Letter from a NCSG Volunteer

[KASWESHA]

Best of wishes to the greatest man I came to know through this processes.
Wish you all the best in all your feature plan. The impact of your absence
will be felt in the entire ICANN fraternity.

Regards;


James N Gitau

On Wed, Oct 21, 2020, 11:47 AM Poncelet Jokkolabs Banjul <
pileleji at jokkolabs.co> wrote:

> Dear Rafik,
>
> Best wishes and good luck in all your new endeavours.
>
> Thanks for all the hard work and commitment you had for our
> constituencies. Personally thank you for all the hard work within our PDP
> processes .
>
> Peace
>
> Poncelet
>
> On Wednesday, October 21, 2020, 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
>>
>>
>
> --
>
> *Poncelet O. Ileleji*
> *Jokkolabs Banjul -  Lead*
> *Sait Matty Road, Bakau, Adjacent to Swedish Consulate*
> *KMC, The Gambia*
> *P O Box 4496 Bakau,KMC, The Gambia*
> *Skype: pons_utd*
> *Tel Direct Office: +220 4495115*
>
> *Tel Mobile/Whatsapp: +220 9912508*
> *www.jokkolabs.net* <http://www.jokkolabs.co>
>
> *LinkedIn: Jokkolabs Banjul*
> *Facebook: Jokkolabs Banjul*
> *Twitter: @jklBanjul*
>
>
>
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.ncsg.is/pipermail/ncsg-discuss/attachments/20201021/e3b7a7e5/attachment.htm>