ICANN Community Liaison Program (Proposal)

[Naveed]

As a part of ICANN Community we fellows can assist further in addressing outreach challenges and bridging the probable gap between ICANN and out local society / community. In this regards, an idea is floated here seeking necessary feedback from ICANN fellowship community.

The idea presents introduction of a community liaison program through the platform of ICANN Global and Strategic Partnerships. The program serves a purpose of a volunteer work to be carried out by ICANN fellows representing various developing economies around the globe. The program will address a scenario where ICANN is looking to contact the local community with regards to its policy development processes, is looking to increase general awareness regarding ICANN and its functions, is looking to broadcast a particular message to community at large and is looking to present necessary guidelines with respect to a specific program.

The primary objective is to narrow any communication / coordination space between ICANN and our local authorities / industry. Moreover, to further expand the voice and mission of ICANN to various parts of our communities. The program will not serve any official statement on part of ICANN or on part of our local industry. The community liaison person will be an available local resource for ICANN to disseminate or seek any required support. There will not be any financial support offered by ICANN to its community liaison contact, however if felt necessary ICANN may provide required assistance in case of broadcasting ICANN mission / programs to the local community.

I hope to make it simple and clear and further way forward can be derived through necessary comments / suggestions requested from all of the fellowship community members. Once we have developed enough consensuses, the idea could be shared / taken up at ICANN.

[icanfellows]

This is an excellent idea Naveed ... it is about time that the Fellowship Alumni are provided with an "approved" instrument to take the work forward, especially in their home countries. Count me in. How can I help?

- Tracy

[Raquel Gatto]

Hi Naveed! Indeed, it's a great idea to organize and share the knowledge we - fellows - take from ICANN meetings into our local community. Please also count me in! For a second step after the shaping of the program, I would suggest looking for partnership such as ISOC that has experience with this global-local community sharing. Let us know what you need to be done :)

[]s Raquel

[Naveed]

Thank you Tracy and Raquel for the comments. Well at the present let us have the inputs gathered around by the fellowship community members. I would request if you could further disseminate it to other fellows as well. Once we have enough replies, we may prepare a formal case / proposal for ICANN. What do you say on this. ?

[Zmarialai Wafa]

Dear naveed,

Another good effort, I totally support you in this regard. Since I am already doing this work back in my country to me it's a wonderful opportunity to join this team and with everyone’s views and thoughts I can work better for the Internet society here in Afghanistan.

I am in, anything I can do please let me know then.

Regards,

Zmarialai Wafa

[SHEFQET MEDA]

Naveed, fully support your idea.

I think that should make it clear, why this program should be established through ICANN Global and Strategic Partnerships, and not through other ICANN structures.
Since we are a contingency for which ICANN has invested we can play a very important role as references to all those you mention.

After an agreement between us, think we should set some goals and a charter will be submitted to the above instances of ICANN.
I'm ready to give all my contribution to this issue.

 

[Siranush Vardanyan]

Dear Naveed, this is great idea (as usually all your ideas are). I fully support your initiative, count on me. I am in this team.

[Towela Nyirenda-Jere]

Naveed and all,

 

Definitely a great idea and I'm on board. Regarding the placement within the ICANN structures, this may merit further thinking through; my only comment on this is that it should feed out of and into the Fellowship programme as well.

[icanfellows]

Naveed, we seem to be getting close to a consensus. With respect to where we might fit within the ICANN Community, I would really like to see the ICANN Fellowship Alumni form a strong and active Constituency in and of itself. With the exception of the "developed" world, the Alumni cross countless geographies and almost (if not) all ICANN ACs/SOs: mainly GNSO, ccNSO, ALAC, GAC ....

 

However, it might be prudent, strategic and perhaps, necessary for the Alumni to prove themselves as having a distinct and unique voice by participating in one of the existing ICANN constituencies ....

 

Personally, I think the proposed Not-for-Proft Operational Concerns Constituency is an ideal organisation for our approach (see http://www.npoc.org) given that:

 

NPOC represents diverse not-for-profit and non-governmental organizations around the world.  NPOC membership is open to  not-for-profit and non-governmental organizations including philanthropic, humanitarian, educational, academic and professional development, religious, community associations, promotion of the arts, public interest policy advocacy, health-related services and social inclusion

It is more likely, however, that ICANN may see us fitting into the standard Non-Commercial Users Constituency (http://ncdnhc.org).

 

Note that both the proposed NPOC and NCUC are part of the existing Non-Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) which essentially is the home of Civil Society/Non-Governmental organisations in the GNSO (at least until the NPOC comes into being).

 

It may certain be easier, structurally to join either the NPOC or the NCUC in the GNSO as opposed to existing as an At-Large-Structure (ALS) within the ALAC since the ALAC is essentially organized geogrpahically/geo-politically.

 

Any thoughts?

[Blaise Arbouet]

It is a great idea, Naveed and I support it. I also think it would be another way to prove how fellows are special to ICANN.

[Naveed]

Thank you Wafa, Shefqet, Siranush, Towela, Tracy and Blaise for your endorsement and the valuable inputs. I also second the though of placing ourselves under a defined structure to not only run this community liaison program but also put our contributions towards policy development at ICANN. Some of us are already part of some structure and have a fair enough experience to contribute towards policy development. 

