Nigeria, Brazil central banks deepen cooperation - ITREALMS

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Nigeria’s Central Bank Governor, Olayemi Cardoso, has held talks with his Brazilian counterpart, Gabriel Muricca Galípolo, to strengthen economic and financial cooperation between the two countries, reports ITREALMS.

The engagement, which took place during President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s state visit to Brazil, formed part of a broader working visit by the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) team to the Banco Central do Brasil.

AFRINIC, Court Receiver pledge full cooperation to companies' registrar - ITREALMS

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Following the Mauritian government's decision to declare the African Network Information Centre (AFRINIC) Ltd a "declared company," the court-appointed receiver and the AFRINIC team have publicly committed to full cooperation with the impending investigation, reports ITREALMS.

This pledge comes as AFRINIC commenced allocation of IPv4/IPv6 resources, as the government initiated a probe into the affairs of the regional internet registry, citing "questionable" legal processes and operational disruptions.

UN Summit of the Future: Broadband Commission demands enhanced global digital cooperation - ITREALMS

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​​​The B​​roadband Commission​ for Sustainable Development at its Fall Meeting has urged governments, industry, academia and civil society to collaborate to support the implementation of the forthcoming UN Global Digital Compact.

Taking place in New York just days before the UN's Summit of the Future, the Fall Meeting of the Commission underscored the importance of global initiatives to set a course towards a resilient, safe, and inclusive digital future. Both the Compact and the Pact for the Future are expected to be agreed at the upcoming UN Summit.

Stronger cooperation needed to track 1.5°C climate goal - ITREALMS

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The insufficient progress in transitions to clean technologies and sustainable solutions over the past year highlights the need for strong and targeted international collaboration in high emissions sectors to deliver transitions that are faster, easier and cheaper for all, according to the latest Breakthrough Agenda Report.

The new report – an annual collaboration between the International Energy Agency (IEA), the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) and the United Nations Climate Change High-Level Champions – shows that current efforts on clean energy and sustainable solutions, while improving, are not yet delivering the levels of investment and deployment required to meet international climate goals. 

NDSF2021: Citizens participation enhances digital cooperation in digital economy says Uzor - ITREALMS

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Citizens’ participation in digital cooperation for enhanced multi-stakeholder governance in a digital economy, would engender public policy designs and inclusion of citizenry, according to chief executive officer, Wisdom Computer Technologies, Mr. Francis Uzor, at the 2021 Nigeria DigitalSENSE Forum series on Internet Governance for Development (IG4D), which held weekend at the Golden Tulip Essential Hotel, International Airport Road, Lagos, reports ITREALMS,

Uzor who led discussion on “Citizens Participation in Digital Cooperation for Enhanced Multi-stakeholder Governance for Digital Economy” noted that it would help immensely when citizens participate in the designing of public policies, in addition to facilitating their participation and inclusion, even from the regions, which enables systematization and integration of citizen demands, just as it would help in generating new communication channels between the government and citizens in a fast changing digital world.

Chinese Virus: Nigerian govt lacks citizens cooperation, blames religious leaders - ITREALMS

ITREALMS:

Nigerian Government has lamented that citizens are not cooperating at this moment in combating the Chinese virus also known as Coronavirus or Covid-19, reports ITREALMS.

This is coming as the most populous nation on the continent is on the verge of community spread of this scourge.

The Federal Government through the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed gave these indications on Thursday in Abuja, blaming some Nigerians for not complying with relevant government directives at this time, especially religious leaders.

“The government is not getting the kind of cooperation that this moment deserves from Nigerians,” he decried.

In addition, he said some Nigerians defied orders to stay away from large gatherings while some religious leaders willfully flouted the directives to ensure social distancing.

As said by Lai Mohammed, the government is doing its best but Nigerians equally need to do their best as well.

“We need the citizens to do their best too,” he said.

Emphasising that Nigeria has now gone past the stage of persuasion, unto to “time for strong enforcement,” the Minister maintained.

Nigerians, he insisted, need to support the authorities in this regard.

