AFRALO Transcript EN 07.09.2011
- gisella.gruber-white
Translator: We’re starting today, and we’re having on the French side Didier, Aziz, Arnold, Yaovi, Tijani, Fatimata, and Etienne. And on the English side Matt, Olivier, and Moataz. And you will be asked to announce your name before you speak so I can translate. My name is Angelique and I will be your translator for today. Have a great day.
We just did roll call. We have Michel that just joined in. We have Etienne, Tijani, Didier, Aziz, Fatimata, Arnold, Yaovi, Michel; and on the English channel Moataz Shaarawy, Pastor Peters, Oliver Leblond, Matt and we have apologies for Hawa and (inaudible) – they won’t be able to be present. However we will have (inaudible) in about ten, fifteen minutes.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: All the items have been completed? I don’t have the agenda in front of me right now; if anyone has the agenda that could help me? We are doing the review of the actions to follow of the teleconference of August 3rd, 2001.
So the Work Group and the agenda, what’s going to happen in the Dakar meeting regarding the program of reinforcement of capacity in Dakar. The concept has been done and the agenda as well. Yeah, it’s been done pretty quickly and we’ll try to transmit it to you guys as soon as possible. Tijani, would you like to add anything?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Thank you, Fatimata – Tijani speaking. I’m asking that notes are being taken regarding the meeting. Is it possible to raise Fatimata’s volume because I cannot hear you? It’s too low.
Let’s go to the subject that I need to be (inaudible) regarding the building capacity. It’s in process. The problem has been stopped. We’re exchanging as we’re speaking mail regarding the meeting, sorry. The Organization Committee organized a teleconference where I was going to offer several ways to help in this task. We’re hoping to collaborate with her because of her experience, just regarding the building capacity.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Are there any questions regarding the building capacity? So next point regarding the showcase. For right now regarding this point we already have a draft and we’ll talk about it tomorrow during the next meeting, and we’ll have a larger meeting regarding the showcase and we’ll share the results. I don’t want to say more now because we’re going to have a full meeting regarding this issue so that we can share… Well, we’ll discuss it tomorrow and it has been largely discussed with everybody.
Anybody want to add anything to this? Next point: the…
Tijani Ben Jemaa: So he wrote to Katim regarding the underdeveloped countries, and he is a member of the vote and he would like to know how he wants everything to be organized. And he nicely answered “Any offers are welcome,” and there’s a [Reaction Committee] that’s being organized and a plan that will be discussed in Dakar. He also asks for a list of the representatives of the ALS and we should have it as soon as possible, and we’ll talk about it in Dakar. Once the plan is well done regarding the meeting of Dakar we can prepare for the Summit.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you, Tijani. Is there any questions for Tijani? So we’ll go to the next point. It’s the General Assembly. Yaovi?
Yaovi Atohoun: Tijani, for the General Assembly we already have an idea of the order. We have a few ideas to put in the orders of the day. The one in Mexico that was the last assembly that was face-to-face, and the next one is in Dakar. The second point regarding the [elective] ALS, it’s a subject that has been discussed for a long time. I think now it’s time that we need to finalize what’s going to happen with the ALSes that are inactive.
Also, the individual members, there are individual members. We can also count them as individual members. We need to think about it so when we’re in Dakar we can discuss the question full-armed and search through these issues.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Okay, now it’s about the meeting in AFRALO. For the meeting for AFRALO ICANN we need to finish the theme. It must be a carrier of actuality. It’s regarding… The most important thing is when it’s discussed and we’re having some issues with geography and the regions. If you have other subjects that a carrier and also of activity…
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Look, the .xs, that’s the point that should be discussed. The .xs is already of actuality. It’s been accepted.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: But it’s to discuss regarding Africa. The difference with TLD, it’s in process right now and there’s a lot of openings, and it will be open next January. What we can discuss right now is the part that Africa is playing, the different programs that will play in the future. It’s always a carrier subject.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: For the .xs, can we do something? What can we do about it?
