FINISHED FILE

ICANN
DIVERSITY SUBGROUP
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2017
1300 UTC

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This text is being provided in a realtime format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. 
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	>> FIONA ASONGA: Hello, everyone.  This is Fiona, co-rapporteur of the working group.  I think it's time for us to start our meeting, so we'll start with a roll call.	
	>> (Inaudible).  
	>> Fiona, (?) speaking on the French channel.  He would like to check that you are aware he is connected on the phone.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: (Inaudible).  
	Send a reminder for comments on the agenda questionnaire that has been (?).  We are having our meeting (?) Some of the discussion we have had.  
	>> BRENDA BREWER: Fiona, this is Brenda.  Fiona, this is Brenda.  Are you able to hear me?  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Yes, Brenda.  
	>> BRENDA BREWER: Thank you.  We are not getting a clear reception from your line.  So we are going to call back out to you.  Could you just stand by one moment, please, while we call back out to you, see if we get a better connection.  
	One moment, everyone.  Thank you.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: In the meantime, can everyone hear me on the computer?  
	>> This sounds a little better right now, yes.  
	(Audio echoing) 
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Okay.  Then let us proceed with this.  
	Brenda, can you call me if this drops?  
	>> BRENDA BREWER: Yes, will do, Fiona.  Thank you.  (Audio echoing) 
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Thank you.  So going back to the beginning, I ran through the action items.  Rafik was to send reminders to the list for comments on the draft proposal requesting the group to read through and give comments, and then also for comments on the agenda diversity questionnaire that's due by Friday, the 28th of April.  I have not seen much traction on that.  
	Then someone agreed to amend the diversity questionnaire as from the discussion on the questions we had.  I don't know if staff is able to show the updated version of that because I haven't seen any.  
	There is echoing somewhere.  Please mute.  
	Okay.  Proceeding to item 3 on the agenda.  If there are no comments on number 2, proceed to number 3.  I am not seeing any -- 
	>> BRENDA BREWER: I am sorry, Fiona.  I just want to advise you, is it possible you could put -- do you have headphones you could use for speaking today?  
	One moment.  I will unmute your line.  We get a bad echo.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Is that better?  
	>> BERNARD TURCOTTE: Fiona, if you are speaking, we can't hear you right now.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Yes.  
	>> BERNARD TURCOTTE: Ah, okay.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Can you hear me?  
	>> BERNARD TURCOTTE: Quite clearly right now.  Hello?  Fiona?  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Yes.  
	>> BERNARD TURCOTTE: Can you hear me, Fiona?  It's Bernie.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: I can hear you clearly.  
	>> BERNARD TURCOTTE: Okay.  Excellent, and I can hear you clearly.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Can you hear me?  
	>> BERNARD TURCOTTE: Perfectly well.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Perfect.  Good.  Okay.  Moving on to agenda item 3, the draft report.  The drafting team has been working on it, and we still are having a discussion on some of the issues.  And I would like to, because there has not been much change on the document since the last meeting, I'd like to give Julie Hammer an opportunity to share some of the issues she has been raising in the draft team so that we can then collect them after to share them with the rest of the group so they can be able to adjust the document appropriately.  
	Julie Hammer, if you can hear me.  
	>> JULIE HAMMER: Yes, Fiona, this is Julie.  Can you hear me?  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Yes, please proceed.  
	>> JULIE HAMMER: Okay.  Thank you.  
	I didn't get to make these comments until just before this meeting, and I only shared them with the drafting team, but happy to share them with everyone.  
	A couple of the suggestions for changes in recommendations have been made by Renata.  And if the changes for recommendations were actually in Recommendation 2 and Recommendation 4.  But if we could scroll down to the end because the change was only made at the end in Recommendation 2.  So if you would scroll to the end of the document where the recommendations are repeated on page 10.  You will see there that Renata has suggested a change to Recommendation 2.  Instead of saying "Each SOA/AC/group within ICANN should identify elements of diversity they intend to measure and monitor within their group," Renata recommended we change that to "Each SO/AC/group within ICANN should identify how each element."  And a similar for each group should identify how each element of diversity will be measured and monitored rather than identify which elements of diversity they intend to measure and monitor.  That's sort of making the recommendations a bit more directive, and my comment back to the drafting team was that I can accept those suggested changes as long as we recognize that in some cases an acceptable answer may be this element is not relevant or it's of very limited relevance and that we don't intend to measure a particular element.  
