On July 19-21, the Africa Internet Governance Forum (AfIGF 2022) is being held in a hybrid format in Lilongwe (Malawi). The Forum is being held for the 11th time and brought participants not only from most African countries, but also from Europe, America, and Asia. Representatives of public organizations, Internet business, state and interstate structures take part in the Forum.
The overarching theme of the Forum is "Internet for human resilience and solidarity", and the main thematic areas this year are: 1) Affordable and meaningful access; 2) Cybersecurity, privacy and personal data protection; 3) Digital skills & human capacity development; 4) Digital skills & human capacity development.
Experts of the Coordination Center for TLD .RU/.РФ also participate in the Forum. Chief Analyst of the Coordination Center Maria Kolesnikova addressed the section "Meaningful Access to the Internet in local languages with Universal Acceptance". Panelists discussed how Universal Acceptance would help billions of non-English speaking users access and use the power of the Internet. The speakers of the section agreed that the Internet makes sense when people not only get access to the network, but also enjoy all the benefits of the Internet in their native language. This is possible, among other things, by achieving Universal Acceptance (UA) of domain names and email addresses at all levels.
Maria Kolesnikova also spoke about the work of the Russian registry and the Regional Coordination Group on Universal Acceptance of CIS and Eastern Europe, as well as the importance of including government representatives, technology companies and experts in this process. She noted that Universal Acceptance is an important aspect of the development of a multilingual Internet, which ensures that domain names and e-mail addresses in any language or script are equally accepted by all Internet services and devices. But in order for it to become possible, active cooperation at the global and local levels is required.
“And at the local level, the work to implement Universal Acceptance is closely related not only to the technical efforts to move from ASCII to Unicode, but also to promote the ability to create user-generated content, conduct online business, provide e-government services or other social projects in local languages,” – added Maria Kolesnikova.
According to Maria Kolesnikova, the work of local initiatives is extremely important. She cited the activities of the Regional Coordination Group on Universal Acceptance of CIS and Eastern Europe as an example. “The local initiative is the main point of expertise and knowledge gathering on Universal Acceptance at the regional or individual country level, its activities are also related to the dissemination and exchange of this knowledge with other stakeholders, including end users. This allows us to coordinate work at the local level and make it more focused, taking into account regional specifics,” said Maria Kolesnikova. She also expressed her readiness to share the experience of the local initiative with all those who plan to start such activities in their country or region.