Fatimata Seye Sylla: We have to discuss about it. We can’t discuss without knowing what’s going on. We have to have an impact. We have to see what worse can happen. What we can discuss with the conference, it will be governmental positions that came up; and as far as the civil position we can make an offer. I believe that Africa can say what they want to adopt, the position they want to adopt.
So now what we need to do, are we going to adopt the .xs or do we need to think about it? Okay, we need to discuss the different subjects…
Yaovi Athoun: I use the .xs but I want to discuss more about it.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: I believe it’s a good subject. Aziz?
Aziz Hilali: There are offers for the access point and the security point but we need to choose which point we want to deal with. We have to be thorough. I don’t think if we take a position it will be affected, even if the internet is open. Whatever the position is we’re going to take nothing is going to happen.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: I think that the meeting of AFRALO, the African meeting we need to discuss regarding the Summit that us, AFRALO, and what we’ll do as the organization. So the us, the community, the African community… I don’t want anybody to say that we took any position until it’s done. We’ll discuss that at the Summit and then eventually decide there at the Dakar meeting. Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I think that a Summit mustn’t have only one theme. It should have many themes. We should have more than one theme. I don’t believe that we should conform to just one theme. On top of that, if we all take the same theme, we’re going to choose the same thing over and over again. We’ve got to think about that meeting. We have to find a subject that is carrier and that is of actuality. It’s important that we have people that are coming and every time we have a big meeting we have a full house, we bring a lot of people – it’s very much carrier.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you very much, Tijani.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Fatimata, I believe that we can consult each other online and see what we can do.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: We need to discuss the meeting with ALAC and AFRALO – that’s another story.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Each member of AFRALO can assist to the teleconference of ALAC and the ExCom, and all the other AFRALO meetings. All meetings from ALAC are open. All these meetings, all of them are open if anybody wants to participate or do these meetings probably as observers. It would be good for everybody to participate in all those meetings.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you for the information, Tijani. It’s good to know that all the meetings are open – ExCom, ALAC, AFRALO, LACRALO, etc.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: Okay, I sent out an email regarding work groups that whoever wants to participate and I never received any answers. If there’s a work group in English and then a work group in English and French, if you want to participate among each other it is possible that we can all work together. I’m asking again, each work group that you want to participate; and if it’s a language that you don’t know, inform me. We’ll make a list to probably find an interpreter for that specific work group. It was very clear, very brief.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Are there any questions for Tijani regarding the explanations that he just mentioned? No? Everything is clear? Okay, thank you Tijani. Etienne?
Etienne Tshishimbi: I’m sorry, I wanted to speak but I put myself in mute. I was trying to speak but in any event now everything is working.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: The seventh point… So Tijani, (inaudible) ALAC agenda?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: The JAS group has almost done its work with all the graphics and etc., and next week we’ll see what happens and you will receive some reports on what happened. The work is almost done, the draft work is almost done. We were able to receive a final report, the technical work – due to Olivier’s work we were able to receive everything. He tried many times and he finally was able to get the support that we needed. So now we’re practically done. I will let you know as soon as we have it in our hands, and I will ask you to read it and to make comments regarding that report.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you, Tijani. We’re going to the eighth subject: the AFRALO members to come, the recent activities. We are now talking about the preparation of committee, but I thought we had talked about it already, but regarding the respective countries, something interesting to come. If you want I will talk…
Regarding the (inaudible) we are really working at it. Regarding the (inaudible) we have to, the key assets, we really have to be aware of the key assets of the… We have to inform more on ICANN and get more people so they can participate to the meeting and can understand what’s going on with ICANN. We only have five minutes for all of us. Michel?
Michel Tchochang: It would be an idea regarding Senegal as well as Cameroon and Nigeria in the [Manchul]. I was thinking about asking questions… Tijani wrote regarding, to a minister regarding ICANN, to have an idea. Who sends the invitations to the government? I was told it was an African meeting until earlier and nobody received any invitation, and they asked me if I could have any documents regarding this meeting.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: I will transfer them to whom they may concern. Thank you, Michel. Anybody else? Yaovi?
Yaovi Atohoun: There is a next meeting on the 14th. We need to organize the ALS meeting. If you have any documents that would be good.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: You should receive an email in that regards.