	I think we are talking about such a huge diversity of groups that we are targeting here, that we are asking to consider these issues and these recommendations, that we need to recognize that not all things are relevant to all groups.  So I understand where Renata is coming from with the suggested wording changes, and I am happy with that as long as we accept that there may be no relevance for a particular group of some of the elements of diversity that we've defined.  And in fact, there could be elements that some groups have identified that are not on our list.  
	So that was my first point, and I'll pause there, Fiona, in case you want to seek the response of the group on that point that I made.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Thank you, Julie.  
	Anyone with comments on this approach to our recommendations, Recommendation 2 and 4?  Anyone opposed?  No.  I am seeing no hands.  
	This is the first time it's been presented, so I will propose that we put it into the document after this, and you can look at it again, and then give your feedback on how that sits in terms of diversity within the respective SOs and ACs.  
	Moving on to the next proposed amendment.  
	>> JULIE HAMMER: Thanks, Fiona.  Julie speaking.  And just is to finish up on that last point, I guess I was proposing one further change to what Renata has suggested, and that is that I would suggest in Recommendation 4, if we made Renata's words that we add the words "relevant to their role" after the word "diversity."  So that was the only additional change, but my main point was accepting that in some cases the response might be not relevant.  Thank you.  
	So my second comment was simply in relation to Corinne Cath, who had questioned why we had changed the wording from, in Section 6.5, from "physical ability," which we had in our original draft and originally in the questionnaire, to "physical disability," and my comment was just to try to explain to Corinne that when we were in the CCWG plenary in Copenhagen, that the term "physical ability" had at that time appeared as the element in our questionnaire, that terminology, that it had been raised in the plenary.  I think the words were that we are overdoing political correctness and we should be very clear and simply state that it was "physical disability" that we were talking about.  And so as a result of that, we changed the questionnaire back to using the terminology "physical disability."  And the draft has just reverted to that.  Renata, again, had seen Corinne's change and had actually deleted the change, and I was supporting Renata's reversion to the terminology of "disability."  So that was in line with what was agreed at the plenary.  
	So I will just pause there for any comments on that.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Julie, I am not seeing any hands up, so I propose you just continue, and when hands go up, I'll let you know.  
	>> JULIE HAMMER: Thanks for that, Fiona.  
	The next comment was if you have a look at Section 6.2, I think Amal has made a comment there basically saying, you know, this language is -- is this language fine and reasonable just to encapsulate what he said, and it made me go back and look at -- I am not sure who originally drafted this, and it really doesn't matter, but it made me look at the language that was used there, and I am not sure that in Section 6.2 we are actually making our point very well.  So what I think we might need to do -- and I have put my hand up to do this so that the next couple of days -- is just try and rephrase what we are saying in our description of the point we are trying to make on language diversity to make that clearer.  But I think Amal has raised a good issue there.  
	If we go down to Section 7.2, where we talk about measuring language diversity, that's on page 6, I think that what we say there is much more clear about measuring it.  But I think, too, that one of the things that we need to keep in mind is that catering for language diversity for more than our seven UN languages, particularly with translation and interpretation services, starts to really incur some incredible costs.  So I think we need to keep in our minds there that this is one of the things that really we've got to just keep costs in mind when we are formulating any recommendation here.  
	So I will pause there for a moment.  
	Okay.  Not seeing any hands, my next comment was in relation to another suggestion of Amal's in Section 8, where Amal has said do you think we need to mention PTI and CSC specifically.  I don't have a really strong view on this, but I am not sure that it's necessary because PTI is a subsidiary ICANN -- part of the ICANN organization and, therefore, we could consider that it's included in ICANN staff, and the CSC is just another example of a cross-community forum.  And we've just given a couple of examples there.  We certainly haven't and wouldn't want to try and list every single cross-community forum.  We've just put in AG, which was never intended to be inclusive.  
	So my thinking there with regard to PTI and CSC and other types of groups is that we probably don't need to amend that any further, but again, I am open to other people's feedback there, and I see that Rafik has raised his hand.  
	>> RAFIK DAMMAK: Yes, thanks, Julie.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Okay.  There are two hands up.  So Rafik, and then Bernard.  
	>> RAFIK DAMMAK: Thanks, Julie, and thanks Fiona.  
	I think just a comment about this.  If I am not mistaken, the PTI is supposed to be kind of separate from ICANN, and I mean, maybe if they want to measure, it is not just about that, but I think there is (?) of the PTI.  But this I think we are talking about separation, so on, I am not sure that it should cover it by our recommendation, being this is kind of maybe we need some clarification on this.  
	However, for the CSC, the people there are appointed by the community.  So I guess we can cover that in terms like cross-community or maybe the comments in terms of appointment.  So maybe the PTI is kind of in the bottom line, but the CSC we can cover that.  And I guess we can also include, with all the cross-community fora, cross-community working groups, but also review teams and so on, because we have several review teams, and I think diversity there also matters, and it's one of the requirements, and we have now several going on, so maybe we can add that too.  
