Internet governance will create robust internet economy for Africa – NCC

The Nigeria Communications Commission says internet governance will create a pro-development policy environment and enable the use of the internet as a development engine.
The Executive Vice-Chairman of NCC, Prof. Umar Danbatta, asserted this at the 2018 Nigeria DigitalSENSE Forum series in Lagos with the theme: “Internet Governance: Sustaining Development’’.
The UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society defines internet governance as the development and application by governments, the private sector and civil society in their respective roles of shared principles, norms, rules, decision-making procedures, and programmes that shape the evolution and use of the internet.
Danbatta, who was represented by Funlola Akiode, the Director, Licensing and Authorisation, NCC, urged stakeholders to participate in the digital revolution as it was a golden opportunity for Nigeria.
He said: “The 2018 Nigeria DigitalSENSE Forum on Internet Governance for Development is in celebration of the brilliance, hard work and dedication of the organizers as one of the leaders in the advancement and the use of Internet.
“A lot has been achieved in African Internet development to date.
“To take the next steps in building a robust internet economy, many issues remain, some of which Africa shares with other developing regions and needs to be tackled.
“Some of such issues are interconnection and cross-border connectivity, economic opportunity, local content, multilingualism and human capacity building.
“Some also have a specifically regional dimension such as digital migration and others are global concerns such as data privacy, cyber security, IPv6 transition, and human rights and freedom of expression.”
The NCC vice-chairman said that continuous internet growth in an exponential rate would bring with it new ways of transacting, communicating, learning, and socialising.
According to him, continuous internet growth will transform just about every aspect of our life, though the benefits of the internet are yet to be evenly distributed.
Danbatta said that in Africa, especially Nigeria, in spite of a slow start, internet use was now rapidly accelerating (101.2m subscribers as at April 2018) and its transformative effects were increasingly accessible.
He said: “Internet remains open for development and innovation. Creative inventors of tomorrow’s Google, Skype, Facebook and Twitter are out there somewhere browsing the Internet.
“Their creativity and innovativeness should not be stifled rather should be encouraged to develop new creative ways to use the Internet.
“One of the main objectives of internet governance is to create a pro-development policy environment which enables further use of the internet as an engine for development.”
He listed some of the initiatives the commission was working on to provide an enabling environment for Internet Governance in telecommunications to include IPv6 Adoption and Transition plan.
He said another initiative was the Internet Code of Practice that sought to promote the safe, secure and responsible use of Internet services with due regard to provisions in existing legal instruments.
He said: “Development of clearer licensing requirements of current and new licenses to include integrated local content initiatives.
“More interaction with industry players on local content policy formation, projects and programmes. We will sustain the dialogue to ensure active participation with all stakeholders.
“Promotion of capacity building in academic institutions to prepare students for core functions in the industry.
“More access to data and statistics for the academia and SMEs for research, development and innovations in local content programmes and projects.’’
The DigitalSENSE Executive Director, Operations, Nkem Nweke, said that there was a need to focus attention on the role of internet governance in driving sustainable development in the country.
According to Nweke, continuous enlightenment and capacity enhancement for diverse range of stakeholders, especially women and youths, are key to meeting the needs of a critical segment of the population.
She said: “This forum is our organisation’s way of contributing to empowering an important segment of the population, the students, youths and women in achieving their dreams.’’