[NCUC-DISCUSS] Nomcom

[Anriette Esterhuysen]

Dear Renata

Responding to your question:
- What are your thoughts and strategies for advancement of diversity in
ICANN, especially Global South participation?

Nomcom can make a difference through the slates of candidates they
prepare. At the same time I feel this problem is deeper and broader and
has to be addressed by every constituency as well.

How would I address it? Firstly I would like to understand it better. At
the moment I have a pretty superficial understanding of the problem. I
look at gender balance on the ICANN board, and, frankly, I am stunned
that there are only four women. I will try to understand how this
happens by talking to existing and previous Nomcom members, and to
people who have nominated people for positions.

Is it a case of lack of diversity in the pool of names proposed, or does
the bottleneck happen elsewhere?

As for global South participation.... it can mean different things. On
the one hand there is making sure that individuals nominated come from
or live in countries in the global South. But I think it is also
important to have people that present global South political views and
perspectives. E.g. people that will be willing to ask questions on
whether ICANN is doing enough to create a more level playing field in
the DNS industry or doing enough to address possible conflict of
interest in decision-making processes.

Another problem I have seen over time in NCUC and NCSG is that often
there are very good people from the global South that make it into ICANN
roles, and then they don't participate that actively.

I would like to understand why this happens. It would be good to hear
from people who have been in such a position. Is it because they just
don't have the time, or are their other impediments? What do others think?

Has NCUC done its own analysis of diversity issues in ICANN? Are there
other resources/studies that one can draw on that analyses "global
North/South" participation, influence and power in ICANN? In this
instance too I would like to understand the status quo better in order
to assess what should be changed and how. And of course.. as I say
above, Nomcom work is only one way of addressing the problem.

Anriette

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Anriette Esterhuysen
Director - global policy and strategy
Association for Progressive Communications
anriette at apc.org
www.apc.org
IM: ae_apc