Initial Draft Proposal regarding standard Project Funding to Constituencies/SGs

Wed Nov 16 15:07:41 CET 2011

On November 16, 2011 at 7:46 AM Rafik Dammak wrote:

"there is fellowship program already, the problem as mentioned by Amr is the
selection, it is disguised way to fund some GAC rep and people from ccTLD to
attend the meeting with the rest of few seats for regulators, academic etc
but nothing for civil society per se, it will be important to push for fair
selection there ( and ask to add more member in the selection committee
which is currently small)."

I didn't mean to suggest a problem with the selection process of the ICANN
Fellowship Program (although there very well might be). I personally believe
that it is a great program, and that the ICANN community is a richer and
more diverse one as a result of it. I do believe that the program can be
improved, and that it is actually constantly improving. For example; the
addition of a "mentor" for each fellow according to his/her wishes regarding
which AC/SO/SG the fellow would like his/her mentor to be from to help wean
fellows into the parts of the community they feel they belong. Avri was mine
at the San Francisco meeting, and I'm grateful to her and the program for
the time and assistance she gave me. If anything, I was suggesting that the
BC is probably not benefitting from the program due to an apparent lack of
interest from the business sectors of developing countries. That is not the
case for non-commercial though. There are always Fellows representing civil
society at ICANN meetings. We should not miss out on introducing NCUC and
NCSG to them especially since there is an obvious desire amongst NCSG
members to engage more with potential members from developing countries.

Could the reason that the BC is seeking to promote the proposal of the
"Special Project" be that they themselves have noticed poor representation
of business interests amongst Fellowship participants? I don't know. I agree
with Bill that this is worth looking into. Marilyn mentioned in her email
that each "constituency" would still have to submit their own budget request
and each will be approved individually, so if we do decide to participate in
submitting this proposal, we can do so in a manner that we see fit as a SG??

"yes NCSG members meet with the fellows, I think that Mary made presentation
last time in Dakar."

That's great. Thanks to Mary for taking the time to be there. I urge NCUC
members attending meetings to coordinate meeting the Fellows with Janice
Lange. It's not a difficult process to arrange this, and Fellowship morning
meetings do not conflict with other meetings during the day as they start at
7:30am. Attendees even get a free breakfast as a bonus! J

Thanks.

Amr

From: NCSG-Discuss [mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of rafik
dammak
Sent: Wednesday, November 16, 2011 7:46 AM
To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Re: [NCSG-Discuss] Initial Draft Proposal regarding standard
Project Funding to Constituencies/SGs

hello,

there is fellowship program already, the problem as mentioned by Amr is the
selection, it is disguised way to fund some GAC rep and people from ccTLD to
attend the meeting with the rest of few seats for regulators, academic etc
but nothing for civil society per se, it will be important to push for fair
selection there ( and ask to add more member in the selection committee
which is currently small).

there were several recommendations from the OSC CSG WT (sorry for the
acronym)  where Debbie and me participated, regarding toolkit AN outreach
effort. the toolkit is overdue and should help for administrative,
secretariat stuff. Outreach effort is still at the beginning stage and we
have motion at gnso council about the outreach taskforce. for those we need
to push for implementing the recommendations. they are already over-over
due.

I think the proposal is mostly about travel funding and the number looked
familiar (found here
http://www.icann.org/en/financials/so-ac-sg-requests-summary-fy12-09aug11-en
.pdf , I couldn't unfortunately find the document with the all requests, it
is quite instructing...)  for me as some icann structures asked the same
amount for different projects.

@Bill and yes it is peanuts if you compare to what other request , but
addition all these peanuts and it will be somehow caviar :D

Best,

Rafik

On Nov 16, 2011, at 6:50 AM, Joy Liddicoat wrote:

Hi all - I support this idea in principle, particularly to support
sustainable engagement or outreach in developing countries. I would rather
see domain name fee registration funds devolved back to these kinds of
engagement activities with NCSG input into their application for specific
sector-supporting activities. In the draft proposal itself, given the
rationale for the proposal in the first couple of pages, I was not expecting
to see a focus on secretariat and administrative related activities. I'd
prefer to see more focus in the proposed categories of support on capacity
building and network development (whether through fellowships or other).
Like Amr, I'd also be interested in how the 25k figure was derived.

Joy

From: NCSG-Discuss [mailto:NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU] On Behalf Of Robin
Gross
Sent: Wednesday, 16 November 2011 3:19 a.m.
To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
Subject: Fwd: Initial Draft Proposal regarding standard Project Funding to
Constituencies/SGs

Dear All,

There is a draft proposal from the CSG regarding providing standard project
funding to the GNSO constituencies and stakeholder groups (see attached).
I'd be very curious to hear thoughts of the membership as whether we should
support this proposal and especially if you have any suggestions for
amending the proposal.

Thanks!

Robin

Begin forwarded message:

From: Marilyn Cade <marilynscade at hotmail.com>

Date: November 13, 2011 6:36:35 PM PST

To: Steve Metalitz <met at msk.com>, Chris at Andalucia <chris at andalucia.com>,
Tony Holmes <tony_1aspen at btinternet.com>, Matt Serlin
<matt.serlin at markmonitor.com>, Mason Cole <mcole at nameking.com>, David Maher
<dmaher at pir.org>, Konstantine Komaitis <k.komaitis at strath.ac.uk>, Amber
Sterling <asterling at aamc.org>

Cc: Robin Gross <robin at ipjustice.org>, "bc-secretariat @icann"
<bc-secretariat at icann.org>

Subject: Initial Draft Proposal regarding standard Project Funding to
Constituencies/SGs

I mentioned to some of you that the BC submitted a proposal last year that
was not funded, but that we thought it useful to share with you, and seek
your support for a version of a standard support project that can be self
administered at the Constituency level [in the case of the Ry and RR, that
would be SG level].  We proposed $20,000 in 2012, and you will see that we
have increased it to $25,000 in 2013.

We have specific activities in mind, and listed those. They may not be
inclusive of what your entity would want to seek funding for.  In our case,
we primarily want to do recruitment, and we would be able to support our
part time secretariat/travel, and our ongoing interest in developing some
materials.

You may have other items that you would like to see in the list, and we did
not mean to make it exclusive.

We would welcome your views, including if you do not want to join in any
further discussion.  Each constituency would still have to submit their own
budget request and each will be approved individually, without any
dependencies. What we are proposing is a jointly developed endorsement of
such an approach. This certainly isn't required by the budget process,
however.

As you all know, when the GNSO improvements plan was approved by the Board,
certain unfunded mandates including maintaining a website, archiving
records, and certain other activities were mandated for constituencies/SGs
but without any consideration of how we developed resources.  I gathered
that the staff and Board may have had some irrational enthusiam that the
ToolKit would magically solve all such needs.  It is useful, but not
encompassing. And, ICANN's timeline for completing it has been extremely
slow.   The GNSO website improvements themselves are still pending, which
has made us reluctant to move our website itself to ICANN. However, this
proposal is about different services than the ToolKit provides, as you will
see.

I hope you find this useful to consider, and welcome any suggestions, or
thoughts.

As noted, I have shared the draft with the CFO, but only as a concept paper.
I have not indicated whether others will join in endorsing or improving it,
so don't feel that you are at this point committed to supporting the
concept. You are not, but we would welcome collaborating, if that makes
sense to you.

If any of you would like to have a phone discussion, we can arrange that as
well.

I copied Benedetta Rossi, the BC's Secretariat, who would arrange any such
call.

Regards

Marilyn Cade

Chris Chaplow

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