[discuss] Funding for developing economies as an Ig policy issue? was Re:[ ] Time to be ...

[Mawaki Chango]

On Tue, Jan 7, 2014 at 8:53 AM, Nick Ashton-Hart <nashton at ccianet.org>wrote:

> I would add that beyond their participation in meetings I’m particularly
> interested in how they get the benefits of actually being connected.
>

So am I. To my recollection a (preliminary) study came out during the WCIT
process in December 2012 on the topic of the economic impact of the
internet in Africa. As I recall, it seemed to me hastily put together
probably triggered by that window of opportunity and for the purposes of
political campaign. A few months ago I came across some ad by the Economic
Commission for Africa searching for a consultant to research about the same
topic. I'm not sure where they are at, but would be interested in the
outcome and any follow-up recommendations.

I would have a word of caution about the idea that ICANN should partner
with existing organizations working on development issues in the concerned
regions --not that I think such partnership wouldn't be a good thing to do.
Provided it is not intended to do what those organizations are already
working on, but to closely focus Internet-related (and maybe even
Internet-native) issues. I would rather see any such funding go to research
and to promoting Internet-based entrepreneurship (including providing
funding support to start-ups in ways that fill the gap left by the lack of
venture and angel capitalists in these regions, but also complement the
typical approach of the angel capital market with, say, a higher level of
tolerance for experimentation given the relative level of uncertainty in
our market mechanisms.) In any case we still need some serious research and
evidence to clearly see (through) what we are or are supposed to be
celebrating.

Mawaki



> It seems to me that objective is also not being realised - note the recent
> ITU statistics that the 40 countries who are doing the least-well on ICT
> usage and adoption and the 25% of the world population who live in them are
> falling behind vis a vis the digital divide, not catching up.
>
> On 6 Jan 2014, at 18:17, Louis Pouzin (well) <pouzin at well.com> wrote:
>
> Helping financially *Less Developed Countries *(LDC) has been a recurring
> topic since early WSIS meetings. However governments and well funded
> institutions have heroically snowed all debates initiated on the subject.
>
> I published a few times an article,
>
> *FINANCING LDCs IN THE WSIS PROCESS*
>
> http://www.open-root.eu/about-open-root/news/financing-ldcs-in-the-wsis-process
>
> A *french version *is available at
> http://www.eurolinc.eu/spip.php?article76
>
> Good luck LDCs
>
> Louis
> - - -
>
> On Thu, Jan 2, 2014 at 11:19 PM, Michel Gauthier <mg at telepresse.com>wrote:
>
>> Dear Steve,
>>
>> Is this really decent to talk of $100MM for the management of a small
>> Excell table?
>> Just because a lawyer and a few politcians managed a monopolistic
>> scarcity instead of an open global competition?
>> There are billions of people around the world who are identified by their
>> name and forename. Without paying a tax to a costly ASCII non-profit for
>> that. What is the ICANN proposition to change that? Free life domain names
>> for every non-commercial person? Non-profit gTLD? ICANN ICP-3 multi-root
>> competition?
>>
>> MG
>>
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