For the ICANN local organizing committee, today is a great day, it is the last day of the meeting, which by any standards can be considered a success considering the security video produced by ICANN just before the meeting.

From December last year, the LOC was involved more in answering security questions, whether the ruling coalition will break and whether the Al Shabab terrorist group will get away from the lucrative piracy along the gulf of Aden to attack KICC. No one denied that there were security concerns but thats a common denominator for many countries, rich or poor.

In retrospect, I think the whole security debate benefitted Kenya and to some extent the continent. ICANN meetings have geographical rotation and am sure issues of security will come up the next time Africa is meant to host the meeting.

For Kenya, the successful meeting is vital, given that the Internet Governance Forum will be held in the country next year. If the IGF raises the security issues, Kenya can point to ICANN and the security video, and the success that was achieved.

To ICANN, the remote participation was good, the online participation matrix was shared before the meeting started and the parallel meetings in the US now look a bit ill advised.

The 100mb bandwidth at the conference venue was very stable, I did not experience any hitches, even during the opening ceremony, where there were at least 100 laptops on; everyone at ICANN at least carries a laptop but not all were on at the time.

For the ICANN participants who danced at the Carnivore till 4am, it just shows that they were enjoying the hospitality and the good things that the country has to offer. For those who took the Safaris, that is better than the caged animals out there.

The meeting was optional for many people but for those in the new gTLD debate, it was important to have the two minutes on the mic in the public forum. Even members of the Government Advisory Committee took the mic, led by Bertrard De La Chapelle from France, who took the 2 minute Mic like 20 times, just to emphasize the importance of public sessions.

For the ICM guys, the Independent Review Committee and those interested in matters of transparency in ICANN, the .xxx debate was important and their presence is vital, even in the face of security concerns.

So, the meeting had lessons and successes for everyone; with more than 1000 people picking their conference bags, I think the meeting was a success and offers vital lessons to others holding meetings in Nairobi.

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In the months leading up to the ICANN meeting in Nairobi, majority of discussions and conference calls were dominated by security concerns and emergency meetings with some people wondering whether the meeting will take place or not.

Eventually some people decided to stay away. Yes, security is a concern but for everyone and no one can blame anyone for choosing safety over risk. Well, I had my opinions about the security debate, which have been expressed in blog posts scattered online.

However, it was nice to hear an admnission from Rod Beckstrom, ICANN president and CEO that perhaps the whole security debate was not handled well.

At a meeting with the Government Advisory Committee, Rod said that ICANN is striving to balance transparency and diplomacy and in this case, that balance may not have been well struck.

He was responding to the statement by Alice Munyua, CCK board, who alluded to the fact that the whole security saga may not have demonstrated respect to the local organizing committee and that the debate was dominated by security and not by serious issues.

Here is the verbatim GAC speech by Alice:

We thank the ICANN board and the ICANN community for resolving to get on with the meeting in Kenya despite the challenges and note that the geographic rotation of meeting locations is an important feature unique and special to ICANN.

However, we need to ask ourselves “what do these ICANN meetings leave behind in the various regions and/or countries?”

Kenya had ideals regarding the possible domino effect/impact that this meeting would have had in the EA region in terms of understanding ICANN, increased participation in ICANN and understanding of Internet policy and Internet governance generally (as you probably know, Kenya has offered to host the 2011 IGF). But we spent most of the months leading up to the meeting occupied and dealing with the meetings security issues due to the badly handled communication around it.

And this is not to deny that there were credible fears around the meeting security, particularly when it touches on the world’s common terrorism incidents, but communicating these same fears and efforts being made to ensure everyone's safety could have been handled more diplomatically and respectfully for  Kenya as host country, as a recognition   the hard work by the local organisers and ICANN staff.

We note that nearly all of the contracted parties (registries, registrars) are missing (physically) and have chosen to have parallel meetings in NY and Washington. What does this say about the ICANN processes? Has ICANN's foundation commitment to the introduction of competition and diversity in the DNS on the decline? If all of the registries and significant majority of registrars are based in North America what does this say? Is there a competition framework? Is it time to begin to explore the possibilities of a global one perhaps?  What will happen to the new gTLD's with registration costs that are prohibitive for most developing countries’?

Finally, we congratulate ICANN commitment to the principle of transparency, with the very active use of society networking tools, like twitter but we do believe that issues that affect a country's prospects should be handled more sensitively and respectively because they do tend to have an impact on not only  general effectiveness and efficiency of organising these kind of meetings but the  impact is broader than  the

internet and includes  issues of investment, tourism among others.

If the intentions, with the various processes including the AOC are to work towards internationalising ICANN, then ICANN must respect diversity and work more towards understanding other perspectives and interests.

There are many African governments and citizens who do not understand the role of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers.

