At-Large ICANN Draft Five-Year Strategic Plan (FY16 – FY20) Workspace

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FINAL VERSION TO BE SUBMITTED IF RATIFIED

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FINAL DRAFT VERSION TO BE VOTED UPON BY THE ALAC

The final draft version to be voted upon by the ALAC will be placed here before the vote is to begin.

The ALAC has reviewed the Five Year Strategic Plan and acknowledges the efforts by ICANN to incorporate the various comments from “ICANN's Draft Vision, Mission & Focus Areas for a Five-Year Strategic Plan” in this document.

We note the difference in layout from previous ICANN strategic plans and suggest for easier reference, an attempt to summarise the strategic plan on one page be kept, as was done in previous strategic plans.

With the mention of suggested outcomes for each of the strategic objectives in this draft plan, we wonder if any analysis was done for previous ICANN Strategic Plans as to whether the objectives from prior Strategic Plans were achieved or not. Such an analysis posted for review before the drafting of this strategic plan would be beneficial to ICANN and the ICANN multi-stakeholder community and would demonstrate to the global public of ICANN's proposed vision " ICANN strives to be trusted by all stakeholders for its inclusive, effective and consensus-based operations."

We also note the following:

• The lack of translated versions of this document from the beginning of this public comment to allow more of the global multi-stakeholder community to effectively review and comment on the strategic plan. This lack of translated versions of accessible policy documents in a timely fashion undermines the stated Focus Area #1, “Evolve and further internationalize and regionalize ICANN’s implementation of the multi-stakeholder approach.”.

• Under Focus Area #2, “Continue to support a healthy, stable and resilient unique identifier ecosystem”, ICANN needs to add a focus on improving the technical universal acceptance of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) at the application level (browsers, email clients, etc)". This must be a strategic priority for ICANN by taking a more prominent role in collaborating and coordinating with the relevant technical communities. IDNs are only mentioned once in passing in this strategic plan and this lack of attention to IDNs is insufficient.

• Under Focus Area #3 “Advance technical and operational excellence”, ICANN should include a focus on improving the logistical support needed for ICANN’s Board, Staff and the various ACs and SOs to be able to fulfill their work in a timely, coordinated manner. There is a real concern that the ICANN Policy Staff are being stretched too thin to accommodate the ever growing needs of the Advisory Committees and Supporting Organisations.

• Under Focus Area #4.1 “Ensure ICANN’s role in the evolving Internet ecosystem is clear, recognized, and well understood worldwide.” places too much emphasis on ICANN the corporation and not the multi-stakeholder communities in ICANN. This should be reworded to also include “Ensure ICANN’s stakeholder groups’ role in the evolving Internet ecosystem is clear, recognized, and well understood worldwide.”

FIRST DRAFT SUBMITTED

The first draft submitted will be placed here before the call for comments begins.

The ALAC has reviewed the Five Year Strategic Plan and acknowledges the efforts by ICANN to incorporate the various comments from “ICANN's Draft Vision, Mission & Focus Areas for a Five-Year Strategic Plan” in this document.

We note the difference in layout from previous ICANN strategic plans and suggest for easier reference, an attempt to summarise the strategic plan on one page be kept, as was done in previous strategic plans.

With the mention of suggested outcomes for each of the strategic objectives in this draft plan, we wonder if any analysis was done for previous ICANN Strategic Plans as to whether the objectives from prior Strategic Plans were achieved or not.

However, we note the following:

• The lack of translated versions of this document to allow more of the global multi-stakeholder community to effectively review and comment on the strategic plan. This lack of translated versions of policy documents in a timely fashion undermines the stated Focus Area #1, “Evolve and further internationalize and regionalize ICANN’s implementation of the multistakeholder approach.”.
• Under Focus Area #2, “Continue to support a healthy, stable and resilient unique identifier ecosystem”, ICANN needs to focus on improving the technical universal acceptance of Internationalised Domain Names (IDNs) at the application level (browsers, email clients, etc) a strategic priority by taking a more prominent role in collaborating and coordinating with the relevant technical communities. IDNs are mentioned once in passing in this strategic plan and this is insufficient.
• Under Focus Area #3 “Advance technical and operational excellence”, ICANN should include a focus on improving the logistical support needed for ICANN’s Board, Staff and the various ACs and SOs to be able to fulfill their work in a timely, coordinated manner.
• Under Focus Area #4.1 “Ensure ICANN’s role in the evolving Internet ecosystem is clear, recognized, and well understood worldwide.” places too much emphasis on ICANN the corporation and not the multi-stakeholder communities in ICANN. This should be reworded to also include “Ensure ICANN’s stakeholder groups’ roles in the evolving Internet ecosystem are clear, recognized, and well understood worldwide.”