Additional Budget Requests: What activities do we want ICANN to fund

Sat Dec 16 04:25:37 EET 2017

I do not see the NCUC as a school; we need to as professional - and as coordinated (if not more so) - as our colleagues in the private sector if we want to effect real change. Remember what our values are and what we are here to protect and support: non-commercial communication and activity on the Internet, be that personal or political speech, academic research, or even expression about hobbies, interests, and ideas. This is too important to leave to experimentation.

We all have different backgrounds, and ICANN has generously provided us with the support to upskill and to develop our own capabilities through initiatives like the policy writing course. But none of this is a substitute for actually reading the source documents and analysing how they relate to the issues inside and outside of the ICANN ecosystem that we track. Or, rather, should be tracking.

I am more focused on the outcome — making sure the principles of free expression, privacy and data protection, fair use, freedom of association, and due process are evident in ICANN activities — than I am on the measures employed to deliver that outcome. If we need external help to instil these things, we need external help.

Best wishes, Ayden

> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject: Re: Additional Budget Requests: What activities do we want ICANN to fund
> Local Time: 12 December 2017 3:05 PM
> UTC Time: 12 December 2017 15:05
> From: arsenebaguma at GMAIL.COM
> To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
>
> I kind of agree that we may need to explore that idea of hiring a consultancy firm.
>
> A quick question would be: for how long are we gonna use the services of such a firm? I believe a good reasoning (in our application for additional budget) would be to request it for a certain period of time (to be determined) and then as part of the package, ask the same firm to provide targetted/specialized capacity building program for those of our members who are already involved in public comment drafting so that they can take the lead afterwards. But i believe we have this aspect already coverd by the policy course?
>
> Unless we want to totaly rely on such a firm to forever provide this kind of support, which i am worried might not be approved by ICANN and probably would not be valuable for us in terms of sustainability and on long term run. I see the NCSG as a sort of school, giving its members the unique opportunity that we are not receiving anywhere else to be involved in public comments, which is real policy work that we do here at ICANN.
> I also used to believe that one of the things that make the NCSG different from other groups within ICANN is our ability (so far) to produce our own policy materials and not rely on staff support or such an independent firm to do the work for us. But, I now do agree that we need help in order to be effective and timely in comments drafting.
> We might need to find the right balance here. Just been thinking outloud :)
>
> ------------------------
> *[Arsène Tungali](http://about.me/ArseneTungali)*
> 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
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> Goma, Democratic Republic of Congo
>
> [2015 Mandela Washington Felllow](http://tungali.blogspot.com/2015/06/selected-for-2015-mandela-washington.html) (YALI) - ISOC Ambassador (IGF [Brazil](http://www.internetsociety.org/what-we-do/education-and-leadership-programmes/next-generation-leaders/igf-ambassadors-programme/Past-Ambassadors) & [Mexico](http://www.internetsociety.org/what-we-do/education-and-leadership-programmes/next-generation-leaders/Current-Ambassadors)) - [AFRISIG 2016](http://afrisig.org/afrisig-2016/class-of-2016/) - [Blogger](http://tungali.blogspot.com) - ICANN's [GNSO Council](https://gnso.icann.org/en/about/gnso-council.htm) Member.AFRINIC Fellow([Mauritius](http://www.afrinic.net/en/library/news/1907-afrinic-25-fellowship-winners)) - [IGFSA Member](http://www.igfsa.org/) - Internet Governance - Internet Freedom.
>
> Check the 2016 State of Internet Freedom in DRC report ([English](http://cipesa.org/?wpfb_dl=234)) and ([French](http://cipesa.org/?wpfb_dl=242))
>
> 2017-12-09 3:44 GMT+02:00 Stephanie Perrin <stephanie.perrin at mail.utoronto.ca>:
>
>> I agree with Ayden, and in particular I would identify research and preparing briefing papers in order to bring our new people up to speed, as key activities we could use help on.  Some of us are happy to mentor, but the folks who want mentoring need materials to read, questions and answers, prior to discussing issues with potential mentors.  We can't just throw them at the ICANN PDP websites and wikis, it is overwhelming to scan through the amount of material and resource documents one has to read.  That kind of help from a research firm would be useful, and I agree with Ayden that we may want to hire a different kind of resource than the one the RySG is using, which should be permissible.  Although, there are certainly firms like that who work with NGOS of all kinds.
