The following are the outputs of the real-time captioning taken during the Thirteenth Annual Meeting of the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) in Paris, France, from 12 to 14 November 2018. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the event, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> Good afternoon, good afternoon, everybody.
Please be seated. Is it working? Good afternoon.
Rapporteur is Lilian.
Please collect the present sheet for the report.
>> MODERATOR: Good afternoon. Welcome to the African Union Open Forum. It is nice to see many familiar faces here in the room. This is a Forum for reflection, and kind of a retreat, where we can see, examine what works, what doesn't work, and learn from the experience and share best practices, and also, it's a platform that we can tell you what is happening on the continent, in terms of new initiatives in this space.
I think we have technical issue, but we can start. Let me go through the agenda. And then we will start. We will have the opening by Dr. Jamal Amin, the Chair of African IGF, we have the African IGF which we hosted in Sudan, Sudan is the Chair. And he will give a digital summary report on what happened in Sudan. Next speaker, Mr. Moctar Yedaly is going to talk about initiatives in the space, going to talk about hosting and the issue we are facing with hosting the African IGF in general. Then we are going to give some news about the African IGF MAG, and the member of the MAG, you will be familiar with the members of IGF MAG. Then we will close with a set of question and answers, and hopefully we have enough time for Q and A sessions. Without further ado, I will pass the mic to our Chair, give us a summary report of the proceeding in Sudan. Thank you.
>> JAMAL AMIN: Thank you. Great honor to be chairing the African Internet Governance Forum, most welcome and appreciation for attending this Forum. Unfortunately, I have a presentation here but the technician is not around, but because I have only ten minutes, I have to start without a presentation. This presentation includes some galleries of photos and videos.
I will talk about the report about the 7th African Internet Governance Forum, that had been held in Sudan, Khartoum, from 4 to 6 November, 2018.
The objectives of the African IGF is a platform for an inclusive multilateral, multistakeholder, multilingual discussion on issues concerning the Internet in Africa as general and Internet Governance issues in particular.
Participation of the 7th Forum, this year African IGF was held from 4 to 6 November, 2018 in Khartoum, Sudan under the development of the digital economy and emerging technologies in Africa, with the participation of over 340 participants from 26 countries, in addition to almost all multistakeholders have been attended. The 7th African IGF preceded by IGF national day for Sudan at November 1 of 2018 that had conducted five sessions of 11 presentation which attended by 193 participants of different stakeholders.
Sessions, there were keynote speech, 11 plenary and 8 parallel session as well as continual remote participation. The plenary session were induction for newcomers, national and regional initiatives, round table on unlocking the development of digital economy and emerging technologies in Africa, Africa's digital economy for access and infrastructure as fundamental for digital economic growth, empowering digital cooperation towards building trust, emerging technologies, part 1, for Internet of Things, and big data, emerging technologies, part 2, for artificial intelligence, and number 7, the digital economy and attainment of SDGs and AU agenda. Then, announcement of African IGF MAG members, finally status of recommendation on African IGF 2017 and presentation of the recommendation.
The parallel session were one discriminatory access, Internet access, community network, connecting the unconnected, African court for online conflict resolution, human rights for child protection and use rights, Internet shutdowns, then African Internet institutions, finally Cybersecurity, enhancement for the use and harnessing of ICT. Major deliverables, the major highlights of the conference were adoption of the recommendations relating to the UN Secretary‑General's High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, HLPDC after having noted HLPDC wasn't inclusive and African IGF participants recommended that, number one, there was need for HLPDC to take history into context and benefit from best practices. Number 2, HLPDC should hold proper consultations with Africa while the African Union would put in place and coordinate a mechanism where African countries would prepare their agreed positions for submission to the HLPDC and this will strengthen the efforts of the two African members of the panel to make a strong African contribution taking into account diversity of Africa.
Number 3 called for active participation of African in the UN High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, call for African Union Commission to closely work with the panel to organize a multi‑sectoral and multistakeholder conference on digital cooperation, moreover information is available at the Web site.