For some, ICANN should operate in the bottom later ensuring that we have internet access and that the pipes are faster. Others think that ICANN should be involved in the running of domain registries, which are in shambles and in some cases fighting over petty issues. Others think that ICANN is there to fund them; talk of reliance on aid.

Of course ICANN has no role in all these things and what it points is that more outreach is needed and maybe ICANN should have an office in Africa.

But how? According to Rod Beckstrom, 90 percent of ICANN contributions come from North America, so that may be the reason why we have 3 offices in the US and none in Africa.

That makes sense; if Africa does not contribute anything, how will the office be supported? So, for Africa to be on level terms, then we must also be willing to contribute, but am not sure how when our registry operations are still manual.

I was chatting with Rafik Dammak, who accuses me of complaining or whining too much but then, what do I do?

Rafik told me of how the various constituencies within ICANN are always looking for participants but what do you do when they dont contribute to those meetings and in some cases stay outside within the coffee houses instead of meeting rooms?

Yes, its good to have geographical representations but we also need to start bringing something on the table and contributing to the debate more than we do currently.

Regarding the financial contributions, I have no words; will leave it for the others.

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In the last few weeks, members of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and numbers were fixated on the security issues in Kenya, the threats by Al Shabab was the reason many of the attendees stayed home to participate online.

But I must say am impressed with the people that turned up, actually I thought it would have been a nice time to pass some controversial stuff because you would have lesser people but alas....many of them came.

I was starting to feel it for the local organizers with all the preparations with dancers and dinner at Carnivore; its a popular tourist destination and its only fair that ICANN participants taste the goods.

But the lack of faith in local anything was so salient, in the morning, there was a blackout, every other place at KICC had power except the meeting room, so I asked what was the issue.

I was told that ICANN insisted that they did not want the generator provided by KICC and they had their own provided by the US embassy in Nairobi. But that generator did not work, and am sure no one said that that was not the fault of KICC.

It reminded me of the value of local knowledge and the kind of advise you get from the guys on the street.

Anyway, am happy with the turn out today; it validates so many other things that were said before.

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There is no doubt that Kenya and Africa in general will benefit from holding the ICANN meeting, the region still suffers from elementary problems; from policy makers who understand little about redelegation of domains apart from shouting hard, to the public that has misconceptions about their own Top Level Domains.

I have been following Africa's challenges and opportunities within ICANN like this post on why Africa should stop whining and an interview with Ann Rachel on ICANN's activities in the region which shows that majority of the work is with us in Africa, even though in a separate post, I address the digital gaps within ICANN

My position has always been that ICANN has a role to play, and it would help if ICANN understood the region more. With all due respect, I spoke to Rod Beckstrom, ICANN CEO and president, at the meeting in Seoul and it was clear that he needed to understand the region more, what the issues are and the nexus with ICANN.

I even told Brad White, ICANN media Director that by the time the Nairobi meeting is held, he should discuss with the boss more about the issues or atleast read my interview with Ann Rachel, just to make sure that at the end of it, issues concerning the region with be given prominence.

Yes, ICANN cant go out of its way but it would help very much that in his usual press conference, which in this case will have many local and regional journalists, (I hope), the CEO can connect our challenges with the opportunities at ICANN and that can only be done if he understands the issues well.

But there is always time, and we all have a role to play.

To some extent, the ICANN folks can not help us much in some of the problems, they require policy direction, investment, and consumer education. So, even if the whole government goes to an ICANN meeting, if you have not solved some of those problems, there is little that people can do.

I recall at the Cairo meeting, the late Ndukwe Kalu, from Nigeria, stood at the public forum and told participants of the problems that Africa was facing and that we needed help. The participants, who are usually busy on their laptops, stopped for a moment, then went back to normal business and no one actually responded to Kalu. Why? Because most of that has very little to do with ICANN; its the government and the IT industry to do 90 per cent of the work.

Then there is the thorny issue of redelegation of African domains, most African countries have complained, whined and all that, yet the TLDs are still a mess. Why? Because most of them are yet to make meaningful investments in critical infrastructure.

So, for the meeting to be in Nairobi, I am sure it will raise awareness on some of those issues, the issues that ICANN can help and what it can not. It will also be an opportunity for technical training for Africa's technical managers, for instance, AfTLD will be holding its meeting and training a week before.

It will also be a networking opportunity, and am sure some of the registry managers from the west, may feel compelled to help in one way or another. After all, they will be our visitors and according to African traditions, we treat visitors well because you just never know when you might need their help.

Yes, the meeting will have its positives but am in no way saying that the security situation should be ignored. Yes, it is important to me too, I have had my share of insecuruties, and I live with them every day, but life goes on. It is actually very safe at the 5-star hotels, the problems maybe in my neighborhood, where the unemployed youth and wannabe thugs terrorize the residents, you will have none of that because even in my neighborhood, we have security measures in place! But no one can guarantee me that I will not be mugged!

