dear AFRIK-IT,

i'm looking for an internet lawyer to hire full-time, in NG.

background: i'm a ghana-born swedish-ancestry russian-educated american
citizen living in paris, a senior manager in a family of small NGOs which
work in a number of countries to strengthen independent media
(www.internews.ru, www.internews.org, www.internews.or.id, etc.). i started
working on computers and networks in the early '80s, am a founding member of
ISOC, and am a principle tech decision-maker in my company but consider
myself a well-educated user, not a computer pro, and my job is principally
managerial, not IT-specific.

my NGO's (or NGOs') field of endeavor has expanded in the past few years to
include some policy work, and we are launching a new long-term project right
now called the Global Internet Policy Initiative, which aims to support what
might be called "public interest internet policy advocates" in each of, at
first, a dozen or so countries (mostly ones in which we already have a
presence), and quickly expand to more. one of the countries in which i'd
like to start doing this work is nigeria; a couple years ago i took a trip
to a half-dozen cities in NG to scope out the situation and last year made
another short trip to lagos.
        the basic idea behind GIPI is that in many countries there's no real
organized advocacy effort to encourage/support governmental policies
(legislative, executive) which are "good for the internet" and the kind of
regulation governments are generally inclined to apply to the internet is
rarely in the best interest of internet users, so we aim to do that, in
parternship with groups in the US and europe which do this effectively in
their own countries (for instance www.cdt.org). the project is based on the
premise that more internet--more penetration, more availability, more
reasons for folks to get on, easier accessibility, whatever--is Good: good
for democracy, good for trade, good for development.

i attach a job description of the country advocate position i want to
hire/find/create/support in those launch countries ... immediately ...
including NG. this advocate would have to be located in lagos or abuja (not
sure which). i welcome any help in finding the ideal person ... we are
generally a fairly low-profile organization because we're more interested in
accomplishing a few clearly-defined goals than in PR. after a number of
years of successful work in a number of countries we've been able to earn a
solid reputation with funders so they are usually supportive of our
initiatives, and a number of sources are funding GIPI.

best,
eric