Asia Pacific Regional Plan Fiscal Years 2026-2030

The Asia Pacific (APAC) Regional Plan for Fiscal Years 2026-2030 (FY26-30) maps the APAC Regional Office’s focus areas and activities against the objectives and goals laid out in ICANN’s FY26-30 Strategic Plan. The FY26-30 APAC Regional Plan focuses on 16 of the total 35 strategic initiatives laid out within ICANN’s FY26-30 Operating and Financial Plan.

It was identified that the APAC Regional Office could contribute to three out of four of ICANN’s Strategic Objectives– Objectives 1, 3, and 4. Objective 2 from ICANN’s Strategic Objective is excluded from the APAC Regional Plan as the focus areas do not directly apply to the APAC region.

Following open community input period from 6 October- 16 November 2025, the APAC Regional Plan is now finalized as below (as of December 2025). The Regional Plan will be reviewed annually and updated as necessary. Should you have any questions or feedback, kindly write to us at apachub@icann.org.

	Proposed Focused Strategic Goal (per ICANN Strategic Plan)	Proposed Focused Engagement Areas/Activity	Envisioned Outcomes (with Examples)
Strategic Objective 1: Evolve and Promote ICANN’s Multistakeholder Model to Sustain Its Inclusive Approach to Internet Governance
1.1	Ensure Inclusive Stakeholder Representation and Enhance Collaboration	Engage with new and existing stakeholders, and encourage increased participation within the ICANN community	Integrated participation from new stakeholders, such as Internet Exchange Points (IXPs), cloud service providers Increased stakeholder participation through established regional networks such as the APAC Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC) and country-code Top Level Domain (ccTLD) operator groups
		Support the development of community leaders from the APAC region	APAC community members taking on regional and global leadership roles within ICANN community groups
		Develop youth leaders through the Asia Pacific Internet Governance Academy (APIGA) program	APIGA alumni continue to participate actively in the Internet Governance (IG) space, at the local, regional, and global levels Youth leaders further develop to take on community leadership roles in the IG space Expanded reach of the APIGA program through partnerships with the community, such as Local APIGA hosts and academia
1.2	Enhance the Agility and Effectiveness of Policy and Advice Development	Encourage participation in ICANN policymaking and advice development processes	Number of community members that participate regularly in ICANN policy development process (PDP), including contributions to public comment proceedings
1.2		Monitor legislative initiatives in the APAC region that could impact ICANN’s mission, and proactively engage with relevant stakeholders	Opportunities to monitor and provide advice on regional policy development initiatives Opportunities to facilitate dialogue with relevant stakeholders, such as governments, intergovernmental organizations (IGOs), and other public policy stakeholders
1.3	Expand Strategic Alliances to Advocate for the Multistakeholder Model of Internet Governance	Evolving and ongoing communications on ICANN’s multistakeholder model	Opportunities to communicate with relevant stakeholders at local and regional IG fora about ICANN’s multistakeholder model Demonstrated use cases/success from ICANN’s multistakeholder model in delivering ICANN’s mission
1.3		Collaborate with the APAC community to promote the multistakeholder model of IG	Established outreach network to promote the multistakeholder model of IG, partnering with regional groups such as the AP* community Opportunities to contribute to specific initiatives in relation to promoting the multistakeholder model of IG, such as the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS)+20 Working Group within the 2025 Asia Pacific regional Internet Governance Forum (APrIGF2025)
Strategic Objective 3: Collaborate with Relevant Stakeholders to Evolve the Internet’s Unique Identifier Systems
3.1	Facilitate Digital Inclusion	Raise awareness and promote the New gTLD Program: Next Round	Increased communications of the Next Round in the wider APAC community, fostering inclusivity, consumer choice, competition, and innovation
		Partner the APAC community to support Internationalized Domain Names (IDNs) policy work in these focus areas: IDN implementation and promotion in the Next Round IDN ccTLD string evaluation process Develop, update, and maintain the second level reference Label Generation Rules (LGR) for IDNs	Increased number of IDN Top Level Domains (TLDs), such as geoTLDs or ccTLDs Progress on second level reference LGR work for IDNs
		Support Universal Acceptance (UA) activities in the region, particularly UA Day events, UA Local Initiatives, Technical Trainers’ events, UA Curriculum integration	Report on UA Day events held Report on Local Initiatives work Report on Technical Trainers’ events held Report on UA Curriculum integration
		Engage with relevant stakeholders to support UA adoption	Opportunities to engage with various stakeholders in the ecosystem on their roles towards UA. Stakeholders include governments/IGOs, academia, private sector/businesses, technology organizations and registrants Increased UA readiness and adoption by stakeholder such as DNS industry and hosting providers
3.2	Evolve the Assessment of, and Responsiveness to, Technological Developments	Participate in regional dialogue/fora to develop awareness of new technologies and their potential impact on the Domain Name System (DNS)	Opportunities to participate at key regional fora and communicate through established channels Collaborate with technical community entities, such as the Asia Pacific Network Information Centre (APNIC) and I* organizations, to understand the impact of new technologies
Strategic Objective 4: Strengthen the Stability and Security of the Internet’s Unique Identifier Systems
4.1	Strengthen Partnerships with Relevant Stakeholders to Reinforce the Shared Responsibility of Ensuring Secure and Stable Internet’s Unique Identifier Systems	Grow stakeholder participation through regional events, and support the APAC community during community-led events	Established network of stakeholders regularly participating in regional events such as the APAC DNS Forum Regular community-led events/sessions such as ICANN readouts and APAC Space
		Support and participate in local and regional IG fora and events	Opportunities to engage and communicate with relevant stakeholders on how the Internet works, and on ICANN and its role in the Internet ecosystem
		Participate in key platforms and communicate through established channels on the knowledge of DNS operations and security, raising awareness of security threats and to promote higher adoption of global open Internet standards	Opportunities to engage with relevant stakeholders on mitigating DNS security threats List of APAC community members that participated in ICANN’s technical projects such as Domain Metrica, Knowledge-Sharing and Instantiating Norms for DNS and Naming Security (KINDNS) Increased DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC) signing and validation
		Coordinate and explore collaboration with APNIC for secure, stable, and resilient numbering and routing systems	Established technical collaborations contributing to the stable and secure operation of the Internet’s unique identifier systems
4.2	Strengthen DNS Root Server System	Deploy L-Root instances, and replace/update L-Root instance servers at their end-of-life	Number of L-Root instances deployed across the APAC region, increasing the robustness of the root zone generation and distribution
4.2	Strengthen DNS Root Server System	Engage with and support APAC L-Root instance hosts on reported incidents	Resolved L-Root incidents, supporting coordinated plans to address DNS root server attacks