Yaovi Atohoun: Regarding the (inaudible) or security?
Fatimata Seye Sylla: That’s information I don’t have regarding the members and the chapters of that meeting.
Yaovi Atohoun: Thank you very much.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you, Yaovi. Aziz?
Aziz Hilali: The [Marco] will participate. We have a little problem in [Marco] because there was a big deployment regarding a formation for the administrative, for the public association and we’re going to give, giving information on the platforms.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you, Aziz. It was… Every time somebody speaks they have to announce their name.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: One point needs to be added but we need to clarify two points right now.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Yes, Tijani?
Tijani Ben Jemaa: I want to let you know that Pritz is ready but he is on the phone right now with Gisella.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: As soon as you are ready we are ready to have you among us. I would like to finish rapidly. We’re happy to have Pritz join us but we need to finish everything today. Are there any comments for the activities and the meetings to come?
I would like to clarify two points. The first point is that Aziz will send you a canvas to all the ALSes, that each ALS have the essential information. And the second point: the cc (inaudible) that will be organized by Dr. Lee that we just received the information, and as a matter of fact Tijani asked the communication so it can be done so there is African representation. There will be no translation so he was asked and we would like to see if AFRALO can participate together or as an individual.
Those were the two points that I wanted to put down on the table. We don’t have much time to discuss about it but we only have one minute left. Aziz?
Aziz Hilali: I would like to hear something about the visa. So whoever is going to ask for a visa do you know what’s going to happen because certain countries won’t need it or it will be easy, but for other countries it won’t be easy – they have to ask to their consulate.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: The countries that don’t have any consulate, there’s a communiqué that has been sent. You need to send certain numbers of documents, send that to Olivier and Matt – the travel concerns.
Matt Ashtiani: Excuse me, Angelique, this is Matt from staff. Can you repeat the last item that Tijani said?
Translator: Yes, hold on one second. Matt? Yes, it was regarding the travel concerns for the visas. Apparently all the paperwork was sent out and there’s a list of papers that will be needed to be sent out, and you should have it in your email.
Matt Ashtiani: I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Can you please repeat?
Translator: It’s regarding the travel concerns and it was for the visas that were going to be asked. Apparently people are going to be travelling and they’re going to need visas, and I guess Aziz and Fatimata already sent an email regarding those visas and all the paperwork that’s going to be needed.
Matt Ashtiani: Yes, thank you so much. Can you also please tell the group that Constituency Travel has made special arrangements for the visas and I believe they’re sending an email out today with all the details.
Translator: Okay, thank you.
Heidi Ullrich: Angelique, this is Heidi. May I add something to that, to this discussion please?
Translator: Sure.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, I just heard, I believe it was Tijani saying that anybody who has visa concerns should write to Matt and Olivier, but I would like to stress please do not write to Olivier. As Chair of the ALAC it is not his responsibility to deal with visa issues. It is Constituency Travel and At-Large staff who can help them.
Translator: Okay.
Heidi Ullrich: But again, we are not a visa agency but we will be able to help you.
Translator: Okay, so not to Olivier, okay.
Heidi Ullrich: Yeah, don’t write to Olivier; please write to Constituency Travel and cc At-Large staff. Thanks.
Translator: Okay. Thank you. Okay, Heidi – Fatimata was explaining that… Hello?
Matt Ashtiani: Yes, Angelique, we can hear you.
Heidi Ullrich: Yes, I’m here.
Translator: Yes, I’m sorry. Fatimata was saying that she sent it in fact to Matt but she sent it also to Olivier because Olivier asked her to send those emails. But she knows that he cannot produce the visas, she’s very aware of it.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, I think that Olivier might interject at this point but I think he would be supportive of him not getting any additional emails.
Translator: Okay, I think everybody understood.
Heidi Ullrich: Okay, thank you.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yes, if I can just- This is Olivier here. Ultimately it’s no big deal, I’ll just set it aside, but they shouldn’t expect an answer from me because I’ll just put it in my uncategorized emails. Thank you.
Translator: Okay.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Okay, we are waiting for Mr. Pritz.