	>> JULIE HAMMER: So Julie speaking.  So thanks, Rafik.  I think you've made a good point, and so perhaps if, in our list of examples, if we add a couple of additional things, say if we add as part of the list of examples review teams and committees, perhaps that will encompass that.  Would that, you think, make -- and we seek clarification on whether PTI should be specifically included or whether it would be regarded as part of ICANN staff.  I am really not sure of the answer for that.  But would that, Rafik, adding those things in the examples, help, do you think?  
	>> RAFIK DAMMAK: Yeah, I think so.  Yeah.  
	>> JULIE HAMMER: Okay.  We can do that.  
	And Bernie, over to you.  
	>> BERNARD TURCOTTE: Can you hear me?  
	>> JULIE HAMMER: Yes.  
	>> BERNARD TURCOTTE: Yes.  Apologies.  Getting off mute.  Just a point from the previous item, when you were discussing costs, I will simply note that in the transparency public comment, ICANN org did respond, and the cost factor was noted as a significant concern for ICANN in their comments to the transparency group.  And I believe the way it was phrased is -- I am paraphrasing here, but something along the lines of ICANN has a limited budget, and if such things like this are being asked that are significant expenses, then the community will have to weigh these things versus other things the community wants to do, such as policy development, et cetera.  
	So I am just adding that in for context if you wish to consider that.  Thank you.  
	>> BERNARD TURCOTTE: Thanks, Bernie, and yes, that's very much in line with my comment.  So I think we've just got to keep the affordability of any recommendations we make in the back of our minds.  
	Okay.  So I think that was all of my comments on the suggestions and comments in the Google Doc.  
	I did have one other comment that was specifically in relation to an email exchange between the drafting team, so I don't think that that's necessary to bring up here.  So Fiona, I'll hand back to you.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Thank you very much, Julie, for running us through that.  
	From the members of the working group, are there any other comments on this draft report?  The drafting team is actually waiting for the feedback from the SOs from our questionnaire so we can build up the report.  So if you are in a position to get your respective SO or SE to give us their feedback, perhaps with a set time, that will be much appreciated.  
	Rafik is typing something.  I am trying to ... 
	Rafik, probably you can explain, yes, please.  
	>> RAFIK DAMMAK: Okay.  Thanks, Fiona.  Rafik speaking.  
	I think because there is some kind of comment about if we are putting, like, diversity versus policy, since we are talking about the cost and affordability.  I think at this level, what we are trying to do is think about recommendation and requirements.  We are not sure about the feasibility and also how much it costs.  I think we can discuss those later and maybe wait.  I mean, if we go in more details, we can wait and see what really is the most important for us, what is higher priority, and what is kind of nice to have.  We can use this as must or should or nice to have, and we can discuss about the priority later.  But for now, we can put all what we think as a recommendation, and then at some level we can do some prioritization.  And that's what can be kind of criteria maybe to decide against the cost.  I understand the concern of the cost, but I think at this effort, we should not be worried about that.  We should have that in mind, but we can decide later when we are elaborating more our recommendation.  Because I am just kind of worried that we are kind of jumping in the implementation, and what we have discussed before, like the discussion regarding the role of the idea of Diversity Office.  So we are not kind of trying to think about the specifics now, but what it's more about, the what, not the how.  So let's kind of focus on that.  Later on we can do the more to itemize, and then we see, we can decide about the priority.  Yeah, that's what I wanted to say.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Thank you very much, Rafik, providing that clarity.  
	Bernard, I can see your hand is up.  
	>> BERNARD TURCOTTE: Thank you, Fiona.  I saw the post in the Chat from Avri of balancing diversity versus policy, and just to be clear, this is not what I said.  I simply brought back the comments that were made in the transparency, the ICANN org comments to the transparency public consultation to highlight that this is a point.  I think the way that Rafik has presented it is exactly the way it was discussed at one of the previous meetings and makes perfect sense to me.  
	Thank you.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Thank you very much, Bernard.  Any other comments?  
	So there are no other comments on the reports as of now.  We are still leaving the report open as we seek input from the SEs and SOs.  So again, if you are able to get your group SE/SO to give us feedback, perhaps to the time that has been set, that will be great because then the drafting team can begin to work on that.  
	And there being no other comments on that agenda item, I propose we move to item 4.  Julia has circulated the document on the underserved areas, and there was a section that I found quite interesting.  I don't know how many have managed to look at it.  There are sections of it that are important and would help us in our diversity work in terms of even looking at the recommendations and being able to appropriately develop recommendations to address issues of diversity.  
