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

Sat Dec 16 09:42:38 EET 2017

Hi Ayden,

I agree with you in some points. Indeed, our common purpose is outcome.

Yes, we all have different backgrounds, in that way, if your idea is
adopted, I will suggest that before going for external experts, we shall
look at experts amongst us through selection criterias.

Cheers,

~pascal

2017-12-16 10:25 GMT+01:00 Ayden Férdeline <icann at ferdeline.com>:

> 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>*
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> <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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