National Internet Governance Forum of Côte d’Ivoire 2021 (FGI-CI, second edition) — In-Depth Report: Minutes Digest & 3-Line Summary

The 3-Line Summary

On 28 December 2021, the second Côte d'Ivoire IGF (FGI-CI 2021) filled the 24th floor of Abidjan's Postel 2001 Tower with 120 in-person and some 128 online participants, asking whether the rise of cryptocurrency is a challenge or an opportunity.
Entrepreneurs touting job creation collided head-on with an economic-police commissioner warning that the state does not authorise cryptocurrency; the closing session adopted recommendations to all five stakeholder groups, from a regulatory framework and a possible national cryptocurrency to promoting the CIVIX exchange point and the .ci domain.
It is a candid record of a young West African market caught between a crypto boom and a regulatory wall — the kind of pre-regulation debate that countries now writing crypto rules will recognise instantly.

Welcome — this is the Japan IGF Support Organization. This in-depth report on National Internet Governance Forum of Côte d'Ivoire 2021 (FGI-CI, second edition) draws on official outputs, session records and on-site reporting. In a hurry? The three lines above and the diagrams carry the gist.

Conference at a Glance (from official records)

Item	Detail
Official name	National Internet Governance Forum of Côte d'Ivoire 2021 (FGI-CI, second edition)
Dates	28 December 2021
Venue	24th floor, Postel 2001 Tower, Abidjan-Plateau
Theme	'The emergence of cryptocurrency in Côte d'Ivoire: challenge and/or opportunity for economic and social development?'
Participants	120 (120 in person and about 128 online (via Zoom and Facebook) out of 189 pre-registered; the in-person cap was cut from a planned 150 due to a seasonal flu outbreak (one passage of the report cites 130 in person))
Format	Hybrid — in person with Zoom and Facebook streaming. The catalogue's former 'Virtual' label was incorrect and has been fixed
Host	FGI-CI, coordinated by Fanny Salyou (absent on the day for health reasons), with organising-committee president Sandrine Yoman and vice-coordinator Nadège Goué running the event; the Youth IGF-CI took part, and Digital Economy Minister Roger Félix Adom lent his patronage
Outcome	The closing ceremony adopted recommendations addressed to each of the five stakeholder groups — from building a crypto regulatory framework and studying a national cryptocurrency to blockchain curricula, DNSSEC signing of .ci, and interconnection at the CIVIX exchange point

(See the source list at the end of this article.)

Discussion Digest — from the Session Records

Key exchanges extracted from session records and transcripts.

1. Cryptocurrency: Opportunity or Challenge — the High-Level Panel

Sessions: Panel 1 'The emergence of cryptocurrency in Côte d'Ivoire: challenge and/or opportunity' (10:00–11:30, moderated by Ange Martial Ehourade, journalist at the national daily Fraternité Matin)

Lassina Fofana (founder of local crypto firm Biwari), Anoh Herman Nyamke (founder of Cryptomarket CI) and IS-security consultant Martial Ahui laid out the development case: job creation, project finance and faster transactions [1]
They simultaneously warned participants about fraud, password loss, hacking and crashing valuations — and pressed hard for an adequate regulatory framework [1]
The panel doubled as public education, explaining blockchain as a decentralised, tamper-proof transaction ledger for a general audience [1]

2. The Regulatory Wall — 'The State Does Not Authorise Cryptocurrency'

Sessions: Presentation 'Avoiding drifts to ensure the sustainability of cryptocurrencies in CI' (12:15–12:30, Police Commissioner Odehouri Koudou Brice of the economic police), and related exchanges

Commissioner Odehouri Koudou Brice of the economic police stated that, under the BCEAO's regulations, the state does not authorise cryptocurrency, and urged the public not to invest — citing vanishing-company scams like Agrobusiness and QNET as precedents [1]
His position: no one is accountable when a crypto transaction goes wrong, so citizens should not invest in an economy without responsibility — the state's protective role and crypto's design do not mix [1]
Moderator Nadège Goué countered that technology is outpacing regulation and cryptocurrency is already used as a means of exchange; ARTCI's Landry Yapi added that blockchain itself holds great potential across banking, insurance, real estate, health and education [1]

3. Digital Financial Inclusion — VISA and CINETPAY on the State of Play

Sessions: Panel 2 'Digital financial inclusion and social development in Côte d'Ivoire' (12:30–13:00)

Karidja Bamba, VISA's government-relations lead for francophone and lusophone West and Central Africa, and Jean-Rodolphe Amani, sales and marketing director at local fintech CINETPAY, reported on e-money collection and transfer solutions supporting businesses and the digitisation of state services [1]
The panel noted that some Ivorian financial players already use cryptocurrency in transactions, even as cybercrime risks persist — including crypto houses vanishing overnight [1]
Panellists converged on digitising every sector of the economy for traceability and transparency, with the full involvement of the state [1]

4. Local Infrastructure — Bringing the CIVIX IXP and .ci Domain to the People

Sessions: Local initiatives: CIVIX and DNS (13:00–13:20, presented by the regulator ARTCI)

Armand Koffi, head of ARTCI's CIVIX service, presented the national internet exchange point: interconnecting operators, ISPs and content providers improves quality of service, and CIVIX only announces IP addresses — it cannot see communications [1]
ARTCI's Landry Kouadio Assi explained the governance of the .ci country-code domain (NIC CI, under the 2012 telecoms/ICT ordinance) and made the case for registering under .ci [1]
The closing recommendations called for DNSSEC signing of the .ci registry, DNS good practices, and pushing GSM operators, ISPs and content providers to interconnect and host content at CIVIX to keep local traffic local [1]

Three-Minute Short Talk — Your Questions Answered

Q. What did the meeting decide?

A. Nothing binding, but the closing ceremony adopted recommendations to all five stakeholder groups — a crypto regulatory framework and a possible national cryptocurrency for government, blockchain curricula for universities, DNSSEC and IXP interconnection for the technical community.

Q. What was the most contentious topic?

A. Cryptocurrency itself. Entrepreneurs pitched jobs and financing; an economic-police commissioner countered that the state does not authorise crypto and told citizens not to invest. Putting both cases on one stage, pre-regulation, was the forum's real value.

Q. Why should I care?

A. Because it shows what a market looks like before crypto rules exist: scams proliferate, police issue blanket warnings, and adoption grows anyway. Any country refining its crypto framework has been – or will be – here.

What Is Ivory Coast IGF? (for first-time readers)

Ivory Coast IGF is a National or Regional IGF Initiative (NRI), aligning local internet governance discussion with global IGF principles.

Why It Matters to You

What was discussed here becomes the baseline for national digital policy, platform rules and AI regulation worldwide within a few years. The principles confirmed at the 2021 meeting are the foundation of the "next rules" for the phones, social platforms and AI services you use every day.