March 11 2011, Accra, Ghana:The Honorable Minister of Communications in Ghana, Mr. Haruna Iddrisu, has noted with concern the low Internet penetration figures in developing countries  at a time, when ICT is being used to overcome the handicaps in our development process. Giving some statistics, he said, while telephone access has reached the 75.4% mark, covering up to 17 million subscribers, the Internet access in Ghana is still low and hovering around 18% covering about 4 million people, most of whom use the mobile Internet.

He made this observation in a speech read on his behalf at the Ghana Internet Governance Forum (GIGF).   As the outcome of this Forum will be reported to the Regional IGF in Abuja in July and eventually to the Global Forum in Nairobi in September this year, the Minister entreated participants to place the interests of Africa and the developing world uppermost in their considerations. Our needs are unique. We have the challenge to provide Universal Access and develop infrastructure to reach our communities, which may not be the concern of the more endowed economies.

The themes discussed at the Ghana IGF ranged from: Internet Governance for Development; Management of Critical Internet Resources; Emerging Issues; Access and Diversity, Security, Openness and Privacy; and Multi-stakeholder Approach to Internet Governance. The Minister urged all participants to endeavor to appreciate the divergent views of all stakeholders that may be expressed at this
forum. He said, this is essentially the character of the IGF and it must be respected at all times.

During the session on Access and Diversity chaired by Joshua Peprah, Director of Licensing Administration at National Communication Authority, Mr. William Tevie, Director General of NITA made a presentation on the government network, which is being built and will initially reach about 1050 sites around the country including all 170 Districts, by using different technologies. All Regional Administrations and Regional Coordinating Councils, District Assemblies, hospitals, schools, public universities and polytechnics, police stations, military, Naval and Air force Barracks and any other public office or institutions in all the towns that are connected will be beneficiaries of this wide network. Mr. Peprah charged Internet service providers to be more innovative and the current competitive technology environment to be able to survive. The panel called on national backbone providers to resolve disparity in bandwidth cost between north and south of Ghana.

A presentation on the depleting IPv4 and strategy for adoption of IPv6 (critical internet resource that make the internet work) was made during the managing critical infrastructure session chaired by Mr. William Tevie. The panelists agreed that there was the need for Ghana as a country to put the migration from IPv4 to IPv6 on priority and build capacity for the transition.

The session on Security, openness and privacy chaired by Charles Aboah of National Security Council delved into issues of privacy and security.
During the session on Youth the Internet Governance chaired by Gofred Ahuma, panelist agreed that although social media has its disadvantages, there are lots of advantages which can be harnessed for development. At the end of the session, panelists agreed that the youth can participate actively in Internet Governance through discussions on social network and reaching out to government and other
stake holders of the IGF.

On the way forward for the Ghana IGF, the convener said participants agreed to the promotion and growth of multi-stakeholder platform for initial policy discussion and dialogue, as well as more youth engagement in IGF. In addition participants suggested advocacy and raising awareness about IGF issues; Government industry technical engagement on security and privacy issues bordering on access and diversity   which brings the local/natural digital divide between North and South in Ghana caused by price differential in broadband access.

About Ghana Internet Governance Forum

The Ghana Internet Governance Forum is an initiative under the West Africa Internet Governance Forum project which aims to promote Internet Governance discussions in West Africa through the multi-stakeholder process. The project funded by the Open Society Initiative for West Africa (OSIWA) is run by a consortium led by the Free Software and Open Source Foundation for Africa (FOSSFA), other members of the consortium include AfriNIC, Panos West Africa, the IISD, APC, Internet Society and ECOWAS Representing the multi-stakeholder model, the Ghana IGF convened by Prof. Nii Quaynor, member of the United Nations Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group of the global IGF and hosted by National Information Technology Agency. The forum was collaboration between the Internet Society Ghana Chapter, Ghana-Kofi Annan Center of Excellence in ICT, Ghana Network Operators Group (GhNOG), Ghana Internet Service Providers Association (GISPA) and the Ghanaian Academic and Research Network (GARNET) was supported by the National Communications Authority (NCA)

The global Internet Governance Forum IGF has evolved to be an influential forum and a platform for multi-stakeholder policy dialogue. The open dialogue at the global IGF has spurred the bottom-up creation of regional and national IGFs to share knowledge and perspectives, debate, listen and learn from each other’s experiences on problems and solutions pertinent to their own environments.

Source: ghnog