[NCUC-DISCUSS] WBC Global policy support pilot - is NCUC participating in it?

[Mueller, Milton L]

I am deeply distressed that so many people within NCUC can be enticed into an absurd bargain in which we outsource – to an ICANN selected firm! – our ability to develop policy positions and public comments. As a founder of NCUC I have fought from the beginning for its ability to develop its OWN capacity to articulate and represent noncommercial interests in the ICANN process. Now we are being told that it is a great thing to avoid all this difficult work and rely on ICANN itself to pay someone else to do it.

Would the people who think this is a good deal kindly take a look at the entity that is being put forward to do our policy development work for us? Here is the principal of WBC Global: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dan-o-neill-44778730

Here is what his LinkedIN page says his company does for a living:

Leading international trade government relations consulting firm serving multinational clients – with focus on the Asia-Pacific. Offers public policy, political and strategic business advice to Fortune 500 and other companies, with a focus on international trade, market access and intellectual property rights. Represent companies before Congress, the White House and federal agencies on a diverse set of public policy matters including investment, international trade disputes, international tax, custom issues as well as economic sanctions issues.

So a corporate multinational consulting firm is going to do a great job of drafting our policy documents. Right.

Still not convinced? Let’s put this a different way. The Internet Governance Project (http://internetgovernance.org) at Georgia Tech has some of the world’s leading Internet governance experts working there, strong ties to NCUC, and access to a wealth of engineering and policy talent at the Institute for Information Security and Policy (IISP). IGP already spends a lot of time working on ICANN stuff – comments, position papers, etc. We’d be happy to get paid for this work; indeed, sometimes we succeed in getting other people (not ICANN) to give us grants to do it. A guaranteed revenue stream from ICANN would certainly make that easier.

Do you think ICANN would ever consider paying IGP to do the work that they are paying WBC Global to do? Somehow I doubt it. And I doubt it precisely because IGP known NCUC and does a really good job of critically assessing ICANN and its policies from that perspective. We would never get funded, in other words, precisely because we ARE so close to NCUC and so independent of ICANN corporate.

If you think I am engaged in special pleading, ask yourself this: do you think they would make grants to Article 19 to pay them to help us write policies and conduct research on human rights matters? I doubt it.

Maybe the people who like this idea think that they are going to get some of this money. But even if they did, do we really want civil society groups competing against each other for ICANN money to do the policy work that they are supposed to be doing on behalf of civil society itself? What groups do you think would be selected, and which ones rejected, in this competition?

THINK ABOUT IT.

Outsourcing our policy development capacity to ICANN is the beginning of the end of civil society’s representation in ICANN.

Dr. Milton L. Mueller
Professor, School of Public Policy
Georgia Institute of Technology



From: Ncuc-discuss [mailto:ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org] On Behalf Of Ayden Férdeline
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2016 5:32 AM
To: Arsène Tungali <arsenebaguma at gmail.com>
Cc: Ncuc-discuss <ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>
Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] WBC Global policy support pilot - is NCUC participating in it?

Thanks for sharing your views here, Arsène and Nadira. I am really glad we are having this discussion again, and hope that the EC will involve us in its discussions in the New Year over what level of involvement or organisational support we would like to receive. I just wanted to clarify, however, that this programme is separate to the pilot community onboarding programme, as I think the two are being conflated. The pilot community onboarding programme is working to provide new volunteer talent with a faster entrance into the ICANN community, and is being developed internally. This programme, administered externally by WBC Global, is intended to support our involvement in ICANN’s various policy development processes. What works for other constituencies and stakeholder groups may not work for us, but my understanding is that others are using this support now to aid in their policy work. Of course it would be unwise to think of this offer of assistance from ICANN as help without strings attached — we should think carefully about what support we are happy to accept, and how we can ensure we do not become inappropriately dependent upon it. But we do need additional support, and if we continue to decline the assistance of paid external consultants while others, already with more resources then us accept it, we may only exacerbate our disadvantages.

Ayden Férdeline
linkedin.com/in/ferdeline<http://www.linkedin.com/in/ferdeline>


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] WBC Global policy support pilot - is NCUC participating in it?
Local Time: 23 December 2016 9:31 AM
UTC Time: 23 December 2016 09:31
From: arsenebaguma at gmail.com<mailto:arsenebaguma at gmail.com>
To: Nadira Alaraj <nadira.araj at gmail.com<mailto:nadira.araj at gmail.com>>
Ncuc-discuss <ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org<mailto:ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>>

Thanks Ayden for good memories.
I think Farzi has set a good timeline in her last message. Let's see what will be the outcomes of step 1, 2 as described and then decide whether worth implementing.

Nadira raises a good point. We may need to also dig what other constituencies have been able to do with such a pilot program and maybe build from their experience.
After all, any program that aims to help members be well equiped in policy disussion or research should be welcomed (of course after being checked). This should be the starting point to ensure new members are able to engage in ICANN work.

