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UNDP HELPS KARZAI GOVERNMENT SECURE AFGHAN NATIONAL PRESENCE ON THE WORLD
WIDE WEB
March 10,
Today's formal activation of Afghanistan's new Top Level Domain (ccTLD), as Internet country codes are known, marks the culmination of a complex international application process, and the parallel development of new telecommunications links enabling Afghanistan to put the the new .af domain to immediate use.
More important, Afghan officials noted, it marks a symbolic break with the recent past: Under the Taliban regime, use of the Internet was ruthlessly suppressed, with non-governmental use of e-mail services and website punishable by death.
"For
“The Government has made ICT a priority,”
added Minister Stanakzai at the opening of a three-day conference in
The first websites registered under the new
".af" domain are the www.moc.gov.af site
of the Ministry of Communications,
which is spearheading
To commemorate the occasion for
“A modern
telecommunications system, including full Internet access, is critical to the recovery and development efforts
now being carried out by the Islamic Transitional Government of Afghanistan,”
Murat said. "The UNDP team here is
very gratified that we were able to help
Equivalent to a country code for telephone numbers, the .af Internet suffix has now been reserved exclusively for
private and official e-mail and World Wide Web users in
In 2001, the Taliban regime prohibited non-governmental Internet use, ordering its Ministry for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to “prosecute the violators of this edict and in case of proof, religious punishment should be applied on them.”
In November 2001, under attack from Afghan and UN-backed
coalition forces, Taliban forces fled
ICANN worked with UNDP staff to explain the technical and
administrative requirements for a ccTLD registry, and to prepare the necessary
technical, administrative and policy arrangements. UNDP helped to hire and train national
Afghan staff and provide fellowships. It solicited assistance from the private
sector and obtained two donated computer servers from Sun Systems, a US-based
company. UNDP drafted a technical plan and presented it to the government. It
prepared all of the necessary documentation requested by ICANN.
The documentation was
reviewed and approved by ICANN, and
today the .af ccTLD has been handed over to the Ministry of Communications. The
Ministry’s technical partner will be UNDP, which has a global technical
infrastructure, including long experience in running DNS services. UNDP’s global
network spans every kind of internet environment, from the most advanced to the
most rudimentary, from UN headquarters in
Though it is preferable for
a ccTLD to have its technical operations inside the country, that is still not
an option for
To carry out its
responsibilities as the new technical manager of the .af ccTLD, UNDP has agreed
to host the main country code domain server at its headquarters in
Working closely with Afghan communities and government
ministries, UNDP has many other IT-related initiatives in the country. It helped
to ensure internet connectivity with direct satellite access for Chairman
Karzai’s Office, the Afghanistan Aid Coordination Authority and the Ministry of
Women’s Affairs. A UNDP contribution of $80,000 provided assistance to the creation of
the Government’s intranet system, including the training for and installation of
microwave towers in ten sites.
In addition,
UNDP and CISCO created the CISCO Academy at Kabul University. which is
now run by local faculty. UNDP has also helped to establish ICT training centers
in Kabul, Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif, offering training to civil servants as well as to private citizens, with a
special emphasis on women. At the
policy level, the Ministry of Communications works closely with UNDP, which
offers advisory services for Internet Service Provider licensing, ICT policy
formulation and regulation. As the UN’s global development network, UNDP organized international ICT policy
workshops for senior Afghan policy-makers with ICT experts from other
countries.
The UNDP ICT program is an integral part of the overall
UN assistance program for Afghanistan.
For further information or to arrange interviews with
Minister Stanakzai contact:
Svetlana Murtazalieva in
Aimal Marjan in
- or--
Cherie Hart in Bangkok: cherie.hart@undp.org; 662 288 2133
Laura Ngo-Fontaine in Geneva:
laura.ngo-fontaine@undp.org
William Orme in New York: william.orme@undp.org; 212 906 5382
