FY18 in review

In FY18, EURALO concentrated its related activities on:

·        The annual ICANN Studienkreis meeting in Stockholm, which  several members of EURALO attended, representing end-user interests in the discussions; no travel funding was available from ICANN:

·        The European Summer School on Internet Governance (EuroSSIG) in Meissen/Germany in which several members are involved;  

·        National IGF initiatives (Germany, France, UK, and Ukraine) performed through ALSes attending locally;

·        The Global IGF in Geneva (18-21 December 2017 - https://www.intgovforum.org/multilingual/content/igf-2017-4 ) using 1 CROP slot as well as some additional budget funding for giveaways

·        Sending a representative to re:publica in Berlin – 2-4 May 2018 https://re-publica.de/en/about-republica - using one CROP slot

·        Collaboration with RIPE NCC through attendance at the RIPE76 meeting in Marseille (https://ripe76.ripe.net/ ). In Abu Dhabi, EURALO signed a bilateral agreement with RIPE based on a MoU similar to those signed by other RALOs with their Regional Internet Registry. This opened the door to opportunities to perform outreach at RIPE meetings.

·        The annual EuroDIG event (European IGF - https://www.eurodig.org/index.php?id=76 ) which in which EURALO is a partner, (including sending 2 members of EURALO to the 2018 EuroDIG in Tbilisi using 2 CROP slots on 5-6 June 2018). It is worth noting that EURALO’s contribution as a partner comes as an in-kind contribution of time spent by the EURALO Chair on EuroDIG organisational matters.

These Outreach opportunities focused primarily on identifying potential new members (ALSes or individuals), discussions about EURALO and At-Large. In many cases we spoke to potential candidates, distributed EURALO flyers and encouraged them to participate.

As in previous years, it has been particularly challenging to recruit new ALSes. Whilst Europe has plenty of organisations that might qualify as an At-Large Structure, the focus of activity in Europe leaves little or no interest for Internet Identifier issues that are the primary focus in ICANN. Whilst performing outreach, our teams on the ground have been very clear with potential applicants about ICANN’s limited remit and did not pursue organisations that had neither the interest, bandwidth, nor scope to be actively involved with ICANN’s policy development. As a result, our progress in terms of ALS growth has been modest.

On the other hand, the region has experienced tremendous growth in its individual membership which is encouraged to join the purpose-built ALS, the EURALO Individuals Association, a follow-up to the growth of previous years. Notably, EURALO CROP funded travellers included a number of individual users and we are seeing this approach paying off with an increase in the direct involvement of these individuals – particularly in policy work, which should be the main aim for outreach. Also, a majority of the EURALO Board are now Individual Members, rather than members from At-Large Structures.

Coordination with our regional VPs Jean-Jacques Sahel and Alexandra Kulikova has continued to improve, to the extent that although this year’s EuroDIG was strictly out of the European Region (in Tbilisi, Georgia), it was possible to make use of CROP for travels to this destination as ICANN was involved as a key sponsor for Europe’s EuroDIG. ICANN staff Adam Peake has been helpful in identifying other fora at which to perform outreach.

Strategy for FY19

The RALO leadership is identifying other potential events to participate in using CROP, starting with an event called "re:publica, The 2018 instance of which took place in early summer in Berlin/Germany, became the biggest conference and fair on Internet politics in Europe with over 9,000 participants -- see:https://re-publica.de/en/about-republica.

With EuroDIG running its own fellowship program, emphasis on participation at EuroDIG for CROP slots has decreased but is still present.