Kurt Pritz: Hi, how are you? Go ahead. So thank you for the opportunity to allow me to briefly discuss strategic planning development. It seems like we just talked about this a short time ago but a number of months have gone by and this is an annual exercise by ICANN. And what I want to share – we are in the early stages of strategic planning development, but nonetheless we look for a version of the strategic plan for the Board to consider by the end of this calendar year.
Given that there are a few opportunities for AFRALO and ALAC input, At-Large input into the strategic plan, and I want to describe some of those now and also provide just a bit of background information for you; and Gisella can send the slides out afterwards and you can refer to them. So I’m going to click through five slides and take up most of my twenty minutes, and then take any questions you might have. Can I have the next slide?
I’m going to, let’s see… Yes, I’m going to look at my computer screen and know when the slides change but if someone else has already seen this… Oh, there it is. So this slide is just to provide background. It’s a little messed up but sometimes it’s good to go back to first principles, and so this is the quote from ICANN’s mission statement and also the statement about ICANN’s role in the Affirmation of Commitments. So I just wanted to point these statements out as the probable basis of any strategic planning. I think it’s good to start at a high level so I just wanted to provide those two sentences out of each of those, the two important ICANN documents for you. So you can bring up the next slide.
So this is another background document: it’s just the current version, the one-page version of the strategic plan that’s divided into the four important pillars of ICANN’s mission – DNS stability, promotion of competition, excellence in core operations and a healthy internet governance system. So you can use this. I’m sure all of you have it but I wanted to provide it as a background. One of the actions of the strategic plan will be to amend this slide, not greatly because ICANN’s strategic plan shouldn’t change greatly from year to year, but some progress has been made on some of these goals so we should change those; and there are some changes to the ICANN environment.
So Heidi, I see your hand up. Is that a test or am I supposed to call on you?
Heidi Ullrich: No, sorry, I’ll put that down. That was from previous.
Kurt Pritz: Okeydokey. Can I have the next slide?
Thanks, Gisella. This is another slide where the formatting is a little bit screwy because we’re moving it from PowerPoint into Adobe, so I’ve learned a lesson here. So this is just an interesting document that we created last year that might be useful to you, but it takes ICANN’s key documents which I think are the Articles of Incorporation, the ICANN bylaws and the Affirmation of Commitments, and ICANN’s mission statement is inside the bylaws, and quotes each one of those documents as they apply to each of ICANN’s four key focus areas.
And so when discussing or thinking about ICANN’s strategy we can think about it in the same terms as ICANN’s forefathers did when they created its Articles of Incorporation and bylaws, and also think about it in the same terms of more recent thinking as in the Affirmation of Commitments. So I wanted to share that too, and I hope you’ll find that interesting or useful in some regard.
So the next slide indicates what sort of questions you might ask yourself in discussing what should be in ICANN’s strategic plan and what guidance you might provide to ICANN going forward. So I’ll just wait for that to come up. And so what we’ve been doing as staff because we’ve been having strategic planning discussions, too, we’ve been trying to take a step back and look at the specific goals in each one of those key areas. There’s about 100 of those. Try to take a step back, especially at this early stage of the planning and discuss “What do we think ICANN looks like three to five years from now and what else has changed? What external events have occurred, might occur in the future? How might ICANN change in the future three to five years from now? How will the internet impact us and impact the world differently than it is today?”
It’s very difficult to visualize but I think some of the fun in strategic planning, you know, it’s supposed to be fun, is gazing at a crystal ball if that term translates, and looking into the future and speculating what the future would look like. And so while we wouldn’t wager significant funds on our predictions we should give some thought to what the future holds.
And then finally the last one is a really important question. I invite you to read the current version of the strategic plan because for the first time the plan includes nine or so concrete metrics at the end of each of the four sections where we want to measure our progress on the plan, which is a rational thing to do and has been requested by you and other members of the community. And look at those metrics and comment on how those metrics might be improved or sharpened. Think about that it’s a strategic plan, not an operating plan, so we don’t want to manage or measure details but we do want to measure progress on our strategies for the future. So those metrics are a first attempt at measuring ourselves against that.