“We are on the verge of reaching the level of community spread,” Lai Mohammed warned.
As at 10:28pm on Thursday, March 26, 2020, ITREALMS gathered that Nigeria has recorded 65 cases across 8 states; 14 new cases of #COVID19 have been confirmed in Nigeria: 1 in Federal Capital Territory (FCT), 1 in Bauchi and 12 in Lagos.

According to NCDC update available to ITREALMS, “of the 14, 6 were detected on a vessel, 3 are returning travelers and 2 are close contacts of confirmed cases.

Chuks Egbune/Editor

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Enhanced Cooperation: What’s next after WGEC2.0?

Commentary@ITREALMS: 

Ordinarily when you review the phrase“Enhanced Cooperation,”it should reflect the etymology of the two words “enhanced” and “cooperation” to indicate that a measure of existing cooperation is being taken to the next level. Yes, this is the intention of the architects of the language to avoid an imminent deadlock at the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis, 2005.

The European Union (EU) who has successfully used many forms of cooperation to achieve tremendous success over years came to the rescue when countries demanded that they join the US in its historical oversight role on the management of the Critical Internet Resources (CIRs); Internet Address names, numbers and protocol parameters.

It can be recalled that the United States (US) provided initial research funding that resulted in the global networks of networks called the Internet which is managed by interest-motivated volunteers across the US and later the rest of the world. As the Internet became the cornerstone of any modern economy, and governments in the late 1990s began to take note of this critical development enabler, they began to express interest in the management of the Internet which culminated in the convening of the 1^st World Summit on Information Society in Geneva in 2003; and due to inconclusive outcome scheduled another round of Summit for 2005 in Tunis, Tunisia that produced the famous Tunis Agenda (TA).

In the Tunis Agenda are reaffirmation of Action Lines and Targets of the Geneva Action Plan of WSIS 2003 with two important outcomes connected to the management of CIRs namely the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) and Enhanced Cooperation (EC). While IGF convened immediately first in Greece in 2006 and every year till the last in Geneva in 2017, Enhanced Cooperation track could “not take-off” as envisaged due to different interpretations by UN member states of the meaning of “Enhanced Cooperation” and the nature of mechanism for its implementation.

I had the privilege to speak though remotely at the 1^st United Nations Commission on Science and Technology for Development (UN CSTD) consultative forum on Enhanced Cooperation on International Public Policy Issues pertaining to the Internet in 2012, where I reflected as a matter of fact that EC has been on-going for years even at the bedrock of the Internet.

Without sustained cooperation, networks cannot be built talk-less of network of networks. I also indicated that in the government circle, government has increasingly continued to cooperate on diverse public policy issue pertaining to the Internet. Issues like cybersecurity and cybercrime have seen governments collaborating through Interpol, OECD, EU, G7, etc with positive outcomes like the Budapest Convention on Cybercrime and more recently on the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe.

While some stakeholders including governments maintained that EC was already taking place, other governments indicated that EC according to paragraphs 69 to 71 of the TA was yet to begin. The consultation on EC in 2012 led to the convening of the first Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation by a resolution of the UN General Assembly (GA) (paragraph 20-21) asking the Chair of CSTD to establish the WG which convened between 2013 and 2014.

Composed of 22-nation representatives according to UN representation process and 5 representatives each from business, civil society, academic and technical communities; and International organizations with previous hosts of IGFs; the WG could not agree to produce a consensus report due to just one controversial issue - how governments on an equal footing can make decisions on international public policy matters pertaining to the Internet viz-a-viz CIRs. Based on the work of a correspondence group, the WG produced evidence that EC has increasingly been on-going among governments and other stakeholders.

On the strength of increasing evidence of cooperation on International public policies issues pertaining to the Internet, the GA by a resolution in 2015 asked the Chair of CSTD to once again convene another WGEC with the hope of finding a consensus position on the intractable Tunis Agenda outcome.

By the time the WG was to meet in September 30, 2016, the United States Government (USG) had wisely in 2014 announced and begun a process to relinquish its unique oversight function on the Internet. USG said it was in continuation of a planned process begun in 1998 that saw to the creation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a private sector-led US registered not-for-profit organisation focused on serving global public interest in ensuring a stable, secure and resilient Internet. The USG through its agency, the National Telecommunication and Information Administration (NTIA) of the Commerce Department as part of its condition to the global Internet community indicated that it would not subscribe to any government led replacement to its oversight role.

