representation at all ICANN meetings, as these ultimately decide the future of the internet, and it is critical a person from the Pacific is there to comment where appropriate, and more importantly, to report back to the Pacific on proceedings. I would also suggest this person be a non-government representative in order to provide a balanced view.
I filed daily comments during the week from Wellington and these can be found in my Blog at http://singh-a-blog.blogspot.com as part of the March 2006 archives: http://singh-a-blog.blogspot.com/2006_03_01_singh-a-blog_archive.html The PIP application and administrative process was fine. However, I would like to see a short meeting of PIP-funded participants at each meeting where PIP is supporting delegates. This will serve to improve networking and camaraderie opportunities between them and could also be used as a discussion forum, as part of the post-event reporting process.