Letter from a NCSG Volunteer

[Raymond Mamattah]

Hello Rafik,

Thank you for your service to the NCSG community. I am sure with this rich
experience future councilors can count on you for your mentoring.

Cheers.

Raymond Mamattah
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<https://twitter.com/RMamattah>
Accra, Ghana


On Wed, Oct 21, 2020 at 2:13 PM Rafik Dammak <rafik.dammak at gmail.com> wrote:

> 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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