No.RecommendationRecipientThematic Group SourceAssigneesStatus
9ICANN should open regional offices with a clear strategy, subject to a cost-benefit analysis, focusing on the areas where the access to the Internet is growing, and where such growth is more likely to occur.ICANN Board; ICANN StaffTG2
  • Staff
  • ALAC

COMPLETED

Summary

Implementation Details

The At-Large Community has championed ICANN staff efforts of opening regional offices to enhance engagement.

Following a strategic vision, ICANN has established stable presence in all five geographic regions, especially in the growth markets, by building hubs in Los Angeles, Istanbul, and Singapore, as well as engagement centers in Beijing, Brussels, Geneva, Montevideo, Nairobi, Seoul, and Washington DC. 

These regional offices have significantly increased ICANN’s involvement in regional Internet events. They have also enabled greater collaboration between ICANN staff and local At-Large Structures. This has been reflected on ALSes’ participation in ICANN’s IDN LGR integration panel, as well as the implementation of the regional strategies, with components including capacity building webinars and language localization projects.

Next Step

At-Large Structures will continue engaging with ICANN regional offices to explore various forms of collaboration.

 

Actions:

  • Staff to provide the Strategy document before LA.
  • ALAC to expand on this recommendation
  • : 
    • Ariel Liang to follow up the GSE team and Heidi Ullrich with regard to the Strategy document 

Notes: 

 (ALAC-GSE Part 1) 

  • Note on Slide: This should be referred to ICANN’s Operations Team
  • Olivier Crepin-Leblond: 
    • It's pretty much done and dusted. ICANN has opened offices to cover all of the five regions, so that works well. 


 

 No.RecommendationRecipientThematic Group SourceAssigneesStatus
12In collaboration with At-Large Structures, ICANN should put in place campaigns to raise awareness and extend education programmes across underrepresented regions.ICANN GSE StaffTG2
  • Capacity Building
  • Outreach & Engagement 
  • GSE Staff

COMPLETED

Summary

Implementation Details

The At-Large Community assignees have closely collaborated with ICANN staff departments in the creation, implementation, and refinement of campaigns and education programs that target audience in underrepresented regions.

In close coordination with RALOs and in sync with their outreach strategies, GSE has created and implemented regional strategies. These efforts result in the successful roll out of regional capacity building webinar series, notably in the Asian, Australasian and Pacific Islands region and the Latin American and Caribbean Islands region. Other examples include the DNS entrepreneurship center in Africa and school of Internet Governance in the Middle East. The NextGen, Fellowship, and Mentorship programs under the Development and Public Responsibility Department have also provided opportunities for people in underrepresented regions to learn and experience ICANN. In addition, ICANN has strongly supported At-Large’s outreach activities during ICANN meetings and fulfilled many CROPP and special budget requests to reach the outreach goal.

As a direct beneficiary of those programs, At-Large has seen a marked increase of accredited At-Large Structures in all regions, as well as the attendance of its teleconferences, webinars, briefings, and face-to-face meetings. Greater engagement has brought active participation and diverse views to the policy activities in ICANN.

Next Step

At-Large will continue collaborating with ICANN staff to ensure the lasting success of existing campaigns and programs and will help develop future ones. At-Large would also like to see metrics developed to track and measure the effectiveness of those efforts.

 

Actions: 

  • : 
    • During ICANN 54 in Dublin, the ALAC to meet with GSE Staff and Regional VPs and raise their awareness of this recommendation and what they have been doing to address this recommendation. 
  • :
    • Capacity Building WG to review the ATLAS II recommendations in their upcoming call(s)

Notes: 

