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*STATUS OF THIS DOCUMENT:* FINAL

*COMMITTE CONSIDERING THE TEXT:* ALAC Finance and Budget Subommittee
 *DOCUMENT OPEN FOR COMMUNITY COMMENTS UNTIL:* 16th April 2008 1200 UTC

_Community members are invited to use the 'Comment' button to provide their views on the text here_ *{_}not later than 1200 UTC on 16th April{_}{*}_._
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\^At-Large Advisory Committee Statement to the ICANN Board on the Public Consultation Related to Development of a Travel Policy

*We present our compliments to the Board of Directors of ICANN  and welcome the opportunity to make our comments on the public  consultation being held to provide input so that a comprehensive, yet  flexible, travel support policy for the volunteer community*.

At-Large has a perspective on this subject that is probably unique  amongst the volunteer community, excepting the Board of Directors, in  that we have been receiving travel and subsistence support for some  years now. In this vein, we would like to thank the staff and the Board  for this assistance, as without it the community would likely be much  smaller, certainly less well-informed, and certainly less able to  participate in ICANN’s work.

*Improvements Seen in Existing Travel Support*

We have seen considerable changes to the way in which travel support is  administered over the past few years. When support began, it was largely  based upon a reimbursement system, where community members would have  to pay up-front for all expenses, and then reclaim them back -- often  with very significant delays. Now, airfaire is bought for us, and we  interact directly with the American Express travel agents to choose  arrangements that work for us. We receive per-diems based upon an amount  determined by ICANN based upon the local cost of living, instead of  reimbursement based upon actual expenses. Whilst this system has not  been perfect, we do believe that it is continually improving.

*Per Diem Payment Arrangements*

We wish to emphasise that the process by which per-diems are paid needs  to take into account that there are countries where it is impractical,  or impossible, to receive incoming international wire transfers. We  believe there should always be a way to receive cash at a meeting to  cope with this situation. Additionally, there are participants who find  it difficult to wait to receive per diems until after the meeting as  this requires participants to go out-of-pocket and not all participants  have the financial wherewithal to be able to do this. Per Diems should  also be calculated or set by refererence to some internationally  recognized system, which is rechecked periodically and currency  fluctuation need to be taken into account.

*Level of Travel Support Depends Upon Many Factors*

We believe that before the ICANN community will be able to determine  what the right level of travel support should be, the community will  first need to look at two other issues:
# *Remote Participation Options*. The ability of  participants to participate in a meaningful way remotely has an enormous  impact upon the number of people who must travel to face-to-face  meetings. We wish to once again emphasise that remote participation at  ICANN meetings is, frankly, completely broken. Even basic operations  like providing telephonic remote access don’t work regularly -- and this  is no surprise, since ICANN is been uniquely able to engage a continuous  stream of completely inadequate vendors to provide audiovisual services  for every meeting that is held. Having high-quality in-room audiovisual  services is a prerequisite to making remote access work. Quality remote  access is a prerequisite for allowing meaningful contribution by remote  participants. If meaningful two-way remote participation -- which should  include video, as well as audio, in real time -- were available this  could change the conversation about how many people need to physically  travel to a meeting -- and also allow far more input and participation  than will ever be possible in any other way. It is inexcusable that,  meeting after meeting, even the most basic remote participation does not  work and a list of excuses is made instead of fixing the problem.
# *Structrure of ICANN Meetings:* It is clear that  there is a necessity for face-to-face meetings at the international  level. The question to be asked is: would more regional meetings  intercessionally provide an opportunity for more cost-effective  involvement by a greater stakeholder pool, and at the same time prove to  be an important means of distilling the different regional approaches  to issues which could then be brought to closure at international  meetings? We believe that this model should at least be attempted. As a  community that is organised on a regional model we see a lot of merit to  working with regional groups of other stakeholders on a horizontal  basis, and then taking the results of that dialogue to the international  level. It seems to us that this might result in global policy being  developed which more comprehensively took regional differences of view,  and provided regionally different implementation modalities for certain  policy options where appropriate. This model may also allow more  face-to-face interaction than is possible with international meetings  alone. It seems to us that since more regional meetings are being held  by ICANN -- though unfortunately often only focussing on certain groups  like contracted parties -- these should be held on a balanced basis for  all stakeholder groups. In short -- if regional meetings are going to be  held for registrars and registries, as they are today, then they should  be expanded to become accessible to all ICANN communities.
# *Location of ICANN Meetings*. It is a simple fact  that the cost of some meeting venues is exhorbitant. A perfect example  was New Delhi. ICANN will simply not receive the best participation from  any stakeholder group if it holds meetings in locations where the only  reasonable hotel options cost USD500 per night. ICANN should host  meetings in the various regions -- but it should choose locations that  are affordable. It is not congruent with ICANN’s stated goal of being  open, inclusive, and transparent to hold meetings in venues where even  wealthy governments’ representatives’ per-diems do not cover the cost of  attending the meeeting. We believe that ICANN should not host  International Meetings in any city where a good three-star-hotel room,  in locations convenient to the conference venue, cannot be had for  EUR100-150 or less.
# *Timing for Purchase of Travel Arrangements*. The  At-Large community is always ready to arrange travel long before ICANN’s  internal processes allow travel to be booked. We believe that travel  arrangements should be made many months in advance in order to save on  the cost of those arrangements as everyone knows that airfare gets  cheaper the farther out from when you travel the tickets are purchased.
# *Accomodation of volunteers* ALAC member and  representative from ALS's are often placed in lower quality hotels  remote from the main conference hotel/venue means isolation from the  main events and less opportunity for At Large to contribute, leading  from point 4 above our willingness to commit to attend meetings very  early in the planning process means that it should be possible to block  book rooms for volunteers when the meeting is arranged, and to be given  priority to stay in the main conference hotel at ICANN arranged rates.

