The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) has launched its first African regional engagement office in Nairobi.
“This has been a process of several years of community discussion so as to make home in Africa to both drive engagement and to increase participation not only from Kenya but from all of the 54 countries in Africa,” says Sally Costerton, Senior Advisor to the President & Senior Vice President, Global Stakeholder Engagement.
The regional office will deepen ICANN’s engagement with African Governments as well as the private sector players. “We are excited about this new phase for ICANN in Africa with the opening of our first engagement office in the region, here in Nairobi,” said Sally Costerton.
Kenya boasts one of the most active online populations on the continent with users increasing every day. The growing reach of the Internet coupled with the rapid spread of mobile phones and the wide diffusion of social media have immensely contributed to Kenya’s socio-economic development growth.
“Kenya has continued to work with regional bodies towards the growth of the internet use in Africa and we are glad to have ICANN make Nairobi its first engagement office location for Africa. We believe that collaboration with ICANN will encourage investors in ICT to provide services from the Kenyan cyberspace through the hosting of root servers, Data centers, cloud services among others,” said Mr Joe Mucheru, the ICT Cabinet Secretary, during the brief with media.
ICANN with it’s participants from all over the world is dedicated to keeping the internet secure, stable and inter-operable. It promotes competition and develops policy on internet. Through its coordination role of the Internet’s naming system, it does have an important impact on the global expansion and evolution of the Internet.
Its headquarters are based in Los Angeles, California USA, with two operational hubs in Istanbul, Turkey and Singapore. In addition to engagement offices in Beijing, Brussels, Geneva, Montevideo, Seoul, Washington, D.C and now in Nairobi, Kenya to afford wider reach and accessibility.