The two most appropriate present structures are ALAC and NCSG (under GNSO). Since both of these structure deal on non-commercial grounds with representation from civil society and individuals. I would second on Tracy on a probability of establishing our own constituency (a unique one with diverse set of individuals from developing economies all members of fellowship community). This approach may be more good in a way that this community liaison idea has its specific goal and focus which may be defined or performed in a better way under respective structure (a constituency). These all are my personal views.

 

We are moving towards some solid discussion and lets continue for a couple of weeks before we can develop a final proposal for onward submission.

 

Thanks all ! .. please continue sharing your view

 

Best

Naveed. 

[Amr A Elsadr]

COPIED FROM MY EMAIL ON THE ALUMNI LIST

 

Hello All...,

 

I'm late in making a contribution to this discussion. Thanks to everyone who did both here on this list and on http://icannfellows.ning.com/forum/topics/icann-community-liaison. Great to see Fellowship Alumni members engaged in dialogue amongst ourselves. I hope this continues concerning policy issues in the future. I will also be copying my input to our ning site for those who are following there.

 

If I am not mistaken, this discussion has taken quite a dramatic turn; starting as an outreach initiative then somehow evolving into a discussion about creating a constituency group of our own or collective representation within existing SOs/ACs such as the gNSO's NCSG (NCUC vs. NOPC) or the At-Large Community.

 

On Tuesday, May 31, 2011 6:30 PM, Fouad Bajwa wrote:

 

> I think this idea about NPOK is a very bad idea and that may be

> because the discussions on this issue was not followed by the members

> of the fellowship Alumni on NCSG lists.

 

I agree completely on this point. Should we as Fellowship Alumni members pursue a goal to have a collective representation within the ICANN community, it is my personal belief that NPOC is hardly the place to do so. Others who are on the NCSG lists might understand the reasoning behind this, but I will not get into that as it is not particularly relevant to this discussion.

 

On Tuesday, May 31, 2011 6:30 PM, Fouad Bajwa also wrote:

 

> Alumni cannot become a separate entity within the ICANN structure because:

> 

> 1. The fellowship program enables developing country participants to

> participate within the ICANN bottom up process.

> 

> 2. The program does not have the mandate from the community to be a

> separate constituency and is an internal process of ICANN though it

> has a wonderful selection process and management team.

> 

> 3. The fellowship program is structured as such that it helps fellows

> integrate into ICANN bottom-up policy process and what you suggest

> undermines that process.

> 

> 4. The fellowship program is not a narrow program but a broad

> participation global program that helps integrate developing country

> voices within the ICANN bottom-up Internet technical coordination

> public policy activities across all community and constituency groups.

> 

> 5. For participation and program, the ICANN process is very broad and

> one has to identify a narrow path to be able to contribute something.

> What is being mentioned in the earlier communications is a very broad

> perspective.

 

Again..., I agree with Fouad's insight into this proposal 100%. Remember that when applying to become Fellowship participants at ICANN meetings, a necessary prerequisite to successfully completing the program is to find a place within the existing ACs/SOs that a Fellow would join and become a community member who adds value in the existing bottom-up policy decision-making process. Furthermore, as Fouad, Tracy, and Naveed all pointed out; the specific mandate concerned with the gNSO makes it difficult for a collective of fellows to work under as many of us represent governments, ccTLD operators, and other stakeholders in the ICANN community.

 

Having said all that..., I am not opposed to the idea of a Fellowship Alumni collective within the community. In many situations, differences arise between different stakeholders on policy issues. The Fellowship Alumni is the only place where representation from all stakeholder groups exists. I would also like to think that there are strong personal bonds between us all. This might create a unique opportunity for us to take ICANN discussions to a different sort of playing field where issues could be discussed amongst ourselves where others have faced difficulties reaching favourable outcomes. Joint recommendations could be made and submitted to the community at-large for review. We have great strength in our cross-constituency nature, and I personally feel that joining this SO or that AC will undermine this (on top of Fouad's concerns above).

 

We have two online platforms (this list and the ning site) where we can hold discussions and even create working groups. Perhaps a reasonable next step is asking to be provided a venue and slot on the schedule apart from the morning meetings at future ICANN meetings where Fellowship Alumni could get together and discuss policy issues that concern us. I do not feel that we (as a Fellowship collective) need a council of our own, a charter, or even representation on the ICANN BOD. We should achieve this through our individual SOs and ACs.

 

Now back to the issue of outreach..., again, I would like to say that outreach should be a mandate for every Fellowship Alumni member in his/her community as soon as we leave our first meeting. Still..., and organized approach might not be a bad idea. The ICANN OSC submitted a document for global outreach recommendations to the gNSO and a call for volunteers to join a Charter Drafting Team for the Outreach Task Force. You can find both of these at this link: http://gnso.icann.org/announcements/announcement-2-19may11-en.htm. Go through them, volunteer for the drafting team if you wish, and please, provide feedback on this list or the ning. We should be discussing these issues amongst ourselves more often.

 

Apologies for the long and exhausting email. :)

 

Amr