>>
>> Stephanie Perrin
>>
>> On 2017-12-08 20:14, Ayden Férdeline wrote:
>>
>>> Farzaneh, thanks-
>>>
>>> I have two suggestions.
>>>
>>> 1) As the NCSG and its constituencies scale and mature, we may want to become more independent than we are today from ICANN. Is it possible to request a budget for professional services so that we can receive advice on whether becoming our own legal entity is a possibility - and desirable?
>>>
>>> 2) Another suggestion - and one which I appreciate will not have support from all our members - is to explore the possibility of hiring external consultants to aid us in our policy work. Other ICANN communities receive support from WBC Global in writing first drafts of their public comments. I am aware that the Business Constituency, Intellectual Property Constituency, Internet Service Providers and Connectivity Providers Constituency, and the Registries Stakeholder Group accept this assistance. They receive support from WBC advisers for up to 20 public comments per year. We refuse this assistance and I continue to maintain that this is a mistake. [According to a document](http://mm.icann.org/pipermail/comments-fy18-budget-08mar17/attachments/20170330/8e8238e7/RySGcommentonDocumentDevelopmentandDraftingProgram-0001.pdf) that I found on the ICANN website from the RySG:
>>>
>>> "Our Document Development and Drafting Research Assistant, Wim Degezelle, made a significant contribution in his role of drafting comments to complex public comments. His ability to research a topic, communicate with those in the RySG who may have some more in-depth knowledge of the issues/topics at hand, and then prepare and present salient observations and suggested comments has been of incredible benefit to the RySG. Wim’s role facilitated participation by RySG members who don’t use English as their first language, and better enabled engagement by smaller (or new) registry operators who have limited bandwidth, resources and/or knowledge that restrict their participation in issues that may have a direct impact on their operations. In fact, we saw a notable increase in participation by volunteers to partner (or even take a lead role) in developing and/or contributing to critical issues requiring formal comments by the RySG."
>>>
>>> When communities with more resources than us are accepting assistance in drafting their comments, and we do not (for a number of very valid reasons), I worry that we exacerbate our disadvantages.
>>>
>>> I understand that one of the concerns regarding WBC Global was that they describe themselves as a "Leading international trade government relations consulting firm serving multinational clients ... offer[ing] public policy, political and strategic business advice to Fortune 500 and other companies". There are concerns, rightfully so, that they may not be best positioned to write comments through a civil society lens. But can we instead request our own budget, and work with ICANN [I am not entirely familiar with their procurement processes] to choose our own consulting firm? We're swamped. We need help.
>>>
>>> Best wishes,
>>>
>>> Ayden Férdeline
>>> [linkedin.com/in/ferdeline](http://www.linkedin.com/in/ferdeline)
>>>
>>>> -------- Original Message --------
>>>> Subject: Additional Budget Requests: What activities do we want ICANN to fund
>>>> Local Time: 7 December 2017 3:52 PM
>>>> UTC Time: 7 December 2017 15:52
>>>> From: farzaneh.badii at GMAIL.COM
>>>> To: NCSG-DISCUSS at LISTSERV.SYR.EDU
>>>>
>>>> We can submit additional budget requests to ICANN to fund certain activities. This year we got our NCSG policy course approved. What do you think the need of our stakeholder group is for next year? What should ICANN fund for us?
>>>>
>>>> Please send your ideas my way, and remember that there are many restrictions to the sort of funding we get. For example, we probably won't be able to get funding to support travelers for ICANN meetings we could try but it might be turned down.  Here is the link to additional budget request announcement: https://www.icann.org/news/announcement-2017-12-05-en
>>>>
>>>> Note that we will discuss the ideas with NCSG Executive Committee, select some, develop them and submit the requests on behalf of NCSG. I advise against submitting additional funding request on your own.
>>>>
>>>> Best
>>>>
>>>> Farzaneh
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