The third measure highlight is hiring the crucial need for regulating, managing and governing OTTs, the first one is to set a minimum level of harmonized policies towards African Internet Governance. The last, nondiscriminatory access to Internet resources. These are the event. We have a small video show. It's not working? By the way, we have two video shows, one for the national TV, that covered the event, and the other one for the ministerial dinner invitation and party, and finally, thank you.
(applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Dr. Jamal. We want to apologize for because the room is small, I think we have people who could not get in the room because of security reasons. Next we will have Mr. Moctar Yedaly will give us a briefing on the AU initiative in the cyberspace, and what we are doing in that regard.
>> MOCTAR YEDALY: My name is Moctar Yedaly. It's an honor to be here. Thank you, Jamal, for the interesting report. Thank you, Secretariat, Makane and everybody who contributed to the successful organization of the Internet Governance Forum in Sudan.
I won't be long. I have three points to update you on, one is to inform again that the Internet Governance, the declaration on Internet Governance in development that we have built up has been approved by the head of state so we have now that as a document as a reference for all our original principles.
(applause).
Second, we would like to inform that we also have started the program that we negotiated for the last three years on building capacity for the African states which has two components. The component number one is related to the Internet Governance, and you have previous activity. Can you stand up again so they can see you, there you are. (overlapping speakers).
This is format related to national, regional level. The components related to our objective is to train as much as possible people at the national level in all African countries, from all sectors and from all stakeholders, enhance or create around first the national Internet Governance Forum if it doesn't exist and specifically some institution that will continue the work on the capacity‑building.
So everybody, this is a call I make to everybody, every one of you is kindly requested to really continue to implementation of the project. We cannot make it happen without you.
So we have had new people, we have two people, actually three people in the office now, Kofi is one of them and we have people to make sure we will be doing all this work together. From time to time we will be calling for consulting so within the next three years we complete this program. Currently we are working on the curricula that is being prepared. We are identifying the trainers, and soon some of you will be contacted for specific contribution on this matter.
The person is Kofi and please don't harass me so that is what I wanted to say with regard to the component related to the Internet Governance.
We have something bigger, we are creating a digital platform where all policy and regulation will be there. So it will be one stop shopping for anybody who wanted anything. It will be the tool for harmonization, and then it will be a platform for us to continue our position discussing ad hoc trainings and creating what we call the African ICT communities to continue around the world.
And there is another team which is dealing with that. They are actually currently working on, we made the lunch two weeks ago and currently they are probably also starting the work, and we hope that within the next two years also they will be finishing. We are now entering into a phase 2 of negotiation of after these two projects are going to happen. The partners are waiting to fund, these are projects starting five million Euro funded by the European Union mainly. There is 5 million Euro which is related to the spectrum specifics that we are implementing with ITU.
All those things are in line with what you have requested everywhere and during your meetings and IGFs and mailing and individual contributions, we have taken that all into consideration to make sure that we will be meeting your requirement.
This is all I wanted to say at this point of time. I'll be happy to answer any specific question you will be asking. Thank you, Chair.
(applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Moctar, for this briefing. We now are going to speak about the African IGF, the organization of the African IGF.
>> One of the requests is with regard to the committee, Cybersecurity, so we have received so far 165CVs, among them only twelve women, which is actually roughly 7 to 8 percent of the whole things. We are trying for parity so there will be ten only selected among 167, and we hope that by December 1 meeting of this committee will take place. That is a item I wanted to add.
>> Sorry.
>> MODERATOR: That is expert group on Cybersecurity that advise the African Union Commission on issue related to Cybersecurity (pause).
All right. So let me pass the mic to Dr. Jamal to continue the proceeding of the meeting.
>> JAMAL AMIN: Thank you very much. I'll continue steering the session.
The next session is to speak about hosting African IGF process. You have five minutes. You can proceed.
