[ncdnhc-discuss] Who's going to Bucharest?

[Manon Ress]

Dear NCDHC colleagues,
Who in the NCDHC is going to Bucharest?
PS
I know Jamie Love is going.
Manon
Thanks to Alan for the following story:

>               WARREN'S WASHINGTON INTERNET DAILY
>
>   Wednesday, June 5, 2002                    Vol. 3, No. 108
...
>ICANN MEETING will be minus many civil society participants.  (P.
>4)
...
>Foundations Reassess Roles
>
>  Funding Woes, Disillusionment Keep Nonprofits from Bucharest
>
>      Faced with shrinking funds and a growing sense of
>disillusionment over how ICANN works, some civil society groups
>say they won't attend the next ICANN meeting, set for June 24-28
>in Bucharest.  The lack of financial backing from philanthropic
>organizations means no members of the advisory committee (AdCom)
>to the Domain Name Supporting Organization's (DNSO) Noncommercial
>Domain Name Holders Constituency(NCDNHC) will be heading to
>Romania unless something changes, said Harold Feld, assoc. dir. of
>the Media Access Project (MAP) and a member of the NCDNHC AdCom.
>That's "profoundly unfortunate," he said.  Milton Mueller, a
>NCDNHC representative to the DNSO Names Council, also won't be
>attending.  "[T]he level of effort that must be invested to
>attempt to influence ICANN's processes internally is far too great
>for any possible return," Mueller said, "and besides, the
>processes and structures are already rigged against us."  ICANN
>didn't respond by our deadline to a request for comment.
>
>      Travel costs to ICANN meetings often have been met by the
>Ford and Markle Foundations (Markle funds travel to ICANN meetings
>through the Salzburg Seminar).  Now, however, Ford is said to be
>reassessing its entire media policy area and Markle and the
>Seminar are revisiting their roles in Internet issues, we're told.
>No other foundations are "stepping up to bat" either, a
>knowledgeable source said.  And even organizations with their own
>separate general operating funds for travel are rethinking the
>need to send representatives to ICANN meetings, Feld said.  Given
>their "great deal of concern as to whether ICANN will listen" to
>the noncommercial community, some nonprofits are finding meetings
>not a very fruitful investment, he said.
>
>      The shortfall is evidence of "the larger issue," which is
>that increasingly, when civil society groups ask for money and
>resources, ICANN is looking less and less like a good bet, said
>Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT) Policy Analyst Rob
>Courtney.  Many groups are becoming convinced that they don't
>accomplish anything by going to ICANN meetings, he said.  The
>"combination of extraordinarily inaccessible locations" for ICANN
>meetings and "zero" influence in the process make it unproductive
>for noncommercial constituents to participate any more, said Hans
>Klein, chmn. of Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility.
>Instead, he said, they will focus on the Dept. of Commerce to
>ensure that it enforces its Memorandum of Understanding with
>ICANN.
>
>      Both Markle and the Salzburg Seminar say they haven't lost
>interest in ICANN.  "Our commitment to Internet governance remains
>undiminished," a Markle spokesman said.  Markle has given close to
>$225,000 to the Seminar for nonprofits to attend ICANN meetings
>since 1999, including the March meeting in Ghana, he said.  So
>far, however, the Seminar hasn't applied for funding to send the
>various groups to Bucharest, he said.  "We are not saying we feel
>[ICANN] is an uninteresting or diminished organization," he said,
>or that Markle wouldn't fund requests that came its way.
>
>      Before ICANN Pres. Stuart Lynn released his ICANN reform
>proposal, the Salzburg Seminar was beginning to feel a "level of
>frustration" over ICANN's frequent meetings that ended without any
>significant movement, and the length of time it was taking the
>noncommercial community to solidify its activities, said Kevin
>Hurley, dir.-program support.  Post-Ghana, he said, as ICANN began
>to transition to a new structure, both Markle and the Seminar
>decided to reassess what their roles should be in the Internet and
>ICANN policy arenas.  Markle is focusing more on Internet policy
>in the larger context (such as the World Trade Organization and
>the United Nations), Hurley said, while the Seminar, which looks
>at ICANN issues from the program level, is trying to figure out
>where nongovernmental organizations will fit in to the ICANN
>process after reform.  Because of that, he said, the Seminar
>decided not to fund any travel to Bucharest.  However, he said,
>the organization "fully expects" to seek funding for the next
>meeting, set for Shanghai, China, in Oct.  "Good for him," Hurley
>said of Lynn's decision to stir up what was becoming a static
>organization -- thereby forcing the Seminar and others to rethink
>their own programs. -- Dugie Standeford



-- 
Manon Anne Ress
Essential Information
www.essential.org
PO Box 19405, Washington, DC 20036
mress at essential.org, voice: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176