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Sophia Bekele putting forward a statement to the ICANN Board the issue of reserved names at the pubic forum in Dakar Senegal

Sophia Bekele putting forward a statement to the ICANN Board on the issue of reserved names .africa, .afrique .afriqya. requested by African Union Commision (AUC) in Dakar Senegal.

Ms. Sophia Bekele said “We believe that the DotAfrica issue is a battle test-ground for ICANN’s leadership and oversight of the Global Internet Governance process. If AU imposes its will on ICANN, and prevails on this issue it will set a bad precedent that will be detrimental to ICANN’s ability to control the multi-stakeholder process”.

DCA at the ICANN Dakar public Forum
Sophia Bekele at ICANN 42 Forum Dakar
Sophia Bekele in line to speak at public Forum
lso took the opportunity of attending the ICANN Public Forum meeting in Dakar to
seek certain clarifications from the ICANN Executive leadership
regarding the communiqu� that was submitted by African Ministerial Round-Table meeting asking the ICANN Board to reserve the .africa .afrique and .afrikia name strings for the benefit of the African Union Commission.

Engaging interactively with ICANN Leaders at the forum, DCA Executive Director a
nd spearhead of the Yes2DotAfrica campaign ,Ms Sophia Bekele made a strong statement on this issue and urged that “ICANN and the global community not to entertain any requests to include DotAfrica on the list of reserved names”. She also re-stated her firm opinion that
“DotAfrica and similar name strings should only be applied for through the ICANN new gTLD program.”
ICANN CEO Rod Beckstrom, while acknowledging the receipt of the AU-sponsored communiqu� from the African Minsiterial Round-Table, also added that the rules of the of the new gTLD application process were “published and quite clear”. The ICANN CEO promised that the ICANN Board will respond publicly to all the 12 points of the Communique. DCA eagerly awaits the outcome of the ICANN response and hopes that the official reply by the ICANN Board will again vindicate
DCA’s faith in the multi-stakeholder model.

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