Kenya IGF, the national initiative (NRI) of the IGF process has positioned itself as Kenya’s Premier Policy Forum having successfully held 14 annual meetings of the National IGF in Kenya since 2008. KenyaIGF hosted the global IGF Forum in 2011. Over the years, Kenya IGF has continued to open up the space for new voices and champion the capacity development of many through the annual Kenya School of Internet Governance that was launched in 2016. Majority of the beneficiaries of this program have been youth from various stakeholder groups who have since been meaningfully engaged in subsequent National and Regional IGFs.
Kenya YouthIGF
Young people are key stakeholders in the IGF ecosystem as they are the majority in Kenya, Africa and the world over. The IGF Secretariat has since recognized the importance of meaningful youth participation at the IGF processes and promotes the strengthening of Youth IGF Initiatives. Youth Initiatives of the IGF are created with a goal of encouraging and involving young people in a substantive discussion on Internet governance. These forms, as well as the national, sub-regional and regional IGFs (NRIs), are expected to follow the main IGF principles of being open, inclusive, non-commercial with multi-stakeholder participation during the whole preparatory phase and the event itself, all in line with a bottom-up decision-making process.
Kenya Youth IGF is a youth-led structure to develop the capacity for coordinating, mobilizing and advocating for meaningful inclusion and engagement of young people in the Kenya IGF in partnership with industry stakeholders to address key Internet issues. Following the success of last year’s edition, this year’s Kenya YouthIGF aims at serving as an interactive discussion platform for organized youth participation from all stakeholder groups to bring up their ideas and concerns. The Forum will further create opportunities for networking, collaboration and creating long-term partnerships between key stakeholders and the community.