Thank you Director of Ceremonies,

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2 Thank you Director of Ceremonies, Heads of International Organizations Permanent Secretaries Chairpersons of various Boards of Directors Heads of Parastatal Organizations and the Private Sector Heads of Department The Media Fraternity Distinguished Guests Ladies and Gentlemen

3 1. I have the honour and privilege to be here with you today, to officiate on the opening of the African Union (AU)-SADC Regional Internet Exchange Point and Regional Internet Carrier Workshop. 2. Director of Ceremonies, this Regional workshop marks an important occasion where AU and SADC have made a collaborative effort to share ideas, common ideals and experiences with us on best practices and benefits of setting up Regional Internet Exchange Points and Regional Internet Carrier to build capacity in the region. 3. The workshop is part of an ongoing mobilisation and technical awareness process to support the

4 establishment of Internet Exchange Points in AU member states as part of the African Internet Exchange System (AXIS) project. This development is in line with the African Union (AU) Heads of State decision in 2010 to link major cities on the continent to support economic growth and improve communications and information technology on the continent.the project aims at creating opportunities for the emergence of Regional Carriers facilitating regional peering and continental transit. 4. Director of Ceremonies in the last decade the mantra, keep local e-traffic local has been the phrase amongst the internet community and today I would

5 like to reiterate this by this extended one, keep regional etraffic regional. Most of Africa s Internet traffic is routed through exchange points outside Africa. The cost and the delay/latency implications of routing traffic through international exchange points outside the continent are heavy. Our answer is a straight forward one, we need to set up an effective national and regional interconnectivity, peering and Internet traffic exchange. 5. At this moment I would like to acknowledge the kind of challenges that we face to achieve regional interconnectivity. By my assessment, the greatest challenges are regulatory and infrastructure challenges. Many countries have different philosophies in governance and administration of the

6 Internet and this can always impede on advancement of internet. As a region, we need to come up with common strategies of how we can effectively deal with these issues and I would like to thank SADC for organising this important forum to finally debate how we can improve costs, latency, and bandwidth utilisation for routing internet traffic. 6. Director of Ceremonies, allow me to take this opportunity to share with you where we are in Botswana. Through our association of ISPs we have managed to set up a Botswana Internet Exchange Point or BINX. We have deliberately set it up to be a neutral and non discriminatory environment where commercial ISPs and other key organizations interconnect their separate networks to keep local

7 traffic local. There is still a lot that can be done as we desire exchange points like these to be interconnected in the region. 7. Director of Ceremonies, on a positive note I am happy to announce that there has been significant improvement to Africa s Internet connectivity over the past 5 years due to investments in International Connectivity undersea fiber optic cables which availed high bandwidth capacity. It is however noteworthy to mention that the full benefits of the investments on undersea cables from different parts of the region have not been realised due to local access network challenges especially the last mile. It is imperative to prioritise on improving backbone networks, universal

8 access of services and regulatory reforms which will support establishment of the regional Internet Exchange point and Regional Internet Carrier. 8. In December 2012 my Ministry had an opportunity to attend the ITU WCIT-12 in Dubai which revised the International Telecommunications Regulations (ITRs) a treaty for the provision and operation of international telecommunications services. we were really encouraged by the outcomes, particularly Article 3, which covers several key issues such as quality of service, the right to communicate at good technical quality and to promote the implementation of regional telecommunication traffic exchange points. These provisions should not only improve service

9 quality but also help to bring down the cost of services to consumers and I am happy that our region promoting (IXPs) as a long term solution to advance connectivity. 9. In conclusion, I would like to pass my sincere thanks to SADC for creating this opportunity for the stakeholders to be equipped on best practices for setting up RIXPs and RICs. As governments we cannot do it alone and we recognize the need for collaborative process of the global community to continue to grow and expand the Internet to create value for all our citizens. With that I would like to wish you a very fruitful week of discussions. 10. Thank you