DCA Trust Summarizes Year 2014, .Africa IRP and Internet Governance in its Seasonal Greetings

DCA Trust has summarized its entire year of activities in its annual 2014 seasonal greetings report focusing on major issues such as Internet Governance, .Africa IRP and its various expert commentaries to global organizations.

“The year 2014 proved to be another eventful year for DCA Trust, and its technology sector affiliates; namely, DCA Registry Services (Kenya) Ltd., and the Internet Business Council for Africa (IBCA) says DCA.”  said Bekele in her year end message.

Sophia Bekele Xmas 2014
Sophia Bekele DCA Trust President

The Seasonal Greetings touching on the IRP says

“DCA Trust had filed its Official Notice for Independent Review of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) Board actions which DCA considered as irregular and wrongful over DCA Trust’s new gTLD application for the .Africa Internet Domain name which we had laboriously pioneered and strongly promoted both in Africa and all over the world.   The IRP was empanelled under the auspices of the International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) during the 1st quarter of 2014, and soon after, started making many interim rulings and declarations on procedural matters regarding the DCA vs. ICANN IRP.

“Apart from one major ruling on the binding nature of the IRP decisions, which no doubt provides great precedence value for global Internet Policy-related Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR), accountability and arbitral mechanisms, even for future IRPs; one other very strong victory that DCA Trust was able to achieve in the ongoing IRP, was the IRP Panel’s decision to place a temporary injunction that restrains ICANN from continuing with the delegation process of the .Africa Internet domain name to ZA Central Registry (ZACR), who would otherwise be the illegitimate beneficiaries of any wrongful actions that have been wittingly or unwittingly committed by the ICANN Board if the delegation were allowed to proceed without a juridical examination of ICANN’s actions regarding the new gTLD award process for .Africa.

On ICANN-IANA Transition, DCA states that “During the first quarter of 2014, the US Department of Commerce National Technology & Information Administration (NTIA) decided to outsource the oversight of the IANA Contract to an ICANN-led International Multi-stakeholder Group.  This remained topical in ICANN circles all through 2014… DCA Trust believes that a fully accountable ICANN that is truly serving the Global Public Interest is what the world can live it.”

On matters of Internet Governance, Bekele states that

“2014 was a very busy year for DotconnectAfrica during which our organization continued to deepen its policy advocacy involvements and contributions.   DCA Trust and its affiliates continued to bestride the very unique intersection of Global Internet Governance, ICT Knowledge Generation and Management, global advocacy for Cyber-security best practices, and International public policy commentary and provide notable contributions on pertinent matters of Global Internet Policy, amongst other important initiatives that the DCA Group is involved in.”

Adapted from DCA Press Release

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