ICANN based on the mandate given by NTIA led the world to produce an acceptable proposal to NTIA that convinced the USG to abandon its oversight function on the Internet on October 1, 2016. This event was like a miracle because a young US Official once told me in Geneva that“I don’t see USG relinquish this role in my life-time.”

USG relinquished its oversight function on the Internet but yet some governments still wanted paragraph 71 implemented to the letter. Most private sector (business, civil society, academic and technical community) and Western Countries including Japan posited that nations can exercise their public policy sovereignty within their borders but not on International Internet public policy issues (IIPPI). But come to think of it, what is wrong if governments on an equal footing have a mechanism to discuss IIPPI? Nothing is really wrong and that was why I proposed for adoption at the WGEC2.0 for the CSTD to continue to provide the platform for governments to discuss IIPPI with full participation of other stakeholders since the CSTD already has in its mandate the responsibility to discuss and make recommendation on public policy issues to the GA through the Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

This was to be the consensus agreement as many Western countries that hitherto objected to the idea later embraced it in the spirit of compromise. Unfortunately, a handful of countries (e.g. Saudi Arabia) opposed the idea insisting the only idea they supported was the creation of a new Institutional mechanism in the likes of ITU or UNESCO to handle IIPPI. A vast majority did not support the creation of new Institutional mechanism because: 1. the nature of the Internet (which is distributive) does not concentrate control on one entity and 2. it would be expensive considering cost cutting measures within governments across the world not least the United Nations itself.

WGEC2.0 met eight times for 3 days each in Geneva over a 2-year period (2016-2018) under the distinguished chairmanship of Ambassador Benedicto  Fonseca of Brazil, who did from my perspective an outstanding job of co-ordination to the effect that even with high tensions many times and eventual failure of consensus recommendation, all participants remained cordial, hopeful and appreciative of his efforts. The CSTD Secretariat also worked tirelessly and impressively to support the work of the WG.

Nevertheless, the WG agreed on the characteristics of EC including transparency, inclusivity, collaboration, effectiveness, sustainability, responsiveness, peace etc but its failure to agree a position by consensus on paragraph 71 torpedoed many other positive conclusions of the WG.

Perhaps the next line of action is for the subject of EC to continue to be a subject line item on the schedule of the CSTD whenever its convenes its annual meeting. CSTD already has such mandate within its statute anyway.

For me, it has been a great learning experience and a privilege representing business and participating at the cutting edge of global Internet public policy debate as the first African business person in two high profile UN Working Groups and on the same footing with states.

*Contributed by Jimson Olufuye, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Kontemporary Konsulting, Chairman, Africa ICT Alliance, AfICTA and one of the 5 global business representatives to WGEC 1.0 & 2.0.

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Minister demands MDAs' cooperation for tourism development

ITREALMS:

The Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, has called for cooperation among the various Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs) in the generation of relevant data that will assist in making policies and planning decisions for the development of tourism in Nigeria, reports ITRealms.

The Minister made in call in Abuja on Monday when he received the Technical Consultant of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) on Tourism Statistics, Mr. David McEwen, on a courtesy visit to his office.

Mr. McEwen is in Nigeria to meet with the various MDAs of government with a view to developing a framework for the generation of data in the nation’s tourism industry.

“Tourism, as an industry, and the other sectors are interdependent, so it’s not by coincidence today that while Mr. McEwen is here, he is going to interact with at least ten other parastatals or departments and ministries, including the National Bureau of Statistics; the Nigerian Tourism Development Corporation; the Nigeria Police Force; the Central Bank of Nigeria; the Nigerian Immigration Service; the National Park Service; the Federal Airport Authority of Nigeria; the Federation of Tourism Associations of Nigeria and the National Population Commission and other bodies,” Alhaji Mohammed said.