------------------------
*Arsène Tungali*
Co-Founder & Executive Director, Rudi international<http://www.rudiinternational.org>,
CEO, Smart Services Sarl<http://www.smart-serv.info>, Mabingwa Forum<http://www.mabingwa-forum.com>
Tel: +243 993810967
GPG: 523644A0
Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo
2015 Mandela Washington Felllow<http://tungali.blogspot.com/2015/06/selected-for-2015-mandela-washington.html> (YALI) - ISOC IGF Ambassador<http://www.internetsociety.org/what-we-do/education-and-leadership-programmes/next-generation-leaders/igf-ambassadors-programme/2015Ambassadors> <http://www.internetsociety.org/what-we-do/education-and-leadership-programmes/next-generation-leaders/igf-ambassadors-programme/2015Ambassadors> -
Blogger<http://tungali.blogspot.com> - ICANN Fellow<https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2014-07-18-en>. The HuffingtonPost UK<http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/liza-bel/drc_b_8958150.html>

2016-12-23 0:06 GMT+02:00 Nadira Alaraj <nadira.araj at gmail.com<mailto:nadira.araj at gmail.com>>:
Hi Ayden,
Thanks to Farzaneh for considering the pilot program.
To my understanding that constituencies didn't use their pilot program for policy research but to document an introduction for new commers in how to get engaged in the community.
Until now didn't read any  report about the outcome of its first round.

Worth checking,
Nadira

On 22 Dec 2016 14:41, "farzaneh badii" <farzaneh.badii at gmail.com<mailto:farzaneh.badii at gmail.com>> wrote:
Ayden

Thanks for bringing this up.

Next year in January, we will do the following 1. Assessing whether  we can participate in the pilot if renewed. 2. Coming up with our own ideas for receinving policy receving assistance.
3. Implementation ( this might happen in Feb or March)

On 22 Dec 2016 7:29 a.m., "Ayden Férdeline" <icann at ferdeline.com<mailto:icann at ferdeline.com>> wrote:
Hi Farzi,

Thanks for this update and for sharing your perspective on this issue.

I am glad to hear that the EC will re-evaluate whether or not we choose to participate in this pilot programme. At my second ICANN meeting in Marrakech, I remember listening to Kathy Kleiman brilliantly communicate to the Board that we needed to build our capacity to absorb an increased, growing, and specialised workload. When this pilot programme was announced, it felt to me like our calls had been heard and resources were being offered to boost our participation in ICANN activities. Now it seems like other, already-better resourced constituencies and stakeholder groups are benefiting from this programme while we turned it down… do forgive me if I am oversimplifying things… I just think a better path forward would be if participated in the pilot programme and set our own parametres around what support we would accept and what support we would find unsuitable.

Best wishes,

Ayden Férdeline
linkedin.com/in/ferdeline<http://www.linkedin.com/in/ferdeline>


-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: [NCUC-DISCUSS] WBC Global policy support pilot - is NCUC participating in it?
Local Time: 22 December 2016 12:11 PM
UTC Time: 22 December 2016 12:11
From: farzaneh.badii at gmail.com<mailto:farzaneh.badii at gmail.com>
To: matthew shears <mshears at cdt.org<mailto:mshears at cdt.org>>
NCUC-discuss <ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org<mailto:ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>>

We didn't continue discussing it and in the end did not sign up for it for this time. I am now looking into if there will be another opportunity to sign up for it in the future.

The EC has to decide on this, one way or another we are going to come up with  ways to support policy research in the new year. (Even through other means but that's for next year)

Just that you know my opinion about using such services: I do not see any problem as long as it is supervised and the researchers do not put in their own opinion in docs. But that's my personal opinion and need to discuss with EC.

On 22 Dec 2016 06:20, "matthew shears" <mshears at cdt.org<mailto:mshears at cdt.org>> wrote:

Didn't we reject this option when it was presented to us?  Unfortunately

On 22/12/2016 11:19, James Gannon wrote:
Oh great point, I had forgotten. Whats the status on this?


From: Ncuc-discuss <ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org<mailto:ncuc-discuss-bounces at lists.ncuc.org>> on behalf of Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com<mailto:icann at ferdeline.com>>
Reply-To: Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com<mailto:icann at ferdeline.com>>
Date: Thursday 22 December 2016 at 11:01
To: NCUC-discuss <ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org<mailto:ncuc-discuss at lists.ncuc.org>>
Subject: [NCUC-DISCUSS] WBC Global policy support pilot - is NCUC participating in it?

Hi,

Whatever happened to that ICANN pilot programme which was to offer selected constituencies and stakeholder groups assistance with policy research and document drafting? I remember being told in Helsinki its launch was imminent, and had an excellent discussion with a consultant from WBC Global about it. Are there any updates?

Thanks,

Ayden Férdeline
linkedin.com/in/ferdeline<http://www.linkedin.com/in/ferdeline>





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Matthew Shears

Global Internet Policy and Human Rights

Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT)

+ 44 771 2472987<tel:+44%207712%20472987>

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