The Forum which is under the theme “Internet: A Freedom for All” is discussing Internet and Human Rights, Universal Access and Internet for Economic Development. The Forum also features a panel discussion on the Africa Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms, a Pan-African Initiative to promote human rights standards and principles of openness in internet policy formulation and implementation on the continent.
MFWA’s participation in WAIGF forms part of initiatives under the organisation’s ongoing regional Internet Freedom project. The project with funding support from UK-based Global Partners and Associates (GPA) seeks to highlight challenges of internet rights and usage in various countries of the region; mobilising and building civil society capacity to engage in internet rights advocacy; and working with governments to improve the internet environment in the region.
Earlier in March this year, the MFWA called on the Commissioner of the ICT and Telecom Department of the ECOWAS Commission, Dr. Isaias Barreto da Rosa, to brief him and his senior staff, on MFWA’s internet freedom project and the African Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms.
Commissioner Barreto da Rosa pledged the Commission’s commitment to promoting ICT development and the internet environment in West Africa adding that in demonstration of that, a session will be dedicated to discussions on the Africa Declaration on Internet Rights and Freedoms at the June WAIGF.
“We are very much happy that the ECOWAS ICT Commission indeed kept its promise of giving the Declaration a priority attention at the WAIGF. The Declaration seeks to cultivate an internet environment that can best meet Africa’s social and economic development needs and goals with a mission for it to be widely endorsed by all those with a stake in the internet in Africa to help shape approaches to internet policy-making and governance across the continent. We sincerely hope discussions of this document will yield maximum endorsements for the declaration “- said MFWA’s Internet Freedom Project Co-ordinator, Dora B. Mawutor.
The MFWA is represented by Sulemana Braimah, the Executive Director, Dora B. Mawutor Programme Officer and Co-ordinator of the Internet Freedom Project and Vivian Affoah Programme Assistant for the MFWA’s Free Expression Rights, Monitoring and Campaigns Programme.
Issued by the MFWA in Accra on June 18, 2015.
