Who Holds the Pen, Who Sets the Room in Internet Governance

Contemporary Internet governance is no longer shaped primarily by discrete decisions or formal mandates, but by something quieter and more consequential: the control of process design. Who convenes, who drafts, who frames the questions, and who records the outcomes increasingly determines what later appears as consensus, reform, or inevitability. This shift is not the result of institutional malice or ideological capture. It is the predictable outcome of governance operating under pressure, where urgency compresses participation and authorship migrates upward before accountability mechanisms can follow.

There are moments in governance reform when the most important signals do not appear in constitutions, press releases, or formal declarations. They appear instead in program agendas, speaker sequencing, and coordination roles. These signals are easy to overlook because they are procedural rather than political. Yet in technical governance systems, procedure is not peripheral. It is the substance from which legitimacy is built.

How Internet Governance and Legitimacy are re-authored?

In multistakeholder systems, legitimacy is not produced solely by participation at the point of decision. It is produced earlier, at the point where problems are framed, options are bounded, and process rules are established. Authorship, in this sense, is not about credit or visibility, but about defining the space in which outcomes become possible.

As governance shifts toward accelerated, security-oriented coordination, this authorship function increasingly resides with those who convene across institutions, fund processes, or synthesize outcomes into “joint work” products. These roles are often described as neutral, facilitative, or supportive. In practice, they carry structural power. The choice of what is discussed, what is excluded, what is summarized, and what is presented as consensus shapes legitimacy long before any community deliberation formally occurs.

This does not imply bad faith. It reflects a structural mismatch between the speed at which authority now operates and the slower, deliberative mechanisms through which multistakeholder legitimacy was designed to be generated. When communities encounter outcomes primarily as finished narratives rather than co-authored processes, participation becomes reactive. Accountability becomes retrospective. Legitimacy is asserted after the fact rather than constructed along the way.

Over time, this pattern normalizes a substitution: procedural ownership replaces community authorship, and consultation substitutes for consent. Institutions remain formally multistakeholder, but their role shifts from shaping decisions to explaining them. The system does not collapse, it hollows.

A necessary clarification: support is normal, ambiguity is not

It is important to state clearly what this analysis does not argue. Development agencies routinely support governance processes through funding, facilitation, expertise, and convening power. This is neither unusual nor improper. In many contexts, such support is indispensable. Nor is there any presumption here (in this write-up) that external partners intend to direct outcomes or substitute themselves for member/community authority.

The issue arises only when three conditions coincide:

• first, when a member-based technical institution is under reform stress;
• second, when external actors are visibly involved in convening and framing the reform conversation and seek support of “heads of states”¹ and their “endorsement” for such reforms;
• and third, when the boundaries of that involvement are left undocumented while public narratives suggest shared authorship or “joint work.”

In such circumstances, procedural clarity is not a courtesy, but a stabilizing requirement and a trust anchor. Naming roles does not weaken reform, it protects it.

Africa is not exceptional, Africa is early.

Enter AFRINIC, Smart Africa, ICANN, GIZ, and the Quiet Question of Process Ownership

The Africa Internet Summit (AIS) in Accra in 2025 offered such a moment. The summit was held from September 29 to October 3, 2025, as reflected in official AIS program materials and session documentation published by the AIS Secretariat.

AFRINIC, the Regional Internet Registry for Africa, is neither a political authority nor a regulatory body. It is a member-based technical coordination institution whose authority flows from a bottom-up policy development process grounded in operational consensus among network operators, as set out in AFRINIC’s bylaws and Policy Development Process documentation

This distinction is not philosophical, rather it is functional. The stability of the global Internet depends on the predictability and neutrality of this model.

When AFRINIC entered a period of institutional stress, it was unsurprising that regional platforms, governments, global Internet institutions, and development partners sought to support stabilization efforts, though according to their understanding of “the way forward”, the core issues, apparently without member consultation, also at a slow pace and very late, but appreciated.

However, Support, in itself, is not the issue. The issue is how support is exercised, and whether its boundaries are sufficiently clear to preserve the procedural legitimacy on which a technical institution depends.

Accra first: where the procedural questions surfaced

On the sidelines “margin” of AIS 2025, Smart Africa convened a High-Level Multistakeholder Forum on AFRINIC Reforms and the proposed Continental Africa Internet Governance Architecture (CAIGA). This was not an informal exchange, but was a formally scheduled, programmatically structured session, though no public invitations sent to members of Afrinic through member-lists, nor through the targeted emails they used to circulate to all members, I have no idea how attendees were invited or selected, I was invited on that morning on-site, but the session reflected later in the official AIS agenda and session deck.

The official agenda placed opening remarks in a deliberate sequence. Among the first speakers was Niklas Malchow, Head of Project at Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ).

In governance forums, opening remarks are not ceremonial, they frame the problem space.

