Dec, 2004 : ICANN successfully concludes Cape Town Meetings

Cape Town, South Africa. This week over 735 participants from 91 countries successfully concluded the ICANN Annual Meeting in Cape Town. The meeting included technical and industry leaders, Internet users from Africa and around the world, ministers and governmental representatives. ICANN stakeholders from 25 African countries joined the proceedings.

• Africa's At-Large Internet Community members advanced awareness and further integrated the African community in the ICANN process, creating a much deeper understanding of the Internet landscape in Africa, and of the challenges faced by African stakeholders.
• ICANN stakeholders held their third WSIS workshop to update the community on proceedings within the international discussions on Internet governance. They were addressed by a panel of African leaders who put forward many of the key issues of developing nation Internet communities. Also addressing the community were the newly appointed chairman of the Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG), Nitan Desai, Special Advisor to the Secretary General for the World Summit on Information Society (WSIS) and Markus Kummer, Executive Coordinator, Secretariat of the WGIG. ICANN constituency groups agreed to formulate and sign a joint resolution regarding Internet governance which will be included in a jointly prepared White Paper to be distributed widely in the Internet governance discussions.
• This was the 20th meeting of ICANN's Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC). Many GAC members were present in Cape Town -- of particular mention, the representatives present from the Africa region were from South Africa, Djibouti, Senegal, Sudan, Gambia and Tanzania. Outcomes of this Regional Forum are included in the official GAC Communiqu