This month is an active one for West African Internet Governance Forums. From May 21 through the end of June, eight West African nations will be privy to a country-specific IGF. The events come in advance of the 6th annual WAIGF Regional Forum in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire.

Most recently (22nd June 2013) came IGF Burkina. Thanks to the Twitter coverage from Lardia Thiombiano (@tlardia) we are able to read a veritable transcript of the event.

The following themes arose during IGF Burkina Faso (translated from French):

• the online need to discern truth from fiction
• the decline in the quality of telecom providers
• how Internet can play either a positive or negative role on peace (calming information is better at certain times)
• role of ARCEP (telecom regulator) – list of laws, annual audit, assigner of domain names, issuer of penalties
• the possibility of lower communication costs
• how consumers appear passive
• incomplete network coverage
• how ARCEP believes users have adequate access to 3G
• the dynamic nature of ICT makes law enforcement difficult

Stay tuned for summaries of future IGF events!