	And sorry, what got my attention is more towards the end.  Page 10, page 11.  A discussion on the report on the languages on the material that is prepared for the ICANN discussion, as well as the barriers to participation in the ICANN community I feel are important for us as a group that is looking at issues of diversity.  Because this may have focused just on the GAC members, but I think it provides an interesting reflection on regional diversity and barriers to participation within ICANN that we are trying to address within our diversity recommendation.  And I believe that some of them may be important.  When you look at 11 gives a very good summary of the barriers and the responses.  And some are issues that really there isn't much that ICANN can do except possibly it is left to the individual participants to put in efforts, and others are areas that ICANN may be able to do something about.  You know?  For example, being able to access material in a local language, issues of the ease of finding information on ICANN, the availability of information on key topics being addressed at the ICANN meetings.  Those are issues that would influence participation and also have a bearing on whether or not and how diverse a group can be.  And I don't know whether these are things that we want to pick now or will want to think through them, maybe have a second reading of this report, and possibly I am not seeing (?) or Julia on this call, which would have been nice for one of them to share with us more details on the analysis that they had.  And possibly information that is not captured in the graph.  
	Is there anyone else who has gone through these reports that are circulated to the group at least?  And do they have feedback?  Do you have any feedback on this?  Any comments?  
	For those who have not read through it, this report does not just cover the Fiji's.  I am seeing input from the Nairobi meeting that was held in January.  So the sample is not just the Fiji's, it's the Fiji's and Nairobi, which are two regions, and the report actually mentioned feedback from the Nairobi meeting as well.  So the sample says not just the Fiji's for correction.  Just have a look at it again.  And you will see that there is data there from Nairobi as well.  
	Okay.  I see discussion going on in the Chat.  And my thinking is that this is, I think, a good starting point.  We probably need to ask the GAC to collect a bit more data and see how it varies or what changes happens to the graphs which are presented.  And we may possibly be able to take a bit more from it.  
	Comments, please.  
	I agree with the comments in the Chat.  Yes, Avri Doria, if the same study is done again and again, the latitude and longitude may end up useful, which is true.  And Rafik said such survey can give some hints for direction to explore, but it is not necessarily authoritative.  Which is also true.  And I can see Julie Hammer has her hand up.  Julie?  
	>> JULIE HAMMER: Hello.  I can't hear you.  Anyway, can you hear me?  
	>> BERNARD TURCOTTE: We can hear you, Julie.  
	>> JULIE HAMMER: Thank you.  Okay.  
	Yeah, I was just going to say obviously, this GAC survey was put together for quite a different purpose to ours, and I think that the information is obviously very important for GAC, but in looking through it, I can only see sort of quite small relevance to diversity in the context that we are looking at diversity.  So I think if a couple of people wanted to put their hand up to try and pull out of it the information that might be relevant to what we are doing, that would be good.  But just in a quick look through, it seems to me that quite a lot of it is clearly for a different purpose.  
	Thanks.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Thanks, Julie.  I agree with you.  As you notice, I focused on one page, which I thought was relevant to what we are discussing.  And Ergys explains that the plan is to conduct this survey across other regions for future workshops, and we will have some data to compare over time eventually, which I think is going to help in providing more insights, in aspects of diversity that this study will catch on.  So eventually, it will be a useful tool to use.  
	Okay.  There being no other comments on this report, I think we'll shelf it and keep it as something we can refer to if the need arises.  Unless something comes up that we feel may need to make use of, then it is a document for information purposes, but not necessarily entirely relevant to what we are doing.  
	Move on to our next agenda item, which is AOB.  Is there anything anyone would like to bring up?  Any other business anyone would like to report on?  
	Okay.  There are no hands up.  So that means that we can close this meeting.  And see you at the next meeting, our next meeting, and thank you for your participation and involvement in our diversity meeting Wednesday, 26 of April 2017 at 1300 UTC.  Have a good day, good-bye, good evening, good night, good morning.  
	>> BREDA BREWER: Excuse me, Fiona, Dalila has her hand up.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Oh, I thought she showed green that you can end the meeting because it's green.  Dalila, you have something to say?  
	Okay.  I think, Brenda, that Dalila is just agreeing that we can adjourn the meeting.  
	>> BRENDA BREWER: Very good.  Thank you, Fiona.  
	>> FIONA ASONGA: Thank you.  Bye, everyone.  
	
(End of session, 1349 UTC) 

***
This text is being provided in a realtime format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) or captioning are provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. 
***