Report-of-BDF-2016
From October 13 to 15, 2016, the second edition of the Benin DNS Forum was held in Cotonou (Benin)
The Monitoring and the Organization Committees of the Benin DNS Forum are pleased to share with you the global report of this second edition.
Today, the Benin DNS Forum is now known as the “go to place” in the arena of high-level debates on the security of the Internet and its DNS protocols. The participation statistics and the support of various organizations at national and international level at this meeting demonstrate, if need be, its importance and relevance. Thanks to this inclusive chain of partners, sponsors and local support organizations, the 2016 edition of the Benin DNS Forum was a success at different levels.
First, at the institutional level, the support to the Woman DNS Academy programme and the stakeholders’ interest in the discussions of the public forum around the use of the DNS give a strong signal to an awareness of the national stakeholders around the economy, Governance and security of the Internet infrastructure. We can already rejoice at the obvious willingness of the incumbent telecoms operator Benin Telecom SA to implement DNS resolvers in its 4G infrastructure that provides Internet access.
Then, at the level of the Beninese technical community, there is a growing interest in Internet-related issues and the role of each actor in setting up a multi-actor ecosystem for the resilience of the Internet in Benin. For example, the Benin IPv6 Task Force (B6) and Benin DNSSEC Task Force (BDSEC) Benin DNS Forum working groups, made up of engineers and volunteer technicians from the Beninese community, work to stimulate decision-making bodies in the ICT sector to take into account the aspects of the DNS in the definition of the institutional and digital development policy framework.
Finally, at the level of international organizations such as ICANN, La Francophonie, ISOC, governance of the Internet and its critical resources, women’s participation in the ICT sector and young people’s digital entrepreneurship are now included in their top priorities agenda in the ICT sector. This justifies the importance of the support they provide to the organization of the Benin DNS Forum.
While the third edition in 2017 is on the horizon, new perspectives are opening up to help to sustain the achievements of the past editions. These include projects on the DNS, among others: the « DNSaThone », which will set up a prototype of the Internet infrastructure and a study on the resilience of the DNS in Benin to be presented during the next Forum by 2017.