We do wish to emphasise that whichever meeting model is used,  face-to-face meeting attendance is crucial, and considering human  nature, it always will be.

It is essential that whatever system is settled upon must take into account these two fundamental philosophies:
* Different communities participating in ICANN have different needs  for support, because their participation is differently financed. There  is no magic “one size fits all” solution.
* For those who receive support the rules should be the same. For  example, one community should not fly business class whilst another does  not.

We therefore propose the following:
# *For international meetings, all members of Bylaw-recognised bodies should receive travel and expense support*.  What we mean is that the members of the GNSO Council, the At-Large  Advisory Committee, the SSAC, etc. should receive ICANN funding for  airfaire, hotel, and a reasonable per-diem.
# *For regional meetings, all members of Bylaw-recognised  bodies from that region should receive travel and expense support on the  same basis and to the same extent as at International Meetings.* ALS are often also involved in relevent regional organizations e.g.  NIC's, NOG's &TLD and regional meetings with events that are  contiguous with activities/ meetings of this organisations would also be  advantageous and cost effective.
# *Members of communities who are:*
#* active in ICANN, and
#* local to the meeting in question, and;
#* who will otherwise likely be unable to attend the meeting,

Should receive travel support for at least a representative number of  participants in respect of airfare, hotel, and a reasonable per-diem.  For example, At-Large, non-commercial users, and the like should be able  to send a representative number of participants from the region to a  regional meeting, or to the international meeting held in their region  (which is presently the case for At-Large, but not for the NCUC).  Conversely, groups such as registrars and registries, who have a  commercial interest in attending the meeting and have companies funding  them should not receive funding. This is simply a recognition that if  ICANN wants to hear the voices of the public interest, this cannot be  adequately ensured without some form of travel support as the expense of  meeting attendance without support will be simply beyond the means of  the vast proportion of participants from these groups.
# *When determining eligibility for travel support for  participants in the third category, priority should go to those eligible  participants who are active in the main issues that will be discussed  at the meeting*. ICANN, through a bottom-up process, would need  to decide what the major areas of work will be at forthcoming meetings  in order to make operationalisation of this proposal practical -- but in  our view, this in itself would be an improvement, as it would allow  greater intercessional focus on the issues which are known to be the  main ones at the next ICANN meeting.
# *Some provision should be made to allow those from developing  countries in particular, but from communities who would not otherwise  be eligible for travel support in general, to be able to attend with  travel support*. The existing fellowship provides this  possibility now for some, but not all, stakeholder groups. We believe  this programme is helpful, should be continued, and should be made  available to participants from all ICANN stakeholder groups.