>> ADIL SULEIMAN: I'll try to be brief, but this is I think the reflection part of this meeting, where we talk about what went wrong and what went well and try to see, to get some guidance from you guys, as the best way forward. The participation, we always try to be inclusive. We take into account regional and gender and also we try to include youth as much as possible.
One of the issues that we have been facing since the meeting in South Africa is to do with visa, visas. I think people, usually African, they take for granted this issue, the visa issue, and also the time we end up issuing tickets for people who don't have visa, and then we try to scramble at the last minute to see if we can secure a visa on arrival. That was helpful to get visa, on arrival, but we shouldn't expect that in all countries.
We have a lot of difficulties in South Africa. We have some difficulties in Egypt. But please, take the visa issue seriously. On hosting, usually the process that we follow, we have a bidding process usually and then we receive some feedback from countries, and we go through the evaluation, and we announce the winner. Usually this is a very lengthy process. We are trying to be predictable in this process, but it's very difficult, because like for instance in Sudan, we had a cabinet change and then we had to wait for almost one month.
So this is a very difficult, we were dealing with a Minister and then we are going smooth, the process was going smooth and then boom, we have a cabinet change and that complicated the problem.
In Egypt, also for example, before the meeting there was a terrorist attack. And then for two, three weeks, things were not moving as we expected. So unfortunately, there are factors that are beyond our control but we are trying to be as much as predictable as we can.
On the budget, the bulk of the budget is from the African Union Commission and the Host Country. We are relying also on some partners, I think we have very faithful partners in ICANN, ISOC, AfriNIC, APC, and Facebook, IGF SA, and so forth. I'm looking at you guys, you have to step up. Yes. Google, also, they have to step up. What we need from partners, we don't need money. If they can send people to event, we will be very happy. Give them ticket, give them accommodation. We will be happy. Then we are going to be recognized as such, because the AU budget is, the process is very complicated. We don't accept money most of the time.
Usually, just bring people to the event, and we want to see more people contributing. In terms of the expected outcome, in the opening of the IGF, we heard a lot about we need to see concrete proposals, and so forth. I think with regard to the African IGF, I think we are ahead of the curve. We are taking the recommendation from the African IGF very seriously and we are finding those recommendation today in process and you see a lot of product like the declaration on the IG and the development of digital economy. This was a bottom‑up process. We went through, first of all it was developed by the community, it was adopted by the head of states.
We are trying to take on the Cybersecurity also front, we have now the Cybersecurity expert, all the discussion that we have during the African IGF we take seriously, and we try to get some concrete proposals and recommendation through AU organs.
The way forward, the next IGF, which we are going to send out the bid early next year, and hopefully, by end of Q1, we will be able to advise who will be the next source. We have candidate for 2020, but for 2019, we still are in the process of identifying the host.
Finally, we are going to announce the MAG member that was announced in Sudan, I think I will give back the floor to the moderator for the next one. Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Dr. Adil for this. Okay. We can do.
>> Just with regard to the hosting, we specifically invite the central African region to host. We bring the west, we have been in the south, but we wanted the central African, I mean region to somehow host, and also the Franco France to also ...
(applause).
Come forward and we would love to have a alternate between the different region, the rotation and language rotation and everything, but sometimes it can't happen. So, so far we haven't been in Central Africa. So Central Africa is key. So anybody who in that region, please assist to country or region.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you, Dr. Moctar for valuable comments.
I want to mention the recommendations that have been held from the last meeting. There is very, very important recommendation of the last meeting, who are the OTT management, which is most of our network, the voice and natural income for that African countries. Secondly, discriminatory access for Internet, there is a discrimination access for Internet in Africa that we highlighted in the last meeting, as well as to set a minimum level harmonize for African region, regarding policies for Internet Governance. Me myself, I think that these recommendations should be taken into consideration for the upcoming activities.
Now the other agenda item is Mary from ICANN to speak about the MAG of African IGF for five minutes for each.