According to the official recording and meeting minutes of the session, the GIZ Representative Mr. Malchow stated:

“AFRINIC stability is not just a technical matter but a benchmark for Africa’s digital sovereignty. As we all know, AFRINIC plays a central role as the Regional Internet Registry for Africa, ensuring that IP number resources are managed fairly and transparently. Strengthening and supporting AFRINIC’s integrity is therefore essential for the continent’s digital independence. GIZ is proud to support Smart Africa and AFRINIC in this journey by bringing both legal and technical expertise that strengthens governance and accountability, while ensuring that reforms are anchored in operational excellence.”

Read narrowly, this is a statement of support, but Read procedurally, it frames AFRINIC reform as a sovereignty benchmark and positions development-supported legal and technical expertise as a contributor to governance and accountability outcomes.

As we mentioned, “sovereignty, a distinction should be made between digital sovereignty, data sovereignty, state sovereignty, regional sovereignty, and internet sovereignty. It is my view that Digital sovereignty is a seductive but conceptually bankrupt idea. It drags internet governance into the politics of borders, identities, and imagined sovereignties. Africa is not a sovereign unit; it is a plurality of more than fifty sovereignties. Any policy claiming continental “sovereignty” over global identifiers is not governance; it is a geopolitical theatre, and a dangerous one at that.

AIS2025 Accra therefore surfaced a boundary question that had not yet been openly articulated: where does development-supported convening end, and where does process ownership begin, when the subject is a member-based, bottom-up technical institution?

ICANN84: when the narrative became explicit

At ICANN83, Smart Africa, presented the African Internet Governance Blueprint on June 9 and on June 11, 2025 presented the proposed Coalition Africa Internet Governance Authorities (CAIGA), I couldn’t find a public record for this latter meeting.

Only After Africa Internet Summit Accra (September 29-october 3, 2025) did this procedural tension crystallize into a public narrative outside board rooms, following the presentation done at the sidelines of AIS 2025. Then comes ICANN84 with a brief presentation, the dates and official program are publicly available through ICANN’s meeting archive. ICANN84 in Dublin (October 25–30 2025). This presentation was followed by a public Smart Africa statement asserting that:

“This achievement reflects two years of joint work with ICANN, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, and Smart Africa Member States.” That statement was published by Smart Africa on LinkedIn and remains publicly accessible

In Internet governance, the phrase “joint work” is not neutral. It implies more than attendance, more than capacity building, and more than funding. It suggests co-production and shared responsibility.

Initial scrutiny understandably focused on ICANN, particularly questions of neutrality and boundary-setting within the RIR system e.g. here and here. Those questions were sharpened further by ICANN’s subsequent clarification titled ”ICANN’s Commitment to the Africa Community”.

However, the record made clear that ICANN could not be examined in isolation. If “joint work” is claimed publicly, analytical consistency requires that all named partners be examined under the same procedural lens, including GIZ.

What the documents say, and what they do not

The core texts defining the reform architecture include the CAIGA Constitution, the CAIGA Standard Operating Procedures, the Final AFRINIC Reform Advisory Report, and the CAIGA PRESENTATION, all of which were circulated as part of the CAIGA package following the Accra meeting, in my case upon request, the meeting minutes were sent where the documents links are embedded.

Across these documents, one feature is consistent: GIZ is not mentioned. There is no attribution, advisory role, implementation mandate, or facilitation function recorded.

The same absence appears in ICANN83 Smart Africa and GAC Africa agenda documents, where CAIGA and the Blueprint were discussed in detail ahead of the Transform Africa Summit (documented in ICANN83-GAC AF Agenda-Final.pdf).

By contrast, the operational record of the Accra forum tells a different story. The CAIGA Data Processing and Attendance Notice lists GIZ as data controller and coordinator of the forum. The agenda places GIZ in the opening speaker sequence, and the meeting minutes record GIZ’s intervention as framing AFRINIC reform in terms of credibility, transparency, and investment conditions.

These are not incidental details, are they structural design choices?

Capacity, mandate, and pattern

This operational role aligns with GIZ’s publicly documented mandate. GIZ operates a BMZ-commissioned multi-year programme (2024—2027) titled ”Smart Africa - Acceleration of the Digital Transformation in Africa”, which identifies Smart Africa as a key institutional partner and assigns GIZ responsibilities in organizational development, stakeholder coordination, and policy dialogue

In other sectors, GIZ and Smart Africa have jointly produced multiple blueprint-style instruments, with GIZ explicitly responsible for content authorship, such as GIZ Digital Innovation for Africa (2025)

None of this implies control over AFRINIC or CAIGA, but it does establish a pattern of operating at the intersection of convening, coordination, and policy framing within Smart Africa-led initiatives.

The issue, therefore, is not presence, it is alignment. When an actor is operationally present, programmatically embedded, and strategically mandated, yet absent from constitutive and advisory texts, a governance asymmetry emerges.

In member-based technical institutions, where legitimacy is procedural rather than political, such asymmetry requires explicit boundary-setting.

Absent that clarity, two narratives coexist: a textual narrative of internally generated reform, and a procedural narrative of externally supported framing. Legitimacy and trust break not because support exists, but rather because the difference between these narratives remains unexplained.