*Rules and Procedures Associated with Travel Support*

As previously mentioned, we believe that the rules associated with  travel support should be applicable to all. We propose the following as  those most relevant, though of course the Staff of ICANN should ‘flesh  out’ a more complete administrative process for community review at the  appropriate time; this list is not meant to be exhaustive:
# In general, those receiving travel support should fly by an  upgradeable economy class of fare, so that they can upgrade with their  own miles if they choose.
# Travel should be by Premium Economy or Business Class (and here it  would be preferable to look at comfort metrics such as seat pitch rather  than class**) when:
#* The flight is more than [x|https://st.icann.org/alac/index.cgi?action=display;is_incipient=1;page_name=x] hours in length, Where x= an agreed time based on best practice for  working travel {a quick review of online sources of such Travel policies  in various organisations show times ranging from 5 - 10 hours being  used with a median of 7 hours} ICANN should investigate what constitutes  best practice here so that not only are the costs of travel but true  productitvity i.e. the ability of travellers to work in an effective and  productive manner as soon as they arrive at venues {or as soon as  practical after} being considered. or;
#* There’s a valid medical reason, or;
#* The traveller is very tall or large -- perhaps over 1.90m in height, for example.
# The UN per-diem rates, exclusive of the lodging portion since ICANN  would be paying for lodging, should be used as the standard for  determining the appropriate level of per-diem. Presently, per-diem rates  appear not to be based on any recognised system -- this should be  changed, so that arbitrariness is avoided.
# Hotel charges paid by ICANN should include the cost of Internet  access, if it is not complimentary. This is very important -- members of  the volunteer community often need to do work during their time ‘off’  during ICANN meetings. They should not have to go out of pocket in order  to pay to do work, when they are already using holiday or personal time  to work on ICANN issues far from home. The amounts involved are often  relatively small for some people -- but not for others, especially those  who come from developing countries.

\**Regardless of 'Class' seats (particularly when they are booked at a  time advanced enough from the travel date to take advantage of heavy  discounts) would mean in most cases flying people cheaper and in better  comfort / conditions for less than the currently booked Economy Y & B  (full fare) seats or even the less often managed M, H, or N (standard  fare) cost. Further Business class seats (unless under exceptional  circumstances) should be booked for the I & Z (discounted fares) not  the J, C & D class full fares (the last two indicate no upgrade is  possible) whenever possible.

*In closing, we thank the board in advance for its consideration  of our views. We look forward to a response to our concerns and  recommendations in due course*.
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Couple of comments. Unlikely to find 3 star hotel able to handle ICANN's  needs for 100 Eur. Large hotels in major hub cities with the power,  Internet, security, etc ICANN needs just don't exist.

Asking that the meeting RFP include requirement that rooms in the main  conference hotel be available for 150 euro and might be possible.

ALAC should request At Large volunteers (ALAC member and representative  from ALS) be given priority to stay in the main conference hotel at  ICANN arranged rates. Current arrangement where At Large representatives  are often placed in lower quality hotels remote from the main  conference hotel/venue means isolation from the main events and less  opportunity for At Large to contribute. Block book rooms for ALAC when  the meeting is arranged. Adam

_contributed by_ _Guest User_ _on_ _Apr 6 7:57pm_
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Comments for the per diem rate. While setting up the per diem rate, not  only would it be better to refer to the recognized system, but also the  currency fluctuation need to be taken into account. Besides, the per  diem rate needs to be recheck periodically.

\--Jessica Yu

_contributed by_ _Guest User_ _on_ _Apr 14 6:47pm_
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On the present stage of ICT management and taking into account of the  ICT speed evolution, I think that ICANN must lay strong stress on the  meetings under sub regional and regional level giving more consistency  to international meetings. It would be as desirable as a place of choice  is also reserved for ALS in international meeting level. ALS are often  also involved in relevent regional organizations e.g. \_AFRI_NIC, AFNOG,  AFTLD and regional meetings

_contributed by_ _Guest User_ _on_ _Apr 15 6:39am_
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On the present stage of ICT management and taking into account of the  ICT speed evolution, I think that ICANN must lay strong stress on the  meetings under sub regional and regional level giving more consistency  to international meetings. It would be as desirable as a place of choice  is also reserved for ALS in international meeting level.
In this step, it would be as convenient as ALS are also involved in some  regional organizations like AFRINIC, AFNOG, AFTLD....in order to  facilitate reinforcement of capacities of ALAS for the benefit of very  great community of ICT consummers which grows each day.

Baudouin

_contributed by_ _Guest User_ _on_ _Apr 15 6:55am_
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