>> MARY UDUMA: Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm from Nigeria. I will recall that in 2015 when we had our Africa IGF, the committee was established to draft the Charter for the AfIGF and that chapter was completed in 2017 presented and accepted. The structure was established by the chapter. We have three structures, one is the AfIGF Secretariat, who have been speaking including Makane, we have AfIGF MAG, and AfIGF noncom. First I want to say that the noncom and the MAG they are volunteers.
Nobody is going to pay anybody. So they are doing it pro bono work. So as it's constituted, the Charter provided for noncom and they put completion of noncom is this, the AfIGF nominating committee is composed of members from AUC, the subregional representatives, those are the north, the south, the west and the Central Africa, those are the coordinate, okay, and then the one African regional institution, what will be their role to appoint ten MAG members among candidates from all African countries for a period of two years.
Their own tenure, the tenure of a noncom is two years, and they can present themselves, and but we do a rotation. The first two years, half will retire so that we will not have all new people coming in. For the Africa MAG, the AfIGF MAG membership of AF MAG will be drawn from individual representative relevant Government institution, Government, Civil Society, academia and technical community, private sector and youths.
The AfIGF MAG is composed of five African subregional IGFs. So those convening in the north, south, west, Central Africa, and West Africa, so they are automatically members of the MAG. Then the ten appointees by noncom, those ones will serve for two years. Then they do years and then go. There will be one member submitted by the Africa union and one member by the African regional intergovernmental organization. The provision is that all AF does, a representative to the MAG including organization like AFICA, AF, you know, all of them. And the role is simple. They are to do what? Manage the content of the annual AfIGF by examining the theme and sub‑theme after an inclusive consultation with stakeholders. Two, developing the structure and format of the annual meeting of the Forum. So those are the major work the AfIGF MAG will be doing.
I want to emphasize also that the Secretariat is the Secretariat of AfIGF, and not the Secretariat of MAG. MAG, the Secretariat and the MAG will be working in collaboration, to make sure that we have a strong, not only strong, a fruitful, not only fruitful, a well organized Africa IGF. The one we had last time we thank the Sudanese Government, they did so well. Let us also, we have been asked to beat, we want the Franco countries to host, but we have gone to the north, we have been to the west, we have been to the south, we have been to the east. So Central African Republic or Central Africa region, please, come up, Cameroon, Chad, Congo, DRC. Papua New Guinea, Rwanda. Rwanda is east. So know your country, know your region, please beat and host us. Thank you. Makane will now announce the members of each of the structure that I've mentioned. Three structures we have, AfIGF Secretariat, AfIGF MAG and AfIGF noncom. Thank you.
(applause).
>> Thank you very much, Mary, for that exposure for roles for MAG, this is valuable for us. We have to stick with Mr. Makane. The floor is yours.
>> MAKANE FAYE: Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. Good afternoon, again, colleagues. As Mary has indicated, we have the noncom members, which award the five conveners of the subregions. We had for southern Africa, Judge Aty, from Central Africa, we had Luke Imbazi, from Congo, for North Africa, we had Rita Ganuz. We had from Tunisia, for East Africa, we had Lilian, Lilian Nalwoga in Uganda, West Africa, for African region, we had Moctar, and for international intergovernmental we had Moctar from ECA.
You have seen in this composition that there are the regional committees and people who are not from committees. When there is a regional committee which is organizing regional IGF like where we have West African IGF, like Sadak where we have South African IGF, those regs are the conveners but regions where we don't have the regional committees active in the governance, then the subregion had designated one person to be the convener. That is why you have Lilian from Uganda, Rick from Congo and Rita from North Africa.
In addition to the noncom members now I'm going to read the list of the MAG members who should stand up so that you are recognized by the participants here. Some of the MAG members couldn't enter, unfortunately the room is too small so they have left. But I'm going to read them in any case. From Egypt, he is not here. From the youth, he is not here. From Ghana, academia, he is not here. Sayed, Government Sudan, Chair of this meeting.
>> I'm tracking the number of women.
