Dear all,


*INVITATION TO JOIN ICANN IANA STEWARDSHIP TRANSITION & ENHANCING ICANN
ACCOUNTABILITY STAKEHOLDER MEETING IN GHANA*

About a year ago National Telecommunications and Information Administration
(NITA) of the Department of Commerce, USA tasked ICANN to convene an
inclusive and global discussion to determine a process for transitioning
the stewardship of IANA functions which it currently performs to the global
multistakeholder community. Indeed since that announcement, the global
community has worked tirelessly and with great resilience and determination
resulting in two parallel processes in response to the 14 March
announcement. This has seen the multistakeholder community develop two
parallel processes namely:



   - *IANA Stewardship Transition:* Focused on delivering a proposal to
   transition the stewardship of the IANA functions to the multistakeholder
   community.
   - *Enhancing ICANN Accountability:* Focused on ensuring that ICANN
   remains accountable in the absence of its historical contractual
   relationship with the U.S. Government.

As a neutral convener of the dialogue, ICANN has an important
responsibility of raising awareness about the processes as they evolve and
to support the community’s engagement. Of great concern is the low level of
meaningful participation witnessed so far from Africa. In 2014, ICANN
participated in 11 events and 5 webinars / teleconferences to raise
awareness on this issue in Africa. But clearly, from the response so far, a
lot still needs to be done to stimulate the African community to
participate effectively.


It is based on this background and analysis that the ICANN Africa team
resolved to launch an* IANA Stewardship Transition & Enhancing ICANN
Accountability *revival month in April 2015. The target is to organize 1-2
hour sessions / webinars / teleconferences or face-to-face meetings in
various countries’ in Africa at different times and dates led by local
community leaders and stakeholders in the internal ecosystem at the
National Level. ICANN staff will be available to support and reinforce the
meetings either by contributing on presentations as well as online meeting
resources as appropriate. The intention is to end up with formal communiqué
from different countries on their perspective on both processes at least
from each country where such meetings will be held. Such communiqué could
be addressed to the ICG as appropriate.


By the end of this exercise, we hope to have stirred debate and enhanced
the understanding and interest of the Internet communities in the countries
participating to come up with national positions, Comments or Communiqué to
the ICG. Such communiqués will not be limited to governments but other
stakeholder groups in the various countries (Such as ISOC chapters,
registrar associations etc.) would also be free to express their positions
directly to the ICG. ICANN Africa staff would also summarize the month’s
activities in a blog post to be published at the end of April.

Ghana has been selected as one of the few countries where face-to-face
meeting will be held during the month because of the leadership role Ghana
is taking to build its Internet infrastructure.


We will like on behalf of ICANN Africa to invite you to make the Ghana-
Accra stakeholder meeting to be held at KOFI ANNAN CENTER OF EXCELLENCE IN
IT (KACE-AITI) Ghana, on Wednesday, 29 April, 2015 from 2:00pm to 4:00pm
UTC a succes.

*DETAILS FOR ONLINE PARTICIPATION AS FOLLOWS:*


*ICANN LINK:*

URL for online participation adobeconnect is as follows:
https://icann.adobeconnect.com/gse-Afr/

OPTION II for audio: call from skype +1-877-860-3058

Participant code is 3247098257


*ISOC LINK:*

Click to Join ISOC WebEx
https://isoc.webex.com/isoc/j.php
<https://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fisoc.webex.com%2Fisoc%2Fj.php&h=EAQFO-PUH&enc=AZNZYID_cTK2lanbUIDLUGRE4VyW7MOel7P-_QItzXHTcGp40qwLhHbhrntwlQjr5rekWBRhZnh9n1My0Lx94iv7PaMflDZ5DTVjS60R2lMtTshSRz0qiA0H4tf8bvbhBFwmw2KEuPd_fHpHspNVF5Rvnx21zyyBtGz375snAMkwqA&s=1>
…

Meeting number: 920 597 444
Meeting password: IANA_Ghana

Join by phone
1-650-479-3208 Call-in toll number (US/Canada)
Access code: 920 597 444

Please do notify me when having difficulty connecting through the following
details:

Skype: wisdom_dk
Email: [log in to unmask]
Tel: +233 208128851

Hope to see you all!!


WISDOM DONKOR (S/N Eng.)
ICANN Fellow
Web/Open Government Platforms Specialist
National Information Technology Agency (NITA)
Post Office Box CT. 2439, Cantonments, Accra, Ghana
Tel; +233 20 812881
Email: [log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
[log in to unmask]
Skype: wisdom_dk
facebook: facebook@wisdom_dk
Website: www.nita.gov.gh / www.data.gov.gh
www.isoc.gh / www.itag.org.gh