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           ALAC Statement on the draft FY12 Operational Plan and Budget

 

The ALAC recognizes the great improvement of the process of the operational plan within ICANN's operational planning and budget preparation processes, and highly appreciates the interaction that the staff have has had with the community at all stages of that process.

 As As for the substance, the ALAC is glad to notice that the draft FY12 Operational plan and budget was presented Plan and Budget has been presented with sufficient explanation and high level of details that allows details in order to allow for deep discussion and comments.   

 Nevertheless, the ALAC wants to make the following remarks:

  • In the draft FY12 Budget and Strategic Plan, paragraph 4.7 about the regarding community support , there is a comprehensive description of the process of described, comprehensively, the process of dealing with the additional service requests from the ICANN constituencies except the way those , but it does not explain how those requests were treated and decided on upon by the staff.

As far as At-Large is concerned, most of the few the limited resources allocated do not cover the projects applied for.  At-Large applied for these projects, not for money: replacing (for example) funding .  Hence, by replacing the funding pf a RALO General Assembly by 6 Assembly (GA) with six additional travel support slots will not allow , for example, allow the GA to be held.

And, yet, the links with the strategic plan elements links between the projects applied for and ICANN's Strategic Plan were clearly established for all the presented projects. Some of them have even been applied for last year with a clear support from all, and we were told that they will have better chance to be covered by FY12 budget.in At-Large's proposals.  At-Large had even applied for some of these projects last year, when they met with wide support -- althought we were told that they would have a better chance to be funded in FY12 Budget.

Now, with the FY12 Budget in draft form, the ALAC is still asking for the integration the funding of those projects in the FY12 budget, and, for the ones that could not be integrated, providing clear description of the reasons for their rejection or postponing. We also expect that a formal statement will be provided telling when the non-integrated projects will be these same projects.  In addition, for those projects that can not be funded, we are asking for clear explanations of why they have been rejected or postponed.  Finally, we request a formal statement of when the non-funded projects will, in fact, be funded.     

  • In the paragraph 4.8 about the 8 regarding policy development support, it was planned to allocate resources there is a provision allocating resources for the implementation of improvements requested by the ALAC, consisting, inter alias, in supporting of support during the period 2010-2013 13 for one General Assembly for (GA) for each of the five Regional At-Large Organizations (RALOs), held in conjunction with either an ICANN or key regional Internet stakeholder meeting in order to set priorities , and develop strategies for improving participation, including capacity-building programs.

Since no support for GA was budgeted in the first year (FY11) of the mentioned this period, we were looking for resources allocation for at least 2 General Assemblies for  At-Large had expected resources allocated for at least two GAs in FY12, but unfortunately none has, none was planned in fact, been funded in the current draft budget.

  • The At-large community Community was the only ICANN entity to specifically request funding in support of the to support the strategic objective calling for participation of participation in Internet governance dialogues (-- specifically in the Internet Governance Forum (IGF).

A workshop organized by one of at the IGF by an ICANN community constituencies would have a much bigger larger effect to showcase in showcasing the ICANN multi-stakeholder bottom-up process than would any official speech. The nice success of the AFRALO workshop held in Vilnius last year (without any ICANN support) demonstrates it demonstrates this clearly. The ALAC thinks that such request deserves to be funded.

  • In the new gTLD program budget, we did not see any provision for the support of the applicants who need applicants needing assistance in applying for and/or operating a new gTLD, as per the ICANN Board resolution 20 made in Nairobi.  The ALAC thinks that a reasonable percentage of the application fees recovered by ICANN should be allocated to the so called supportthis support.
  • Outreach plans, using media eg. podcasts (e.g., podcasts to countries/jurisdictions without ALSes, ) were rejected, with the reasoning that any action should be deferred until the PPC ( Public Participation Committee (PPC) has the opportunity to develop an overall Outreach outreach plan for all constituency and stakeholder groups. We strongly suggest that At-Large is Large be included in the development of this overall Outreach outreach plan to ensure its success.
  • The ICANN Developing Countries Summit is planned to take place in Dakar, during the ICANN 42nd International meetingMeeting. While the ALAC welcomes such an initiative to promote the developing countries' participation in the ICANN process, and especially in its policy development, it notices that there is no financial prevision provision has been dedicated to this very important event.  The ALAC believes that resources should be allocated to such an event, if it is this allocation has not already done. In case it is, we been made.  And if the allocation has been made, we would like to know where they will come from ( which item of within the draft budget includes them)it.  
  • While the ALAC recognizes the ICANN efforts in the translation field by the to increase of translated documents and the maintenance of maintain a multilingual ICANN Blogblog, it notices with concern that no improvement in the interpretation field is expected.  The quality of the interpretation is sometimes unacceptable, and all the working groups are working in English only, which prevent prevents the non-English speakers to participate. The speakers from participating.  The impact of such a situation is that the latter these non-English speakers cannot fully participate in the policy development process. The ALAC considers this issue as a priority for an international organization that boast boasts of being inclusive and multi-stakeholder with a bottom-up decision making system.
  • The registry fees for the 18 existing gTLDs do not follow any rule and show an arbitrary way of charging registries: some .  Some do not pay the fixed fees, while others do not pay the per-transaction fees, and the .  In addition, the value of the fixed and the per-transaction fees changes change from a one registry to another. We can notice that the next. For example, the dot com does not pay the per-transaction fees, while the dot cat (community TLD) pays the per-transaction fees at one of the highest rate rates ($ 1 $1 per transaction), as well as the fixed fees. The ALAC does think that the community not-for-profit TLDs should be charged at a minimum rate, while the lucrative TLDs should be charged normally, according to well-defined rules. 
  • Regarding the implementation of impact reporting, we have noted and appreciated the Impact Analysis pertaining to Deployment of DNSSEC in the Root Zone and the document summarizing the Impact of Root Zone Scaling.  As ICANN moves forward, we would recommend that ICANN consider additional types of impact reporting, such as the impact of ICANN’s policies on TLD growth in developing countries.
  • Finally, we appreciate the call from to call to fine-tune the determination of the most appropriate level for the Reserve Fund, and we will tender comments on this topic at the earliest opportunity.