>> MODERATOR: Don't worry. Women did not present and you cannot force them to enter the group. Whatever they presented, they have been selected. Anna Margarita, Civil Society from southern Africa. Private sector from North Africa. Michael, Government from southern Africa. Yeah, but you are still member of the MAG. Government, southern Africa ... Civil Society, from Bolivia, Civil Society from Cameroon, Civil Society from Chad. Lilian, Civil Society from Uganda, she is not here. Kofi, he is not here. Moctar from interGovernment organization, is not here. Mary Uduma, private sector from Nigeria. Last but not least, Moctar Idali from African region, we all know. The Secretariat is Adil Sulieman, here. And myself, Makane Faye. Thank you.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Mr. Makane.
>> I counted five women.
>> Five women are the only one who applied for this MAG member. I have to explain, why there are five women.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, Mr. Makane, for valuable information. Now we will transfer directly to questions and answers for comments, opinion or any inquiry for the participants. The floor is yours, if you have any question.
(off microphone).
>> I want to apologize because I've been locked out for the whole session. So I wanted to make an appeal that the African Union take this forward with the IGF, and it's ridiculous size room for a African dialogue. I encourage African participation, and in this tiny room, and they are big halls sitting empty. I urge us, not to be prevented from attending our own dialogue.
I came in just in time for the list of nominations, congratulations. But I strongly want to second what Nana said we need to make formal active engagement, there isn't any reason we shouldn't have equal numbers and arguably more women, there are competent women to take this up, we need to actively lobby to get more women on to the MAG.
(applause).
>> Thank you, all the comments you have made.
>> Thank you, I'm from Zimbabwe. I was listening to the report and I think there was one really good outcome from the Forum that wasn't mentioned, because I think some concerns were raised around issues around gender representation on the panels. Firstly.
Second, there was some sexist remarks that were made by one of the speakers in one of the panels, that saw a number of us stand up to position in protest. But I think what came up out of that which is really good, and unfortunately is not in the report, is that the African Union pledged to come up with a code of conduct, that would look at issues around representation of women on panels, and the conduct of people during the sessions.
I think that was a really good outcome from the meeting. Also in terms of the diversity of panels, it would also be nice to hear what the AUC's position is on issues of just basic rights, around gender and sexual minorities. I know that this is a very controversial conversation to have within the continent.
But I think in terms of diversification of the human rights agenda, at the AfIGF it would be important and interesting to hear what the AUC has to say.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much for the questions. We can answer this question.
>> It's a little hard to speak after two women already talked, so I'll try anyway, well, capture what she means when you forget everything, now that the African IGF is over, now that the global IGF is almost over, what remains is that for the future, there is a new trend, which is to prepares for new round of thinking, a new round of negotiations about the future of Internet, about the future of ICTs and the future of humanity in general. From this point of view, I think that Africa is a little bit behind, what has to be done. The last time I felt that we had a real preparation for the future was the process of the WSIS process, and most of the people here remember that we had negotiations and negotiations in Africa had its positions and we were part of the debate. Now I'm not sure that we are preparing for something original, for something new, we are not that much anticipating on the future we should, because to get to a place among the community, you have to anticipate. You have to get your old positions, most of the ideas I'm hearing now are coming from outside. We should try to have as much as possible positions on whatever problems may be at a global level. Remember the issue of the High Level Panel on Digital Cooperation, I have shown in Sudan, in Khartoum, that we had only two African in that panel. And two African who are not coming from the IGC sector, it's too poor and it's hard from my side at least to understand how we are going to get to make ourselves heard for in the future. Please, AUC, take appropriate measures to help having our voice heard at the global level. Thank you.
(applause).
>> Thank you, Chairman, I am the Chairman of the African Civil Society on the Information Society, it's platform of 500 NGOs throughout the continent working on issues for 15 years now.