Legality and Legitimacy When the Subject Is AFRINIC

The tension revealed by the Smart Africa-GIZ engagement around AFRINIC reform is best understood not as a dispute over legality, but as a question of legitimacy.

From a legal standpoint, nothing described above is inherently improper. Smart Africa is a lawful intergovernmental platform, while GIZ operates under a clear mandate from the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. Convening forums, providing expertise, coordinating stakeholders, and supporting reform processes all fall squarely within the legal authority of the actors involved. No document examined here suggests an unlawful act, an ultra vires mandate, or a breach of formal competence.

But the RIR system authority does not rest primarily on legality.

AFRINIC is a Regional Internet Registry, recognized through the checklist of ICP-2, among other things. It is neither a statutory regulator, a treaty-based organization, nor a governmental agency. Its authority is procedural. It flows from the continued consent of its members, expressed through open participation, transparent processes, and predictable decision-making. In such institutions, legitimacy is not inferred from who is legally allowed to act, but from how decisions are framed, who is seen to shape them, and whether the membership recognizes itself in the process.

This is where the distinction becomes consequential.

A reform process can be entirely lawful and yet procedurally illegitimate if the community perceives that outcomes are being shaped outside its established decision paths, or that external actors occupy framing roles without clearly articulated limits, especially if “endorsements” comes from “heads of states”. Conversely, a process with extensive external support can remain fully legitimate if those roles are named, bounded, and visibly subordinate to member-driven mechanisms.

When AFRINIC is the subject of reform, this distinction is amplified. Any initiative that touches AFRINIC’s governance, credibility, and consequently Members, or future architecture, inevitably intersects with the RIR system as a whole. That system functions not because it is legally entrenched, but because it is trusted. Trust, in turn, is maintained through procedural discipline.

Seen through this lens, the concern raised here is not whether Smart Africa or GIZ is legally entitled to support reform discussions. It is whether the procedural signals surrounding that “support” are aligned with the legitimacy requirements of a member-based technical institution. Agenda placement, convening authority, public narratives of “joint work,” and silence in constitutive texts all become relevant not as evidence of wrongdoing, but as indicators of how legitimacy may be perceived.

This is why clarity matters more than intent.

Legitimacy does not fail when actors act in good faith; rather, it fails when good-faith action produces ambiguity about who holds authority, who sets direction, and how consent is obtained. In Internet governance, such ambiguity is rarely corrected after the fact. It accumulates quietly until trust erodes.

The Smart Africa—GIZ engagement around AFRINIC, therefore, presents a familiar governance challenge: how to reconcile lawful support with legitimate process when the institution concerned derives its authority not from states or donors, but from its members, and members are not being invited?

Answering that challenge does not require withdrawal, nor does it require confrontation, but articulation. Explicit boundaries, documented roles, and an unambiguous reaffirmation that, where AFRINIC is concerned, legitimacy follows procedure, not sponsorship, and not Political Endorsements.

Clarifications requested from GIZ

The risk here is role confusion under stress.

1 Nature of Engagement

Could GIZ clarify the precise nature of its engagement with respect to:

• the African Internet Governance Blueprint, and
• The Coalition of Africa Internet Governance Authorities (CAIGA)?
• The Afrinic Final Reform Paper

Specifically, whether GIZ’s role has involved:

• financial or programmatic support,
• legal or technical advisory input,
• facilitation or convening of dialogue, and/or
• participation in drafting, steering, endorsement, or approval processes.
• The suggestion of endorsement by Heads of states

2 Scope Relating to AFRINIC

Has GIZ provided, directly or indirectly, any legal, technical, or governance input that:

• proposes changes to AFRINIC’s internal governance structures,
• affects AFRINIC member rights, processes, elections, or bylaws, or
• envisages any supervisory, coordinating, or reform-oversight role with respect to AFRINIC beyond its community-defined framework?

3 Authorship and Decision Authority

In relation to the publicly referenced “two years of joint work,” could GIZ clarify:

• whether it exercised any drafting, decision-making, validation, or sign-off authority over the content of the “IG-Blueprint” or “CAIGA”, and
• how community consultation, feedback, and consent mechanisms were defined and operationalized.

4 Institutional Independence Safeguards

How does GIZ ensure, in practice, that its support for digital governance initiatives in Africa remains fully consistent with the independence, neutrality, Trust, Bottom-Up, Transparency, and member-driven legitimacy of technical coordination institutions such as AFRINIC?

AFRINIC’s authority depends on the reality and perception that its reform path is driven by its members and governed by its own procedures. External support can strengthen that path, but only if its limits are articulated clearly and documented transparently.

Internet governance has endured not by avoiding power, but by disciplining power through process. Africa’s digital future deserves the same care.

The question raised is not whether reform should occur, but whether it will be remembered as member-driven and community-led, even when supported from the outside.

A Valid question remain: if this “CAIGA”, and its surrounding processes, derived from the IG-BLUEPRINT, succeed and get endorsed, what would stop other governments in other regions from replicating this structure, placing the RIR under political influence? And why AFRICA?

That is another question worth answering carefully.