FINAL VERSION SUBMITTED (IF RATIFIED)
The final version to be submitted, if the draft is ratified, will be placed here by upon completion of the vote.
FINAL DRAFT VERSION TO BE VOTED UPON BY THE ALAC
The final draft version to be voted upon by the ALAC will be placed here before the vote is to begin.
10 September 2018
The At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Draft ICANN Africa Strategic Plan 2016-2020 Version 3.0.
The main objective of the strategic plan is to strengthen the physical presence in Africa to conduct outreach and help reflect ICANN’s global image via the regionalization of core ICANN operations. However, the draft raises some concerns about the feasibility of this plan.
The ICANN regional office is understaffed to conduct the activities recommended in the draft: Only one staff member is in Nairobi.
Among the recommendations outlined, the most important cannot be implemented without human resources to promote local engagement and strengthen ICANN operations within Africa. An increased number of African ICANN staff has to be seriously considered, taking into account diversity and gender equity.
In addition, involving more African participation in strategy planning and subsequent implementation review would help increase the number of Africans able to undertake awareness campaigns in their local communities.
Capacity building at the local level should be supported by ICANN and the local private sector, which is currently not very active within ICANN.
African participation within ICANN constituencies should be strengthened. Africa is well represented within the At-Large community and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), but not within other SOs and ACs.
Finally, some recommendations in the strategy do not have a suggested path for implementation. For example:
4. Produce Targeted Documents in appropriate languages regarding ICANN operations (AU Languages)
5. Deploy & Support Anycast Instances in cooperation with regional organizations
There are no comments on how to implement; no indicators (p.11).
The African community within At-Large is willing to contribute to the definition of the implementation strategies of these recommendations.
DRAFT SUBMITTED FOR DISCUSSION
The first draft submitted will be placed here before the call for comments begins. The Draft should be preceded by the name of the person submitting the draft and the date/time. If, during the discussion, the draft is revised, the older version(S) should be left in place and the new version along with a header line identifying the drafter and date/time should be placed above the older version(s), separated by a Horizontal Rule (available + Insert More Content control).
06 September 2018
The At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC) appreciates the opportunity to comment on the Draft ICANN Africa Strategic Plan 2016-2020 Version 3.0.
The main objective of the strategic plan is to strengthen the physical presence in Africa to conduct outreach and help reflect ICANN’s global image via the regionalization of core ICANN operations. However, the draft raises some concerns about the feasibility of this plan.
The ICANN regional office is understaffed to conduct the activities recommended in the draft: Only one staff member is in Nairobi.
Among the recommendations outlined, the most important cannot be implemented without human resources to promote local engagement and strengthen ICANN operations within Africa. An increased number of African ICANN staff has to be seriously considered, taking into account diversity and gender equity.
In addition, involving more African participation in strategy planning and subsequent implementation review would help increase the number of Africans able to undertake awareness campaigns in their local communities.
Capacity building at the local level should be supported by ICANN and the local private sector, which is currently not very active within ICANN.
African participation within ICANN constituencies should be strengthened. Africa is well represented within the At-Large community and the Governmental Advisory Committee (GAC), but not within other SOs and ACs.
Finally, some recommendations in the strategy do not have a suggested path for implementation. For example:
4. Produce Targeted Documents in appropriate languages regarding ICANN operations (AU Languages)
5. Deploy & Support Anycast Instances in cooperation with regional organizations
There are no comments on how to implement; no indicators (p.11).
3 Comments
Krishna Seeburn
Good comments and suggestions. As we know the african continent is connected and not connected as well. I would also like to propose some additional views on strategy:
Abdulkarim Ayopo Oloyede
I would like to commend those who contributed to this wonderful draft and the webinar on it 2 weeks ago which explained more details about the African strategy.
I would like to add that we also need to place an emphasis on the need to have better participation in the workings of ICANN in Africa. This is essential because we need a louder voice and hold leadership positions in ICANN. Africans in leadership positions within ICANN would help especially with participation from Africa. We also need to have a strategy on how to support past and current fellows on better participation before during and after the fellowship to improve participation in the SOs. there should be better ways of putting fellows in touch with each other and form a community where leaders can subsequently emerge in other to strengthen the multistakeholder structure of ICANN.
Secondly, we need to have a strategy to engage government in Africa. As we all know the government system in Africa is significantly different from other parts of the world and we need to acknowledge this. The reality is that Governments in Africa have absolute power (we might not agree with this but this is the truth) and without government pushing for better use of out top-level domains things might not change. If there is a better push from the government, the awareness and use might be better. We still find government agencies in Africa using public domain names to transact government activities
Lastly, we also need to include strategies on how to have ICANN materials translated into our local languages and also the domain names
Sarah Kiden
Comment from Esther Patricia Akello
(She has requested me to post on her behalf as she has no login details yet)
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Hello everyone,
1st special thanks for the well written strategy. I commend the team that put together this draft.
My suggestions:
In regards to challenges mentioned. I would like to suggest that a road map on proposed measures to addressing the challenges be added as it will help with progress tracking for the region , this can be done for the planned action items highlighted in the strategy. This can be added as an addendum too.
Then on the issue of outreach - my suggestion is that the regional office have a database of past fellows and nextgen from Africa with a set of outreach activities for the fellows to execute . The fellowship community comprises of diverse participants from across Africa and a drive to have fellows reach out to the communities they represent can be initiated with the support of the regional office. Periodic calls to all fellows in the region can be made as follow up. But 1st the database of all regional fellows then a follow up of their activities and support them where necessary.