I congratulate the teams working on this process, it was long but I'm very happy to see that there is now a team responding on the issues of ICT in Africa at a global level. I really also commend Rita's comments because from my point of view we have failed to implement the WSIS outcomes. Africa is still around 20 percent of Internet connection. We don't have a global leadership on the ICT issues. The issues of the high level digital cooperation it was just a club of friends, and I'm sorry to say that, but we were not considered. We just heard about it. And we are still struggling for the digital language of diversity. The money coming from the ICT sectors is still going outs of Africa and we don't have strong leadership, while people are in Europe, in Asia, are taxing telecos and companies, we are just struggling country by country. But I'm happy that now we have a good leadership from the African Union. And for now for three years, we are quoting for African digital summit because some problems we cannot deal with at a national level. We need a strong pan African leadership. I see in this room many, many great competencies on these issues. We have to strategize. I'm happy to have everybody here in this room. And I commend the work under the leadership of Moctar and all the team. But we still have a long way to go. Be assured that the African Civil Society is with you. I congratulate all people who have been elected. Thank you very much.
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much. We have five minutes left for the room. We have to answer the questions. We have 7 minutes only. We will not answer the questions. There is another session from 4:00 to 5 here.
>> Two more.
>> Thank you, I have two comments, Mr. Chair. Thank you for giving me the opportunity. My name is Memna I come from the Internet. Two things, on the high level panel, I think it's stated that individuals in their personal capacity and it is very important, I know the two ladies who are here and I can assure you that they are, they may not be in the IGF crowd, they may not be the IGF crowd but they are squarely in the tech world. One is a SME and one is an advocate. But we have ample opportunity to work on the content, and that is where I think influence is. I've met with the HLP members on different occasions. I can tell you, we know that content is king, so if we want to sit down and draft content, then we are sure to influence whatever process it is.
My second submission at this time is that originally we had agreed, correct me if I'm wrong, Mary, you have been around from the time I was convening West Africa IGF and later on to Africa IGF that we could use the opportunity of the Africa IGF to have proactive measures in Africa. We did discuss that with Chengetai and co, there was no restriction for us as Africans taking concrete decisions at the Continental level and going ahead and implementing them during our IGF. It is only the global IGF that we cannot bind others to decisions.
We can have it, the Europeans do it and do it as EuroDIG, why can't we have the Africa digital week as part of, instead of one Africa IGF. So that is something I'm flying off you.
The other thing is, every year we come, we have the same discussion, we have a declaration and we walk away. When are we going to start a state of Africa Internet report that traces these things we have agreed to, and have gone away, and then we can over the years map ourselves and say in this year we decided this, have we done that? I do recall in West Africa, we said we are going to make, put an end to Internet shutdowns. Have these decisions gone up to our capitals? Have we transmitted them? Are we going to keep to them?
We have great opportunity to model this for ourselves, content‑wise, action‑wise, and monitor ourselves, and my proposal at this moment is to have an annual state of Internet in Africa report to be presented at that session. Thank you.
(applause).
>> MODERATOR: Thank you very much, such valuable comments. Dr. Moctar can answer this question.
>> On the genders issue, I think in terms of the panels and even attendance, in Khartoum unfortunately we have many female panelist declining, so we had them and then last week they declined. That is why the panels, unlike Egypt, they were not gender balanced. I think we strive to, for gender balance, that you could see we had in Egypt, we had gender balance, even in terms of attendance in Egypt it was 50/50 almost. We also want to have youth in the panels as well.
So we will try to achieve this goal. We have it in mind.
The incident that took place in Khartoum which was sexist remark, we are trying to have a code of conduct, and people would accept that, we will abide by the code of conduct. Otherwise they would not be invited to the meeting. This is the first incident that we have during the African IGF for the last 7 or 8 years but it's a good reminder that we should keep a code of conduct not only for the panelists, even for also people attending and making comments. They have to abide by certain rules. So we are in the meeting, whether technical meeting, policy discussion meeting, no need to offend anyone.