  • Capacity Building WG / Outreach SC to develop a proposal in coordination with the GSE staff and then send the proposal for Board review.
  • The proposal can be expanded on the relevant items listed in the appendix of the ATLAS II Declaration.
  • (update from the GSE, slides)
    • Note on Slide: Examples from Asia-Pacific (policy read-outs, etc), LAC, Africa & Middle East (underserved regions project).
    • Yu-Chang Kuek on the GSE engagement efforts in the APAC region: 
      • Institutionalizing the collaboration through a framework under an APRALO and ICANN/APAC hub structure with the guidance from APRALO and Policy team. 
      • Under the framework, a regularly timed webinar has been co-organized by APRALO and the ICANN/APAC hub. It’s to make sure that information pertaining to the DNS, and information pertaining to ICANN affairs are shared with a broader, regional community, and that the content being put up for discussion is jointly curated by both APRALO as well as staff, based out in the region. 
      • Another item under the framework is language customization in a very diverse region. ICANN has signed an MOU with Thailand to help them and help us translate materials into Thai. With many partners in APAC region, GSE has taken the outcomes of ICANN Meetings and has read-out sessions in country as well. 
    • Baher Esmat on the GSE engagement efforts in the Middle East: 
      • There are two main programs that GSE embarked upon a year or so ago, one in relation to development of the DNS industry in the region. ICANN had an agreement with the Egyptian Regulatory Authority, NTRA, to establish a DNS entrepreneurship center to serve Africa and the Middle East. The objective is to not only develop capacities but also to further develop the ecosystem across both regions. In the past six months ICANN has run five workshops in four different countries. There was a two-day workshop with registries and registrars in Tunis, focusing particularly on the local market in Tunis – what the strengths are, what the weaknesses are, and so on. 
      • The other program is a School on Internet Governance. This is not an ICANN invention. There have been programs on Internet governance all over the world in the past ten years. GSE partnered with a number of community leaders in this field, and started this program last year in the Middle East. This year, and upon the request from the local community in Pakistan, the ISOC Chapter in Islamabad, which is one of the ALSes, led an effort to have a National School on Internet Governance as well. 
    • Maureen Hilyard: In Oceania, ICANN does not seem to have done enough outreach in the 22 countries and territories other than Australia and New Zealand. There’s a big black hole when it comes to ICANN activities in the Pacific. 
    • Save Vocea:
      • In 2014, ICANN started this stakeholder group bottom-up engagement where we brought participants from Oceania who’ve been involved in ICANN to be part of a Working Group to put together a strategy for the region. One of the things the group did was highlight some of the main activities that could be important for the region. Some of it was on capacity building for the region and how we could also assist in the stability of the DNS for the region. 
      • Never before in the past, you’ve never seen Pacific Islanders being here. In this meeting, we have about nine countries from the Pacific through participating on Fellowships. There has been more coordination with the regional organizations, particularly with PIC ISOC, as they’re the regional body for the ALS. Then there are other bodies outside, like the APNIC in the industry. 
      • One success is that those countries and territories are receptive to ICANN coming in. In the past six months ICANN covered about eight countries, working with the stakeholders within the countries. 
      • It's good to work in partnerships, but it’s not concrete in terms of how ICANN could set MOUs with Pacific island countries and territories. 
      • The challenge is still on communications. Even though we provide a webinar for the whole Asia Pacific region, in coordination with APRALO, the challenge is how do Pacific community members get access to online meetings? How do they pay for this access? Who will pay for this access. That’s been one of the major problems, and ICANN should work on that. 
    • Olivier Crepin-Leblond: GSE has provided a good deal of information on that. I think that’s also pretty much complete. 
    • Tijani Ben Jemaa: I proposed a program for capacity building to undertake some activities in the small islands in the Caribbean, and small countries in Africa where ICAN never go. I proposed to Jean-Jacques Sahel to collaborate on this, since he’s in charge of the civil society. 

Input from Outreach & Engagement Sub-committee: 

  • Capacity Building WG / Outreach SC to develop a proposal in coordination with the GSE staff and then send the proposal for Board review.
  • The proposal can be expanded on the relevant items listed in the appendix of the ATLAS II Declaration.
  • Africa Engagement Strategy has been successful
  • Not sure whether the engagement strategy in other regions are as good as the Africa engagement strategy
    • Indigenous population
    • Find out what regions don't have any ICANN presence (e.g. Dev's spreadsheet for LAC region)
  • Stakeholder map across all the SOs/ACs/SGs is needed (key rec)
  • Stakeholder engagement strategy has been successful
  • Examples of effective campaigns:
    • LAC Road Show

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