In FY19, EURALO will focus on the following events:

• ICANN63 in Barcelona (20-25 October 2018): we will be running a three hour joint outreach event in the Non Commercial Stakeholders Group (NCSG) which will include in depth discussion and debate about many of ICANN’s current policy topics. The format and topics for this session are currently being worked on.
• Internet Governance Week Brussels (2018 edition was on :  https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/blogposts/internet-governance-week-brussels-22-26-january-2018
• We do not yet know the exact dates for the 2019 edition, but it is fair to say that this is likely to be equally as interesting and significant as the 2018 edition. At present, with decreasing CROP slots, it looks unlikely that we would have a CROP slot for this event.
• Eastern European DNS Forum -https://www.eednsforum.org/en/  December 2018, Moscow, Russia. At present, with decreasing CROP slots, it looks unlikely that we would have a CROP slot for this event.
• CDPD - Computers, Privacy and Data Protection -http://www.cpdpconferences.org/  Next year to take place in Brussels, 30 January 2019 – 1 February 2019. We need to check with our Regional VP if this would be an ICANN supported meeting that fits the criterion for CROP. However, At present, with decreasing CROP slots, it looks unlikely that we would have a CROP slot for this event.
• EuroSSIG 2019 –http://www.eurossig.eu – EURALO has never asked CROP for this and is not planning to ask for CROP, as we are using this opportunity to perform outreach, funded from another source. Outreach at the Summer School has been very successful. In 2018 yet again we have managed to reach out to all 30 fellows, many of whom are joining EURALO now.
• re:publica – 6-8 May 2019https://re-publica.de/en/about-republica - EURALO might ask for CROP slots for this. Since the report from Matthias Hudobnik (CROP funded attendee for re:publica 2018) was so positively conclusive, we are in discussions with ICANN Regional VP for Outreach, to see if we would be able to do more than having just a CROP attendee. Possibilities are that we could have a booth at re:publica, or even host or speak at a session. Early preparation of EURALO Leadership & European Regional VP is needed. Outreach Activity Funding (see below) could be used for this rather than CROP.
• EuroDIG 2019 – 18-20 June 2019http://www.eurodig.org – EURALO is likely to ask for a limited number of CROP slots for this. EuroDIG 2019 will take place in The Hague, Netherlands. We have several ALSes in the region that are likely to attend even without funding as they are just a train ride away. We will consider limiting CROP slots to the same or less than FY18. (2 max, 1 preferred)
• SEEDIG 2019 –http://www.seedig.net/ likely to be in June 2019, location unknown – thus we could use CROP slots. We have not specially targeted SEEDIG in previous years and might, therefore, consider allocating 1 CROP slot to this.
• RightsCon –https://www.rightscon.org/  in North Africa this year (Tunis, Tunisia), thus no possibility to send anyone, but we’ll monitor future RightsCon conferences that will take place in Europe.

As in previous years, the challenge in identifying suitable venues comes from the variety of languages spoken in Europe. There are therefore few suitable European-wide conferences that could offer the same access to potential ALSes as EuroDIG.

That said, the number of CROP slots afforded to EURALO this year is only three slots, of which the first one needs to be affected to travel to an ICANN meeting. ICANN63 taking place in Barcelona (October 2018), the RALO will use its first slot to send someone to that meeting.

ALS Read-Out Session

This year RALOs may again apply for funds for outreach activities (see:https://community.icann.org/display/CRALO/RALO+Requests+for+Funding+to+support+an+Outreach+Activity). Requests for room rental, catering, etc. may be requested. The fund has been increased to $4000 per RALO and could now cover travel costs, as less CROP slots have now been afforded by RALO.

Read-Out sessions may be held in any region following an ICANN Meeting. They are used to raise awareness of the results of an ICANN meeting to a particular audience. Any EURALO ALS could hold an ALS Read Out Session and invite its members or the public to discuss the results of the most recent ICANN Meeting. EURALO will launch a process in time to suggest an ALS Read Out Session immediately after the ICANN AGM (ICANN 60)

Unfortunately there has been no take-up of such an opportunity in 2018. We will re-iterate and publicise this type of event again to our ALSes for FY19.

Collaboration

Collaboration with the local Regional Internet Registry has been increased by signing an MoU for collaboration with RIPE NCC. In Abu Dhabi, EURALO signed a bilateral agreement with RIPE based on a MoU similar to those signed by other RALOs with their Regional Internet Registry.