He said the Federal Ministry of Information and Culture, which develops policies for the tourism industry, does not generate the data required for policy formation and planning for the industry, hence the need for cooperation and coordination of the relevant MDAs.

“The coordinating role of the ministry is of great importance and is for us to ensure that we persuade and get the cooperation of all the other different actors in the industry for us to be able to plan and develop,'' the Minister said.

According to him, most of the agencies that generate the data are not under the purview of his ministry, but their input remains paramount in order to develop tourism in Nigeria.

In his remarks, The Technical Consultant on Tourism Statistics of the UNWTO, Mr. McEwen, said tourism is one sector that depends largely on other sectors to succeed.

“I don’t think there is any industry that needs coordination and cooperation like tourism. It’s one part of it that the airlines can’t do without accommodation and the accommodation can’t do without the airlines,” he said.

The UNWTO Consultant said from the experience he gathered from other countries, statistics generated by other agencies and organs play a vital role in attaining the objective of tourism development, hence the need for the government to play a vital role in the development of synergy for tourism to thrive in Nigeria.

Mr. McEwen said there will be a Technical Workshop on Tourism Statistics for stakeholders on the way forward, during the UNWTO/CAF Meeting to be hosted by Nigeria in Abuja in June.

Uboshe Uboshe/GEE

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ISOC seeks input into CSTD-Working Group on enhanced cooperation

ITRealms:

The Internet Society is seeking inputs of its global members into the United Nations (UN) Commission on Science and Technology for Development's Working Group on Enhanced Cooperation (CSTD WG EC), reports ITRealms.

Constance Bommelaer of Internet Society, hinted ITRealms that the formation of this group was one of the outcomes from the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS +10) review conducted last year.

As its precedent, Bommelaer said this review has its basis in the Tunis Agenda, where the notion of "enhanced cooperation" is developed in paragraph 69. You'll remember that this text established a distinction between the day-to-day operations of the Internet and Internet public policy issues. But various interpretations have been made, hence the ongoing debate over the past decade.

According to her, at the heart of the issue are very different views on whether "enhanced cooperation" is specifically about enhancing the role of governments in Internet governance, or whether it's about enhancing cooperation among all stakeholders, including governments.

To this end, she said, ISOC supports the latter, which has to do with stakeholders including government, “where we have a broad, inclusive understanding of ‘enhanced cooperation’.

The current consultation opportunity, she said, involves all Internet stakeholders hereby invited to share their thoughts with the UN on two questions: What are the high level characteristics of enhanced cooperation?

In addition, she said, taking into consideration the work of the previous WGEC and the Tunis Agenda, particularly paragraphs 69-71, what kind of recommendations should we consider?

Nenye Dom/GEE

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Telecom regulations: NCC needs Reps’ cooperation - Danbatta

ITRealms:

For effective telecommunications regulations in the industry, the Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC), needs the cooperation of the members of the House of Representatives, says, the Executive Vice Chairman, Prof. Umar Garba Danbatta, reports ITRealms.

Speaking during an oversight visit of the members of the House of Representatives’ Committee on Communications, yesterday in Abuja, Danbatta stressed the need for striking a balance in satisfying diverse stakeholders in the industry the Commission regulates.

“We will still use this opportunity to seek you cooperation and understanding of delicate balance existing between the functions of regulators, and its many publics and stakeholders, including the legislature.

“These stakeholders have diverse but very important interest, which the regulator must satisfy. In the course of achieving an effective regulation for the benefit of all and in creating an enabling environment for growth, issues and challenges are bound to arise,” he explained.

As said by the Special Assistant on Media to the EVC, Yakubu Musa, the NCC boss also told members of the Committee that the Commission had recently won a European Award for Best Practices, in addition to emerging African Regulator of the Year at regional level.

Responding, Chairman of the Committee, Hon. Shaheed Fijabi, who said they were at the headquarters of the NCC to exercise their oversight duty, also commended the strides of Universal Service Provision Fund (USPF) in the country.

Earlier, the Director Public Affairs of the commission, Mr. Tony Ojobo, said that Commission has always enjoyed fruitful relationship with the committee, commended members for “the very matured way” they have handled it affairs.

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