And I invite you… We’re puzzling over the same thing, and as we measure them – because the thing for us to do in the upcoming months is to report how we’re doing on those metrics, and I invite you to look at them and give some opinion in your comments on the strategic plan for how they could be improved. So I think that’s really important. How can the At-Large community contribute is in a timeline, which I think is the next slide, and we’ll find out as soon as it comes up.
So this timeline was announced back in May and we had some initial consultations at the Singapore meeting. We had one in the ALAC meeting; we had one with the GNSO and there were a couple other smaller ones. And then you should know that the executive team at ICANN and the Board are also discussing what should be in the strategic plan. The Board is having a workshop in Marina del Ray next week and will spend half a day on an item entitled in the agenda “Looking Into the Future,” which essentially is a look at the strategic plan.
So because we do this every year timelines get kind of compressed, so the staff and Board thought on the strategic plan occurs – excuse me for a second – occurs in parallel with the community input. In late July we opened up a public comment forum for input on the strategic plan, and that public forum that just closed at the end of August asked some open-ended questions; so not specific input on specific strategic plan objectives but rather those bigger questions that we discussed such as “What does ICANN look like in the future? What are ICANN’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats?” that sort of discussion.
So that public comment period recently closed. ICANN staff, me here today and others will give short briefings like this to other At-Large organizations and other community members leading up to the meeting in Dakar, so there can be a brief discussion here but as we know we don’t have too much time here. But I just want to inspire you to think about it, especially in this region. We look for your input as to the role ICANN can play in this region. Obviously we think it’s very important, and with new gTLDs and other initiatives we think ICANN has the opportunity to change the most right here.
So we have this and we’re looking for ALAC and At-Large to collect feedback and have discussions in Dakar that can be fed into the strategic plan so the plan then can be reposted after the meeting in Senegal. And I hope to see as many of you as possible there because of the location of the meeting. I’m looking forward to that and I’m looking forward to seeing the beach.
So that’s the timeline and I know I used up most of my time instead of holding for questions, but I’m happy to take questions with whatever time you think you might have left. I don’t know what your exact time is for the call.
Ah, there’s a question. Yaovi?
Yaovi Atohoun: First, before my question I want to thank you for the presentation. I want to know if once the strategic plan is done and approved, the next bit will be after 2016? Will it be posted in 2016, after 2015?
Kurt Pritz: I’m sorry; could you repeat the question?
Translator: Yaovi wanted to know if after all is approved, all the strategic plan is approved will it be posted after 2015?
Kurt Pritz: Okay, thank you. The strategic plan is a rolling plan so this year we’re posting the three-year plan that covers the period 2012 through 2015. Next year we will post the plan that covers from 2013 to 2016, so there’s a new plan every year and it covers the incremental, the next three-year period. I hope I understood the question correctly and answered it.
Anyone else?
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Yes, it was answered and apparently everything is answered, yes. No more questions.
Heidi Ullrich: Thanks very much, Kurt.
Kurt Pritz: Okay, thanks Heidi, and thanks very much everybody on the call. And I look forward to seeing you at the ICANN meeting, and if you have additional questions just send them to me in an email and I encourage you to copy Gisella or Heidi and they can make sure I answer them.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Thank you very much for this presentation. If there are no other questions we’re going to let you go.
Kurt Pritz: Thank you very much.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: In any event they’ll send all the info through email and questions on the strategic plan, etc. Thank you very much, Kurt.
Kurt Pritz: Thank you, everyone.
Tijani Ben Jemaa: So now we are going to move forward, waiting for Fatimata to come back regarding this presentation.
Fatimata Seye Sylla: Now we need to know if we’re going in the right way with the outreach so we need some feedback. Are there any questions regarding the strategic plan? If there are no questions we’re going to review the agenda.
I thank everybody. Have a good evening.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Angelique, it’s Olivier here. I gather the call is finished. Is that correct?
Translator: Apparently. I’m trying to find out.
Olivier Crépin-Leblond: Yes, I seemed very abrupt.
Translator: Yes, it did. Well, I understand it has ended so I’m going to say goodbye. Have a great evening or a great day depending on where you are.
[End of Transcript]