<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">I think James is very astute on this point. <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">We need people to be involved in PDPs and policy work that represent a really diverse geographical range, so we capture a really wide range of perspectives. All of the geographical divisions have a huge range of diversity within them - my own region, APAC, includes India, China, Malaysia, Indonesia, a wide range of pacific islands and more - as well as my own nation, Australia, and its close neighbour New Zealand. We could put up six councillors just from APAC and still represent a diverse range of viewpoints in other ways, or a balanced geographical representation and still have other big diversity issues. But the council just manages policy, and is a good job for people who already are experienced in policy and want to help manage the process. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">But council level is not right solution for regional diversity. Council mostly only deals with the policy process, not the policy detail, and it at the detail level that so many regional differences are important. We want six of our best, experienced, policy experts in council. We need representation from all regions in PDPs and policy work, and then it will be easy to have choose six that represent a broad range of regions. It is better to have a mild imbalance in regional representation (2 councillors is not enough to truly represent the diversity of ANY region, and geography is just a single diversity factor, we also want gender balance, a range of skills, a range of sectors, etc) than to have councillors without enough policy experience. But we really need diversity at the policy level, to make sure regional issues (like, eg, so many IDN issues, or national legal differences) are represented in the policy process. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">So, don’t apply for council just in the hopes of building regional diversity. Jump into the policy processes. </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">David </div><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class="">On 18 Dec 2019, at 12:02 am, James Gannon <<a href="mailto:lists@ICANN.GURU" class="">lists@ICANN.GURU</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><div class=""><span style="caret-color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Calibri, sans-serif; font-size: 14.666666984558105px; font-style: normal; font-variant-caps: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; text-align: start; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px; text-decoration: none; float: none; display: inline !important;" class="">more active members from the African region who are participating and contributing to PDPs and policy work in general.</span></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></div></body></html>