I think the rest of the comments couldn't agree more, I think they are pertinent. I think we have been struggling to follow a different tact from the global IGF. We need to see some concrete results coming out of our IGFs. Some of the recommendations that the African Union is responsible for, for which we can be held responsible for, we can track, we can see what happens on them, but for the other recommendations like for civil society, for other players, businesses, we don't have control over, hopefully the leaders in those sectors, they will take the recommendations seriously and try to act on them.
But in terms of the African Unions, I think we are trying to follow most of the recommendation, and you could see some concrete results coming out of that. I think I stop at that, Moctar can add comments.
>> Thank you. My answer will be actually on two, first, the shutdowns, the shutdowns we have frankly speaking there to do something that has never been done before, which is actually bring the ministers out at the table and speak about the shutdowns. We have done it three times, we have done it also for the diplomats. The conclusion I personally got from that is that there is no really specific intention to shut down, it's because they don't know what kind of solution they do to address the specific matter on security, most of our leadership don't understand how to address that. So education here is very important for them, to understand that there is many options to address specific security matter without shutting down Internet everywhere.
This is ongoing process. On the issue, I agree we don't have to do like anyone else, we do our own things, and I don't think that there is anywhere somebody who had a head of state adopting a declaration on IG, oh, France just did, but we did it before France. Guys, we have to know that we have a lot of things that we are doing that other people did not do. For instance, the African Union, the only continent that have Cybersecurity convention on Cybersecurity and personal data protection, guidelines on personal data protections, it's unique in the world, by the way. We are the only ones specifically do have the declaration adopted by the states, original principle, so this is something positive to talk about. I agree leadership need to be present everywhere. We have good leaders here and there. But generally speaking, the leadership within the ICT sector is actually meeting a lot of challenges because most of our leadership don't understand the matter of ICT. They just don't understand, most of them I spoke with most of the time, they think the telephone was very well, the Internet connectivity works well, that is enough, or is fine. But that is not ICT.
But again, the good thing, there is no opposition, there is no negative relation to that, it's just they don't understand what to do. That is why probably we have to come up with innovative solutions, innovative proposals. But having done that, once we do that, we shouldn't stop there, because put our own resources, unfortunately the perception again is still within our leadership that the private sector is doing well in providing connectivity, mobile phone, Internet, and all the resources will be put for security, for Ebola things, for, I mean they have peace and security issues everywhere. Those priorities make them really turning their can I say back to ICT matters, but again personally I don't see any opposition. It's just lack of means, we don't have resources.
These programs, most of them, 99 percent of the programs we are starting and implementing, including access, all of that is being funded by partners. If you face this kind of situation, then you have a problem. That is the biggest problem. Our member states still don't put resources on things. Then the challenge of the team, the commission, there are funds, on Saturday they will be talking about reforms with head of state. One of the things at least 70 percent of the budget for programs, AU should implement, should be funded by the member state, not by the partners.
We will go through, see on Sunday what is going to happen. There is a new reform where probably the entire department in ICT may disappear somewhere else. So, well, yes, this is challenges, probably next month I not have a job, you never know. But those things are happening and you have to be aware of it and have alternatives. But again I couldn't agree more that we need stronger leadership, more educated leadership and have our own initiatives, and all I can say, the team and I will be willing to listen. We have proven most of the time we bring something from this informal kind of setting we bring it to formal settings and make it approved and adopted. Not every time, we don't succeed every time, but we hope that we will be having a better rate in the future. That is what I can say at this point of time. But again, we are at your service. We will be glad to listen to anything. Specifically when you make a proposal, where we think about what kind of resources we put behind it, that is the challenge. I like the idea of having our state actually, we have taken decision 2008 to have an annual report on the status of ICT in Africa every year. But unfortunately, we could only have done one simply because there is no resources.
I think we are being kicked out of the room.
>> We are over our 7 minutes.
>> (overlapping speakers).
>> Finally, allow me to thank all of you for the appreciative discussion and fruitful outcomes. And declaring close of session, thank you very much.