Yes, I am sure the police force will be on major alert and they will pour more cops on your that you can handle. But taking the meeting to Gigiri at the UN complex is no solution.

In my Gikuyu language we say "Mbura itekura igwatagia ruhuho" loosely meaning that that if its windy and rainy, then the rain might just not be sufficient and the wind will serve as the excuse.

In this case, if ICANN does not meet our expectations, because am sure there are expectations, then the security issue may just be an excuse. For instance, if ICANN does not draw the usual 1000 participants, it might say, ohh you know of the security situation in Nairobi bla bla bla....

Believe me when I say, Nairobi is safe, and people go on with their business as usual. By the time ICANN is held, the issue of the Jamaican muslim cleric might be solved, maybe the government will work out a way to repartriate him.

So, ICANN is important, but so are we! We are in Kenya, we are not planning to move, people are holding international meetings every day.

I think I can rest my case!

In March 2008, Nairobi was supposed to host Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) meeting. This is a huge meeting, ICANN uses about $ 2 million for these meetings, am sure you know what it means for the economy.

But the events that followed the 2007 elections meant that the meeting was cancelled, it was such a shame but that was understandable; after all, you do not want the people who control internet resources to fall into the traps of rival tribal gangs or to be caught in the cross fire.

After another round of presentations last year, the Kenya delegation led by Kenic and the Communications Commission of Kenya was able to convince the ICANN community that Kenya is safe enough, and they agreed to host the meeting this March.

We have been busy sweeping the roads and upgrading the hotels just to make sure that the most important ICANN community is happy, but they have never been, and I do not think they will ever be, if you ask me. I have been talking to sources within the organizing committee and ICANN has always had one niggling problem after another.

Last Friday's fracas with the muslims seems to have tipped the balance; ICANN now is contemplating moving the meeting to another safer city.

But if you ask me or any other ordinary Kenyan, I think ICANN does not understand the country and how it operates. Since 1998, Kenya has never been secure, according to US and UK embassies, yet its their installations that make us targets.

For whatever reasons, the country has always been rated poorly security wise, but which city is safe? New York? J' Burg? Cairo? Cassablanca? Am sure this is open to debate.

I think ICANN has its double standards; if they were truly concerned about the security, the meeting in Seoul would not have taken place; South Korea is always under alert because of North Korea nuclear intentions.

The meeting in Mexico city would not have gone on, after all every one there is said to carry a gun and the senior executives within ICANN membership were at risk of kidnappings. But the meetings took place.

So, why all the security farce about Nairobi?

I would love to point out a similar incident during the 2005 or around there Cricket world cup, where New Zealand forfeited their match with Kenya in Nairobi because of security situation. Sri Lanka agreed to play their match in Nairobi provided they were given top notch security, the government obliged.

By the time the plane carrying the Sri Lanka cricket team entered the Kenyan air space, they were escorted by helicopter gunships and all the other stuff you see in the movies. But Sri Lanka soon realized that no one was bothered with them; we whipped them and by the time they were going back to the airport, they took taxis and realized that no one cares.

In short, ICANN should know that they will come, they will hold their meeting, they will go away, and no one will probably remember they were here. How many people know about ICANN and what it does? How many people know that the people present are online millionaires?

ICANN has made demands that the meeting be moved to the UNEP Complex in Gigiri, and that the government should pay for all the charges bla bla... I think this is a move to alienate themselves from the ordinary kenyans. Getting to Gigiri is hectic let alone getting through the mean UN security staff.

Trust me, I have had my share of security incidences in Nairobi, but I do not think its worth canceling a meeting.

From my sources, I am told the government is paying for the gala dinner and all that, in other countries, ICANN has paid for that. So I think this is just a way for ICANN to make their demands and demonstrate their authority.

I am not saying that security measures should be ignored, but just know that poor security rating means more hardship allowance for the UN and embassy staff, so its in their interest to show Kenya on fire all the time.

One thing you should know that Kenya is a highly political company, all year round, stupid politics and we the media love it and exalt it, so deal with that. When you come and when you go, we will remain the same, and it does not mean ICANN will change anything, so get over it.

By the way, most people who will come will be holed up in lavish 5-star hotels where the thugs will not reach. The insecurity problem is for people like us who will have to walk home and deal with the neighborhood thugs.

The upshot of it is that ICANN should come, hold their meeting, give us the revenue, visit Maasai Mara and all the other areas, and go home. I am sure there will be enough cops guarding everywhere.

So, insecure or not, I think the meeting should go on. If you guys are not convinced, then you can move the meeting to wherever you want!

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