• Collaboration with RIPE NCC through attendance at the RIPE76 meeting in Marseille (https://ripe76.ripe.net/ ) where RIPE waived its meeting entry fee.

This opened the door to opportunities to perform outreach at upcoming RIPE meetings:

• RIPE77https://ripe77.ripe.net/ in Amsterdam, Netherlands, 15 Oct 2018 – 19 Oct 2018
• RIPE78https://ripe78.ripe.net/ in Reykjavík, Iceland, 20 May 2019 – 24 May 2019

At this point in time, it is unsure whether there will be enough resources to attend such meetings, as funded by ICANN outreach funding programs. The RALO might consider going through the path of fellowship funding to fund someone from the RALO to attend one or more of these meetings.

Collaboration with EuroDIG has continued as in previous years, with the EURALO Chair providing in-kind support to EuroDIG thus keeping EURALO as a EuroDIG Organisational Partner. This long-term commitment to EuroDIG has taken place irrespective of the partner status of ICANN at EuroDIG which is of a monetary nature. Partnering with EuroDIG which started several years ago, have enhanced EURALO’s image since the very early days of EuroDIG and we expect this to continue in FY19.

Task Force on ALS Engagement

EURALO has created a Task Force on ALS Engagement focussing on our already existing ALSes. With many ALSes not offering their full participation in EURALO activities, this Task Force has been studying the reasons for this low participation and methods to increase participation. Outreach does not only take place by recruiting new At-Large Structures, but also by recruiting more active members amongst the At-Large Structures - bearing in mind an ALS has more than just one member. A survey of ALS and member expertise has been undertaken, using personalised emails and follow-up to build an extensive database of membership skills.

As reported last year, the concept for a personalised seeking of policy commenting input was tested for two public consultation. The results are a qualified success, resulting in two ALAC policy Statements being drafted in 2017-2018:

·       Draft Framework of Interpretation for Human Rights

o   Sent to 3 ALSes and a response from 3 (100% response rate)

o   https://atlarge.icann.org/advice_statements/9985

·       Revised ICANN Procedure for Handling WHOIS Conflicts with Privacy Law: Process and Next Steps

o   Sent to 13 ALSes and a response from 9 (70% response rate)

o   https://atlarge.icann.org/advice_statements/9983

In FY18, the Task Force has continued its work and also made use of the same system to approach ALSes that might have an interest in a topic. The largest such request was about the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) with a dozen ALSes that have marked they are interested in Privacy Regulation issues as well as WHOIS. On this campaign, the response rate has been somewhat lower than previous campaigns, with only just over half of the ALSes responding to a request for volunteers to apply for a position on the Expedited PDP (EPDP) to resolve these issues. The nature of the request (a high commitment) might have contributed to the lack of response.

The EURALO Task Force on ALS Engagement will continue monitoring the ICANN policy consultation process and select future consultations on other topics to further refine the process of member consultation.

In the long term, this goes one step closer to the designing of an automated system that would perform such targeted requests as part of a Policy Management Process System, as described in the ATLAS II recommendations.

Missions undertaken by the EURALO Chair

The EURALO Chair has travelled and attended various events in European countries, funded by third parties. Whenever travel was undertaken to a specific European Country, he made an attempt to speak to local ALS representatives.

One of the discussions with ALS representatives took place in an Eastern European country in March 2018, discussing GDPR issues, along with Sébastien Bachollet, ALAC member from Europe, participating.

Feedback from local representatives showed that the lack of active involvement from ALS representatives often resulted from a combination of:

-        their high professional workload (sometimes due to preparation for GDPR)

-        high volunteer workload at their ALS (many issues being due to GDPR)

-      thus no or little time left for their involvement in ICANN volunteer work even though in many cases, the professional contribution that was required (GDPR issues) aligned well with the  core interests of that ALS

This is an explanation that is being frequently given in response to requests for more involvement from Europe. It is a particular long term concern that EURALO leadership is being reminded of.