Letter from a NCSG Volunteer

[Rafik Dammak]

Hi all,


Today is officially my final day as councillor and I wanted because of that
to share some thoughts with you. I am not planning to seek any elected role
within NCSG or NCUC in near future and hoping to have some time away from
ICANN. Sorry as it will be a long message but I hope you will find time to
read it and use it as it fits.

It was a great 4 years on the council and I believe I could participate in
achieving some projects there. I do think the GNSO council is evolving in
its role of PDP manager and changing its working methods. However, there
are still challenges coming and our representatives there have to be ready
and prepared to step up.

PDP 3.0: I had the chance to be involved in that project as a member of the
council leadership team till being the lead for the implementation. I
really urge everyone to read the final report for the implementation to
understand the different areas covered and to listen to the webinars
presenting the recommendations. No, PDP 3.0 is not the silver bullet, not
solving all problems in council or PDP. It is aimed to create a new dynamic
of continuous improvement and so the work will continue.  PDP 3.0 is an
opportunity and challenge for NCSG. For example, using a representational
model can ensure that we are not overwhelmed like in an open working group
and give us weight. However, it also means that we have to have enough of a
pool of candidates and people who will participate effectively there and
keep us updated regularly. The PDP 3.0 needs be also seen with the broader
context of board initiative for multistakeholder model initiative or now
the new proposal for Operational Design Phase for gTLD Policy
Implementation and possibly later the one for PDP lifecycle. We have to be
vigilant and ensure that GNSO remains the center point and sole responsible
for gTLD policy making and management.

GNSO Council: the council is being more assertive in terms of program
management and planning the activities. It also added new tools for
managing such the overhauled Project list, the new ADR (Actions Decisions
Radar) and Project management tool. We don’t want to have 3 heavy PDP WG
running at the same time with 2 extending their timelines for almost 4
years and another being terminated before delivering. The council also
spent time to outline the roles and responsibilities of WG leadership,
council liaisons etc. Our representatives have an important role to be
aware about the council discussions and topics brought for council
attention, report them and participate on all the small teams and drafting
activities, review all the documents, ask the right questions and get
detailed responses from ICANN staff. Definitely it is not just about
attending the monthly council call. Our representatives also have to
continue the coordination and be able to vote following NCSG membership
positions. Regarding the reporting, we have some experiments with the
council meeting summary but personally I couldn’t continue because of the
workload. I hope things will improve in that area.

Council leadership: I had the privilege to be council vice-chair for NCPH
for 3 years and work with 2 different teams. It was a good learning
experience and let me participate in setting the council agenda, being
aware about the topics discussed and participating at a different level in
term of working with staff, WG, board and other SO/AC. I acknowledge that
was not a light workload and sometimes I had to balance between being a
NCSG representative and vice-chair. We have now new leadership team and we
got Tatiana to be the next vice chair for NCPH. I trust she will do a great
job there. It is important to keep asking the leadership the right
questions and not just count on them to do everything.

Policy Committee, I have been chair of NCSG PC for almost 4 years and I
think we did well but there are a lot of things to improve and move to the
next level. The PC has an important responsibility for NCSG to shape its
policy positions and follow closely all PDP and non-PDP activities, council
work etc. That can be only done if all PC members participate actively,
between councillors and constituencies representatives. In terms of
challenges, the PC has to continue the work on improving the working
methods (such operating procedures), improve the reporting to members and
how to scale out our participation taking into the new trends and incoming
changes in PDP and committees. We had some webinars this year for EPDP but
we could do more in several policy  topics more regularly to complement our
monthly calls but I acknowledge that will require more work and
preparation. Our engagement in ICANN is all about policy and that is what
matters. Other issues are more means to achieve that and we need to be
careful about where to spend our attention and effort to be effective. it
is always tempting to jump between too many issues and forgetting what is
essential i.e. defending the rights of non-commercial registrants and
users.

I also had the chance to work with different NCSG chairs and my conclusion
is important to have a supportive chair who else understands their role and
limits within what the charter describes. NCSG charter set a clear division
of labor and scope for the committees. We just need to make that work more
effectively. There is so much to do and few people to volunteer to make it.

Regarding participation, I know this topic that was in the agenda of many
leadership and candidates, that was discussed several times and many ideas
or initiatives suggested or implemented such as policy writing. My take is
that participation is at the end depending a lot of personal engagement and
commitment. We can create favorable conditions and prepare but there are
limits to that. Personally, I believe I grew up and learned a lot as an
elected officer but that meant being active and participating. Some
experience is needed and effectiveness is required. if you read the GNSO
operating procedures, you have already understood a lot about GNSO council
and PDP. There are now other resources like ICANN learn. There are regular
webinars and policy briefings that anyone can listen or read. My
observation is those who volunteered for drafting and/or joined working
groups were able to move faster than just counting on any kind of capacity
building. I want also to emphasize that most of the work is done between
F2F meetings, in numerous calls, exchange in mailing lists and volunteering
to draft or review proposals and documents.

Future topics: if you check the GNSO work plan , project list and more
importantly the ADR you can get an idea about what is coming as work at
GNSO level. there is RPM phase 2, the endless list of RDS related tasks due
to EPDP etc. But it still doesn’t cover everything. We have to deal with
all recommendations coming from the review teams and being assigned to GNSO
or even recommendations from WS2. We have possibly also the GNSO review
coming and this requires everyone to understand the background of the first
GNSO review and how the structuring helped us to be more vocal and
influential in council. I am pragmatic and not keen on pessimistic
approaches. We need to identify what is coming calmly and strategize how to
respond to that by building our initial positions, understanding the
parameters and terms of the activity to be initiated and more importantly
preparing the volunteers who lead there. We also have new activity now in
NCSG that might propose some changes. I think there are a lot of
expectations from new leadership to make changes but first it is critical
to identify the issues and right priorities. Things can change anytime.

I believe in self-criticism and acknowledge that getting criticism or
feedback is not that easy. I acknowledge that I made mistakes and failed on
some issues. I can only apologize sincerely and take responsibility. It is
easy to deny and deflect but it is definitely not the right way. I can only
state that I worked with good faith and what I believed aligned with NCSG
interests and values. There is temptation to object all the time, to make
strong statements but the real work in the trenches is about building
consensus and finding common ground. It is not visible, it is not sexy but
I believe it has a lasting impact.



Finally and with this,  I will be only active as a member and will try to
attend calls as much as possible or participate in discussion if I can
help. I will be glad to support our elected officers and representatives
and give them feedback. Thanks everyone for your confidence and trust that
you gave for all those years I was representing NCSG in different roles

Best Regards,

Rafik Dammak

NCSG member
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